The future revolutionary Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich was born on November 22, 1893 in the small village of Kabany, in the Kiev province. Information about his father is mixed. In the Soviet era, it was emphasized that Kaganovich came from a poor family. However, modern biographers note contradicting this version of the testimony of people who knew Lazarus as a child. So, some of them called Moses Kaganovich prasol - a livestock buyer with considerable income.
early years
Whoever the father was, the son did not follow in his footsteps. Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich as a child began to master the skill of a shoemaker. From the age of 14 he worked in shoe factories. Kaganovich was a Jew, which could not but affect his position in the Russian Empire. Most of the Jewish population was forced to endure the Pale of Settlement and various defeats in their rights. Because of this, many Jews went into revolution.
Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich in this sense was no exception. However, his party choice was unusual for a Jew. At that time, the Jewish population massively joined the anarchists, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Bundists. Lazarus, however, followed in the footsteps of his older brother Michael and in 1911 joined the Bolsheviks.
Young bolshevik
The life of a young man has become a classic example for a revolutionary environment. He was constantly arrested for short periods, and the Bolshevik regularly changed his place of residence: Kiev, Yekaterinoslav, Melitopol, etc. In all these cities, Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich created party circles and trade unions of shoemakers and tanners. On the eve of the revolution, he settled in Yuzovka. While working and campaigning at a local shoe factory, Kaganovich met the young Nikita Khrushchev. Subsequently, they maintained contact over the long years of their career growth in the party.
After the October Revolution, Kaganovich went to Petrograd, where he was elected to the Constituent Assembly on the list of Bolsheviks. Later he was involved in organizing campaigning activities, including in the newly created Red Army. When a civil war broke out, a loyal party member began to work on the front: in Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh and Central Asia.
In Turkestan, Kaganovich became a member of the local Central Committee of the RCP (B.) And joined the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front. The party functionary was appointed chairman of the Tashkent City Council. Then Kaganovich was elected to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR. The rapid movement along the nomenclature ladder of a young party member could not help but remain without the attention of Stalin, who at that time held the post of People's Commissar for Nationalities.
Stalin's protege
Even under Lenin, the young Kaganovich became a loyal supporter of Stalin, supporting him in the internal party struggle. The conflict between the leaders of the Bolsheviks broke out immediately after the death of their unchanged leader in 1924. Stalin, preparing for a confrontation with Trotsky and other unpleasant members of the Politburo, began to raise his own proteges. Koba had an administrative resource, as a secretary of the Central Committee, he could propose candidates for his people to important party posts.
Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich also found his place in this scheme. The family and youth of the functionary were tightly connected with Ukraine - it was there that Stalin recommended him as general secretary of the local Central Committee. There was no dictatorship at that time. Nevertheless, the collective power did not oppose this proposal, and the party approved an important appointment.
In Ukraine
Once in Ukraine, Lazar Kaganovich began to pursue a policy against "Ukrainization" - the promotion of national culture, school, language, etc. In the new post, the Bolshevik got a lot of hardware opponents, including Vlas Chubar, Chairman of the Republican Council of People's Commissars, and Alexander Shumsky, People's Commissar of Education . In 1928, they achieved their goal, and Stalin recalled Kaganovich to Moscow. During his tenure, the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) achieved some economic recovery after the Civil War.
Collectivization leadership
Having returned Kaganovich to the capital, Stalin left him in his personnel cohort and appointed him secretary of the Moscow Party Committee. In addition, Lazar Moiseevich got a seat in the Politburo. In the Central Committee, he became responsible for agriculture. Just at the turn of the 20s and 30s. the peasantry had to endure dispossession. Kaganovich led the creation of collective farms. It was this loyal and executive supporter that Stalin made responsible for the difficult state campaign in the countryside.
Kaganovich was one of the first to receive the recently created Order of Lenin for his contribution to collectivization. Stalin, once again convinced of his loyalty, made his protégé the chairman of the commission, which carried out a major party purge in 1933-1934. At this time, Kaganovich remained in Moscow “for the chief,” when the leader was leaving for the whole summer to rest on the Black Sea.
Led by the People’s Commissar
The first five-year plans have come. In the economic race, Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich also found application. The biography of the functionary would be incomplete without mentioning his work at the head of the People's Commissariat of Railways. Appointed to this post in 1935, he lost his post on the Moscow Party Committee. Hardware permutation was presented as a boost. From the point of view of Stalin himself, Kaganovich’s movements fit into his own system, inside which he never concentrated in the hands of one of his proteges too many posts and power.
Under Lazar Moiseevich, the People’s Commissar of Railways achieved an increase in the level of transportation, so important for the then forced modernization. New roads were built and old ones were updated (some of them were in a sad state due to the long exploitation and adversities of the civil war).
Moscow construction sites
For his success, Kaganovich received the Order of the Labor Banner. In addition, in 1936 - 1955. his name was the Moscow Metro (later named after Lenin). It was the People’s Commissar of Railways who led the construction of the "subway" in the capital. Under his control, the reconstruction of Moscow was carried out. The city received a new look of the capital of the proletarian state. At the same time, many churches were destroyed. The People's Commissar oversaw the explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
In the late 30s, Kaganovich concurrently headed the energy and economic departments (heavy, fuel and oil industries). In the Council of People's Commissars (government), the Bolshevik became deputy chairman of Comrade Molotov.
During the years of repression
In 1937, Stalin launched the largest new campaign of purges in the party and the Red Army. Kaganovich, as expected, with all his strength supported the initiative of the chief. He stimulated repression not only in his own People’s Commissariat of Railways, but also suggested looking for pests and enemies of the people on all tiers of Soviet society.
Kaganovich is an associate of Stalin, who gained access to the lists on which they were shot with the sanction of the party elite. The Kremlin archives left dozens of documents signed by the People's Commissar. According to the estimates of historians, only on these lists 19 thousand people were shot. Other such close to Stalin were Molotov, Voroshilov and Yezhov (later executed). Kaganovich led the purges in the field. For this, in 1937 he traveled to some regions of the USSR (including the Yaroslavl, Kiev and Ivanovo regions). The party functionary was also involved in the infamous Katyn massacre - the killing of captured Polish officers.
The Great Patriotic War
During the Great Patriotic War, Kaganovich (as the People’s Commissar of Railways) was responsible for the evacuation of enterprises to the east of the country. The greatest load fell on the railways, which in general coped with their task. Soviet industry was able to quickly establish work in the rear and begin all the necessary supplies to the front. In 1942, the People's Commissar was included in the Military Council of the North Caucasus Front. However, he mainly worked in Moscow, and in the south he visited arrivals. Once in Tuapse, where the command post was located, during a bombing he was wounded by a shrapnel in his hand. At the front, Kaganovich set up the work of the military tribunals and the military prosecutor's office.
In the second half of the war, Stalin began to include new members in the State Defense Committee. Among them was Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich. The books of historians show that he did not play a large role in the GKO and was largely a nominal and technical figure.
Loss of power
In the last Stalin years, Kaganovich continued to occupy the highest public posts. As a business executive, he was placed at the head of the Ministry of the Building Materials Industry. In addition, Lazar Moiseevich returned to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Ukraine.
After the death of Stalin, Kaganovich entered into a fierce party struggle. At first he supported the removal of Beria. However, already in 1957, he, along with Molotov and Malenkov, was included in the new "anti-party group" and removed from all posts. It is noteworthy that Kaganovich knew Khrushchev since the time of the revolution and at a certain stage even contributed to his exaltation in the ranks of the Stalinist nomenclature.
The former Commissar was sent to an honorary exile in Asbest, where he remained at party work. In 1961, he was finally expelled from the CPSU and sent to Kalinin. Kaganovich spent his old age in isolation - his figure never again appeared on the political horizon. Already during the perestroika, journalists were able to get to him, recording the memoirs of one of the most senior Soviet officials of the Stalin era. The former people's commissar died on July 25, 1991 at the age of 97 years.
A family
Like all Stalin’s associates, Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich, whose personal life grew together with the service, survived more than one family drama. His older brother Mikhail, the first to join the Bolshevik party, was the People's Commissar of the USSR aviation industry. In 1940, he was removed from his post and issued a warning. Michael, realizing that he could soon become a victim of the NKVD, committed suicide. The other two Kaganovich brothers were more fortunate. Israel worked in the ministry of dairy and meat industry, and Israel in the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade.
Kaganovich’s wife Maria Privorotskaya joined the RSDLP back in 1909. In the Soviet era, she worked in trade unions, led orphanages and was a deputy of the Moscow City Council. When in her youth Maria was engaged in agitational party activities, she was met by her future husband Kaganovich Lazar Moiseevich. The children of this couple: their own daughter Maya (prepared the publication of his father’s memoirs) and his adopted son Yuri.