Korostelev, Aleksandr

Born September 1887 in Samara; died Apr. 14,1938. Soviet statesman and party figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1905. Son of a worker.

Korostelev was a worker. He took part in the Revolution of 1905-07; he was a member of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and a member of the Samara committee of the RSDLP. He was arrested in 1907 and sent into exile. In 1910 he began to conduct party work in Orenburg. He was chairman of the Orenburg soviet after the February Revolution of 1917 and became editor of the newspaper Proletarii in August 1917. Korostelev was chairman of the Orenburg provincial executive committee and a member of the bureau of the provincial committee of the RCP (Bolshevik) from 1918 to 1920. He participated in fighting against the troops of Dutov, Kolchak, and the White Czechs and was head of the political section of the Turkestan Army. In 1920, Korostelev became commissar of the Turkestan railroad. In 1922 he became a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection and chairman of the commission to aid economic agencies. In 1922 he became chairman of the central committee of the trade union of educational workers, and in 1929 he became head of the organizational section of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS). Korostelev was a member of the presidium of the VTsSPS. He was deputy chairman of the metal union of the RSFSR in 1929-30. Korostelev began to work in the transport union in 1931. He was a delegate to the Eighth and Eleventh through Sixteenth Party Congresses and was elected to the Central Control Commission of the ACP (Bolshevik) at the Eleventh through Thirteenth and Fifteenth Party Congresses.