Betal Edykovich Kalmykov

Born Oct 24 (Nov. 5), 1893, in the village of Atazhukino, now Kuba, in Baksan Raion, Kabarda-Balkar ASSR; died Feb. 27, 1940. One of the organizers and leaders of the struggle of the mountain peoples (gortsy) for Soviet power in the Northern Caucasus. Soviet statesman and party figure. Became a member of the Communist Party in 1918. The son of a poor peasant.

Kalmykov began work at the age of 14 as a shepherd; then he became a worker. From 1912 on he carried out revolutionary work among the mountain peoples. He helped organize and lead the democratic revolutionary league of mountain poor called Karakhalk (The Poor). Kalmykov was persecuted by the tsarist authorities. In 1918 he was a delegate to all five congresses of the peoples of Terek Oblast and a member of the Terek people’s soviet; he led the work of the first congress of Nal’chik Okrug, which proclaimed Soviet power in Kabarda and Balkaria in March 1918. He became a member of the Council of People’s Commissars and emergency commissar of Kabarda-Balkaria and then was commissar for nationalities. Kalmykov was involved in the Civil War in the Northern Caucasus; he was one of the organizers of the guerrilla movement and commanded a regiment and a division in the Red Army. In 1919 he was a member of the mountain section of the Caucasian Krai committee of the RCP (Bolshevik). After the rout of the White Guard forces in March 1920, Kalmykov became the chairman of the revolutionary committee of Kabarda and Balkaria. Between 1920 and 1930 he was the chairman of the executive committee of the Kabarda-Balkar Oblast. From 1930 to 1938 he was first secretary of the Kabarda-Balkar Oblast committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). Kalmykov was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR and of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. He was a deputy to the first convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and a delegate to the Eleventh through Seventeenth Congresses of the party. Kalmykov was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner.