Chaplin, Nikolai

Born Dec. 6 (19), 1902, in the village of Rognedino, in what is now Roslavl’ Raion, Smolensk Oblast; died Sept. 23,1938. Figure in the Communist youth movement in the USSR. Member of the Communist Party from 1919.

The son of a priest, Chaplin studied at a Realschule. In 1918 he established one of the first Komsomol cells in Smolensk, and in 1919 he served as chairman of a district committee of the Russian Communist League of Youth (RKSM). In 1920 and 1921, Chaplin was secretary of the Tiumen’ Provincial Committee and of the Smolensk Provincial Committee of the RKSM, and he was a member of the Smolensk Provincial Committee of the RCP(B). He became head of the political education department of the Central Committee of the RKSM in 1921 and secretary of the Central Committee in 1922. In 1922 and 1923 he was secretary of the Transcaucasian Krai Committee of the RKSM and a member of the krai committee of the RCP(B). Chaplin served as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol from 1924 to 1926 and general secretary from 1926 to 1928. In 1930 he served as second secretary of the Transcaucasian Krai Committee of the ACP(B).

Beginning in 1931, Chaplin engaged in party and economic work. He was a delegate to the Twelfth through Sixteenth Congresses of the party, and from 1924 to 1930 he was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) and of the Orgburo of the Central Committee. He was a delegate to the second through eighth congresses of the Komsomol, and from 1921 to 1928 he was a member of the Central Committee of the Komsomol. Chaplin was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Transcaucasian Federation, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. He wrote on problems of the youth movement.

Chaplin was awarded the Order of Lenin.