Karklin, Oto

Born in a manor house near Durban in the gardener's family. From an early age he connected himself with Marxist ideology, was carried away by revolutionary sentiments. Joined at a young age in the Social Democratic circle in Libau , began to gather around him a group of like-minded people from the working class. After some time, he led the Social Democratic group of Libava workers. He was one of the most vivid and authoritative Marxist publicists of Libau. In 1902 he registered for membership in the Communist Party of Latvia . In the party environment he was known under the pseudonym Darznieks (Gardener) due to the fact that his father was a gardener. In 1904 he went to emigrate to Switzerland , where he settled in Bern , established contacts with representatives of the Social Democratic movement and began to publish his articles in local periodicals under the pseudonym Integral . While in Bern, he agreed to start the publication of the Latvian social-democratic newspaper Sociāldemokrāts.

He secretly returned to the Baltic provinces in 1905, after which he established close secret contacts with members of the Social Democratic movement. He took part in the revolution of 1905-1907 in Riga and the Baltic provinces, organized labor demonstrations and mass rallies. Member of the Riga Committee of the LSDLP , established in 1904; He enjoyed authority as one of the most educated and competent social democrats in Riga. He was also a member of the committees of the LSDLP of Libava and Mitava .

In 1908 he was arrested and sentenced to hard labor. In 1916 he was sent to Siberia , to the Irkutsk province .

After the February Revolution, he became deputy chairman of the Riga Council of Workers' Deputies (the chairman was Rudolf Endrup ). Soon he took up the post of chairman of the board of the zemstvo council of the Livonia province. He was elected chairman of Iskolat , whose first constituent assembly was held July 29-30, 1917. Soon after the capture of Riga by the military units of the Kaiser army, Iskolat went to Valka , where the leadership was re-elected, and after Fricis Rozin was elected chairman, Oto Karklin took over as his deputy. After forced emigration, Iskolata in 1918 became a member of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the LSDLP. In the same year, in Moscow, he took the post of chairman of the military revolutionary tribunal .

In January 1919, he took the post of deputy chairman of the Soviet government of Latvia - Peter Yanovich Stuchka was chairman. He also headed the labor committee in this government. A little later, he consistently led the Commissariat of Food and Finance.

After the capture of Riga by the army of the Landeswehr on May 22, 1919, he was forced to evacuate and ended up in Turkestan , where he headed the revolutionary council of the front. In 1920, he served as vice chairman ^{[ specify ]} Central Asia. He was also in managerial work in Kharkov , Omsk , Moscow, Tbilisi . In 1932 - Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Crimean ASSR . In general, he held important administrative posts in the hierarchy of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. He was arrested in 1937, repressed (most likely, died in prison, according to some reports, September 12, 1942) and was posthumously rehabilitated.

• Karklin Oto Janovich // Riga: Encyclopedia = Enciklopēdija “Riga” / ch. ed. P.P. Eran. - Riga: Main Edition of Encyclopedias , 1989. - S. 356. - 880 p. - 60,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89960-002-0 .