19 Facts About Grigory Kaminsky

Grigory Kaminsky became involved in the revolutionary movement as a 16 year old pupil in a Gymnasium in Minsk, in Belarus, distributing Pravda to factory workers.

In 1917, while still a student, Grigory Kaminsky became a member of Moscow bureau of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, and had to break off his studies in March when the party sent him to Tula, where Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were united in a single party organisation, but which split after Vladimir Lenin's return to Russia.

Grigory Kaminsky was recalled in September 1920, to acting as head of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities, while the People's Commissar, Joseph Stalin, was absent on the front line during the war with Poland.

Late in 1920, Grigory Kaminsky was sent to Azerbaijan, soon after it had been reoccupied by the Red Army.

Grigory Kaminsky was recalled to Moscow in 1921, and replaced by Sergei Kirov.

Grigory Kaminsky was put in charge of their development, as Deputy Chairman of the Agricultural Union, and Chairman of the Union of Agricultural and Forestry Workers, and head of several specialised centres.

Grigory Kaminsky's policy was vehemently opposed by Leon Trotsky, leader of the Left Opposition, who claimed, in July 1926, that it would lead to the co-operatives being run not by communists and poor peasants but by 'middle' peasants.

In 1928, after Stalin had decided to drive peasants onto collective farms, Grigory Kaminsky was appointed head of Kolkhozsentr, the main farm agency for the Russian republic.

Late in 1929, Grigory Kaminsky was appointed head of the Central Committee department for agitation and mass campaigns.

Grigory Kaminsky served as the for the Russian Federal Republic from 15 February 1934.

Grigory Kaminsky is credited with extensive work in establishing production of medicine, preparation of medical personnel, fighting malaria in Soviet Union and promotion of medical science in education system.

Grigory Kaminsky tried to protect scientists working in the field of health from being harassed for political reasons.

Grigory Kaminsky had ordered it to be withdrawn because of a paragraph which accused three named scientists of 'pseudoscience' linked to fascism and racism.

Grigory Kaminsky was rebuked for that, and for proposing that Solomon Levit, the founder of soviet genetics, should be elected to the praesidium of the congress, when he had recently been expelled from the communist party.

Grigory Kaminsky protested against the practice of suppressing information about epidemics.

The speech that Grigory Kaminsky reputedly delivered during a plenary session of the Central Committee of June 1937 was not included in the report, and is known only from hearsay.

Grigory Kaminsky is credited with denouncing the future NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria, then the party boss in Transcaucasia, mentioning that Beria had worked for the counterintelligence of the Musavat party in Azerbaijan.

Grigory Kaminsky was accused of having been recruited by Bukharin into an anti-soviet organisation in 1929, and of having created a wrecking organisation with the commissariat of health.

Grigory Kaminsky admitted the charges under interrogation, probably under torture, but at his trial on 8 February 1938, which lasted 15 minutes, he said that he did not feel that he was an 'enemy of the people.