Gavenis, Yuris

(pseudonym of Janis Ernestovich Daumanis). Born Mar. 18, 1884, near Riga; died Oct. 4, 1936. Soviet state and Party figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1902.

Gavenis was born into the family of a peasant. He passed examinations for the title of people’s teacher without attending courses. During the Revolution of 1905-07 he headed the Party organization in Malienas (Latvia) and led the local revolutionary armed detachments of the Forest Brethren. Gavenis was a delegate to the First (1906) and Second (1907) Congresses of the Social Democrats of the Latvian Krai (SDLK) and was elected a member of the Central Committee of the SDLK at both congresses. He was a delegate to the Fifth Congress of the RSDLP. In 1907 he was a member of the Riga, Mitava, and Libava committees of the SDLK and secretary of the Central Committee of the SDLK. In 1908 he was arrested and then exiled to Siberia to do forced labor. In 1917, Gavenis was first chairman of the Minusinsk soviet and a member of the Committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik). Gavenis was a delegate to the All-Russian Democratic Conference in September 1917, after which he went to the Crimea and became a member of the bureau of the Taurida Province committee of the RSDLP (Bolshevik) and chairman of the Sevastopol’ Military Revolutionary Committee. In 1918 he was chairman of the Sevastopol’ Party committee and director of the commissariat on naval affairs. In 1919 he was chairman of the Crimean Oblast committee of the RCP (Bolshevik), people’s commissar of internal affairs, member of the presidium of the Crimean sovnarkom (council of people’s commissars) and chairman of the Crimean defense council. In February 1920 he became a member of the Crimean revolutionary committee and secretary of the Crimean Oblast committee of the RCP (Bolshevik). In November 1921 he became chairman of the central executive committee of the Crimean ASSR, and in 1924 he became a member of the presidium of the Gosplan (State Planning Commission) of the USSR. From 1931 to 1933 he was the director of a Soviet petroleum company in Germany. After 1933, Gavenis did not work for reasons of health.