Mikhail Tomsky
Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky (born
Efremov, sometimes
transliterated as
Yefremov,
October 31 1880,
Kolpino near
St. Petersburg -
August 22,
1936,
Bolshevo near
Moscow) was a factory worker,
trade unionist and
Bolshevik leader. He was the
Soviet leader of the All Russian Central Council of Trade Unions.
Tomsky attempted to form a trade union at his factory in
St. Petersburg resulting in his dismissal . His labour activities radicalized him politically and led him to become a
socialist and join the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1904 and eventually join the
Bolshevik faction of the party.
Tomsky moved to
Estonia (then part of the
Russian Empire) and was involved in the
1905 Revolution. He helped form the
Revel Soviet of Workers' Deputies and the
Revel Union of Metal Workers. Tomsky was arrested and deported to
Siberia.
He escaped and returned to St. Petersburg where he became president of the
Union of Engravers and Chromolithographers.
Tomsky was arrested in 1908 and then exiled to
France, but returned to Russia in 1909 where he was again arrested for his political activities and sentenced to five years of hard labour. He was freed by the
Provisional Government after the
February Revolution in
1917 and moved to
Moscow where he participated in the
October Revolution.
In
1920, he became
General Secretary of the
Red International of Labour Unions. He was elected into the
Central Committee in March 1919, to its
Orgburo in 1921 and to the
Politburo of the
Communist Party in April 1922.
|
Tomsky (center front) and the All Russian Central Council of Trade Unions members |
Tomsky was an ally of
Nikolai Bukharin and
Alexei Rykov, who led the moderate (or right) wing of the
Communist Party in the
1920s. Together, they were allied with
Joseph Stalin's faction and helped him purge the
Left Oppositionfrom the party during the struggle that followed
Lenin's death in
1924.
In 1928 Stalin moved against his former allies, defeating Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky at the April 1929 Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee and forcing Tomsky to resign from his position as leader of the trade union movement in May 1929. Tomsky was put in charge of the Soviet chemical industry, a position which he occupied until 1930. He was not re-elected to the Politburo after the 16th Communist Party Congress in July 1930, but remained a full member of the Central Committee until the next Congress in January 1934, when he was demoted to candidate (non-voting) member.
Tomsky headed the State Publishing House from May 1932 until August 1936, when he was accused of terrorist connections during the
First Moscow Trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev. He committed suicide rather than face arrest by the
NKVD secret police. He was posthumously accused of high treason and other crimes during the third (March 1938) show trial of Bukharin, Rykov and others. The Soviet government cleared Tomsky of all charges during
perestroika in 1988.
Politicheckie deyateli Rossii 1917: Biograficheskij slovar'. Moscow, 1993. Excerpts available
online.
