Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Following the October Revolution, Vācietis sided with the Bolsheviks (although he would never join the party) and was named commander of the 12th Army by N. V. Krylenko. He assisted in the dispersal of the imperial general staff at Mogilev (November 1917), was named chief of the Operational Department of the Revolutionary Field Staff (12 December 1917), and in January 1918 led the fight against the Dowbor-Muśnicki uprising (from 14 January 1918). In effect, while Krylenko was in Petrograd (from 21 December 1917 to 14 January 1918), Vācietis was the last commander of the Russian Army. He then joined the Red Army at its inception, and from 13 April 1918, was commander of the Latvian Riflemen, in which capacity he supervised the suppression of the Left-SR Uprising in Moscow (6–7 July 1918). (Although politically sympathetic to the Party of Left Socialists-Revolutionaries, he opposed their determination to continue hostilities against Germany, on the grounds that Russian forces would certainly be defeated in such a conflict.) From there, he was sent to the Volga, to deal with the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion and the Murav′ev uprising, as commander of the Eastern Front (18 July–28 September 1918).

Vācietis then became commander in chief of the Red Army (2 September 1918–8 July 1919), essentially overseeing its creation—indeed, he has as good a claim as L. D. Trotsky to the title of “Founder of the Red Army”—and was a leading member of the Revvoensovet of the Republic (6 September 1918–8 July 1919). He also served, simultaneously, as commander of the army of the putative Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, the (Red) Army of Soviet Latvia (4 January–10 March 1919). Following a series of defeats against the Armed Forces of South Russia; a lengthy dispute over strategy with S. S. Kamenev, the commander of the Eastern Front (Kamenev wanted to pursue the defeated Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak across the Urals and finish it off, whereas Vācietis wanted to concentrate on the Southern Front, against Denikin); and his entanglement in the ongoing debates about the party’s relations with the army (Vācietis demanded the complete independence of the military), he was arrested on 25 June 1919 and charged with treason. He was soon released (October 1919), but did not return to high command. Instead he worked in the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs (from November 1919) and taught at the Red Military Academy from 1921, becoming Professor of Higher Military Science Studies in June 1927, and wrote a series of books and articles on military history and strategy.

Vācietis was arrested on 29 November 1937, and on 26 July 1938 was found guilty, by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, of espionage (for Germany since 1918 and for Latvia since 1921) and of membership in a “terrorist organization,” and was sentenced to death. He was shot two days later, at Kommunarka, Moscow oblast′, and was buried there in a mass grave. During his interrogation, under torture, he denounced 20 other Red commanders as co-members of a “Latvian fascist organization,” all of whom were subsequently arrested and most of whom were also shot. Vācietis was posthumously rehabilitated on 28 March 1957.

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