With such prestige he joined the Spanish Republican Army in the North in the spring of 1937 instead of Kiril Jackson. In the War in the North, for example in the Defense of Bilbao Basque officials reports were not so good and questioned its merits in the war tactics of such fighting. Dropped the northern front, Gorev failed to escape Franco's siege and took refuge, along with other soldiers many Republicans, in the Asturian mountains, although at the end of year it managed to be rescued. He was called back to Madrid, and from there returned to the USSR in October 1937. Upon his return to the Soviet Union, he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner. During the Great Purge, he was arrested by the NKVD on 25 January 1938, sentenced to death on 20 June 1938 and shot the same day. He was posthumously rehabilitated in October 1956.