Comintern architect of the Canton uprising who led the first party-apparatus challenge to Stalin's collectivization
At the 16th Party Congress in 1930, he took the podium and openly assailed Stalin's forced collectivization. When he finished, the hall fell silent — his was one of the few speeches not greeted by applause.
A Georgian Bolshevik who left a deep mark on the Chinese revolution as a Comintern operative. In 1927 he chaired the August 7 Emergency Conference, engineered the removal of Chen Duxiu, elevated Mao Zedong to the Politburo, and approved the Canton uprising. He also advanced the theory that China's 'Asiatic mode of production' made it possible to bypass the capitalist stage. In 1930 he and Syrtsov formed the first party-apparatus opposition to Stalin's forced collectivization; demoted and marginalized, he shot himself in 1935 under threat of arrest.
Career Timeline
- 1917Worked in Petrograd military organization; secretary of Kutaisi party committee
- 1918–20Led Tbilisi and Baku committees; Presidium member, CP of Azerbaijan
- 1921–22Fought in the Kronstadt suppression; party organizer for Vyborg district, Petrograd
- 1922–24First Secretary, Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia
- 1925–29Secretary of KIM (Young Communist International); Comintern rep to China — led Aug. 7 Emergency Conference and approved Canton uprising
- 1930First Secretary of Transcaucasian Kraikom; formed Syrtsov-Lominadze bloc — expelled from CC
- 1933–35Secretary of Magnitogorsk city party committee
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionParty organizer in the Caucasus
- 1922.12Formation of the USSRAppointed First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party in 1922, replacing Georgian communists who opposed centralization, and enforced the federation's formation
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationCo-leader of the Syrtsov-Lominadze oppositionAt the 16th Party Congress in 1930 he openly criticized Stalin's forced collectivization and concentration of power, then together with RSFSR Premier Syrtsov formed the 'Left-Right Bloc', the first opposition organized from within the party apparatus after both Left and Right oppositions had been defeated. He was removed from the Central Committee in December 1930. In 1933 he was demoted to Magnitogorsk party secretary, working at the construction site of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine, the greatest symbol of the First Five-Year Plan.
The Syrtsov–Lominadze Affair: The First Party-Apparatus Challenge to Stalin's Collectivization
Soon after his appointment as First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Kraikom in 1930, Lominadze openly stated that the region lacked the "material productive base" that made rapid collectivization possible in the North Caucasus or Ukraine. At the 16th Party Congress in June–July 1930 he took the podium to criticize the tempo of forced collectivization and the excessive pressure being placed on the peasantry. Around this time he met with Sergei Syrtsov, chairman of the RSFSR Council of People's Commissars; Komsomol theorist Lazar Shatskin; and Jan Sten. They agreed that the pace of industrialization and collectivization must be slowed and inner-party democracy restored.
Stalin branded their circle a 'left–right bloc.' On November 4, 1930 a joint session of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission adopted the resolution "On the Factional Work of Comrades Syrtsov, Lominadze, Shatskin and Others." Lominadze was expelled from the Central Committee and stripped of all party posts. The affair was the first instance in which sitting party-apparatus officials, not veterans of the old Left Opposition, collectively challenged Stalin's line, setting a precedent for the Ryutin affair and subsequent intra-party resistance. Demoted to Magnitogorsk, Lominadze secretly continued opposition work, forming a new group with Shatskin and Sten in 1932; it dissolved after Sten's arrest that autumn.