Viktor Pavlovich Nogin was a prominent Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist philosopher in Moscow, holding many high positions in the party and in government, including Chairman of the Moscow Military-Revolutionary Committee and Chairman of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies.
Biography
Viktor Nogin, born in Moscow, Russia, was the self-educated son of a shop keeper and a weaver by profession. In 1898 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He was arrested and exiled several times, spending time in most of Russia's large jails. He married Olga Pavlovna Ermakova, with whom he had two children. His brother in law, Viktor Radus Zenkovich, was Chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars, Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from 12 October 1920 to 1921. Nogin was considered a "conciliator" Bolshevik. In 1910, following the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, he convinced the leadership to try to reunite the party, despite strong opposition from Lenin. This ultimately failed. By 1917 Nogin was one of the leaders of the Moscow branch of Bolsheviks. He was a member of the Provisional Committee during the struggle against General Lavr Kornilov's failed coup in Petrograd. He was a member of the Executive Committee of Moscow Soviet of People's Deputies. As Chairman of the Moscow Military-Revolutionary Committee, Nogin tried to lead a peaceful and bloodless transfer of power to the Bolsheviks, hoping to avoid more bloodshed in Moscow. Before a session of the RSDLP Central Committee on 1 November 1917 he joined Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov and Milyutin in advocating the creation of a coalition government involving all of the socialist parties, claiming that a Bolshevik-only government could only be sustained through terror. He left government on 4 November 1917. After he formally admitted his mistakes on 29 November 1917, Nogin was appointed to a national post, where he helped restore the nation's textile industry which had been damaged in the revolution. He enjoyed great authority in foreign trade and industry circles. He accompanied Leonid Krasin to London for the negotiations over the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement. In 1923, Nogin traveled to the United States to arrange a major cotton purchase. While there, he helped the Coolidge administration communicate with Moscow using the code of the Soviet government, in an attempt to establish friendly relations between the two countries. Viktor Nogin is buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Red Square, Moscow.
Positions held
Some of the Bolshevik party and government positions held by Viktor Nogin are listed below:
Executive Committee of the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies
The town of Bogorodsk was renamed Noginsk in his honor in 1930. In 1934, the USSR Post Office produced a 15 Kopeck stamp honoring Viktor Nogin. A station in the Moscow Metro is Kitay-Gorod, originally called Ploshchad Nogina, after a square in central Moscow that once carried the name of Viktor Nogin. Streets named after Nogin still exist in St.Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Volgograd, Novosibirsk, Pavlovskiy Posad, Samara and Serpukhov.
