Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Sholokhov joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1932, and in 1937 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. In 1961, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was made an Academician of the USSR’s Academy of Sciences in 1939, and was twice awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (among innumerable other honors). In the 1950s and 1960s, Sholokhov became a vocal critic of dissident writers. He died of cancer at his home village in 1984, having rejected treatment in the Kremlin hospital, and was buried on the banks of the Don, at Veshenskaia. Statues of him stand next to the Don in Rostov-on-Don and on Gogol′ Prospekt in Moscow. In his honor, Asteroid 2448 is called “Sholokhov,” as is Moscow’s State University of the Humanities. There have been many film and television adaptations of his works, including Tikhii Don (1931, dir. Ivan Pravov) and Tikhii Don (1957–1958, dir. Sergei Gerasimov). A seven-part English-language version of And Quiet Flows the Don, from the Sholokhov novel, was directed by the famous Soviet-era director S. F. Bondarchuk, chiefly in 1992; following his death in 1994, the stock was impounded by the film’s financiers until 2006, when, with legal wrangles having been settled, it was edited and completed by the director’s son, F. S. Bondarchuk. The result was less than impressive.

SHORIN, VASILII IVANOVICH (26 December 1870–28 June 1938). Lieutenant colonel (June 1915), colonel (1917). One of the most active of the military specialists employed by the Red forces, V. I. Shorin was born at Kaliazin, Tver′ guberniia, into the family of a tradesman and was a graduate of the Kazan′ Officers School (1892) and the Officers’ Riflemen School. He saw action in the Russo–Japanese War, as commander of a company, and rose to the command of the 333rd (Glazov) Infantry Regiment in the First World War (from June 1915). Following the October Revolution, he remained in the army and was elected as commander of the 26th Infantry Division by its soldiers’ committee.

Shorin joined the Red Army, as a volunteer, at Viatka, in September 1918, and thereafter played a significant role in reorganizing Red forces on the Eastern Front; as commander of the 2nd Red Army (28 September 1918–16 July 1919), he oversaw operations to clear White forces from the Volga–Kama region, in particular combating the Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising. In May–June 1919, he also commanded the Northern Group of forces on the Eastern Front (combining the 2nd Red Army and the 3rd Red Army) in the attacks on Perm′ and Ekaterinburg. From July 1919, he commanded a Special (“Striking”) Group of forces (combining the 9th Red Army, the 10th Red Army, and later, the 11th Red Army) on the eastern (Volga) flank of the Southern Front (reorganized from 27 September 1919 to 16 January 1920 as the South-East Front), in the key operations against the Armed Forces of South Russia. Having thereby played a major role in the defeat of the forces of General A. I. Denikin, Shorin was then briefly made commander of the Caucasian Front (16–24 January 1920), before assuming senior positions as assistant commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic (February–April 1920), commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic for Siberia (April 1920–November 1921), and assistant commander of the Armed Forces of the Republic (November 1921–January 1922). In these roles, he was active in Siberia, commanding operations to suppress peasant risings (the Western Siberian Uprising) and against the forces of R. F. Ungern von Sternberg. From 11 February to 18 October 1922, he commanded the Turkestan Front in the fighting against the Basmachi (in particular, overseeing operations against Enver Pasha), before becoming assistant commander of Leningrad Military District (1923–1925). Shorin then went into retirement, but remained active as head of Osoaviakhim (the Society for Assistance of Defense, Aviation and Chemical Construction). His fate remains obscure: according to some sources, he was shot in 1938; according to others, he died in prison in Leningrad before his trial. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956, and in 1962 a street in Kaliazin was named after him.

shtegeman, Mikhail Aleksandrovich.See Vedeniapin (shtegeman), Mikhail Aleksandrovich.