Rosalia Zemlyachka
Rosalia Samoilovna Zemlyachka (Russian: Розалия Самойловна Землячка) (20 March 1876 – 21 January 1947) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician.
Rosalia Samoilovna Zemlyachka | |
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| Born | March 20, 1876 |
| Died | January 21, 1947 (aged 70) |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Alma mater | University of Lyon |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Known for | Marxist revolutionary |
Born in a wealthy family of merchants of the 1st Guild, she got an excellent education in Kiev and later at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lyon. From age of 17 was involved in revolutionary activities and never worked in any paid job until the October Revolution. She is best known for her involvement in the organization of the First Russian revolution, and along with Béla Kun, as one of the organizers of the Red Terror in the Crimea in 1920–1921, against former soldiers of the White Army. It was in Crimea that the White Russians led by General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel fell to the Red Army in 1920. About 50,000 prisoners of war and anti-Bolshevik civilians who had surrendered after they had been promised amnesty, were subsequently executed, on orders from Kun and Zemlyachka, with Vladimir Lenin's approval.[1][2]
She then continued her career in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, escaping all purges and became vice-president of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the highest governmental authority of the regime. She is the only woman to have served at this level in the Stalinist period, and the first woman to be decorated with the Order of the Red Banner.
Notes
- Donald Rayfield. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him. New York: Random House, 2004; p. 83
- Robert Gellately (2007). Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf. p. 72. ISBN 1-4000-4005-1.
- Barbara Evans Clements, Bolshevik Women. Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 9780521599207