Founder of Ukrainian Bolshevism, signatory of the Declaration of the 46
Sentenced to death by Petliura's forces, he escaped wounded at the last moment and hid until the Red Army arrived.
Yakov Drobnis was a Jewish worker-revolutionary who joined the Bolsheviks in 1906 at age sixteen, helped found the Ukrainian Communist Party in 1918 and served on its Central Committee through five convocations. During the Civil War he organized partisan detachments against Petliura and Denikin, chaired the Poltava and Odessa soviets, and served as secretary of the Ukrainian CP Central Committee in 1922. A signatory of the 1923 'Declaration of the 46', the founding document of the Left Opposition, he was expelled in 1927, reinstated in 1930, and executed in 1937 as a defendant at the second Moscow Show Trial.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1906Joined RSDLP (Bolsheviks)
- 1918–1920Co-founded Ukrainian CP; CC member through five convocations
- 1920–1922Chairman, Poltava and Odessa soviet executives
- 1922–1923Secretary, CC of Ukrainian CP
- 1923Signed 'Declaration of the 46,' joined Left Opposition
- 1923–1927Deputy Chair, Lesser Sovnarkom; Admin-Financial Commission, USSR Sovnarkom
- 1927–1930Expelled and exiled; reinstated 1930
- 1937Defendant at second Moscow Show Trial; executed
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Revolutionary party organiserDuring the 1905 revolution, he handled printing and leaflet distribution for the local party organisation.
- 1917–1921Ukraine’s revolution and warsCommander of Ukrainian underground and partisan organisingSent to Ukraine in 1918, he organised underground work and partisan detachments against the Hetmanate–Petliura regime.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionParty member who fought Denikin’s armyIn 1919–20, he fought Denikin’s Volunteer Army.
- 1923–1927The Succession Struggle and the Left OppositionDeclaration of the 46 signatoryHe signed the 'Declaration of the 46' in October 1923 demanding the restoration of inner-party democracy, joining the founding act of the Left Opposition, and was expelled at the Fifteenth Party Congress in December 1927.
- 1937–1938The Great Purgedefendant executed in the purgeHe was executed as a defendant at the second Moscow Show Trial in 1937.
Underground activism and the founding of the Ukrainian CP
Yakov Drobnis was born in 1890 in Hlukhiv, Chernihiv province, the son of a shoemaker. After primary school he worked as an apprentice in a shoe workshop; at thirteen he ran away to Astrakhan but was deported back under the Jewish residence restrictions, encountering political prisoners for the first time, and was drawn into revolutionary circles by the Hlukhiv shoemaker Rogachevsky. During the 1905 revolution he took on technical tasks for the local RSDLP organisation (hectograph printing, leaflet distribution, weapons storage) and formally joined the party in 1906. Arrested the following year for participating in a strike, he was arrested again in 1908 for party membership and, after ten months in custody, sentenced to five years, taking his minority into account.
In 1918 he helped found the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine and was elected to its Central Committee at the Second Congress, serving on it through five convocations. That same year, as a Central Committee member, he was sent to Ukraine to organise underground work and partisan detachments against the Hetmanate–Petliura regime. Sentenced to be shot, he escaped wounded at the last moment and hid until the Red Army arrived. In 1919–20 he fought Denikin's Volunteer Army, and as chairman of the Poltava executive he was seized by bandits at Kovyaga station, beaten and held hostage in a cellar until freed by the advance of Southern Front revvoensoviet member Berzin. Four times during the Civil War he faced the threat of execution; this underground and partisan work was the substance of what he gave to building Ukrainian Bolshevism before his 1923 turn to the Left Opposition.