Unknown Peters. Heads of Soviet foreign intelligence Vladimir Antonov Participation in the October Revolution

Some remember him with hatred, others with admiration. The son of a Latvian farm laborer could become related to Churchill, become a London banker, and as a result created one of the strongest intelligence services in the world.

Izvestia information: Janis Peters

Peters Yakov Khristoforovich (11/21/12/3/1886 - 4/25/1938), Soviet party and statesman. Born in Latvia into the family of a farm laborer. Worker. In 1904 he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party (LSDLP).

After the revolution of 1905-1907. - emigrant, lived in London. In the October days of 1917 - a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. After the October Revolution - member of the board and deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Participated in uncovering the Lockhart-Reilly plot; one of the leaders of the liquidation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary revolt of 1918; led the investigation into the case of Fanny Kaplan, who attempted to assassinate Lenin. In 1920-1922 - representative of the Cheka in Turkestan. Since 1923 - member of the OGPU board. Repressed. Rehabilitated posthumously.

They used to say about him - “a faithful Leninist”, “a fiery revolutionary”. Then - “executioner”, “bloody security officer”. But let's put emotions aside. Any state has weapons - special services. Angels do not work in them, but even harsh accusations, when carefully studied, often turn out to be legends.

Peters was one of the founders of the Cheka, the main intelligence service of Soviet Russia. Neither he nor his comrades had ever prepared for this role. But it quickly became clear that these amateurs and self-taught people from scratch created one of the strongest intelligence and counterintelligence services in the world. Are we interested, for example, in the inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle? Let's take an interest in Peters - he is also the creator of weapons.

Uncle Bob's Confession

One foggy London evening in 1931, nineteen-year-old Cambridge student Harold Adrian Philby (his family name was Kim) once again listened with interest to the recollections of his father’s close friend, whom he simply called “Uncle Bob” (we know him by the name), about life in Russia. Then he said: “I wish I could be there.”

Lockhart, the famous intelligence officer and socialite, smiled:

Yes, in Russia I walked on the edge, my boy. It was exciting, but also tiring. After all, I walked on the earth, and they... climbed towards the “radiant idea”, into the heavens! With such a steep climb, sometimes a second wind of the mind opens. If our intelligence services cooperated, I would send the current analysts from Secret Service to Peters for internship. That's who would be able to knock down their academic arrogance.

“I always warned that you cannot trust people who arrived from Russia, no matter what last names they bear, since there is a high probability that these people visited the offices of the Lubyanka... Under the yoke of the charm of their owners, I myself almost stayed in Moscow to start the life of an ideological fighter against world capitalism." And further: “I never believed the ROWS. The old people there have lost their fighting fervor, and their children are entirely Peters’ agents.”

This was written when “Peters’ agents” had already done their job. EMRO - The Russian All-Military Union, which had branches all over the world, was preparing sabotage against Bolshevik Russia. Already in 1922, sons and relatives of White Guard officers and leaders of the union began to appear in Europe, “escaping” from Russia to their fathers.

Foreign intelligence services immediately paid favorable attention to young people with big names. When the shadow of fascism began to creep over Europe, it was they who formed the basis, the support of the Soviet station, carried out and prepared a number of brilliant operations... and almost everyone died as a result of “turning a bull in a china shop” - this is how Peters bitterly assessed what happened in 1937.

Stalin outwardly always had a great attitude towards Peters, speaking of him as “the last romantic of revolutionary battles.” At the 16th Congress, when everyone was trashing Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, he forgave him for his “energetic silence” regarding the “right-wing danger” and the “persistent” development of the idea of mass control. It seems that he forgave even more - participation in Tukhachevsky’s “conspiracy.” Or didn't you forgive?

The death of Peters is a special story. In the official certificate received by his wife after his rehabilitation (Peters’ second wife Antonina Zakharovna died in 1986), the date of death is 1942. According to other documents, he was shot in 1938. This happened - people were shot earlier than their death certificates reported. However...

The last riddle

At the very beginning of the war, in August 1941, Peters’ daughter May (she came to Russia in 1928, aged fifteen), who was then working at the British embassy, told Antonina Zakharovna Peters that “one comrade who did not identify himself”, through the wife of an embassy employee asked me to convey to her the following phrase: “Your father is alive and continues to work.”

That he was alive - that's what everyone hoped for. But “continues to work”?.. Peters was arrested in front of his son and wife; she remembered well how one of those carrying out the search crushed the Order of the Red Banner with the heel of his boot...

However, there is another testimony of a comrade who also “did not identify himself.” It is not documented, so we will consider this story only a version - although something prevents me from calling it a fairy tale.

Late in the evening of one of the last days of October 1942, an airplane delivered from the front-line zone the body of a murdered senior lieutenant, judging by his uniform, whose head and shoulders were wrapped in a leather jacket. Two military counterintelligence officers specially flew to the front for him. The body was ordered to be taken for an autopsy.

The head of the department who gave the order said: “Don’t be surprised at anything.” Before the autopsy, an identification parade was held, to which only one person attended. A doctor and a third-rank NKVD commissar were also present during the identification. The counterintelligence officers who brought the murdered man to Moscow were in the next room.

One of them left this certificate, in which two names appear - the one who came for the identification, and the one who lay in front of him on the anatomical table. The first one was called Stalin; the second - Peters.

“Fantastic times give birth to fantastic legends, but this creativity is always accurate, selective and fair, since it is accountable to History itself.” John Reed.

Izvestia information: Claire Sheridan

Sculptor, writer, political journalist. Cousin of Winston Churchill. The file on Claire Sheridan was declassified by the British Secret Service last year. It turned out that, according to the British, Claire Sheridan was an agent of Soviet intelligence, to whom she conveyed the contents of conversations with her famous relative.

The dossier says that on instructions from Soviet intelligence, Sheridan worked in Constantinople and Algeria. Sheridan's personal letters intercepted by intelligence agencies revealed that she traveled to Nazi Germany and participated in meetings chaired by Hitler.

She was the mistress of Ismet Bey, who opposed British policy in India. The list of her other lovers includes French generals and major politicians. At the same time, Claire herself claimed that she helped British intelligence collect dossiers on Soviet leaders, in particular on Lev Kamenev.

Churchill was ashamed of his uncontrollable niece and did not free her from secret service surveillance.

Izvestia information: Robert Bruce Lockhart

In 1918, British Ambassador to Soviet Russia. Key figure in the anti-Bolshevik “conspiracy of ambassadors.” The investigation into his case was led by Peters. Expelled from the country. Returning to England, Lockhart became a journalist.

With the outbreak of World War II, he was drafted into the political intelligence department of the British Foreign Office. Lockhart, traditionally considered in the Soviet Union as the personification of world imperialism, maintained excellent personal relations with Soviet diplomats, objectively did a lot to strengthen Anglo-Soviet relations and always treated Russia with sympathy.

Izvestia information: Kim Philby

Soviet super intelligence officer, head of the famous "Cambridge Five". The position he held before coming under suspicion in 1951 was the representative of British intelligence to the CIA and FBI in Washington (equated to the position of deputy chief of the British Intelligence Service).

His work, according to the CIA leadership, led to the fact that “all Western intelligence efforts in the period from 1944 to 1951 were ineffective. It would be better if we did nothing at all.”

In 1963 he fled to the USSR, died in Moscow in 1988.

Yakov Khristoforovich Peters (Latvian: Jēkabs Peters; November 21 (December 3), 1886, Brinken volost, Gazenpot district, Kurland province (territory of modern Latvia) - April 25, 1938) - professional revolutionary, one of the founders and first leaders of the Cheka. Shot in 1938 during the Great Terror, rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.

He had the badge of an Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU under No. 2.

In his autobiography, compiled in 1928 upon joining the All-Union Society of Old Bolsheviks, Peters indicated that he was the son of a farm laborer, from the age of 8 he had to look for food and herd cattle from neighboring farmers, and from the age of 14 he began to work for hire from a neighboring landowner together with farm laborers. However, in 1917, Peters, in a conversation with American journalist Bessie Beatty, said that he was the son of a “gray baron” (as rich peasant landowners were called in the Baltic region) and his father had hired workers.

In 1904 he moved to Libau, where he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party.

During the Revolution of 1905-1907, according to the questionnaire, he campaigned among peasants and farm laborers. In March 1907 he was arrested. He was accused of attempting to kill the plant director during a strike, but was acquitted at the end of 1908 by the Riga Military Court.

In 1909 he emigrated to Hamburg, and from there in 1910 in London: Fyodor Rothstein, who helped Russian communists who found themselves in London settle down, recalled that he had to “tinker” with Peters, who, having fled the persecution of the tsarist government, was without a penny of money, didn't know a word of English. He was a member of the London Group of Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC), the British Socialist Party and the Latvian Communist Club.

23 December 1910 Arrested by London police on suspicion of involvement in the murder of police officers during an attempted robbery in Houndsditch on the night of 16-17 December. Peters stated that the robbers were led by his cousin Fritz Swars, but Peters himself did not kill anyone. Soon, on January 3, 1911, the famous “Siege of Sidney Street” took place, where several Latvian terrorists fired back at the police during the day. The terrorist hotbed was destroyed only with the participation of military units; The operation on the ground was led by then Home Secretary Winston Churchill. Peters was arrested, spent 5 months in prison, after which in May 1911 he was acquitted by the court for lack of evidence.

After his release, he met with Claire Sheridan, Winston Churchill's cousin. However, “at one of the parties, Claire noticed that Jacob suddenly lost interest in another political discussion... The reason for this was Claire’s friend - very young, quiet May, the daughter of a London banker.” He married the daughter of a British banker, Maisie Freeman. In 1914, Peters' daughter May was born. Before the February Revolution, Peters occupied the position of manager of the import department of a large English trading company.

During the First World War he was a member of the committee of socialist groups headed by Chicherin.

After the February Revolution of 1917, he came to Petrograd through Murmansk. Worked in Riga, member of the Central Committee of the SDLC and representative of the SDLC in the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). He worked among military units on the Northern Front, a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the 12th Army in August-October 1917. After the Germans occupied Riga, he left Riga and, retreating with the troops, stopped in Volmar, where he worked as one of the editors of the newspaper “Tsinya” .

He was sent as a representative from the peasants of the Livonia province to the Democratic Conference convened by Kerensky.

In the October days of 1917, a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, a delegate to the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Prepared military units for the October Revolution.

After the October Revolution, a member of the board and an assistant (essentially a deputy) to the chairman and treasurer. Since April 1918, he was the first secretary of the party organization in the history of the Cheka.

It is with his name that the formation of the image of the “Latvian face” of the Cheka is associated: “The fact that the second person in the department of “proletarian reprisals” became J. H. Peters, who widely attracted his comrades and fellow countrymen who went through the difficult school of the Social Democratic underground in the Baltic region, who had experience of conspiracy and participation in military squads of 1905-1907.”

He supervised the liquidation of B. Savinkov’s “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” in Moscow and Kazan.

He took part in uncovering the Lockhart conspiracy and led the liquidation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary uprising of 1918. Since the murder of Mirbach on July 6, 1918 was carried out with documents signed by Dzerzhinsky, he was temporarily removed from the post of chairman of the Cheka, and his place was taken by Jacob Peters, who formed a new board of the Cheka exclusively from communists. On August 22 (after Dzerzhinsky's return), Peters was confirmed as his deputy.

He led the investigation into the case of the Socialist-Revolutionary F. Kaplan who attempted to assassinate V.I. Lenin.

On January 9, 1919, J. Peters, participating in a meeting of the Presidium of the Cheka (in addition to him, M. Latsis, Ksenofontov and secretary Murnek were present), issued a resolution: “The verdict of the Cheka against persons of the former imperial pack is to be approved by reporting this to the Central Executive Committee.” According to this decree, the Grand Dukes Nikolai Mikhailovich, Georgiy Mikhailovich, Pavel Alexandrovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich were shot in Petrograd.

He worked at the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, since 1918 one of its three chairmen, who sat alternately.

In March 1919, he was replaced as deputy chairman of the Cheka by Ksenofontov, Ivan Ksenofontovich, and in the same month he was sent to Petrograd, where he was appointed head of internal defense, and then commandant of the fortified area.

