Matveev, Ivan Ivanovich
Matveev, Ivan Ivanovich
Born 1890 in Aleshki, now Tsiurupinsk, Kherson Oblast; died Oct. 8, 1918, in Piatigorsk. Active participant in the Civil War in the USSR. Member of the Communist Party from February 1917. Son of a sailor.
Matveev worked as a sailor in the merchant fleet. In 1914 he served on military transports of the Black Sea Fleet. In 1917 he carried on antimilitary agitation among the sailors, soldiers, and workers. In January 1918 he commanded a detachment of sailors during the fighting against the haidamaki (anti-Bolshevik Ukrainian cavalry detachments) in Odessa; in April he led his detachment against the German interventionists and White Cossacks on the Taman’ Peninsula. On Aug. 27, 1918, at the Military Council in Gelendzhik, Matveev was elected commander of the Taman’ Army. Under exceptionally difficult conditions he successfully led his army in a campaign along the Black Sea coast. He was executed by firing squad at the insistence of the adventurer I. L. Sorokin, commander of the Red Army of the North Caucasus.