1952-2015
Elya Afanasievna Kerimova (maiden name Kim) was born on August 31,
1952, in the kolkhoz named Karl Marx, Postdargomsky region, Samarkand
province, Uzbek SSR. According to her wish she went to the local
Russian language school. Early in school she started to read books
about the world workers’movement and seriously studied the political
problems of society. In 1976 Elya graduated from Samarkand’s Food
College as a technician- technologist. For the last 30 years of her
life she permanently lived and worked in Leningrad.
Almost immediately after her relocation to Leningrad, ElyaAfanasievna started to actively participate in the political struggle of the working class. It was the time when the legalised so-called democratic bourgeoisie started its struggle for state power against Khrushchev-Brezhnev “Soviet” social- imperialism. In the minds of the petty bourgeoisie, as well as a number of workers, there was confusion and disorientation. The majority of ordinary citizens did not understand that it was not a struggle between “communists” and newly appeared “democrats”, but between two groups of large capital.
In that difficult period in the life of our society Elya Afanasievna was convinced that Soviet socialism and the proletarian dictatorship were linked to the name of Lenin and Stalin. Her introduction to the works of Enver Hoxha made her conviction in the correctness of her chosen path even stronger. Until her death Elya never swayed from her political line. Because of this her comrades in the struggle called her “Iron Felix”, as the workers called Felix Dzerzhinsky in his time.
Elya Afanasievna was one of the most active members of the ‘Proletarskaya Gazeta’ Editorial Board since its founding. She carried out the most difficult and responsible work of practical class revolutionary agitation amongst Leningrad’s petty bourgeoisie and the workers of many cities of our country. She was well-known to the workers of Severodvinsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Ryazan, Moscow, Donetsk and other cities. For her active and unyielding class revolutionary agitation she was arrested many times, went through several trials and was tortured and beaten by reactionary elements. However her will and convictions were not broken.
Comrades
in struggle buried Elya Afanasievna Kerimova in Kovalevsky Cemetery
with all honours befitting to the memory of an advanced fighter for the
revolutionary cause of the working class of our time. Her name will be
placed in the ranks of the revolutionary fighters of our epoch.