Gaia Gai

(pseudonym of Gaik Bzhishkian). Born Feb. 6 (18), 1887, in Tebriz; died Dec. 11, 1937. Hero of the Civil War, corps commander (1935). Joined the Communist Party in 1918. Son of a teacher.

Gai became active in the revolutionary movement in 1903. In 1918, at the head of units that he had formed, he fought against White Czechs and Dutov’s White Cossack troops and commanded the 24th Rifle Division, which liberated Simbirsk and which was named the Samara-Ul’ianov Iron Division. From December 1918 until June 1919 he was commander of the First Army of the Eastern Front and then of the 42nd Rifle Division and the First Caucasian Wild Cavalry Division on the Southern Front. In the Soviet-Polish War of 1920, Gai was commander of the III Cavalry Corps, which operated successfully on the right flank of the Western Front. In August 1920 the corps covered the retreat of the Fourth Army and was interned in East Prussia. In 1922, Gai was people’s commissar of military and naval affairs of Armenia; after that he taught military affairs and did scholarly work. In 1933, Gai became professor and chief of the department of the history of wars and the art of warfare at the N. E. Zhukovskii Air Force Academy. He was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner.