Stopani, Aleksandr Mitrofanovich

Born Oct. 9 (21), 1871, in the village of Usol’e, present-day Usol’e-Sibirskoe, Irkutsk Oblast; died Oct. 23, 1932, in Moscow. Soviet state and party figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1893.

The son of an army doctor, Stopani studied at the University of Kazan and the Yaroslavl Juridical Lycée and later worked as a zemstvo statistician. He belonged to various Social Democratic circles. After attending the Pskov Conference of 1900, conducted by V. I. Lenin to discuss the founding of the newspaper Iskra, he became an agent of Iskra and joined the Northern Workers’ Union. In 1902 and 1903 he was a member of the organizational committee to convoke the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903); he was also a delegate to the congress.

Between 1903 and 1904, Stopani helped found the Northern Committee and the Baku Committee of the RSDLP. From 1905 to 1907 he was secretary of the Kostroma Committee of the RSDLP and was a delegate to the Fifth Congress of the RSDLP in 1907. Beginning in 1908, he worked for the Union of Petroleum-Industry Workers in Baku and was secretary of the newspaper Gudok; he was also a member of the RSDLP committee. He was frequently arrested.

In 1917, Stopani became chairman of the provisions committee in Baku, and during the October Revolution of 1917 he worked for the provisions commission in Smol’nyi in Petrograd. In 1918 he became commissar of labor and industry in the Terek People’s Soviet and later joined the collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Labor in Moscow.

In 1919, Stopani worked for the Higher Military Inspection, joined the Perm’ Provincial Executive Committee, and helped organize the restoration of the Motovilikha Artillery Plant. In 1920 he became a member of the North Caucasian Revolutionary Committee, a representative of the People’s Commissariat of Labor, and a representative of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in the Caucasus. In 1921 and 1922 he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Caucasian Workers’ Army. Beginning in 1922, Stopani worked in the People’s Commissariat of Labor and was a member of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR. From 1924 to 1929 he was procurator for labor affairs of the RSFSR. In 1930 he became deputy chairman of the All-Union Society of Old Bolsheviks.

Stopani wrote about the history of the revolutionary movement and economic statistics. He is buried in Red Square, at the Kremlin wall.