The expulsion of the Japanese invaders from Transbaikalia, the defeat of the Semenov gangs and the liquidation of the "Chita plug" were largely due to the brilliant victories that the Soviet Army won during the third campaign of the Entente. In October 1920, pan-Poland was forced to stop the war with the Soviet Republic, abandon its plans of conquest and, contrary to the plans of the Anglo-American and French imperialists, conclude peace. In November, Soviet troops defeated the last protégé of the Entente, Wrangel, and threw the remnants of his defeated troops into the Black Sea. At the end of 1920, the liberation from the imperialist agents of the Transcaucasian republics began. Thus, a fierce three-year struggle against the interventionists and internal counter-revolution ended in the complete victory of the Soviet Republic. The main forces of the enemies were defeated. But the Japanese intervention Far East continued. In addition, there were new attempts by the imperialists to organize an attack on the Soviet Republic.
Preparing for a new campaign, the imperialists of the USA, Britain, France and Japan tried to use the difficult economic situation in the Soviet country, created as a result of intervention and civil war, as well as the dissatisfaction of the peasants with the policy of war communism. Relying on the remnants of the White Guards, on the kulaks, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, they organized a number of counter-revolutionary rebellions in 1921 (the Kronstadt rebellion, Antonovshchina, Makhnovshchina, the kulak rebellion in Western Siberia, performances of the White Guards in the Far East, etc.). All these rebellions were links in the same chain and pursued one goal - the overthrow of Soviet power in Russia.
They all ended, as expected, in failure. The peasantry did not support any of the counter-revolutionary actions, and the Soviet Army quickly defeated and liquidated all the centers of revolts. Only in the Far East, in Primorye, a different situation developed.
After the defeat of Semyonov, the government of the Far Eastern Republic, elected at the conference of regional governments on October 29, 1920 in Chita, extended its power to the Trans-Baikal, Amur regions, Kamchatka and the northern part of Primorye up to the city of Iman inclusive. In Southern Primorye, the actual owners were still the Japanese.
The Japanese invaders occupied the entire line of the Ussuri railway from st. Sviyagino to Vladivostok inclusive. The Japanese 8th Infantry Division was garrisoned at Sviyagino and Spassk; 11th Infantry Division - in Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Vladivostok and at station. Border. In addition, the Japanese had units of auxiliary troops on Suchan and in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur.
Throughout 1921, the Japanese imperialists were actively preparing for a campaign against the Far Eastern Republic. To this end, they undertook a number of political and military measures.
The US ruling circles, which at that time were pursuing a policy of inciting Japan against Soviet Russia, assisted the Japanese imperialists.
The Stevens Inter-Allied Committee, which continued to manage the East China Railway, and the American ambassador to China, Shirman, helped evacuate the remnants of the Semenov-Kappel troops defeated in Transbaikalia through Manchuria to South Primorye. After some reorganization, these troops were reduced to three corps.
1st Consolidated Cossack Corps (Semenovtsy) under the command of General Borodin as part of the Consolidated Cossack division, Plastunskaya division and other small units consisted of 620 bayonets, 810 sabers, 11 machine guns and 1 gun. The 2nd Corps (Kappel) under the command of General Smolin as part of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, 3rd Plastun Brigade, Yenisei Cavalry Regiment had 1,175 bayonets, 365 sabers, 19 machine guns, 2 guns. The 3rd Corps (Kappel) under the command of General Molchanov as part of the 1st Rifle Brigade, the Izhevsk-Votkinsk Brigade, the Volga Brigade had about 1,300 bayonets, 385 sabers, 48 machine guns, 8 guns. In addition, there were separate small units with a total number of 1,035 bayonets, 210 sabers with 2 machine guns and 1 gun. In total, the whites numbered 4,200 bayonets, 1,770 sabers, 80 machine guns, 12 guns.
The 1st building is located in the Grodekovo area, the 2nd and 3rd - in the area of Spassk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky and Vladivostok. Along with the reorganization of the Semyonov-Kappel troops, attempts were made to transfer the remnants of the Wrangel troops from Constantinople to the Far East.
In January 1921, in Paris, representatives of Japan and France developed a plan for this transfer. In March 1921, in Port Arthur, at a secret meeting of Japanese, French and White Guard representatives, an agreement was adopted according to which the Japanese government confirmed its obligation to evacuate the Wrangel troops to the Far East, providing them with transport, money, weapons and ammunition. Japan also pledged to support all White Guard organizations and detachments operating in the Far East in their struggle against the Soviet state and the Far Eastern Republic. In return for this, Japan was given the full right to subjugate the entire Far Eastern Territory, to establish supervision and control over Russian administrative management. All Far Eastern concessions were transferred to Japan.
But it was not possible to carry out the transfer of the Wrangel troops. The Entente states decided to use them as stranglers of the revolutionary movement in the Balkans.
In mid-April 1921, a meeting of representatives of the White Guard detachments (Semenov, Verzhbitsky, Ungern, Annenkov, Bakich, Savelyev, and others) organized by the Japanese militarists was held in Beijing. The meeting was aimed at uniting the White Guard detachments under the general command of Ataman Semenov and outlined specific plan speeches. According to this plan, Verzhbitsky and Savelyev were to act in Primorye against the Primorsky Zemstvo regional government; Glebov - to lead an offensive from Sakhalyan (from Chinese territory) to the Amur Region; Ungern - through Manchuria and Mongolia to attack Verkhneudinsk; Kazantsev - to Minusinsk and Krasnoyarsk; Kaigorodov - to Biysk and Barnaul; Bakich - to Semipalatinsk and Omsk.
All these actions of the White Guard gangs did not find any support among the population and were quickly liquidated by the Soviet troops.
Only in Primorye, where the People's Revolutionary Army did not have the right to access under the terms of the agreement of April 29, 1920 on the "neutral zone", was the performance of the Semenovites and Kappelevites, 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" headed by monarchists and speculators - the Merkulov brothers. American consul McGoun 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, through the hands of the White Guards, created in Primorye, in contrast to the Far Eastern Republic, the notorious "black buffer".
The Japanese interventionists at first hoped to put Ataman Semyonov in power and brought him to Vladivostok. But even the consular corps, fearful of popular indignation, spoke out against this executioner and Japanese spy. The Kappelites were also against Semyonov's coming to power. The latter, having received about half a million rubles in gold "compensation" from the Merkulovs, left for Japan. After that, he left the political arena and completely surrendered to the hands of Japanese intelligence.
The government of the Merkulovs, which declared itself "Amur", was essentially a military-terrorist dictatorship of a handful of the most rabid monarchists and speculators, henchmen of the Japanese imperialists. From the very first days of its existence, this government began to carry out the most severe terror against all revolutionary and public organizations that existed in Primorye under the zemstvo regional government. Terror was accompanied by mass plunder of national property. An example of such a robbery was the so-called "sale" of seven Russian destroyers to the Japanese for 40,000 yen. The interventionists and the White Guards during the time of Merkulov's dictatorship plundered the people's property for hundreds of millions of gold rubles.
In connection with the Merkulov coup, the danger of a new attack was created for the Soviet Republic. The Central Committee of the Communist Party in a telegram to the 3rd Far Eastern Party Conference, which took place on June 9-17, 1921, wrote: “The further spread of the White Guardism in the territory of the Far Eastern Republic can turn into a serious danger for the RSFSR, become a threat of the resumption by international capital of partial or complete blockade RSFSR". The Central Committee proposed to take all measures to strengthen the army on the territory of the Far East, subordinating all the rest to this task.
On the instructions of the Central Committee, the party organization of the communists of Primorye, which had gone underground, and the trade unions, despite the terror, launched an active struggle against the Japanese interventionists and their henchmen. The Primorsky Regional Revolutionary Committee was created under the chairmanship of the communist V. Shishkin. In response to the Merkulov coup, the workers of Vladivostok, under the leadership of the regional committee of the Communist Party, organized a general strike, which lasted from July 27 to 31, 1921 and ended only after all members of the strike committee and the trade union bureau were arrested. As a result of the strike, transit through the port of Vladivostok was suspended for 10 days. The strike undermined the already low prestige of the Merkul government. Outlawed, the communist organization continued to work selflessly under the strictest secrecy. By order of the Primorsky Regional Revolutionary Committee of the RCP (b) dated June 10, 1921, all party organizations were declared under martial law. The directives of the underground party center (regional revolutionary committee) were in the nature of military orders. The main tactical line of work of the party organizations, determined by the instructions of the Central Committee of the party, was aimed at completely isolating the Merkul government, exposing it as a bunch of Japanese hirelings and state criminals who rebelled against the only legitimate authority - the government of the Far Eastern Republic.
Party organizations were charged with the duty to conduct extensive work among the peasants, Cossacks and white soldiers, arousing in them a sense of national duty to the Motherland. In order to create a united front of struggle against the White Guards and the interventionists, the communists were instructed, on the basis of the constitution of the Far East, as a platform, to enter into an agreement with other political groups. Party organizations were supposed to organize sabotage and in every possible way disrupt the economic and political activities of the Merkul government.
The Vladivostok City Party Conference of the Communists, which met on September 27, 1921, noted the rallying of the party ranks, the strengthening of party organizations and noted a number of achievements in the work, in particular, the successfully organized boycott of the elections to the Merkulov "people's assembly".
Along with agitation and propaganda work, the Communists of Primorye carried out a great deal of work in organizing and leading the partisan movement. The Regional Revolutionary Committee created the Provisional Revolutionary Military Council partisan detachments Primorye. It included communists V. Vladivostokov, I. Sibirtsev and A. Shishlyannikov. With bold raids, the partisans inflicted enormous damage on the White Guards and interventionists, disorganizing their rear, means of communication and communications.
So, for example, in the summer of 1921, partisans captured and took two boats from the Vladivostok raid to Olga Bay. In the imperial harbor, they captured a guard cruiser. The partisans blew up railway bridges, derailed military trains, removed telegraph wires, etc.
The selfless and resolute struggle of the workers of the Far East under the leadership of the Communists against foreign invaders, the growth of dissatisfaction with the policy of intervention within Japan itself, the aggravated contradictions in relations with the United States of America (which, despite Active participation Japan, in all the preparations for an attack on the Soviet Republic, refused to recognize its right to an independent occupation of the Russian Far East) - all this forced the Japanese ruling circles to look for new ways to hold the occupied territory. In addition, the Japanese imperialists wanted to forestall the discussion of the Far East question at the Washington Conference convened by the USA in November 1921 and to show that this question was being resolved peacefully by the interested countries 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 relations between Japan and the Far East.
The Dairen Conference opened on August 26, 1921. At the very first meetings, the FER delegation clearly formulated its main proposals. She stated that all issues could be resolved only on the condition of the immediate evacuation of Japanese troops and the unconditional participation of representatives of the RSFSR in the negotiations. The Japanese delegation, dragging out the negotiations in every possible way, insisted that the question of the evacuation of its troops should not be connected with the ongoing conference, and rejected the proposal for the participation of representatives of the Soviet state in the conference.
On September 6, the delegation of the Far Eastern Republic presented a specific plan for an agreement, according to which it was proposed to evacuate Japanese troops from the Far East within a month. Representatives of the Japanese government replied that the evacuation of Japanese troops could be carried out only after the liquidation of the "Nikolaev Incident" and, moreover, within the time period that Japan itself found necessary. This reservation alone effectively ruled out 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 counterdraft agreement, which consisted of 17 points and three secret articles. This counter-project fully revealed the imperialist plans of Japan, which sought to turn the Far Eastern Territory into its colony.
In particular, the counter-project required the following obligations from the FER: - not to establish Soviet power on its territory at all times (Article 10); - demolish or blow up all the fortresses and fortifications along the entire coast in the Vladivostok region and on the border with Korea; - never keep in waters Pacific Ocean military fleet and destroy the existing fleet (v. 14); - provide Japanese subjects with complete freedom of trade, crafts, crafts, equating them with citizens of the Far Eastern Republic; - grant Japanese subjects the right to own land and complete freedom of coastal navigation under the Japanese flag (Article 11); - transfer Northern Sakhalin to Japan for a period of 80 years (Article 16).
In addition to these predatory demands, the Japanese side, in Article 2 of the draft, again said that it would evacuate its troops from Primorye only at its own discretion and at a time that Japan would find necessary and convenient. The delegation of the Far Eastern Republic resolutely rejected such a draft "treaty", but still decided to continue the negotiations in order not to give the Japanese imperialists a reason to declare that the peace talks initiated by Japan were disrupted through the fault of the Far Eastern Republic.
On November 12, 1921, the Washington Conference opened. She had a pronounced anti-Soviet character. At the conference, the American monopolists, who profited from the blood of the peoples shed in the First World War, came forward as pretenders to world domination. They sought to push back their rivals at sea and create new system relations in China and the Far East under the dictates of the United States. At the conference, the ruling circles of America tried to cobble together a new bloc of colonial imperialist powers against the Soviet state and China. It is clear that the RSFSR, like the Far East, was not invited to this conference.
However, a delegation from the Far Eastern Republic that arrived unofficially in Washington published in January 1922 a number of documents exposing the imperialist plans of conquest in the Far East. In particular, materials were made public that testified to the existence of a secret agreement between France and Japan regarding the creation in the Far East of a state entirely subordinate to Japan, as well as the existence of a secret diplomatic bloc between France and Japan directed against America. Representatives of the Far Eastern Republic also told the American delegation that "The Russian people also hold the American government responsible for the shedding of the blood of the peaceful Russian population as a result of the ongoing imperialist intervention".
The revelations made by the FER delegation made the US imperialists even more wary. The Washington Conference, which was already inclined not to discuss the "Siberian question", was forced to put it before the Far East Commission. But this discussion, apart from listening to the slanderous statements of the Japanese delegate Shidehar about the Soviet Republic and the Far East and false promises to withdraw Japanese troops from the territory of Primorye, did not lead to anything.
Meanwhile, under the guise of protracted negotiations in Dairen and hypocritical pacifist rhetoric in Washington, intensive preparations were being made for an attack on the Far Eastern Republic. The White Guard troops, who settled in Primorye, were supplied with money, weapons, and ammunition. Illegally, through the Japanese militarists, they received American-made Remington rifles. By the performance of the White Guards, the interventionists wanted, on the one hand, to put armed pressure on the government of the Far Eastern Republic in order to force it to be more accommodating in accepting the Japanese conditions, on the other hand, to show the whole world that the ongoing "civil strife" and armed struggle are allegedly forcing Japan "in order to maintain order and the security of Japanese citizens" to leave their troops in the Russian Far East.
In order to present the Japanese imperialist-inspired attack on the Far East as a “purely Russian, national, spontaneous movement against the Bolsheviks,” all the Semyonov-Kappel troops were renamed the so-called “White Rebel Army,” headed by General Molchanov.
The 2nd and 3rd White Corps were reorganized and renamed into detachments. In total, five groups were created.
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 motherland, for the fatherland and for the homelands".
A campaign to recruit volunteers for the army began, but ended in failure. The disruption of the campaign was primarily due to the results of the work of the underground organization of communists. In order to win the sympathy of the population hostile to the government, the Merkulovites at first did not announce mobilization. For food and transport requisitioned for the needs of the army, they tried, at least in the "neutral zone", to pay with money. But behind all these measures, the working people of Primorye clearly saw the bloody hand of the imperialist invaders. Therefore, the White Guards, despite flirting with the masses, did not receive any support. They were forced to launch an offensive with the forces they had.
At the first stage of the deployment of hostilities against the Far East, the White Guard command decided to protect its rear and right flank from the partisans. To this end, in November 1921, the Whites launched an attack on the centers of the partisan movement - Suchan, Anuchino and Yakovlevka.
On November 5, having landed troops in the Vostok and America bays, the Whites, with the support of ship artillery, pushed the partisans up the Suchan River. The command of the partisan detachments to reinforce the Suchansky detachment 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 with the People's Revolutionary Army. The partisans, surrounded from the sea and the northwest, were forced to disperse over the hills of the Sikhote-Alin ridge.
Ivan Yegorchev, a well-known journalist in the region, wrote a chronology about the most eventful period in the history of Primorye. 1917-1922 - stormy, rumbling years. Then it seemed to everyone that not in the ancient Mesopotamian center, but here, in a small city on the edge of the mainland, the Babylonian pandemonium happened. Looking back into that abyss, using materials from old newspapers and archival folders, Ivan Yegorchev pulls out the crazy atmosphere of those days into modernity. Reds and whites, neutrals and biases speak to us in the language of quotations, so that our memory does not become ossified and the names on the obelisks and in the names of the streets take on meaning.
Traitors to the king
End of February 1917, abdication of Nicholas II from the throne. In Vladivostok, the telegraph once again broke down, so the news of the landmark event reached the residents of the city only on March 3. Vladivostok City Duma, the official authority until recently tsarist Russia, immediately gathered for a GRAND meeting! The COB was elected - the Committee of Public Safety - in those days everyone was completely fond of abbreviations. On behalf of the City Duma, the COB adopted an appeal: “It has happened greatest event in the life of the Russian people. The sun of freedom, truth and justice rises over the delivered Russia. The government that had oppressed the people for centuries has passed into eternity.” Further, the COB urged to remain calm and work in the name of victory.
No one expressed regret about the autocracy that had suddenly gone into the past. And this, in fact, is very scary, because yesterday they all shouted: “I serve the tsar and the fatherland!” The military governor reported: "I am acting in solidarity with the city duma and awaiting orders from the Provisional Government." The district court and prosecutor's supervision declared: "We welcome the Provisional Government and at the dawn of the court of people's conscience and free prosecutor's office we testify our full readiness to serve with all our might for the glory and good of our dear Motherland." Former tsarist officials from the Primorsky Regional Administration unanimously expressed "feelings of high enthusiasm and lively joy on the occasion of the coup d'état that had taken place and the liberation of the enslaved people."
Who is in charge of the revolution?
Russian February Revolution 1917 was made by the hands of workers and soldiers, on March 4, 1917, an authority was immediately created to "steer" the class elements so important for the revolution - the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. They also elected its head - the Bolshevik Goldbreich. Of course, the Soviet and the COB immediately began to prove to each other who was the boss in Vladivostok. Clever revolutionary power also took on the Cossacks: on March 11-13, at a gathering of the Cossacks of the Ussuri Cossack army, the military ataman was removed from power, and the executive committee of the Cossacks was elected instead. The peasants also got involved. The Primorsky Regional Council of Peasant Deputies elected Nazarenko as the head of the Social Revolutionary.
The general atmosphere was unsettled. In Khabarovsk, the governor-general of the Amur Territory, Gondatti, was arrested. Formally, the power in the region belonged to the regional commissar Rusanov, appointed by the Provisional Government, but everywhere and often spontaneously various Soviets and commissariats arose, claiming to be "the real power of the people." For example, in Vladivostok, Panteleev, publisher of the newspaper Far Outskirts, with the help of students Oriental Institute confiscated the documents of the tsarist secret police. The students elected a commissar from their ranks and decided "to join the militia, to work in unity with the local workers and military organizations." With such an abundance of Soviets, someone had to manage the Soviets themselves, so the Congress of Soviets was convened (Vladivostok, May 1917), and the Regional Committee of Soviets was elected at it. A struggle unfolded for the main power: at first, the committee was headed by the Bolshevik Gerasimov, from August the main power went over to the Menshevik hands of Vakulin, and on August 29, 1917, the Joint Executive Committee under the Vladivostok Soviet, headed by the Social Revolutionary Mikhailov, announced the taking of all power into their own hands. In order to properly distribute power in Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, the Bolsheviks sent "heavy artillery" to the city - a Jewish emigrant who returned from the United States, a great speaker, A.M. Krasnoshchekov. Krasnoshchekov coped with the task, and the Bolsheviks headed the city committee of the RSDLP (b).
Do not give light to Lenin
The Far East judged the Petrograd Bolsheviks only by newspaper reports, and the newspapers presented this party of revolution as German agents, so the inhabitants did not like the Bolsheviks. The newspaper "Far East" in June 1917 wrote: "Employees of the power plant of Khabarovsk, having gathered to discuss the activities of Lenin, as bringing discord and disorganization, sowing discord and discord among the army and the population of the revived Russia, and taking into account that Lenin propaganda against the war with a small handful of his like-minded people destroys everything that was created during the last three months by the Russian revolution - in connection with the imminent arrival of Lenin on our outskirts, they decided: in the event of Lenin's arrival in Khabarovsk, to stop giving light for his entire stay in Khabarovsk.
And then October came. On October 26, 1917, the Primorye people learned about the shot of Aurora and the flight of the Provisional Government. On December 11, 1917, the Regional Bureau of Zemstvos and Cities was formed in Khabarovsk, to which Rusanov, the former commissar of the Provisional Government, transferred power in the region. A few days later, the III Regional Congress of Soviets was held, chairman Krasnoshchekov announced that the Soviets were taking full power into their own hands, but agreed to cooperate with the Zemstvos, which were the executive power under the Provisional Government.
American Consul in Vladivostok
Caldwell, in a telegram to US Secretary of State Lansing dated January 13, 1918, reported: “The city is controlled by the regional zemstvo council, but the real power is in the hands of the Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, which agreed to cooperate with the zemstvo. In Vladivostok, the soldiers and sailors support, above all, their Council. The dual power of the Soviets and zemstvos lasted in Primorye until the end of April 1918, when, by decision of the IV Regional Congress of Soviets, the zemstvo councils were dissolved.
White Red
Soviet power did not suit everyone. The Board of the Ussuri Cossack Host strove for independence from the Soviets. In January 1918, the military circle elected Kalmykov as ataman, who began to create armed detachments in the right-of-way of the Chinese Eastern Railway, but already in March, the Cossacks-supporters of the Soviet government removed Kalmykov from the post of ataman and elected a temporary Council of Troops headed by Shevchenko. It is curious that both chieftains: both "white" and "red" - were from the same Cossack village of Grodekovo, but Kalmykov came from a wealthy family, and Shevchenko - from a poor one. In the following years of the civil war in Primorye, these chieftains met repeatedly in battles. The confrontation grew along with the growth of the civil war in central Russia and in Siberia. Local Soviets at the beginning of 1918 began to create detachments of the Red Army. In the CER zone, detachments of the "red" ataman Kalmykov and the White Guard detachments of General Horvat and ataman Semenov were formed. The Socialist Revolutionary-Menshevik Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia (VPAS), or, as they were called, "Siberian regionalists" also tried to extend their power to the Far East.
Intervention and civil war
There was another factor of strength in the region: in the spring of 1918, the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps, who fought on the side of Russia in the First world war. After the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Germany and the Bolsheviks, the Czechs had to go home almost around the world: through Siberia to Vladivostok, and then by sea to Europe. After the Czechs were excluded from hostilities, they were embroiled in a confrontation with the "Reds". In June, about 15 thousand Czechs accumulated in Vladivostok, but there were no steamboats promised by the authorities.
Here is another telegram from the American consul to Washington: “To Caldwell-Lansing. Vladivostok, April 30, 1918. Czechoslovaks arrive in the city every day; 6,000 of them have already accumulated here; appearance and discipline are excellent, they have weapons. The council provided them with barracks. Stakeholders have been informed." 
On the night of June 29, 1918, a coup was carried out by the Czechs. The leadership of the City Council, headed by K.A. Sukhanov was arrested, and the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia came to power. The Red Soviets began military resistance, the price of which was the belonging of the Far East to Russia.
On July 2, 1918, a meeting of the Supreme Military Council of the Entente took place in Paris, which decided to intensify the intervention in Siberia. On July 6 in Washington, at a meeting of the country's military leaders, with the participation of Secretary of State Lansing, the issue of sending 7,000 american soldiers to Vladivostok to help the Czechoslovak corps.
On July 6, Vladivostok was declared under the international control of the Entente powers. On August 3, the US Secretary of War ordered the dispatch to Vladivostok of units of the 27th and 31st US Infantry Divisions, which had previously become famous for their atrocities during the suppression of the Moro uprising in the Philippines. On the same day, a declaration was published by the United States and Japan, which stated that "they are taking under the protection of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps." The same obligations were assumed in the corresponding declarations by the governments of France and England.
On August 3, a battalion from British Hong Kong arrived in Vladivostok; August 4 - the first group (about 1600 people) of the Chinese division; August 9 - French battalion (800 soldiers); August 11 - the first 2000 Japanese soldiers; August 15 and 21 - two American regiments with a total strength of 3 thousand people. All this army was supposedly called in to save peaceful Czechs. So Vladivostok became the starting base for the hordes of interventionists.
The newly created "red" troops were unable to maintain control over the territory. On September 4, 1918, the Dalsovnarkom and its troops left Khabarovsk, retreating to the Amur Region. In September, front-line operations ceased and turned into a guerrilla war. 
Already in December 1918, at a meeting of the US State Department, a program of "economic development" of Russia was outlined, which provided for the export of 200 thousand tons of goods from Russia during the first 3 months, then the rate of export of valuables from Russia to the United States should have increased. Kolchak period On November 18, 1918, Admiral A.V. Kolchak was proclaimed in Omsk the "Supreme Ruler of Russia". By chance or not, on the same day, the Bolshevik Sukhanov was killed in Vladivostok. Admiral Kolchak quickly established his power in Siberia and the Far East. General Horvath became the supreme commissioner of his government with residence in Vladivostok; in July 1919 he was replaced by General Rozanov, who became the chief commander of the region. The population at first accepted the new government neutrally, but gradually the attitude began to change - mainly because of the terror against the supporters of the Soviets. And after the start of the mobilization of young people in the army of Kolchak in Primorye, a mass exodus of the population to the partisans began.
From a report in the British Foreign Office: “Vladivostok, June 7, 1919. The Bolshevik regime in Siberia was overthrown before it had time to manifest its pernicious consequences; therefore, a high salary, relative freedom from taxation and military service remained in his memory. The peasants understand the expression "provisional government" in the sense that taxes already paid will be collected again when a new government comes into power. There is dissatisfaction with the forced mobilization... The peasants do not want to hand over their weapons; attempts to carry out disarmament force them to go to the Bolsheviks. The population is outraged by the illegal actions of government troops and repressions. Colonel Robertson.
Free partisans
The first partisan detachments arose in the Suchanskaya valley in December 1918. In the spring of 1919, they already numbered more than 3 thousand people and operated near Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Tetyukha, Anuchino, Chuguevka, Spassk, Iman. A.V., freed from power, appeared in Primorye. Kolchak, areas where Soviets began to be created again. In the village of Anuchino, a united partisan headquarters was created, Sergei Lazo became the commander of all partisan detachments in Primorye. Of course, the partisans could not resist the forces of the interventionists and the Whites. The struggle went on with varying success: punitive detachments destroyed partisan bases, and the "people's avengers" remaining in the taiga carried out sabotage on the railway and individual attacks on garrisons.
On January 5, 1920, the US government announced the start of the withdrawal of its troops; in early April, the armed forces of all Entente countries left Primorye. Only Japan continued its intervention with the forces of 11 divisions totaling about 175 thousand people, thereby supporting the power of Kolchak. A little-known fact: On November 17, 1919, the Czech General Gaida attempted an anti-Kolchak coup in Vladivostok, but was defeated by the troops of General Rozanov. Only in the area of the railway station, up to 300 rebels were killed, several thousand were taken prisoner, including Gaida himself. After that, the Far Eastern Regional Committee of the RCP (b) began preparations for the overthrow of Kolchak's power in Primorye.
Under the conditions of the Japanese intervention, it was an unrealistic task to restore the Soviets, and the left-wing parties agreed to transfer power to the Primorsky Regional Zemstvo Administration, headed by the Socialist-Revolutionary Medvedev. By the end of January 1920, Kolchak's power had already fallen in Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Spassk, Grodekovo, Shkotovo, Suchan - somewhere under the blows of partisans, and somewhere as a result of Kolchak's garrisons going over to their side. On January 31, 1920, the insurgent garrison of the Russian Island occupied Vladivostok. To help him, partisan detachments entered the city in two streams from the First River and the Rotten Corner under the general command of the same ataman Shevchenko. The Maritime Government was immediately created, this deprived the Japanese of a formal reason for hostilities.
Under Japanese control
By the beginning of April 1920, a draft agreement was developed on the principles of relations between the Primorsky government and the Japanese military command, but on the night of April 5, the Japanese defeated the city's garrison, captured the ships of the Siberian military flotilla and fired at the building of the Primorsky government. The reason was a random shootout. The Japanese arrested and then killed members of the Military Council of the Government of Lazo, Lutsky and Sibirtsev. Again, fighting began throughout Primorye, the revolutionary troops retreated to the north of the region, to Khabarovsk. As a result of bloody battles, the Japanese command recognized the authority of the Primorsky Zemstvo Council, but without the Bolsheviks.
On April 29, 1920, an agreement was signed, which the newspapers immediately called "Far Eastern Brest." The agreement secured a semi-occupational position in Vladivostok and along the railway to Khabarovsk (later to Spassk), 30 km wide on both sides. The coastal government was forbidden to have its own army in this zone. The US government, which did not expect such a sharp change in the situation in favor of Japan, demanded that it withdraw its troops from Primorye. But the "sons of the Mikado", who by that time controlled the territory from Baikal to the Pacific Ocean, were already carried away by "maintaining order" in this part of Russia. Moscow did not dare to enter into an open clash with the Japanese troops, and the advance of the Red Army to the east was stopped at Baikal.
New State
By directive of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) in the Far East, it was decided to form a "buffer" state of the bourgeois-democratic type. Politicians in Moscow believed that this would help temporarily stop Japanese intervention. As V.I. Lenin: "A buffer is a buffer to wait for time and then beat the Japanese."
On April 6, 1920, the congress of workers of Transbaikalia proclaimed the creation of the Far Eastern Republic. Krasnoshchekov became the first chairman of the government of the Far East. Of course, the "red buffer" was temporary public education. DVR was announced independent state, but not a single important decision in domestic and foreign policy was to be carried out without the approval of Moscow. In December 1920, the Primorsky Regional Directorate of the Far Eastern Republic was formed in Vladivostok, headed by the Bolshevik V.G. Antonov. It was a challenge to both the Japanese authorities and the White Guards, and it was immediately followed by an answer.
coup
On May 26-27, 1921, another coup was carried out in Vladivostok by the forces of Semenov and Kappelevites. The Provisional Amur Government was formed, headed by the famous industrialist S.D. Merkulov; his brother N.D. was also a member of the government. Merkulov. The new government intended to replace the "red buffer" with "white". At the end of 1921, the Merkulov government launched a military offensive against the Far East, which ended with the capture of Khabarovsk. On February 12, 1922, in the Volochaevka area, a decisive battle took place between the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic under the command of Blucher and the White troops of General Molchanov. The "Whites" were defeated, the fighting subsided.
In the end, the "Merkulovism" has exhausted itself. On August 8, 1922, the Zemsky Sobor, held in Vladivostok, elected a new ruler of the Amur Zemsky Territory - General M.K. Diterichs. The Council decided to restore the monarchy in the Far East, but it was already pointless to change power like gloves ... By that time, international conferences had been held in Dairen and Changchun, in Washington and Genoa, where Japan announced the withdrawal of its troops from Primorye. It began at the end of August 1922. The defensive fortifications near Spassk left by the Japanese were occupied by the troops of the Zemstvo rati of M.K. Uborevich. But on October 9, 1922, the
"Storm Nights of Spassk" - the "Reds" won. Opened a direct route to Vladivostok...
On October 25, 1922, after peace negotiations with the Japanese command, the NRA troops, together with partisan detachments, entered Vladivostok. There were no “Whites” and interventionists in the city. The Sazonov government turned out to be the last and in a row, really either the 12th, or even the 13th ... On November 14, the People's Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic decided to liquidate the republic and turned to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee with a request to accept the Far East into Soviet Russia. On the eastern outskirts of the country, the power of the Soviets was finally established, and Dalrevkom became its regional body.
Thus ended the bloody Far Eastern five-year plan of civil war and intervention. About 80 thousand people died in battles, from wounds and diseases on both sides, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated abroad. The bulk of Russian emigrants from the Far East - about 150 thousand people - ended up in China. But that's a completely different story...
“On October 16, 1922, we returned to Vladivostok and found there a terrible confusion. Order in the city was guarded by an officer battalion, the police had already collapsed. All rear institutions stopped working; sabotage began, and then strikes. People cared only about how to get out or prepare to meet the Red troops. And we had to take out at all costs all the families of servicemen, refugees, part of the cargo, transfer parts of the troops from Vladivostok to Posyet, take out military educational institutions, the sick, the wounded. These tasks seemed overwhelming, since there were not enough funds to transport all this ... The Japanese military command had transports, but was careful not to give them without permission from Tokyo. In the end, it surrendered to requests, and, it seems, on the 20th, the transfer of families to Posyet on Japanese transports began ... The Reds followed on the heels, but did not particularly push.
From the memoirs of Dieterichs about last days"white" Vladivostok
“Something was not there: parliaments with factions, and the army, and magazines, and universities, and congresses, and even - oh, archaism! - Zemsky Sobor. It was as if the whole of former Russia, having found itself a reprieve for three years, shrunk microscopically in this stone cauldron, only to crawl out again from there along all the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, frightening the colonial misses with shaggy whirlwinds and burnt-out tunics ... A strange life flowed then in Vladivostok: alarmingly sharp, awkward, a coup d'état... And what kind of people could not stand it: here is some uncle bearded to the very eyes, selling a bag of golden sand, washed up near Okhotsk, to a "go"-Chinese. And next to him, a lean, olive Italian man changes his lyre and rhythmically works his jaws, like an ax, a chopped Yankee sailor. And everywhere - a vigilant eye - short-legged Japanese darting, teeming in all parts of the city and spreading across all ... forts of the once mighty fortress. Like ants on the cold paw of an unfinished animal ... "
Shcherbakov, a journalist who worked in Vladivostok during the Civil War
LAST BATTLE IN TRANSBAIKAL AND PRIMORYE
In the Far East, the Red Army was opposed not by parts of the white movement and nationalist regimes that were defeated in 1919, but by the 175,000-strong army of Japan. Under these conditions, the Soviet government decided to create on April 6, 1920, a buffer democratic state - the Far Eastern Republic (FER), closely connected with the RSFSR. The FER included the Trans-Baikal, Amur, Primorsk, Sakhalin, and Kamchatka regions. G. X. Eikhe, who had previously commanded the 5th Army, was appointed head of the People's Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the FER Soviet troops in Siberia. Parts of the NRA during 1920 led fighting with the troops of Ataman Semenov and Kappel's detachments, which controlled a significant part of the territory of the Far East. Only as a result of the third offensive on October 22, 1920, units of the NRA took Chita with the support of partisans.
With the help of the Kappel and Semenovites who retreated from Transbaikalia, Japan fortified itself in Primorye, where on May 26, 1921, the power of the Primorsky Regional Administration was overthrown and the pro-Japanese government of S. D. Merkulov was created. At the same time, units of R. F. Ungern invaded Transbaikalia from Mongolia. In the current difficult situation, the Soviet government provided military, economic and financial assistance to the Far East. Eikhe was replaced by V. K. Blyukher as commander of the NRA FER. In June, Ungern retreated to Mongolia, where in August 1921 most of his troops were surrounded and destroyed by units of the NRA. In the autumn of 1921, the situation escalated again, but in the end, as a result of fierce fighting near Volochaevka (January-February 1922), in a 40-degree frost, units of the NRA turned the tide and returned the previously lost Khabarovsk. The further offensive of the NRA units (new commander I.P. Uborevich) took place in October 1922. On October 25, the NRA troops entered Vladivostok, and on November 14, 1922, the People's Assembly of the FER announced the establishment of Soviet power in the Far East and the entry of the FER into composition of the RSFSR. Soviet power established itself in all regions where civil war had flared before.
I.S. Ratkovsky, M.V. Khodyakov. History of Soviet Russia
"THROUGH THE VALLEYS AND TOWARDS THE HILLS": THE HISTORY OF THE SONG
The biography of Peter Parfyonov, which is closely connected with Siberia, is amazing. He managed to combine the talents of a poet, writer, historian, military figure, diplomat, head of a major Russian government department and party functionary.
Perhaps his name would have long been forgotten if it were not for the famous song composed by him “Across the valleys and over the hills”.
Petr Parfyonov, in the article “The History of the Partisan Song”, recalled:
“The song “Along the valleys, over the mountains” has a long history. The text has been revised by me several times. The song took its final form under the following circumstances.
After the liquidation of Kolchakism and the liberation of Vladivostok, the political commissioner (as the military commissars were then called - A.M.) under the head of the Nikolsko-Ussuriysk garrison made a report on the political and moral state of the military units, pointed out the complete absence of good revolutionary songs.
“For five months now we have been standing, and our Red Army soldiers are singing Kolchak's Canary, and we can offer them nothing in return. It's a disgrace, comrades!" the delegate said.
Taking advantage of the next Sunday afternoon, when there was less operational work, I found my notebook with verses and, borrowing from it the melody, theme, form and a significant part of the text, wrote a new song “Partisan Anthem” in one evening:
In the valleys, in the mountains
Divisions went forward
To take Primorye with a fight -
Stronghold of the White Army.
To drive out the invaders
Outside your native country.
And do not bend before their agent
Labor of his back.
Standing under the banner
Created a military camp
Remote squadrons
Amur partisans.
Glory will not cease these days
Will never forget
How dashing is our lava
Occupied cities.
Preserved, just like in a fairy tale
Age-old like stumps
Stormy nights of Spassk,
Nikolaev days.
How we drove the chieftains,
How we smashed the gentlemen.
And in the Pacific
Your trip is over."
Later it turned out that the legendary "Partisan Song" had other predecessors. Yuri Biryukov, a researcher of Russian song history, revealed that back in 1915 a collection of poems “The Year of War. Thoughts and Songs” by Vladimir Gilyarovsky, the famous Moscow reporter “Uncle Gilyai”. One of his poems “From the taiga, the taiga far away” became a song that was sung in the Russian army. The song was subtitled "Siberian Riflemen in 1914":
From the taiga, the dense taiga,
From the Amur, from the river,
Silently, a formidable cloud
Siberians went to battle...
And in last years The “March of the Drozdovsky Regiment” was published, which is considered the first double of the “Song of the Siberian Riflemen” in terms of appearance. The words of the “Drozdovsky March” were composed by P. Batorin in memory of the passage 1200 miles long on the 1st separate brigade Russian volunteers under the command of Colonel Drozdovsky from Romania, where the revolution found them, to the Don.
Trekking from Romania
There was Drozdovsky glorious regiment,
To save the people
Carried heroic heavy duty.
So, two different songs were born for one motive: “red” and “white” (since later Drozdovsky’s brigade fought with weapons in their hands against the Bolsheviks), which often happened in those days of a tragic break in the life of Russia. There is also pathos in the song of the Drozdovites, but the people demand salvation in the name of holy Rus':
The Drozdovites walked with a firm step,
The enemy fled under pressure:
Under the tricolor Russian flag
The regiment gained glory for itself!
Both songs remained in history, in songbooks, although the original source was forgotten for a long time. And the song of Pyotr Parfyonov, which became a kind of symbol of the era, gained world fame. civil war. The words from this song are engraved on the monuments partisan glory in Vladivostok, in Khabarovsk:
Glory will not cease these days,
Will never fade.
Partisan detachments
They occupied the cities...
ICE EPILOGUE OF THE CIVIL WAR
Living in Harbin, in the spring of 1922, General Pepelyaev entered into relations with two delegates from the population of the Yakutsk region that rebelled against the Bolsheviks: P. A. Kulikovsky and V. M. Popov, who arrived in Vladivostok to seek support from the government of S. D. Merkulov. This government, however, did not show an active interest in Yakut affairs, and the delegates then managed to interest General Pepelyaev in them, who, after long requests and insistence, agreed to help the people of Yakutia in their fight against the communists. Deciding to organize a military expedition to this distant Siberian region, A.N. Pepelyaev moved to Vladivostok in the summer of 1922.
Persons and institutions that had nothing to do with either the Japanese or the Merkulov government helped Kulikovsky and Pepelyaev to prepare food, uniforms and weapons for the expeditionary detachment. Recruitment gave the gene. Pepelyaev up to 700 volunteers, mostly former soldiers of his Siberian army and Kappelevites.
On September 1, 1922, when General Dieterichs already held power in Primorye, Pepelyaev's detachment was ready to leave Vladivostok. It received the name of the Siberian Volunteer Squad, but officially it was an expedition to protect the Okhotsk-Kamchatka coast.
To send a detachment to the ports of the Sea of Okhotsk, two steamships were chartered.
Upon the arrival of the expedition to the place, it turned out that the popular anti-Soviet movement in the Yakutsk region had already been liquidated by the Bolsheviks. According to one of the participants in the campaign, the help of the Siberian Volunteer Squad was at least three months late.
General Pepelyaev now faced the question of whether to create a new anti-Bolshevik movement in Yakutia or immediately return to Vladivostok. A meeting was arranged with local people who assured Pepelyaev that it was easy to create a movement in the region again, since there were still many partisan detachments in the taiga, and it would be enough for the squad to move forward, as it would quickly be strengthened by new volunteers.
Even before the arrival of General Vishnevsky in Ayan, Gen. Pepelyaev, with a detachment of 300 fighters, went to Nelkan to take the local red garrison by surprise there with its food and weapons supplies and shipping facilities. The detachment had to travel a distance of 240 versts through deserted terrain and on the way cross the difficult Dzhukdzhur Range, which during the autumn thaw, with insufficient means of transportation, was an extremely difficult task.
Nevertheless, this path was passed, and the detachment reached Nelkan, but three defectors warned the Reds about the approach of the enemy, and they managed to sail away on barges along the May River to Aldan.
Thus, the squad was forced to settle down for the winter at two points: in Nelkan, with General Pepelyaev, and in Ayan, with General Vishnevsky ... On November 19, a detachment from the port of Ayan, led by the gene, was able to approach Nelkan. Vishnevsky, and now only the third battalion of the squad remained in Ayan.
Pepelyaev's squad stayed in Nelkan for about a month, organizing their transport and collecting intelligence information. Information was received about the location of the red units in the area. It turned out that there were up to 350 red fighters in the Amga settlement, almost the same number in the villages of Petropavlovsky and Churapcha. In the regional city of Yakutsk, the number of red fighters was not found out. It was assumed that their main forces were here, led by the commander of all the red detachments in the region, Baikalov ...
On January 22, 1923, a detachment was sent from Ust-Mili to take the village of Amga, under the command of Colonel Renengart with a strength of up to 400 fighters with two machine guns ... The distance of 200 miles from Ust-Mil to Amga, the Renengart detachment passed at 40-50 ° along Réaumur in six days.
Amga was taken after a short resistance by the Reds ... This was the first success of the Whites, but the further development of the struggle brought them nothing but disappointment and serious disasters.
On February 12, information was received that the red garrison of the village of Petropavlovsky, under the command of Strodt, had withdrawn and went to Yakutsk. General Vishnevsky was sent to meet him with an instructor company and the 1st battalion, which was supposed to ambush and defeat the Reds while they were resting in one of the villages.
Strodt, however, learned of the proposed ambush and prepared to meet the enemy. In the Yakut ulus (village) Sigalsysy on February 13, a battle began ...
Strodt's detachment was surrounded; guards were posted around him in the forest. The Whites made an attempt to take Sigalsysy by storm, but the Reds developed destructive machine-gun fire, and this attempt was not successful.
In view of the impossibility of taking the enemy out of battle, the Whites decided not to lift the siege until the Reds, under the pressure of hunger, surrendered themselves. On February 25, information was received about the movement of the Churapchinsky Red Detachment to the rescue of Strodt. Gene. Pepelyaev sent part of his squad to meet this detachment, but again failed to destroy it.
Three days later, news came that a large detachment under the command of Baikalov himself had set out from Yakutsk. This detachment moved directly to Amga and on the morning of March 2 opened gun and machine-gun fire on it. The white defenders of Amga fired back from the Reds to the last bullet, then some of them retreated to Ust-Mili, some were captured by the enemy.
The situation has now changed drastically, not in favor of the Whites.
March 3 Gen. Pepelyaev ordered the retreat of his squad back to the village of Petropavlovsky, at the mouth of the Mai River. Among other things, the order said:
Having experienced severe hardships on the road, the retinue of Gen. Pepelyaev in early April. 1923 reached Nelkan. In total, about 600 people remained in the squad after the campaign against Yakutsk, including 200 Yakuts.
After resting in Nelkan, the detachment then went to Ayan on the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk. This was in the summer of 1923. Having learned about the exit of the detachment of General Pepelyaev to the sea, the red authorities of Primorye sent a military expedition on three ships from Vladivostok under the command of Vostretsov.
On the night of June 18, with a strong wind and a storm at sea, the Reds landed on the shore near Ayan and approached the port unnoticed, surrounding Pepelyaev's headquarters and its combat units. Vostretsov offered Pepelyaev to surrender without a fight, warning that otherwise his squad would be destroyed by force of arms.
There was no way out: Pepelyaev agreed to surrender ...
Pepelyaev and his most important associates were taken to Siberia, where they were tried in the city of Chita. The general himself and ten people from among those taken prisoner together were sentenced to death, but this sentence was later commuted to ten years in prison ...
"Gerventy~k~b~ 1922" ^
Border of the Far Eastern Republic in 1920-1922
Agreement at Gongota station on the cessation of hostilities on
"Merkul's coup" Since 21. 5.1921) - the establishment of the counter-revolutionary power of proteges of the Japanese imperialists ("black buffer")
/////// The territory liberated from the interventionists and the White Guards by April 1920
The main areas of the partisan movement Occupation of the CER by interventionists and White Guards Provocative actions of the Japanese military on April 4-6, 1920 Actions of the Japanese interventionists and White Guards Actions of the Red partisans Actions of the People's Revolutionary Army = (> Actions of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Detachments
West Trans-Baikal Front (15-7.1920) The line of the Amur Front by October 1920 (liquidation of the "Chita traffic jam") Eastern Front Line in February and October 1922
The defeat of the "White rebel army" near Volo^aevka f5-12 February 1922) and Zemskaya rati "near Spassk \\ October 7-9, 1922) © Defeat and capture of the guard gangs
The flight of the interventionists from the Far Voe eye
^ government troops of the RSFSR and the Far East Republic entered the territory of Mongolia and, together with the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army, liberated Urga on July 6, 1921.
won in Mongolia popular revolution. However, due to the special historical conditions here, on July 11, 1921, a limited monarchy was proclaimed. The theocratic power of the Bogdogegen, the head of the Buddhist Church, was limited by the Provisional People's Government, which was under the leadership of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party.
On November 5, 1921, an agreement was signed in Moscow between representatives of the Soviet government and representatives of the People's Government of Mongolia. In a conversation with Sukhe-Bator, V. I. Lenin pointed out that due to the geographical position of Mongolia, the imperialists, in the event of war, would strive to seize it and turn it into a springboard for an attack on Soviet Russia. “Therefore,” V.I. Lenin said to Sukhe-Bator, “the only correct way for every working person in your country is the struggle for state and economic independence in alliance with the workers and peasants of the RSFSR”54.
With the help of the Red Army, the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic in 1922 was completely cleared of the remnants of the White Guard gangs. Ungern was caught by a cavalry detachment of the 104th brigade and Shchetinkin's detachment and, by order of the revolutionary court, was shot. The liberated Mongolian people began the peaceful construction of an independent Mongolian People's Republic.
The defeat of the Red Army units of Baron Ungern in Transbaikalia and Mongolia, the expulsion of the White Guard detachments of Kazantsev, Bakich and others from the territory of Siberia and Tuva (now the Tuva Autonomous Region) made it possible for the Tuvan people to proclaim the Tannu-Tuva People's Republic in August 1921. The constitution of the young republic stated that the Tannu-Tuva Republic was a free and independent state, under the protection of Soviet Russia in international affairs.
After the failure of Ungern's adventure, the US and Japanese imperialists did not stop trying to destroy the Far Eastern Republic.
However, their coordinated actions were hampered by contradictions, the struggle for prevailing influence in the countries of the Pacific basin.
In order to "settle" relations in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East, on November 12, 1921, at the initiative of the United States, the Washington Nine-Power Conference was convened, in which, in addition to the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, Italy, China, Belgium, Holland and Portugal took part. At the center of the Washington Conference were the question of the redistribution of spheres of influence in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East and the question of the correlation of the naval forces of the main imperialist powers.
From the very beginning of the Washington Conference, its anti-Soviet orientation was revealed. The government of the RSFSR did not even receive an invitation to take part in the conference. In a Soviet note dated July 19, 1921, sent before the conference to the governments of Great Britain, France, the USA, Japan and China, it was emphasized that
"The Russian government protests against its expulsion from the conference, which directly concerns it, as well as against any intention of any power to make decisions concerning the Pacific Ocean without the knowledge of Russia" 55.
To the statement of the US State Department that, in view of the absence of a single Russian government, the entire conference as a whole would take over the "protection" of Russia's interests, the Soviet government responded with a resolute protest.
“Russia,” the note of November 2, 1921, stated, “in recent years has experienced enough the cares of the great powers. Its interests are taken over by the same governments that bled it, sent tsarist generals against it, and strangled it with a ring of ruthless blockade.
The sweat of the Soviet government was left unanswered. The Washington Conference began its work without the participation of Soviet RUSSIA.
In December 1921, during the conference, a delegation from the Far East arrived in Washington and demanded a peaceful resolution of the Far East issue and an end to the armed Japanese intervention. The requirements of the DVR, however, were not satisfied. The Washington Conference tacitly sanctioned Japan's actions in the Far East.
In turn, Japan, in order to strengthen its positions in the Far East, even before the start of the conference in Washington, tried to resort to negotiations with the government of the Far East. For this purpose, the Dairen Conference was convened, which lasted from August 26, 1921 to April 16, 1922. The Dairen Conference was unofficially attended by a representative of the government of the RSFSR. 10 Yu. Markhlevsky. The FER delegation at the conference was headed by Deputy Prime Minister F. N. Petrov.
The government of the Far East, agreeing to Japan's proposal for talks in Dairen, once again demonstrated its peaceful policy and sought to use the conference to expose the aggressive and predatory policy of foreign, primarily Japanese, imperialists in the Far East. From the very first meetings of the Dairen Conference, true intentions Japanese ruling circles. The proposal of the FER delegation to publish a joint declaration on the cessation of hostilities was refused by the Japanese. The FER delegation submitted a draft treaty, the main requirement of which was Japan's commitment to evacuate its troops from the Far East. Japan rejected this proposal and submitted its own counterdraft of the treaty, in which it presented the FER with demands: to tear down all the fortifications on the border with Korea and in the area of the Vladivostok fortress, to destroy the navy in the Pacific Ocean, to recognize the freedom of residence and movement of Japanese military officials in the FER, to equate Japanese subjects to subjects of the Far East in the field of trade, crafts and trades, to grant Japanese subjects the right to own land, freedom of navigation for Japanese ships on the Amur and Sungari rivers, to lease Sakhalin Island to Japan for a period of 80 years, not to introduce a communist regime into the Far East, etc. .
The demands of the Japanese imperialists aimed at turning the Far East into a colony of Japan were categorically rejected by the FER delegation. The Dairen conference ended inconclusively.
Simultaneously with the negotiations, the interventionists were preparing an attack on the Far East with the forces of the White Guards of Primorye. Preparing for an attack on the Far East, the White Guards intensified the persecution of the Communists in Primorye. The Maritime Bolshevik organization suffered two major setbacks during 1921, which undermined its fighting efficiency. The first failure of the party organization occurred at the time of preparations for the uprising against Merkulovism in the summer of 1921. 13 the last moment before the speech, the provocateur gave the White Guards the whole plan of the uprising. Active participants in the preparation of the uprising, led by the Communist II. V. Rukosuev-Ordynsky were arrested and many of them were killed without trial or investigation. The second time the underground organization was betrayed by a traitor in the last days of December 1921. The failures of the Bolshevik organization weakened the party leadership of the partisan movement in Primorye and made it easier for the White Guards to implement the plan of attack on the Far East.
In order to disguise an armed uprising against the Far East, the Merkulov government renamed the Semenov-Kappel troops into the "White Rebel Army." General Molchanov, who was close to the Social Revolutionaries, was appointed commander of this army.
Before launching a decisive offensive against the Far East, the White Command, in order to protect its rear and flanks, carried out extensive operations in November 1921 against the partisan centers of Primorye - Suchan, Anuchino, Yakovlevka. Under the onslaught of superior enemy forces, offering them stubborn resistance, the partisans were forced to retreat in small detachments to the taiga and hills.
Having thus secured its rear and right flank, the Merkulov army, under the cover of Japanese troops, concentrated in the area of Shmakovka station. Having freely passed the neutral zone between the stations of Ussuri and Iman, on November 30, 1921, the White Guard troops launched an offensive against the Far East.
During December, the insignificant garrisons of the People's Revolutionary Army, concentrated at the northern border of the neutral zone, fought intense battles with the Whites. Yielding to the enemy in numbers and weapons, they were forced to withdraw. On December 22, the White Guards captured Khabarovsk, crossed the Amur and occupied railway station Volochaevka. Advancing on Khabarovsk along the railway line, the White Guard troops made an attempt to cut off the retreat routes of the troops of the People's Revolutionary Army. To do this, from the village of Kazakevpchevo, a cavalry group of General Sakharov consisting of 1,500 sabers was sent around Khabarovsk. It was supposed to cross the Amur on the ice and, reaching the Volochaevka area, destroy the railway in the rear of the People's Revolutionary Army and defeat the revolutionary troops of the Khabarovsk direction.
The plan of the White Guard command was thwarted. Near Kazaksvichevo, Sakharov's group was detained by a small special-purpose detachment, created from communists and Komsomol members mobilized by the Amur and Amur regional committees of the RCP (b). This detachment of 200 people took up a POSITION near Kazakevichsvo. After a fierce battle in the heroic squad, surrounded by enemies, only a few fighters survived. 28 wounded communists and Komsomol members were captured and tortured to death. Among the dead were the head of the department of agitation and propaganda of the Amur regional committee of the RCP (b) Sedoykin (A. N. Borodkin), the commissioner of post and telegraph of the Amur region “JI. Koshuba, a mill worker N. I. Pechkin, Komsomol students M. Korolev, A. Rudykh and others. Thanks to the stubborn resistance offered to the Whites at Kazakevichevo, units of the People's Revolutionary Army managed to retreat to the Ying station and take up new positions.
The failures of the units of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far East in the Khabarovsk sector were largely due to errors in the strategic plan for the defense of the Far East and unsatisfactory leadership of the troops by the command and headquarters of the Amur Military District. The military command, as well as the party leadership of the Far Eastern Republic, considered the Manchuria-Chita sector as the main threatening direction. The danger that arose in connection with the Merkul coup in Primorye was underestimated by them. It was assumed that the Whites could be paralyzed by the actions of partisan detachments, operationally subordinate to the headquarters of the Amur Military District.
At a meeting of the Dalburo on June 1, 1921, the question "On the defense of the republic in connection with the performance of the White Guards in Primorye" was discussed. At this meeting, the Dalburo, taking into account the possibility of an open Japanese attack from the territory of Manchuria, as well as the offensive that Ungern had begun from Mongolia, adopted a plan for the defense of the Far East. The plan provided for the division of the territory of the Far East into three combat areas: Western - from the Selenga River to Manchuria and Argun, Amur - to Khabarovsk, Primorsky - partisan. The main armed forces of the FER, according to this plan, were concentrated in Transbaikalia - in the Manchu direction.
This decision was based on the assumption of the possibility of using internal contradictions both among the White Guard counter-revolution of Primorye and between the American and Japanese imperialists. There was also an unfounded hope that the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, using the Kappelites, would be able to disintegrate Merkulov's army. Along with this, excessive great importance the role of the partisan movement in Primorye to the detriment of strengthening the regular armed forces in the Khabarovsk sector. Therefore, the defense of the area from the Iman River in Primorye to Blagoveshchensk, inclusive, was provided by the forces of four incomplete regiments.
The People's Revolutionary Army, formed from partisan detachments and units of the Kolchak troops that went over to the side of the revolution, numbered 90 thousand people by the summer of 1921. different ages and service life. To bring the army into a combat-ready state, the Far Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on August 16, 1921 decided to reorganize the army and reduce its size, to demobilize the elderly and mobilize the youth.
The staffing of the units of the People's Revolutionary Army had not yet been completed by the beginning of the White offensive. The offensive of the Merkulovites began at a time when the older people's army soldiers were demobilized, and the youth drafted into the army had not yet arrived. As a result, the military units of the Amur District were only 40 percent complete and were not adequately trained.
The command of the Amur war district turned out to be unprepared to repel the enemy offensive. The district headquarters did not have an operational plan in case of an attack by the White Guards from Primorye. At the moment the enemy offensive began, the command of the people's revolutionary troops of the Khabarovsk direction was confused and let go of the leadership from their hands. The defense of the Khabarovsk region was not secured. All these circumstances were the reason for the temporary success of the Whites and the retreat of parts of the People's Revolutionary Army beyond the Amur.
The Dalburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the government of the Far Eastern Republic took decisive measures to prepare for the defeat of the White Guard troops. At the end of December 1921, the Dalburo of the Central Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan11(b) decided to concentrate all the forces of the People's Revolutionary Army on the Eastern Front, and during the period of concentration of forces to conduct active defense in the area of the Ying station, using partisan operations on a large scale in the rear of the White Guards 57. In the Amur and Amur regions, six ages were drafted into the army, and in Transbaikalia - four ages. To strengthen the Eastern Front, units of the People's Revolutionary Army were transferred from Transbaikalia to Khabarovsk. At the request of the command of the People's Revolutionary Army, the 104th brigade of the Soviet 5th Army was moved to cover the Manchu direction in Transbaikalia.
By order of the main command of the People's Revolutionary Army at the end of December 1921, the headquarters of the Eastern Front was created. S. Seryshev was appointed commander of the front, and P. Postyshev was appointed commissar. In order to organize and strengthen the rear area of the front and ensure the successful mobilization of reinforcements for the People's Revolutionary Army, a rear headquarters was created in Blagoveshchensk.
The party organizations of the Far Eastern Republic switched to martial law. The Amur party organization completely joined the ranks of the army. The Amur regional committee of the RCP (b) in the very first days of the offensive of the White Guards mobilized and sent to the front one hundred communists and one hundred Komsomol members. The Annunciation Committee of the RCP(b) announced that all its members and candidates are considered to be mobilized and are under martial law. Most of the Komsomol organizations completely merged into the military units. Volunteer detachments of youth were created, for example, in Chita - a company named after S. Lazo, in Primorye - a youth detachment named after K. Liebknecht. In all cities and villages of the Far Eastern Republic, an extensive campaign was carried out to raise funds and provide assistance to the soldiers of the People's Revolutionary Army. In the center of the Far Eastern Republic and in the localities, committees for helping the front were created from representatives of state, party, Komsomol, trade union and other organizations. THESE committees were closely connected with the People's Revolutionary Army and provided great assistance to the front with food and uniforms. Workers and employees remained for overtime work, deducted part of their salary to the Fovd of the army. During the fighting on the outskirts of Khabarovsk, many members of the People's Assembly, as well as a number of government members, went to the front line to organize assistance to the front. The People's Assembly adopted a law on an emergency military tax on the bourgeoisie in the amount of half a million gold rubles. Only the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks voted against. They systematically tried to disrupt the activities of the government of the Far East, both in the field of internal and foreign policy hindered the work of the state apparatus. Moreover, their criminal role was established as accomplices and participants in the military adventure of the Merkulovites against the FER58. In order to purge the authorities of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in December 1921, the coalition with them in the Council of Ministers of the Far Eastern Republic was liquidated 59.
Thanks to the measures taken, the People's Revolutionary Army was strengthened in a short time and a decisive turning point was achieved on the front.
The White Guard offensive from the east was halted at the Pi station of the Amur railway, a hundred kilometers west of Khabarovsk. Even on the outskirts of the Ying station, the White Guards were exhausted by the continuous counterattacks of the People's Revolutionary Army detachments and the attack of the partisans in the rear. On the night of December 28, the White Guard command made an attempt to continue the offensive by organizing an unexpected raid on the Ying station by a group of troops of General Sakharov consisting of 1,000 bayonets and 200 cavalry. But the Indian battle ended with the defeat of the enemy 60.
After the Insk battle, Merkulov's "White rebel army" retreated to Volochaevka -? a small station of the Ussuri railway, 48 kilometers west of Khabarovsk. The commander of the White Guard troops, General Molchanov, decided to switch to active defense, firmly securing the Khabarovsk region. Colonel Argunov, who commanded the White Guard units in the Volochaevkp area, was ordered to urgently strengthen this area, creating a chain fortifications in a narrow passage between the Amur and Tunguska rivers. Here the enemy decided to hold out until spring, accumulate strength, reorganize the army, clear his rear of partisans, and go on the offensive with the beginning of spring. This plan of the enemy was revealed: in early January, one of the detachments of the people's troops raided the headquarters of the 1st Corps of General Molchanov and seized operational documents.
It was impossible to delay. It was necessary to defeat the White Guards before the onset of spring.
During January and the first days of February 1922, the command of the People's Revolutionary Army was gathering forces to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy near Volochaevka. For this, the Special Amur Regiment, the Troptskosava Cavalry Regiment and the Chita Rifle Brigade were transferred from the Trans-Baikal Military District to the EASTERN Front. The transfer of these units was completed by January 31, 1922. The troops that arrived from Transbaikalia formed the Transbaikal Group of Forces of the Eastern Front. The rifle units located at the Ying station, the 5th, 6th and Special Amur regiments were consolidated into the Consolidated Brigade and, together with the 4th Cavalry Regiment, two partisan detachments and the Troitskosava Cavalry Regiment that arrived later, made up the 11th Front Group.
During these days, the activities of the partisans were especially intensified. In the rear of the White Guards, in Primorye, a Military Council of Partisan Detachments was created under the leadership of the Communists K. F. Pshenitsyn and A. K. Flegontov. The region was divided into eight military regions, in which general plan partisan detachments were deployed. The GTartizan detachments provided great assistance to the People's Revolutionary Army and inflicted serious losses on the White Guards, who were forced to devote significant forces to protect their rear.
On January 6, 1922, partisans of the Imanskaya Valley raided the Muravyov-Amursky station, where the White Guard artillery depot was located. The unexpected attack failed: the warehouse was heavily guarded. Three times the partisans made a bayonet attack, reached the warehouse and blew it up.
On the night of January 12, a partisan detachment raided Khabarovsk, where the headquarters of the 1st White Guard Corps of General Molchanov was located. The Whites repulsed the raid with heavy losses, but for this they had to pull two regiments from under Volochaevkp.
Before the beginning of the Volochaev operation, the balance of forces of the parties was as follows: units of the People's Revolutionary Army had about 6300 bayonets and 1300 sabers, 300 machine guns, 30 guns, 3 armored trains, 2 tanks; the White Guards at the front had about 4550 bayonets and sabers, 63 machine guns, 12 guns and 3 armored trains.
Volochaevka was the last stronghold of the enemy. The command of the "White Army" was clearly aware of this. General Molchanov, apparently expecting the advance of the troops of the People's Revolutionary Army, wrote in an address to his officers:
“The question of our very being requires the full exertion of all forces in order to achieve victory. We live with victory - failure can deprive us of our very existence as an anti-Bolshevik organization ... ”He urged senior military leaders to“ breathe into the hearts of subordinates the passionate spirit of victory ”,“ talk to everyone and electrify everyone ”, inspire everyone“ that throwing a wire under no circumstances."
Knowing that the White Guards, who had settled in Volochaevka, would fiercely resist, the troops of the People's Revolutionary Army prepared for a stubborn battle. During the last two weeks of January, despite severe frosts, sometimes reaching up to 35 degrees, the troops were intensively trained. On January 28, instead of the field headquarters, the commander-in-chief of the People's Revolutionary Army, V.K. There was a parade of revolutionary units and a small rally. The commanders and commissars turned to the soldiers with appeals: “Volochaevka must be ours!”, “Khabarovsk must be red!”, “Forward, for the liberation of J [Rimorye!”. And in response, in the frosty air, a friendly, cheerful, rolling "Hurrah!"
VOLOCHAEVSKY YOY (From a painting by E. O. Mashkevich.)
The offensive plan of the People's Revolutionary Army, adopted by the commander-in-chief, provided for inflicting two successive blows on the enemy. As a result of the first strike, the revolutionary troops were to capture the area of the Olgokhta station and create a bridgehead for a further offensive on Volochaevka. The second blow was designed to capture Volochasvka and defeat the White Guard troops. 62. After occupying the Olgokhta station and regrouping forces, the Consolidated Brigade was to advance along the railway line and, with the assistance of partisan detachments, strike at the right flank of the White Guards. After the occupation of Volochaevka, this group was given the task of pursuing the enemy in the Khabarovsk direction. The Trans-Baikal group of troops was to move from the Olgokhta station in the Amur direction, strike at the left flank of the White Guards and, going through Kazaksvichevo to the railway behind enemy lines, cut off his retreat to Primorye. Thus, the plan provided for the encirclement and destruction of the enemy in the area of Khabarovsk 63.
The Volochaev positions were a serious knot of enemy resistance. During January 1922, the White Guards managed to build powerful fortifications in the area of Volochaevka station. They began in the north at Tunguska and, passing through a series of hills and the western outskirts of the village of Volochaevka, ended in the south with the fortified area of Verkhpe-Spasskoye on the Amur. The Volochaevka area was especially carefully fortified. The White Guards built here deep, man-sized trenches with ice ramparts, numerous carefully hidden machine-gun nests, and surrounded these "fortifications" with several rows of barbed wire.
The tactical key to the enemy's defense was the June-Koran hill, dominating the area. This height, with well-equipped machine-gun and artillery positions and observation posts, gave the entrenched enemy huge advantages. The troops of the People's Revolutionary Army were to conduct an offensive across a wide open plain covered with deep, waist-deep, loose snow.
On February 4, V.K. Blyukher ordered the Trans-Baikal Group of Forces to drive the enemy out of Olgokhta and ensure the deployment of all parts of the front for a general offensive.
The offensive was launched on February 5, 1922 by the 2nd Regiment of the Chita Rifle Brigade, the Special Amur Regiment and the armored train No. 8. On February 5, they occupied the Olgokhta station. On February 7, the enemy launched a counterattack, trying to encircle the revolutionary troops. But the enemy encountered stubborn resistance. The gunners of the 3rd light battery behaved especially selflessly in this battle. Not afraid of death, under the bullets of the enemy, they fired in cold blood at the White Guard chains and, having let the enemy at close range, mowed down with shells and grapeshot
his ranks. The White Guards were forced to withdraw. For the feat under the Olgokhta station, the battery was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
During February 8 and 9, units were concentrated at their starting positions at the Insk bridgehead, and on February 10, a general offensive of the troops of the Eastern Front began. The consolidated brigade under the command of Ya. 3. Pokus and the partisan detachments of Petrov-Teterin and I.P. Shevchuk launched an assault on the Volochaev fortifications, and the Trans-Baikal group of troops under the command of N.D. Tomin went on the offensive in the Verkhne-Spasskoe and NizhneSpasskoye in the Amur direction with the aim of reaching the Ussuri railway and encircling the enemy in the Khabarovsk region.
Parts of the Consolidated Brigade went on the offensive at 12 noon. The 5th infantry and 4th cavalry regiments marched from the north, a battalion of the Special Amur Regiment and two tanks - in the center, to the June-Koran hill. The 6th Infantry Regiment under the command of A. Zakharov attacked the Whites from the south
A fierce battle broke out.
The 6th Rifle Regiment dealt the main blow to the Volochaev fortifications. The Korean company of this regiment was the first to reach the wire, but was completely killed by fire from enemy armored trains. The foot team of scouts of the Special Amur Regiment, led by assistant regiment commander Shimonin Tatke, reached the wire, but, having lost 16 fighters, including Shimonin himself, who was wounded, was forced to retreat. The 6th company of the Special Amur Regiment, accompanied by two old Reio tanks, also moved to the wire. On the way, one tank deteriorated, the other was hit a hundred meters from the wire by a shell from an enemy armored train. The tank driver, getting out of the car, wanted to repair the damage, but was wounded. When the White Guards rushed to the tank, the driver blew himself up and the engine with a grenade. The company, having lost half of its composition, withdrew and buried itself in the snow.
The fighters had no scissors, no axes, no explosive bombs, and they were powerless before the wire. In addition, the armored trains of the People's Revolutionary Army could not support them with their fire: the destroyed bridges had not yet been restored, and the artillery fell behind. Therefore, enemy armored trains could move along the railroad with impunity and shoot fighters from the flank with almost direct fire. The advancing infantry, finding themselves without artillery support, having fallen under the hurricane fire of an enemy armored train, could not overcome the barbed wire.
By evening, the fighting had died down. On the night of February 11, units of the People's Revolutionary Army withdrew several hundred paces from the barbed wire and lay in chains in the snow around Volochaevka.
Taking advantage of the respite, the medical teams transported the wounded and frostbitten to the rear. In semi-barracks No. 3, a few kilometers from the front line, where the commander-in-chief, his field headquarters and the headquarters of the Consolidated Brigade were located, they allotted a small room for the sanitary unit. The most seriously wounded and frostbite were placed in it. For forty kilometers around lay a white snowy desert, and only in some places on it were the remains of rare buildings burned by the White Guards blackened.
By nightfall, the frost intensified, a storm arose, covering the fighters lying in front of Volochaevka with snow. All night and all day on February 11, the people's army lay under the open sky in the snow, without getting hot food. They ate salted salmon and hard as a stone bread. With great difficulty, it was possible to withdraw the fighters in groups one or two kilometers to the rear, to the fires. But even there they could not get warm enough. Shod and dressed were who in what much. Many wore leather boots, overcoats, jackets and undershirts, only a few had ichigi and felt boots, padded jackets and sheepskin coats. To warm the legs, they received bags stuffed with hay and straw. This device, uncomfortable for walking, nevertheless saved from frostbite. Overworked after a huge effort, the fighters fell asleep in the snow, despite the frost. By order of the front headquarters, the commanders walked along the chains and woke up those who had fallen asleep.
Despite the failure, the battle on February 10 near Volochaevka allowed the command of the People's Revolutionary Army to identify strong weak sides enemy. It was found that the fortifications of Volochaevka could be bypassed from the south. All day on February 11, preparations were underway for a decisive assault.
By the evening of February 11, the railway bridges and tracks were repaired. Armored trains No. 8 and No. 9 approached the front line. The front command, pulling up some units from the reserve, reinforced the 6th regiment, which was assigned the main task. The command of the group was entrusted to the commander of the 6th regiment Zakharov, and his assistant Malyshenko led the 6th regiment.
By this time, units of the Chita brigade under the command of Tomin, having traveled about 30 kilometers through the virgin snow in frost and snowstorm, after fierce fighting occupied the villages of Verkhne-Spasskoye and Nizhne-Spasskoye. Parts of the White Guard General Nikitin, covering the Amur direction, were forced to retreat. The Troitsko-Savsky cavalry regiment, which was part of the Chita brigade, pursued the enemy. On the night of February 12, a group of Gyultsgof was sent from the south to bypass Volochaevka, consisting of the 3rd battalion of the 6th regiment, foot reconnaissance of the 6th and 3rd regiments and a squadron of the Amur regiment with two guns. By the morning of February 12, the group reached the Volochaevka - Nizhne-Spasskoye road, where it joined up with the Troitskosavsky regiment and headed for the rear of the Volochaev fortifications.
At 7 am on February 12, when everything was ready for the offensive, three shots were fired from the 120-mm Vickers gun from the armored train No. 9. This was the prearranged signal for the assault, and
Artillery preparation began. An hour later, in the gray predawn fog, all units of the NRA in front of Volochaevka went on the offensive.
Each fighter walked with one thought - win or die. The White Guards showered them with bullets and buckshot. Frost did not allow breathing, blinded his eyes. Every now and then falling into the swamp, firing on the move, the fighters rushed forward uncontrollably. They cut down the barriers with sabers, tore the wire with butts, broke it with stiff hands, fell on it, struck down by a deadly downpour, and the living ran over their bodies.
The first companies of the advancing armored train of the enemy were cut off by machine gun fire, and the rest were forced to lay low. Armored train No. 8 entered into single combat with the enemy’s armored train. Its commander decided either to shoot the enemy’s mobile fortress with direct fire from guns or ram it. The control platform was smashed by enemy shells, the side of the machine-gun platform was torn apart, one of the shells hit the locomotive. But the commander of armored train No. 8 gave the command: “Forward!” and went to approach the enemy. The front gun of the White Guard armored train was smashed by a direct hit. The enemy retreated. Armored train No. 8, pursuing the enemy, broke after him into the location of the enemy units.
By this time Gultzhof's group and the Troitskosava Regiment had reached the railroad line east of Volochaevka and set fire to several bridges. General Molchanov was forced to withdraw part of his troops to fight this column.
When the assault units became aware of the victory of the armored train No. 8 and the exit of the Gyultshof column behind enemy lines, they again rushed to the attack.
Heavy misty haze and icy wind, bullets and wire - everything was against them. Death snatched from their ranks one by one.
Overgrown with hoarfrost, showered with snow, chilled to the bone, the soldiers of the People's Revolutionary Army fought furiously in a bayonet battle. The White Guards could not resist. They fired back, started to retreat, and then fled. At eleven o'clock in the afternoon on February 12, Volochaevka was taken.
Presentation of awards to the soldiers of the People's Revolutionary Army, who distinguished themselves in the battle near Volochaevka. (Photo.)
The battle near Volochaevka, in terms of the heroism shown by the revolutionary troops, can only be compared with the storming of Perekop. Usually restrained, Commander-in-Chief Blucher, a participant in the battle of Perekop, said that he found it difficult to single out the valor of any individual unit: everyone fought heroically and selflessly looked into the face of death. Even the enemy spoke with admiration of the extraordinary heroism of the soldiers of the People's Revolutionary Army. Colonel Argunov, who led the defense of Volochaevka, said that he would give all the participants in the assault a St. George cross. For courage and heroism in the Volochaev battle, the 6th Infantry Regiment, in whose ranks the international companies of Koreans and Chinese fought, and the armored train No. 8, as the most distinguished, were awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The 6th Infantry Regiment was later renamed the 4th Order of the Red Banner Volochaevsky Rifle Regiment. Orders of the Red Banner were also received by 67 commanders and soldiers of the People's Revolutionary Army. The heroes of the Volochaev assault, who fell in battle, were erected a monument on the June-Koran hill. A bronze soldier of the People's Revolutionary Army with a rifle in his hand stands over the mass grave of the fallen heroes. The glory of the heroes is sung in folk songs and legends.
With the victory near Volochaevka of the People's Revolutionary Army, the workers and peasants of the Far East wrote another heroic page in the history of the struggle against the White Guards and interventionists for the freedom and independence of the Soviet Motherland.
The battle near Volochaevka was a turning point. After Volochaevka, the "White Rebel Army" was no longer able to recover. True, the initial plan of the commander-in-chief - to encircle and completely defeat the troops of General Molchanov near Khabarovsk - could not be realized. The Trans-Baikal group of troops, pursuing the enemy in the Amur direction, was unable to join the Pokus brigade in time. On February 14, 1922, the People's Revolutionary Army liberated Khabarovsk. The White Guards retreated to southbound.
The enemy tried to detain units of the People's Revolutionary Army near the Bikin station, but after a stubborn battle on February 28, he was also shot down from this position. Having suffered heavy losses, the Whites fled to the city of Iman, within the neutral zone. When units of the People's Revolutionary Army, pursuing the enemy, entered this zone, the Japanese opened military operations against them. The troops of the People's Revolutionary Army, obeying the directives of the government of the Far Eastern Republic not to clash with the Japanese troops, suspended the offensive and took up positions in the valley of the Iman River. The fighting stopped temporarily. The working people of the Far Eastern Republic, led by Bolshevik organizations, launched the preparation of forces for the complete expulsion of the interventionists. HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR IN THE USSR.
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 (land Armed forces The DRV, formed in March 1920 on the basis of the formations of the East Siberian Soviet army) conducted an offensive Primorsky operation. It ended in complete success, the white troops were defeated and fled, and the Japanese were evacuated from Vladivostok. It was the last significant operation of the Civil War.
The People's Revolutionary Army of the DRA under the command of Ieronim Petrovich Uborevich repelled in September the attack of the "Zemskaya rati" (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 the counteroffensive. On October 8-9, the Spassky fortified area was taken by storm, where the most combat-ready Volga group of the Zemstvo rati under the command of General Viktor Mikhailovich Molchanov was defeated. On October 13-14, the NRA, in cooperation with the partisans on the outskirts of Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, defeated the main forces of the White Guards. By October 16, the "Zemskaya rat" was completely defeated, its remnants retreated to the Korean border or began to be evacuated through Vladivostok. On October 19, the Red Army reached Vladivostok, where up to 20 thousand servicemen of the Japanese army were based. On October 24, the Japanese command was forced to conclude an agreement with the government of the DRV on the withdrawal of its troops from South 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 integral part Soviet republic. On November 4 - 15, 1922, at the 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 NRA commanders also supported the People's Assembly. On November 15, the DRV was included in the RSFSR as the Far Eastern Region.
The situation in Primorye in the summer - autumn of 1922
From the middle of 1922, the last stage of the struggle 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 the foreign policy area - Soviet Russia was emerging from isolation, a series of diplomatic and economic negotiations with capitalist countries began, all this had an impact on the policy of the Japanese government 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 convinced of the uselessness of the Japanese presence in the Far East for Washington, began to exert strong pressure on Tokyo, demanding the withdrawal of troops from the Russian Primorye. The United States did not want to strengthen the position of the Japanese Empire in the Asia-Pacific region, as they themselves wanted to dominate in this region.
In addition, the situation in Japan itself was not the best. Economic crisis, huge spending on intervention - they reached 1.5 billion yen, human losses, low return on expansion into Russian lands, caused a sharp increase in public discontent. The internal political situation was not in the best way for the "party of war". Economic problems, the growth of the tax burden led to an increase in protest moods in the country. In the summer of 1922, the Communist Party was established in Japan, which began to work on the creation of the League of Struggle against Intervention. Various anti-war societies appear in the country, in particular, the Society for Rapprochement with Soviet Russia, the Non-Intervention Association, etc.
As a result of the political situation unfavorable for the Japanese military party, Takahashi's 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 “sea party”, which was inclined to transfer the center of gravity of the expansion of the Japanese Empire from the shores of Primorye to the Pacific Ocean, to the south, issued a statement on the cessation of hostilities in Primorye.
On September 4, 1922, a new conference began in Changchun, which was attended by a joint delegation of the RSFSR and the Far East, on the one hand, and a delegation of the Empire of Japan, on the other. The Soviet delegation immediately presented the main condition for conducting further negotiations with Japan - to immediately clear all territories of the Far East from Japanese forces. The Japanese representative Matsudaira evaded 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 had already been decided. However, the Japanese refused to withdraw troops from Northern Sakhalin. They were going to keep him as compensation for the "Nikolaev incident." So, they called the armed conflict between the red partisans, white and Japanese troops, which took place in 1920 in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. On the night of April 4-5, 1920, it was used by the Japanese command to attack the bodies of the Soviet administration and military garrisons in the Far East.
The delegation of the RSFSR and the Far East demanded the withdrawal of troops from all Soviet territories. Negotiations reached an impasse and on September 19 were interrupted. After the resumption of negotiations, both sides continued to insist on their demands. Then the representatives of the DRV proposed to investigate the "Nikolaev events" and discuss them on the merits. The Japanese authorities could not agree to this, because the provocative behavior of the Japanese military could be revealed. The head of the Japanese delegation stated that the Japanese government could not enter into the details of the "Nikolaev events", since the governments of the RSFSR and the Far East were not recognized by Japan. As a result, on September 26, negotiations were again interrupted. In reality, the talks in Changchun were supposed to be a cover for preparing a new military operation against the DRV.
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 Suchan coal mines, the Far Eastern shipbuilding plant, etc. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vladivostok even demanded that all power be transferred to the “People’s Assembly”. The government was unable to organize an effective fight against partisan detachments. Partisan movement in the summer - autumn of 1922, it took on a significant scope in Southern Primorye. Red partisans raided Japanese posts, military depots, destroyed communications, communication lines, attacked military echelons. In fact, by the fall, the Japanese were forced to withdraw from countryside, holding only the railroad and cities.
Fermentation also went on in the camp of the Whites. The Kappelites supported the "People's Assembly", which declared the government of the Merkulovs deposed. The Semyonovnas, on the other hand, 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 Diterikhs 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 the defeat of Kolchak, he left for Harbin. He was an ardent monarchist and a supporter of the revival of pre-Petrine social and political orders in Russia. Initially, he agreed 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. July 23, 1922 on Zemsky Sobor in Vladivostok, M. Diterikhs was chosen as the Ruler of the Far East and the Zemsky Voivode - the commander of the Zemstvo Army (it was created on the basis of the 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 "Zemskaya rati" were completed, and General Diterichs announced a campaign against the DRV under the slogan "For Faith, Tsar Michael and Holy Rus'."
State of the People's Revolutionary Army (NAR) by the autumn of 1922
From the Consolidated and Chita brigades, the 2nd Amur Rifle Division was formed as part of three regiments: the 4th Volochaev Order of the Red Banner, the 5th Amur and the 6th Khabarovsk. It also included the Troitskosava Cavalry Regiment, a light artillery battalion of 76-mm cannons with 3 batteries, a howitzer battalion of two batteries, and an engineer 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 (comprising three armored trains - No. 2, 8 and 9), an aviation detachment and two border cavalry divisions. The Trans-Baikal Cavalry Division was reorganized into the Separate Far Eastern Cavalry Brigade.
The command reserve included the 1st Trans-Baikal Rifle Division, consisting of the 1st Chita, 2nd Nerchinsk and 3rd Verkhneudinsky regiments. By the beginning of the Primorsky 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 NRA command: Suchansky, Spassky, Anuchinsky, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Olginsky, Imansky and Prikhankaysky. They had at their disposal up to 5 thousand fighters. They were led by a specially created Military Council of Partisan Detachments of Primorye under the command of A.K. Flegontov, then he was replaced by M. Volsky.
Japanese evacuation begins. "Zemskaya rat" Diterichs and its September offensive
The Japanese, delaying their evacuation, decided to carry it out in three stages. On the first - to withdraw troops from the outskirts of Primorye, on the second - to evacuate the garrisons from Grodekovo and Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, on the third - to leave Vladivostok. The commander of the Japanese Expeditionary Force, General Tachibana, suggested that Dieterikhs take advantage of this time to fortify himself and strike at the DRV. 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 the areas cleared by the Japanese, to take from them the fortifications, the weapons left behind.
In September, the Zemsky army consisted of 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 subdivided into: The Volga group of General V.M. Molchanov (more than 2.6 thousand bayonets and sabers); Siberian group of General I.S. Smolin (1 thousand people); Siberian Cossack group of General Borodin (more than 900 people); Far Eastern Cossack group of General F.L. Glebov (more than 1 thousand); reserve and technical parts (more than 2.2 thousand).
Dieterikhs' attempts to increase the "army" through mobilization generally failed. The workers and peasants did not want to fight, they hid in the taiga and on the hills. The bulk of the bourgeois youth preferred to escape in Harbin, which was inaccessible to the Bolsheviks, and not to defend the Amur Zemsky Territory. Therefore, although the backbone of the “rati” consisted of the remnants of the Kappel and Semenov troops who had vast combat experience, there was no one to replace them.
On September 1, the vanguard of the "zemstvo rati" - the Volga group, supported by two armored trains, launched an offensive in the northern direction. The Whites sought to capture the railway bridge across the Ussuri River in the area of st. Ussuri and attacked in two main directions: along the Ussuri railway and to the east of it - along the line settlements Runovka - Olkhovka - Uspenka, further along the valley of the river. Ussuri on Tekhmenevo and Glazovka. In the second direction, White planned to go into the flank and rear of the Reds. By this time, the NRA had not yet concentrated its forces, which were scattered over a thousand-kilometer space, covering the 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 reds and on September 6 captured st. Shmakovka and Uspenka. On September 7, after a fierce battle, the Reds 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 - Prikhankaysky, Lpuchinsky, Suchansky and Nikolsk-Ussuriysk military regions.
Soon, units of the Red Army regrouped, received reinforcements, and launched a counteroffensive; on September 14, they again occupied Art. Shmakovka and Uspenka. The Whites withdrew to the Kraevsky junction area, Art. Oviagino. 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, preferred to go on the defensive.
On September 15, Dieterichs held the Far Eastern National Congress in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk, where he called for "a decisive battle against the Communists on the last free piece of land" and asked the Japanese not to rush to evacuate. To help Diterichs, a special body was elected - the "Council of the Congress". A decree was issued on general mobilization and a large emergency tax was introduced on the commercial and industrial strata of the population of Primorye for military needs. The Siberian Cossack group of General Borodin was ordered to defeat the Anuchinsky partisan region in order to provide the rear of the Zemskaya rati. None of these activities were fully implemented. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated that there were no funds, the population of the region was in no hurry to “replenish the Zemstvo Army” and engage in a “decisive battle with the communists”.
"Zemskaya rat" by the beginning of the offensive of the Red Army had in its composition about 15.5 thousand bayonets and sabers, 32 guns, 750 machine guns, 4 armored trains and 11 aircraft. Her weapons and ammunition were replenished at the expense of the Japanese army.
seaside operation
By the end of September, parts of the 2nd Amur Division and the Separate Far Eastern Cavalry Brigade were concentrated in the area of st. Shmakovka and Art. Ussuri. They formed a strike force under the overall command of the commander of the 2nd Amur Division, M. M. Olshansky, who was replaced in early October by Ya. Z. Pokus. The 1st Trans-Baikal Division, following the railroad in echelons and along the Amur and Ussuri rivers on steamboats, passed Khabarovsk and moved south. This division became part of the reserve command of the NRA.
According to the plan of the command, the immediate task of the operation was the liquidation of the Volga group of the enemy in the area of st. Sviyagino. The Red Army was supposed to prevent its retreat to Spassk, and then, with the assistance of partisan detachments, defeat the Spassky White group and develop an offensive in a southerly direction. The strike was to be delivered 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 around 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 railroad. The rest of the units remained in reserve.
The commander of the partisans, Mikhail Petrovich Volsky, his detachments were reinforced by a special detachment under the command of Gyultshof, received an order 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 at st. Flour and exit to the rear of the Spassky group "Zemskoy rati". In addition, the partisans had to stop from October 7 the railway communication between Nikolsk-Ussuriysky and Art. 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 junction. On October 5, Duhovsky was captured. On October 6, the 6th Khabarovsk and Troitskosavsky regiments launched an attack on st. Sviyagino. On the same day, the Volga group of the "Zemskoy rati" in in full force with the support of two armored trains, it went on the counteroffensive, trying to bring down the offensive impulse of the Reds and seize the initiative in their own hands. At Sviyagino, a fierce oncoming battle flared up. Furious firefight, developing into hand-to-hand combat, continued until late in the evening.
General Molchanov, making sure that the red units could not be overturned and fearing a bypass of the right flank, decided to withdraw the troops to Spassk, to already prepared positions. The Whites retreated, hiding behind the fire of armored trains, artillery and machine-gun teams, destroying the railway tracks. This withdrawal became possible, because the bypassing group could not reach the flank and rear of the Volga group of whites in time. As a result, the Whites withdrew calmly to Spassk.
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 could not fulfill this order.
During the 1st stage, the NRA was able to move south by almost 50 km and capture an important enemy defense point - st. Sviyagino. But it was not possible to complete the main task - to destroy the Volga grouping of the enemy. The Whites, although they suffered heavy losses, left and entrenched themselves on a new, well-fortified line of the Spassky fortified area.
