In March 1919, on his way back from Kharkov to Moscow, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) of the Soviets, the supreme governing body of the Russian SFSR, Yakov Sverdlov made stops to speak at rallies and caught a cold. Despite this, on March 8, he took part in a meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian SFSR, chaired at the session of the VTsIK Presidium. His serious condition caused by Spanish flu, which was raging at that time, was reported on March 9. March 16, 1919, Sverdlov died. On March 18, 1919, he was buried with honors at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow.