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{{Short description|Latvian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician}}
[[File:Eikhe_RI.jpg|thumbnail|Robert Eikhe]]
'''Robert Indrikovich Eikhe''' ({{lang-lv|Roberts Eihe (Ēķis)}}, {{lang-ru|Роберт Индрикович Эйхе}}; August 12, 1890 — February
== Early life ==
Robert Eikhe's parents were farm labourers on an estate in [[Doblen County]] in what was then Courland province, in modern
At the end of 1908 he emigrated to the UK. He was a stoker on a steamboat on long voyages, worked in Scotland at a coal mine, and later at a zinc smelter in [[West Hartlepool]].<ref name=Talov />
In 1911, he settled in [[Riga]], believing that he was no longer at risk of a long prison sentence, but was arrested in 1915 and exiled to East Siberia. He escaped to Irkutsk and worked in an oil factory under a false name. He returned to Riga after the [[February Revolution]], but was arrested during the German occupation in January 1918. He escaped to Moscow in July 1918. During 1919, he was People's Commissar for Food in the short-lived [[Latvian
== Party boss in Siberia ==
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[[File:Roberts Eihe 1890-1940.jpg|thumbnail|Robert Eikhe]]
Eikhe was also a member of the Politburo commission appointed in January 1930, chaired by [[Vyacheslav Molotov|Molotov]], which drafted instructions on eliminating private farms and forcing the farmers onto collective farms. Speaking in [[Novosibirsk]] on 27 January 1930, he called for brutal measures against the [[kulak]]s (the name given to 'rich' peasants, or more generally to any who resisted collectivisation). Eikhe called for "the most hostile, reactionary kulaks" to be held in concentration camps in "distant areas of the North" such as [[Narym]] or [[Turukhansk]], while the others should be made to do forced labour, such as building a 550
In January 1935, following the assassination of [[Sergei Kirov]], Eikhe was elected a candidate member of the [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]], making him one of the dozen or so most powerful men in the Soviet Union. At the start of the Great Purge, Eikhe showed utter ruthlessness in eliminating anyone who came under suspicion. On 28 June 1937, he was named as a member of a troika (three member commission) which was given special instructions by the Politburo to round up and execute peasants who had been exiled to Siberia during collectivisation. Its chairman was the recently appointed head of the West Siberian NKVD, [[Sergei Naumovich Mironov]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=J. Arch Getty |first1=and Oleg V. Naumov |title=The Road to Terror, Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 |date=1999 |publisher=Yale U.P. |location=New Haven |isbn=0-300-07772-6 |page=469}}</ref> By 8 July, the troika had lists of 10,924 people who were marked for execution, and 15,036 who were to be sent to the [[Gulag]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Slezkine |first1=Yuri |title=The House of Government, A Saga of the Russian Revolution |date=2019 |publisher=Princeton U.P. |location=Princeton |isbn=9780691192727 |page=761}}</ref> By 5 October, the troika had sentenced 13,216 people to death, and 6,205 to the Gulag.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Slezkine |title=House of Government |page=763}}</ref> Among the victims were Eikhe's former second-in-command V.P. Shubrikov and the chairman of the West Siberian territorial party executive, F.P. Griadinsky
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== Arrest and execution ==
Eikhe was arrested on 29 April 1938, as the [[NKVD]] enacted Order 49990, which called for the [[Latvian Operation of the NKVD|mass arrest of Latvians]] throughout the USSR. After being brutally tortured by an NKVD officer named [[Zinovy Ushakov]], he confessed to various counter-revolutionary crimes, and implicated others, but after Ushakov had been arrested - when [[Nikolai Yezhov]] was replaced as head of the NKVD by [[Lavrentiy Beria]] - Eikhe wrote to Stalin on 1 October 1938, renouncing his confession. He sent a second declaration, on 27 October, saying that his confession had been mostly written by Ushakov, "who utilised the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and have caused me great pain."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Khrushchev |first1=Nikita S. |title=On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, Speech to the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (the Secret Speech) |url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/115995.pdf?v=3c22b71b65bcbbe9fdfadead9419c995 |website=Wilson Center Digital Archive |accessdate=1 December 2019}}</ref> He persisted in asserting his innocence during his closed trial, on 2 February 1940, but was sentenced to death nonetheless. The following day, he was taken to Beria's office, and subjected to a prolonged beating by the expert torturer [[Boris Rodos]] and another officer, in a final attempt to force him to confess. Despite being knocked out and beaten while he was prone, and having an eye gouged out, he refused to confess, and was taken away for execution.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Slezkine |title=House of Government |pages=841–42}}</ref>
Eikhe's wife Yevgenia Yevseyevna Rubtsova was arrested with him in April 1938 and shot on 26 August.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Slezkine |title=House of Government |page=809}}</ref>
Eikhe's torture and execution was a
==References==
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[[Category:People from Courland Governorate]]
[[Category:Old Bolsheviks]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Candidates of the Central Committee of the 14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]
[[Category:Candidates of the Central Committee of the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]
[[Category:Members of the Central Committee of the 16th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]
[[Category:Members of the Central Committee of the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]
[[Category:People's commissars and ministers of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union members]]
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[[Category:Great Purge victims from Latvia]]
[[Category:Soviet rehabilitations]]
[[Category:Executed Great Purge perpetrators]]
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