 Aleksandr Grigoryevich Chervyakov - chairman of the Central Executive Committee of Soviets of the USSR.
born Feb. 25 [March 8], 1892, Dukorki, Igumensky region, Minsk province, Russian Empire
died June 16, 1937, Minsk, Belorussian SSR, USSR
Alexandr Chervyakov joined the Russian Communist Party in May 1917 and participated in the Bolshevik coup in Petrograd. He was one of the founding fathers and leaders of the Belorussian social democratic workers' party. In February 1918, Chervyakov became a commissar for the Belorussian affairs under the Russian SFSR people's commissariat for nationalities. On January 1, 1919, Chervyakov along with other five members of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Soviet Government signed the Manifest on proclamation of the Belorussian Socialist Soviet Republic. During this short-lived Soviet regime in Belorussia, Chervyakov briefly served as people's commissar for education.
When the Soviet power in Belorussia was reinstated in 1920, Chervyakov was appointed chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Minsk and then of the Belorussian Socialist Soviet Republic. As chairman of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of Belorussian SSR (December 18, 1920 - March 17, 1924), he was involved in creation of the Soviet Union. The first session of the USSR Central Executive Committee elected him on December 30, 1922, one of its chairmen along with Mikhail Kalinin, Grigory Petrovsky and Nariman Narimanov.
In 1924, Chervyakov left the office of the Belorussian prime minister, but retained chairmanship in the Belorussian Central Executive Committee (December 18, 1920 - June 16, 1937). Chervyakov represented the Belorussian communists at seven party congresses in Moscow, but he never was elected to the party Central Committee. Chervyakov was severely criticized at the 16th congress of the Communist Party of Belorussia in June 1937 for insufficient efforts in extermination of "enemies of the people." Expecting his dismissal and further imprisonment, Aleksandr Chervyakov committed suicide in his working room during the break between the congress' meetings on June 16, 1937. The press reported that he did it because of "personal family reasons".
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