Ivan Vasilevich Rusakov

Born Sept. 25 (Oct. 7), 1877, in the village of Prudki, Podol’sk District, Moscow Province; died Mar. 18, 1921, in Kronstadt. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia. Physician. Member of the Communist Party from 1905.

Son of a worker, Rusakov graduated from the faculty of medicine of Moscow University in 1900. His association with the revolutionary movement began in 1899. He participated in the armed uprising that took place in Moscow in 1905; in 1906 he began medical work in Moscow and was active in disseminating information for the party. After the February Revolution of 1917 he was a member of a district committee of the RS-DLP(B) and of the executive committee of the soviet of Sokol’nicheskii district. He was one of the leaders of the Bolshevik faction in the N. I. Pirogov Memorial Society of Russian Physicians. During the days of the October Revolution of 1917, he was a member of a district Military Revolutionary Committee.

After the October Revolution of 1917, he was a member of the medical board of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), chairman of the Sokol’nicheskii district soviet, a member of the Moscow committee of the RCP(B), and a member of the presidium of the Moscow soviet. In 1919 and 1920 he was placed in charge of medical services at the southern and southwestern fronts and of the Moscow department of public education. Having volunteered for service in suppressing the Kronstadt Anti-Soviet Rebellion of 1921, he was appointed commissar of a military and naval hospital. Rusakov was killed by White Guards. He is buried at the Kremlin Wall on Red Square. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner.