Nikolai Skoblin

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**Nikolai Vladimirovich Skoblin** is the 3rd and current holder of the office of the Vozhd of All-Russia since its creation by Lavr Kornilov after the National Rebirth (or the Second Kornivite Putsch).

## Background

Nikolai Skoblin was born to a small nobility family. He enlisted in the Chuguev military school prior to World War 1 and distinguished himself in the war rising in the rank from Warrant Officer to Captain and earned decorations for bravery.

Upon the outbreak of the Russian Civil War, Skoblin joined the Kornilov Shock Regiment. In this capacity he also showed great bravely and skills that eventually saw him promoted to the youngest Major-General of the White Army at the time, as commander of the Kornilov Division. It was in this position as he became personally acquainted with General L.G Kornilov and became deeply admired of the first soldier against Bolshevism.

Skoblin remained with Kornilov after the war, angered and deeply resenting the pathetic state of the Russian nation and the humiliation it has to suffer after the end of the Civil War. He became fully believer in the idea that Russia needs a totalitarian hand to rescue its degenerated society and pride, and the only people who are capable of doing such thing is the soldiers and heroes of the native soil that bled for her in the gigantic struggle, and there was no greater hero than Lavr Kornilov. He spent most of the interwar years as personal aide-de-camp and Chief of Staff to Kornilov and was a chief organizer of the National Rebirth (Second Kornilovite Coup) as he personally led a battalion of the 1st Kornilov Shock Regiment in taking several key positions in Moscow to prevent any political forces in Russia from trying to use other military forces to obstruct the coup.

After the formation of the National State in 1937, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense under Pyotr Wrangel and was the chief planner of the reconquest of Central Asia. He took personal command of the 3rd Petrogard Corps during the early phase of the invasion of Finland before resassined away to assume the position of Chief of Army General Staff in the years leading up to the Russian direct intervention into the Second Great War. Although his capacity was proven as an excellent corp commander and chief of staff, Wrangel and other old guards believed Skoblin lacked the capacity to prepare Russia for the war. Regardless Skoblin was made a Marshal of Russia in command of the Second Army Group Belorussiya.

After the war, Wrangel retired his position as Defense Minister, a position which Skoblin replaced for the two years prior to Kornilov's death.

## Political Struggle with Wrangel

Kornilov suffered a severe heart attack and died a week later. His sudden death caused total chaos in the machinary of the National State as there were no appointed successor nor a legal procedure for the position of Vozhd. Pyotr Wrangel was offered the position 2 days after Kornilov's death to became the second Vozhd of All-Russia, however his position was challenged by other prominent Kornilovite from the old guards and other political forces wishing an ending to the Kornilovite legacy of military strongman. The other opposing faction is what later would be dubbed as the Young Kornilovites, a cabal of young officers that served under Kornilov during the civil war and has personal commitment to the late chieftain. The two leaders of which were Nikolai Skolbin and Mikhail Levitov, the first doubted the political intergrity of Wrangel regarding the Kornilovist ideology as demonstrated perfectly by the pragmatist policies that he employed in the time of the Armed Forces of South Russia, not to mention his personal opposition to the April Decrees banning and liquidated the SRs and Mensheviks, which he argued that would only destabilize Russia further. Unlike the other Kornilovites, Wrangel was an independent character too dangerous on his own to be entrusted with the legacy.

## Monarchists and Republican

In the short lived Wrangel's term as Vozhd of Russia, two attempts to attack the National State happened and was the peak of the Kremlin Crisis. First was the Monarchists from various faction and the Ultraroyalist Union of Russian People as well as monarchist military officers being led by the unabashed and unapologetic absolutist monarchist Drozdovsky. On the other hand is the populist-radical of the NPPR with its firm republican stance, more so enhanced with the lost of Savinkov to control it. These two efforts were public knowledge, however there were severe inaction in the position of Wrangel, himself feared to destabilize Russia by strongly suppressing the Savinkvists but also a restoration of the monarchy is extremely undesirable and could lead to severe crisis in Russia. It was in this radical political climate that a plot to overthrow the Russian government by a cartel of monarchist officers via assassinations and monarchist generals were discovered, however not too soon before a division have already marched on Moscow, only deterred by the arrest of its leaders in Moscow and total blackout of several military administrations leading to 4000 men lost and confused crowding Moscow's gas station. This event prompted a demand that Wrangel is unfit for the office and by the second day after the incident, General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and the ROVS central committee, both under control of the Young Kornilovites forced a resignation and a secret arrest of Wrangel, Drozdovsky and Kutepov and Alexander Vilenkin. After that a series of treason charges and crime of conspiring against Holy Russia began to purge all political parties involved with the Five-headed Regime that might act out of line resulting in the infamous Petrograd show trials by the Special Committee for the Security of the Fatherland chaired by Nikolai Skoblin himself.