The industrial builder Lenin trusted; first People's Commissar for Defence Industry
October 1921, Lenin's letter: 'I swore at you because I took your ideas seriously. Learn to fight in the commission, and if they vote you down, send me your minority opinion clearly stated.'
A Bundist who joined the Bolsheviks in 1913, Rukhimovich rebuilt the Donbas coal industry as head of the Donugol Trust in the early 1920s: work Lenin valued enough to urge him on by personal letter. He later developed Kuzbass coal for eastern metallurgy, served as Deputy Commissar for Heavy Industry under Ordzhonikidze, and in December 1936 became first People's Commissar of the newly created Defence Industry Commissariat. Arrested on fabricated wrecking charges after ten months, he was shot in July 1938 and rehabilitated in 1956.
Career Timeline
- 1904–1917Bund activist; joined Bolsheviks (1913); chairman, Kharkov Military Revolutionary Committee
- 1918–1920Military Commissar, Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic; commissar, 41st Rifle Division; RVS member, 14th Army
- 1920–1925Donetsk Gubernial Executive Committee chairman; Donugol Trust manager — rebuilt Donbas coal
- 1925–1930Chairman, VSNKh Ukrainian SSR; Deputy Chairman, VSNKh USSR
- 1930–1931People's Commissar for Railways USSR
- 1931–1936Kuzbassugol Trust manager; Deputy Commissar for Heavy Industry under Ordzhonikidze
- 1936–1937People's Commissar for Defence Industry USSR (first)
Related historical events
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionChairman of Kharkov Military Revolutionary Committee
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign Interventionmilitary people's commissar
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationDeputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeTarget · People's Commissar for Defence IndustryRemoved as People's Commissar for Defence Industry on 15 October 1937 and arrested the next day. Sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court on 28 July 1938 and shot the following day. Posthumously rehabilitated on 14 March 1956 and reinstated in the party on 13 March 1956.
Arrest, Interrogation, and Execution
Rukhimovich was appointed first People's Commissar of the newly created Defence Industry Commissariat on 8 December 1936, but just ten months later, on 15 October 1937, he was removed from office. The NKVD arrested him on 18 October. That December he was also expelled from the Central Committee by poll.
The NKVD charged him with participation in a 'counter-revolutionary terrorist organisation.' In two interrogations on 31 January and 8 February 1938, investigators pressed him to confess to being part of a 'Right-Trotskyist bloc' linked to Pyatakov, Rykov, and Kruglikov, directing systematic wrecking across the entire defence industry. Yezhov personally forwarded the interrogation protocol to Stalin in a special report on 8 February 1938.
According to the protocol, Rukhimovich ultimately 'admitted' to deliberately neglecting mobilisation plans and to conducting 'wrecking for the purpose of defeat' in virtually every branch of defence production: shells, gunpowder, poison gas, tanks, and radio communications. The document, however, bears all the hallmarks of a forced confession: leading questions, repeated pressure, and the tactic of presenting co-defendants' prior 'confessions' to break resistance.
On 28 July 1938 the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced Rukhimovich to death; he was shot the following day, 29 July. His body was buried at the NKVD firing range at Kommunarka outside Moscow. Under Khrushchev he was posthumously rehabilitated by the Military Collegium on 14 March 1956, and reinstated in the party by the Party Control Committee on 3 March 1956.