The peasant's son who ran the Krestintern and rose from NEP agriculture to the party Secretariat
Born a peasant's son who herded cattle as a boy and taught himself to read, this Old Bolshevik became simultaneously RSFSR Agriculture Commissar and General Secretary of the Peasant International — the face of Bolshevik peasant policy on the eve of collectivization.
An Old Bolshevik who joined the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in 1896, Smirnov spent five years in tsarist prisons and exile. After serving as chairman of the Bogorodsk Soviet and a delegate to the Constituent Assembly in 1917, he became Deputy Food Commissar during the Civil War, then RSFSR Agriculture Commissar and General Secretary of the Krestintern from 1923: simultaneously directing Soviet agricultural policy under NEP and the Comintern's international peasant work. Promoted to CC Secretary and Orgburo member in 1928, he reached the top tier of party leadership before his association with the Smirnov–Eismont–Tolmachyov opposition group led to his expulsion in 1934 and execution in the Great Purge.
Career Timeline
- 1896–1917Joined League of Struggle for Emancipation of Working Class; party work in Tver and Moscow; repeatedly arrested and exiled (5 years in prisons)
- 1907, 1912Elected candidate member of RSDLP Central Committee
- 1917Chairman of Bogorodsk Soviet, member of Moscow Provincial Soviet presidium, Constituent Assembly deputy
- 1917–1919NKVD Collegium member and Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, RSFSR
- 1919–1923Deputy People's Commissar for Food, RSFSR
- 1923–1928People's Commissar for Agriculture RSFSR and General Secretary, Peasant International (Krestintern)
- 1925–1929Deputy Chairman (1928–1929 First Deputy Chairman), Sovnarkom RSFSR
- 1928–1930Secretary of the CC VKP(b), member of the Orgburo (1924–1930)
- 1930–1933Presidium member of VSNKh → Chairman, All-Union Council for Communal Economy → demoted to candidate Orgburo member
- 1933–1937Head of hemp-processing factories department, NKLP USSR — expelled from CC 1933, expelled from party 1934