Pēteris Stučka

Pēteris Stučka, sometimes spelt Pyotr Ivanovich Stuchka (Russian: Пётр Ива́нович Сту́чка, German: Peter Stutschka (in contemporary writings); b. July 26 [O.S. July 14] 1865 in Koknese parish, Governorate of Livonia – d. January 25, 1932 in Moscow), was the head of the Bolshevik government in Latvia during the Latvian War of Independence, one of the leaders of the New Current movement in the late 19th century, a prolific writer and translator, an editor of major Latvian and Russian socialist and communist newspapers and periodicals, a prominent jurist and educator, and the first president of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. Stučka's wife, Dora Pliekšāne (1870–1950), was the sister of the Latvian poet Rainis (Jānis Pliekšāns), with whom Stučka shared a room during their law studies at St. Petersburg University.

Contents

• Places and organizations named in honour of Stuka
• Works
• References

The Latvian socialists split at the turn of the twentieth century. Stučka, a member of Lenin's inner circle, believed that the goals of global communism were more important than cultural identity.. Rainis, Stučka's brother-in-law, supported socialism, but stressed that national culture was also important. Although Rainis initially supported a free Latvia within a free Russia, he would later support an independent Latvian nation. During Latvia's War of Independence, 1918-1920, Stučka and his army of Latvian and Russian soldiers was defeated by the Latvian provisional government. Despite having the initial support of many Latvians, he lost this by breaking his promise to provide land to individuals, supporting collective farms.

In the USSR during the 1920s, Stučka was one of the main Soviet legal theoreticians who promoted the "revolutionary" or "proletarian" model of socialist legality.

After his death in 1932, Stučka's remains were interred amongst those of other Communist dignitaries in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, near Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square.