Nikolai Krylenko
| Nikolai Krylenko | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| People's Commissar for Justice of the USSR | |
|
In office 20 July 1936 – 15 September 1937 |
|
| Premier | Vyacheslav Molotov |
| Preceded by | None—position established |
| Succeeded by | Nikolai Ryshkov |
| Prosecutor General of the Russian SFSR | |
|
In office May 1929 – 5 May 1931 |
|
| Premier |
Alexey Rykov Vyacheslav Molotov |
| Preceded by | Nikolai Janson |
| Succeeded by | Andrey Vyshinsky |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 2 May 1885 Bekhteevo, Russian Empire |
| Died | 29 July 1938 (aged 53) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Political party | All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) |
| Spouse(s) | Elena Rozmirovich |
| Relations | Elena Krylenko (sister) |
| Occupation | Lawyer, theorist, writer |
Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko (Russian: Никола́й Васи́льевич Крыле́нко; May 2, 1885 – July 29, 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the Soviet legal system, rising to become People's Commissar for Justice and Prosecutor General of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.
Krylenko was an exponent of socialist legality and the theory that political considerations, rather than criminal guilt or innocence, should guide the application of punishment. Although a participant in the Show Trials and political repression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Krylenko was ultimately arrested himself during the Great Purge. Following interrogation and torture by the NKVD, Krylenko confessed to extensive involvement in wrecking and anti-Soviet agitation. He was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court, in a trial lasting 20 minutes, and executed immediately afterwards.
Krylenko was born in Bekhteyevo, in Sychyovsky Uyezd of Smolensk Governorate, the son of a populist revolutionary.
He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1904 while studying history and literature at St. Petersburg University where he was known to fellow students as Comrade Abram. He was a member of the short lived St. Petersburg Soviet during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and a member of the Bolshevik St. Petersburg Committee. He had to flee Russia in June 1906, but returned later that year. Arrested by the Tsar's secret police in 1907, he was released for lack of evidence, but soon exiled to Lublin without trial.
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