Genrich Eiche


Henrich Christoforovich Eiche was a Soviet Komdiv and military historian of Latvian ethnicity. He served in World War I as an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, and in 1917 was elected Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of his regiment. Eiche also held leading civil posts. Cousin of Robert Eikhe.

Biography

Johann Henrich Martin Eiche was born on 29 September 1893, in Riga, Russian Empire. His father Kristaps and mother Lina were ethnic Latvians from rural areas of the center and north-west of the Courland Governorate respectively. Christoph's income from working as a forwarding agent enabled his wife to concentrate on taking care of Heinrich and his older brother Friedrich Wilhelm. At the age of 12 Eiche took part in several demonstrations and meetings of workers during the course of the 1905 Russian Revolution, witnessing their violent suppression by Orenburg Cossacks. 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. In January 1906, he enrolled into 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 visits Berlin where he enrolls into a composition correspondence course in the Berlin Conservatory.
His studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, whereupon he was drafted into the Russian Imperial Army 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 of 1917 he was elected to the regimental committee, and during the Russian Revolution 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 I. R. Dovbor-Musnitsky. In March 1918 he voluntarily enlisted in the Red Army. From August 1918 to November 1919 he commanded a regiment, a brigade and the 26th Infantry Division 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. 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 Primorye 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 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 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 in leading positions in Narkomvneshtorg - the Ministry of Foreign Trade.
During the Great Purge as a part of the so-called "Latvian Operation", in May 1938 he was arrested and convicted by the NKVD’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. After sentencing he first was incarcerated in the NKVD’s Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, where during interrogations he endured beatings and torture, and then he served time in the gulags. After release from the camps he was in exile in the Far North. Also arrested as "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 works on the history of the Civil War in the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East.
He 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:
During the years of the Civil War Eiche was awarded:
After his release Eiche was awarded:
• Forced Crossing of the Belaya River by Units of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front in June 1919, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928 ;
• Tactical Lessons from the Civil War, Moscow, 1931 ;
• Kolchak’s Ufa Adventure, Moscow, 1966 ;
• Defeated Rear, Moscow, 1966 .