Mikhail Frunze

Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was a Bolshevik leader during and just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Frunze was born in modern-day Kyrgyzstan. He became active with the Bolsheviks and rose to the rank of a major Red Army commander in the Russian Civil War of 1917-1918. He is best known for defeating Baron Peter von Wrangel in Crimea. The capital of the Kyrghyz SSR was named in his honor from 1926 until 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved.