Nikolai Shvernik
Nikolai Shvernik | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Николай Шверник | |||||||||
 Shvernik in 1938 | |||||||||
| Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union | |||||||||
| In office 19 March 1946 – 15 March 1953 | |||||||||
| General Secretary | Joseph Stalin | ||||||||
| Preceded by | Mikhail Kalinin | ||||||||
| Succeeded by | Kliment Voroshilov | ||||||||
| First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet | |||||||||
| In office 4 March 1944 – 25 June 1946 | |||||||||
| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||
| Succeeded by | Position abolished (Until 1977)
22nd Presidium | ||||||||
| In office 29 June 1957 – 8 April 1966 | |||||||||
| In office 16 October 1952 – 5 March 1953 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||
| Born | 7 May 1888 RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1905–1918) (1918–1966)Russian Communist Party | ||||||||
| Spouse | Mariya Fedorovna Ulazovskaya | ||||||||
Nikolai Mikhailovich Shvernik (Russian: Николай Михайлович Шверник, 19 May [O.S. 7 May] 1888 – 24 December 1970) was a Soviet politician who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 19 March 1946 until 15 March 1953. Though the titular Soviet head of state, Shvernik had less power than Joseph Stalin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union.
Biography
Shvernik was born in 1888 in
In 1923, he was appointed to the staff of
Shvernik was a full member of the Central Committee from December 1925 until he died 45 years later. In April 1926, he was appointed to the
While the Central Committee and Central Control Commission were in joint session, in October 1927, debating whether to expel the leading oppositionists, including Leon Trotsky and Zinoviev, Shvernik displayed his loyalty to Stalin.[5]
In December 1927, when there were sudden food shortages in the cities because the peasants were holding back their produce in anticipation of rising prices, Shvernik was dispatched to the Urals, as regional party secretary.[6] He continued to support Stalin loyally through the rapid industrialisation of the soviet economy, which was opposed by almost the entire leadership of the trade unions. He was recalled to Moscow in 1929, and imposed as chairman of the Metallurgist Trade Union. From July 1930 to March 1944, he was first secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and a member of the Orgburo.
Shvernik presided over the 1931 Menshevik Trial,[7] in which fourteen Russian economists came up for trial on charges of treason. In February 1937, he was a member of the commission that investigated Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, the two most prominent former oppositionists still living the USSR, and voted that they should be expelled from the Central Committee, arrested, and shot.[8]
During the
Reputedly, Shvernik was so distressed by Stalin's death, in March 1953, that he was the only prominent party leader seen crying at the dictator's funeral.[2] Within days, he had been demoted back to his old status as a 'candidate' member of the Presidium, and Shvernik was removed as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and replaced by Kliment Voroshilov on 15 March 1953. He returned to his work as the chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. In December 1953, he was named as a member of the panel of judges who sentenced the former chief of police, Lavrentiy Beria and six others to death.
Despite his years of loyalty to Stalin, Shvernik was one of the most senior Old Bolsheviks to back
Shvernik died on 24 December, 1970 at Moscow at the age 82 and his ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
References
- ^ Герои Страны
- ^ a b c Okunev, Dmitri. "Отдал Крым, боролся с самогонщиками: чем прославился «президент» СССР Шверник (He gave away Crimea, fought moonshiners: what made Shvernik, the 'president' of the USSR, famous)". gazeta.ru. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
- ^ a b c "Шверник Николай Михайлович 1888-1970, биографический указатель". Khronos. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
- ^ Carr, E.H. (1970). Socialism in One Country, 1924-1926 Volume 2. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. p. 127.
- ^ Carr, E.H. (1976). Foundations of a Planned Economy, volume 2. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. p. 41.
- ^ Carr, E.H. (1974). Foundations of a Planned Economy, volume 1. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. p. 53.
- Aberdeen Journal. British Newspaper Archive. 2 March 1931. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
- ISBN 0-300-07772-6.
- ^ "СОЮЗ СОВЕТСКИХ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСПУБЛИК". September 28, 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28.
- ^ Conquest, Robert (1961). Power and Policy in the U.S.S.R. London: MacMillan. p. 399.
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