1. In 1948, Polina Zhemchuzhina was arrested by the Soviet secret police, charged with treason, and sent into internal exile, where she remained until after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
13 Facts About Polina Zhemchuzhina
1. 2.
Polina Zhemchuzhina was born Perl Solomonovna Karpovskaya to the family of a Jewish tailor Solomon Karpovsky in the village of Polohy, in the Alexandrovsky Uyezd.
3.
Polina Zhemchuzhina joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party of Bolsheviks in 1918 and served as a propaganda commissar in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.
4.
Polina Zhemchuzhina made a successful career in the Soviet hierarchy, serving in the Narkomat of Food Industry under Anastas Mikoyan, to become in 1939 the first female Minister in the government of the Soviet Union, as head of the Ministry of the Fishing Industry, and was elected to the Central Committee that year.
5.
Polina Zhemchuzhina's brother Sam Carp was a successful businessman in the United States.
6.
Polina Zhemchuzhina thought that she negatively influenced Molotov, and he recommended Molotov divorce her.
7.
In November 1932, Polina Zhemchuzhina followed Alliluyeva out of a dining room after Stalin had publicly chastised his wife in the company of friends.
8.
Polina Zhemchuzhina frequently attended performances by the Moscow State Jewish Theatre.
9.
Polina Zhemchuzhina befriended Golda Meir, who arrived in Moscow in November 1948 as the first Israeli envoy to the USSR.
10.
Fluent in Yiddish, Polina Zhemchuzhina acted as a translator for a diplomatic meeting between Meir and her husband, the Soviet foreign minister.
11.
Polina Zhemchuzhina was convicted and sentenced to five years in a labor camp.
12.
Polina Zhemchuzhina liquidated the fifth column in our country, and when the war broke out the Party and the people were one.
13.
Polina Zhemchuzhina is portrayed by English actress Diana Quick in the 2017 film The Death of Stalin.