Lazar Kaganovich
Ла́зарь Кагано́вич |
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In
office
5 March 1953 – 29 June 1957 |
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Premier
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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In
office
3 March – 26 December 1947 |
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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Nikita Khrushchev
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In
office
7 April 1925 – 14 July 1928 |
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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People's
Commissar for Transport
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In
office
26 February 1943 – 20 December 1944 |
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Premier
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Joseph Stalin
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Preceded by
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Succeeded by
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Alexei Bakulin
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In
office
5 April 1938 – 25 March 1942 |
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Premier
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Preceded by
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Aleksei Bakulin
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Succeeded by
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Andrei Khrliov
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In
office
28 February 1935 – 22 August 1937 |
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Premier
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Preceded by
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Andrei Khruliov
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Succeeded by
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Ivano Kovaliov
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In
office
13 July 1930 – 27 February 1957 |
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In
office
23 July 1926 – 13 July 1930 |
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Full
member of the 13th,
15th,
16th,
17th
Secretariat
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In
office
12 July 1928 – 21 March 1939 |
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In
office
6 June 1924 – 30 April 1925 |
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In
office
3 April 1922 – 18 March 1946 |
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In
office
12 July 1928 – 1 January 1926 |
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Personal
details
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Born
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Lazar Moiseyevich
Kaganovich
22 November 1893 Kabany, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire |
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Died
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25 July 1991 (aged 97)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
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Nationality
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Political party
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Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich (Russian: Ла́зарь
Моисе́евич Кагано́вич; 22
November [O.S. 10 November] 1893 – 25 July 1991) was a Soviet
politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin.
At his death in 1991, he was the last surviving Old Bolshevik. The Soviet Union
itself outlived him by a mere five months.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazar_Kaganovich
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Lazar
Kaganovich
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Early
life
Kaganovich
was born in 1893 to Jewish
parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev
Governorate, Russian Empire (now named Dibrova, Poliske
Raion, Kiev Oblast, Ukraine). Early
in his political career, in 1915, Kaganovich became a Communist organizer at a
shoe-factory where he worked.
Circa
1911 he entered the Bolshevik party (his older brother Mikhail Kaganovich had become a
member in 1905). In 1915 Kaganovich was arrested and sent back to Kabany.
During March–April 1917 he served as the Chairman of the Tanners Union and as
the vice-chairman of the Yuzovka Soviet. In May 1917 he became the leader of the
military organization of Bolsheviks in Saratov, and in
August 1917, he became the leader of the Polessky
Committee of the Bolshevik party in Belarus. During
the October Revolution of 1917 he led the revolt in Gomel.
Communist
functionary
In
1918 Kaganovich acted as Commissar of the propaganda department of the Red Army.
From May 1918 to August 1919 he was the Chairman of the Ispolkom
(Committee) of the Nizhny Novgorod gubernia. In 1919–1920,
he served as governor of the Voronezh gubernia. The years 1920 to 1922 he
spent in Turkmenistan as one of the leaders of the Bolshevik
struggle against local Muslim rebels (basmachi),
and also commanding the succeeding punitive expeditions against local
opposition.
In
May 1922, Stalin became the General
Secretary of the Communist Party and immediately transferred Kaganovich to
his apparatus to head the Organizational Bureau or Orgburo of the
Secretariat. This department was responsible for all assignments within the
apparatus of the Communist Party. Working there, Kaganovich helped to place
Stalin's supporters in important jobs within the Communist Party bureaucracy.
In this position he became noted for his great work capacity and for his
personal loyalty to Stalin. He stated publicly that he would execute absolutely
any order from Stalin, which at that time was a novelty.
In
1924 Kaganovich became a member of the Central
Committee. From 1925 to 1928, Kaganovich was the First Secretary of
the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR. He was given the task of "ukrainizatsiya"
- meaning at that time the building up of Ukrainian communist popular cadres.
