Blokhin, Petr Grigorevich

(pseudonym of Grigorii Iosifovich Sverdlin). Born 1887, in Sudzha, Kursk Province; died 1942, in Piatigorsk. One of the organizers of the struggle for Soviet power on the Don. Member of the Communist Party from 1911. Born into the family of a small artisan.

During World War I, Blokhin conducted revolutionary work in Samara, Saratov, and other cities. He was arrested and imprisoned. He was a member of the Rostov-Nakhichevan’ RSDLP (Bolshevik) committee and of the Rostov-Nakhichevan’ revolutionary war committee. At the first congress of the soviets of Don Oblast in April 1918 he was confirmed as people’s commissar of labor of the Don Soviet Republic. During the evacuation of the government of the Don Republic from Rostov to Tsaritsyn in May 1918, he participated with G. K. Ordzhonikidze in rescuing trains with valuables of the Ukrainian and Don republics. He joined the Don RCP (Bolshevik) Bureau in September 1918. After the liberation of the Don from the White Guards he became chairman of the Rostov-Nakhichevan’ RCP committee. He was secretary of the Terek Province RCP (Bolshevik) Committee in 1922–23. In 1923–24 he worked in the apparatus of the RCP (Bolshevik) Central Committee. Blokhin later was a leader in Party and trade-union work in Moscow. He was a delegate to the Twelfth Party Congress. Blokhin became a personal pensioner in 1929.