First USSR People's Commissar for Health, a founder of Soviet preventive medicine
Memoirists report that at the June 1937 plenum he criticised the NKVD and Beria, but the sessions were not stenographed, so the wording of his remarks is not documentarily confirmed.
Born on 20 October (Old Style) 1895 in Ekaterinoslav into a Jewish blacksmith's family; English-language scholarship gives only 1 November 1895. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1913, founded the newspaper Kommunar in Tula and led its city and provincial soviets and Military Revolutionary Committee, and was sent to Azerbaijan in 1920. He led agricultural cooperatives and Kolkhozsentr and drove collectivisation, though in 1925 he opposed barring kulaks from co-operatives. At the June 1937 plenum he criticised the NKVD and submitted material on Beria; he was arrested on 25 June and shot on 10 February 1938, and rehabilitated in 1955.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1913–1917Joined the Bolsheviks; distributed Pravda in Minsk; entered Moscow University medical faculty in 1915 (completed two courses); secretary of the Tula Bolsheviks
- 1917–1920Chairman of Tula Military Revolutionary Committee, Tula Soviet executive committee; political commissar 2nd Army; first editor of Kommunar
- 1920–1921First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party CC, chairman of Baku Soviet
- 1922–1929Deputy chairman of the Agricultural Cooperatives Union, chairman of Vserabotzemles and of Kolkhozsentr; drove collectivisation
- 1929–1930Head of the CC Agitation and Mass Campaigns Department
- 1930–1934Secretary of Moscow Party Committee, Second Secretary, chairman of Moscow Oblast Executive Committee
- 1934–1937RSFSR People's Commissar for Health (Feb 1934 – Mar 1937), USSR Chief Sanitary Inspector from 1935, and first USSR People's Commissar for Health (Jul 1936 – Jun 1937)
Related historical events
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionChairman of Tula Military Revolutionary Committee
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionMilitary Revolutionary Committee chairman
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationPeople's Commissar of Health
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeOpposed NKVD arrests at the June 1937 plenumAt the 25 June 1937 CC plenum he openly denounced the NKVD's mass arrests, telling Stalin 'the NKVD is still arresting honest people,' and also revealed that Beria had worked for Musavatist counterintelligence. Stalin replied: 'They are enemies of the people, and you are a bird of the same feather.' Kaminsky was arrested that day and shot on 10 February 1938.