Vsevolod Balyzkyj

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Cyrillic ( Ukrainian )
Все́волод Аполло́нович Ба́лицький
Transl. : Vsevolod Apollonovyč Balyc'kyj
Transcr. : Vsevolod Apollonowytsch Balyzkyj
Cyrillic ( Russian )
Всеволод Аполлонович Балицкий
Transl .: Vsevolod Apollonovič Balickij
Transcr .: Vsevolod Apollonowitsch Balitski

Vsevolod Apollonowytsch Balyzkyj (* November 15 . Jul / 27. November  1892 . Greg in Verkhnodniprovsk , yekaterinoslav governorate , Russian Empire ; † 27. November 1937 in Moscow , Soviet Union ) was a Ukrainian - Soviet revolutionary, politician and intelligence chief . He was one of the main people responsible for the Holodomor in the Ukrainian SSR from 1932 to 1934 as well as a participant in the Great Terror from 1936, of which he was ultimately a victim.

biography

Vsevolod Balyzkyj was born in Verkhnyodniprovsk (today in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast , Ukraine) as the son of a servant (other sources name an accountant). He graduated from high school in Lugansk in 1912 and then studied at Lomonosov University in Moscow until 1915 , but was unable to complete his studies because of revolutionary ideas. Balyzkyj had been a member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Russia (RSDLP) since 1913 and initially belonged to the Mensheviks , from 1915 to the Bolsheviks . In World War I he was drafted into the army and promoted to Praporschtschik , but not used at the front.

In 1917 he was chairman of soldiers' councils and committees in Georgia and in Tabriz in northern Iran . In 1918 he was doing underground work in Georgia and was captured by the authorities. From December 1918 on he was a board member of the Cheka in Ukraine and in September and October 1919 chairman of the Cheka in Gomel in Belarus , where he headed the Revolutionary Tribunal. From November 1919 he was in the same position in the Volyn Oblast and then in Kiev , where he was at the same time authorized representative of the Cheka for the right-bank Ukraine . As chairman of the Revolutionary Court on the Southwest Front, he was responsible for the massacre of potential sympathizers of Ukrainian nationalists. In 1920 and 1921 he was the commander of the Cheka troops and from 1922 deputy chairman of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR. Between 1923 and 1931 he was chairman of the GPU of Ukraine and authorized representative of the Union OGPU in Ukraine and from 1924 to 1930 People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR . From September 1930 he was a member of the Central Control Commission of the WKP (B).

Between 1931 and 1934 he was the Deputy Chairman of the OGPU of the USSR under Vyacheslav Menschinsky . As a specially authorized OGPU with almost unlimited powers, he returned to Ukraine in 1932 "to unconditionally fulfill the plan for the procurement of grain". From July 15, 1934 to May 11, 1937 he was People's Commissar for Interior of the Ukrainian SSR. From 1934 on he was also a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU .

Balyzkyj was directly responsible for the enforcement of the forced collectivization and deculakization of the Ukrainian peasantry and, during the Holodomor, implemented the order of Menschinski, the chairman of the OGPU, with his secret police to unconditionally fulfill the grain procurement plan. He gave the order to shoot refugees from hunger and to confiscate their food and livestock. He portrayed the famine as the result of a conspiracy by Ukrainian nationalists and Polish agents. For him and his employer Stalin , starving people were basically resistance against Soviet power, as they served as “living propaganda” for hostile powers, and thus guilty of treason. For his work during the famine, he was, along with other party members, by the chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian SSR Grigori Petrowski in his speech at the opening of the XII. Congress of the KPU on January 8, 1934 in Kharkiv expressly praised, and that after hundreds of thousands had starved to death, also because of the measures he ordered.

In May 1937 he was appointed head of the NKVD in the Soviet Far East , and in July of the same year he was arrested and expelled from the party. At the trial before the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR in November 1937 (→ Moscow Trials ) he was accused of espionage for Germany and Trotskyism ; Balyzkyj's proximity to Genrich Jagoda is presumed to be the actual reason . Balyzkyj was sentenced to death, shot in Moscow on November 27, 1937 and buried in the Donskoy cemetery .

Awards

In 1936 he was awarded the Order of the Red Star "for the tireless fight against the class enemy" . He received the Order of the Red Banner in 1922, 1926, 1930 and 1931 .

See also

literature

  • Timothy Snyder: Bloodlands - Europe between Hitler and Stalin. 3rd edition, dtv, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-423-34756-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Balitchi Apollonovich Vsevolod (1892-1937) on protivpytok.org , accessed on March 1, 2015
  2. ↑ a b Biography of Vsevolod Apollonowytsch Balyzkyj on hrono.ru , accessed on March 1, 2015
  3. ↑ Snyder: Bloodlands , p. 64 ff.
  4. ↑ «Повелительная необходимость»: год 1933-й ( Eng . "It is absolutely necessary": the year 1933 ) in day.kiev.ua , accessed on March 1, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Balyzkyj, Vsevolod
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balyzkyj, Vsevolod Apollonowytsch (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ukrainian-Soviet revolutionary, politician and head of the secret service
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Verkhnyodniprovsk , Yekaterinoslav Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 1937
Place of death Moscow , Soviet Union