Grigory Sokolnikov

Grigory Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (15 August [O.S. 3 August] 1888 - May 21, 1939), born Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant, was an Old Bolshevik and a Soviet politician and economist.

He was born to a Jewish railway doctor in present-day Poltava Oblast but eventually moved to Moscow. Sokolnikov joined the Bolshevik Party in 1905 at the age of 17. He served time in prison and studied economics whilst at the Sorbonne.

After the Russian October Revolution he held various government positions. He was a member of the delegation for peace negotiations with Germany, replaced Leon Trotsky as chairman of the delegation and signed the Brest-Litovsk treaty in 1918 and became alongside Rosalia Zemlyachka commissar of the 8th army, using this position to order mass shootings during the Russian Civil War.^[1] Sokolnikov was appointed People's Commissar of Finance following the introduction of the New Economic Policy and candidate member of the Politburo in May, 1924. According to Boris Bajanov as minister of finance Sokolnikov proved himself to be a capable administrator, accomplishing every task he was asked to do such as creating the first stable Soviet currency and despite his past in the Red Army he was not ruthless in his personality although he proposed many projects to the Politburo in order to deceive the West.^[2]. Meanwhile Sokolnikov secretly lost faith in Marxism^[3] and described the USSR economic system as a state capitalism^[4]. During the fourteenth congress of the Communist Party in December 1925 he called for the removal of Stalin's position as General Secretary and was consequently removed from his position as candidate member of the Politburo and People's Commissar. He was Soviet ambassador to England from 1929 to 1932.

During the Great Purge, Sokolnikov was arrested during the Trial of Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Centre and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. Reportedly, he was killed in a prison by other convicts. A post-Stalin investigation during the Khrushchev Thaw revealed that the murder was orchestrated by the NKVD. In 1988 he was rehabilitated.

References

^ Boris Bajanov, Bajanov révèle Staline, Gallimard, 1979
^ Boris Bajanov, Avec Staline au Kremlin, Editions de France, 1930
^ Boris Bajanov, Bajanov révèle Staline, Gallimard, 1979
^ http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1925/12/18.htm

External links

Political offices
Preceded by Nikolai Krestinsky	People's Commissar of Finance 1922 – 1926	Succeeded by Nikolai Bryukhanov

References

Soviet Policy in Public Finance, 1917-1928, by Gregory Y. Sokolnikov & Associates; translated by Elena Varneck, edited by Lincoln Hutchinson & Carl C. Plehn. Stanford University Press. 1931.

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[1] Boris Bajanov, Bajanov révèle Staline, Gallimard, 1979

[2] Boris Bajanov, Avec Staline au Kremlin, Editions de France, 1930

[3] Boris Bajanov, Bajanov révèle Staline, Gallimard, 1979

[4] ttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1925/12/18.htm

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