Nikolay Goloded

Nikolay Matveyevich Goloded (21 May 1894 – 21 June 1937) was a Belarusian Soviet statesman and first secretary of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic from December 1925 to May 1927. He served as a Prime Minister of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1927 to 30 May 1937.

Early years
Goloded was born into a family of Belarusian peasants in the village of Stary Krivets, Chernihiv province. He worked from the age of seven as a shepherd, farm hand, auxiliary worker, and later as a miner in Kryvorozha. He later graduated from the Byelorussian Agricultural Institute.

In the First World War he served in the Russian army. In 1917, he became close to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), leading revolutionary agitation and joining the Party in 1918. Due to the risk of the death penalty for anti-government actions, he deserted from the front and returned to Stary Krivets, where he oversaw the seizure and division of landlord property. He was arrested while engaged in underground work.

He was later involved in combat in the Southwestern Front during the ensuing civil war. He created a Red Guard unit that fought with German troops and troops of the Ukrainian People's Republic.

Soviet career
From 1921 to 1924 he was secretary of the Gorki Regional Committee and in 1924 became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia and later on its second secretary from 1924 to 1927.

From 1927 to 1937 he was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. He was a delegate to the XIV-XVII Congresses of the CPSU(b), and elected as a candidate member of the Central Committee of the party at the XVI and XVII Congresses.

On December 6, 1930, he signed the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR expelling academicians Vaclau Lastouski, Vladimir Picheta, Jazep Losik, Ściapan Niekraševič, Maksim Haretski, and Uladzimir Dubouka from the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus "as enemies of the proletarian revolution". In 1933, he was a member of the Political Commission for the revision of the Russian-Belarusian dictionary and new rules of the Belarusian language.

Purge and rehabilitation
He was arrested on 14 June 1937 during the Great Purge, accused of participating in the right-wing Trotskyist bloc and the Ukrainian national-fascist organization. He was sent to Minsk for interrogation.

Accounts differ as to the manner of his death. According to the official version, he threw himself out of a 5th floor window during interrogation in the building of the Belarusian NKVD. According to unofficial information, he was beaten to death, and then state security officers staged a suicide. According to other reports, he was shot.

In 1956, he was posthumously rehabilitated and reinstated in the Party.

Awards
He was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935.