Sergei Piontkovskii

Born Sept. 26 (Oct. 8), 1891; died Mar. 8, 1937. Soviet historian. Member of the CPSU from 1919.

Piontkovskii, the son of a law professor, was born in Odessa. He graduated from the faculty of history and philology at the University of Kazan in 1914. In 1921 he became a professor at the Ia. M. Sverdlov Communist University and at the same time deputy editor of the journal Proletarskaia revoliutsiia. In 1922 he became an instructor at Moscow State University (MSU). Piontkovskii was subsequently a professor at MSU; the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History; and the Institute of Red Professors. His major works deal with the history of the working class and the revolutionary movement in Russia. Piontkovskii also compiled collections of documents.