Alexei Rykov

Alexei Ivanovich Rykov (1881-1938) was a Bolshevik and leader in the Soviet Union. From 1924 to 1929 he was Premier of the Soviet Union as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

Born into a peasant family, Rykov joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1900 and supported the Bolshevik faction when it split with the Mensheviks in 1903. As a Bolshevik, Rykov was active in the 1905 Revolution.

He broke with the Bolsheviks in 1910 over the faction's rejection of a proposal to reunite the RDSPL, but remained active in the Moscow Soviet and called for the creation of a left wing coalition.

In September 1917, Rykov joined the Petrograd Soviet and the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks. In October he was appointed to the Military Revolutionary Committee that planned the October Revolution.

In the new Bolshevik government he became People's Commissar of the Interior until 1918 but broke with the Bolsheviks when the call for a coalition government was rejected. He soon returned took on economic portfolios. He also served on the Revolutionary Military Council during the Russian Civil War. He succeeded Lenin as premier in 1924 and supported Stalin and Bukharin against Leon Trotsky. Rykov was on the "right" of the party and a supporter of the New Economic Policy. When Stalin broke with Bukharin and the right, Rykov was removed from his positions.

He fell into obsurity until 1938 when, as part of the Great Purge, he was put on trial with Bukharin, Yagoda, Rakovsky and Krestinsky for allegedly plotting with Trotsky against Stalin. He was found guilty in a show trial and executed on March 15, 1938.