In 1916, he worked at the Kiev Arsenal factory as the party agitator. After the February Revolution he became the head of the Kiev Governorate Executive Committee, a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and a delegate of the VI Party Congress. He was a member of the Kiev revolutionary committee revkom during the Kiev Bolshevik Uprising and the Kiev Arsenal January Uprising. At the same time from December 1917 he was a member of the Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (CIK) and from March 1918 - a member of its Presidium.