17 Facts About Alexander Beloborodov

Alexander Georgiyevich Beloborodov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, party figure and statesman best known for his role as one of the chief regicides of Nicholas II and his family.

In July 1918, in coordination with Yakov Sverdlov in Moscow, Beloborodov ordered the execution of the former Tsar Nicholas II and his family, signing the decision by the Ural Soviet which was taken by Filipp Goloshchekin, after a final consultation with party leadership in Moscow, to deliver to Yakov Yurovsky with the final orders to murder the Imperial Family.

Alexander Beloborodov subsequently served as the fourth People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Russian SFSR and the second for the Soviet Union, succeeding Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Alexander Beloborodov left school at 14 to work in a factory as an apprentice electrician.

Alexander Beloborodov joined the Bolsheviks in 1907, and created a local revolutionary organization in Solikamsk while working as an electrician in a mine.

Alexander Beloborodov was arrested early in 1908 and as a juvenile, aged 16, was sentenced to confinement in a young offenders' institute, and subsequently exiled to Siberia, where he spent about four years educating himself.

Alexander Beloborodov represented the Ural Bolsheviks at the Party Conference in April 1917, and at the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP.

In June 1918, Alexander Beloborodov approved an initiative by the regional Cheka led by Gavril Myasnikov to execute Grand Duke Michael, either in advance, or after the fact.

Alexander Beloborodov participated in the battles with the troops of the All-Union Federal Socialist League in the Don, Kuban and the Caucasus.

Alexander Beloborodov wrote in one of his letters, complaining to Nikolay Krestinsky about the leniency of the sentences being handed down by the local Don Revolutionary Tribunals:.

On 29 November 1921, Alexander Beloborodov was appointed Deputy People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Russian SFSR acting under Felix Dzerzhinsky, and on 30 August 1923 was named People's Commissar of Internal Affairs.

Alexander Beloborodov was named on 19 November 1923 Chairman of the Commission for the Improvement of Children's Lives.

In October 1923, Alexander Beloborodov was one of the signatories of the Declaration of 46, which called for greater freedom of debate within the Communist Party.

Alexander Beloborodov was relieved of his duties and expelled from the Communist Party in December 1927 and exiled to northern Siberia, but recanted in 1929, and was readmitted to the party in 1930, and employed in the system of the Committee of State Purchases of the USSR.

Alexander Beloborodov was arrested in 1936, early in Stalin's great purge of the upper echelons of the Communist Party, but resisted making the confession required of him, so although his name was mentioned at the trial of Karl Radek and others in January 1937, he was not produced in court.

Alexander Beloborodov was shot on 10 February 1938 at Kommunarka firing range after being sentenced the same day.

Unlike many of the other Ural Bolsheviks such as Tolmachyov, Goloshchekin, and Voykov, Alexander Beloborodov did not receive any further posthumous honors.