On June 11, 1919, J. Peters developed and sent out “instructions for conducting an inspection of Petrograd” to the regions. According to this instruction, each district was divided into sections in which a complete inspection of all residential and non-residential premises was carried out; the main purpose of the searches was to find weapons. The following were subject to detention during searches: all persons who had firearms with them without the appropriate permits, with the exception of only the owners of hunting rifles; deserters; unregistered citizens; persons who did not have residence permits at all; all former police officers up to and including police officers and all former gendarmerie officers and non-commissioned officers.

On June 14, an order was given to begin a thorough inspection of all suspicious places and buildings in the districts, churches of all religions, bell towers, attics, basements, sheds, warehouses and squares.

In July 1919, with the retreat of the White troops of the Northern Corps (later the North-Western Army) from Petrograd, the department of the head of the internal defense of Petrograd, headed by Peters, was abolished by the establishment of the RVS of the 7th Army, and in its place the department of the head of the Petrograd fortified district. Peters became commandant of the fortified area and a member of the Defense Committee.

In August 1919, Peters was appointed commandant of the Kyiv fortified area and head of the garrison. At this time, Denikin’s white army and Petliura’s troops were advancing on Kyiv from different sides.

Unable to change anything militarily, Peters and Latsis began to take it out on the internal enemy<...>One morning the newspapers came out with an endlessly long, two-column, list of those executed. There were, I think, 127 people; The motive for the execution was stated to be a hostile attitude towards the Soviet regime and sympathy for the volunteers. In fact, as it turned out later, the board of the Cheka, reinforced by Peters, decided to carry out a mass execution and selected from the list of prisoners everyone against whom at least something incriminating could be brought up<...>the actual number of those executed was not limited to the list given in the newspapers. On the very last day before the departure of the Bolsheviks, the checks were shot without any accounting or control.

After the fall of Kyiv, Peters was a member of the Military Council in Tula.

In the winter of 1919-1920 he worked in Moscow as deputy chairman of the Special Committee of the STO for the implementation of martial law on the railways. In January 1920 - plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in the North Caucasus, commissioner of the North Caucasus Railway.

In 1920-1922, member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in Turkestan and head of the Tashkent Cheka. He led operations against the anti-Bolshevik formations of Dutov, Annenkov, and Enver Pasha.

In May 1921, he met in Tashkent an acquaintance from London, F.A. Rothstein, who was appointed plenipotentiary envoy to Persia and accompanied him to Persia with an armed detachment of security officers.

In the summer of 1921, by order of Peters, Prof. P.P. Sitkovsky and all the doctors of the Sitkovsky clinic on charges of sabotage. Peters decided to make the trial a show and he himself acted as a public prosecutor at the trial.

In February 1922, Peters was recalled to Moscow and appointed a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the GPU, created on June 2, 1922. The new department united the work of security officers in the Caucasus, in the Turkestan, Bashkir, Tatar and Crimean Autonomous Republics, Bukhara and Khiva People's Republics. The new department was charged with developing materials from the foreign part of the INO from the countries of the East; the execution of operational tasks of the eastern department was mandatory for the INO. The branches in the Eastern Department were led by Peters' deputy Vladimir Styrne, Eichmans and Mikhail Kazas. While working in the Eastern Department, Peters in 1925 was also the chief inspector of the OGPU border troops. On the 10th anniversary of the Cheka in December 1927, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

On October 31, 1929, J. X. Peters was relieved of his duties as a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU. His KGB stage of his biography formally ended here, although Peters continued to work in control bodies.

At the end of 1929, Peters led a commission to purge employees of institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Of the 259 academicians and corresponding members, 71 were expelled, mostly scientists in the humanities. Many of them were arrested in the so-called “Academic Case”. The investigation into this case lasted for more than a year. The OGPU accused 70-year-old academician S.F. Platonov and his associates of intending to overthrow Soviet power and form a Provisional Government with the subsequent restoration of the monarchy in Russia.

Since 1930, a member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission-NRKI, at the 12-16th party congresses he was elected a member of the Central Control Commission. In 1930-1934, chairman of the Moscow Control Commission (MCC) of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. at the 17th Congress he was elected a member of the CPC under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Arrested on November 27, 1937. Executed on April 25, 1938 at the Kommunarka training ground. March 3, 1956 The Supreme Commander of the USSR Armed Forces was rehabilitated.

Peters Yakov Khristoforovich is one of the heads of state security agencies in Soviet Russia. Real name: Peters Jacob. Born on November 21, 1886 in the Brinken volost of the Gazenpot district of the Courland province (Latvia). Son of a farm laborer. Worker. In 1904 he joined the Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC). Conducted agitation among the peasants. He was arrested in 1907 and emigrated in 1909. Lived in London. In 1917, he returned to Russia, a member of the Central Committee of the SDLC, its representative in the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), editor of the newspaper “Tsinya”. In October 1917, member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Since December 1917, member of the board of the Cheka, deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal. From July 8 to August 22, 1918, he temporarily acted as chairman of the Cheka instead of the suspended F.E. Dzerzhinsky, and then until March 1919 he was deputy chairman of the Cheka. In May 1919, extraordinary commissioner in Petrograd. In 1920-22, plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in Turkestan, member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Since 1922, head of the Eastern Department of the GPU. Since 1923, member of the OGPU board. In 1930 he was transferred from the OGPU to party work. In 1930–1934 was the chairman of the Moscow Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1937 he commanded the Kremlin security. In 1937 he was arrested. On April 25, 1938, he was sentenced to death and executed on the same day in the basements of the Lubyanka. In 1956 he was posthumously rehabilitated.

Yakov Khristoforovich Peters - November 21 (December 3) 1886 - April 25, 1938) - terrorist, creator of the Soviet repressive body (VChK), which became the most important intelligence service of Soviet Russia, a high-ranking official.

Born in the Brinken volost of the Gazenpot district of the Courland province (the territory of modern Latvia) in the family of a farm laborer. Worker. In 1904 he moved to Libau, where he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party (LSDLP). During the Revolution of 1905-1907, according to the questionnaire, he campaigned among peasants and farm laborers. In March 1907 he was arrested. He was accused of attempting to kill the plant director during a strike, but was acquitted at the end of 1908 by the Riga Military Court. After the revolution of 1905-1907. emigrated and lived in London. He was a member of the London Group of Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC). Member of the British Socialist Party. In December 1910, he took part in the murder of English policemen, after which he held the famous “siege on Sydney Street” with a group of militants. The terrorist hotbed was destroyed only with the participation of military units and artillery; the operation on the spot was commanded by the then Home Secretary Winston Churchill. In the case of the “Siege on Sydney Street” he was arrested, spent 5 months in prison, after which he was acquitted by the court. He married the daughter of a British banker, Maisie Freeman. In 1914, Peters' daughter May was born. During the First World War he was a member of the committee of socialist groups headed by Chicherin. After the February Revolution of 1917, he came to Petrograd through Murmansk. Worked in Riga, member of the Central Committee of the SDLC and representative of the SDLC in the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). Conducted work among military units on the Northern Front. After the Germans occupied Riga, he left Riga and, retreating along with the troops, stopped in Volmar, where he worked as one of the editors of the newspaper “Tsinya”. He was sent as a representative from the peasants of the Livonia province to the Democratic Conference convened by Kerensky. In the October days of 1917, he was a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Prepared military units for the October Revolution. After the October Revolution - member of the board and deputy chairman of the Cheka, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He took part in uncovering the Lockhart conspiracy and led the liquidation of the Left Socialist Revolutionary uprising of 1918. He led the investigation into the case of the Socialist-Revolutionary F. Kaplan who attempted to assassinate V.I. Lenin. In March 1919 he was sent to Petrograd, where he was appointed head of internal defense, and then commandant of the fortified area. After Yudenich's retreat, in August 1919 he was appointed commandant of the fortified area in Kyiv, and after the fall of Kyiv - a member of the Military Council in Tula. In the winter of 1919-1920 he worked in Moscow as deputy chairman of the Special Committee of the STO for the implementation of martial law on the railways. In January 1920 - plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in the North Caucasus, commissioner of the North Caucasus Railway. In 1920-1922, member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in Turkestan. He led operations against the anti-Bolshevik formations of Dutov, Annenkov, and Enver Pasha. In February 1922, Peters was recalled to Moscow and appointed a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the GPU, created on June 2, 1922. Working in the Eastern Department, Peters in 1925 was the chief inspector of the OGPU border troops. On the 10th anniversary of the Cheka in December 1927, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. On October 31, 1929, J. X. Peters was relieved of his duties as a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the OGPU. His KGB career ended there. At the end of 1929, he led a commission to purge employees of institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences and took part in the fabrication of the “academic case.” Since 1930 - member of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission-NRKI. In 1930-1934 - Chairman of the Moscow Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Arrested on November 27, 1937. Shot on April 25, 1938. In 1956 he was posthumously completely rehabilitated.

