Genrich Christoforovich Eiche (, ; September 29 (October 12) 1893,

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

— June 25, 1968

Jūrmala Jūrmala (; "seaside") is a state city in the Vidzeme region of Latvia, about west of Riga. Jūrmala is a resort town stretching and is sandwiched between the Gulf of Riga and the Lielupe River. It has a stretch of white-sand beach and is the ...

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) was a Soviet military commander and historian of Latvian ethnicity. He served in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

as an officer in the

Russian Imperial Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

before siding with the

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and in 1917 being elected Chairman of the

Military Revolutionary Committee The Military Revolutionary Committee (Milrevcom; , ) was the name for military organs created by the Bolsheviks under the soviets in preparation for the October Revolution (October 1917 – March 1918).

of his regiment. Eiche also held leading civil posts. He was the cousin of

Robert Eikhe Robert Indrikovich Eikhe (, ; 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, unt ...

Biography

Johans Indriķis Mārtiņš Ēķis (Johann Henrich Martin Eiche) was born on 29 September 1893, in

, Russian Empire. His father Kristaps (Christof) and mother Lina (née Laudon) were ethnic

Latvians Latvians () are a Baltic ethnic group and nation native to Latvia and the immediate geographical region, the Baltics. They are occasionally also referred to as Letts, especially in older bibliography. Latvians share a common Latvian language ...

from rural areas of the center and north-west of the

Courland Governorate Courland Governorate, also known as the Province of Courland or Governorate of Kurland, and known from 1795 to 1796 as the Viceroyalty of Courland, was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the ...

respectively. Christoph's income from working as a forwarding agent enabled his wife to concentrate on taking care of Henrich and his older brother Friedrich Wilhelm (born in 1890). At the age of 12 Eiche took part in several demonstrations and meetings of workers during the course of the

1905 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, th ...

, witnessing their violent suppression by

Orenburg Cossacks The Orenburg Cossack Host () was a part of the Cossack population in pre-revolutionary Russia, located in the Orenburg province (today's Orenburg Oblast, part of the Chelyabinsk Oblast and Bashkortostan). History After having constructed for ...

. Eiche's political views were further influenced by his cousins who were active members of the Latvian branch of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

. In January 1906, he enrolled in the Riga Commercial Academy, graduating on 23 December 1911. In January 1912, he began his apprenticeship at the Riga based Helmsing & Grimm shipping agency. In late 1913, Eiche finished his apprenticeship, becoming a full-time employee in the company's import department. In a pursuit of his passion for music Eiche visited

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, where he enrolled in a composition correspondence course in the Berlin Conservatory. His studies were interrupted by the outbreak of

, whereupon he was drafted into the

as a private on 17 October 1914. After completing Warrant Officers’ Training School in 1915 he was sent to the front. He commanded a squadron, and was a staff captain. After the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

of 1917 he was elected to the regimental committee, and during the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

of 1917 he was elected Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the 245th Infantry Regiment. In November 1917 he was elected to the Council of Soldiers' Deputies of the 10th Army and was a member of the board for the formation of the Red Guard. He took part in suppressing the insurrection of the Polish corps under General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki. In March 1918 he voluntarily enlisted in the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. From August 1918 to November 1919 he commanded a regiment, a brigade and the 26th Infantry Division (beginning April 1919) on the Eastern Front. From November 1919 to January 1920 he was Commander of the 5th Army. From March 1920 to April 1921 Eiche served as Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army of the

Far Eastern Republic The Far Eastern Republic ( rus, Дальневосточная Республика, Dal'nevostochnaya Respublika, p=dəlʲnʲɪvɐˈstotɕnəjə rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə, links=yes; ), sometimes called the Chita Republic (, ), was a nominally indep ...

. He was recalled to Moscow only after his mission was completed: i.e., the entire Far East was merged into the buffer Far Eastern Republic; all the major White Guard groups in the Far East were eliminated; the Japanese troops occupying the Far East were forced to withdraw from the Trans-Baikal, Amur and

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regions; and partisan units were reorganized into the regular army following the pattern of the Red Army of the time. In 1921 he was sent to

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

as a Commander to lead the struggle to eliminate guerilla groups and White Russian partisan units. This mission was completed by the spring of 1922. For successful discharge of his duties he was awarded the Certificate of Merit of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee. In March 1922, upon order of the Central Committee Bureau of Organization, he was transferred from Belarus to Central Asia to counter the Basmachi Revolt in

