Mikhail Sergeevich Kedrov

Born Feb. 12 (24), 1878, in Moscow; died Dec. 2, 1941. Soviet statesman and party figure. Became a member of the Communist Party in 1901. The son of a notary.

Kedrov studied in the law department of Moscow University and at the Demidov Law Lyceum in Yaroslavl from 1897 to 1902 but was repeatedly expelled for his involvement in the student movement. From 1901 to 1902 he was a member of the Yaroslavl Social Democratic organization, and in 1905 he was a member of the Bolshevik committee and an organizer of the fighting druzhina in Kostroma. On assignment from the Bolshevik Party, Kedrov organized and directed the Zerno book publishing house in St. Petersburg in 1906. Harassed and repeatedly arrested by the police, he emigrated to Switzerland in 1912 and graduated from the faculty of medicine of the University of Lausanne. Upon his return to Russia in 1916, Kedrov was a military doctor at the Caucasian Front, and after the February Revolution of 1917, chairman of the soviet in Sharafkhaneh (northern Iran). Arriving in Petrograd in May 1917, he joined the Military Organization under the Central Committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik) and the All-Russian Bureau of the Bolshevik Military Organizations; he also was editor of the newspaper Soldatskaia pravda and founded the newspaper Rabochii i soldat.

After November 1917, Kedrov served as a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat on Military Affairs and as commissar for the demobilization of the old army. In August 1918 he became commander of the troops of the Northeastern Sector of the Western Defense Line and then a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Sixth Army of the Northern Front. In 1919 he was chairman of the Special Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (All-Russian Cheka), a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and a representative of the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik) for the Southern and Western fronts; he also participated in the defense of Petrograd. A representative of the Labor and Defense Council for the fishing industry of the Southern Caspian and a member of the Baku Soviet from 1921 to 1923, Kedrov worked in the Supreme Council on the National Economy and in the People’s Commissariat of Public Health from 1924 to 1925 and was deputy procurator of the department of military procuratorate of the Supreme Court of the USSR from 1926 to 1927. He worked in the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Red Sport International from 1928 to 1932, was appointed to the Presidium of the State Planning Commission of the RSFSR in 1932, and became director of the Military Sanitation Institute in 1934. Kedrov wrote several books on the history of the party and on the Civil War of 1918–20. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.