Information about Lazar Kaganovich

Lazar Kaganovich Ла́зарь Моисе́евич Кагано́вич
Lazar Kaganovich
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Nationality	Ukraine / Soviet

Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich (Russian: Ла́зарь Моисе́евич Кагано́вич) (November 22, 1893 – July 25, 1991) was a Soviet politician and administrator and a close associate of Joseph Stalin.

Beginning

Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Gubernia, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). For most of his life, he was a staunch atheist. Never receiving a formal education, he was self taught and worked as a shoe repairman, or cobbler and shoemaker.

In 1911, he joined the Bolshevik party (following his older brother Mikhail Kaganovich who was already a member). Later in 1915, Kaganovich was arrested and sent back to Kabany. In March-April 1917, he was the Chairman of Tanners Union and the vice-chairman of the Yuzovka Soviet. In May of 1917, he became the leader of the military organization of Bolsheviks in Saratov. In August of 1917, he became the leader of the Polessky Committee of the Bolshevik party in Belarus. During the October Revolution, he was the leader of the revolt in Gomel.

Communist functionary

In 1918, Kaganovich was the Commissar of the propaganda department of the Red Army. In May 1918 - August 1919, he was the Chairman of Ispolkom of the Nizhny Novgorod gubernia. In 1919-1920, he was leader of the Voronezh gubernia. From 1920 to 1922, he was in Turkmenistan, where he was one of the leaders of the Bolshevik struggle against local Muslim rebels (basmachi) and also led the following punitive expeditions against the local opposition.

In May of 1922, Stalin became the General Secretary of the Communist Party and immediately transferred Kaganovich to his apparatus to head the Organizational Department of the Secretariat. This department was responsible for all assignments within the apparatus of the Communist Party. Working there, Kaganovich helped to place Stalin's supporters in key positions within the Communist Party bureaucracy. In his position, he was noted for his high work capacity, personal loyalty to Stalin, and the total lack of his own opinions. He publicly stated that he would execute absolutely any order from Stalin, which at that time was a novelty.

In 1924, Kaganovich became a member of the Central Committee. From 1925 to 1928, Kaganovich was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR. In Ukraine, he was noted for his rigid policy of economic suppression of the kulaks (wealthier peasants) and his staunch opposition to the more moderate policy of Nikolai Bukharin who insisted on peaceful integration of kulaks into socialism. During his tenure as the leader of the Ukrainian SSR, the policy of Ukrainization was changed to Russification and many communist officials were purged as "Ukrainian Nationalists". In 1928, due to numerous protests against Kaganovich's leadership, Stalin was forced to transfer Kaganovich from Ukraine to Moscow, where he returned to his role as a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (until 1939). As a Secretary, he supported Stalin in his struggle against the so called Left and Right oppositions within the Communist Party, in hopes of Stalin becoming the sole leader of the country. In 1933-1934 he was the Chairman of the Commission for the Vetting of the Party Membership (Tsentralnaya komissiya po proverke partiynykh ryadov) and personally ensured that nobody connected with the anti-Stalin opposition would be permitted to remain a Communist Party member. In 1934, at the XXVII Congress of the Communist Party, Kaganovich was the chairman of the Counting Committee. He falsified voting for positions in the Central Committee, removing 290 votes opposing the Stalin candidacy. His actions led to Stalin being re-elected as the General Secretary instead of Sergey Kirov. By the rules, the candidate receiving fewer opposing votes should become the General Secretary. Before Kaganovich's falsification, Stalin received 292 opposing votes and Kirov only three. However, the "official" result (due to the interference of Kaganovich) was that Stalin ended up with just two opposing votes (Radzinsky, 1996).

In 1930, Kaganovich became a member of the Soviet Politburo and the First Secretary of the Moscow Obkom of the Communist Party (1930-1935) and Moscow Gorkom of the Communist Party (1931-1934). He also supervised the implementation of many of Stalin's economic policies, including the collectivization of agriculture and rapid industrialization.

In the 1930s, Kaganovich organized and greatly contributed to the building of the first Soviet metro system in Moscow, which was named after him until 1955. During this period, he also oversaw the destruction of many of the city's oldest monuments including the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.^[1] In 1932, he led the ruthless suppression of the workers' strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.

Responsibility for Holodomor

Kaganovich (together with Vyacheslav Molotov) took part in the All-Ukrainian Party Conference of 1930 and actively encouraged the policies of collectivization there that many historians argue led to the catastrophic 1932-33 Ukrainian famine (the Holodomor), in which millions of Ukrainians died. Similar policies also inflicted enormous suffering on the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, the Kuban region, Crimea, the lower Volga region, and other parts of the Soviet Union. As an emissary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Kaganovich traveled to the Ukraine, Central region of Russia, Northern Caucasus, and Siberia demanding the acceleration of collectivization and repressions against the kulaks (who were generally used as scapegoats for the slow progress of collectivization) and their supporters. In his book, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine, Robert Conquest named Kaganovich together with Molotov, Pavel Postyshev and other Stalinist leaders of the USSR as having personal responsibility for the famine.

"Iron Lazar"

In 1935-1937, Kaganovich worked as Narkom (minister) for the railroads. Even before the start of Great Purge he organized arrests of thousands of railroad administrators and managers as "saboteurs".

In 1937-1939, he was the Narkom for Heavy Industry. In 1939-1940, he served as Narkom for the Oil Industry. Everywhere, his assignment was connected with arrests in order to improve discipline and compliance with Stalin's policies.

In all Party conferences of the later 1930s, he made speeches demanding increased efforts in the search for and persecution of "foreign spies" and "saboteurs". For his ruthlessness in the execution of Stalin's orders, he got the nickname "Iron Lazar".

One of many who perished during these years was Lazar's brother, Narkom of the Aviation Industry Mikhail Kaganovich. On January 10, 1940 Mikhail was demoted to director of the aviation plant N24 in Kazan. In February 1941, during the 18th Conference of the Communist Party, Mikhail was warned that if the plant missed its deadlines he would be ejected from the Party. On June 1, 1941, Stalin mentioned to Lazar that he had heard that Mikhail was "associating with the right wing". Lazar reportedly did not speak in the defense of his brother to Stalin, but did notify him by telephone. The same day Mikhail committed suicide.^[2]

During the Great Patriotic War, Kaganovich held the position of the Commissar (Member of the Military Council) of the North Caucasian and Transcaucasian Fronts. In 1943-1944, he was again the Narkom for the railroads. In 1943 he was presented with the title of the Hero of Socialist Labor. From 1944 to 1947, he was the Minister for Building Materials. In 1947, he became the First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party. During the time period of 1948-1952, he served as the Chief of Gossnab and in 1952-1957, the First Vice-Premier of the Council of Ministries.

Kaganovich was, until 1957, a full member of the Politburo as well as the Presidium. He was also an early mentor of eventual First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev, who first rose to prominence as Kaganovich's Moscow City deputy in the 1930s. In 1947, when Khrushchev was stripped of the Party leadership in Ukraine (he remained in the somewhat lesser "head of government" position), Stalin dispatched Kaganovich to replace him until the former was reinstated later that year.

Later life

Kaganovich was a rigid Stalinist, and though he remained in the Presidium, quickly lost influence after Stalin's death in March 1953. In 1957, along with fellow hard-line Stalinists Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Georgy Malenkov (the so-called Anti-Party Group), he participated in an abortive party coup against his former protege Khrushchev, who had over the preceding two years become increasingly harsh in his criticism of Stalin. As a result of the unsuccessful coup, Kaganovich was forced to retire from the Presidium and the Central Committee, and was given the position of director of a small Ural potassium factory. In 1961 he was completely expelled from the party and became a pensioner living in Moscow. His grandchildren reported that following his dismissal from the Central Committee, Kaganovich who had a reputation for his tempremental and allegedly violent nature, never again shouted and became a devoted grandfather.

In 1987, a book titled "The Wolf of the Kremlin: The First Biography of L.M. Kaganovich, the Soviet Union's Architect of Fear" was written by American journalist Stuart Kahan, in which Kahan claimed to be a long-lost nephew of Kaganovich. Kahan also claimed to have interviewed Kaganovich personally during a visit to Moscow, in which interview he alleges Kaganovich admitted to being partially responsible for the death of Stalin in 1953 (supposedly via poisoning). A number of other unusual claims were made as well, including that Stalin was married to Kaganovich's sister in the last year of his life and that Kaganovich (a Jew) was the architect of anti-Jewish pogroms. The truth of all of these allegations have been brought into question by a letter, Statement of the Kaganovich Family, written by Kaganovich's surviving family members (including his daughter) in which they state that Kahan never spoke to Kaganovich, that he is not related to Kaganovich and that the book's assertions are all false, providing evidence to that end as well.

Kaganovich survived to the age of 97, dying just before the events that led to the final unravelling of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Miscellanea

In 1944, the newly launched light cruiser of the project 26-bis was named after Lazar Kaganovich. It entered the Soviet Pacific Fleet in December 1944.

According to Time Magazine and some other newspapers, Lazar Kaganovich's son, Mikhail (named after Lazar's late brother) married Svetlana Dzhugashvili, daughter of Joseph Stalin on July 3 1951.^[3] Svetlana in her memoirs denies even the existence of such son.

References

• (Russian) Collection of six Kaganovich bios at Khronos
• Radzinsky, Edvard, (1996) Stalin, Doubleday (English translation edition), 1996. ISBN 0-385-47954-9

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