Alexander Krasnoshchyokov
Encyclopedia
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
- shot November 26, 1937, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
) was a Soviet politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and the first Chairman of the Government (Head of the state) of the Far Eastern Republic
Far Eastern Republic
The Far Eastern Republic , sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally independent state that existed from April 1920 to November 1922 in the easternmost part of the Russian Far East...
.
In most western works of reference his name is spelt 'Krasnoschekov' or 'Krasnoschekoff'.
Early life
He was of Jewish origin and when a young student in Kiev joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour PartyRussian Social Democratic Labour Party
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...
in 1897. He was arrested in 1898 and briefly imprisoned, before being exiled to Nikolaievsk where he met Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
. After his release he returned to the Ukraine where he joined Martov in political agitation and organised a workers association in Ekaterinoslav. He was again arrested and imprisoned in 1901. On his release he found himself under constant police surveillance and went to Berlin to avoid exile in Siberia. After these two arrests Alexander Krasnoshchyokov left the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
for the USA in 1903. He joined the Socialist Labor Party of America
Socialist Labor Party of America
The Socialist Labor Party of America , established in 1876 as the Workingmen's Party, is the oldest socialist political party in the United States and the second oldest socialist party in the world. Originally known as the Workingmen's Party of America, the party changed its name in 1877 and has...
and worked as an agitator for the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
. Later he started studying at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
at the Law School
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world. The U.S. News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among U.S...
. In 1912 Alexander Krasnoshchyokov graduated from the University and started working as a lawyer, and defended striking workers in the 'Bread and Roses Strike' of 1913. After the February Revolution, he decided to return to Russia, travelling by ship from Vancouver via Japan, where he was interviewed by agents of the Provisional Government.
Return to Russia
In August 1917 he returned to Russia by ship to VladivostokVladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
with his wife and two children. There he became the secretary of the Domestic Servants Union and acted as the union representative on the existing Vladivostok Soviet. He then joined the city council of Nikolsk-Ussurisk despite his known Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
affiliation, and within two weeks had set up a rival Soviet which elected him its President. He was at a workers convention in Vladivostok October 28, 1917 when news of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd reached the city. The convention broke up having failed to agree on whether to recognise the new government, as members of the old Zemstvos opposed the Bolshevik coup and rule by soviets. Krasnoshchyokov returned to Nikolsk to organise a new conference of soviets which met at Khabarovsk December 11, 1917 to press for rule by soviets throughout the Maritime Province, while a rival conference organised by the Zemstvos opened a day earlier. Failing to agree once more, the Soviet dispersed their rival and set up a Coalition Government in the Amur valley at Khabarovsk in January 1918 called the Far Eastern Council of Peoples Commissars, leaving a minority of members to Zemstvo nominees. Krasnoshchyokov was elected President but the Blagoveschensk Zemstvo refused to join and was expelled. A new soviet was chosen which then voted to join the Amur government in February 1918, but Vladivostok and the Maritime Province still held out. In March 1918 Chinese forces crossed the Amur from Aigun to protect its nationals in Blagoveschensk, where they joined a (White) 'City Guard' force of about 5,000 and 2,000 Cossacks. The Soviet was surrounded at Government House protected only by remnants of the old Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...
troops and Krasnoshchyokov was promptly imprisoned when he came to intercede. However the Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some from the Chinese border. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, after Vladivostok. The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia...
soviet sent more soldiers and 15,000 peasants came to his aid, which enabled the 'Red' forces to retake the city a week later. Krasnoshchyokov was freed and with difficulty managed to restore order among the peasants who were now intent on looting the city after the Whites had fled along with the city bankers and merchants across the river into Chinese territory. In April 1918 the local soviet dissolved the Vladivostok Zemstvo and city council and declared itself the local government, and in May 1918 recognised the Amur government headed by Krasnoshchyokov. Thus the whole of the Russian Far East was now unified under one government, although this was not to last for very long.
Russian Civil War
Krasnoshchyokov had managed at first to maintain cordial relations with the forces of the Czech legion that were awaiting evacuation to Europe in the area, but the local soviet in Vladiviostok was overthrown by a Czech coup 28 June 1918, and allied intervention soon followed in August 1918 with the landing of Japanese, British and American troops. These proved too strong for the Red forces who were driven back after hard battles near Dukhovoe and Kraevska 24 August 1918 to Khabarovsk. In September 1918 Krasnoshchyokov disbanded the army in favour of partisan warfare and left his family in the care of the American consul at Khabarovsk to return to the USA. He then went to Blagoveschensk before fleeing into the hills along the river Zeya where he spent three months evading capture by the Japanese. Under an assumed identity he became a merchant at Nerchinsk and travelled throughout Siberia with anti-Kolchak propaganda.In May 1919 he was arrested as a spy in Samara but jumped off the train that was taking him to trial at Ufa. He was arrested again soon after this, and this time was sent to Irkutsk in September 1919 where he remained imprisoned until December 28, 1919, when Irkutsk fell under the control of the leftist group (including SRs) which formed the Political Centre
Political Centre (Russia)
Political Centre was an independent political group in Irkutsk during the Russian Civil War .Being established in November 1919, its leaning was leftist: SR and Menshevik. The target was to remove Aleksandr Kolchak from power. That's why the Political Centre members joined local Bolsheviks and on...
