Tag #124391 - Interview #102821 (Vladimir Tseitlin)

Having discharged from the hospital, father entered the party of Bolsheviks [8] being captivated with the communist ideas. He was overwhelmed in the revolutionary work. After the Revolution of 1917 [9] father was appointed the deputy head of Smolensk municipal militia. During the Civil War he was appointed the commissar [political officer][10] of the anti-gang squad, to be more exact the struggle against Makhno [11] gang. Father liked to go back to that time. He went to have talks with Makhno in his residence Guyai-Pole [about 800 km to the south from Moscow]. The talks were held regarding Makhno joining the Red Army, but they did not come to an agreement. In 1934 when father worked in France he met Makhno, who immigrated to France, at the Russian Embassy. I lived in France with my father and remember that episode. Makhno asked for a permit to come back to Russia under condition of security guarantee. He must have not been guaranteed security as he stayed in France. Father took part in the Civil War until 1920. Then father was demobilized from the army and was involved in financial and economic work. He was an educated person. There were few people like that back at that time. Parents moved to Moscow before I was born. Father was given an apartment in a large (for those times) 7-storied house in the center of Moscow at Nikitinskiy boulevard. It was a separate 2-room apartment, which was rare for that period of time as overwhelming majority of USSR population lived in poky communal apartments  [12].