Ioakim Vatsetis

Born Nov. 11 (23), 1873; died July 28, 1938. Soviet military figure, army commander second class (1936). Born in the Lutrinu Volost (present-day Saldus Raion) into the family of a Latvian farmworker.

In 1891, Vatsetis volunteered for the army; he graduated from the Vilnius Infantry Cadet School in 1897 and from the General Staff Academy in 1909. He was a colonel (1915) in World War I. As commander of the 5th Latvian Zemgales Infantry Regiment he went over to the side of the Soviets during the October Revolution; he was head of the operational section of the Revolutionary Field Staff at Stavka in December 1917; in January 1918 he led the suppression of the mutiny of the Polish corps of Dowbór-Muśnicki. Beginning in April 1918 he commanded a Latvian rifle division and was one of the military leaders of the suppression of the rebellion in Moscow of the left Socialist Revolutionaries in 1918. From July 18 to Sept. 28, 1918, he was commander of the Eastern Front, which was in fact created from separate detachments by Vatsetis together with members of the Revolutionary Military Council. From Sept. 6, 1918, to July 8, 1919, he was commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic: he carried out important work in the liquidation of the anarchist trends and in the strengthening of discipline and in the organizing of the regular Red Army. Beginning in August 1919 he worked in the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and after 1921 he taught in the Military Academy of RKKA (Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army) as a professor and as senior director on the history of wars. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Star.