Semyon Krivoshein

Semyon Moiseevich Krivoshein (Russian: Семён Моисе́евич Кривоше́ин, November 28, 1899, Voronezh, Russian Empire - September 16, 1978, Moscow, Soviet Union) was a Soviet tank commander, who played a vital part in the World War II reform of the Red Army tank forces and in momentous defeat of German Panzers in the Battle of Kursk.
Early life and Russian Civil War
Krivoshein was born into the well-to-do family of a Jewish artisan shop owner and in 1917 graduated from a gymnasium, a Russian secondary school for the educated elite. Like many secular Jewish Russians of his generation, he was captivated by the Bolshevik promise of the perfect world of social justice, and in 1918 he enlisted in the Red Army to fight against the Whites in the Russian Civil War, seeing service in the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny.
Tank commander in Spain and Siberia
After the end of the war in 1921, Krivoshein stayed in the army. With the introduction in the...