Stalin-era manager of the Comintern apparatus
In 1939 Stalin told Dimitrov: "Manuilsky is a toady! He was a Trotskyite!" — one of the very few Old Bolsheviks with a Trotskyist past to survive the Great Purge.
A Bolshevik from a Volhynian priest's family, Manuilsky helped organize the 1905 Kronstadt and Sveaborg naval mutinies. As Comintern Secretary from 1928 to 1943, he was Stalin's operational manager of the world communist movement: executing line changes and purges across foreign communist parties. In a dramatic late-career turn, he became foreign minister of Soviet Ukraine and chaired the committee that drafted the Preamble and 'Purposes and Principles' chapter of the UN Charter at the 1945 San Francisco conference.
Career Timeline
- 1903Joins RSDLP while studying at St. Petersburg University; aligns with Bolsheviks
- 1905–06Agitator for Petersburg Committee; organizes Kronstadt and Sveaborg mutinies
- 1906Arrested, sentenced to 5 years exile in Yakutia; escapes, emigrates to Paris
- 1907–12Paris exile; intermittent illegal returns to Russia for underground work
- 1912–13Underground work in St. Petersburg and Moscow; re-emigrates
- 1914–17Anti-war position; edits Golos and Nashe Slovo with Trotsky
- 1917.5Returns to Russia, joins the Mezhraiontsy
- 1917.8VI Congress: Mezhraiontsy merge into the Bolshevik Party
- 1921–22First Secretary of CP(B)U; People's Commissar for Agriculture during the famine
- 1924–28Presidium member, Comintern Executive Committee
- 1928–44Comintern Secretary: line control of foreign CPs, executes purges
- 1944–50Deputy chair of Ukrainian Council of Ministers; Foreign Minister; UN founding delegation
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905organized sailor mutinies
- 1922.12Formation of the USSRAdvocate of centralizationA Ukrainian party leader who, in the formation debate, backed a centralizing line close to autonomization.
- 1934.01–07The Fascist Riot of 6 February 1934Secretary of the Comintern executiveHe handled the French section's demand for unity of action in Moscow and managed the practical side of the turn.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeComintern official
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarUkrainian communist party official, handled political work on the front
Founding the UN and Ukrainian Diplomacy (1945–1952)
In July 1944 Manuilsky was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR. After the Yalta Conference granted Ukraine and Belarus separate UN founding membership alongside the USSR, Manuilsky led the Ukrainian delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in April 1945. He chaired Committee I/1, which drafted the Preamble and Chapter I, 'Purposes and Principles,' of the UN Charter, directly shaping the foundational language of the organization. During committee debates he candidly observed that discussions revealed 'great differences of opinion' on the purposes of the new body. Throughout the conference the Ukrainian delegation pursued a dual strategy: backing the Soviet delegation unreservedly on core issues while taking independent positions on secondary matters. Manuilsky's support for the American proposal to name the organization 'United Nations' earned public thanks from the US delegation. In his report to Khrushchev, he noted with satisfaction that these independent moves aroused interest and puzzlement among other participants. He represented Ukraine at the first four sessions of the UN General Assembly until 1952, becoming one of the Soviet bloc's most visible diplomats in the early Cold War. That a man who had spent two decades directing foreign communist parties from the Comintern apparatus ended up drafting the charter of an international peace organization was one of the most striking reversals of his career.