Ivan Babushkin

Ivan Babushkin (Russian: Иван Васильевич Бабушкин) (pseudonym Nikolay Nikolaevich) (January 3, 1873 – January 18, 1906) was a Russian professional Bolshevik revolutionary. He was born in the selo of Ledengskoye of the Vologda Governorate, currently in Babushkinsky District of Vologda Oblast.

Babushkin worked as an apprentice metalworker in Kronstadt between 1887-91. In the summer of 1891, he found work at the Semiannikov Factory in St. Petersburg. In 1894, he made the acquaintance of Lenin during the workers' Marxist circle meetings, which Lenin conducted. A year later, he was an active participant in the St. Petersburg’s League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. He also organized revolutionary activities targeting the workers of the Semiannikov and Aleksandrov factories.

His role in the League of Struggle resulted in arrest and subsequent exile to Ekaterinoslav in 1897. Less than ten months later he was one of the organizers of the Ekaterinoslav League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. In October of the following year he set up the Ekaterinoslav Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1900, Babushkin established an illegal newspaper, Luzhnyi Rabochii. Babushkin was a key agent and correspondent for Lenin’s Iskra. Between 1900–01 he was behind notable revolutionary activities in Moscow, Smolensk, Polotsk, Orekhovo-Zuevo, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, and other cities. In July 1902 he escaped from the Ekaterinoslav prison, aided by schoolboys, who dyed his hair - which almost proved to be a disaster when the dye turned crimson. He travelled via Germany to London, to join Lenin, but was annoyed by the untidiness of the intellectuals with whom he shared accommodation, so returned to Russia in October 1902 to act as an agent for the newspaper Iskra that Lenin co-edited.

Babushkin was arrested in St Petersburg in January 1903, and late that year was deported to Verkhoyansk, near the Arctic Circle. Freed under amnesty during the revolution of 1905, he moved or Irkutsk where he was co-opted on the local RSDLP committee, and then to Chita, returning to Irkutsk to rebuild the party organisation after the police had arrested the entire membership of the Irkutsk party committee. In January 1906, he and five others were attempting to smuggle weapons when a death squad caught up with them and shot them all at the Mysovaya station of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The nearby town of Mysovsk was renamed after him in 1941. In 1910, Lenin mentioned that Babushkin, like others, "was a national hero who whole-heartedly devoted themselves to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class". In 1941, Ledengsky District of Vologda Oblast and the selo of Ledengskoye have been renamed into Babushkinsky District and the selo of Imeni Babushkina, respectively. There are also streets in many Russian cities (including Moscow, Ivana Babushkina Street), named after Babushkin.