Vasiliy Mantsev
Vasiliy Nikolaevich Mantsev was a Russian revolutionary
Mantsev attended Moscow University to study law. He was active in the 1905 Revolution, joining the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906. After several arrests he was sent into internal exile, but in 1911 he went abroad, returning illegally in 1913. However he was once again arrested and exiled to Vologda Oblast. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party with whom he remained as the party developed into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
He was called up for the Army in 1916. In 1917 he was elected to the regional bureau of the Moscow Soviet, and he played a role in the Bolshevik seizure of power in that city in October of that year. He joined the Cheka September in 1918, where he headed the investigations department. He was also vice-chairman of the Moscow Cheka.
In 1921 he received instructions from Lenin to go Kharkov to Lenin to deal with the Popular Socialist economist Alexey Peshekhonov who was working for the People's Commissariat for Agriculture. Mantsev's instructions were to spy on Peshekhonov, to list and spy on his associates, ensure that Peshekhonov resigned from the Ukrainian Central Committee and that he return to Moscow.
