The Left Opposition secretary whom Lenin called a 'brilliant worker'
According to his daughter Zorya's recollection, Lenin called him a "brilliant worker."
Born in Samara to a working-class family, he began working at nine and became a metal fitter and turner at the Hartmann locomotive works in Lugansk at fourteen. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1905, worked on the Lugansk committee, and as a delegate to the 1912 Prague Conference met Lenin before being arrested and exiled to Narym. During the February Revolution of 1917 he led his regiment out in Kostroma, then served as secretary of the Moscow Party Committee, a Central Committee member (1919–1921) and CC secretary (1920–1921). One of the leaders of the Left Opposition who signed the Declaration of the 46, he was expelled in 1927 and exiled to Semipalatinsk, reinstated in 1930, and shot in 1937 as a main defendant in the Second Moscow Show Trial.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1905Joined Bolsheviks at 15, agitation work in Lugansk
- 1908–1916Repeated arrests and exiles (Vologda, Narym), escapes and rearrests
- 1912Delegate to the Prague Party Conference
- 1917Led February mutiny in Kostroma, Secretary of Moscow Party Committee
- 1919–1921CC Secretary, Orgburo member, Southern Front Revvoensovet member
- 1922–1924Head of Political Administration RVSR, Deputy People's Commissar for Transport
- 1923–1927Signed Declaration of 46, Left Opposition leadership — expelled
- 1928–1937Exiled to Semipalatinsk, reinstated, head of Central Highway Administration, tried and executed in Second Moscow Show Trial
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Young Bolshevik agitatorHe joined the Bolsheviks at age 17 during the 1905 Revolution and took part in workers' agitation and strike organizing in Lugansk and the Donets Basin.
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionRegiment leader in the Kostroma uprisingDuring the February Revolution, he led his regiment out in the uprising at Kostroma.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionMember of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front
- 1921–1928The New Economic Policy (NEP)secretary of the Left Opposition who fought against the NEP line
- 1923–1927The Succession Struggle and the Left OppositionDeclaration of the 46 signatory and Left Opposition leaderHe signed the Declaration of the 46 and served in the Left Opposition leadership.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeMain defendant, Second Moscow TrialArrested in August 1936, he was tried as a principal defendant in the 'Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center' case in January 1937, sentenced to death on 30 January and shot on 1 February 1937. Rehabilitated in December 1986.
The Left Opposition Years, 1923–1930
Serebryakov was one of the leaders of the Left Opposition. Signing all of its main documents beginning with the "Declaration of the 46" in 1923, he was expelled for it in December 1927, at the XV Congress of the VKP(b), among 75 "active figures of the Trotskyist opposition." In his 1937 assessment, Trotsky wrote that from 1923 to the end of 1927 Serebryakov, alongside I. N. Smirnov, occupied a prominent place in the leadership of the Left Opposition, and that he "unquestionably played the principal role" in facilitating the rapprochement with the Zinoviev group in 1926 and in mitigating friction inside the opposition bloc.
In early 1928 he was exiled to Semipalatinsk under Article 58 of the criminal code, the "counter-revolutionary" article. After submitting a statement of departure from the opposition in 1929 he was returned to Moscow and reinstated in the party in January 1930. Trotsky, noting that he had capitulated in 1929, added that he did so "in a more dignified manner" than the rest.
According to his daughter Zorya's testimony, he regarded Trotsky with amazing respect and reverence and with purely human warmth and love, and Trotsky was "a huge authority" for him.
His later career stands in contrast to the trial's charges. From 1931 he was head of the Central Administration of Highways and Automobile Transport (Tsudortrans) under the USSR Council of People's Commissars, and from 3 August 1935 first deputy head of that administration. The railway-sabotage charge fabricated against him at the 1937 trial does not fit the automobile and highway transport work he actually held.
The Second Moscow Show Trial and Death
Serebryakov was arrested on August 17, 1936 and in January 1937 became one of the 17 main defendants in the Second Moscow Show Trial: the case of the so-called "Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Centre." Prosecutor Vyshinsky's indictment named him, alongside Pyatakov, Radek, and Sokolnikov, as a member of the "reserve centre" (later called the "parallel centre") and alleged he had participated in an attempt on the lives of Nikolai Yezhov and Lavrenty Beria and directed diversionary sabotage attacks on Soviet railways. In fact, Serebryakov was head of the automobile and highway transport administration, not the railways, a detail that lays bare the fabricated nature of the charges.
According to the testimony of his daughter Zorya Serebryakova, he confessed and cooperated with the trial in order to save her life. Zorya was 14 at the time; after her parents' arrest she was herself arrested as the child of "enemies of the people" and sent into exile. Unlike many other defendants, Zorya recalled, Serebryakov never spoke a bad word about Trotsky during the trial. He was sentenced to death on January 30, 1937 and shot on February 1. His house and property were appropriated by Vyshinsky, his prosecutor.
He was rehabilitated during perestroika by a decision of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR on December 4, 1986, and his party membership was restored on June 10, 1987.