Aleksandr Petrovich Smirnov

Aleksandr Petrovich Smirnov (9 September 1877, village of Nikola, Tver province – on February 9, 1938, Moscow) was a Russian Old Bolshevik, revolutionary and Soviet statesman.

Smirnov was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in 1907 and 1912.

[2] However, in 1933 he was expelled from the Central Committee, for his participation, together with Nikolai Eismont and Vladimir Tolmachev,[3] in the Rightist Smirnov-Eismont-Tolmachev opposition group.

[4][5] Part of the accusation, though not other false charges against Smirnov, was later corroborated by some of Leon Trotsky's (who at the time was having contact with oppositionist groups in the USSR) private letters which mentioned that this group existed.

[4] On February 8, 1938, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to death for alleged "Anti-Soviet activities".