Solovev, Zinovii

Born Nov. 10 (22), 1876, in Grodno; died Nov. 6,1928, in Moscow. One of the founders of the Soviet public-health system and the Red Army’s military medical service. Member of the Communist Party from 1898.

Solov’ev enrolled at the medical faculty of the University of Kazan in 1897. He was exiled after his arrest in 1899 for participating in revolutionary activities. After finally completing his university studies in 1904, he worked as a sanitarian in the Simbirsk and Saratov zemstvos (local self-governing institutions created in the 19th century). At this time he also engaged in party work. Arrested again in 1909, Solov’ev was exiled to Ust’-Sysol’sk. Upon his return from exile, he moved to Moscow (1912), where he joined the board of directors of the N. I. Pirogov Memorial Society of Russian Physicians. He also became one of the editors of the journal Obshchestvennyi vrach (Community Physician) and the editor of the journal Vrachebnaia zhizn’ (Medical Life). He was secretary of the All-Russian League for the Control of Tuberculosis.

As a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Khamovniki Raion of Moscow, Solov’ev participated in the organization of an armed uprising on the eve of the October Revolution of 1917. In 1918 he served as chief of the medical section of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs and as a member of the Council of Medical Collegia. He planned the organization of the People’s Commissariat for Public Health of the RSFSR. After the commissariat’s establishment, Solov’ev was appointed deputy people’s commissar for public health of the RSFSR. Beginning in 1920 he also served as head of the Main Military Sanitary Administration of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and chairman of the executive committee of the Russian Red Cross. On his initiative, the Artek All-Union Pioneer Camp was established in 1925. Solov’ev was appointed a professor of the subdepartment of social medicine of the medical department of the Second Moscow State University in 1923.

Solov’ev authored works dealing with the development of the theoretical principles of Soviet public health, Soviet preventive medicine, and the organization of military medical service.