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95-587: Alexei Rykov Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (Russian: Михаи́л Ива́нович Кали́нин , IPA: [kɐˈlʲinʲɪn] ; 19 November [ O.S. 7 November] 1875 – 3 June 1946) was a Soviet politician and Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary. He served as head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1946. From 1926, he

190-910: A far-left faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917, and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and Communist Party of the Soviet Union . The party's ideology, based on Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist principles,

285-862: A Bolshevik agent in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and played an active role in the Russian Revolution of 1905 . He was elected a member of the Party's Central Committee at its 3rd Congress (boycotted by the Mensheviks ) in London in 1905 and its 4th Congress in Stockholm in 1906. He was elected candidate (non-voting) member of the Central Committee at the 5th Congress in London. Initially supportive of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in

380-465: A core group of professional revolutionaries who would devote their full time and energy towards developing the party into an organization capable of leading a successful proletarian revolution against the Tsarist autocracy . The base of active and experienced members would be the recruiting ground for this professional core. Sympathizers would be left outside and the party would be organised based on

475-594: A farmer whose work had led the family to settle in Saratov died in 1889 from cholera while working in Merv . His widowed stepmother could not care for him, so he was cared for by his older sister, Klavdiya Ivanovna Rykova, an officeworker for the Ryazan - Uralsk railroad. In 1892 he began his first year of middle school in Saratov. An outstanding student, he started high school at age 13. He excelled in mathematics, physics and

570-683: A fourth stroke in January 1924, and in February, Rykov was chosen by the Council of People's Commissars as premier of both the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and of the Soviet Union , which he served as until May 1929 and December 1930, respectively. In December 1930 he was removed from the Politburo . From 1931 to 1937, Rykov served as People's Commissar of Communications on

665-563: A higher budget. One of the common methods the Bolsheviks used was committing bank robberies, one of which, in 1907, resulted in the party getting over 250,000 roubles, which is the equivalent of about $ 125,000. Bolsheviks were in constant need of money because Lenin practised his beliefs, expressed in his writings, that revolutions must be led by individuals who devote their entire lives to the cause. As compensation, he rewarded them with salaries for their sacrifice and dedication. This measure

760-412: A long time, he was afraid to tie his own fate to Stalin's. 'That horse', he was wont to say to his intimates, 'will some day drag our wagon into a ditch.' But gradually, groaning and resisting, he turned first against me, then against Zinoviev , and finally, with even greater reluctance, against Rykov , Bukharin and Tomsky , with whom he was more closely connected because of his moderate views. Kalinin

855-532: A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Politburo . Kalinin remained the titular head of state of the Soviet Union after the rise of Joseph Stalin , with whom he enjoyed a privileged relationship, but held little real power or influence. He retired in 1946 and died in the same year. The former East Prussian city of Königsberg , annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945,

950-643: A member of the reorganized Revolutionary Military Council, where he remained until October 1919. From July 1919 and until August 1921, he was also a special representative of the Council of Labor and Defense for food supplies for the Red Army and Navy. Rykov was elected to the Communist Party Central Committee on 5 April 1920 after the 9th Party Congress and became a member of its Orgburo , where he remained until 23 May 1924. Once

1045-461: A more organized revolutionary work. After the proposed revolution had successfully overthrown the Russian autocracy, this strong leadership would relinquish power and allow a Socialist party to fully develop within the principles of democratic centralism . Lenin said that if professional revolutionaries did not maintain influence over the fight of the workers, then that fight would steer away from

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1140-577: A rigid political structure was needed to effectively initiate a formal revolution. This idea was met with opposition from once close allies, including Martov, Plekhanov , Vera Zasulich , Leon Trotsky , and Pavel Axelrod . Plekhanov and Lenin's major dispute arose addressing the topic of nationalizing land or leaving it for private use. Lenin wanted to nationalize to aid in collectivization , whereas Plekhanov thought worker motivation would remain higher if individuals were able to maintain their own property. Those who opposed Lenin and wanted to continue on

1235-585: A separate Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists ) and then again after 1917. The Bolsheviks ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . The Bolsheviks, or Reds , came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the 1917 Russian Revolution , and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). With the Reds defeating the Whites and others during

1330-598: A separate party, convincing pro-Bolshevik workers within Russia to follow suit proved difficult. When the first meeting of the Fourth Duma was convened in late 1912, only one out of six Bolshevik deputies, Matvei Muranov (another one, Roman Malinovsky , was later exposed as an Okhrana agent), voted on 15 December 1912 to break from the Menshevik faction within the Duma. The Bolshevik leadership eventually prevailed, and

1425-460: A tentative agreement, and one of its provisions was to make Trotsky's Vienna-based Pravda , a party-financed central organ. Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law who was with the Bolsheviks, was added to the editorial board; but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations . The factions permanently broke relations in January 1912 after

1520-464: A viewpoint that Bogdanov had been exploring and developing as Empiriomonism . Having worked as co-editor with Plekhanov, on Zarya , Lenin had come to agree with the Valentinov's rejection of Bogdanov's Empiriomonism. With the defeat of the revolution in mid-1907 and the adoption of a new, highly restrictive election law, the Bolsheviks began debating whether to boycott the new parliament known as

1615-537: Is known as Bolshevism . The origin of the split was Lenin's support for a smaller party of professional revolutionaries, as opposed to the Menshevik desire for a broad party membership. The influence of the factions fluctuated in the years up to 1912, when the RSDLP formally split into two parties. The Bolsheviks' political philosophy was based on the Leninist principles of vanguardism and democratic centralism . After

1710-731: The 1905 Russian Revolution . Months prior to the October Revolution of 1917, he became a member of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets and was elected to the Bolshevik Party Central Committee in July–August of the same year, during the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party . Rykov, a moderate, often came into political conflict with Lenin and more radical Bolsheviks but proved influential when

1805-730: The Allied powers in order to resolve her internal conflict. Unfortunately for the Bolsheviks, Lenin's assumptions were incorrect. Despite his and the party's attempts to push for a civil war through involvement in two conferences in 1915 and 1916 in Switzerland, the Bolsheviks were in the minority in calling for a ceasefire by the Imperial Russian Army in World War I. Although the Bolshevik leadership had decided to form

1900-830: The Alliluyev family. Dismissed for taking part in a strike, and later deprived of the right to work in the Caucasus, he moved to Reval , in Estonia , where he was arrested again in 1903, he spent six months in custody in St Petersburg, then two and a half months in Kresty Prison . After his release, he returned to Reval, but was arrested again in 1904 and exiled in Siberia. Released in 1905, Kalinin returned to St Petersburg, and moved from job to job. In 1906, he married

1995-519: The Council of Labor and Defense . Two days later, Rykov was expelled from the Politburo , taking with him any chance of political advancement. On 30 May 1931, Rykov was appointed People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs , a position that he continued to occupy after the Commissariat was reorganized as People's Commissariat for Communications of the USSR in January 1932. On 10 February 1934, he

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2090-761: The February Revolution of 1917 and re-joined the Bolsheviks, although he remained skeptical of their more radical inclinations. He became a member of the Petrograd Soviet and the Moscow Soviet. At the 6th Congress of the Bolshevik Party in July–August 1917 he was elected to the Central Committee. During the October Revolution of 1917 , he was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in Moscow. After

2185-641: The February Revolution of 1917, Lenin returned to Russia and issued his April Theses , which called for "no support for the Provisional Government " and "all power to the soviets ". In the summer of 1917, especially after the July Days and Kornilov affair , large numbers of radicalized workers joined the Bolsheviks, which planned the October Revolution which overthrew the government. The party initially governed in coalition with

2280-908: The Kremlin Wall Necropolis , in one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin Wall . Three large cities ( Tver , Korolyov and Königsberg ) were renamed after Kalinin. Tver's historic name was restored in 1990, and Korolyov's in 1996 in honour of a famous Soviet/Russian rocket scientist Sergey Korolev . Kalinin Square and Kalinin Street which were named after Kalinin are located in Minsk , Belarus . Kalinin Street in Tallinn , Estonia

2375-714: The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , but increasingly centralized power and suppressed opposition during the Russian Civil War , and after 1921 became the sole legal party in Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union . Under Joseph Stalin 's leadership, the party became linked to his policies of " socialism in one country ", rapid industrialization, collectivized agriculture, and centralized state control. Lenin's political pamphlet What Is to Be Done? , written in 1901, helped to precipitate

