Frantsisk Ivanovich Ventsek

Born Sept. 2 (14), 1885, in Samarkand; died June 8, 1918, in Samara (now Kuibyshev). Participant in the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power in Samara. Member of the Communist Party from 1904.

Ventsek conducted party work in Samarkand, Moscow, Kharkov, and Tula. In June 1915 he was an organizer of the strike at arms and ammunition plants in Tula. He was repeatedly subjected to repression. From the end of 1915 he conducted party work in Samara. Ventsek was an active participant in the February Revolution of 1917 and an organizer and secretary of the first Samara soviet. In December 1917 he was chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal in Samara. In January 1918 he was a delegate to the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets. On June 8, 1918, he was seized by White Guards in a street fight and brutally tortured to death.