Nikolai Michailowitsch Schwernik

Nikolai Schwernik (1937)

Nikolay Shvernik ( Russian Николай Михайлович Шверник ., Scientific transliteration Nikolaj Michajlovič Švernik ; born May 7 ^{. Jul} / 19th May  1888 ^greg. In St. Petersburg ; † 24. December 1970 in Moscow) was a Soviet communist politician. From March 19, 1946 to March 15, 1953 he was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and thus formally head of state of the Soviet Union .

Life

Ascent

Schwernik joined the Bolsheviks in the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Russia in 1905 . In 1924 he became People's Commissar in the Russian SFSR and in 1925 a full member of the Central Committee of the WKP (B) . In 1926 he was secretary of the Central Committee . From 1927 to 1928 he was the party secretary for the Urals region . Josef Stalin discovered in him a loyal supporter of his policy of rapid industrialization and brought him back to Moscow in 1929 as chairman of the metalworkers' union. From July 1930 to March 1944 he was First Secretary of the Central Council of the Soviet Union Confederation .

After the German invasion in June 1941, Schwernik was responsible for relocating heavy industry from the western areas of the Soviet Union to the Urals.

At the center of power

Schwernik was a candidate for the Politburo from 1939 to October 1952 and from 1953 to 1957 . In 1946, as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, he succeeded Mikhail Kalinin and became the nominal head of state of the USSR. It was not until 1952 that he rose to the highest political body in the USSR as a full member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) (former name: Presidium) from October 16, 1952 to March 6, 1953. He lost this seat in the following Year when this was downsized and he was again a member of the Politburo from June 29, 1957 to April 8, 1966.

After Stalin's death, Schwernik was replaced in his office as head of state by Voroshilov on March 15, 1953 and returned to his previous post as union leader for the period from 1953 to 1956. Nikita Khrushchev recommended Schwernik for the post of chairman of the party control commission in 1956. As such, he was also responsible for the rehabilitation of the victims of the Stalinist purges until his retirement in 1966 .

Schwernik's urn was buried on the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

literature

• Michel Tatu: Power and Powerlessness in the Kremlin ; Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1967
• Merle Fainsod : How Russia is governed ; Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1965

Web links

Commons : Nikolai Michailowitsch Schwernik  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Nikolai Michailowitsch Schwernik in the catalog of the German National Library

predecessor	Office	successor
Mikhail Kalinin	Head of State of the Soviet Union 1946–1953	Kliment Voroshilov