People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Ukraine state institutions Left critics of Bolshevism 1873–1941 ✕ Executed

From Balkan revolutionary to head of Soviet Ukraine: the diplomat who became an opposition theorist

"Our misfortune is that we held responsible posts and power turned our heads." Final plea at the 1938 Moscow trial

A pan-European revolutionary of Bulgarian ethnic origin who also held Romanian citizenship, Rakovsky founded the Balkan Social Democratic Federation. As chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars from 1919 to 1923 he helped build the Ukrainian Soviet state, and he later served as Soviet ambassador to Britain and France. A Left Opposition theoretician who challenged Stalin's nationalities policy and party bureaucratisation, he was expelled in 1927, admitted his errors to Stalin in 1934 and was readmitted in 1935. Sentenced to 20 years at the Third Moscow Trial in 1938, he was shot at Oryol on 11 September 1941 and rehabilitated on 4 February 1988.

Georgia state institutions Left critics of Bolshevism 1877–1937 ✕ Executed

The Georgian communist who led Lenin's last fight against Stalin's centralization

"Being shot is not enough for me; I need to be quartered! It was I who brought the 11th Army here. I betrayed my people and helped Stalin and Beria, these degenerates, enslave Georgia and bring Lenin's party to its knees." — At his NKVD trial, 1937

Born into Georgian nobility, Mdivani joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and fought in the Caucasus revolutionary underground and Civil War. As chairman of the Georgian Sovnarkom in 1922, he led opposition to Stalin's 'autonomization' plan, defending Georgia's sovereign rights within the Soviet federation (a dispute that drew Lenin into his last political battle on Mdivani's side against Stalin and Ordzhonikidze). He joined the Left Opposition in 1923, was expelled and exiled in 1928, reinstated in 1931, and shot in 1937 during the Great Purge.

Soviet Ukraine state institutions Left critics of Bolshevism 1879–1925 ✕ Suicide

First woman to lead a Soviet government, between revolution and terminal illness

As German troops advanced on Kyiv, Bosch refused to abandon the city without a fight. Her comrades had to forcibly evacuate her.

A Bolshevik of German settler background, she became the first woman to head a Soviet government as acting leader of Ukraine's People's Secretariat in 1917. In Swiss exile she opposed Lenin on the national question; later she signed the Left Opposition's Declaration of 46. She died in 1925 after years of incurable illness.

Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries Left critics of Bolshevism 1883–1918 ○ Typhus

Left SR People's Commissar in the first Soviet coalition: 'the core of the party'

'Proshyan succeeded in doing more to strengthen the Soviet power before July 1918 than he did after July 1918 to undermine it.' — Lenin, 'In Memory of Comrade Proshyan,' December 1918

Core leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party and People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs in the first Soviet coalition government, serving alongside Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin on the Provisional Executive Committee of the Council of People's Commissars (February 1918). As commissar (December 1917–March 1918) he broke the postal-telegraph sabotage and normalized communications, while also serving as political commissar to the Supreme Military Council and member of the VTsIK Presidium. He resigned in protest against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and became one of the leaders of the July 1918 Left SR uprising; he died of typhus while underground. Maria Spiridonova called him 'the internal builder, the main spring, the core of the Left SR party.'

Soviet Union state institutions Left critics of Bolshevism ?–1920 ✕ Killed by pursuing troops

Red Army division commander who raised the "Red Army of Truth" against grain requisitioning in 1920

From a peasant family of Novouzensk district, Samara province, he fought in the First World War and returned to Novouzensk in 1917 as a second lieutenant, becoming the first chairman of the district soviet. A Left Socialist Revolutionary, after the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion he called himself a communist without joining the party. As commander of the Red Army's 22nd Division he held Uralsk through an 80-day siege in 1919, but was removed from the front "for inept command and a corrupting policy". In 1920, while forming the 9th Cavalry Division, he learned of his dismissal and on 14 July renamed the division the "1st Red Army of Truth" and rose in revolt. He was killed by a pursuing detachment near the aul of Koim on 6 September 1920.