The Siberian Bolshevik of the Left Opposition
Stripped of his commissar post in 1927, Smirnov, penniless, went to the labor exchange to register as an unemployed precision mechanic. When he wrote 'People's Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs' in the box marked 'last position held,' the petty clerk at the window stared dumbfounded at the tall, greying man with lively eyes standing before him.
A Bolshevik who joined the RSDLP in 1899, he endured seven arrests and years of prison and exile in service of the revolutionary movement. A Civil War-era party organizer in the Urals and Siberia and chairman of Sibrevkom, he played a decisive role in defeating Kolchak's White forces. In the 1920s, he became a leading figure of the Left Opposition. Even after his 1927 expulsion, he led a clandestine opposition group from 1931, reestablishing contact with Trotsky via Berlin, and was arrested in 1933, sentenced to death at the first Moscow Trial in 1936, and executed.
Career Timeline
- 1903–1917Bolshevik underground work and exile
- 1918–1921Civil War party organizer in Siberia and the Urals
- 1923–1927People’s Commissar of Posts and Telegraphs; Left Opposition leader
- 1927–1930Expelled from the party and exiled
- 1933–1936Rearrested; first Moscow Trial and execution
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionParty organizer in Siberia during the Civil War
- 1921–1928The New Economic Policy (NEP)Siberian leader of the Left Opposition who opposed NEP economic policies
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeLeft Opposition targetA leading Left Opposition figure executed at the first Moscow Trial in 1936.
The Siberian Lenin
During the Civil War, Ivan Smirnov's authority in Siberia was absolute. As chairman of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee (Sibrevkom) from August 1919 to September 1921, he oversaw civil, military, and economic affairs across a vast territory stretching from the Urals to Lake Baikal, earning the unofficial title of 'the Siberian Lenin.' Before that, as a member of the Revolutionary Military Councils of the Eastern Front and the 5th Army, he played a decisive role in the defeat of Kolchak's White forces. On February 6, 1920, he sent a telegram to the Irkutsk Soviet Executive Committee ordering the execution of Alexander Kolchak, Viktor Pepelyayev, and 'all who participated in punitive expeditions, all agents of the counterintelligence and security department of Kolchak.' The telegram served as the direct basis for Kolchak's execution. The Bolshevik writer Larissa Reisner later recalled: 'Even among non-party soldiers and among Communists who had never known him before, the remarkable purity and decency of Comrade Smirnov was immediately recognized. He probably never knew how much people feared him, feared showing cowardice or weakness precisely before him, a man who never shouted at anyone, who simply remained himself, calm and courageous. No one was respected as much as Ivan Nikitich. One sensed that in the worst moment, he would be the strongest and the most fearless.'