[1] Askanaz Mravyan was born on January 2, 1886, to an Armenian family in Elizavetpol (present-day Ganja, Azerbaijan).

He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905 and worked as an activist of its Bolshevik wing in Yerevan, Tiflis, Baku and Saint Petersburg.

[1] From 1915 to 1917, he edited the Armenian-language newspapers Paykar ("Struggle") and Banvori kriv ("Worker's Battle").

[1] As a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, Mravyan was one of the signatories of a secret decision made in September 1920 which called on the Armenian Bolsheviks to work to "speed up Armenia's defeat" in the Turkish–Armenian War and "dissolve the Armenian army by all means.

[3] From May 1921 to January 1922, he served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia.