The control commissar who ran Stalin's personnel-appointment machinery
At the March 1937 Central Committee plenum he denounced Trotskyists, Zinovievists, and Rightists as having 'fused into one bloody clot of saboteur-murderers in the service of German and Japanese fascists.' Four months later he himself was arrested.
A Bolshevik from 1912, he served in the Petrograd factory committee leadership during the October Revolution and headed the Petrograd Cheka during the Civil War. In 1924, as head of the Central Committee's Organizational-Distribution Department (Orgraspred), he played a central role in building Stalin's nomenklatura appointment system, then served as Ural and Leningrad regional party secretary and People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs before becoming Chairman of the Commission of Soviet Control and Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars in 1935. From the apex of the party-state oversight apparatus he supervised planning discipline, but was expelled from the Central Committee at the June 1937 plenum, arrested, and shot in July 1938; he was rehabilitated in 1956.
Career Timeline
- 1917Petrograd Committee RSDLP(b), Presidium of Central Council of Factory Committees
- 1918–1919Chairman, Petrograd Cheka
- 1924–1925Head of Orgraspred (Organizational-Distribution Department), CC RCP(b)
- 1925–1926First Secretary, Ural Regional Committee
- 1926–1927Second Secretary, Leningrad Governorate Committee; Secretary, Northwestern Bureau
- 1928–1931People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs, USSR
- 1931–1934Deputy People's Commissar, Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate; Presidium member, CCC
- 1935–1937Chairman, Commission of Soviet Control; Deputy Chairman, SNK & STO USSR
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionCheka chairman
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationPeople's Commissar of Communications
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeExpelled at the June Plenum and executed · Chairman of the Commission of Soviet ControlAt the March 1937 Central Committee plenum he fiercely denounced the 'Trotskyist-Zinovievist-Rightist bloc,' but four months later the June plenum expelled him from the Central Committee and the party. Arrested on 21 June 1937, he was sentenced to death on 28 July 1938 and shot the following night alongside Pyatnitsky, Unshlikht, Rudzutak, Knorin, Rukhimovich, and others. Buried at Kommunarka. Rehabilitated 30 June 1956.
Petrograd Cheka Chairman and the Red Terror
Antipov was appointed deputy chairman of the Petrograd Cheka in August 1918, and in January 1919 succeeded Varvara Yakovleva as chairman. His tenure coincided precisely with the peak of the Red Terror. On 30 August 1918, Petrograd Cheka chairman Moisei Uritsky was assassinated and Lenin was gravely wounded the same day; on 5 September, the Council of People's Commissars formally proclaimed the Red Terror, empowering the Cheka to conduct mass hostage-taking and summary executions against class enemies. Antipov was one of the principal executors of this policy in Petrograd. The historian Konstantin Zalessky described him as 'one of the main organizers of terror in the northern capital.' Under his command, the Petrograd Cheka arrested and executed hundreds, including former tsarist officers, clergy, and political opponents. In the spring of 1919, Antipov was transferred to Kazan to serve as provincial party secretary and executive committee chairman, handing the Cheka chairmanship to his successor.