Vermishev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Born Aug. 29 (Sept. 10), 1879, in St. Petersburg; died September 1919, in Elets. A revolutionary. Joined the Communist Party in 1903. Born into a forester’s family.

Vermishev participated in the Revolution of 1905-07 in St. Petersburg. He studied at St. Petersburg University and graduated without attending lectures from the law faculty of the University of Iur’ev in 1910. Vermishev conducted Party work in St. Petersburg, Tsaritsyn, Baku, and Saratov. He was repeatedly subjected to repressions. A revolutionary poet and journalist, he contributed to Pravda and the journal Prosveshchenie (Enlightenment). He took part in the storm of the Winter Palace on October 25 (November 7), 1917. In 1919 he was military commissar of a brigade, fought against the troops of General Iudenich, and then was commissar of a reserve infantry battalion on the Southern Front. During the breakthrough of General Mamontov’s cavalry to the city of Elets he was wounded and taken prisoner; he was brutally killed by the White Guard after cruel tortures.