Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Commanders of the 13th Red Army were I. S. Kozhevnikov (6 March–16 April 1919); A. I. Gekker (16 April 1919–18 February 1920); I. Kh. Pauka (18 February–5 June 1920); R. P. Eideman (5 June–10 July 1920); and I. P. Uborevich (10 July–11 November 1920). Its chiefs of staff were A. A. Dushkevich (6 March–3 July 1919); A. M. Zaionchkovskii (acting, 3 July 1919–26 February 1920); M. A. Orlov (acting, 22 February–20 June 1920); M. I. Alafuzo (20 June–13 October 1920); and F. P. Tokarev (13 October–12 November 1920).

Tikhmenev, Nikolai Mikhailovich (27 March 1872–12 June 1954). Colonel (1907), major general (30 August 1914), lieutenant general (8 February 1917). One of the chief military administrators of the White forces in South Russia, N. M. Tikhmenev was born at Rybinsk and was a graduate of the Moscow Infantry Officer School (1891) and the Academy of the General Staff (1897). After his graduation from the academy, he occupied a number of staff positions and saw action during the Russian expedition into China (1900–1901) and in the Russo–Japanese War. During the First World War, he served as assistant to the head of military communications at the stavka of the main commander in chief (from 5 October 1915) and, from 8 February 1917, was chief of military communications for the entire theater of military operations. Suspected by the Provisional Government of involvement in the Kornilov affair, he was placed on reserve from 10 September 1917.

Tikhmenev joined the Volunteer Army early in 1918 and was a close advisor of General A. I. Denikin following the formation of the Armed Forces of South Russia, working as chief of military communications on Denikin’s staff and overseeing the restoration of the railways in the rear of the army. He was also a member of Denikin’s Special Council. In emigration, he settled in France and was for many years chairman of the Union of Remembrance of Emperor Nicholas II, as well as serving in the Russian Orthodox Church administration in Paris. He is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, Paris.

Tikhon, Patriarch (BelLavin, Vasilii Ivanovich) (19 January 1865–7 April 1925). The head of the Russian Orthodox Church during the civil wars, Tikhon was born into the family of a provincial clergyman and educated at the Pskov Seminary. He was awarded a degree in theology from the St. Petersburg Academy in 1888, took monastic vows in 1891, and was made a bishop in 1898, then was assigned to the Orthodox diocese in Alaska. During his nine years in North America, he drafted a model parish statute, which was to be adopted by the All-Russian Sobor′ of the Orthodox Church of 1917 to 1918. Following the February Revolution, he was one of the first bishops to be elected to a diocese (Moscow) by a diocesan assembly, and on 5 November 1917, he was elected to the newly restored Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church (which had been abolished by Peter the Great in 1701).

During the civil wars, Tikhon refused to offer public support for the Whites, hoping to keep the church out of the struggle, but on 1 February 1918, he anathematized the Bolsheviks for their use of violence and terror and later openly condemned the execution of the Romanov family. In turn, he was gravely persecuted under the Soviet regime and spent more than a year in captivity, without trial, at the Donskoi Monastery (May 1922–June 1923). In 1923, despite issuing a surprise statement declaring the cessation of his hostility to the Soviet state, he was proclaimed deposed by a council of the state-controlled “Living Church”; two years later, he suddenly died. It is widely believed that Tikhon was poisoned at the hands of the Soviet security services (having already survived two attempts on his life). In 1981, he was canonized by the émigré Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and in 1989 this was confirmed by a Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Tikhon’s remains rest in a reliquary in the main cathedral (Katholikon) of the Donskoi Monastery, in Moscow.