2470-601: The Menshevik faction of the RSDLP, a position at odds with that of Lenin. He continued to oppose an armed uprising to overthrow the government of Alexander Kerensky throughout that summer. In the elections held for the Petrograd City Duma in autumn 1917, Kalinin was chosen as mayor of the city, which he administered during and after the Bolshevik Revolution of 7 November. In 1919, Kalinin

2565-604: The Military Collegium . Rykov wrote a letter to the collegium requesting clemency but failed to get them to overturn the verdict. On 15 March, most of them were executed. Rakovsky was executed in 1941. Rykov's wife, Nina Semyonova, née Marshak, was arrested in 1937. Yevgenia Ginzburg , who was also arrested in 1937, recorded being approached inside Butyrka prison by "a woman of about 55, with an expression of acute suffering on her face" who demanded: "Have they tried them yet? They've shot them, haven't they?" Ginzburg

2660-535: The Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union (USSR) in December 1922. The average party member was very young: in 1907, 22% of Bolsheviks were under 20 years of age; 37% were 20–24 years of age; and 16% were 25–29 years of age. By 1905, 62% of the members were industrial workers (3% of the population in 1897). Twenty-two percent of Bolsheviks were gentry (1.7% of

2755-758: The Third Duma . Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev , and others argued for participating in the Duma while Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky , Mikhail Pokrovsky , and others argued that the social democratic faction in the Duma should be recalled. The latter became known as " recallists " ( Russian : otzovists ). A smaller group within the Bolshevik faction demanded that the RSDLP Central Committee should give its sometimes unruly Duma faction an ultimatum, demanding complete subordination to all party decisions. This group became known as " ultimatists " and

2850-593: The United Opposition of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1926–27. After Kamenev voiced opposition to Stalin at the 14th Party Congress in December 1925, he lost his position as Chairman of the Soviet Council of Labor and Defense—which he had assumed from Lenin following Lenin's death—and was replaced by Rykov on 19 January 1926. Under his leadership vodka was heavily taxed, and became known as "Rykovka". Some of his political opponents claimed that he

2945-529: The United Opposition —which consisted of Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Trotsky—was defeated and its followers were expelled from the Party by December 1927. After the defeat of the United Opposition, Stalin adopted more radical policies and came into conflict with the moderate wing of the party. The two factions maneuvered behind the scenes throughout 1928. In February–April 1929 the conflict came to a head and

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3040-456: The socialist mode of production path towards complete socialism and disagreed with his strict party membership guidelines became known as "softs" while Lenin supporters became known as "hards". Some of the factionalism could be attributed to Lenin's steadfast belief in his own opinion and what was described by Plekhanov as Lenin's inability to "bear opinions which were contrary to his own" and loyalty to his own self-envisioned utopia . Lenin

3135-784: The titular head of state of Soviet Russia . The name of this position was changed to Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR in 1922 and to Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1938. Kalinin continued to hold the post without interruption until his retirement at the end of World War II . In 1920, Kalinin attended the Second World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow as part of

3230-629: The " War Communism " economic policy, and helped oversee the distribution of food to the Red Army and the Red Navy . After Lenin was incapacitated by his third stroke in March 1923 Rykov, along with Lev Kamenev , was elected by the Sovnarkom to serve as deputy chairman to Lenin. While both Rykov and Kamenev were Lenin's deputies, Kamenev was the acting premier of the Soviet Union. Lenin died from

3325-587: The 1908–09 struggle with Alexander Bogdanov for the leadership of the Bolshevik faction, Rykov voted to expel the latter at the June 1909 mini-conference in Paris . He spent 1910–11 exiled in France , and in 1912 expressed reproach towards Lenin's proposal that the Bolsheviks become an independent party. The dispute was interrupted by Rykov's exile to Siberia for revolutionary activity. Rykov returned from Siberia after

3420-408: The 1912 Bolshevik Party Conference held in Prague , where he was elected an alternate member of the governing Central Committee and sent to work inside Russia. He did not become a full member because he was suspected of being an Okhrana agent (the real agent was Roman Malinovsky , a full member). In November 1916, during World War I , while he was again working in a factory in St Petersburg, Kalinin

3515-414: The 2nd Congress vote, Lenin's faction won votes on the majority of important issues, and soon came to be known as Bolsheviks , from the Russian bolshinstvo , 'majority'. Likewise, Martov's group came to be known as Mensheviks , from menshinstvo , 'minority'. However, Martov's supporters won the vote concerning the question of party membership, and neither Lenin nor Martov had a firm majority throughout

3610-478: The Bolshevik Central Committee argued that the Bolsheviks had no choice but to start negotiations since a railroad strike would cripple their government's ability to fight the forces that were still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government . Although Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Rykov briefly had the support of a Central Committee majority and negotiations were started, a quick collapse of the anti-Bolshevik forces outside Petrograd allowed Lenin and Trotsky to convince

3705-403: The Bolsheviks emerged victorious in the civil war, Rykov resigned his Supreme Council of National Economy post on 28 May 1921. On 26 May 1921, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense of the Russian SFSR under Lenin. With Lenin increasingly sidelined by ill health, Rykov became his deputy at the Sovnarkom ( Council of People's Commissars ) on 29 December. Rykov joined

3800-482: The Bolsheviks formed their own Duma faction in September 1913. One final difference between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was how ferocious and tenacious the Bolshevik party was in order to achieve its goals, although Lenin was open minded to retreating from political ideals if he saw the guarantee of long-term gains benefiting the party. This practice was seen in the party's trying to recruit peasants and uneducated workers by promising them how glorious life would be after

3895-414: The Bolsheviks organised a Bolsheviks-only Prague Party Conference and formally expelled Mensheviks and recallists from the party. As a result, they ceased to be a faction in the RSDLP and instead declared themselves an independent party, called Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) – or RSDLP(b). Unofficially, the party has been referred to as the Bolshevik Party. Throughout the 20th century,

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3990-464: The Bolsheviks' split from the Mensheviks . In Germany , the book was published in 1902, but in Russia , strict censorship outlawed its publication and distribution. One of the main points of Lenin's writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by a strong, professional leadership with deep dedication to Marxist theoretical principles and an organization that spanned through the whole of Russia, abandoning what Lenin called "artisanal work" towards

4085-405: The Bolsheviks. He remained a self-described "non-factional social democrat " until August 1917, when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks, as their positions resembled his and he came to believe that Lenin was correct on the issue of the party. All but one member of the RSDLP Central Committee were arrested in Moscow in early 1905. The remaining member, with the power of appointing a new committee,

4180-409: The Central Committee to abandon the negotiating process. In response Rykov, Zinoviev , Kamenev , Vladimir Milyutin , and Victor Nogin resigned from the Central Committee and from the government on 17 November 1917 . On 3 April 1918 Rykov was appointed Chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy and served in that capacity throughout the Russian Civil War . On 5 July 1919, he also became

4275-411: The Congress as delegates left or switched sides. In the end, the Congress was evenly split between the two factions. From 1907 onward, English-language articles sometimes used the term Maximalist for "Bolshevik" and Minimalist for "Menshevik", which proved to be confusing as there was also a "Maximalist" faction within the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1904–1906 (which, after 1906, formed

4370-669: The Mensheviks made an alliance with the Jewish Bund , the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority. However, all factions retained their respective factional structure and the Bolsheviks formed the Bolshevik Centre , the de facto governing body of the Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP. At the 5th Congress held in London in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were in the majority, but the two factions continued functioning mostly independently of each other. Tensions had existed between Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov from as early as 1904. Lenin had fallen out with Nikolai Valentinov after Valentinov had introduced him to Ernst Mach 's Empiriocriticism ,

4465-403: The October Revolution finally overthrew the Russian Provisional Government and as such served many roles in the new government, starting October–November ( Old Style ) as People's Commissar for Internal Affairs on the first roster of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), which was chaired by Lenin . During the Russian Civil War (1918–1923), Rykov oversaw the implementation of

4560-412: The Politburo – Kalinin, Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov , Lazar Kaganovich , Kliment Voroshilov , and Anastas Mikoyan  – signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" ( Polish intelligentsia , priests, and military officers) kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus, ultimately leading to the Katyn massacre . Despite

