28 Facts About Grigory Sokolnikov

Grigory Sokolnikov was exiled to Siberia from 1907 to 1909, when he escaped to Western Europe, and obtained a doctorate in economics from the Sorbonne.

In 1917, Grigory Sokolnikov returned to Russia and was elected to the party's Central Committee, and following the October Revolution, oversaw the nationalisation of banks, was a member of the delegation at the negotiations for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and served as political commissar during the Russian Civil War.

Grigory Sokolnikov served as the People's Commissar for Finance from 1922 to 1926 before being demoted to lower positions due to his opposition to Stalin's rise to power.

In 1936, Grigory Sokolnikov was arrested during the Great Purge, and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment at the Moscow trials.

Grigori Grigory Sokolnikov was born Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant in Romny on 15 August 1888, the son of a Jewish doctor employed by the railways.

Grigory Sokolnikov moved to Moscow as a teenager and became involved in revolutionary circles alongside his friend and classmate, Nikolai Bukharin.

Grigory Sokolnikov joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1905.

In 1914, Grigory Sokolnikov obtained a doctorate in economics from the Sorbonne.

Grigory Sokolnikov joined the 'conciliatior' Bolsheviks, who wanted to avert an outright split with the Mensheviks.

Grigory Sokolnikov later wrote that "the division of labour in capitalist society was brilliantly expressed in this contrast of unceremonial plunder at the front and mannerly gentlemanliness at the green table".

Grigory Sokolnikov oversaw the introduction of a new currency, the introduction of tax in place of appropriation of surplus produce, the return of free trade, the return of land to Kirghiz that had been seized by Russian settlers, and the revival of cotton production.

Grigory Sokolnikov was appointed USSR Deputy People's Commissar of Finance on 10 January 1922.

Grigory Sokolnikov proposed the introduction of a new currency in the month when he first took office.

Grigory Sokolnikov's mistake is abstract enthusiasm for a scheme.

Grigory Sokolnikov accused Sokolnikov of being someone who "likes paradoxes".

Grigory Sokolnikov became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Communist Party in May 1924.

Privately, Grigory Sokolnikov lost faith in the Soviet Union under Stalin and later described the Soviet economy as state capitalist.

Grigory Sokolnikov's decision seems to have been more personal than political, because politically he was on the right of the party, whereas Zinoviev and Kamenev were about to join Trotsky in the United Opposition.

Grigory Sokolnikov appears to have been motivated by mistrust of Stalin, and friendship with Kamenev.

Grigory Sokolnikov was openly dismissive of the figures produced by Gosplan, believing that 'state capitalism' properly managed would be more efficient that a centrally planned economy.

In October 1926, the six principal leaders of the opposition, including Grigory Sokolnikov, signed a promise to follow the party line in future.

Grigory Sokolnikov kept to this line, unlike the others but was removed from the Politburo nonetheless, in January 1926, while being allowed to retain his membership of the Central Committee.

In February 1929, Grigory Sokolnikov was formally rebuked by the Politburo for being present during this conversation, after a transcript had been published abroad.

From 1929 to 1932, Grigory Sokolnikov was the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom, where the newly elected Labour government had extended diplomatic recognition to the USSR.

In 1932, Grigory Sokolnikov was recalled to Moscow and appointed Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

Grigory Sokolnikov kept glancing anxiously over his shoulder as though at some invisible intruder.

Grigory Sokolnikov was sentenced to ten years in the Gulag.

Reportedly, Grigory Sokolnikov was assassinated in a prison by other convicts on 21 May 1939.