Ivan Teodorovich

Ivan Adolfovich Teodorovich (Russian: Ива́н Адольфо́вич Теодо́рович; Polish: Iwan Adolfowicz Teodorowicz) (September 10 (O. S. August 29), 1875 in Smolensk – September 20, 1937) was a Russian Bolshevik activist, and the first Commissar for Food when the Council of People's Commissars was established (October - November 1917).

Teodorovich, the son of a land surveyor from Smolensk, was born into a family of ethnic Polish origin. His father, two maternal uncles, and grandfather had all participated in insurrectionary activity; it was from this background, Teodorovich would write, that he first learned to hate "czarism, its officials, and military establishment." Teodorovich's childhood was spent in severe poverty: his mother, struggling to support six sons, worked as a seamstress and laundrywoman.

Teodorovich was educated at Moscow State University, where he joined an early Marxist group in 1895. In 1902-1903 he was a member of the Moscow Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. After a series of arrests, in 1903 the czarist authorities sent Teodorovich to an exile in Yakutia. Escaping in 1905, he fled to Switzerland, where he made personal contacts with Vladimir Lenin. In October 1905 Teodorovich returned to Russia and operated in Saint Petersburg, promoted to a member of the Central Committee in 1907. In May 1909 he was arrested again and remained in custody until the February Revolution of 1917. In Summer 1917 Teodorovich co-chaired Saint Petersburg City Hall, at the same time working towards the Bolshevik revolt against the Provisional Government.

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