Writers’ Union general secretary who denounced Mandelstam to Yezhov and was killed at the front
Born Vladimir Kirpichnikov in Penza in 1900, the son of a cabinet-maker, he joined the Red Guard in 1918, commanded a unit suppressing uprisings and joined the RCP(b) the same year, serving in Cheka special departments during the Civil War. From 1924 he worked as a journalist and writer in Rostov-on-Don, from 1928 he was a secretary of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers in Moscow, and from 1932 he helped organise the Union of Soviet Writers on the Central Committee’s instructions. He was general secretary of the Writers’ Union in 1936–1941 and editor of Novy Mir in 1937–1941. In March 1938 he wrote to People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov asking him to “resolve the question of Mandelstam”, and the poet was soon arrested. A special war correspondent for Pravda in the Great Patriotic War, he was killed near Nevel in November 1943.
Also known as: Vladimir Kirpichnikov
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1918–1922Red Guard and Red Army service; Cheka special departments
- 1926Secretary of the North Caucasian Association of Proletarian Writers
- 1928Secretary of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP)
- 1934–1939Member of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee
- 1936–1941General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Writers
- 1937–1941Editor-in-chief of Novy Mir
- 1941.06.29–1943.11.14Special war correspondent of Pravda