Yakov Moiseevich Fishman (Russian: Яков Моисеевич Фишман, 1887 - July 12, 1961), was a Russian revolutionary and politician, previously a leader of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party who participated in the assassination of the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach in 1918 and later, the anti-Bolshevik Left SR uprising.
[1][2][3] In August 1925, he was appointed the first head of the Red Army's Military-Chemical Directorate (Voenno-khimicheskoe upravlenie, abbreviated to VOKhIMU).
In 1926, at a small laboratory controlled by VOKhIMU, Fishman initiated research on Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax).
In February 1928, Fishman prepared a key report for Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov (the People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs and Chairman of the USSR's Revolutionary Military Council) on the Soviet Union's preparedness for biological warfare.
It asserted that "the bacterial option could be successfully used in war" and proposed a plan for the organisation of Soviet military bacteriology.