Kosior, Iosif

Born Jan. 31 (Feb. 12), 1893; died July 3, 1937. Soviet statesman and party figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1908. Born in Vengrov (Wę-grów), now in Poland; son of a worker.

Kosior was a metalworker and conducted party work in the Donbas. He was repeatedly subjected to repression. Kosior was in exile in Enisei Province in 1912-17, where he was engaged in active party work. He escaped in early 1917 and went to work in the Moscow regional bureau of the RSDLP (Bolshevik). Kosior took part in the preparation and carrying out of the October Revolution in Moscow. He was chairman of the military revolutionary committee of the Zamoskvorech’e district and then chairman of the Zamoskvorech’e district soviet. During the Civil War of 1918-20, Kosior was a commissar of a division on the Southern Front, a member of the revolutionary military Council of the Ninth and Thirteenth armies, and commander of the Eighth Labor Army.

Kosior became chairman of the Grozneft’ Trust in 1923 and chairman of the board of the lugostal’ Trust in 1926. He became deputy chairman of the Supreme Council on the National Economy of the USSR in 1927, chairman of the board of the Vostokstal’ Trust in 1930, and chief of the Central Board of the Fuel Industry and deputy people’s commissar of heavy industry of the USSR in 1931. Kosior became a commissioner of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR in the Far East Krai in 1933. He was a delegate to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Party Congresses. He was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee at the Fourteenth Congress and a member of the Central Committee at the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Congresses. Kosior was also a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and two other orders.