Dutov, Aleksandr Ilich

Dutov, Aleksandr Il’ich 

Born Aug. 5 (17), 1879, in the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Orenburgskaia, in present-day Orenburg Oblast; died Mar. 7, 1921, in Suidun, China. One of the leaders of the cossack counterrevolution in the Urals. Lieutenant general (1919).

Dutov was a member of the dvorianstvo (or gentry) of the Orenburg Cossack Host. He graduated from the Nikolai Cavalry School and the Academy of the General Staff in 1908. In World War I he was a deputy commander of a cossack regiment. After the February revolution, he was elected chairman of the All-Russian Union of Cossack Hosts, and in June 1917 he headed the counterrevolutionary All-Russian Cossack Congress and was connected with the attempted coup of Kornilov. In September 1917, Dutov was elected chairman of the host government and became ataman of the Orenburg Cossack Host. In November 1917 he raised a re-volt in Orenburg against Soviet power. In June 1918, with the aid of the Czechoslovak Legion, he tried to liquidate Soviet power in the Urals. In 1918-19 he commanded the Detached Orenburg Army of Kolchak’s forces. After Kolchak’s defeat he fled to China, where he was killed.