Aleksander Myasnikov [real surname: Myasnikyan] was born in Nakhichevan-on-Don into a family of a small merchant. He graduated from the Law Faculty of Moscow University (1912). After that, he worked as an assistant attorney. Since 1906, he was a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1906, he was arrested and sentenced to administrative deportation to Baku. Myasnikov conducted revolutionary activity in Moscow and Baku, collaborated with Bolshevik publications. In 1914 he was drafted into the army, ensign of artillery. After the February Revolution of 1917, he came from the front to Minsk. He was a member of the Minsk Committee of the RSDLP(b). April 1917 saw him elected to the Presidium of the Soldiers’ Committee of the Western Front. He was a delegate of the 6th Congress of the RSDLP(b) (July–August). From September 1917 to May 1918, Myasnikov held the post of Chairman of the Northwestern Regional Party Committee.

After the October coup of 1917, he headed the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Western Region and the Western Front based in Minsk. The 2nd Congress of Soldiers’ Deputies of the armies of the Western Front (November 1917) elected him Commander of the armies of the front. Then Myasnikov became Commissar of the military department of the Regional Executive Committee (Oblispolkom) of Soviets of the Western Region. He played a leading role in the elimination of the Stavka [Headquarters] in Mogilyov, the purge among the officers. He was elected as Deputy of the Constituent Assembly. In December 1917, Myasnikov was acting Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Since January 1918, he held the post of Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee of Soviets of the Western Region. In February 1918, he attempted to organize the defense of Minsk from the advancing German troops, which appeared a failure. On May 31, 1918, he was appointed Commander of the Volga Front fighting against the troops of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) and the Czechoslovak Legion. Myasnikov was a delegate to the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets (July 1918).

Since December 31, 1918, he was a member of the Provisional Revolutionary Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of Belarus. In early 1919, he was Chairman of the Central Bureau of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus, and in February 1919, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus (SSRB), Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, and People’s Commissar for Military Affairs of the SSRB. He was close to the “military opposition”, which advocated limiting the use of military specialists in the Red Army and expanding the rights of military commissars. In February – July 1919 he was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia, a member of the Presidium of the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belarus.

In the spring of 1919, he was recalled to Moscow and appointed military leader under the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) – RCP(b). His subsequent career included the following posts: since September 1919, Secretary of the Moscow Committee of the RCP(b). During the Soviet-Polish War (summer 1920), Head of the political Department of the Western Front.

Since May 1921, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, People’s Commissar for Military Affairs of the Armenian SSR, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of Transcaucasian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. A member of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(b). Since 1922, Chairman of the Union Soviet of the Transcaucasian SFSR, First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the RCP(b). In 1923–1925, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, a member of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. A candidate member of the Central Committee of the RCP(b). Killed in a plane crash.