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1889 - 1919 JACOB SVERDLOFF (Russia)
Communist organizer and leader. An early communist activist, he was exiled to a prison camp on an island near the Artic circle. Sverdloff tried to escape 5 times, the last time in a small boat which capsized during a storm. After the Revolution, Stalin recognized his organizational capabilities and appointed him the first secretary of the Central Committee. Sverdloff worked closely with both Stalin and Lenin, ensuring that the Bolshevik faction would be the strongest. In his honor the city Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlovsk.
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