28 Facts About Pavel Postyshev

Pavel Postyshev was a member of Joseph Stalin's inner circle, before falling victim to the Great Purge.

Pavel Postyshev was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk in Vladimir Governorate to the family of a Russian weaver.

Pavel Postyshev was a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party from 1904, and later joined the Bolshevik faction, and worked full-time, illegally, as a party organiser.

In 1925, Pavel Postyshev became secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, or CPU.

In July 1930, Pavel Postyshev was transferred to Moscow, as the Secretary of the Central Committee, in charge of propaganda and organization.

In May 1930, Pravda published a signed article by Pavel Postyshev castigating party officials in Ukraine who complained that collectivisation was being driven ahead too quickly.

On 18 September 1932, Pavel Postyshev sent a telegram to the Ukrainian party leadership ordering them to meet their quota for exporting grain, in spite of warnings that forced collectivisation was causing mass starvation.

On 24 January 1933, Pavel Postyshev was appointed Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Ukraine CP, and first secretary of the Kharkiv city and Kharkiv Oblast Party organizations.

Pavel Postyshev criticized the Ukrainian Communists for their "lack of Bolshevik vigilance" in Stalin's systematic enforcement of increased grain quotas.

Pavel Postyshev wrote in his report that the majority were exiled or shot.

In February 1934, Pavel Postyshev was elected a candidate member of the Politburo.

Pavel Postyshev is known for reviving the New Year tree tradition in the Soviet Union.

At the start of the Great Purge, Pavel Postyshev appeared to be well placed to survive and benefit from it.

Pavel Postyshev had purged the party organisation with his normal ruthlessness, but had acquired powerful enemies who accused him of purging good communists while leaving suspected oppositionists in position.

At the critical plenum of the Central Committee in February 1937, which decided the fate of Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, who had led the opposition to collectivisation, Pavel Postyshev continually jeered at them as they tried to defend themselves and voted for both men to be arrested and shot.

On 17 March 1937, Pavel Postyshev was removed from his post in Ukraine, and appointed First Secretary of the Kuibyshev regional party committee, a drastic demotion that was supposedly his chance to "correct his errors".

Pavel Postyshev was accused of having an "un-Bolshevik style of work", and of allowing Trotskyists to flourish in the Kyiv party organisation.

Pavel Postyshev had 3,300 party members expelled and 35 out of 65 district party committees disbanded.

In January 1938, Pavel Postyshev was hauled in front of the Central Committee and accused, for a second time, of persecuting innocent communists.

Pavel Postyshev's arrest came after he was denounced by Lev Mekhlis, who feared that Postyshev's repression might affect him.

In prison, Pavel Postyshev 'confessed' to having been a spy for Japan since 1920, and to having been part of a 'counter-revolutionary Right-Trotskyist organisation' operating in Ukraine since 1934.

Tserpento, later admitted that Pavel Postyshev's 'confession' was written by his interrogators and handed to him to sign.

Pavel Postyshev was shot in Butyrka prison on 21 February 1939 and buried in Moscow's Donskoye Cemetery.

Pavel Postyshev reputedly came to copy his father's example for ruthlessness.

Pavel Postyshev was arrested on the same day as his father, 21 February 1938.

Pavel Postyshev's second wife, Tatiana Semyonovna Postolovskaya was an Old Bolshevik and a high ranking Communist Party official.

Pavel Postyshev was expelled from the Communist Party early in 1937.

Pavel Postyshev was arrested on the same day as her husband, and shot on 26 August 1938.