Leonid Piatakov

Born Sept. 22 (Oct. 4), 1888, near the Mar’inskii Sugar Refinery, now Gorodishche, Cherkassy Oblast, Ukrainian SSR; died Dec. 25, 1917 (Jan. 7, 1918), in Kiev. Participant in the struggle for Soviet power in the Ukraine. Member of the Communist Party from 1915. Son of the director of the refinery.

Piatakov graduated in 1908 from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute as a chemical engineer. In World War I he was drafted into the army and fought on the Southwestern Front. He then worked in Baku and in the Donbas. In 1917, Piatakov was one of the organizers of the Red Guards in Kiev, head of the military organization of the Kiev Committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik), and a member of the executive committee of the Kiev soviet. He became chairman of the Kiev Military Revolutionary Committee on Oct. 27 (Nov. 9), 1917. In December 1917 he was elected a member of the Main Committee of Social Democracy of the Ukraine and of the All-Ukraine Central Executive Committee. After the Central Rada seized power, Piatakov went underground. He was tortured to death by the haidamaks.