Yakov Sverdlov was born in Nizhny Novgorod, his father owned an engraving workshop. He studied at the gymnasium (1896–1900) but did not complete the course. He worked in a pharmacy. In 1901, Sverdlov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), since 1903, he was a Bolshevik. In September 1905, in the capacity of an agent of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, he was sent to Yekaterinburg, where he headed the Party Committee and the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. In February 1906, he was elected to the Ural Regional Committee of the RSDLP. Sverdlov was repeatedly arrested, exiled, and fled from exile. The Prague Conference of the Bolsheviks (1912) elected him in absentia as a member of the Central Committee and the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. In 1913–1917, he was in exile in the Turukhansk region of the Yenisei governorate together with Joseph Stalin.

In March 1917, he returned from exile to Petrograd to take part in the All-Russian Conference of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Sverdlov was sent by the Party to Yekaterinburg, where he led the work of the Ural Regional Party Conference. In April 1917, he was a delegate to the 7th All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP(b) in Petrograd and was elected a member of the Central Committee. After the conference, he headed the Secretariat of the Central Committee, where he was engaged in the staff administration and established contacts with local organizations.

On October 10, 1917, he chaired the meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b), which adopted a decision on an armed uprising. Sverdlov was a member of the Military Revolutionary Center, formed to lead the uprising, and a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. He was the leader of the Bolshevik faction at the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Since November 1917, Sverdlov held the post of Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK).

In January 1918, he opened the Constituent Assembly and later took part in its dispersal. In 1918, he was elected Chairman of the Commission for the development of the first Constitution of the Soviet state. He advocated the policy of splitting the rural population [based on social classes] and organizing Committees of the Rural Poor. He was an organizer of the Red Terror after the attempted assassination of Vladimir Lenin (August 30, 1918). Sverdlov opposed the election of the interim Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars. He held the Government meetings himself signing documents on behalf of Lenin while the latter was undergoing medical treatment.

Since January 1919, he was a member of the Organizational Bureau (OB) of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) – RCP(b). Sverdlov participated in the preparation of the 1st Congress of the Comintern, the first congresses of the Soviets of Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. In March 1919, on the way to Moscow from Kharkiv, he spoke at rallies, caught a cold, fell ill, and died suddenly in Moscow from the Spanish flu. He was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.