Stanislav Kosior

Stanislav Kosior Станіслав Вікентійович Косіор
Leader of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine
In office May 30, 1919 – December 10, 1919
Preceded by	Georgiy Pyatakov
Succeeded by	Rafail
In office March 25, 1920 – November 23, 1920
Preceded by	Nikolai Nikolayev
Succeeded by	Vyacheslav Molotov
In office July 14, 1928 – January 27, 1938
Preceded by	Lazar Kaganovich
Succeeded by	Nikita Khrushchev (acting)
Personal details
Born	November 18, 1889(1889-11-18) Wengrow, Siedlce Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	February 26, 1939(1939-02-26) (aged 49) Moscow, Soviet Union
Nationality	Polish
Alma mater	Sulin Hauptschule

Stanislav Vikentyevich Kosior, sometimes spelled Kossior (Russian: Станисла́в Вике́нтьевич Косио́р, Ukrainian: Станіслав Вікентійович Косіор, Polish: Stanisław Kosior) (18 November [O.S. 6 November] 1889 – 26 February 1939) was one of three Kosior brothers, Polish-born Soviet politicians. He was General Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, deputy prime minister of the USSR, and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He is considered one of the principal so-called architects of the Ukrainian famine of 1932 to 1933, known as the Holodomor in Ukraine. He was executed during the Great Purge.

Biography

Trofim Lysenko speaking at the Kremlin in 1935. At the back left to right are Kosior, Anastas Mikoyan, Andrei Andreyev and Joseph Stalin.

Stanisław Kosior was born in 1889 in Węgrów in the Siedlce Governorate of the Russian Empire, in the Polish region of Podlaskie, to a family of humble factory workers. Because of poverty, he emigrated to Yuzovka (modern Donetsk), where he worked at a steel mill. In 1907 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and quickly became the head of the local branch of the party. In 1913 he was transferred to Moscow and then to Kiev and Kharkiv, where he organized local Communist cells. In 1915 he was arrested by the Okhrana (the Russian secret police) and exiled to Siberia.

After the February Revolution Kosior moved to Saint Petersburg, where he headed the local branch of the Bolsheviks and the Narva municipal committee. After the October Revolution Kosior moved to the German-controlled areas of the Ober-Ost and Ukraine, where he worked for the Bolshevik cause. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, he moved back to Russia, where in 1920 he became Secretary of the CPSU. In 1922 he became head of the Siberian branch of the CPSU. From 1925 to 1928 he was Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

From 1919, Kosior was often a member of Ukraine's Politburo. In 1928 he became General Secretary of the Ukrainian SSR Communist Party. Among his tasks was the forcible collectivization of agruiculture in Ukraine, which resulted in the Great Famine in 1932 and 1933.

In 1930 Kosior was admitted to the Politburo of the CPSU. In 1935 he was presented with the Order of Lenin "for remarkable success in the field of agriculture". In January 1938 he also became head of the Soviet Control Office and deputy prime minister of the USSR. This was the height of his political success.

On 3 May 1938, during the Great Purge, Kosior was stripped of all Party posts and arrested by the NKVD. On 26 February 1939 he was sentenced to death by shooting and executed the same day by General Vasili Blokhin. As with Jānis Rudzutaks and Pavel Postyshev, there is a wall of silence about his death.

After Stalin's death, Kosior was rehabilitated by the Soviet government on 14 March 1956.

But after the fall of the USSR, on 13 January 2010, Kosior was condemned by the Court of Appeals of independent Ukraine as a political criminal.