4655-461: The Russian delegation. He was seated on the presidium rostrum and took an active part in the debates. Kalinin was a factional ally of Stalin during the bitter struggle for power after the death of Lenin in 1924. He delivered a report on Lenin and the Comintern to the Fifth World Congress in 1924. Kalinin was one of the comparatively few members of Stalin's inner circle springing from peasant origins. The lowly social origins were widely publicised in

4750-481: The USSR Supreme Council of National Economy and became Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and, simultaneously, of the Sovnarkom of the RSFSR , on 2 February 1924. According to Polish historian, Marian Kamil Dziewanowski , Rykov was placed in the position of Chairman of the Soviet Union due to support from Stalin as part of a wider effort to build an alliance in the Politburo . Dziewanowski argued that Trotsky rather than Rykov would have been

4845-458: The beginning of World War I loomed near. Joseph Stalin was especially eager for the start of the war, hoping that it would turn into a war between classes or essentially a Russian Civil War . This desire for war was fuelled by Lenin's vision that the workers and peasants would resist joining the war effort and therefore be more compelled to join the socialist movement. Through the increase in support, Russia would then be forced to withdraw from

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4940-446: The concept of democratic centralism . Martov, until then a close friend of Lenin, agreed with him that the core of the party should consist of professional revolutionaries, but he argued that party membership should be open to sympathizers, revolutionary workers, and other fellow travellers. The two had disagreed on the issue as early as March–May 1903, but it was not until the Congress that their differences became irreconcilable and split

5035-418: The council he formerly chaired. In February 1937 at a meeting of the Central Committee , he was arrested with Nikolai Bukharin . In March 1938, both were found guilty of treason and executed. Alexei Ivanovich Rykov was born on 25 February 1881 in Saratov , Russia . His parents were ethnic Russian peasants from the village of Kukarka (located in the province Vyatka ). Alexei's father, Ivan Illych Rykov,

5130-460: The ethnic Estonian Ekaterina Lorberg ( Russian : Екатерина Ивановна Лорберг ( Yekaterina Ivanovna Lorberg , 1882–1960). She changed her last name to Kalinina after the marriage. In the same year, he joined the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP, headed by Vladimir Lenin , and was on the staff of the Central Union of Metal Workers. He served as a delegate at the 4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , in April 1906, and to

5225-496: The formation of Party Schools as Proletarian Universities at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris organised by the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine Proletary . However, this proposal was not adopted and Lenin tried to expel Bogdanov from the Bolshevik faction. Bogdanov was then involved with setting up Vpered , which ran the Capri Party School from August to December 1909. With both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks weakened by splits within their ranks and by Tsarist repression,

5320-492: The idea of a completely classless society . This pamphlet also showed that Lenin opposed another group of reformers, known as " Economists ", who were for economic reform while leaving the government relatively unchanged and who, in Lenin's view, failed to recognize the importance of uniting the working population behind the party's cause. At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP , which was held in Brussels and then London during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over

5415-421: The less significant Moscow Soviet was dominated by the Bolsheviks. These Soviets became the model for those formed in 1917. As the Russian Revolution of 1905 progressed, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and smaller non-Russian social democratic parties operating within the Russian Empire attempted to reunify at the 4th Congress of the RSDLP held in April 1906 at Folkets hus , Norra Bantorget , in Stockholm . When

5510-401: The moderates, branded the Right Opposition , or "Rightists", were defeated and forced to "admit their mistakes" in November 1929. Rykov lost his position as Premier of the Russian SFSR to Sergei Syrtsov on 18 May 1929, but retained his other two posts. On 19 December 1930, after admitting another round of "mistakes", he was replaced by Vyacheslav Molotov as both Soviet Premier and Chairman of

5605-436: The natural sciences. At 15 Rykov stopped attending church and confession, and renounced his faith. He graduated from high school in 1900 and enrolled at the University of Kazan to study law, which he did not complete. Rykov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898 and supported its Bolshevik faction when the party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at its Second Congress in 1903. He worked as

5700-545: The natural successor to Lenin had he accepted the position of Vice Chairman . Along with Nikolai Bukharin and Mikhail Tomsky , Rykov led the moderate wing of the Communist Party in the 1920s, promoting a partial restoration of the market economy under NEP policies. The moderates supported Joseph Stalin , Grigory Zinoviev , and Lev Kamenev against Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1923–24. After Trotsky's defeat and Stalin's break with Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1925, Rykov, Bukharin and Tomsky supported Stalin against

5795-429: The official press, which habitually referred to Kalinin as the "All-Union Elder" (Всесоюзный староста), a term harking back to the village community, in conjunction with his role as titular head of state. In practical terms, by the 1930s, Kalinin's role as a decision-maker in the Soviet government was nominal. Although he was a member of the Politburo, the de facto executive branch of the Soviet Union, and nominally held

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5890-400: The old man asked Tito for a Yugoslav cigarette. 'Don't take any – those are capitalist cigarettes,' said Stalin, and Kalinin confusedly dropped the cigarette from his trembling fingers, whereupon Stalin laughed and the expression on his face was like a satyr's . Kalinin retired in 1946 and died of cancer on 3 June that year in Moscow . He was honoured with a state funeral and was buried in

5985-579: The party adopted a number of different names. In 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and remained so until 1925. From 1925 to 1952, the name was All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and from 1952 to 1991, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. As the party split became permanent, further divisions became evident. One of the most notable differences was how each faction decided to fund its revolution. The Mensheviks decided to fund their revolution through membership dues while Lenin often resorted to more drastic measures since he required

6080-458: The party membership rules. Lenin, who was supported by Georgy Plekhanov , wanted to limit membership to those who supported the party full-time and worked in complete obedience to the elected party leadership. Martov wanted to extend membership to anyone "who recognises the Party Programme and supports it by material means and by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the party's organisations." Lenin believed his plan would develop

6175-419: The party was the Russian police. The police were able to infiltrate both parties' inner circles by sending in spies who then reported on the opposing party's intentions and hostilities. This allowed the tensions to remain high between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and helped prevent their uniting. Lenin was firmly opposed to any reunification but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership. The meeting reached

6270-448: The party's objective and carry on under the influence of opposing beliefs or even away from revolution entirely. The pamphlet also showed that Lenin's view of a socialist intelligentsia was in line with Marxist theory . For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist ideal of social classes ceasing to be and for the eventual " withering away of the state ". Most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral and were loyal to

6365-497: The party. At first, the disagreement appeared to be minor and inspired by personal conflicts. For example, Lenin's insistence on dropping less active editorial board members from Iskra or Martov's support for the Organizing Committee of the Congress which Lenin opposed. The differences grew and the split became irreparable. Internal unrest also arose over the political structure that was best suited for Soviet power . As discussed in What Is To Be Done? , Lenin firmly believed that

6460-422: The revolution and granting them temporary concessions. Bolshevik figures such as Anatoly Lunacharsky , Moisei Uritsky and Dmitry Manuilsky considered that Lenin's influence on the Bolshevik party was decisive but the October insurrection was carried out according to Trotsky's, not to Lenin's plan. In 1918, the party renamed itself the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at Lenin's suggestion. In 1925, this

6555-440: The revolution, Rykov was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. On 29 October 1917 (Old Style), immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power, the executive committee of the national railroad labor union, Vikzhel , threatened a national strike unless the Bolsheviks shared power with other socialist parties and dropped Lenin and Leon Trotsky from the government. Grigori Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev , and their allies in

6650-421: The ruling Politburo on 3 April 1922, after the 11th Party Congress . A government reorganization in the wake of the formation of the Soviet Union in December 1922 resulted in Rykov's appointment as Chairman of the USSR Supreme Council of National Economy and Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of People's Commissars on 6 July 1923. After Lenin's death on 21 January 1924 Rykov gave up his position as Chairman of

6745-442: The second-highest state post in the USSR, Kalinin held little power or influence. His role was mostly limited to receiving diplomatic letters from abroad. Recalling him, future Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said, "I don't know what practical work Kalinin carried out under Lenin. But under Stalin he was the nominal signatory of all decrees, while in reality he rarely took part in government business." On 5 March 1940, six members of

6840-502: The total population) and 38% were uprooted peasants ; compared with 19% and 26% for the Mensheviks. In 1907, 78% of the Bolsheviks were Russian and 10% were Jewish ; compared to 34% and 20% for the Mensheviks. Total Bolshevik membership was 8,400 in 1905, 13,000 in 1906, and 46,100 by 1907; compared to 8,400, 18,000 and 38,200 for the Mensheviks. By 1910, both factions together had fewer than 100,000 members. Between 1903 and 1904,

