The natives of that region, including his father Naum Ipatiyovych, who worked at the mines of Yuzivka, filled the ranks of the proletariat of Donbas and Kryvorizhye.

Since the summer of 1918, when the Bolsheviks lost power in the Donbas, Dubovoy participated in the defense of Tsaritsyn as part of the Red Guard units.

In October of the same year, he became deputy chief of staff of the 10th Army, which was part of the Southern Front of the Russian Army led by Pavel Sytin, later replaced by Pēteris Slavens after prolonged infighting between Sytin, supported by Leon Trotsky, and Kliment Voroshilov, who was backed by Joseph Stalin.

Stalin was recalled from Tsaritsyn and Voroshilov, with whom Dubovoy was on fairly friendly terms, was transferred to the post of Chief of Staff of the 1st Cavalry Division.

After its reinforcement by the more powerful First Ukrainian Soviet Army, the new entity was headed by Mykola Shchors, with Dubovoy as his deputy.

In 1926, he completed advanced training courses for senior command staff, and in 1927 he went to Germany for a two-month internship in the Reichswehr troops.

Dubovoy was arrested on August 20, 1937, by the NKVD, allegedly because of a careless word in defense of his fellow communist fighters, who were subject to repression.

[1] According to the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated July 28, 1938, Dubovoy was killed in the Kharkiv NKVD prison.