Party master of the Azov-Black Sea krai, brought down on the eve of the Great Terror
At the 1934 Seventeenth Party Congress he went to Kirov and relayed the 'old men's' wish to act on Lenin's testament, moving Stalin to another post and making Kirov general secretary.
An Old Bolshevik who joined the party in 1914, he ran collectivization and grain requisitioning as first secretary of the Lower Volga and then the North Caucasus krai, where the 'blacklist' repressions of the Kuban in 1932 bear his name. First secretary of the Azov-Black Sea krai from 1934, he was encircled when Yevdokimov arrived in late 1936 to purge the 'Sheboldaev clan', with Lyushkov running the regional NKVD. Demoted to Kursk after the February-March 1937 plenum, he was arrested that June and shot in October.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1914Joined the Bolsheviks
- 1918–1920Political work in the Caucasus during the Civil War
- 1928–1931First secretary, Lower Volga krai
- 1931–1934First secretary, North Caucasus krai
- 1934–1937First secretary, Azov-Black Sea krai
- 1937Demoted to Kursk; arrested in June, shot in October
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionPolitical worker in the CaucasusHe did political work in the Caucasus during the Civil War.
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationDirector of collectivization and grain requisitioningHe directed collectivization and grain requisitioning in the Lower Volga and North Caucasus.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeParty official arrested and shotHe was arrested in June 1937 and shot that October.
The 1932 grain crisis and peasant resistance in the North Caucasus
As party secretary of the North Caucasus Territory in 1932, Sheboldaev asked for a reduction in the grain-procurement target, but the center rejected the request. D’Ann Penner’s study states that he asked Stalin to cut the territory’s quota by 10 to 15 million poods; the request was denied. This episode shows the center holding to its quota as the regional grain crisis deepened. Penner analyzes the 1932 shortage as a crisis produced by the combination of central policies enforced tenaciously and peasant resistance. In opposition to collectivization and under pressure to survive, villagers reduced sowing and labor, diminishing the grain available for state collection. Penner presents the conflict as what the Central Party interpreted as a “strike”; the term refers to the Party’s interpretation, not necessarily to a single coordinated action by peasants.
When the autumn 1932 harvest and procurement fell short of expectations, the center held regional leaders responsible but did not lower the quota. Penner writes that, after Sheboldaev’s request was refused, the Politburo sent a special commission headed by Lazar Kaganovich to the North Caucasus on 22 October. Only in February 1933 did the center provide seed loans to the North Caucasus Territory. Sheboldaev was thus a regional secretary who sought to ease procurement pressure, but he was also part of the party apparatus responsible for carrying out collectivization and grain collection in the territory. His request indicates a limited disagreement over policy; it does not by itself remove his responsibility for the procurement system or the famine that followed.