Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (Russian: Михаил Васильевич Фрунзе; Romanian: Mihail Frunză; 2 February 1885 – 31 October 1925) was a Soviet revolutionary, politician, army officer and military theorist.

He led the textile workers strike in Ivanovo during the 1905 Russian Revolution, for which he was later sentenced to death before being commuted to life-long hard labour in Siberia.

[7] Frunze began his higher studies at Verniy (present-day Almaty), and in 1904 he attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University.

At the Second Congress of the RSDLP in London (1903), Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, the two main leaders, confronted each other in an ideological split over party tactics (Martov argued for a large party of activists, whilst Lenin wanted a small group of professional revolutionaries with a large fringe group of sympathisers).

Frunze at the age of 18 sided with Lenin's majority, the so-called Bolsheviks ("majoritarians"), as opposed to Martov's minority, the Mensheviks (or "minoritarians").

During the February Revolution of 1917, Frunze headed the Minsk civilian militia before his election as president of the Byelorussian Soviet.

In November 1920, Frunze's army took the Crimea and managed to push White general Pyotr Wrangel and his troops out of Russia.

In December 1921, Frunze visited Ankara, during Turkish War of Independence, as an ambassador of the Ukrainian SSR, and established Turkish–Soviet relations.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk valued him as an ally and a friend, to the extent that he placed a statue of Frunze as a part of the Republic Monument at the Taksim Square, in Istanbul.

[10] Frunze had been noted among communist leaders as possessing a very creative and almost unorthodox view on matters of implementation and policy.

He gained the respect and admiration of his comrades thanks to his successful pursuit of complicated military objectives, and his endurance during the period when the Communist party was illegal.

[11] Not long before his death, Frunze wrote to his wife: "At present I am feeling absolutely healthy, and it seems ridiculous to even think of, and even more-so to undergo an operation.

[19] Similarly, Trotskyist historian Vadim Rogovin wrote that Stalin ordered the consultation of specially chosen doctors, who recommended surgical intervention.

Rogovin explained that this decision was made in spite of the fact that previous doctors had refused to recommend an operation because Frunze may not have been able to withstand choloroform due to his weak heart.

[23] The Russian battleship Poltava was renamed Frunze in his honour in January 1926, as was the second Kirov-class nuclear battlecruiser (now the "Admiral Lazarev") in 1981.

General Frunze is also honoured with a place right behind Atatürk, in the Monument of the Republic, located at the heart of Taksim Square, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Ali portrays Frunze as a significant figure in developing the military tactics of the Red Army during the civil war.