The young oppositionist of the Revolutionary Military Council
On 7 November 1927, the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, Smilga hung portraits of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev from his apartment opposite the Kremlin with a banner reading 'Let's Fulfill Lenin's Testament.' Stalin's supporters broke in and wrecked the apartment; beaten in the street and arrested, he escaped custody later that day.
A Latvian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and economist. He joined the party at fourteen and was elected to the Central Committee at twenty-four in 1917, becoming Lenin's key collaborator during his Finnish hideout. During the October Revolution he transported pro-Bolshevik troops from Finland to Petrograd; in the Civil War he served as a Revolutionary Military Council member on every major front and as head of the Red Army's Political Directorate. A principal leader of the Left Opposition, he led its last public demonstration in November 1927. After renouncing Trotskyism in 1930 he was reinstated, but secretly continued in Ivan Smirnov's underground opposition organisation. He was executed in January 1937.
Career Timeline
- 1917–1921Revolutionary and Civil War party-military leadership
- 1923–1927Left Opposition activity
- 1937Arrest and execution
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionMilitary commissarA member of the republic's Revolutionary Military Council, he served as political commissar on several fronts, including the Western Front in the Polish war.
- 1921–1928The New Economic Policy (NEP)Left Opposition activist who challenged NEP economic policies
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeLeft Opposition targetA revolutionary and Civil War leader who joined the Left Opposition and was executed in 1937.
The Left Opposition and the November 1927 Demonstration
After Lenin's death, Smilga supported Trotsky in the inner-party struggle and emerged as a key leader of the Left Opposition. His signature appeared on all its major documents and appeals. Expelled from the Central Committee in October 1927, the Left Opposition staged its last public demonstration on 7 November, the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, in Moscow and Leningrad. Smilga greeted the marchers and spoke from a balcony; afterwards he was beaten by supporters of the "general party line." At the end of the year the OGPU Special Board sentenced him to four years' exile and sent him to Minusinsk in Siberia: the Politburo had originally designated Kolpashevo, but the destination was changed at Smilga's appeal to Stalin. Fifteen hundred people gathered for his send-off, and Trotsky delivered a speech. Unable to bear life outside the party, Smilga, together with Beloborodov, Radek, and Preobrazhensky, declared his break with Trotskyism in 1930. He was soon reinstated in the party and returned to Moscow, but secretly continued to participate in Ivan Smirnov's underground opposition organisation.