Ivan Ivanovich Mezhlauk (; ) (30 September 1891 – 25 April 1938) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

politician and statesman who was the first first secretary of the Communist Party of the Turkmen SSR as well as its first president. Ivan Mezhlauk was born in

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

(modern

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

), in the

Kharkov Governorate Kharkov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire founded in 1835. It embraced the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine. From 1765 to 1780 and from 1796 to 1835 the governorate was called Sloboda Uk ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

on 30 September 1891. He was of Latvian ethnicity. He joined the

Bolshevik Party The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

in 1918 and served 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 ...

during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. He was president from 19 November 1924 until September 1925, when he was replaced by Halmurad Sahatmuradov. His term as first secretary lasted longer, until 1926. He was succeeded as first secretary by Shaymardan Ibragimov. From 1930 to 1933, Mezhlauk worked in the Soviet economic planning apparatus, for a time as the secretary of the

Council of Labor and Defense The Council of Labor and Defense ()Sovet truda i oborony, Latin acronym: STO), first established as the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense in November 1918, was an agency responsible for the central management of the economy and production ...

.R.W. Davies, "Ivan Ivanovich Mezhlauk," in Archie Brown (ed.), ''The Soviet Union: A Biographical Dictionary.'' New York: Macmillan, 1990; pp. 248–249. Mezhlauk was the older brother of the Soviet economic planner,

Valery Mezhlauk Valery Ivanovich Mezhlauk (; ) (1893–1938) was a government and party official in the Soviet Union during the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. He is best remembered as the Chairman of the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) from 1934 to 193 ...

, the head of

Gosplan The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan ( ), was the agency responsible for economic planning, central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of the Soviet Unio ...

from 1934 to 1937. Both brothers were arrested 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 ...

of 1937–1938 and were among those who were executed. Ivan Mezhlauk was arrested on 3 December 1937, sentenced to death on 25 April 1938 and shot the same day. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.

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World Statesmen
1891 births 1938 deaths Politicians from Kharkiv People from Kharkovsky Uyezd People from the Russian Empire of German descent Ukrainian people of Latvian descent Ukrainian people of German descent Soviet people of German descent Bolsheviks Communist Party of Turkmenistan politicians Party leaders of the Soviet Union All-Russian Central Executive Committee members Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union members National University of Kharkiv alumni Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Latvian people executed by the Soviet Union Great Purge victims from Ukraine Soviet rehabilitations {{Turkmenistan-politician-stub