Nikolai Nikandrovich Nakoriakov

Born Oct. 11 (23), 1881, in Tobol’sk; died Nov. 10, 1970, in Moscow. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia; one of the organizers of book publishing in the USSR. Son of an official.

Nakoriakov joined the revolutionary movement in 1899 and became a member of the RSDLP in 1901;he joined the Bolsheviks in 1903. He engaged in party work in the south, the Volga Region, and the Urals and was a delegate to the Fourth (1906) and Fifth (1907) Congresses of the RSDLP. Arrested in 1908 and exiled to Siberia, Nakoriakov emigrated to the USA in 1911 and became the editor of the Russian Social Democratic newspaper Novyi mir. In World War I (1914–18), he held a position of defensism.

Upon returning to Russia in 1917, Nakoriakov was deputy commissar of the Provisional Government in the First Army. He served in the White Army in 1919–20. He worked in fuel procurement in Tobol’sk from 1920 to 1922. Under the influence of Soviet reality and criticism and comradely help on the part of V. I. Lenin and other party leaders, Nakoriakov overcame his erroneous views. He worked in the State Publishing House from 1922 and was admitted to the ACP (Bolshevik) in 1925. He was involved in founding the Soviet Encyclopedia Publishing House. Nakoriakov was director of the State Literary Publishing House from 1930 to 1937. He received a special pension in 1957. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.