Andrei Bubnov

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Andrei Bubnov
Андрей Бубнов
16th Orgburo
In office
2 June 1924 – 10 February 1934
Personal details
Born
Andrei Sergeyevich Bubnov

(1883-04-03)April 3, 1883
Moscow Agricultural Institute
Occupationrevolutionary, politician, Communist ideologist

Andrei Sergeyevich Bubnov (

Bolshevik revolutionary leader, one of Bolshevik leaders in Ukraine, Soviet politician and military leader and member of the Left Opposition
.

Life

Early career

Bubnov was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk in Vladimir Governorate (now

Moscow Agricultural Institute, where he was involved in revolutionary circles from 1900. He failed to graduate. In 1903, he joined the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).[3] In summer 1905, he joined the Ivanono-Voznesensk party committee, and was their delegate to the 4th (1906) and 5th (1907) Party Conferences in Stockholm and London. In 1907–08, he was a member of the RSDLP's Moscow committee, and of the Bolshevik committee for the Central Industrial Region.[6] He was arrested in 1908.[3] In his autobiography, he stated that he was arrested 13 times during his revolutionary career, and spent four years in prison or in a fortress.[3]

Bubnov in 1906

On his release from prison in 1909 Bubnov was made an agent of the

Kharkov
.

In the Russian Revolution and Civil War

On the outbreak of the

First World War Bubnov became involved in the anti-war movement in Kharkiv, whence he had been deported after being expelled from St Petersburg. Arrested in August 1914, he was deported to Poltava. He moved To Samara, where he was arrested in October 1916, and exiled to Siberia in February 1917, but while he was in transit, he heard news of the February Revolution
, and made his way back to Moscow.

In Moscow, Bubnov was elected to the

Sokolnikov and Bubnov. This is sometimes regarded as the first Politburo,[7] but Trotsky's recollection was that this group was "completely impractical", since Lenin and Zinoviev were in hiding, and Zinoviev and Kamenev opposed the planned revolution, and "never once assembled."[8] Bubnov's real importance was as a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee. "It was this body rather than the party 'politburo' which made the military preparations for the revolution."[9] directed the seizure of power. His role was to supervise the seizure of the postal and telegraph systems. After the November revolution, he was appointed Commissar for Railways, before being sent to Rostov-on-Don to organise resistance to the newly formed White Army of General Kaledin.[3]

Members of the Ukrainian Military Revolutionary Committee, Volodymyr Zatonsky, Yuriy Kotsyubynsky, Andrei Bubnov, 1918

Bubnov clashed with Lenin for the first time when he opposed the decision to sign the

Left Communists, and moved to Ukraine, to organise partisan detachments in the 'neutral zone' east of the German front line.[3] He and Georgy Pyatakov, who led the left in the Ukrainian party, argued that Ukraine was not a signatory to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and that they were therefore entitled to organise partisan war against the Germans.[11]

In October 1918, Bubnov moved to

Democratic Centralists", who demanded less centralised control of the communist party, but on hearing of the outbreak of the Kronstadt rebellion, rushed north to take part in suppresing, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.[3]

In 1921–22, Bubnov was posted in the North Caucasus. In 1922, he was appointed head of the Agitprop department of the Central Committee,[6] which meant he was working alongside Stalin, the new General Secretary.

In the Soviet Union

Bubnov's last act as an oppositionist was to sign the

Declaration of 46, in October 1923, a call for greater party democracy organised by future members of Left Opposition who supported Trotsky in the power struggle that followed Lenin's death. In January 1924, while Lenin was incapacitated by a stroke, the head of the Political Directorate, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, a Trotsky supporter was sacked, and Bubnov was appointed in his place, despite his past as a left oppositionist. From then on, he was a reliable supporter of Stalin. In May 1924, he was restored to full membership of the Central Committee, which he retained until his arrest.In 1924–29, he was a member of the Orgburo.[4]

Andrei Bubnov (military uniform) and Maria Ulyanova at the meeting of the workers and peasants news correspondents 1926

Early in 1926, Bubnov was appointed head of a Soviet delegation to China, to investigate what seemed to be a breakdown in relations with the Chinese military authorities. He travelled under the name Ivanovsky, taking extraordinary precautions to hide his identity.

