Frumkin, Moisei Ilich

Born Mar. 8 (20), 1878, in Gomel’; died July 28, 1938. Soviet state figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1898; participant in the working-class movement from 1894.

The son of a merchant, Frumkin was a member of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP in 1903 and of the Northwestern Committee in 1905 and 1906. In 1907 he undertook party work in the Baku trade unions and in 1909 became chairman of the Moscow Central Bureau of Trade Unions. In 1911 he was exiled to Enisei Province.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Frumkin engaged in party work in Krasnoiarsk; in December of that year he became a member of the Presidium of the Krai Economic Council of Western Siberia. From 1918 to 1922 he served as a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Foodstuffs of the RSFSR and as a deputy people’s commissar for foodstuffs; at the same time he served on the administrative board of the Central Cooperative Alliance and was a member of the Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(B), the Siberian Revolutionary Committee, and the Southeastern Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(B).

From 1922 to 1929, Frumkin served as deputy people’s commissar for foreign trade of the USSR and deputy people’s commissar of finance. From 1928 to 1930 he took part in the rightwing deviation in the ACP(B). After serving as deputy people’s commissar of foreign trade from 1932 to 1935, he engaged in administrative work. Frumkin was a delegate to the Tenth and Fifteenth Party Congresses.