Nikolai Podvoisky

Nikolai Ilyich Podvoisky (Николай Ильич Подвойский) (February 4 (16), 1880 – July 28, 1948) was a Russian revolutionary. He played a large role in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and wrote many articles for the Soviet newspaper Krasnaya Gazeta. He also wrote a history of the Bolshevik Revolution, which describes the progress of the Russian Revolution without mentioning Leon Trotsky or Joseph Stalin.

He was chairperson of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet and one of the troika who led the storming of the Winter Palace during the 1917 October Revolution, and commissioned Sergei Eisenstein to create a film version of the 1920 re-enactment in 1927. Immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917, he served as the first Commissar of Defence of Russia until March 1918.