The labour commissar who steered the statification of Soviet trade unions
Arthur Ransome met him soon after his December 1918 appointment and described "a clean-shaven, intelligent young man, whose attention to business methods is reflected in his Commissariat"; Schmidt said the commissariat was controlled directly by the unions.
Born in Saint Petersburg on 17 (29) December 1886, the son of a domestic servant, and listed as German in the Russian-language biography. He joined the RSDLP in 1905 as a railway fitter, worked as a painter in German emigration from 1907 to 1911, and from 1915 served as secretary of the Petrograd committee. After February 1917 he was secretary of the Petrograd Party Committee and the Central Council of Trade Unions and a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and was appointed People's Commissar for Labour in November 1917, serving until 1928. He was Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of People's Commissars from 1928 to 1930; arrested in January 1937, sentenced to death by the Military Collegium on 28 January 1938 and shot the same day, and rehabilitated on 30 July 1957.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1905Joined RSDLP; railway fitter
- 1907–1911Exiled in Germany; worked as a painter
- 1912–1914Secretary, Petersburg Union of Metalworkers
- 1915–1916Secretary, Petrograd Committee of RSDLP(b); repeatedly arrested
- 1917.2–10Secretary of Petrograd Party Committee & Central Trade Union Council; member of Milrevcom
- 1917–1918Deputy People's Commissar for Labour, RSFSR
- 1918–1928People's Commissar for Labour (RSFSR, then USSR from 1923); Presidium member & secretary, AUCCTU
- 1928–1930Deputy Chairman, Sovnarkom & STO USSR
- 1930–1931Deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture, USSR
- 1931–1933Chief Arbitrator, Sovnarkom USSR
- 1933–1937Chairman, Primorye Regional Planning Commission; local economic posts
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905joined Bolsheviks, railway repairman
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionMember of the Military Revolutionary Committee
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionParticipant in the Red Army’s creationAs head of the Petrograd Central Bureau of Trade Unions in 1918, he took part in creating the Red Army.
- 1921–1928The New Economic Policy (NEP)People's Commissar of Labor
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeLabour official targetedA former labour commissar and deputy head of government, he was purged for alleged Rightist deviation and executed in 1938.
Petrograd Trade Unions and Labour Legislation, 1917
In the months after the February Revolution, Schmidt was from 2 March 1917 secretary of the first legally operating Petrograd Committee of the RSDLP and a member of its executive commission, and from April secretary of the Petrograd Central Council of Trade Unions. He was one of the editors of the Bolshevik journal Metallist and a delegate to the 7th (April) All-Russian Conference, where he reported on the committee's work, attributing the "preponderance of Mensheviks" in the Petrograd Soviet to mass arrests before the revolution and noting that the line levelled out after Lenin's arrival.
His trade-union work was bound up with labour-time legislation. At the 3rd All-Russian Trade Union Conference, held in Petrograd from 21 to 28 June 1917, he delivered the report on the eight-hour working day, whose main points were adopted in the resolution: an immediate decree of the eight-hour day for all branches of hired labour, a full prohibition of overtime without trade-union consent, employers' liability for non-compliance, and the creation of bodies to supervise enforcement. He was also a delegate to the 6th Congress of the RSDLP(b), held from 26 July to 3 August 1917.
On 25 September he reported to the Petrograd Central Council of Trade Unions on the work of its executive commission, noting that the unions were taking part in government commissions drafting labour legislation and that membership had grown to as many as 450,000 workers and later to over 500,000; he stated that the Petrograd council of trade unions did not stand aside from political life. On 16 October, at the enlarged Central Committee of the RSDLP(b), he said that workers demanded all power to the Soviets.
On 25 October 1917 the Central Board of the Petrograd Union of Metalworkers, on Schmidt's initiative, resolved to support the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, to transfer its technical apparatus to it and to allocate 50,000 roubles for its needs. It issued an appeal to all metalworkers to support the armed uprising and delegated Schmidt to the Milrevcom. He was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and of the Constituent Assembly for the Tver electoral district.
Trade-union work continued after the revolution. At the 1st All-Russian Trade Union Congress, held in Petrograd from 7 to 14 January 1918, he was elected secretary of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. In March 1918 he was a delegate to the 7th Emergency Congress of the RKP(b) from the Bolshevik fraction of the AUCCTU and was elected a member of the Central Committee, and from April to October 1918 he chaired the Central Bureau of Petrograd trade unions while remaining AUCCTU secretary, taking part in the creation of the Red Army. From December 1917 to April 1918 he had served as assistant People's Commissar for Labour of the RSFSR.