Avtonomov, Aleksei

Born Jan. 6 (18), 1890; died Feb. 2, 1919. Soviet military figure. World War 1 participant on the Caucasus front; cornet (junior Cossack cavalry officer).

In 1917, Avtonomov went over to the side of the Soviet power. In February 1918, by an order of the defense staff of Tsaritsyn, he was appointed commander of the Southeastern Revolutionary Army in the Tikhoretskaia area; from May he was commander in chief of the armed forces of the Kuban-Black Sea Republic. In May 1918, Avtonomov came into conflict with the Kuban-Black Sea Republic’s emergency defense staff and the central executive committee, whose control he did not want to accept. At the end of May, he was removed from command by a decree of the Third Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of the Republic and sent to Moscow. From there, on the request of G. K. Ordzhonikidze, he was returned to the Northern Caucasus to form detachments of mountaineers. Commanding an armored train and a detachment, he participated in battles at the Terek River and near Sviatoi Krest. With the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the Northern Caucasus, he retired to the mountains, where he died of typhus.