The orator ground away between revolution and counter-revolution
In March 1917, taking the rostrum of the Petrograd Soviet to announce his acceptance of the Justice Ministry, he cried: "I cannot live without the people. In the moment you begin to doubt me, then kill me!" The workers and soldiers filling the hall erupted in wild applause.
The face of the Provisional Government and its last premier. In August 1917 he armed even the jailed Bolsheviks to stop Kornilov; in October, no army anywhere would come to save him. The story of his escaping in a dress is a Soviet fabrication. He spent half a century in exile lecturing on what had gone wrong, and died in New York.
Career timeline
1912–1917Duma deputy (Trudovik); famed defence lawyer in political trials
1917.03Justice Minister: amnesty, abolition of the death penalty
1917.05War Minister: the failed June offensive
1917.07–10Premier: the Kornilov affair; overthrown in October
1918–1970Exile in Paris and New York: writing and lecturing
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.
Career timeline
1910Graduated from the Nicholas General Staff Academy
1915Acting chief of staff of the 71st Infantry Division
1918Assistant to the chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian People's Army
1919Chief of staff of the 4th Corps of the Ukrainian Galician Army
1920Commander of the Red Army 10th Division and the 3rd Army
1921Chief of staff of the Tambov group of forces
1922Commander of Soviet troops in the Bukhara–Fergana region
1923Head of the Civil War history department at the Red Army Staff
Anti-Soviet partisan commander who moved from Estonia to Belarus, changing camps as he went
Pilsudski judged him 'a bandit, but not only a bandit: today a Russian, tomorrow a Pole, the day after a Belarusian.'
He went from the Red Army to the Whites, took Pskov in 1919, broke with Yudenich to side with Estonia and in 1920 moved to Poland for a Belarusian expedition. His troops' anti-Jewish violence is on record; he was killed in occupied Warsaw in 1940.
Career timeline
1914Mobilized into the tsarist army; awarded the George Cross and St George medal
1918Joined the Red Army; formed the Luga cavalry regiment with Trotsky's sanction
1918.11Defected to the Whites with about 400 men
1919Colonel then major-general; took Pskov in the Yudenich offensive
1920.01Arrested Yudenich and sided with Estonia
1920In Polish service took Pinsk and formed the Russian People's Volunteer Army
1920.11Invaded Soviet Belarus and proclaimed himself head of a Belarusian state; after defeat fled to Poland
Labour journalist and former Russian army officer who became the first commander-in-chief of the Finnish Red Guards
Born in 1884 to a poor land worker’s family in Jämsä, he joined the Russian Army in 1903, served as a lieutenant in the Russo-Japanese War, joined the socialists in the 1905 revolution, and was jailed in Moscow and expelled from the military. Back in Finland he worked for the labour press in Turku, Vyborg and Kotka and as a Social Democratic party official. In October 1917 he organised the Workers’ Order Guards in Helsinki and after the November general strike became their commander-in-chief. In January 1918, despite heavy drinking in Petrograd, he bought a large cargo of guns and ammunition from the Bolsheviks, but on 28 January he was replaced by Eero Haapalainen. He broke out of besieged Tampere on the battle’s last night, was captured near Lahti and was shot at the Hennala camp in May 1918.
Career timeline
1904–1905Lieutenant in the Russian Army in the Russo-Japanese War
1917Organiser of the Workers’ Order Guards in Helsinki
1917–1918First commander-in-chief of the Order Guards and Red Guards
1918Red Guard general staff; staff of the Häme Front
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.
