Georgy Ippolitovich Oppokov (russian: Гео́ргий Ипполи́тович Оппо́ков; also known as Afanasi Lomov) (28 January 1888 – 2 September 1937) was a prominent
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 ...
leader,
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 ...
politician and the first
People's Commissar for Justice of Soviet Russia.
Early career
Georgi Oppokov was born in
Saratov, the son of a bank manager and member of the minor
nobility
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The character ...
.
He joined the
Bolsheviks
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 ...
as a schoolboy, in 1903, and led a combat squad in Saratov during the
1905 revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
. In 1907-08, he was a member of the Moscow committee of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Arrested in July 1910, he was exiled to the
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk (, ; rus, Арха́нгельск, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near ...
region for three years. Released in February 1913, under an amnesty to mark the tricentenary of the
Romanov dynasty
The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastasia Romanova, was married to ...
,
he returned to Moscow, and was one of the founders of the metal workers' union. He was expelled from Moscow in 1914, and returned to Saratov, where he was arrested in April 1916, and deported to Irkutsk.
Post-revolutionary Career
After the
February Revolution, in 1917, Oppokov returned to Moscow, and under the name 'Lomov' was elected a candidate member of the
Central Committee of the Bolsheviks at the
Sixth Party Congress in August 1917. As one of its youngest members, he was a keen backer of
Vladimir 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 ...
's call for a second revolution. On October 3, speaking on behalf of the Moscow Regional Party Committee, while Lenin was in hiding, he delivered a sharp rebuke to fellow members of the Central Committee for wavering on this issue. After the
Bolshevik Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
in November 1917, he was appointed People's Commissar for Justice, but surrendered this post when the Bolsheviks entered into a brief coalition with the
Left Socialist Revolutionaries
The Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (russian: Партия левых социалистов-революционеров-интернационалистов) was a revolutionary socialist political party formed during the Russian Rev ...
. He was also a Bolshevik candidate in the
1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election
Elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly were held on 25 November 1917, although some districts had polling on alternate days, around two months after they were originally meant to occur, having been organized as a result of events in the Feb ...
, being fielded in the
Arkhangelsk constituency.
In December he was appointed a member of the
Supreme Economic Council (Vesenkha).
From January 1918, Lomov was a supporter of the
Left Communists, led by
Nikolai Bukharin, who opposed the
Brest-Litovsk Treaty, proposing instead to fight a 'revolutionary war' against Germany. On 23 February, along with Bukharin and others, he resigned from all his posts to campaign against the treaty, but his resignation was not accepted, and in March, he was re-elected a candidate member of the Central Committee. In March 1918 he was ousted from his leading position win Vesenkha, but was later placed in charge of its timber administration, and was responsible for timber supplies throughout the
Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
. In 1921-23, he was based in Siberia, as a member of the economic council. In 1923, he was appointed head of the Oil Syndicate.
Abandoning his former allegiance to the left, he supported
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 ...
against
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 ...
in the rift that followed Lenin's death, and having been dropped from the Central Committee, he was returned as a full member in December 1927. In 1931-34, he was deputy head of
Gosplan
The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( rus, Госплан, , ɡosˈpɫan),
was the agency responsible for central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of ...
. In February 1934, he was appointed a member of the bureau of the
Central Control Commission.
Arrest and Death
In June 1937, one of Lomov's colleagues in Gosplan wrote to Stalin denouncing him as someone who had been friendly with Bukharin. Stalin forwarded the note to
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
asking "What to do?". Molotov responded: "I'm for arresting this bastard Lomov immediately." He was arrested on 25 June, and shot on 2 September 1937.
Family
Lomov's wife, Natalya, was arrested on 17 July 1937 and sentenced to eight years in a labour camp for not reporting her husband's 'criminal activities'. She was released early, in 1940, but rearrested in 1941 and sentenced to 10 years in the labour camps, then arrested for the third time in 1949. She was 'rehabilitated' in December 1954.
Their daughter, Nina, a student at the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages was arrested at the age of 20, in June 1939, and sentenced to three years in a labour camp.
Personality
Simon Liberman, a
Menshevik who worked for the timber trust described Lomov as "an honest, direct man with old-fashioned ideas about the comradeship of the revolutionary circles and about the morals of the revolution itself" adding:
Lomov/Oppokov was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956. The circumstances of his arrest were revealed by the former head of the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
,
Alexander Shelepin
Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin (; 18 August 1918 – 24 October 1994) was a Soviet politician and security and intelligence officer. A long-time member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he served as First Depu ...
, in his speech to the
22nd Congress
The 22nd United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 183 ...
in 1961.
Notes
External links
Georgy Oppokov Archiveat
marxists.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oppokov, Georgy Ippolitovich
1888 births
1938 deaths
Politicians from Saratov
People from Saratovsky Uyezd
Russian nobility
Old Bolsheviks
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
People's commissars and ministers of the Soviet Union
Russian Constituent Assembly members
Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union members
Left communists
Left Opposition
Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union) members
Great Purge victims from Russia
Soviet rehabilitations
Soviet Ministers of Justice