Nikolay Dukhonin Nikolay Nikolayevich Dukhonin ( 13 December 1876 – 3 December 1917 ) was a Russian general , the last commander - in - chief of the Russian Imperial Army . Biography . Dukhonoin was born in the Smolensk Governorate . He served in the Kiev Military District before the start of the First World War . There he gained some experience in intelligence work . At the outset of the War , Dukhonin was given command of a Russian regiment . He was then assigned to the Third Army in Dubno under General Ruzsky as senior adjutant of the intelligence department . In August 1917 , Dukhonin was Quartermaster General of the South West Front , and was plucked from this relative obscurity by Kerensky to replace Alexeyev as Chief of Staff at GHQ in Mogilev , as Alexeyev had resigned as a result of Kornilov ' s failed coup . It was Alexeyev who had suggested Dukhonin as his successor so that he could continue to influence affairs at GHQ in Mogilev . When Kerensky fled Petrograd and then Russia following the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution , Dukhonin became de facto Supreme Commander , albeit of an army that was rapidly disintegrating , and over which he exercised very little control . During the initial stages of the Bolshevik seizure of power the Council of People ' s Commissars instructed Dukhonin to cease wartime hostilities and open negotiations with the Central Powers . Lenin and Krylenko visited Dukhonin in Petrograd to discuss an armistice proposal . Dukhonin ' s response was adamant : on 22 November he categorically declined the directive of the Council of People ' s Commissars . He had discussed such a development with diplomats from the Entente governments . Dukhonin told Lenin that such an order could only be issued by " a government sustained by the army and the country " . Lenin immediately proceeded to a wireless station and broadcast news of Dukhonin ' s dismissal as Commander - in - Chief and Krylenko ' s replacement in his stead . The following day a joint note was issued by the military missions of Britain , France , Italy , Japan and Roumania , citing the Treaty of 23 August 1914 by which the allies agreed not to conclude an armistice except by common consent . These missions were based at the General Headquarters in Mogilev . However , Dukhonin opened negotiations with General Kaledin , and asked for units from Kornilovs ' shock battalions ' to be rushed to defend Mogilev against the units of the Red Army that were due to arrive by rail with Krylenko . Thanks to the efforts of the local Mogilev soviet and the garrison commander Bonch - Bruevich , these troops were sent south to the Don or west against the Poles at Zhlobin , and conflict was avoided . Dukhonin then decided to escape with Kerensky ' s commissar Stankovich , but was persuaded to stay by General Diterikhs . His last action was to order the release of the officers being held prisoner at Bikhov , most notably Kornilov and Denikin . Dukhonin subsequently surrendered to Krylenko in Mogilev , but was murdered by Krylenko ' s Bolshevik military escort near the railway station on 3 December 1917 . A mob of soldiers and sailors bayoneted him to death on the spot on order of red army officer Pavel Dybenko . The next morning the bolshevik soldiers and sailors amused themselves by using his ( now stripped naked ) corpse for target practice , which they had placed on the platform with a cigarette in its mouth . His family emigrated to Yugoslavia .