Karolis Pozela
Požela, Karolis
(also Karolis Iuozovich Pozhela). Born Feb. 17 (29), 1896, in the village of Bardiŝkiai, in what is now Pakruojis Raion, Lithuanian SSR; died Dec. 27, 1926, in Kaunas. Participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia. One of the organizers of the Communist Party of Lithuania (CPL). Son of a peasant.
Požela joined the Bolshevik Party in 1916, while a student at Dorpat (Tartu) University, and subsequently did party work in Estonia. He participated in the February and October revolutions of 1917. In the spring of 1918 he organized one of the first cells of the CPL in an area occupied by German troops. He was a delegate to the constituent underground congress of the party (October 1918).
After the fall of Soviet rule in Lithuania (August 1919), Požela did underground party work in Raseiniai and Kaunas. In 1920 in Kaunas he founded the illegal party printshop called Spartā kas and was editor of the newspaper Tiesa, organ of the Central Committee of the CPL, and a number of other party publications. In 1921 Požela became a member of the Central Committee of the CPL and in 1923 the committee’s secretary. He was a delegate to the Fifth Congress of the Comintern (1924).
Požela was arrested and executed together with other leaders of the CPL after the fascist coup in Lithuania.
WORKS
Raŝtai. Vilnius, 1966.REFERENCES
Mickevičius-Kapsukas, V. Fashistskii perevorot ν Litve. Moscow, 1927.Arvasevičius, J. “Slavnyi syn Kompartii Litvy.” Voprosy istorii, 1974, no. 11.
Abramavičius, F., and L. Ŝausas. Mirties nuosprendis. Vilnius, 1960.
Lagauskienė, E. Keturi komunistai: Bibliografine rodykle. Vilnius, 1964.