Bulletin of Semashko National Research Institute of Public HealthBulletin of Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health2415-84102415-8429FSSBI «N.A. Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health»276310.25742/NRIPH.2024.02.023Научная статьяA turning point year (on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Semashko, the first People's Commissar of Health of the RSFSR)PashkovKonstantin A.historymed@mail.ruhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9155-4006TopolyanskiyAleksey V.historymed@mail.ruhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4409-6900N. A. Semashko National Research Institute of Public HealthFSBEI HE «ROSUNIMED» OF MOH OF RUSSIA04062024213613929042025Copyright © 2025,2025<p>The first People's Commissar of Health, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Semashko, left his post at his own request in 1930 after the Party and the government recognized the work of the People's Commissariat of Health as unsatisfactory. Evidence of the weakness of the governing apparatus of health care was recognized as the lagging pace of health care development from the growth of the national economy of the country and the needs of the working class and peasantry, insufficient participation of the public and trade unions in the work of the health care authorities, etc., as well as in the work of the health care system. In addition, the People's Commissar was blamed for insufficiently clear-cut implementation of class policy in the leadership of the entrusted department, possibly in connection with the planned mass medical examination of the country's population. Semashko's resignation was preceded by his repeated publications in the press, in which he spoke of the insufficient financing of health care, which prevented the People's Commissariat of Health from fulfilling the five-year plan, and of the difficulties in staffing due to the miserable wages of medical personnel.</p>People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSRN.A. SemashkoНародный комиссариат здравоохранения РСФСРН.А. Семашко1.Semashko N.A. International Value. 10 years of Soviet medicine. On the way to a healthy joyful life. Moscow Evening. [Vechernaya Moskva]. 1928;(152):1 (in Russian).2.3.Batunin M.P. 10 years of Soviet Health Care. Kazan medical journal. [Kazanskiy meditsinskiy zhurnal]. 1928;24(10):961—962 (in Russian).4.5.Semashko N.A. Health policy in the five-year plan. Theses on the five-year perspective plan of health care of the RSFSR. Narod. com. zdrav. RSFSR. M.; L.: Gos. med. izdvo. 1929. 30 p. (in Russian).6.7.Semashko N.A. Narcomzdrav sounds the alarm. Moscow Evening. [Vechernaya Moskva]. 1929;(48):2 (in Russian).8.9.Kapkov L.P. Low, but not defeated. Tuberculosis and pulmonary diseases. [Tuberkulez i bolezni legkikh]. 2010;87(3):58—63 (in Russian).10.11.Semashko N.A. What the control figures say. Narkomzdrav signaling danger. Moscow Evening. [Vechernaya Moskva]. 1928;(249):2 (in Russian).12.13.Zdravookhranenie in the years of restoration and socialist reconstruction of the USSR national economy, 1925 — 1940. Moscow: Medicine; 1973 (in Russian).14.15.Zatravkin C.N., Vishlenkova E. A., Sherstneva E. В. «Root fracture»: the pre-war reform of Soviet health care. Quaestio Rossica. 2020;8(2):652—666 (in Russian).16.17.Semashko N.A. Zdravookhranenie v epochu diktaturu proletariat. Moscow: State publishing house of medical literature; 1954. 146 p. (in Russian).18.19.Khabriev R.U., Egorysheva I.V., Sherstneva E.V. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Semashko — the first People's Commissar of Health Care of Russia. Problems of social hygiene, public health and history of medicine. [Problemy sotsial'noy gigieny, zdravookhraneniya i istorii meditsiny]. 2018;26(3):164—168 (in Russian).20.21.Semashko N.A. The year of the fracture. Moscow Evening. [Vechernaya Moskva]. 1930;(1):2 (in Russian).22.23.Semashko N.A. On new rails. Questions of Public Health. [Voprosy zdravookhraneniya]. 1930;(1):2—4 (in Russian).