Ivan Lepse

Born July 2 (14), 1889, in Riga; died Oct. 6, 1929, in Moscow. Soviet party and trade union figure. Became a member of the Communist Party in 1904. The son of a worker.

Lepse was a foundry worker. From 1905 to 1907 he headed the party organization in a Riga plant. From 1915 on (after being wounded at the front) he worked in Riga and Petrograd. In 1917 Lepse became chairman of the raion committee of Bolsheviks of the Petrograd District (Petrogradskaia Storona) in Petrograd. He became a member of the Central Administration of the Metalworkers’ Union in April 1917. In 1918 he was the secretary of the Petrograd Committee of the Metalworkers’ Union. Lepse did political work in the Red Army beginning in January 1919. He was a member of the Petrograd defense committee. He was commissar of the 10th and 11th divisions in 1920. The following year he participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt counterrevolutionary revolt. From 1921 to 1929 he served as chairman of the Central Committee of the All-Union Metalworkers’ Union.

Lepse was a delegate to the Eleventh through Fifteenth Congresses of the party. At the Eleventh and Twelfth Congresses Lepse was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik), and at the Thirteenth through Fifteenth Congresses he was elected to the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik). He was a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the Presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the Supreme Council on the National Economy. He was also people’s assessor of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Lepse was a member of the Executive Bureau of the Red International of Trade Unions and participated in numerous international trade union congresses and conferences. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. Lepse is buried in Red Square by the Kremlin wall.