Matvei Konstantinovich Muranov (; 11 December O.S. 29 November">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/> O.S. 29 November1873 – 9 December 1959) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik">Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 29 November1873 – 9 December 1959) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik revolutionary, [ Soviet politician and statesman.

Revolutionary beginnings

Born in a peasant family in Poltava">Rybtsy (now part of Poltava">olitics of the Soviet Union">Soviet politician and statesman.

Revolutionary beginnings

Born in a peasant family in Poltava">Rybtsy (now part of Poltava in Ukraine), Muranov moved to Kharkiv in 1900 and worked as a railroad worker. He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904 and became a member of the local party committee in 1907. In 1912 Muranov was elected to the 4th

State Duma The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly (Russia), Federal Assembly of Russia, with the upper house being the Federation Council (Russia), Federation Council. It was established by the Constitution of Russia, Constitution of t ...

from the city of Kharkiv and became one of 6 Bolshevik deputies there. Muranov was the only Bolshevik deputy (the other one, Roman Malinovsky, was later exposed as a

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

agent) who voted to break away from the rival Menshevik faction of the RSDLP on 15 December 1912. Bolsheviki deputats

After the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in August 1914, Muranov and other Bolshevik deputies followed the lead of the exiled Bolshevik leader

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

, denouncing the war and calling on Russian soldiers to turn their weapons against their own government. Bolshevik deputies traveled around the country using their

parliamentary immunity Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which politicians or other political leaders are granted full immunity from legal prosecution, both civil prosecution and criminal prosecution, in the course of the exe ...

to foster revolutionary activities. They were arrested in November 1914, expelled from the Duma and put on trial on 10 February 1915 on charges of

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its d ...

. Facing the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

, some Bolshevik deputies and

Lev Kamenev Lev Borisovich Kamenev. ( Rozenfeld; – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolsheviks, Old Bolshevik, Kamenev was a leading figure in the early Soviet government and served as a Deputy Premier ...

, who had been sent to Russia to direct their work in January 1914, wavered and moderated their position. Muranov, however, took an uncompromising approach, which enhanced his reputation within the Bolshevik party. In the end, the

Tsar Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...

ist government dropped most of the charges against the accused, who were skillfully defended by the future head of the

Russian Provisional Government The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II on 2 March, O.S. New_Style.html" ;"title="5 ...

Alexander Kerensky Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917 ( N.S.). After th ...

and other lawyers. Muranov and other Duma deputies were exiled to the remote Turukhansk region of

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

for life.

The 1917 Revolution

After the overthrow of the

Romanov The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russi ...

dynasty by the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

of 1917, Muranov returned to the capital,

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, with other Bolshevik exiles including Lev Kamenev and

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

. On 12 March, he joined the Russian Bureau of the Bolshevik Central Committee and on 16 March he joined the editorial board of the Bolshevik newspaper ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

''. Muranov and Stalin were also made members of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. Muranov used his political capital within the Bolshevik party, which he had earned with his behavior at the 1915 trial, to provide political cover for Kamenev, whose behavior at the trial had made him suspect in the eyes of rank and file Bolsheviks. Together, they took over ''Pravda'' and ousted its previous editors,

Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (; – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician, diplomat, and revolutionary who was a leading figure in the government of the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1950s, as one of Joseph Stalin's closest allies. ...

and Alexander Shlyapnikov. Once in control, they advocated conditional support of the newly formed liberal

"insofar as it struggles against reaction or counter-revolution". Kamenev, Stalin and Muranov also suggested that Bolsheviks should unite with the internationalist wing of the rival Menshevik faction of the RSDLP. These positions were adopted by the All-Russian Conference of the Bolshevik Party on 28 March – 4 April 1917. When Lenin and

Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev (born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky; – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolsheviks, Old Bolshevik, Zinoviev was a close associate of Vladimir Lenin prior to ...

returned to Russia on 3 April, they opposed the Kamenev–Stalin–Muranov line and called for a

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

revolution and a complete break with the Mensheviks instead. Once Lenin emerged victorious at the next All-Russian Bolshevik conference in late April 1917, Muranov was sent back to Kharkov to run the local Bolshevik newspaper, ''Proletarian''. At the 6th Bolshevik Party Congress in late July and early August 1917, Muranov was elected to the party's Central Committee and became a member of its Secretariat. On 5 August, the Central Committee elected Muranov to its permanent bureau (''uzkij sostav'').

Political life

Muranov participated in the Bolshevik seizure of power during the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

of 1917 and was elected to the Bolshevik-dominated Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee at the Second Congress of Soviets. On 27 October, he became a member of the joint Bolshevik- Left Socialist-Revolutionary commission charged with preparing the Second Congress of Peasant Soviets in circumvention of the existing Central Executive Committee of Peasant Soviets. Muranov was a Bolshevik candidate in the

1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election Elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly were held on 25 November 1917. Organized as a result of events in the February Revolution, the elections took place two months after they had been originally meant to occur. They are generally recogni ...

, being fielded in the Arkhangelsk constituency. As a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, he supported Lenin during the intra-party debate over the

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, whi ...

in early 1918. Muranov was not re-elected to the Central Committee at the 7th Bolshevik Party Congress in March 1918, but returned to the body after the 8th Congress in March 1919. He remained a member of the Central Committee until 1923. Between March 1919 and April 1920, he was a candidate member of the Central Committee's Orgburo. During the intra-party struggles of the 1920s, Muranov was an ally of Joseph Stalin. At the 11th Party Congress in 1922 he was elected to the Central Control Commission, a member of which he remained until 1934. In 1923–1934 he was also a member of the Soviet Supreme Court. In 1934 he moved to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Muranov survived the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, which claimed the lives of many

Old Bolsheviks The Old Bolsheviks (), also called the Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, were members of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Many Old Bolsheviks became leading politi ...

, and was sent into retirement in 1939. He died in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

aged 86 and was buried at the

Novodevichy Cemetery Novodevichy Cemetery () is a cemetery in Moscow. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. History The cemetery was designed by Ivan Mashkov and inaugurated ...

Notes

Other references

''Encyclopedia of Marxism'' entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muranov, Matvei 1873 births 1959 deaths Politicians from Poltava People from Poltava Governorate Ukrainian people of Russian descent Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Old Bolsheviks Candidates of the Orgburo of the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Members of the Central Committee of the 6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) Members of the Central Committee of the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Candidates of the Central Committee of the 9th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Members of the 4th State Duma of the Russian Empire Pravda people Russian Constituent Assembly members Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution