Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseyevich

(b. 1893)

   Soviet politician. Kaganovich, born in Kiev, came from a working-class family. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1911 and was active in the revolutionary underground. From 1914 he was a member of the Communist Party’s Kiev committee and played an active role in the period leading up to the October Revolution of 1917, rising rapidly in the party hierarchy. In 1930 he became a member of the nine-man committee which controled the Communist Party in the Soviet Union and remained in the Politburo until his fall from grace in 1957. Known as the party’s ‘trouble-shooter’ he was largely responsible for the construction of the Neprostroi (the giant hydropower scheme on the River Dnieper), the building of the Moscow underground, which once bore his name, the organization of machine tractor stations, which made possible the collective farm structure, and the development of rail-ways and heavy industry. During World War II he served in the Soviet war cabinet. After the war, he was appointed deputy prime minister and then first deputy prime minister of the Soviet Union. In 1957 he was accused of belonging to the so-called ‘anti-Party group’ of Molotov, Malenkov and Shepilov and dismissed from all government posts. For a considerable period Kaganovich was the only Jew holding a key position within the Soviet leadership.