Pavel Dybenko

Pavel Efimovich Dybenko (Russian: Павел Ефимович Дыбенко), (February 16, 1889 – July 29, 1938) was a Soviet revolutionary and a leading officer.

Pavel Dybenko was born in Lyudkovo village, Novozybkov uyezd, Chernigov guberniya, Imperial Russia (now Novozybkov, Bryansk Oblast, Russia) in a Ukrainian peasant family. In 1907 he started working in the local Treasury department, but was fired as "untrustworthy" due to his political activities. From 1907 onward, Dybenko became active in a Bolshevik group, distributing revolutionary literature throughout the Novozbykov region - progressive publications such as the People’s Gazette and the Proletariat which spoke to anti-Tsar sympathies.

He moved to Riga and worked as a port labourer. He tried to avoid enlisting, but was arrested and forcibly enlisted.

In November 1911, he joined the Baltic Fleet. The first six months he served on the ship "Dvina".

The "Dvina" was utilized by the Navy as a training vessel for the new recruits at Kronstadt. Formerly known as the Pamiat Azova its sailors were veterans of the 1906 revolutionary actions.

In 1912 he joined the Bolshevik Party. In 1915, he participated in the mutiny on board of the battleship Emperor Paul I. He was imprisoned for six months and sent as an infantry soldier to the German front. There he went on with anti-war propaganda, and was again imprisoned for 6 months.

He was released after the February 1917 revolution, and returned to the Baltic Fleet. In April 1917, he became the leader of the Tsentrobalt.

During the first hours after the taking the Winter Palace, Dybenko personally entered the Ministry of Justice and destroyed there the documents concerning the financing of the Bolshevik party by the German military secret services and the General Staff of the German Army. However, the action of Dybenko entering the Ministry of Justice to destroy documents as recalled by Savchenko can be challenged: according to all reports Pavel Dybenko was in Helsinki organizing the sailors departures for Petrograd. From the book Radio October...On the “Krechet” in Helsinki, radio operator Makarov hands a telegram to Pavel Dybenko with the report of the “Samson” commissar, Grigoriy Borisov: “To Tsentrobalt. Everything is calm in Petrograd. The power is in the hands of the revolutionary committee. You have to immediately get in touch with the front committee of the Northern Army in order to preserve unity of forces and stability.”)

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