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In-Depth Information
Order no. 1
(1917)
A product of the early days of the
FEBRUARY REV
-
OLUTION
, Order no. 1 played a crucial role in
hastening the disintegration of the Russian
army in the first months after the abdication of
Czar
NICHOLAS II
. The order was issued by the
Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' dep-
uties on March 1 (14), 1917, on the eve of the
announcement of the czar's abdication. The
order called for the formation of elected com-
mittees of soldiers who would administer mili-
tary affairs. It also struck a blow in the name of
the dignity of the common soldier by prohibiting
rudeness toward soldiers on the part of officers,
while abolishing the use of honorific titles for
officers. It did not, however, abolish military dis-
cipline; it only stipulated that when off duty, sol-
diers were entitled to the full rights of individual
citizens. Finally, Order no. 1 established that the
primary loyalty of rank-and-file soldiers was to
the Petrograd Soviet, not the Provisional Gov-
ernment. Although in its original form, the order
was intended to apply only to the Petrograd gar-
rison, other units and garrisons quickly adopted
similar versions. Its effect was to convulse the
hierarchical patterns of the army by stripping
officers of most of their power over rank-and-file
soldiers.
became a member of the Bolshevik Central
Committee. During the Russian civil war, he
served as a political commissar in the Caucasus,
later becoming party leader in Transcaucasia in
1921-26. An early supporter of his fellow Geor-
gian, Joseph Stalin, Ordzhonikidze rose to posi-
tions of great influence in the late 1920s and
early 1930s: chair of the Central Control Com-
mission and Rabkrin (responsible for discipline
among party and state officials) (1926), chair of
the Supreme Council of the National Economy
(VSNKh) (1930), and commissar for heavy indus-
try (1932). In the latter two positions, he played
a central role in implementing the party's deci-
sions with regard to rapid industrialization. In
1926 he had been elected a candidate member
of the Politburo and in 1930 a full member,
revealing that he was a member of Stalin's inner
group. Although details remained sketchy for
decades, it seems that Ordzhonikidze, whose
brother had been tortured and shot, argued with
Stalin over the purges. He died suddenly in 1937,
officially of a heart attack, but it was widely
believed that he committed suicide. At the
Twentieth Party Congress in 1956,
KHRUSHCHEV
alleged that he had been forced to commit sui-
cide by Stalin.
Orlova, Liubov Petrovna
(1902-1975)
actress
Perhaps the most famous comedy actress of the
Soviet era, Orlova was born to a distinguished
Russian noble family, distantly related to the Tol-
stoys. Attracted to music and choreography, she
studied at the Moscow Musical Conservatory and
the Moscow Ballet School, and acted in the pres-
tigious Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater,
before appearing in her first film,
Petersburg Night
(1926). Together with her husband, the film
director Grigorii
ALEKSANDROV
, and the composer
Isaak Dunayevsky, Orlova took part in some of
the most popular and entertaining comedies of
the 1930s (
The Happy-Go-Lucky Fellows,
1934;
Volga-Volga,
1938; and
The Bright Way,
1940). In
Circus
(1936), she captivated audiences with a
Ordzhonikidze, Grigorii
Konstantinovich
(1886-1937)
revolutionary and Soviet official
Ordzhonikidze was a Georgian Bolshevik at the
center of the Soviet industrialization campaign
of the 1930s who committed suicide in 1937
after a falling out with
STALIN
. Ordzhonikidze,
often known by his nickname Sergo, was born
in Kutaisi province in Georgia. He joined the
Social Democratic Party in 1903 and sided with
the
BOLSHEVIKS
in their disputes with the Men-
sheviks. After the 1905 Revolution, he moved to
Germany for two years. Back in Russia in 1907,
he worked in Baku before being arrested and
exiled to Siberia. He escaped and reached Paris
in 1910, where he met
LENIN
; two years later,
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