Fergana Fergana ( uz-Latn-Cyrl, Fargʻona, Фарғона, ), () or Ferghana, also Farghana is a district-level city and the capital of Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 320 km east of Tashkent, about 75 km southwest of A ...

as Commander of the Fergana Region. From 1923 until the day of his arrest in April 1938 he worked in government institutions in Moscow, including more than 12 years (beginning in 1924) in leading positions in Narkomvneshtorg, the Ministry of Foreign Trade. During the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

as a part of the so-called " Latvian Operation", in May 1938 he was arrested and convicted by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

’s Counterintelligence Department on charges of "involvement in a Latvian counterrevolutionary organization" and as the cousin of Robert I. Eiche, a former member of the Central Committee (sentenced to be shot, posthumously rehabilitated in the 1950s). After sentencing, Eiche was incarcerated in the NKVD's Lefortovo Prison in Moscow. During this, he endured beatings and torture. His investigator was led by Major of State Security Zinovy Markovich Ushakov. During this, he pierced his temple, which led to partial hearing loss. Following that, he served time in the

gulags The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Soviet secret police that was in charge of running the forced labor camps from the 1930s to the early 195 ...

. After release from the camps, he was in exile in the Far North. Also arrested at the same time was "the wife of an enemy of the people" was Maria Alexandrovna Eiche. She was incarcerated in Butyrka Prison. After her release, she voluntarily followed her husband into exile. Eiche was rehabilitated sixteen years later. In April 1954 the Military Board of the USSR Supreme Court repealed the decision of the NKVD Counterintelligence Department and dismissed the case for absence of the event of a crime. Returning to Moscow after his release, as a member of the Military-Historical and Scientific Society Council of the Central Museum of the Soviet Army, Eiche was also active as a military historian and writer, devoting a great deal of time and effort to the editing of military/historical literature. Eiche is the author of several books on the history of the Civil War in the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East. He died June 25, 1968 in Jūrmala, Latvia and is buried at Moscow’s Vvedenskoye Cemetery.

Awards

For participating in all of the battles of the 245th Infantry, Berdyansk Regiment, 62nd Infantry Division, 10th Army of the Western Front from August 1915 to the end of 1917, Eiche was awarded: * Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class, with swords and ribbon * Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class, with swords * Order of St. Anne, 4th class * Order of St. Anne, 3rd class, with swords and ribbon * Order of St. Anne, 2nd class, with swords During the years of the Civil War Eiche was awarded: * Order of the Red Banner No. 96 * Certificate of Merit of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee on the award of a gold engraved watch (as Commander of the 3rd Brigade, 26th Infantry Division, for successful operations against Kolchak in the winter of 1918 - Urals Operation) * Special Custom Award Certificate issued by the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, as Divisional Commander of the 26th Infantry, for the successfully forced crossing of the Belaya River, and the crushing defeat and capture of Kolchak's army - Birsk Operation, 1919. * Certificate of Award from the All-Russia Central Executive Committee as Commander of the Minsk region (1922) After his release Eiche was awarded: * Order of Lenin in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Soviet regime (1967)

Selected works

• Forced Crossing of the Belaya River by Units of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front in June 1919, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928 �орсирование реки Белой частями 5-й армии Восточного фронта в июне 1919 г., М.- Л., 1928 • Tactical Lessons from the Civil War, Moscow, 1931 �актические поучения гражданской войны, М., 1931 • Kolchak’s Ufa Adventure, Moscow, 1966 �фимская авантюра Колчака, М., 1966 • Defeated Rear, Moscow, 1966 �прокинутый тыл, М., 1966

References

Sources

* * Бадиков Р.А. В тени М.В. Фрунзе и В.И. Чапаева: деятельность Г.Х. Эйхе в апреле-июне 1919 г. // Российская история. 2016. № 3. — С. 111-126. In Russian. * Бадиков Р.А. Генрих Христофорович Эйхе // Вопросы истории. 2015. № 1. — С. 45-59. In Russian. {{DEFAULTSORT:Eiche, Genrich 1893 births 1968 deaths Writers from Riga Military personnel from Riga People from Riga county Military historians Soviet historians Imperial Russian Army officers Russian military personnel of World War I Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Military personnel of the Far Eastern Republic Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 2nd class Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 3rd class Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 4th class Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 2nd class Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 3rd class Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Gulag detainees Soviet rehabilitations