Fighting tigers, brothers on the front lines—A record of the heroic deeds of Grigory Petrovsky, the first Supreme Leader of Soviet Ukraine, and Soviet General Leonid Petrovsky

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Veteran Bolshevik Revolutionist Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky (1878-1958)

Editor’s note: This is an article about two outstanding proletarian revolutionaries within the Bolshevik Party—Grigory Petrovsky and his son Leonid Petrovsky. Grigory Petrovsky, born into a poor miner’s family, was a seasoned veteran revolutionary within the Bolshevik Party. He was entrusted with significant responsibilities by the Bolshevik Central Committee led by Lenin, leading revolutionary struggles in Ukraine, and participated in the formation of the Cheka after the revolution. During the Russian Civil War, he served as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Soviet Ukraine and concurrently as chairman of the Central Executive Committee of Soviet Ukraine until 1938. Under his leadership, Soviet Ukraine flourished, correctly implementing Lenin’s and Stalin’s revolutionary policies, transforming Ukraine from a region oppressed and impoverished under Tsarist rule into a burgeoning socialist Soviet republic, fostering vibrant national cultural development. To commemorate his contributions, Soviet Ukraine renamed the city of Yekaterinoslav to Dnipropetrovsk.

  Leonid Petrovsky, the eldest son of Grigory Petrovsky, was deeply influenced from a young age by his father and veteran Bolsheviks engaged in revolutionary activities, cultivating a proletarian revolutionary worldview. Later, Leonid Petrovsky participated bravely in the Russian Civil War. After the war, he was sent to advanced military academies by the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and rose to high-ranking positions within the Soviet Red Army. In 1941, when Nazi Germany betrayed its pact and invaded the Soviet Union, Leonid Petrovsky, then commander of the 63rd Infantry Army on the front lines, did not flee or defect despite being encircled by German forces. Instead, he fought valiantly, leading a river crossing to ambush the Germans, catching them off guard. Due to his outstanding performance, he was rapidly promoted to commander of the 21st Group Army and ordered to leave the encirclement by plane to Smolensk under the command of the 21st Group Army. However, Leonid Petrovsky refused this order, unable to abandon his troops and leave only himself alive. He chose to stay within the encirclement and lead a breakout with his entire army, leaving the aircraft to the most seriously wounded who needed to evacuate. During the battle, he led by example with heroic revolutionary spirit, fighting to the death. He was tragically shot and killed in the Battle on the Dnieper River and was buried upstream of Dnipropetrovsk.

  The heroic deeds of the Petrovsky father and son demonstrate that the source of strength for socialist Soviet Union and the Bolshevik Party lies in the millions of workers like them actively engaged in various positions within the Soviet regime—constantly fighting for the revolution, selflessly dedicating themselves, becoming seemingly small but profoundly meaningful cogs in the revolutionary machinery. This stands as the best rebuttal to those bourgeois elements who spread rumors claiming the Soviet Union was a “totalitarian state” and that the Soviet people were “disloyal” to the Soviet regime—anti-Soviet, anti-Communist, and anti-people pests.

Note: The title was added by the editor. The original text is a response from Zhihu; the material provided is for reference only and does not necessarily reflect the author’s stance.

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Hepprovsky father and son, a pair of father and son with a city.

General Leonid Hepprovsky

Those who have studied the history of the Soviet Homeland War or watched movies about the Battle of Moscow know the touching story of General Hepprovsky. In July 1941, in Smolensk, the Soviet army was defeated in a surprise attack by the German army. To delay the German advance, Hepprovsky voluntarily requested to lead the 63rd Infantry Army across the Dnieper River to counterattack the German infantry on the western bank. On July 14, the 63rd Infantry Army crossed the river at night, successively liberated the cities of Rogachev and Yelabin, wedge into the enemy’s front line by 30 kilometers, and continued westward. Hepprovsky’s outstanding counterattack earned the highest recognition from the Soviet Supreme Commander, Marshal Timoshenko ordered Hepprovsky, who was surrounded, to return to Smolensk by plane and take command of the 21st Group Army. At the last moment, Hepprovsky chose to stay and break out with his soldiers. He sent the seriously wounded onto the plane and sacrificed his own chance to survive for theirs.

Baidu’s entry describes the general’s experience as follows:

In May 1902, a baby boy was born in a miner’s family in the Donetsk coal basin under the Russian Tsarist regime, and this little fellow was Hepprovsky. Facing days when he could barely eat a few meals a day, Hepprovsky not only thought about learning a craft to support his family but also hoped to meet a group of “heroes who do great things” to overthrow this cannibalistic society.

At the age of 14, Hepprovsky met a group of “strange green forest heroes” — the Bolsheviks who promised to provide “bread, peace, and land” to the people. In 1917, at 15, Hepprovsky, as a Red Guard in his hometown, participated in the battle to occupy the Tsarist police station in Lugansk, his first combat experience.

With the establishment of the Soviet regime, Hepprovsky joined the Red Army, participating in suppressing uprisings in Ukraine, the Volga River basin, Crimea, and other regions, suffering three injuries. He rose from squad leader to battalion reconnaissance chief, division staff officer, regiment commander, and deputy corps commander, gradually becoming a distinctive grassroots commander.

After the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922, the Red Army entered a phase of normalization. Hepprovsky was sent to study at the Military Academy of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army, and after graduation, he successively served as regimental commander, infantry division chief of staff, cavalry division commander, and infantry division commander. Later, he even became the commander of the Turkestan Military District (i.e., Central Asia Military District).

In March 1938, Hepprovsky was promoted to deputy commander of the Moscow Military District. Just as his career was smooth, the “Great Purge” involved him. Due to severe interrogation by the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), former colleagues “confessed” that Hepprovsky was an “anti-party element hidden within the Red Army,” and he was arrested and detained by the NKVD. Subsequently, the NKVD repeatedly “faked” his execution to force him to reveal more “moles” (so-called “Red skin with white heart” infiltrators), but he refused to implicate innocents. In the end, he was exiled to a Siberian labor camp for logging.

In 1939, Nazi Germany provoked the Second World War in Europe. The Soviet leadership was well aware that they needed to quickly escape the shadow of the “Great Purge.” Therefore, without any formal review, many commanders, including Hepprovsky, were released back to their units.

Born in 1902 into a miner’s family, at 14 he joined the Bolsheviks, and at 15, he participated in the battle to occupy the Tsarist police station in Lugansk under Vroshilov’s command, and the same year, he fought in the Winter Palace. Strictly speaking, the entry is not wrong; when Leonid Hepprovsky was born in 1902, his father was indeed a miner — one of the earliest miner revolutionaries to join the Bolsheviks. “At 14, Hepprovsky met a group of ‘strange green forest heroes’ — the Bolsheviks who promised to provide ‘bread, peace, and land’ to the people.” In fact, the earliest Bolsheviks he knew were his own father.

In 1941, General Leonid Hepprovsky sacrificed himself on the banks of the Dnieper River, downstream of which is the city named after his father.

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Source:

Has there ever been two seemingly unrelated people in history who actually have a (blood) relationship? - Bacon Hog’s answer - Zhihu
https://www.zhihu.com/question/342932131/answer/2325022994