Mikhail Tomsky
Mikhail Tomsky | |
|---|---|
Михаил Томский | |
 Tomsky in 1930 | |
| Chairman of the Presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions | |
| In office September 1922 – May 1929 | |
| Preceded by | Post established |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Dogadov |
| Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets | |
| In office 29 December 1921 – 28 December 1922 | |
| Preceded by | Pyotr Zalutsky |
| Succeeded by | Timofei Sapronov |
| Director of the Association of State Book and Mafazine Publishing Houses | |
| In office 1932–1936 | |
| Preceded by | Artemic Khalatov |
| Succeeded by | Pavel Yudin |
| General Secretary of the International Trade Union Council | |
| In office 1920 – 3 July 1921 | |
| President | Solomon Lozovsky |
| Preceded by | Post established |
| Succeeded by | Post abolished |
| Full member of the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th Politburo | |
| In office 3 April 1922 – 13 July 1930 | |
| Full member of the 10th, 11th, 12th Orgburo | |
| In office 16 March 1921 – 2 June 1924 | |
| Candidate member of the 9th, 13th Orgburo | |
| In office 2 June 1924 – 1 January 1926 | |
| In office 5 April 1920 – 16 March 1921 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Mikhail Pavlovich Yefremov 31 October 1880 |
| Died | 22 August 1936 (aged 55) |
| Party | RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1904–1918) Russian Communist Party (1918–1936) |
| Occupation | Lithographer, Trade union functionary |
Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky (Russian: Михаи́л Па́влович То́мский), born Mikhail Pavlovich Yefremov (Russian: Ефре́мов) (31 October 1880 – 22 August 1936) was a factory worker, trade unionist, and Soviet politician. He was the Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in the 1920s.
In his youth, Tomsky worked at the Smirnov Engineering factory in St. Petersburg, but was eventually dismissed from that job for attempting to organise a trade union. His labour activities radicalized him politically and led him to become a socialist and join the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1904 and eventually join the Bolshevik faction of the party.
After the revolution, Tomsky was associated with the moderate faction of the party headed by Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov, a group seeking orderly planning, a measured tempo of industrialization, and eschewing rapid and forced collectivization of agriculture. Tomsky's primary bailiwick revolved around the trade union movement, of which he was the head and spokesman in the 1920s. An orientation towards trade union autonomy placed him in opposition to party radicals seeking rapid collectivization and strict party control over trade unions, leading to his downfall in 1928.
Tomsky was implicated in the investigation preceding the First Moscow Trial of 1936, an event which inaugurated the Great Purge. He would subsequently commit suicide to avoid arrest by the NKVD in August 1936.