August Eduard Kastra (17 October 1878 – 21 October 1941) was an

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

journalist and a

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

leader. He was the first chair of the Confederation of Estonian Trade Unions in Estonia and a member of the Reval (Tallinn) Committee of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; in , ''Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)''), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist pol ...

(RSDLP) in early 20th century. Imprisoned during Joseph Stalin’s great

purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...

in 1936, he died in the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

concentration camp in October 1941.

Early life

Kastra was born on 17 October 1878 in

Dorpat Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern Europe, Northern Europe, European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres ...

(Tartu) into a family of a horse carriage driver. He attended the

Hugo Treffner Gymnasium Hugo Treffner Gymnasium ( et, Hugo Treffneri Gümnaasium; abbreviated as HTG) is a secondary school in Tartu, Estonia with special emphasis on science education. Founded by Hugo Treffner, it was the only large secondary school in 19th-century Est ...

, but was expelled as the family could not afford the tuition. He then started working as a

telegraph operator A telegraphist (British English), telegrapher (American English), or telegraph operator is an operator who uses a telegraph key to send and receive the Morse code in order to communicate by land lines or radio. During the Great War the Royal ...

at Vegovo train station. During 1905 revolution, Kastra was a member of the city committee of the RSDLP, so he was arrested in 1907. Following the release from prison in 1908, August moved to

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

Journalistic and political career

In Tallinn, Kastra worked in several newspapers ('' Trud'', ''

Tallinna Teataja ''Tallinna Teataja'' was newspaper published 1910–1922 in Tallinn, Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from ...

''), attending meetings of the then-illegal Bureau of Reval Trade Unions. In 1910, Kastra became a voting member of the Reval Committee of the RSDLP. In 1912, he became an editor of a worker’s newspaper, ''Kiir'', in

Narva Narva, russian: Нарва is a municipality and city in Estonia. It is located in Ida-Viru County, Ida-Viru county, at the Extreme points of Estonia, eastern extreme point of Estonia, on the west bank of the Narva (river), Narva river which ...

. Following a conflict with

Jaan Anvelt Jaan Anvelt (also known by the pseudonyms Eessaare Aadu, Jaan Holm, Jaan Hulmu, Kaarel Maatamees, Onkel Kaak; in Russian or ; 18 April 1884 – 11 December 1937), was an Estonian Bolshevik revolutionary and writer. He served the Russian SFSR ...

, who wrestled the control of Kiir from Kastra in 1913, he was expelled from RSDLP in June 1917, however the workers of Reval still elected him to the Reval Council of Workers and Soldier Deputies, and then as chair of the Confederation of Estonian Trade Unions. In August 1919, Kastra moved to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, where he re-joined the RSDLP. He continued his work in the Soviet trade union movement.

Purges

In October 1936, Kastra was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

. Following his arrest, Jaan Anvelt sent a letter to the NKVD accusing Kastra of being an

Okhranka The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (russian: Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called Guard Department ( rus, Охранное отд ...

agent. On 1 June 1937, NKVD sentenced Kastra to 8 years in prison. Kastra died on 21 October 1941, in the Sorok concentration camp “Shiznya” which was located in the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.

Rehabilitation

On the appeal of Kastra’s second wife, I. L. Kharitonova, Kastra was rehabilitated in February 1956 and then restored posthumously to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.Central Archive FSS (Moscow). Case R-4126, volume 2, p. 172

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kastra, August Estonian journalists Estonian trade unionists Telegraphists 1878 births 1941 deaths People from Tartu Hugo Treffner Gymnasium alumni Gulag detainees People who died in the Gulag Estonian communists