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Pyotr Ananyevich Krasikov (russian: Петр Ананьевич Красиков; 17 October
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*Rossiyane_(),_Russian_language_term_for_all_citizens_and_peo_...
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Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
revolutionary and functionary of the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks)">All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and politician of the Soviet Union as well as a Marxism, Marxist jurist and writer on political and religious affairs. He was the first Procurator General of the Soviet Union, serving from 1924 to 1933.
Career
Pyotr Krasikov was born in
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk ( ; rus, Красноя́рск, a=Ru-Красноярск2.ogg, p=krəsnɐˈjarsk) (in semantic translation - Red Ravine City) is the largest city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yeni ...
, where he was brought up from the age of 12 by his grandfather, an Archpriest, after the early death of his father, a lawyer. He was expelled from the Krasnoyarsk
gymnasium for bad behaviour, but reinstated after his grandfather had intervened.
In the years 1892 - 1893, Krasikov visited Switzerland and met with Russian Marxists, met with the leaders of the "
Emancipation of Labor
Emancipation of Labour (russian: Освобождение труда) was the first Russian Marxist group. It was founded in exile by Georgi Plekhanov, Vasily Ignatov, Vera Zasulich, Leo Deutsch, and Pavel Axelrod, at Geneva (Switzerland) in 18 ...
" group of
Georgy Plekhanov
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (; rus, Гео́ргий Валенти́нович Плеха́нов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revoluti ...
,
Pavel Axelrod
Pavel Borisovich Axelrod (russian: Па́вел Бори́сович Аксельро́д; 25 August 1850 – 16 April 1928) was an early Russian Marxist revolutionary. Along with Georgi Plekhanov, Vera Zasulich, and Leo Deutsch, he was one ...
and
Vera Zasulich
Vera Ivanovna Zasulich (russian: link=no, Ве́ра Ива́новна Засу́лич; – 8 May 1919) was a Russian socialist activist, Menshevik writer and revolutionary.
Radical beginnings
Zasulich was born in Mikhaylovka, in the Smol ...
and joined Emancipation of Labour group in 1892. After returning home in 1894, he was arrested and kept in a solitary confinement cell in the
Peter and Paul Fortress
The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early 1920s i ...
until he was bailed out by his sister, and ordered to return to Krasnoyarsk under police supervision. In 1895 despite the police supervision, Krasikov managed to create the first Marxist circle in Krasnoyarsk among students of the paramedic and midwife school.
In 1897, Lenin passed through Krasnoyarsk on his way into exile in a Siberian village, and met Krasikov and became close to each other.
Together with Lenin, he took part in meetings with political exiles who lived in Krasnoyarsk or who stopped here in transit. He saw Lenin's comrades in the Petersburg
Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. And after their departure, he met many party exiles and helped them.
For correspondence and communication with political exiles Krasikov was extended the period of public supervision of the police for another year. He later choose
Pskov
Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=pskov-ru.ogg, p=pskof; see also names in other languages) is a city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, located about east of the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population ...
as his residing place and joined the local
Iskra
''Iskra'' ( rus, Искра, , ''the Spark'') was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).
History
Due to political repression under Tsar Nicho ...
-ist. He was involved in the illegal transportation of Iskra from Germany to Russia. He was on trial in Germany, where Karl Liebknecht defended him. He was convicted but again released on bail.
Later he joined the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
In November 1902, he was a member of the committee set up to organise the
II Congress of the RSDLP , and together with Lenin and Plekhanov, he was a member of the Bureau of the Congress. When the split occurred during the Congress between
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
and
Mensheviks
The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
The factions eme ...
, Krasikov joined the Bolsheviks, and stayed in Switzerland to help Lenin create a separate the Bolshevik organisation
Krasikov returned to Russia during the
1905 Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
, and was in charge of the agitation department of the Petersburg Party Committee. At the
III Congress of the RSDLP he was a delegate with an advisory voice. After the revolution had been suppressed, he drifted out of revolutionary politics to practise as a lawyer
After the
1917 Russian Revolution his positions were related to legal issues and he is considered to be among the principal creators of the Soviet legal system, along with
Andrey Vyshinsky
Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (russian: Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский; pl, Andrzej Wyszyński) ( – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.
He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph ...
. He was Deputy
People's Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...
of Justice from 1918. He was the initiator of the first Soviet anti-religious publication, ''
Revolution and Church''. Krasikov was
Prosecutor General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
of the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
from 1924, and Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court from 1933 to 1938. He was removed from his seat on the Supreme Court during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
"without explanation."
Krasikov died in 1939 in the city of Zheleznovodsk, where he was being treated for his illness and was buried there.
Personality
Israel Getzler, in ''Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat'' (Cambridge U.P., 1967, p. 74), says he was "intensely disliked by all and sundry
ith the exception of Lenin..
oris Nikolaevskysums him up as a drunken brawler... J. Steinberg, ''Als ich Volkskommisar war'' (Munich, 1929), has devoted an entire chapter... to Krasikov's misdeeds as co-chairman (together with the notorious
M. Iu. Kozlovsky) of the ''Cheka'' of the Petrograd Soviet in the winter of 1917-18."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krasikov, Pyotr
1870 births
1939 deaths
Politicians from Krasnoyarsk
People from Yeniseysk Governorate
Old Bolsheviks
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members
Soviet lawyers
Russian revolutionaries
Russian atheists
20th-century Russian lawyers
All-Russian Central Executive Committee members
Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union members
Russian atheism activists
Prisoners of the Peter and Paul Fortress