Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

F

FAMINE. Famine afflicted large areas of Russia throughout the civil wars and especially from 1920 to 1923, chiefly in the Volga–Urals region and Ukraine. At the famine’s peak, during the summer of 1922, some 30 million people lacked sufficient food. This was caused by a combination of natural and man-made, long-term and short-term factors. Chief among them were previous decades of extensive plowing and clearance of trees (causing the loss of topsoil in high winds or floods); droughts and plagues of locusts in 1920 and 1921; the breaking up of large estates (which had been more productive and more market-oriented) by peasants in the aftermath of the revolution (encouraged in this by the Soviet regime, especially members of the Party of Left Socialists-Revolutionaries during the months that they participated in the Soviet government); the collapse of industrial production and huge inflation (causing peasants to cease trading and to concentrate on subsistence); the requisitioning of food by all sides during the civil wars (again inclining producers not to grow surplus crops); and the no less damaging requisitioning of draft animals. With fewer horses and too little seed grain, in 1921 peasants farmed only around 70 percent of the prewar sown area. By that summer, as the harvest failed due to lack of rain, the first casualties were noted both in the countryside and in the cities. Soon afterward, reports arrived in Moscow of people eating weeds, the bark of trees, and dogs; cannibalism too was widespread.

The Soviet government responded by distributing food and seed to famine areas, by allowing (albeit most reluctantly) private organizations to offer aid (many relief efforts were the work of liberal opponents of the regime, notably those associated with the Kadets), and by appealing for international aid. Among the foreign organizations that responded were the International Red Cross (which established an International Committee for Russian Relief, under Fridtjof Nansen), the International Save the Children Union, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (“the Joint”). Most active and effective, however, was Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration, which was funded by the American government. By the summer of 1922, despite the resistance of some local Soviet authorities to international “interference,” ARA food relief began to reach most of the famine areas, while nationally a sown area 15 percent larger than that of 1921 was achieved (which, with a more normal level of rainfall, contributed to much better harvests). Nevertheless, the ARA continued its operation into 1923 (in the face of growing obstruction from the central Soviet authorities), importing a total of some 740,000 tons of food and feeding 120 million people. Meanwhile, the Soviet government supplied more than one million tons of grain (much of it purchased abroad using profits from the sale of the confiscated property of the Russian Orthodox Church).

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine vary, although five million is the figure most often quoted. Most of these deaths resulted, however, not directly from starvation but from the increased likelihood of the hungry and malnourished succumbing to typhus, cholera, and other diseases (which were being widely and rapidly spread by refugees fleeing the famine regions). In light of this fact, the Soviet government’s decision in 1923 to resume grain exports in an attempt to revive the entire economy seems to be not quite as heartless as it has sometimes been portrayed.

Far Eastern Bureau. See Dal′biuro.

FAR EASTERN COMMITTEE. Formally the Far Eastern Committee for the Defense of the Fatherland and the Constituent Assembly, this body, created in late 1917 to resist Bolshevik incursions into the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) zone in Manchuria, acted as the “government” attached to General D. L. Khorvat, who had been director of the CER since 1902. Following Khorvat’s claim to be “supreme ruler of Russia” at Grodekovo station, in the Maritime Province, on 9 July 1918, the Far Eastern Committee nursed pretensions toward all-Russian authority, set as its aim “the re-establishment, in collaboration with the people, of order in the country,” and pledged itself to work until the summoning of a freely elected constituent assembly. Its Business Cabinet contained figures of various political persuasions, including oblastniki, advocates of Siberian regionalism (notably a member of the Third and Fourth State Duma, S. V. Vostrotin; a member of the Second and Fourth State Dumas, S. A. Taksin; and the future communications minister in the Omsk government, L. A. Ustrugov). Following the capture of Vladivostok by forces of the Czechoslovak Legion (29 June 1918), the Far Eastern Committee moved to the port (4 August 1918) and proceeded to counter the efforts of the more leftist Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia to win the support of the Allies. In late September 1918, the committee subordinated itself to the Provisional Siberian Government, during a visit to the Far East of that regime’s premier, P. V. Vologodskii.

FAR EASTERN REPUBLIC. This nominally independent state was established by Red forces, local Bolshevik activists, and their allies on 6 April 1920 at Blagoveshchensk and, according to its constitution, later ratified by a constituent assembly at Chita (27 April 1921), was a democratic republic. However, although Mensheviks, members of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries, and nonparty figures participated in its structures, the Bolsheviks maintained control and took guidance from Moscow through the Dal′biuro of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The Far Eastern Republic (FER) was intended to act as a buffer between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), which formally recognized the FER on 14 May 1920, and the Japanese interventionist forces that were still present in large numbers in the region. This maneuver proved successful when the Japanese recognized the FER and signed a peace treaty with it on 15 July 1920 (the Gongota Agreement).

Initially centered on Verkhneudinsk, the capital of the FER was transferred to Chita on 11 December 1920, following the defeat of the Far Eastern (White) Army of Ataman G. M. Semenov in that region by the FER’s People’s-Revolutionary Army. The FER subsequently extended its influence into the Maritime Province. Following the coup of 27 May 1921 that established the Provisional Priamur Government (the Merkulov regime), however, any pretense of control over Vladivostok was lost, while an advance up the Ussurii River by the White Insurgent Army of General V. M. Molchanov that began in November 1921 captured Khabarovsk on 22 December 1921. The minister of war and commander in chief of the armed forces of the FER, V. K. Bliukher, ordered a counteroffensive that brought Khabarovsk back under the control of the FER on 14 February 1922, but battles continued between the People’s-Revolutionary Army and White forces in the region until the remnants of General M. K. Diterikhs’s Zemstvo Host were driven from Vladivostok on 25 October 1922. On 14 November 1922, the People’s Convention of the FER appealed for union with the RSFSR, which was achieved on the following day by a decree of VTsIK.

The chairmen of the Council of Ministers of the FER were A. M. Krasnoshchekov (7 March–December 1920, provisional to 6 April 1920); B. Z. Shumiatskii (December 1920–April 1921); P. M. Nikiforov (8 May–December 1921); N. M. Matveev (December 1921–14 November 1922); and P. A. Kobozev (14–15 November 1922).

FAR EASTERN (WHITE) ARMY. This anti-Bolshevik force was organized around Chita by Ataman G. M. Semenov in February–April 1920, from units already under his command and the retreating remnants of the forces of Admiral A. V. Kolchak’s Eastern Front that had survived the Great Siberian (Ice) March and had reached the Transbaikal region. Called the Forces of the Russian Eastern Region until 27 April 1920, the Far Eastern (White) Army was formed from three corps—the 1st (Transbaikal), 2nd (Siberian Rifle), and 3rd (Siberian Rifle) Corps—together with several separate detachments of Cossacks. By May 1920, it numbered 45,000 men, although only some 20,000 of them were in the three active army corps.

Belabored by the People’s-Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic and its Red Army ally, during the autumn of 1920 Semenov’s force retreated from Transbaikalia through Manchuria into the Maritime Province, where its complement gradually melted away into other White formations. Following Semenov’s flight into Manchuria in September 1921, fewer than 5,000 men remained in the reorganized units of the army around Vladivostok and Grodekovo. During 1921–1922, these units served a variety of political formations at Vladivostok and supplied some elements of the Siberian Druzhina that, in August 1922, followed General A. N. Pepeliaev north to support the Iakutsk Revolt. The last remnants of the army crossed into China in October–November 1922, as Red forces captured Vladivostok.

Commanders of the Far Eastern (White) Army were Major General S. N. Voitsekhovskii (20 February–27 April 1920), General N. A. Lokhvitskii (27 April–22 August 1920), General G. A. Berzhbitskii (from 22 August 1920), General N. A. Savel′ev (from 22 November 1920), and General M. K. Diterikhs (from 1 June 1922).

FEBRUARY REVOLUTION. This term denotes the events in Russia of (roughly) 23 February–3 March 1917, which saw the collapse of tsarism and the establishment of the Russian Provisional Government. There were many long-term causes of the revolution, including the stresses caused by industrialization and urbanization as the country modernized rapidly from the 1890s onward; a precarious agricultural sector, wherein land-hungry peasants (still constituting around 85 percent of the country’s population) cherished dreams of seizing the private estates of Russia’s landowning class; the frustrations of a growing professional class, who were excluded from political power (despite the existence since 1906 of an elected parliament, the State Duma); and the existence of a long and robust tradition of detestation of the regime by Russian intellectuals, who had been attracted to revolution rather than reform since the days of the Decembrist uprising of 1825.

However, the more immediate cause was Russia’s involvement in the First World War. Apart from the grave loss of territory (and raw materials and tax-paying populations) to the Germans (all of Poland and most of Lithuania were surrendered in 1915), this caused great social dislocation, as 15 million men were mobilized (half of them packed into garrisons in cities already overrun by refugees). It also decimated the officer class that had long been the bulwark of tsarism; generated great suspicion of officers and the upper classes in general among a population that witnessed defeat after defeat and the deaths of more than 1,700,000 Russian soldiers and the injury of 5,900,000; and strained the economy to breaking point, as imports and exports of consumer goods shrank to near zero and traditional patterns of trade and supply (especially food supply) were disrupted by the army’s commandeering of the railway system. In addition, peasants reverted to subsistence farming, rather than accepting increasingly worthless paper money in exchange for their produce. (There was little for them to buy in any case, with imports blocked and domestic industry committed to the war effort.) Meanwhile, larger private estates could not maintain peacetime levels of production because of a lack of spare parts for (traditionally imported) farm machinery, a lack of fertilizers (most of which, prewar, had been imported from Germany), and a shortage of farm laborers (who had been drafted).

In northern cities, such as the capital Petrograd, these conditions caused growing hardships for urban dwellers, due to lack of fuel and lack of food. When rumors circulated in February that flour stocks in the Russian capital were almost exhausted, disturbances flared in bread queues. On 23 February 1917, demonstrations associated with the socialist holiday of International Women’s Day added to the flames of discontent. Demonstrators were joined over the following day by 30,000 men from the giant Putilov munitions factory, who had been locked out following a strike. By 25–26 February, there were 300,000 people on the streets, and the police and Cossacks were showing signs of reluctance to use force to combat them. On 27 February, following the lead of the Volynskii Regiment, whose men had shot their officers and taken to the streets, most of the rest of the garrison mutinied. That same day at the Tauride Palace gathered a Council (Soviet) of Workers’ Deputies, which elected an Executive Committee (the forerunner of VTsIK) dominated by socialists from the Mensheviks and the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (many of whom, including A. F. Kerensky and N. S. Chkheidze, would play significant roles in the “Russian” Civil Wars). Its first act, “Order No. 1 of the Petrograd Soviet” (1 March 1917), called upon members of the garrison only to obey their officers’ orders if they did not conflict with the pronouncements of the Soviet, although this came to be interpreted as carte blanche for indiscipline, mutiny, and the election of officers across the entire army.

Meanwhile, in another wing of the same building was convened a private meeting of members of the State Duma, most of them Kadets, that decided to establish a Provisional Committee for the Restoration of Order. The latter drew up a provisional program and, having received (after some negotiation over the night of 1–2 March) the Soviet Executive Committee’s endorsement of it, proclaimed itself to be a provisional government of Russia; provisional, that is, until the future constitution of the state was settled upon by a Constituent Assembly. This Provisional Government was led by Prince G. E. L′vov and also included figures who would feature prominently in the “Russian” Civil Wars, including Kerensky (as minister of justice and, from May, minister of war) and P. N. Miliukov (minister of foreign affairs). Thus was born the system of “Dual Power” that would dominate (and destroy) Russia’s body politic until the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government and seized control of the Soviet leadership during the October Revolution of 1917.

Meanwhile, Nicholas II, having failed to muster troops to march on Petrograd to restore order, was attempting to make his way back to the capital from the army headquarters (stavka) at Mogilev. His train was waylaid by striking railwaymen at Pskov, and there he received the request from the Duma Committee that he abdicate. After some hesitation, he did so on 2 March 1917, having been urged to comply by most of the senior generals in the Russian Army (including the future White leaders M. V. Alekseev and A. I. Denikin), who calculated that the only way to save the country and win the war was the removal from power of Nicholas and his even more unpopular wife, the Empress Alexandra, who had brought disgrace upon Russia and the Romanov family through her scandalous flirtations with the infamous Rasputin and who was widely suspected of being pro-German. (In fact, being the scion of a minor Germany royal line and being more English than German in her culture and attitude, Alexandra detested the Hohenzollern regime with more vehemence than most Russians could muster.) Initially Nicholas passed the throne to his son and heir, Aleksei, but then changed his mind (the boy, aged only 12, suffered gravely with hemophilia) and named his brother, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, as his successor. The Provisional Government was willing to accept this (although such an act was, in fact, unconstitutional under Russian law), and even the Soviet leadership expected that a constitutional monarchy would emerge from the revolution, but when members of the government visited the Grand Duke in Petrograd on 3 March 1917, he refused to accept the throne. After 304 years of Romanov rule and just a week of disturbances (during which only a few hundred people lost their lives across the huge Russian Empire), the February Revolution was over.

February Uprising. This is the name by which is generally known the anti-Soviet rebellion in Armenia in February 1921, as forces of the 11th Red Army and local Bolsheviks attempted to dismantle the former Democratic Republic of Armenia and to construct the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. The rebellion, which was chiefly organized by the Dashnaks, began on 13 February 1921 and had been extinguished by 2 April 1921, when Soviet forces recaptured Yerevan.

The rebellion, which was inspired by the ill treatment Soviet forces were meting out to the population in general and former political and military leaders of the Armenian republic in particular, originated around Ashtarak, Ejmiatsin, Garni, and Hrazdan, and on 17–18 February spread to Yerevan, where many former leaders of the Armenian republic were freed from prisons and a Committee for the Salvation of the Fatherland was organized under Simon Vratsian. Over the following weeks, Soviet forces (who were distracted by their ongoing invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia to the north) attempted but failed to recapture Yerevan and were driven from Ashtarak, but in the end their huge numerical superiority came to bear and, once Georgia had been secured by the Red Army, the Dashnaks retreated from Yerevan on 1–2 April 1921, without resistance. Many of them made their way south to Zangezur, where a short-lived revival of the Republic of Mountainous Armenia held out against Soviet forces until June–July 1921, when many rebel leaders fled across the border into Persia.

To this day, Armenian nationalists believe that the decision by the Bolsheviks, through the Soviet–Turkish Treaty of Moscow (16 March 1921), to deny Armenia sovereignty over Nakhichevan and to make that region instead a protectorate of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (a decision confirmed by the Treaty of Kars, 13 October 1921), was intended as a punishment for the February Uprising.

FED′KO, IVAN FEDOROVICH (24 June 1897–26 February 1939). Ensign (1917), army commander, first rank (20 February 1938). The much decorated Soviet commander I. F. Fed′ko was born into a peasant family at the village of Khmelevo, Poltava guberniia, but grew up at Kishinev in Bessarabia, where he trained and worked as a furniture maker. He was mobilized into the Russian Army in 1916 and in 1917 graduated from a military school as an ensign. He joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) shortly before the October Revolution, during which he led a detachment of Red Guards (subsequently the 1st Black Sea Revolutionary Regiment) around Feodosiia, in Crimea.

During the civil wars, Fed′ko was chiefly active in the North Caucasus, initially as commander of the 3rd and 1st columns of Red forces in that region (May–October 1918). Following a stint as commander of all revolutionary forces in the North Caucasus, chiefly the Taman Army (27 October–November 1918), he became commander in chief of the 11th Red Army (30 November 1918–3 January 1919). From April to June 1919, he served as a member of the Revvoensovet of the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic and as deputy commander in chief of its army (later reformed into the 12th Red Army). In 1920, he served as commander of the 46th Rifle Division. He was (almost uniquely) four times awarded the Order of the Red Banner for bravery, on the last occasions for his exploits in commanding the 187th Student Rifle Brigade during the crushing of the Kronshtadt Revolt in March 1921 and for his part in the suppression of the Tambov Rebellion from May to June 1921.

In 1922, Fed′ko graduated from the Red Military Academy. He subsequently served in numerous military-administrative roles, including that of chief of staff and assistant commander of forces of the Volga Military District, (from 1931) commander of the Red Banner Caucasian Army, and (from 1932) commander of the Volga Military District and commander of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army. From 1937 to 1938, he was commander of the Kiev and then the Caucasus Military Districts, and in 1938 he became first deputy commissar of defense of the USSR. From March 1938, he was also a member of the Supreme Military Council of the Red Army. Fed′ko was arrested on 7 July 1938, on charges of espionage, and was subsequently (on 26 February 1939) found guilty of these charges, sentenced to death, and shot. He was posthumously rehabilitated on 26 May 1956. A street in the Ryshkanovka district of Kishinev was subsequently named in his honor (although it currently bears the name of the Moldavian author Alek Russo), as were streets in Sumi in Ukraine, Sevastopol′, Komrat, and Tiraspol′.

Fedorovich, Mikhail iosifovich (14 October 1872–7 December 1936). Rear admiral (28 December 1918). A graduate of the Naval Corps (1892), the Officers Mining Class (1900), and the Nicholas Military-Naval Academy (1910), during the First World War M. I. Fedorovich, a leading naval figure among the Whites in Siberia, occupied a number of senior positions with the Black Sea Fleet, including chief of the Hydro-Aviation Section of the fleet (1916–1917). He was seriously wounded during an assault by revolutionary sailors in either April or November 1917 (sources differ), suffering a fractured skull.

Fedorovich then made his way to Siberia, emerging in the summer of 1918 as garrison commander at first Tomsk and then Krasnoiarsk under the Provisional Siberian Government (June–November 1918). On 28 December 1918, he was promoted by Admiral A. V. Kolchak (his former commander on the Black Sea, 1916–1917) and brought into the ministry of marine of the Omsk government, as head of its Technical Directorate. In that capacity, he helped to establish the Kama Flotilla of Kolchak’s forces. From 15 August 1919, he served as commander of Naval Forces in the Far East (including the Siberian Flotilla, which had been nominally under his command since 15 February 1919), playing an important part in the suppression of the anti-Kolchak Gajda putsch at Vladivostok on 18 November 1919. From 1 February 1920, he served as head of the Naval Directorate and commander of naval flotillas in the forces of Ataman G. M. Semenov, but soon emigrated, settling at Harbin from 1920. He was active in numerous émigré officer organizations there, including ROVS. In 1930 he moved to Shanghai, where he founded the Russian Naval School (under the auspices of ROVS), and worked as supervisor of the city’s Russian cemetery, where he himself was buried in 1936.

Fedorov, Mikhail Mikhailovich (30 September 1859–31 January 1949). One of the chief ideologues of the White movement in South Russia, M. M. Fedorov was born into a noble family at Bezhets, Tver′ guberniia, and was a graduate of the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University. He trained as a statistician and rose through the Imperial Ministry of Finance to become deputy minister of trade and industry (November 1905) and then director of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (February 1906) in the government of S. Iu. Witte. (He had also been the editor of numerous official publications of that ministry.) He refused the post of minister of trade and industry in the conservative government of I. L. Goremykin (May 1906) and retired from government service to edit the liberal newspaper Slovo (“The Word”) and to work in a variety of public organizations (the Red Cross, the Central Cooperative Union, the All-Russian Union of Towns, etc.).

Following the October Revolution, Fedorov was one of the first and most active political opponents of the Soviet government, traveling to the Don territory in December 1917 to act as a political advisor to the leaders of the nascent Volunteer Army. He returned to Moscow in early 1918 and joined the anti-Bolshevik Right Center, but soon resigned because of that organization’s pro-German orientation. Subsequently, in May 1918, Fedorov became one of the founders of the National Center, moving to Kiev to lead the organization’s operations in Ukraine and acting as a delegate to the Jassy Conference (November–December 1918). In 1919, he joined the Special Council of General A. I. Denikin, as a minister without portfolio.

After the collapse of the White movement, Fedorov lived in emigration from March 1920, settling in Paris, and in 1922 founded the influential Central Committee for the Provision of Higher Education to Russian Youth Abroad (popularly known as the “Fedorov Committee”), which aimed to secure funds to educate émigré youth in the Russian tradition. He was also a member of the board of (and, from 1929, editor of) the émigré journal Bor′ba za Rossiiu (“The Struggle for Russia”). Fedorov died in Paris and is buried in the Russian compound of the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.

FEDOTOV (FEDOTOFF-WHITE), DMITRII NIKOLAEVICH (14 October 1889–21 November 1950). Lieutenant (Royal Navy, 1918), flag captain (1919), senior lieutenant (1919). The White naval commander D. N. Fedotov was a graduate of the Naval Corps (1910) and, prior to the revolution, served as Russia’s assistant naval attaché in London. In 1918, during the early stages of the Allied intervention, he entered service with the Royal Navy and commanded a gunboat at Murmansk. Having fallen ill with typhus, he returned to London for treatment and was then, in early 1919, sent to Siberia, where he was named chief of staff of the Kama Flotilla and from May to June 1919 helped command that force’s activities in support of the advance of the White Siberian Army. Fedotov then served as chief of the operations department of the ministry of marine of the Omsk government of Admiral A. V. Kolchak. In the autumn of 1919, he became commander of the Whites’ Ob′–Irtysh Flotilla and captain of the steamer Katun, before being placed in command of the Independent Naval Cadet Battalion.

Fedotov was arrested by revolutionary forces at Irkutsk during the uprising of the Political Center in January 1920, but was subsequently released and was set to work in the department of naval transport in Moscow. In 1921, during a mission to eastern Siberia, he absconded and fled via Manchuria to the United States. Until 1930, he was a member of a Russian émigré United Guards Company and worked with a steamship company at Philadelphia. He was also employed as a lecturer in history at Pennsylvania State University.

FEMALE SOLDIERS. Russian history and culture abound with references to women warriors, both real and mythological (and sometimes a mixture of the two), from Ol′ga Prekrasna (“Olga the Beautiful”), who ruled 10th-century Kieven Rus′, to the Amazons themselves, who were thought by the ancient Greeks (including Heroditus) to have dwelt north of the Black Sea, a notion that has been given substance by the remains of armed females discovered in tombs of ancient Sarmatia that stretched across lands now part of Ukraine and southern Russia. Building on these traditions, as many as 6,000 women seem to have served as women in the Russian Army in the course of the First World War, and a few more may have enlisted in male guise.

In 1917, amid the general euphoria of liberation, and revealing the potency of such traditions, the idea of women’s volunteer detachments for the armed forces was actively propagated by M. L. Bochkareva, whose 300-strong Women’s Battalion of Death saw action in the summer offensive and attracted the support of General L. G. Kornilov and A. F. Kerensky. Other female detachments were used as guards in Moscow (the 2nd Moscow Women’s Battalion of Death) and Petrograd (the 1st Petrograd Women’s Battalion)—the latter, famously, being stationed in the Winter Palace to defend the Russian Provisional Government during the October Revolution. The 3rd Kuban Women’s Shock Battalion and the 1st Women’s Naval Detachment were also active from July 1917, as well as seven smaller units (five in Kiev and two in Saratov). A Women’s Military Congress was convened at Moscow on 1–4 August 1917, to coordinate these efforts. The Soviet government disbanded all existing female units in November 1917, but elements of them retained their cohesion into early 1918, and many of their members would subsequently have joined one of the contending White, Red, anarchist, and nationalist forces during the civil wars, although details are sketchy.

Certainly, in the civil wars all contending forces (except those of a strictly Muslim character) recruited women, but the Red Army did so most extensively, systematically, and regularly (although not as extensively as later portrayed in Soviet films about the civil wars, such as Chapaev [1934], or other forms of historical propaganda, including paintings and posters). By autumn 1920, around 66,000 women were serving with Red forces (and as many as 80,000 may have served in total), some of them as couriers, clerks, telephonists, and guards in the rear, but most of them as doctors, nurses, and medical orderlies. Some women did fight in the Red ranks, however, and a few were promoted to command positions: O. M. Ovchinikova commanded the 4th Rifle Regiment of the 13th Red Army and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner; L. G. Mokievskaia commanded armored trains, including Soviet Power; B. Zelenskaia commanded a partisan detachment and was also a recipient of the Order of the Red Banner; and most famously, R. S. Zemliachka was active as a senior military commissar on the Southern Front and the Northern Front (earning the nickname “Bloody Rosa” from her British opponents on the latter) and was prominent in the military opposition in 1919. Women also worked in the Bolshevik underground in the rear of the Whites.

Many fewer women served in the White ranks, but of note is Marina Iurlova, who had enlisted with the 3rd Ekaterinodar Regiment of the Kuban Cossack Host in 1914 (at the age of 14), fought in the People’s Army unit commanded by Colonel V. O. Kappel′ on the Volga during August–September 1918, and was wounded in action. On the other hand, the authenticity of the autobiographical account of Varvara (“Varia”) N. (“Lul Gardo,” Cossack Fury, 1938)—who claimed to be known as the “White Angel of the White Armies,” to have been a Don Cossack woman who served with the Kornilovtsy from December 1917, and to have been wounded on at least five occasions before her evacuation from Novorossiisk on 6 April 1920—has not been definitely established.

FERGHANA FRONT. This Red front was created on 23 February 1919, on the orders of the Revvoensovet of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, to coordinate the struggles with the Basmachi in the Ferghana region being undertaken by numerous Red formations. Its operations were initially governed by a military collegium (chaired by D. I. Spasibov) attached to its staff, which from August 1919 was subordinated to a Revvoensovet of the Ferghana Front. Its forces battled those of several Basmachi groups (notably that of Madamin-bek), as well as combating K. I. Monstrov’s Peasant Army of Ferghana and the Osipov Rebellion. However, its enemies achieved major successes against it in September–October 1919, and on 22 November 1919 the Ferghana Front was liquidated and its forces transferred to the Ferghana (later 2nd Turkestan) Rifle Division.

Commanders of the Ferghana Front were M. V. Safonov (26 February–16 September 1919); A. P. Sokolov (16 September–16 November 1919); and G. M. Nemudrov (18–22 November 1919).

FERGHANA, PEASANT ARMY OF. This armed force was created around Jalal-abad (Jalalabat) in Ferghana oblast′ on 23 December 1918, from volunteers (chiefly Russian peasant colonists) seeking to defend themselves against the Basmachi. On 2 December 1918, it was organized into 10 regiments, four of which were deployed in active operations. Four other regiments were placed in defensive formations around Russian villages, and two regiments were held in reserve. The Peasant Army’s commander was K. I. Monstrov.

Initially, the Peasant Army of Ferghana operated in collaboration with the Turkestan Red Army and the Ferghana Front and accepted supplies and advice from the Red command. However, friction arose between the partners during the spring of 1919, over issues of military command and the Reds’ determination to institute land reforms and a food dictatorship that the colonists opposed. The outcome of this was that in June 1919 the command of the Peasant Army forged an alliance with one of the local Basmachi leaders, Madamin-bek. On 1 September 1919, these unlikely partners captured the town of Osh, where they were subsequently joined by several Red formations that had deserted from the Ferghana Front. Red forces recaptured Osh on 26 September 1919 and took Jalal-abad four days later, driving their opponents into the mountains, where Monstrov and Madamin-bek formed and led an anti-Bolshevik Provisional Ferghana Government. When efforts to elicit support from the Allies through the former tsarist consul at Kashgar came to nothing, however, Monstrov recognized the futility of further resistance and initiated talks with the command of the Turkestan Red Army. Under attack from Madamin-bek’s forces, what remained of the Peasant Army then made its way back to Jalal-abad, where it surrendered to the Reds on 17 January 1920.

FERGHANA, PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF. This anti-Bolshevik polity was founded at Irkeshtam, in the mountains of southern Ferghana oblast′, on 22 October 1919, according to Soviet sources, on the initiative of Allied (specifically British) agents in the region. The government sought to give political and military direction to the recently combined forces of the local Basmachi and the Peasant Army of Ferghana and was led by their respective commanders, Madamin-bek (as head of the government and commander in chief) and K. I. Monstrov (as deputy head of the government). Its efforts to combat the forces of the Red Turkestan Front (led by M. V. Frunze), however, were constantly thwarted. Before the end of 1919, consequently, the Provisional Ferghana Government disintegrated, and Monstrov decided to surrender to the Reds, while Madamin-bek was subsequently captured and killed by a rival Basmachi leader.

FICTION. Unsurprisingly, the “Russian” Civil Wars provided either the background for or the central concern of innumerable works of fiction, both in the USSR and among the emigration. However, the scarcity of paper and ink, the closure of private printing houses, and the other priorities of the state publishing house established in Soviet Russia meant that hardly any books were actually published during the conflict.

Classic Soviet treatments include A. N. Tolstoi’s celebrated trilogy, collectively entitled Khozhdenie po mukam (“Purgatory,” but usually translated as “The Ordeal” or “The Road to Calvary”): Sestry (“The Sisters,” 1919), 1918 (1928), and Khmroe utro (“Bleak Morning,” 1941). Tolstoi’s epic was dramatized in a three-part release for cinema in 1957–1959 (dir. G. L. Roshal) and a 13-part serial for television in 1977 (dir. V. S. Ordynskii). Also of note is M. A. Bulgakov’s Belaia gvardiia (“The White Guard,” 1922–1924), about events in Ukraine, of which there was also a version adapted for the theater, Dni Turbinakh (“The Days of the Turbins,” 1926), which was said to be J. V. Stalin’s favorite play (even though in it the Whites are portrayed very sympathetically). It was also dramatized as a three-part television film in 1976 (dir. V. P. Basov). Notable too is Bulgakov’s play Beg (“Flight,” 1926), which portrays, with equal sympathy, the White evacuation of South Russia in 1920 and émigré life in Constantinople and Paris, which was again filmed for cinema release, under the same title, in 1970 (dir. A. A. Alov and V. N. Naumov). Essential readings are the long-banned Chevengur (1927) by A. P. Platonov; D. A. Furmanov’s Chapaev (1923), which concerns V. I. Chapaev; emblematically, M. A. Sholokhov’s Tikhii Don (“The Quiet Don,” but often translated as And Quiet Flows the Don, 1927–1940), which focuses on the Don Cossack Host; and the imagist A. B. Marienhof’s Tsiniki (“The Cynics,” 1928), which captures the atmosphere of intellectual life during the civil-war years. Worthy of mention also are N. A. Ostrovskii’s socialist-realist Kak zakalialas′ stal′ (“How the Steel Was Tempered,” 1936) and his unfinished Rozhdennye burei (“Born of the Storm,” 1936), which is set in Western Ukraine during the Ukrainian–Polish War and the Soviet–Polish War. Boris Pasternak’s Doktor Zhivago (1957) was, famously, first published outside the USSR, only appearing there in 1988. Also of note is Boris Pil′niak’s first novel, Golyi god (“The Naked Year,” 1922), which treats the first year of the revolution and civil wars as an expression of a confrontation between European “order” and Asiatic “chaos,” a theme echoed in Alexander Blok’s poems, especially “The Scythians” and “The Twelve” (both 1918). The conflict between East and West, refracted through the subject of Japanese intervention in the Russian Far East, is also the theme of Perevorot v Vladivostoke (“Coup d’état in Vladivostok,” 1922), one of the last works of the Futurist poet V. V. Khlebnikov. The symbolist M. A. Voloshin, who lived in Crimea throughout the civil wars, devoted numerous works to his apocalyptic impressions of the period, many of them included in the collections Demony glukhonemye (“Deaf and Dumb Demons,” 1919), Usobitsa (“Internal Strife,” 1923), and Stikhi o terrore (“Verses on Terror,” 1923). Also of interest are Iu. V. Trifonov’s Starik (“The Old Man,” 1979), in which a pensioner tells of his ambiguous feelings about his experiences during the civil wars; A. A. Fadeev’s Razgrom (“The Rout,” 1927, also translated as “The Nineteen”), about Red partisans, which drew upon the author’s own experiences in the Far East during the civil wars; Iu. S. Semenov’s Parol′ ne nuzhen (“No Password Needed,” 1966), which dramatizes events in the Far East of 1921–1922 (and was filmed in 1967 by B. A. Grigor′ev); V. V. Vishnevskii’s three-act play Optimisticheskaia tragediia (“An Optimistic Tragedy,” 1933), about events around the Gulf of Finland during the civil wars (filmed in 1963 by S. I. Samsonov); and Aleksandr Serafimovich’s Zheleznyi potok (“The Iron Flood,” 1924, filmed in 1967 by Efim Dzigan), which charts the escape of the Taman (Red) Army from a White trap in the North Caucasus, as well as many of his short stories. Isaac Babel’s collection of short stories about S. M. Budennyi’s 1st Cavalry Army in the Soviet–Polish War, Konarmiia (“Cavalry Army,” but universally known in English as Red Cavalry) is often (and justly) lauded as a masterpiece of 20th-century prose. A good place to start, though, on Soviet treatments, is the collection The Terrible News: Russian Stories from the Years Following the Revolution, edited by John Bayley (London, 1991), which includes previously untranslated pieces by E. I. Zamiatin, Bulgakov, Babel, and many lesser-known figures. Finally, the Czech satirist Jaroslav Hašek’s collection of stories Velitelem mesta Bugulmy (“Commander of the City of Bugul′ma,” usually known in English as “Bugulma Stories” but also translated as “The Red Commissar”) is also of interest, being based on personal experience of events in the Volga–Urals region in 1918.

Russian émigré treatments of the civil wars are less numerous but often more poignant. A useful stating point would be R. T. Averchenko’s Diuzhina nozhei v spinu revoliutsii (“A Dozen Knives in the Back of the Revolution,” 1921), which V. I. Lenin described as “a book of great talent by the embittered-to-distraction White Guard.” M. I. Tsvetaeva devoted a cycle of poems to a celebration of the heroism and tragedy of the Whites: Lebedinyi stan: Stikhi, 1917–1921 (“The Swans’ Encampment: Verses, 1917–1921,” 1957)—sentiments echoed (albeit more prosaically) in La Campagne de glace: Russie 1918 (“The Ice March: Russia, 1918,” 1978) by Marina Grey, the daughter of General A. I. Denikin. The First Kuban (Ice) March also provided the theme of the eyewitness account by Roman Gul’, Ledianoi pokhod: s Kornilovym (“The Ice March: With Kornilov,” 1921). The former ataman of the Don Cossacks, P. N. Krasnov, wrote 21 novels in emigration, many of them set against the background of the revolution and civil wars, notably the panoramic and much-translated (but artistically pedestrian) Ot dvuglavogo orla k krasnomu znameni (“From Double-headed Eagle to the Red Flag,” 1922). The Cossack territories during the civil wars also formed the background of a novel by Fedor Kubanskii (the pen name of the émigré Orthodox priest Fedor Gorb), Stepi privol′nyi, krov′iu zalite (“Wide, Free Steppes, Drenched in Blood,” 1962). I. S. Shmelov’s Solntse mertvykh (“The Sun of the Dead,” 1923) offers a moving view of events in Crimea during and after the evacuation of General P. N. Wrangel’s Russian Army in November 1920. L. F. Zurov, a close friend of Ivan Bunin, published a collection of short stories on the theme of the revolution and civil wars, Kadet (“Cadet,” 1928), that had originally appeared in the Riga-based newspaper Slovo (“The Word”) and the journal Perezvony (“The Chimes”). Mark Aldanov also wrote a number of works seeking to explain the roots of the revolution and the plight of the émigrés, among them the admired trilogy Kliuch (“The Key,” 1929), Begstvo (“Flight,” 1932), and Peshchera (“The Cave,” 1934). Similar themes permeate the early works of Gaito Gazdanov, notably Vecher u Kler (“An Evening with Claire,” 1929). V. S. Ianovskii’s Koleso (“The Wheel,” 1930) provides a striking (but little-celebrated) account of the societal collapse engendered by the civil wars and the subsequent famine. At the other end of the literary scale, N. N. Breshko-Breshkovskii (the son of the Populist E. K. Breshko-Breshkovskaia) wrote several popular thrillers set in the civil wars, including Na belome kone (“On a White Horse,” 1922), which concerned the Volunteer Army, and Belye i Krasnye (“The Whites and the Reds,” 1925).

For later generations of Russian exiles and émigrés, the civil wars retained their fascination. Interesting examples are V. E. Maksimov’s Zaglianut′ v bezdnu (“To Look into the Abyss,” 1986), a novel about A. V. Kolchak, is based on documentary sources and including a genealogy of the Kolchak family compiled by the admiral’s son, R. A. Kolchak; and V. P. Aksenov’s fantasy, Ostrov Krym (“The Island of Crimea,” 1979), which imagines that the Red Army had never captured Crimea, which developed into a sort of Hong Kong of the Black Sea, a bastion of capitalism, featuring freeways, golf courses, yachting marinas, and a Yalta Hilton. Essential reading also for the student of the period—although not necessarily for the reasons he intended—are the works of A. I. Solzhenitsyn, especially Lenin in Zurich (1976), a vision of the Bolshevik leader as a study in malevolence and evil. In Soviet Russia itself, the production of M. F. Shatrov’s long-banned Bretskii mir (“The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk”) in 1987 and his Dal′she . . . dal′she . . . dal′she (“Further, Further, Further”), about the October Revolution, in 1988 were among the most potent symbols of glasnost′ in literature.

For an anthology of a broad variety of fictional treatments of the civil wars, see Grazhdanskaia voina v lirike i proze: Antologiia, 2 vols. (Moscow: Drofa, 2003).

FIELD STAFF OF THE REVVOENSOVET OF THE REPUBLIC. See REVVOENSOVET OF THE REPUBLIC, FIELD STAFF OF THE.

15th RED ARMY. This Red military formation was created, according to a directive of the main commander of the Red Army of 7 June 1919, from forces that had previously been operating under the aegis of the (Red) Army of Soviet Latvia. It was initially attached to the Western Front, before being placed in the reserve (from 4 October 1920). Its complement included the 1st Rifle Division of the (Red) Army of Soviet Latvia (from July 1919 the 53rd Rifle Division and from August 1919 the Latvian Riflemen) and the 2nd Rifle Division of the Army of Soviet Latvia (June 1919); the 2nd (December 1919–May 1920), 4th (June 1919–September 1920), 5th (May–June and July 1920), 6th (May–June 1920), 10th (August–September 1919 and October 1919–January 1920), 11th (June 1919–December 1920), 12th (May–June 1920), 16th (July–October 1920), 17th (September 1919 and October 1920), 18th (May–June and October–November 1920), 19th (October 1919–January 1920), 21st (June and November–December 1920), 27th (August–October 1920), 29th (May–June 1920), 48th (January–June 1920), 53rd Border (from January 1920, Rifle) (August 1919–May 1920), 54th (June–August 1920), 56th (April–June and October–December 1920), and Estonian (July–October 1919) Rifle Divisions; and the 15th (April–June 1920) and Kuban (August–September 1920) Cavalry Divisions.

In July 1919, the 15th Red Army was engaged in operations against German and Latvian forces in Latvia during the Latvian War of Independence, eventually being driven out of that region by the end of that month. On 26 August 1919, it captured Pskov and from September to October 1919 was engaged in defensive operations against the advancing North-West Army of General N. N. Iudenich. From October to November 1919, the Whites having been repulsed, the 15th Red Army went on the offensive and captured Luga, Volosovo, Gdov, and Iamburg. Subsequently, in the summer of 1920, during the Soviet–Polish War, the 15th Red Army was on the right flank of the general Red offensive, crossing the Nemen and the Narva to reach the Vkra River, north of Warsaw, before being pushed all the way back to Minsk by the Poles. On 26 December 1920, the 15th Red Army was disestablished, its forces being transferred to the 3rd Red Army.

Commanders of the 15th Red Army were E. N. Sergeev (May–June 1919); P. A. Slaven (7–25 June 1919); S. D. Kharlamov (acting, 25 June–31 July 1919); A. I. Kork (31 July–15 October 1919 and 22 October 1919–16 October 1920); A. I. Kuk (15–22 October 1919); V. L. Negrodov (acting, 16–25 October 1920); and S. A. Mezheninov (25 October–26 December 1920). Its chiefs of staff were P. M. Maigur (7–14 June 1919); S. D. Kharlamov (14 June–23 September 1919); I. M. Birkan (acting, 25 June–18 August 1919); A. I. Kuk (18–31 August 1919 and 26 September 1919–24 September 1920, acting); B. L. Negrodov (24 September–28 October 1920); E. K. Lus (acting, 28 October–7 November 1920); and A. V. Afanas′ev (7 November–28 December 1920).

5th Red Army. This name was given to four separate Red Army formations in the course of the civil wars.

The first 5th Red Army was created in mid-March 1918, from Red Guards and other pro-Soviet units around Kursk and Bakhmach, to offer resistance to the forces of the Austro-German intervention. Its 3,000 men were pushed back to Khar′kov, which they surrendered on 8 April 1918, and were subsequently (on 10 April 1918) transformed into the 2nd Special Army. The force’s commander was R. F. Sivers (March–10 April 1918).

The second 5th Red Army was created in mid-April 1918, in the Donbass region, on the orders of the Sovnarkom of the Donetsk-Krivoi Rog Soviet Republic, and on 15 April 1918 its 2,000 men were placed under the command of K. E. Voroshilov. By 20 April 1918, together with the Donets Red Army (which was incorporated into it in late April) and units of the first 3rd Red Army, it was concentrated in the Lugansk–Rodakovo region. After initial successes against the Germans, it was forced to surrender Lugansk on 28 April 1918, and embarked on a forced march (via Millerovo) to Tsaritsyn, where it arrived in early July 1918.

The third, largest, and most famous 5th Red Army was created on 16 August 1918, according to the orders of the commander of the Eastern Front, from Red forces in the Kazan′ region. The constituent units of this 5th Red Army, included the 1st Siberian Rifle Division (December 1920–June 1921); the 1st Smolensk Infantry Division (September 1918); the 2nd (April–May 1919), and 5th (July–November 1919) Rifle Divisions; the 4th Petrograd Infantry (later the 11th Rifle) Division (September 1918–January 1919); the 24th (June–August 1919), 25th (April–May 1919), 26th (November 1918–June 1920), 27th (November 1918–May 1920), 29th (September 1920–July 1921), 30th (November 1919–October 1920), 31st (June–July 1919), 35th (April 1919–October 1921), 51st (November 1919–August 1920), 59th (October–November 1919), and 62nd (December 1919–February 1922) Rifle Divisions; the 3rd International Rifle Division (January–April 1920); the 5th (June 1920–February 1921) and 13th (September–November 1919 and July 1920) Cavalry Divisions; and the Independent Cavalry Division (July–August 1919). Following battles against the forces of Komuch (the People’s Army) and the Czechoslovak Legion, the 5th Red Army recaptured Kazan′ (10 September 1918) and pressed on toward Ufa, which fell to it on 31 December 1918. With the onset of the spring offensive of Admiral A. V. Kolchak’s Russian Army, in March–April 1919 the 5th Army was forced to retreat to areas west of Buguruslan and Bugul′ma, before spearheading the Reds’ counteroffensive, capturing Zlatoust (13 July 1919) and Cheliabinsk (24 July 1919). It went on to capture Petropavlovsk (31 October 1919) and the Whites’ capital, Omsk (14 November 1919), before moving along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Tomsk (20 December 1919) and Krasnoiarsk (7 January 1920), eventually entering Irkutsk in March 1920. In May 1920, the army was subordinated to the commander of Siberian armed forces and was eventually incorporated into the forces of the Eastern Siberian Military District (6 September 1922). Commanders of the third 5th Red Army were P. A. Slaven (16 August–20 October 1918); Ž. K. Bļumbergs (20 October 1918–5 April 1919); M. N. Tukhachevskii (5 April–25 November 1919); G. Kh. Eikhe (25 November 1919–21 January 1920); G. Ia. Kutyrev (temporary; 24 January–3 February 1920); B. E. Garf (temporary, 3–8 February 1920); M. S. Matiiasevich (8 February 1920–27 August 1921); I. P. Uborevich (27 August 1921–14 August 1922); V. V. Liubimov (temporary, 14–24 August 1922); and K. A. Chaikovskii (24 August–6 September 1922). Its chiefs of staff were A. K. Anderson (temporary, 16 August–22 November 1918); P. I. Ermolin (22 November 1918–27 July 1919); Ia. K. Ivasiov (27 July–3 December 1919); G. Ia. Kutyrev (temporary, 3 December 1919–8 February 1920); B. E. Garf (8 February–23 June 1920); I. V. Smorodinov (temporary, 23 June–4 September 1920); and V. V. Liubimov (4 September 1920–6 July 1922).

The fourth 5th Red Army was created as a consequence of the reconstruction of the People’s-Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic (FER) after the FER’s union with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in November 1922. It engaged in battles against the remnants of White forces in the Far East (notably the Zemstvo Host) and on 1 July 1923 was renamed the 5th Red Banner Army, before in June 1924 being reformed once more as the 18th and 19th Rifle Corps of the Siberian Military District.

Figel′skii, Vladislav Damianovich (6 June 1889–19 January 1919). The Soviet activist and politician V. D. Figel′skii, the son of an office worker, was born at Płock in Russian Poland. He was expelled from the local gymnasium in 1905, as a consequence of his revolutionary activities, and in 1909 moved to Paris, where he graduated from the Mathematics Faculty of the Sorbonne (1909). He then returned to Russia and found work as a teacher at Samarkand, but was conscripted into the army in 1915. Having been discharged from active service for reasons of health, following the February Revolution Figel′skii joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) and, in the aftermath of the October Revolution, was elected as a member of the Samarkand Soviet (November 1917) and was made local commissar for education. In June 1918, he became chairman of the Samarkand Soviet and from November 1918 was chairman of the Sovrnarkom of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, as well as chairman of its Military Collegium. As such, he was among the Fourteen Turkestan Commissars who were captured and executed by anti-Soviet rebels during the Osipov Rebellion at Tashkent during the night of 18–19 January 1919.

