Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

As part of the campaign to undermine Trotsky, to whom Sklianskii had remained very close, in March–April 1924 he was removed from all his military responsibilities, on the initiative of J. V. Stalin (of whose competence during the civil-war period Sklianskii had been sharply critical), and was assigned to VSNKh as chairman of the Mossukno textile trust. During a visit to the United States in 1925, he drowned while canoeing at Long Lake, New York. Suspicions remain that Sklianskii was killed on Stalin’s orders, but no definite proof has emerged and it is most likely that he died accidentally, as a result of bad weather. He was buried on 25 September 1925, at Moscow’s Novodevich′e cemetery.

SKOBEL′TSYN, VLADIMIR STEPANOVICH (12 March 1872–4 January 1944). Major general (19 October 1914), lieutenant general (191?) One of the most prominent and effective leaders of the anti-Bolshevik forces in North Russia, V. S. Skobel′tsyn was born into a noble family in Kursk guberniia. He was a graduate of the Orlov Cadet Corps (1890), the 1st Pavlovsk Military School (1892), and the Academy of the General Staff (1899), and was a member of the Moscow Life Guards Regiment. After numerous staff appointments and a period as head of the Pavlovsk Military School (6 January 1907–12 February 1910), in the course of the First World War he rose to the post of chief of staff of the 17th Army Corps (4 December 1915–6 March 1917) and participated in the Brusilov Offensive. After the February Revolution, he served as commander of the 2nd Turkestan Rifle Division (6 March–12 April 1917), commander of the 1st Finnish Rifle Division (12 April–18 July 1917), and then assistant commander of the Northern Front.

Following the October Revolution, Skobel′tsyn served briefly in the Hetmanite Army in Ukraine and then fled to Finland, where he remained until returning to join the White movement in 1919. As commander of the Olonets Volunteer Army from June 1919, he directed its operations against Red Army positions in the region of Petropavlovsk. In February 1920, with the evacuation of much of the rest of the White Northern Army from Arkhangel′sk and Murmansk, Skobel′tsyn led his men across the border into Finland. From 1921, he lived in emigration in France; he died at Pau, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

Skoblin, Nikolai Vladimirovich (1885–October 1937?). Staff captain (1917), colonel (November 1918), major general (26 March 1920). For a while a lauded White hero of the civil wars, by virtue of his command of the fabled Kornilovtsy, N. V. Skoblin later came to be remembered more widely as an agent of the Soviet secret services who committed the basest betrayal of his émigré comrades. Born into the nobility of Chernigov guberniia, he was a graduate of Chugunsk Military School (1914) and served during the First World War with the 126th Ryl′sk Infantry regiment. Following the February Revolution, he was selected to command the 2nd Battalion of the Kornilov Shock Regiment (May–November 1917).

An early recruit to the Volunteer Army, during the civil wars in South Russia Skoblin commanded a battalion (December 1917–November 1918), then the Kornilov Regiment (November 1918–September 1919), then the 2nd Brigade (September–October 1919), and finally, the Kornilov Division (16 October 1919–25 October 1920). He was then placed on the reserve list. In November 1920, he was evacuated from Crimea to the camps of Gallipoli and he subsequently lived, in emigration, in the Balkans and France.