Alexander Shlyapnikov

Alexander Gavrilovich Shliapnikov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Гаври́лович Шля́пников) (August 30, 1885 – September 2, 1937) was a Russian communist revolutionary, metalworker, and trade union leader. He is best remembered as a memoirist of the October Revolution of 1917 and as the leader of one of the primary opposition movements inside the Russian Communist Party during the 1920s.

Alexander Shliapnikov was born August 30, 1885, in Murom, Russia to a poor family of the Old Believer religion. His father died when he was a small child. Shliapnikov began factory work at age thirteen and became a revolutionary at age sixteen.

He joined the Bolsheviks in 1903. He was arrested and imprisoned at various times for his radical political activities, including his involvement in the 1905 revolution. Shliapnikov left Russia in 1908 and continued his revolutionary activities in Western Europe, where he also worked in factories and was a devoted trade unionist.

Shliapnikov returned to Russia in 1916. He, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Petr Zalutskii were the senior Bolsheviks in Petrograd at the time of the February Revolution in 1917. More prominent figures such as Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Joseph Stalin were abroad or in Siberian exile when the February Revolution began. In 1917, Shliapnikov became a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. He also was elected to chairmanship of the Petrograd Metalworkers' Union and later of the All-Russian Metalworkers' Union. He led negotiations of a wage agreement between Petrograd metalworkers and factory owners in 1917.

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