Jump to content

Icikas Meskupas-Adomas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Icikas MeskupaspseudonymAdomas(20 August 1907 – 13 March 1942) was a leader of theLithuanian KomsomolandCommunist Partyin interwarLithuania.He was elected to thePeople's Seimasand theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.He became the second secretary of the party in February 1941. For his communist activities, he was arrested and imprisoned several times by Lithuania and once byNazi Germany.During World War II, he joinedSoviet partisansand was killed in a shootout with Lithuanian police.

Early life[edit]

Meskupas was born inUkmergė,then part of theRussian Empire,to a family of aLithuanian Jewishtailor. Two of his uncles were active in the communist movement and he joined theLithuanian Komsomolin late 1924 while still a high school student.[1]At the time, the Communist Party and various communist activities were outlawed in Lithuania. In 1926, he graduation from the Jewish Gymnasium in Ukmergė and enrolled at theUniversity of Kaunasstudying to become a math teacher. After thecoup of December 1926,many communists were arrested. Meskupas became a member of thecentral committeeofKaunascity and a secretary of Kaunas county Komsomol.[1]

In October 1928, the 10th anniversary of theOctober Revolution,Lithuanian intelligence arrested several Komsomol members including Meskupas.[1]He was tried in February 1929 and sentenced to eight years in prison, but the sentence was reduced to two years as he was still aminor.There were many communists imprisoned inKaunas Prison.It was here that Meskupas obtained his informal communist education and read classical communist texts, includingThe Communist Manifesto,The State and Revolution,andCapital, Volume I.[1]

Communist career[edit]

Upon his release, Meskupas joined the central committee of the Lithuanian Komsomol and was sent to Berlin by theCommunist Party of Lithuaniain July 1931.[1]There he attended theUniversity of Berlinand organized the publishing of various communist newspapers (Balsas,Komunistas,Partijos darbas,Undzer emes,Darbininkų jaunimas) and their smuggling into Lithuania. Communist activities in Berlin ceased after theNazi takeoverin early 1933. Meskupas was arrested in May 1933 by theGestapoand imprisoned in Tilsit (nowSovetsk). He was released in April 1934 and returned to Kaunas where he joined the central committee of the Komsomol and the secretariat of the Communist Party. They launched a campaign to attract new members and published newspapersŠturminė kampanija(July–August 1934) andDarbininkų ir valstiečių jaunimaswhich were edited by Meskupas. He also became the editor ofTiesa,the official voice of the Communist Party. In summer 1935, he attended theSeventh World Congress of the Cominternas an advisory delegate. At the same time, he represented Lithuania at a plenum session of theInternational Red Aid(instead of Feiga Zaraitė who could not attend). Later, in September–October 1935, he was a delegate to the Sixth Congress of theYoung Communist International.[1]

He became a member of the central committee of the Communist Party in August 1935 and of itspolitburoin January 1938.[1]Meskupas was arrested and imprisoned three other times, in October 1935 for one month and 10 days, in June 1936 for three months, and in May 1938 for ten months. Lithuanian contacts with theCominternwere terminated whenZigmas Angarietis,their contact person, was executed during theGreat Purge.Antanas Sniečkus,the first secretary of the Communist Party, spent much of 1938–1939 in hiding from both the Lithuanian police and the SovietNKVDand refused invitations to appear in Moscow.[2]In December 1939, Meskupas was sent to reestablish these contacts and report on their activities for the past few years. Comintern found Lithuanian efforts to be satisfactory and according to thegeneral party line.[1]

In June 1940,Lithuania was occupiedby theSoviet Unionand lost its independence. The Soviets observed semi-constitutional formalities of transforming independent Lithuania into theLithuanian SSR.Meskupas was elected in to thePeople's Seimas,a rubber-stamp parliament that adopted a resolution of transforming into asoviet socialist republicand applying for the membership in the Soviet Union.[1]He was a member of the delegation sent to Moscow to present the resolution to theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.In January 1941, he was one of the 35 Lithuanian delegates elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. In February, he became the second secretary of the Communist Party of the Lithuanian SSR.[1]

Brief partisan life[edit]

In June 1941,Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Unionand Meskupas, along with many other communists, evacuated to Russia. In Moscow, he formed a 15-member operative group that prepared for operations deep behind the enemy line.[1]Almost all the men were politically active in the Communist Party or the Komsomol of Lithuania before the German invasion. At the time, the communists intended to reestablish the party in Lithuania – they prioritized political work and agitation overpartisan warfare.[3]The group was split into two sub-groups: Meskupas' sub-group was to be active in northern Lithuania and Juozas Daškauskas' sub-group in southeastern Lithuania. Meskupas was eager to depart, even promising to walk the distance, but various setbacks (Battle of Moscow,airplane malfunction, lukewarm reception by theNKVD) delayed his departure to 7 March 1942. Daškauskas' sub-group of six men departed on 17 March.[3]

Meskupas along with nine others was airlifted andparachutednearBauska,Latvia, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) north of their intended destination ofRokiškis District.Two men were killed in a shootout on landing, two others were captured and executed on the spot.[3]On 12 March, the remaining six men reached the environs ofNemunėlio Radviliškisand asked a local forester for food and directions. The forester later alerted the Lithuanian police which sent seven policemen and four civilians to investigate. Meskupas' group was easy to track as the snow had not yet melted. All six men were killed in the ensuing brief shootout near Smailiai village.[1]Daškauskas' sub-group did not fare better: all men, except for Vytautas Bieliauskas who went into deep hiding, were killed on 11–12 April. The Soviets did not know the fate of these men until they captured archives of Lithuanian police at the end of the war.[3]

Legacy[edit]

In 1954, Meskupas and his men were reburied in the military section of theAntakalnis Cemetery.In 1965, Meskupas was posthumously awarded theOrder of the Patriotic War(1st class). Two streets, in Kaunas and his native Ukmergė, as well as a furniture factory in Ukmergė were named in his honor. His memorial bust (sculptor Leonas Žuklys, architect Sigizmundas Pipynė) was unveiled in Ukmergė in May 1976.[1]The bust was removed soon after theLithuania's declaration of independencein March 1990 and was transferred to theGrūtas Park.[4]

References[edit]

  1. ^abcdefghijklmŠarmaitis, Romas (1988).Lietuvos revoliucionieriai(PDF)(in Lithuanian). Mintis. pp. 237–249.ISBN5-417-00071-X.
  2. ^Tutlys, Sigitas (2012-12-04)."Antanas Sniečkus".Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija(in Lithuanian). Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos centras.Retrieved2017-06-14.
  3. ^abcdZizas, Rimantas (2014).Sovietiniai partizanai Lietuvoje 1941–1944 m.(in Lithuanian). Lietuvos istorijos instituto leidykla. pp. 71, 73–75, 98–99.ISBN9789955847885.
  4. ^Government of the Republic of Lithuania (1998-12-31)."Dėl demontuotų tarybinio laikotarpio paminklinių skulptūrų perdavimo"(in Lithuanian).
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Icikas_Meskupas-Adomas&oldid=1143827041"