Valentin Olberg
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Valentin Olberg | |
|---|---|
 Prison photograph, January 1936. | |
| Born | 1907 |
| Died | 25 August 1936 (aged 28–29) |
| Occupations | Revolutionary, journalist |
| Relatives | Paul Olberg (sibling) |
Valentin Pavlovich Olberg (1907– August 25, 1936) was a Russian Communist, member of the Communist Party of Germany, activist of the Trotskyist opposition, history teacher at the Gorky Pedagogical Institute, and a main defendant in the first Moscow trial. His testimony played an important role in the arrests and executions of oppositionists in the USSR during the Great Purges. Along with many other defendants, Olberg was sentenced to death after the trial. He was executed on 25 August, 1936.
Early life
[edit]Valentin Olberg was born in Zurich to Paul Olberg, an émigré from the Russian Empire and a Social Democrat and Menshevik. He was the author of Letters from Soviet Russia (Stuttgart, 1919) and The Peasant Revolution in Russia: The Old and New Policy of Soviet Russia (Leipzig, 1922), and moved to Sweden after Hitler's rise to power. His mother, Paulina Izrailevna Beskina, a midwife and masseuse, lived in Riga in 1936. After the revolution, Valentin and his family received citizenship in independent Latvia.
Activities in the USSR
[edit]Olberg travelled to the USSR on two separate occasions. The first was from March to July 1933, when he travelled from Moscow to Stalinabad. Him and his wife were forced to leave the country after prospective employers in Stalinabad asked him for documents proving he had completed compulsory military service.[1]
The second and final time Olberg visited the country was in August 1935, a few months after which he was arrested.[2]
Role in the Moscow Trials
[edit]After being notified that Trotskyists were active in Gorky, the NKVD arrested Olberg, his wife and brother on January 5, 1936.[3]
Stalinist investigators claimed that Olberg was an emissary of [Leon Trotsky], sent to prepare terrorist acts against the leaders of the USSR. Olberg confessed to these allegations, possibly under the influence or threat of torture, and his testimony was subsequently used by the NKVD to arrest many alleged oppositionists in the USSR. The information he provided convinced Stalin to make him a crucial defendant in the Moscow trials.[4][5]
Trotsky and his son, Lev Sedov, accused Olberg of being an NKVD provocateur, who was neither close to either nor particularly important in the Trotskyist movement.
Execution
[edit]After the five days of the first Moscow trial, the Soviet court found each of the defendants guilty and sentenced them to be executed. After his pardon was denied, Olberg was shot with other defendants on August 25, 1936.[6]
References
[edit]- ↑ Chase & Novikova-Monterde 2026, pp. 194–195.
- ↑ Chase & Novikova-Monterde 2026, p. 104.
- ↑ Chase & Novikova-Monterde 2026, p. 177.
- ↑ Chase 2024, p. 109.
- ↑ Chase & Novikova-Monterde 2026, pp. 173–175.
- ↑ Chase & Novikova-Monterde 2026, pp. 171–172.
Sources
[edit]- Vikhnovich, Vsevolod (2012). 2000 лет истории евреев России [2000 Years of the History of the Jews of Russia] (in Russian). St. Petersburg. ISBN 978-5-94396-117-5.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Vikhnovich, Vsevolod (1997). Судьба семьи Ольбергов (Между двумя мифами) [The Fate of the Olberg Family (Between two myths)] (in Russian).
- Chase, William J.; Novikova-Monterde, Olga (2026). The Many Faces of Antifascism: Interwar Marxist Militant Networks and the Divided Response to Fascism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/9780198994428.001.0001. ISBN 9780198994428.
- Getty, J. Arch (1999). The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300104073.
- Chase, William J. (2024). "Wrestling With Aspects of Interwar Stalinism". In Getty, J. Arch; Siegelbaum, Lewis H. (eds.). Reflections on Stalinism. Oxford: Cornell University Press. p. 100-115. ISBN 9781501775543.