The labour commissar who steered the statification of Soviet trade unions
The English journalist Arthur Ransome, visiting Schmidt's commissariat in 1919, found him "a clean-shaven, intelligent young man, whose attention to business methods is reflected in his Commissariat, which is extremely clean and very well organised."
Born to a German working-class family in Saint Petersburg, Schmidt joined the Bolsheviks in 1905 and became a key labour organiser. After the February Revolution, he served as secretary of the Petrograd Party Committee and the Central Council of Trade Unions, and as a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee during the October uprising. As People's Commissar for Labour from 1918 to 1928 (spanning War Communism and the NEP), he built the institutional framework of Soviet labour policy and presided over the statification of trade unions, transforming them from independent class organs into state bodies. He served as Deputy Chairman of Sovnarkom from 1928 to 1930, briefly aligned with the Right Opposition before breaking with it, and was arrested during the Great Purge and shot in 1938.
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
- 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.