Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Following the October Revolution, Sokol′nikov oversaw the nationalization of Russia’s banks. During the civil-war period, he also occupied numerous important governmental and military posts, including chairing the Soviet delegation to the negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918). He was also a member of the presidium of VSNKh (May–June 1918); was a member of the Revvoensovets of the 2nd Red Army (19 September 1918–16 July 1919), the Southern Front (1 December 1918–25 August 1919), and the 9th Red Army (4 December 1918–6 January 1919); and commanded the 8th Red Army (12 October 1919–20 March 1920), in that last role overseeing the key battles around Rostov-on-Don and Novocherkassk that shattered the Armed Forces of South Russia. He was then moved to Central Asia, to combat the Basmachi, as commander of the Turkestan Front (10 September 1920–8 March 1921) and chairman of both the Soviet government’s Turkestan Commission (1920–16 August 1922) and the Turkbiuro of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1920–March 1921).

In the course of the civil wars, Sokol′nikov proved himself to be a brilliant organizer, was an outspoken supporter of L. D. Trotsky’s efforts to make the Red Army into a regular army, was an active supporter of the Cossacks and critic of the policy of de-Cossackization (e.g., attempting but failing to save the life of F. K. Mironov), and demonstrated that he had a nose for potential and actual deserters to the Whites. As the civil wars wound down, Sokol′nikov was mostly involved in financial work, serving as first deputy people’s commissar for finance of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (January–22 November 1922) and then as full commissar (22 November 1922–16 January 1926, from 6 July 1923 of the USSR). Being associated with the group of oppositionists around Trotsky, his star then waned. Despite denouncing Trotsky in 1927, thereafter Sokol′nikov was placed in posts of only secondary importance (including ambassador to Great Britain, 16 November 1929–15 October 1932). He was expelled from the party and arrested on 26 July 1936; on 30 January 1937, having been found guilty of membership in a counterrevolutionary organization (the fictional “Parallel Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Center”) by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. He died in captivity, according to some reports at Verkhneural′sk; according to the official version, at the hands of other prisoners. Since investigations undertaken in the 1950s, however, suspicions have been strong that (like Karl Radek, two days earlier) Sokol′nikov was murdered by the NKVD on the direct orders of J. V. Stalin. He was posthumously rehabilitated on 16 December 1988. Sokol′nikov was the author of numerous scholarly works, some of which have been republished, including his three-volume Finansovaia politka revoliutsii (“The Financial Policy of the Revolution,” 1925–1928), reissued in Moscow in 2006.

SOKOLOV, ALEKSANDR PETROVICH (1895–17 December 1931). Lieutenant (1917). A Red commander who was chiefly active in Central Asia during the civil wars, A. P. Sokolov graduated from a military school in 1916 and rose to the rank of lieutenant in the First World War. He joined the Red Army in April 1918, and from August of that year commanded the Moscow Partisan Detachment. From September 1918, he commanded the 1st Battle Group on the Ashkhabad Front. He was then named commander of the Transcaspian Front of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (17 May–6 August 1919) and subsequently became commander of its Ferghana Front (16 September–16 November 1919). He then commanded the Kazan′ Independent Regiment and, in 1920, was made chief of staff of the Matchinsk Army Group in Ferghana. He was subsequently involved in military educational work. Sokolov joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1919 and was a member of the Central Asian Bureau of the party Central Committee. He was killed in battle with the Basmachi in 1931.