Grigory Isayev
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Grigory Zinovyevich Isayev (russian: Григорий Зиновьевич Исаев; 1 July 1943-20 July 2020) was a Russian politician and labor activist. He was the leader of the
Samara Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with ...
Stachkom (Strike Committee) and the Party of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. A young man when
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 Secreta ...
died, he soon developed an admiration for Stalin's ideology that would drive him throughout life. His young experiences, along with a three-year tour in the
Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...
in Germany, served to harden his anti-reformist tendencies ideologically. Later joining Alexei Razlatsky in the Soviet dissident movement, the two would form the Samara Stachkom, a
Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Chi ...
aligned dissident network. Throughout the 1970s, Isayev and the Stachkom engaged routinely in short strikes for "simple" changes in working conditions. Also a key part of Isayev's dissident life was the copying of Ideological Notebooks, done to circumvent Soviet censors and spread awareness of the Stachkom. After Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland in 1981, Soviet crackdowns on dissidents and strikers became more common. Two days later, on December 15, Isayev and Razlatsky, along with most of the Stachkom leadership were then arrested and sentenced to a prison camp for their roles in organizing a workers' strike and an underground communist organization in the
Soviet Union 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 national ...
while under
Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gener ...
's rule. Isayev was sentenced to "5 years of camps and 5 of exile", and spent the next 5 years in a camp outside the city of Perm. This process was aggravated by Brezhnev's death, and the rise of
Viktor Chebrikov Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov (russian: Виктор Михайлович Чéбриков; 27 April 1923 – 2 July 1999) was a Soviet public official and security administrator and head of the KGB from December 1982 to October 1988.Montgomery, ...
as head of the KGB, whose time in leadership was "the heyday of the KGB", leading to many further dissident arrests and convictions. Under the leadership of
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the po ...
and Chebrikov, "almost all known dissidents were arrested or expelled", including all known associates of the Stachkom. After Isayev's release, he continued to lead the Stachkom's remnants, eventually forming them into the "Party of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", a Mao-Zedong-Thought aligned political party in the Russian Federation. He was arrested twice under
Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
in 1998 for leading the successful two-month-long strike of the 5,000 ZIM (Zavod imeni Maslennikova) factory's workers and the blockade of the main street of Samara which paralyzed the center of the city. Later in life, Isayev was often invited to be a guest speaker at schools and universities, speaking on the subjects of Philosophy and
Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various co ...
. Isayev lived in the Stachkom's headquarters, a former bomb shelter known as the "Ravine of Underground Revolutionaries". Many Russian communist ideologues and politicians had visited this shelter, and engaged with Isayev in debate, generally ending in the visiting party being branded a "Counter-Revolutionary". Isayev died on July 20, 2020, in Samara, having become locally loved for his resistance to the Yeltsin regime later in life.


References


External links


The Life of Grigory Isayev



Viewpoint: Grigory Isayev about labour movement in Russia and World
''at Krasnoe TV'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Isayev, Grigory Zinovyevich 1943 births 2020 deaths People from Saratov Oblast Russian communists Russian politicians Soviet dissidents Soviet prisoners and detainees