A lawyer-statesman who held White Siberia together through compromise
He told Kolchak that the government’s authority, and Kolchak’s own, was falling with every passing hour.
Pyotr Vologodsky was a lawyer and statesman shaped by Siberian regionalism and the Socialist Revolutionary movement, advocating local self-government and legal reform before 1917. In 1918 he led Siberia’s anti-Bolshevik government and managed compromises among right-wing, socialist, and regionalist forces. He remained head of government after Kolchak’s seizure of power, criticized the crisis produced by military arbitrariness and administrative weakness, and resigned in 1919 before emigrating to China.
Career timeline
1887–1897Clerk, judge, and assistant prosecutor in Siberian judicial institutions
1897–1917Tomsk attorney and member of the city duma
1902–1907Leader in Tomsk Socialist Revolutionary organization and Siberian regionalism
1917Tomsk provincial commissar and senior chairman of the Omsk court chamber
1918.01–06Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia
1918.06–11Chairman of the Provisional Siberian Government
1918.11–1919.11Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Government
1920–1925Exile in China, working in legal and émigré affairs
Russian anarchist intellectual who theorized anarchist synthesis and chronicled the revolution the Bolsheviks suppressed
In Golos Truda, 1917: 'Once their power has been consolidated and legalized, the Bolsheviks… will start running the life of the country and of the people from the top. They will develop an authoritarian political and state apparatus that will crush all opposition with an iron fist.'
Russian anarchist intellectual and leading theorist of the Makhnovshchina. Editor of Golos Truda in Petrograd, co-founder of the Nabat Confederation in Ukraine, and chairman of the Makhnovist Military Revolutionary Council, he developed the theory of anarchist synthesis to unite communist, individualist, and syndicalist anarchists. After exile from Soviet Russia in 1922, he wrote The Unknown Revolution, the definitive anarchist history of 1917–1921, and opposed the Platformist centralization pushed by his comrade Makhno.
Career timeline
1904Drops out of St. Petersburg University law faculty; joins Socialist Revolutionary Party; organizes workers' study groups
1905Participates in Bloody Sunday march and helps form the St. Petersburg Soviet; imprisoned at Peter and Paul Fortress
1907Arrested by Okhrana, deported to Siberia; escapes and flees to France
1911Becomes anarchist under Apollon Karelin's influence; joins Brotherhood of Free Communists in Paris
1915–1916Flees anti-war persecution in France to USA; edits Golos Truda in New York
1917Returns to Petrograd after February Revolution; relaunches Golos Truda as leading anarcho-syndicalist organ
1918–1920Co-founds Nabat Confederation in Ukraine; chairs Makhnovist Military Revolutionary Council; arrested twice by Cheka
1922Exiled from Soviet Russia after hunger strike and Profintern delegate intervention
1924–1939Moves to Paris at Sébastien Faure's invitation; contributes to Anarchist Encyclopedia; writes for anarchist periodicals in five languages
1940Completes The Unknown Revolution in Marseille while living in poverty
1945Dies of tuberculosis in Paris; buried at Père Lachaise near Nestor Makhno
Journalist and politician who, as vice-president and later president of Sfatul Țării, led the movement for Bessarabia’s union with Romania
Born to poor peasants in Cubolta, Bessarabia, in 1883, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and entered the University of Yuryev, but as a Socialist Revolutionary had to quit after the 1905 revolution. Sought by the Tsarist authorities after printing the hymn “Deșteaptă-te, române!”, he took refuge in Iași and studied there in 1908–1912. From 1913 he published the newspaper Cuvânt moldovenesc in Chișinău, writing unceasingly for union, and in 1917 he founded the Moldovan National Party. He was elected first vice-president, then president of Sfatul Țării. After 1918 he served as minister for Bessarabia and in other posts and joined the National Peasants’ Party; in 1924 he accused the Romanian government of turning Bessarabia into an “inferno”. Arrested in 1950, he was sentenced in the Soviet Union to 25 years’ hard labour, was held until 1957 and died in 1979.
Career timeline
1908–1912Studies at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, University of Iași
1913Launches the newspaper Cuvânt moldovenesc
1917Founds the Moldovan National Party
1917–1918Vice-president, then president of Sfatul Țării
1919–1920Romanian Minister and Secretary of State for Bessarabia
1927Romanian Minister of Public Works
1950–1957Arrest and imprisonment (Sighet, Soviet hard labour, Aiud)
Bessarabian politician who presided over Sfatul Țării and the Moldavian Democratic Republic and saw through its union with Romania
Born to a peasant family in Răzeni, Bessarabia, in 1884, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and Saint Petersburg University and worked as a physicist at the Meteorological Observatory. After the February Revolution he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and sat in the Petrograd Soviet, and Kerensky sent him to Bessarabia as the Provisional Government’s representative. At first he said Bessarabia should remain part of Russia, but as president of Sfatul Țării and of the Moldavian Democratic Republic he steered the vote for union with Romania in April 1918. After the union he became Minister of State for Bessarabia; in 1923 he took his wing of the Bessarabian Peasants’ Party into the National Liberal Party, and he later served as minister of health, of the interior and of communications and as vice-president of the Council of Ministers. He died of a heart attack in 1940.
Career timeline
1915Physicist at the Meteorological Observatory, Saint Petersburg
1917Member of the Petrograd Soviet (Socialist Revolutionary Party)
1917Assistant Government Commissioner of Bessarabia
1917–1918President of Sfatul Țării and of the Moldavian Democratic Republic
1918–1920Romanian Minister of State for Bessarabia
1927–1928Romanian Minister of Health and Social Protection
1933Romanian Minister of the Interior (Duca cabinet)
1936Vice-President of the Romanian Council of Ministers
Bessarabian Socialist Revolutionary who headed the first government of the Moldavian Democratic Republic and put land reform first
Born in Tănătari, Bessarabia, in 1884, he graduated from the Chișinău seminary and the Faculty of Letters in Saint Petersburg and taught. A Socialist Revolutionary, he returned to Bessarabia in 1917 with Inculeț at Kerensky’s urging and was elected chairman of the governorate peasants’ soviet and to the Russian Constituent Assembly. In December 1917 he became President of the Council of Directors General, the Moldavian Democratic Republic’s first government, and Director General for Agriculture, putting land reform first. His view that the republic should bear the majority people’s name prevailed; he put the entry of Romanian troops to a vote, yet protested their presence, fearing they would be used to block land reform. He voted for union but resigned amid charges of a pro-Russian stance, and later sat in the Romanian Senate. He fled to Bucharest in 1940 and died there in 1971.
Career timeline
1917Chairman of the Bessarabian Governorate Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies
1917Member of the Russian Constituent Assembly
1917–1918President of the Council of Directors General and Director General for Agriculture
Leader of the Bashkir national movement who proclaimed Bashkir autonomy, commanded the Bashkir Army and took it over to the Soviet side
Born in 1890 in Kuzyanovo, Ufa province, he taught Turkic history at the Qasimiya madrasa in Kazan. In 1917 he joined the Socialist Revolutionaries and was elected to the Constituent Assembly; with Sharif Manatov he organised the Bashkir Central Shuro, proclaimed Bashkir autonomy and became commander of the Bashkir Army. Arrested by the Bolsheviks in February 1918 and freed in April, he fought alongside Dutov and Kolchak, but in February 1919 took his troops over to the Soviet side. He became chairman of the Bashrevkom in 1920, resigned in June in protest at the curtailing of autonomy and led the Basmachi movement in Turkestan. He emigrated in 1923, became a Turkish citizen in 1925, a professor at Istanbul University and a doctor of the University of Vienna, and died in Istanbul in 1970.
Career timeline
1909–1915Teacher at the Qasimiya madrasa in Kazan
1915–1917Bureau supporting the Muslim deputies of the State Duma
1917–1919Deputy chairman of the Bashkir Central Shuro; commander of the Bashkir Army
1919–1920Military commissar and deputy chairman of the Bashrevkom; chairman in 1920
1920–1923Leader of the Basmachi movement in Turkestan
