Nikolay Muralov

Nikolay Ivanovich Muralov (; 7 December 1877 – 1 February 1937) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader and military commander in Russia, who after 1923 became a member of the Left Opposition.

Muralov was a direct participant in both the Revolution of 1905 and the October Revolution of 1917. A personal friend of Leon Trotsky, Muralov was arrested in 1936 during the Great Terror and was a defendant in the so-called "Trial of the Seventeen" in January 1937, after which he was executed.

The official Soviet reckoning of Muralov was softened during the 1960s and he was afforded a full posthumous rehabilitation in 1986.

Biography Early years

Nikolay Ivanovich Muralov was born in 1877 in the farm (khutor) Grecheskie Roty near Taganrog, a port city on the Sea of Azov. His father had attended a classical gymnasium for six years and had been a volunteer in the Russian Army during the Crimean War, in the process earning Russia's highest military decoration, the Order of St. George, fourth class, for bravery.

He was a member of the RVS of the 3rd Army during the Russian Civil War. He became a signatory to the dissident Declaration of the 46 in October 1923, which ushered in a period of oppositionist political activity.

The Kemerovo mine explosion and trial, which had resulted in death sentences for all nine defendants, was made the basis for the second of three great public show trials of the Great Purge — the so-called "Trial of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center." This trial, held over an eight-day period in January 1937, is best remembered for its lead defendants Iurii Piatakov and Karl Radek. After this date, he signed on to an elaborate confession. He dutifully testified:

"The beginning of my downfall must be dated from the moment I signed the first document against the Party. That was the declaration of the 46 of 1923. With this my downfall began. Later I was drawn into the Trotskyite organization and so on right up to my expulsion from the Party and exile to West Siberia." Muralov was sentenced to death.

The appeal was to be unsuccessful.

Death and legacy

Nikolay Ivanovich Muralov was executed on February 1, 1937.

An official softening of the historical assessment of Muralov began even under the regime of Leonid Brezhnev. In 1966 the newspaper Sovetskaia Rossiia lauded the Old Bolshevik Muralov as "a courageous and stalwart Leninist, and illustrious statesman, and a solid Bolshevik."

Muralov was formally accorded posthumous rehabilitation in April 1986.

Footnotes