Filimonov, Aleksandr Petrovich (14 September 1866–4 August 1948). Colonel (1 December 1912), major general (November 1918), lieutenant general (April 1920). The ataman of the Kuban Cossack Host for much of the civil-war period (12 October 1917–10 November 1919), A. P. Filimonov was born at Grigoropol′ stanitsa in the Kuban region and was a graduate of the Vladimir Cadet Corps at Kiev (1884), the Moscow Alexander Military School (1886), the Alexander Military-Juridical Academy (1907), and the Imperial Archaeological Institute (1907). He served as ataman of the Labinskii section of the Kuban Host from 1908 to 1917 and, following the February Revolution, was made chairman of the Kuban Host government (April–October 1917) before being elected Host ataman (12 October 1917).

In that role, during the First Kuban (Ice) March, Filimonov led his men into a union with the Volunteer Army at the Shendzhii settlement (aul), and on 17 March 1918, at Novo-Dimitrievskii stanitsa, signed the protocol under which the Kuban government accepted full military subordination to General L. G. Kornilov. Filimonov was personally in favor of the union, but nevertheless he attempted to preserve Cossack autonomy from the White command (and at the same time to smooth over the differences between the Black Sea and Line elements of the Kuban Host). However, he was forced to retire as ataman when the commander of the Armed Forces of South Russia, General A. I. Denikin, finally despairing of Filimonov’s alleged pandering to Cossack separatism and incensed by the endless delays in the mustering of new recruits from the Kuban, demanded the arrest of the Kuban Rada (6 November 1919).

Filimonov emigrated in December 1919, settling in Yugoslavia and contributing numerous articles to the émigré press. He was also chairman of the Pervopokhodniki in exile and a member of the council of the Fourth Section of ROVS. He died and is buried at Osijek, Croatia.

FILIPPOVSKII, VASILII NIKOLAEVICH (14 January 1882–1940). A leading figure in the Democratic Counter-Revolution of 1918, V. N. Filippovskii, who studied at a naval school in his youth, joined the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries in 1903 and was subsequently arrested and exiled by the tsarist authorities. During the First World War, he served in the imperial navy as a senior engineer. He was an active participant in the February Revolution and subsequently, in 1917, served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet and was a member of the VTsIK of the first (June–October 1917) convocation. In November 1917, he was elected to the Constituent Assembly, as a deputy representing the South-West Front, and from 23 November 1917 led the Petrograd Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly.

When, despite his best efforts, the assembly was dispersed, Filippovskii sought to organize opposition to the Soviet government in the metalworkers’ union. In June 1918, he emerged at Samara as head of the Department of Trade and Industry of Komuch and was then (September–2 December 1918) chairman of the Council of Heads of Department of Komuch, following the Samara government’s recognition of the all-Russian authority of the Ufa Directory. Following the Omsk coup, he was arrested, but escaped from White custody and went underground, eventually reemerging in the Democratic Republic of Georgia. He was then active across the western North Caucasus in 1919–1920, as an organizer of Green partisans in the rear of the Armed Forces of South Russia and leader of the SR-dominated Committee for the Liberation of the Black Sea Region. In May 1920, in the aftermath of the Red Army’s defeat of General A. I. Denikin’s forces in the North Caucasus, Fillipovskii was arrested by the Cheka. He subsequently spent periods in prison across Soviet Russia (at Nizhni Novgorod, Moscow, and the Solovetskii Islands) before being exiled to Astrakhan, where he taught at a mechanics school. He was arrested again in 1933 and again in 1936, on the latter occasion being sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment. Fillipovskii died in the camps of the Kolyma region. He was rehabilitated in 1957.

FILMS. During the course of the “Russian” Civil Wars, in a country in which many people were illiterate, all sides, but especially the Reds (through agitprop), were anxious to use the cinema to disseminate their political messages. In subsequent decades, the civil wars themselves became the subject—or, at least, the setting—of many feature films, especially in the USSR (although they remain a popular subject for cinema and television dramas in post-Soviet Russia). Few, if any, of these productions were untainted by political bias—and very badly impaired in that regard were the films produced in the Stalin era (roughly 1930 to 1953)—but most are of some interest to historians.

In the USSR, filmmakers of the 1920s found the (still partly unresolved) civil wars problematic, and it took some time also for Soviet control of and intentions for the young industry to be established. Consequently, the war was not often featured in productions of that era. Nevertheless, among the most notable early Soviet feature films were the very (and enduringly) popular, rip-roaring civil-war adventure film Krasnye d′iavoliata (“Little Red Devils,” sometimes translated as “Red Imps,” dir. I. N. Perestiani, 1923), with children as protagonists and a characterization of Nestor Makhno (in sunglasses); the less successful (and often very violent) “B-movie” treatments of civil-war banditry found in Veter (“The Wind,” dir. L. B. Sheffer, 1926) and the Tripol′skaia tragediia (“The Tripol′e Tragedy,” dir. A. D. Anoshchenko-Anoda, 1926), the latter notable for its critical attitude to Ukrainian nationalism and the Cossacks; and the family dramas Bukhta smerti (“Bay of Death,” dir. Abram Room, 1926), Dva dnia (“Two Days,” dir. G. N. Stabovoi, 1927), and Goroda i gody (“Cities and Years,” dir. E. V. Cherviakov, 1930), all of which voguishly depict the generational struggle between revolutionary youth and complacent or counterrevolutionary elders. The last years of silent cinema did, however, witness some more ambitious treatments of the civil wars, notably in the melodramatic Sorok pervyi (“The Forty-First,” dir. Ia. A. Protazanov, 1927), a classic of early Soviet cinema, based on a novel of the same name by B. A. Lavrenev, which depicts a Red sharpshooter’s selfless killing of her White lover (the latter on a mission between Siberia and South Russia resembling that during which General A. N. Grishin-Almazov was killed in May 1919); the visually impressive Potomok Chingiskhana (“The Descendant of Genghis Khan,” but generally known in English as “Storm over Asia,” dir. V. I. Pudovkin, 1928), set in Mongolia and focusing on the impact of Allied intervention; the immensely powerful Arsenal (“The Arsenal,” dir. A. P. Dovzhenko, 1929), about the Arsenal Uprising at Kiev in early 1918; Tikhii Don (“The Quiet Don,” dir. O. Preobrazhenskaia and I. K. Pravov, 1930), the first attempt to put on screen M. A. Sholokhov’s epic novel of the Don Cossack Host in the civil wars; Tommi (“Tommy,” dir. Ia. A. Protazanov, 1931), based on the 1927 play Broenpoezd 14-69 (“Armored Train 14-69”) by V. V. Ivanov, in which a captured British soldier is converted to Bolshevism by Siberian partisans; and Piat′ nevest (“Five Brides,” dir. A. Solov′ev, 1930), depicting attacks on Jewish settlements perpetrated by S. V. Petliura’s Ukrainian Army.

Civil-war films produced in the USSR during the 1930s were rarely escapist, although there were some at least partial exceptions; for example, Podrugi (“Girlfriends,” dir. Leo Arnshtam, 1935), focusing on the tribulations of three pretty and flirtatious young women, whose experience of brutality in the war nevertheless prepares them for “the final battle” against counterrevolution; Duma pro kazaka Golotu (“The Ballad of Cossack Golota,” dir. I. A. Savchenko, 1937), concerning the adventures of a gang of Ukrainian peasant lads; and Vsadniki (“Riders,” dir. I. A. Savchenko, 1939), which depicts Ukrainian nationalists during the civil wars as the pawns of German imperialism (causing the film to be hurriedly withdrawn following the Nazi–Soviet Pact of August 1939). More often, though, 1930s historical films of all types were highly politicized, concerned with embellishing the Lenin cult and building the Stalin cult, and even those set during the civil wars seemed to use them only as background “color” to such agendas. An exception was Trinatsat′ (“The Thirteen,” dir. M. I. Romm, 1936), about an isolated Red unit’s battles against the Basmachi, but more typical were Chelovek s ruzh′em (“Man with a Gun,” dir. S. I. Iutkevich, 1938); Druz′ia (“Friends,” dir. L. Arnshtam and V. Eisymont, 1938), about S. M. Kirov; Baltiitsy (“The Baltic Sailors,” dir. A. M. Faintsimmer, 1938); and the self-explanatory Lenin v 1918 (“Lenin in 1918,” dir. M. I. Romm, 1939). However, several 1930s civil-war films, despite their propagandistic intentions, are of especial worth, both artistically and as historical artifacts. One is 26 kommissarov (“The 26 Commissars,” dir. N. M. Shengelaia, 1933), about the Twenty-Six Commissars. Of particular note is Chapaev (dir. G. N. and S. D. Vasil′ev, 1934), the biggest Soviet box-office hit of the 1930s, which was also well-received abroad (especially in the United States) and much admired by J. V. Stalin (who is thought to have viewed it 38 times). Despite being the canonical film of socialist realism, the film is an enjoyable portrait of V. I. Chapaev (not least for its subtle subversions of the socialist-realist agenda). The film revolves around the relationship of growing trust that develops between the impulsive, mischievous, and unruly Chapaev and his dedicated commissar, Klychkov (based on D. A. Furmanov, whose semifictionalized account of his service with Chapaev in the 1923 novel Chapaev was the inspiration for the film). Chapaev’s success was not repeated, either artistically or commercially, by Fedka (dir. N. I. Lebedev, 1936), which was promoted by the authorities as a depiction of a “Boy Chapaev,” in which the eponymous orphan becomes a Red cavalryman and captures the White killer of his father but dutifully delivers him to a tribunal rather than putting him to the sword. Almost as popular as Chapaev among Soviet audiences, though, and also a critical success abroad (winning a prize at the International Film Exhibition at Paris in 1937), but nevertheless more heavy-handed and pedantic, is My iz Kronshtadt (“We, from Kronshtadt,” dir. E. L. Dzigan, 1936), about the Baltic Fleet’s role in the defense of Petrograd against the White forces of General N. N. Iudenich in October 1919. Ominously, though, Dzigan’s next effort at a civil-war film, about the 1st Cavalry Army, Pervaia konnaia (1941), was banned. That civil-war films were becoming problematic was most graphically illustrated in the complex story of the production of Shchors (dir. A. P. Dovchenko, 1939), about Mykola Shchors. Thereafter, directors tended to avoid the tendentious ground of the civil wars when they could, although it was still possible to make biopics about dead and unbiased Soviet heroes—such as Iakov Sverdlov (dir. S. I. Iutkevich, 1940), from which scenes featuring Stalin were cut when the film was reissued in 1965—and during the Second World War parallels were sometimes suggested between contemporary events and the civil-war struggles, such as in Oborona Tsaritsyna (“The Defense of Tsaritsyn,” dir. G. N. and S. D. Vasil′ev, 1942), which gravely distorts the role of Stalin in the events it describes, and the hagiographic Kutovskii (dir. A. M. Faintsimmer, 1943), about Hryhorii Kotovski. Another sanitized and distorted picture of a civil-war hero was presented in Aleksandr Parkhomenko (dir. L. D. Lukov, 1942), which concerns the life of A. Ia. Parkhomenko.

In the late and immediate postwar periods, Soviet filmic representations of the civil wars declined further in number (and, usually, quality), as attention turned to memorializing the Great Patriotic War, although the acme of socialist realism was assayed in Kak zakalialis stal′ (“How the Steel Was Tempered,” dir. M. Donskoi, 1942), from the 1936 pseudo-autobiographical novel of the same name by N. A. Ostrovskii (which was filmed again, less stiffly and with darker tones, as Pavel Korchagin, in 1956, dir. A. A. Alov and V. N. Naumov), telling the story of a young volunteer, grievously wounded in the civil wars, who forsakes all hopes of love and personal fulfillment to build a new, revolutionary society. Nezabyvaemyi 1919-i (“The Unforgettable Year 1919,” dir. M. I. Chiaureli, 1952), based on the play by V. V. Vishnevskii and with a score by D. D. Shostakovich, reached a new low and added further to the cult of Stalin by offering a fawning, shallow, and often absurd portrait of him as the savior of Petrograd against the White North-West Army in 1919. The 1953 production Virkhi vrazhdebnye (“Hostile Whirlwinds,” dir. M. K. Kalatozov), about the activities of Feliks Dzierżyński during the revolution and civil wars, was quickly withdrawn but reappeared in 1956, shorn of its scenes involving Stalin.

After the death of Stalin, and especially around the time of the 40th anniversary of the revolution, there was a mini-renaissance in civil-war films, although many (but not all) tended to be of an escapist nature. Examples are the romantic but visually impressive remake of Sorok pervyi (dir. G. Chukhrai, 1956), set in Central Asia and depicting the struggle against the Basmachi; Ognennye versty (“The Burning Miles,” dir. S. I. Samsonov, 1956), set in South Russia during the civil wars; Kochubei (dir. Iu. N. Ozerev, 1958), based on the eponymous 1937 novel by A. A. Perventsev, which examines the case of the Red hero I. A. Kochubei; Rasskazy o Lenine (“Tales of Lenin,” dir. S. I. Iutkevich, 1957); and the three-part, melodramatic staging of Tikhii Don (“The Quiet Don,” dir. S. A. Gerasimov, 1957–1958), from the epic novel about the Don Cossacks by M. A. Sholokhov, which was heavy on costumes but light on insight. Better was the three-part adaptation of A. N. Tolstoi’s literary trilogy, Khozhdenie po mukan (“The Road to Calvary,” dir. G. L. Roshal, 1957–1959), which examines the fate of the intelligentsia. Also from this era were Kommunist (“The Communist,” dir. Iu. Ia. Raizman, 1958), another “home from the civil war” drama about the building of Communism; Povest′ o latyshkom strelke (“Tale of the Latvian Rifleman,” dir. Pavel Armand, 1958), about the Bolshevization of the Latvian Riflemen; and the joint Soviet–Yugoslav feature Oleko Dundich (dir. L. D. Lukov, 1958), about Aleksa Dundić.

After another fallow period, the mid- to late 1960s saw another renaissance, during the 50th-anniversary celebrations of the revolution and civil wars, although not all the films made were worthy of serious analysis; of those that were, several were banned. Notable releases were the political thriller Zagovor poslov (“The Ambassadors’ Plot,” dir. N. V. Rozantsev, 1965), which dealt with the Lockhart plot; the popular comedy Nachal′nik Chukotki (“The Chief of the Chuchki,” dir. V. V Melnikov, 1966), involving a case of mistaken identity and culture clashes; the musical comedy Svad′ba v Malinovke (“Wedding at Malinovka,” dir A. Tytshkin, 1967), set in a Cossack village; Aniutina doroga (“Aniuta on the Road,” dir. L. V. Golub, 1967), in which a lost Moscow child observes the class struggle in a Belorussian village; Parol′ ne nuzhen (“No Password Needed,” dir. B. A. Grigor′ev, 1967), about the struggle of forces of the Far Eastern Republic to secure control of Vladivostok in 1921, which was based on the autobiographical novel of the same title published in 1966 by Iu. S. Semenov; Zheleznyi potok (“The Iron Flood,” dir. Efim Dzigan, 1967), from Aleksandr Serafimovich’s 1924 novel of the same name, concerning the 1918 campaign across the North Caucasus of the Taman (Red) Army; the musical comedy Bumbarash (dir. N. G. Rasheev and A. A. Naroditskii, 1971), adapted from the early works of Arkady Gaidar (A. P. Golikov), in which the eponymous hero returns from an Austrian POW camp to his home village, which is occupied by Reds, Whites, and local bandits in rapid succession; the solid war film Groza nad Beloi (“Storm across the Belaia,” dir. E. Nemchenko and S. V. Chaplin, 1968), about the 5th Red Army’s capture of Ufa in April–May 1919, focusing on M. V. Frunze; the tragicomic Gori, gori, moia zvezda (“Shine, Shine, My Star,” dir. A. N. Mitta, 1969), in which a sympathetic theater director of a small town successively occupied by Red and White forces seeks salvation in art; and Sertse Bonivura (“The Heart of Bonivur,” dir. Mark Orlov, 1969), from the 1953 novel of the same name by D. D. Navishkin, about the Komsomol hero and martyr V. B. Bonivur (Banevur), who was killed by the Whites in the Far East in 1922. Purely escapist in nature was the hugely popular adventure trilogy Neulovimye mstiteli (“The Elusive Avengers,” dir. E. G. Keosian, 1966, which was effectively a remake of Perestiani’s Krasnye d′iavoliata of 1923); Novye prikliucheniia Neulovimykh (“The New Adventures of the Elusives,” dir. E. G. Keosian, 1968); and the two-part extravaganza Korona Rossiiskoi Imperii, ili Snova Neuslovimye (“The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once More the Elusives,” dir. E. G. Keosian, 1971–1972). (The “Elusives” series drew also upon a scenario assayed in Armiia “Triasoguski”—“The Wagtail Army,” dir. Aleksandrs Leimanis, 1964—in which the White intelligence service in Siberia investigates a “terrorist gang” that turns out to be a group of street urchins. This was followed by a 1968 sequel from the same director, Armiia “Triasoguski” snova v boiu, “The Wagtail Army, Again to Battle.”) From the same era (and the same talented cinéaste) came Svoi sredi chuzhikh, chuzhoi sredi svoikh (“At Home Among Strangers, a Stranger at Home,” dir. N. S. Mikhailov, 1974) and Raba liubvi (“Slave of Love,” dir. N. S. Mikhailov, 1975), both of which were nostalgic reflections on the civil-war era (and the director’s art), the former a sort of grown-up version of the Keosian “Avengers” films, the latter set among filmmakers in Crimea under White rule. Less popular than all these, but at least as accomplished and impressive—especially for its battle scenes (at that point the most impressive ever filmed)—was the puzzling, tragicomic Sluzhili dva tovarishcha (“Two Comrades Served,” dir. E. E. Karelov, 1968), about the storming of Crimea in November 1920, which included a role for the Soviet poet, actor, and songwriter V. S. Vysotskii. Also of note from the Brezhnev era were Sed′moi sputnik (“The Seventh Companion,” dir. G. Armanov and A. Iu. German, 1968), based on the story of the same title by B. A. Lavrenev, which details life in civil-war Petrograd through the eyes of a professor of law formerly attached to the Academy of the General Staff, as he attempts to come to terms with the new regime; V ogne broda net (“There Is No Ford in a Fire,” dir. G. A. Panfilov, 1967), which is set on a hospital train and depicts the contrasting attitude to the civil wars of two political commissars (one, who resembles V. I. Lenin, preaching terror and amoralism, and another, more humane, who fears that means might determine ends); Shestoe iulia (“The Sixth of July,” dir. Iu. Iu. Karasik, 1968), which presents a succinct Soviet version of the Left-SR Uprising of 1918, with characterizations of many of the leading Soviet political leaders of the time; Beloe solntse pustyni (“The White Sun of the Desert,” dir. V. Ia. Motyl, 1969), about Red Army clashes with the Basmachi, which (complete with haunting sound track) comes as close as any such Soviet film (often termed “Osterns”—i.e., “Easterns”—or “Borshcht Westerns”) to the “spaghetti Westerns” then popular in the West; Beg (“Flight,” dir. A. A. Alov and V. N. Naumov, 1970), based on the play by Mikhail Bulgakov, about the collapse of the Armed Forces of South Russia and the fate of the Whites in emigration, which features some astonishing battle scenes; Konets atamana (“End of an Ataman,” dir. Shaken Aimanov, 1970), which concerns the last days of Ataman A. I. Dutov; Krasnaia ploshchad′ (“Red Square,” dir. V. S. Ordynskii), about the building of the Red Army in 1918–1919; the visually impressive and thoughtful Dauria (dir. V. Tregubovich, 1971), adapted from the 1948 novel of the same name by K. F. Sedykh, which is set in the Far East; Kochuskii front (dir. Baras Khalzanov, 1972), which depicts the exploits of P. E. Shchetinkin as a partisan leader behind the White lines in Siberia; Peters (dir. S.S. Tarasov, 1972), about the Chekist Jēkabs Peterss; Dni Turbinakh (“The Days of the Turbins,” a three-part television film, from the revered Mikhail Bulgakov play of the same name, dir. V. P. Basov, 1976), about the civil wars in Ukraine; the 13-part adaptation of A. N. Tolstoi’s Khozhdenie po mukan (“The Road to Calvary,” dir. V. S. Ordynskii, 1977); Tachanka s iuga (“Tachanka from the South,” dir. E. F. Sherstobitov, 1977), which dramatizes Cheka operations in Ukraine; Konets imperatora taigy (“The End of the Emperor of the Taiga,” dir. V. G. Sarukhanov, 1978), which focuses on a little known episode in the life of the future novelist Arkadii Gaidar (A. P. Golikov), who as a commander of a ChON force in Western Siberia in 1924 hunted down the rebel peasant leader I. N. Solov′ev; and Marshal revoliutsii (“Marshal of the Revolution,” dir. S. Ia. Linkov, 1978), another war film about Frunze, this time focusing on his command of the Southern Front and the storming of Crimea in November 1920.

Not banned but rarely screened in the USSR was the insightful Csillagosok, katonák (literally “Stars on Their Caps” but known in English as The Red and the White, dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1967). This was a Hungarian–Russian coproduction that did not shirk from portraying the often senseless brutality of all sides during the conflict and which, consequently, received a markedly frosty reception in Moscow. Of the banned civil-war films of the 1960s, notable was the zany and irreverent Interventsiia (“The Intervention,” dir. G. I. Poloka, 1968), from a play by L. I. Slavin (and again starring V. S. Vsotskii), which was set in French-occupied Odessa in 1918–1919; and the bleak, ambivalent, and depressing Angel (“The Angel,” dir. A. S. Smirnov, 1967), based on the 1922 debut novella by Iu. K. Olesha, which was planned as the first installment of a trilogy of related films. It concerns the fate of a mixed group of refugees in south Russia, captured and tormented by a Cossack bandit. It was not released until 1987. Pride of place among the banned films of the 1960s, however, must be accorded to the intriguing Kommissar (“The Commissar,” dir. A. Ia. Askol′dov, 1968), which was adapted from an early story by Vassily Grossman, V gorode Berdichev (“In the Town of Berdichev,” 1934). This was the first Soviet film since before Stalin’s time in which Jews were placed at center stage and portrayed as wholly sympathetic characters, as a female soldier—in fact, a pregnant military commissar—is billeted in a shtetl during the Soviet–Polish War. The film’s philo-Semitic subject matter was controversial enough, but it was also released just as the Six-Day War ended and in an atmosphere poisoned by the trial of the Jewish dissident writers Iuly Daniel and Andrei Siniavski, which sealed its fate. In 1987, Kommissar became the last of the great banned films to be taken off the shelf under glasnost′, such was its incendiary nature.

Oddly, the civil wars were not, in and of themselves, a very popular subject during the glasnost′ era, although the mid-1980s did produce some late-Soviet films of note: Makar-sledopyt (“Makar the Pathfinder,” dir. N. Kovalskii, 1984), the last major Soviet civil-war film in the tradition of depicting child heroes battling the Whites; Pervaia konnaia (“The First Cavalry Army,” dir. V. P. Liubomudrov, 1984), about the exploits of S. M. Budennyi and the 1st Cavalry Army; Komendant Pushkin (“Commandant Pushkin,” dir. O. P. Eryshev, 1986), about the defense of Petrograd against White forces in 1919; and V steliaiushchei glushi (“In the Dangerous Backwoods,” dir. V. I. Khotinenko, 1986), which depicts with some sympathy the hostility aroused among peasants by War Communism and the policy of prodrazverstka.

The civil wars were also the subject of an extensive (seven-hour-long) Soviet television series in the Brezhnev era, as television became a mature medium in the USSR: Ad″iutant ego prevoskhoditel′stva (“The Adjutant of His Excellency,” dir. E. I. Tashkov 1969), about a Cheka agent operating behind the White lines and working as an advisor to General V. Z. Mai-Maevskii. The series, which portrayed the early Chekists as dashing heroes and accomplished ladykillers (in the traditional, James Bond, sense), was so popular that it was later reedited for cinema release. Ostrovskii’s Kak zakalialas′ stal′ (“How the Steel Was Tempered,” 1936) was also adapted as a six-part mini-series for television (dir. Nikolai Maschenko, 1976).

Post-Soviet Russia has produced the lengthy (10-episode) television series Kon′ belyi (“The White Horse,” dir. G. T. Riabov, 1993), about the civil wars in Siberia; the spy drama Gibel′ imperi (“Death of an Empire,” dir. V. I. Khotinenko, 2005); the harrowing Chekist (dir. A. V. Rogozhkin, 1992); an 11-part TV adaptation of Doktor Zhivago (dir. A. A. Proshkin, 2006); and what was reported to be the most expensive feature film ever produced in Russia, Admiral′ (“The Admiral,” dir. Andrei Kravchuk, 2008), which is about Admiral A. V. Kolchak—or rather, about his love life. (The expanded version of Admiral′ was superior; it appeared in Russia as a 10-part TV mini-series of the same name in October–November 2009.) Also of note is Zhila-byla odna baba (“Once Upon a Time There Lived a Simple Woman,” dir. A. S. Smirnov, 2011), which includes interesting coverage of the Antonovshchina. A seven-part English-language version of And Quiet Flows the Don, from the Sholokhov novel, was directed by the famous Soviet-era director S. F. Bondarchuk; filming took place chiefly in 1992, but following Bondarchuk’s death in 1994, the stock was impounded by the film’s financiers until 2006, when, legal wrangles having been settled, it was edited and completed by the director’s son, F. S. Bondarchuk. Gospoda offitsery: Spasti imperatora (“Gentleman Officers, Save the Emperor!,” dir. A. A. Riazntsev and Iu. Obukhov, 2008) was a shallow drama about a royalist scheme to rescue Nicholas II and his family from imprisonment at Ekaterinburg in 1918. Finally, a seven-part TV dramatization of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The White Guard (dir. Sergei Snezhkin) was screened in Russia in March 2012.

In independent Latvia there appeared Rigas Sargi (“Defenders of Riga,” dir. Aigars Grauba, 2007), which focuses on the Latvian War of Independence, in particular the nationalists’ battles of November 1919 against the Western Volunteer Army of General P. R. Bermondt-Avalov. Post-Soviet Poland, meanwhile, has contributed (in 3D) the biased but visually impressive patriotic epic 1920 Bitwa Warszawska (“The Battle of Warsaw, 1920,” dir. Jerzy Hoffman, 2011), about the Soviet–Polish War. From newly independent Belarus there earlier appeared the war film Na Chornikh Liadakh (dir. V. D. Ponomarev, 1995), based on tales by V. V. Bykhov.

The English-speaking world produced several feature films that focused on the civil wars in Russia. Most are now chiefly forgotten, such as the melodrama Knight without Armour (dir. Jacques Feyder, 1937), from a novel by James Hilton and starring Marlene Dietrich. Only two more recent efforts have retained some popular resonance: Doctor Zhivago (dir. David Lean, 1965), from the novel by Boris Pasternak, and Reds (dir. Warren Beatty, 1981), which concentrates on the activities of the American journalist John Reed. Although both attracted huge audiences (and are regularly recycled on television, neither is of particular interest to the historian. Slightly better was the popular British television series Reilly, Ace of Spies (dir. Martin Campbell, 1983), which dealt with the career of Sydney Reilly. Better again was the 1982 BBC production of Mihail Bulgakov’s The White Guard (adapted for the screen by Misha Glenny). The surreal Canadian comedy-drama Archangel (dir. Guy Maddin, 1990) was set in North Russia during the civil wars and intervention, but was not deeply concerned with the history of that era.

Other Soviet feature films that are set during the civil wars, but rarely focus on it as a historical event, are Banda bat′ki Knysha (“Old Man Knysha’s Band,” dir. A. E. Razumnyi, 1924); Volochaevskie dni (“Volochaevsk Days,” also known as “The Defense of Volotchayevsk,” dir. G. N. and S. D. Vasil′ev, 1937); Vyborgskaia storona (“The Vyborg Side,” also known as “New Horizons,” part 3 of the “Maksim” trilogy, dir. G. M. Kozintsev and L. Z. Trauberg, 1938); Neobyknovennoe leto (“No Ordinary Summer,” dir. V. P. Basov, 1957); Shtorm (“The Storm,” dir. M. I. Dubson, 1957); Vosemnadtsatyi god (“The Year 1918,” dir. G. L. Roshal′, 1958); Zhestokost′ (“Cruelty,” dir. V. N. Skuibin, 1959); Zolotoi eshelon (“The Gold Train,” dir. I. Ia. Gurin, 1959); Mandat (“The Warrant,” dir. N. I. Lebedev, 1963); Optimisticheskaia tragediia (“An Optimistic Tragedy,” dir. S. I. Samsonov, 1963); Sotrudnik ChK (“The Cheka’s Assistant,” dir. B. I. Volchek, 1963); Donskaia povest′ (“A Story from the Don,” dir. V. A. Fetin, 1965); Dvadtsat let spustia (“Twenty Years Later,” dir. A. I. Mansurova, 1965); Gadiuka (“The Viper,” dir. V. I. Ivchenko, 1965); Muzikanty odnogo polka (“The Regimental Band,” dir. P. P. Kadochnikov and G. S. Kazanskii, 1965); Na odnoi planete (“On a Certain Planet,” dir. I. S. Olshanger, 1965); Ballada o kommissare (“Ballad of a Commissar,” dir. A. V. Surin, 1967); Virineia (“Virineia,” dir. V. A. Petin, 1968); Belyi flioger (“The White Standard,” dir. David Koncharian, 1969); Vsadniki revoliutsii (“Knights of the Revolution,” dir. V. A. Petin, 1969); Vzryv posle polunochi (“Explosion after Midnight,” dir. S. A. Kevorkov and Erasm Melk-Karamian, 1969); Vstrecha u staroi mecheti (“Meeting at the Old Mosque,” dir. Sukhbat Khamidov, 1969); Liubov′ Iarovaia (dir. V. A. Fetin, 1970); Saliut Mariia (“Salute Maria,” dir. Iosif Heifetz, 1970); Dostoianie respubliki (“Property of the Republic,” dir. V. S. Bychkov, 1971); Doverie (“Trust,” dir. V. I. Tregubovich, 1975); Ishchi vetra . . . (“Seek the Wind,” dir. V. P. Liudomudrov, 1978); Zabud′te slovo “smert′” (“Forget the Word ‘Death,’” dir. S.V . Gasparov, 1979); Khleb, zoloto, nagan (“Bread, Gold, Gun,” dir. S. V. Gasparov, 1980); Smotri v oba! (“Keep Your Eyes Peeled!,” dir. V. Iu. Martynov and E. M. Upazbaev, 1981); and Berega v Tumane (“Misty Shores,” dir. Iu. Iu. Kasarik, 1985).

FINLAND, KINGDOM OF. In the wake of the declaration of Finnish independence from Russia (6/17 December 1917) and during the ensuing Finnish Civil War, debate arose about the possibility of establishing a monarchy in the Grand Duchy. Following the victory (with German assistance) of the Finnish Whites in the civil war and the exclusion of the Finnish social democrats from the country’s parliament (the Eduskunta), Prince Frederick of Hesse, brother-in-law of Kaiser Wilhelm II, was elected to the throne on 9 October 1918, as Charles I, King of Finland, Duke of Åland, Grand Prince of Lapland, Lord of Kaleva and the North. (Earlier in 1918, both the Lithuanian Taryba and the United Baltic Duchy had also offered thrones to German princes.) After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, Frederick renounced the throne on 14 December 1918, and on 17 July 1919, Finland adopted a republican constitution.

FINNISH CIVIL WAR. This conflict, which lasted from around 21 January (new style) to 15 May 1918, was closely entwined with the events of the emergent “Russian” Civil Wars and was remarkable for the fact that more combatants and civilians perished in it as a consequence of political terror than died in action. The war was fought between forces loyal to the Social Democratic Party of Finland and supportive of the Finnish Socialist Workers’ Republic (usually referred to as the “Reds”) and conservative forces (usually termed the “Whites” or the “White Finns”). The former received some moral and material support from Soviet Russia; the latter received significant armed assistance from the Central Powers.

The war had its roots in the collapse of order in the former Grand Duchy of Finland following the February Revolution and the organization of contending Red Guards and White Guards units on the streets, as the now autonomous Finnish Senate remained deadlocked between Left and Right, although the social democrats gained a majority in the Diet (parliament). The country was also experiencing grave social tensions, as a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization before and during the First World War was followed by economic collapse in 1917, with attendant hunger and a surge in unemployment and strikes. Following new parliamentary elections in October 1917, conservative forces took control of the Diet, provoking a general strike the following month (during which V. I. Lenin urged the mostly reluctant Finnish social democrats to seize power). This led to numerous armed clashes in the towns and cities of southern Finland and served as the prelude to a full-scale civil war. Meanwhile, on 6 December 1917 (old style), the Senate (led by Pehr Evind Svinhufvud) proposed declaring Finnish independence in order to minimize interference in Finland by Soviet Russia. Finnish independence was recognized by Sovnarkom on 18 December 1917, with the false expectation that the Finnish social democrats would soon reassert their control. (The Soviet government’s debates of that day are examined in the feature film Doverie [“Trust,” dir. V. I. Tregubovich, 1975].)

Tensions deepened in January 1918, as the White Guards, now commanded by the former tsarist commander General C. G. E. Mannerheim, were incorporated into a new Finnish White Army, based at Vaasa on the Gulf of Bothnia. The Red Guards, initially commanded by Ali Aaltonen (and subsequently by Eero Haapalainen, Eino Rahja, and Kullervo Manner) and based at Helsinki (Helsingfors), refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new force. Clashes occurred around Viipuri, in Karelia, on 17–20 January 1918, although the White order to engage was only issued on 25 January, and the Reds’ “Order of Revolution” was only issued on 26 January, thereby blurring the recognized starting date of the war.

Initially, the front ran in a line from just north of Pori and Tampere and Kouvola and Viipuri through Karelia to the Russian border. The Reds controlled the more industrialized and agriculturally prosperous south and the Whites the poorer north (as well as enclaves around Turku and to the east and west of Helsinki). Most fighting took place in the following weeks along the railways, with the Reds’ prime objective being to cut the Whites’ east–west rail connection, which they attempted to do north of Tampere during the Battle of Vilppula. Estimates of the number of forces serving on each side vary, but figures of around 50,000 during the early stages of the war to more than 90,000 at its peak are often quoted. The Reds were mostly volunteers from the industrial proletariat and agricultural laboring classes; the Whites attracted more landowners, independent farmers, and members of the bourgeoisie, but their army was numerically dominated by conscripted Finns of the lower classes. The latter mostly accepted mobilization as a means to survive during a period of economic chaos, but many also feared that the Reds would abandon Finnish independence and unite with Soviet Russia, which the White leadership portrayed as the Reds’ puppet-master. (Finland had been subjected to increasingly intense Russification of its administration since the 1890s, and anti-Russian feeling was running high.)

In fact, Soviet interference in the conflict was not very significant; although there were more than 60,000 Russian forces in Finland at the outbreak of the war, most refused to become involved (only some 7,000 joined the Reds, and fewer than 4,000 saw service at the front), and by late March 1918 most had returned to Russia (the sailors as part of the Ice March of the Baltic Fleet). Moreover, Article IV of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 3 March 1918 obliged Soviet Russia to withdraw its troops from Finland and to cease agitation and interference within the country. It is also worth noting that, as Finns had been exempt from conscription into the tsarist army, there were no Bolshevized frontoviki returning home to add metal to the Red cause. In contrast, the Whites enjoyed the advantage of the large number of former tsarist officers serving in their ranks (as well as nearly 100 Swedish officer volunteers and 1,000 more Swedish other ranks) and the 1,300-strong elite Jäger force that had been trained in Germany since 1915 and had seen action on the Eastern Front. The latter formed the shock troops of the White Finns and facilitated the training of other forces.

Once peace terms had been secured with Soviet Russia, imperial Germany also aided the White Finns. On 5 March 1918, just two days after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a German naval squadron landed on the Åland Islands; on 3 April 1918, the 10,000-strong Baltic Sea Division led by Rüdiger von der Goltz landed west of Helsinki at Hangö (Hanko); and on 7 April 1918 the 3,000-strong Brandenstein Detachment landed on the southeast coast and overran the town of Loviisa. German forces then closed on Helsinki, which fell to them on 12–13 April 1918, before moving north to capture Hyvinkää and Riihimäki on 21–22 April, followed by Hämeenlinna on 26 April 1918. In these circumstances, the untrained, ill-disciplined, and poorly led Reds suffered a series of crushing defeats by the Whites, notably surrendering Tampere, following street battles in and around that town from 28 March to 6 April 1918, and Viipuri on 29 April 1918. Most of the Red leadership (the so-called People’s Delegation of Finland) had fled Helsinki on 25 April, making their way to Petrograd via Viipuri, while the few remaining Red forces retreated into southwest Finland, where their last redoubts fell by 5 May 1918. Other Red enclaves in Karelia were mopped up by 14–15 May, and the White leadership celebrated its victory with a parade in Helsinki on 16 May 1918.

According to figures produced by the Finnish National Archives, during the course of the war 5,199 Reds and 3,414 Whites were killed in action, 7,370 Reds and 1,424 Whites were executed, and 11,652 Reds and 4 Whites died in prison camps. The very large number of casualties that fell victim to political terror on both sides or to neglect in White prison camps in the months following the war created a legacy of bitterness and division in Finnish society that took many decades to subside. (Negative memories were not salved by the fact that the White Guard retained a semiofficial military and political existence until it was finally disbanded, on Soviet insistence, in 1944.) Meanwhile, the White victors’ reliance on Germany, formalized by a proposed military alliance in the summer of 1918 and the Finnish Senate’s invitation on 9 October 1918 to Prince Frederick of Hesse (brother-in-law of Emperor Wilhelm II) to reign over a Kingdom of Finland, damaged the country’s relations with the Allies following Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Consequently, both political and economic reconstruction proved problematic.

Unsurprisingly, the Finnish Civil War subsequently became the subject of numerous fictional treatments; among recent works can be cited Kjell Westö’s epic novel Där vi en gång gått (“Where We Once Went,” 2006) and the feature film Käsky (“Tears of April,” dir. Aku Louhimies, 2008). The country also boasts many memorials to the fallen, although the Whites are distinctly better served in this regard than the Reds. A prominent example is the Statue of Freedom erected in 1938 in Vaasa’s central square.

FINNISH SOCIALIST WORKERS’ REPUBLIC. This short-lived polity, with its capital at Helsinki (Helsingfors), existed from late 1917 until the outbreak of the Finnish Civil War (although it did not assume the name until the issuance of a decree by the People’s Convention of Helsinki on 28 January 1918). The independence of Finland was officially recognized by Soviet Russia on 18 December 1917, and a treaty of friendship between the two states was signed at Petrograd on 1 March 1918, but the Republic, the armed forces of which were commanded by Ali Aaltonen, only ever established meaningful control over the southern reaches of the former Grand Duchy of Finland and had entirely collapsed by the end of April 1918, as the Finnish Whites emerged victorious in the civil war. The Republic’s program and draft constitution were authored by Otto Ville Kuusinen in line with social-democratic principles.

1ST ARMY. This White force was created around Tiumen′ on 22 July 1919, following the collapse of the spring offensive of the Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak. It was constructed from elements of the northern group of the former Siberian Army (namely the 1st Mid-Siberian Corps, the 7th and 16th Siberian and the 15th Votkinsk Rifle Divisions, the 17th Independent Siberian Rifle Detachment, and other smaller units) and, with an initial complement of 44,000 men, would henceforth constitute one of the mainstays of Kolchak’s newly reorganized Eastern Front.

Under continued pressure from the advancing Eastern Front of the Red Army, the 1st Army retreated across Western Siberia during the summer of 1919; in November of that year, following a series of defeats on the Tobol′ River and at Novonikolaevsk, it was withdrawn from the front and stationed near Tomsk to await reinforcement and reformation. As Kolchak’s regime collapsed, however, a number of revolts broke out in the 1st Army, and by December 1919 it had for all intents and purposes ceased to exist as an organized force. Only some 600 of its men remained loyal, and they were merged with elements of the 2nd Army as the Great Siberian (Ice) March began. The remnants of that group arrived at Chita on 11 March 1920 and joined the Far Eastern (White) Army of Ataman A. G. Semenov.

The commander of the 1st Army was General A. N. Pepeliaev (from 22 July 1919). Its chief of staff was Colonel K. L. Kononov (22 July–August 1919).

1ST CAVALRY ARMY. Known familiarly in Russian as the Konarmiia (literally “the Horse Army”), this force was one of the most formidable, feared, and celebrated of the civil-war era. It was created, on the orders of L. D. Trotsky (who coined the slogan “Proletarians, to Horse!”), on 19 November 1919 from the 4th, 6th, and 11th Cavalry Divisions (the former 1st Cavalry Corps). The Red Army had until then tended to despise cavalry; for the Bolsheviks, the cavalry (which had formed the elite of the Imperial Russian Army) was the symbol of counterrevolution and reaction, while many of their military specialists regarded cavalry as obsolete in the age of tanks, aircraft, armored trains, and the machine gun. Policy changed, however, in light of the effectiveness of White cavalry forces during the advance of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) over the summer and autumn of 1919, particularly during the Mamontov raid. By early 1920, the 1st Cavalry Army had 15,000 horsemen (many of them Red Cossacks, but also retrained workers and Red Army men), 19 guns, 238 machine guns, and 8 armored trains. Its commander throughout the most active period of the civil wars (19 November 1919–26 October 1923) was S. M. Budennyi. He was advised by his political commissar, K. E. Voroshilov.

The force participated prominently in the destruction of the AFSR over the winter of 1919–1920 (seeing action in battles before Voronezh, across the Donbass, and around Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, and Novocherkassk, in collaboration with the 13th Red Army and the 8th Red Army), before being transferred to the South–West Front during the Soviet–Polish War. During the latter action, it helped expel Polish forces from Kiev in June 1920, but became bogged down around Lwów in July–August of that year and failed to come to the assistance of Red forces farther north during the Battle of Warsaw, thereby contributing significantly to the Red defeat. Despite its numerical and technical superiority over its Polish opponents, the Konarmiia itself subsequently suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Komarów (31 August 1920), the largest cavalry battle since 1813 and the last great cavalry battle in history. Routed, Budennyi managed to break through the Polish lines and escape with most of his men, but as many as 4,000 of them may have perished. Leaving Poland, the demoralized force engaged in pogroms and indiscriminate violence against the civilian population in a fashion and to an extent even more brutal than they had during their advance (as immortalized in the collection of short stories, known in English as Red Cavalry, by the author Isaak Babel). Subsequently, the 1st Cavalry Army played a leading role in the capture of Crimea from the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel in October–November 1920 and then participated in operations in Ukraine against the Insurgent Army of Nestor Makhno and in the North Caucasus against White partisans, before moving on to see action (albeit in a significantly smaller formation and with a new admixture of seasoned political commissars to ensure discipline) in Siberia, Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria, and even Kamchatka. Its final combat operation was the conquest of the Chukchi Peninsula in September 1924. Apart from Budennyi, two of the most senior Red Army commanders of the Second World War also had long associations with the Konarmiia: S. K. Timoshenko and G. K. Zhukov. An impressive monument to the 1st Cavalry Army still stands near L′viv (Lwów) in Ukraine, while the force was also commemorated in the USSR on many postage stamps and in innumerable, films, songs, and other artworks; notably, Babel’s anarchic portrait of the force was answered by V. V. Vishnevskii’s eulogistic version in a 1929 play that bore its name. There still exists a Memorial Museum of the 1st Cavalry Army at Velikomikhailovka, Novoskol′skogoa raion, Belgorod oblast′, in the Russian Federation.

FIRST KUBAN (ICE) MARCH. The Ice March (Lednoi pokhod), or First Kuban Campaign (Pervyi kubanskoi pokhod), was a strategic military withdrawal undertaken by the newly formed Volunteer Army. The march lasted from 9 February to 12 May 1918. It assumed legendary status among the Whites, and those who undertook and survived it, the Pervopokhodniki, were revered as heroes, while those who died were regarded as martyrs to the White cause.

Having sought safe haven among the Don Cossack Host in November–December 1917, believing that the Don territory was a promising base from which to organize an assault on the Soviet government, the leaders of the Volunteers, Generals L. G. Kornilov and M. V. Alekseev, were disappointed by the Cossacks’ inability and unwillingness to mount resistance as Red Guards began advancing into the Don territory in January–February 1918. When Rostov-on-Don fell to Red forces commanded by R. F. Sivers on 22 February 1918, Kornilov decided that evacuation was the only option, and the Volunteers set off to the south, on foot, into the open steppe of the Kuban, in deepest winter. (Original plans to head south by rail were abandoned when a strong Red force under A. I. Avtonomov captured Bataisk on 14 February 1918.) At this point the Volunteers numbered 3,423 (including 36 generals, and 2,320 other officers), organized into three regiments: the Independent Officers’ (General S. F. Markov) Regiment, the Kornilov (Shock) Regiment, and the Partisan Regiment. They had eight pieces of artillery and were accompanied by several hundred civilians.

