Estonian prime minister who concluded the Treaty of Tartu, publisher of Postimees
As Soviet forces occupied Estonia in June 1940, he urged President Päts to offer at least symbolic armed resistance.
Leader of Estonia's liberal national movement through the newspaper Postimees, he was prime minister in 1919 and 1920 and concluded the Treaty of Tartu. Pushed out for opposing Päts's authoritarian regime in 1934, he was arrested after the Soviet occupation of 1940 and disappeared.
Career timeline
- 1896Editor and publisher of Postimees, turning it into the organ of the national movement
- 1906Member of the First Russian State Duma; signed the Vyborg Appeal
- 1917Member of the Estonian Provincial Assembly (Maapäev)
- 1919–1920Prime Minister; concluded the Treaty of Tartu
- 1923–1925Speaker (President) of the Riigikogu
- 1927–1928State Elder
- 1931–1932Minister of Foreign Affairs
- 1933State Elder (final government)
Head of Estonia's government in the independence war, later dictator of the 'era of silence'
"The greatest thing we have accomplished is the creation of the Estonian state," he said in his June 1940 Victory Day speech under Soviet pressure.
Led Estonia's declaration of independence in February 1918 and held the country together as head of the provisional government in the first winter of the independence war. In 1934 he built the authoritarian 'era of silence' with Laidoner; deported by the Soviets in 1940, he died in custody in 1956.
Career timeline
- 1905Became deputy mayor of Tallinn
- 1917Chairman of the provisional government of the Autonomous Governorate
- 1918Salvation Committee member; led the independence declaration as head of the provisional government
- 1921–1924Served twice as State Elder (de facto premier)
- 1934Self-coup with Laidoner establishing authoritarian rule
- 1938Elected first President of Estonia
Estonian Bolshevik and Soviet People's Commissar of Justice who helped design the Gulag camp system
On Bloody Sunday, 9 January 1905, the nineteen-year-old Yanson marched with his father toward the Winter Palace and watched him fall wounded as troops opened fire on the crowd.
An Estonian Bolshevik revolutionary who chaired the Reval (Tallinn) Soviet of Workers' Deputies in 1905 and later organized the Estonian Workers' Socialist Federation while in American exile. As a leading figure in the Central Control Commission during the 1920s, he directed party purges and, in 1928, co-authored a proposal to Stalin with Tolmachev and Yagoda to replace the existing prison system with OGPU-model forced labour camps. He subsequently served as People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR and People's Commissar of Water Transport of the USSR before his arrest in 1937 and execution the following year.
Career timeline
- 1905Chairman, Reval Soviet of Workers' Deputies
- 1907–1917Secretary, Estonian Workers' Socialist Federation (USA)
- 1921–1923Secretary, Central Committee of Metalworkers' Union
- 1923–1927Secretary, Central Control Commission of RCP(b)/VKP(b)
- 1927–1930Secretary, Party Collegium of TsKK
- 1928–1930People's Commissar of Justice, RSFSR
- 1931–1934People's Commissar of Water Transport, USSR
- 1935–1937Deputy Head, Glavsevmorput
Head of the Estonian Workers' Commune and leader of the 1924 rising
He governed eastern Estonia as head of the Estonian Workers' Commune proclaimed at Narva in November 1918; arrested in 1937 during Stalin's Great Purge, he died on 11 December 1937 of injuries from a beating during interrogation.
Head of the Estonian Workers' Commune proclaimed at Narva in November 1918, he governed eastern Estonia for two months and organized the Tallinn rising of 1924. Arrested in 1937, he died under beating during interrogation.
Career timeline
- 1905Schoolteacher who joined the Bolsheviks and entered revolutionary work
- 1912Editor of the workers' paper Kiir in Narva
- 1917Chairman of the Estonian Soviet executive committee; led the seizure of power in Tallinn
- 1918Chairman of the Council of the Estonian Labour Commune
- 1921Underground leader of the CP of Estonia; directed the December 1924 uprising
- 1926Political commissar of the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy
- 1929Deputy head, then head, of the civil air fleet main administration
- 1935Member and executive secretary of the Comintern International Control Commission
