Zaydel, Grigory Solomonovich

The Early Years and Revolutionary Activities

Born in the White Church in a large Jewish family . Father - Solomon Seidel - was a school teacher.

In 1913 he was a student of the Faculty of History and Philology of Kiev University , but it is not known whether he graduated from it ^[1] . In 1913-1917 he was a member of the Bund , a Jewish socialist party. In 1916 he was mobilized in the army and sent to the front. The February Revolution of 1917 was met by a soldier of the 170th Infantry Regiment . After the events of February, he left for Kiev and joined the RSDLP (b) . Participated in revolutionary activities after the October Revolution .

He was appointed "people's investigator" of the Kiev provincial revolutionary tribunal , participated in the repressive processes that made up the Red Terror ^[1] . In August 1919, after the capture of Kiev by the troops, the All-Union Union of Liberal Democratic Forces left the city, but within a week became the investigator of the Moscow Provincial Tribunal. In May 1920, he was appointed Acting Head of the Legal Department of the Crimean Revolutionary Committee . However, in the same month he was appointed deputy head of the Podolsk provincial revolutionary committee.

Later he became the head of the propaganda department of the Podolsk Provincial Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine in Vinnitsa .

Scientific and administrative activities

In November 1922 he was sent to study at the Institute of Red Professors . In 1925, after graduation, he went on a business trip to Germany and France . After returning by order of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was sent to Leningrad , where he was appointed professor of the Military Political Academy. N. G. Tolmacheva (at that time not yet transferred to Moscow). Also appointed executive secretary of the section of scientific workers of Leningrad and Leningrad region ^[1] .

In 1927, during an explosion at the Party Club, he was wounded and received serious injuries: he lost almost all his teeth, and also could not move normally for a year and a half (walked with crutches ) . In 1929, he was appointed chairman of the collegium of the Historical Section of the Leningrad Division of the Comacademy (LOKI), and in 1930 became director of the Institute of the History of LOKI, which was "the pinnacle of his career" ^[1] .

He participated in the defeat of scientific schools by academicians S.F. Platonov and E.V. Tarle . In 1931, he became the organizer of a joint meeting in Leningrad of employees of the Communist Academy and the Society of Marxist Historians. At the meeting ( January 29 - February 16 ) there was a discussion of the actions of "bourgeois" historians. Seidel himself read out a report entitled “Tarle as a Historian,” which he devoted to exposing “wrecking on the historical front.” The result of the meeting was the publication by G. S. Zaydel, together with Professor LIFLI and GAIMK employee M. M. Zwibak, of the collection, which included the “renunciation” of the students S. F. Platonov and E. V. Tarle from their teachers ^[2] . V. S. Brachev explains the “fierce” attack on the “bourgeois historians” by G. S. Seidel by the fact that he himself several years earlier faced the problem of confronting “strict and non-strict Marxism” when, in 1923, at one of the meetings voted not for the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), but for the so-called. "Buffer" resolution by K. B. Radek . For this he was expelled from the party and restored only after the intervention of the Central Control Commission .

Since 1930, he was executive secretary of the journal Problems of Marxism, an organ of the Leningrad Scientific Research Institute of Marxism.

On May 16, 1934, a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the Teaching of Civil History in the Schools of the USSR” was published, and it was decided that from September 1, history departments would open in Moscow State University and LSU . Grigory Seidel was appointed Dean of the Faculty of History of Leningrad State University. After the murder of December 1, 1934, S. M. Kirov in Leningrad began mass repressive processes. On January 10, 1935, Seidel was removed from the post of dean (he was succeeded by S. M. Dubrovsky ), on January 6, he was expelled from the party on charges of participation in the “Zinoviev’s counter-revolutionary group,” and on February 11, he was dismissed from the Leningrad branch of the Communist Academy.

On February 8, 1935, he sent a statement to the CPC of the Leningrad Regional Committee and the City Committee of the CPSU (b) with the text:

I am connected with the great Lenin-Stalin party, with the Soviet power, with the proletarian revolution ... Life outside the party is torture and horror for me. I deserve a severe punishment, but leave me in the party ^[1]

This statement did not have the expected effect. On April 15, 1935, Seidel was arrested, but on May 22, by order of the NKVD of the USSR, he was released and exiled to Saratov .

