Bulak-Balakhovich, Stanislav

Bulak-Balakhovich, Stanislav Nikodimovich 

(Bei-Bulak-Balakhovich). Born Feb. 10 (22), 1883; died 1940. One of the leaders of the counterrevolution in northwestern Russia in 1918-20; in 1919 he became a major general. Came from peasant stock and from Kovno Province.

During World War I, Bulak-Balakhovich entered the army as a volunteer and in 1915 became an officer. In February 1918 he joined the Red Army and organized the Luga Partisan Regiment. In November of that same year, however, he went over to the Whites and in the summer of 1919 took part in General Iudenich’s attack on Petrograd. In August 1919 he fought in bourgeois Estonia and then in Poland. In 1920 he commanded large detachments battling Soviet forces; these detachments were formed in Poland with the help of B. V. Savinkov. After the armistice with Poland he undertook the formation of the so-called People’s Volunteer Army which, together with Petliura’s forces, invaded Byelorussia in a campaign that saw mass executions, pogroms, and looting. Bulak-Balakhovich was defeated by Soviet troops in November 1920; thereafter he lived in Poland, where he was provided by the Polish General Staff with the means to support the remnants of his bands. He was killed in Warsaw by an unknown assailant.