Lavr Kornilov

**Lavr Kornilov** is the current leader of the Russian State and head of the National Union Party that dominates the political sphere of Moscow. Since 1931 after his takeover of Moscow, Kornilov has grand plans for Russia, with the goal of restoring the old Republican borders and crushing the Russian Socialist Republic to the northwest of the country.

## Lavr Kornilov

### *Importance*

Head of the Russian ArmyPresident of Russia

## Early life and military career

Born in 1870, at age 15 he entered military school in Omsk. In August 1892 he was assigned as a lieutenant to the Turkestan Military District, where he led several exploration missions in Eastern Turkestan, Afghanistan and Persia, learned several Central Asian languages, and wrote detailed reports about his observations.

Kornilov returned to St. Petersburg to attend the Mykolayiv General Staff Academy and graduated as a captain in 1897. Again refusing a posting at St. Peterburg, he returned to the Turkestan Military District, where he resumed his duties as a military intelligence officer. Among his missions at this post was an attempt at traveling incognito to British India in 1904, though he was quickly discovered and subsequently kept under close surveillance.

During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 Kornilov became the Chief of staff of the 1st Infantry Brigade, and was heavily involved in the Battle of Sandepu (January 1905) and the Battle of Mukden (February/March 1905). He was awarded the Order of St. George (4th class) for bravery and promoted to the rank of colonel.

Following the end of the war, Kornilov served as military attache in China from 1907 to 1911. He studied the Chinese language, travelled extensively (researching data on the history, traditions and customs of the Chinese, which he intended to use as material for a book about life in contemporary China), and regularly sent detailed reports to the General Staff and Foreign Ministry. Kornilov paid much attention to the prospects of cooperation between Russia and China in the Far East and met with the future president of China, Chiang Kai-shek. In 1910 Kornilov was recalled from Beijing but remained in St. Petersburg for only five months before departing for western Mongolia and Kashgar to examine the military situation along China's border with Russia. On 2 February 1911 he became Commander of the 8th Infantry Regiment of Estonia and was later appointed commander of the 9th Siberian Rifle Division, stationed in Vladivostok.

In 1914, at the start of the Great War, Kornilov was appointed commander of the 48th Infantry Division, which saw combat in Galicia and the Carpathians. In 1915, he was promoted to the rank of major general. During heavy fighting, he was captured by the Austrians in April 1915, when his division became isolated from the rest of the Russian forces. After his capture, Field Marshal Conrad, the commander of the Austro-Hungarian Army, made a point of meeting him in person. As a major general, he was a high-value prisoner of war, but in July 1916 Kornilov managed to escape back to Russia and return to duty.

After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, he was given command of the Petrograd Military District in March 1917. On 8 March, Kornilov placed the Empress Alexandra and her children under house arrest at the Alexander Palace (Nicholas was still held at Stavka), replacing the Tsar's Escort and Combined Regiments of the Imperial Guard with 300 revolutionary troops. But when the Provisional Government declined to give him the authority he sought to deal with indiscipline, he was transferred at his request to command the Russian Eighth Army. His army inflicted a spectacular defeat on the Austrians as the empire devolved into a civil war. Thereafter, Kornilov was placed in charge of maintaining Russian interest in Galicia and occupied Austro-Hungarian lands as the Central Powers began to collapse. When the war ended with a Russian victory, Kornilov was hailed as a hero of the new Republic and became one of the most notable Russian military leaders.

## The Russian Civil War

With the chaotic Russian Civil War starting, Kornilov was placed in charge of the Eastern Front, dealing with Polish insurgents shortly before the Fall of Petrograd. As the communists rapidly expanded their territory, Kornilov, alongside many generals and commanders were hastily evacuated to the Ural Mountains, specifically in Ekaterinburg. The Russian army scrambled to fight the Reds but suffered defeat after defeat, and it wasn’t until the occupation of Tsaritsyn that the communist offensive finally stalled.

(WIP, see the civil war article to know more)

## Before the coup

With the end of the civil war, the republic laid battered and beaten, with Russia suffering the worst defeat of its time in modern history. Arguably starting after the end of the civil war was Kornilov’s private break with the Republican ideals of Russia. Seeing the horrors and wreckage the war caused and the inadequacy of the government to fully deal with the damage, Kornilov, already a fierce Russian nationalist founded the National Unity Party, under the belief that only a strong, centralized government will be able to steer Russia out of post-war chaos. His party garnered a huge following across the country in the coming years, and by 1931, the pieces were set in place for Kornilov to assume control of the Duma and the whole apparatus of state.

## The Moscow Coup d'etat

In February of 1931, with the secret backing of most high ranking military commanders and generals, Kornilov seized control of Moscow, which immediately lead to purges and a slaughter of political Republicans, while Aleksandr Konovalov, the then president fled in exile, unwilling to shed blood over Kornilov's attempted seizure of power. With Kornilov's opposition crumbling within a matter of hours, the coup was widely successful. In the next few weeks Kornilov consolidated his influence in the military before his rule fully materialized over the country after about a month.

Since then, Kornilov, alongside his loyalists have remained the most stable regime ruling Russia since before the Great War, and to many a strong centralized ruler is what was needed to bring Russia out of despair and ruin. Despite protests, he managed to recognize and keep cordial relations with the breakaway countries that became independent during the civil war in order to avoid food shortages. Industrialization began, bringing down the unemployment rate for the first time in 10 years while the once un-modernized military was drastically changed for the better. For many Russians, these changes helped solidify Kornilov as the rightful ruler of Russia, the one and only person that can crush the northern communists for once, and for all.