Nikolai Nikolaevich Krestinsky (
Николай Николаевич Крестинский) (October 13, 1883 - March 15, 1938) was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
revolutionaryA revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavour...
and Soviet
politicianA politician or political leader is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d'état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest,...
.
Krestinsky was born in the town of
MogilevMogilev is a city in eastern Belarus, about 76 km from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and 105 km from the border with Russia's Bryansk Oblast. It has more than 367,788 inhabitants...
, in what is now the
Mahilyow VoblastMahilyow Voblasts or Mogilyov Oblast is a province of Belarus with its administrative center being Mogilyov ....
of
BelarusBelarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mahilyow and Vitebsk...
. According to Russian archivist A.B. Roginsky, Krestinsky was of ethnic Russian origin. Other sources suggest ethnic Ukrainian origins, while according to Felix Chuev,
Vyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
maintained that Krestinsky's family had converted from
JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
to
Eastern OrthodoxyThe Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to in English speaking countries as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the world's second largest Christian communion, estimated to number 225 million members...
.
Krestinsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903 and sided with its
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
faction.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Krestinsky (
Николай Николаевич Крестинский) (October 13, 1883 - March 15, 1938) was a
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
revolutionaryA revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavour...
and Soviet
politicianA politician or political leader is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d'état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest,...
.
Origins
Krestinsky was born in the town of
MogilevMogilev is a city in eastern Belarus, about 76 km from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and 105 km from the border with Russia's Bryansk Oblast. It has more than 367,788 inhabitants...
, in what is now the
Mahilyow VoblastMahilyow Voblasts or Mogilyov Oblast is a province of Belarus with its administrative center being Mogilyov ....
of
BelarusBelarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel , Mahilyow and Vitebsk...
. According to Russian archivist A.B. Roginsky, Krestinsky was of ethnic Russian origin. Other sources suggest ethnic Ukrainian origins, while according to Felix Chuev,
Vyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
maintained that Krestinsky's family had converted from
JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
to
Eastern OrthodoxyThe Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to in English speaking countries as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the world's second largest Christian communion, estimated to number 225 million members...
.
Rise to the Top
Krestinsky joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903 and sided with its
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
faction. After the
February RevolutionThe February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It occurred March 8–12 and its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the collapse of Imperial Russia and the end of the Romanov dynasty. The non-Communist Russian Provisional Government under...
, which overthrew monarchy in Russia, he proved to be a capable organizer and was elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party on August 3, 1917 (
Old StyleThe Julian calendar, a reform of the Roman calendar, was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, and came into force in 45 BC . It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year, known at least since Hipparchus...
). He was made a member of the first Soviet
OrgburoThe Orgburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union existed from 1919 to 1952, until the 19th Congress, when the Orgburo was abolished and its functions were transferred to the enlarged Secretariat....
on January 16, 1919 and the first Politburo on March 25, 1919. He was also made a member of the Central Committee
SecretariatThe Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee was a key body within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the central administration of the party as opposed to drafting government policy which was usually handled by the Politburo...
on November 29, 1919 and served as the party's senior secretary for the next 1.5 years.
Fall from Power
In late 1920-early 1921, after the Bolshevik victory in the
Russian Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a multi-party war that...
, Krestinsky supported
Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Leyba Davidov Bronstein , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. He was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin...
's faction in an increasingly bitter dispute over the direction of the country. After
Vladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin , born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov , was the Bolshevik Leader of the 1917 October Revolution, and the first Head of State of the Soviet Union; in the course of his political career, he used the pseudonyms Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Lenin, and N. Lenin...
's victory at the Xth Party Congress in March 1921, Krestinsky lost his Politburo, Orgburo and Secretariat posts and became Soviet
ambassadorAn ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents their country. They are usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization, to serve as the official representative of their country....
to
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. The post was an important and sensitive one because of Soviet Russia's crucial and delicate relationship with Germany at the time, but not nearly as important as his previous posts.
Krestinsky supported Trotsky and the
Left OppositionThe Left Opposition was a faction within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1927 headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with...
in 1923-
earlyEarly may refer to:History* the beginning or oldest part of a defined historical period, as opposed to middle or late periods.** e.g., Early modern EuropePlaces:*In the United States:** Early, Iowa** Early, Texas** Early County, Georgia...
1927, but distanced himself from Trotsky later in 1927. He completely
broke with the opposition in April 1928.
The Show Trial
Krestinsky continued working as a diplomat until 1937 when he was arrested during the Great Purges. He was put on trial (as part of the
Trial of the Twenty OneThe Trial of the Twenty-One was the last of the Moscow Trials, show trials of prominent Bolsheviks, including the Old Bolsheviks. The Trial of the Twenty-One took place in Moscow in March 1938, towards the end of Stalin's Great Purge.-The Trial:...
) on March 12, 1938. While almost all other defendants admitted their guilt during the
Moscow Show TrialsThe Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. Many of the defendants were executed. After Nikita Khrushchev's revelations in the 1950s, the Moscow Trials are today universally acknowledged as show trials in which the verdicts were...
, Krestinsky at first denied everything, but reversed himself the following day:
On March 12th, he said to the presiding judge,
Vasili UlrikhVasiliy Vasilievich Ulrikh was a senior judge of the Soviet Union during most of the regime of Joseph Stalin. In this capacity, Ulrikh served as the presiding judge at many of the major show trials of the Great Purges in the Soviet Union.-Early life:Vasili Ulrikh was born in Riga, Latvia, then a...
:
-
-
- I do not recognize that I am guilty. I am not a Trotskyite.
- I was never a member of the "right-winger and Trotskyite bloc",
- which I did not know to exist. Nor have I committed a single one of
- the crimes imputed to me, personally; and in particular I am not guilty
- of having maintained relations with the German Secret Service.
The following day, he made a total reversal on his position:
-
-
- Yesterday, under the influence of a momentary keen feeling of false shame,
- evoked by the atmosphere of the dock and the painful impression created by
- the public reading of the indictment, which was aggravated by my poor health,
- I could not bring myself to tell the truth, I could not bring myself to say that I
- was guilty. And instead of saying, "Yes, I am guilty," I almost mechanically answered,
- "No, I am not guilty."
It was hard to believe that Krestinsky's change of heart was due to anything other than coercion, physical or otherwise. The episode was one of
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
's few failures during the well orchestrated show trials of the late 1930s.
Krestinsky was sentenced to death and executed in March 1938. He was partially exonerated during Khruschev's partial destalinization and was cleared of all charges during
perestroikais the Russian term for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
.