Zigmas Angarietis (born Zigmontas Antanas Aleksa, ; June 13, 1882 – May 22, 1940) was a Lithuanian communist and revolutionary, one of the leaders of the Communist Party of Lithuania. He was one of the main people behind the short-lived Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–1919) and Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Litbel). Angarietis was arrested in 1938 during the Great Purge and executed two years later. During his lifetime he wrote over a hundred Marxist–Leninist works.
Early life and education
Angarietis was born in in the Suwałki Governorate of Vistula Land (present-day Lithuania) to a family of wealthy landowners. His brothers Jonas Aleksa became Lithuanian Minister of Agriculture and Konradas Aleksa was a professor at the Lithuanian Agricultural Academy. After graduation from Marijampolė Gymnasium, Angarietis enrolled at the Warsaw Veterinary Institute in 1902. In his memoirs, Angarietis claimed that at the age of 15 he read The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels which left a lasting impression on him and turned him to socialism. In Warsaw, he became acquainted with activists from the Polish Socialist Party and the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia. For anti-Tsarist protests leading to the Revolution of 1905, he was arrested, expelled from the institute, and served a 6.5-month prison sentence in 1904. The experience prompted Angarietis to devote his life for communist causes.
Active revolutionary
Angarietis returned to Lithuania. His family did not approve his revolutionary activities and he severed all ties with them after workers at his father's farm staged a strike and his father called the police to subdue the protest. Angarietis joined the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania in 1906 and was elected to its Central Committee in 1907. He believed that the Lithuanian party should merge with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and become its territorial organization (similar to the Social Democracy of the Latvian Territory). In 1908–1909, he organized publication of illegal newspaper Darbininkų žodis (Voice of Workers) in Marijampolė. For that he was arrested in June 1909 and received a four-year sentence in September 1911. During his arrest and trial, he was imprisoned in Suwałki where he had access to a library and was able to write. His works were smuggled out of the prison and later published in the United States. According to communist historian , 13 works by Angarietis were published in the United States in 1909–1917. In October 1911, he was transferred to Pskov where living conditions were considerably worse. Yet he still continued to write letters and articles, often using pieces of newspapers or packaging for paper.
Upon his release in 1915, he was exiled near Minusinsk in the Yeniseysk Governorate. In the exile, Angarietis got acquainted with Elena Stasova and other communists and became involved with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks) (RSDLP(b)) joining its ranks in 1916. He wrote many articles to communist and social democratic press using the pen name Angarietis (from the Angara River) which later became his last name. After the February Revolution, he moved to Petrograd and became actively involved with the Central Bureau of Lithuanian Sections of RSDLP(b). Together with Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas he planned a socialist revolution in Lithuania. In March 1918, Angarietis was sent to Voronezh and tasked with printing communist literature at a nationalized Lithuanian press. He edited newspaper Tiesa, published numerous books, and otherwise spread the communist ideology among Lithuanian war refugees.
In November 1918, Angarietis returned to Lithuania and helped organizing the Communist Party of Lithuania (CPL) and Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Lithuania and Belorussia. He became People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the short-lived Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–1919) and Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Litbel). However, when Soviet Russia lost the Polish–Soviet and Lithuanian–Soviet Wars, these communist states collapsed and CPL was outlawed in Lithuania.