These days mark the 95th anniversary of the Battle of Volochaev - one of the key events of the Civil War in the Far East. The defeat of the White Rebel Army of General Molchanov predetermined the outcome of the entire war
Panorama "Volochaevsky battle"
The Battle of Volochaevskaya is one of the largest battles that actually ended the Civil War in Russia. The warring parties - the People's Revolutionary Army under the command of Vasily Blucher and the White Rebel Army under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Viktorin Molchanov - stormed the June-Koran hill on the outskirts of Khabarovsk. The battle lasted from February 5 to February 14, 1922, reaching its climax on February 12, 1922.
It was on this day that the decisive battle took place near the June-Koran hill near the village of Volochaevka. On February 14, 1922, the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic took Khabarovsk without a fight.
The Battle of Volochaev and the victory in it of units of the People's Revolutionary Army (NRA), led by Vasily Blucher, led to the fact that the strategic initiative from the Whites, who successfully launched an offensive in December 1921 and managed to occupy Khabarovsk, passed to the Reds. And this meant that the Far East would soon be completely occupied by the Reds and, accordingly, would remain part of Russia. This is the first thing. Secondly, this meant that the Civil War, which ended in the west of the country with the capture of Crimea, was also nearing completion in the east, notes Alexander Barinov, candidate of historical sciences, local historian, author of books about Transbaikalia.
Undoubtedly, the Battle of Volochaev in the history of the Civil War was a turning point event of lasting significance. It was here that the historical question was resolved: “To be or not to be the Russian Far East as part of Russia?” adds Svetlana Plokhikh, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Professor of the Department of History and Archeology of the School of Humanities of the Far Eastern Federal University.
From the Volochaev days to the assault nights of Spassk
Svetlana Plokhikh names at least five reasons for the high significance of the Volochaev battle for subsequent events.
Firstly, in the situation that developed after the battle, Japan announced its intention to evacuate its troops from Primorye.
Secondly, partisan warfare intensified throughout the Far East.
Thirdly, the People's Revolutionary Army was significantly replenished with units of the Red Army and was strengthened in organizational and military-technical terms. On October 8–9, 1922, the Spassky fortified area was taken, as a result of which the route to Southern Primorye became accessible.
Fourthly, on October 19, NRA units approached the suburbs of Vladivostok, and on October 24, at Sedanka station, during negotiations between the representative of the NRA Commander-in-Chief and the representative of the Japanese military command, an agreement was reached on the procedure for occupying Vladivostok by NRA units no later than 16:00 on October 25. Already on October 26, Jerome Uborevich reported to Moscow about the entry of troops into Vladivostok, a warm welcome from the city’s population and the departure of the Japanese.
Fifthly, the end of the intervention created the conditions for the reunification of the region with Soviet Russia and the liquidation of the buffer republic.
On November 14, 1922, the people's assembly of the Far Eastern Republic announced self-dissolution and the establishment of Soviet power throughout the Far East, which was confirmed by the corresponding decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR on November 15 of the same year. The country was tired of war, people wanted order and were waiting for someone to win.
They resigned themselves to the Bolsheviks, especially since in Soviet Russia, and in the Far Eastern Republic even earlier, a new economic policy began to be pursued. The petty bourgeoisie and peasantry sighed and resigned themselves to the new government.
In fact, the Battle of Volochaev was the final chord in the Civil War. Yes, Vladivostok will be occupied by parts of the NRA only in October 1922, only in 1923 will the squad of General Pepelyaev in Yakutia be defeated, and there will also be peasant uprisings in different places. But a large-scale war, in which powerful military formations participated on both sides, was ending.
The price of victory is a third of the fighters
Not all Far Eastern historians recognize the outcome of the Volochaev battle for victory and the triumph of the military talent of the Red commander Vasily Blucher, who arrived in eastern Russia as the Minister of War of the Far Eastern Republic and the commander-in-chief of the NRA.
Khabarovsk historian and local historian, author of the book “Volochaevka without Legends” Grigory Levkin considers Blucher to be the culprit of the mass death of the People’s Army soldiers in the battles near Volochaevka and is convinced that victory in the Battle of Volochaevka became possible as a result of the actions of the front commander Seryshev and the commander of the Consolidated Rifle Brigade Yakov Pokus, and Blucher's participation did more harm than good and caused "unjustified irreversible losses in the NRA."
The offensive on February 10 and 11, launched by the NRA against the White positions on the railway line, was drowned in blood. The white armored trains approached the wire fences and from a distance of 25–50 meters shot the People’s Army soldiers lying in the snow with machine guns.
The wounded, bleeding, froze on the spot. There is information that about 40 people went crazy during these days,” says Levkin.
According to his calculations, more than two thousand soldiers died during the Volochaev operation - this is almost a third of the combat strength of the NRA that participated in the hostilities. The historian also considers Vasily Blucher to be the author and initiator of the December 1921 order to shoot every tenth People's Army soldier, when the NRA troops were retreating under the pressure of Victorin Molchanov's White rebels.
The opinion about Blucher’s military talent, thanks to which victory was won in the Battle of Volochaev, is widespread, although in reality everything was accomplished thanks to the courage of ordinary people’s army soldiers who were forced to climb over barbed wire over the bodies of their dead comrades, says Levkin.
For the sake of the future
Chita has been the capital of the Far Eastern Republic since October 1920. State and party authorities were concentrated here. Until the summer of 1921, Vladivostok recognized the power of Chita, but then a coup occurred, the government of the Merkulov brothers came to power, who prepared the offensive of General Molchanov’s troops in November 1921. This offensive began at the moment when the delegation of the Far Eastern Republic, which included Minister of War Vasily Blucher, was conducting peace negotiations with the Japanese in the Chinese city of Dairen. Blucher urgently returned to Chita, and from there he went to the site of the fighting and led the Volochaevsky battle. Not only the Trans-Baikal brigade and the Troitskosavsky regiment, but also a thousand communists were sent to the front, adds Chita historian Alexander Barinov.
He notes that even the Chita bourgeoisie actively helped the NRA.
Various charity evenings were held, collecting money and things for the People's Army. Not only the Bolsheviks, but also the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries who were part of the government of the Far Eastern Republic were active. In Chita, they closely followed the developments in Primorye and the Amur region, says Barinov.
According to Svetlana Plokhikh, a rethinking of the historical role of the heroes of this event is now underway, which indicates that society is not indifferent to its history.
It is obvious that the Bolsheviks won. Why White failed is less obvious. After all, the Whites enjoyed outside support, which the Bolsheviks did not have. They received more than one billion dollars for weapons. Behind them stood a significant part of the government bureaucracy. The role of foreign intervention has not been objectively understood. Why did the West, with all its enormous military strength and Russia’s weakness, fail to take advantage of Churchill’s figurative recommendation to “strangle Bolshevism in its cradle”? - says a scientist from Far Eastern Federal University.
Most likely, in the new modern reading of the history of the Civil War, there will be other questions and answers, in particular, a vivid manifestation of the intangible, but vital aspect - the will to self-sacrifice, the human component of victories and defeats. It can hardly be disputed that the Reds, defending the idea of state independence, were more determined to kill than the Whites, and the quality of the Bolshevik leadership was superior to the opposite side. And this is already a reason to think about whether it is worth going ahead with the idea of renaming streets or rearranging monuments, as well as about the validity of such an attitude towards the past, she believes.
In turn, Alexander Barinov talks about the possibility of historical science to more actively use the sources of the White Guard, and not just the memories and documents of the Reds.
As for the monuments, it is required to preserve all the monuments to the red ones and, over time, to install monuments to the white ones. Each side fought for a bright future for Russia, each side simply understood it in its own way. They are all our ancestors who did everything for their descendants. And it’s not their fault that in the end everything didn’t turn out the way each of them (both winners and losers) thought and dreamed,” the scientist states.
Preserving the memory of the past
Any major battle during the Civil War is not just a military episode, although this is also important. This is a lesson for posterity. After all, as we know, there were no winners in the end. Those who won a brilliant military victory soon became victims themselves. This should not be forgotten, says Alexander Barinov.
The victims of the Civil War in the Far East amounted to about 80 thousand people, this is a dramatic five-year period in the history of the Far East with a huge number of victims, adds Svetlana Plokhikh.
She believes that historical memory requires a careful attitude towards it: no one gave the current generation the moral right to condemn or freely interpret the actions of previous generations.
We need to understand that they lived in different circumstances and solved specific problems in accordance with the historical situation. In addition, they worked and created, ensuring the power and prosperity of the state. It is quite natural that in this process there were mistakes, miscalculations and misconceptions. How should we feel about this? First of all, understand, learn lessons, do not repeat mistakes and remember, concludes Svetlana Plokhikh.
The “90th anniversary of the end of the Civil War” was celebrated with various events at the end of this year. The end of the Civil War here meant the evacuation of the White Army of General P.N. Wrangel from Crimea in November 1920. In this regard, one could often find the following comment on the Internet: “It’s as if Primorye is no longer Russia!”
And it’s true that after the end of the Civil War in European Russia, it raged in the Far East for another two years. To forget about this would simply mean to refuse to consider the Far East as part of Russia. Therefore, by the way, even in Soviet times, a stable formulation was formed: “Civil War 1917-1922.” The end of the Civil War began to be considered October 25, 1922 - the day when the troops of the People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) of the Far Eastern Republic (FER) entered Vladivostok.
However, even after this event, the shots of the Civil War had not yet subsided, and the remnants of the White Army did not stop resisting. Of course, everything was already fading away, but it’s somehow strange to completely turn a blind eye to these pages of history.
After all, Yakutia, Kamchatka, Chukotka, Sakhalin - isn’t this all Russian land?!
Meanwhile, the history of the Civil War on the remote northeastern outskirts of Russia has never received much attention from historians. It is clear that the fate of Russia and the revolution was not decided here. But at the beginning of the 20s of the last century, the future fate of these territories was still completely unclear. The history of the Civil War in the Far East is more closely intertwined with foreign intervention than in other regions of Russia. At that time, there was a real threat of separation of part of the Russian Far East. Suffice it to say that the last foreign occupation troops left the territory of the RSFSR only in 1925, which is also often forgotten for some reason.
One of the bright, but so far underestimated pages in the history of the Civil War in the Far East was written by the raid of the “Siberian Volunteer Squad” (SDV) on Yakutsk in the winter of 1922/23. This episode is not mentioned in many large fundamental works devoted to the Civil War on a nationwide scale. . In Soviet times, the only reminders of it were the arrows in the school history atlas for the 9th grade, indicating the path of the White Guards to Yakutsk in February 1923 and the retreat to the Sea of Okhotsk in March-April 1923; Moreover, according to the map, Yakutsk was even occupied by white troops for some time. So what was it really like there?
After the departure of Kolchak's troops, Soviet power in Yakutsk was proclaimed on December 15, 1919. Many historians attribute further difficulties in this region to the ill-conceived national policy of the Soviet government. Omsk historian Alexei Sushko writes about this: “On April 28, 1921, the Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), having heard the question of the autonomy of the Yakuts, did not come to a consensus. Two points of view emerged. First: the autonomy of Yakutia will entail its capture and exploitation by capitalist countries. Second: refusal to grant autonomy violates the policy on the national issue and can arouse a nationalist, even chauvinistic movement among the Yakuts. Since the votes in the Sibburo were divided, it decided to submit two motivated proposals to the Central Committee. The resolution of the issue of forming autonomy for the Yakuts was delayed, and this prolonged the civil war.”
In the fall of 1921, a widespread uprising against the Bolshevik rule began in the Yakutsk region.
At this time, there were two state centers in the Russian Far East: the pro-Soviet Far Eastern Republic and the White Guard Amur Provisional Government in Vladivostok, which relied on Japanese interventionists. In February 1922, after losing the battle of Volochaevka, the White Guards lost Khabarovsk. Further advance of the NRA of the Far Eastern Republic to Vladivostok was temporarily restrained only by Japanese interventionists. The White Army (reorganized in July 1922 into the “Amur Zemstvo Army” under the command of General M.K. Diterichs) was in a complete strategic and political impasse.
At this time, envoys from the Yakut rebels led by the Socialist-Revolutionary P.A. arrived in Vladivostok. Kulikovsky and Yakut Efimov. They asked for assistance in the uprising - first from the Amur government, then from the “ruler of the Far East” who replaced him, Diterichs. The Far Eastern “Zemstvo army” faced the prospect of opening a new front of struggle. Instead of step by step conquering a strip along the Amur Railway from the NRA, it was possible to create a new theater of military operations in Yakutia, and from there transfer the war directly to Eastern Siberia, closer to the more populated and economically important regions of Soviet Russia. Of course, it was an adventurous plan. But in the situation in which the remnants of the white troops were, he revealed to them the only hope of continuing the fight with some (albeit illusory) chances of ultimate success.
During the stay of the Yakut envoys in Vladivostok, new important events took place in Yakutia. On March 23, 1922, the “Yakut People’s Army” took Yakutsk. However, on April 27, 1922, the Bolsheviks announced the formation of the Yakut Autonomous SSR. After this, the anti-Bolshevik movement in the region began to decline. Reinforcements arrived from up the Lena to Yakutsk for the Red Army soldiers. In July 1922, Yakutsk again came under Soviet control. But they learned about all these events in Vladivostok with an understandable delay. And it was impossible for White to refuse the last opportunity to turn the course of the struggle in his favor. Moreover, the Yakut uprising was by no means suppressed.
True, Diterichs, for some political reasons, did not provide official assistance to the Yakut rebels under the auspices of the “Zemstvo army.” The enterprise took on the form of a private expedition, organized by the “Council of Authorized Siberian Organizations” (SUSO). The military part of the case was headed by a lieutenant colonel (his last rank in the army before the October Revolution; in White Siberia he was promoted to “general”) Anatoly Pepelyaev (pictured) - the brother of the prime minister of the Kolchak government who was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1920. At this time he lived in Harbin. Only volunteers, and natives of Siberia, were selected for the SDD. In total there were more than 500 people. It was assumed that along the way they would be replenished with white partisans and sympathizers.
Taking into account the mood of the Yakuts and Siberians in general, Pepelyaev’s “squad” raised not the white-blue-red Russian flag, but the white-green banner of the Siberian regional autonomy, which existed in 1918.
On September 8, 1922, the first echelon of the SDD unloaded in Ayana. At the end of September, he occupied the Nelkan point, from where it was planned to move further into the continent. The remnants of the Yakut rebels at this time were undergoing reorganization in Okhotsk. In the future, they were also supposed to replenish Pepelyaev’s forces. On October 1, the second ship arrived in Ayan with soldiers, weapons and cargo from the Pepelyaev squad.
There is no need to list all the difficulties that befell this unprecedented odyssey in the snows of the Yakut mountain forest-tundra in the winter of 1922/23. Let us only note that, thanks to the organizational talents of its commanders, the detachment avoided mass starvation and widespread scurvy. The epic of the Yakut campaign is covered in detail only in one source - the book by the chief of staff of the SDD E.K. Vishnevsky “Argonauts of the White Dream” (Harbin, 1933), from which we took the basic information.
In Nelkana, Pepelyaev issued a proclamation about the goals of his campaign. It is characteristic that he wrote about his detachment like this: “We are not participants in Semyonov’s and Merkulov’s adventures. Having left Siberia, we worked peacefully in the [CER] exclusion zone.” That is, Pepelyaev decisively dissociated himself from such successors of the White cause after Kolchak as Ataman Semyonov and Vladivostok “Prime Minister” Merkulov. The leader of the SDD carefully emphasized: “We carry neither revenge nor executions,” realizing what kind of memory the white troops had left in Siberia earlier. “We oppose internationalism with ardent love for the Motherland and the Russian people, godlessness with faith in God, the party dictatorship of the communists with the power of the entire people... Give up your dictatorship, let the people express their will, and the fratricidal war will end, and there will be neither reds nor whites , but a single free great Russian people. Until this happens, the people will be against you, and we are with the people against the communists,” this appeal ended with such a response to the Bolshevik agitation. In his diary, in an entry for February 6, 1923, Pepelyaev defined his goals as follows:
“My dream is to go to Siberia, create the Siberian National People's Revolutionary Army, liberate Siberia, assemble the All-Siberian Constituent People's Assembly, transfer all power to the representatives of the people. And then how they decide. My convictions are that I am a populist, I hate reaction with its revenge, blood, return to the old, and as long as I am at the head of the armed forces, I will never allow the old regimes. The power of the peasantry, the village - that is my ideal. The embodiment of the old Russian veche principles, Orthodoxy, national militia.”
One of his last entries, dated June 28, 1923, after being captured by the Bolsheviks, is interesting: “I see peace everywhere. Anger, struggle, hatred subsided. From the nightmare years of the civil war, the people took the firm path of restoring the country... Like Don Quixote, we fought windmills. A fatal attempt for which I will pay." He had to pay long and hard: after 13 years of imprisonment and a short one-year stay at large, he was re-arrested in the summer of 1937 and executed in January 1938. Well, in the meantime, Pepelyaev dreamed of hoisting the flag of the Siberian Autonomy over Yakutsk.
On December 28, 1922, Pepelyaev’s expedition established a radio station in Ayan. From the very first transmissions received, it became clear that Soviet troops had entered Vladivostok more than two months ago.
In these new conditions, the campaign of the Siberian squad, on the one hand, lost its strategic importance. On the other hand, it acquired a special meaning, remaining the last site of the White struggle in all of vast Russia. It was decided to continue the enterprise.
At the end of January 1923, the SDD entered Central Yakutia. On the way to Yakutsk, the villages of Petropavlovskoye on Aldan and Amga on the river of the same name were occupied. At Churapcha the Reds put up stubborn resistance. The advance of Pepelyaev's detachment was stopped in February. At the beginning of March, under pressure from the superior forces of the Red Army, the Whites began to retreat to their original bases. The adventure failed. The Siberian historian we quoted writes about the general reasons for the collapse of Pepelyaev’s raid on Yakutsk:
“When the nationalists did not gain access to power and their peoples were not granted autonomy (Altaians, Yakuts), a civil war unfolded in the region, in which the “foreigners” were the main anti-Soviet force. As soon as the communists compromised with the nationalists, giving them an autonomous structure, the intelligentsia brought their people out of the state of war.”
But it was not only the Yakuts and Tungus who stopped seeing the Bolsheviks as enemies. At the very beginning of the SDD campaign, intelligence reported to Pepelyaev about the mood of the Russian population of Central Yakutia: “The majority sympathize with the communists (the poor), the wealthy minority - with us.”
In June 1923, a Soviet military expedition sent from Vladivostok led by S.S. Vostretsov, captured the remnants of the SDD in Okhotsk and Ayan, which Pepelyaev, in order to avoid now useless victims, ordered to surrender without resistance. The epic of the White movement in the Far East has only now finally ended.
The elimination of pockets of the White movement in other places in the Far East occurred as follows. The Whites captured Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on November 1, 1921. But only the city itself and the port were under their control. Outside the city began the territory of the Red partisans, who made regular attacks on the city and kept Petropavlovsk under virtual siege for a whole year. When it became known about the fall of Vladivostok, on November 2, 1922, the “chief of the Kamchatka region” General P.M. Ivanov-Mumzhiev announced the evacuation of white troops. On December 1, 1922, Red partisans entered Petropavlovsk.
The literature mentions the “White Guard gang of Bochkarev,” which operated somewhere in Kamchatka after the official restoration of Soviet power there. The latest evidence relating to her is dated March 1923. Bochkarev was sent by the Merkulov government to capture Kamchatka in the fall of 1921. Subsequently, he refused to obey Dieterichs and did not evacuate with the white troops from Petropavlovsk. In February 1923, a red detachment set out from Petropavlovsk to liquidate it, but it did not come to a decisive battle: Bochkarev’s detachment melted into the Koryak tundra: what became of him is not known for certain.
Some remnants of the gang terrorized Chukotka for some time. There is a known entry in the diary of Colonel Shevchunas, who was killed in battle: “When we take Markovo [a large village in Chukotka] and capture Karaev, Kibizov and Kuzmin [the leaders of the “Reds” are listed], it will be possible to have something. First, I will propose that each of them contribute a certain amount to ransom from execution. When I receive the ransom, I will still shoot you. In a word, there will be some benefit from the capture of Markovo.” In April 1923, Soviet power was established in Anadyr (then Novo-Mariinsk).
So, strictly speaking, the year of the end of the Civil War in Russia should apparently still be considered 1923.
During the difficult times, neighboring powers made attempts to reconsider the Far Eastern borders with Russia.
Wrangel Island in the Chukchi Sea was declared a British possession (part of Canada). Only in 1924 was the occupation party evacuated from here and a red flag was raised over the island.
And Japanese troops left the northern part of Sakhalin Island only in accordance with the Beijing Treaty between the USSR and Japan of January 20, 1925. At the same time, Japan was granted the most profitable coal and oil mining concessions in the Soviet half of the island. So foreign military intervention in Russia ended only in 1925.
Magazine "Golden Lion" No. 269-270 - publication of Russian conservative thought
(www.zlev.ru)
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.
Leaving Transbaikalia, the Japanese concentrated in Primorye. The fighting continued for another two years. The interventionists provided support to local anti-Bolshevik forces. In mid-April 1921, a meeting of representatives of the White Guard detachments (Semyonov, Verzhbitsky, Ungern, Annenkov, Bakich, Savelyev, etc.), organized by Japanese militarists, took place in Beijing. The meeting had the goal of uniting the White Guard detachments under the overall command of Ataman Semenov and outlined a specific plan for the performance. According to this plan, Verzhbitsky and Savelyev were supposed to act in Primorye against the Primorsky zemstvo regional government; Glebov - lead an offensive from Sakhalyan (from Chinese territory) to the Amur region; Ungern - advance through Manchuria and Mongolia to Verkhneudinsk; Kazantsev - to Minusinsk and Krasnoyarsk; Kaygorodov - to Biysk and Barnaul; Bakich - to Semipalatinsk and Omsk. All these performances by the White Guards did not find any support among the population and were quickly liquidated by Soviet troops.
Only in Primorye, where the People's Revolutionary Army did not have the right of access under the terms of the agreement of April 29, 1920 on the “neutral zone,” was the performance of the Semenovites and Kappelites, relying on Japanese bayonets, successful. On May 26, 1921, the White Guards overthrew the Primorsky Zemstvo government and established the power of representatives of the so-called “bureau of non-socialist organizations” led by monarchists and speculators - the Merkulov brothers. American Consul McGown and special representatives of the US government, Smith and Clark, took an active part in preparing the coup, along with the Japanese interventionists. Thus, the Japanese and American imperialists, with the help of the White Guards, created the notorious “black buffer” in Primorye, as a counterbalance to the Far Eastern Republic.
The Japanese interventionists initially hoped to put Ataman Semenov in power and brought him to Vladivostok. But even the consular corps, who feared popular outrage, spoke out against this executioner and Japanese spy. The Kappelites were also against Semenov coming to power. The latter, having received about half a million rubles in gold “compensation” from the Merkulovs, left for Japan. After this, he left the political arena.
The Merkulov government began to carry out terror against all revolutionary and public organizations that existed in Primorye under the zemstvo regional government. The terror was accompanied by the massive looting of Russian property. An example of such robbery was the so-called “sale” of seven Russian destroyers to the Japanese for 40 thousand yen. The response was to expand the partisan struggle of the local population against the White Guards and interventionists.
The determined struggle of the population of the Far East against foreign invaders, growing dissatisfaction with the policy of intervention within Japan itself, worsening contradictions in relations with the United States of America (which, despite Japan’s active participation in all activities preparing an attack on the Soviet Republic, refused to recognize its right to independent occupation Russian Far East) - all this forced the Japanese ruling circles to look for new ways to retain the occupied territory. In addition, the Japanese imperialists wanted to prevent discussion of the Far Eastern issue at the Washington Conference convened by the United States in November 1921 and to show that this issue was being resolved peacefully by the countries concerned themselves. To this end, in August 1921, they convened a conference in Dairen of representatives of the Far Eastern Republic and the Japanese government, promising to discuss the issue of evacuating their troops from Primorye and to regulate the relationship between Japan and the Far Eastern Republic [Ibid., p. 217].
The Dairen Conference opened on August 26, 1921. At the very first meetings, the delegation of the Far Eastern Republic clearly formulated its main proposals. She stated that all issues could be resolved only subject to the immediate evacuation of Japanese troops and the unconditional participation of representatives of the RSFSR in the negotiations. The Japanese delegation, delaying the negotiations in every possible way, insisted not to link the issue of the evacuation of its troops with the ongoing conference, and rejected the proposal for representatives of the Soviet state to participate in the conference.
On September 6, the delegation of the Far Eastern Republic presented a specific plan for the agreement, according to which it was proposed to evacuate Japanese troops from the Far East within a month. Representatives of the Japanese government responded that the evacuation of Japanese troops could be carried out only after the liquidation of the “Nikolaev incident” and, moreover, within the time frame that Japan itself found necessary. This clause alone excluded virtually any possibility of a positive resolution of the issue, and the negotiations themselves led to a dead end. After a significant break, in October, Japan presented its counter-draft agreement, consisting of 17 points and three secret articles. This counter-project fully revealed the imperialist plans of Japan, which sought to turn the Far Eastern region into its colony. The negotiations ended unsuccessfully.
Meanwhile, under the cover of protracted negotiations in Dairen, intensive preparations were made for an attack on the Far Eastern Republic. The White Guard troops settled in Primorye were supplied with money, weapons, and ammunition. Agitation was carried out among the soldiers and the population, depicting the campaign against the Far Eastern Republic as a struggle “for the holy Orthodox faith, for the churches of God and for the Russian state, for the homeland, for the fatherland and for our homes.”
A campaign to recruit volunteers into the army began, but ended in failure. The White Guards did not receive any significant support. They were forced to launch an offensive with the forces they had.
Having landed troops in the Vostok and America gulfs on November 5, the Whites, with the support of naval artillery, pushed the partisans up the Suchan River. To strengthen the Suchansky detachment, the command of the partisan detachments withdrew its forces from Yakovlevka and Anuchino. Taking advantage of this, on November 10 the Whites launched an offensive from Nikolsk-Ussuriysky and Spassk to Anuchino and Yakovlevka, cutting off the partisans’ escape routes to the north from the rear to join the People’s Revolutionary Army. The partisans, covered from the sea and the northwest, were forced to disperse along the hills of the Sikhote-Alin ridge. Having pushed the partisans into the mountains, the White Guards, under the cover of Japanese garrisons, began to concentrate to the southern border of the “neutral zone” in the area of Art. Shmakovka, with the goal of launching an attack on Khabarovsk [Ibid., p.220].
As a result of the three-year rule of interventionists and White Guards in the Far Eastern Territory, the Far Eastern People's Republic received a completely destroyed economy in the liberated regions. Suffice it to say that by 1921, the cultivated area in Transbaikalia, the Amur region and the Amur region decreased by 20% compared to 1916. Coal production, even compared to 1917, fell by 70 - 80%. The railways (Transbaikal and Amur) were completely destroyed. Their carrying capacity barely reached 1 - 2 pairs of trains per day. Of the available 470 steam locomotives, 55% required major repairs and of the 12 thousand freight cars, 25% were unsuitable for operation [Ibid., p. 221].
The enormous depletion of the region's economic resources forced the government of the Far Eastern Republic to sharply reduce the number of the People's Revolutionary Army, which reached 90 thousand people by the summer of 1921, and to reorganize it.
The reorganization of the units of the People's Revolutionary Army was not yet completely completed at the beginning of the offensive of the "White Rebel Army". In addition, the White offensive coincided with a period when older People's Army soldiers were demobilized and new recruits had not yet arrived.
Therefore, at the first stage of hostilities, the People's Revolutionary Army was forced to leave Khabarovsk. This happened on December 22, 1921. However, in the battles near Art. The White Guards were defeated and began to retreat. They gained a foothold in the Volochaev bridgehead. Meanwhile, the government of the Far Eastern Republic took measures to increase the combat capability of the People's Revolutionary Army. In January 1922, hostilities resumed. The White Guards again suffered a series of defeats. In February 1922, the Reds launched a counter-offensive. As a result of stubborn battles, they managed to occupy the Volochaev positions and Khabarovsk. The White Guards tried to gain a foothold in positions near the station. Bikin, but to no avail. As a result, they retreated to the northern border of the “neutral zone” in the area of Iman. However, the Reds continued to pursue the enemy within the “neutral zone”, while avoiding clashes with Japanese troops.
On April 1-2, the Chita brigade occupied the village. Aleksandrovskaya, Annenskaya, Konstantinovka, with the task of continuing the offensive to the south.
To avoid an armed clash with the Japanese, the Military Council of the Eastern Front sent its representative to Spassk, who was supposed to coordinate with the Japanese command the issue of allowing units of the People's Revolutionary Army to liquidate the rebels calling themselves "White rebels." During the negotiations that began, Japanese troops on April 2 suddenly opened fire from 52 guns concentrated in the Spassk area on the Chita brigade and launched an offensive in two columns from Spassk and Khvalynka, trying to encircle parts of the People's Revolutionary Army.
Retaliatory military action by the People's Revolutionary Army would mean open war with Japan. This is precisely what the foreign imperialists sought by encouraging the Japanese command to carry out provocative attacks on the Far Eastern Republic. In order not to succumb to provocation and avoid war, the command of the Eastern Front gave the order to the Chita brigade to retreat beyond the Iman River and take up defensive positions in the area of the station in case of a Japanese attack on Khabarovsk. Gondatievka. The combined brigade, which by that time had reached level. Anuchino, was also recalled to the northern border of the “neutral zone”.
In mid-1922, the last stage of the fight against the invaders in the Far East began. It proceeded in a more favorable environment for the Far Eastern Republic and ended with the complete expulsion of the enemy.
The defeat of the White Guards near Volochaevka greatly shook the position of the Japanese interventionists in Primorye. Now there was not even a formal pretext left for leaving Japanese troops there. The US government, trying to soften the impression of the failure of its own military adventure in the Far East and convinced of the unreality of its policy of continuing military intervention at the hands of Japanese militarists, began to put pressure on Japan in order to force it to withdraw its troops from Primorye. The American monopolists sought to shift the center of gravity of their aggression to the economic field in order to enslave the Soviet people economically. Japanese troops in this matter could only serve as a hindrance. In addition, the United States did not want the strengthening of Japan, its competitor in establishing control over the Asia-Pacific region.
In Japan itself, the political situation in the summer of 1922 was also unfavorable for the militant clique and supporters of intervention. The economic crisis, the huge but fruitless expenditure of funds on the intervention, reaching one and a half billion yen, the large losses of people - all this aroused dissatisfaction with the ongoing intervention not only on the part of the general population, but also on the part of the petty bourgeoisie of Japan.
The strengthening of the Soviet Republic as a result of the victorious end of the civil war and the increasingly increasing importance of the Soviet state on the world stage had a particularly strong influence on the revision of the policy of the Japanese imperialists towards the Russian Far East. 1922 was marked by a turning point in the relations of a number of capitalist countries towards Soviet Russia. A period of diplomatic and economic negotiations began [Ibid., p.229].
There has been a change in the ruling cabinet in Japan. The new cabinet headed by Admiral Kato, a representative of maritime circles who were inclined to shift the center of gravity of expansion from the shores of the Far East to the Pacific Ocean, issued a statement on ending the war in the Far East. Under such conditions, the Japanese government was forced to recognize the need to evacuate troops from Primorye and resume the diplomatic negotiations interrupted in Dairen.
On September 4, 1922, a new conference opened 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 Japan on the other.
Representatives of the Soviet Republic and the Far East presented to the Japanese, as a necessary condition for further negotiations, the main demand - to immediately clear all areas of the Far East from Japanese troops. The Japanese representative, Matsudaira, avoided answering this demand directly. And only after the Soviet delegation, seeing the futility of further negotiations, wanted to leave the conference, he announced that the evacuation of Japanese troops from Primorye was a resolved issue. But, agreeing to the evacuation of its troops from Primorye, the Japanese delegation stated that Japanese troops would continue to occupy Northern Sakhalin as compensation for the “Nikolaev Incident.” This demand was rejected by the RSFSR delegation. The negotiations reached a dead end and were interrupted on September 19 [Ibid., p.231].
After the resumption of negotiations, the Japanese delegation continued to insist on its statement about the continuation of the occupation of northern Sakhalin. Then the delegation of the Far Eastern Republic proposed to investigate the “Nikolaev events” and discuss them on their merits. Finding himself in a difficult situation, the head of the Japanese delegation could not think of anything else but to declare that “Japan cannot go into the details of the “Nikolaev events”: the fact is that the governments of the RSFSR and the Far Eastern Republic are not recognized by Japan.” Due to the obvious inconsistency of this statement, negotiations were stopped again on September 26.
By starting diplomatic negotiations in Changchun and delaying them in every possible way, the Japanese imperialists wanted to divert attention, gain time and cover up the activities that they were simultaneously carrying out in Southern Primorye. The Japanese delegation was clearly waiting for the results of a new attack on the Far Eastern Republic, being prepared by the Japanese invaders.
On June 28, at the direction of the Japanese interventionists, the so-called “Zemsky Sobor” was assembled, consisting of extreme monarchists, White Guard military personnel and reactionary clergy. The Zemsky Sobor elected Diterichs, a former Kappel officer, as temporary ruler of the region instead of the Merkulov brothers. Once in power, Diterikhs began by declaring himself a “zemstvo governor” and began to reorganize public administration in Southern Primorye on the basis of medieval Rus'. Trying to play on the religious feelings of the population, he established a church parish as the main administrative unit. With the help of Japanese interventionists, Dieterichs began collecting and reorganizing all White Guard detachments, renaming them the “Zemstvo army.” By September 1922, the reorganization and arming of the “Zemstvo army” was completed, and Dieterichs announced a campaign against the Far Eastern Republic under the slogan “For the Faith, Tsar Michael and Holy Rus'.”
However, the Whites did not have the strength to develop the offensive. Therefore, they soon went on the defensive. Dieterichs issued a decree on general mobilization and imposed a large emergency tax on the commercial and industrial sectors of the population for military needs. All educational institutions were closed, and student youth were sent to the “zemstvo army.” In order to provide the rear of his troops, Diterikhs ordered the Siberian Cossack group of General Borodin to launch a decisive attack on the Anuchinsky partisan region with the task of defeating and pushing the partisans to the north. However, none of these activities yielded results [Ibid., p. 235].
On October 4, 1922, the People's Revolutionary Army launched the Primorye Operation. It developed successfully and continued until October 25. As a result, units of the People's Revolutionary Army occupied the last major city in the Far East - Vladivostok.
The coastal operation, which was the last major operation of the People's Revolutionary Army, ended in a brilliant victory over the enemy. Only a small part of the White Guards managed to escape from Vladivostok on Japanese ships. The defeat of the "Zemstvo army" dealt the interventionists the final and decisive blow. After this, they had no choice but to evacuate their troops from Southern Primorye.
In November 1922, the American cruiser Sacramento with a detachment of Americans located on Russian Island was forced to leave the port of Vladivostok. Seven months after the completion of the Primorye Operation, on June 2, 1923, the last Japanese ship, the battleship Nissin, left the Golden Horn Bay.
VLADIVOSTOK, October 25. /TASS/. Exactly 95 years ago, on October 25, 1922, with the capture of Vladivostok, a long and bloody Civil War ended in Russia. On this day, early in October morning, units of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic (NRA FER), under the command of Jerome Uborevich, entered Vladivostok without a fight. The ships with the remnants of the Japanese and White Guard troops, by agreement between the parties, left the city two hours before the entry of the revolutionary army.
Although October 25 is considered the official date of the end of the Civil War, isolated skirmishes between the parties in the most remote lands of the Far East continued for several more years. In Sakhalin and Kamchatka, Soviet power was fully established only after two or three years.
The memory of distant events is still preserved in the Far East. Streets and settlements are named after the Red heroes of the Civil War.
How the events of 95 years ago are assessed today in the regions of the Far East, how the memory of them is preserved, what lessons of history and why should be remembered, is described in the TASS material.
The success of diplomacy, not weapons
The end of the Civil War in the Far East is more a success of diplomacy than of weapons. “The main historical lesson of the events of October 25 is that the most peaceful victories are usually preceded by the heaviest battles both on the battlefield and in the silence of diplomatic offices,” said Associate Professor of the Department of History and Archeology of the School of Humanities at the Far Eastern Federal University in an interview with TASS (FEFU) Anna Savchuk.
According to her, the large contingent of interventionists and White Guards, the weakness of the Bolshevik Party in the region, the lack of the material ability to wage war in such remote and large territories led to the fact that the main emphasis was placed on a diplomatic rather than an armed way to end the war.
According to the expert, negotiations with Japanese representatives, who occupied the Far Eastern regions and supported the White Guard movement, took many months. The fate of Vladivostok was decided at meetings of diplomats in China, during the Washington and Genoa conferences.
“An important role in ending the war was played by English Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Chairman of the Genoa Conference Schanzer, who supported the demands of the Soviet delegation regarding Japan’s non-aggression on the Far Eastern Republic and the end of Japanese government support for the White Guards.<...>The outcome of the diplomatic struggle with Japan was influenced, first of all, by the position of the United States, England and France, who sought to limit Japan’s influence in the Far East,” the historian notes.
As a result of these lengthy negotiations, Japan was forced to agree to the withdrawal of its troops from Primorye by November 1, 1922. According to historical documents, on October 24, the last negotiations took place near Vladivostok, at which an agreement was reached on the procedure for occupying Vladivostok by the revolutionary army, which entered the city without a fight the next day.
On the very outskirts
October 25, 1922 is considered the official day of the end of the Civil War, but skirmishes and battles in the separated territories of the Far East continued for several more years, and the northern part of Sakhalin was liberated from Japanese occupation only in 1925.
As Yulia Dean, an employee of the State Historical Archive of the Sakhalin Region, Candidate of Historical Sciences, said, back on January 14, 1920, a Bolshevik coup was carried out on Sakhalin. Soviet power was proclaimed in the north of the island by Alexander Tsapko.
“His fate was tragic. When the Japanese occupied Aleksandrovsk, they arrested him and took him to one of the ships. After which we have no information what happened to him. Maybe someday we will read the memoirs of the participants in these events from the Japanese side,” he said historian.
The power of the Soviets on Sakhalin did not last long. Already on April 21, the Japanese cruiser Mishima was stationed in the roadstead of Aleksandrovsk; a landing party of 2 thousand soldiers captured the city without resistance. Japanese entrepreneurs actively exploited the island's natural resources. They quickly organized various societies and joint stock companies for timber, fish, coal and oil production. The occupation regime in the north of the island lasted until May 1925.
In one of the most remote territories - Kamchatka - there were no armed uprisings, no clashes between warring parties, no intervention. However, the events of the Civil War were felt in the far northeast of the country for several years after its end. Separate groups of White Guards operated in the region.
As historian Aleksey Buyakov writes in his book “For the Good of the Power,” in 1924 alone, up to 60 former white officers lived in the Petropavlovsk district (as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky was called until 1925). In an attempt to escape from Soviet power, the White Guards moved north along the peninsula to Chukotka, then trying to move to America. Thus, the echoes of the civil war in Kamchatka and Chukotka were felt until 1925.
To be remembered
Vladivostok carefully preserves the memory of the events of October 25. Many streets, including in the central part of the city, are named after revolutionaries - Banevur, Bashidze, Gulbinovich, Lazo, Lutsky, Neibut, Sukhanov, Uborevich and others who fought against the interventionists and White Guards. Even the main square of the city is called “To the Fighters for Soviet Power in the Far East” and there is also a sculptural group of the same name with the famous Red Army trumpeter, who has become one of the most recognizable and recognized symbols of the capital of Primorye.
However, in Vladivostok, all these years, the memory of those who found themselves on the losing side was preserved. “In addition to the famous burial of the White Czechs at the Marine Cemetery, we can mention the memorial plaque on the Sedanka station building stating that an agreement was reached here on the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Primorye. A cross was erected on Russky Island in memory of the departure of Rear Admiral Stark’s squadron from the city,” - says Savchuk.
From time to time, there is talk in the city about the possible renaming of the main square of the city, the renaming of streets named after revolutionaries, and the relocation of monuments. However, everything quickly calms down: the townspeople prefer to preserve the memory of long-standing events, giving credit to each side.
“Victor Hugo in the novel “Les Miserables” wrote: “One should not renounce the past of one’s Fatherland any more than one should renounce its present. Why not recognize your whole history?" In our opinion, this quote is very suitable for this situation. There is no need to remove monuments, rename streets, especially to do this in favor of the other side, which left not the best memory of itself," Savchuk notes.
However, the historian believes, there is no need to go to the other extreme - to completely destroy memorial sites associated with the presence of interventionists and White Guards in the city. “In our opinion, a balance should be maintained between the memory of both sides of the conflict, which left their mark on the history of the city. After all, in the end, the ability to accept one’s history with all its events, heroic and negative, is a prerequisite for the formation of historical memory,” - the expert notes.
