Jānis Bērziņš

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Jānis Bērziņš (in the 1880s - 1938), Latvian and Soviet communist politician.

During World War I, he lived in Sweden under the pseudonym Winter. Berzins joined the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution, and was head of the GRU from 1920 to 1935. A volunteer in the Spanish Civil War under the nom de guerre Grishin, he was an important commander of the Republican forces.

He supported Joseph Stalin, but was nonetheless executed during the Moscow Trials.

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