Mikhail Frunze

Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (Russian: Михаил Васильевич Фрунзе; Romanian: Mihail Frunză; 2 February 1885 – 31 October 1925) was a Soviet revolutionary, politician, army officer and military theorist.

Born to a Romanian father and a Russian mother in Russian Turkestan, Frunze attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University and became an active member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Following the RSDLP ideological split, he sided with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction. He led the textile workers strike in Ivanovo during the 1905 Russian Revolution, for which he was later sentenced to death before being commuted to life-long hard labour in Siberia. He escaped ten years later and took active part in the 1917 February Revolution in Minsk and the October Revolution in Moscow. Frunze distinguished himself as one of the most successful Red Army commanders during the Russian Civil War, achieving major victories over the White Army of Pyotr Wrangel in Crimea and Nestor Makhno's anarchist movement in Ukraine. In 1921, Frunze was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In 1925, he was named chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council.

Frunze died in 1925 from chloroform poisoning during surgery for a chronic ulcer. It has been alleged that Frunze was assassinated by Joseph Stalin, who arranged the surgery. He was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The capital of the Kirghiz SSR and his birthplace, Pishpek (modern Bishkek), was renamed after him from 1926 until 1991. The Frunze Military Academy, one of the most prestigious military educational institutions in the Soviet Union, was also named in his honour.