Fedor Afanasev

(pseudonyms— Otets, Osetskii, Ivanov). Born Feb. 8 (20), 1859, in St. Petersburg Province; died Oct. 22 (Nov. 4), 1905. Russian worker and revolutionary.

Afanas’ev was born into the family of a peasant. From 1871 he worked at the Krengol’m textile mill and from 1887 in St. Petersburg at the Voronin factory, where he made the acquaintance of revolutionaries and organized a weavers’ circle. In 1889 he joined the workers’ committee of the central social democratic circle and became an active member of M. I. Brusnev’s group. In 1891, Afanas’ev was one of the organizers of the St. Petersburg maevka (May Day meeting), where he made a speech that was reprinted both abroad and in Russia. In 1891 the central circle sent Afanas’ev to Moscow to establish contact with workers’ circles in other cities; he worked at the Prokhorov textile mill. In 1894 he conducted underground work in St. Petersburg and attended the Neva suburb workers’ circle that was organized by V. A. Shel-gunov and led by V. I. Lenin. In February 1896 he did a great deal of work toward unifying the social democratic organizations in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Riga, Pavlovo-Posad, and Shuia. He was arrested in 1892 and 1895; in November 1903 he was arrested in the case of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk RSDLP group. After January 1904 he lived clandestinely in Ivanovo-Voznesensk and was a member and secretary of the “Group of the Northern Committee,” and then of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk RSDLP committee. He was, jointly with M. V. Frunze, one of the organizers and leaders of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk strike of 1905. He was killed by the Black Hundreds and cossacks during a rally on the Talka River.