Bolshevik who led the underground communist party in independent Estonia and was executed
A Cheka investigator on the Lockhart conspiracy and Kaplan affair, he was arrested after the May Day demonstration of 1922 and shot that same night in a forest by Lake Ülemiste.
The Bolshevik who led the October Revolution in Estonia in 1917, he directed the underground communist party in the independent republic until his arrest and execution in Tallinn in 1922.
Activities and affiliations
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1918–1922
Communist Party of Estonia (EKP, 1918–1940)Member of the Central Committee and PolitburoMain
Political and party leadership -
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
Social movements and organizing
Career Timeline
- 1905Began revolutionary activity in a Marxist students' circle in Arensburg (Kuressaare)
- 1906Moved to St Petersburg and joined the RSDLP (Bolsheviks)
- 1906–1913Party work in St Petersburg and Revel (Tallinn); helped publish the Estonian-language paper Kiir
- 1917Deputy chairman of the Estland Military Revolutionary Committee; head of the administrative department of the Soviet ExecutComm
- 1918Investigator for the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal and Cheka; member of the All-Russian Central ExecutComm
- 1918–1922Led the underground Estonian Communist Party; Central Committee and Politburo member
- 1922Arrested 3 May and shot the following night
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionLeader of Estonia’s communist undergroundLed the Estonian communist underground from the time of the Workers' Commune, and was arrested in Tallinn in May 1922 and executed two days later.
- 1918.11–1920.10Baltic wars of independence and border settlementsLeader of Estonia’s communist undergroundLed the Estonian communist underground from the time of the Workers' Commune, and was arrested in Tallinn in May 1922 and executed two days later.
Revolution and independence wars
Born on the island of Saaremaa, he joined the Bolshevik organization while studying law at St Petersburg University, led the October Revolution in Estonia on its Military Revolutionary Committee in 1917 and tried to arrest the ministers of the Estonian provisional government on the eve of the declaration of independence in February 1918. In Russia he served in the Cheka and took part in the investigation of the Left SR rising, and in November 1918, at the time of the Estonian Workers' Commune, he returned to Estonia to run the underground. After the Commune's defeat he led the Estonian party's central committee, organizing newspapers and propaganda and steering the legal labour organizations that contested parliamentary elections. Arrested in Tallinn on 3 May 1922, he was executed two days later by sentence of a military court and his body was thrown into the sea. Under Soviet rule the town of Kuressaare bore his name until 1988.