Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Following the collapse of the White movement in Siberia in late 1919, Solov′ev returned home, but in early 1920 he was arrested by the Cheka. In July 1920, he escaped and joined a group of other fugitives in the taiga of southern Eniseisk guberniia, near the borders of the Uriankhai (Tuva) region. By mid-1922 the group, now under Solov′ev’s command, had grown to a strength of 500 and was engaged in battles against the Red special forces (ChON) sent against it. During one of these encounters, Solov′ev was killed, but various members of his group continued their resistance for at least the next two years. The film Konets imporator taigi (“The End of the Emperor of the Taiga,” dir. V. G. Sarukhanov, 1978), which focused on the part played in the pursuit of Solov′ev by ChON commander A. P. Golikov (the future novelist A. P. Gaidar), was intended to counter the popular songs and tales of Solov′ev’s exploits as a Robin Hood-like figure, which had for years suffused Siberian society.

Soltanğäliev, Mirsäyet Xäydärğäli ulı (Sultan-Galiev, Mirsaid) (13 July 1892–28 January 1940). A prominent proponent of Jadidism in the prewar era and the foremost Volga Tatar Communist of the revolutionary era, Mirsäyet Soltanğäliev was born into a family of impecunious teachers in the village of Kyrmyskaly (Karmaskaly), Ufa guberniia. Following the 1905 Revolution, he moved to Baku, but returned to Kazan′ to attend the Tatar Teachers’ College from 1907 (graduating in 1911). While working as a teacher, from 1912 he began publishing newspaper articles on Tatar affairs under various pseudonyms—“Sukhoi” (“The Dry One”), “Syn naroda” (“Son of the People”), “Uchitel′-tatarin” (“Teacher-Tatar”), and so forth—and was involved in the distribution of literature protesting the Russification of Muslim schools. He also translated many classics of Russian literature into Tatar. During the First World War, he moved to Baku, again working as a journalist and teacher, and was increasingly drawn away from Jadidism toward revolutionary socialism. Following the February Revolution, he was chosen as secretary of the All-Russian Muslim Congress at Moscow and was elected to the All-Russia Muslim Council created by it. In July 1917, he returned to the Volga region and, in collaboration with Mullanur Wakhitov, established the Muslim Socialist Committee at Kazan′, with a program close to that of the Bolsheviks.

Following the October Revolution, Soltanğäliev joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) and in February 1918 participated in the overthrow of the All-Russian Provisional National Council of Muslims at Kazan′ (the governing body of the Idel–Urals Republic). In December 1918, he became one of the three members of the governing Small Collegium within Sovnarkom’s People’s Commissariat for Nationalities and editor of its journal, Zhizn′ natsional′nostei (“Life of the Nationalities”). In January–February 1919, he was a key player in the negotiations with Ahmed Zeki Validov that led to the Bashkir forces’ deserting from the Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak to the Reds. From 1919 to 1921, he was also chairman of the Central Bureau of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East, attached to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), making him the most senior Muslim figure in early Soviet Russia.