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Pyotr Ananyevich Krasikov (; 17 October
O.S. 5 October">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 5 October1870 – 20 August 1939) was a Russians">Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
revolutionary and Soviet statesman, as well as a jurist and writer on political and religious affairs. He was the first Procurator General of the Soviet Union, serving from 1924 to 1933.
Career
Pyotr Krasikov was born in Krasnoyarsk, where he was brought up from the age of 12 by his grandfather, an Archpriest, after the early death of his father, a lawyer. He was expelled from the Krasnoyarsk
gymnasium for bad behaviour, but reinstated after his grandfather intervened.
In the years 1892–1893, Krasikov visited Switzerland and met with Russian Marxists, met with the leaders of the "
Emancipation of Labor" group of
Georgy Plekhanov,
Pavel Axelrod and
Vera Zasulich
Vera Ivanovna Zasulich (; – 8 May 1919) was a Russian socialist activist, Menshevik writer and revolutionary. She is widely known for her correspondence with Karl Marx, in which she put into question the necessity of a capitalist industriali ...
and joined Emancipation of Labour group in 1892. After returning home in 1894, he was arrested and kept in a solitary confinement cell in the
Peter and Paul Fortress
The Peter and Paul Fortress () is the original citadel of Saint Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early ...
until he was bailed out by his sister, and ordered to return to Krasnoyarsk under
police supervision. In 1895 despite the police supervision, Krasikov managed to create the first Marxist circle in Krasnoyarsk among students of the paramedic and midwife school.
In 1897 Lenin passed through Krasnoyarsk on his way into exile in a Siberian village, and met Krasikov and became close to each other.
Together with Lenin, he took part in meetings with political exiles who lived in Krasnoyarsk or who stopped here in transit. He saw Lenin's comrades in the Petersburg
Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. And after their departure, he met many party exiles and helped them.
For correspondence and communication with political exiles Krasikov was extended the period of public supervision of the police for another year. He later choose
Pskov
Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=Ru-Псков.oga, p=psˈkof; see also Names of Pskov in different languages, names in other languages) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov O ...
as his residing place and joined the local
Iskra
''Iskra'' (, , ''the Spark'') was a fortnightly political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).
History
''Iskra'' was published in exile and then smuggl ...
-ist. He was involved in the illegal transportation of Iskra from Germany to Russia. He was on trial in Germany, where Karl Liebknecht defended him. He was convicted but again released on bail.
Later he joined the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...
In November 1902, he was a member of the committee set up to organise the
II Congress of the RSDLP, and together with Lenin and Plekhanov, he was a member of the Bureau of the Congress. When the split occurred during the Congress between
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
and
Mensheviks
The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...
, Krasikov joined the Bolsheviks, and stayed in Switzerland to help Lenin create a separate the Bolshevik organisation.
Krasikov returned to Russia during the
1905 Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...
, and was in charge of the agitation department of the Petersburg Party Committee. At the
III Congress of the RSDLP he was a delegate with an advisory voice. After the revolution had been suppressed, he drifted out of revolutionary politics to practise as a lawyer
After the
1917 Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social change in Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government following two successive revolutions and a civil war. It ...
his positions were related to legal issues and he is considered to be among the principal creators of the Soviet legal system, along with
Andrey Vyshinsky
Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (; ) ( – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.
He is best known as a Procurator General of the Soviet Union, state prosecutor of Joseph Stalin's Moscow Trials and in the Nuremberg trial ...
. He was Deputy
People's Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English language, English transliteration of the Russian language, Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the pol ...
of Justice from 1918. He was the initiator of the first Soviet anti-religious publication, ''
Revolution and Church''. Krasikov was
Prosecutor General of the
Supreme Court
In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
from 1924, and Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court from 1933 to 1938. He was removed from his seat on the Supreme Court during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...
"without explanation."
Krasikov died in 1939 in the city of
Zheleznovodsk, where he was being treated for his illness, and was buried there.
Personality
Israel Getzler, in ''Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat'' (Cambridge U.P., 1967, p. 74), says he was "intensely disliked by all and sundry
ith the exception of Lenin..
oris Nikolaevskysums him up as a drunken brawler... J. Steinberg, ''Als ich Volkskommisar war'' (Munich, 1929), has devoted an entire chapter... to Krasikov's misdeeds as co-chairman (together with the notorious
M. Iu. Kozlovsky) of the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
of the Petrograd Soviet in the winter of 1917–18."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krasikov, Pyotr
1870 births
1939 deaths
Politicians from Krasnoyarsk
People from Yeniseysk Governorate
Old Bolsheviks
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members
Soviet lawyers
Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution of 1905
Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution
Russian atheists
20th-century Russian lawyers
All-Russian Central Executive Committee members
Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union members
Russian atheism activists
Prisoners of the Peter and Paul Fortress