Vasilii Sokolov

Born Jan. 27 (Feb. 8), 1874, in Kostroma; died Jan. 25,1959, in Moscow. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia and party journalist. Member of the Communist Party from 1898. Son of an office worker.

Sokolov set up transportation and technical networks in several cities for supplying local RSDLP organizations with illegal literature and printing equipment and organized underground printshops. In 1905 he supplied Bolshevik organizations with arms and was involved in the publication of the Moscow Bolshevik newspaper Vpered. In 1906 he was secretary of the Moscow committee of the RSDLP. In 1907 he was arrested and exiled to Eniseisk Province. He contributed to the journal Prosveshchenie.

In 1917 Sokolov was chairman of the Chita city committee and of the RSDLP(B) Transbaikalia oblast committee and a member of the Chita soviet. From 1918 to 1923 he was chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of Transbaikalia Oblast, member of the Siberian revolutionary committee, and representative of the People’s Commissariat of Farming and the Central Statistical Board. In 1924, Sokolov became director of the Novaia De-revnia publishing house and a member of the editorial board of Pravda. Later, while in administration and research work, he engaged in literary pursuits. In 1945 he was awarded a personal pension. Sokolov was a recipient of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.