Innokentii Serafimovich Kozhevnikov

Born Nov. 1 (13), 1879; died April 1931. Soviet military figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1917. Born in the village of Bochkarevo, present-day Kirensk Raion, Irkutsk Oblast; son of a peasant.

Kozhevnikov was a worker; he graduated from a Gymnasium in 1912 as an external student and studied at the Kharkov Commercial Institute. In 1915–17 he worked as a mechanic at the Kharkov Telegraph Office. After the October Revolution of 1917, Kozhevnikov was commissar of the Kharkov Post and Telegraph District and from February 1918, extraordinary commissar of five southern post and telegraph districts. From May to September 1918 he was extraordinary commissar for communications of all the fronts. In September 1918 he was sent as a representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the organization of the partisan struggle in Tataria and Bashkiria.

He became commander of the group of Forces of the Kursk Axis in December 1918 and of the Group of Forces of the Donets Axis in February 1919. In March to May 1919 he commanded the Thirteenth Army, which was formed from the troops of the Donetsk Group. He served in the Volga-Caspian Flotilla in 1920. Kozhevnikov became deputy minister of foreign affairs of the Far Eastern Republic in 1921; he was sent in May 1921 as emmissary to Primor’e Krai to organize the partisan movement. In 1922–23, Kozhevnikov served as plenipotentiary in the Bukhara People’s Republic and in Lithuania. In 1924–26 he worked in the People’s Commissariat of the Post and Telegraph.