Nikolai Glebov-Avilov

Nikolai Pavlovich Glebov-Avilov (Russian: Николай Павлович Глебов-Авилов; 11 October 1887 in Kaluga – 13 March 1937) was a prominent Bolshevik and the first commissar of Posts and Telegraphs.

Glebov-Avilov was the son of a cobbler who started work in a printshop in Kaluga. He became a Bolshevik in 1904, and during the 1905 Revolution, he was active in Moscow, Kaluga and the Urals working in underground printshops, being hidden by the All-Russian Union of Railway Workers. Nevertheless he was subject to continual arrest. Between 1913 and 1914 he worked for Pravda (Правда). He was a participant in the February Revolution, 1917 in Tomsk and Moscow. He became the first Commissar of the People's Commissariat for Posts and Telegraphs of the RSFSR appointed by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, until December 19.

In the summer of 1917 he participated in the Third All Russian Conference of Trade Unions (20–28 June) in Petrograd, where he presented the Bolshevik view that:

• Economic Control Commissions should be attached to the central administration of the unions
• These Commissions should be made up of members of the Factory Committee
• These Commissions should co-operate with the Factory Committees in each individual enterprise.
• The Factory Committees should also be financially dependent upon the union.

The Conference adopted the Menshevik position by 76 votes to 63, but contained some inconsistencies: In order to prevent the unions becoming involved in the control of production, they insisted that the factory committees take overall responsibility in this area. At the same time, however, they called on the unions to make the factory committees their supports (opornye punkty) in the various locations, and to use them as implement their policies locally.

He was arrested on 19 September 1936 on charges of participating in a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization. He was accused of being a "wrecker". He was sentenced to be shot on 12 March 1937. He was rehabilitated on 7 July 1956.

External links

• Николай Павлович Глебов-Авилов