Ilyin-Zhenevsky promoted chess as an educational vehicle for developing tactical and strategical comprehension during military training, and, within the Soviet Union, he was the main person responsible for the spreading of the idea of chess as a way to teach the basics of scientific and rational thought. The All-Russian Chess Olympiad (retroactively recognized as the
first Soviet Championship) in 1920 and the 1933 match
Mikhail Botvinnik –
Salo Flohr were organized by him. He was three times
chess champion of Leningrad, in 1925 (jointly), 1926, and 1929. In 1925, he won a game against
José Raúl Capablanca, one of only a few players to have ever beaten Capablanca in a tournament game. Being personally associated with many oppositionists since
Civil War times, he suffered persecution in the
Joseph Stalin era. According to Botvinnik and official sources he died in a
Nazi air raid on
Lake Ladoga on a ship during the
siege of Leningrad, but it is believed by some that he fell victim to the
Great Purge. But this claim is very dubious, because in 1941, after the end of the purge, Ilyin-Genevsky was playing in the Rostov-on-Don Semifinal for the 13th Soviet Championship on the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union. ==Legacy==