Anvelt, Ian

(literary pseudonym of Ees-saare Aadu). Born Apr. 18, 1884, into a peasant family in the village of Orgu, Livonia Province; died Dec. 11, 1937. Soviet statesman and Party figure; one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Estonia; publicist and writer.

Anvel’t was a member of the Communist Party from 1907 and engaged in Party work in St. Petersburg and Estonia. In 1912 as an extern he graduated from the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. In Narva he was one of the organizers and editors of the Bolshevik paper Kiir (Ray) from 1912 to 1914. During the February Revolution of 1917 he served as chairman of the provisional revolutionary committee of Narva and of the Narva soviet. From March 1917 he was the editor of Kiir and a member of the Revel (Tallin) and all-Estliand committees of the RSDLP (Bolshevik). In October 1917 he was a member of the military revolutionary committee and chairman of the executive committee of the Estliand Krai soviet. From February 1918 he was a military commissar of the Northwest Oblast. From November 1918 he was chairman of the Council of the People’s Commissars and people’s commissar for military affairs of the Estonian Soviet Republic (the Estliand Workers’ Commune). In 1919–21 he engaged in political work in the Red Army. In 1921–25 he was in the underground in bourgeois Estonia and was one of the leaders of the uprising of Dec. 1, 1924. In 1925 he came to the USSR. In 1926–29 he was commissar of the Zhukovskii Air Force Academy and in 1929–35 deputy head and head of the Central Civil Aviation Board. From 1935 he was a member and executive secretary of the International Control Commission of the Comintern. He was a delegate to the Fourteenth through Sixteenth congresses of the party and the Third, Fourth, and Seventh congresses of the Comintern. He wrote works on history, economics, and politics, as well as on works of art. He was awarded the Order of Lenin.