Kuibyshev, Nikolai

Born Dec. 13 (25), 1893; died Aug. 1, 1938. Soviet military commander; corps commander (1936). Member of the Communist Party from 1918. Born in Kokchetav, now in the Kazakh SSR; V. V. Kuibyshev’s brother.

After serving in World War I (1914—18) as a company and battalion commander, Kuibyshev became a member of a regimental committee in 1917. After the October Revolution he was elected a regimental commander. He became a member of the Higher Military Inspectorate in June 1918. In 1919, Kuibyshev became a military commissar and then commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 9th Infantry Division and in January 1920 took over the command of the 9th Infantry Division on the Southern Front. His subsequent posts included corps commander (1921), commandant and commissar of Kronstadt (1922–23), head of Vystrel, the Higher Infantry School of the Soviet Army (1923–25), assistant commander of the Turkestan Front (1925–26), and then corps commander. In 1927–28 he was chief of the Command Directorate of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and assistant commander of the troops of the Moscow Military District. Kuibyshev was commander of the troops of the Siberian Military District from 1928 to 1936 and was appointed commander of the troops of the Transcaucasian Military District in 1937. He was a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at the first convocation and was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner.