Rosalia Samoilovna Zemlyachka, née Zalkind (; 20 March 187621 January 1947) was a

Russian revolutionary The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social change in Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government following two successive revolutions and a civil war. It ...

and

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 of Ukrainian origin. As a revolutionary, she was best known by the alias Zemlyachka, though she also used the party pseudonyms 'Demon' and 'Osipov'. Her married name was Samoilova.

Biography

Rosalia Zalkind was born in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

Kiev Governorate Kiev Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire (1796–1917), Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–18; 1918–1921), Ukrainian State (1918), and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919–19 ...

, the daughter of a wealthy, First Guild merchant, Samuil Markovich Zalkind. She was educated in a girls' gymnasium in Kiev, and later at the Faculty of Medicine of the

University of Lyon The University of Lyon ( , or UdL) is a university system ( ''ComUE'') based in Lyon, France. It comprises 12 members and 9 associated institutions. The 3 main constituent universities in this center are: Claude Bernard University Lyon 1, which f ...

. From age of 17, she was involved in revolutionary activities. A member 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 ...

since 1898, Zemlyachka worked in

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

and

Yekaterinoslav 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 an agent for the ''

Iskra ''Iskra'' (, , ''the Spark'') was a fortnightly political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). History ''Iskra'' was published in exile and then smuggl ...

'' newspaper, founded by

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 ...

and

Julius Martov Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum (24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923), better known as Julius Martov, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and a leader of the Mensheviks, a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). A close ...

Zemlyachka was a delegate to the Second Congress of the RSDLP, which convened in Brussels in July 1903, but she was arrested by the Belgian police and deported. When the RSDLP split into factions, she joined the

Bolsheviks 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, ...

. She continued to support Lenin when he appeared to be losing control of the Bolsheviks, who wanted to bring about a reconciliation of the factions of the RSDLP. In July 1904, she travelled to Geneva for the conference of hard line Bolsheviks who formed the 'Bureau of Majority Committees', the forerunner 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 ...

, to which she was elected, under the name 'Demon', on Lenin's recommendation. Afterwards she returned to Russia to build the Bolshevik organisation, visiting St Petersburg,

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

, and

Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...

. In December 1905, she was in Moscow at the time of the Moscow uprising. After its failure, she insisted on a purge of the Moscow Bolshevik organisation. She was arrested in 1906, but escaped from a police station. She was arrested several times, and in October 1907 was imprisoned in the Lithuania Castle in St Petersburg. After her release in 1909, she was briefly the secretary of the Bolshevik organisation in Baku, before emigrating. She returned to Russia illegally in 1914, and took charge of illegal transport across the Finnish border. In 1915-16 she was the secretary of the Moscow party organisation. After 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 ...

, Zemlyachka was appointed the secretary of the Moscow party committee. During the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...

, she directed the armed uprising in the Rogozhsk-Simonovsky district of Moscow. In 1918, she supported the 'Left Communists', who opposed the signing of 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 ...

. During the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, when she served as a

military commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and E ...

on the southern front, she supported the 'military opposition', who objected to the deployment of former officers of the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

Massacre of the 'Wrangelites'

Zemlyachka was appointed secretary of the

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

n party committee in November 1920, when the last

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

left in the war, commanded by Baron Wrangel, was evacuating the peninsula. Leaflets were dropped by aeroplane over

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

, the last city held by the Whites, which offered an amnesty to those who surrendered to the Red Army. They were signed in the name of the former commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army, General

Aleksei Brusilov Aleksei Alekseyevich Brusilov (, ; rus, Алексей Алексеевич Брусилов, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ brʊˈsʲiɫəf; – 17 March 1926) was a Russian and later Soviet general most noted for the developmen ...

, who was persuaded to go to Crimea to supervise their surrender by the Deputy People's Commissar for War,

Ephraim Sklyansky Ephraim Markovich Sklyansky () ( – August 27, 1925) was a Soviet revolutionary and statesman. He was one of the founders of the Red Army, an associate of Leon Trotsky, and a major contributor to the communist victory in the Russian Civil War. H ...

. Before Brusilov set out, a local decision was made to massacre those who had surrendered. The order to carry out this massacre was signed by the Chairman of the Crimean revolutionary committee,

Béla Kun Béla Kun (, born Béla Kohn; 20 February 1886 – 29 August 1938) was a Hungarian communist revolutionary and politician who in 1919 governed the Hungarian Soviet Republic. After attending Franz Joseph University at Kolozsvár (today Cluj-N ...

, Zemlyachka, and the head of the Crimean

cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

, Semyon Dukelsky According to

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

writer

Donald Rayfield Patrick Donald Rayfield OBE (born 12 February 1942, Oxford) is an English academic and Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Jos ...

