On the Assembly Square in Penza, in front of the Governor's House, during the February Revolution of 1917, an enraged crowd of soldiers killed Major General Mikhail Antonovich Bem. He was a hero of the Chinese campaign, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I, and commanded the 30th Infantry Reserve Brigade. These tragic events are described in A.I. Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Red Wheel."