3 tsarist generals who joined the Bolsheviks

1. Alexei Brusilov

Alexei Brusilov became the most famous tsarist general to voluntarily enlist in the Bolsheviks' ranks.

He rose to fame in 1916, when, as commander of the Southwestern Front, he led a successful offensive – the ‘Brusilov Offensive’. Then, from May to July 1917, he served as Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Imperial Army.

On September 2, 1918, following the assassination attempt on Lenin by Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan and the murder of the prominent Bolshevik Moisei Uritsky, authorities declared the ‘Red Terror’. The general was arrested, but released a few months later.

Brusilov joined the Red Army in 1920. According to one version, he was inspired by the death of his son, a cavalry regiment commander executed by the Whites.

The general was involved in strengthening the Red Army's combat readiness, organizing pre-conscription cavalry training and, for a while, served as a cavalry inspector. He died in Moscow in 1926 at the age of 72.

Brusilov is buried with full military honors on the grounds of the Novodevichy Convent.

2. Dmitry Shuvaev

Infantry General Dmitry Shuvaev served as the Minister of War of the Russian Empire from 1916 to 1917. The Bolsheviks arrested him almost immediately after seizing power, but soon released him.

That same year, Shuvaev voluntarily joined the Red Army. He began training command personnel and served as Chief of Staff of the Petrograd Military District.

In 1926, the general retired, but he was not destined to enjoy a peaceful retirement. At the height of the mass repressions in 1937, he was arrested for "counterrevolutionary agitation of a defeatist nature" and promptly executed.

3. Dmitry Kuzmin-Karavayev

Dmitry Kuzmin-Karavayev began his military career during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. From 1909 to 1915, he headed the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU).

"He was a very intelligent man… But, as head of the GAU, he was extremely weak. Lacking a thorough understanding of technical and economic artillery matters and possessing no organizational skills, he was completely unsuitable to lead the department," General Alexander Lukomsky wrote of him.

In 1918, the general joined the Red Army, where he worked on systemic problems in the development of artillery weapons. In 1930, at the age of 80, he retired with the right to a personal pension from the Armed Forces.

In 1935, during the intensification of political repression in the USSR, he was deprived of his pension and exiled from Leningrad to Kazakhstan with his family. It was only during World War II that his pensions were restored and he was also awarded the ‘Order of Lenin’ "for long-term service and outstanding work in the development of Russian artillery".

However, he was forbidden to return to Leningrad or Moscow. The general ended up dying in Murom in 1950 at the age of 93.