Zinovii Litvin-Sedoi

(real name, Zvulon Iankelev Litvin; party pseudonyms, Sedoi, Villonen, Igolkin, Bystrov). Born Mar. 4 (16), 1879, in Kolomna; died Oct. 15, 1947, in Moscow. Soviet and party figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1897.

The son of a worker, Litvin-Sedoi was a metalworker by trade. He was active in the revolutionary movement from 1893. A participant in the Moscow Workers’ Union, he carried on party work in Moscow, Kolomna, Tambov, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Tbilisi. He was arrested and exiled a number of times. In 1905 he was a member of the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP. During the Moscow Armed Uprising in December, he was chief of staff of the fighting detachments in Presnia; he fought at the barricades and was wounded. In 1906 he was secretary of the military revolutionary organization of the RSDLP in Finland. He was a delegate to the Fourth Party Congress. In July 1906 he took part in the sailors’ rebellion in Sveaborg. Until 1917 he lived in France, Canada, and the USA. In 1917 he became a member of the Kiev City Soviet. In 1918 he was commissar of the 121st Rifle Regiment and fought in the battle for Tsaritsyn (Volgograd). From 1919 to 1921, he worked in the Central Administration of Military Communications and then in the People’s Commissariat for Transportation and Communications. From 1921 to 1939, Litvin-Sedoi was director of a cotton-textile technicum in Moscow.

Litvin-Sedoi was a permanent member of the Moscow Soviet and was a delegate to the Tenth, Eleventh, and Thirteenth through Sixteenth Party Congresses. At the Tenth Congress of the RCP(B) he was elected member of the Central Control Commission. In 1939 he received a merit pension. He wrote a series of memoirs of the Moscow Armed Uprising in December 1905. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.