Not so long ago, the “legendary revolutionaries and commanders” Dybenko and Kotovsky graced the ranks of the heroes of the civil war. But the biographies of these people, constructed according to the “classical” Soviet scheme, were only a chain of omissions and falsifications. The author introduces readers to the biographies of 14 participants in the revolution and civil war. Then, overnight, by the will of the party, bandits turned into revolutionaries, criminals became the heads of the Red Army regiments, renowned army commanders drowned the uprisings of the dispossessed in blood, and party shifters successfully worked in the Cheka. Along with well-known figures, “high-quality” adventurers appeared for the first time on the pages of the book, about whom there is not a word in Soviet publications - the bandit Marusya, the atamans Volokh, Bozhko, Kotsur, General Sokira-Yakhontov and others.