Józef Unszlicht
Józef Unszlicht or Iosif Stanislavovich Unshlikht[1] (Russian: Ио́сиф Станисла́вович У́ншлихт; nicknames "Jurowski", "Leon"; 31 December 1879 – 29 July 1938) was a Polish and Russian revolutionary activist, a Soviet government official and one of the founders of the Cheka.[2]
Biography
Unszlicht was born on 31 December 1879.[3] He was born in Mława, Płock Governorate, Congress Poland, in a Jewish family.[2] He joined the revolutionary movement in 1896, as a student in Warsaw studying electrical engineering. In 1900, he joined the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), led by Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches. For his conspiratorial activities in Warsaw and Łódź, he was arrested seven times in 1902–13.[4] In 1911, he joined the rozlamovists, a group of mainly younger SDPKiL members, led by Yakov Ganetsky, who opposed Jogiches' leadership methods, and who were close to Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The split became so acrimonious that the SDPKiL leadership accused Unszlicht of being a police agent, an accusation that seems to have been baseless.[5]
At the time of the
In May 1920, after the Polish army had been forced to retreat, Unszlicht ingratiated Lenin by advising him that if the Red Army invaded Poland, they would be welcomed as liberators by the Polish workers and peasants.[7] During the Polish–Soviet War, he was a member of the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee, which would have become the government of communist Poland had the Poles lost the war.
In 1921, Unszlicht was appointed Deputy head of Cheka, under Felix Dzerzhinsky, but they fell out in 1923, after a series of bomb attacks in Warsaw, which Unszlicht appears to have instigated, without consulting Dzerzhinsky or the leadership of the Communist Party of Poland.[8] He was transferred to the post of chief of supply for the Red Army, although Leon Trotsky, the People's Commissar for War, regarded him as "an ambitious but talentless intriguer" who had been placed there to undermine him.[9] On 6 February 1925, he was appointed Deputy People's Commissar for War. In 1930, he was transferred to economic work, in an apparent demotion. In September 1933, he was appointed head of the Civil Air Fleet. In February 1935, he replaced Avel Yenukidze as Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union.
Arrest and execution
Józef Unszlicht was arrested on 11 June 1937. Two weeks later, the head of the
Family
Unszlicht's brother Julian was a
His wife, Stefania was arrested for being the wife of a convicted counter-revolutionary and sentenced in August 1938 to either five or eight years in labour camps. She was released in 1943.[14] They had a son, Kasimir, a student and member of Komsomol, who died in 1929, aged 19.[15]
According to
Honours and awards
Order of the Red Banner |
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-005034-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-137-00830-5.
- ISBN 978-0-87569-142-8.
- ^ a b Abramov, V. "Уншлихт Иосиф Станиславович (Абрамов, 2005)". Расстрелянное полокление 1937-йи дрыге годы. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
- ^ Nettl, J.P. (1966). Rosa Luxemburg. London: Oxford U.P. pp. 584–585.
- ISBN 9780712606943.
- ^ Davies. White Eagle, Red Star. p. 141.
- ^ Carr, E.H. (1969). The Interregnum, 1923-1924. London: Penguin. p. 231.
- ^ Trotsky, Leon (1975). My Life. London: Penguin. p. 533.
- ISBN 978-0-8179-2902-2.
- ^ "Записка И.А. Серова и П.В. Баранова Н.С. Хрущеву о реабилитации группы бывших руководящих работников компартии Польши. 18 февраля 1955 г.(Note by I.A.Serov and P.V.Baranov to N.S.Khrushchev about the rehabilitation of a group of former leaders of the Communist Party of Poland. 18 February 1955)". Реабилитация: как это было. Документы Президиума ЦК КПСС и другие материалы. Март 1953 — февраль 1956. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
- ^ "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. СкрытьРеквизиты". Исторические Материалы. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8122-4064-1P. 283.
- ^ "Уншлихт Стефания Арнольдовна (1880)". Открытый Список (Open List). Retrieved 10 May 2023.
- ^ "Уншлихт Казимир (1909-1929)". Они тоже гостили на земле... (They also visited Earth). Retrieved 10 May 2023.
- ^ Krivitsky, Walter G. (1939). In Stalin's secret service: An Exposé of Russia's Secret Policies by the Former Chief of the Soviet Intelligence in Western Europe. New York: Harper Brothers. p. 246.