Vladimir Mikhailovich Kirshon ( - July 28, 1938) was a Soviet playwright.

Born in Nalchik

Nalchik

Nalchik is the capital city of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, Russia, situated at an altitude of in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains; about northwest of Beslan in the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. It covers an area of...

 in the Caucasus into the family of a lawyer, Kirshon served in the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 during the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

 and in 1920 joined the Communist Party

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

, which sent him to the Sverdlov Communist University. As a young idealist, he was upset by 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,...

, and this is reflected in his early plays. He was an organizer of the Association of Proletarian Writers in Rostov-on-Don

Rostov-on-Don

-History:The mouth of the Don River has been of great commercial and cultural importance since the ancient times. It was the site of the Greek colony Tanais, of the Genoese fort Tana, and of the Turkish fortress Azak...

 and in the North Caucasus

North Caucasus

The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....

, and from 1925 was one of the secretaries of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers

Russian Association of Proletarian Writers

The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, also known under its transliterated abbreviation RAPP was an official creative union in the Soviet Union established in January 1925....

 (RAPP) in Moscow. He was among the most radical literary functionaries of the day, and was one of the most relentless persecutors of Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...

. His ideological fervor recommended him to Stalin, to whom he sent his work for approval. "When he was in favour, he could do no wrong: 'Publish immediately,' Stalin scrawled on Kirshon's latest article when returning it to Pravdas editor."

His early plays Konstantin Terekhin (1926) and Rel'sy gudyat (The rails are humming, 1927) "caused a sensation," but Khleb (Bread, 1931) "had but an ephemeral success." His later Chudesny splav (The miraculous alloy, 1934) was still popular in the 1960s. At the beginning of 1937, however, Kirshon fell out of favor due to his close association with Leopold Averbakh, former head of RAPP and brother-in-law of Genrikh Yagoda

Genrikh Yagoda

Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda , born Enokh Gershevich Ieguda , was a Soviet state security official who served as director of the NKVD, the Soviet Union's Stalin-era security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936...

. At a public meeting he was relentlessly attacked by Vsevolod Vishnevsky for associating with an "enemy of the people" and criticizing decisions of the Politburo

Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Politburo , known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.-Duties and responsibilities:The...

; he attempted to defend himself, but was expelled from the Party and the Writers' Union and soon disappeared from Moscow. In August 1937 he was arrested along with other former RAPP leaders as Trotsky sympathizers, and the next year he was executed at Butyrka prison

Butyrka prison

Butyrka prison was the central transit prison in pre-Revolutionary Russia, located in Moscow.The first references to Butyrka prison may be traced back to the 17th century. The present prison building was erected in 1879 near the Butyrsk gate on the site of a prison-fortress which had been built...

in Moscow. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955 and his plays performed again.