Jēkabs Peterss is a Latvian Bolshevik, former politician of the short-lived Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, together with Felix Dzerzhinsky, one of the founders of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police which was widely renowned for its brutality and efficiency.
Since the defeat of the Reds during the Russian Civil War, Peterss has been living in Western Europe. After the British Revolution, he returned to Great Britain, which is home to a sizeable Latvian minority and where Peterss himself already had lived between 1906 and 1917. With the support of the Syndicalist International and British authorities, Peterss has set up the so-called "Revolutionary Latvian Legion", with the goal to infiltrate the United Baltic Duchy one day, join the various Forest Brothers associations and free the Baltic peoples from German imperialism.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Jēkabs Peterss was born in Brinken, a small town in rural Courland in the Russian Baltic governorates, the son of poor Latvian farmers. Not much is known about his early life, but in 1904, he joined the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party, a left-leaning party closely aligned to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, which was already split in two wings at that time: Vladimir Lenin's "Bolsheviks" and Julius Martov's "Mensheviks". Peterss felt more attracted to the former's more radical theories.
British Exile[]
During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Peterss attempted to murder a factory director in Libau, but was captured by Tsarist authorities. In 1908, he was acquitted by the Riga military court and emigrated to England, together with thousands of other Balts who had fled Russian persecution. In settled down in London and closely worked with the London Group of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party and of the British Socialist Party.
Peterss was a first cousin of Fritz Svaars, a Latvian anarchist, who was suspected of sabotage, robbery and of the murders of a shopkeeper and a policeman during the 1905 revolution, and was arrested and tortured in Riga, but escaped early in 1906. He moved to London, and was one of a gang who tried to rob a jeweler's shop in Houndsditch, in December 1910. Caught in the act, they killed three unarmed police officers. Svaars and a fellow anarchist were traced to a house in Sidney Street in January 1911, and opened fire on the police, setting off the Siege of Sidney Street which ended with the deaths of both suspects. Peterss was arrested at his home in Turner Street, London, on 22 December. Unlike his cousin, he did not attempt to resist arrest. In May 1911, he and three other Latvian emigres were tried in the Old Bailey. The judge ordered the jury to acquit Peterss on the charge of murder, for lack of evidence. After he had given evidence under cross-examination, he was acquitted of the separate charge of conspiring to commit a burglary.
Return to Russia[]
In May 1917, after the February Revolution, Peterss left Britain and returned to the Baltic governorates. The Germans had occupied his native Courland at that point; Therefore, he worked at the front-lines of the Northern Front, supplying Russian soldiers with anti-German, anti-government and revolutionary propaganda. Later that year, he worked as a newspaper editor for Cīņa in Wolmar, Livonia. Peterss was also a peasant representative of the Governorate of Livonia to the Democratic discussion initiated by Alexander Kerensky in autumn.
In early November, the October Revolution was triggered in Petrograd when high-ranking Bolsheviks began to occupy government buildings and arrested all government ministers. Peterss was present in the city at that time and actively participated in the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917, being a member of the Military-Revolutionary Committee in Petrograd and preparing the organization of Red Guard detachments.
Soviet Secret Service[]
Shortly after the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin initiated the creation of a Soviet secret service, with the goal to fight against "counterrevolutionaries and to implement the "most energetically revolutionary" measures on the rural countryside. He appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky, Polish aristocrat-turned-Bolshevik as Director and invited the participation of various Bolsheviks of different ethnicities, among them the Cossack Valentin Trifonov, the Georgian Sergo Ordzhonikidze, the Ukrainian Vasiliy Averin and Peterss as a representative of the Latvians. The secret service would be called "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR", abbreviated to Chrezvycháynaya komíssiya (ChK) or Cheka in Russian.
Peterss soon rose through the ranks and became Deputy Chairman of the Cheka and therefore the second in command behind Dzerzhinsky, or "Iron Felix". He also became chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, a a court inspired by a similar institution during the French Revolution with the aim to persecute opposition members. In these positions, Peterss played a crucial role during the Red Terror, which was funded and supported by the Bolshevik leadership especially after Lenin's assassination August 1918; He was responsible for arresting and executing the majority of the Anarchist community in Petrograd, for example.
Peterss also participated in the disclosure of the alleged Lockhart plot as well as leading the liquidation of the Left SR mutiny of mid-1918. Following Dzerzhinsky's resignation in the aftermath of the uprising and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Peterss briefly served as the chief of the Cheka until Dzerzhinsky resumed his duties. In March 1919 he was appointed as the Chief of internal defense in Petrograd, and then the commandant of the reinforced raion.
WORK IN PROGRESS. THE REST OF PETERSS'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE CIVIL WAR IS TBA ONCE THE RUSSIA REWORK IS REVEALED
Post-Civil War[]
With the fall of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic at the hands of the Whites, Peterss and many other high-ranking Bolshevik politicians and military leaders evacuated Russia via Arkhangelsk and resettled to the Commune of France. Most Bolsheviks would soon fall into obscurity; While former Soviet army commanders were able to enroll at French military academies or become commanders for the newly established Communard armed forces, most Bolshevik political theorists spent their exile as semi-successful newspaper editors within the Red Russian emigré community. Between 1921 and 1925 Peterss was active in several Latvian socialist organizations, but otherwise remained almost completely irrelevant. This would change with the British Revolution, however. Peterss relocated to England in early 1925 and led Latvian combat detachments against loyalist troops in London, therefore actively participating in the revolution and becoming well-respected among fellow British socialist political leaders in the aftermath.
Peterss spent the decade after his return to Britain rebuilding the scattered Latvian Social Democracy in exile. Respected among Syndicalist authorities, Peterss managed to rally French and British support for the Latvian cause and has ever since been occupied with instructing a small armed force of exiles named the “Revolutionary Latvian Legion”, formed and trained under the wing of the British Army. Should the opportunity arise, he is ready to lead his forces back into his homeland to restore the freedom of the Latvian people under the red banner.