Mikhail Frolenko

Born November 1848, in Stavropol’; died Feb. 18, 1938, in Moscow. Russian revolutionary; Narodnik (Populist), member of the Executive Committee of the People’s Will. Member of the Communist Party from 1936.

The son of a retired sergeant major, Frolenko graduated from the Stavropol’ Gymnasium in 1870. He studied at the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology and in 1871 entered the Petrovskoe Agricultural Academy in Moscow. In 1873 and 1874 he was a member of the Moscow branch of the Chaikovskii circle; he carried on propaganda among the workers and took part in the “going to the people” movement in the Urals. He went underground in 1874 and from 1875 to 1877 was aligned with the Southern Rebels. Frolenko helped V. F. Kostiurin escape in 1877 and la. V. Stefanovich, L. G. Deutsch, and I. V. Bokhanovskii escape in 1878. He took part in an attempt to free P. I. Voinaral’-skii and in the digging of a passage under the Kherson Treasury in 1879.

In 1878, Frolenko became a member of Land and Liberty and attended the organization’s Lipetsk and Voronezh congresses. After the formation of the People’s Will, he served on its Executive Committee and took part in attempts to murder Emperor Alexander II in November 1879, near Odessa, and on Mar. 1, 1881. He was arrested on Mar. 17, 1881, in St. Petersburg and in the Trial of the 20 was condemned to death, a sentence that was commuted to hard labor for life.

Frolenko was sent first to Aleksei Ravelin and then, in 1884, to the Shlissel’burg Fortress. He was freed in October 1905 and from 1908 to 1917 lived under police surveillance in Gelendzhik, where he contributed to the journal Byloe. Frolenko moved to Moscow in 1922, where he became a member of the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles and served on the editorial board of the journal Katorga issylka.