Vladimir Zagorsky

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Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky, born Wolf Mikhelevich Lubotsky on January 15, 1883, in Nizhny Novgorod, was a Russian revolutionary and a key organizer for the Bolshevik movement. He grew up in a Jewish family and began his activity as a student, working with his friend Yakov Sverdlov, who would later become a top Bolshevik leader. Zagorsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) in 1901 and quickly became involved in distributing leaflets and underground work among workers.

In 1902 he was arrested for participating in a May Day demonstration and was sentenced to long exile in the Yenisey region. He tried to escape and was further punished with a 12-year exile in Yakutsk. In 1904 he escaped to Geneva, where he met Lenin several times. He was arrested again on January 9, 1905, and expelled from Switzerland after the 1905 revolution began. Back in Russia, Zagorsky took part in the December Uprising in Moscow and used the alias Comrade Denis. He worked on the Moscow council’s publications and fought on the barricades in Pimenskaya Street and Presnya before going underground after the uprising was crushed.

In 1908 he emigrated to London, and in 1910 he returned illegally to Saratov. He was betrayed by a provocateur and fled to Leipzig under the name “son of the priest Mikhail Pushcharovsky.” He helped prepare the Prague Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. During World War I he was interned by Germany but continued to spread propaganda among Russian prisoners of war.

After the February and October Revolutions, Zagorsky was released in April 1918. He served briefly as the first secretary of the Soviet delegation in Germany (April–June 1918). He was then called back to Moscow and, from July 27, 1918, became the Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). He also participated as a delegate in the 8th Congress of the party.

In September 1919 Zagorsky, together with Felix Dzerzhinsky, led the Moscow City Defense Committee. He was killed on September 25, 1919, when a bomb exploded at the Moscow Committee building on Leontiev Lane, thrown by members of an anarchist group. Witnesses said he rushed toward the danger to help others, trying to calm the room. He is buried in Mass Grave No. 1 of the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Red Square, Moscow. Zagorsky was married to Olga Pilatskaya.