Filipp Goloshchyokin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Filipp Goloshchyokin
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Филипп Голощёкин
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| Chief State Arbiter of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union | |
| In office 12 September 1933 – 15 October 1939 |
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| Preceded by | Vasily Schmidt |
| Succeeded by | Vsevolod Mozheiko |
| First Secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party | |
| In office 19 February 1925 – 12 September 1933 |
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| Preceded by | Viktor Naneishvili |
| Succeeded by | Levon Mirzoyan |
| Full Member of the Central Committee of the 15th and 16th Party Congresses | |
| In office 19 December 1927 – 10 February 1934 |
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| Candidate Member of the Central Committee of the 13th and 14th Party Congresses | |
| In office 2 June 1924 – 19 December 1927 |
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| Personal details | |
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Shaya Itsikovich Goloshchyokin
9 March 1876 Nevel, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 28 October 1941 (aged 65) Kuybyshev, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Cause of death | Execution by firing squad |
| Nationality | Russian, Soviet |
| Political party | RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1903–1918) Russian Communist Party (1918–1939) |
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| Known for | Kazakhstan famine of 1932–1933, Shooting of the Romanov Family, senior figure of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union |
Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin (born Shaya Itsikovich) was an important Bolshevik leader and Soviet politician. He was active in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1903. He also helped create the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Goloshchyokin took part in the Revolution of 1905 and the October Revolution. During the Russian Civil War, he helped set up Soviet power in the Urals and Siberia. He was a key figure in the killing of the Romanov family.
After the Soviet Union was formed in 1922, he became a senior member of the Communist Party. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1934. From 1925 to 1933, he was the First Secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee. He also served as Chief State Arbiter of the Council of People's Commissars from 1933 to 1939.
He played a major role in the Sovietization of Kazakhstan, which led to the terrible Kazakh famine of 1932–1933. During this famine, about 1.5 million people died. Most of them were ethnic Kazakhs. This was one of the worst famines in Soviet history.
Goloshchyokin was also involved in the Stalinist repressions during the Great Purge (1936–1938). He was arrested in 1939 and later died in 1941. In 1961, he was officially cleared of charges, which is called rehabilitated.
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Early Life and Revolutionary Work
Filipp Goloshchyokin was born on March 9, 1876, in Nevel. His family were Jewish contractors. After finishing dental school in Riga, he worked as a dental technician.
In 1903, he joined the RSDLP, a revolutionary political party. He worked to spread revolutionary ideas in cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow. He was part of the Revolution of 1905–1907. In 1909, he was arrested and sent away, but he escaped in 1910.
In 1912, he attended a meeting in Prague. Here, Vladimir Lenin created a separate Bolshevik group. Goloshchyokin became a founding member of its Central Committee. He started using the name Filipp as his secret party name.
He was arrested again in 1913 and sent to Siberia. He was set free after the February Revolution in 1917. Later that year, he went to the Urals region. He became a member of the local Communist Party committee.
Goloshchyokin went to Petrograd as a delegate for the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. He joined the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee and helped with the October Revolution. He was then elected to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
After the October Revolution and during the Russian Civil War, he became a military leader in the Urals. He helped form the Red Guard in the region. He also oversaw the Red Army's activities there.
Role in the Romanov Family's Death
In the spring of 1918, Goloshchyokin suggested moving the former Emperor Nicholas II to Ekaterinburg. He believed it would be harder for anti-Bolshevik forces to rescue him there. Leaders like Yakov Sverdlov and Lenin agreed to this plan.
The Romanov family was imprisoned in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg. Goloshchyokin, as Military Commissar of the Ural Region, had overall command. He often made sure that guards who seemed too friendly with the family were replaced.
On June 29, the Ural Soviet decided that the entire Romanov family should be killed. Goloshchyokin traveled to Moscow on July 3 to deliver this message. It was decided that the tsar should be killed quickly. The Ural Soviet was given the power to make the final arrangements.
On July 15 or 16, Goloshchyokin was told that the Red Army was retreating. The killings could not be delayed any longer. A message was sent to Lenin and Sverdlov for final approval. Although there is no official record of a direct reply, Goloshchyokin told Yakov Yurovsky that the order to proceed had been given.
Goloshchyokin went to the Ipatiev House to oversee the killings. He did not take part in the actual shooting. He stayed outside with other guards. They even revved a truck engine to hide the sounds. When the bodies were taken out, Goloshchyokin looked at the tsar's body. He said, "So this is the end of the Romanov Dynasty, is it..."
