Grigorii Grinko

Born Nov. 18 (30), 1890; died Mar. 15, 1938. Soviet government and party figure. Became a member of the CPSU in 1920 but was credited with membership from 1919 as a former member of the Borot’ba Party (the Ukrainian left social revolutionary party). Born in the village of Shteptovka, in present-day Lebedin Raion, Sumy Oblast, into the family of an office worker.

From 1909 to 1913, Grin’ko studied at the Moscow and then the Kharkov universities, from both of which he was expelled for revolutionary activities. From 1913 to 1917 he was a soldier and later junior officer of the Ekaterinoslav Grenadier Regiment. At the end of 1917 he became a teacher in a Kharkov Gymnasium. From July 1919 he was a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the Ukrainian SSR. From September to December 1919 he was a member of the Moscow bureau of the Ukrainian Borot’ba Party. From 1919 to 1920 he was a member of the All-Ukrainian Military Revolutionary Committee. In February 1920 he became people’s commissar of the Ukrainian SSR for education. From November 1922 he was chairman of Gosplan (State Planning Commission) of the Ukrainian SSR, from November 1923 chairman of the Kiev Provincial Executive Committee, and from June 1925 deputy chairman of the Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars) and chairman of Gosplan of the Ukrainian SSR. From 1924 to 1927 he was a member of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine. From December 1926 he was deputy chairman of Gosplan of the USSR and from November 1929 deputy people’s commissar of the USSR for agriculture. From October 1930 he was people’s commissar of the USSR for finance. He was a delegate to the Twelfth through the Seventeenth Congresses of the party, and at the Seventeenth Congress he was elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik).