File:Portrait of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko by Yury Annenkov (1923) (14335821262).jpg

Boris Souvarine Papers - Soviet Russia Photos graduateinstitute.ch/home/research/library/archives/boris...

Notes: This picture is a photographic reproduction of a portrait made by Yury Annenkov of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko (1883-1938). Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko was a Bolshevik leader and diplomat.

Initially Menshevik, he became a Bolshevik in May 1917 and led the storming of the Winter Palace in the October Revolution. As the Commander of the Red Army on the Ukrainian front during the Civil War, he supervised the operations that led to the crushing of the nationalist troops and the White Army, which entailed the creation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. He then put down the insurrection of Tambov, Russia, probably with the use of chemical weapons (1920-1921). In 1922, he was appointed to head of the political direction of the Red Army.

As a supporter of Trotsky, he was considered as an opponent by Stalin from 1924. Stalin pulled him away from central power, in spite of Antonov-Ovseenko’s rallying in 1928, and sent him on diplomatic mission in Czechoslovakia, Lithuania and Poland until 1934. The same year, Antonov-Ovseenko became the Russian SFSR's chief prosecutor, and then made special Soviet consul in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-1937. Appointed by Stalin People's Commissar for Justice of the Russian SFSR in September 1937, he was arrested and executed in February 1938, during the Great Purge.

To find out more about Yury Annenkov, please see the photo entitled "Portrait of Lenin by Yuri Annenkov, Moscow (1921)".

Description: 1 reproduction of picture. Black and white ; 22.5 x 20.5 cm.

Sources and further reading: Liebich, Andre. 1997. From the Other Shore: Russian Social Democracy after 1921. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.