Nikolay Goloded

Nikolay Matveyevich Goloded (21 May 1894 – 21 June 1937) was a Belarusian revolutionary and Soviet bureaucrat who was First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia from December 1925 to May 1927. He served as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Byelorussian SSR from 1927 to 30 May 1937.

Early years Goloded was born into a family of Belarusian peasants in the village of Stary Kryvets, in the Russian Empire's Chernigov Governorate. He worked from the age of seven as a shepherd, farm hand, auxiliary worker, and later as a miner in Kryvorozha. He later graduated from the Byelorussian Agricultural Institute.

In the First World War he served in the Russian army. In 1917, he became close to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), leading revolutionary agitation and joining the Party in 1918. Due to the risk of the death penalty for anti-government actions, he deserted from the front and returned to Stary Kryvets, where he oversaw the seizure and division of landlord property. He was arrested while engaged in underground work.

He was later involved in combat in the Southwestern Front during the ensuing civil war. He created a Red Guard unit that fought with German troops and troops of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

Soviet career From 1921 to 1924 he was secretary of the Gorki Regional Committee and in 1924 became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia and later on its second secretary from 1924 to 1927.

From 1927 to 1937 he was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. According to unofficial information, he was beaten to death, and then state security officers staged a suicide. According to other reports, he was shot.

In 1956, he was posthumously rehabilitated and reinstated in the Party.

Awards He was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935.