Name Jaan Anvelt | Role Political leader | |
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Died December 11, 1937, Moscow, Russia Education Saint Petersburg State University Party Communist Party of Estonia | ||
Jaan Anvelt (in Russian Yan anvel't, also known by the pseudonyms Eessaare Aadu, Jaan Holm, Jaan Hulmu, Kaarel Maatamees, Onkel Kaak or N. al't'; 18 April 1884 – 11 December 1937), was a Soviet revolutionary, leader of the Communist Party of Estonia, the first Premier of Soviet Estonia, and the Chairman of the Council of The Commune of the Working People of Estonia (Estonian Eesti Toorahva Kommuun). Imprisoned during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in 1937, he died from the injuries sustained during a beating while in custody by Aleksandr Ivanovich Langfang.
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Early life
Anvelt was born to a peasant family in Oorgu, Voisiku Parish (now in Kolga-Jaani Parish), Viljandi County, Governorate of Livonia. He studied to become a schoolteacher, beginning in Dorpat (now Tartu), and then in St. Petersburg, where he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party's Bolshevik faction. He was employed as a schoolteacher from 1905 to 1907, concurrently being involved in revolutionary activity. From 1907 to 1912, Anvelt studied part-time as a student of jurisprudence at St. Petersburg University.
October Revolution
On November 5, 1917 (by the current Gregorian calendar - October 23 by the Julian calendar still in use in Russia at the time), Bolshevik leader Jaan Anvelt led his leftist revolutionaries to the revolution in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and took political power.
Post-Revolution
After the defeat of the revolutionaries in the Baltics, Anvelt went underground, remaining active as a revolutionary, emerging as one of the leaders of the 1924 Estonian coup d'etat attempt. In 1925, Anvelt arrived in the USSR, in 1926-29 working as a political commissar of the Zhukovsky Air Forces Military Academy. From 1929 to 1935 he worked in top positions of the civilian air fleet's main administration. During the period from 1935 to 1937 Anvelt served as a member and an executive secretary of a department within the Comintern.
Anvelt was arrested in 1937. Interrogated in custody, he died from the injuries inflicted by the interrogator Aleksandr Langfang on 11 December 1937, and was denounced as an enemy of the people afterwards.
In 1956, when Khrushchev distanced himself from the methods of Stalinism, Anvelt was rehabilitated.