14. The Tireless Organizer
Upon joining the Bolsheviks, Rosalia Zemlyachka proved herself a tireless party organizer. She spent most of her time bouncing between Saint Petersburg, Odessa, and various cities abroad to meet with exiles. She was a prominent radical figure in Moscow during the 1905 Russian Revolution, and played a key role in organizing that city’s barricades.
As a known revolutionary, Zemlyachka came in for a rough time in the subsequent Tsarist crackdown. She was arrested and jailed numerous times in subsequent years, and caught tuberculosis and developed heart disease behind bars. She finally fled Russia in 1909, her health broken, to join Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders in exile. She returned to Moscow in 1914, seemingly a spent force, only to spring back to life during the 1917 Russian Revolution.