Vasily Yakovenko

Vasily Grigoryevich Yakovenko (; – 29 July 1937) was a Soviet military commander and politician who organised Red Army partisan divisions in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. He later served as People's Commissar of Agriculture of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (1922–1923) and People's Commissar of Social Security of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (1923–1926).

Biography From a peasant family, at the age of nine, he was left an orphan. He worked as a laborer. In 1910, he was drafted into the army and served in the engineering units for four years. From 1914, he participated in the First World War, the non–commissioned officer, according to his own recollections, was awarded the Saint George Cross three times, but this fact has no documentary evidence. In July 1917, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks). Returning to Taseyevo, at the end of the same year, he became chairman of the Taseevsky Volost District.

After the Czechoslovak Revolt, which overthrew the Soviet regime in the region, he went underground. In December 1918, he led the uprising in Taseevo and organized a partisan struggle against the Kolchak Troops. He became one of the founders of the partisan army, which numbered up to 15 thousand people. Chairman of the Council of the North Kansk Partisan Front, led the fight against the Kolchak regime until the end of January 1920.

From 1923 to 1926, People's Commissar of Social Security of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. Delegate of the 12th–13th Congresses of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), in 1924–1925 – member of the Central Control Commission of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). He was a member of the All–Russian Central Executive Committee. Since 1928, he worked in the reception room of the chairman of the Central Executive Committee, Mikhail Kalinin, as chairman of the land and election commission. From 1932 to 1935 – in the State Planning Commission of the Soviet Union, he was a member of the presidium and chairman of the national bureau. Since 1935, he was first a member of the board of the Research Institute of New Bast Crops under the People's Commissariat for Agriculture of the Soviet Union in Moscow, and then the director of this institute.

Family First wife – Maria Alexandrovna Mullova. The second wife, Raisa Abramovna Yakovenko, was repressed as the wife of an "enemy of the people", spent 19 years in camps and exile, then lived in Moscow.

Awards The Notes of a Partisan mentions the awarding of Vasily Grigorievich with three Saint George Crosses, however, there is no data on these awards in the consolidated lists of holders of the Saint George Cross.