Yakov Khristoforovich Peters(Latvian Jkabs Peterss; November 21 (December 3), 1886, Brinken volost, Gazenpot district, Courland province (territory of modern Latvia) - April 25, 1938) - professional revolutionary, one of the founders and first leaders of the Cheka. Shot during the Great Terror.

Deputy Chairman of the Cheka Felix Dzerzhinsky, Acting Chairman of the Cheka from July 7 to August 22, 1918. He had the badge of an Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU under No. 2.

Biography

In 1904 he moved to Libau, where he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party.

In exile (1909-1917)

In 1909 he emigrated to Hamburg, and from there in 1910 he moved to London. Fyodor Rothstein, who helped Russian communists who found themselves in London settle down, recalled that he had to “tinker” with Peters, who, having fled the persecution of the tsarist government, was without a penny of money and did not know a word of English. He was a member of the London Group of Social Democracy of the Latvian Region (SDLC), the British Socialist Party and the Latvian Communist Club.

23 December 1910 Arrested by London police on suspicion of involvement in the murder of police officers during an attempted robbery in Houndsditch on the night of 16-17 December. Peters stated that the robbers were led by his cousin Fritz Swars, but Peters himself did not kill anyone. Soon, on January 3, 1911, the famous “Siege of Sidney Street” took place, where several Latvian terrorists days they fired back at the police. The terrorist hotbed was destroyed only with the participation of military units; The operation on the ground was led by then Home Secretary Winston Churchill. Peters, who is usually identified with the commander of the anarchist group, Pyotr Pyatkov, nicknamed Peter the Painter, was arrested, spent 5 months in prison, after which he was acquitted by a court in May 1911 for lack of evidence.

After his release, he met Claire Sheridan, cousin of Winston Churchill. However, “at one of the parties, Claire noticed that Jacob suddenly lost interest in another political discussion... The reason for this was Claire’s friend - very young, quiet May, the daughter of a London banker.” He married the daughter of a British banker, Maisie Freeman. In 1914, Peters' daughter May was born. Before the February Revolution, Peters occupied the position of manager of the import department of a large English trading company.

During the First World War he was a member of the committee of socialist groups headed by Chicherin.

Revolution of 1917

After the February Revolution of 1917, he came to Petrograd through Murmansk. Worked in Riga, member of the Central Committee of the SDLC and representative of the SDLC in the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b). He worked among military units on the Northern Front, a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the 12th Army in August-October 1917. After the Germans occupied Riga, he left Riga and, retreating with the troops, stopped in Volmar, where he worked as one of the editors of the newspaper “Tsinya” .

He was sent as a representative from the peasants of the Livonia province to the Democratic Conference convened by Kerensky.

Birth November 21(1886-11-21 )
Courland Governorate, Russian Empire (now Skrunda Region, Latvia) Death 25th of April(1938-04-25 ) (51 years old)
Kommunarka, Moscow, RSFSR, USSR Burial place

Execution range "Kommunarka"

Birth name Jēkabs Peters (Latvian: Jēkabs Peterss) The consignment LSDRP, VKP(b) Education initial Activity revolutionary, employee of the Cheka Awards Yakov Khristoforovich Peters at Wikimedia Commons

Yakov Khristoforovich Peters(Latvian Jēkabs Peterss; November 21 (December 3), 1886, Brinken volost of Gazenpot district, Courland province (territory of modern Latvia) - April 25, 1938, Moscow, RSFSR, USSR) - Russian revolutionary of Latvian origin, one of the creators and first leaders of the Cheka. Shot during the purge within the NKVD.

Deputy Chairman of the Cheka Felix Dzerzhinsky, Acting Chairman of the Cheka from July 7 to August 22, 1918. He had the badge of an Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU under No. 2.

Biography

In his autobiography, compiled in 1928 upon joining the All-Union Society of Old Bolsheviks, Peters indicated that he was the son of a farm laborer, from the age of 8 he had to look for food and herd cattle from neighboring farmers, and from the age of 14 he began to work for hire with a neighboring landowner together with farm laborers. However, in 1917, Peters, in a conversation with American journalist Bessie Beatty, said that he was the son of a “gray baron” (as rich peasant landowners were called in the Baltic region) and his father had hired workers.

During the First World War he was a member of the committee of socialist groups headed by Chicherin.

Revolution of 1917

Peters in his youth

On January 9, 1919, J. Peters, participating in a meeting of the Presidium of the Cheka (in addition to him, M. I. Latsis, I. K. Ksenofontov and secretary Murnek were present) issued a resolution: “The verdict of the Cheka against the persons of the former imperial pack is to be approved, having reported this to Central Election Commission." According to this decree, Grand Dukes Nikolai Mikhailovich, Georgiy Mikhailovich, Pavel Alexandrovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich were shot in Petrograd.

He worked at the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, since 1918 one of its three chairmen, who sat alternately.

In March 1919, he was replaced as deputy chairman of the Cheka by I. Ksenofontov, and Peters in the same month was sent to Petrograd, where he was appointed head of internal defense, and then commandant of the fortified area.

In July 1919, with the retreat of the White troops of the Northern Corps (later the North-Western Army) from Petrograd, the department of the head of the internal defense of Petrograd, headed by Peters, was abolished by a resolution of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 7th Army, and in its place the department of the head of the Petrograd fortified district. Peters became commandant of the fortified area and a member of the Defense Committee.

After the fall of Kyiv, Peters is a member of the Military Council in Tula. In the winter of 1919-1920 he worked in Moscow as deputy chairman of the Special Committee of the STO for the implementation of martial law on the railways. In January 1920 - plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka in the North Caucasus, commissioner of the North Caucasus Railway.

In Turkestan

In Moscow

In February 1922, Peters was recalled to Moscow and appointed a member of the Collegium and head of the Eastern Department of the GPU, created on June 2, 1922. The new department united the work of security officers in the Caucasus, in the Turkestan, Bashkir, Tatar and Crimean Autonomous Republics, Bukhara and Khorezm People's Republics. The new department was charged with developing materials from the foreign part of the INO from the countries of the East; the execution of operational tasks of the eastern department was mandatory for the INO. The branches in the Eastern Department were led by Peters' deputy Vladimir Styrne, Eichmans and Mikhail Kazas. While working in the Eastern Department, Peters in 1925 was also the chief inspector of the OGPU border troops. On the 10th anniversary of the Cheka in December 1927, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

At the end of 1929, Peters led a commission to purge employees of institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Of the 259 academicians and corresponding members, 71 were expelled, mostly scientists in the humanities. Many of them were arrested in the so-called “Academic Case”. The investigation into this case lasted for more than a year. The OGPU accused 70-year-old academician S. F. Platonov and his associates of intending to overthrow Soviet power and form a Provisional Government with the subsequent restoration of the monarchy in Russia.

In 1930-1934, chairman of the Moscow Control Commission (MCC) of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In 1923-1934 - a member of the Central Control Commission of the CPSU (b), in 1930-1934 - a member of its Presidium. Since 1934 - member of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, member of the Bureau of the CPC under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Arrested on November 27, 1937 on charges of participation in a counter-revolutionary organization. Shot on April 25, 1938 at the Kommunarka training ground, after which he was removed from published photographs of security officers.

Rehabilitated by the Supreme Commander of the USSR Armed Forces on March 3, 1956.