Yakov Peters

Jekabs Peters or Yakov Khristoforovich Peters ( _ru. Яков Христофорович Петерс, _lv. Jekabs Peters, _en. Jacob Peters, Jan Peters) (OldStyleDate|3 December|1886|21 November — 25 April 1938) was a Latvian Communist revolutionary and Soviet politician. Together with Feliks Dzerzhinsky, he was one of the founders and chiefs of the Soviet secret police, VChK. He was the Deputy Chairman of the VChK from 1918 and briefly the Chairman of VChK from 7 July to 22 August 1918.

Born in Latvia, in the poor farmer's family, he became a member of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party in 1904. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1905 he fled to England and lived in London where he was a member of the London Group of Social Democracy of Latvia and of the British Socialist Party. In 1911, he achieved notoriety in Britain when he and four others were arrested and put on trial in the aftermath of the Sidney Street Siege that followed a failed jeweller's shop robbery at Houndsditch in which three police officers were killed. Despite some incriminating evidence, Peters and his companions were acquitted to the dismay of the Home Secretary Winston Churchill.

He married Maisie Freeman , the daughter of a London banker, and together they had a daughter, May (born 1914). His wife divorced him after he returned to Russia in May 1917, following the February Revolution. In Riga, Peters became one of leaders of Social Democracy of Latvia and the editor of the party newspaper "Cīņa". Moving to Petrograd, he actively participated in the Bolshevik coup of October 1917 and thereafter helped organize the Soviet secret police and counter-intelligence service, VChK. Afterwards, he was a member of Cheka Collegium and the Deputy Chairman of the Commission. Following Dzerzhinsky's resignation in the aftermath of Left SR Uprising, Peters briefly served as the chief of Cheka until Dzerzhinsky resumed his duties. As one of Cheka leaders, Peters was responsible for the investigation of the attempt on Lenin's life in August 1918 and for the Red Terror campaigns and reprisals against the "class enemies" that followed.

In 1920 he represented Cheka at the Northern Caucasus and in 1920-1922 was the Cheka plenipotentiary in Turkestan ASSR, where he also was the local party bureau member. He returned to Moscow in 1923 and worked as a high-ranking official in OGPU and Rabkrin.

Peters was arrested and executed during the Great Purge, in 1938. His conviction was overturned posthumously in 1956.

External links

* [http://www.fsb.ru/history/autors/syanova.html FSB biographical info] ru icon