Juozas Mykolo Vareikis

Born Oct. 6 (18), 1894; died 1939. Soviet state and Party figure; became a member of the CPSU in 1913. He was born in Povinkŝnia, Kovno Province, into the family of a Lithuanian worker. Graduated from an artisans’ school.

Vareikis conducted Party work in cities of Moscow Province. After the February Revolution of 1917 he was vice-chairman of the Podol’sk Soviet. In early 1918 he was secretary of the Kharkov Oblast Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik). He was chairman of the Simbirsk Province Committee of the RCP (B) from June 1918 until August 1920. During the Czechoslovak rebellion in 1918 he led the defense of Simbirsk; he participated in the suppression of the anti-Soviet rebellion fomented by the left-wing Socialist Revolutionary Murav’ev. From 1921 to 1923, Vareikis was a member of the Bureau of the Central Committee and the Baku Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, a member of the Transcaucasian Krai Committee of the RCP, and vice-chairman of the Baku Soviet. Beginning in 1923 he was secretary of the Kiev Province Committee of the RCP (B), secretary of the Middle Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the ACP (Bolshevik), director of the Press Department of the Central Committee of the ACP (B), and secretary of the Saratov Province Committee. From 1928 to 1934, Vareikis was secretary of the Central Chernozem Oblast Committee, the Voronezh Oblast Committee, the Stalingrad Krai Committee, and the Far Eastern Krai Committee of the ACP (B). He was a delegate to the Eighth to Tenth and Thirteenth to Seventeenth Party congresses. At the Twelfth Party Congress he was elected a candidate member of the Central Control Commission of the RCP (B), at the Thirteenth to Fifteenth congresses, candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP (B), and at the Sixteenth and Seventeenth congresses, member of the Central Committee of the ACP (B). He was a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Vareikis is the author of political articles and brochures. He was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935.