Mendel Markovich Khatayevich (; 3 October 1893 – 30 October 1937) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

politician.Hataevich Mendel Markovich
a biography at www.hrono.ru ''(in Russian)'' was Second Secretary of the

Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine The Communist Party of Ukraine (, КПУ, ''KPU''; ) was the founding and ruling political party of the Ukrainian SSR operated as a republican branch (union republics) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).Pyrih, R. Communist Par ...

. He was one of the main organizers of

collectivization in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Collectivization in Ukraine during the period when it was part of the Soviet Union, and was officially called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, was part of the policy of collectivization in the USSR and dekulakization. It was pursued betwe ...

, which caused the death by starvation of millions of people. Born in

Gomel Gomel (, ) or Homyel (, ) is a city in south-eastern Belarus. It serves as the administrative centre of Gomel Region and Gomel District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it is the List of cities and largest ...

(in present-day

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

) in 1893, the son of a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

merchant. Khatayevich joined the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

faction of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

in 1913. Arrested in 1914, he was exiled to

Angara The Angara (; ) or Angar ( мүрэн) is a major river in Siberia, which traces a course through Russia's Irkutsk Oblast and Krasnoyarsk Krai. It drains out of Lake Baikal and is the headwater tributary of the Yenisey. It is long, and has ...

. Released from exile 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 ...

, he returned to Gomel, but in 1918, was transferred to

Samara Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...

, where he was taken prisoner by anti-Bolshevik troops, and tortured so badly that his right hand was paralysed, but he survived and was rescued when the city was recaptured by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. From November 1918, he held a succession of party posts in Gomel,

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

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 ...

, and the Tatar Republic. In 1930, he was elected a member of the

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the Central committee, highest organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) between Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Congresses. Elected by the ...

. Khatayevich was the regional secretary of the Communist Party in the Central Volga Region from 1928 until 1932, and therefore throughout most of the period of collectivisation. In March 1930,

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 ...

published an article in ''

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 ...

'' entitled Dizzy with Success, which blamed local officials for the excesses committed during the early months of the new campaign for mass collectivisation which Stalin and the rest of the Central Committee had approved. In April, Khatayevich wrote an unusually outspoken response, in which he suggested that a large share of the blame lay at the centre. He claimed: "Instructions should have been given to the central press so that, in criticising the deviations and excesses which took place, they should attack and mock not only local officials. Many directives on collectivising all livestock, including the smallest types, came from the agricultural commissariat".

Role in the
Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...

In October 1932, Khatayevich was transferred to Ukraine, as a member of the Political Bureau of the

, and Secretary of the Ukraine Communist Party Central Committee. He was a member of the Ukrainian Politburo until his arrest, seven years later. When the

Court of Appeal An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to Hearing (law), hear a Legal case, case upon appeal from a trial court or other ...

for Kyiv City investigated the famine that swept through Ukraine in the 1930s, in a judgement delivered on 13 January 2010, they found Khatayevich and other long-dead Soviet leaders

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. ...

Lazar Kaganovich Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich (; – 25 July 1991) was a Soviet politician and one of Joseph Stalin's closest associates. Born to a Jewish family in Ukraine, Kaganovich worked as a shoemaker and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party ...

Pavel Postyshev Pavel Petrovich Postyshev (; – 26 February 1939) was a Soviet politician, state and Communist Party official and party publicist. He was a member of Joseph Stalin's inner circle, before falling victim to the Great Purge. In 2010, a court in K ...

Stanislav Kosior Stanislav and variants may refer to: People *Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.) Places * Stanislav, Kherson Oblast, a coastal village in Ukraine * Stanislaus County, ...

and

Vlas Chubar Vlas Yakovlevich Chubar (, ; – 26 February 1939) was a Ukrainian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician. Chubar was arrested during the Great Terror of 1937–38 and executed early in 1939. The top Communist Party official in Ukrai ...

guilty of "organizing genocide of the Ukrainian ethnic group". It is well documented that Khatayevich knew that the harvest of 1932 was dismal, and was threatening starvation for the rural population. Nine days after his arrival, he wrote to Stalin to warn that Ukraine was not going to meet its target for delivering grain, and might produce only half of what was expected, citing as one of the main reasons "the decreased well-being of collective farmers (and) lack of proper production activity on collective farms." But on 23 October 1932, he sent a directive to every regional, city and district committee of the Ukraine Communist Party ordering them to take firm measures to confiscate grain from peasants. In November, he and Chubar co-signed a decree on "crushing

kulak Kulak ( ; rus, кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈɫak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned over ...

groups", which led to the army being deployed to break the resistance of the peasants. Early in 1933, Khatayevich was moved to

Dnipropetrovsk Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

, as First Secretary of the regional communist party. In March 1933, he wrote to Stalin, again, warning "I am literally inundated with daily reports and materials about cases of starvation, swelling and disease from hunger. In recent days, there have been more and more reports of corpse-eating and cannibalism." This included corpses lying on the streets of several towns. He went on to claim that many of these reports of death and illness were "exaggerated", but pleaded all the same for emergency medical care. In June, he sent a telegram begging for food to be sent the region. There was no hint of these problems in the speech Khatayevich delivered to the 17th Party Congress in 1934, when he praised the "fighting spirit" of Ukraine's collective farmers, and the way that "Comrade Stalin led our party, led us, our entire army of fighters for socialism, with the greatest firmness, calmness, composure, with a clear perspective."

Arrest and death

In 1935, at the regional party plenum, Khatayevich spoke out against wholesale purges, and in August 1936, he stated there that “there are elements of authoritarianism in the practice of our leadership”. He was, on the other hand, one of the beneficiaries of 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 ...

in its early stage, when he was promoted to the post of Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR in March 1937, when Postyshev was sacked. However, on 15 July 1937, a man named Kulyakin, who was visiting Moscow from Dnepropetrovsk, wrote a letter to the Central Committee, wanting to know why Khatayevich was still in office when more two dozen officials linked to him had been arrested. The letter was passed to Stalin, who had it sent on to the head of the Dnepropetovsk party committee, Natan Margolis, ordering him to check it out. Khatayevich was arrested on 7 September 1937, and on 27 October 1937 sentenced to death on charges of participating in a counterrevolutionary terrorist organization and executed. In 1956 Khatayevich was rehabilitated and his membership in the Party restored.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khatayevich, Mendel 1893 births 1937 deaths Belarusian Jews Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union) politicians Executed mass murderers Genocide perpetrators Governors of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Great Purge victims from Belarus Jewish socialists Jews executed by the Soviet Union Candidates of the Central Committee of the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Members of the Central Committee of the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Members of the Central Committee of the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union Old Bolsheviks People from Gomel People from Gomelsky Uyezd Politicians from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Soviet Jews Soviet rehabilitations Soviet mass murderers

Role in the Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...

Arrest and death

References

Role in the
Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...