Georgy Pyatakov

Georgy Leonidovich Pyatakov (Russian: Георгий Леонидович Пятаков; Ukrainian: Георгій Леонідович П'ятаков, romanized: Heorhii Leonidovych Piatakov; 6 August 1890 – 30 January 1937) was a Ukrainian revolutionary and Soviet politician. He was a leading Bolshevik in Ukraine during and after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Born in Kiev Governorate, Pyatakov was expelled from St Petersburg University in 1910 and later that year joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He was arrested in 1912 and exiled to Siberia, but in 1914 escaped to Switzerland, where he worked with Vladimir Lenin. Pyatakov returned to Ukraine after the February Revolution of 1917 and was elected the chairman of the party's Kiev committee, and following the October Revolution was elected the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In 1918, he was part of the Left Communist party faction, and during the civil war served as the first chairman of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine and in several military roles.

From 1923 to 1926, Pyatakov was deputy chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy. In 1927, he was expelled from the party, led by Joseph Stalin, for his membership in Leon Trotsky's Left Opposition, but recanted and rejoined in 1928. Pyatakov was later arrested in 1936, found guilty at the Stalinist show trials, and executed in 1937.