born Nov. 16, 1874, St. Petersburg, Russia
died Feb. 7, 1920, Irkutsk, Siberia, Soviet Russia
Russian naval officer and political leader.
He was forced to resign as commander of the fleet in the Black Sea after the Russian Revolution of 1917 began. After a coup d'état in Omsk in 1918, he gained power among the counterrevolutionary White Russians, and in 1919 he was recognized by them as supreme ruler of Russia. After initial successes against the Red Army, his armies were routed in 1919; the next year he was captured and executed by the Bolshevik s.