He also had the duty of implementing collectivization
and the policy of economic suppression of the kulaks (wealthier
peasants). He opposed the more moderate policy of Nikolai
Bukharin, who argued in favor of the "peaceful integration of kulaks
into socialism". In 1928, due to numerous protests against Kaganovich's
management, Stalin was forced to transfer Kaganovich from Ukraine to Moscow,
where he returned to his position as a Secretary of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party, a job he held until 1939. As Secretary, he endorsed
Stalin's struggle against the so-called Left
and Right Oppositions within the Communist Party, in
the hope that Stalin would become the sole leader of the country. In 1933–1934
he served as the Chairman of the Commission for the Vetting of the Party
Membership (Tsentralnaya komissiya po proverke partiynykh ryadov) and
ensured personally that nobody associated with anti-Stalin opposition would be
permitted to remain a Communist Party member. In 1934, at the XVII
Congress of the Communist Party, Kaganovich chaired the Counting Committee.
He falsified voting for positions in the Central Committee, deleting 290 votes
opposing the Stalin candidacy. His actions resulted in Stalin's being
re-elected as the General Secretary instead of Sergey
Kirov. By the rules, the candidate receiving fewer opposing votes should
become the General Secretary. Before Kaganovich's falsification, Stalin
received 292 opposing votes and Kirov only three. However, the
"official" result (due to the interference of Kaganovich) saw Stalin
with just two opposing votes (Radzinsky, 1996).
In
1930 Kaganovich became a member of the Soviet Politburo
and the First Secretary of the Moscow Obkom of the Communist Party (1930–1935). He later headed the
Moscow Gorkom
of the Communist Party (1931–1934). He also supervised the implementation of
many of Stalin's economic policies, including the collectivization
of agriculture
and rapid industrialization.
In
the 1930s, Kaganovich, along with project managers Ivan Kuznetsov and, later,
Isaac Segal, organized and contributed greatly to the building of the first
Soviet underground rapid-transport system, the Moscow
Metro, known as Metropoliten imeni L.M. Kaganovicha after him until
1955. During this period, he also supervised the destruction of many of the
city's oldest monuments, including the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. In 1932, he led the suppression of the workers'
strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
Responsibility
for 1932–33 famine
Kaganovich
(together with Vyacheslav Molotov) participated with the
All-Ukrainian Party Conference of 1930 and were given the task of implementation
of the collectivization policy that caused a catastrophic 1932–33 famine (known as the Holodomor in
Ukraine). He also personally oversaw grain confiscations during the same time
periods. Similar policies also inflicted enormous suffering on the Soviet
Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, the Kuban region, Crimea, the lower Volga region, and
other parts of the Soviet Union. As an emissary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party, Kaganovich traveled to Ukraine, the central regions of the
USSR, the Northern Caucasus, and Siberia demanding the acceleration of collectivization and
repressions against the Kulaks, who were generally blamed for the slow progress of
collectivization. Attorney Rafael Lemkin in his work The Soviet Genocide in
Ukraine tried to present the fact of Holodomor to the Nuremberg
trials as a genocide of a totalitarian regime.
On
13 January 2010 Kiev
Appellate
Court posthumously found Kaganovich, Postyshev, Kosior
and other Soviet Communist Party functionaries guilty of genocide
against Ukrainians during the catastrophic Holodomor famine. Though they were
pronounced guilty as criminals, the case was ended immediately according to
paragraph 8 of Article 6 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine. The
importance of the case is its historical aspect that legally explains the
particularity of that historical event. By New
Years Day, the Security Service of Ukraine had
finished pre-court investigation and transferred its materials to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The
materials consist of over 250 volumes of archive documents (from within Ukraine
as well as from abroad), interviews with witnesses, and expert analysis of
several institutes of National Academies of Sciences. Oleksandr Medvedko, the Prosecutor General,
confirmed that the material gives clear evidence of the genocide occurring in
Ukraine.
