Dutov was born in Kazalinsk in
Syr-Darya Oblast (now
Kazaly in
Kazakhstan). He graduated from and , now
Military engineering-technical university (Russian
Военный инженерно-технический университет), and
General Staff Academy (1908). He was assistant
commander of the Cossack regiment during
World War I. After the
February Revolution, Dutov was appointed head of the All-Russian Cossack Army Union, then chairman of the counterrevolutionary All-Russian Cossack Congress (June 1917), and then, in September 1917, Chief of the Army Administration and
ataman of the
Orenburg Cossack Army. In November 1917, Dutov raised a revolt against the
Red Army authorities in Orenburg. In June 1918, Dutov, with the help of the
Czech Legion, organized a struggle for complete termination of the Soviet authority in the Urals. He was in charge of the
Orenburg Independent Army in
Aleksandr Kolchak's army. In 1919, he tried to convince General
Grigory Semyonov to join him as a stronger force to fight the Red Army. Semyonov refused despite a significant diplomatic effort from Governor
Vasile Balabanov, claiming he was governor only since the provisional government in
Saint Petersburg collapsed in the revolution. On 9 May 1918, after Dutov captured Alexandrov Gay village, nearly 2,000 men of the Red Army were buried alive. More than 700 people from the village were executed. After capturing Troitsk, Orenburg, and other cities, a regime of terror was installed over 6,000 people, of whom 500 were killed just during interrogations. In
Chelyabinsk, Dutov's men executed or deported to Siberian prisons over 9,000 people. In Troitsk, in the first weeks after the capture of the city, Dutov's men shot about 700 people. In Ileka they killed over 400. These mass executions were typical of Dutov's Cossack troops. Dutov's executive order of 4 August 1918, imposed the death penalty for evasion of military service and for even passive resistance to authorities on its territory. In one district of the Ural region in January 1918, Dutov's men killed over 1,000 people. On 3 April 1919, the Cossack warlord ordered his troops to shoot and take hostages for the slightest display of opposition. In the village of Sugar, Dutov's men burned down a hospital with hundreds of Red Army patients. After his army's defeat by Red Army, Dutov led his Orenburg Army in the
Starving March during the winter of 1919–1920 to
Semirechye, and from there in March–May 1920 to
China. At that time, General Dutov also helped a number of Russian leaders, including Vasile Balabanov, the administrator of
Semirechye, to escape to China. Dutov was assassinated in
Suiding,
China, by the Bolshevik agent Мahmud Khadzhamirov (Махмуд Хаджамиров) in February 1921. == See also ==