Riismann, August

Riismann, August 

(also Ristmets). Born Feb. 16 (28), 1890, in what is now Rapla Raion, Estonian SSR; died Apr. 23, 1926, in Tallinn. Revolutionary activist in Estonia. Member of the Communist Party from 1920.

The son of a farm worker, Riismann completed pedagogical courses and from 1908 taught at Estonian public schools in Revel (now Tallinn) and Kodila. He was drafted into the army in 1914. From 1919, Riismann was active in the revolutionary movement. In 1921 he was a member of the Rapla volost (small rural district) administration and the Harju district board of self-government, chairman of the district’s teachers’ union, and board member of the All-Estonian Teachers’ Union. Forced to go underground, he emigrated illegally to Soviet Russia. From 1922 to 1925 he studied at Leningrad State University, working at the same time as a teacher and inspector in the Estonian schools. From 1925 he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia, and from early 1926, executive organizer of the Communist Party of Estonia in Tallinn and in Harju District. On Apr. 20, 1926, Riismann was arrested by the bourgeois Estonian government and executed.

REFERENCE

[Kaup, E.] “A. Riisman (1890–1926).” In Znamenostsy revoliutsii [fasc. 1]. Tallinn, 1964.