Arkady Pavlovich Rosengolts (Russian: Арка́дий Па́влович Розенго́льц; 4 November 1889 – 15 March 1938; sometimes spelled Rosengoltz or Rosenholz) was a
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
revolutionary,
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
military leader, politician and diplomat. He was the
People's Commissar of Foreign Trade and a defendant at the Moscow
Trial of the Twenty-One
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, ...
in 1938.
Early life
Rosengolts was born in
Vitebsk
Vitebsk or Viciebsk (russian: Витебск, ; be, Ві́цебск, ; , ''Vitebsk'', lt, Vitebskas, pl, Witebsk), is a city in Belarus. The capital of the Vitebsk Region, it has 366,299 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-largest c ...
on November 4, 1889. He was the son of a Jewish merchant.
Late in life, he said that he was raised by a woman who was an active revolutionary, and that at the age of ten, he had to hide illegal literature during a police raid.
He joined the
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of the
Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...
(RSDLP) in 1905, the year of the first, abortive
Russian Revolution, and was arrested for the first at the age of 16. In 1906, he was a Bolshevik delegate to the Fourth RSDLP Congress, in Stockholm. He worked as an insurance agent and carried out work for the Bolshevik party in Vitebsk, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav and Moscow.
Rosengolts played an active role in the
Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
. He was a member of the executive committee of the Moscow City Council, the Moscow
Military Revolutionary Committee
The Military Revolutionary Committee (russian: Военно-революционный комитет, ) was the name for military organs created by the Bolsheviks under the soviets in preparation for the October Revolution (October 1917 – Marc ...
and the All-Russian Military-Revolutionary Committee.
From the beginning of the Russian civil war, Rosengolts was a political commissar with the Red Army, and played a leading role in the conquest of
Kazan
Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: ɑzan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers, covering an ...
the
Volga
The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...
region during 1918. This brought him close to
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, who appointed him in September 1918 to the Revolutionary War Council, which directed the war effort. He was removed from the council in July, but continued to serve as a political commissar with the Fifth Red Army for the campaign against the White army of
Admiral Kolchak
Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (russian: link=no, Александр Васильевич Колчак; – 7 February 1920) was an Imperial Russian admiral, military leader and polar explorer who served in the Imperial Russian Navy and fought ...
in Siberia.
In August 1920, Rosengolts was assigned to create the Joint Transport Committee (
Tsektran),
working with Trotsky, which provoked bitter opposition from the trade unions, because it brought the railway and water transport workers' unions under political control. From January 1922 to November 1924, he was head of the Soviet Air Force.
In this capacity, he conducted secret negotiations with German high command, with the aim of securing military co-operation, principally against Poland. In July 1923, he had a secret meeting with the German Chancellor,
Wilhelm Cuno
Wilhelm Carl Josef Cuno (2 July 1876 – 3 January 1933) was a German businessman and politician who was the chancellor of Germany from 1922 to 1923, for a total of 264 days. His tenure included the episode known as the Occupation of the Ruhr ...
in a private apartment in Berlin, but talks floundered after the fall of the Cuno government.
In December 1923, Rosengolts signed
The Declaration of 46
The Declaration of 46 was a secret letter sent by a group of 46 leading Soviet communists to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party on 15 October 1923. The declaration followed Leon Trotsky's letter sent to the Polit ...
, which called for greater party democracy, and which implied that his allegiance was to the left opposition, which supported Trotsky when the communist party split in the mid-1920s. This invoked a sarcastic response from
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, writing in ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' in December 1923: "In the ranks of the opposition there are men like Rosengolts, whose 'democracy' was a misery to our water transport workers and railwaymen."
In London
In 1925–27, Rosengolts was counsellor and chargé d'affaires at the Soviet embassy in Britain.
This in line with a Stalin's practice of sending leading oppositionists, such as
Christian Rakovsky, out of the country on diplomatic missions.
Rosengolts ran the embassy from November 1925, when Rakovsky was transferred from London to Paris, until the new Ambassador,
Leonid Krasin
Leonid Borisovich Krasin (russian: Леони́д Бори́сович Кра́син; 15 July 1870 – 24 November 1926) was a Russian Soviet politician, engineer, social entrepreneur, Bolshevik revolutionary politician and a Soviet diplomat. In ...
arrived in July 1926, and after Krasin's death in November 1926. In December, he reported to Moscow that relations between the UK and USSR were deteriorating because of soviet support for the
miners' strike
Miners' strikes are when miners conduct strike actions.
See also
* List of strikes
References
{{Reflist
Miners
A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are tw ...
in the UK and communist involvement in the
crisis in China.
On 12 May 1927, Special Branch police raided the London headquarters of the Soviet trade delegation and the All-Russian Co-operative Society, 'Arcos' looking for a document allegedly stolen from the War Office. Rosengolts protested to the British government, and submitted a seven-page memorandum claiming that there was "no particle of evidence that the Trade delegation or Arcos or any of their employees have ever engaged in military espionage."
But on 24 May, the Prime Minister,
Stanley Baldwin told the UK Parliament that the police had uncovered a wealth of documents obtained by spies in a 'subterranean photostat room'.
Baldwin did not directly accuse Rosengolts of espionage, singling out the trade representative,
Lev Khinchuk
Lev Mikhailovich Khinchuk (16 November 1868, Poltava – 14 March 1944) was originally a member of the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) until 1919, when he applied for membership of the Russian Communist P ...
instead, but he implied that Rosengolts was a liar. The police had seized correspondence between the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and the Soviet agent
Mikhail Borodin
Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg, known by the alias Borodin, zh, 鮑羅廷 (9 July 1884 – 29 May 1951), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Communist International (Comintern) agent. He was an advisor to Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang (KMT) i ...
, who at the time of the Arcos affair was in China, where the British suspected that he was planning a communist takeover. Baldwin pointed out that Rosengolts had written to the London ''Daily Telegraph'' claiming that "Borodin is a private individual who is not and never has been in the service of the Soviet government."
Borodin was in fact working for
Comintern.
Speaking in Parliament two days later, the
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
,
William Joynson-Hicks
William is a male given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norm ...
alleged that Rosengolts "knew perfectly well that there were incriminating documents passing to and fro between Moscow and London."
The British government severed diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union on 25 May 1927. and expelled Rosengolts. As he was returning from London, he stopped off in Warsaw, where he witnessed the assassination of the soviet ambassador,
Pyotr Voykov
Pyotr Lazarevich Voykov (russian: Пётр Ла́заревич Во́йков; ua, Петро Лазарович Войков; party aliases: Пётрусь and Интеллигент, or ''Piotrus'' and '' Intelligent'') ( – June 7, 19 ...
by
Boris Kowerda.
Later career
Rosengolts had severed any connection with the opposition by the time of his return to Moscow, when he became a loyal supporter of Stalin. In 1927–30, he worked for
Rabkrin
The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, also known as Rabkrin (; РКИ, RKI; Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, WPI) was a governmental establishment in the Soviet Union of ministerial level (people's commissariat) re ...
and served on the
Central Control Commission, the body responsible for party discipline and expelling oppositionists.
On 10 September 1930, he was appointed Deputy People's Commissar for Trade. This was a promotion and a sign of Stalin's confidence in his ability. The People's Commissar was
Anastas Mikoyan, a member of Stalin's inner circle, but Stalin had concluded that Mikoyan was not able to deal with the USSR's trade deficit and decided to "prop him up" with an "outstanding deputy".
In November 1930, the commissariat was divided into two, and Rosengolts was appointed People' Commissar for Foreign Trade. Under pressure to improve the USSR's trade balance, he clashed fiercely with the People's Commissar for Heavy Industry,
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze,, ; russian: Серго Константинович Орджоникидзе, Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze) born Grigol Konstantines dze Orjonikidze, russian: Григорий Константино ...
, who needed imported equipment. One argument became so heated that Ordzhonikidze nearly hit Rosengolts. Reporting back from a
Politburo session in August 1931, Stalin's deputy,
Lazar Kaganovich commented that "the exchange of courtesies between 'Rozen' and Sergo was very unpleasant."
Arrest and death
On June 14, 1937, early in the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
, Rosengolts was dismissed from this office, and appointed head of the department for state reserves, while the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
was building a case against him.
He was arrested on October 7, 1937. He was one of the defendants of the third
Moscow Trial, along with
Nikolai Bukharin,
Alexey Rykov
Alexei Ivanovich Rykov (25 February 188115 March 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician and statesman, most prominent as premier of Russia and the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1929 and 1924 to 1930 respectively. He was ...
, and other prominent Soviet officials.
The accused faced a long list of capital charges, including plotting to assassinate
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
and
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, espionage and sabotage. Rosengolts was also accused of having passed military secrets to Germany, on Trotsky's orders, during the negotiations he conducted in 1923, and of embezzling huge sums to finance the opposition. Like most of his co-defendants, Rosengolts confessed. In his final plea to the court he declared: "There is not a single man in the world who brought to much sorrow and misfortune to people as Trotsky ... Long live, flourish and grow in strength the great, mighty, beautiful USSR, advancing from victory to victory.
He was sentenced to death and shot on March 15, 1938 in Moscow.
In March 1988, the Communist Party announced that the entire trial was based on fake evidence and false confessions, and 'rehabilitated' Rosengolts and other defendants.
Personality
Alexander Barmine
Alexander Grigoryevich Barmin (russian: Александр Григорьевич Бармин, ''Aleksandr Grigoryevich Barmin''; August 16, 1899 – December 25, 1987), most commonly Alexander Barmine, was an officer in the Soviet Army and dipl ...
, an employee of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Trade, described Rosengolts as "a bulky-shouldered, handsome Jew, with a heavy jaw and iron character ... He was a forceful executive with a strong feeling for authority, a born bureaucrat and, when I knew him, devoted to Stalin." He believed that Rosengolts's skillful handling of foreign trade saved the USSR from economic catastrophe in the 1930s. But the scientist,
Vladimir Ipatieff
Vladimir Nikolayevich Ipatieff (also Ipatyev; russian: Владимир Николаевич Ипатьев); (November 21, 1867 (November 9 OS) – November 29, 1952) was a Russian and American chemist. His most important contributions are in the ...
, who encountered Rosengolts in the 1920s, thought him a "pompous, conceited man, in my opinion utterly worthless as an executive."
References
Sources
* Khrushchev, Nikita, 'Speech to the Twentieth Communist Party Congress' (1956).
* Orlov, Alexander, ''The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes.'' Random House, 1953.
* ''Report Of Court Proceedings In The Case Of The Anti-Soviet "Bloc Of Rights And Trotskyites". Heard Before The Military Collegium Of The Supreme Court Of The U.S.S.R., Moscow, March 2–13, 1938. In Re: N.I. Bukharin, A.I. Rykov, G.G. Yagoda et al.'' Verbatim Report. People's Commissariat of Justice of the U.S.S.R., Moscow, 1938.
* 'The Great Conspiracy.' ''Marxist Internet Archive.'' Online at: http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Great%20Conspiracy/GC-AK-MS-chapter20.htm.
* http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/bio_r/rozengolc_ap.php.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosengolts, Arkady
Belarusian socialists
Jewish socialists
Old Bolsheviks
People of the Russian Civil War
Military personnel from Vitebsk
Jews from the Russian Empire
Belarusian Jews
Jewish Soviet politicians
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to the United Kingdom
Great Purge victims from Belarus
Jews executed by the Soviet Union
1889 births
1938 deaths
Soviet show trials