Grigory Petrovsky was a talented manager, a supporter of the socialist idea. His personality can hardly be called successful, it is rather tragic. He was able to go through exile, prison, repression, but could not stand the test of the totalitarian regime.
At the end of his life, he managed to hear the report of Nikita Khrushchev, to see changes in state policy.
Exactly ninety years, his surname was part of the "complex name" of the city, which for a long time was a symbol of the Soviet era.
early years
Grigory Petrovsky was born on January 23, 1878. This happened in the village of Pechenegi in the Kharkov province in the family of a washerwoman and tailor. In total, three children grew up in the family. Father died early, leaving Gregory at the age of three. When the young man turned fourteen, the family moved in the hope of a better life to Yekaterinoslav (present Dnieper).
The boy studied at the seminary school for a little over two years. He was expelled due to an inability to pay for tuition. The family did not have five rubles for a contribution. So much for that time was a cow. At eleven years old he began working in workshops at the railway. By the age of fifteen, he got a job at the Bryansk Metallurgical Plant.
Revolutionary activity until 1917
Working in Yekaterinoslav, Petrovsky joined the “Union of Struggle”. Since 1898 he became a member of the RSDLP. Seven years later, he was appointed secretary of the Workers' Council in the city on the Dnieper.
During his revolutionary activity, Grigory Petrovsky came to the conclusion three times:
- in 1900 ;
- in 1903;
- in 1914 he was arrested and convicted, depriving him of all rights and sending him to a life sentence.
He had to spend some time in exile.
From 1912 to 1914, Petrovsky was in the Duma. During this time he delivered thirty-two speeches. Among his speeches, the topic was raised about the creation of Ukrainian schools, the admission of the Ukrainian language in administrative institutions, the ability to conduct their activities to Ukrainian cultural and educational organizations.
The revolutionary leader was exiled first in the Turukhansk Territory, and since 1916 - in Yakutia. After the 1917 revolution, he was released.
Activities after the February Revolution
Having freed himself, Grigory Petrovsky became the commissar of Yakutia, and a couple of months later he was sent by the party to the Donbass.
Positions held:
- member of the RSDLP (b) in Yekaterinoslav;
- member of the Pre-Parliament;
- People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR;
- one of the creators of the Cheka;
- negotiator of the Brest Peace;
- signed the Red Terror directive;
- presided at the All-Ukrainian CEC;
- on behalf of the Ukrainian SSR, signed the Education Treaty throughout the Union;
- held other important posts in the Comintern.
Petrovsky belonged to those representatives of the party apparatus who were guided in everything by Moscow. He rejected the possibility of creating a separate Ukrainian Soviet state. In 1922, he supported the Stalinist project on the creation of the RSFSR with the republics included in it on the basis of autonomy. He did not support the position of Skrypnik, Rakovsky, Shumsky, who sought to create a union state with a confederate bias.
In 1932, Petrovsky was sent to the Donetsk region as the person responsible for the implementation of grain procurement. That is why his name appears in the issue of involvement in the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Is he considered one of the culprits of the death of a million Ukrainians?
Petrovsky Grigory Ivanovich and the Holodomor
Being responsible for grain procurement in 1932, Petrovsky saw the real situation in the villages of Ukraine. He wrote a letter to Molotov and Stalin, in which he reported the famine and asked for help for the Ukrainian village. He did not want people to die, but did nothing but write a letter.
Modern historians are not inclined to believe that Grigory Petrovsky (Holodomor 1932-1933) was involved in the genocide of Ukrainians. He, on the contrary, asked to issue a decree on the termination of grain procurements in Ukraine.
Despite this behavior, he was not removed from his post. Grigory Petrovsky (the Holodomor became the worst time for him, as well as for the whole Ukrainian people) escaped repression of the thirties of the twentieth century. On the contrary, he was appointed to various positions in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. This continued until 1938.
Years at the Honorary Link
Grigory Petrovsky, whose biography is associated with the creation of the USSR, was removed from all posts because of connivance in relation to "enemies of the people." For a long time he remained without work. For a long time, Stalin wanted to remove Petrovsky, who was too soft-bodied for him, but hesitated because of the great authority of the leader of the eastern USSR. He was removed from a managerial position only in 1938 under the pretext of promotion in Moscow. But in the capital, he could not get settled for two years because of the unspoken order of Stalin. His family was forced to interrupt "on bread and water."
The deputy comrade Fedor Samoilov helped him. In 1940, he arranged Petrovsky at the Museum of the Revolution. The former ally of Stalin began to work as a foreman. He managed to get this position because it did not require that it be coordinated in the Central Committee.
last years of life
After the death of Stalin, Grigory Petrovsky, whose biography is associated with the Red Terror, returned to social activity. He spoke with his memoirs to audiences, was engaged in journalism. He became an honored guest at the famous Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, which debunked the "cult of personality of Stalin."
However, he continued to work in the Museum of the Revolution until his death, which occurred on 01/09/1958. It happened in Moscow, where he was buried in the Kremlin wall. What happened to the children of a politician who has been in honorable exile since 1938?
The family destroyed by the party
Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky met his first wife, Dominika Fedorovna, while still working at the plant in Yekaterinoslav. She helped him by printing flyers for May Day. They meant that people should work eight hours, sleep eight hours, rest eight hours. They lived until the death of his wife, who did not become at the beginning of World War II.
Children of Petrovsky:
- Leonid - was a Soviet military leader until he was expelled from the party on the eve of World War II. He died in battle in 1941.
- Peter - was a statesman, one of those who stormed the Winter Palace, in 1938 he was arrested, and in 1941 representatives of the NKVD were shot.
- Antonina - was married to the son of a famous Ukrainian writer Yuriy Kotsyubynsky, then for party worker Solomon Zager. Both men were repressed in 1937, in the same year the son of Kotsyubinsky was shot.
Petrovsky has repeatedly written letters to senior management with the goal of saving his children and their families. But his requests were not heard. Sons were rehabilitated only after the death of Stalin. By this time, they had long rested in the ground and did not need rehabilitation.
City Dnepropetrovsk
Over the years of his activity, Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky, whose biography is associated with the Ukrainian SSR, received six Orders:
- Lenin (two times);
- Red Banner ;
- Labor Red Banner (three times).
His life is closely connected with the city of Yekaterinoslav, in which he began to live from a young age. His political activity began here. Being in power, Petrovsky came to him every year. Being in Moscow in 1938, he was able to visit the city on the Dnieper only in 1957.
He was invited to the seventieth anniversary of the plant, bearing the name of Petrovsky. At that time, the "All-Ukrainian Warden" was seventy-nine years old. He made a speech at the Ilyich Palace, visited the factory, talked with the workers.
Since 1926, the city of his youth was named Dnepropetrovsk. The statesman himself was not happy with such an honor. An interesting fact is that most of the modern residents of the city believed that the name was not associated with Petrovsky, but with Peter the Great.
In addition to the city, other settlements, as well as streets, factories, a railway station, and parks, were named after the politician.
The attitude of contemporaries
Grigory Petrovsky (revolutionary) became an objectionable representative of the past. His monument in Dnepropetrovsk (Dnipro) was thrown off by a group of activists on January 29, 2016. The city itself was renamed 05.19.2016 in the Dnieper. The region itself cannot yet be renamed, since its name is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine.
Such is the biography of a man who, until the end, could not fit into the ruling regime, in the construction of which he was directly involved. The politician managed to survive the "purge" of the thirties, but for this he had to pay a very high price - to survive the death of his sons and his wife, fall from the political Olympus, live for many years in half-forgottenness.