Martyn Ivanovich Lazis

Martyn Lazis on a postage stamp

Martyn Iwanowitsch Lazis ( Latvian Mārtiņš Lācis , Russian Мартын Иванович Лацис ) (born December 16, 1888 in Vecpiebalga , Russian Empire , today Latvia ; † March 20, 1938 ) was a communist revolutionary, Soviet politician and high officer of the Cheka .

The son of a farm laborer, born as Jānis Sudrabs , attended the local community school. While his brother was training, Jānis joined the Latvian Social Democratic Party in 1905 and took part in the 1905 Revolution . He then worked at various schools in Krimulda , Straupe and Vecsalaca . In addition, he worked as an underground propagandist for social democracy. Because of persecution by the police, he received a passport from the party in 1910 as Mārtiņš Lācis . For the same reason he worked from 1911 to 1913 as a surveyor in the North Caucasus.

In 1912 he stayed in Moscow. In August 1915 he was exiled to the Irkutsk governorate , from which he fled the following year.

In 1917 he was the organizer of the Red Guard in Vyborg and a member of the Petrograd Revolutionary Military Committee . In November he became a board member of the NKVD . From May 1918 he belonged to the Cheka and, as a pioneer of the Red Terror , brutally fought the counter-revolution. He headed the Cheka in the Russian Civil War on the Eastern Front and in 1919 in the Ukraine. Here he became known as the mass murderer of Kiev. At that time, the two Latvians Lācis and Jēkabs Peterss were Dzierżyński's left and right hand .

After the civil war, Lācis was head of various collective farms and companies. In addition, he worked as a writer and published an autobiography, as well as plays and poems. On November 29, 1937, Lācis was arrested in the course of the Latvian operation of the NKVD on charges of belonging to a counterrevolutionary nationalist organization and shot almost four months later.

Publications (selection)

• Два года борьбы на внутреннем фронте [Two years of fighting on the internal front]. 1920
• Чрезвычайные комиссии по борьбе с контрреволюцией [Extraordinary Commission to Combat the Counterrevolution]. 1921

literature

• Iiul'skie dni v Petrograde: Iz dnevnika agitatora ( The July Days in Petrograd: From an Agitator's Diary ). Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 5 (17), 1923, pp. 102-116.
• Ilga Gore , Ojārs Niedre : Mārtinš Lācis - čekists un literāts . 1989

Remarks

1. ↑ In Igors Vārpa : Latviešu karavīrs zem Krievijas impērijas, Padomju Krievijas and PSRS karogiem. Latviešu strēlnieki triju vēstures laikmetu griežos . (Nordik, Riga 2006), ISBN 9984-792-11-0 . On p. 290 a letter from the summer of 1918 to the Cheka in Kazan is quoted. The translation is: "There is a need to destroy more bourgeoisie. Do not look for legal evidence against the opponents of the Soviet power. First and foremost, you have to ask these guys what class they belong to, what education and offices they have. These questions have that To decide the fate of the prisoner. Such is the nature of the red terror. "

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ilga Gore, Ojārs Niedre: Mārtiņš Lācis Riga, Avots 1989 p. 7
2. ↑ Ilga Gore, Ojārs Niedre: Mārtiņš Lācis Riga, Avots 1989 p. 124
3. ↑ Martyn Ivanovich Latsis. Retrieved November 24, 2018 . 
4. ↑ БИОГРАФИЧЕСКИЙ УКАЗАТЕЛЬ. Retrieved November 24, 2018 (Russian). 
5. ↑ Jānis Sudrabs. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013 ; Retrieved November 24, 2018 (Lithuanian). 
6. ^ Björn M. Felder: Latvia in World War II: Between Soviet and German occupiers 1940-1946. 2009 Schöningh ISBN 978-350-6765-444 p. 130
7. ↑ Igors Vārpa : Latviešu karavīrs zem Krievijas impērijas, Padomju Krievijas and PSRS karogiem. Latviešu strēlnieki triju vēstures laikmetu griežos . (Nordik, Riga 2006), ISBN 9984-792-11-0 . P. 452

Web links

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