Nikolay Krestinsky

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.

Victor Serge knew Krestinsky during this period: "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.

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. "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."

The following day he changed his mind and admitted: "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." After making this confession he was executed.

Primary Sources

(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."