Old Bolshevik who watched over the Party's books for a quarter-century
From 16 to 30 March 1919, a physician and Old Bolshevik filled the void left by Sverdlov's sudden death, serving as acting head of the Soviet state. Only two weeks, but a critical bridge in the revolution's early succession.
An Old Bolshevik who joined the Party in 1895. After underground work (co-founding the Moscow Workers' Union and fighting in the December 1905 uprising) he served as acting head of the Soviet state for two weeks after Yakov Sverdlov's death in March 1919. He later served as Ukrainian deputy premier and Gosplan chair, RSFSR People's Commissar of Public Healthcare, and from 1927 until his death in 1951 chaired the Central Auditing Commission for 24 years, overseeing Party accounts and discipline. A Stalin loyalist who survived the purges, he lived with the paradox that his own son-in-law Martemyan Ryutin was expelled and destroyed.
Career Timeline
- 1895Co-founded Moscow Workers' Union · joined RSDLP
- 1896–1905Arrest, exile, emigration; joined Emancipation of Labor; Iskra collaborator; medical degree Berlin/Kazan
- 1905–1907Moscow Party committee & soviet deputy; December uprising; re-arrested, fled to France
- 1917–1919Moscow Party 'pentarchy' for October; VRK; VTsIK presidium; acting VTsIK chairman Mar 1919
- 1922–1926Ukrainian deputy premier, Gosplan chair, CC chairman & Workers-Peasants' Inspectorate commissar
- 1926–1927Deputy Chairman of USSR Gosplan
- 1927–1951Chairman, Central Auditing Commission of the VKP(b) — 24 years until death
- 1930–1934People's Commissar of Public Healthcare, RSFSR (concurrently)
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905Moscow Soviet deputy, armed uprising participant
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionMoscow Party pentarchy member, VRK memberA member of the five-person 'Party Pentarchy' that led the armed uprising in Moscow, and of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee, he directed the Moscow side of the October insurrection.
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationMember of Central Control Commission
The Ryutin Family Tragedy: A Stalin Loyalist Whose Family Was Destroyed by the Purges
Vladimirsky's eldest daughter Evdokia (1895-1947) married Bolshevik Martemyan Ryutin. In 1932, Ryutin authored a 200-page platform, Stalin and the Crisis of the Proletarian Dictatorship, which called Stalin the gravedigger of the revolution and denounced his personal dictatorship. Arrested in what became known as the Ryutin Affair, he was shot in January 1937. Vladimirsky, who from 1927 until his death chaired the Central Auditing Commission, the body overseeing Party finances and discipline, publicly supported Stalin's line and kept his post throughout the purges, yet could not save his own son-in-law from execution as the Party's most dangerous oppositionist.
Evdokia was arrested in October 1937 on charges of possession of counter-revolutionary literature and praise of enemies of the people, sentenced to 10 years, and sent to Karlag in Kazakhstan, where she died in 1947. Her two sons, Vladimirsky's grandsons, also perished. Vasily Ryutin (b. 1910), an engineer at the TsAGI design bureau, was arrested in September 1938, shot in Lefortovo Prison, and buried at Kommunarka. Vissarion (b. 1913), an Ukhtpechlag prisoner, was shot by troika sentence in December 1937. Only the youngest granddaughter, Lyubov, survived the camps and was released in the mid-1950s; she petitioned twice for her father's rehabilitation, in 1956 and 1958, but was refused. Ryutin would not be rehabilitated until 1988.
Vladimirsky, who never reached the highest Soviet offices yet survived for 24 years in the crucial post of Party accounts auditor, was honored with burial in the Kremlin Wall. His only son-in-law and two grandsons were shot by the state; his daughter died in the Gulag. It is a cruel paradox of the Stalin era: loyalty and survival did not extend protection to one's own family.