Nikolai Tomin

Born Dec. 4 (16), 1886, in the settlement of Kocherdyk, in what is now Tselinnoe Raion, Kurgan Oblast; died Aug. 12, 1924. Hero of the Civil War of 1918–20. Member of the CPSU from 1924.

The son of a Cossack, Tomin was a private in the 1st Orenburg Cossack Division during World War I. After the February Revolution of 1917 he was elected to regiment, division, and army committees. In 1918, as a war commissar with the authority to form cavalry units attached to the Troitskii soviet, he organized a detachment that fought successfully against the White Cossacks and Czechoslovak Corps. Tomin also commanded the Troitskii Detachment during the partisan campaign of V. K. Bliukher’s Urals Army. In 1919 and 1920 he commanded a rifle brigade, a cavalry detachment, and the 10th Cavalry Division on the Eastern and Western fronts.

In October 1920, Tomin assumed command of the Kuban Cavalry Division, and in 1921 he led the II Cavalry Corps and later the 15th Cavalry Division. Tomin helped suppress the banditry in the Northern Caucasus and Tambov Province, and from December 1921 to March 1922 he led the Transbaikal group of forces of the Popular Revolutionary Army of the Far East People’s Republic in the battles of Volochaevka and Khabarovsk. He commanded a cavalry brigade in 1922 and 1923. In 1923 and 1924, Tomin attended Advanced Academic Training Courses. In April 1924 he took command of the 6th Altai Cavalry Brigade in eastern Bukhara. He was killed in a battle against the Basmachi.

Tomin was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner.