Ivan Tovstukha

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Ivan Tovstukha

Ivan Pavlovich Tovstukha (February 10, 1889 - August 9, 1935) was a Soviet politician and Communist Party functionary, candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (TsK KPSS), member of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, deputy director of the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute and personal secretary of Joseph Stalin.

Biography[]

Ivan Tovstukha was born in the family of a clerk, on 10 (22) February, 1889, in Berezna, Chernigov region.^[1] Since 1905, being a student of a secondary school, he was taking part in the revolutionary movement. In 1909 he started working at the Chernigov Social-Democratic organization. In July 1909 Chernigov police searched Tovstukha's room and found about 240 prohibited books, including works of Marx, Engels, August Bebel, Plekhanov, Maxim Gorky. The illegal library belonged to the Social-Democratic groups of pupils of the local seminary. 20 -year-old Ivan was arrested and sentenced to exile in Siberia. His exile started in 1911 in Irkutsk province, where Tovstukha was carrying revolutionary propaganda among locals and exiles, and was beating the influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, he was also involved in raising money for the publication of Pravda newspaper.

In January 1912, he fled abroad, and in 1913 he was admitted into Paris section of the RSDLP. In exile, Tovstukha worked as a digger, assistant fireman, worked in the kitchen, and as a taxi driver. Having joined the truck drivers' union and the French Section of the Workers' International, Tovstukha promoted propaganda among French workers.

After the February Revolution Tovstukha returned to Russia.

• November 1917 - March 1918 - he was the Secretary of the Inspection Department of the Central Staff of the Red Guards
• April 1918 - end of 1921 - the secretary, then member of the board of the People's Commissariat for Nationalities
  

  Stalin's secretarial staff in 1924 (Tovstukha standing second from left)
• December 1921 - April 1922 - functionary of the Central Committee of the Party, facilitator and the head of Stalin's personal office

Starting from the early 1920s Tovstukha was involved into research - he was studying Lenin's life and works, collecting his literary heritage and preparing the first edition of Lenin's works. Tovstukha prepared detailed notes to the collected works, explored the history of first editions of Lenin's works. He also compiled the list of unfound Lenin's articles, letters, etc. Ivan Tovstukha among others organized the second edition of Lenin's works.

• 1924-1926 - assistant director of the Lenin Institute
• From 1926  to 1930 he was Head of the Secret Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and at the same time was the first Assistant to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the VKP (b) Jospeh Stalin
• 1930-1931 - Deputy Director of the Lenin Institute, member of editorial board of the journal "Proletarian Revolution"
• since 1931 - Deputy Director, then Head of archives of the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute

Ivan Tovstukha was the member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. He died on August 9, 1935 in Moscow. The ossuary was buried in the Kremlin wall.

References[]