Robert Eikhe

Robert Eikhe

Robert Indrikovich Eikhe(Latvian:Roberts Eihe (Ēķis),Russian:Роберт Индрикович Эйхе;August 12, 1890 — February 4, 1940) was aLatvianBolshevikandSovietpolitician who was the provincial head of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Unionin Siberia during thecollectivizationof agriculture, until his arrest during theGreat Purge.

Early life

Robert Eikhe's parents were farm labourers on an estate inDoblen Countyin what was then Courland province, in modern-day Latvia. He left school at the age of 13 or 14 to become an apprentice in a locksmith's workshop and joined theSocial Democracy of the Latvian Territory(which was closely aligned to the Bolsheviks) during the1905 Revolution.Arrested in August 1907, he spent two months in prison. In February 1908, he was arrested with 18 others at an illegal meeting; he was released under police supervision after six months in prison.

At the end of 1908 he emigrated to the UK. He was a stoker on a steamboat on long voyages, worked in Scotland at a coal mine, and later at a zinc smelter inWest Hartlepool.

In 1911, he settled inRiga,believing that he was no longer at risk of a long prison sentence, but was arrested in 1915 and exiled to East Siberia. He escaped to Irkutsk and worked in an oil factory under a false name. He returned to Riga after theFebruary Revolution,but was arrested during the German occupation in January 1918. He escaped to Moscow in July 1918. During 1919, he was People's Commissar for Food in the short-livedLatvian Socialist Soviet Republic.Later that year, he was posted toChelyabinskprovince. He was based in Siberia for the next 18 years.

Party boss in Siberia

In 1929, as a trusted supporter ofJoseph Stalin,Eikhe was appointed First Secretary of the Siberian territorial communist party. From 1930, after a boundary change, he was First Secretary of the West Siberian regional party committee, and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1930–1938.

Robert Eikhe

Eikhe was also a member of the Politburo commission appointed in January 1930, chaired byMolotov,which drafted instructions on eliminating private farms and forcing the farmers onto collective farms. Speaking inNovosibirskon 27 January 1930, he called for brutal measures against thekulaks(the name given to 'rich' peasants, or more generally to any who resisted collectivisation). Eikhe called for "the most hostile, reactionary kulaks" to be held in concentration camps in "distant areas of the North" such asNarymorTurukhansk,while the others should be made to do forced labour, such as building a 550-mile road fromTomsktoYeniseysk.In a single month, in May–June 1931, 39,788 peasant families in West Siberia had their farms seized.In 1933, he opposed a plan to deport a million more victims from Ukraine and west Russia to Siberia, saying that the area could accommodate a maximum of 250,000.

In January 1935, following the assassination ofSergei Kirov,Eikhe was elected a candidate member of thePolitburo,making him one of the dozen or so most powerful men in the Soviet Union. At the start of the Great Purge, Eikhe showed utter ruthlessness in eliminating anyone who came under suspicion. On 28 June 1937, he was named as a member of a troika (three member commission) which was given special instructions by the Politburo to round up and execute peasants who had been exiled to Siberia during collectivisation. Its chairman was the recently appointed head of the West Siberian NKVD,Sergei Naumovich Mironov.By 8 July, the troika had lists of 10,924 people who were marked for execution, and 15,036 who were to be sent to theGulag.By 5 October, the troika had sentenced 13,216 people to death, and 6,205 to the Gulag.Among the victims were Eikhe's former second-in-command V.P. Shubrikov and the chairman of the West Siberian territorial party executive, F.P. Griadinsky

During the preparation of the "Latvian Operation"- in which thousands of Latvians were arrested and killed – Eikhe was summoned to Moscow, and on 30 October 1937 was appointed to the lesser post of USSR People's Commissar for Agriculture.

Arrest and execution

Eikhe was arrested on 29 April 1938, as theNKVDenacted Order 49990, which called for themass arrest of Latviansthroughout the USSR. After being brutally tortured by an NKVD officer namedZinovy Ushakov,he confessed to various counter-revolutionary crimes, and implicated others, but after Ushakov had been arrested – whenNikolai Yezhovwas replaced as head of the NKVD byLavrentiy Beria– Eikhe wrote to Stalin on 1 October 1938, renouncing his confession. He sent a second declaration, on 27 October, saying that his confession had been mostly written by Ushakov, "who utilised the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and have caused me great pain."He persisted in asserting his innocence during his closed trial, on 2 February 1940, but was sentenced to death nonetheless. The following day, he was taken to Beria's office, and subjected to a prolonged beating by the expert torturerBoris Rodosand another officer (Major General Anatoly Esaulov), in a final attempt to force him to confess. Despite being knocked out and beaten while he was prone, and having an eye gouged out, he refused to confess, and was taken away for execution.

Eikhe's wife Yevgenia Yevseyevna Rubtsova was arrested with him in April 1938 and shot on 26 August.

Eikhe's torture and execution was a prominent theme of the famousSecret Speechthat Stalin's successorNikita Khrushchevdelivered at the20th Communist Party Congressin February 1956. He was formallyrehabilitateda month later.