The first People's Commissar for Naval Affairs, whose Baltic sailors tipped the scales in October 1917
November 1, 1917, Gatchina Palace. Dybenko, having surrounded Kerensky-Krasnov's forces with thousands of armed sailors, addressed the Cossack delegation: "Hand over your general. Soviet power guarantees you safe passage home." By morning, General Krasnov was under arrest and Kerensky had fled in disguise. In one week, the fate of the revolution had been sealed.
Born to a Ukrainian peasant family in Chernigov, he became a Baltic Fleet sailor and joined the Bolshevik underground. Elected chairman of Tsentrobalt in April 1917, he funnelled thousands of armed sailors from Helsingfors and Kronstadt into Petrograd during the October Revolution, tipping the balance, arresting General Krasnov, and dispersing the Constituent Assembly. He captured Crimea and liberated Tsaritsyn during the Civil War, then helped crush the Kronstadt and Tambov rebellions. His marriage to Alexandra Kollontai made them the revolution's most celebrated couple.
Career Timeline
- 1912Conscripted into Baltic Fleet; electrician on Imperator Pavel I; joined Bolshevik underground cell
- 1917.04–1918.03Chairman, Tsentrobalt; directed sailors into October uprising, arrested Gen. Krasnov, dispersed Constituent Assembly
- 1917.10–1918.03First People's Commissar for Naval Affairs; ousted after Narva defeat, expelled from party, acquitted at court-martial
- 1919.02–1919.09Commander, 1st Zadneprovskaya Division; captured Crimea, commanded Crimean Soviet Army
- 1919.10–1920.05Commander, 37th Rifle Division; liberated Tsaritsyn, routed Denikin's forces in North Caucasus
- 1921.03–1921.04Led Composite Division storming Kronstadt, then fortress commandant; helped suppress Tambov uprising
- 1928–1937Commander: Central Asian, Volga, Leningrad MDs; Komandarm 2nd rank (1935)
Related historical events
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionTsentrobalt chairman, first People's Commissar for Naval AffairsAs Tsentrobalt chairman, he funnelled thousands of armed sailors from Helsingfors and Kronstadt into Petrograd, securing the insurrection's armed superiority; he arrested General Krasnov and directed the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionPeople's Commissar for Naval Affairs and Civil War commander
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeTargetA sailor leader of October and army commander, executed in 1938.
The Great Purge and Execution
In 1937, Dybenko, as commander of the Leningrad Military District, personally directed large-scale purges of the district's command staff. More shockingly, he served as a judge on the Special Judicial Presence that tried Marshal Tukhachevsky and seven other senior commanders in June 1937, sentencing former colleagues to death. At the Military Council session, with Stalin present, Dybenko boasted: "They declared that we were illiterate. I declare to the Politburo that we are more literate than them in military affairs." The purge wave soon turned on him. At the January 1938 Central Committee plenum, Stalin publicly denounced Dybenko for "moral decay and drunkenness"; he was removed from the Leningrad command and demoted to the humiliating post of deputy commissar for timber industry, overseeing lumber procurement for the Gulag. He was arrested in Sverdlovsk on 26 February 1938, charged with participation in a military-fascist conspiracy and espionage for the United States. Under interrogation he was viciously tortured, confessed to all charges, and wrote abject letters of repentance to Stalin. On 29 July 1938, the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced him to death; he was shot the same day. His body was buried at the Kommunarka mass-grave site outside Moscow. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956 during the Khrushchev Thaw.