People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity
Any Military command 1
Affiliation

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1 Soviet Union state institutions 1

All 2 affiliations

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1 Soviet Union state institutions 1
Position
Any Marxism and communism 1
Citizenship
Any Soviet Union 1
Background(set)
Any Russia 328 Ukraine 34 Belarus 18 Georgia 15 Latvia 11 Poland 11 Armenia 10 Lithuania 7 Germany 5 Azerbaijan 4 Estonia 3 Turkey 2 Czechia 1 France 1 Hungary 1 Japan 1 Korea 1 Moldova 1 Uzbekistan 1
Era(set)
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The revolutionary generation1917–1940 4 People of the Stalin era1929–1953 1 People of the thaw and the stagnation1953–1985 1 The last generation1985–1991 3

People of the wider world

The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 4
Background: Moldova People of the Stalin era 1929–1953 Clear all

Iona Emmanuilovich Yakir

Иона Эммануилович Якир
Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism Soviet Union Moldova 1896–1937 ✕ Executed

Civil War hero who turned the Kiev Military District into a laboratory for reform

After his arrest, he wrote to Stalin: 'I will die with words of love for you and the Party.' Stalin scrawled in the margin: 'Rascal and prostitute.' Voroshilov added: 'A perfectly accurate definition.'

Born to a Jewish pharmacist in Kishinev, he studied chemistry in Basel due to tsarist quotas. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 and became a legendary Civil War commander through a 400-km breakout from Odessa to Zhitomir through enemy lines. As commander of the Kiev Military District he drove military reform (mechanized and airborne experiments, deep-operations doctrine) and became Komandarm 1st rank in 1935. He was shot in 1937 in the Tukhachevsky case and rehabilitated in 1957.

Career timeline
  • 1917–1918Bessarabian Soviet executive committee; commands Red detachments against Romanian forces
  • 1918–1919Revolutionary Military Council of 8th Army; fights Krasnov's Cossacks on the Southern Front
  • 1919Commander, 45th Rifle Division and Southern Group — 400-km breakout Odessa to Zhitomir
  • 1921–1924Commands Crimean forces, Kiev Military District, deputy commander Ukraine & Crimea
  • 1924–1925Head of military academies; editor of Voennyi Vestnik
  • 1925–1935Commander, Ukrainian Military District — mechanized/airborne experiments; German staff training
  • 1935–1937Commander, Kiev Military District; Military Council member; Komandarm 1st rank
  • 1937Arrested in May; shot on 12 June
  • 1957Rehabilitated posthumously