Georgy Pyatakov

Yuriy Pyatakov
Юрій П'ятаков
Chairman of Provisional Government
In office
November 28, 1918 – January 29, 1919
President Hryhoriy Petrovsky
(chairman of VUTsVK)
Preceded by position created
Succeeded by Christian Rakovsky
1st Secretary of Central Committee of the CP(b)U
In office
July 12, 1918 – September 9, 1918
Preceded by position created
Succeeded by Serafima Hopner
3rd Secretary of Central Committee of the CP(b)U
In office
March 6, 1919 – May 30, 1919
Preceded by Emmanuel Kviring
Succeeded by Stanislav Kosior
Personal details
Born (1890-08-18)August 18, 1890
Cherkassy uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire
Died January 30, 1937(1937-01-30) (aged 46)
Moscow, Soviet Union
Nationality Russian
Political party RSDRP (since 1910)
Other political
affiliations		 Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Ukraine (1918)
Spouse(s) Yevgenia Bosch
Alma mater Saint Petersburg University
Occupation Politician/Statesman

Georgy (Yury) Leonidovich Pyatakov (Russian: Георгий Леонидович Пятаков; August 6, 1890 – January 30, 1937) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader during the Russian Revolution, and member of the Left Opposition.

Pyatakov (party pseudonyms: Kievsky, Lyalin, Petro, Yaponets) was born August 6, 1890 in the settlement of the Mariinsky sugar factory which was owned by his father, an ethnic Russian, Leonid Timofeyevich Pyatakov.

He started political activity as an anarchist while he was in secondary school, but joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1910. In 1912 he joined the Bolshevik faction. He was arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1912 with his partner, Evgenia Bosh, but they soon escaped and made their way to Switzerland where they joined the émigré revolutionary community. Pyatakov and Bosh remained together until she committed suicide in 1925 due to chronic poor health.

His opinion on some points of the theory and tactics of the revolutionary struggle contradicted that of the party Central Committee.

He was one of Lenin’s fiercest opponents on the national problem, with regard to the question of the course to be followed towards the socialist revolution, and on the issue of the Bolseviks' peace settlement with Germany.

Pyatakov lived in Ukraine from March 1917, heading the Kiev Committee of the RSDLP. He was repeatedly elected a member of the Central Committee. But he opposed the Ukrainian nationalists and stood for the transfer of power to the Soviets of Worker’s, Peasant’s and Soldier’s Deputies in Ukraine. He also headed the Kiev Military-Revolutionary Committee. He declared that the party had to throw out the idea of self-identification of every nation. He stood on the anti-chauvinistic international principles.[1]

In 1918 Pyatakov was a leader of a group of Left Communists in Ukraine. He was one of the initiators of Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine formation. At the First Congress of CP(b)U in Moscow, Pyatokov was elected the Central Committee secretary, and headed the unsuccessful anti-Hetman rebellion in August 1918. From October 1918 until mid-January 1919 he was a head of the Provisional Worker’s and Peasant’s Government formed by Bolsheviks for the fight with the Directory, and took part in the formation of the Red Army in Ukraine.

In March 1919 he attended the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, where he unsuccessfully opposed Lenin's position on national self determination.

Pyatakov was placed in charge of the management of Donbass coal mining industry in 1921, becoming a deputy head of the Gosplan (State Planning Committee) of the RSFSR in 1922, and deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR.

The likeness of Pyatakov’s Left-Communist views and Trotsky’s ideas led to his participation in practically all the opposition trends then designated as "Trotskyist".

He was expelled from the party for belonging to the "Trotskyite-Zinovievite" bloc, but was reinstated in 1928 after he renounced Trotskyism, and became Deputy head of Heavy Industries. He was appointed Chairman of the Board of the USSR State Bank in 1929 holding the position for a year.[2]

In 1936 he was again accused of anti-party and anti-Soviet activity, and expelled from the party. At his trial, he was accused of conspiring with Trotsky in connection with the case of the so-called Parallel anti-Soviet Party Centre, to overthrow the Soviet Government. He was accused of entering into a conspiracy with the Nazis with the intent of seizing power in the Soviet Union, promising to reward the Germans with large tracts of Soviet territory. The prosecution presented evidence that he had secretly met with Trotsky in Norway for these purposes. However, it later emerged that the Oslo airdrome reported that no foreign planes had arrived at the time of Pyatakov's supposed visit to Trotsky.

On January 30, 1937, he was sentenced to death and executed.

Pyatakov was rehabilitated posthumously in 1988, that is not until Gorbachev's time.

References

  1. ↑ Orest Subtelny, History of Ukraine
  2. ↑ "The State Bank of the USSR". Bank of Russia Today. Bank of Russia. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Georgy Pyatakov
Political offices
Preceded by
Valerian Obolensky		 Commissar of the National Bank of Russia
1917–1918 		Succeeded by
Aleksandrs Spunde (acting)
Preceded by
Mykola Skrypnyk		 Chairman of the Provisional Government of Ukraine
1918–1919 		Succeeded by
Christian Rakovsky
Preceded by
position created		 Chairman of the Main Concession Committee of the USSR
1922–1923 		Succeeded by
position liquidated
Preceded by
Aron Sheinman		 Chairman of Board of the Soviet State Bank
1929–1930 		Succeeded by
M. I. Kalmanovitch
Party political offices
Preceded by
position created
Emanuil Kviring		 1st Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine
1918–1918
1919–1919 		Succeeded by
Serafima Hopner
Stanislav Kosior
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