Jan Antonovich Berzin (, ''Yan Antonovich Berzin'', , alias Ziemelis; 11 October 1881 – 29 August 1938) was a Latvian village teacher, later

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

revolutionary, journalist and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

diplomat. He was

Ambassador of the Soviet Union to Austria The ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Austria is the official representative of the president and the government of the Russian Federation to the president and the government of the Republic ...

between 1925 and 1927. He was executed during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

and posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.

Early life

Berzin was born into a Latvian peasant familyBerzin, Jan Antonovic
Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, by Brigitte Studer in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. He completed the pedagogical seminar, and then worked as a village teacher, and began spreading revolutionary propaganda among the peasants. He joined the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

in 1902. In 1904, he was arrested and exiled to

Olonets Governorate Olonets Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, extending from Lake Ladoga almost to the White Sea, bounded west by Finland, north and east by Arkhangelsk and Vologda, and south by Novgorod and ...

, but he escaped in 1905, and worked as a political agitator in the Baltic region during the

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, th ...

. In December 1905, he was arrested again, by the punitive expedition led by General Orlov. Released from prison in 1907, he settled in

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

and took on the job of secretary of the St Petersburg committee of the

(RSDLP). In 1907 he was a delegate of the

5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The 5th (London) Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held in London between May 13 and June 1, 1907. The 5th Congress had the largest attendance of the Congresses of the unified RSDLP.Thatcher, Ian D. Trotsky'. Routledge Hist ...

, in London. He emigrated in 1908, and lived Switzerland, France, Belgium, Britain and the USA. Under the alias "Ziemelis", Berzin took part in the

Zimmerwald conference The Zimmerwald Conference, held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, from September 5 to 8, 1915, was the first of three international conferences convened by anti-militarist socialists in response to the outbreak of World War I and the resulting virtu ...

(1915) for the Social-Democracy of the Latvian Territory, a territorial organisation of the RSLP. As a member of this organisation, Berzin published its organ ''Proletariāta cīņa'' (Proletarian Struggle). In 1916–17, he edited the Latvian social-democratic journal ''Strādnieks'' in Boston, and contributed to the left 'Zimmerwaldist' newspaper ''Novy Mir'' in New York. Bērzin returned to Russia after the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

. At the

6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) The 6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks) was held during 26 July – 3 August (N.S. 8–16 August) 1917 in Petrograd, Russia. It elected the 6th Central Committee. This was the first Congress of the Bolsheviks f ...

, in August 1917, he was elected a full member of the Central Committee. He was one of the majority of the 21-member committee who backed

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

's line that the Bolsheviks should overthrow the

Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, a transitional government or provisional leadership, is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revoluti ...

and seize power. He was also a member of the Central Committee of the Social Democratic party of Latvia.

Diplomatic career

From May to November 1918, he led the political delegation of the Bolsheviks in Switzerland, which was, alongside Sweden, one of the first countries that recognized the Soviet Republic. However, on 12 November 1918, the Soviet mission was expelled from the area by the

Swiss Federal Council The Federal Council is the federal cabinet of the Swiss Confederation. Its seven members also serve as the collective head of state and government of Switzerland. Since World War II, the Federal Council is by convention a permanent grand co ...

on charges of espionage and revolutionary actions. This led to a break of relations between Moscow and Bern. From January to May 1919 he belonged to the short-lived

Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic The Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic (, LSPR) was a short-lived socialist republic formed during the Latvian War of Independence. It was proclaimed on 17 December 1918 with the political, economic, and military backing of Vladimir Lenin and ...

as the People's Commissar for Education. In 1919 to June 1920, he was secretary of the

Executive Committee of the Communist International The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI (Russian acronym ИККИ - for ), was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body. The ECCI, established by the Fo ...

(ECCI). He was involved in the Treaty of Tartu in 1920. After resigning from his position at the Communist International, Berzin was repeatedly sent as ambassador to the European countries. He represented the interests of Soviet Russia in Finland from February 1921 onwards. In 1921–25, he was Deputy Head of the Diplomatic Mission in the UK. In June 1925 he became the successor of

Adolf Joffe Adolph Abramovich Joffe (; alternatively transliterated as Adolf Ioffe or Yoffe; 10 October 1883 – 16 November 1927) was a Russian revolutionary, Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat of Karaite descent. Biography Revolutionary career ...

, the representative of the Soviet Union in Austria. In 1927 he was replaced by

Konstantin Yurenev Konstantin Konstantinovich Yurenev (), also known as Konstantin Konstantinovich Krotovsky () (1888 – 1 August 1938), was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician and diplomat. Life and career Early revolutionary career Yurenev was born ...

. Subsequently, he became Plenipotentiary of the Committee of Foreign Affairs of the People's Commissars of the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

and a member of the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of Ukraine The Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU or KPU) is a banned political party in Ukraine. It was founded in 1993 and claimed to be the successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party of Ukraine, which had been banned in 1991. In 2002 it held a "unifi ...

. From 1929 to 1932 he was deputy head of the commission for the publication of diplomatic documents.

Arrest and execution

From 1932 he headed the Central Archive Administration of the USSR and was editor of the magazine "Red Archive". During the

, as a part of the so-called " Latvian Operation", Berzin was arrested in December 1937, and shot at the

Kommunarka shooting ground The Kommunarka firing range (), former dacha of secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, was used as a burial ground from 1937 to 1941. Executions may have been carried out there by the NKVD during the Great Terror and until the war started; altern ...

on 29 August 1938 on charges of conspiring with "imperial forces". He was rehabilitated in 1956, during the

Khrushchev Thaw The Khrushchev Thaw (, or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when Political repression in the Soviet Union, repression and Censorship in ...

References

Bibliography

* Branko M. Lazić, Milorad M. Drachkovitch: ''Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern'', Hoover Press, 1986, pp. 27–28. {{DEFAULTSORT:Berzin, Yan 1881 births 1938 deaths Prospectives of the Central Committee of the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Members of the Central Committee of the 6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) Candidates of the Central Committee of the 7th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) People from Madona Municipality People from Cēsis county Old Bolsheviks Russian Constituent Assembly members Latvian communists Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic people Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to Austria Ambassadors of the Soviet Union to Switzerland Latvian Operation of the NKVD Great Purge victims from Latvia People executed by the Soviet Union by firearm Soviet rehabilitations