How did the Civil War in Russia end? Civil war in Transbaikalia and the Far East. education dvr

Features of the civil war in the Far East. Features of the civil war in the Far East. Periodization of the civil war in the Far East Periodization of the civil war in the Far East The course of the civil war in the Far East Reasons for foreign intervention in the Far East The beginning of foreign intervention Balance of forces Chronology of events Results Dictionary Additional information PLAN:

Features of the civil war in the Far East: The civil war in the Far East is the longest in terms of terms the longest Buffer Far Eastern Republic in fact remained a warring republic all the time Clear and constant superiority of the enemy forces in numbers and, especially, in weapons, which were easily replenished by them Use in the Far East , especially in Primorye, on the widest scale of guerrilla warfare methods. Coordinated combat actions of partisans and the regular People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic, first used in the civil war. The need for maximum use of the means of diplomacy and the combination of these means with military measures (for example, the formation of a buffer Far Eastern Republic)

Periodization of the civil war in the Far East The five-year civil war in the Far East is clearly divided into three periods: January-September 1918. Conventionally, it can be called “Red Guards”. With a few exceptions, Red Guard formations operated there. It was a front-line war. Red Guard autumn 19I8. Partisan period. During this period, Kolchakism and Atamanism were rampant in Siberia and the Far East. The main bases of the interventionists were located in the cities of Primorye, and the port of Vladivostok remained the only point of communication between the interventionists and their countries. The period of united actions of partisans and the regular army of the Far Eastern Republic, which was actually part of the Red Army.

The victory of the October Revolution and the triumphal march of Soviet power since October 1917. to February 1918, when in 79 of the country's 97 cities Soviet power was established peacefully, and the new government easily dealt with scattered counter-revolutionary actions, it clearly showed the imperialists the futility of their hopes that the Bolshevik regime would collapse on its own. The imperialists of the USA, England, France, Japan, Italy and a number of other countries first sought to strangle Soviet power by the forces of internal counter-revolution, then by the forces of united military intervention. The leading role in this action is taken by two warring powers, the USA and Japan. Japan, preparing to take part in the war against Soviet Russia, demanded exclusive rights to the Far East and Siberia, seeking freedom of action and not wanting to recognize American control. The United States pursued its interests, relying on the support of the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia, expelled from Tomsk and located in Harbin. interventions. not wanting to recognize the control of America. The Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia. Reasons for intervention in the Far East.

On New Year's Eve, 1918, the Japanese cruiser Iwami unexpectedly appeared in the Vladivostok roadstead with a landing party of soldiers on board. The Japanese Consul General in Vladivostok explained the appearance of the cruiser by the need to protect the Japanese living in Vladivostok. Following the Willows, the Japanese cruiser Asahi and the English Suffocles entered the Golden Horn Bay, and on March 1 the American cruiser Brooklyn appeared with infantry on board. To start an intervention in the depths of the Far East and Siberia, only a pretext was needed. On the night of April 4-5, 1918. The Japanese organized a provocation (the murder of employees of the Isis company), using it as a pretext to begin the intervention. Japanese and British troops landed in Vladivostok. Thus began the intervention of the imperialist powers in the east of the RSFSR. Beginning of intervention in the Far East

1918 1919 1920 1921 – 1922 White Guards 100 thousand people 350 thousand people More than 350 thousand people Interventionists 163 thousand people 270 thousand people 300 thousand people in Japan - 350 thousand. Table 1 Forces of interventionists and White Guards in the Far East during the civil war. Balance of forces: WHITE White: Kolchak’s army, gangs of atamans Semenov and Gamov, Esaul Kalmykov, Colonel Orlov, etc. Interventionists: Japan, USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, etc.

Balance of power: RED By 1918, approximately 800 thousand people lived in the Far East. By 1918, the armed forces of Soviet Russia in the Far East consisted of: 1. Detachments of the Red Guard, whose strength in Primorye by 1918 was bayonets; 2. Units of the Red Army, which in Primorye was formed almost exclusively from internationalists: Czechoslovaks and Serbs. The actions of the armed forces were led by the Dalsovnarkom, headed by Krasnoshchekov. 3. During the partisan period, on the territory of Primorye alone, 15 thousand people fought in partisan detachments, and in Siberia and the Far East, a thousand people fought in partisan armies. 4. After the formation of the Far Eastern Republic, the People's Revolutionary Army was created under the command of Blucher, which acted together with the partisans. 1. Krivoshchekov A.M. 2. Shevchenko G.M. 3. Lazo S.G. 4. Blucher V.K.

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS: 1. Spring 1918 - revolts of atamans Gamov in the Amur region, Semenov - in Transbaikalia, April 1918, provocation of the Japanese in Vladivostok. The beginning of foreign intervention in the Far East in June 1918 - the interventionists and White Guards dispersed the Vladivostok Council, arrested its representatives. In August 1918, the V Congress of Soviets of the Far East was held in Khabarovsk, proclaiming the transition to partisan methods of struggle. 5. August-September 1918 - capture of Primorye, Khabarovsk Territory and Amur Region by the White Guards and interventionists, establishment of Kolchak’s power (until 1919) 6. By March 1920 - revolutionary power was restored in all regions of the Far East. Further

7. April 6, 1920 – formation of the Far Eastern Republic in February 1922. - battles near Volochaevka and Novospasskaya. Volochaevka and Novospasskaya February 1922 - liberation of Khabarovsk by NRA units 10. October 1922 - offensive of NRA units and partisans in Southern Primorye October 1922 - defeat of units of the general. Diterikhs by units of the NRA under the command of I. Uborevich in the Spassk-Dalniy region in October 1922 - liberation of Vladivostok from the interventionists and White Guards by units of the NRA of the Far Eastern Republic and partisan detachments.

RESULTS OF THE CIVIL WAR IN THE Far East: On October 25, 1922, units of the NRA of the Far East and partisan detachments of Primorye liberated Vladivostok. Thus ended the civil war in the Far East. On November 14, 1922, the People's Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic adopted a resolution on the liquidation of the Far Eastern Republic, the entry of the Far East into the RSFSR and the introduction of a unified management system throughout the territory of Soviet Russia.

VOCABULARY: 1. Civil war - an armed clash of various social groups, political parties in the struggle for political power 2. Intervention - an armed invasion of the troops of one country into the territory of another. Intervention - 3. Dalsovnarkom - Far Eastern Council of People's Commissars, image - bathed at the III Congress of Soviets of the Far East in December 1917. 4. FER – Far Eastern Republic, formed on April 6, 1920 on the initiative of V.I. Lenin, as a buffer state separating the RSFSR and Japan, bourgeois-democratic in form, but led by the Bolsheviks. 5. NRA - People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic, which is actually part of the Red Army. 6. Red Guard - detachments of armed workers performing military service without leaving work. They were poorly armed and trained, the command staff was elected, and, as a rule, had no military education.

Additional information: 1. The civil war in the Far East ended only on October 25, 1922 and lasted for almost 5 years, not stopping even during the construction of the Far East. 2. From April 1920 to October 25, 1922, the Far Eastern Republic existed for about 30 months, of which 27 were during the civil war. The buffer Far Eastern Republic was always a warring republic. 3. The commander of the Red Czechoslovak battalion in Primorye was Captain Mirovsky.

Document 1. From the statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan in January 1918. “It would be useless for Japan to land troops in Vladivostok without trying to seize the railway all the way to Irkutsk. The occupation of Vladivostok and the Siberian railway to Irkutsk will protect Siberia from the German threat. But mainly the Japanese army in Siberia will serve to create a new Russian army.” Document 2. From a statement in the Japanese press: “America must understand that in Vladivostok and along the East China and Siberian Railways, Japan must not be ignored, and America cannot act as it pleases...”

Document 3. From the appeal of the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia, expelled from Tomsk and located in Harbin, to the United States: “... we propose to take control of the Siberian and Chinese Eastern Railways... It is possible to quickly take Vladivostok and Karymskaya and send a division to protect the Amur and take Irkutsk."

Chronology

• 1918 Stage I of the civil war - “democratic”
• 1918, June Nationalization Decree
• 1919, January Introduction of surplus appropriation
• 1919 Fight against A.V. Kolchak, A.I. Denikin, Yudenich
• 1920 Soviet-Polish War
• 1920 Fight against P.N. Wrangel
• 1920, November End of the civil war on European territory
• 1922, October End of the civil war in the Far East

Civil war and military intervention

Civil War- “the armed struggle between different groups of the population, which was based on deep social, national and political contradictions, took place with the active intervention of foreign forces through various stages and stages...” (Academician Yu.A. Polyakov).

In modern historical science there is no single definition of the concept of “civil war”. In the encyclopedic dictionary we read: “Civil war is an organized armed struggle for power between classes, social groups, the most acute form of class struggle.” This definition actually repeats Lenin’s famous saying that civil war is the most acute form of class struggle.

Currently, various definitions are given, but their essence mainly boils down to the definition of the Civil War as a large-scale armed confrontation, in which, undoubtedly, the issue of power was decided. The seizure of state power in Russia by the Bolsheviks and the subsequent dispersal of the Constituent Assembly can be considered the beginning of armed confrontation in Russia. The first shots were heard in the south of Russia, in the Cossack regions, already in the autumn of 1917.

General Alekseev, the last chief of staff of the tsarist army, begins to form the Volunteer Army on the Don, but by the beginning of 1918 it amounted to no more than 3,000 officers and cadets.

As A.I. wrote Denikin in “Essays on Russian Troubles,” “the white movement grew spontaneously and inevitably.”

In the first months of the victory of Soviet power, armed clashes were local in nature; all opponents of the new government gradually determined their strategy and tactics.

This confrontation truly took on a front-line, large-scale character in the spring of 1918. Let us highlight three main stages in the development of armed confrontation in Russia, based primarily on taking into account the alignment of political forces and the peculiarities of the formation of fronts.

The first stage begins in the spring of 1918 when the military-political confrontation becomes global, large-scale military operations begin. The defining feature of this stage is its so-called “democratic” character, when representatives of the socialist parties emerged as an independent anti-Bolshevik camp with slogans of returning political power to the Constituent Assembly and restoring the gains of the February Revolution. It is this camp that is chronologically ahead of the White Guard camp in its organizational design.

At the end of 1918 the second stage begins- confrontation between whites and reds. Until the beginning of 1920, one of the main political opponents of the Bolsheviks was the white movement with the slogans of “non-decision of the state system” and the elimination of Soviet power. This direction threatened not only the October, but also the February conquests. Their main political force was the Cadets Party, and the army was formed by generals and officers of the former tsarist army. The Whites were united by hatred of the Soviet regime and the Bolsheviks, and the desire to preserve a united and indivisible Russia.

The final stage of the Civil War begins in 1920. events of the Soviet-Polish war and the fight against P. N. Wrangel. Wrangel's defeat at the end of 1920 marked the end of the Civil War, but anti-Soviet armed protests continued in many regions of Soviet Russia during the years of the New Economic Policy

Nationwide scale armed struggle has acquired from spring 1918 and turned into the greatest disaster, the tragedy of the entire Russian people. In this war there were no right and wrong, no winners and losers. 1918 - 1920 — in these years, the military issue was of decisive importance for the fate of the Soviet government and the bloc of anti-Bolshevik forces opposing it. This period ended with the liquidation in November 1920 of the last white front in the European part of Russia (in Crimea). In general, the country emerged from the state of civil war in the fall of 1922 after the remnants of white formations and foreign (Japanese) military units were expelled from the territory of the Russian Far East.

A feature of the civil war in Russia was its close intertwining with anti-Soviet military intervention Entente powers. It was the main factor in prolonging and aggravating the bloody “Russian Troubles.”

So, in the periodization of the civil war and intervention, three stages are quite clearly distinguished. The first of them covers the time from spring to autumn 1918; the second - from the autumn of 1918 to the end of 1919; and the third - from the spring of 1920 to the end of 1920.

The first stage of the civil war (spring - autumn 1918)

In the first months of the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, armed clashes were local in nature; all opponents of the new government gradually determined their strategy and tactics. The armed struggle acquired a nationwide scale in the spring of 1918. Back in January 1918, Romania, taking advantage of the weakness of the Soviet government, captured Bessarabia. In March - April 1918, the first contingents of troops from England, France, the USA and Japan appeared on Russian territory (in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, in Vladivostok, in Central Asia). They were small and could not significantly influence the military and political situation in the country. “War communism”

At the same time, the enemy of the Entente - Germany - occupied the Baltic states, part of Belarus, Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus. The Germans actually dominated Ukraine: they overthrew the bourgeois-democratic Verkhovna Rada, whose help they used during the occupation of Ukrainian lands, and in April 1918 they put Hetman P.P. in power. Skoropadsky.

Under these conditions, the Supreme Council of the Entente decided to use the 45,000th Czechoslovak Corps, which was (in agreement with Moscow) under his subordination. It consisted of captured Slavic soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army and followed the railway to Vladivostok for subsequent transfer to France.

According to the agreement concluded on March 26, 1918 with the Soviet government, the Czechoslovak legionnaires were to advance “not as a combat unit, but as a group of citizens equipped with weapons to repel armed attacks by counter-revolutionaries.” However, during their movement, their conflicts with local authorities became more frequent. Since the Czechs and Slovaks had more military weapons than provided for in the agreement, the authorities decided to confiscate them. On May 26 in Chelyabinsk, conflicts escalated into real battles, and legionnaires occupied the city. Their armed uprising was immediately supported by the military missions of the Entente in Russia and anti-Bolshevik forces. As a result, in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East - wherever there were trains with Czechoslovak legionnaires - Soviet power was overthrown. At the same time, in many provinces of Russia, peasants, dissatisfied with the food policy of the Bolsheviks, rebelled (according to official data, there were at least 130 large anti-Soviet peasant uprisings alone).

Socialist parties(mainly right-wing Social Revolutionaries), relying on interventionist landings, the Czechoslovak Corps and peasant rebel groups, formed a number of governments Komuch (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly) in Samara, the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region in Arkhangelsk, the West Siberian Commissariat in Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk), The Provisional Siberian Government in Tomsk, the Trans-Caspian Provisional Government in Ashgabat, etc. In their activities they tried to compose “ democratic alternative”both the Bolshevik dictatorship and the bourgeois-monarchist counter-revolution. Their programs included demands for the convening of the Constituent Assembly, the restoration of the political rights of all citizens without exception, freedom of trade and the abandonment of strict state regulation of the economic activities of peasants while maintaining a number of important provisions of the Soviet Decree on Land, the establishment of a “social partnership” of workers and capitalists during the denationalization of industrial enterprises and etc.

Thus, the performance of the Czechoslavak corps gave impetus to the formation of a front that bore the so-called “democratic coloring” and was mainly Socialist-Revolutionary. It was this front, and not the white movement, that was decisive at the initial stage of the Civil War.

In the summer of 1918, all opposition forces became a real threat to the Bolshevik government, which controlled only the territory of the center of Russia. The territory controlled by Komuch included the Volga region and part of the Urals. Bolshevik power was also overthrown in Siberia, where the regional government of the Siberian Duma was formed. The breakaway parts of the empire - Transcaucasia, Central Asia, the Baltic states - had their own national governments. Ukraine was captured by the Germans, Don and Kuban by Krasnov and Denikin.

On August 30, 1918, a terrorist group killed the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, and the right-wing Socialist Revolutionary Kaplan seriously wounded Lenin. The threat of loss of political power from the ruling Bolshevik party became catastrophically real.

In September 1918, a meeting of representatives of a number of anti-Bolshevik governments of democratic and social orientation was held in Ufa. Under pressure from the Czechoslovaks, who threatened to open the front to the Bolsheviks, they established a unified All-Russian government - the Ufa Directory, headed by the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries N.D. Avksentiev and V.M. Zenzinov. Soon the directorate settled in Omsk, where the famous polar explorer and scientist, former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral A.V., was invited to the post of Minister of War. Kolchak.

The right, bourgeois-monarchist wing of the camp opposing the Bolsheviks as a whole had not yet recovered at that time from the defeat of its first post-October armed attack on them (which largely explained the “democratic coloring” of the initial stage of the civil war on the part of anti-Soviet forces). White Volunteer Army, which after the death of General L.G. Kornilov in April 1918 was headed by General A.I. Denikin, operated on a limited territory of the Don and Kuban. Only the Cossack army of Ataman P.N. Krasnov managed to advance to Tsaritsyn and cut off the grain-producing regions of the North Caucasus from the central regions of Russia, and Ataman A.I. Dutov - to capture Orenburg.

By the end of the summer of 1918, the position of Soviet power had become critical. Almost three-quarters of the territory of the former Russian Empire was under the control of various anti-Bolshevik forces, as well as the occupying Austro-German forces.

Soon, however, a turning point occurs on the main front (Eastern). Soviet troops under the command of I.I. Vatsetis and S.S. Kamenev went on the offensive there in September 1918. Kazan fell first, then Simbirsk, and Samara in October. By winter the Reds approached the Urals. The attempts of General P.N. were also repelled. Krasnov to take possession of Tsaritsyn, undertaken in July and September 1918.

From October 1918, the Southern front became the main front. In the South of Russia, the Volunteer Army of General A.I. Denikin captured Kuban, and the Don Cossack Army of Ataman P.N. Krasnova tried to take Tsaritsyn and cut the Volga.

The Soviet government launched active measures to protect its power. In 1918, a transition was made to universal conscription, widespread mobilization was launched. The Constitution adopted in July 1918 established discipline in the army and introduced the institution of military commissars.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was allocated as part of the Central Committee to quickly resolve problems of a military and political nature. It included: V.I. Lenin - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; L.B. Krestinsky - Secretary of the Party Central Committee; I.V. Stalin - People's Commissar for Nationalities; L.D. Trotsky - Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. Candidates for membership were N.I. Bukharin - editor of the newspaper “Pravda”, G.E. Zinoviev - Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, M.I. Kalinin is the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

The Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, headed by L.D., worked under the direct control of the Party Central Committee. Trotsky. The Institute of Military Commissars was introduced in the spring of 1918; one of its important tasks was to control the activities of military specialists - former officers. Already at the end of 1918, there were about 7 thousand commissars in the Soviet armed forces. About 30% of former generals and officers of the old army during the civil war took the side of the Red Army.

This was determined by two main factors:

• acting on the side of the Bolshevik government for ideological reasons;
• The policy of attracting “military specialists”—former tsarist officers—to the Red Army was carried out by L.D. Trotsky using repressive methods.

War communism

In 1918, the Bolsheviks introduced a system of emergency measures, economic and political, known as “ policy of war communism”. Main acts this policy became Decree of May 13, 1918 g., giving broad powers to the People's Commissariat for Food (People's Commissariat for Food), and Decree of June 28, 1918 on nationalization.

The main provisions of this policy:

• nationalization of all industry;
• centralization of economic management;
• ban on private trade;
• curtailment of commodity-money relations;
• food allocation;
• equalization system of remuneration for workers and employees;
• payment in kind for workers and employees;
• free utilities;
• universal labor conscription.

June 11, 1918 were created committees(committees of the poor), which were supposed to seize surplus agricultural products from wealthy peasants. Their actions were supported by units of the prodarmiya (food army), consisting of Bolsheviks and workers. From January 1919, the search for surpluses was replaced by a centralized and planned system of surplus appropriation (Chrestomathy T8 No. 5).

Each region and county had to hand over a set amount of grain and other products (potatoes, honey, butter, eggs, milk). When the delivery quota was met, the village residents received a receipt for the right to purchase industrial goods (fabric, sugar, salt, matches, kerosene).

June 28, 1918 the state has started nationalization of enterprises with capital over 500 rubles. Back in December 1917, when the VSNKh (Supreme Council of the National Economy) was created, he began nationalization. But the nationalization of labor was not widespread (by March 1918, no more than 80 enterprises were nationalized). This was primarily a repressive measure against entrepreneurs who resisted workers' control. It was now government policy. By November 1, 1919, 2,500 enterprises had been nationalized. In November 1920, a decree was issued that extended nationalization to all enterprises with more than 10 or 5 workers, but using a mechanical engine.

Decree of November 21, 1918 was installed monopoly on domestic trade. Soviet power replaced trade with state distribution. Citizens received products through the People's Commissariat for Food using cards, of which, for example, in Petrograd in 1919 there were 33 types: bread, dairy, shoe, etc. The population was divided into three categories:
workers and scientists and artists equated to them;
employees;
former exploiters.

Due to the lack of food, even the wealthiest received only ¼ of the prescribed ration.

In such conditions, the “black market” flourished. The government fought against bag smugglers, prohibiting them from traveling by train.

In the social sphere, the policy of “war communism” was based on the principle “he who does not work, neither shall he eat.” In 1918, labor conscription was introduced for representatives of the former exploiting classes, and in 1920, universal labor conscription.

In the political sphere“War communism” meant the undivided dictatorship of the RCP (b). The activities of other parties (cadets, mensheviks, right and left socialist revolutionaries) were prohibited.

The consequences of the policy of “war communism” were deepening economic devastation and a reduction in production in industry and agriculture. However, it was precisely this policy that largely allowed the Bolsheviks to mobilize all resources and win the Civil War.

The Bolsheviks assigned a special role to mass terror in the victory over the class enemy. On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution proclaiming the beginning of “mass terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents.” Head of the Cheka F.E. Dzherzhinsky said: “We are terrorizing the enemies of Soviet power.” The policy of mass terror took on a state character. Execution on the spot became commonplace.

The second stage of the civil war (autumn 1918 - end of 1919)

From November 1918, the front-line war entered the stage of confrontation between the Reds and the Whites. The year 1919 was decisive for the Bolsheviks; a reliable and constantly growing Red Army was created. But their opponents, actively supported by their former allies, united among themselves. The international situation has also changed significantly. Germany and its allies in the world war laid down their arms before the Entente in November. Revolutions took place in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Leadership of the RSFSR November 13, 1918 canceled, and the new governments of these countries were forced to evacuate their troops from Russia. In Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine, bourgeois-national governments arose, which immediately took the side of the Entente.

The defeat of Germany freed up significant combat contingents of the Entente and at the same time opened up for it a convenient and short road to Moscow from the southern regions. Under these conditions, the Entente leadership prevailed in the intention to defeat Soviet Russia using its own armies.

In the spring of 1919, the Supreme Council of the Entente developed a plan for the next military campaign. (Chrestomathy T8 No. 8) As noted in one of his secret documents, the intervention was to be “expressed in combined military actions of Russian anti-Bolshevik forces and the armies of neighboring allied states.” At the end of November 1918, a joint Anglo-French squadron of 32 pennants (12 battleships, 10 cruisers and 10 destroyers) appeared off the Black Sea coast of Russia. English troops landed in Batum and Novorossiysk, and French troops landed in Odessa and Sevastopol. The total number of interventionist combat forces concentrated in the south of Russia was increased by February 1919 to 130 thousand people. The Entente contingents in the Far East and Siberia (up to 150 thousand people), as well as in the North (up to 20 thousand people) increased significantly.

In Siberia, on November 18, 1918, Admiral A.V. came to power. Kolchak. . He put an end to the chaotic actions of the anti-Bolshevik coalition.

Having dispersed the Directory, he proclaimed himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia (the rest of the leaders of the white movement soon declared their submission to him). Admiral Kolchak in March 1919 began to advance on a broad front from the Urals to the Volga. The main bases of his army were Siberia, the Urals, the Orenburg province and the Ural region. In the north, from January 1919, General E.K. began to play a leading role. Miller, in the north-west - General N.N. Yudenich. In the south, the dictatorship of the commander of the Volunteer Army A.I. is strengthening. Denikin, who in January 1919 subjugated the Don Army of General P.N. Krasnov and created the united Armed Forces of southern Russia.

In March 1919, the well-armed 300,000-strong army of A.V. Kolchak launched an offensive from the east, intending to unite with Denikin’s forces for a joint attack on Moscow. Having captured Ufa, Kolchak’s troops fought their way to Simbirsk, Samara, Votkinsk, but were soon stopped by the Red Army. At the end of April, Soviet troops under the command of S.S. Kamenev and M.V. The Frunzes went on the offensive and advanced deep into Siberia in the summer. By the beginning of 1920, the Kolchakites were completely defeated, and the admiral himself was arrested and executed by verdict of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee.

In the summer of 1919, the center of the armed struggle moved to the Southern Front. (Reader T8 No. 7) July 3, General A.I. Denikin issued his famous “Moscow directive”, and his army of 150 thousand people began an offensive along the entire 700-km front from Kyiv to Tsaritsyn. The White Front included such important centers as Voronezh, Orel, Kyiv. In this space of 1 million square meters. km with a population of up to 50 million people there were 18 provinces and regions. By mid-autumn, Denikin's army captured Kursk and Orel. But by the end of October, the troops of the Southern Front (commander A.I. Egorov) defeated the white regiments, and then began to press them along the entire front line. The remnants of Denikin’s army, headed by General P.N. in April 1920. Wrangel, strengthened in Crimea.

The final stage of the civil war (spring - autumn 1920)

At the beginning of 1920, as a result of military operations, the outcome of the front-line Civil War was actually decided in favor of the Bolshevik government. At the final stage, the main military operations were associated with the Soviet-Polish war and the fight against Wrangel’s army.

Significantly aggravated the nature of the civil war Soviet-Polish war. Head of Polish State Marshal J. Pilsudski hatched a plan to create “ Greater Poland within the borders of 1772” from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, including a large part of Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian lands, including those never controlled by Warsaw. The Polish national government was supported by the Entente countries, who sought to create a “sanitary bloc” of Eastern European countries between Bolshevik Russia and Western countries. On April 17, Pilsudski gave the order to attack Kiev and signed an agreement with Ataman Petliura, Poland recognized the Directory headed by Petliura as the supreme authority of Ukraine. On May 7, Kyiv was captured. The victory was achieved unusually easily, because the Soviet troops withdrew without serious resistance.

But already on May 14, a successful counter-offensive began by the troops of the Western Front (commander M.N. Tukhachevsky), on May 26 - the Southwestern Front (commander A.I. Egorov). In mid-July they reached the borders of Poland. On June 12, Soviet troops occupied Kyiv. The speed of a victory can only be compared with the speed of a previously suffered defeat.

On July 12, British Foreign Secretary Lord D. Curzon sent a note to the Soviet government - in fact, an ultimatum from the Entente demanding to stop the Red Army's advance on Poland. As a truce, the so-called “ Curzon line”, which passed mainly along the ethnic border of the settlement of Poles.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), having clearly overestimated its own strengths and underestimated the enemy’s, set a new strategic task for the main command of the Red Army: to continue the revolutionary war. IN AND. Lenin believed that the victorious entry of the Red Army into Poland would cause uprisings of the Polish working class and revolutionary uprisings in Germany. For this purpose, the Soviet government of Poland was quickly formed - the Provisional Revolutionary Committee consisting of F.E. Dzerzhinsky, F.M. Kona, Yu.Yu. Markhlevsky and others.

This attempt ended in disaster. The troops of the Western Front were defeated near Warsaw in August 1920.

In October, the warring parties concluded a truce, and in March 1921, a peace treaty. Under its terms, a significant part of the lands in western Ukraine and Belarus went to Poland.

At the height of the Soviet-Polish war, General P.N. took active action in the south. Wrangel. Using harsh measures, including public executions of demoralized officers, and relying on the support of France, the general turned Denikin's scattered divisions into a disciplined and combat-ready Russian army. In June 1920, troops were landed from the Crimea on the Don and Kuban, and the main forces of the Wrangel troops were sent to the Donbass. On October 3, the Russian army began its offensive in the northwestern direction towards Kakhovka.

The offensive of Wrangel’s troops was repulsed, and during the operation of the army of the Southern Front under the command of M.V., which began on October 28. The Frunzes completely captured Crimea. On November 14 - 16, 1920, an armada of ships flying the St. Andrew's flag left the shores of the peninsula, taking broken white regiments and tens of thousands of civilian refugees to a foreign land. Thus P.N. Wrangel saved them from the merciless red terror that fell on Crimea immediately after the evacuation of the whites.

In the European part of Russia, after the capture of Crimea, it was liquidated last white front. The military issue ceased to be the main one for Moscow, but fighting on the outskirts of the country continued for many months.

The Red Army, having defeated Kolchak, reached Transbaikalia in the spring of 1920. The Far East was at this time in the hands of Japan. To avoid a collision with it, the government of Soviet Russia promoted the formation in April 1920 of a formally independent “buffer” state - the Far Eastern Republic (FER) with its capital in Chita. Soon, the army of the Far East began military operations against the White Guards, supported by the Japanese, and in October 1922 occupied Vladivostok, completely clearing the Far East of Whites and interventionists. After this, a decision was made to liquidate the Far Eastern Republic and incorporate it into the RSFSR.

The Civil War became the biggest drama of the twentieth century and the greatest tragedy in Russia. The armed struggle that unfolded across the expanses of the country was carried out with extreme tension of the opponents' forces, was accompanied by mass terror (both white and red), and was distinguished by exceptional mutual bitterness. Here is an excerpt from the memoirs of a participant in the Civil War, talking about soldiers of the Caucasian Front: “Well, why, son, isn’t it scary for a Russian to beat a Russian?” - the comrades ask the recruit. “At first it’s really kind of awkward,” he answers, “and then, if your heart gets hot, then no, nothing.” These words contain the merciless truth about the fratricidal war, into which almost the entire population of the country was drawn.

The fighting parties clearly understood that the struggle could only have a fatal outcome for one of the parties. That is why the civil war in Russia became a great tragedy for all its political camps, movements and parties.

“Reds” (the Bolsheviks and their supporters) believed that they were defending not only Soviet power in Russia, but also “the world revolution and the ideas of socialism.”

In the political struggle against Soviet power, two political movements were consolidated:

• democratic counter-revolution with slogans of returning political power to the Constituent Assembly and restoring the gains of the February (1917) Revolution (many Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks advocated the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, but without the Bolsheviks (“For Soviets without Bolsheviks”));
• white movement with the slogans of “non-decision of the state system” and the elimination of Soviet power. This direction threatened not only the October, but also the February conquests. The counter-revolutionary white movement was not homogeneous. It included monarchists and liberal republicans, supporters of the Constituent Assembly and supporters of the military dictatorship. Among the “Whites” there were also differences in foreign policy guidelines: some hoped for the support of Germany (Ataman Krasnov), others hoped for the help of the Entente powers (Denikin, Kolchak, Yudenich). The “Whites” were united by hatred of the Soviet regime and the Bolsheviks, and the desire to preserve a united and indivisible Russia. They did not have a unified political program; the military in the leadership of the “white movement” relegated politicians to the background. There was also no clear coordination of actions between the main “white” groups. The leaders of the Russian counter-revolution competed and fought with each other.

In the anti-Soviet anti-Bolshevik camp, some of the political opponents of the Soviets acted under a single Socialist Revolutionary-White Guard flag, while others acted only under the White Guard.

Bolsheviks had a stronger social base than their opponents. They received strong support from urban workers and the rural poor. The position of the main peasant mass was not stable and unambiguous; only the poorest part of the peasants consistently followed the Bolsheviks. The peasants' hesitation had its reasons: the “Reds” gave the land, but then introduced surplus appropriation, which caused strong discontent in the village. However, the return of the previous order was also unacceptable for the peasantry: the victory of the “whites” threatened the return of the land to the landowners and severe punishments for the destruction of the landowners’ estates.

The Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists rushed to take advantage of the hesitations of the peasants. They managed to involve a significant part of the peasantry in the armed struggle, both against the whites and against the reds.

For both warring sides, it was also important what position the Russian officers would take in the conditions of the civil war. Approximately 40% of the officers in the tsarist army joined the “white movement,” 30% sided with the Soviet regime, and 30% avoided participating in the civil war.

The Russian Civil War worsened armed intervention foreign powers. The interventionists carried out active military operations on the territory of the former Russian Empire, occupied some of its regions, helped incite the civil war in the country and contributed to its prolongation. The intervention turned out to be an important factor in the “revolutionary all-Russian unrest” and increased the number of victims.

D. the Japanese government decided to take part in the intervention in the Far East. Here we should immediately make a reservation. The scope of the work allows us to talk only about the participation of Japan. As a result, the intervention of England, France and other powers remains, as it were, in the shadows, and the reader may have the wrong opinion that the Japanese behaved much more aggressively towards Russia than the European powers. In fact, the initiators of the invasion of Russia were England, France and the USA. The reason for the intervention was the desire of revolutionary Russia to get out of the state of war with Germany, and the task of the war of interventionists was the dismemberment of Russia into dozens of operetta state formations, which could become, if not colonies, then spheres of influence of the interventionist states.

Japan was no better, but no worse than England, France and the United States. The intervention of European states and the United States alone in the Russian Far East created a certain threat to the interests of Japan, and its government made a completely reasonable decision to take part in the intervention. A Russian proverb says: “If there were a swamp, there would be devils.” I will paraphrase it: “If there was instability in the state, there would be interventionists.” This was the case in 1792-1793. in France, this was also the case in Yugoslavia in the 90s of the 20th century.

In January 1918, the Japanese battleship Iwami (formerly Orel) arrived in Vladivostok, and then the cruiser Asahi and the battleship Hizen (formerly Retvizan) appeared. On the night of April 5, 1918, “unknown persons” carried out an armed attack with the aim of robbery on the Vladivostok branch of the Japanese trading office “Ishido”. During this action, two Japanese citizens were killed. This incident became the reason for the Japanese landing. As a result, by October 1, 1918, there were already 73 thousand Japanese soldiers in the Far East and.

On the night of November 18, 1918, in Omsk, officers and Cossack units arrested members of the so-called Directory, a self-proclaimed anti-Soviet government, and all power was concentrated in the hands of the “supreme ruler of the Russian state,” Admiral A.V. Kolchak. Kolchak's real power extended to Siberia, the Urals and part of the Orenburg province. On April 30, 1919, the power of the “supreme government” recognized the “Provisional Government of the Northern Region”, based in Arkhangelsk, and on June 12, 1919, a similar decision was made by A.I. Denikin.

The United States provided Kolchak with a loan of 262 million dollars and sent over two hundred thousand rifles and other military equipment and property towards him at the end of 1918.

Japan agreed to recognize Kolchak's power and provide him with assistance, provided that he fulfills the following demands: 1) declare Vladivostok a free port; 2) allow free trade and navigation along the Sungari and Amur; 3) give the Japanese control over the Siberian Railway and transfer the Changchun-Harbin section to Japan; 4) grant the Japanese fishing rights throughout the Far East; 5) sell Northern Sakhalin to Japan.

Kolchak hesitated: he had a powerful Japanese expeditionary force in his rear, and, on the other hand, it was somehow inconvenient to accept Japanese conditions - after all, he was a “fighter for the one and indivisible.”

The Japanese also took care of an alternative to Kolchak. Twenty-seven-year-old captain G.M. Semenov recruited in Harbin a “Special Manchu detachment” of Cossacks and declassed elements. On April 8, 1918, Semenov invaded Transbaikalia, and in May, at Borzya station, he announced the creation of a “Provisional Transbaikal Government” headed by himself. From spring to autumn 1918 alone, the “government” received almost 4.5 million rubles in military and financial assistance from Japan. During the same period, France provided assistance to Yesaul Semenov in the amount of over 4 million rubles.

The relationship between the admiral and the captain was clearly not going well. In mid-November 1918, Semenov telegraphed to Omsk about his refusal to recognize the supreme power of Admiral Kolchak and proposed his candidacies for this highest position in the Russian White movement - generals Denikin, Horvat or the ataman of the Orenburg Cossack army Dutov. The telegram said: “If within 24 hours I do not receive a response about the transfer of power to one of the candidates I have indicated, I will temporarily, pending the creation of a government acceptable to all in the West (Siberia), declare the autonomy of Eastern Siberia... As soon as power is transferred to one of the indicated candidates, I will undoubtedly and unconditionally obey him.”

From words, the brave captain moved to action and interrupted the telegraph connection between Omsk and the Far East, and on the Trans-Baikal Railway he detained trains with military cargo sent by the Entente to the Supreme Ruler of Russia for the Kolchak army being created.

Supreme Ruler Kolchak at the end of November 1918 issued order No. 60, which declared Captain Semyonov a traitor. On December 1, Kolchak, having embarked on the path of conflict with Japan, issued order No. 61 to eliminate the “Semyonovsky incident.” This order read: “The commander of the 5th separate Amur Corps, Colonel Semenov, for disobedience, destruction of telegraph communications and messages in the rear of the army, which is an act of high treason, is relieved of command of the 5th Corps and removed from all positions held by him.”

But the command of the Japanese expeditionary force stood behind Semenov Mountain. Japanese General Yuhi stated that “Japan will not allow any measures against Semenov, not even stopping to use weapons…” This is exactly the instruction the 3rd Division of the Imperial Army stationed in Transbaikalia received.

Kolchak, without a doubt, was a talented admiral, but he had little understanding of combat operations on land and politics. In November 1919, he had to flee from Omsk to Irkutsk with the remnants of the white troops. On January 15, 1920, at the Innokentyevskaya station (near Irkutsk), he was handed over by the White Czechs to the Political Center - an organization of Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. On January 20, this Political Center in Irkutsk simply fled, and the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) took power in the city. On February 7, 1920, by order of the Military Revolutionary Committee, Kolchak was shot.

Even before his arrest, on January 4, 1920, Kolchak transferred to Semenov all military and state power “in the territory of the Russian eastern outskirts,” and on January 8, Semenov created the “Government of the Russian Eastern Outskirts.”

By the spring of 1920, the advanced units of the Red Army were stopped at the border of Lake Baikal. This was done not due to white resistance, but for purely political reasons. The Soviet government wanted to avoid conflict with Japan. And as V.I. said Lenin, “we cannot wage a war with Japan and must do everything to try not only to postpone the war with Japan, but, if possible, to do without it...”

Therefore, the Soviet government decided on an original move - the creation of a buffer Far Eastern Republic (FER). On April 6, in Verkhne-Udinsk (now Ulan-Ude) at the Founding Congress of Plenipotentiary Representatives of the entire population of Transbaikalia, its proclamation took place. The republic organizationally included Transbaikal, Amur, Primorsky, Kamchatka regions and Northern Sakhalin. Russia's rights in the alienated zone of the Chinese Eastern Railway were transferred to it.

In January, a representative Constituent Assembly was held, where the leading role belonged to the Bolsheviks. At this meeting the following were created: the supreme authority (Government) headed by A.M. Krasnoshchekov and the executive body - the Council of Ministers, chaired by the communist P.M. Nikiforova. The Soviet government recognized the Far Eastern Republic as a friendly independent state.

The People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) of the Far Eastern Republic had 36 infantry, 12 cavalry and 17 artillery regiments, 11 armored trains, 10 tanks, 17 aircraft and 145 vehicles.

Initially, the power of the Provisional Government of the Far Eastern Republic actually extended to the territory of Western Transbaikalia. In August 1920, the executive committee of the Amur region agreed to submit to the Provisional Government of the Far Eastern Republic. The western and eastern parts of the republic were separated by the “Chita problem” - an area occupied by Semyonov-Kappel units and Japanese troops.

The total number of White Guard troops by the end of March 1920 in the Chita region was about 20 thousand bayonets and sabers, 496 machine guns and 78 guns. The active actions of the Eastern Transbaikal partisans forced the White Guard command to keep more than half of its forces in the areas of Sretensk and Nerchinsk. To the west of Chita and in the city itself, the White Guards had up to 8.5 thousand bayonets and sabers, 31 guns and 255 machine guns. Japanese troops (parts of the 5th Infantry Division) had up to 5.2 thousand bayonets and sabers with 18 guns.

By this time, the NRA of the Far Eastern Republic (Commander-in-Chief G.H. Eikhe) included the 1st Irkutsk Rifle Division, partisan detachments P.P. Morozova, N.D. Zykina, N.A. Burlova and others. In addition, the Transbaikal Rifle Division and the Transbaikal Cavalry Brigade were in the process of formation. For the attack on Chita, there were about 9.8 thousand bayonets and sabers with 24 guns and 72 machine guns.

The first Chita operation was carried out on April 10-13, 1920. Considering that Japanese troops had the railway under their control, NRA troops launched an offensive from the north through the passes of the Yablonovy Ridge. Two columns of troops were created. The main forces of the right column (under the command of E.V. Lebedev; about 2.7 thousand people, 8 guns, 22 machine guns) were on the railway line, the rest of them were advancing on the city from the southwest, trying to cut off the White Guards’ retreat to the south. The left column (commander V.I. Burov; over 6 thousand people, 16 guns, 50 machine guns) delivered the main blow through the passes of the Yablonovy Ridge.

On April 9, the Japanese began to retreat to Chita by rail. Parts of the right column advanced behind them to Gongota station. Further advances of the NRA units were stopped by White Guard and Japanese troops.

By April 12, the troops of the left column reached the northern outskirts of Chita, but Japanese troops, during stubborn battles, forced them to retreat to the passes.

The main reasons for the failure of the NRA offensive were the lack of sufficient superiority in forces and especially in equipment and weapons.

By the beginning of the second Chita operation (April 25 - May 5, 1920), the NRA was replenished with the Transbaikal Cavalry Brigade and the Verkhneudinsk Rifle Brigade. To coordinate the actions of partisan detachments, the Amur Front was created (commander D.S. Shilov).

The Japanese troops were replenished with an infantry regiment and a detachment of three thousand transferred from the Manchuria station.

The NRA command divided its troops into three columns that advanced: the first (commander Kuznetsov, about 5.5 thousand people, 6 guns, 42 machine guns) - bypassing Chita from the south; middle (commander K.A. Neiman, about 2.5 thousand people, 3 guns, 13 machine guns) - from the west; left (commander Burov, about 4.2 thousand people, 9 guns, 37 machine guns) - from the north and northeast. The main attacks were delivered from the south and north. The partisan detachments of the Amur Front (12-15 thousand bayonets, 7-8 thousand sabers, 7 guns, 100 machine guns, 2 armored trains) were supposed to capture the areas of Sretensk and Nerchinsk.

It was not possible to fully implement the plan of the operation; the offensive resulted in a series of disparate, uncoordinated actions of the troops. On May 3, the enemy launched a counter-offensive and forced NRA units to retreat and go over (May 5) to the defensive.

In the summer of 1920, despite the failures of the NRA's offensive on Chita, the position of the Far Eastern Republic was significantly strengthened. On July 17, the Japanese command was forced to sign the Gongoth Agreement on the cessation of hostilities, and from July 25 to begin evacuating their troops from Chita and Sretensk.

The third Chita operation was carried out on October 1–31, 1920. The actions of the regular NRA troops west of Chita were bound by the Gongot Agreement. Therefore, the center of gravity of the NRA’s fight against the White Guards was moved to Eastern Transbaikalia. The troops of the Amur Front (commander D.S. Shilov, then S.M. Seryshev; about 30 thousand bayonets and sabers, 35 guns, 2 tanks, 2 armored trains) were given the task of eliminating the “Chita traffic jam”.

The total number of White Guard troops was about 35 thousand bayonets and sabers with 40 guns and 18 armored trains. The main blow was delivered from the northeast in the Nerchinsk - Karymskaya station zone. On October 1, partisan detachments began active hostilities north and south of Chita. On October 15, the troops of the Amur Front went on the offensive and, during stubborn battles, captured Karymskaya station and Chita on October 22.

The enemy's attempt on October 23 to launch a counteroffensive was unsuccessful. On October 30, NRA units captured Byrka and Olovyannaya stations. The remnants of the White Guards fled to Manchuria.

In May 1920, the Amur Flotilla was created in Blagoveshchensk, formally part of the armed forces of the Far Eastern Republic.

Since the monitors and gunboats of the former military flotilla were under Japanese control or were disabled, the basis of the flotilla was made up of the armed steamers Trud, Mark Varyagin and Karl Marx, auxiliary ships Botkinsky, Muravyov-Amursky and Ussuri”, stolen in April under Japanese fire from the Blessed Zaton in Khabarovsk.

On May 18, 1920, the Japanese used the Smerch monitor to provide fire cover for the crossing of Japanese troops across the Amur River. However, the crossing was disrupted by artillery fire from the DDA troops and the Kommunist armored train.

From September 20 to October 12, 1920, Japanese troops left Khabarovsk and Osipovsky Zaton. Previously, they hijacked the most combat-ready ships of the Amur Flotilla to Sakhalin - the Shkval monitor, the gunboats Buryat, Mongol, Votyak and many other ships and ships.

The Japanese demonstratively sank the gunboat Karel and ran the Smerch monitor aground. They collected gun locks, parts of engines and steam engines from gunboats and monitors and sank them in the Amur. Mechanisms, superstructures and decks were doused with hydrochloric acid, and the guns were jammed with shells wrapped in tow soaked in acid. The Japanese destroyed the barracks, living quarters on the shore, a dredging machine and a floating crane in the backwater, plundered the workshops, took away tools and part of the machines, and destroyed the water supply and heating. The total amount of losses caused by the Japanese to the flotilla during the intervention amounted to 11,561,528 rubles. gold. In addition, the interventionists destroyed the entire railway line from Khabarovsk to the base. The Japanese removed the rails from it and threw it into the Amur.

In January 1921, elections were held to the Constituent Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic, as a result of which a government led by the Bolsheviks was created in the capital of the republic, Chita.

Simultaneously with the intervention in the Far East, the Japanese sought to capture Outer Mongolia. To do this, they used the Russian White Guards Semenov and Baron Ungern von Sternberg von Pilkau, as well as the Manchu militarist Zhang Zuolin. The latter, being the sovereign satrap of Mongolia, fought for power with the Beijing government, collaborating with the Japanese.

The 30-year-old Baron Ungern met the October Revolution as a captain of the 3rd Verkhneudinsk Cossack Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. Already at the end of 1917, with the help of the Japanese, he assembled a detachment of several thousand people from all sorts of rabble. In June 1919, the baron renamed his army the Native Corps, and then the Asian Cavalry Division. He awarded himself the rank of lieutenant general. Thrown out of Russia, the Asian Division broke into Mongolia and on February 4, 1921 drove the Chinese out of the Mongolian capital Urga (from 1924 Ulaanbaatar).

Eyewitness Volkov recalled: “Urga was a terrible picture after it was captured by Ungern. This is probably how the cities taken by Pugachev should have been. The looted Chinese shops gaped with broken doors and windows, the corpses of the Gamin Chinese, mixed with beheaded tortured Jews, their wives and children, were devoured by wild Mongolian dogs. The bodies of those executed were not given to relatives, and were subsequently thrown into a landfill on the banks of the Selba River. One could see overweight dogs gnawing the hand or leg of the executed man that they had brought into the city streets. Chinese soldiers settled in separate houses and, without expecting mercy, sold their lives dearly. Drunk, wild-looking Cossacks in silk robes over a tattered sheepskin coat or overcoat took these houses by storm or burned them along with the Chinese who had settled there.”

In May 1921, the troops of Baron Ungern (about 10.5 thousand sabers, 200 bayonets, 21 guns, 37 machine guns) invaded the Far Eastern Republic in the Troitskosavsk region. They delivered the main blow along the right bank of the Selenga River, and a secondary blow along its left bank with the aim of cutting the Circum-Baikal Railway and isolating the Far Eastern Republic from the RSFSR. In stubborn defensive battles from May 28 to June 12, 1921, units of the Red Army repelled White attempts to break through to the railway along the left bank of the Selenga. Baron Ungern's troops suffered heavy losses and retreated deep into Mongolia beyond the Iro River.

In mid-June 1921, the Reds formed an expeditionary force of the 5th Army under the command of K.A. Neumann consisting of 7.6 thousand bayonets and 2.5 thousand sabers. The corps had 20 guns, 2 armored vehicles and 4 aircraft. On June 27-28, units of the expeditionary force, in cooperation with the NRA of the Far Eastern Republic and the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army (MNRA) under the command of Sukhbaatar, began an offensive. On July 6, the Reds took Urga.

On August 22, Ungern von Sternberg was captured, and on September 15, he was executed by sentence of the revolutionary tribunal. It is curious that during interrogation the baron stated that his homeland was Austria. To some extent this was true, since he was born in the Austrian city of Graz during his parents' trip to Europe.

On July 11, 1921, the People's Government of Mongolia was formed, and on November 5, a cooperation agreement was signed with the RSFSR. Power in Mongolia (Outer Mongolia) was concentrated in the hands of revolutionary elements, but until May 1924, when the last Mongol khan (Bogdo Gegen) died, Mongolia was formally a monarchy.

On January 12, 1921, troops of the Far Eastern Republic defeated the White Guards at Volochaevka. On February 14, Khabarovsk was liberated. White Guard units, covered by Japanese troops, retreated to the south. The People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic successfully advanced towards Nikolsk-Ussuriysk and Vladivostok. The partisans provided great assistance to the revolutionary troops.

The successes achieved by the NRA and the partisans, on the one hand, and the sharp deterioration in Japan's domestic and international position, on the other, forced the Japanese government to enter into new negotiations, this time not only with the Far Eastern Republic, but also with the RSFSR. At the beginning of September 1922, a conference of representatives of Japan and the joint delegation of the Far Eastern Republic and the RSFSR opened in Changchun.

Even before the convening of the conference, the Japanese announced the withdrawal of troops from Primorye by November 1, 1922. The delegation of the Far Eastern Republic and the RSFSR demanded the withdrawal of Japanese troops also from Northern Sakhalin, but the Japanese rejected this demand. The Changchun Conference was interrupted on September 26, 1922.

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon on October 25, 1922, a large Japanese squadron stationed in the Golden Horn Bay with the last expeditionary troops on board raised anchors and began to go out to the open sea. The Japanese stayed for a short time on Russky Island, but after a few days they left there.

On the same day, October 25, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, NRA troops solemnly, without firing a single shot, entered the city of Vladivostok, whose population welcomed their liberators from the interventionists. The civil war in the Far East has ended.

A few words are worth saying about the fate of the ships of the Siberian flotilla. On October 23, 1922, the commander of the Siberian military flotilla, Admiral G.K. Stark took the Russian ships to the Korean port of Genzan. A total of 30 ships were taken away, including the gunboat "Manchzhur", the icebreaker "Ilya Muromets", the auxiliary cruiser "Lieutenant Dydymov" (former border guard cruiser), transports, steamships, minelayers, etc. The ships carried about 9 thousand people. Admiral Stark selected the best ships in Genzan and led them to Shanghai. During a storm on December 4, 1922, the cruiser “Lieutenant Dydymov” was lost. At the beginning of December 1922, Stark's flotilla arrived in Shanghai. The Chinese authorities greeted the White Guards with extreme hostility and soon offered to leave the port. Stark was forced to obey and on January 10, 1923 he again went to sea, having previously landed all the White Guards and civilian refugees ashore. Only the crews of the ships went to Manila with Stark, and then only in an incomplete composition. (A significant part of the teams were officers). This was done intentionally. In Manila, Stark sold the remains of the flotilla and a number of steamships of the Voluntary Fleet. The gentlemen officers divided the money among themselves. Admiral Stark himself went to Paris, where he lived comfortably until 1950.

Of the warships of the Siberian flotilla, only destroyers remained in Vladivostok, but their mechanisms were worn out and partially looted by the interventionists. The Bolsheviks managed to put into operation in September 1926 only the destroyers Tverdy (from September 19, 1923, Lazo) and Tochny (from September 19, 1923, Potapenko). But they did not last long, and both were dismantled for metal in April 1927. The remaining destroyers were not commissioned and were dismantled in 1923-1925.

Only after a brief excursion into the Civil War can we return to Russian-Chinese relations. Already in November 1917, the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs came into contact with the Chinese envoy in Petrograd, Liu Ching-ren. During the negotiations that lasted until March 1918, the Soviet side announced its government’s refusal of all kinds of enslaving agreements that violated the sovereign rights of China.

Without waiting for the start of negotiations on the revision of the treaties, the Soviet government withdrew from China the military units that, according to the “Final Protocol,” were maintained there by Tsarist Russia and the Kerensky government (as well as other powers) to protect the diplomatic mission. Further, the government of the RSFSR expressed its readiness to annul a series of Russian-Japanese agreements of 1907-1916. about spheres of influence in China. In addition, the Soviet government restored China's sovereign rights in the CER right of way.

At the beginning of December 1917, Liu Ching-ren was officially notified that the former royal envoy to China, Prince NA. Kudashev “is no longer a representative of the Russian government” and that at the same time “the manager of the East China Railway, General Horvath, has been dismissed from his post.”

However, the Beijing cabinet, which was completely under the control of the Entente, continued to maintain relations with the former mission of the tsarist government. Moreover, he provided refuge to the gangs of Semenov, Kalmykov and other White Guard chieftains, who used the territory of Northeast China as a springboard for waging the Civil War against Soviet power.

The government of the RSFSR demanded that the Chinese cabinet stop this course, which actually amounted to interference in the internal affairs of Soviet Russia. Chinese representatives, who met in April 1918 at Matsievskaya station with Soviet representatives for negotiations on border issues, refused to comply with the demands of the Soviet government and very openly explained their position by the fact that “the allies have not yet recognized the Russian Soviet government and have not given China instructions that the Semyonov movement must be liquidated.”

On May 16, 1918, the Beijing government signed a secret Japanese-Chinese agreement on joint actions against Soviet Russia. On August 24, the Beijing government announced the sending of its troops to Russia. Chinese troops were stationed in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Transbaikalia, and the Chinese cruiser Hai-Yun was sent to the Vladivostok port, which left there only in 1919. All Chinese forces located on Russian territory were promptly subordinated to the Japanese command.

On July 25, 1919, the government of the RSFSR addressed a message to the Chinese people and the governments of South and North China (i.e., to Duan Qizhong and Sun Yat-sen). This message outlined the program of the Soviet government to establish friendly relations with China. It repeated and clarified the main provisions of the peace decree and restated the position of the RSFSR on the issue of revising old Russian-Chinese treaties. The Soviet government announced its refusal of the “Boxer” indemnity, which the Chinese government still continued to pay to the tsarist envoy. The message also spoke of the Soviet government’s renunciation of extraterritorial rights in China and stated that “not a single Russian official, priest or missionary dares to interfere in Chinese affairs, and if he commits a crime, he must be tried fairly by a local court. In China there should be no other power, no other court, than the power and court of the Chinese people.” In conclusion, the Soviet government invited “the Chinese people, represented by their government, to immediately enter into... official relations.”

And this important document, published in the Izvestia newspaper on August 26, 1919, was hidden by the Beijing government from its people for seven months; only at the end of March 1920 was it published in the Chinese press. But even after this, on April 4, 1920, a representative of the Beijing Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that his government had not received the text of the Soviet note. But it soon became clear that this version was invented to deceive public opinion, which demanded the establishment of friendly relations with the RSFSR. In response to a student petition calling for the opening of negotiations with Soviet Russia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an official statement on April 11, 1920, which stated that “weak state diplomacy does not have large forces, it always operates with the support of the great powers. If we act independently now, we will encounter many obstacles in practice and are unlikely to achieve success. So now we need to wait.”

In 1918-1920 the CER was ruled by all and sundry - the White Guards, the Japanese, and the Chinese, or rather, Mukden authorities, also intervened. However, formally the head of the CER, as well as Zheltorossia, was Lieutenant General D.L. Horvat, appointed commander-in-chief of the CER at the beginning of the century. Only after a general strike of CER employees in March 1920 was Horvat forced to resign and went to Beijing, where he died on May 16, 1937. After Horvat's departure, the Chinese authorities announced that they were taking over administrative power in the CER right-of-way.

In 1920, the Far Eastern Republic and China (northern government) established diplomatic relations. On August 26, 1920, the diplomatic mission of the Far Eastern Republic arrived in Beijing, and in February 1921, a representative office of the Far Eastern Republic was established in Harbin. This was especially important, since in Yellow Russia the power of the Beijing clique played a very small role, and actual power belonged to the Mukden governor (militarist) Zhang Tso-ming.

The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Far Eastern Republic made it impossible for the Tsar's ambassador, Prince Kudashev, to continue staying in Beijing. It should be noted that this prince was no mistake. In 1918-1920 To repay the so-called “Boxer” indemnity, China regularly deposited 250 thousand taels into the Russian-Asian Bank every two months, which went to Kudashev. Repeated protests from the Soviet government, which refused to receive indemnities and demanded “not to give these rewards to former Russian consuls... or Russian organizations that illegally claim this,” were systematically ignored. Naturally, the prince did not report to anyone on the expenditure of this money.

But even this money was not enough for the prince. At his request, on July 8, 1920, the Shanghai police removed the crews from three Russian ships (Simferopol, Penza and Georgy), which belonged to the Voluntary Fleet before the revolution. The sailors were taken to the territory of the French concession, where they were actually under arrest. In September 1920, on a secret order from Kudashev, Russian ships were withdrawn from the Shanghai port in an unknown direction. It is no longer possible to establish how much the prince received for these ships.

And so on September 23, 1920, Chinese newspapers published a presidential decree that “China... now ceases to recognize Russian Envoys and Consuls,” since “they have long lost their representative character and truly have no reason to continue to fulfill their responsible duties.” "

On March 7, 1921, representatives of the Far Eastern Republic and the militarists of Chong Tso-lin signed an agreement on the restoration of through railway traffic Chita - Harbin - Vladivostok. The first train departed the next day - March 8.

The need for a buffer state disappeared. In October 1922, the Central Committee of the RCP(b), “taking into account the demands of the working people of the Far East,” recognized the abolition of the “buffer” as appropriate. On November 14, 1922, the People's Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic decided to declare Soviet power in the Russian Far East and ask the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to extend the Soviet Constitution to the entire territory of the region. On November 15, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree according to which the territory of the abolished Far Eastern Republic (with the exception of Northern Sakhalin, from where Japanese troops were evacuated only in May 1925) became an integral part of the RSFSR.

Great political changes have also occurred in China. In April 1921, Sun Yat-sen was elected president of China. However, its capital was the city of Canton, and its jurisdiction extended only to the southern Chinese provinces.

In Beijing, power in the early 1920s passed from one feudal-militarist group to another. There was an armed struggle mainly between two cliques - the Zhili and Mukden, of which the first, led by Wu Pei-fu and Cao Kun, was to a large extent the conductor of British and American policy, and the second, led by Zhang Tso-lin, was dependent on Japan.

In the summer of 1921, the government of the RSFSR established friendly relations with the government of Sun Yat-sen, and an agreement with the Beijing government was signed only on May 31, 1924 (I will talk about it in the next chapter).

A few words should be said about Japanese-Soviet relations. On January 20, 1925, an agreement was signed between the USSR and Japan in Beijing. According to its article 3: “The Japanese government must completely evacuate troops from Sakhalin by May 1/15, 1925. Evacuation must begin as soon as climatic conditions allow. Immediately following the evacuation of Japanese troops from all regions of Northern Sakhalin and from each one separately, full sovereignty of the legitimate authorities of the USSR is established over the latter.”

In return, the USSR granted concessions to Japan for oil and coal production in Northern Sakhalin. Looking ahead, I will say that these concessions were canceled only in 1944.

In August 1925, ships hijacked by the Japanese to Sakhalin returned to the Amur. Among them were the monitor "Shkval", the gunboats "Buryat", "Mongol" and "Votyak", the armored boat "Spear", boat No. 1, the steamships "Khilok", "Silny" and five barges.

The civil war in the Far East took place at a very difficult stage and, due to geographical and political reasons, had its own characteristic peculiarities:

1. 1. The civil war in the Far East was protracted. The war lasted almost 5 years and ended only in October 1922.

2. 2. The course of the war was greatly influenced by the region’s remoteness from the country’s industrial centers and its border position.

3. 3. Due to the fact that the Far East was the object of economic expansion of Japan, the USA and other countries, the social war here was closely combined with the war against the invaders.

4. 4. The civil war in the Far East exceeded the intensity and severity of the struggle in the European part of Russia. Only here were various methods and forms of defense of the revolution used. Due to specific natural, social and political conditions, the partisan movement acquired great importance here. In no other region of the country were there such a number of partisan detachments and mass voluntary participation of workers and peasants in them. The long reign of the interventionists here, accompanied by robbery and banditry, executions and executions of civilians, led to a nationwide uprising against them.

5. 5. The majority of the region's population were peasants, who for the most part were prosperous and did not experience acute land shortages. The Far Eastern peasantry was not affected by the organization of the Podkom, it did not know the policy of “war communism”, its integral part - surplus appropriation with the “seizure of surpluses”. There were no food detachments with their violent methods and actions to collect food, and there was no mass expropriation of the wealthy peasantry and Cossacks. The coastal village did not go through the agrarian revolution that the peasantry of the European regions of the country experienced throughout all the years of the revolution.

6. 6. Far Eastern industry was poorly developed, so the number of workers, the main support of Soviet power, was significantly lower here than in the center. Among the urban population, a significant stratum consisted of bureaucrats and the petty bourgeoisie.

7. 7. An important feature of the region was also the fact that here the privileged Cossacks fully retained their military organization, the wealthy part of which rented out most of their land. Along with the kulaks, the urban trading bourgeoisie, the officers of the old army and tsarist officials, the leadership of the Cossacks constituted a significant part of the counter-revolutionary forces of the region.

8. 8. One of the specific features of the civil war in the Far East was the active participation in it of representatives of various nationalities. In addition, there were a large number of prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian army and Czechoslovaks. For the Bolsheviks, as well as for their opponents, it was very important which side these people would be on.

9. 9. Difficulties in organizing resistance to internal and external counter-revolution were aggravated in the Far East by the fact that the Bolshevik organizations in the region were relatively small in number and weakened by the repressions of the tsarist government. Until the end of 1917, the parties of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Anarchists still enjoyed significant influence among the peasants, intelligentsia, and students. That is why, after the Bolshevik victory in October 1917, ardent supporters of the monarchy, all anti-Soviet elements, rushed to the Far East, hoping to find salvation here and the opportunity, together with anti-Bolshevik parties, to continue the struggle against the new government.

10. 10. The intensity of the civil war intensified due to the development of large-scale white banditry and Honghuzism, which was largely specific to the region.

11. 11. Combat operations in the Far East developed mainly in the zone of the Amur and Ussuri railways. In winter, the beds of large rivers – the Amur and Ussuri – became important.

12. 12. Another feature was the creation in the Far East in 1920-1922. buffer state - the Far Eastern Republic (FER).

Periodization of war. The history of the civil war in the Far East can be divided into three periods:

1st period from April to September 1918, that is, from the landing of Japanese troops in Vladivostok until the temporary overthrow of Soviet power in the region. The period was characterized by front-line warfare and the beginning of military intervention.

2nd period from September 1918 to February - March 1920. This was the time of the struggle against the interventionists and the Kolchak regime. The main form of struggle in these years was the activity of partisan detachments, which is why the second period is often called partisan. It ended with the overthrow of Kolchak’s power in the Primorsky, Amur, Kamchatka, Sakhalin regions and in the Baikal region. In Transbaikalia, the power of Ataman Semenov was preserved (until November 1920).

3rd period from April 1920 to November 1922. It coincided with the existence of the buffer state - the Far Eastern Republic. This is a period of united actions of partisans and the regular People's Revolutionary Army of the Far East, which ended with the liberation of the Far East from interventionists and White Guards, the liquidation of the Far East and the reunification of the Far East and Soviet Russia.

After the victory of the October Revolution, the governments of the USA, Japan, and the Entente countries began to develop plans to overthrow Soviet power. Great importance was attached to the seizure of Siberia and the Far East as a springboard for the fight against the Soviet Republic. In preparation for the intervention, the governments of the Entente countries and the United States not only sought to save Russia from the Bolsheviks, but also wanted to solve their own selfish interests.

Thus, the United States for a long time persistently prepared to seize Russian territories in Siberia and the Far East, waiting only for an opportunity to carry out its plans. The widely known American historian D.F. Kennan wrote in one of his works: “The Americans (i.e. capitalists, businessmen) persistently demanded that the US government ... show special interest in the vast territory of Siberia.” The “special interest” of US monopolists in the Amur basin is also noted by D.U. Morley, author of the book "The Penetration of Japan into Siberia." The fact that the US government was preparing to carry out the territorial division of Russia is evidenced by the documents of President Wilson's personal adviser, Colonel E. House. The US Ambassador to Russia D. Francis insisted in February 1918 on the need to take Vladivostok under US control. The US government provoked Japan to act, in every possible way encouraged the Japanese military to carry out armed aggression and at the same time sought coordinated actions from its ally, which in reality meant US control. The anti-Soviet orientation of US policy was perfectly understood and fully taken into account by the Japanese militarists. They were quite happy with the American plan to recognize the need to use the Japanese army in the intervention. The Japanese government justified the need to fight against Russia on the Asian continent with its traditional policy, allegedly caused by the historical development of the country. The essence of the foreign policy concept of Japanese imperialism was that Japan should have a bridgehead on the mainland.

Russian counter-revolutionaries contributed to the outbreak of foreign intervention, hoping to overthrow Soviet power with the help of foreign troops. Thus, the Black Hundred-Cadet newspaper “Voice of Primorye” published on March 20, 1918 a message in English about the alleged beating of 10 thousand residents in Blagoveshchensk, about mass executions of citizens of the Amur region by Soviet authorities. This message was a blatant lie, designed to strengthen aggressive aspirations in Japan. After all, it was precisely this that testified to “unrest and anarchy in Russia, and what’s more, coming from the “Russian leaders” themselves, gave Japan and other countries a reason to begin intervention.”

England also actively participated in the deployment of aggression. Busy with the war against the countries of the German bloc in Europe and interested primarily in strengthening its positions in the north of European Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, it sought a speedy invasion of the Far East by Japanese-American troops. At the same time, the British ministers especially noted that the Japanese army was best prepared for immediate intervention. This opinion was especially defended by the Minister of War W. Churchill, who was an ardent supporter of the war with the Bolsheviks.

The French capitalists, who sought to create a “cordon sanitaire” around Soviet Russia and then starve Bolshevism to death, supported the internal counter-revolution by all means and prepared for military intervention. The US and French governments were the direct organizers of the counter-revolutionary rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps. It was the governments of these states that financed the rebels.

Preparations for armed intervention in the Far East were completed in the early spring of 1918. By this time, the Allied powers had finally agreed to grant the initiative to Japan, to use the Czechoslovak corps for a counter-revolutionary rebellion, and to supply the White Guards with everything necessary. And although there was a strong “rivalry between Japan and America”, as well as between other states, class enmity towards the world’s first socialist state forced them to unite and conduct a joint armed intervention.

By agreement of the governments of the United States and Japan, the latter was given freedom of action in the Far East. Japanese troops were to serve as the main striking force of the states participating in the intervention.

First period of the war. On April 4, 1918, the Japanese export-import office Ishido was attacked in Vladivostok; two Japanese were killed and one wounded. This provocation became the reason for the landing of Japanese and English troops in Vladivostok on April 5, 1918, under the pretext of ensuring the safety of their citizens. Thus, without a declaration of war, the intervention in the Far East began.

The landing of foreign troops intensified the activities of the internal counter-revolution. Ataman in Transbaikalia Grigory Semenov launched active military operations.

The main blow was aimed at Chita. In May, a rebellion of the Ussuri Cossack army began in southern Primorye, led by Esul Kalmykov. In connection with this, a revolutionary headquarters was created led by the Bolshevik K. Sukhanov and formed Grodekov Front. The Soviet government managed to suppress the internal counter-revolution quite easily: defeat the detachments of Semenov in Transbaikalia and Kalmykov in Primorye.

For armed struggle in Siberia and the Far East, the interventionists decided to use the Czechoslovak corps, formed in the summer of 1917 with the permission of the Provisional Government from prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian army. The Soviet government allowed the evacuation of the corps from the country. Initially, it was assumed that the Czechoslovaks would leave Russia for France through Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. But due to a change in the situation, it was decided to evacuate the corps through Vladivostok. The drama of the situation was that the first echelons arrived in Vladivostok on April 25, 1918, while the rest stretched along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railway up to the Urals, the number of the corps exceeded 30 thousand people. In May–June 1918, corps troops, with the support of underground counter-revolutionary organizations, overthrew Soviet power in Siberia. On the night of June 29 there was mutiny of the Czechoslovak corps in Vladivostok, almost the entire composition of the Vladivostok Council was arrested.

On July 3, 1918, the first major battles with the White Czechs began in the Nikolsk-Ussuriysk region. On July 8, after stubborn fighting, the city was abandoned, and Soviet troops retreated to Spassk. On the line Spassk - Iman (now Dalnerechensk) was formed Ussuri Front. On July 16, 1918, Spassk had to be surrendered.

In mid-August, French, Japanese, American and British troops landed in Vladivostok to support the Czechoslovaks.

On August 22-23, 1918, in the area of ​​the Kraevsky crossing, a united detachment of interventionists came out against Soviet units. Soviet troops were forced, after stubborn fighting, to retreat to Khabarovsk.

The threat to Soviet power in the Far East loomed not only from Vladivostok. The western group of Czechoslovaks and White Guards fought their way east. On August 25-28, 1918, the 5th Congress of Soviets of the Far East. In connection with the breakthrough of the Ussuri Front, the issue of further tactics of struggle was discussed at the congress. By a majority vote, it was decided to stop the front-line struggle and disband the Red Guard detachments in order to then organize a partisan struggle.

On October 4, 1918, Japanese and American troops entered Khabarovsk and transferred power to Ataman Kalmykov. Soviet power was overthrown in the Amur region, and Blagoveshchensk fell on September 18. Thus ended the first period of the civil war in the Far East.

The overthrow of Soviet power in the region was due to several reasons.

1. 1. The Red Army was opposed by well-armed and trained units of interventionists and White Guards.

2. 2. The middle peasantry and Cossacks allowed themselves to hesitate, and the rural poor turned out to be insufficiently organized.

3. 3. The left parties were unable to create a united front against the interventionists and the White Guards. Serious inter-party contradictions weakened the resistance forces.

4. 4. Mistakes and miscalculations of the leadership of party and military organizations of the Far East.

However, in the first period, a certain amount of experience was gained in conducting combat operations against the interventionists and the White Guards; for five months, the Far Easterners diverted their significant forces to themselves.

Second period of the war. In November 1918, the All-Russian Government of Admiral Kolchak was formed in Omsk, who declared himself the supreme ruler. The command of the Czechoslovak corps took this notice without much enthusiasm, but, under pressure from the allies, did not resist it. In fact, the relay of the armed struggle against Soviet power on Eastern Front Kolchak's army picked it up. Explaining his political platform, Kolchak stated that his immediate goal was to create a strong and combat-ready army for a “merciless and inexorable fight against the Bolsheviks.” Only after this should a National Assembly be created in Russia “for the reign of law and order in the country.” All economic and social reforms, according to Kolchak, should also be postponed until the end of the fight against the Bolsheviks.

From the first steps of its existence, the Kolchak government embarked on the path of exceptional laws, introducing the death penalty, martial law, and punitive expeditions.

However, in the territory of the Far East there was also “opposition” to the Kolchak government in the person of Ataman Semenov and Kalmykov. Semenov decided to extend his power to the Amur region and the Ussuri region, to concentrate in his hands not only military, but also civil power. The confrontation between Semyonov and Kalmykov in relation to Kolchak only intensified the violence in the region. Bloody terror came from Kalmykov, and from Semenov, and from Kolchak, and from the interventionists. All the prisons in the cities were overcrowded. In Blagoveshchensk, about 2 thousand people were arrested and imprisoned in just 20 days. Every night they were taken out in batches and shot. In November 1918, in Vladivostok, while being transferred from a concentration camp to prison, the chairman of the Vladivostok Council, K. Sukhanov, was killed. Between Khabarovsk and Vladivostok there was a “train of death” – a camp dungeon. None of those who got on this train survived. The corpses were thrown into the Amur from the railway bridge. The response to the terror on the part of the whites and the interventionists was a wave of peasant uprisings that swept throughout the Far East.

But the opposite side was just as blind in its class rage. The list of follies and crimes of the Red Terror is also long. The concentration of enormous power in the hands of the Cheka (created in December 1917) and the activities of the military revolutionary tribunal with unlimited powers only intensified mutual cruelty.

The scope of the “white” and “red” terror was due to: firstly, the desire of both sides for dictatorship as a method of control; secondly, the lack of democratic traditions in the country; thirdly, the devaluation of human life as a result of the world war.

In 1918, Bolshevik organizations began to be created in the occupied territory in deep underground conditions. By the end of the year, the Vladivostok Committee of the RCP (b), having established contacts with the communists of Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysk, Harbin, took over the functions of the regional organization. At the beginning of 1919, a Far Eastern Committee of the RCP (b), which included A.A. Voronin, Z.I. Sekretareva, I.M. Gubelman, S.G. Lazo et al. To work among the population, underground committees, trade unions, cooperatives, and zemstvos were used.

The main form of struggle at the second stage of the civil war in the Far East was partisan movement. From October 1918 to February 1919 there was a turn of the middle peasants towards Soviet power. Having felt the power of self-proclaimed rulers and atamans, having experienced all the horror of robberies, murders and violence of white gangs, the peasantry of the Far East decisively turned to a militant alliance with the working class under the leadership of the Bolsheviks. This turn in the mood of the peasants was expressed in mass participation in partisan detachments and material support for the Red Army.

The beginning of the organized formation of the partisan movement in the Amur region was made at the illegal congress of workers of the Khabarovsk district. A military revolutionary headquarters was formed there under the leadership DI. Boyko-Pavlova. In Primorye, to coordinate the actions of partisan detachments, a headquarters was created in the village. Anuchino, commander of all partisan forces was appointed S.G. Lazo. The number of partisans, united under a single command, was 4-5 thousand people. In the summer and autumn of 1919, partisans destroyed 350 bridges and derailed 15 military trains.

By the fall of 1919, the partisan struggle in the Amur region intensified even more. Partisan detachments began to operate in the southern, northeastern and western directions from Khabarovsk. By the beginning of 1920, about 200 partisan groups and detachments were operating in the Far East, the number of which reached 50 thousand people. Negative factors under normal conditions: the poor population of the region, the presence of vast uninhabited territories, the lack of roads and communications, contributed to the wide scope of the partisan movement in the Far East. Partisan detachments and formations diverted a significant part of the military forces of the White Guards and interventionists.

In general, 1919 was marked not only by the scope of the partisan movement in the region, but also by mass strikes; on May 21, a general political strike of miners took place demanding the withdrawal of American and Japanese troops from Primorye; in July - a general strike of railway workers of the Ussuri Railway, the Vladivostok port and other enterprises.

In 1919, the Soviet government declared the Eastern Front the main front of the civil war. During the battles, the Red Army under the command M.V. Frunze went on the offensive and practically defeated Kolchak’s army.

Having accepted defeat, Kolchak resigned the title of supreme ruler, transferring it to Denikin. In January 1920, Kolchak was captured and shot.

The successes of the Red Army accelerated the fall of the Kolchak regime in the Far East. To overthrow Kolchak's power, the Bolsheviks of Primorye began preparing armed uprisings in the region. After lengthy discussions on the issue of struggle tactics, the Far Eastern Committee of the RCP (b) decided to refrain from proclaiming Soviet power and carry out the liquidation of Kolchakism under the slogan “All power to the Zemstvo Council.” This decision was dictated by political considerations: the transfer of power to the zemstvo deprived the interventionists of a reason for armed action.

As a result of the uprisings, Kolchak's power was liquidated on January 26, 1920 in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk, on January 31 in Vladivostok, on February 1 in Iman (Dalnerechensk).

In February–March 1920, under the blows of the united forces of partisans and rebel workers, Kolchak’s power in the Far East fell. At this time, several regional governments were formed: in Primorye, where the Japanese remained, power passed to the Primorsky Regional Zemstvo Government; in Khabarovsk - to the Khabarovsk district zemstvo government; in the Amur region, from where Japanese troops were evacuated, Soviet power was restored; in the Baikal region, with the center in Verkhneudinsk (Ulan-Ude), there was a temporary zemstvo government of the Baikal region. Only in Transbaikalia did the regime of Ataman Semenov continue to exist. Thus ended the second stage of the civil war.

The beginning of the third stage of the war. By the spring of 1920, the situation in the Far East had changed dramatically. The governments of the USA, England and France abandoned open intervention and began to withdraw their troops from the territory of the Far East. But the intervention continued with the forces of Japan, which in Primorye maintained 11 divisions numbering about 175 thousand people.

On April 5, 1920, Japanese troops suddenly moved against the revolutionary forces in Vladivostok, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Spassk, Shkotovo, Posyet and Khabarovsk. Members of the Primorsky Military Council were arrested in Vladivostok S.G. Lazo, V.M. Sibirtsev and A.N. Lutsky. At the end of May, Lazo and his associates were taken to the Muravyov-Amursky station (now Lazo) and burned in the locomotive furnace.

During this difficult period for the region, in November 1920, at the first congress of the Red Youth of Primorye, a single Komsomol organization was formed, uniting about 1,900 boys and girls. The regional committee of the RKSM was elected. Headed it Mikhail Yanshin. Komsomol members actively participated in the partisan struggle against the White Guards and interventionists. In the fierce battles for the young Far Eastern Republic, many of them accomplished feats, among them Vitaly Banevur, Ivan Derbenev, Andrei Evdanov and others.

The political situation in the south of the Far East has again reached a critical point. The Soviet government understood that Soviet Russia could not simultaneously wage a war against Poland in the west, against Denikin in the south and against Japan in the east. In order to avoid a direct collision with Japan, to alleviate the situation of the Soviet Republic, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Council of People's Commissars decided to create a buffer state in the territory from Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean - Far Eastern Republic (FER). The difficulty of creating a buffer state was that not only the revolutionary-minded, but also a significant part of the communists stood for the immediate restoration of Soviet power in the Far East. A huge amount of work was required from local party organizations to explain the need for the temporary creation of a buffer state on the eastern outskirts of the country.

On October 25, 1922, the bloody Civil War ended in Soviet Russia. From October 4 to October 25, 1922, the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic (the land Armed Forces of the DRV, formed in March 1920 on the basis of formations of the East Siberian Soviet Army) conducted an offensive Primorye operation. It ended in complete success, the white troops were defeated and fled, and the Japanese were evacuated from Vladivostok. This was the last significant operation of the Civil War.

The People's Revolutionary Army of the DRA under the command of Hieronymus Petrovich Uborevich repelled in September the attack of the “Zemstvo Army” (the so-called armed forces of the Amur Zemsky Territory, formed from the White Guard troops located in Primorye) under the command of Lieutenant General Mikhail Konstantinovich Diterichs and in October went on a counter-offensive. On October 8-9, the Spassky fortified area was taken by storm, where the most combat-ready Volga group of the “Zemstvo Army” under the command of General Viktor Mikhailovich Molchanov was defeated. On October 13-14, the NRA, in cooperation with partisans, defeated the main forces of the White Guards on the approaches to Nikolsk-Ussuriysky. By October 16, the Zemstvo Army was completely defeated, its remnants retreated to the Korean border or began to evacuate through Vladivostok. On October 19, the Red Army reached Vladivostok, where up to 20 thousand military personnel of the Japanese army were based. On October 24, the Japanese command was forced to enter into an agreement with the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on the withdrawal of its troops from Southern Primorye.

The last ships with the remnants of the White Guard units and the Japanese left the city on October 25. At four o'clock in the afternoon on October 25, 1922, units of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic entered Vladivostok. The Civil War ended in Russia. In three weeks, the Far East will become an integral part of the Soviet Republic. On November 4 - 15, 1922, at a session of the People's Assembly of the Far East, a decision was made to dissolve itself and restore Soviet power in the Far East. The People's Assembly was also supported by the commanders of the NRA. On November 15, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was included in the RSFSR as the Far Eastern Region.

The situation in Primorye in the summer - autumn of 1922

In mid-1922, the last stage of the fight against the White Guards and interventionists in the Far East began. The situation in the East changed dramatically in favor of Soviet Russia. The defeat of the White Guards near Volochaevka in February greatly shook the position of the Japanese in Primorye. The victorious end of the Civil War in the European part of Russia, a turning point in foreign policy - Soviet Russia was emerging from isolation, a series of diplomatic and economic negotiations with capitalist countries began, all this influenced the Japanese government’s policy towards Russia.

The American government, in order to earn points in the field of “peacekeeping” (after the failure of its own military adventure in Russia) and having become convinced that the presence of the Japanese in the Far East was useless for Washington, began to put strong pressure on Tokyo, demanding the withdrawal of troops from Russian Primorye. The United States did not want to strengthen the position of the Japanese Empire in the Asia-Pacific region, since they themselves wanted to dominate this region.

In addition, the situation in Japan itself was not the best. The economic crisis, huge expenses for intervention - they reached 1.5 billion yen, human losses, low returns from expansion into Russian lands, caused a sharp increase in discontent among the population. The internal political situation was not going well for the “war party.” Economic problems and an increase in the tax burden have led to an increase in protest sentiment in the country. In the summer of 1922, the Communist Party was established in Japan, which began to work to create the Anti-Intervention League. Various anti-war societies are appearing in the country, in particular, the “Society for Rapprochement with Soviet Russia”, “Association of Non-Intervention”, etc.

As a result of the unfavorable political situation for the Japanese military party, the Takahashi cabinet resigned. The Minister of War and the Chief of the General Staff also resigned. The new government, headed by Admiral Kato, who represented the interests of the “maritime party”, which was inclined to shift the center of gravity of the expansion of the Japanese Empire from the shores of Primorye to the Pacific Ocean, in a southern direction, issued a statement on the cessation of hostilities in Primorye.

On September 4, 1922, a new conference began its activities in Changchun, which was attended by a joint delegation of the RSFSR and the Far Eastern Republic on the one hand and a delegation of the Japanese Empire on the other. The Soviet delegation immediately presented the main condition for further negotiations with Japan - to immediately clear all territories of the Far East from Japanese forces. The Japanese representative Matsudaira avoided a direct answer to this condition. Only after the Soviet delegation decided to leave the conference did the Japanese side declare that the evacuation of Japanese troops from Primorye was already a resolved issue. However, the Japanese refused to withdraw troops from Northern Sakhalin. They were going to keep it as compensation for the “Nicholas Incident.” This is the name given to the armed conflict between Red partisans, White and Japanese troops that occurred in 1920 in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. It was used by the Japanese command to attack the Soviet administration and military garrisons in the Far East on the night of April 4-5, 1920.

