Statue of Yakov Sverdlov, Yekaterinburg (must see)

Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov, also known under the pseudonyms "Andrei", "Mikhalych", "Max", "Smirnov", "Permyakov", was a Bolshevik party leader and an official of the Russian Soviet Republic. After the 1917 February Revolution he returned to Petrograd from exile and was re-elected to the Central Committee. He played an important role in planning the October Revolution. Research in 1990 by the Moscow playwright and historian Edvard Radzinsky uncovered Sverdlov's role in the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Sverdlov ordered their execution on July 16, 1918, which took place in the city of Yekaterinburg. A close ally of Vladimir Lenin, Sverdlov played an important part in persuading leading Bolsheviks to accept the controversial decisions to close down the Constituent Assembly and to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.