. Alexander Krasnoshchyokov was released and headed the Irkutsk Gubkom (regional Bolshevik party committee). With the whole of Siberia in turmoil, he proposed to the Red Army HQ at Tomsk January 18, 1920 the idea of a democratic republic as a buffer state
Buffer state
A buffer state is a country lying between two rival or potentially hostile greater powers, which by its sheer existence is thought to prevent conflict between them. Buffer states, when authentically independent, typically pursue a neutralist foreign policy, which distinguishes them from satellite...
which might be acceptable to the Allied Powers still occupying Eastern Siberia. This was accepted and supported by Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
who valued his experience in the USA as he was particularly good at dealing with Americans and had made a favourable impression on the American Expeditionary Force
American Expeditionary Force
The American Expeditionary Forces or AEF were the United States Armed Forces sent to Europe in World War I. During the United States campaigns in World War I the AEF fought in France alongside British and French allied forces in the last year of the war, against Imperial German forces...
in Siberia. However by the time he returned local Bolsheviks had overthrown the 'Political Centre' of SR's and Mensheviks at Irkutsk, and Krasnoshchyokov was told to locate the capital of this state further east at Verkhne-Udinsk, which had been occupied by Red Partisans under General Eiche on March 7, 1920. It was with great difficulty that Krasnoshchyokov managed to win acceptance by the peasants and partisans for the founding of the Far Eastern Republic which was declared April 6, 1920, even though he had Lenin's support. Krasnoshchyokov himself drew up the constitution in English, before it was translated into Russian. However opposition to him continued among local Bolsheviks, peasants and partisans who wanted union with Russia. They expected the Red Army to fight their way east and destroy the remnants of Kolchaks forces now clustered around Chita under his successor Grigory Semyonov
Grigory Semyonov
Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, or Semenov , was a Japanese-supported leader of the White movement in Transbaikal and beyond from December 1917 to November 1920, Lieutenant General and Ataman of Baikal Cossacks .-Biography:Semyonov was born in the Transbaikal region of eastern Siberia...
, and on to the Pacific and expel the Japanese Army who had taken control of the towns of the Maritime Province 4–5 April 1920.
Far Eastern Republic
The Far Eastern Republic , sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally independent state that existed from April 1920 to November 1922 in the easternmost part of the Russian Far East...
. The republic was recognised by the Japanese Army Command May 11, 1920, and by Soviet Russia May 16, 1920. Thanks to his efforts, the Gongota Agreement was signed 15 July 1920 with General Takayanagi of the Japanese Expeditionary Corps. This established a neutral zone between Verkhne-Udinsk and Chita allowing the Japanese forces, who were under constant pressure from partisans, to withdraw from Transbaikalia without losing face. The Japanese completed this withdrawal 15 October 1920, and Chita was occupied by the partisan NRA 22 October 1920 despite some resistance by the White forces under General Verzbitsky, who then withdrew south to join Semyonov
Semyonov
Semyonov , also transliterated as Semenov, Semenoff, and Semionov , or Semyonova is a common Russian last name...
in Manchuria. Krasnoshchyokov met General Eiche at Chita in early November and the Chita became the capital of a state as large as Western Europe. The union of the FER with the Maritime province was finalised 10 November 1920. However his disdain for collective leadership
Collective leadership
Collective leadership or Collectivity of leadership , was considered an ideal form of governance in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...
and the continued opposition from local Bolsheviks to his leadership led to continual clashes, and he was recalled from the FER in April 1921, officially to recover from a bout of TB. His successor was Nikolay Matveyev
Nikolay Matveyev
Nikolay Mikhailovich Matveyev was a Soviet politician and the second and last head of the Far Eastern Republic....
.
Arrest and trial
In September 1921 Krasnoshchyokov was appointed to the People's Commissariat for Finance (Narkomfin), and made a deputy commissar in December 1921, despite the opposition of many of the existing members. Lenin valued his practical expertise and energy over the Bolshevik bureaucrats who had made a mess of the budget. Typhus forced him to step down in March 1922 to the relief of the other commissars who refused to have him back when he recovered. Instead he was appointed to Presidium of Vesenkha in April 1921 and used this to create a new bank in November 1922 to promote Trade and Industry - Prombank - leaving the state bank with only regulation of money and credit, much to the annoyance of the Narkomfin. In 1922 he was interviewed by the American journalist Anna Louise StrongAnna Louise Strong
Anna Louise Strong was a twentieth-century American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.-Early years:...
about the New Economic Policy
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
(NEP) and departure from war communism
War communism
War communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
:
Krasnoschekoff said: "We must say frankly to the people, `Your government cannot feed all and produce goods for all. We shall run the most necessary industries and feed the workers in those industries. The rest of you must feed yourselves in any way you can.' This means we must allow private trade and private workshops; it is well if they succeed enough to feed those people who work in them, since no one else can feed them. Later, as state industries produce a surplus, these will expand and drive out private trade."
The new bank was very successful but when Lenin had his third stroke in March 1923, Krasnoshchyokov lost his only protector and had made many enemies in the ranks of the new stalinist bureaucracy. In October 1923 his arrest was announced by Kuybyshev on charges of corruption. At the time his arrest caused a sensation and his trial was quite widely covered in the west. Alexander Krasnoshchyokov was the first well known communist supported by Lenin to be sacrificed in a public 'showtrial' . The trial was held in Moscow March 1924 and the main charges were that he had given special privileges to his lover Donna Gruz and his brother Iacov, and had been living a bourgeois lifestyle, something common to most of the party elite. He was found guilty, sacked and expelled from the party and sentenced to six years in prison.
Later life
Krasnoshchyokov was held in the Lefortovo prison in Moscow where he contracted pneumonia November 1924 when he was transferred to the government hospital near the KremlinKremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
. He was amnestied in January 1925 and sent to Yalta to recover. He returned to Moscow in autumn 1925 to work for the Ministry of Agriculture and devoted his energies to improving the cotton crop in Central Asia. By 1930 he was head of an institute dedicated to development of cotton and other fibre crops. He married Donna Gruz and they had twin girls in 1934. In July 1937 he was arrested and sentenced to death for espionage 25 November and was shot the next day. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1956, three years after Stalin's death.