Petr Davydovich Ballod

Born Dec. 1 (13), 1839, in Lielmuiža volost (small rural district), Riga District; died Jan. 22, 1918, in Blagoveshchensk. Russian revolutionary. Son of a Latvian peasant.

In 1856–58, Ballod studied in the Medical and Surgical Academy, then at the University of St. Petersburg, from which he was expelled for participation in student agitation in 1861. He was connected with revolutionary circles; in 1862 he established an illegal printing press, where he reprinted proclamations. He published the proclamation of P. S. Moshkalov “The Russian Government Under the Protection of Shedo-Ferroti” (pseudonym of the tsarist agent F. I. Firks, who slandered A. I. Herzen); and he was also preparing to publish an article by D. I. Pisarev on the same theme. He was arrested in June 1862 and condemned to penal servitude and permanent exile to Siberia in 1864. He spent several years at the Alexandrovsk Plant together with N. G. Chernyshevskii. Later he worked in the Siberian gold industry. He participated in founding the progressive newspaper Amurskii krai. In 1905–06 in Blagoveshchensk he was leader of a group that was studying K. Marx’ Das Kapital.