page_title: Grigori Sokolnikov
section_title: Role in the civil war
hierarchical_section_title: Grigori Sokolnikov / Role in the civil war
caption_attribution_description: English: Mikhail Frunze heads the Turkestan front. The image taken during Aug 1920 Red Army troops offensive against the city of Bukhara. Українська: Михайло Фрунзе очолює Туркестанський фронт. Зображення, зроблене під час наступальних дій Червоної Армії на місто Бухара Серпень 1920р. Русский: Михаил Фрунзе возглавляет Туркестанский фронт. Изображение, сделанно во время наступательных действий Красной Армии на Бухару Август 1920г.
context_page_description: Grigori Yakovlevich Sokolnikov was a Russian old Bolshevik revolutionary, economist, and Soviet politician.
context_section_description: After his return from Brest, late in 1917, Sokolnikov supervised the seizure of Russian banks, and the creation of new centralised banking system. In March 1918, he was appointed an editor of Pravda, but he spent almost the entire Russian Civil War on the front line, firstly as Political commissar with the Second Army, which was responsible for putting down anti-Bolshevik rebellions on the western side of the Ural mountains, around Vyatka and Izhevsk. Two months later, after the rebellion had been crushed, he was transferred to the Southern Front, as commissar for the Ninth Army and later the Thirteenth Army, for the campaign against the Don Cossacks who had been rebelled against Bolshevik rule, and the White Army of General Denikin. Later, alongside Rosalia Zemlyachka, he became commissar of the Eighth army, using this position to order mass shootings during the Russian Civil War. He was also, for a time, military commander of the Eighth Army, despite a protest from Stalin's ally Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who wrote to Lenin demanding:"Where did the idea come from that Sokolnikov could command an army? ... Is it to protect Sokolnikov's pride that he has been allowed to play with a whole army?"
  In August 1920, Sokolnikov was posted to Central Asia as chairman of the government of Turkestan and commander of the Turkestan Front. He led the suppression of the Basmachi rebellion. He also oversaw the introduction of a new currency, the introduction of tax in place of appropriation of surplus produce, the return of free trade, the return of land to Kirghiz that had been seized by Russian settlers, and the revival of cotton production.
caption: Grigori Sokolnikov, Mikhail Frunze and Valerian Kuybyshev head the Turkestan front. The image taken during Aug 1920 Red Army troops offensive against the city of Bukhara.
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