Yakov Gamarnik - Biography

Jankel Borysovych Pukhdykovych , better known as Jan Gamarnik or Yakov Gamarnik (Яков Гамарник – 1937) was a Soviet politician of Jewish ethnicity.

Biography

Gamarnik was born in Zhytomyr in a Jewish family as Jankel Borysovych Pukhdykovych. He attended the St Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute and the Law School of Kiev University. In 1917 he became the member and a secretary of the Kiev committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. From 1921 to 1923 Harmanyk was a chairman of the Kiev city council (see Mayor of Kiev). During his administration Kiev was divided into five districts. He went through many Communist Party positions, both civil and military, e.g. a First Secretary of the Belarusian Communist Party of Belorussia from December 1928 to October 1929.

He was instrumental in preparing the 10-year development plan for the Far-Eastern region of the USSR.

A fanatic Bolshevik, Gamarnik was a staunch supporter of Marshal Tukhachevsky's drive to make USSR a military superpower. In 1937 Gamarnik was accused of participating in an anti-Soviet conspiracy after the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization; however, shortly before the trial he had actually been called upon by the Soviet government to be one of the judges for the accused. He insisted on Tukhachevsky's innocence and later killed himself before he could be punished for his actions. Only after this was he added to the list of conspirators. He was rehabilitated posthumously by the CC CPSU and Nikita Khrushchev in 1955.

Sources

• Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, Oxford University Press, May 1990, hardcover, ISBN 0-19-505580-2 pp 201-202;
• Several versions of Gamarnik biography
• Gamarnik in the Fleet, with photo
• Trotsky about gamarnik and others