Nikolay
Krestinsky, the son of a teacher, was born in Mogilyov on 13th October,
1883. He developed radical political views as a young man and joined
the Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903
and two years later became a Bolshevik.
Krestinsky
took part in the 1905 Revolution in St Petersburg
and as a result was expelled from the city. He returned to St Petersburg
University Law Faculty and after graduating in 1907 worked as a barrister.
He continued
his involvement in politics and stood as a Bolshevik
candidate for the Duma. However, on the
outbreak of the First World War he was arrested
and deported to Ekaterinburg.
Krestinsky
was pardoned following the February Revolution
and became Chairman of the Etaterinburg and Urals Province Committee.
In July, 1917, he was elected to the Central Committee. The following
year Vladimir Lenin appointed him as People's
Commissar of Finance. A supporter of Leon
Trotsky, Krestinsky lost his place in the political hierarchy
after the emergence of Joseph Stalin.
In 1937
Krestinsky was expelled from the Communist Party and later that year
he was arrested with Nickolai Bukharin,
Alexei
Rykov,
Genrikh Yagoda and Christian
Rakovsky and
accused of being involved with Leon Trotsky
in a plot against Joseph Stalin.
At his
trial on 12th March, 1938, Krestinsky denied he was guilty of this
crime. The following day he changed his mind and admitted his guilt
and soon afterwards he was executed.
(1)
The Granat Encyclopaedia of the Russian Revolution
was published by the Soviet government in 1924. The encyclopaedia
included a collection of autobiographies and biographies of over two
hundred people involved in the Russian Revolution.
Nikolay Krestinsky was one of those invited to write his autobiography.
I first became acquainted with the revolutionary movement
and its literature during my last years at the Gymnasium through the
influence of schoolmates who had personal contacts with Russian and
Polish members of the workers' movement. But I was particularly strongly
influenced in this respect by the gymnastics teacher - I. O. Klopov,
a social democrat.
From the
end of 1901, I began to take an active part in the revolutionary movement
among students and soldiers. In 1905 I became acquainted with Bolshevik
literature from abroad and took the Bolshevik side.
(2)
Victor Serge,
Memoirs of a Revolutionary (1945)
Krestinsky
was a man of outstanding intelligence, discretion and courage. His
whole life was dedicated to the Party of the Revolution but he was
there as a sort of exile, having been dismissed from the General Secretaryship
because of his democratic inclinations. He was still young, and astoundingly
myopic, so that his shrewed eyes, hidden behind lens a quarter of
an inch thick, seemed to have a timid expression. With his tall, bare
skull and his wisp of dark beard, he made one think of a scholar;
actually he was a great practical technician of Socialism.
(3)
Nikolay Krestinsky, speech at his trial (12th March, 1938)
I do not recognize that I am guilty. I am not a Trotskyite.
I was never a member of the "right-winger and Trotskyite bloc",
which I did not know to exist. Nor have I committed a single one of
the crimes imputed to me, personally; and in particular I am not guilty
of having maintained relations with the German Secret Service.
(4)
Nikolay Krestinsky, speech at his trial (13th March, 1938)
Yesterday, a passing but sharp impulse of false shame,
created by these surroundings and by the fact that I am on trial,
and also by the harsh impression made by the list of charges and by
my state of health, prevented me from telling the truth, from saying
that I was guilty. And instead of saying "Yes, I am guilty",
I replied, almost by reflex, "No I am not guilty."
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