Valerian Kuibyshev

Translated from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Vol. 35 (1937), pp. 410-416.

Valerian Kuybyshev Валериан Куйбышев
Born	6 June [O.S. 25 May] 1888 Omsk, Akmolinsk Oblast, Russian Empire
Died	25 January 1935 (aged 46) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Political party	CPSU (1918–1935) RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1904–1918)

Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev (1888-1935) was a prominent leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission. He was one of the most active organizers of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the most prominent leader of the Red Army during the Civil War; an outstanding leader of the state and socialist construction of the USSR. A fiery, fearless professional revolutionary-Bolshevik, a disciple and ally of Lenin-Stalin, who devoted his entire bright, heroic life to the proletarian revolution, to the cause of the working class, to the cause of communism.

Early Life

Kuibyshev was born in the city of Omsk. He spent his childhood and youth in the small Siberian town of Kokchetav, where his father, Vladimir Yakovlevich Kuibyshev, was the head of the local military team. Kuibyshev received his primary education at the Kokchstavskaya stanitsa elementary school, where his mother was a teacher. From early childhood, Kuibyshev showed organizational skills and a great eagerness for knowledge. His favorite pastime was reading. With ten years Kuibyshev studies in the Omsk cadet corps. In Omsk, as a teenager, Kuibyshev contacts revolutionary-minded youth, gets acquainted with revolutionary literature, takes an active part in gatherings of his peers organized near Kokchetav, and discusses illegal literature and various political issues. The bosses of the cadet corps set surveillance on Kuibyshev. More than once they took away his "seditious" literature; when transferring to the 6th grade pedagogical. The corps council refused to issue Kuibyshev a meritorious certificate "for his not quite approving behavior." This "not quite approving behavior" consisted in the fact that the 15-year-old boy Kuibyshev established contact with a revolutionary circle, distributed illegal Marxist literature, and took part in revolutionary work. The years of his stay in the Omsk cadet corps determined his revolutionary path.

Early Politics

In Omsk in 1904, Kuibyshev joined the RSDLP and immediately joined the Bolshevik faction. Already at this time, Kuibyshev was emerging as a serious underground worker, a talented orator, who knew how to understand politics well. Kuibyshev took the most active part in extras, illegal circles, subjecting the traitorous tactics of the Mensheviks to devastating criticism. The workers' comments about Kuibyshev were the most enthusiastic: a man with great will, responsive, sensitive, convinced to the core of the Bolshevik. In 1905, Kuibyshev graduated from the Omsk Cadet Corps. By order of the cadet corps, Kuibyshev was transferred to the Pavlovsk military school. But Kuibyshev, wishing to break with the tsarist military clique forever, decisively declared to his father about his unwillingness to continue his military studies and achieved his dismissal. In the fall of 1905 he moved to St. Petersburg and entered the Military Medical Academy. Having contacted the St. Petersburg organization of the RSDLP, Kuibyshev took an active part in the revolutionary events of 1905, distributing illegal literature among the workers of St. Petersburg. The underground organization of the Bolsheviks entrusted him with the transportation of weapons coming from Finland to arm the participants in the Moscow December Uprising. Kuibyshev showed exceptional resourcefulness and self-control of the underground Bolshevik in fulfilling this important task of the party. In the spring of 1906 Kuibyshev was expelled from the Academy for participation in the revolutionary movement and left for Omsk; upon arrival in Omsk, Kuibyshev contacted the party organization and went into an illegal position. Soon he was elected to the Omsk Committee of the RSDLP and led the propaganda work.

Arrest

Full of revolutionary energy, armed with the experience of the revolutionary class battles of the Petersburg proletariat, Kuibyshev quickly began to play a leading role among the Omsk Bolsheviks. He successfully carried out a struggle against the Menshevik leadership in the Committee, as a result of which he almost completely cleared the Omsk Social Democratic organization of the Mensheviks. Kuibyshev led the strike of the workers of the Omsk railways, workshops, commercial and industrial facilities. In Omsk, Kainsk, Barabinsk, and Petropavlovsk the tireless activity of Kuibyshev in organizing circles and extras among the LSD is developing workers and young learners. IIa Omsk city party conference in November 1906 Kuibyshev made a report on the "labor congress", exposing the treacherous attempt of the Mensheviks under the flag of the so-called workers' congress to liquidate the revolutionary party of the proletariat. At this conference, Kuibyshev was arrested along with other participants. Kuibyshev spent six months in an Omsk prison. The tsarist police and the military court failed to reveal the role of Kuibyshev in the Bolshevik podioli and to collect any evidence against him. According to the court, Kuibyshev was sentenced to one month in prison and exiled from Omsk and supervised by the police in Kainsk.

Kuibyshev again switched to illegal polishing and moved to work in Tomsk, where he was co-opted into the Tomsk Committee of the RSDLP and worked in military units and among the workers of the Anyaseroudzha region. On behalf of the Tomsk Party organization, K. at the beginning of 1907 moved from Tomsk to st. Taiga, where he created a Bolshevik organization and lead the outbreak of a railroad strike workers. Pursued by the tsarist secret police, K. moved to Petropavlovsk, where he became the main head of the underground organization of the RSDLP(b) depot workers. Noticing that he was being followed, K. left for Kainsk. While in exile in Kainsk, K. led party work among the workers of Kainsk, Art. Barabinsk and among the peasants of the district villages. K. established contact with Moscow and St. Petersburg, from where he received illegal literature for distribution among Siberian organizations. K. organized the printing of proclamations in Kainsk and Barabinsk. Autumn 1907 K. for unauthorized absence; from the place of exile was sentenced to imprisonment. Upon learning of this, K. left for St. Petersburg, where he took an active part in the work of the St. Petersburg organization of the Bolsheviks. In July 1908 K. was arrested and sent to the Tomsk prison. After three months of imprisonment, Kuibyshev is again deported to Kainsk. In exile, Kuibyshev continued to carry out revolutionary work. In 1909 Kuibyshev organized a May Day demonstration in Kainsk. Soon K. was arrested and a few days later he was; sent to the Tomsk prison, where he was sitting alone. After his release from prison in September 1909, K. lived in Tomsk and studied at Tomsk University. But K. had to study for a long time. The police decided to let K. out of their hands. In February 1910, during the liquidation of the Tomsk Lsandarme administration of the SR organization, the police introduced K. to this case, although he had absolutely no relation to the organization of SRs. The court did not establish K.'s belonging to the organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, nevertheless, by the decision of the Minister of Internal Affairs, in June 1910 he was exiled for two years under police supervision in Narym. In 11a rym K. did a great job of rallying the exiled Bolsheviks. He read a lot and was engaged in self-education. Together with Ya. M. Sverdlov, K. organized a Para-Party School to raise the theoretical level of exiled Party members and prepare them for illegal work. K. participates in all discussions, waging a determined struggle against the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Under the leadership of Kuibyshev, the exiles organized their own library, a canteen, and a mutual assistance fund in Narym. The tsarist government then especially sent a Tomsk governor to Narym with a huge pack of gendarmes to liquidate the Bolshevik organization. K. was arrested and spent four months in prison in Tomsk. Returning to exile after his arrest, K. continued his revolutionary Bolshevik work. In 1912 he organized a May Day demonstration of exiles in Narym, for which he was brought to an inquiry. In 1912, K. returned from exile to Omsk, where he was soon arrested for participating in the first May demonstration in Narym. Again imprisonment in Tomsk. After his release, Kuibyshev switched to illegal polishing. Pursued by the police, Kuibyshev moved from town to town, organizing In 1914, Kuibyshev in St. Petersburg, secretary of the Treugolnik plant's hospital fund, became a member of the St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee and its propaganda board. In the atmosphere of the first imperialist war, chauvinistic frenzy and fierce terror of the tsarist guards K. With all the passion of a Bolshevik-Leninist, he conducts anti-war propaganda, in a fierce struggle he exposes the betrayal of the Mensheviks, Trotsky and other capitulators, ardently explains to the workers the real essence of the outbreak of war and Lenin's slogans of defeat in the war of the tsarist government and the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war. K. for belong loyalty to the Petersburg Bolshevik organization. Again, a link to three years in the village of Tutury, Verkholensk district, Irkutsk province. An unshakable, staunch Leninist, K., both in prison and in exile, continues to carry on passionate propaganda against the war, exposing the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. In exile, K. launched a great political work among exiles and peasants. He convenes a conference of exiles from nearby villages, organizes politicians among the exiled, studies, leads a Marxist circle, organizes the publication of a handwritten journal. In April 1916, K. escaped from exile and moved to party work in Samara. He entered the Pipe Plant as a milling machine operator under the name Adamchik; is a member of the Samara Bolshevik Committee, leads the Samara Bolshevik organization and prepares the Volga Bolshevik conference. The conference failed. Again arrest and exile to Turukhansk region for five years. On the way to exile, K. is caught by the February bourgeois-democratic revolution. K. returned to Samara, where he was elected chairman of the working section of the Samara Council and chairman of the Samara Party Committee.

