Skobelev, Matvei Ivanovich

Born 1885 in Baku; died July 29, 1938. Participant in the Social Democratic movement in Russia.

Of bourgeois origin, Skobelev joined the RSDLP in 1903. He was a Menshevik and conducted work in Baku. From 1906 to 1912 he lived abroad. Skobelev became a deputy to the Fourth State Duma in 1912, representing Transcaucasia and leading the Social Democratic faction. During World War I, he was a Social Chauvinist. After the February Revolution of 1917, he joined the Executive Committee of the Petrograd soviet and later became deputy chairman of the soviet. From May to August 1917 he served as minister of labor in the bourgeois Provisional Government and deputy chairman at the first convocation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Skobelev left the Mensheviks. He went to Transcaucasia in 1918 and emigrated from Menshevik-dominated Georgia to France in 1920. He helped establish trade relations between Soviet Russia and France and represented the Central Cooperative in Paris and Brussels. Skobelev joined the RCP(B) in 1922. Beginning in 1924, he was a Soviet foreign trade official.