Grigory Petrovsky | |
|---|---|
Григорій Петровський | |
 Petrovsky in 1937 | |
| Chairman ofCentral Executive Committee of the Soviet Union (shared) | |
| In office 1922–1938 | |
| Chairman ofVUTsVK | |
| In office 10 March 1919 – 25 July 1938 | |
| Prime Minister | Christian Rakovsky Vlas Chubar Panas Lyubchenko Mykhailo Bondarenko Mykola Marchak Demyan Korotchenko |
| Preceded by | (post revived, previouslyVolodymyr Zatonsky) |
| Succeeded by | Leonid Korniyets (as the chairman of Presidium) Mykhailo Burmystenko (as the chairman ofVerkhovna Rada) |
| People's Commissar of the Interior of theRSFSR | |
| In office 17 November 1917 – 30 March 1919 | |
| Prime Minister | Vladimir Lenin |
| Preceded by | Alexey Rykov |
| Succeeded by | Felix Dzerzhinsky |
| Candidate member of the13th,14th,15th,16th,17th,18thPolitburo | |
| In office 1 January 1926 – 22 March 1939 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1878-02-04)4 February 1878 |
| Died | 9 January 1958(1958-01-09) (aged 79) |
| Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow |
| Nationality | Soviet |
| Political party | RSDLP (1898–1903) RSDLP (Bolsheviks)(1903–1918) Russian Communist Party (1918–1939) |
| Alma mater | Elementary |
| Awards | Order of Lenin (2) Order of the Red Banner Order of the Red Banner of Labour (3) |
| Signature |  |
Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky (Russian:Григо́рий Ива́нович Петро́вский,Ukrainian:Григо́рій Іва́нович Петро́вський,romanized: Hryhorii Ivanovych Petrovskyi; 4 February 1878 – 10 January 1958) was a UkrainianSoviet politician[2] andOld Bolshevik. He participated in signing theTreaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk. Petrovsky was Communist Party leader in Ukraine until 1938, and one of the officials responsible for implementing Stalin's policy ofcollectivization.[3][4]
Petrovsky was born in the village ofPechenihy inKharkov Governorate on 4 February (O. S. 23 January) 1878, in the family of a craftsman (some sources claim – son of tailor and laundrywoman). Grigory's father died when he was three. Petrovsky had two siblings.
After finishing two classes of school at theKharkiv Theological Seminary in 1889, Petrovsky was dismissed for not being able to pay for his tuition. Being 11 years old he left education for a job in the city working for alocomotive depot. In 1893, aged 15, he arrived inYekaterinoslav, where he found a job at theBryansk Metallurgical Factory (today Petrovsky Factory).
In 1895 Petrovsky joined the revolutionary movement and in 1898 enrolled in theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDRP) and joined the "Union in the fight for the liberation of the worker's class" as well as the Yekaterinslav committee of RSDRP. At this period of time he actively participated in the political agitation for theBolsheviks fromMykolaiv toMariupol, fromDonets Basin to Kharkiv, for which he was arrested in 1900 and 1903.
During theRussian Revolution of 1905, Petrovsky became one of the organizers and leaders of the Yekaterinoslav City Council of Worker's Deputies and the local Battle Strike Committee. However, he soon was forced to flee and for a brief period of time emigrated toGermany. In 1907 he returned toMariupol, where he worked as aturning specialist and continued his revolutionary activity at the factory "Russian Providence" (today – part ofIllich Steel and Iron Works).
In 1912, Petrovsky was elected a deputy to the Russian 4thState Duma as a representative of workers of theYekaterinoslav Governorate for the Bolshevik faction. During this time he also was a chief editor ofPravda. In January 1913 Petrovsky was included into theCentral Committee of RSDRP. It is known that in the Duma he spoke on 32 occasions, while the text of his 21st speech was prepared personally byVladimir Lenin. In his speeches Petrovsky was addressing the issues related to improving working conditions and life of miners and workers of Donets Basin.
With the start ofWorld War I in November 1914 he was arrested along with the other six Bolshevik members of the parliament and in February 1915 was sentenced to a lifetime exile inTurukhansky Krai (today – the northern part ofKrasnoyarsk Krai).