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| Lazar Kaganovich, Joseph Stalin, Pavel Postyshev and Kliment Voroshilov in january, 1934. |
"Iron
Lazar"
From
1935 to 1937, Kaganovich worked as Narkom (Minister) for the railways. Even before
the start of the Great Purges, he organized the arrests of thousands of
railway administrators and managers as supposed "saboteurs".
From
1937 to 1939, Kaganovich served as Narkom for Heavy Industry. During 1939–1940,
he served as Narkom for the Oil Industry. Each of his assignments was
associated with arrests in order to improve discipline and compliance with
Stalin's policies.
In
all Party conferences of the later 1930s, he made speeches demanding increased
efforts in the search for and prosecution of "foreign spies" and
"saboteurs". For his ruthlessness in the execution of Stalin's
orders, he was nicknamed "Iron Lazar". During the period of the Great
Terror starting in 1936 Kaganovich's signature appears on 188 out of 357
documented execution lists.
One
of many who perished during these years was Lazar's brother, Mikhail
Kaganovich, who was people's commisar (Narkom) of the Aviation Industry. On 10
January 1940 Mikhail was demoted to director of aviation plant 124 in Kazan. In February
1941, during the 18th Conference of the Communist Party, Mikhail was warned
that if the plant missed its quotas he would be eliminated from the Party. On 1
June 1941 Stalin mentioned to Lazar that he had heard that Mikhail was
"associating with the right wing". Lazar reportedly did not speak in
the defence of his brother to Stalin, but did notify him by telephone. The same
day Mikhail committed suicide.
During
World War II (known as the Great Patriotic War in the USSR), Kaganovich
was Commissar (Member of the Military Council) of the North Caucasian and Transcaucasian Fronts. During 1943–1944, he
was again the Narkom for the railways. In 1943, he was presented with the title
of Hero of Socialist Labour. From 1944 to
1947, Kaganovich was the Minister for Building Materials. In 1947, he became
the First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party. From 1948 to 1952, he
served as the Chairman of Gossnab (State Committee for Material-Technical Supply,
charged with the primary responsibility for the allocation of producer goods to
enterprises, a critical state function in the absence of markets), and from
1952 to 1957, as the First Vice-Premier of the Council of Ministers. He was
also the first Chairman of Goskomtrud (State
Committee for Labour and Wages, charged with introducing the minimum wage, with
other wage policy, and with improving the old-age pension system).
Until
1957, Kaganovich was a voting member of the Politburo as
well as the Presidium.
He was also an early mentor of the eventual First Secretary of the Communist
Party Nikita Khrushchev, who first became important as
Kaganovich's Moscow
City deputy during the 1930s. In 1947, when Khrushchev was dismissed as the
Party secretary of Ukraine (he remained in the somewhat lesser "chief of
government" position), Stalin dispatched Kaganovich to replace him until
Khrushchev was reinstated later that year.
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May Day Parade 1957. Left to right: Georgy Zhukov, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Kaganovich, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov
and Anastas Mikoyan
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Later
life
Kaganovich
was a doctrinaire Stalinist, and though he remained a member of the
Presidium, he quickly lost influence after Stalin's death in March 1953. In
1957, along with fellow devoted Stalinists as well as other opponents of
Khruschev, Vyacheslav Molotov, Dmitri
Shepilov, and Georgy Malenkov (the so-called Anti-Party
Group), he participated in an abortive party coup against his former
protégé Khrushchev, whose criticism of Stalin had become increasingly harsh
during the preceding two years. As a result of the unsuccessful coup,
Kaganovich was forced to retire from the Presidium and the Central Committee,
and was given the job of director of a small Ural
potassium
factory. In 1961, Kaganovich was completely expelled from the party and became a pensioner
living in Moscow. His grandchildren reported that after his dismissal from the
Central Committee, Kaganovich (who had a reputation for his temperamental and
allegedly violent nature) never again shouted and became a devoted grandfather.
