People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity
Any Political and party leadership 1 Military command 1
Affiliation(set)

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 28 Soviet Union state institutions 21 Latvia state institutions 9 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 5 Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 2 Left Opposition 1 Comintern 1 Nazi party and regime 1

All 10 affiliations

Germany

Nazi party and regime 1

International organizations

Comintern 1

Latvia

Latvia state institutions 9 Popular Front of Latvia 1

Russia

Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR/SR) 1 Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries 2 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 5

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 28 ↳ Left Opposition 1 Soviet Union state institutions 21
Position
Any Left critics of Bolshevism 1 Marxism and communism 1
Citizenship
Any Soviet Union 2
Background(set)
Any Russia 11 Moldova 3 Latvia 2 Armenia 1 Belarus 1
Era
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The revolutionary generation1917–1940 1 People of the Stalin era1929–1953 1
Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries Background: Latvia Clear all
GlossaryParty of Left Socialist Revolutionaries

Isaac Zakharyevich Steinberg

Исаак Захарович Штейнберг
Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries Left critics of Bolshevism Soviet Union Latvia 1888–1957 ○ Natural causes

First People's Commissar of Justice under Lenin: the Left SR who defended revolutionary legality against the Cheka

"Then why bother with a Commissariat for Justice? Let's call it frankly the Commissariat for Social Extermination!" — to Lenin, protesting a Cheka summary-execution clause, February 1918

Left SR lawyer, first People's Commissar of Justice in Lenin's coalition government. He championed revolutionary legality against the Cheka and resigned over the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In exile he was a Yiddish writer and territorialist activist.

Career timeline
  • 1906Joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party while at Moscow University
  • 1908Arrested, exiled to Tobolsk province for 2 years; later earned law master's at Heidelberg
  • 1915Arrested for anti-war work, exiled to Ufa; practiced law and led Ufa Left SRs
  • 1917Elected to Constituent Assembly (Ufa), Left SR Central Committee, executive of All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies
  • 1917.12–1918.03People's Commissar of Justice: restricted Cheka powers, freed political prisoners, issued Revolutionary Tribunal rules; resigned over Brest-Litovsk
  • 1918Organized partisan detachments in Kursk and Taganrog; detained by Cheka for 4.5 months in 1919
  • 1923Emigrated to Berlin, stripped of Soviet citizenship; co-founded 'Skify' publishing, joined Vienna International
  • 1933–1957Co-founded Freeland League in London, pursued Kimberley Plan; edited Yiddish journal Afn Shvel; died in New York

Robert Petrovich Eideman

Роберт Петрович Эйдеман
Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism Soviet Latvian 1895–1937 ✕ Executed

Latvian-born Civil War hero turned defendant in the Tukhachevsky trial

On the night of 7 August 1920, Eideman's Right-Bank Group crossed the Dnieper to seize the Kakhovka bridgehead, a position sixty kilometres from Perekop that turned the flank and rear of Wrangel's army.

A Latvian-born Soviet commander and writer whose defence of the Kakhovka bridgehead as 13th Army commander helped break Wrangel's offensive from Crimea. He later trained Red Army cadres at the Frunze Military Academy and built the Osoaviakhim civilian defence apparatus, but in 1937 he was shot as a defendant in the Tukhachevsky trial and rehabilitated in 1957.

Career timeline
  • 1916Graduated Kiev Military School, ensign in 16th Siberian Reserve Regiment
  • 1917–1918Deputy chairman of Centrosibir, joined the Bolshevik Party
  • 1918–1920Civil War: commanded 16th, 41st, 46th Rifle Divisions and 13th Army; Kakhovka defence
  • 1924–1925Commander, Siberian Military District
  • 1925–1932Head and commissar, Frunze Military Academy
  • 1932–1937Chairman, Central Council of Osoaviakhim
  • 1937Arrested 22 May, Tukhachevsky trial defendant, shot 12 June