The article is devoted to the role of political agitator in the early period of Soviet authority (1917—1920). The following aspects of the problem are considered: agitator activity, his professional duties, powers, rights — that is, the role of the agitator and his status in the eyes of the authorities; perception of the agitator by the population; "self-evaluation" of the agitator; subjective features of the personality of the agitator, who played a certain role in his professional activity. The functions performed by the agitator in the emerging party-state system were singled out, among them: representation function (presentation function); a whole series of pragmatic functions that concerned not so much the ideological influence as much as the solution of the pressing practical tasks of "Soviet construction"; function of socialization (political education) of the population; communicative function; mobilization function. The study was prepared on the archival materials of the Kaluga and Tula provinces.