Jukums Vacietis (11 November 1873-28 July 1938) was a general of the Soviet Union during World War I and the Russian Civil War.
Biography[]
Jukums Vacietis was born on 11 November 1873 in Saldus Municipality, Russian Empire (present-day Latvia) to a family of Catholic Latvians. He worked in a match factory while he was a child, and in 1891 he joined the Imperial Russian Army, leading the Latvian Riflemen during World War I. He later joined the Bolsheviks, and Vacietis led the Soviet Union's Latvian troops during the Russian Civil War, fighting in the Estonian War of Independence. In 1937 he was accused of being a fascist by Joseph Stalin, and he was executed on 28 July 1938 during the Great Purge.