Podtelkov, Fedor

Podtelkov, Fedor Grigor’evich 

Born Aug. 25 (Sept. 6), 1886, on Krutovskii farmstead, now in Serafimovich Raion, Volgograd Oblast; died May 11, 1918, on Ponomarev farmstead, now Krasnokutskaia station, Oblivskaia Raion, Rostov Oblast. A leader of the revolutionary cossacks on the Don during the Civil War of 1918–20.

Podtelkov served in World War I (1914–18) with the rank of podkhorunzhii. In January 1918 a congress of front cossacks, held in Kamenskaia station, elected him chairman of the Don Cossack Revolutionary Military Committee, and in April 1918 the First Congress of Soviets of Don Oblast elected him chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Don Soviet Republic. He was also a member of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee and of the Extraordinary Defense Staff of the Don Republic.

Upon assignment by the republic’s Central Executive Committee, Podtelkov headed a special commission, which on May 1, 1918, set out under the protection of a detachment of 120 men for the upper Don regions in order to mobilize men for the Red Army. The detachment was captured by White Cossacks on May 10, and Podtelkov was hanged on May 11, together with Commissar M. V. Krivoshlykov.