Iaan Sikhver

(Jaan Sihver). Born Apr. 18 (30), 1879, in the volost (small rural district) of Vana-Tänassil-ma, now in Viljandi Raion, Estonian SSR; died Nov. 28, 1918, in Narva. Participant in the struggle for Soviet power in Estonia. Member of the RCP(B) from 1905.

The son of a peasant, Sikhver was a teacher. He took part in the Revolution of 1905—07 and in December 1905 was arrested and sentenced to 15 years at hard labor. After the February bourgeois democratic revolution of 1917, he worked in the Moscow soviet. In July 1917 he moved to Tallinn and became a member of the editorial boards of the Bolshevik newspapers Tööline and Maatamees; he was also a member of the Central Bureau of Landless Peasants and chairman of the Bolshevik faction. In December 1917, Sikhver became chairman of the Viljandi soviet. In 1918 he was an organizer and member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Estonian units of the Red Army. In July of that year, he was a delegate to the conference of the Estonian sections of the RCP(B) in Moscow and was elected a member of the Central Committee of the sections. He died in battle.