Ivan Lukich Sorokin

Born Dec. 4 (16), 1884, in the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Petropavlovskaia, in what is now Kurganinsk Raion, Krasnodar Krai; died Nov. 1, 1918, in Stavropol’. An adventurer who joined the struggle for Soviet power in the Northern Caucasus; left-wing Socialist Revolutionary.

Sorokin was the son of a moderately wealthy Kuban’ cossack. He fought in World War I (1914–18), becoming a commissioned officer in 1915. In early 1918 he organized a revolutionary cossack detachment that fought against the White Guards. He was appointed commander in chief of the forces of the Northern Caucasus on Aug. 3,1918, and commander of the Eleventh Army on October 3.

Sorokin strove for unlimited power; he illegally had people arrested and shot and opposed the leadership of the Northern Caucasus Soviet Republic. When the Central Executive Committee and the Revolutionary Military Council of the republic tried to put an end to his adventurist actions, he organized a revolt on October 21 and shot many leaders of the republic in Piatigorsk. The Second Congress of Soviets of the Northern Caucasus, which was urgently convened, declared Sorokin an outlaw on October 27. He was arrested in Stavropol’ on October 30 and shot for treason by a commander before the trial.