Career timeline
1906Drafted; served in the 29th Siberian Rifle Regiment
1917Staff captain
1918Joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks); Red Guard commander at Achinsk
1919Deputy commander and chief of staff of the partisan army
1920Commander of the Yenisei Rifle Division
1921Commander in the Red Army expedition to Mongolia
1922–1926Chief of staff of the Siberian border troops
1926–1927Military adviser to the Mongolian People’s Republic
Ataman of the Ussuri Cossacks who took Khabarovsk in 1918 and became notorious for shootings without trial and plunder
Born in the Grozny district of the Terek Region in 1890, he graduated from the military school in Tbilisi, transferred to the Ussuri Cossack Regiment in 1914 and won the Sword of St. George in the First World War. Elected ataman of the Ussuri Cossack Host in January 1918, he fought the Bolsheviks and on 5 September took Khabarovsk, becoming head of its garrison. Mass shootings without trial followed in Khabarovsk that year, and the robbery, murder and rape committed by his men outraged White leaders, Kolchak first among them. In February 1920 he secretly handed the gold of the Khabarovsk branch of the State Bank to the Japanese command and crossed into China, where the Chinese authorities arrested him; in early September he was shot while trying to escape.
Career timeline
1914Transferred to the Ussuri Cossack Regiment
1918Elected ataman of the Ussuri Cossack Host
1918Took Khabarovsk; head of the Khabarovsk garrison
1918Promoted major general; military ataman of the Ussuri Cossack Host
1920Commander of the Ussuri group of forces; retreated into China
“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
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.
Career timeline
1916–1918Served in the Imperial Russian Army; ensign
1918Joined the Red Guard; fought the Samara rising
1919Commander of a partisan detachment in Primorye
1920Commander of the Nikolayevsk Front of the Red Army
1920Commander of the Okhotsk Front of the Far Eastern Republic’s People’s Revolutionary Army
Russian imperial field marshal and generalissimo, the 'Russian Hannibal'
In the 1799 Italian and Swiss expedition of the War of the Second Coalition he commanded the Austro-Russian army, drove the French from Italy and was made generalissimo. France nevertheless won in Switzerland and the campaign's aim was not achieved.
A Russian imperial general and military theorist, field marshal in 1794 and generalissimo in 1799. He suppressed Pugachev's Rebellion and the Kościuszko Uprising and took part in the annexation of Crimea and the Kuban, and was undefeated in major engagements. His birth in 1729 or 1730 remains unsettled; he died of illness in Saint Petersburg on 18 May 1800.
Red Army division commander who raised the "Red Army of Truth" against grain requisitioning in 1920
From a peasant family of Novouzensk district, Samara province, he fought in the First World War and returned to Novouzensk in 1917 as a second lieutenant, becoming the first chairman of the district soviet. A Left Socialist Revolutionary, after the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion he called himself a communist without joining the party. As commander of the Red Army's 22nd Division he held Uralsk through an 80-day siege in 1919, but was removed from the front "for inept command and a corrupting policy". In 1920, while forming the 9th Cavalry Division, he learned of his dismissal and on 14 July renamed the division the "1st Red Army of Truth" and rose in revolt. He was killed by a pursuing detachment near the aul of Koim on 6 September 1920.
Career timeline
1917First chairman of the Novouzensk district soviet
1918Member of the Samara provincial revolutionary committee; organised Red Guard units
1919Commander of the Red Army 22nd Division; 80-day defence of Uralsk
1920Formed the 9th Cavalry Division; in July led the "1st Red Army of Truth" revolt
Peasant-born officer who commanded the United Partisan Army of Tambov and chaired the Union of Working Peasantry
Born in the village of Inokovka in Kirsanov district, Tambov province, he was conscripted in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War and stayed on for extended service in St Petersburg. In the First World War he fought in Galicia, winning the full set of four St George Crosses and four St George Medals; he was commissioned in 1915 and made lieutenant in 1917. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk he returned home, worked in the local militia and in 1918 formed a partisan detachment. In June 1920 he took command of the 2nd Insurgent Army and in November of the United Partisan Army of the Tambov region, while also chairing the Union of Working Peasantry. The Russian-language source says he was killed in a clash near the village of Bogoslovka on 28 February 1921; the English-language source places his death around June 1921.
Career timeline
1904Conscripted during the Russo-Japanese War; extended service
1915Commissioned as an officer
1917Lieutenant
1918Formed a partisan detachment at Inokovka
1920Commander of the 2nd Insurgent Army (June); commander of the United Partisan Army of Tambov and chairman of the Union of Working Peasantry (November)
