Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko
Владимир Александрович Антонов-Овсеенко
1883–1938
✕ Executed
He arrested the Provisional Government in 1917; Stalin arrested him in 1937
When summoned for execution, he gave his jacket and shoes to his cellmates. "Tell them Antonov-Ovseenko was a Bolshevik and remained one to his last day." Twenty-one years earlier, he had arrested the Provisional Government in the Winter Palace.
Born into Chernigov gentry, he abandoned military school for the revolutionary underground. In October 1917 he led the storming of the Winter Palace and personally arrested the Provisional Government, the iconic moment of the Revolution. He commanded the Ukrainian Front during the Civil War; in 1921, suppressing the Tambov peasant uprising, he threatened poison gas against the rebels. As head of the Red Army Political Directorate in 1923, defending Trotsky cost him the post; he later served as plenipotentiary to Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland, and as RSFSR Prosecutor. Sent to Barcelona as Consul General during the Spanish Civil War, he was recalled, arrested October 1937, and shot February 1938. Rehabilitated 1956.
Career Timeline
- 1917.10Secretary, Petrograd MRC; led storming of Winter Palace, arrested Provisional Govt
- 1917.12–1918.05C-in-C, Soviet Forces of South Russia
- 1919.01–1919.06Commander, Ukrainian Front
- 1921.02–1921.07Chairman, Plenipotentiary Commission, Tambov Uprising
- 1922.08–1924.01Head, Political Directorate, RVSR
- 1924–1934USSR Plenipotentiary: Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland
- 1934–1937Prosecutor, RSFSR; Consul General, Barcelona
Related historical events
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionWinter Palace commanderAs an MRC secretary he led the operation at the Winter Palace and carried out the arrest of the Provisional Government ministers.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionUkraine front commanderHe commanded Soviet forces in Ukraine in 1918-19, establishing Soviet power after the German occupation withdrew.
- 1936–1939The Spanish Civil WarSoviet consul-general in BarcelonaStood between the revolutionary power in Catalonia and Soviet policy; recalled and shot in 1938
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeTargetThe Bolshevik who led the storming of the Winter Palace, executed twenty-one years later in 1938.
Dawn, 8 November 1917, Arresting the Provisional Government
Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, the son of a tsarist officer and a military school graduate himself, chose revolution over the officer's career prepared for him. He organized military mutinies in 1905–1906, was sentenced to death and escaped, and after long years of exile returned in 1917, joined the Bolsheviks and became secretary of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee.
On the night of 7 November 1917 (25 October Old Style) he directed the final operation against the Winter Palace together with Podvoisky, and shortly after two in the morning he entered the small dining room of the palace and declared: "In the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I declare the members of the Provisional Government under arrest." He then protected the ministers from enraged soldiers and escorted them to the Peter and Paul Fortress. With that scene, recorded in John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World, his name was written into the history of October.
Soviet Consul General in Barcelona, 1936–1937
In the Civil War Antonov-Ovseenko commanded Soviet forces on the southern front and in Ukraine, and in 1921 he chaired the plenipotentiary commission that directed the suppression of the Tambov peasant rising, one of the darkest tasks revolutionary power faced in those years. In the 1920s he headed the Red Army's Political Administration until his support for Trotsky's Left Opposition cost him the post in 1923; he then served as a Soviet diplomat in Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Poland.
In August 1936, as the Spanish Civil War intensified, he arrived in Barcelona as Soviet consul general. Coordinating Soviet military aid with the Catalan government and chasing supplies to the front, he was the most visible Soviet figure in Catalonia. Recalled in 1937, he was named People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR, only to be arrested weeks later in October; he was shot on 10 February 1938. According to his son Anton, his last request was: "Tell them that Antonov-Ovseenko was a Bolshevik and remained a Bolshevik to his last day." He was rehabilitated in 1956.