Last years. Repression and death

He lived in Saratov at the address: Leninskaya St., 134, apt. 1 ^[3] . He was appointed professor at the Department of Modern History of the History Department of the Saratov Pedagogical Institute .

May 6 ^[3] 1936 was arrested again and taken to Leningrad. He is accused of leading the “ Trotsky-Zinoviev terrorist organization”, which allegedly participated in the assassination of leaders of the CPSU (b) and the murder of S. M. Kirov. Zaydel himself was accused of involvement in the killing of Kirov. During the investigation, he survived a series of grueling interrogations and, possibly, torture ^[2] . “Broke down”, confessing to the acts incriminated to him, and also stipulated a number of colleagues.

In April 1937, on the recommendation of the deputy head of the 4th (Secret Political Department) GUGB S.G. Gendin, he was designated for repression in category I ( death penalty by shooting ), appeared under number 46 on the Leningrad shooting list ^[3] . May 11, 1937 at a closed meeting of the visiting commission of the Military Collegium of the USSR Armed Forces fully pleaded guilty. He was found guilty under article 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR ^[3] (“Organization of counter-revolutionary terrorist acts directed against representatives of the Soviet government”) and sentenced to death - execution. In the last word he asked for leniency, but to no avail ^[1] . On the same day the sentence was carried out.

According to data published in 1993, he turned out to be an agent of the OGPU nicknamed "Petrel" ^[4] .

In his own words, he was a typical "Ikapist" devoted to the ideas of the IKP (Institute of the Red Professor). He was one of the first students of the first leader of Soviet historical science M.N. Pokrovsky . Himself characterized his specialty as a “historian of the labor movement and socialism” ^[4] .

At present, few experts even remember G. S. Seidel as a scientist ^[1] . His largest work was the work published in 1930, "Essays on the History of the Second International, 1889-1914." Although it was of some interest to the Soviet reader at that time, it clearly did not pretend to any discovery ^[1] . In the work of G. S. Zaydel, a description was given of the main stages of development of the Second International , as well as its organizational and theoretical principles. The author devoted a significant place to the history of German social democracy . At the same time, he belittled the international role of Bolshevism and exaggerated the maturity of the left groups in the West European Social Democratic parties. Seidel’s mistakes were criticized ^[5] .

• Seidel G. X Plenum of the ECCI in the struggle for the masses. L .: Surf, 1929.36 s.
• Seidel G. S. Essays on the history of the Second International, 1889-1914. L .: Surf, 1930.
• Seidel G., Zwibak M. M. The class enemy on the historical front: Tarle and Platonov and their schools. M. — L .: Sotsekgiz , 1931., 232 p.
• The revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries during and after the World War / Ed. G. S. Zaydel. L .: Lenpartizdat, 1933.
• Zavyalov S., Pozern B.P., Seidel G.S., Baklaykin M.K. History of the Izhov plant. M .: History of factories, 1934.410 p.
• Seidel G.S. Austria on fire. L .: Lenpartizdat, 1934. 72 p.

His younger brother - the rector of MISiS and MAI Naum Solomonovich Seidel - was also repressed.

Was married. Wife - Gita Leontyevna Seidel (before marriage - Fridgut). Son - Lev Grigorievich Seidel (born in 1924). It is known that in 1935 the family followed G. S. Zaydel in Saratov. The further fate is unknown.

• Artizov A.N. Fate of historians of the school of M.N. Pokrovsky (mid-1930s) // Questions of history . 1994. No. 7. P. 34-48.
• Brachev V.S. First Dean of the History Department of Leningrad State University Grigory Solomonovich Seidel (1893-1937) // Mavrodinsky Readings-2004. Actual problems of historiography and historical science. Materials of the anniversary conference dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Faculty of History of St. Petersburg State University / Ed. A. Yu. Dvornichenko . SPb .: Publishing House of St. Petersburg. University, 2004.S. 96–98.
• Igal Halfin . Stalinist Confessions: Messianism and Terror at the Leningrad Communist University (pp. 78–82). University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.
• Krivonozhenko A.F., Rostovtsev E.A. Zaydel Grigory Solomonovich // Biography of St. Petersburg State University