Valentin Andreyevich Trifonov (Russian: Валентин Андреевич Трифонов; 8 September 1888 – 15 March 1938) was a

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

activist,

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

politician and one of the leaders of

Cossack The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Eastern Christian people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia. Cossacks played an important role in defending the southern borders of Ukraine and Rus ...

revolutionary forces who played a major role in establishment of

rule in the

Don Voisko Province Don Host Oblast was a province (''oblast'') of the Russian Empire which consisted of the territory of the Don Cossacks, coinciding approximately with present-day Rostov Oblast in Russia. Its administrative center was Cherkassk, and later Novoch ...

. His son

Yury Trifonov Yury Valentinovich Trifonov (; 28 August 1925 – 28 March 1981) was a leading representative of the so-called Soviet "Urban Prose". He was considered a close contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. Childhood and family Trifonov w ...

became one of the most popular Soviet writers. Born into a

family, Trifonov joined the Bolshevik faction of the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

in 1904 and participated in the

Russian Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...

. He was many times arrested by tsarist authorities and exiled to

katorga Katorga (, ; from medieval and modern ; and Ottoman Turkish: , ) was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (see Katorga labor in the Soviet Union). Prisoners were sent to remote penal colonies in vast uninhabited a ...

. Prior to the

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 ...

, he served as a secretary of the Bolshevik faction in the

Petrograd Soviet The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (, ''Petrogradsky soviet rabochih i soldatskikh deputatov'') was a city council of Petrograd (Saint Petersburg), the capital of Russia at the time. For brevity, it is usually called the Pet ...

. Trifonov was prominent in formation of 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 ...

, especially in the Ural regions. During 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 ...

, he led the Don Expeditionary Corps and was the first Chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Don. In 1919 he commanded the South-Eastern Front operating against

Anton Denikin Anton Ivanovich Denikin (, ; – 7 August 1947) was a Russian military leader who served as the Supreme Ruler of Russia, acting supreme ruler of the Russian State and the commander-in-chief of the White movement–aligned armed forces of Sout ...

. In 1920 and 1921 he was in command of the Caucasian Front of the

. When the war was over, Trifonov presided over the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court. His vital services to the Communist Party did not save him from being arrested and executed during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

; His wife, his daughter and his son (the future writer

) survived him. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955. Trifonov notably shares a name with the character of "Valentin Trifonov" in the film

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

. They are not the same person.

Cited literature

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trifonov, Valentin 1888 births 1938 deaths Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Don Cossacks Great Purge victims from Russia Old Bolsheviks Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Russian military leaders Russian revolutionaries Soviet rehabilitations Trade Representative of the Soviet Union