Mikhail Tomsky (1880-1936) was a factory worker, trade unionist and Bolshevik leader. Tomsky attempted to form a trade union at his factory in St. Petersburg resulting in his dismissal. His labour activities radicalised him politically and led him to become a socialist and join the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1904 and eventually joined the Bolshevik faction of the party.

Tomsky moved to Estonia (then part of the Russian Empire) and was involved in the 1905 Revolution and helped form the Revel Soviet of Workers' Deputies and the Revel Union of Metal Workers. Tomsky was arrested and deported to Siberia.

He escaped and returned to St. Petersburg where he became president of the Union of Engravers and Chromolithographers.

He was arrested in 1908 and then exiled to France but returned to Russia in 1909 where he was again arrested for his political activites and sentenced to five years of hard labour.

Tomsky was freed by the Provisional Government after the February Revolution and moved to Moscow where he participated in the October Revolution.

In 1920, he became General Secretary of the Red International of Trade Unions and joined the Central Committee and Politburo of the Communist Party in 1922.

Tomsky was an ally of Stalin, Bukharin and Rykov on the right wing of the party against Leon Trotsky and helped purge the Left Opposition in the struggle within the party after the death of Lenin.

Stalin then moved against his former allies purging Bukharin and Rykov and forcing Tomsky to resign from his position as leader of the trade union movement in 1929 and was dropped from the Politburo in 1930. Tomsky remained on the Central Committee but committed suicide on August 23, 1936 when he learned he was about to be arrested by the NKVD as part of the Great Purge.