The delegation of the RSFSR and the Far Eastern Republic demanded the withdrawal of troops from all Soviet territories. Negotiations reached a dead end and were interrupted on September 19. After negotiations resumed, both sides continued to press their demands. Then representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam proposed to conduct an investigation into the “Nikolaev events” and discuss them on their merits. The Japanese authorities could not do this, because the provocative behavior of the Japanese military could be revealed. The head of the Japanese delegation stated that the Japanese government cannot go into the details of the “Nikolaev events”, since the governments of the RSFSR and the Far Eastern Republic are not recognized by Japan. As a result, on September 26, negotiations were interrupted again. In reality, the negotiations in Changchun were supposed to become a cover for preparing a new military operation against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The situation in the Amur Zemsky Territory was unstable. The government of Spiridon Merkulov discredited itself even in the eyes of the local bourgeoisie by “selling” to the Japanese the Ussuri Railway, the port on Egersheld, the Suchansky coal mines, the Far Eastern Shipbuilding Plant, etc. The Vladivostok Chamber of Commerce and Industry even demanded that all power be transferred to the “People's Assembly”. The government was unable to organize an effective fight against partisan detachments. In the summer and autumn of 1922, the partisan movement assumed significant proportions in Southern Primorye. Red partisans carried out raids on Japanese posts and military warehouses, destroyed communications and communication lines, and attacked military trains. In fact, by the fall the Japanese were forced to withdraw from the countryside, holding only the railroad and towns.

There was also fermentation in the White Guard camp. The Kappelites supported the “People's Assembly,” which declared the Merkulov government overthrown. The Semyonovnas continued to support the Merkulovs (the brother of the chairman, Nikolai Merkulov, served as Minister of Naval and Foreign Affairs), who in turn issued a decree dissolving the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the “People's Assembly”. The “People's Assembly” established its own cabinet of ministers, and then decided to combine the functions of the chairman of the new government and the commander of the armed forces of Primorye. In fact, it was about creating a military dictatorship. General Mikhail Diterichs was invited to this post. He was the commander of the Siberian Army, the Eastern Front and the chief of staff of A.V. Kolchak. After Kolchak's defeat he left for Harbin. He was an ardent monarchist and supporter of the revival of the pre-Petrine socio-political order in Russia. Initially, he came to an agreement with the Merkulovs and confirmed their power in the Amur Zemsky Territory. The "People's Assembly" was dissolved. On June 28, the Zemsky Sobor was assembled. On July 23, 1922, at the Zemsky Council in Vladivostok, M. Diterikhs was elected Ruler of the Far East and Zemsky Voivode - commander of the “Zemsky Army” (it was created on the basis of White Guard detachments). The Japanese were asked for both ammunition and a delay in the evacuation of Japanese troops. By September 1922, the reorganization and armament of the “Zemstvo Army” was completed, and General Dieterichs announced a campaign against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under the slogan “For the Faith, Tsar Michael and Holy Rus'.”

The state of the People's Revolutionary Army (NAR) by the fall of 1922

From the Combined and Chita brigades, the 2nd Amur Rifle Division was formed, consisting of three regiments: the 4th Volochaev Order of the Red Banner, the 5th Amur and the 6th Khabarovsk. It also included the Troitskosavsky Cavalry Regiment, a light artillery division of 76-mm cannons with 3 batteries, a howitzer division of two batteries and a sapper battalion. The commander of the 2nd Amur Rifle Division was also the commander of the Amur Military District; he was subordinate to the Blagoveshchensk fortified area, an armored train division (consisting of three armored trains - No. 2, 8 and 9), an aviation detachment and two border cavalry divisions. The Transbaikal Cavalry Division was reorganized into the Separate Far Eastern Cavalry Brigade.

The command reserve included the 1st Transbaikal Rifle Division, consisting of the 1st Chita, 2nd Nerchinsk and 3rd Verkhneudinsk regiments. At the beginning of the Primorye operation, the regular units of the NRA numbered over 15 thousand bayonets and sabers, 42 guns and 431 machine guns. The NRA relied on the help of the 5th Red Banner Army, located in Eastern Siberia and Transbaikalia.

In addition, the partisan military regions were subordinate to the command of the NRA: Suchansky, Spassky, Anuchinsky, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Olginsky, Imansky and Prikhankaisky. They had up to 5 thousand fighters at their disposal. They were led by a specially created Military Council of Primorye partisan detachments under the leadership of A.K. Flegontov, then he was replaced by M. Volsky.

The evacuation of the Japanese begins. “Zemstvo army” of Diterichs and its September offensive

The Japanese, delaying their evacuation, decided to carry it out in three stages. On the first, withdraw troops from the outskirts of Primorye, on the second, evacuate the garrisons from Grodekovo and Nikolsk-Ussuriysk, on the third, leave Vladivostok. The commander of the Japanese expeditionary force, General Tachibana, suggested that Dieterichs take advantage of this time to strengthen himself and strike at the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. At the end of August, the Japanese began to gradually withdraw their troops from Spassk to the south. At the same time, the White Guards began to occupy areas cleared by the Japanese and take over fortifications and weapons they had left behind.

In September, the Zemstvo army numbered about 8 thousand bayonets and sabers, 24 guns, 81 machine guns and 4 armored trains. It was based on units of the former Far Eastern Army, which were previously part of the armies of General V.O. Kappel and Ataman G.M. Semenov. The Zemstvo army was divided into: the Volga region group of General V.M. Molchanov (more than 2.6 thousand bayonets and sabers); Siberian group of General I.S. Smolina (1 thousand people); Siberian Cossack group of General Borodin (more than 900 people); Far Eastern Cossack group of General F.L. Glebova (more than 1 thousand); reserve and technical parts (more than 2.2 thousand).

Dieterichs’ attempts to increase the “army” through mobilization generally failed. Workers and peasants did not want to fight, they hid in the taiga and on the hills. The bulk of bourgeois youth chose to flee to Harbin, inaccessible to the Bolsheviks, rather than defend the Amur Zemsky Territory. Therefore, although the backbone of the “ratie” consisted of the remnants of Kappel’s and Semenov’s troops who had extensive combat experience, there was no one to replace them.

On September 1, the vanguard of the “Zemstvo army” - the Volga group, with the support of two armored trains, began an offensive in the northern direction. The Whites sought to capture the railway bridge across the Ussuri River in the area of ​​the station. Ussuri and launched an offensive in two main directions: along the Ussuri railway and to the east of it - along the line of settlements Runovka - Olkhovka - Uspenka, then along the river valley. Ussuri to Tekhmenevo and Glazovka. In the second direction, White planned to enter the flank and rear of the Red. By this time, the NRA had not yet concentrated its forces, which were scattered over a thousand-kilometer space, covering operational directions that were far from each other (the Manchurian and Ussuri directions). As a result, the white units, having a numerical advantage, pushed back the red ones and captured the station on September 6. Shmakovka and Uspenka. On September 7, the Reds, after a fierce battle, retreated even further north to the Ussuri River to the Medveditsky - Glazovka line. At the same time, the Siberian group and the Siberian Cossack group of generals Smolin and Borodin began military operations against the partisans - the Prikhankaisky, Lpuchinsky, Suchansky and Nikolsk-Ussuriysky military regions.

Soon the Red Army units regrouped, received reinforcements, and launched a counteroffensive; on September 14 they again occupied the station. Shmakovka and Uspenka. The Whites retreated to the Kraevsky junction area, Art. Oviyagino. As a result, White actually returned to his original positions. The White command did not have sufficient forces to develop the offensive and, having received information about the beginning concentration of NRA troops in Primorye, chose to go on the defensive.

On September 15, Diterikhs held the “Far Eastern National Congress” in Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, where he called for “giving a decisive battle to the communists on the last free piece of land” and asked the Japanese not to rush to evacuate. A special body was elected to help Dieterichs - the “Congress Council”. A decree on general mobilization was issued and a large emergency tax was introduced on the commercial and industrial layers of the population of Primorye for military needs. The Siberian Cossack group of General Borodin was given the order to destroy the Anuchinsky partisan region in order to secure the rear of the Zemstvo Army. None of these activities were fully implemented. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced a lack of funds, the population of the region was in no hurry to “replenish the Zemstvo Army” and enter into a “decisive battle with the communists.”

At the beginning of the Red Army’s offensive, the “Zemstvo Army” consisted of about 15.5 thousand bayonets and sabers, 32 guns, 750 machine guns, 4 armored trains and 11 aircraft. Its weapons and ammunition were replenished by the Japanese army.

Primorsky operation

By the end of September, units of the 2nd Amur Division and the Separate Far Eastern Cavalry Brigade were concentrated in the area of ​​the station. Shmakovka and st. Ussuri. They formed a strike force under the overall command of the commander of the 2nd Amur Division M. M. Olshansky, he was replaced by Ya. Z. Pokus at the beginning of October. The 1st Transbaikal Division, following the railway in trains and along the Amur and Ussuri rivers on steamships, passed Khabarovsk and moved south. This division became part of the NRA command reserve.

According to the command plan, the immediate task of the operation was the elimination of the Volga region enemy group in the area of ​​the station. Sviyagino. The Red Army was supposed to prevent its withdrawal to Spassk, and then, with the assistance of partisan detachments, defeat the Spassk white group and develop an offensive in a southern direction. The attack was to be carried out on October 5 by two groups of troops. The first - the Separate Far Eastern Cavalry Brigade and the 5th Amur Regiment, reinforced by 4 guns, was supposed to strike bypassing the railway track from the east. The second - the 6th Khabarovsk Rifle Regiment and the Troitskosavsky Cavalry Regiment, with a light artillery battalion and two armored trains, had the task of advancing along the Ussuri Railway. The remaining units remained in reserve.

The commander of the partisans, Mikhail Petrovich Volsky, his troops were reinforced by a special forces detachment under the command of Gulzhof, was ordered to defeat the enemy units located in the Anuchino-Ivanovka area at all costs. And then concentrate the main forces in the Chernyshevka area for an offensive in the general direction to the station. Flour and going to the rear of the Spassk group “Zemskaya Rati”. In addition, the partisans were supposed to stop the railway connection between Nikolsk-Ussuriysky and the station from October 7. Evgenievka.

The first stage of the operation (October 4-7). In the morning, the Reds went on the offensive along the railway and, after a stubborn 2-hour battle, captured the Kraevsky crossing. On October 5, Dukhovsky was captured. On October 6, the 6th Khabarovsk and Troitskosavsky regiments launched an attack on the station. Sviyagino. On the same day, the Volga region group of the Zemstvo Army, in full force, with the support of two armored trains, launched a counter-offensive, trying to disrupt the offensive impulse of the Reds and seize the initiative into their own hands. A fierce oncoming battle broke out near Sviyagino. A fierce fire battle, developing into hand-to-hand combat, continued until late in the evening.

General Molchanov, making sure that the red units could not be overthrown and fearing a bypass of the right flank, decided to withdraw the troops to Spassk, to ready-made positions. The Whites retreated, covering themselves with fire from armored trains, artillery and machine gun teams, destroying the railway tracks. This withdrawal became possible because the outflanking group was unable to reach the flank and rear of the Volga White group in time. As a result, the Whites retreated to Spassk calmly.

Yakov Pokus, trying to correct the mistake, decided to attack Spassk on the move. On the morning of October 7, the order was given to attack and capture Spassk by evening. However, the troops were already tired from previous battles and marches, and were unable to carry out this order.

During the 1st stage, the NRA was able to advance south almost 50 km and capture an important point of enemy defense - Art. Sviyagino. But it was not possible to complete the main task - to destroy the Volga region enemy group. The Whites, although they suffered heavy losses, left and entrenched themselves on a new, well-fortified line of the Spassky fortified region.