Pershin, Aleksandr Iakovlevich

Born 1874 in Ufa Province; died Jan. 19, 1919, in Tashkent. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia and a leader in the struggle for Soviet power in Turkestan. Member of the Communist Party from 1903. Son of a peasant; metalworker by trade.

Pershin was active in the revolutionary movement from 1894, carrying on party work in Ufa, Kazalinsk, and elsewhere. In 1916 he began working in the Middle Asian Railroad Shops in Tashkent. After the February Revolution of 1917, he served as a member of the executive committee of the Tashkent soviet. He was a delegate to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets and a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. During the October Days of 1917 he was a member of the Tashkent revolutionary military committee. After the victory of the October Revolution, he became deputy chairman of the executive committee of the Tashkent soviet and people’s commissar of food supply in Turkestan. He was killed during a counterrevolutionary rebellion.