Vasily Blyukher family name Blyukher
Early history
Blyukher was born into a Russian peasant family named Gurov, in the village of Barschinka in Yaroslavl Governorate. In the 19th century a landlord gave the nickname Blyukher to the Gurov family in commemoration of the famous Prussian Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (1742–1819). As a teenager, he was employed at a machine works, but was arrested in 1910 for leading a strike, and sentenced to two years, eight months in prison. In 1914, Vasily Gurov — who later formally assumed Blyukher as his surname — was drafted into the army of the Russian Empire as a corporal but in 1915 was seriously wounded in the Great Retreat, and excused from military service. He then went to work in a factory in Kazan, where he joined the Bolshevik Party in 1916. He took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 in Samara.Civil War
In late November 1917 the Red Guard forces of Commander V. K. Sadlutskii and Commissar Blyukher moved from Samara to Chelyabinsk to suppress Alexander Dutov's revolt. Blyukher joined the Red Army in 1918 and soon became a commander. During the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923, he was one of the outstanding figures on the Bolshevik side. After the Czech Legion revolt started in May 1918, the 10,000-strong South Urals Partisan Army under Blyukher's command marched 1,500 km in 40 days (August–September 1918) of continuous fighting to attack White forces from the rear, then joined with regular Red Army units. For this achievement in September 1918, he became the first recipient of the Order of the Red Banner (later he was awarded it four more times: twice in 1921 and twice in 1928), the citation read: "The raid made by Comrade Blyukher's forces under impossible conditions can only be equated with  Suvorov's crossings in Switzerland."
After Blyukher's troops rejoined the Red Army lines in the 3rd Red Army area of the Eastern Front, his force was reorganised as the 51st Rifle Division, which he later led to further triumphs against Baron  Wrangel in November 1920. After the Civil War he served as military commander of the Far Eastern Republic from 1921 to 1922. From December 1921, he took personal command of the campaign to remove the remnants of anti-Bolshevik forces east of the Amur river. In 1922−1924, he served as the commander of the Petrograd military district.
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