Under the leadership of K., the Bolshevik organization of Samara carried out tremendous combat work among the masses of the workers and among the soldiers to expose the betrayal of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who strove to limit the revolution to agreements with the Buryasuazia, but to create the Red Guard and organize the preparation of the proletarian revolution. Under K.'s leadership, Soviet power was established in Samara. K. was elected chairman of the Samara regional executive committee, the revolutionary committee and the regional committee. K. directs the suppression of sabotage and counterrevolutionary actions by the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and anarchists, who came out in a united front with the bourgeois-landlord counter-revolution against Soviet power. K. develops tireless activity to create a regular Red Army from armed detachments of workers and peasants. In June 1918, the Bolsheviks retreated from Samara under the pressure of the counterrevolutionary armed forces attacking Samara under the command of General Dutov, and the counterrevolutionary forces of the Czechoslovak troops. With a rifle in hand and a bomb in his belt, K. fought in chains like an ordinary soldier. Kuibyshev becomes the head of the struggle of the Volga proletariat against the counter-revolutionary gangs of the Czechoslovakians and constituents, takes part in organizing the armed forces of the proletarian dictatorship in the East, works as a commissar and member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the I and IV armies. At the head of the IV army, Kuibyshev leads the liberation of Samara from counter-revolutionary gangs. Kuibyshev was elected chairman of the Samara Provincial Executive Committee. In 1919, when Kolchak approached Samara, Kuibyshev was appointed a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the southern group of the Eastern Front, commanded by Comrade Frunze, and took part in the defeat of Kolchak. In July 1919 K. is appointed a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the XI Army, and then of the Turkestan Front. K. participates in the liberation of Soviet Central Asia from the hordes of White Guards and interventionists. K. takes a personal part in battles against the interventionists, White Guards and Basmachism. In October 1919, K. was appointed a member of the Turkestan Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Committee of the CPSU(b).

In the difficult situation of counterrevolutionary uprisings and raids by the Basmachists, Kazakhstan did an enormous amount of work to strengthen Soviet power and implement Soviet national policy, which ensured the fraternal alliance of the peoples of multinational Turkestan and the victory of socialism. K. took an active part in organizing the revolutionary forces of Bukhara to overthrow the emir of Bukhara. In September 1920, after the expulsion of the emir, K. was appointed plenipotentiary of the Soviet government in Bukhara, where his rich experience as a leader and organizer helped to strengthen the power of the working people. At the end of 1920, K. was elected a member of the presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, and then was appointed a member of the presidium of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, and at the same time supervises the work of electrical engineering as head of Glavelectro industry. At the X Congress of the Party, K. was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee, and at the XI Congress of the Party, he was elected a member of the Central Committee. From 1922 to 1923, K. was the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b). The XII Party Congress adopted Lenin's proposal to reorganize the Rabkrin and unite the Central Control Commission of the CPSU(b) and the RKI. Kuibyshev was elected the first chairman of the reorganized Central Control Commission - RCI in May 1923. He, a loyal fighter of the proletarian revolution, a tried and tested comrade-in-arms of Lenin-Stalin, was entrusted by the party with a difficult and responsible task: to ensure Leninist unity in the ranks of the Bolshevik Party, to lead the struggle to strengthen the state apparatus of Soviet power.

