Mikhail Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich

Mikhail Dmitriyevich Bonch-Bruyevich (Russian: Михаи́л Дми́триевич Бонч-Бруе́вич; 24 February [O.S. 12 February] 1870 – 3 August 1956) was an Imperial Russian and Soviet military commander, Lieutenant General (1944). His family belonged to the nobility of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The son of a land surveyor and member of the minor nobility, he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Surveying - and later the General Staff academy.From 1892-1895, Bonch-Bruyevich served as an officer with the Lithuanian Guards Regiment, posted at Warsaw.

At the outbreak of World War I Bonch-Bruyevich was in command of the 176th Perevolochensky Regiment, based at Chernigov.He was an eyewitness to the aerial ramming attack in which the Russian aviator Pyotr Nesterov died. After the February Revolution, in March 1917, the Provisional Government put him in command of the Russian garrison in Pskov and was elected to the executive of the Pskov soviet, but was transferred to the northern front after Riga was captured by the German army. He was commander of the Northern Front from 29 August 1917 to 9 September 1917.

After the October Revolution, Bonch-Bruyevich was one of the first high ranking army officers to rally to the new regime, with which he had a strong family link, because his younger brother, Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich was a leading Bolshevik.On 19 November 1917, he was appointed chief of staff of the Supreme Commander, In March 1918, he was appointed military director of the Supreme Military Council, and chief of field staff of the Revolutionary Military Council, and played a major role at the start of the Russian Civil War in organising the Red Army, and the defence of the soviet state. His former fellow officers in the White army declared that he was an outlaw, and attempted to catch him by raiding a train on which they thought he was on. This incident may have contributed to his decision to resign his command.

From March 1919 to October 1923, Bonch-Bruyevich was head of land surveying for the USSR Supreme Economic Council. He was arrested in 1923 and accused of sabotage, but released after the head of the Ogpu, Felix Dzerzhinsky had intervened. In 1925, he organised the bureau of aerial photography. He was arrested again in February 1931, along with other former imperial army officers, who were suspected of plotting against the regime, but was released without charge. He survived the Stalinist purge, and was promoted to the rank of divisional commander as the mass arrests of Red Army officers began in 1937. In 1944, he was promoted again, to the rank of lieutenant general.