Kastan, Sarkis

(pseudonym of Sarkis Oganesovich Ter-Kasparian). Born Jan. 16 (28), 1876; died December 1937. Soviet state and party activist; publicist. Member of the Communist Party from 1905.

Born to a petit bourgeois family in Shusha, Kas’ian studied at the Leipzig Commercial Institute and in the department of philosophy at Berlin University (1900–04); he became a candidate in both commercial and philosophical sciences. During the Revolution of 1905–07 he was a founder of the Armenian Bolshevik press. From 1912 to 1914 he ran the Tiflis party organization. From 1917 to 1920 he served on the Caucasian Regional Party Committee; he became a member of the Tiflis bureau of the committee in 1918 and edited Armenian Bolshevik newspapers in 1917–18. In January 1920 he was one of the organizers and leaders of the first conference of the Armenian Bolshevik Party. In 1919–20 he served as chairman of the Armenian Committee (Armenkom) of the RCP (Bolshevik).

In November 1920 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Armenian CP (Bolshevik) and chairman of the Armenian Revolutionary Committee, which by a declaration written by Kas’ian proclaimed the overthrow of the Dashnak government and the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia on Nov. 29, 1920. In a telegram of Dec. 2, 1920, addressed to Kas’ian, V. I. Lenin saluted Soviet Armenia (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 42, p. 54).

Kas’ian served (1924–27) as rector of the Transcaucasian Communist University of the Twenty-six Commissars, chairman of the Soviet of Nationalities, and member of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the Transcaucasian SFSR. He was also chairman of the CEC of the Armenian SSR. Kas’ian was also elected to the All-Union CEC and was a delegate to the Third Congress of the Comintern in 1921 and the Sixteenth Congress of the RCP (Bolshevik) in 1930.