ECCI in November and December of that year.[2]

In 1929, he replaced

People's Commissar for Education. As Commissar for Education, he ended the period of progressive, experimental educational practices and switched the emphasis to training in practical industrial skills. It was in this capacity that he attended the First All-Russian Museum Congress held in Moscow in December 1930.[14]

Arrest and death

In October 1937, during the Great Purge, Bubnov arrived at the Kremlin for a meeting of the Central Committee, but was barred by the guards from entering. Frightened, he went back to the Commissariat for Education, and heard on the radio that evening that he had been removed from his post of People's Commissar.[15] He was arrested by the NKVD a few days later, on 17 October 1937.[4] He was then still a member of the Central Committee, which convened on 4 December, and received a message from Stalin saying that Bubnov had confessed to being 'an enemy of the people' and a German spy.[16] He was expelled from the Party Central Committee.

Though the charges were false, Bubnov did confess quite quickly – probably under torture – and became so co-operative that the NKVD put him in the same cell as Pavel Postyshev, who was refusing to incriminate himself, in the hope that Bubnov would help break his resolve.[17] On 26 July, Bubnov's name was included in a death list of 138 individuals submitted to Stalin, who ordered them all to be shot. After a 20 minute trial on 1 August 1938, he was sentenced to death, and shot the same day.[17][4][1] The

Khrushchev thaw.[2]
The Soviet government did not make public the lists of the purged persons who had already long been executed. Thus, their relatives were often still searching for them in various psychiatric hospitals in the 1970s, as was the case with Bubnov.

Notes

  1. ^ Formerly, officially said to have died on 12 January 1940[2]

References

  1. ^ a b "Жертвы политического террора в СССР". Lists.memo.ru. Retrieved 2013-06-13.
  2. ^ a b c "Andrei Bubnov", Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern.
  3. ^
    ISBN 0-04-947021-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link
    )
  4. ^ a b c d "Бубнов Андрей Сергеевич 1883–1938". Khronos. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  5. ^ "Guide to the history of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union". Knowbysight.info. Retrieved 2013-06-13.
  6. ^ a b c Shmidt, O.Yu. (chief editor), Bukharin N.I.; et al. (1927). Большая Советская Энциклопедия, volume 7. Moscow. p. 763. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin. A New Biography, translated and edited by Harold Shukman (New York: The Free Press, 1994), p. 185
  8. ^ Trotsky, Leon (1967). Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution, volume three. London: Sphere. p. 148.
  9. ^ Carr, E.H. (1969). The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923 volume 1. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. p. 105.
  10. ^ Schapiro, Leonard (1965). The Origin of the Communist Autocracy, Political Opposition in the Soviet State: First Phase, 1917–1922. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. pp. 106–07, 365.
  11. ISBN 0-671-20387-8
    .
  12. ^ Daniels. The Conscience of the Revolution. p. 102.
  13. ^ Carr, E.H. (1972). Socialism in One Country, 1924–26, volume 3. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. p. 785.
  14. JSTOR 10.5749/j.ctt18s310n.50
    .
  15. ^ Medvedev, Roy (1976). Let History Judge, The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. Nottingham: Spokesman. p. 357.
  16. ISBN 0-300-07772-6
    .
  17. ^ a b "Доклад Комиссии ЦК КПСС Президиуму ЦК КПСС по установлению причин массовых репрессий против членов и кандидатов в члены ЦК ВКП(б), избранных на ХVII съезде партии. 9 февраля 1956 г." Исторические Материалы. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Andrei Bubnov.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Andrei_Bubnov&oldid=1216923511"