Local Boy Makes Good

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Frunze. Born in 1885 in Bishkek, Frunze had humble origins: his father was an immigrant doctor from Romania, and his mother a Russian housewife. They lived in a sparsely furnished, whitewashed bungalow typical of their small garrison town.

Straight out of school, Frunze left Bishkek for studies in Almaty (then known as Verny) and then in St. Petersburg. He joined Lenin’s Bolshevik faction in 1903 and went on to lead strikes by textile workers in the 1905 revolution, earning himself a death sentence in the process. Fortunately for Frunze, this was reduced to hard labor, and he endured a decade in a Siberian prison before escaping to Chita.

Frunze’s role in the February Revolution of 1917 started him on a trajectory for military glory. He led a civilian militia in Belarus and armed workers in Moscow before formally earning his stripes as Military Commissar in Voznesensk. When Civil War broke out in 1918, Frunze led his forces against Alexander Kolchak in Omsk and won. This victory brought Frunze to the attention of Leon Trotsky, and from then on his career was assured. 

Frunze returned only once to Central Asia, but never to Bishkek, the city named for him from 1926-1991. He fought in Bukhara and Khiva (in modern day Uzbekistan) while putting down a revolt of Basmachis (insurgents resisting the Red Army’s advances into Turkestan) but from then on his work would take him west to the Crimea and Ukraine. 

In 1921 Frunze was elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and then, four years later, he rose to chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council. Shifting alliances brought Frunze into conflict with Joseph Stalin, which may ultimately have led to his downfall. Frunze died unexpectedly of chloroform poisoning (overdose) during a routine ulcer operation (which Stalin and Molotov insisted he undergo, for the good of the Party) in October 1925. All four doctors who operated on him died within months of each other in 1934.