At first, he fought for the equality of all people, and then he undertook to defend the interests of one nationality. He was not allowed to terrorize Soviet citizens for a long time.
Fairness is a very slippery concept. What seems right to one alone can bring suffering to millions, whose interests the "master of life" does not take into account. All tyrants were sure that they were doing their dashing deeds to restore that very justice. Our hero could write his name on the list of tyrant rulers, but he was not allowed to do so.
Childhood
Our hero was born in 1890. His father Yakov Shumsky lived in the village of Turchinka near Zhitomir. His family was considered rich - among his ancestors there were priests, and he himself was a forester for a local tycoon. He could pass on to his son the secrets of his job, which paid well.
From childhood, the boy watched how the master lives and how poor the peasants are. He was outraged that the former owned huge land plots, while the latter were content with little. The parent did not consider it necessary to give his son an education. After finishing 2 classes of a rural school, Sasha became his assistant. As a teenager, he began working in a sawmill.
Youth
The biography of Alexander Yakovlevich could have been banal if at the age of 19 he had not managed to get into a bad story. The owner of the enterprise where he worked was cheating workers. The young man could easily leave and return to his parental home, but he took part in the strike. After such a trick, it was impossible to find a job in his native land. The rebel went to Moscow.
In 1911 Shumsky began attending free lectures at the People's University. Shanyavsky. There he met the revolutionaries, dropped out and took up clandestine work. Among like-minded people, the guy met his love - teacher Lyudmila. Relatives in Zhitomir were an excellent cover for a courier who transported illegal literature. Until 1916, the young man was lucky. The adventures ended with the fact that the gendarmes took him off the train and found anti-government leaflets among the hotels. The prisoner was sent to the active army.
The revolution
When the February Revolution broke out, Alexander Shumsky was already a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. From her he was elected to the front soldiers' committee. After the collapse of the empire, he became a member of the Central Rada of Ukraine. Our hero remembered well his native village, therefore he demanded the abolition of private ownership of land. It was not possible to find colleagues among colleagues. In 1918, the radical was accused of collusion with the Bolsheviks and was arrested.
The troops of Mikhail Muravyov, who entered Kiev, saved Shumsky from reprisals. This did not cool the ardor of the rebel. He went to his native place and started campaigning there. German troops were stationed in Zhitomir. Several times Alexander was close to failure, but he was lucky to survive and become a member of the government of the Directory, which replaced the hetman's power.
High posts
Alexander Shumsky became more and more convinced that the victory in the Civil War was for the Bolsheviks. In 1920 he joined their party. A comrade hardened in the struggle is immediately invited to take the post of the Kiev Provincial Revolutionary Committee. For the time of partisan activity, Alexander took a break from his personal life and now, having reunited with his wife, tried to make up for everything. The couple had a fourth child. The wife was happy that her husband no longer risked his life.
Active and well acquainted with the needs of the rural poor, Alexander Yakovlevich made a rapid career in the young state. The Bolsheviks encouraged the advancement of people from the people, each republic was proud of its cadres "from the plow." In 1924 Shumsky was appointed People's Commissar of Education of the Ukrainian SSR. The party wanted him to become an example for his compatriots.
Whims
Having settled down in high offices, our hero came to the conclusion that he did not like the people who inhabited his republic. The Ukrainian SSR included regions where people of different nationalities lived. The forester's son decided to rectify the situation - to create a single Ukrainian nation. Representatives of other nationalities, according to his plan, were suitable only as material for the production of "correct citizens".
In the east and south of the republic, Russian schools began to turn into Ukrainian ones. The rights of the Jewish and Polish populations were simply ignored. The work of new writers was aggressively imposed on the proletarians, who wrote in the "correct" language and did not hesitate to attack Moscow. Shumsky himself was so uncomfortable that there were rumors that he had kicked out an official who refused to switch to Ukrainian in conversation with him.
Unyielding
For such antics, the Soviet bureaucrat should have been put on trial, but those who remembered the brave Sasha during the Civil War hoped that a tribunal could be dispensed with. In 1927 Shumsky was sent to Leningrad to work at a university. His activities in his previous position were condemned for excesses. The dashing partisan decided that they were joking with him, therefore he did not leave his dreams of Ukraine inhabited exclusively by Ukrainians. In 1933 he was arrested and sentenced to hard labor for participating in a nationalist conspiracy.
Alexander Shumsky visited Solovki and lived in Krasnoyarsk. The trouble with the famous nationalist ended up being shot. It happened in 1946. It is said that Nikita Khrushchev was the initiator of this decision.
