Sivers, Rudolf Ferdinandovich

Sivers, Rudol’f Ferdinandovich 

Born Nov. 11 (23), 1892, in St. Petersburg; died Dec. 8, 1918, in Moscow. Soviet military figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1917.

Sivers fought in World War I (1914-18) as a praporshchik (ensign). He was elected to a regimental committee after the February Revolution of 1917 and was one of the founders and editors of Okopnaia pravda, the Bolshevik newspaper of the Twelfth Army. In July 1917 he was arrested by the Provisional Government but was freed during the October Revolution of 1917.

Sivers commanded a detachment of Red Guards and sailors at Pulkovo in battles against Kerensky and Krasnov. In November 1917 he was sent with the detachment to the Ukraine, where he participated in the liberation of the Donets Coal Basin and in the liquidation of the Kaledin Revolt. Troops under Sivers’ command liberated Rostov-on-Don on Feb. 24, 1918. In March and April 1918, Sivers commanded the Soviet Fifth Army (later renamed the Second Special Army) against the German occupiers in the Ukraine. Beginning in the summer of 1918, he led the Special Brigade (renamed the First Special Ukrainian Brigade in September) of the Ninth Army of the Southern Front in battles against Krasnov’s White cossack troops.

On Nov. 15, 1918, Sivers was severely wounded in a battle near the village of Zhelnovka. He was buried in Petrograd on the Field of Mars. [23–1017–]