Mikhail Vasilyev-Yuzhin

[1] He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898 while he was an external student at Moscow University, where he graduated in 1901 from the Physics and Mathematics Faculty.

[2] In 1906–1917, he carried out work for the Bolsheviks in Baku, St Petersburg and Saratov, and was arrested several times, though was not seriously persecuted.

During the October Revolution, he led the armed rising in Saratov that brought the province under Bolshevik control.

During the Russian Civil War, he acted as a political commissar for the 15th army, and took part in the suppression of the Tambov Rebellion.

[3] From January 1919 to 1922 he was a member of the Collegium of the People's Commissariat of the Interior and from December 1918 to April 1921 he was the head of the Main Police Department.