Ivan Matveyevich Zaitsev (Russian: Иван Матвеевич Зайцев; 1 September 1879 – 22 November 1934) was an Orenburg Cossack, Major General (1919), a participant in the First World War, Commander of the 4th Isetsk–Stavropol Regiment of the Orenburg Cossack Army and Commander of Russian Troops in Khiva, Commissar of the Provisional Government in Khiva Possessions, Acting Chief of Staff of the Turkestan Military Organization, a participant in the Civil War on the side of the White Movement.
Upon graduation, he was promoted to the rank of corpsman and was assigned to the 2nd Orenburg Cossack Voivode of the Nagoy Regiment, stationed in Warsaw.
[2] In 1906, with the rank of sotnik, Zaitsev successfully passed the entrance exams and entered the Nikolaevsky Academy of the General Staff.
Here Zaitsev had an opportunity to show his diplomatic abilities: Dzhunaid Khan became an ally from an enemy – and helped to bring the insurgent detachments of the Aral Turkmens into submission.
In Chardzhui, Colonel Zaitsev met with the ministers of the Provisional Government of the Kokand Autonomy Mustafa Chokaev and Usman Khojaev to conclude an agreement on a joint fight against the Red detachments.
In Samarkand, Zaitsev hoped to use the Cossack units returning from Persia, where during the First World War they participated in hostilities under the command of General Nikolai Baratov, to fight the Soviet regime.
The Red Guards detachment, which left Tashkent, was headed by the Chairman of the Government of the Turkestan Republic Fedor Kolesov.
By this time, at a new rally in the Samarkand Fortress, the garrison, under the influence of the Bolshevik agitation (Stepan Chechevichkin, Stefanyuk, Galimkhanov), decided to carry out all orders of the Turkestan Government.
Under the influence of the first military clashes and agitation, the Cossacks agreed to disarm and hand over the organizers of the action, including Zaitsev.
As trophies, the Red Guards captured several cannons, dozens of machine guns, rifles, ammunition, artillery and officer horses, and carts.
[3] A significant role in these events was played by the commander of the Red Guard detachments, ensign Konstantin Osipov, who after that became the Minister of War of the Turkestan Republic.
By the way, the Turkestan Military Organization also took care of Zaitsev's wife, sending her to Chimkent with a reliable guide on the day of her husband's escape.
At the end of 1923, Ivan Zaitsev received a personal amnesty from the Soviet government and at the beginning of 1924 returned to Russia, arrived in Moscow and was enrolled in the Reserve of the Top Commanding Staff of the Red Army.
On 28 October 1924, Ivan Zaitsev was arrested by the Joint State Political Directorate and spent 7 months in Butyrskaya Prison.
On 2 January 1925, by the decision of a Special Meeting at the Collegium of the Joint State Political Directorate, he was sentenced to three years in camps.
On 3 August 1928, he fled from under the supervision of the State Political Administration from the transfer point in the city of Ust–Sysolsk and wandered around the country for more than seven months.
In 2017, Vladimir Markovchin [ru], a Senior Researcher at the Research Institute of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, said that, according to declassified documents, after arriving in the Soviet Union, Zaitsev began to cooperate with the Joint State Political Directorate in carrying out an operation to withdraw from Shanghai to Soviet Union of ships of the Kolchak Military Squadron.
[4] This version was refuted the same year by Zaitsev's biographer, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Andrei Ganin [ru], in a special article as inconsistent with the cited documents.
According to Ganin, General Zaitsev made the decision to fight Bolshevism "from within", infiltrating the leadership of the Red Army.