The future revolutionary Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich was born on August 15, 1887 in a small Latvian farm Tsauni. His parents were ordinary peasants. The boy's education was limited to two classes in a parish school. At the age of 18, Yan joined the RSDLP party, and later, rejecting the ideas of the Mensheviks, he joined the Bolsheviks.
Young revolutionary
Rudzutak was a Latvian by nationality, so his party work was mainly connected with his native country. He took the underground name Pumpur and headed the local Vindava Committee of the RSDLP. The organization quickly gained strength and grew. Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich was responsible for the transportation to Latvia of illegal books, brochures, weapons, propaganda newspapers, which were brought on ships from abroad under the guise of trade cargo.
All this was done after the first revolution of 1905-1906 died down. Many activists by that time were arrested, and the police continued to search for the rest of the Bolsheviks, known for their radical position in relation to the authorities. With the recruitment of the wives of the revolutionaries who had already been planted, the secret police managed to get on the trail first and then infiltrate the Vindava Committee. In 1909, Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
1917th
The Bolshevik, like many of his unfortunate comrades, was freed ahead of time thanks to the February Revolution and the amnesty that followed. Once on the outside, Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich immediately joined in the party work already familiar to him. He became an instructor at the Moscow Regional Bureau of Soviets. The most important function of the revolutionary was to establish contacts with textile unions in the Central Industrial Region. In this proletarian milieu, the Bolsheviks conducted particularly thorough agitation.
Very quickly, Yan Ernestovich Rudzutak was elected secretary of the board of the textile workers' union of the Moscow Region. He organized the largest strike of 1917, which began on October 21. 300,000 workers took part in this protest against hard working conditions. The coordinated action led to the shutdown of the enterprises of Shui, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kostroma, Kineshma, Kovrov. A few days after these events, Lenin's supporters staged a coup in Petrograd. Rudzutak, who was in Moscow, found out about the change of power in the capital by telephone. Soon, the Bolsheviks established control over the Mother See.
Work at the Supreme Economic Council
In May 1918, Yan Ernestovich Rudzutak became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council (Supreme Council of the National Economy). At the same time, he began to lead the department of the textile industry. A member of the party faced a serious task - to restore the work of stopped enterprises. In addition, they needed to be nationalized. The new orders did not suit everyone, so the work at the Supreme Economic Council was in full swing. The problem was not only a lack of jobs. Without the new fabric, it was impossible to dress the newly created Red Army.
When the government moved to Moscow, meetings of the Supreme Economic Council sometimes began to take place in the Kremlin. At one of them, Rudzutak Yan Ernestovich (a revolutionary, unlike the top of the party, never lived in exile) met Vladimir Lenin. Two Bolsheviks quickly found a common language. A little later, Lenin supported the initiative of Rudzutak, who proposed as soon as possible to requisition the fabrics that were in the hands of tycoons and large capitalists. In the Supreme Economic Council at that time, as in all authorities, because of the onset of the Civil War, decisions were made forcefully.
In Central Asia
In 1922, after the defeat of the whites and the establishment of Soviet power in most of the territory of the former Russian Empire, Jan Rudzutak was sent to the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, where he became secretary. In this region, nationalist sentiment remained strong. The Basmachi no longer posed a threat to the new government, however, they periodically attacked detachments of the Red Army. Agriculture was in decline. Cotton was the basis of the Central Asian economy, but because of the war and the destruction caused by it, it was hardly planted.
Jan Ernestovich Rudzutak took up the solution to all these problems. The biography of this revolutionary is very similar to the biographies of other Bolsheviks of the first wave. Depending on the instructions of the party, he constantly changed positions and specialization of activity. While in Central Asia, he periodically visited Moscow on business issues. So, in 1923 he took part in the work of the XII Party Congress. In Bukhara, he managed to restore the agricultural sector and return life to a peaceful track. To this end, he initiated a subsidization of cooperative activities, which allowed the poor to take loans and build their farms.
Commissar of Railways
In 1924, Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich (1887-1938) received a new appointment. He became Commissar of Railways. After the Civil War, the country was left with outdated, worn out and damaged cars and trains that could not withstand the expected load and often failed. A third of Soviet bridges were destroyed. Another half needed to be replaced, due to the fact that these communications were built back in the 19th century and are already hopelessly outdated.
It was also necessary to replace 15 thousand kilometers of railways. Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich took up the solution to all these problems. The activities of the People's Commissar acquired tremendous significance for the life of the whole country. Under his leadership, a unified railway management system was created. As in any state business, in this process there was a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, with which it was necessary to put up with it, then fight it.
The restoration of Soviet communications
A year after taking office, Jan Rudzutak was able to test the first domestic diesel locomotive built in Leningrad. This new mode of transport was much more economical than the models used before. In 1926, rail transport for the first time exceeded pre-war levels.
In addition, the People's Commissariat of Railways also had a river and sea fleet and highways. Many ports were destroyed, and the ships sunk. Due to lack of funds, Rudzutak strongly supported the construction of small river vessels, which were more economical and affordable than a large fleet. In 1927, the People's Commissar of Railways proposed starting the construction of the Volga-Don Canal. But that was not all. It was also planned to deepen the Don in the Rostov region, so that sea vessels could get along the river to the grain production area (grain remained an important part of export).
At the head of party control
The fruitful activities that Rudzutak conducted as a people's commissar could not but lead to his gradual ascent up the career ladder. In 1931, the Bolshevik became chairman of the Central Control Commission. This body was responsible for party discipline. Before control of Jan Rudzutak, Valerian Kuibyshev and Grigory Ordzhonikidze headed the control.
The department, among other things, included a complaints bureau, which received complaints from workers from enterprises. The functioning of these bodies was provided by national inspectors. They monitored the execution of Leninist attitudes and were supposed to eradicate local bureaucracy.
Talented organizer
The work of the Central Control Commission became especially important during the years of the first two five-year plans. For example, in 1933, difficulties began with the supply of ore to the country's largest metallurgical plants. Production in the Kuzbass and Kryvyi Rih regions decreased. It was the Central Control Commission that was able to find and mobilize economic reserves and smooth out the negative effect of the crisis.
Rudzutak, who directed all these processes, had to use his maximum abilities. Friends noted that he had a huge library at home, to which he devoted much of his free time. The chairman of the Central Control Commission was most interested in financial, economic and technical literature.
Arrest and execution
The fate of Jan Rudzutak turned out to be similar to the fate of many of his comrades-in-arms from among the first Bolsheviks who joined the party before the revolution and occupied important state and party posts in the USSR. In 1937 he was arrested. The charge included espionage in favor of Germany and counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activity. A funnel came for Rudzutak when he was at his dacha. Jan Ernestovich calmly got into the car, after which no one saw him again.
The former Commissar was executed on July 29, 1938. He became one of the many victims of the Stalinist terror. Many senior officials then graduated in the same way as Rudzutak Jan Ernestovich. The family of the deceased achieved his rehabilitation in 1956 after the XX Party Congress.