Serafima Ilinichna Gopner

Born Mar. 26 (Apr. 7), 1880, in Kherson; died Mar. 25, 1966, in Moscow. Soviet state and party figure, Hero of Socialist Labor (1960), doctor of historical sciences (1934). Became a member of the Communist Party in 1903.

Gopner studied in the law department for women in Odessa and in the literature division of the University of Paris. In 1905 she became a member, and then secretary, of the Ekaterinoslav Committee of the RSDLP. She carried out party work in Odessa and Nikolaev. In 1910 she emigrated and was a member of the Paris Bolshevik group. After the February Revolution of 1917 she was a member of the Ekaterinoslav Committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik), a member of the soviet, and editor of Zvezda. She was a delegate to the Seventh All-Russian (April) Conference of the RSDLP(B). In 1918 and 1919 she was secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine. From 1920 to 1925 she was a member of the bureau and head of the agitation and propaganda department of the Ekaterinoslav, Moscow, Donetsk, and Kharkov party provincial committees. From 1925 to 1927 she headed the press subdividion of the women’s division of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). From 1927 to 1929 she edited the newspaper Vseukrainskii proletarii and was deputy editor of the newspaper Kommunist. From 1928 to 1938 she held positions of responsibility in the Comintern. From 1938 to 1945 she was assistant editor of Istoricheskii Zhurnal (Historical Journal). In 1945 she became a senior scholarly worker of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the CPSU. She was a delegate to the Fifteenth through Seventeenth and the Twenty-second Party Congresses. She was chosen a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. From 1927 to 1938 she was a member of the Central Committee of the CP(B) of the Ukraine. She was a delegate to all seven congresses of the Comintern and, from 1928 to 1943, a candidate member of the Comintern Executive Committee. She was awarded two Orders of Lenin and a medal.