Vasily Yakovlev

He participated in the October Revolution of 1917; transferred former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family to Yekaterinburg, where they were later killed; rose to become a commander in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War; fled to China after being captured by the White Army, where he became a government advisor; and returned to the Soviet Union in 1928, where he was eventually arrested and executed.

He participated in many acts of sabotage and terrorism, including an armed train robbery through which he seized approximately 1.5 pounds of gold, which was invested into the Party.

During the October Revolution of 1917 he participated in the capture of the Winter Palace, after which he became the commissioner of the central telephone exchange of Petrograd, and was also a delegate at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

The family were then seized by the Ural Regional Soviet and held prisoner in the Ipatiev House until July 17, when they and four retainers were executed.

The above account contradicts that in Robert Massie's book Nicholas and Alexandra, which states that Yakovlev defected from the Bolsheviks and joined the White armies.

In Massie's account, Yakovlev arrived at Tobolsk on 22 April, accompanied by one hundred and fifty horsemen and his own private telegraph operator, through whom he could communicate directly with the Kremlin.

Yakovlev, his troops and his royal prisoners then travelled over three hundred and twenty kilometres to Tyumen, the site of the nearest railway station, with the members of the Imperial family riding in horse-drawn carts.

Acting on Sverdlov's instructions, he proceeded to Yekaterinburg, where the train was surrounded by troops; the members of the Imperial family were then taken away by officials of the Ural Regional Soviet.

He was captured and arrested by White forces in November — having tried to infiltrate them since October — but was released in 1919 and fled to Harbin, China, where in 1921 he became an adviser to the republican government under the name Konstantin Alekseyevich Stoyanovich.

Later, according to Massie, the Bolsheviks claimed that Yakovlev's actions in regard to the Imperial family had actually been part of a monarchist escape attempt.

He is given the "utmost respect" by Aleksandr Kerensky; by the journalist Robert Wilton, who was an operative in the pay of the British Foreign Office; by Paul Bulygin, who was in command of the personal guard of the Dowager Empress Maria; and by Baroness Buxhoeveden, lady-in-waiting to the Tsarina.