Mikhail Stepanovich Svechnikov (; 30 September 1882 – 26 August 1938) was a Russian military officer in the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

and the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. He is best known as one of the military leaders of the

Red Guards The Red Guards () were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolition in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a ...

during the

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in Finland in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of the country between Whites (Finland), White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Red Finland) during the country's transition fr ...

Career

After his service in the Imperial Russian Army, Svechnikov took part at the 1917

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

.Свечников Михаил Степанович (Черушевы, 2014)
(in Russian). Расстрелянное поколение. Retrieved 8 July 2015. During the 1918 Finnish Civil War he worked as a military advisor for the Red Guards. In February 1918, Svechnikov was shortly the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front, replaced then by Hugo Salmela. He was the highest ranked Russian officer who joined the Finnish Red Guards.″Suomen itsenäistymisen kronikka″, Gummerus, 1992. . As the Finnish Civil War was over, Svechnikov fought in the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

, in which he led the Caspian-Caucasian Front in the unsuccessful Northern Caucasus Operation (1918–1919). Since 1922 he worked as a military lecturer. In 1934 Svechnikov was transferred to the

Frunze Military Academy The M. V. Frunze Military Academy (), or in full the Military Order of Lenin and the October Revolution, Red Banner, Order of Suvorov Academy in the name of M. V. Frunze (), was a military academy of the Soviet and later the Russian Armed Forces ...

. He was arrested in 1937, accused on "Fascist conspiracy", and later executed at the

Kommunarka shooting ground The Kommunarka firing range (), former dacha of secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, was used as a burial ground from 1937 to 1941. Executions may have been carried out there by the NKVD during the Great Terror and until the war started; altern ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. Svechnikov was rehabilitated after

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

's death in 1956.

References

1882 births 1938 deaths People from Serafimovichsky District People from Don Host Oblast Imperial Russian Army personnel Russian military personnel of the Boxer Rebellion Russian military personnel of the Russo-Japanese War Russian military personnel of World War I Russian revolutionaries People of the Finnish Civil War (Red side) People of the Russian Civil War People executed for treason against the Soviet Union Great Purge victims from Russia Soviet kombrigs Russian expatriates in Finland {{Russia-mil-bio-stub