At the beginning of the 20th century, a whole network of underground organizations operated in Russia, which brought the great ideas of the revolution to the people. In the struggle for a bright communist future, the Bolshevik men were helped by their faithful fighting friends. Serafima Deryabina is one of those brave women. Her entire short life was devoted to party work and the glorification of revolutionary ideals.
Young revolutionary
Serafima Ivanovna Deryabina is a native of Yekaterinburg. The future revolutionary was born on June 19, 1888 in the family of an official. Educated at the Yekaterinburg Women's Gymnasium. This educational institution was opened in 1860, its pupils were taught mathematics, natural sciences, Russian language, physics, history, Latin, pedagogy, foreign languages and the Law of God. The training lasted seven years, after which the graduates received the title of home teacher and could teach in public schools intended for the poor.
Deryabina graduated from the women's gymnasium in 1905, and from 1904 she joined the ranks of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). This organization was one of the main driving forces of the revolution, and its program served the great goal of the victory of the proletariat and the flourishing of socialism. What did the revolutionaries of the whole country fight for, often risking their lives and perishing? The main provisions of the RSDLP program promised the people:
- getting rid of autocracy;
- establishment of a democratic form of government;
- suffrage for all citizens;
- working day lasting 8 hours;
- cessation of redemption payments of peasants for the use of land by a landowner;
- the abolition of the practice of overtime work and fines.
These are the great goals and plans for the liberation of the people burned by the revolutionaries, who themselves, often, were representatives of the workers 'and peasants' class.
One of the main directions of Seraphima's work was propaganda. She led a circle of social democratic youth. Its members took an active part in the life of the party: they distributed leaflets, propaganda literature, and proclamations. One of these young revolutionaries brought up by Deryabina was Anatoly Ivanovich Paramonov. A great future awaited him as the head of the city councils of Yekaterinburg, Perm, Chelyabinsk, a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and a delegate to several congresses of Soviets.
Since 1907, Deryabina held the post of secretary in the Yekaterinburg Committee of the RSDLP. She did a great job in preparing for the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Empire of the II and III convocations. Because of her activities, Serafima Ivanovna was repeatedly arrested, forcibly deported, and often changed her place of residence. For the first time she was exiled to the Vologda province for two years, when the young revolutionary was not even twenty. But she returned and continued her work in different parts of the country: Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Tula, Chelyabinsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg. Since all members of illegal organizations needed nicknames or other names for conspiracy, Deryabin was known in the party under several nicknames:
- Antonina Vyacheslavovna;
- Pravdin;
- Nina Ivanova;
- Sima;
- Alexandra;
- Elena;
- Natasha.
Acquaintance with Lenin and changes in personal life
In 1913, Seraphima was elected a representative of the Ural Bolsheviks at a secret meeting of the Central Committee of the party in the Polish city of Poronino. Here she met Vladimir Lenin.
In 1914 Deryabina was exiled to Tula under the public supervision of the police. This link marked a change in the revolutionary's personal life. She met fellow party member Francis Wentzek and became his common-law wife. Thanks to their joint efforts, large-scale strikes took place at the Tula arms and cartridge factories in 1915. Another arrest and deportation to Kaluga followed, but a couple of Bolsheviks illegally left for Samara. They lived under the name Lewandovsky, Serafima worked in the hospital as a nurse.
After the events of February 1917 she was elected to the Samara Soviet of Workers' Deputies. The October Revolution elevated Deryabin even higher: she became a member of the Samara Provincial Executive Committee of the Party and was appointed Commissar for Printing Affairs.
In the summer of 1918, Samara was captured by the troops of the Czechoslovak corps, which was part of the white resistance. Ventsek was detained by the new government, but he died as a result of unauthorized reprisals of local residents. The scammers pointed to his common-law wife. Deryabin was arrested and, together with other supporters, sent by train to Siberia, where Kolchak was in charge.
Last years and death
On the way to Siberia, the brave woman managed to escape and return to party activities behind enemy lines. In the spring of 1919, she was delegated to the All-Siberian Conference of the Bolshevik Underground, held in Omsk, as a member of the Ural-Siberian Party Bureau. White counterintelligence discovered and arrested Seraphima in Yekaterinburg.
Shortly before the events in Samara, she contracted tuberculosis. After being arrested by whites, Deryabina, given her condition, was sent to the prison hospital. In July 1919, Yekaterinburg came under the control of the Red Army, and political prisoners were released.
Despite a serious illness, Serafima continued to work for the good of the Soviet regime. She became a member of the organizing bureau of the Yekaterinburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party. She headed the provincial women's department, participated in the publication of the "Worker Pages". Deryabina herself was engaged in literary creativity: she composed plays and poems on a revolutionary theme.
Her play "Dawn of a New Life" was staged in Yekaterinburg on November 7, 1919, to coincide with the next anniversary of the October Revolution. In 1920, this work was published in a book version. Vladimir Mayakovsky in his correspondence mentioned that Deryabina's creation was published in a circulation of 100 thousand copies, and called it "waste paper".
Shortly before her death, Seraphima went to the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets, where she was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. After returning to Yekaterinburg, Deryabina's illness worsened. She died on April 6, 1920 of consumption, two months before her 32nd birthday. By the way, the author did not find the publication of his play, published under the title "At the Dawn of a New World: A Tale of the Present".
Deryabin was buried in his hometown in a mass grave near the Eternal Flame. On the memorial stele you can read the following lines: "Eternal glory to the fighters of the revolution, heroes of the Civil War in the Urals, who gave their lives for the bright future of mankind - communism." One of the streets of Yekaterinburg, located on the border of three districts, is named in honor of the young revolutionary.
