Mark Timofeevich Elizarov

Born Mar. 22, 1863, in the village of Bestuzhevka, Samara Province (in presentday Privolzh’e Raion, Kuibyshev Oblast); died Mar. 10, 1919, in Petrograd. Active participant in the Russian revolutionary movement; Soviet statesman and party leader. Member of the Communist Party since 1893.

Elizarov was the son of a peasant. In 1886 he graduated from the department of physics and mathematics of the University of St. Petersburg. He was a close friend of A. I. Ul’ianov and married A. I. Ul’ianova. He engaged in party activities in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Samara. In August 1901, Elizarov was arrested and exiled for two years to Syzran’ for working with the Moscow social democratic committee. In 1905 in St. Petersburg he joined the organizational bureau of the First All-Russian Congress of Railway Employees. He directed the St. Petersburg railway junction strike committee. He was again arrested and exiled for three years to Syzran’. Under the pseudonym “Skorpion,” Elizarov worked on the newspapers Syzran’ and Syzranskoe utro. In 1906 he moved to Samara, where he joined the Samara committee of the RSDLP. When abroad in 1908, he met with V. I. Lenin. Between 1909 and 1916 he worked for the Salamandra Insurance Company, the Russian Transport Insurance Company, and the Volga Insurance Company. In March 1916 he became managing director of the Po Volge Ship Company (Petrograd). Elizarov took part in the work of Bolshevik organizations. After the October Revolution on Nov. 8 (21), 1917, he became people’s commissar for railways. He was appointed chief commissar for insurance on Mar. 23, 1918, and a member of the board of the People’s Commissariat for Trade and Industry on Jan. 22, 1919.