Gikalo, Nikolai

Born Mar. 8 (20), 1897; died Apr. 25, 1938. Soviet government and party figure. Member of the CPSU from 1917.

Gikalo was born in Odessa into the family of an office worker. In 1915 he graduated from the Tiflis School for Military Medical Assistants. In 1918 he became chairman of the city committee of the RCP (Bolshevik) and chairman of the executive committee of the soviet in Groznyi. He then was commander of the Soviet armed forces in Groznyi and led them in the “100-day battle” with the White cossacks (Aug. 11-Nov. 12, 1918). In 1919-20 he led the armed struggle against Denikin’s troops in Terek Oblast and in Dagestan. He was secretary of the Gorskaia (Mountain) Oblast committee of the RCP (Bolshevik) from 1921 to 1923, a member of the Southeastern Bureau of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) from 1923 to 1925, and secretary of the Northern Caucasus Krai Party Committee in 1925-26. Gikalo was a member of the Middle Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) in 1927-28, secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of Uzbekistan in 1929-30, and then secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of Azerbaijan and assistant chief of the Organization and Personnel Department of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). In 1931 he was secretary of the Moscow (Oblast) committee and the Moscow city committee of the party. In 1932 he became first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of Byelorussia, and in 1937, first secretary of the Kharkov city committee of the CP (Bolshevik) of the Ukraine. Gikalo was a delegate to the Twelfth through Seventeenth Party Congresses. At the Sixteenth Congress he was elected a member of the Central Auditing Commission; at the Seventeenth Congress, a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). He was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner.