High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Semyon Moiseevich Krivoshein (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. 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 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. He served in the infamous 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny. The army was Stalin's military power-base. Later, during the Great Purge of 1937-1938, Krivoshein's service in the 1st Cavalry Army saved him from troubles in spite of his "bourgeois" background.