Nikolai Dmitrievich Avksentev

Born 1878; died 1943. One of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and a member of its Central Committee.

Avksent’ev belonged to the right wing of the party, defending legality and rejecting terror. During World War I (1914–18) he was an extreme social chauvinist and a contributor to the defensive publications Za rubezhom (Abroad) and Novosti (News). In 1917 he was a member of the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet and chairman of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies. He was minister of internal affairs in the Provisional Government during July and August, and in October he served as chairman of the Pre-Parliament. In 1918, Avksent’ev was one of the organizers of the counterrevolution in the Volga region and Siberia and a member of the Ufimsk directory. From the end of 1918, he was a white émigré. From the 1930’s he headed the Russian émigré Masonic Lodge, Northern Star, in Paris, which engaged in anti-Soviet activity.