Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Uborevich joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in March 1917, and following the October Revolution, became an organizer of Red Guards detachments in Bessarabia, where he was wounded, captured, and imprisoned by forces of the Austro-German intervention in March 1918. He escaped in August of that year, joined the Red Army, and became an artillery instructor and commander of the Dvinsk Brigade on the Northern Front. From December 1918, he was commander of the 18th Rifle Division of the 6th Red Army. Catching the eye of his superiors, he then rose to numerous command positions: commander of the 14th Red Army of the Southern Front and the South-West Front (6 October 1919–24 February 1920, 17 April–7 July 1920, and 15 November–15 December 1920); commander of the 9th Kuban Army of the Southern Front (1 March–5 April 1920); commander of the 13th Red Army of the Southern Front (10 July–11 November 1920); and commander of the 5th Red Army of the Eastern Front (27 August 1921–14 August 1922). Apart from action against the Whites and the Poles, he also participated in the suppression of the forces of Nestor Makhno and S. Bułak-Bałachowicz and was assistant to M. N. Tukhachevskii in the crushing of the Tambov Rebellion in 1921–1922, before being named minister of war of the Far Eastern Republic and commander in chief of its People’s-Revolutionary Army (17 August–22 November 1922). In the latter capacity, he was responsible for overseeing the storming of Spassk (9 October 1922) and the capture of Vladivostok (25 october 1922), and ultimately, the expulsion from the Maritime Province of the last significant White force on Russian territory, the Zemstvo Host of General M. K. Diterikhs. He was also a member of the Dal′biuro of the Russian Communist Party (August–November 1922).

After the civil wars, Uborevich was a member of VTsIK from 1922 and was then, successively, commander of a series of military districts: Urals (June 1924–January 1925); North Caucasus (January 1925–1927); Moscow (1928–18 November 1929); Belorussia (April 1931–20 May 1937); and Central Asia (20–29 May 1937). He was also was sent twice to study in the Supreme Military Academy of the German General Staff (1927–1928 and June 1933), and from 2 June 1930 to 11 June 1931 was a member of the Revvoensovet of the USSR. He also served as chief of armaments of the Red Army (November 1929–April 1931). From 1931 to 1937, he was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and from 1934 he was a member of the Military Council of the People’s Commissariat for Defense of the USSR.

As a vocal critic of the invidious role in the Soviet military played by J. V. Stalin’s crony K. E. Voroshilov, Uborevich was arrested on 29 May 1937, and along with Tukhachevskii, A. I. Kork, and others, was arraigned in the “Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization” on 11 June 1937. Found guilty of espionage and sabotage by the (secret) military tribunal, he was condemned to death and shot the same day. He was posthumously rehabilitated by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on 31 January 1957.

UDOVICHENKO, OLEKSANDR IVANOVICH (20 February 1887–19 April 1975). Staff captain (November 1917), coronet general (Ukrainian Army, 5 October 1920). The Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Udovichenko was born into a noble family at Cherkassk (Livensk uezd, Orov guberniia). His father was a sublieutenant in the Russian Army. He graduated from the Military-Technical School (1908) and served with the Topographic Corps of the Russian Army. During the First World War, he served with the 129th Bessarabian Regiment, and in 1917, completed an accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff, before becoming a senior adjutant on the staff of the 21st Infantry Regiment and then a senior adjutant on the staff of the 3rd Caucasian Corps. When the latter unit was Ukrainized, in August 1917, Udovichenko became its commander, but he was forced out of his post by revolutionary soldiers.