11 Facts About Matvei Muranov

Matvei Muranov joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1904 and became a member of the local party committee in 1907.

In 1912 Matvei Muranov was elected to the 4th State Duma from the city of Kharkiv and became one of 6 Bolshevik deputies there.

Matvei Muranov was the only Bolshevik deputy who voted to break away from the rival Menshevik faction of the RSDLP on 15 December 1912.

Matvei Muranov used his political capital within the Bolshevik party, which he had earned with his behavior at the 1915 trial, to provide political cover for Kamenev, whose behavior at the trial had made him suspect in the eyes of rank and file Bolsheviks.

Once Lenin emerged victorious at the next All-Russian Bolshevik conference in late April 1917, Matvei Muranov was sent back to Kharkov to run the local Bolshevik newspaper, Proletarian.

At the 6th Bolshevik Party Congress in late July and early August 1917, Matvei Muranov was elected to the party's Central Committee and became a member of its Secretariat.

Matvei Muranov participated in the Bolshevik seizure of power during the October Revolution of 1917 and was elected to the Bolshevik-dominated Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee at the Second Congress of Soviets.

Matvei Muranov was a Bolshevik candidate in the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election, being fielded in the Arkhangelsk constituency.

Matvei Muranov was not re-elected to the Central Committee at the 7th Bolshevik Party Congress in March 1918, but returned to the body after the 8th Congress in March 1919.

Matvei Muranov remained a member of the Central Committee until 1923.

Matvei Muranov survived the Great Purge, which claimed the lives of many Old Bolsheviks, and was sent into retirement in 1939.