Sergei Ivanovich Gusev

(pseudonym of Iakov Davidovich Drabkin). Born Jan. 1 (13), 1874, in the settlement of Sapozhok, in present-day Riazan’ Oblast; died June 10, 1933, in Moscow. Soviet party and state figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1896.

Gusev was born into the family of a teacher. In 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Technological Institute and began to engage in revolutionary activity in the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. In 1899 he began party work in Rostov. He was a member of the Don committee of the RSDLP, an active supporter of Iskra, and one of the leaders of the Rostov strike of 1902 and the March demonstration of 1903. He was a delegate to the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903). He participated in the Geneva conference of the 22 Bolsheviks in August 1904. He was an active member and secretary of the Bureau of the Committees of the Majority. From December 1904 until May 1905 he was secretary of the St. Petersburg party committee, then secretary of the Odessa party committee, a member of the Moscow committee of the RSDLP beginning in 1906, and party organizer for Zheleznodorozhnyi Raion. He was a delegate to the Fourth Congress of the RSDLP (1906). In 1909 he did party work in St. Petersburg. He was subjected to repression by the tsarist government more than once.

Gusev was an active participant in the October armed uprising in Petrograd and in the Civil War of 1918–20. In October 1917 he was secretary of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. During the years 1918–20 he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Fifth and Second armies; a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern, Southeastern, and Southern fronts; commander of the Moscow Defensive Sector, and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. Beginning in 1921 he was chief of the political directorate of the Red Army. In 1922 he was chairman of the Turkistan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik). In 1923 he became secretary of the Central Control Commission of the RCP (Bolshevik) and a member of the board of the People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection of the USSR. In the years 1925–26 he was chief of the press division of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). At the Ninth through Eleventh Congresses of the party he was elected a candidate for membership in the Central Committee, and at the Twelfth through Sixteenth Congresses he was elected a member of the Central Control Commission. In 1928 he was elected a candidate for membership on the Executive Committee of the Comintern, and from 1929 to 1933 he was a member of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. He was awarded two orders.

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