Ziedinš, Karlis Ianovich

Born July 15 (27), 1885, in Glāznieki, now in Bauska Raion, Latvian SSR; died May 22, 1919, in Riga. Revolutionary figure in Russia. Member of the Communist Party from 1904.

Żiediņš was the son of a peasant. He graduated from a navigation school and became a navigator. He delivered revolutionary literature and weapons from abroad to Riga, St. Petersburg, and Odessa. He engaged in revolutionary activity in the Black Sea Fleet during World War I. Żiediņš was a delegate to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in 1917. He led the Bolshevik wing of the Central Executive Committee of the Navy under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. He was a member of the Naval Revolutionary Committee in October 1917 and led the detachment of sailors who stormed the Winter Palace. He piloted warships in the Neva during the defeat of the Krasnov-Kerensky revolt, and then, as part of a sailors’ detachment, battled White Guards on Pulkovo Heights. Żiediņš was a member of the Soviet delegation at the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations with Germany. He became a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Black Sea Fleet and the Sevastopol’ Military Revolutionary Committee in December 1917. In January 1918, he commanded the naval landing force that established Soviet power in Yalta. Żiediņš commanded a sailors’ detachment that fought the German invaders in February-March 1918, and he was commissar of the Vol’sk Naval Flotilla from April to October 1918. He became chief of naval administration of Soviet Latvia and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Baltic Fleet in April 1919. He was killed in street fighting with German occupation troops in Riga.