The aim of the march was to reach Ekaterinodar, the capital of the Kuban Cossack Host, but that city was captured by Red forces (the South-Eastern Revolutionary Army) on 14 March 1918 and became the base of the Kuban Soviet Republic. Fighting numerous bloody rearguard actions against pursuing Red forces (of vastly superior numbers), as they marched first southeast then southwest into the Kuban, the Volunteers’ numbers were shrinking. However, on 17 March 1918 they united with Kuban Cossack forces at the Novodmitrievsk stanitsa, raising their complement to 6,000. General Kornilov then decided to launch an assault on Ekaterinodar. The attack began on 10 April 1918 and met with fierce resistance from the Reds. On 13 April 1918, Kornilov was killed when a shell destroyed his farmhouse headquarters. His successor as commander, General A. I. Denikin, immediately decided to abandon the siege and led the Volunteers north, back into the steppe. Meanwhile, in the Don region, the Cossacks had overthrown Soviet power in Novocherkassk and, on 11 May 1918, proclaimed an independent Cossack state, the Don Republic. The following day the Volunteers arrived in the southern reaches of the now liberated Don territory, bringing an end to the Ice March.

The Pervopokhodniki, having traversed 1,050 miles in 70 days (and having fought 33 battles over 44 days en route), were rewarded with military decorations, including the coveted campaign medal featuring a sword on a crown of thorns. The campaign had failed to achieve its aims—a base of operations in Kuban had not been secured, and the Volunteers’ presence had not inspired a widespread anti-Bolshevik uprising in the Kuban—but despite this and the losses suffered (at least 400 dead and 1,500 wounded), the Volunteer Army had been preserved as a battleworthy force and as the organizational center of the White movement in South Russia. It had also forged the foundational myth of the White movement.

1ST RED ARMY. This appellation described two separate Red Army formations that existed during the civil wars.

The first 1st Red Army was created in March 1918, around Birzula (now Kotovsk), Odessa guberniia, to oppose the forces of the Austro-German intervention. By April 1918, it contained some 30,000 men and was engaged in action against the interventionists before Odessa, later falling back toward Iuzovka and Mariupol′ and then withdrawing to Taganrog and Rostov-on-Don before being disestablished. Among its commanders was P. V. Egorov.

The second (and more substantial) 1st Red Army was created on 19 June 1918, according to an order of the commander of the Eastern Front, from various volunteer forces and Red Guards detachments then engaged in action in the Volga region against the People’s Army of Komuch and the Czechoslovak Legion. During the subsequent offensive of the Red Army, it captured Simbirsk, Syzran′, Samara, and Sterlitamak (September–December 1918). It remained with the southern group of forces of the Eastern Front until 15 August 1919, battling the Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak and capturing Orenburg (January 1919) from the forces of the Orenburg Cossack Host, before being transferred to the Turkestan Front, where it drove back Kolchak’s Southern Army into Central Asia. On 13 September 1919, the 1st Red Army was incorporated into the forces of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, going on to help establish the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic and the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic and being involved in the early stages of the struggle with the Basmachi. The 1st Red Army was disbanded in January 1921. Among forces incorporated into the 1st Red Army were the 1st Turkestan Rifle Division (November 1919–June 1920), the Penza (from March 1919, the 20th) Rifle Division (June 1918–October 1919), the 25th Rifle Division (January–March 1919), the 24th Rifle Division (July 1918–May 1919 and August–December 1919), the 49th Rifle Division (June–November 1919), the Volga Infantry Division (August–September 1918 and October 1918), the Inzensk Revolutionary Division (June–December 1918), the Orenburg Rifle Division (February–March 1919), the 1st Turkestan Cavalry Division (September–November 1920), and the 3rd Turkestan Cavalry Division (July 1919–October 1920). The army’s commanders were A. I. Kharchenko (19–28 June 1920), who deserted to the Whites; M. N. Tukhachevskii (28 June 1918–4 January 1919); G. D. Gai (4 January–25 May 1919); G. V. Zinov′ev (25 May 1919–12 November 1920); P. A. Zakharov (acting, 12 November–4 December 1920); and I. F. Blazhevich (4 December 1920–4 January 1921). Its chiefs of staff were R. Shumunich (16 June–11 July 1918); I. N. Zakharov (11 July–15 August 1918); N. I. Koritskii (15 August–28 November 1918); F. P. Shafalovich (28 November 1918–9 September 1920); P. A. Zakharov (9 September 1920–12 November 1920 and 4 December 1920–27 January 1921); and V. P. Kulikov (acting, 12 November–4 December 1920).

1ST UKRAINIAN SOVIET ARMY. This Red military formation was created from forces on the Ukrainian Front on 15 April 1919 (on the basis of a decree of the Revvoensovet of the Ukrainian Front of 24 March 1919). It included the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Divisions, the 3rd Border Division, the 1st Independent Cavalry Brigade, and the Independent Bessarabian Brigade. The force was engaged in battles with the Ukrainian Army west of Kiev and by late May 1919 had captured Rovno (Rivne) and Dubno and occupied much of northwestern Ukraine. In May 1919, it was also engaged in battles with the forces of Nykyfor Hryhoriiv. On 25 June 1919, the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Army was redubbed the 12th Red Army and attached to the Western Front.

Commanders of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Army were S. K. Matsiletskii (15 April–27 May 1919) and I. N. Dubovoi (acting, 27 May–25 June 1919). Its chiefs of staff were I. N. Dubovoi (15 April–26 May 1919) and V. A. Kuprianov (26 May–25 June 1919).

FLAGS. The official flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was first determined by a VTsIK decree of 8 April 1918, as a red banner inscribed with the words “Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.” By the Constitution of the RSFSR of 10 July 1918, this was modified to a red rectangle (with a ratio of 5:8), with, in gold lettering, the abbreviation “RSFSR,” stylized to the point of abstraction (after a design by S. V. Chekhonin) in its honor canton (top left corner). VTsIK adopted a new flag on 12 November 1923, upon the formation of the USSR (subsequently enshrined in Article 71 of the Union’s Constitution in 1924); it was again red, but with a hammer and sickle in gold beneath the gold outline of a red star in the honor canton. The association of the color red with revolution had roots in the 19th century (not least in the standard of the Paris Commune), although red flags were first flown on 10 August 1792, in the early stages of the French Revolution, as a sign that martial law and a curfew were in operation. However, it had particular resonance in Russia, where the word “red” (krasnyi) has linguistic associations with other positive notions, such as “beautiful” (krasivyi) and “excellent” (prekrasnyi), and red flags, badges, cockades, and so forth had abounded during the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. (In the early years of the 20th century the term “the red cockerel is loose” had also become common in Russia, in reference to peasant arsonist attacks on landlords’ properties.)

The Whites tended to use the traditional tsarist tricolor (with horizontal fields of white, blue, and red), which did them few favors as it aroused suspicions that they were intent upon a monarchist restoration. (It is worth noting here that a white flag had been used by the counterrevolutionary insurgents of the Vendée in 1793 and had thereafter been associated with the royalist cause in France.)

Myriad other flags were flown by contending political and nationalist forces in the course of the civil wars, including the black flag of anarchism favored by the Revolutionary-Insurgent Army of Ukraine (which, legend has it, was often manufactured from the cassocks of executed priests) and the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag (originally with a trident in its honor canton), symbolizing the sky and fields of wheat, that was used by successive regimes at Kiev. Similarly, varieties of green and white flags, symbolizing the regions’ snow and the forest (taiga), were adopted by regimes across Siberia and the Far East during the “Russian” Civil Wars.

FLORYNKA REPUBLIC. Established on 5 December 1918, at a congress at Florynka attended by 500 delegates representing 130 western Lemko villages, this polity claimed to represent the Lemko peoples living in Eastern Galicia (Western Ukraine) and sought to unite Carpatho-Rusyns on both sides of the mountains, as both the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires collapsed. It initially hoped to join a federative and democratic Russian state (in contrast to the Komańcza Republic, which sought unity with a separate and independent Ukraine), but when that proved impossible it sought union with Carpathian Ruthenia as an autonomous province of the new state of Czechoslovakia. In February 1919, however, Polish forces occupied the region, and the republic’s executive council (led by the Greek Catholic priest Mykhail Iuchakevych and Jaroslav Kacmarcyk), also called the Rusyn National Council (Ruska Rada), was arrested. Its members were subsequently acquitted of charges of anti-Polish agitation, and the Republic endured until January 1921, when it was fully absorbed into the Małopolska (Lesser Poland) voivodship, an act recognized by Soviet Russia in the Treaty of Riga (18 March 1921) and subsequently (in 1923) by the Allied Conference of Ambassadors in Paris.

FLOTILLA OF THE NORTHERN (ARCTIC) OCEAN. See NORTHERN (ARCTIC) OCEAN, FLOTILLA OF THE.

Flug, Vasilii Egorovich (19 March 1860–3 December 1955). Colonel (9 April 1900), major general (27 August 1903), lieutenant general (6 December 1908), general of infantry (August 1914). One of the few White officers to have been active in both Siberia and South Russia, V. E. Flug was born in St. Petersburg and was a graduate of the Mikhail Artillery School and the Academy of the General Staff (1890). His early career was spent as a staff officer in the Far East. During the Russo–Japanese War he rose to quartermaster general of the 2nd Manchurian Army (September 1905). He then served as military governor of the Maritime Province (21 September 1905–19 November 1909) and from 1912 was assistant governor-general of Turkestan and commander of forces of the Turkestan Military District. During the First World War, he commanded the 10th Army (from September 1914); the 2nd Army Corps of the 1st Army (from January 1915); the 7th Army (from October 1915), with which he masterminded the capture of Zbarazh (Zbaraż) during the Brusilov Offensive; and the 9th Army (from October 1916), before being placed on the reserve list by the Russian Provisional Government in March 1917.

Flug enlisted in the Volunteer Army upon its formation in December 1917 and in February 1918 was dispatched by General M. V. Alekseev on a secret mission to Siberia, where he helped organize and unite underground officer organizations at Omsk, Petropavlovsk, Tomsk, and Irkutsk. In June 1918, he entered the Business Cabinet of General D. L. Khorvat at Harbin, later becoming minister of war in Khorvat’s putative “All-Russian Government,” the Far Eastern Committee (July–September 1918). After negotiations with Admiral A. V. Kolchak at Omsk in December 1918, he returned by sea to South Russia (arriving in May 1919), to work for General A. I. Denikin on a special commission to inspect all governmental institutions in the rear of the Armed Forces of South Russia and to send to the front any officers he found sheltering in them. In September 1919, Flug was made assistant commander of the forces of Kiev guberniia. As Red forces swept into Ukraine in November 1919, he retreated with the White armies into Crimea, where he was subsequently placed on the reserve list of the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel.

Flug emigrated in November 1920, settling in Yugoslavia, where he was employed by a branch of Belgrade’s ministry of war at Varaždin and worked for ROVS (becoming chairman of its 4th [Yugoslav] Department in 1930). In 1944, he joined the 4th Regiment of the pro-Axis Russian Defense Corps, as a translator. Wounded in battle, he was evacuated to Austria, where he remained until February 1947, when he emigrated to the United States. There, he was an active member of the Society of Russian Veterans of the Great War in San Francisco, publishing numerous studies of the First World War.

FOOD ARMY. The Food Army (Prodarmiia) of the People’s Commissariat for Food Supplies of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, one of the central features of War Communism, had its origins in the food requisitioning detachments, made up of volunteer workers, soldiers, and sailors, that were being sent out into the Russian countryside by the Soviet authorities from as early as November 1917 (notably those organized by the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet) and was formalized by a VTsIK decree of 27 May 1918. As the food situation became more desperate in Soviet Russia following the loss of the Volga region and Western Siberia (in the wake of the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion), food—and not just surplus food—was taken by ever more violent means, sometimes in collaboration with the kombedy (whose members would be rewarded for betraying their fellow villagers), although food detachments (organized by local soviets or factories) might also help with gathering in the harvest and with transportation. As a rule of thumb, food detachments would keep half of any grain and other agricultural produce that they extracted from the villages and dispatch the other half to the central authorities.

It is estimated that the Food Army mustered 42,000 men by November 1918 and peaked at over 60,000 in early 1920. By that date, its activities were causing serious hardship in many regions and had given rise to armed resistance among the peasantry, notably during the Tambov Rebellion. With the introduction of the NEP in 1921, the Food Army was demobilized.

Forces of Internal Security of the Republic. See VOKHR.

FORCES OF SPECIAL PURPOSE. See CHON.

FOREST GUERRILLAS. The Forest Guerrillas, or (in Finnish) the Metsäsissit, were an anti-Bolshevik force consisting of Finnish and Finnic partisans from the Karelian districts of Repola (Rebolovo) and Porajärvi (Porosozero), as well as some Russian Whites stranded in that region. It was formed, during the East Karelian uprising, following the granting to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of sovereignty over those districts, under the territorial terms of the Treaty of Tartu (14 October 1920). The force reached a strength of at least 2,000 fighters in the course of 1921, as it gained control over large swaths of the forests of Karelia. By 1922, however, Soviet forces had prevailed, and the remnants of the Forest Guerrillas were driven across the border into Finland.

FORTUNATOV, BORIS KONSTANTINOVICH (24 January 1886–193?). Coronet (1918), ensign (1918). A key figure in the Democratic Counter-Revolution of 1918, later a leading Red and White guerrilla fighter, and later yet a renowned zoologist, B. K. Fortunatov was born into a noble family at Smolensk (his father was a state councilor) and was a graduate of the Natural Sciences Department of the University of Moscow (1912) and the Imperial Higher Technical School (1915). He joined the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (PSR) in 1902 and was active during the 1905 Revolution as an organizer of railway strikes around Moscow. He was twice wounded and five times arrested during the events of that time and lived in exile abroad from 1907 to 1909. In 1917, he was a member of the PSR Petrograd Committee and was elected to the Constituent Assembly.

Following the dispersal of the Assembly, Fortunatov moved to the Volga region and worked with anti-Bolshevik underground officer organizations at Samara (notably that of N. A. Galkin). In June 1918, he played a leading role in the armed rising against Soviet power at Samara and in the establishment of Komuch. He subsequently was placed on the staff of the People’s Army, but spent most of his time at the front during the summer of 1918, as the very effective commander of the Volga Jewish Cavalry Division, with which he participated in the capture of Kazan′ (6–7 August 1918). Following the Omsk coup of 18 November 1918, unlike many of his SR colleagues in the region, Fortunatov was able to evade arrest by the Whites (apparently because he enjoyed the favor and protection of his commander, V. O. Kappel′). He remained with Kappel′’s forces until August 1919, when, rather than retreat eastward into Siberia with the rest of the Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, he led his 1st Volga Partisan Detachment south along the River Tobol′ with the aim of making his way to the Volga region in order to commence partisan operations in the rear of the Reds and on home territory. However, Fortunatov was unable to break through to the Volga region. Instead, in October 1919, following a 2,000-mile march, he and his men united with the remnants of the White Urals Army at Gur′ev, on the northern shores of the Caspian Sea. Under pressure from the Reds, in January 1920 the joint force began a murderous winter march southward to Fort Aleksandrovsk, with the aim of obtaining a passage across the Caspian to join the Armed Forces of South Russia in the North Caucasus. By February 1920, only 20 of the 150 or so fighters in Fortunatov’s band remained alive. This group then made the passage across the Caspian to join the remains of the White forces of General A. I. Denikin, but at this point Fortunatov decided to join the Reds.

