Mikhail Tomsky

Mikhail Tomsky
Михаил Томский
Chairman of the Presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions
In office
September 1922 – May 1929
Preceded byPost established
Succeeded byAlexander Dogadov
Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
In office
29 December 1921 – 28 December 1922
Preceded byPyotr Zalutsky
Succeeded byTimofei Sapronov
General Secretary of the International Trade Union Council
In office
1920 – 3 July 1921
PresidentSolomon Lozovsky
Preceded byPost established
Succeeded byPost abolished
Full member of the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th Politburo
In office
3 April 1922 – 13 July 1930
Full member of the 10th, 11th, 12th Orgburo
In office
16 March 1921 – 2 June 1924
Candidate member of the 9th, 13th Orgburo
In office
2 June 1924 – 1 January 1926
In office
5 April 1920 – 16 March 1921
Personal details
Born
Mikhail Pavlovich Yefremov

(1880-10-31)31 October 1880
Kolpino, Saint Petersburg Governorate, Russian Empire
Died22 August 1936(1936-08-22) (aged 55)
Bolshevo, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Political partyRSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1904–1918)
Russian Communist Party (1918–1936)
OccupationTrade unionist

Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky (Russian: Михаи́л Па́влович То́мский), born Mikhail Pavlovich Yefremov (Russian: Ефре́мов) (31 October 1880 – 22 August 1936) was a factory worker, trade unionist, and Soviet politician. He was the Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in the 1920s.[1]

In his youth, Tomsky worked at the Smirnov Engineering factory in St. Petersburg, but was eventually dismissed from that job for attempting to organise a trade union.[2] His labour activities radicalized him politically and led him to become a socialist and join the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1904 and eventually join the Bolshevik faction of the party.[2]

After the revolution, Tomsky was associated with the right wing faction of the party headed by Nikolai Bukharin and Alexey Rykov, a group seeking orderly planning, a moderate tempo of industrialization, and eschewing rapid and forced collectivization of agriculture. Tomsky's primary bailiwick revolved around the trade union movement, of which he was the head and spokesman in the 1920s. An orientation towards trade union autonomy placed him in opposition to party radicals seeking rapid collectivization and strict party control over trade unions, leading to his downfall in 1928.

Tomsky was implicated in the investigation preceding the First Moscow Trial of 1936, an event which inaugurated the Great Purge. He would subsequently commit suicide to avoid arrest by the NKVD in August 1936.

  1. ^ Wynn, Charters. From the Factory to the Kremlin: Mikhail Tomsky and the Russian Worker, University of Texas at Austin, 22 May 1996. University Center for International Research, University of Pittsburg, 10 September 2002, www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1996-809-09-Wynn.pdf. Accessed 29 May 2021. "Archive" (PDF). Archived from the original on 29 April 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. ^ a b "Tomsky". Archived from the original on 2010-12-09. Retrieved 2011-02-20..