Why the Bolsheviks executed the ‘father’ of Soviet cavalry
Archive photo; Russia Beyond
Boris Dumenko was all-powerful on the battlefield, but completely helpless in behind-the-scenes intrigues. And that is what brought about his downfall.
This legendary commander was described as the “first saber of the [Soviet] Republic”. Boris Mokeyevich Dumenko was one of the first organizers of the Soviet cavalry. It seemed that he had a long and successful career ahead of him. But, in 1920, Dumenko was suddenly arrested and executed. What happened?
Legendary cavalryman
Boris Dumenko joined the Bolsheviks virtually as soon as the latter came to power. A former sergeant-major in a horse-drawn artillery regiment of the tsarist army, at the beginning of 1918, he organized a guerrilla cavalry detachment in the Don region and joined the struggle against counter-revolutionary White Army forces in southern Russia. It was here, in the lands of the rebellious Don Cossacks, that some of the most important battles of the Civil War were fought.