Robert Eikhe

Robert Indrikovich Eikhe (Latvian: Roberts Eihe (Ēķis), Russian: Роберт Индрикович Эйхе; August 12, 1890 — February 4, 1940) was a Latvian Bolshevik and Soviet politician who was the provincial head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Siberia during the collectivization of agriculture, until his arrest during the Great Purge.

He left school at the age of 13 or 14 to become an apprentice in a locksmith's workshop and joined the Social Democracy of the Latvian Territory (which was closely aligned to the Bolsheviks) during the 1905 Revolution.

[2] In 1911, he settled in Riga, believing that he was no longer at risk of a long prison sentence, but was arrested in 1915 and exiled to East Siberia.

Eikhe called for "the most hostile, reactionary kulaks" to be held in concentration camps in "distant areas of the North" such as Narym or Turukhansk, while the others should be made to do forced labour, such as building a 550-mile road from Tomsk to Yeniseysk.

[2] In January 1935, following the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Eikhe was elected a candidate member of the Politburo, making him one of the dozen or so most powerful men in the Soviet Union.

He sent a second declaration, on 27 October, saying that his confession had been mostly written by Ushakov, "who utilised the knowledge that my broken ribs have not properly mended and have caused me great pain.

[9] Eikhe's torture and execution was a prominent theme of the famous Secret Speech that Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev delivered at the 20th Communist Party Congress in February 1956.