Soviet Union
Soviet communism
1865–1932
○ Natural causes
Architect of Soviet Marxist legal theory who defined law as class relations
'Law is a system, an order of social relations which corresponds to the interests of the ruling class and is maintained by the organized power of this class, the state.' (The Revolutionary Role of Law and the State)
Latvian jurist and revolutionary. Born 14 (26) July 1865 in Koknese volost, Riga district, Livonia province, he died in Moscow on 25 January 1932 and his ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall. With Rainis he led the Latvian Marxist 'New Current' and the newspaper Dienas Lapa, was arrested in 1897 and after seven months' imprisonment exiled for five years to Vyatka province. As People's Commissar of Justice after October he co-authored Decree on Courts No. 1, laying the foundation of Soviet justice, headed the Latvian Soviet government (1918–1920) and served as first chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Court from 1923 until his death.
Career timeline
1883–1888Graduated Riga Gymnasium and St. Petersburg University law faculty; became sworn attorney's assistant
1888–1897Led Latvian Marxist 'New Current' movement and newspaper Dienas Lapa with Rainis
1897–1903Arrested, 7 months imprisonment then 5 years exile in Vyatka; co-authored satirical collection Little Gadflies
1906Joined RSDLP; chaired unification congress of Latvian SD Party, which became territorial part of RSDLP
1917.10–11Liaison with Latvian Riflemen at Smolny; chaired Petrograd MRC investigative commission; as People's Commissar of Justice co-authored Decree on Courts No. 1
1918–1920RSFSR People's Commissar of Justice and deputy Narkom of Foreign Affairs; head of Latvian Soviet government (Dec 1918–Jan 1920)
1923–1932First chairman of RSFSR Supreme Court; chairman, Comintern International Control Commission (1924); editor-in-chief, Encyclopedia of State and Law (1925–1927); director, Institute of Soviet Law (1931)
Latvian Bolshevik who denounced NKVD case fabrication in court
In the trial record cited by Khrushchev in 1956, Rudzutak asked to report NKVD fabrication and coerced confessions to the Central Committee.
Latvian Bolshevik and trade-union leader. Born to peasant farmhands, he joined the party in 1905 and was sentenced to hard labour in 1909, released in 1917. He served as People's Commissar of Railways, a full Politburo member and head of the Central Control Commission; arrested in May 1937, he denied guilt in court and denounced NKVD case fabrication. Shot on 29 July 1938, he was rehabilitated when the 1955 review established the case was falsified.
Career timeline
1905–1909Underground Bolshevik organiser in Riga and Vindava; arrested, 10 years' hard labour
1917Secretary of All-Russian Textile Workers' Union; Moscow Trade Union Council presidium
1918–1920Chairman of Moscow Sovnarkhoz; member of VSNKh Presidium
1920–1921Chairman of Turkestan SNK; member of Turkestan Front RVS
1924–1930People's Commissar for Railways USSR
1926–1932Full member of Politburo CC VKP(b)
1931–1934Chairman of CCC + People's Commissar of RKI USSR
1937.05.25Arrested as 'Latvian nationalist anti-Soviet' conspirator; denounced NKVD fabrications in court
1938.07.29Sentenced to death by Military Collegium; shot same day
Architect of Comintern propaganda and party history compiler
"We believe that Byelorussians are not a nation, and the ethnographic specifics that differentiate them from Russians must be erased" — in Zvyazda, the newspaper he edited, 6 October 1918.
A Latvian Bolshevik who built party organizations in Belarus and Latvia and twice served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia in the 1920s. As head of the Comintern Information-Propaganda Department he coordinated the ideological line of foreign communist parties, and as director of the Institute of Red Professorship (Party History) he authored the 1935 Short History of the CPSU, the direct precursor to the 1938 Short Course. Arrested in 1937, executed the following year, and rehabilitated in 1955.
Career timeline
1910Joined RSDLP(b)
1917Secretary of Minsk Soviet, editor of Zvyazda
1920–1922Secretary, Central Bureau of CP(b) of Byelorussia
1926–1927Head of Agitprop, CC VKP(b)
1927–1928First Secretary, CC CP(b) of Byelorussia
1928–1937Head of Information-Propaganda Dept., ECCI
1932–1935Director, Institute of Red Professorship (Party History)
1935–1937Deputy Head, Dept. of Party Propaganda & Agitation, CC VKP(b)
The young oppositionist of the Revolutionary Military Council
On 7 November 1927, the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, Smilga hung portraits of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev from his apartment opposite the Kremlin with a banner reading 'Let's Fulfill Lenin's Testament.' Stalin's supporters broke in and wrecked the apartment; beaten in the street and arrested, he escaped custody later that day.
A Latvian-born Bolshevik revolutionary and economist. He joined the party at fourteen and was elected to the Central Committee at twenty-four in 1917, becoming Lenin's key collaborator during his Finnish hideout. During the October Revolution he transported pro-Bolshevik troops from Finland to Petrograd; in the Civil War he served as a Revolutionary Military Council member on every major front and as head of the Red Army's Political Directorate. A principal leader of the Left Opposition, he led its last public demonstration in November 1927. After renouncing Trotskyism in 1930 he was reinstated, but secretly continued in Ivan Smirnov's underground opposition organisation. He was executed in January 1937.
Career timeline
1917–1921Revolutionary and Civil War party-military leadership
During government meetings, Mezhlauk drew caricatures of his colleagues. 532 sketches survived in Voroshilov's secret files; after Mezhlauk was arrested, Beria forwarded one with a note: 'V. Mezhlauk's work.'
A theorist and chief operator of Soviet planned economy, he led the drafting of the first three Five-Year Plans. As Gosplan chairman he oversaw industrialization targets and resource allocation, and in 1929 negotiated the Ford contract that built the Gorky Auto Plant. He edited the newspaper For Industrialization and was known for his satirical caricatures of party officials drawn during meetings. Of Latvian origin, he was arrested during the Great Terror on charges of leading a 'Latvian counterrevolutionary organization' and shot in 1938.
Career timeline
1917–1920sLatvian Bolshevik who rises through civil-war and economic administration
1931–1934Handles Five-Year Plan indicators in heavy-industry and economic administration
1934–1937Gosplan chairman coordinating industrialization targets and allocations
1937Arrested during the Great Terror
1938Shot, showing that planning organs were also targets of the purge
