Yakov Sverdlov | |
|---|---|
| Яков Свердлов | |
 Sverdlov in 1918 | |
| ActingChairman of theCouncil of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR | |
| In office 30 August 1918 – 14 October 1918 | |
| Preceded by | Vladimir Lenin |
| Succeeded by | Vladimir Lenin |
| Chairman of theSecretariat of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) | |
| In office 8 March 1918 – 16 March 1919 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Elena Stasova (as Responsible Secretary) |
| Chairman of theCentral Executive Committee of theAll-Russian Congress of Soviets | |
| In office 21 November 1917 – 16 March 1919 | |
| Preceded by | Lev Kamenev |
| Succeeded by | Mikhail Vladimirsky(acting) |
| Member of the Russian Constituent Assembly | |
| In office 25 November 1917 – 20 January 1918[a] | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Constituency | Simbirsk |
| Member of the6th,7thBureau | |
| In office 29 November 1917 – 16 March 1919 | |
| Member of the6th,7thSecretariat | |
| In office 6 August 1917 – 16 March 1919 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1885-06-03)3 June 1885 Nizhny Novgorod,Nizhny Novgorod Governorate,Russian Empire |
| Died | 16 March 1919(1919-03-16) (aged 33) Moscow,Russian SFSR |
| Resting place | Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow |
| Nationality | |
| Political party | RSDLP(1902–1912) Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)(1912–1919) |
| Spouse | Klavdia Novgorodtseva |
| Children | Andrei, Vera |
| Relatives | Zinovy Peshkov (brother) Venyamin Sverdlov (brother) Leopold Averbakh (nephew) Ida Averbakh (niece) |
Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov[b] (3 June [O.S. 22 May] 1885 – 16 March 1919) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A keyBolshevik organizer of theOctober Revolution of 1917, Sverdlov served aschairman of theSecretariat of theRussian Communist Party from 1918 until his death in 1919, and aschairman of theAll-Russian Central Executive Committee (head of state) from 1917 until his death.
Born inNizhny Novgorod to a Jewish family active in revolutionary politics, Sverdlov joined theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902 and supportedVladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction from 1903. He was active in theUrals during the failedRevolution of 1905, and over the next decade was subjected to constant imprisonment and exile. After the 1917February Revolution overthrew the monarchy, Sverdlov returned toPetrograd and was appointed a secretary of the party's central committee. In this capacity, he played a key role in planning the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks came to power. Sverdlov became one of most powerful figures in the Soviet regime, with Lenin,Leon Trotsky, andJoseph Stalin.
In November 1917, Sverdlov was elected chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, thede facto head of state. He worked to consolidate Bolshevik control of the new regime and supported theRed Terror campaign anddecossackization policies. He played major roles in the dissolution of theConstituent Assembly in January 1918, in persuading party members to support theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk signed with theCentral Powers that March, and in authorising theexecution of the Romanov family that July. He also served as the acting chairman of the Soviet government afteran assassination attempt on Lenin in 1918.
In March 1919, Sverdlov died at age 33 of theSpanish flu, and was buried in theKremlin Wall Necropolis. The city ofYekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) andTheatre Square in Moscow were renamed in his honour. Some historians regard his untimely death as a key factor which enabled therise of Stalin afterLenin's death in 1924, as Sverdlov was a natural candidate for the post of General Secretary held by Stalin from 1922.[1][2]
Sverdlov was born inNizhny Novgorod as Yakov-Aaron Mikhailovich Sverdlov[3] toJewish parents, Mikhail Izrailevich Sverdlov and Elizaveta Solomonova. His father was a politically activeengraver who producedforged documents and stored arms for the revolutionary underground. The Sverdlov family had six children: two daughters (Sophia and Sara) and four sons (Zinovy, Yakov, Veniamin, and Lev). After his wife's death in 1900, Mikhail converted with his family to theRussian Orthodox Church, married Maria Aleksandrovna Kormiltseva, and had two more sons, Herman and Alexander. Sverdlov's father was sympathetic to his children's socialist tendencies and 5 out of his 6 children would become involved in revolutionary politics at some point. Mikhail watched as his household slowly became a revolutionary hotspot, where the Novgorod Social Democrats would meet, write pamphlets, and even forge stamps for false passports. Yakov's eldest brotherZinovy was adopted byMaxim Gorky, who was a frequent guest at the house. Zinovy was the only Sverdlov to reject revolutionary politics and had little to no contact with Yakov after the revolution.[4]: 147
