People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1868–1940 ○ Natural causes (died in Kyiv)

Bolshevik agrarian policymaker: first Agriculture Commissar, later VP of Ukraine's Academy of Sciences

In October 1905 he led multi-thousand revolutionary meetings in Kyiv, and after the 17 October Manifesto the crowd wrecked the City Duma building. His 18 October 1905 balcony speech became a charge in his 1908–09 trial; he fled to Finland and was later exiled to Siberia.

Born 20 August (O.S.)/1 September 1868 in Lubny, Poltava Governorate; died 2 December 1940 in Kyiv. His grandfather emigrated from Württemberg in 1818; his father was a carpenter; his mother came from impoverished Polish landowner nobility. The family took Russian subjecthood in 1882, and he took it himself at university. He joined a Social-Democratic student circle in Bern in 1891 and was a delegate to the 5th RSDLP Congress (London, 1907). In November 1917 he became RSFSR People's Commissar for Agriculture, then People's Commissar for Food (December 1917 – February 1918), enforcing the grain monopoly and requisitioning. Removed as Tambov Governorate Executive Committee chairman in 1920–21 for failing against the Tambov rebels, he later served as People's Commissar for Land Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR (1927–29) and vice-president of Ukraine's Academy of Sciences (1931–38).

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1917–2001 ↓ Transferred 1976

Brezhnev-era official across agriculture and government

At a 1973 Presidium meeting, Brezhnev blindsided Polyansky with a demotion to agriculture minister. Polyansky rose trembling: "No one told me." Brezhnev shot back: "Now we're talking."

A top Soviet official, Politburo member and First Deputy Premier, who authored the 'Polyansky Report' that indicted Khrushchev ahead of his 1964 ouster. Later served as Minister of Agriculture and as ambassador to Japan and Norway.