(19 18-1928)
Award initially given for bravery during the Russian Civil War (1918-1921). Instituted on September 16, 1918, this award was originally intended for the citizens of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, with several other Soviet republics adopting their own Red Banners. After the creation of the USSR, a single Order of the Red Banner was announced by the executive committee of the new republic on August 1, 1924. There is no agreement among scholars as to how many Soviet women received the Red Banner for their participation in the civil war, with cited numbers ranging from fifty-three to sixty-three. Recent archival research indicates higher totals. Military medical and political personnel (commissars) predominated within the female component. The order was granted to many additional women during World War II (Cottam 2003, 327). Representative recipients include:
Raisa Moiseevna Azarkh (1897—1971), a senior political-medical officer. Her appointments from mid-1918 to mid-1920 included military commissar of the 1st Special Viatka Division, chief of the Main Military Medical Administration of the Ukraine, chief of the Medical Service of the 5th Army, and chief of the Main Medical Administration of the Far Eastern Republic. She was awarded the Red Banner on February 2, 1928. During the Spanish Civil War she worked with Canadian medical doctor Norman Bethune.
Aleksandra Aleksandrovna (Permiakova) Ianysheva (1894—1983), who served in the Red Guard and the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. One of the outstanding women Bolsheviks, she held the following key posts during the war: chief of the Political Section of the Red Guard Headquarters; chief of the Propaganda Section of the Political Administration of the Red Army; and chief of the Political Section of the 15th Inzenskaia Infantry Division, renamed the Sivashskaia following the division’s crossing of the Sivash Gulf in the Crimea. On February 2, 1928, Ianysheva became one of the first recipients in her division of the Order of the Red Banner, which she received for her part in the legendary attack on enemy positions launched after the crossing.
Rozaliia Samoilovna (Zalkind) Samoilova-Zemliachka (1876—1947), dubbed Demon and Osipov. She was senior military commissar of the Red Army during the civil war and served as Soviet deputy premier during World War II. A dedicated revolutionary, an Old Bolshevik, and Lenin’s close associate, Zemliachka held crucial military appointments during the civil war, including that of chief of the Political Section of the 8th Army and of the 13 th Army. She was awarded the Red Banner on January 23, 1921, for improving the combat effectiveness of the Red Army and facilitating its final victory.
