Builder of Soviet defence industry in the shadow of his brother Lazar
1 July 1941, Mikoyan's office. Confronted with a confession extracted by torture, he stepped outside to wait — and shot himself in the lavatory before they could arrest him.
A Bolshevik metalworker, he rose through Ordzhonikidze's heavy-industry apparatus to become People's Commissar for Defence Industry (1937–1939) and Aviation Industry (1939–1940), building the organizational framework of Soviet military production during the Great Purge. Elder brother of Lazar Kaganovich, he was notorious for a loud, lecturing style and dependence on talented deputies; dismissed in 1940, he shot himself in the lavatory of Mikoyan's office just after the German invasion, when Vannikov under torture falsely implicated him.
Career Timeline
- 1905Joined Bolsheviks; metalworker and labour activist
- 1917–1922Red Guard staff at Unecha station; Arzamas Revkom chairman; Surazh soviet chairman; district food commissar
- 1923–1927Chairman, Nizhny Novgorod Gubernial Economic Council
- 1927–1932Member and Presidium member, Central Control Commission; collegium member, Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate
- 1931–1932Head of Main Machine-Building Directorate, Deputy Chairman of VSNKh
- 1932–1936Deputy People's Commissar for Heavy Industry — Ordzhonikidze's chief lieutenant
- 1937–1939People's Commissar for Defence Industry
- 1939–1940People's Commissar for Aviation Industry
- 1940–1941Demoted to director, Aircraft Plant No. 124 (Kazan)
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905joined Bolsheviks, workers' movement
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationDeputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeVictim of early-wartime purge pressureThe former aviation-industry commissar took his own life in 1941 after being implicated by coerced testimony early in the war.
The NKGB Fabricated Case and Death of 1941
On 1 May 1941, NKGB People's Commissar Vsevolod Merkulov, a Beria protégé, sent Stalin a letter reporting that Mikhail Kaganovich headed an "anti-Soviet wrecking organization" in the aviation industry. The sole basis for the accusation was the testimony of a single witness: Boris Akimov, an official of the Aviation Industry Commissariat interrogated on 22 April. Akimov had never even met Kaganovich; he had merely been told by a superior that Kaganovich was "our man." Merkulov also extracted a confession that Akimov had been "an agent of German intelligence since 1932." This was equally dubious.
On 12 May, however, Leonid Vodyanitsky, Kaganovich's close aide and speechwriter during his commissariat tenure, was arrested and provided the decisive testimony. Vodyanitsky claimed Kaganovich had confided to him that "the Party's economic line was wrong, planning was unrealistic, and old cadres were being 'beaten down,'" and expressed concern that "the position of Jews in the USSR would worsen." He further stated that Kaganovich instructed him, when drafting reports to higher-ups, to "highlight the positive aspects of the aviation industry and conceal its lag in experimental design and production of modern aircraft." This was enough to convince Stalin.
On 1 July 1941, Kaganovich was summoned to Mikoyan's office, where Beria and Malenkov were present. His former deputy Boris Vannikov, barely conscious after torture, was brought in and repeated his false confession. Kaganovich exploded, "You bastards, you're lying!" and denounced them furiously. After the prisoners were led out, he was told to wait in the anteroom. He entered Mikoyan's private lavatory and shot himself with his personal revolver. By committing suicide before arrest, he protected his family and prevented the chain reaction that could have destroyed his brothers, including Lazar.
On 7 May 1953, two months after Stalin's death, the Party Presidium, on Beria's own proposal, ironically, declared the NKGB materials against Kaganovich "slanderous" and fully rehabilitated him posthumously. His widow Tsitsiliya Yulyevna received a lump sum of 50,000 rubles and a lifetime pension of 200 rubles per month. Kaganovich was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.