Ivan Belov

Born June 15 (27), 1893, in the village of Kolinichevo, Cherepovetsk District, Novgorod Province; died July 29, 1938. Soviet military figure; army commander first class (1935). Member of the CPSU from 1919.

Belov entered the army in 1913 and participated in World War I as a noncommissioned officer. In February 1917 he became a left Socialist Revolutionary (SR) and was president of the soldiers’ committee of the First Siberian Reserve Rifle Regiment in Tashkent, which he commanded during the armed uprising in October 1917. He was a member of the Tashkent soviet from 1917 to 1919 and a member of the Turkestan Central Executive Committee from 1918 to 1921. In 1918 he was commander of the fortress and head of the garrison at Tashkent. After the suppression of Osipov’s left SR mutiny in Tashkent in January 1919, he left the party of the left SR’s and became deputy commander of the forces of the Turkestan Military District. In April 1919 he became commander in chief of the forces of the Turkestan Republic. In 1919 and 1920 he commanded a division and the Bukhara forces. In 1921 and 1922 he was division commander in the suppression of the mutinies on the Kuban’ River. He completed the Higher Academic courses in 1923, after which he commanded a division and a corps and was deputy commander and commander of forces in the military districts of the Northern Caucasus, Leningrad, and Byelorussia. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.