Background
YAKER, Iona was born on August 15, 1896 in Kishinev. Son of a pharmacist.
YAKER, Iona was born on August 15, 1896 in Kishinev. Son of a pharmacist.
1913 completed private college in Kishinev. 1913-1914 studied at Basel University. 1914-1915 at Khar’kov Tcchnol Institute.
1928-1929 at German Higher Military Academy.
1915 — 16 deferred from military service while working as machinist at Odessa munitions plant. From 1915 active in Revol movement. 1917 agitated among troops of Kishinev Garrison.
Member, Executive Committee, Bessarabian Soviet of Workers and Soldiers' Deputy. After 1917 October Revol fought against Rumanian troops. 1917 — 18 with Red Guards.
Commanded Red Guard detachment in Bessarabia. 1918 commanded composite detachment, then commandant Tiraspol' Fortress and secretary, Military Council, Tiraspol’ Detachment. Comissar, Voronezh district, Southern Screen.
Commander and comissar, Povorino DisTr, Southern Screen. Member, Revol Military Council, 8th Army on Southern Front. 1918 frequently distinguished himself in action against General Krasnov’s troops.
May—July 1918 member, Bessarabian Government and Central Committee, Communist Party Bessarabia, formed in Odessa in preparation for the Soviet take-over of Bessarabia. 1919-1920 commanded 45th Infantry Division. August—September 1919 his Southern Forces Group sallied from Odessa and broke through General Denikin’s rear echelons to Zhitomir, where it linked up with 12th Army.
1920-1921 acting commander, 14lh Army. May—June 1920 his Fastov Forces Group launched an offensive against Pilsudski’s Polish forces and occupied Fastov, Brusilov, Rodomysl’ and Kazatin. August 1920 his 45th Infantry Division, operationg as part of Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Army, fought its way to L’vov and then operated against Pelyura's Ukraine People's Republic forces and General Wrangel’s White Army.
1921 commander and comissar, 3rd Kazan’ Division, Crimea. November 1921 finally routed remnants of Pellyura’s Ukraine nationalist troops at Bazar. 1921-1922 commanded Kiev Military district.
1922-1923 commanded Kiev Military Area (renamed distr). 1923 commander and comissar, 14th Infantry Corps. 1923-1924 assistant to M.V. Frunze, commander of Ukraine and Crimean Forces.
1924-1925 head, Red Army Main Military Training Establishments Board. Also exec ed, journal “Voycnnyy vestnik”. 1925-1935 commander, Ukraine Military district.
From 1926 organized improved defenses of Polish and Rumanian border areas (radiocontrolled minefields, provisions to blow up railroad bridges, etc). 1928-1929 lectured to German Reichswehr General Staff on Civil War in Russia and received a personal gift from President Hindcnburg. 1930-1936 member, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Revol Military Council.
From 1930 directed establishment of fortified areas along Western border of Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and supervised training of partisans and establishment of bases for the event of an invasion of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. 1931 negotiated the release of a group of distr staff officers, former officers to the Russian Army, arrested by the State Security organs on charges of anti-Soviet conspiracy. 1931-1932 supervised design and construction of first, fast Soviet British Telecom tanks.
1932 formed in his military distr the Red Army’s first mechanized corporations 1933, in connection with the famine in the Ukraine, together with several Ukraine Party officials and military commanders, signed a letter to the Political Bureau, Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) asking for a stop to grain procurements in the Ukraine and seeking permission to organize famine relief from the military district’s reserves. The letter had its effect, but Stalin never forgave the military’s interference in state affairs
1935-1937 commander, Kiev Military district. 1935 directed maneuvers of Kiev and Khar'kov Military Districts which demonstrated for the first time the combined operations of large air force, mechanized and paratroop units. From 1936 member. Military Council, People's Commissariat of Defense.
1936-1937, with the mass arrest of military commanders, tried to protect individual commanders in his distr from unwarranted arrest. From 1925 member, Central Committee, Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Ukraine. From 1926 member, Ukraine and Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Central Executive Committee.
From 1927 Political Bureau member, Central Committee, Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Ukraine. From 1930 candidate member, Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). 1 January 1937 arrested while traveling by train from Kiev to Moscow.
From prison wrote a letter to Stalin, assuring him of his loyalty to the Party and to Stalin personally. Stalin scrawled on it: “A villain and a prostitute”. 11 June 1937 sentenced to death together with Marshal Tukhachevskiy and others on charges espionage and treason.
Religion is a cause of numerous conflicts and bloody wars throughout the history of mankind.
The emphasis on peaceful coexistence doesn’t mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. Socialism is inevitable and the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism.
Communist Party member from 1917.