Yakov Ivanovich Alksnis (, ; – 29 July 1938) was a

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 ...

military leader and the commander of the Red Army Air Forces from 1931 to 1937.

Biography

Jēkabs Alksnis was born in a farmer's family in

Naukšēni Parish Naukšēni Parish () is an administrative unit of Valmiera Municipality in the Vidzeme region of Latvia. References

Parishes in Valmiera Municipality {{Vidzeme-geo-stub ...

Governorate of Livonia The Governorate of Livonia, also known as the Livonia Governorate, was a province (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire, Baltic Governorate-General until 1876. Governorate of Livonia bordered Governorate of E ...

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 ...

(present-day

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

), working as a shepherd at age 7. He attended school in Rāmnieki (1907–1913) and a teachers' seminary (college) in

Valmiera Valmiera () is the second largest city of the historical Vidzeme region, Latvia, with a total area of . As of 2002, Valmiera had a population of 27,323, and in 2020, it was at 24,879. It is a Administrative divisions of Latvia, state city, and ...

(1913–1917), where he joined the

Bolshevik Party The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

in 1916. In 1917 Alksnis was drafted into the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

; he completed basic officers' training in

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

and was assigned to the 15th Siberian Regiment, later the 11th Siberian Regiment. Having proven himself to be unreliable, was sent to the Western Front, arriving at the front shortly before the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

. After the

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, whi ...

he left the Russian Army. He returned to Valmiera as a Soviet worker, but due to the German occupation, left for

Bryansk Bryansk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Desna (river), Desna River, southwest of Moscow. It has a population of 379,152 at the 2021 census. Bryans ...

, where in the summer of 1918 he was elected a member of the Bryansk district committee of the RCP(b) Alksnis was drafted again, this time to the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, in 1919, and in 1919–1921 held administrative and

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

assignments in the Southern Russian theatre of war. After graduation from the Red Army Military Academy (1921–1924) Alksnis was appointed the head of the logistics service of the Red Air Forces; in 1926 the deputy commander of the Red Air Forces. In 1929 he received the wings of a fighter pilot at the Kacha pilot's school in

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

and was later known to fly nearly every day. Defector Alexander Barmine described Alksnis as "a strict disciplinarian with high standards of efficiency. He would himself personally inspect flying officers... not that he was fussy or took the slightest interest in smartness for its own sake, but, as he explained to me, flying demands constant attention to detail... Headstrong he may have been, but he was a man of method and brought a wholly new spirit into Soviet aviation. It is chiefly owing to him that the Air Force is the powerful weapon it is today." According to Barmine, Alksnis was instrumental in making

parachute A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...

jumping a sport for the masses. He was influenced by one of his subordinates who had seen parachutists entertaining the public in the United States, at the time when Soviet pilots regarded parachutes as "almost a clinical instrument". Yakov Alksnis

In the same year he was involved in establishing one of the first sharashkas – an aircraft design bureau staffed by prisoners of Butyrka prison, including Nikolai Polikarpov and Dmitry Grigorovich. In 1930–1931 the sharashka, now based on Khodynka Field, produced the prototype for the successful Polikarpov I-5. In June 1931 Alksnis was promoted to the Commander of Red Air Forces, while Polikarpov and some of his staff were released on

amnesty Amnesty () is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of people who are subject to trial but have not yet be ...

terms. In 1935, the Red Air Forces under Alksnis possessed the world's largest

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strateg ...

force; aircraft production reached 8,000 in 1936. In June 1937 Alksnis sat on the board of the

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt (law), guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. The purpose of holding a show trial is to present both accusation and verdict to the public, serving as an example and a d ...

of the members of the supposed Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization. During the trial, he was the most active member of this body, insisting on the use of the death penalty against them. The panel sentenced the defendants, including

Mikhail Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937), nicknamed the Red Napoleon, was a Soviet general who was prominen ...

, to death on June 11, 1937. As 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 ...

continued, Alksnis was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

as a part of the so-called " Latvian Operation" on 23 November 1937, expelled from the Communist Party,Алкснис Яков Иванович
Hrono.ru. Retrieved on 2 April 2014. charged with setting up a "Latvian

fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

organization". On November 25, after being subjected to torture, he signed a statement that he had been a Latvian spy since 1935. He later "remembered" that he had been a spy since 1922 and that he had also been a member since 1936 of a counter-revolutionary "Latvian Nationalist Organization in the Red Army". Alksnis admitted his guilt at the trial. On July 28, 1938, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR convicted him of participating in a military conspiracy under Article 58-1 "b", paragraphs 8 and 11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and sentenced him to death. He was shot on 29 July 1938 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 ...

. His wife, researcher Kristina Karlovna Alksnis-Mednis, spent eight years in a labor camp, which she served in Temlag. After her release, she lived in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

from 1946 to 1949, but was then arrested again and was exiled to the Kemerovo region until 1954. During the destalinization of the late 1950s, Alksnis was posthumously rehabilitated; the Air Forces college in

was named in his honour.

Viktor Alksnis Viktor Imantovich Alksnis (, ; 21 June 1950 – 1 January 2025) was a Russian politician and Soviet Air Force colonel of Latvian descent. He was the chairman of the Russian Center of Free Technologies, an organization intended to promote Free ...

(1950-2025), grandson of Yakov Alksnis, was a far left-wing Russian politician remembered for his pro-Union activities of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alksnis, Yakov 1897 births 1938 deaths People from Valmiera Municipality People from Valmiera county Bolsheviks Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Latvian communists Soviet Air Force officers Imperial Russian Army officers Frunze Military Academy alumni Russian military personnel of World War I Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Latvian Operation of the NKVD Executed military personnel Great Purge victims from Latvia Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union People executed by the Soviet Union by firearm Soviet rehabilitations Kacha Military Aviation School alumni