Misha", "Molot", "Belenky": The Biography of Mikhail Shitov in the Context of the Events of the Russian History of the First Third of the 20th Century

The article updates the tradition of studying the biographies of historical characters. Often, their names remain little known in academic and public spheres, and reference information about them is random and/or controversial. In this regard, the present study aims to attempt to reconstruct the life's path of Mikhail Fedorovich (1889-1934), a party and public figure, one of the organizers of Soviet industry. The legendary life of Shitov, a representative of the cohort of the so-called "Red directors" is analyzed in the context of the events of the national history of the first third of the 20th century, which included the revolutionary movement and the Civil War, the formation of the state of "dictatorship of the proletariat", a fundamental breakdown of the former multi-structured way of life, and the creation of the USSR military-industrial complex. The study is based on official regulations, documents of government agencies, political and public organizations, materials of the periodical press of the time, and sources of personal origin. The method of the study were the principles of historicism, objectivity and comprehensiveness, an anthropological approach, a biographical method. The study found that Shitov, born in the settlement Izhevsky Zavod of Sarapulsky District of Vyatka Province, managed to become a political figure and economic manager of the interregional level and later, in the early Soviet era of the 1920s - early 1930s, of the all-Union one. In the political sphere, he developed from a militant of the Lbovtsy, Ural guerrillas, during the First Russian Revolution of 19051907, an ideologist of the Izhevsk organization of the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries Maximalists, a participant of the Izhevsk-Votkinsk Constituent Assembly Uprising to the Secretary of the Izhevsk District Committee of the RCP (b). In the production field, Shitov started as the head of the Central Library of the Izhevsk Plant and later became the chairman of the Votsk Regional Council of National Economy. Having shown outstanding organizational skills, he managed to enter into the cohort of "Red directors", was trained in the UK, and, in the early 1920s, headed the Kovrov Machine-Gun Plant in the most difficult time of the reconstruction of this enterprise. After two "party purges", Shitov remained among the party and economic leaders. Until his death in 1934, he headed the Pamyatinsk Machine Tractor Station in Belozersky District of Kurgan Oblast. The article not only analyzes Shitov's business qualities, but also shows his family's everyday life and describes his best character traits.

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