As chairman of the Central Control Commission and People's Commissar of the RKI, Kuibyshev was at the time of the most acute struggle of the party against the counter-revolutionary Trotskyist-Zinovievist opposition, which came up with a program for the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. K. devoted all his strength to the struggle for the implementation of the general line of the party. K. waged a merciless struggle for Leninist party unity against the Trotskyists, Zinovievites, the right-wing restorers of capitalism, degenerated into the worst enemies of the working class, traitors to the socialist homeland, hirelings of fascism. Under the leadership of Kuibyshev, the Central Control Commission-RCI, fulfilling Lenin's behests to strengthen the state apparatus, carried out a tremendous amount of work to cleanse the state apparatus of aliens and bureaucrats to introduce labor discipline, to monitor the implementation of decisions of the party and government at all levels of the Soviet apparatus, to reorganize redundant institutions. K. paid exclusive attention to the training, education and promotion of leading workers of the people's commissariats.

Since 1926, after the death of F. Dzerzhinsky, Kuibyshev was appointed chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR and since December 1927 he has been a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. As chairman of the Supreme Economic Council during the preparation and beginning of the implementation of the first five-year plan, Kuibyshev invariably fights with Bolshevik persistence for the implementation of the socialist industrialization plan and collectivization, giving a crushing rebuff to the counterrevolutionary sallies of the Trotskyists, Zinovievists and right-wing restorers of capitalism. K. resolutely defended in the first five-year plan boleo lofty targets, primarily for industry. The Central Committee of the party and the government basically adopted the plan of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, the so-called. the optimal version of the first five-year plan, completed in four years. Since 1930, K. has held the post of chairman of the State Planning Commission and deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR. K. led the State Planning Committee during the years of intense class struggle for the early fulfillment of the first five-year plan and the preparation of a plan for the second five-year plan. The enemies of the people — the counterrevolutionary Trotskyists, Zinovievites and the Rights — fiercely opposed the general line of the party, against socialist industrialization, and against collectivization. By terror, sabotage, spying, and sabotage they tried — the hirelings of Japanese-German fascism — to disrupt the plan to complete the building of socialism in the USSR. K. with all the passion of a Bolshevik, displaying exceptional vigilance, exposed the hostile actions of disguised enemies of socialism. K. invested all his vast experience in the revolutionary struggle in the restructuring of the State Planning Commission, in the organization of planning work, subordinating all the work of the planning bodies to the implementation of the party directives. K. by his work gave an example and a model of the Bolshevik understanding of planned work. K. owned the initiative to develop plans in the regional context. K. showed an extremely deep knowledge of individual regions of the Soviet Union and a deep understanding of the significance of the planned measures both for the entire national economy as a whole, and for these regions and regions. IIa XVII Congress of the party K. was elected chairman of the Soviet Control Commission. At the same time, he holds the post of first deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR. K. was in 1934 chairman of the government Commission for the rescue and evacuation of Chelyuskin residents. The excellent work of the Commission, which ensured the brilliant success of the heroic struggle for the salvation of the Chelyuskinites, was noted by a decree of the USSR Council of People's Commissars. K. was an ardent patriot of his beloved heroic homeland. On 1/25 1935 K. was in his office, continuing a lot of intense state and party work until the last moment of his life. The entire life-long path of K. is the path of the proletarian revolutionary, an example of boundless devotion to the proletariat and the building of communism.

“Comrade Kuibyshev was an example of a proletarian revolutionary, a consistent Leninist, irreconcilable towards the enemies of the Party and the working class, and a selfless fighter for the cause of communism... will serve as an example for millions of proletarians and working people in their great struggle for the torso of communism” [Notice of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks about K.'s death, see gaz. "Pravda" dated January 26, 1935, No. 25 (6271)].