Pevzner (Pewsner) Ilya Kalmanovich (1900, Mogilev, Belarus – exact birth and death dates unknown; presumed to have died in Riga) — party official, serviceman, educator, victim of political repression in the USSR, and employee of the Riga Film Studio.
Ilya Pevzner was born into a working-class family. In 1917, he took a job as a clerk in a shop, which he left shortly after due to his family relocating to the town of Shklov in the Mogilev Governorate (now Mogilev Region, Belarus). In 1918, he joined the Communist Party (CPSU) and worked as secretary of the land department of the Shklov Volost Executive Committee (Mogilev Region). In 1919, he was elected chairman of the Shklov sub-district committee of the Komsomol (LKSM). That same year, he voluntarily joined the Red Army and served until 1922 on the Eastern and Southwestern fronts. He worked in the troops of the Cheka as head of a military control post of the special department of the 4th Turkestan Army, as head of a military control post at Kyiv Station, as a counterintelligence officer, and as head of a border post guarding the Romanian border, among other roles.
From 1923 to 1925, he returned to party work: secretary of the joint party cell of administrative bodies in Mogilev, secretary of the Bykhov district party committee of the VKP(b), and head of the agitation point of the Lupolovo district committee of the VKP(b). During the same period, he also worked as a schoolteacher.
In 1925, he enrolled in the socio-economic faculty of the Belarusian State University in Minsk, graduating in 1928 with a teaching degree. From 1928 to 1930, he taught at the Belarusian Pedagogical College in Vitebsk.
From 1930 to 1935, he was again engaged in party work: instructor for the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Belarus, head of the secret department of the Minsk city committee, and secretary of a district party committee. From 1935 to 1936, he worked as head of the ORS (supply department) of the “Mogvolokno” factory in Mogilev.
In 1937 (according to other sources, late 1936), he was arrested (his name appears on the so-called “Stalin’s Execution Lists” for the Belarusian SSR, submitted by V.E. Tsessarsky, Senior Major of State Security and head of the 8th Department of the Main Directorate of State Security, NKVD). He was repressed and sentenced to 10 years in a correctional labour camp. He served his sentence in the city of Engels, Saratov Region (according to other sources, he moved there voluntarily).
He was released already in 1940 and fully rehabilitated in 1958, with his Communist Party membership restored.
From 1940 to 1942, Ilya Pevzner worked in Engels as a technical norms inspector and production manager in the system of artisanal cooperatives. From 1942 to 1946, he served in the Soviet Army as head of the supply department for a facility under the Main Directorate of Airfield Construction (GUAS) of the NKVD USSR.
After demobilisation, from 1946 to 1949, he headed the supply department of the Riga Film Studio. Until 1958, he worked as a screen printer at Voentorg and as an electric shaver assembler at the cooperative “Ispaligs”. In 1958, he retired due to health reasons.
Ilya Pevzner remained active in public life, serving as an inspector for the People’s Control Committee of the Moscow District of Riga. He was awarded two medals. From 1967, he was a personal pensioner of republican significance.
Additional references:
Stalin’s Execution Lists, Moscow: Zvenya, 2002. ISBN 5-7870-0057-9
Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (AP RF), file 24, case 416, sheet 222