People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Political and party leadership 13 Government and administration 5 Legislature and state representation 3 Military command 6 Security, intelligence and policing 6 Diplomacy and international organization 3 Economy, finance and planning 3 Agriculture and land policy 1 Social movements and organizing 7 Scholarship and theory 2 Science and technology 2 Literature and arts 6 Religion 1 Law and justice 2
Affiliation

Most people

Any Soviet Unionstate 1

All 1 affiliations

Soviet Union

Soviet Unionstate 1
Position
Any Marxism and communism 1
Citizenship
Any Soviet Union 1
Background(set)
Any Russia 18 Hungary 4 Belarus 3 China 2 Ukraine 2 Armenia 1 Finland 1 Georgia 1 Germany 1 Latvia 1 Poland 1
Era
Any

People of the Soviet Union

People of the Stalin era1929–1953 1
Agriculture and land policy Background: Latvia Clear all

Robert Indrikovich Eikhe

Роберт Индрикович Эйхе
Soviet Union Soviet communism Soviet Union Latvia 1890–1940 ✕ Executed

Architect of terror in Siberia, recanted his confession under torture

"Choose: the pen or the rubber truncheon." He took the pen, falsely confessed, then wrote to Stalin recanting it all.

Born to a Latvian farmhand, Eikhe joined the Social Democracy at fifteen in 1905. After years as a miner and stoker in Britain, he returned to Russia and, with Stalin's backing, ruled Siberia as its de facto master, driving brutal collectivisation and dekulakisation. A candidate Politburo member from 1935, he sat on an NKVD troika during the Great Terror, signing thousands of summary death sentences. Arrested in 1938, he was beaten with rubber truncheons until an eye was destroyed, yet refused to confess to espionage. In a famous letter to Stalin he repudiated his forced confession. Shot in 1940, Khrushchev cited him in the 1956 Secret Speech and he was posthumously rehabilitated.

Career timeline
  • 1905Joins Latvian Social Democracy
  • 1908–1911Exile in Britain: coal miner, ship stoker
  • 1917–1919Riga Soviet presidium → Food Commissar of Soviet Latvia
  • 1920Secretary, Chelyabinsk gubernia committee
  • 1925–1929Chairman, Siberian Krai executive committee
  • 1929–19301st Secretary, Siberian Krai committee
  • 1930–19371st Secretary, West Siberian Krai — directs collectivisation and dekulakisation
  • 1935Candidate member, Politburo
  • 1937NKVD troika member → People's Commissar for Agriculture
  • 1938–1940Arrested → tortured → recantation letter → shot