Second Soviet ambassador to Spain, recalled and shot barely three months after taking the post
Kollontai wrote in her diary in Mexico, 1927: 'I wonder how I can work when I only have two senior staff members: Gaikis and myself. We do our own ciphering. We are terribly isolated.'
Born in Warsaw in 1898 to a Jewish family, Gaikis was active in Polish socialist parties before joining the Bolsheviks in 1917. After serving as Chicherin's secretary, first secretary in Mexico, and consul-general in Istanbul, he was posted to Madrid in 1936 as counsellor to the Soviet embassy and succeeded Marcel Rosenberg as ambassador in February 1937. Barely three months later he was recalled to Moscow, arrested on arrival, and shot on 21 August 1937 on charges of 'betrayal of the Fatherland'; he was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955. His execution left the Soviet embassy in Spain effectively vacant for the remainder of the Civil War, with no ambassador appointed again until after Franco's death.
Career Timeline
- 1917–1919Polish socialist parties, Red Army 11th Army
- 1920Official, Kazakh Military Revolutionary Committee (Kazrevkom)
- 1921–1924NKID official, secretary to People's Commissar Chicherin
- 1924–1928First secretary and chargé d'affaires, Soviet legation in Mexico
- 1929–1933Profintern (Red International of Labour Unions)
- 1935–1936Consul-general in Istanbul
- 1936–1937.02Counsellor, Soviet embassy in Spain
- 1937.02–06Polpred (ambassador) to Spain