The next day, at a telegraph office, Goloshchyokin stopped a British diplomat from sending a message about the tsar's death. He changed the message to say, "The hangman Tsar Nicholas was shot last night – a fate he richly deserved."
On July 19, Goloshchyokin announced that "Nicholas the Bloody" had been killed. He then oversaw the disposal of the bodies. He also made sure that valuable items from the Romanovs' quarters were sent to Moscow. Goloshchyokin left Ekaterinburg safely before the White Army arrived.
The Kazakh Famine and Collectivization
From 1922 to 1925, Goloshchyokin held important positions in the Samara Province. He was elected a Candidate Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1924. In 1927, he became a Full Member. In 1925, he was appointed First Secretary in the new Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic.
From 1925 to 1933, he led the Kazakh ASSR. He had a lot of power and little outside interference. He helped build the Turkestan-Siberia railway. This railway was meant to help get Kazakhstan's mineral wealth.
When Joseph Stalin ordered all farms in the Soviet Union to become collective farms, Goloshchyokin followed. He forced Kazakhstan's nomadic people to settle down on these collective farms. This policy caused a terrible famine in Kazakhstan. Between 1 and 2 million people died.
Impact on the Kazakh People
Some historians believe this famine was a deliberate act against the Kazakh people. They call it the Goloshchyokin genocide. About 38% of all Kazakhs died during this time. This was the highest percentage of deaths for any ethnic group in the Soviet famines of the early 1930s.
The forced changes led to many deaths, especially among the native Kazakh population. Many Kazakh nomads fled across the border into Xinjiang in China.
Records show that the number of Kazakhs in the Kazakh ASSR dropped from 3,637,612 in 1926 to 2,181,520 in 1937. The actions of the Soviet government made Kazakhs a minority in their own land. It wasn't until the 1990s that Kazakhs became the largest group in Kazakhstan again.
A historian named V.L. Burtsev, who knew Goloshchyokin, described him as a "typical Leninist." He said Goloshchyokin was "cruel" and "did not count the Kazakhs as people at all." Goloshchyokin believed there was no true Soviet power in Kazakhstan. He wanted to create a "Small October" there, referring to the "Great October Revolution."
While some said he never left the capital, Goloshchyokin did travel to different regions. However, his leadership during collectivization and "dekulakization" (taking land from wealthier peasants) is remembered with great sadness by the Kazakh people.
Later Career and Arrest
In August 1932, another communist leader in Kazakhstan, Uraz Isayev, wrote to Stalin. He accused Goloshchyokin of blaming his own mistakes on "kulaks" (wealthier peasants). Other leaders also complained about Kazakh people fleeing into Siberia and China.
Goloshchyokin defended himself, saying that poor and middle-income Kazakhs had "voluntarily" joined collective farms. At first, it seemed he had Stalin's support. In November 1932, he ordered the arrest and deportation of peasants who were accused of stopping grain collection.
However, in January 1933, Goloshchyokin was suddenly removed from his position. He faced widespread public criticism for how he handled collectivization. By blaming Goloshchyokin, Stalin avoided addressing bigger problems with collectivization.
After returning to Moscow, Goloshchyokin was given a senior job as President of the State Council of Arbitration. He was still very active in the Stalinist repressions. He worked closely with Nikolai Yezhov, who led the NKVD (secret police) during the Great Purge (1936–1938).
His Final Years
Unlike many other old Bolsheviks, Goloshchyokin was safe during the Great Purge as long as Nikolai Yezhov was in charge. But after Yezhov lost power, Goloshchyokin was arrested on October 15, 1939.
He was accused of supporting Trotskyism, planning terrorist acts, and even spying for Nazi Germany. He was held in prison for 12 months. In August 1941, during World War II, he was moved to Kuybyshev. He was one of 20 "especially dangerous" prisoners.
On October 28, 1941, Goloshchyokin was killed on direct orders from Lavrentiy Beria. He was buried in an unmarked grave.
In 1961, 20 years after his death, he was officially cleared of charges. This is called rehabilitation. From 1976 to 1990, a street in Ekaterinburg was named after him.
About His Name
His last name is often written as "Goloshchekin." His birth name was Shaya Itsikovich. "Filipp" was his party nickname.
His Family Life
His first wife was Bertha Iosifovna Perelman. She was also arrested and sent away. They married while in exile. She died in 1918.
He later married Elizaveta Arsenievna Goloshchyokina.
