Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko
Владимир Александрович Антонов-Овсеенко
He arrested the Provisional Government in 1917; Stalin arrested him in 1937
Summoned to be shot, he gave his jacket and shoes to his cellmates. According to Yuri Tomsky, he said: "Tell people that Antonov-Ovseenko was a Bolshevik and remained a Bolshevik to his last day." Twenty-one years earlier he had arrested the Provisional Government.
Born into a Chernigov noble family, he joined the revolutionary movement in 1901. In October 1917, as secretary of the Military Revolutionary Committee, he prepared the seizure of the Winter Palace with Podvoisky and Chudnovsky and carried out the arrest of the Provisional Government. He commanded Soviet forces in the south and in Ukraine during the Civil War, and in 1921 chaired the plenipotentiary commission for the suppression of the Tambov peasant rising, signing its decision to use poison gas. Head of the Red Army Political Directorate from 1922, he was removed in January 1924 for defending Trotsky, then served as plenipotentiary to Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Poland. Named RSFSR People's Commissar of Justice in 1937, he was arrested that year and shot on 10 February 1938. He was rehabilitated on 25 February 1956.
Career timeline
- 1917.10Secretary, Petrograd MRC; led storming of Winter Palace, arrested Provisional Govt
- 1917.12–1918.05C-in-C, Soviet Forces of the South of Russia
- 1919.01–06Commander, Ukrainian Front
- 1921.02–07Chairman, Plenipotentiary Commission, Tambov Uprising
- 1922.08–1924.01Head, Political Directorate, RVSR (removed January 1924)
- 1924–1934USSR Plenipotentiary: Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland (China mission 1923)
- 1934–1937Prosecutor, RSFSR; Consul General, Barcelona