Yakov excelled at school, and after 4 years in gymnasium left to become a pharmacist's apprentice and a "professional revolutionary," Sverdlov joined while a teenager theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902, and then later the Bolshevik faction, supportingVladimir Lenin. In his youth, Sverdlov became friends with a fellow revolutionaryVladimir Lubotsky (later known as Zagorsky). He was involved in the1905 revolution while living in theUral Mountains. Though never actually attending college, Sverdlov adopted the garb of the radical students at the time – "With his medium height, unruly brown hair, glasses continually perched on his nose, andTolstoy shirt worn under his jacket, Sverdlov looked like a student, and for us...a student meant a revolutionary."[4][page needed]
Sverdlov became a major activist and speaker in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1906, Sverdlov was arrested and held in the Yekaterinburg prison until his release. During his time in prison, Sverdlov continued to educate himself and others, reading Lenin,Marx,Kautsky,Heine, and more. Sverdlov attempted to live by the motto: "I put books to the test of life, and life to the test of books."[4] For most of the time from his arrest in June 1906 until 1917 he was either imprisoned or exiled. In March 1911, Sverdlov was held in the Saint Petersburg House of Pretrial Detention.
During the period 1914–1916 he was in internal exile inTurukhansk,Siberia, along withJoseph Stalin (then known as Dzhugashvili). Both had been betrayed by theOkhrana agentRoman Malinovsky. Of Stalin, Sverdlov wrote "The comrade I was with turned out to be such a person, socially, that we didn't talk or see each other. It was terrible."[4]: 48 Sverdlov, like Stalin, was co-optedin absentia to the 1912Prague Conference.[5] In 1914, Sverdlov moved to a different village, moving in with his friendFilipp Goloshchyokin, known as Georges. In early 1917, Sverdlov received news of thePutilov strike of 1917 in Petrograd. Alongside Goloshchyokin, he set out at once, arriving in Petrograd on 29 March 1917.
After the 1917February Revolution Sverdlov returned toPetrograd from exile as head of the Urals Delegation and found his way into Lenin's inner circle. He first met Lenin in April 1917, and was elected as one of five members of the Central Committee'sSecretariat in August 1917, after which he usurpedElena Stasova as the body's leading figure. In March 1918, he was elected Chairman of the Secretariat. According toPodvoisky, the chairperson of theMilitary Revolutionary Committee, "The person who did more than anyone to help Lenin with the practicalities of translating convictions into votes was Sverdlov."[4][page needed] As chairman of the Central Committee, Yakov played an important role in planning theOctober Revolution and helped make the decision to stage an armed uprising.[6] In November as the Bolsheviks debated whether to postpone or holdelections, Sverdlov advocated for immediate elections as promised. When the results came back showing that theSocialist Revolutionaries had won, Sverdlov, Lenin, andBukharin dissolved the assembly, leading to a civil war.[4][page needed]
Sverdlov is sometimes regarded as the firsthead of state of the Soviet Union, although it was not established until 1922, three years after his death. Sverdlov had a prodigious memory and was able to retain the names and details of fellow revolutionaries in exile. He promoted his friend and suite-mateVarlam Avanesov to second-in-command at the Central Executive Committee, and would later become a top official of the secret police. He also installedVladimir Volodarsky as commissar of print, propaganda, and agitation until his assassination in 1918. His organizational capability was well-regarded, and during his chairmanship, thousands of local party committees were initiated.[6] One of his comrades recalled that,
[He] could tell you everything you needed to know about a comrade: where he was working, what kind of person he was, what he was good at, and what job he should be assigned to in the interests of the cause and for his benefit. Moreover, Sverdlov had a very precise impression of all the comrades: they were so firmly stamped in his memory that he could tell you all about the company each one kept. It is hard to believe, but true.[4]: 134
Sverdlov was elected chairman of theAll-Russian Central Executive Committee in November 1917, of which his wife was also a part, becoming thereforede jure head of state of theRussian SFSR until his death. He played important roles in the decision in January 1918 to end theRussian Constituent Assembly and the subsequent signing on 3 March of theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk. In March 1918 Sverdlov along with most prominent Bolsheviks fled Petrograd and moved the government headquarters to Moscow – the Sverdlovs moved into a room in the Kremlin.[4]: 147
In March 1918, Sverdlov and the Central Executive Committee discussed how to best remove the "ulcers that socialism has inherited from capitalism" and Yakov advocated for a concentrated effort to turn the poorest peasants in the villages against theirkulak brethren. Alongside Bukharin, the party began a campaign of "concentrated violence" against many members of the landowning, capitalist, and tradesman classes of Russian society.[4][page needed]
A number of sources claim that Sverdlov, alongside Lenin and Goloshchyokin, played a major role in the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family on 17 July 1918.
A book written in 1990 by the Moscow playwrightEdvard Radzinsky claims that Sverdlov ordered their execution on 16 July 1918. This book and other Radzinsky books were characterized as "folk history" by journalists and academic historians.[7][8][9][10][11] HoweverYuri Slezkine in his bookThe Jewish Century expressed a slightly different opinion: "Early in the Civil War, in June 1918, Lenin ordered the killing of Nicholas II and his family. Among the men entrusted with carrying out the orders were Sverdlov,Filipp Goloshchyokin andYakov Yurovsky".[12]
The 1922 book by aWhite Army general,Mikhail Diterikhs,The Murder of the Tsar's Family and members of the House of Romanov in the Urals, sought to portray the murder of the royal family as aJewish plot against Russia. It referred to Sverdlov by his Jewish nickname "Yankel" and to Goloshchekin as "Isaac". This book in turn was based on an account by one Nikolai Sokolov, special investigator for theOmsk regional court, whom Diterikhs assigned with the task of investigating the disappearance of the Romanovs while serving as regional governor under the White regime during theRussian Civil War.[13] The investigating magistrate in Ekaterinburg in 1918 saw the signed telegraphic instructions to execute the Imperial Family came from Sverdlov. These details were published in 1966.[14]
According toLeon Trotsky's diaries, after returning from the front (of the Russian Civil War) he had the following dialogue with Sverdlov:[15]
My next visit to Moscow took place after the [temporary] fall of Ekaterinburg [to anti-Communist forces]. Speaking with Sverdlov, I asked in passing: "Oh yes, and where is the Tsar?"
"Finished," he replied. "He has been shot."
"And where is the family?"
"The family along with him."
"All of them?," I asked, apparently with a trace of surprise.
"All of them," replied Sverdlov. "What about it?" He was waiting to see my reaction. I made no reply.
"And who made the decision?," I asked.
"We decided it here.Ilyich believed that we shouldn't leave the Whites a live banner to rally around, especially under the present difficult circumstances."
I asked no further questions and considered the matter closed.
Following the assassination ofMoisei Uritsky and theassassination attempt on Lenin in August 1918, Sverdlov drafted a document that called for "merciless mass terror against all the enemies of the revolution."[4]: 158 Under his and Lenin's leadership, the Central Executive Committee adopted Sverdlov's resolution calling for "mass red terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents."[4]: 158 During Lenin's recovery Sverdlov moved into Lenin's office in the Kremlin and took over some of Lenin's official obligations, including chairing the meetings of theCouncil of People's Commissars.[16] He oversaw the interrogation of Lenin's would-be assassin,Fanny Kaplan, and even moved Kaplan from theChekaheadquarters to be held in a basement room underneath Sverdlov's apartment. Sverdlov's deputy Avanesov gave the order for Kaplan's execution and Sverdlov himself personally ordered that the body be "destroyed without a trace."[4]: 159
Sverdlov supported the Red Terror campaign, specifically when it came to the policy ofdecossackization that was started in 1917 as a part of the Russian Civil War. This policy resulted in the deaths of thousands of Cossacks, while the Soviet government confiscated land and food produced by the Cossack population. Sverdlov wrote that "not a single crime against the revolutionary military spirit will remain unpunished," and that the release of Cossack prisoners was unacceptable.[4]: 163 This policy was temporarily suspended in March 1919 while Sverdlov was inUkraine overseeing the election of theUkrainian Communist Party's central committee.
