Grigory Sokolnikov

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Grigory Yakovlevich Sokolnikov (15 August [O.S. 3 August] 1888 - May 21, 1939), born Girsh Yankelevich Brilliant, was an Old Bolshevik and a Soviet politician.

He was born to a Jewish railway doctor in present-day Poltava Oblast but eventually moved to Moscow.

After the Russian October Revolution he held various government positions. He was People's Commissar of Finance, as well as Soviet ambassador to England. He was a member of the delegation for peace negotiations with Germany, replaced Leon Trotsky as chairman of the delegation and signed the Brest-Litovsk treaty in 1918. In 1918-1921 he worked on the establishment of Soviet power in Turkestan. He was a creator of the first stable Soviet currency.

During the Great Purge, Sokolnikov was arrested during the Trial of Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Centre and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. Reportedly, he was killed in a prison by other convicts. The investigation during the Khrushchev Thaw it was revealed that the murder was orchestrated by the NKVD. In 1988 he was rehabilitated.

[edit] External links

• Sokolnikov @ khronos
• Grigorii Yakovlevich Sokolnikov and the development of the Soviet state, 1921-1929