Timofey Ivanovich Kirpichnikov
Тимофей Иванович Кирпичников
1892–1917/1918
✕ Executed within the White movement
A soldier leader who defied imperial orders
“Will we fire on the workers? I personally do not want to go.”
Timofey Kirpichnikov was a junior leader in the Imperial Russian Army who used his front-line experience and influence among soldiers to judge orders for himself. After the suppression of demonstrations on 26 February 1917, he persuaded his men not to fire on workers and led the Volhynian Regiment’s mutiny the next morning, helping set off the Petrograd garrison’s wider defection. Celebrated by the Provisional Government as a revolutionary hero and awarded the Cross of St George, he opposed the Bolsheviks after October and was ultimately executed within the White movement.
Career Timeline
- 1914–1916Served on the Austrian Front in the First World War and was wounded
- 1916–1917Senior non-commissioned officer of the Volhynian Regiment training detachment in Petrograd reserve units
- 1917.02.27Led the training detachment’s refusal of orders and the Petrograd garrison mutiny
- 1917.04Celebrated by the Provisional Government and elected to the Petrograd Soviet
- 1917.04–05Organized a soldiers’ demonstration supporting the Provisional Government and was promoted to sub-ensign and ensign
- 1917.10–1918Moved south against the Bolsheviks and was executed within the White movement