Background
KOTOVSKIY, Grigoriy was born on June 12, 1881 in village Gancheshty, Bessarabia. Son of a mechanic.
Moldavian anarchist revolutionary
KOTOVSKIY, Grigoriy was born on June 12, 1881 in village Gancheshty, Bessarabia. Son of a mechanic.
1900 graduate Agric College.
1900-1902 agronomist and steward for a landowner. December 1902 arrested and imprisoned in Kishenev Prison for forging a letter of recommendation. 1903-1905 laborer on an estate, forester, day laborer and brewery worker
February 1905 conscripted into Russian Army and assigned to 19th Kostroma Iniantry Regt in Zhitomir. May 1905 deserted; late 1905 during peasant uprisings in Russia founded small partisan detachment in his native parts and began campaign of terror against local landowners, burning estates and distributing the valuables among the poor. November 1907 after repeated arrests and escapes sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor.
February 1913 escaped from construction gang building Amur Railroad. Early 1915 returned to Bessarabia and resumed terrorist activities against the rich and local administration June 1916 captured, tried and sentenced to hanging, which the commander of the Southwestern Front commuted to indefinite hard labor.
May 1917, after February Revol, released on parole and sent to the army on the Rumanian Front. From 1918 in Red Army. 1919-1920 commanded cavalry brigade and fought against White troops in the Ukraine and near Petrograd.
Fought in the SovPolish War. 1920-1921 commander, 17th Cavalry Division, then separate cavalry brigade. Helped liquidate Makhno’s troops and crush Antonov rebellion in Tambov Province and the anti-Soviet insurrection in the Ukraine.
1921-1922 commander, 9th Cavalry Division. 1922-1925 commander, 2nd Cavalry Corps in the Ukraine. Member, Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics Central Executive Committee and All-Ukraine Central Executive Committee.
Communist Party member from 1920.