The international train from Moscow to Novosibirsk passes through Perm, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Omsk and other cities, the largest of which is Yekaterinburg with a population of more than one million. When I first came to Russia in the autumn to take the international train, I met Xie San, a man on the Manchurian border, who had gone to Yekaterinburg to do business, and he said that there was a new wholesale market for Chinese goods, and the scale was not small. The advantage of sitting in the international train is not only to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the way, but also to understand the cultural history of the cities along the way, especially Sveta has read a lot of books, and I can consult her anytime and anywhere, which has given me a lot of knowledge along the way.

In the early hours of the third day, the international parade reached Yekaterinburg. Sveta woke me up in my sleep: "Peng, Sverdlovsk has arrived, I have to go on duty in a while, I can't accompany you, wait for you to go back to your own box." "I clearly see in the timetable that this stop is Yekaterinburg, why does Sveta call it "Sverdlovsk"? I asked Sveta a little puzzled: "Sveta, isn't this station called Yekaterinburg?" Why do you call it Sverdlovsk? Sveta sat up, took a bottle of mineral water from the small table by the window, took a sip and handed it to me, "My dear, Yekaterinburg was called Sverdlovsk in the former Soviet Union, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was renamed Yekaterinburg, and I used to call it Sverdlovsk." After taking a sip of water, I asked, somewhat puzzled, "Sveta, why did this city change its name?" Sveta replied: "In the tsarist period, the city was called Yekaterinburg, named after Yekaterina I, during the Soviet period, in honor of Lenin's close comrade-in-arms Sverdlov, it was renamed Sverdlovsk, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government restored its original name Yekaterinburg. "So that's the case, and the change in the name of this city can already be seen in the Russian government's denial of the history of the Soviet Union. From my ignorance of Soviet history, I only know about Lenin's close comrade-in-arms Stalin, and it is the first time I have heard of Sverdlov as a person. To be able to name one of the largest cities in Russia in honor of a man shows that this person was very important at that time, and out of a strong curiosity about the history of the Soviet Union, I asked Sveta to tell me about Sverdlov this person.

Sveta told me that Sverdlov was the first nominal "head of state" in Soviet Russia. Sverdlov's full name Yakov? Mikhailovich? Sverdlov. Sverdlov was born at the end of the nineteenth century into a poor urban family in Nizhny Novgorod and was a Jew. His father Mikhail? Izlailevich? Sverdlov was a carver who helped the revolution by carving seals and forging documents for his children many times during the years when he was working underground. In his youth, Sverdlov had a small handicraft workshop, but it went bankrupt after Yakov was born.

Sverdlov's mother, Yelizaveta? Solomanovna was a delicate and capable housewife, but unfortunately her mother died when she was just fifteen years old. Elegant? Rice? Sverdlov had five brothers and sisters. Having lost his mother's love, Sverdlov left the family and went out to earn a living. He worked as an apprentice and then as a helper in a pharmacy, and from then on he began to read progressive books such as Lenin's Iskra newspaper and embraced revolutionary ideas. At the age of sixteen, Sverdlo joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and thus joined the revolution, and at the end of that year he returned to his hometown as an underground member of the organization. During this period, he was commissioned by the Nizhny Novgold and Solmovo party organizations to secretly build an underground printing house, and organized and led huge strikes and political demonstrations.

Sverdlov was repeatedly arrested and exiled by the Tsarist authorities, and was exiled to Turukhansk, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Here he met Stalin, who was also exiled. The two lived together for a week, and in addition to discussing the revolution, they also went to fish on the ice together to improve their lives, so they formed a certain friendship. After the February Revolution of 1917, Sverdlov returned from exile to Petrograd, where he met Lenin for the first time. At the Seventh Congress of the Bolshevik Party, both he and Lenin were elected to the five-member Presidium of the Congress of Delegates and were re-elected as members of the Central Committee, responsible for ********** and organisational work. At a time when Lenin was wanted by the Provisional Government and went underground, Sverdlov presided over several ********** meetings to discuss Lenin's instructions on armed uprisings. At the enlarged meeting of the Party Central Committee in 1917, he was elected as a member of the Party Headquarters to lead the armed uprising, and directly led the October armed uprising.

The day after the victory of the October Revolution, at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Sverdlov was elected a member of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and was elected Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, becoming the first state leader of the proletarian power in the world. In fact, Sverdlov was so powerful that he and Lenin issued many important decrees aimed at consolidating Soviet power and crushing the attacks of all kinds of enemies. Tsar Nicholas II's family was executed ******** Sverdlov. Silent, energetic, highly efficient, and with extraordinary organizational skills, Sverdlov soon became Lenin's indispensable right-hand man. After Lenin's assassination wound, Sverdlov took over all the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars. In the top leadership of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party at that time, Lenin was an unsurpassed leader; Trotsky was the founder of the Red Army and was mainly responsible for military work; Stalin started by engaging in national affairs; Zinoviev and Kamenev were mainly engaged in theory and did not want to do administrative work. Therefore, the main state and administrative work was entrusted to Sverdlov, and Lenin was relieved to let him do it. It can be said that before Stalin became general secretary of the ********** Secretariat, the person with actual unlimited power was Sverdlov.

From the victory of the October Revolution to the death of Sverdlov, Soviet Russia was put to the test. The "troika" of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Sverdlov led the Russian proletariat in an arduous struggle against enemies of all kinds. In order to defend the nascent Red regime, Trotsky, Stalin and several other leaders had to go to the front to direct the battle. A lot of organizational, logistical and other work was on Sverdlov's shoulders. After Lenin's death in August 1918, he had to preside over the work of the Council of People's Commissars. At that critical time, Sverdlov was like a machine, running day and night, and was known as the big red butler who managed everything every day.

Originally, Sverdlov was the first successor of Lenin, however, in the "Spanish flu" that swept the world, Sverdlov was also infected and died suddenly in 1919 at the age of 34. Lenin deplored Sverdlov's death. He commented: "The absence of Sverdlov is an incalculable loss for the Soviets, and we will have to organize another agency of several dozen people in the future to complete his work alone."

Listening to Sverdlov's story, I sighed, I did not expect that there was such a figure in the history of the Soviet Union, for politicians, life is over, and no matter how great the credit is, it can only go to dust. However, it was precisely because of Sverdlov's death that Stalin seized the opportunity of history and became Lenin's successor. If Sverdlov had not died prematurely, perhaps the Soviet Union would have been a different kind of history, and perhaps the Soviet Union would not have collapsed. Sverdlov's untimely death is a regret for history.