Kalnberzin, Ian Eduardovich

(Jan Kalnberzins). Born Sept. 5 (17), 1893, in the volost (small rural district) of Katlakalns, now Riga Raion. Soviet statesman and party leader. Hero of Socialist Labor (1963). Became a member of the CPSU in 1917. The son of a worker.

In 1908, while working as an anchor-master on the docks at the port of Riga, Kalnberzin joined the revolutionary movement. In 1919 he took part in the struggle for Soviet power in Latvia. After the fall of Soviet power there, Kalnberzin left for Soviet Russia with a detachment of armed workers. He was a volunteer in the Red Army and participated in the Civil War of 1918–20. He studied at the Marchlewski Communist University of the West (1923–25 and 1928–29). From 1925 to 1928 he carried on underground party work in Latvia. In 1928 he returned to Moscow. From 1931 to 1933 he studied at the Institute of the Red Professoriat.

From 1936 to 1939, Kalnberzin directed underground party work in Riga. In 1939 he was arrested but was freed in 1940 afterthe overthrow of the fascist regime. From 1940 to 1959 he wasfirst secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party(Bolshevik) of Latvia. He became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik) in 1941, and at the Nineteenth through Twenty-third Congresses of the party hewas elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU. From 1957 to 1961 he was a candidate member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1959 he became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR, and in 1960 he became vice-chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was a deputy to the firstthrough seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Since May 1970 he has been living on a pension. Kalnberzin was awarded seven Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, and medals.