PÃÂteris StuÃÂka, sometimes spelt Pyotr Stuchka; ( â 25 January 1932), was a Latvian jurist and communist politician, leader of the pro-Bolshevik puppet government in Latvia during the 1918âÂÂ1920 Latvian War of Independence, and later a statesman in the Soviet Union.
StuÃÂka was born in Latvia, in the Governorate of Livonia (then part of the Russian Empire). His father was a prosperous farmer, his mother was a teacher. He was educated in a German lyceum in Riga, and then St Petersburg University, where he studied law. After graduating in 1888, he returned to Latvia, where he practised as a lawyer, and was one of the leaders of the New Current movement in the late 19th century, a prolific writer and translator, and an editor of Latvian language newspapers and periodicals. He was arrested in 1897, and sentenced to five years exile in Vyatka province, where he was allowed to continue practising law. When the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party split into its Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, StuÃÂka supported the Bolsheviks, who were led by Vladimir Lenin. In 1904, he was one of the organisers of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party, which held its first congress clandestinely in Riga.
After the February Revolution, which overthrew the Tsar, StuÃÂka backed Lenin's April Theses, which called for a second, Bolshevik-led revolution, and organised the detachment of Latvian riflemen who played a crucial role in the October Revolution.
Appointed People's Commissar for Justice in the first Bolshevik government, on 7 November 1917, he was responsible for abolishing all existing judicial institutions, replacing them with local courts consisting of a judge and two assessors, created by local soviets, and for decreeing that existing laws should be treated as valid only where "they are not in contradiction with the revolutionary conscience." In an article published in 1919, he also explained that the soviet imposed punishments on individuals not to exact retribution or expiate individual guilt, but as a measure of social defence against enemies of the revolution.
The result, as StuÃÂka noted in retrospect, was that "from November 1917 to 1922, law was formally lacking."
In February 1918, StuÃÂka returned to Latvia, where he was chairman of the government of the short-lived Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic from December 1918 to August 1919. According to the writer, Victor Serge, StuÃÂka,
After the collapse of the Latvian communist government in August 1919 after a counter-offensive by Latvian Army and allied troops, StuÃÂka returned permanently to Russia. In 1920âÂÂ32, he worked in Comintern, as a member, and was chairman of the International Control Commission in 1924âÂÂ28.
In 1923, StuÃÂka, was appointed the first Chief Justice of the Russian SFSR. He held this post until his death in 1932.
After his death on January 25, 1932, StuÃÂka's remains were cremated and his ashes amongst those of other Communist dignitaries in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, near Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square.
StuÃÂka's wife, Dora Pliekà ¡ÃÂne (1870âÂÂ1950), was the sister of the Latvian poet Rainis (JÃÂnis Pliekà ¡ÃÂns), with whom StuÃÂka shared a room during their law studies at St. Petersburg University. Rainis supported socialism, but stressed that national culture was also important. Although Rainis initially supported a free Latvia within a free Russia, he would later support an independent Latvian nation.
A comprehensive bibliography of the works by and about StuÃÂka, with explanatory material in both Latvian and Russian, is: