Nikolay Dobrokhotov (1879)

Nikolay Dobrokhotov was born on 22 May 1879, in the village of Rozhdestveno, Borovsky Volost, Danilovsky District, Yaroslavl Governorate, in the family of a village priest; he never mentioned the latter fact in his biography. He graduated from the Yaroslavl Theological Seminary.^[1]

He began working as a teacher at the Spas–Kiprianovskaya School in the Vyatka Volost. He actively conducted anti–government propaganda among the peasants, which led to a denunciation and dismissal, after which in 1905, he was transferred to the Zaozersky School of the Uglich District. In 1906, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolshevik) and, as a member of the party, was engaged in agitation and propaganda work in the countryside, distributing banned literature, for which he was fired in 1907.^[2] Due to his difficult financial situation, he sang in the church choir of the Spassky Monastery and lived in its dormitory; at the same time he continued his party work. He was arrested twice and spent several months in prison. In 1910–1913 he worked as a teacher in the Perm Governorate.^[1]

In 1915, he was drafted into the army. He served in Yaroslavl as a private of the 211th Reserve Infantry Regiment. After the February Revolution, he began active political activity, becoming an influential figure in the Yaroslavl Council of Soldiers' Deputies. In May 1917, he headed the provincial bureau of councils. In August, he became a member of the city committee for the protection of the revolution, which dissolved the officer organizations, disbanded the shock battalions, and removed the head of the garrison. In September 1917, as a representative from Yaroslavl, he attended a meeting in the Bolshevik Central Committee, which considered the issue of the speedy transfer of power into the hands of the soviets. In October 1917, he was in Petrograd, participated in the work of the Second All–Russian Congress of Soviets, the decisions of which secured the coming to power of the Bolsheviks.^[1]

On November 4, 1917, he was elected Chairman of the executive committee of the Yaroslavl City Council. Simultaneously, on November 10, he became the temporary commissar of the garrison, effectively its chief. In February 1918, at a meeting of the united congress of councils of the province, he was elected Chairman of the Provincial Executive Committee, that is, the head of the executive branch in the province. David Zackheim became the Head of the City Executive Committee, with whom Dobrokhotov had serious disagreements, in particular on the issue of the Brest Peace, in the ratification of which Dobrokhotov took part at the 7th Emergency Party Congress and the 4th Emergency Congress of Councils. A few weeks before the start of the anti–Bolshevik uprising in Yaroslavl, Dobrokhotov was relieved of his post, retaining his membership in the provincial executive committee. The heads of the city and provincial executive committees, David Zackheim and Semyon Nakhimson, were shot at the beginning of the uprising.^[1]

Dobrokhotov was sent for party work to the Tutaevsky District. In September 1918 he headed the district party committee and became a member of the executive committee of the district council. Delegate of the 8th Party Congress. In March 1919 he was summoned to Moscow to be at the disposal of the Central Committee of the Party. In early July he appeared in Yaroslavl as a representative of the Central Committee with broad powers in connection with numerous peasant and deserter uprisings in the province (the total number of rebels reached 25 thousand people). He chaired meetings of the provincial committee of the party and the provincial executive committee. In mid–July, the former Chairman of the Provincial Executive Committee, Tsvetkov, handed over all the affairs to Dobrokhotov as the temporary head of the executive branch. Having taken a number of urgent measures, he convened an extraordinary provincial party conference, at which a new leadership was elected.^[1]

By decision of the Central Committee, he was sent to Ukraine. He headed the Kherson Executive Committee and was engaged in the creation of a fortified area to prevent the breakthrough of the Wrangel troops to the right bank of the Dnieper.^[2] As the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine described him: "An old party member with a good Bolshevik temper... In a political situation, he quickly navigates... Not involved in squabbles. A worker of provincial scale".

He was a delegate from the Podolsk party organization to the 12th Congress of the RCP(b) in 1923. In 1924–1925, he served as People's Commissar of Labour of the Ukrainian Republic and at the same time headed the central commission to combat unemployment. Then for several years he managed the Soyuzkartofel Organization, which coordinated potato processing in the Soviet Union.^[1]