People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1883–1936 ○ Died in prison

Red Army commander who was chief of staff of the Tambov suppression and became a historian of the Civil War

Born in Oryol in 1883 into a hereditary noble family of army officers, he graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy and in the First World War served as acting chief of staff of a division. In 1918 he joined the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic and in 1919 the Ukrainian Galician Army. Joining the Red Army in 1920, he commanded the 10th Division and the 3rd Army in the Polish–Soviet War; in 1921, as chief of staff of the Tambov forces under Mikhail Tukhachevsky, he co-signed Order No. 0116 on the use of poison gas against the insurgents. He joined the Communist Party the same year. In 1923 he became head of the Civil War history department at the Red Army Staff and was one of the authors of a three-volume history of the Civil War. Arrested in 1930, he died in Yaroslavl prison in 1936.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1884–1927 ○ Cause of death disputed

Siberian partisan commander who led the partisan army of Yeniseysk Province and took custody of Ungern in Mongolia in 1921

Born to a peasant family in Ryazan Province in 1884, he worked as a carpenter, was drafted in 1906 and served in the 29th Siberian Rifle Regiment at Achinsk. In the First World War he won all four classes of the Cross of St. George, was commissioned and by 1917 was a staff captain. He joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in March 1918; when Achinsk fell to the Whites he went underground and opened partisan operations in January 1919. As chief of staff of a partisan army formed by merging his detachment with another, he marched 700 kilometres south through the taiga and took Minusinsk in September. In August 1921 his detachment took custody of Ungern in Mongolia. He later served as chief of staff of the Siberian border troops, and died in Ulaanbaatar in 1927 while a military adviser in Mongolia; sources differ on the cause of death.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1897–1920 ✕ Executed by shooting

Far Eastern partisan commander who took Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in 1920, then executed its prisoners and burned the town

Born to a peasant family in Murom district, Vladimir Province, in 1897, he worked as an assistant locomotive machinist. Drafted in 1916, he rose to ensign in the First World War and was twice awarded the Cross of St. George. He joined the Red Guard in 1918, took part in suppressing the Samara rising, and in 1919 formed his own partisan detachment in Primorye. In November he set out for Nikolayevsk-on-Amur with 35 fighters and became commander of the Nikolayevsk Front; he entered the town in February 1920 and won the fighting with the Japanese garrison in March. As a Japanese relief force approached at the end of May he executed all the remaining prisoners and burned the town. In July he was arrested at Kerbi with his staff and, after an improvised trial, shot on the 9th.