Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

A firm and vocal opponent of the October Revolution, Zhardetskii helped organize immediate opposition to the Soviet regime, in the shape of an uprising by officer cadets at Omsk on 30 October–2 November 1917. When that uprising was crushed by Red Guards, he went into hiding, but was arrested by the Soviet authorities on 24 November 1917 and imprisoned at Tomsk, an experience that, according to some accounts, unbalanced him. Freed in either April or June 1918 (sources differ), during the Democratic Counter-Revolution in Siberia Zhardetskii became a leading advocate of a provisional military dictatorship to lead the struggle against Bolshevism and was party to the plots that led to the Omsk coup of 18 November 1918. However, he subsequently refused all invitations to join the Omsk government of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, preferring to exert influence from the outside, as a trusted, unofficial advisor to the supreme ruler (and as, from 18 November 1918, deputy chairman of the Eastern Section of the Kadet Central Committee). One of the ideologues of the Kolchak regime, Zhardetskii was a member of the State Economic Conference. He retreated to Irkutsk in late 1919, with the evacuated government of Kolchak. There, during the anti-Kolchak uprising of December 1919, he was arrested by the forces of the Political Center and so, ultimately, fell into the hands of the Soviet authorities. He was subsequently executed at Omsk by the local Cheka.

ZHDANOV, NIKOLAI ALEKSANDROVICH (21 December 1867–?). Colonel (6 December 1911), major general (6 December 1916). The Red military commander N. A. Zhdanov was a graduate of the Orlov Bakhtin Cadet Corps, the 3rd Alexander Military School (1889), and the Academy of the General Staff (1903). He entered military service on 29 August 1887; was a participant in the Russo–Japanese War as a staff officer with the 1st Cavalry Corps (18 January–19 May 1905) and the 19th Army Corps (19 May 1905–17 March 1906); and during the First World War was commander of the 23rd Infantry Regiment (from 8 March 1915), chief of staff of the 65th Infantry Division (from 1 July 1916), and chief of staff of the 121st Infantry Division (from July 1917).

After a period in the Hetmanite Army of the Ukrainian State (from May 1918), Zhdanov volunteered for service in the Red Army and subsequently served briefly as commander of the 12th Red Army (14 February–13 March 1919). His fate thereafter is unknown.

Zhelezniakov, Anatolii grigor′evich (20 April 1895–26 July 1919). An active participant in the October Revolution and a much-lauded Soviet hero of the civil wars, despite his adherence to anarchism, A. G. Zhelezniakov (or “Sailor Zhelezniak,” as he became popularly and affectionately known) was born into a lower middle-class family in the village of Fedoskino, in Moscow guberniia. He entered the Lefortovo Feldscher School, but soon left to work as a stoker in a merchant fleet and then as a locksmith. He was mobilized in October 1915 and became a sailor in the Baltic Fleet, but was soon arrested for revolutionary agitation. In June 1916, Zhelezniakov managed to escape arrest, deserted, and until 1917, worked on trading vessels on the Black Sea under an assumed name. Following the amnesty announced in the aftermath of the February Revolution, he returned to the Baltic Fleet and was based at Kronshtadt. There, he became a prominent proponent of anarchism and refused to recognize the authority of the Russian Provisional Government. In June 1917, he was arrested (and relieved of four bombs he was carrying) in a battle with government forces over the anarchists’ seizure of the Durnovo villa in Petrograd. He was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment, but soon managed to escape and was subsequently elected to Tsentrobalt.