100 years ago, in April 1920, the Far Eastern Republic (FER) was established. Formally, it was an independent democratic state, but in fact it was a buffer beneficial to Moscow between Soviet Russia and Japan. Thanks to the FER, the Soviet government managed to avoid a dangerous full-scale war with the Japanese Empire and eliminate the last forces of the White movement in the Far East, which were left without serious external support. This was a serious political victory for the Bolsheviks.
General situation
After the defeat of Kolchak's white armies and the execution of the "supreme ruler" from Baikal to the Pacific Ocean in 1920, a mishmash of governments, authorities and anarchy reigned. On January 31, 1920, an uprising took place in Vladivostok, which led to the fall of the power of General Rozanov, who was subordinate to the Kolchak government. The invaders remained neutral. Rozanov fled to Japan. The interim government of the Far East came to power - the Primorsk Regional Zemstvo Council. Coalition government of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Zemstvo and Bolsheviks. White units located in Primorye went over to the side of the new government. Another armed force was the red partisan formations of Sergei Lazo. Former White Guards and Reds hated each other, but the presence of a third force - the Japanese, forced them to remain neutral.
The Vladivostok government was not against the creation of a democratic buffer republic, but considered itself the power, other governments did not recognize. Local Bolsheviks split over this issue. I. G. Kushnarev, S. G. Lazo and P. M. Nikiforov were members of the Far East Bureau, created by Moscow, in Vladivostok. In the Vladivostok group, Kushnarev was in favor of the buffer, and Lazo was against. Lazo's red partisans suggested simply cutting out all the "bourgeois", without any coalitions. But in Vladivostok, they were in the minority, in addition, the Japanese troops interfered. The partisans also occupied Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk and other cities of the Amur region, where they established their own regional "governments" and military-revolutionary headquarters. They did not recognize the Vladivostok government. They waged their own war for the establishment of Soviet power.
In Chita, there were White Cossacks and the remnants of Kolchak men under the command of General Semyonov. Before his arrest, Kolchak handed over to him "the entirety of military and civilian power" in eastern Russia. The "Chita plug" was pressed from two sides: from the west - the East Siberian Soviet army, from the east - the partisans of the East Transbaikal Front under the command of Zhuravlev. As a result, the Semyonovites (about 20 thousand bayonets and sabers) fought on two fronts: west of Chita and in the regions of Sretensk and Nerchinsk.
The presence of foreign troops in the Far East and Siberia has lost its visible legality. In February 1920, an armistice was signed between the Soviet government and the Czechoslovak command. Foreign contingents, including Czechs, Poles, Americans, etc., began to retreat to Vladivostok, and from there were taken to their homeland. During this period, the West decided that the White Cause had lost and was not worth the investment. It is necessary to gradually establish ties with the Soviet Republic.
Only Japan pursued its own policy. The Japanese did not want to leave the Far East, still hoping to seize part of the territories of Russia in their favor, and control the other part with the help of puppet buffer governments. In particular, the Japanese supported the Chita government of the Russian eastern outskirts, headed by Ataman Semyonov. Under his command was a fully combat-ready Far Eastern army, which included the remnants of the Kolchak-Kappelevites. The Japanese wanted, with the help of the Semyonovites, to create a "black buffer" from Chita to Primorye.
It is interesting that the United States, leaving the Russian Far East, initially untied the hands of the Japanese. At the end of January 1920, the Americans handed the Japanese a memorandum, which noted that Washington would not object if Japan unilaterally deployed troops in Siberia and would continue to provide assistance in operations on the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Chinese Eastern Railway. Although Japan was a competitor to the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, at this stage Washington supported the expansion of the Japanese in the Far East. But in the future, the Americans will help Moscow to oust the Japanese from the Far East.
