Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz was born 10 February 1883 in Meikštai [lt], a small village in the Zarasai County of the Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire (now Ignalina District Municipality in Lithuania).

After attending an agricultural school for four years in Belmontas, Bułak-Bałachowicz worked as an accountant, and in 1904 became a manager at the Count Plater's estates in Horodziec and Łużki.

[2] After the outbreak of World War I and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich's address to the Polish people, Bułak-Bałachowicz joined the Russian Imperial army.

However, unlike many of his colleagues who were awarded the basic NCO grades for their noble ancestry only, Bułak-Bałachowicz proved himself as a skilled field commander and was quickly promoted.

Although the enemy unit was severely defeated, forced to retreat and abandon its staff behind, Bułak-Bałachowicz was seriously wounded after being shot in the left lung.

The new unit received Leon Trotsky's recognition and was soon reinforced with non-Polish volunteers from all over Russia and was planned as a cavalry division of the Red Army.

Soon after its creation, Bułak-Bałachowicz was ordered to quell the "Baron Korff Revolt" in the area of Luga near Petrograd (Saint Petersburg).

Because of that, Bułak-Bałachowicz with his cavalry regiment deserted and moved across the Bolshevik lines to the area of Pskov, held by the joint forces of White Russian Northern Corps and various German anti-Bolshevik units.

From there he fought his way across the fronts to the newly independent Estonia, where he then participated in the formation of general Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich's Northwestern Army.

Units commanded by Bułak-Bałachowicz assisted the Estonian Army in the victorious battles of Tartu, Võru, and Vastseliina, and he was soon thereafter promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Because of his victories, his subordinates (mostly Belarusian, Cossack, and Polish volunteers) nicknamed him "ataman", though some preferred to use the term Bat'ko – father.

He also put an end to censorship of the press and allowed for the creation of several socialist associations and newspapers, which enraged White generals towards him.

Finally, Bułak-Bałachowicz entered in contact with Estonian officers and Poles who were trying to reach the renascent Polish Army, which was seen by Bałachowicz's superiors as a sign of lack of loyalty.

His unit captured the railway node in Porkhov and broke the Pskov-Polotsk railroad, which added greatly to the White Russian's initial success.

Finally, by mid-March, they reached Dyneburg (now Daugavpils, then under Polish military administration), where they were greeted as heroes by Józef Piłsudski himself.

On 30 June Bułak-Bałachowicz once again broke through the enemy lines and captured the village of Sławeczno in today's Belarus, where the tabors of the Soviet 2nd Rifle Brigade were stationed.

On 23 July 1920, during the Bolshevik offensive towards central Poland, general Bałachowicz's group started an organised retreat as a rearguard of the Polish 3rd Army.

[citation needed] According to a book published in 1943, after Bułak-Bałachowicz's troops entered Pinsk, they have committed a series of pogroms on the Jewish population.

"[5][6][7] In October Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz was stationed with his forces in Pinsk, where they received supplies and a large number of former Red Army soldiers who were taken prisoner of war after the Battle of Warsaw and volunteered for the service in anti-Bolshevik units.

The Belarusian troops, hardened by the years spent behind the enemy lines, fought their way to Poland and managed to inflict heavy casualties on the advancing Russians while suffering negligible losses, but were too weak to turn the tide of war.

According to non-scientific accounts, between 1936 and 1939 he served as an advisor to Franco's nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, yet historians claim this is merely a legend.

[8] In 1923, there were false reports of his death in the local Polish press; supposedly, he had been murdered by White Russians in the Bialowieża Woods.

The Jewish Telegraph Agency remarked on his reported passing: "The murder of this ruthless insurrectionary and counter-revolutionary leader brings an end to the career of a bloodthirsty pogromist," referring to a February 1921 report by the Federation of Ukrainian Jews, that more than 1000 Jews in Minsk and Gomel were killed by Balachowitz's men.

After the capitulation of Warsaw, general Bułak-Bałachowicz (formally retired) evaded being captured by the Germans and returned to civilian life.

At the same time, he was the main organiser of Konfederacja Wojskowa (Military Confederation), one of the first underground resistance groups in German and Soviet-occupied Poland.

According to the most common version, Bułak-Bałachowicz was shot by Gestapo agents on 10 May 1940, in the Warsaw centre, on the intersection between Francuska and Trzeciego Maja streets.