For the first 16 months after the Bolshevik revolution, Sverdlov was the third most powerful figure in the Soviet regime, after Lenin and Trotsky.Anatoly Lunacharsky, the People's Commissar for Education, wrote that Sverdlov (not Stalin) was the effective leader of the Bolshevik party during the July disturbances in 1917, when Lenin was in hiding and Trotsky and others were under arrest. According to Lunacharsky: "His memory contained something like a biographical dictionary of communism. In every aspect of character which had a bearing on their fitness as revolutionaries Sverdlov could judge people with extraordinary accuracy and finesse."[17] According to Trotsky, Lenin assumed that if the two of them were killed, it would fall to Sverdlov andNikolai Bukharin to take over leadership of the communist party. Though the title did not exist at the time, Sverdlov was thede factoGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party, the post that Stalin took over three years after Sverdlov's death.
Trotsky wrote that:
Sverdlov ... was truly beyond compare: confident, courageous, firm, resourceful – the best type of Bolshevik. It was precisely in those critical months that Lenin came to know and to appreciate Sverdlov. Time and again it happened that Vladimir Ilyich would pick up the phone in order to propose to Sverdlov a particular emergency measure and in most cases the answer he got was “Already.” This meant that the measure had already been adopted. We often made jokes on this topic, saying, “Well, in all likelihood, Sverdlov has it – already.”[18]
There are various theories on how he died and none can be proven officially such as poisoning, beating or flu. He is most commonly attributed to have died of eithertyphus or more likely theSpanish flu, after a political visit to Ukraine andOryol.[19][20] Kremlin doctors diagnosed him with the Spanish flu. Even as his illness progressed, he continued to perform his duties as chairman of the Central Committee. On 14 March 1919 Sverdlov lost consciousness and on the 16th he died at the age of 33.[4]: 164
He is buried in theKremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow. Today his grave is one of the twelve individual tombs located between theLenin Mausoleum and theKremlin Wall.
He was succeeded in an interim capacity byMikhail Vladimirsky, and eventually byMikhail Kalinin as Chairman of the Central Executive Committee, and byElena Stasova as Chairwoman of the Secretariat.
Sverdlov was married to a meteorologist,Klavdia Novgorodtseva (1876–1960), who had joined the Bolsheviks inYekaterinburg, her home town, in 1904, and was arrested for organising an illegal printing press. She and Sverdlov met after her release, and worked together during the1905 revolution. In 1906, she represented thePerm Bolshevik at the Fourth RSDLP Congress in Stockholm. She was arrested again when she returned to Perm, and spent a year in prison. Released in 1910, she joined Sverdlov in St Petersburg, and was arrested again in 1910, but because of her pregnancy was sent back to Yekaterinburg. When she returned illegally to St Petersburg in 1912, she was arrested, held in a cell with her infant son, and deported to Siberia.[21] In 1915 Klavdia joined Yakov in exile in the village ofMonastyrskoe, where together they ran a Bolshevik reading circle in the town, which, though illegal, escaped the notice of the local authorities. After the Bolshevik revolution, she worked with Sverdlov in the party secretariat. From 1920 until she retired in 1946, she worked in education, as a specialist in children's literature.
Sverdlov and Novgorodtseva had had two children: a sonAndrei, who joined theNKVD and became notorious for persecuting other children of eminent Old Bolsheviks, and daughter Vera, born 1915.
Sverdlov's brother,Venyamin (1886–1939), emigrated to the US to become a banker, returning to Russia in 1917,[22] where he was appointed head of the Road Research Institute. He was arrested on 13 October 1938, accused of belonging to the counter-revolutionary terrorist organisation, and shot on 16 April 1939.[23]Sverdlov's sister, Sofia (1883–1951), worked as a doctor married a businessman, Leonid Averbakh, and had two children, a sonLeopold, who was shot in 1937, and a daughter,Ida, who marriedGenrikh Yagoda, the future head of theNKVD,[22] and was shot in June 1938. Sofia was arrested in 1937, sentenced to five years exile inOrenburg, then was arrested again and sentenced to eight years in thegulag. She died in a labour camp inKolyma.[24]
Daniel Swerdlove, the executive producer of theH3 Podcast, is a distant relative of Sverdlov.[25]
Media related toYakov Sverdlov at Wikimedia Commons
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets 1917–1919 | Succeeded by |
Heads of state of theRussian SFSR | |
|---|---|
| Chairmen of theCentral Executive Committee of theAll-Russian Congress of Soviets |
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| Chairmen of thePresidium of theSupreme Soviet | |
| Chairmen of theSupreme Soviet | |
