Nina Avgustovna Podvoiskaia

(née Didrikil’) Born Feb. 13 (25), 1882, in the village of Liubino, Vologda Province; died Nov. 7, 1953, in Moscow. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia. Member of the Communist Party from 1902. Wife of N. I. Podvoiskii.

The daughter of a steward of a private forest estate, Podvois-kaia joined the Social Democratic societies in Yaroslavl and Perm’ in 1898 and was a member of the Northern Workers’ Union. She conducted party work in Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, and Kostroma; in 1903 she was a member of the Yaroslavl RSDLP committee. She took part in the Revolution of 1905–07.

In 1906, Podvoiskaia was arrested and sentenced to exile in Siberia. She fled abroad and became a member of the Bern group of Bolsheviks. In 1908 she began working in St. Petersburg at the Zerno Publishing House, in trade unions, and at the journal Voprosy strakhovaniia (Problems of Insurance). In March 1917 she became assistant secretary of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP(B), and during the October days she worked on the Military Revolutionary Committee.

From 1918 to 1924, Podvoiskaia worked in the People’s Commissariat of Education, the Political Administration of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, and the Central Committee of the RCP(B). Beginning in 1924, she worked at the V. I. Lenin Institute, helping prepare Lenin’s writings for publication. She was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and a medal.