Georgy Pyatakov

Georgy (Yury) Leonidovich Pyatakov (August 6 1890–1937) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader during the Russian Revolution, and member of the Left Opposition.

Pyatakov (party pseudonyms: Kievsky, Lyalin, Petro, Yapontets) was born August 6, 1890 at Maryinsky plant of Cherkasy district, Kiev province.

He started political activity as an anarchist while he was in secondary school, but he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party in 1910 and in 1912 joined the Bolshevik faction.

His opinion on some points of the theory and tactics of the revolutionary struggle was in contradiction with positions of the party Central Committee.

He was one of Lenin’s fiercest opponents on the national problem, the course to the socialist revolution and on peace with Germany.

Pyatakov lived in Ukraine from March [1917] , headed the Kiev Committee of RSDRP, was repeatedly elected a member of the Central Committee. But he was an opponent of Ukrainian national movement and stood for the transfer of power to the Soviets of Worker’s, Peasant’s and Soldier’s Deputies in Ukraine. He also headed the Kiev Military-Revolutionary Committee.

In 1918 Pyatakov was a leader of a group of Left Communists in Ukraine. He was one of the initiators of CP(b)U formation. He was elected the Central Committee secretary at the First Congress of CP(b)U in Moscow, and headed the unsuccessful anti-Hetman rebellion in August 1918. From October 1918 to mid-January 1919 he was a head of the Provisional Worker’s and Peasant’s Government formed by Bolsheviks for the fight with the Directory, and took part in the formation of the Red Army in Ukraine.

He was placed in charge the Donbas coal mining industry management in 1921, became a deputy head of the Gosplan (State Planning Committee) of the RSFSR in 1922, and deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR.

The likeness of Pyatakov’s Left-Communist views and Trotsky’s ideas led to his participation in practically all the opposition trends then designated as "Trotskyist".

He was expelled from the party for belonging to the "Trotskyite-Zinovievite" bloc, but was reinstated in 1928 after he renounced Trotskyism, and became Deputy head of Heavy Industries.

In 1936 he was again accused of anti-party and anti-Soviet activity, and expelled from the party. At his trial, he was accused of conspiring with Trotsky in connection with the case of the so-called Parallel anti-Soviet Party Centre, to overthrow the Soviet Government. He was accused of entering into a conspiracy with the Nazis with the intent of seizing power in the Soviet Union, promising to reward the Germans with large tracts of Soviet territory. The prosecution presented evidence that he had secretly met with Trotsky in Denmark for these purposes. However, it later emerged that the Oslo airdrome reported that no foreign planes had arrived at the time of Pyatakov's supposed visit to Trotsky at the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen. The Hotel Bristol itself had been closed down years before the alleged meeting.

On January 30, 1937, he was sentenced to death and executed.

Pyatakov was rehabilitated posthumously.