Iakov Denisovich Meleshin

(I. D. Mileshin) Born Nov. 25 (Dec. 7), 1884, in the village of Polovskoe, now in Spassk-Riazanskii Raion, Riazan’ Oblast; died Oct. 13, 1918, on the Kucherevka farmstead. Active participant in the struggle to establish Soviet power in Moldavia. Member of the Communist Party from 1905.

Meleshin was a typesetter by profession. He carried out party work in the printers’ union in St. Petersburg; he was arrested a number of times and was exiled to Olonets Province. In 1914 he was drafted into the army. After the February Revolution of 1917, he was an organizer of Soviets on the Rumanian Front and a member of the Central Executive Committee of Rumcherod (Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Working People’s Deputies of Soldiers and Sailors of the Rumanian Front, Black Sea Fleet, and Odessa Military District). From May to December 1917 he was in Kishinev, serving as commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Province of Bessarabia, chief of the Kishinev garrison, and chairman of the Kishinev committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik). As commissar of the 5th TransAmur Regiment of the Red Army, he took part in the fighting in Bessarabia, the Ukraine, and the Don. He died in battle.