Statesman.
Stalin’s loyal associate and partner in Great Terror and forced Collectivization. Not too bright nor educated, he was the second important person in the USSR in the 1930s.
Background
Lived: 1893-1991.
Lazar was born in the Ukrainian Jewish family. He probably never had any schooling and became a shoemaker. After the revolution, Kaganovich was a loyal devotee to Stalin. He became the leader of Ukraine in 1925.
Career
In 1929, Kaganovich returned to Moscow and became responsible for agriculture. He had a significant role to play, planning and executing forced Collectivization and the campaigns of Great Terror.
In the 1930s Lazar Kaganovich held several key positions in the Soviet Union. From 1935 he was the People’s Commissar of Transport and Heavy Industry. He served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1944-57.
Kaganovich is said to have been a rude and vulgar personality. In many cases he ordered death sentences of his subjects, transport workers, with no particular reason.
After Stalin
Kaganovich opposed Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign. In 1957 he conspired together with Bulganin, Molotov and Malenkov in the Anti-Party Group to depose Khrushchev. This was a failure and he was made to resign his posts.
Kaganovich lived quietly in Moscow until death in 1991 at the age of 98.
Lazar Kaganovich
Statesman.
Stalin’s loyal associate and partner in Great Terror and forced Collectivization. Not too bright nor educated, he was the second important person in the USSR in the 1930s.
Background
Lived: 1893-1991.
Lazar was born in the Ukrainian Jewish family. He probably never had any schooling and became a shoemaker. After the revolution, Kaganovich was a loyal devotee to Stalin. He became the leader of Ukraine in 1925.
Career
In 1929, Kaganovich returned to Moscow and became responsible for agriculture. He had a significant role to play, planning and executing forced Collectivization and the campaigns of Great Terror.
In the 1930s Lazar Kaganovich held several key positions in the Soviet Union. From 1935 he was the People’s Commissar of Transport and Heavy Industry. He served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1944-57.
Kaganovich is said to have been a rude and vulgar personality. In many cases he ordered death sentences of his subjects, transport workers, with no particular reason.
After Stalin
Kaganovich opposed Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign. In 1957 he conspired together with Bulganin, Molotov and Malenkov in the Anti-Party Group to depose Khrushchev. This was a failure and he was made to resign his posts.
Kaganovich lived quietly in Moscow until death in 1991 at the age of 98.
Mikhail Kalinin