The author of this book talks about the difficult and contradictory life path of the Bolshevik G. L. Pyatakov, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party(b) Ukraine, chairman of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine, a participant in all the significant events of the revolutionary movement in Ukraine at the beginning of the twentieth century, and later - socialist transformations in the USSR of the 20-30s. G. L. Pyatakov from a young age was one of the most solid opponents in intellectual discussions with Lenin and his supporters about the essence, the nature of world social processes, the place and role of Russia in them, the prospects for party and state building. One of the most prominent party and political figures of the first post-revolutionary decades, Pyatakov participated in the factional struggle on the side of the opposition and was a very large ideological rival of Stalin, eventually sharing the fate of many victims of political repression.