Viktor Imantovich Alksnis (russian: italic=yes, Виктор Имантович Алкснис, lv, Viktors Alksnis; born 21 June 1950) is a Russian politician and former

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...

colonel of Latvian descent. He is the chairman of Russian Center of Free Technologies, an organization intended to promote

Free Software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

and open standards in Russia. He is a former member of the

USSR Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Верховный Совет Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, r=Verkhovnyy Sovet Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respubl ...

, a member of the Russian All-People's Union and has also represented the Rodina (Motherland-National Patriotic Union) party in the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

State Duma. From 2003 to 2007, he represented the People's Union party in the Fourth Duma. Due to his political views and personal style, Alksnis was nicknamed "the Black Colonel", an allusion to the Soviet term "Black Colonels" (russian: italic=yes, Чёрные полковники) for the

Greek military junta of 1967-1974 The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels, . Also known within Greece as just the Junta ( el, η Χούντα, i Choúnta, links=no, ), the Dictatorship ( el, η Δικτατορία, i Diktatoría, links=no, ) or the Seven Years ( el, η Ε ...

Family history

In the 1930s, Alksnis's grandfather,

Yakov Alksnis Yakov Ivanovich Alksnis (russian: Яков Иванович Алкснис, lv, Jēkabs Alksnis; – 28 July 1938) was a Soviet military leader and the commander of the Red Army Air Forces from 1931 to 1937. Biography Jēkabs Alksnis was b ...

( lv, Jēkabs Alksnis) was the head of the Soviet Air Force. He also took part in the military tribunal for the

Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...

, which sentenced

Mikhail Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937) nicknamed the Red Napoleon by foreign newspapers, was a Sovie ...

and other high-ranking Soviet officers to death on

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's order. However, only eight months later, Yakov Alksnis himself was also arrested and executed. Alksnis's grandmother spent 14 years in labor camps and his father was discriminated for being the son of an "enemy of the people". During the destalinization of late 1950s Yakov Alksnis was posthumously rehabilitated; the Air Forces college in Riga was named in his honour. Despite these Stalin-era persecutions of his family members, Viktor Alksnis became a staunch supporter of the Soviet political system. In 1973 Alksnis graduated from the Riga Higher Military Aviation Engineering School named for his grandfather as a qualified military radio engineer. Alksnis's Latvian heritage was the subject of slander allegations in 2007 involving comments on the Internet.

Attitude to the breakup of the USSR

Viktor Alksnis was a strong opponent of the breakup of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and of the independence of the Baltic States."Viktor Alksnis: Latvia's Fate Decided in Russia"

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...

He claims that the Baltic states are

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

regimes, that the Russian population in these states suffers repression. In 1989 he was elected into the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1990 he was elected to the

Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia The Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republikas Augstākā Padome) was the transitional parliament of Latvia from 1990 to 1993, after the restoration of independence. The Supreme Council was elected on 1990 as the Sup ...

. In 1990, he was one of the founders of a hard-line group "

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз ( Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис ...

" within the USSR Supreme Soviet. He once proposed the ousting of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from power, dissolving the parliament, outlawing all parties, the declaration of

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...

and the handing of power to a Military "Committee of National Salvation", which would avoid the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He has described the internationally non-recognized Transnistrian Republic as the base from which the restoration of the Soviet Union would begin. In later years Alksnis claimed to be a principal figure behind the Riga

OMON OMON (russian: ОМОН – Отряд Мобильный Особого Назначения , translit = Otryad Mobil'nyy Osobogo Naznacheniya , translation = Special Purpose Mobile Unit, , previously ru , Отряд Милиции Осо� ...

, known for opposing the secession of Latvia from the USSR and actions such as the Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts. He was designated persona non grata in Latvia after he left the country in 1992., in ''

'', 1 November 2002. Since that time he has taken part in Russian politics, representing left-wing and nationalist positions. Alksnis was one of the leaders of the National Salvation Front that united nationalist and communist movements that opposed Yeltsin's policies. In 2005, he was named ''persona non grata'' in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

as well, after he called for a Russian-Ukrainian border revision while speaking at a rally in

Simferopol Simferopol () is the second-largest city in the Crimean Peninsula. The city, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, and is considered the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. However, it is ...

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

Free software advocacy campaign

In 2007, Alksnis launched a campaign to promote the use of

such as the

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

operating system in Russian state institutions to secure software independence. In February 2008 he joined forces with Aleksandr Ponosov, a school teacher accused of software piracy, to form Center of Free Technology, a non-profit initiative which will research methods of usage of

in the Russian education system. Alksnis has met with project coordinator Aleksey Bragin to promote the development of the ReactOS operating system. He also invited

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

, the founder of the

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

project and

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft (" ...

to Moscow. The visit however was canceled by Stallman due to the controversy surrounding Alksnis.

Views on global politics

In 2006, Alksnis said in an interview that

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

are enemies of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

's peaceful nuclear program, and their hostile attitude towards Iran is an attempt to cover-up the United States' mistakes in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

."Duma member: US, Israel enemies of Iran nuclear program"

References

External links

* by

Leon Charney Leon Charney (July 23, 1938 – March 21, 2016) was an American real estate tycoon, attorney, author, philanthropist, political pundit, media personality and Jewish cantor. He lived in Manhattan in New York City, dividing his time between his ...

on The Leon Charney Report {{DEFAULTSORT:Alksnis, Viktor 1950 births Living people People from Tashtagol Russian people of Latvian descent Members of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union Deputies of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia Soviet Air Force officers Russian nationalists Copyright activists Defenders of the White House (1993) A Just Russia politicians 21st-century Russian politicians Third convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation) Fourth convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation)