Former Trotskyist who rose from Kiev Cheka chief to deputy commissar of railways and was shot after the second Moscow trial
Born into a poor Jewish family at Mozyr in Minsk province, he worked as a turner, passed through the Socialist Revolutionaries to the Bolsheviks in 1917 and joined the Cheka in the Civil War; as chairman of the Kiev provincial Cheka in 1921–1922 he directed the suppression of the Ukrainian peasant insurgency. A member of the Trotskyist opposition in 1923–1928, he was expelled and then readmitted, built the Kharkov Tractor Plant, ran several railways and in 1935 became deputy people's commissar of railways. Arrested at Khabarovsk in November 1936, he was tried in the second Moscow trial as a member of the 'Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Centre' and a Japanese spy, and shot on 1 February 1937. He was rehabilitated in 1988.
Also known as: Yakov Livshitz · Ya. A. Livshits
Activities and affiliations
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1913–1915
Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR)
Social movements and organizing -
1917–1936
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
Government and administration -
1919–1924
Soviet Union state institutionsState security agencies
Security, intelligence and policing -
1923–1928
Social movements and organizing
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1935–1936
Soviet Union state institutionsMain
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1912–1917Turner at works in Odessa, Kiev, Mozyr and elsewhere
- 1913–1915Member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
- 1917.03Joined the Bolsheviks; member of the Mozyr soviet
- 1919–1920Officer and chairman of the Kiev, Chernigov and Kharkov provincial Chekas
- 1921.04–1922.09Chairman of the Kiev provincial Cheka (GPU department)
- 1923.09–1924.02Deputy chairman of the Ukrainian GPU and head of its secret-operations section
- 1923–1928Trotskyist opposition (expelled 1928, readmitted 1929)
- 1930Head of construction of the Kharkov Tractor Plant
- 1930.07–1935.08Head of the Southern, North Caucasus and Moscow–Kursk railways
- 1935.08–1936.11Deputy People's Commissar of Railways of the USSR
- 1936.11.16–1937.02.01Arrested, tried in the second Moscow trial and shot