Creation of the FER and the offensive of the People's Revolutionary Army
After the liquidation of the regime and the Kolchak army, Soviet troops (5th Army) stopped in the Baikal region. Its further advance to the east could cause a war with a powerful enemy - the Japanese Empire. The Soviet republic was in a difficult situation - the war with the White Guards in the south, the war with Poland in the west, the war with Finland in the northwest. It was also impossible to fight with Japan, which has a powerful army and navy. It was necessary to gain time while the "earth burns" under the interventionists and White Guards in the Far East. Accumulate forces, complete the defeat of the enemy in the European part of Russia, and then go on the offensive in the east of the country.
There were other objective reasons for such a step. In the winter of 1919-1920. The Red Army made a powerful dash to the east. However, the occupied territory needed to be restored, to put things in order there. The state of Western Siberia, that is, the rear of the Soviet troops, was terrible. Industry, transportation and supply systems have been destroyed. Famine threatened the cities. The typhus epidemic was raging. Whole villages, trains and military units died out. In cities, thousands of people lay in hospital beds (this was a real epidemic, not the "Chinese virus" of 2020). The peasant war continued to rage. Partisans and "green" gangs were walking in the taiga with might and main.
Thus, before going beyond Lake Baikal, it was necessary to establish elementary order in Siberia. The Bolsheviks simply did not have the strength to establish Soviet power in Transbaikalia and the Far East. Not to mention the war with the Japanese, who had a strong, disciplined army. The formation of the FER solved this problem. Moscow was buying time for a future decisive offensive in the East. In the meantime, the White Guards could be restrained or even smashed by the FER army. This opened up prospects for negotiations with the West. The Entente could now come to an agreement with the democratic government of the FER, evacuate military and diplomatic missions, their occupying contingents. Western capitals, which fought for "human rights", were formally satisfied with the establishment of a parliamentary republic.
Based on the current situation, Moscow decided to establish an intermediate state to the east of Lake Baikal - the Far Eastern People's Republic (FER). This made it possible to gradually liberate Transbaikalia, Amur and Primorye from the interventionists and White Guards. On the other hand, non-communist forces (Irkutsk Political Center, Socialist-Revolutionaries) wanted to create a parliamentary republic free from the "dictatorship of the proletariat." The Social Revolutionaries and other parties hoped that the creation of a democratic republic would save the eastern part of Russia from both Japanese occupation and the power of the Bolsheviks.
To manage the work in March 1920, the Far Eastern Bureau of the RCP (b) was specially formed, the members of which, A. A. Shiryamov, A. M. Krasnoshchekov and N. K. Goncharov were sent to Verkhneudinsk (modern Ulan-Ude) to organize a new state. The FER was proclaimed on April 6, 1920 by the Constituent Congress of the Workers of the Baikal Region. The congress adopted a constitution according to which power belonged to the working people. Verkhneudinsk became the capital. The government was headed by Alexander Krasnoshchekov. The supreme body of power was the People's Assembly of the FER (National Assembly of the FER), it was created on the basis of elections for a period of two years. In the intervals between sessions, the Presidium of the National Assembly of the FER worked. The People's Assembly was multi-party: the communists and the peasant faction (majority) that adjoined them, the faction of wealthy peasants (kulaks), Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Cadets, People's Socialists and the Buriat-Mongol faction. The National Assembly elected the government.
At the time of its formation, the FER included the Amur, Trans-Baikal, Kamchatka, Primorsk and Sakhalin regions. However, the de facto FER government did not have power over a large part of the territory. The white government of Semyonov settled in Transbaikalia. On the territory of the Amur Region, Primorye and Kamchatka, local pro-Soviet autonomous governments operated - the Executive Committee of the Council of Workers, Peasants, Soldiers and Cossack Deputies with the center in Blagoveshchensk, the Provisional Government of the Primorsky Regional Zemstvo Council with the center in Vladivostok. Part of the territory of the Far East, including Northern Sakhalin, was occupied by Japanese troops. As a result, initially, the FER leadership controlled only the western part of the Trans-Baikal region. Only in August 1920, the Executive Committee of the Council of Workers, Peasants, Soldiers and Cossack Deputies of the Amur Region submitted to the government of the Far Eastern Republic.
