Leon Gaikis

Leonid Yakovlevich Gaikis (Gaykis, Hajkis, Jaikis, Khaikis; 1898, Warsaw — 21 August 1937, Moscow). Soviet diplomat, the second USSR ambassador to Spain, where he served during the Spanish Civil War. In 1937 he was recalled to Moscow, arrested and soon shot, as part of the Great Purge.

Not to be confused with Leon Haikys, one of the pseudonyms of Ramón Mercader, who assassinated Leon Trotsky in 1940.
Leon Gaikis
Born1898 (1898)
Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire
Died1937 (aged 38–39)
Moscow, Soviet Union
CitizenshipRussian, Soviet
OccupationDiplomat
TitleSoviet ambassador to Spain
Term1937
PredecessorMarcel Rosenberg
Successor-
Political partyCommunist Party of the Soviet Union

Early Years

Born in 1898 in Warsaw, then controlled by the Russian Empire, to a Jewish bourgeois family under the birth name Leon Haykis (since in Russian language the consonant H is replaced by G or Kh, he later became known as Gaikis or Khaikis). His childhood was influenced by the major events in society, against the background of the Polish Revolution of 1905.

He was a student at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw, though he didn't finish his studies there. He became a sympathizer of the 'Polish Socialist Party – Left' (PPS-L) before 1914, and worked as a teacher at the folk school in the years 1914—1915. In 1917 he became a member of Rosa Luxemburg's party, the SDKPiL, which merged with PPS-L the following year to become the Communist Party of Poland (KPRP). He was arrested in Warsaw in 1918 for communist agitation.

In 1919 he joined the Red Army and served in the 11th Army of the Western Front. After 1919, he served as an officer of the Kazakh Military Revolutionary Committee (Kazrevkom). From February 1920, he served as a representative of Kazrevkom in the department of management of the Orenburg provincial executive committee "for the organization of rear militia". From May 1920, he was one of the leaders of the “Special Commission for Survey and Organization of the Soviets in Turgai and Irgiz Counties”. In August—October 1920, was the business manager and technical secretary of Kazrevkom.

Soviet diplomatic career
  • 1921: Went to work for the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NKID of the RSFSR); Secretary of the Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian delegation to the Mixed Border Soviet-Polish Commission.
  • 1922—1923: Worked in the central office of the NKID.
  • 1923—1924: Secretary of the USSR Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin.
  • 1924—1928: First Secretary in the embassy of the USSR in Mexico. In 1925, he met with Vladimir Mayakovsky on the latter's arrival to Mexico. During the term of Alexandra Kollontai as ambassador, 1926—1927, he was responsiple for trade affairs. On 4 January 1927, Kollontai wrote in her diplomatic diary: "I wonder how I can work when I only have two senior staff members: Gaikis and myself. There are three more employees besides us. We even have no real guard. [...] And we have no diplomatic couriers. We send our business letters by sea or via New York, as ordinary mail in both cases. A strange system. We do our own ciphering. We are terribly isolated. It is awful and sad".[1]
  • 1929—1933: Worked in the Profintern system.
  • 1933—1935: Again in the central office of the NKID of the USSR.
  • 1935—1936: Consul General in Istanbul.

Spain and the Great Purge

The Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with the Second Spanish Republic in 1933. A long-standing Bolshevik, Anatoly Lunacharsky, was appointed as the ambassador to Spain but died en route. Eventually, Marcel Rosenberg was appointed as the first ambassador in 1936. Leon Gaikis was sent along to serve as an adviser to the ambassador. They arrived after the Spanish Civil War already started.

The following year, Rosenberg was recalled to Moscow. This came shortly after a meeting between Stalin and the Spanish ambassador to Moscow, Marcelino Pascua, where the former said, "as for Rosenberg, we'll recall him and send down someone less enfant terrible. Someone more 'official'".[2] On 19 February 1937, Gaikis was appointed to replace Rosenberg, who soon vanished in the Great Purge.[3][4]

It wasn't long after that Gaikis himself fell victim to the purges. In June 1937 he was recalled to Moscow. He thought that would be a routine matter, but was arrested on arrival. Having allegedly supported the Trotskyite Left Opposition faction's platform back in 1923,[5] Gaikis was now prosecuted, like many others, under the charge of Trotskyism. He was sentenced to death by the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR, "for betrayal of the Fatherland and belonging to a counter-revolutionary terrorist organization".[6] He was shot on the same day, 21 August 1937, at the age of 39.

After the purge of Rosenberg and Gaikis, no official ambassador was appointed again until 1977, and the embassy was headed by the chargé d'affaires.

Leon's wife, Helena, who stayed behind in Spain with their two little daughters, went later to Russia to find out what happened. She was immediately thrown out of the party and in 1941 was arrested due to a law which held responsible the closest relatives of incriminated people. She was sentenced to 10 years and sent to Siberia. In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, she was released as part of a deal acquired by the Union of Polish Patriots and sent to the wrecked Warsaw.

After the death of Stalin, Leon Gaikis was posthumously rehabilitated, on 17 December 1955, by the Military College of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

References
  1. "Diplomatic Diary: A record of 23 years (published in the magazine International Affairs)". Znanye publishing house. 1989. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  2. Daniel Kowalsky (2004). "Stalin and the Spanish Civil War". Columbia University Press. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  3. "SOVIET ENVOY IS RECALLED; Rosenberg to Leave Spain to Take Another Office". New York Times. 20 February 1937. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  4. Daniel Kowalsky (2004). "Stalin and the Spanish Civil War". Columbia University Press. Retrieved 11 February 2019.
  5. Stephen Kotkin (2014). Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941. Penguin Press. ISBN 9780735224483. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  6. "Time Note". Time Note. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
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