Kiselev, Aleksei Semenovich

Born 1879 in the village of Avdot’ino, in present-day Vladimir Oblast; died Oct. 30, 1937. Soviet statesman and party leader. The son of a worker.

Kiselev was a metalworker by profession. He joined the Communist Party in 1898. During the Revolution of 1905–07, he was a member of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk committee of the RSDLP and of the Sokol’niki raion committee of the RSDLP in Moscow. He later did party work in St. Petersburg, Kharkov, Baku, Odessa, and a number of cities in Siberia. In 1914 he was coopted into the party’s Central Committee. On several occasions, he was subjected to police persecution. After the February Revolution of 1917, he became the chairman of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk city soviet and a member the RSDLP (Bolshevik) committee there. At the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (June 1917), he was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. At the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP(B), he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Kiselev served as chairman of the Central Board of the Textile Industry; he was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council on the National Economy and then a member of the commission of the Council of People’s Commissars on the affairs of Turkestan. In 1918 he led the group that defended Orenburg against the armies of Kolchak and Dutov. In 1920 he became chairman of the miners’ union. From 1921 to 1923 he served as chairman of the Small Council of People’s Commissars, and after the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets (January-February 1924) he was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. At the Twelfth Congress of the RCP (Bolshevik) in 1923, he was made a member of the party’s Central Control Commission. He also was on the commission’s Presidium and was people’s commissar of the RSFSR Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection and deputy people’s commissar of the USSR Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. At the Seventh, Tenth, Eleventh, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Congresses of the party, he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee, and at the Seventeenth he was made a member of the Central Auditing Commission. After 1924 he was secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and a member of its Presidium, as well as a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee and its Presidium.