Petr Aaronovich Poliusuk

Born Feb. 26 (Mar. 10), 1877, in Berdichev; died Sept. 1, 1921, in Tbilisi. Participant in the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus. Member of the Communist Party from 1905.

Poliusuk studied at the University of St. Petersburg. He engaged in party work in Ashkhabad, Baku, and Tbilisi. In Baku from 1906 to 1908 he collaborated on the legal Bolshevik newspapers Prizyv and Gudok. In 1914 he served as editor of the politicoeconomic newspaper Zaria Kavkaza in Tbilisi. On more than one occasion he was arrested and deported. After the February Revolution of 1917 he collaborated in Tbilisi on the Bolshevik newspaper Kavkazskii rabochii. In 1916, Poliusuk served as a member of the committee of the RCP (Bolshevik) and deputy chairman of the soviet in Vladikavkaz (Ordzhonikidze). During the counterrevolutionary uprising of August 1918, he was arrested and sentenced to be shot but was freed by Soviet troops. In 1919, Poliusuk engaged in party work in Tbilisi. He was arrested by the Menshevik government of Georgia. In 1920 he became an instructor for the Caucasus Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(B), first in the Northern Caucasus and then in Tbilisi.