Yakov Moiseevich Fishman (, 1887 - July 12, 1961), was a Russian revolutionary and politician, previously a leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party who participated in the assassination of the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach in 1918 and later, the anti-Bolshevik Left SR uprising. 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 joined the Russian Communist Party and played a key role in establishing the chemical and

biological Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...

warfare capabilities of the Soviet Union, becoming a member of the

All-Russian Central Executive Committee The All-Russian Central Executive Committee () was (June – November 1917) a permanent body formed by the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (held from June 16 to July 7, 1917 in Petrograd), then became the ...

. He also went to Italy and Germany as a Soviet intelligence officer and oversaw the

Tomka gas test site Tomka gas test site () was a secret chemical weapons testing facility near a place codenamed Volsk-18 (Wolsk, in German literature), 20 km off Volsk, now Shikhany, Saratov Oblast, Russia created within the framework of Germany–Soviet Union ...

in cooperation with Weimar Germany.Sally W. Stoecker, Forging Stalin's Army: Marshal Tukhachevsky And The Politics Of Military Innovation , Routledge, 2018,
pp.137-150
/ref>''Weapons of Mass Destruction: Nuclear weapons'', Volume 2 of Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology, and History, James J. Wirtz, 2005,
p. 257
citing N. S. Antonov In August 1925, he was appointed the first head 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 ...

's Military-Chemical Directorate (''Voenno-khimicheskoe upravlenie'', abbreviated to ''VOKhIMU''). In 1926, at a small laboratory controlled by ''VOKhIMU'', Fishman initiated research on ''Bacillus anthracis'' (the causative agent of

anthrax Anthrax is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Bacillus anthracis'' or ''Bacillus cereus'' biovar ''anthracis''. Infection typically occurs by contact with the skin, inhalation, or intestinal absorption. Symptom onset occurs between one ...

). In February 1928, Fishman prepared a key report for Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov (the

People's Commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English language, English transliteration of the Russian language, Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the pol ...

for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the USSR's Revolutionary Military Council) on the Soviet Union's preparedness for biological warfare. It asserted that "''the bacterial option could be successfully used in war''" and proposed a plan for the organisation of Soviet military bacteriology. He became a Doctor of Chemical Sciences (1936) and a Major General of the Technical Troops (1955).

References

University of Naples Federico II alumni Soviet major generals Left socialist-revolutionaries All-Russian Central Executive Committee members GRU officers People of the Russian Civil War Soviet military attachés Soviet chemists People from Kherson Governorate Sharashka inmates People from Odesa Recipients of the Order of the Red Star Revolutionaries of the Russian Revolution Soviet rehabilitations Russian emigrants to Italy Inmates of Butyrka prison Soviet biological weapons program {{Russia-politician-stub