Sergei Bagdatev

(Russian name of Sarkis Gaikovich Bagdat’ian; party pseudonyms Sergei Narvskii, Petrov, Kudriashev). Born Sept. 13 (25), 1887 in Shusha; died Jan. 26, 1949. Soviet party figure. Communist Party member since 1903. Born into the family of a railroad mechanic. Worked as an assistant to an attorney.

Bagdat’ev conducted party work in Baku, Tiflis, and St. Petersburg. In 1908 he became a member of the St. Petersburg RSDLP committee and its executive commission. He was subjected to repression by the tsarist government and lived in emigration. After the February Revolution of 1917, on the eve of the April 20 (May 3) demonstration, he issued a leaflet in the name of the St. Petersburg committee of the Bolsheviks with the slogan “Down With the Provisional Government!” against the decision of the RSDLP (Bolshevik) Central Committee and the St. Petersburg party committee that this demand was premature. A party reprimand was imposed on him for violation of party discipline. He was an active participant in the June and July demonstrations of 1917, for which he was arrested by the Provisional Government. After the October Revolution he held party jobs in Moscow. From 1920 on he was in Transcaucasia and in the Northern Caucasus and was a member of the Armenian CP (Bolshevik) Central Committee and of the Transcaucasian Central Executive Committee. From 1926 on he lived in Moscow and was deputy chairman of the Irrigation Committee of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars and chairman of the Rubber Trust, and also held other positions in these organizations. From 1940 on he was a special pensioner. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.