Soviet Russia in May 1920 recognized the FER and provided it with political, financial, material, personnel and military assistance. On the basis of the East Siberian Soviet Army (it was formed on the basis of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Irkutsk Political Center, from partisans, rebels, workers' squads and surrendered Kolchak soldiers of Eastern Siberia) in March 1920, the People's Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Baikal region was created, in April - the NRA Transbaikalia, in May - NRA DVR. It was reinforced from the rear by the 5th Soviet Army, there were no problems with command personnel (Soviet) and weapons, all the warehouses of Kolchak's dead army remained in the hands of the Reds. The main task of the NRA was the return of the Far East of Soviet Russia and the destruction of whites in Transbaikalia and the Amur region. The size of the army in the fall of 1920 was about 100 thousand people. The army was led by Heinrich Eikhe, a former tsarist officer who, after the revolution, joined the ranks of the Red Army, commanded a regiment, brigade, 26th rifle division and 5th Soviet army on the Eastern Front.
In early March 1920, the East Siberian army pushed the Semyonovites and occupied the Baikal region with the city of Verkhneudinsk. This city became the capital of the Russian Far East. In April - early May 1920, the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic Eikhe made two attempts to knock Semyonov's Far Eastern Army out of Transbaikalia (Chita operations). On the eastern flank, units of the Amur Front were advancing under the command of Shilov, which was formed on the basis of the partisan East Transbaikal Front and included the areas of Olovyannaya, Nerchinsk, Nerchinsky Zavod, Sretensk and Blagoveshchensk (from May - and Khabarovsk). However, NRA could not take Chita. On the one hand, the Reds did not have a decisive superiority in these operations, the forces were approximately equal. On the other hand, the Kappelites were selected troops of the White Army, and they repulsed the first attempts of the Reds to eliminate the "Chita plug". In addition, the White Guards were supported by Japanese troops (5th Infantry Division), they occupied the main communications, which constrained the actions of the Reds, who could not fight the Japanese.
Japanese invasion
As a pretext for aggression, the Japanese used the "Nikolaev incident" - a conflict between the red partisans and Japanese troops in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur in mid-March 1920. During the collapse of the Kolchak regime, some partisan detachments led by Lazo moved to Vladivostok, others to the lower reaches of the Amur. These formations were headed by Yakov Tryapitsyn, a former Tsarist officer, Soviet and partisan commander, and Lebedeva-Kiyashko. In February, parts of Tryapitsyn occupied Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, where they proclaimed the creation of the Far Eastern Soviet Republic as part of the lower reaches of the Amur, Sakhalin, Okhotsk and Kamchatka. The Red Army of the Nikolaev District is being formed.
On March 11-12, 1920, a local Japanese detachment, supported by the local Japanese community, attacked Tryapitsyn's troops. The Reds lost about 150 killed, over 500 wounded. Tryapitsyn himself was wounded, his deputy Mizin and chief of staff Naumov died. However, the red partisans quickly came to their senses, pulled up reinforcements, gained numerical superiority and completely destroyed the Japanese garrison by March 15. The Japanese colony also perished.
The news of this massacre shocked Japan and was used by the military-political leadership as a pretext for a full-scale invasion. On the night of April 4-5, 1920, the Japanese attacked the Reds in the Far East. The Japanese defeated the Red partisans from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk. On the Lower Amur, Tryapitsyn evacuated Nikolaevsk and burned the city. The Japanese occupied Northern Sakhalin. Japanese occupation power is established in the region. In Vladivostok alone, about 7 thousand military and civilians were killed. Among the dead was the famous Bolshevik and Red commander Serey Lazo. Japan sent an entire army to the Russian Far East - over 170 thousand bayonets. True, the Japanese did not scatter their forces, they did not go deep into Russian territory outside the main communications. But all the main points and communication centers were occupied by their garrisons.
