Alexander Shlyapnikov

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Alexander Gavrilovich Shlyapnikov (in Russian, Александр Гаврилович Шляпников) (1885-1937) was a Russian communist.

Shlyapnikov was born in Murom, Russia. He began factory work at age thirteen and became a revolutionary at age sixteen. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1903. He was arrested and imprisoned at various times for his radical political activities, including his involvement with the 1905 revolution. Shlyapnikov left Russia in 1908 and continued his revolutionary activities in Western Europe, where he also worked in factories and was a devoted trade unionist.

Shlyapnikov returned to Russia in 1916 and along with Vyacheslav Molotov was the senior Bolshevik in Petrograd at the time of the February Revolution in 1917 as figures such as Lenin and Stalin still lived in exile.

Shlyapnikov promoted the role of workers in the party and in management of the economy. In 1917, he was elected to chairmanship of the Petrograd and then All-Russian Metalworkers' Union.

Following the October revolution and the Bolshevik ascendency to power, Shlyapnikov was appointed Commissar of Labour. Shlyapnikov argued for a coalition government composed of all parties represented in the All-Russian Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

Shlyapnikov became leader of the Workers' Opposition movement inside the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Alexandra Kollontai was a mentor and advocate of the group, which was composed of leaders of trade unions and industry who were all former industrial workers, usually metalworkers. This movement advocated the role of workers, organized in trade unions, in managing the economy and the political party. The Communist Party leaders succeeded in suppressing the Workers' Opposition and in 1921-22 finally subordinated trade union leadership to the Party. In 1921, Shlyapnikov was forced out of his elected post as chairman of the Metalworkers' Union.

In 1922, Shlyapnikov, some others from within and outside the Workers' Opposition, including Alexandra Kollontai, presented an appeal to the Communist International, requesting that it help heal a "rift" within the Russian Communist Party between Party leaders and workers. Party leaders and Party-controlled media condemned the appeal. Two of the signatories of the appeal were expelled from the Party, but Shlyapnikov, Kollontai, and Sergei Medvedev narrowly escaped expulsion.

Shlyapnikov turned to writing his memoirs and held jobs in metals import and economic planning institutions. In 1930, the Party Politburo forced Shlyapnikov to publish a public confession of "political errors" in his memoirs of the revolution. Shlyapnikov was expelled from the Communist Party in 1933 and imprisoned in 1935. He was executed on the 2nd September 1937, during the Purges. He was posthumously rehabilitated and restored to membership in the Communist Party in 1988.es:Alexander Shliápnikov fr:Alexandre Chliapnikov