Vladimir Smirnov (politician)

Vladimir Smirnov (politician)

Vladimir Mikhailovich Smirnov (Russian: Влади́мир Миха́йлович Смирно́в; 1887 – 26 May 1937) was a Russian Communist and member of the Bolshevik Party, where he advocated a militant and doctrinally pure line.

Smirnov, who was closely associated with Nikolai Bukharin, was a political commissar in the Red army and represented the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party and was the main spokesman of the Military opposition. He was a member of the editorial board of Kommunist, the organ of the Petrograd Committee of the party. Years before the October Revolution he pushed for a more militant party tactics, much to the annoyance of Lenin. He became the finances director of the governing body of the Moscow oblast, Sovnarkom, which executed wide powers and had high ambitions of local rule, although it was abolished already in June, 1918. His attempts at forming similar bodies where short-lived.

Smirnov served in the governing bureau of the Supreme Economic Council, set up in December 1917. His Left fraction initially dominated the Council and Lenin had to take their position into recognition.