Matvei Shkiryatov
Matvei Fyodorovich Shkiryatov (
Early career
Matvei Shkiryatov was the son of a peasant, born in a village called Vishnyakovo, in Tula Province. He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, and worked in the illegal party organisation in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don and Tula.[1] He was arrested repeatedly, but avoided being deported to Siberia or held in prison for very long. There is no evidence that these arrests were for political activity.[2] He was drafted into the imperial army in 1915. After the February Revolution, he was elected to the executive of the Moscow and Tula soviets. In 1918–20, he was secretary of the Moscow branch of the Garment Workers' Union.
Party official
In 1921, Vladimir Lenin ordered a purge of the communist party, to remove unsuitable individuals who had joined during the chaos of the civil war. Shkiryatov was transferred to the staff of the Central Control Commission (CCC) to assist. At first, he was rooting out drunkards, criminals and other undesirables, but soon progressed to purging those who opposed Stalin on political grounds, which became his life's work. He was a member of the Praesidium of the CCC, 1923–34, and secretary of the CCC 1923-24 and 1930–34. In 1927–34, he was also of a member of the board of Rabkrin. In 1934, the CCC was reorganised, and renamed the Party Control Commission. He was its secretary in 1934–39, its deputy chairman in 1939–52, and a member of its praesidium until his death in 1954. He was also a member of the Central Committee of the communist party from 1939. In 1952 he became chairman of the Party Control Committee, a post he held till his death.[3]
Role in the purges
In January 1933, the Central Committee heard a case presented by Shkiryatov and the CCC Chairman
In 1933, the novelist
In February 1937, Shkiryatov again acted as a prosecutor at a plenum of the Central Committee, when the two of Lenin's former comrades, Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov were accused of having plotted against Stalin. He declared: "What makes you think, Bukharin and Rykov, that leniency will be shown to you?...We cannot limit ourselves to merely expelling them from the party...They must be prosecuted."[7] Both men were later put on trial, and shot.
Early in 1938, he was sent to the North Caucasus to purge the local party and ordered the arrests of the head of the
In January 1948, Shkiryatov was one of the officials present at a famous conference in the Kremlin to which the leading Soviet musicians, including Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev were summoned to be lectured on how to write music for a societ audience by Stalin's cultural chief, Andrei Zhdanov. Reputedly, on the second day, Shkiryatov noticed that Prokofiev, the composer of Peter and the Wolf was talking, and ordered him to pay attention. Prokofiev retorted; "I never pay attention to people who haven't been introduced to me."[10]
In December 1948, after the creation of the state of Israel had led Stalin to suspect that there were Jewish nationalists operating secretly in the USSR, Shkiryatov and the police chief Viktor Abakumov drew up a report denouncing Polina Zhemchuzhina, head of textile and wife of Vyacheslav Molotov for her links to the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.[11] She was exiled to Kazakhstan.
Personality
Leon Trotsky wrote an uncompleted note about Shkiryatov - "crushed, submissive, slightly drunken workingman. Little Shkiryatov would tell Lenin: 'Go away, don't bother us, or we'll burn you"[12] but his long career demonstrated that he was ruthless, and humourless. In 1933, he warned that communists should not make jokes, because jokes were "sharp weapons" and "jokes against the party are agitation against the party".[13] The historian A. Vaksberg wrote: "M. F. Shkiryatov - one of the most vile Stalinist apparatchiks, whose name, with full reason, stands in line with Yezhov and Beria. A long-time figure in the highest control organs of the party, who directed party cleansing and beating Party cadres. Worked hand in hand with the NKVD-MGB, had his "own" prison, where he personally interrogated especially important prisoners. He died without waiting for his conviction in any form."[14]
Shkiryatov died of a heart attack and his ashes were buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
References
- ^ Zalessky, K.A. "Mатвей Фёдорович Шкирятов". hrono.ru. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
- ^ "Шкирятов М.Ф." Правозащитники Против Пыток >> История карательных органов СССР >> Антигерои карательных органов СССР. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
- ^ "Шкирятов Матвей Федорович". Retrieved 9 September 2018.
- ^ Getty, J Arch and Naumov, Oleg V. (2010). The Road to Terror, Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. New Haven: Yale U.P. p. 49.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ISBN 978-1-62097-079-9.
- ^ Conquest, Robert (1971). The Great Terror. London: Penguin. pp. 130–31.
- ^ Getty, and Naumov. The Road to Terror. p. 154.
- ISBN 978-0-8179-2902-2.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ Medvedev, Roy (1976). Let History Judge, The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. Spokesman. p. 293.
- ^ McSmith, Andy. Fear and the Muse. p. 274.
- ^ "Записка М.Ф.Шкирятова и В.С.Абакумова О П.С.Жемчужиной, 27 декабря 1948 г." Документы ХХ века. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
- ^ Trotsky, Leon (1969). Stalin, Volume Two: The Revolutionary in Power. London: Panther. p. 247.
- ^ Getty, and Naumov. The Road Terror. pp. 50, 52.
- ^ "Матвей Фёдорович Шкирятов Матвей Фёдорович Шкирятов". Retrieved 9 September 2018.