In 1984 his re-admission to the Party was considered by the Politburo,
alongside that of Molotov. At the time of Molotov's death in November 1986, he
was refused access to his friend's funeral because of his severe state of dementia.
Kaganovich
survived to the age of 97, dying in 1991, just before the events that resulted in the end of the USSR. He is buried in
the famed Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
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Kaganovich and his wife M. Privorotskaya
during WW1
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The
Wolf of the Kremlin
In
1987, American journalist Stuart Kahan published a book entitled The
Wolf of the Kremlin: The First Biography of L.M. Kaganovich, the Soviet Union's
Architect of Fear (William Morrow & Co). In the book, Kahan made a
series of claims about Kaganovich's working relationship with Joseph
Stalin and his activities during the Ukrainian famine, and
claimed to be Kaganovich's long-lost nephew. He also claimed to have
interviewed Kaganovich personally and stated that Kaganovich admitted to being
partially responsible for the death of Stalin in 1953 (supposedly by
poisoning). A number of other unusual claims were made as well, including that Stalin
was married to a sister of Kaganovich (supposedly named "Rosa")
during the last year of his life and that Kaganovich (a Jew) was the architect
of anti-Jewish pogroms.
After
The Wolf of the Kremlin was translated into Russian by Progress
Publishers, and a chapter from it printed in the Nedelya (Week)
newspaper in 1991, remaining members of Kaganovich's family composed the Statement of
the Kaganovich Family in response. The statement disputed all of
Kahan's claims.
Rosa
Kaganovich, who the Statement of the Kaganovich Family says was fabricated, was
referenced as Stalin's wife in the 1940s and 1950s by Western media including The New York Times, Time
and Life.
Miscellanea
In
1944, the newly launched light cruiser of the project 26-bis was named
after Lazar Kaganovich. It entered the Soviet Pacific Fleet in December 1944.
Kaganovich
is responsible for the use of the "eggs and omelette" metaphor in
reference to the Great Terror ( "Why wail over broken eggs when we are
trying to make an omelette!" ), a usage commonly attributed to Stalin
himself. The expression was first used in 1742 in reference to a French
Royalist counter-revolution.
According
to Time magazine and some newspapers, Lazar
Kaganovich's son Mikhail (named after Lazar's late brother) married Svetlana Dzhugashvili, daughter of Joseph
Stalin on 3 July 1951. Svetlana in her memoirs denies even the existence of
such a son.
Decorations
and awards
- Order of Lenin, four times
- Order of the Red Banner
- Hero of Socialist Labour (5 November 1943)
References
Compare: "Kaganovich,
Lazar Moiseyevich". Jewish Virtual Library. The American-Israeli
Cooperative Enterprise. 2013.
Retrieved 2016-05-23. Born in Kiev province, Kaganovich
joined the Communist Party in 1911 [...]. [...] For a number of years he was
the only Jew to occupy a top position in the Soviet leadership.
Rees, Edward Afron. 1994. Stalinism and Soviet Rail
Transport, 1928-41. Birmingham: Palgrave Macmillan [1]
Lemkin,
Raphael (2009). "Soviet Genocide in the Ukraine (reprint of 1951
article)". Holodomor: Reflections on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in
Soviet Ukraine. Kingston: Kashtan Press.
