Tsarist officer turned Red commander who took Kyiv, battled in Bessarabia, and rebelled against Brest-Litovsk
After taking Kyiv he reported to Lenin: 'I ordered artillery to strike at high-rise and rich palaces, at churches and priests.'
A peasant-born officer of the Imperial Russian Army who distinguished himself in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I, he joined the Left SRs in 1917 and commanded the defense of Petrograd during the October Revolution. In early 1918 he seized Kyiv, establishing Soviet power in Ukraine, then led operations on the Romanian front to defend Bessarabia. Appointed commander of the Eastern Front in June 1918, he rebelled against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in July, declared a 'war against Germany,' and was killed in Simbirsk.
Career Timeline
- 1898–1917Served in Imperial Russian Army; fought in Russo-Japanese War and WWI, rose to Lieutenant Colonel
- 1917.10–11Commander of Petrograd Military District; led defense against Kerensky-Krasnov forces
- 1917.12–1918.2Chief of Staff, Southern Revolutionary Front; commanded operation to take Kyiv
- 1918.2–3Commander of Romanian Front; led Bessarabia defense and Odessa Soviet Republic
- 1918.6–7Commander of Eastern Front; rebelled against Brest-Litovsk Treaty, killed in Simbirsk
Related historical events
The July 1918 Rebellion: Defiance of Brest-Litovsk and Death
On June 13, 1918, Muravyov was appointed commander of the Eastern Front, charged with fighting the Czechoslovak Legion. He reorganized the front from a detachments-based system into a divisional and then army structure, appointing Mikhail Tukhachevsky as commander of the 1st Army. But as the Left SR uprising erupted in Moscow and the Bolshevik leadership began to doubt his loyalty, Muravyov acted. On the night of July 9–10, he abandoned the front headquarters in Kazan without the knowledge of the Revolutionary Military Council.
Loading roughly a thousand loyal troops onto the steamer Mezhen, he sailed down the Volga to Simbirsk. Upon arrival he seized the telegraph office, post office, and railway station, and arrested leading Bolsheviks, including Tukhachevsky, who had come to the pier expecting a routine meeting and was taken prisoner instead. Muravyov telegraphed the Council of People's Commissars, the German embassy, and the Czechoslovak Legion: he was annulling the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and declaring war on Germany. He ordered the Czechoslovak Legion to turn westward toward the Volga and proposed creating a 'Volga Soviet Republic' led by Left SR leaders Maria Spiridonova, Boris Kamkov, and Vladimir Karelin.
The chairman of the Simbirsk Bolshevik committee, Iosif Vareikis, had secretly positioned Latvian Riflemen, an armored detachment, and a Cheka special unit around the Soviet building. On July 11, Muravyov appeared at a meeting of the provincial executive committee with Left SR representatives to demand the transfer of power. Red Guards and Chekists emerged from ambush and moved to arrest him. Muravyov resisted and was killed on the spot. The official government statement claimed he shot himself in the temple, but eyewitness accounts describe a shootout.
The rebellion threw the Eastern Front into chaos. Muravyov's contradictory orders (first to make peace with the Czechoslovaks and attack Germany, then reversed after his death) demoralized the troops. Vladimir Kappel's White forces exploited the disarray to capture Simbirsk, and soon after Kazan, where part of Russia's gold reserve fell into the hands of the Czechoslovak Legion and Komuch's People's Army. The mutiny also triggered widespread suspicion across the Red Army toward all former tsarist officers.