Investor Presentaiton
resulted from the 1923 resolutions on nationalities. This policy was highly controversial and
caused political difficulties for Kaganovich. Nevertheless, when he returned back to Moscow
under Stalin's orders, he recalled “despite the difficulties of working in Ukraine, I was sorry to
leave because I grew up in Ukraine, joined the underground organization of the Party there in
Kiev, over the past three years I have invested all my strength and energy to the construction of a
socialist Ukraine, but I have not interrupted ties with it."188 After returning to Moscow his power
and importance to both Stalin and the broader Soviet system only continued to expand.
From 1930 to 1935, Kaganovich was at the height of his power, and he took on
increasingly more responsibility accordingly. In 1934, Kaganovich was serving in so many roles,
he actually had to ask the Politburo to relieve him of one of his posts, particularly as head of the
transportation department. 189 Kaganovich remained tied to numerous major government and
Party posts, including being "simultaneously a secretary of the Party Central Committee -
actually Stalin's deputy in the Party - and the head of the Party organization in the capital city,
Moscow, and Stalin's deputy in the Defense Commission, the supreme body concerned with
decisions about defense, attached to both the Politburo and Sovnarkom."190 Kaganovich and
Stalin's close relationship extended to personal affairs as well. It was Kaganovich who spoke at
Stalin's wife's funeral, at the request of Stalin himself who was unable to speak from grief. 191 In
188
Ibid, 392.
189 Oleg Khlevniuk, Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008),
94.
190 Joseph Stalin and L. M. Kaganovich, in Davies, R. W., Oleg V. Khlevniuk, E. A. Rees, Liudmila P. Kosheleva,
and Larisa A. Rogovaya. The Stalin-Kaganovich Correspondence, 1931-36, (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2003), 3.
191 Sebag Montefiore, Simon, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, (New York: Vintage Books, 2003), 107.
48View entire presentation