Ukraine court finds
Bolsheviks guilty of Holodomor genocide, RIA
Novosti (13 January 2010)
Yushchenko Praises Guilty Verdict Against Soviet Leaders For Famine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (14 January 2010)
Yushchenko Praises Guilty Verdict Against Soviet Leaders For Famine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (14 January 2010)
http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/kaganov_m.html
citing K. A. Zalesskiy, Stalin's Empire
Sebag Montefiore, Simon (2004). The Court of the Red
Tsar. Phoenix. p.668
Kahan, Stuart. The Wolf of the Kremlin: The First
Biography of L.M. Kaganovich, the Soviet Union's Architect of Fear (William
Morrow & Co, 1987)
See:
- Life - July 14, 1941. p. 19: "A sister Rosa first lived with Stalin, then after the suicide of his second wife is supposed to have married Stalin"
- Life - March 29, 1943. page 40: "His sister Rosa is supposedly married to Stalin"[2]
- Time - April 18, 1949: "Lazar Kaganovich, who is Stalin's brother-in-law"
- Time - July 23, 1951: "Lazar Kaganovich, long time politburo member and Stalin's brother-in-law"
- Life - March 16, 1953. page 22: "Kaganovich, the brilliant and energetic Jew, Stalin's brother-in-law"
- Life - April 13, 1953. page 168: "Kaganovich (a member of the Politburo and brother of Stalin's third wife)"
- Time - September 7, 1953: "Lazar Kaganovich (Stalin's brother-in-law)"
- The New York Times - November 22, 1953 KAGANOVICH DECORATED; Malenkov's Regime Gives High Honor to Stalin's Brother-in-Law
- Time - February 7, 1955 - "Lazar M. Kaganovich, wartime commissar for transport, reputedly Stalin's brother-in-law"
- Youngstown Vindicator - March 7, 1953: "Rosa Kaganovich"
- Milwaukee Sentinel - June 11, 1960: "Rosa Kaganovich"
- The New York Times - July 27, 1991: "Kaganovich's sister, Rosa"
Face
of a Victim is the autobiography of Elizabeth Lermolo, a woman who fled
Russia, arriving in the US in 1950. The book tells the story of the death of
Stalin's second wife Nadezhda (Nadya) as witnessed by Natalia Trushina, who was
employed as a housekeeper in Stalin's home, and who in 1937, Elizabeth Lermolo
shared an NVKD prison cell with. Rosa (Roza) Kaganovich, with whom Stalin was
having an affair, was whom Stalin and his wife were arguing about before she
died. This book alleges Stalin struck Nadya a fatal blow with his revolver.[3][4]
Robert
Payne mentioned Rosa in a 1965 biography of Stalin, where he said: "At
such parties he was always inclined to drink dangerously. Something said by
Nadezhda - it may have been about another woman, Rosa Kaganovich, who was also
present, or about the expropriations in the villages which were dooming the
peasants to famine - reduced Stalin to a state of imbecile rage. In front of
her friends he poured out a torrent of abuse and obscenity. He was a master of
the art of cursing, with an astonishing range of vile phrases and that
peculiarly." (The Rise and Fall of Stalin, p. 410)[5]![[3]](http://fotos.fotoflexer.com/83528af356c7cde87ea9568c398f117f.jpg){kind=link}
![[4]](http://fotos.fotoflexer.com/0de2fd0ccdd9cf209d95e831b12e7f3d.jpg){kind=link}
Harford Montgomery Hyde also wrote about Rosa in his 1982 biography of Stalin: "However, it has been established that after the birth of their second child Svetlana, Stalin ceased to share his wife's bed and moved into a small bedroom beside the dining room of the Kremlin apartment. It has also been stated that, after the Georgian singer's departure for Afghanistan, the woman who was the chief cause of their difference was another dark-eyed beauty, the brunette Rosa Kaganovich, sister of the commissar Lazar, with whom Molotov had previously had an affair. At all events, by 1931 Nadya was thoroughly disillusioned with her husband and most unhappy." (Stalin: The History of a Dictator, p. 260)[6]
"RUSSIA:
Stalin's Omelette" Time October 24, 1932
Vuolo, Mike (2013-12-30). "Let's
Resolve in the New Year to Stop Using That Expression About Breaking Eggs and
Making Omelets". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2016-03-23.
"Social
Notes" Time July 23, 1951
16.
Alliluyeva,
Svetlana (1969). Only One Year. Harper & Row. p. 382.
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