Volkov, Semen Kuzmich

Born Apr. 1 (13), 1845, in the village of Stanichnoe, Karsun District, Simbirsk Province; died June 5, 1924, in Gur’ev. Russian worker and revolutionary.

Volkov came from a peasant family. In 1863 he joined a workers’ circle in Spasskii Zaton (Kazan Province). He worked in Saratov on the railroad in the early 1870’s and participated in the strikes there. In 1873 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he entered a cartridge factory and became a member of a workers’ circle organized by the Narodniks (Populists). He was arrested in 1874 and subsequently detained in the House of Preliminary Detention until February 1876. In 1876 he participated in the organization of the Northern Union of Russian Workers. He was arrested for a second time in 1876 for propagandizing among the workers of a Sestroretsk factory. Banished in 1877, he spent his term first in Vologda Province and then (until 1886) in Siberia. After the October Revolution he worked in the EmbanefV trust in Kazakhstan.