Yakov Ivanovich Tryapitsyn ( ( April 25 , 1897 &ndash; July 9 , 1920 ) was a Russian and Soviet military and political figure . A wartime officer holding the rank of '' Praporshchik '' in the Imperial Russian Army during the First World War , he subsequently joined the Red Guards , and was appointed the Commander of the Nikolayevsk Front and the Nikolayevsk Military District of the Red Army of the Russian SFSR and the Okhotsk Front of the People 's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic . He took an active role in establishing Soviet power in Siberia and the Far East as a participant in the Civil War . He is best known for the role he played in the Nikolayevsk incident in 1920 , in which he massacred the entire population of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur and burned the town to the ground
Nikolayevsk incident
Nikolayevsk incident
Yakov Tryapitsyn