, Kun and Zemlyachka were lovers, and she was "a Cheka sadist who tied the officers in pairs to planks and burned them alive in furnaces or drowned them in barges that she sank offshore. Estimates vary of the number killed, which may have been 70,000. Social scientist, Nikolay Zayats, from the

National Academy of Sciences of Belarus The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (NASB; ; , , ) is the national academy of Belarus. History Inbelkult - predecessor to the Academy The Academy has its origins in the Institute of Belarusian Culture (Inbelkult), a Belarusian acade ...

has disputed the large, “fantastic” estimates and attributed this to eyewitness accounts and

White army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

emigre press. A Crimean Cheka report in 1921 showed that 441 people were shot with a modern estimation that 5,000-12,000 people in total were executed in Crimea.

Later career

Between 1921-24, Zemlyachka was the secretary of the Zamoskvoretsky district committee, Moscow. In 1924, she was sent to South East Russia. In 1925-26, she was the secretary of the Motovilikhsky district party committee, in

Perm Perm or PERM may refer to: Places * Perm, Russia, a city in Russia **Permsky District, the district **Perm Krai, a federal subject of Russia since 2005 **Perm Oblast, a former federal subject of Russia 1938–2005 ** Perm Governorate, an administr ...

. Between 1924 and 1934, she was a member of the Central Control Commission. In 1926, she became a member of the collegium of

Rabkrin The People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, also known as Rabkrin (; РКИ, RKI; Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, WPI), was a governmental establishment in the Soviet Union of ministerial level (people's commissariat) t ...

and the head of its complaints bureau. According to a tribute written to mark the 110th anniversary of her birth, she involved hundreds of workers and party members in her campaigns against bureaucracy. She became so well known as "the scourge of bureaucrats and red-tape mongers" that a letter reached her from the provinces with the address 'Moscow, Comrade Zemlyachka'. In February 1934, she was appointed the head of the Transport Commission of the Soviet Control Commission, the successor organisation to Rabkrin. Zemlyachka received a major promotion in May 1939, when she was appointed Chairman of the Soviet Control Commission and a Deputy Chairman of the

Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union The Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union was the highest collegial body of executive and administrative authority of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1946. As the government of the Soviet Union, the Council of People's Commissars of ...

. She is the only woman to have served at this level in the Stalinist period, and the first woman to be decorated with the

Order of the Red Banner The Order of the Red Banner () was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was the highest award of S ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Zemlyachka was in charge of the relocation of

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

from

Ashgabat Ashgabat (Turkmen language, Turkmen: ''Aşgabat'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Turkmenistan. It lies between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet Dag, Kopetdag mountain range in Central Asia, approximately 50 km (30 ...

to Sverdlovsk (1942) and the re-evacuation from Sverdlovsk back to Moscow (1943). Zemlyachka died on 21 January 1947 in Moscow. Her ashes were buried at the

Kremlin Wall Necropolis The Kremlin Wall Necropolis is the former national cemetery of the Soviet Union, located in Red Square in Moscow beside the Moscow Kremlin Wall, Kremlin Wall. Burials there began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolsheviks who died during the Mosc ...

Ethnicity

She was born into the family of a merchant of the first guild. She graduated from the Kiev Women's Gymnasium and the Faculty of Medicine of Lyon University. Notably, her major promotion, which made her the most prominent woman in the Soviet government, was announced in the same month - May 1939 - that the Jewish People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs,

Maxim Litvinov Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (; born Meir Henoch Wallach-Finkelstein; 17 July 1876 – 31 December 1951) was a Russian Empire, Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet Union, Soviet statesman and diplomat who served as Ministry of Foreign Aff ...

was sacked, because "Stalin was obviously thinking of a Soviet-German Pact. Litvinov, with his Jewish background, could not possibly negotiate such agreement."

Notes

*Barbara Evans Clements, ''Bolshevik Women.''

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 1997,

External links

* http://www.knowbysight.info/ZZZ/02728.asp (Russian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Zemlyachka, Rosalia Samailovna 1876 births 1947 deaths Deputy heads of government of the Soviet Union Politicians from Kyiv People from Kiev Governorate Jews from the Russian Empire Ukrainian Jews Soviet Jews Jewish Soviet politicians Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Old Bolsheviks People of the Russian Revolution Members of the Central Committee of the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Members of the Central Committee of the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) People's commissars and ministers of the Soviet Union First convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Second convocation members of the Soviet of the Union Soviet women in politics Left communists Perpetrators of the Red Terror (Russia) 20th-century Russian women politicians Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Recipients of the Order of Lenin University of Lyon alumni Female revolutionaries Military Opposition