Valerian Kuybyshev

For the Soviet Olympic equestrian, see Valerian Kuybyshev (equestrian).

For the cruise ship, see Valerian Kuybyshev (ship).

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Vladimirovich and the family name is Kuybyshev.

Valerian Kuybyshev
Валериан Куйбышев
Kuybyshev in the 1930s
First Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
In office 14 May 1934 – 25 January 1935
Premier	Vyacheslav Molotov
Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy
In office 5 August 1926 – 10 November 1930
Premier	Alexey Rykov
Preceded by	Felix Dzerzhinsky
Succeeded by	Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Chairman of the State Planning Committee
In office 10 November 1930 – 25 April 1934
Premier	Vyacheslav Molotov
Preceded by	Gleb Krzhizhanovsky
Succeeded by	Valery Mezhlauk
People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate
In office 6 July 1923 – 5 August 1926
Premier	Vladimir Lenin Alexey Rykov
Preceded by	Post established
Succeeded by	Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Full member of the 15th, 16th, 17th Politburo
In office 19 December 1927 – 25 January 1935
Member of the 11th Secretariat
In office 3 April 1922 – 25 April 1923
Full member of the 12th, 17th Orgburo
In office 10 February 1934 – 25 January 1935
In office 26 April 1923 – 2 June 1924
Personal details
Born	6 June [O.S. 25 May] 1888 Omsk, Akmolinsk Oblast, Russian Empire
Died	25 January 1935(1935-01-25) (aged 46) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow
Citizenship	Soviet
Nationality	Soviet Union
Political party	RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1904–1918) Russian Communist Party (1918–1935)

Valerian Vladimirovich Kuybyshev (Russian: Валериан Владимирович Куйбышев; 6 June [O.S. 25 May] 1888 – 25 January 1935) was a Russian revolutionary, Red Army officer, and prominent Soviet politician.

Biography

Early years

Born in Omsk in Siberia on 6 June [O.S. 25 May] 1888, Kuybyshev studied at the Siberian Military Cadet School, a Cadet Corps in Omsk. He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1904. The following year, he entered the Imperial Military-medical Academy in Saint Petersburg, but was expelled in 1906 for controversial political activities.

Revolutionary career

Kuybyshev in 1917

Between 1906 and 1914 Kuybyshev carried out subversive activities for the Bolsheviks throughout the Russian Empire, for which he was exiled to Narym in Siberia. There—together with Yakov Sverdlov—he set up a local Bolshevik organization. In May 1912 he fled and returned to Omsk, where he was arrested the next month, and imprisoned for a year. He was transferred to Tambov to live independently under police surveillance, but soon fled again, whereafter he spent 1913–14 encouraging civil unrest in the cities of Saint Petersburg, Kharkov, and Vologda. He relocated to Samara in 1917; and became president of the local soviet—a position he held at the time of the 1917 October Revolution and for the next year. During the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923 he chaired the revolutionary committee of Samara province and became a political commissar in the First and Fourth Red Armies.

Political career

In 1920 Kuybyshev became a member of the Presidium of the Red International of Trade Unions, which charged him with the implementation of the GOELRO plan. From 6 July 1923 to 5 August 1926 he served as the first economical inspector of the USSR (People's Commissar of the Rabkrin). From 1926 to 1930 he chaired the Supreme Council of the National Economy, from 1930 to 1934 he directed Gosplan, and he served as a full member of the Politburo from 1934 until his death. As a principal economic advisor to Joseph Stalin, he became one of the most influential members in the Communist Party. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Kuybyshev was one of the initiators of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia and served as a member of its chief editorial board.

Kuybyshev died in Moscow on 25 January 1935 of heart failure at the age of 46.

In accordance with Bolshevik tradition, he was cremated, and the urn with his ashes was interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Personal life

Kuybyshev married several times, but never had any children. He was a gifted musician and a poet. His third wife, Galina Aleksandrovna Troyanovskaya, was the niece of Yevgenia Bosch.

Commemoration

Kuybyshev on a 1953 stamp

The city of Samara (the administrative city of the Samara Oblast, Russia), the town of Bolgar (in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia), and the village of Haghartsin, Armenia were all renamed Kuybyshev during the period between 1935 and 1991. The towns of Kuybyshev in Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia, and Kuybyshev, Armenia, still have his name. There is a statue of him in the Kuybyshev Square in Samara and in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

External links

Media related to Valerian Kuybyshev at Wikimedia Commons

• Biography (in English)
• page (in Russian)
• page (in Russian)
• page (in Russian)
• Newspaper clippings about Valerian Kuybyshev in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW