Nikolai Gurevich Tolmachyov (Russian: Николай Гурьевич Толмачёв; 12 November 1895 – 26 May 1919) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, political commissar of the Red Army, and one of the early military commissars during the Russian Civil War. He participated in the February and October Revolutions of 1917 and was a member of the party bodies that authorized the execution of the Romanov family.
Early life and education
Born in Yekaterinburg in the Russian Empire, Tolmachyov attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnic Institute from 1912. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) in 1913 and was arrested for participation in a May Day demonstration the following year.
Revolutionary activity
During 1914–1915 Tolmachyov worked for the Vyborg District Committee of the RSDLP and edited the newspaper Proletarian Voice. In 1916 he carried out party work in the Urals on instructions from the Central Committee. He was active in the February 1917 Revolution in Petrograd, helping to free political prisoners from the Peter and Paul Fortress, and later served on the Petrograd Committee of the Bolsheviks. After the October 1917 Revolution, he held the post of Secretary of the Council of Workers' Deputies of the Vyborg District and contributed to the founding of the Proletarian Standard, a legal Bolshevik newspaper in the Kama region.
Civil War and military service
Tolmachyov entered the Red Army in 1918. He served as political commissar of a workers’ detachment fighting Dutovist forces in the Urals and was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Ural Regional Soviet. From January to March 1919 he acted as chief political commissar of the 3rd Army of the Eastern Front. He participated in the battles of Zlatoust and organized the first political departments of the Soviet Army. In May 1919 he was appointed head of the cultural‑education department of the Petrograd district military commissariat, where he initiated political‑worker courses that later evolved into the Red Army Teacher Training Institute (subsequently the Military‑Political Academy).
Death
While leading a Red Army detachment on the Lugov front against General Yudenich’s White forces, Tolmachyov was seriously wounded near Preobrazhenskaya station (village of Krasnye Gory). Surrounded by enemy troops, he took his own life to avoid capture on 26 May 1919. He was interred on the Field of Mars in Saint Petersburg.
Legacy
Tolmachyov is remembered as a regicide; he voted for the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in July 1918. Numerous streets, plaques, and monuments in Russian cities (e.g., Perm, Yekaterinburg, Pavlovsk, Leningrad) bear his name. The settlement and railway station of Tolmachyovo in Leningrad Oblast were renamed in his honor in 1919. In 1919 a teaching institute for the Red Army was established under his name, later forming the basis of the Military‑Political Academy.
References
- Wikipedia contributors, “Nikolay Tolmachyov,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, accessed April 2026.
- Nadezhda Alikina and Smorodina (eds.), Moments – for Life (1991).
- Soviet Military Encyclopedia.
Note: All information presented is based on established historical sources and is not speculative.