Ephraim Sklyansky
Ephraim Markovich Sklyansky was a Soviet revolutionary and statesman. He joined the Bolsheviks during his years as a student in the medical faculty of Kiev University, from which he graduated in 1916; he was immediately drafted into the army, where he served as a doctor and became prominent in the clandestine military organizations of the Bolsheviks. At the time of the October Revolution he was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet; on meeting him in November, Leon Trotsky was so impressed with his "great creative élan combined with concentrated attention to detail" that he appointed him his deputy on the Revolutionary Military Council, where he served with distinction during the Russian Civil War and helped improve the fighting condition of the Red Army—Trotsky called him the Carnot of the Russian Revolution. In 1924 his position as Trotsky's deputy was taken over by Grigory Zinoviev's ally Mikhail Frunze. Instead, he was made chairman of the Mossukno state textile trust, and the following May he left on a tour of Germany, France, and the United States to acquire technical information. On August 27, 1925 he died in a boating accident on Long Lake along with, the first head of Amtorg Trading Corporation. The high-ranking Soviet defector Boris Bazhanov was convinced that Sklyansky had been drowned on Stalin's orders, and the alleged accident had been organized by and Genrikh Yagoda.
