Polivanov, Aleksei

Born Mar. 4 (16), 1855; died Sept. 25, 1920, in Riga. Russian military figure, general of the infantry (1915).

Polivanov graduated from the Nicholas Engineering Academy in 1880 and from the Academy of the General Staff in 1888. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. From 1899 to 1904 he served on the Main Staff and was at the same time assistant editor and then editor in chief of the journal Voen-nyi sbomik (Military Collection) and the newspaper Russkii invalid. He was chief of the Main Staff in 1905–06 and assistant minister of war from 1906 to 1912. He was close to the bourgeois circles of the State Duma, for which he was dismissed by Minister of War A. V. Sukhomlinov in 1912. Polivanov was a member of the State Council from 1912 to 1915. From June 1915 to March 1916 he was minister of war and chairman of the Special Council for State Defense, after which he retired.

During the Civil War of 1918–20, Polivanov joined the Red Army in February 1920. He served as a member of the military training editorial board, the Military Legislative Council, and the Special Council of the Commander in Chief. He was a military expert at the Soviet-Polish peace negotiations of 1920 in Riga.