Lenin’s oldest friend and most principled adversary
In 1918 Martov published an exposé revealing that Stalin had been expelled from the party in 1907. Stalin sued him for libel, and the revolutionary tribunal sentenced Martov to 'public censure.'
He built Iskra alongside Lenin, then split with him in 1903 over a single clause on party membership and led the Mensheviks. After October he stayed, fighting to keep a legal opposition alive, and in 1920 was permitted to leave. He died of tuberculosis in Berlin. It is told that the dying Lenin asked after him.
Career timeline
1895Co-founds the Petersburg League of Struggle with Lenin
1900–1903On Iskra; leads the Mensheviks after the split
1914–1917Anti-war internationalist
1917–1920Leads the Menshevik Internationalists; tries legal opposition
“Father of Soviet operational art”: architect of deep operations doctrine
“In military affairs, literally nothing failed to interest him. Triandafillov was invariably full of cheer, energy, and creative enthusiasm.” — Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, The Cause of My Whole Life (1975)
A Pontic Greek born in Kars Oblast, he rose from tsarist staff-captain to Deputy Chief of the Red Army Staff. His two seminal works (1926, 1929) established 'operational art' as a distinct domain between strategy and tactics and laid the theoretical foundations for deep operations doctrine. His vision shaped the Red Army's interwar doctrinal reforms and became the doctrinal basis for Soviet victory in WWII. Killed in an air crash on duty in 1931 at thirty-seven, his ashes rest in the Kremlin Wall.
Career timeline
1914–1917Conscripted; Moscow Praporshchik School; company and battalion commander, 6th Finnish Rifle Regt; staff-captain
1917–1918Elected by soldiers as regimental then 7th Army commander; outlawed by Kerensky and Petlyura
1918–1923Joined Red Army; brigade commander in Civil War; graduated Military Academy with distinction
1924–1928Head of First (Operational) Dept, then Operational Directorate, Red Army Staff — Frunze's pick
1926The Scale of Operations of Modern Armies — foundational text of operational art
1928–1931Deputy Chief of Staff, Red Army (commanded 2nd Rifle Corps 1929–30)
1929The Nature of the Operations of Modern Armies — definitive deep operations theory
1931Killed in air crash on duty; ashes interred in Kremlin Wall
The investigator who became Armenia's security minister at thirty-one
Extracting a confession from poet Titian Tabidze in 1937, Krimyan recorded his sole co-conspirator: 17th-century folk hero Saakadze — a name every Georgian knew except the interrogator.
Born into a working-class family in Kars in 1913, Krimyan entered the security organs at eighteen as a trainee with the Transcaucasian GPU. He rose fast inside the Georgian NKVD in Tbilisi during the Great Terror, becoming chief of its Investigative Department, and led the 1937 investigation of Ivan Orakhelashvili. Appointed Armenia's Minister of State Security in 1945 at just thirty-one, he was removed in 1947 for 'un-party behavior' and demoted to Ulyanovsk. Dismissed from the organs entirely in 1951 over illegal arrests and interrogation methods, he was swept up after Beria's fall, tried at Tbilisi, and shot in 1955.
Career timeline
1932–1935Trainee in the Economic Department of the Transcaucasian GPU, then authorized officer
1935–1937Senior operative, then assistant section chief, UGB NKVD of the Georgian SSR
1937–1938Section chief, UGB NKVD of the Georgian SSR
1938–1940Deputy chief, then chief, of the Investigative Department, NKVD of the Georgian SSR
1940–1941Deputy chief of the NKVD Administration for Lvov Oblast
1941–1943Deputy chief of the NKGB and NKVD Administration for Yaroslavl Oblast
1943–1945Chief of the NKGB Administration for Yaroslavl Oblast
1945–1947People's Commissar, then Minister, of State Security of the Armenian SSR
1947–1950Chief of the MGB Administration for Ulyanovsk Oblast
1951–1953Head of the personnel department, Ministry of Food Industry of the Armenian SSR