After the Bolshevik seizure of power, Petrovsky was appointed People's Commissar for the Interior Affairs between 30 November 1917 and 1 March 1919.[5] In this post he oversaw the activities of theCheka and was one of the advocates of theRed Terror, he wrote in his order "A huge number of hostages has to be taken to the bourgeoisie, in cases of resistance these hostages have to be shot in masses (....) No hesitation in the application of the terror"[6] He was a member of the Russian delegation during signing theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1917.
From 1919 he chaired the All-Ukrainian [from 1922, theUkrainian SSR] Central Executive Committee, and co-chaired the USSR Central Executive Committee of theCommunist Party. In January 1938 he was retired from these leading Party executive positions. Petrovsky had belonged to the party majority that opposed the Ukrainian national-communist orientation represented by Yurii Lapchynskyi andOleksander Shumsky, but in the 1920s had nonetheless supportedUkrainization and Ukrainian economic, cultural, and political autonomy.[7][2]
Some Ukrainian historians believe that Petrovsky andLazar Kaganovich were the main executors of Stalin's 1930s policies in Ukraine, part of which was the 1932–33 man-made famine, now known as theHolodomor.[2] According to the American CommunistFred Beal when, with Isadore Erenburg his superior in cultural-propaganda work at the prestigiousKharkov Tractor Plant, he asked Petrovsky what they were to tell their workers who were saying that "millions of peasants are dying all over Russia", Petrovsky replied:
Tell them nothing! What they say is true. We know that million are dying. That is unfortunate, but the glorious future of the Soviet Union will justify that. Tell them nothing![8]
Other historians, like Vasyl Marochko, a member of an official commission that investigated the Holodomor, say that when Petrovsky fully understood what was being perpetrated and realized the extent of the famine, he pleaded with Stalin to provide Ukrainians with food but this request went unheeded.[2]
He was not purged during theGreat Terror, but was shocked and saddened by the executions of close friends such asStanisław Kosior,Vlas Chubar andSukhomlin.[9][better source needed] Soon after the USSR celebrated its sixteenth birthday, he was interrogated byJoseph Stalin, who told him, "We shoot people like you but you will be spared"[9][better source needed] and then was excluded from the Communist Party and deprived of hisdachas and apartments.[9][better source needed] After a year without a job, in 1940 he was made the director of the Revolution Museum of the USSR inMoscow. During theSecond World War, after the death of his sonLeonid,[10] Petrovsky pleaded Stalin in a letter to release his imprisoned sonPyotr, but his son, who edited the Leningrad Pravda, was shot.[9]
According toAnton Antonov-Ovseenko in his bookThe Time of Stalin, Grigory Petrovsky settled in the attic of his Museum to a life of relative obscurity.[11] However, after Stalin's death in 1953, he was sufficiently rehabilitated so that, when he died in 1958 at the age of 79, his body was cremated and his ashes placed in theKremlin Wall Necropolis.[2]
The cityYekaterinoslav was renamedDnipropetrovsk after Petrovsky from 1926 until 2016.[2][12] Petrovsky himself was present at the provisional District Congress of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies that recommended this renaming and he did "accept this honor with great gratitude."[13] The resolution of the congress was approved by a resolution of thePresidium of the Supreme Soviet dated 20 July 1926.[13] On 20 May 2016 the city was renamed "Dnipro".[14] SomeUkrainians believed that the city should have been renamed after Ukraine gained independence in 1991.[2] The city was eventually renamed to comply with2015 decommunization laws.[15] Ukraine'sDnipropetrovsk Oblast was not renamed because as such it is mentioned in theConstitution of Ukraine, and the Oblast can only be renamed by aconstitutional amendment.[16]
A statue of Petrovsky inKyiv (the capital ofUkraine) was demolished in late November 2009, just days before the annual Ukrainian commemorating of the victims of the Holodomor.President of UkraineViktor Yushchenko had issued a decree ordering the removal of monuments to Soviet leaders, "in memory of the victims of the Holodomor".[2] Petrovsky's statue in then still namedDnipropetrovsk was demolished on 29 January 2016.[17] In April 2014 the local statue ofVladimir Lenin had already been demolished.[18]
Media related toGrigoriy Petrovskiy at Wikimedia Commons
