Mikhail Krivoshlykov

Born Nov. 21 (Dec. 3), 1894, in the khutor (privately owned homestead) of Ushakov, now Krivoshlykov, Rostov Oblast; died May 11, 1918, in the khutor of Ponomarev, Don Oblast. Hero of the Civil War of 1918–20 on the Don River. Son of a cossack blacksmith.

In 1917, Krivoshlykov was at the front as an ensign in charge of a cossack squadron. He was elected chairman of the regimental cossack committee and a member of the committee of the 5th Don Cossack Division, which was one of the organizers of the revolutionary cossacks. In January 1918 at the congress at the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Kamenskaia he was elected secretary of the Don Cossack Military Revolutionary Committee. In February 1918 he became secretary of the Don oblast military revolutionary committee. In April 1918 he was made a member of the Central Executive Committee and the People’s Commissariat of the Don Soviet Republic, as well as the Extraordinary Headquarters for the Defense of the Don Republic. On May 1, 1918, with an assignment from the Don Central Executive Committee, Krivoshlykov set off with F. G. Podtelkov’s detachment for the northern districts of the Don, where they were to organize the struggle against the counterrevolution. The detachment was perfidiously captured by White Cossacks; 78 men were shot and Krivoshlykov and Podtelkov were hanged.