Sediakin, Aleksandr

Born Nov. 14 (26), 1893, in St. Petersburg; died July 29, 1938. Soviet military commander; army commander second class (1936). Member of the Communist Party from 1917. Son of a soldier.

Sediakin graduated from the Irkutsk Military School in 1915 and fought in World War I as a division engineer with the rank of junior captain. In 1917 he participated in the work of soldiers’ committees. Sediakin saw service in the Civil War of 1918–20 as commander of a detached brigade, assistant commander of the Thirteenth Army, chief of staff of the Southern Front, and commander of the 31st and 15th Sivash Rifle Divisions. He was inspector of the infantry of the Petrograd Military District after the war. He commanded the Southern Group of the Seventh Army during the suppression of the Kronstadt Anti-Soviet Rebellion of 1921.

Sediakin subsequently commanded the forces of the Karelian Region of the Petrograd Military District and then the forces of the Volga Military District. In late 1927 he was appointed deputy chief of the Main Directorate of the Red Army and inspector of the infantry and armored forces of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (RKKA). Sediakin was chief and commissar of the F. E. Dzerzhinskii Military Engineering Academy in 1931–32 and deputy chief of staff of the RKKA from 1933 to 1936. He further served as chief of the Directorate of Air Defense of the RKKA from 1936 and as commander of the air defense forces of Baku area from July 1937. Sediakin was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner.