Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Alexander Barmine, the Soviet official who greeted them on arrival, remembered Rudzutaks as "a tall fellow with spectacles and curly hair, his strong features set in a round face." In April 1922 Rudzutaks was a member of the Soviet delegation at the Genoa Conference, where his task appears to have been to alert Moscow whenever the unpredictable foreign minister, Georgy Chicherin, departed from his negotiating brief. From 1922 to 1923 he was the chairman of Central Asian bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(b). In April 1923 Rudzutaks was recalled to Moscow to work as one of three secretaries of the Central Committee, working alongside Stalin, who was General Secretary. Early in 1924, Lenin wrote his famous Testament, calling for Stalin to be sacked. It was frequently rumoured that Lenin's intention was to install Rudzutaks as the new General Secretary. This story was mentioned in the memoirs of the Old Bolshevik Anastas Mikoyan, and in the novel Children of the Arbat by Anatoly Rybakov. It may be why Stalin removed him from the secretariat in May 1924 after Lenin's death. He continued to hold high office, and backed Stalin against Trotsky and other opponents, including his former colleague, Tomsky. From 1924 until 1934 he was the People's Commissar (i.e., minister) for transportation. In 1926 Rudzutaks was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (the equivalent of Deputy Premier) and held this position until 1937. In January 1926 he was made a candidate member of the Politburo. In July he was raised to full membership in place of Grigory Zinoviev, who was expelled as a member of the left opposition. In February 1932 Rudzutaks gave up his place on the Politburo on being appointed chairman of the Central Control Commission, and of Rabkrin, making him the principal judge in cases involving alleged breaches of Communist Party discipline. He was, outwardly, totally loyal to Stalin, maintaining that even to question whether Stalin should be subject to re-election was a betrayal of the Party. However, in February 1934, he was removed and replaced by the more hard-line Lazar Kaganovich. He was restored to the Politburo, but only as a candidate member, implying that he had been demoted. Arrest and execution Rudzutaks was suddenly expelled from the Politburo and Central Committee on 24 May 1937 and arrested the next day, shortly after the arrest of the