6935-459: The two factions were in a state of flux, with many members changing sides. Plekhanov, the founder of Russian Marxism, who at first allied himself with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, had parted ways with them by 1904. Trotsky at first supported the Mensheviks, but left them in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and

7030-462: The two factions were tempted to try to reunite the party. In January 1910, Leninists, recallists, and various Menshevik factions held a meeting of the party's Central Committee in Paris. Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea; but under pressure from conciliatory Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin , they were willing to give it a try. One of the underlying reasons that prevented any reunification of

7125-452: The very high offices he occupied, Kalinin had very little real power, and was principally a figurehead, easily dominated by Stalin. According to the Russian writer, Roy Medvedev , "on the pretext of protecting Kalinin, Stalin kept him under virtual house arrest for a long time, with NKVD agents constantly in his apartment. Kalinin completely surrendered to Stalin, covering up the dictator's crimes with his great prestige. Trotsky wrote: For

7220-427: Was a heavy drinker, but in reality he was an abstainer. Rykov's Premiership encompassed drastic change in the power structure of the Soviet Union. From 1924 to 1930 the role of the Communist Party —informally led by Stalin who, as General Secretary , controlled Party membership—increasingly usurped powers from the legitimate governmental structures. Although an exact date cannot be given for Stalin's rise to power ,

7315-548: Was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Born to a peasant family, Kalinin worked as a metal worker in Saint Petersburg and took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution as an early member of the Bolsheviks . During and after the October Revolution , he served as mayor of Petrograd (St. Petersburg). After the revolution, Kalinin became the head of the new Soviet state , as well as

7410-459: Was admitted to hospital with tuberculosis. She was released in September 1954, after 16 years prison and exile. The Soviet government annulled the verdict in 1988 and rehabilitated him during the perestroika . Rykov was then reinstated in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Bolshevik The Bolsheviks ( Russian : большевики , bolsheviki ; from большинство, bolshinstvo , 'majority'), led by Vladimir Lenin , were

7505-479: Was arrested again and was due to be deported to Siberia, but was freed during the February Revolution of 1917. Kalinin joined the Petrograd Bolshevik committee and assisted in the organization of the party daily newspaper Pravda , now legalized by the new regime. In April 1917, Kalinin, like many other Bolsheviks, advocated conditional support for the Provisional Government in cooperation with

7600-617: Was changed to All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). At the 19th Party Congress in 1952 the Party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at Stalin's suggestion. Bolo was a derogatory expression for Bolsheviks used by British service personnel in the North Russian Expeditionary Force which intervened against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Adolf Hitler , Joseph Goebbels , and other Nazi leaders used it in reference to

7695-672: Was convinced otherwise by his family. As Stalin's Great Purge intensified in early 1937, Rykov and Bukharin were expelled from the Communist Party and arrested at the February–March 1937 meeting of the Central Committee on 27 February. On 13 March 1938, at the Trial of the Twenty-One , Rykov, Bukharin, Nikolay Krestinsky , Christian Rakovsky , Genrikh Yagoda , and sixteen other Soviet officials were found guilty of treason (having plotted with Trotsky against Stalin) and sentenced to death by

7790-487: Was demoted to a candidate (non-voting) member of the Party's Central Committee . On 26 September 1936, in the wake of accusations made at the first Moscow Show Trial against Kamenev and Zinoviev, and Tomsky's suicide, Rykov lost his position as People's Commissar of Communications, but retained his membership in the Central Committee. Expecting the worst, Rykov nearly decided to follow the example of his close friend Mikhail Tomsky and preempt arrest by committing suicide, but

7885-632: Was elected a member of the governing Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party as well as a candidate member of the Politburo . He was promoted to full membership on the Politburo in January 1926, a position which he retained until his death in 1946. When Yakov Sverdlov died in March 1919 from influenza, Kalinin replaced him as President of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee ,

7980-691: Was employed as a lathe operator in the Putilov factory . Kalinin joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, while still working at the Putilov works. The following year, he was arrested, imprisoned for 10 months, then exiled to the Caucasus, and found work as a craftsman at the Tbilisi railway depot, where he met Sergei Alliluyev, the father of Joseph Stalin 's second wife. He came to know Stalin through

8075-458: Was generally allied with the recallists. With most Bolshevik leaders either supporting Bogdanov or undecided by mid-1908 when the differences became irreconcilable, Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In 1909, he published a scathing book of criticism entitled Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909), assaulting Bogdanov's position and accusing him of philosophical idealism . In June 1909, Bogdanov proposed

8170-399: Was renamed Kaliningrad after him a year later. The city of Tver was also known as Kalinin until 1990, when its historic name was restored, one year before the eventual fall of the Soviet Union . Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin was born on 19 November 1875 to a peasant family of ethnic Russian origin in the village of Verkhnyaya Troitsa ( Верхняя Троица ), Tver Governorate , Russia . He

8265-552: Was renamed Kopli Street following Estonian independence. Prospekt Kalinina in Dnipro , Ukraine was renamed Prospekt Serhiy Nigoyan in January 2015 as part of decommunization in Ukraine . Alexei Rykov Rykov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898, and after it split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions in 1903, he joined the Bolsheviks, which were led by Vladimir Lenin . He played an active part in

8360-504: Was seen even by fellow party members as being so narrow-minded and unable to accept criticism that he believed that anyone who did not follow him was his enemy. Trotsky , one of Lenin's fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre . The two factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) were originally known as hard (Lenin supporters) and soft (Martov supporters). In

8455-692: Was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment in a labour camp. She was released shortly before her husband's death in 1946. Shortly before Kalinin died, the Montenegrin communist, Milovan Djilas , was one of a delegation of Yugoslav communists, led by Josip Broz Tito , who dined in the Kremlin with Stalin and other Soviet leaders. Djilas recalled: Old Uncle Kalinin, who could barely see, had difficulty finding his glass, plate, bread, and I kept helping him solicitously ... Stalin certainly knew of Kalinin's decrepitude, for he made heavy-handed fun of him when

8550-774: Was sentenced to five years exile in East Kazakhstan, but before that had expired, she was arrested again and exiled to the Yenisey region of Krasnoyarsk . In exile, she underwent two operations for cancer, could not work, and had to depend on her husband, Walter Perli (1907–1961), a former officer in the Estonian army, arrested during the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, whom she married in exile in June 1949. Perli, who worked as an accountant, also financially supported Nina Rykova's elderly sister, Yelena Tolmacheva, until he

8645-411: Was taken to help ensure that the revolutionaries stayed focused on their duties and motivated them to perform their jobs. Lenin also used the party money to print and copy pamphlets which were distributed in cities and at political rallies in an attempt to expand their operations. Both factions received funds through donations from wealthy supporters. Further differences in party agendas became evident as

8740-407: Was the elder brother of Fedor Kalinin . Kalinin worked with his father on the land until the age of 13. When he was 10, he was taught to read and write by an army veteran. At 11, he entered a primary school run by a local landowning family. When he finished school, the family took him to Saint Petersburg to work as a footman. At 16, he was sent as an apprentice in a cartridge factory, and at 18, he

8835-513: Was told this was Rykov's wife, vainly seeking news of her husband. Nina Rykov was shot on 4 March 1938. Their daughter Natalya, born 1916, worked for the NKVD as a teacher until her father's arrest, when she was sent into administrative exile in Tomsk , where she was arrested on 1 March 1938 and sentenced to eight years in the gulag for 'anti-soviet agitation'. On completing her sentence in 1946, she

8930-472: Was unable to protect his wife, Ekaterina Kalinina , who was critical of Stalin's policies and was arrested on 25 October 1938 on charges of being a "Trotskyist". At the time of her arrest Ekaterina and her husband Mikhail Kalinin were not living together. Although her husband was the chair of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1938–46), she was tortured in Lefortovo Prison and on 22 April 1939, she

9025-590: Was won over by the Bolsheviks. The lines between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks hardened in April 1905 when the Bolsheviks held a Bolsheviks-only meeting in London, which they called the 3rd Party Congress . The Mensheviks organised a rival conference and the split was thus finalized. The Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 Revolution and were a minority in the Saint Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies led by Trotsky. However,

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