Akulov, Ivan Alekseevich

Born Apr. 12 (24), 1888, into a poor petit-bourgeois family in St. Petersburg; died in 1939. Soviet party figure and statesman.

Akulov was a member of the CPSU from 1907. In 1913 he was a member of the executive commission of the St. Petersburg committee of the RSDLP. He suffered arrests and exiles. In 1917 he was a member of the committee of the military party organization of Vyborg and delegate to the Seventh (April) All-Russian Conference and the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (Bolshevik). He was an active participant in the October Revolution and in the Civil War. From 1918–22 he was secretary of the Ural, Kirghiz, and Crimean regional committees, and chairman of the Viatka and Orenburg provincial committees of the RCP (Bolshevik). From 1922 he was engaged in trade union work. In 1924 he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine; in 1925, member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and chairman of the All-Ukrainian Miners’ Association; in 1927, chairman of the All-Ukrainian Council of Trade Unions and member of the Orgburo (Organizational Bureau) of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine; and in 1929, member of the Presidium and secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. In 1930–31 he was deputy people’s commissar of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection of the USSR and member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission of the All-Union CP (Bolshevik); in 1931–32, first deputy chairman of the OGPU (Unified State Political Directorate); in 1932–33, member of the Central Committee, Politburo, and Orgburo and secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine for the Donets Basin; in 1933–35, public prosecutor of the USSR and then secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. He was elected a member of the Central Committee at the Fifteenth Party Congress; a member of the Central Control Committee at the Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Sixteenth Party Congresses; and a member of the Party Control Committee at the Seventeenth Congress of the All-Union CP (Bolshevik).