He subsequently served in the 1st Cavalry Army, as a regimental commander according to some sources. In August 1920 he was in Kherson guberniia, where he applied for and was granted permission to take over the running of the Aksiniia-Nova nature reserve. He subsequently resurrected the reserve, which had been ruined by the civil wars, and devoted himself to zoological work—a particularly noteworthy achievement was the reintroduction of bison to Aksiniia-Nova while he was serving as the institution’s director from 1925 to 1928—as well as to the writing of several science fiction novels. Fortunatov was arrested in 1933, and on 24 February 1934 was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for “counterrevolutionary activities” and sent to a camp near Kazagrandi in Kazakhstan. He obtained an early release (on 29 May 1936), but opted to remain in the Karlag camp region as a worker. He apparently died in a camp hospital some time later.

Fostikov, Mikhail Arkhipovich (25 August 1886–29 July 1966). Colonel (June 1918), major general (December 1919), lieutenant general (October 1920). One of the most energetic Cossack officers in the White forces in South Russia, M. A. Fostikov was born at Batalpashinsk stanitsa, the son of an officer of the Kuban Cossack Host. He was a graduate of the Moscow Alexander Military School (1907) and the Academy of the General Staff (1917) and during the First World War served as a junior officer in the 1st Labinsk Cossack Regiment on the Caucasus Front (1914–1916) before being sent to study at the Academy.

Fostikov returned to the Kuban following the October Revolution and became active in the White movement at Stavropol′, where in the summer of 1918 he formed (and then led) the 1st Kuban Cossack Regiment of General A. G. Shkuro’s partisan detachment (May 1918–July 1919). After uniting with the Volunteer Army, his detachment was incorporated into the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division of General S. G. Ulagai (July–September 1919). Then, around Tsaritsyn, Fostikov was made commander of the Kuban Mounted Brigade and the 1st Kuban Regiment of Shkuro’s Kuban Corps (September–December 1919), before being assigned to the command of the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division (December 1919–February 1920). Severely wounded in February 1920 in the battle for Krasnaia Poliana (Stavropol′ guberniia), he became separated from the Kuban Army but was conveyed by his Cossacks to the North Caucasus town of Batalpashinsk (Cherkessk). Unable to reach Novorossiisk to be evacuated, he then formed the White partisan People’s Army for the Regeneration of Russia in the North Caucasus (May 1920), operating in the rear of Red forces during the abortive landing of Kuban Cossacks under General Ulagai on the Taman Peninsula (14 August–7 September 1920). Suffering defeat by the Reds, Fostikov then led his 2,000-strong unit into the Democratic Republic of Georgia, where they were briefly interned before being evacuated to Feodosiia, Crimea, to join the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel (22–23 September 1920). In Crimea, Fostikov commanded an independent Kuban Cossack brigade, the Black Sea-Kuban Detachment (September–November 1920), battling against Red forces attempting to enter the peninsula across the Sivash marshes, before the evacuation of Wrangel’s army to Turkey.

He subsequently spent seven months in the camps on Lemnos (as commander of the Kuban Corps, into which all remaining Kuban Cossack units had been incorporated), before in June 1921 emigrating to Yugoslavia, where he worked for many years as a teacher. When Soviet forces entered the country in 1945, Fostikov was arrested and interrogated for three days, but was unexpectedly released. He died in a Belgrade hospital in 1966, and is buried at Stara Pazova in Serbia.

14TH RED ARMY. This Red Army formation was created, according to an order of the Revvoensovet of the Republic of 4 June 1919, on the basis of forces previously attached to the 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Army. It was attached to the Southern Front and subsequently (from 10 January 1920) to the South-West Front. Its complement included the 7th (September–November 1919), 7th Ukrainian (June–July 1919), 12th (November–December 1920), 24th (August–November 1920), 41st (July 1919–December 1920), 42nd (January 1920), 44th (April–May 1920 and June 1920), 45th (November 1919–March 1920, April–May 1920, June 1920 and August–December 1920), 46th (August 1919–January 1920), 47th (June–July and August–December 1920), 52nd (November–December 1919), 55th (November–December 1920), 57th (July–November 1919), 58th (July–August 1919 and December 1920), and 60th (August 1919 and February–December 1920) Rifle Divisions; the Latvian Riflemen (October 1919–March 1920); the Estonian Rifle Division (October 1919); and the 8th Cavalry Division (September–November 1919, May–July 1920 and August–October 1920). In addition, in June–July 1919 the Crimean Red Army was subordinated to the 14th Red Army.

From June 1919 onward, the 14th Red Army was engaged in defensive operations against the Armed Forces of South Russia in the Donbass and in battles against the Revolutionary-Insurgent Army of Ukraine around Ekaterinoslav and Poltava. It played a central role in the Red Army offensive from Orel to Kursk in October–November 1919 that repulsed the advance of the Whites, moving on to recapture Ekaterinoslav in December of that year. In February–March 1920, it spearheaded operations that led to the capture of Odessa, Tiraspol′, and right-bank Ukraine from the Whites. During the Soviet–Polish War, it was engaged in the failed attempt to capture Lwów (July–August 1919) and was subsequently involved in battles against the remnants of the Ukrainian Army around Proskurov and Kamenets-Podol′sk in November 1920, before being disestablished in January 1921.

Commanders of the 14th Red Army were K. E. Voroshilov (7 June–8 July 1919); S. I. Aralov (acting, 18–29 July 1919); A. I. Egorov (29 July–6 October 1919); I. P. Uborovich (6 October 1919–24 February 1920, 17 April–7 July 1920, and 15 November–15 December 1920); P. K. Marmuzov (25 February–17 April 1920); M. V. Molkochanov (8 July–27 September 1920); M. I. Vasilenko (27 September–15 November 1920); and I. E. Iakir (acting, 15 December 1920–6 January 1921). Its chiefs of staff were; S. O. Shkliar-Aleksiuk (7–22 June 1919); K. F. Monigetti (22 June–July 1919); P. K. Marmuzov (2–29 July 1919); N. P. Sapozhnikov (29 July–27 August 1919); V. M. Bukhman (acting, 27 August–6 October 1919); S. G. Sakvarelidze-Bezhanov (7–26 October 1919); V. I. Buimistrov (acting, 25 February–24 April 1920); S. F. Terpilovskii (acting, 24–30 April and 11 July–15 December 1920); M. V. Molkochanov (1 May–7 July 1920); and V. I. Stoikin (15 December 1920–1 January 1921).

Fourteen TURKESTAN COMMISSARS. This term denotes the 14 leading Bolsheviks who were captured and executed by anti-Soviet rebels during the Osipov Rebellion at Tashkent during the night of 18–19 January 1919. They were V. D. Votintsev (chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic); V. D. Figel′skii (chairman of the Turkestan Sovnarkom); D. P. Fomenko (chairman of the Turkestan Cheka); the commissars of the Turkestan Sovnarkom A. N. Malkov (internal affairs), A. Ia. Pershin (supply), and E. P. Dubitskii (ways and communications); N. V. Shumilov (chairman of the Tashkent Soviet); V. N. Finkel′shtein (deputy chairman of the Tashkent Soviet); S. P. Gordeev of the local Bolshevik city committee; M. S. Kachuriner (chairman of the Tashkent Trade Union Council); G. I. Lugin (assistant chief of security of Tashkent); M. N. Troitskii (editor of the newspaper Krasnoarmeets); A. V. Cherviakov (chairman of the military field-court of the Turkestan ASSR); and D. G. Shpil′kov (commander of the local Bolshevik militia). When Soviet power was restored in Tashkent on 26 January 1919, the bodies of the Fourteen Commissars (with the exception of Cherviakov, who was buried at Perovsk, now Kzyl-Orda) were buried in Aleksandrovsk (subsequently Kafanov) Park, near where they were executed. An obelisk and an eternal flame were placed above their communal grave in 1962, and a granite monument depicting all of the slain men was placed in the city’s Station Square (sculpted by D. B. Riabichev). In 1996 that monument was removed by the city authorities, and in 2000 the obelisk at their grave site was removed and their remains were reburied in a city cemetery.

4TH RED ARMY. This name was given to no less than four separate Red Army formations in the course of the civil wars.

The first 4th Red Army was created in March 1918, from Red Guards formations around Khar′kov, to defend that city against the advancing forces of the Austro-German intervention. The army disintegrated following the fall of Khar′kov to German and Ukrainian nationalist forces. Its commanders were V. I. Kikvidze (March 1918) and Iu. V. Sablin (March–April 1918).

The second 4th Red Army was created on 20 June 1918, according to the directives of the commander of the Eastern Front, from forces already operating under the name Special Army around Saratov and Ural′sk. It operated on the Eastern Front, latterly as part of the southern group of forces that then was transferred to the Turkestan Front (15 August 1919–18 April 1920). Among its constituent forces were the 1st Orlov Infantry Division (September 1919), the 25th Rifle Division (to 19 November 1918), the 1st Saratov Rifle Division (September 1918), the 50th Rifle Division (July–August 1918), the 22nd Rifle Division (to 25 March 1919), the Nikolaevsk Rifle Division (September 1918–September 1919), the 1st Samara Infantry Division (July 1918–January 1919, March–April 1919 and July 1919–May 1920), the 49th Rifle Division (December 1919), the Volga Infantry Division (September 1919), the Novouzensk Infantry Division (July–September 1918), the Urals Infantry Division (July–December 1918), the 2nd Turkestan Cavalry Division (February–April 1920), and the Moscow Cavalry Division (May–August 1918). Having seen action against the forces of Komuch (the People’s Army) and the Czechoslovak Legion over the summer of 1918, this 4th Red Army participated in the offensive of September–November 1918 that resulted in the Reds’ recapture of Kazan′ and Samara and in January 1919 helped capture Ural′sk from the Orenburg Cossack Host. In 1919, it was chiefly engaged in battles against the Orenburg Cossacks and forces of the Urals Cossack Host in the southern Urals. The force was disestablished on 23 April 1920, with its units distributed between the Trans-Volga Military District and the 2nd Revolutionary Labor Army. Its commanders were A. A. Rzhevskii (20 June–1 September 1918); T. S. Khvesin (10 September–5 November 1918); A. A. Baltiiskii (5 November 1918–31 January 1919); M. V. Frunze (31 January–4 May 1919); L. Ia Ugriumov (acting, 4–8 May 1919); K. A. Avksent′evskii (8 May–6 August 1919); V. S. Lazarevich (6 August–8 October 1919); and G. K. Voskanov (8 October 1919–23 April 1920). Its chiefs of staff were B. A. Burenin (27–31 July 1918); T. S. Khvesin (31 July–10 September 1918); Bulgakov (10–16 September 1918); V. L. Popov (17–19 September 1918); S. A. Mezheninov (19 September–11 October 1918); A. A. Baltiiskii (12 October–15 November 1918); A. S. Beloi (5 November 1918–31 January 1919); F. F. Novitskii (31 January–23 February 1919); V. S. Lazerevich (25 February–22 April 1919); L. Ia. Godzikovskii (22 April–8 May 1919); A. K. Anders (8 May 1919–6 January 1920); L. I. Lubov (6 January–25 February 1920); and V. I. Prebrazhenskii (acting, 25 February–23 April 1920).

The third 4th Red Army was created, by an order of the Revvoensovet of the Republic, on the Western Front on 11 June 1920, at the outbreak of the Soviet–Polish War, from the northern group of forces of the 15th Red Army. Among the forces that constituted this army were the 12th, 18th, 48th, 53rd, and 54th Rifle Divisions and the 3rd Cavalry Corps (all June–August 1920), as well as the 4th, 10th, 55th, and 57th Rifle Divisions and the 17th Cavalry (all September–October 1920). In July–August 1920, moving across the Western Dvina, this 4th Red Army captured Vil′no, Grodno, and other cities and continued to advance on Warsaw until 15 August 1920, when Polish forces turned it and forced it to retreat in disorder. On 26 August 1920, most of the 12th, 18th, 48th, 53rd, and 54th Rifle Divisions and the 3rd Cavalry Corps fled across the border into East Prussia, where they were interned. A new third 4th Army was then built from other divisions and undertook defensive operations against Poland and Belarussian nationalist formations in Belorussia (notably around Slutsk). On 18 October 1920, this 4th Red Army was disestablished, most of its units being incorporated alongside the former 13th Red Army into the new (fourth) 4th Red Army on the Southern Front. Commanders of the third 4th Red Army were E. N. Sergeev (18 June–31 July 1920); A. D. Shuvaev (acting; 31 July–17 October 1920); and N. E. Kakurin (acting; 17–22 October 1920). Its chiefs of staff were A. D. Shuvaev (acting, 18 June–31 July 1920); G. S. Gorchakov (31 July–30 August 1920); Vetvinskii (acting, 30 August–20 September 1920); S. A. Mezheninov (20 September–17 October 1920); and K. K. Shef (acting, 17–20 October 1920).

The fourth 4th Red Army was created on the Southern Front, on 12 November 1920, from forces of the third 4th Red Army and the 13th Red Army. Units attached to it included the 2nd Don Rifle Division (November 1920–January 1921); the 3rd (November 1920), 9th (November–December 1920), 23rd (October 1920–March 1921), 30th (October 1920–April 1921), 42nd (November 1920–March 1921), 46th (November 1920–March 1921), 51st (November 1920), and 52nd (November 1920) Rifle Divisions; the Latvian Riflemen (November 1920); the Independent Rifle Division (October–November 1920 and November 1920–January 1921); and the 3rd Cavalry Corps (November 1920 and December 1920–April 1921). This force was deployed in battles across the northern Tauride against the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel and participated in the storming of the Perekop isthmus and the invasion of Crimea in November 1920. It was disestablished on 25 March 1921, and its troops were shared between the Caucasian Front and the Khar′kov Military District. Commanders of this 4th Red Army were V. S. Lazerevich (22 October 1920–10 February 1921) and A. S. Beloi (11 February–25 March 1921). Its chiefs of staff were K. K. Shef (acting, 22 October–1 November 1920); A. D. Shuvaev (1–18 November 1920); V. Popovich (18 November 1920–12 January 1921); and A. I. Rozhkovskii (12 January–25 March 1921).

FREE COSSACKS. This term was used to denote the volunteer militia formations initially used to maintain law and order in 1917 but then put into the field by the Ukrainian Central Rada over the winter of 1917–1918 to defend the country against the Bolshevik invasion from the north. On 3–7 October 1917, an All-Ukrainian Congress of Free Cossacks was held at Chyhyryn (Chigirin); it established a 12-member General Council of Free Cossacks and elected General P. P. Skoropadskii as commander in chief (otaman). When, in March–April 1918, Ukraine was occupied by forces of the Austro-German intervention, the Free Cossack units were formally disbanded, although many individuals and groups retained their weapons and would later enter the Ukrainian Army of the Ukrainian National Republic.

FREE TERRITORY. See Makhnovshchina.

FREIKORPS. The generic name for many of the right-leaning and sometimes proto-Nazi paramilitary organizations that developed as the German army disintegrated after the armistice of 11 November 1918 and in the wake of the November revolution in Germany. They are mostly known for their part in the political history of Weimar Germany in its early years, but Freikorps also played a significant role in the “Russian” Civil Wars, the Estonian War of Independence, the Latvian War of Independence, the Landeswehr War, and (to a lesser extent) the Lithuanian Wars of Independence, as a consequence of Germany’s occupation of much of the Baltic at the time of the armistice and the Allies’ insistence, under the terms of Article XII of the armistice, that German forces remain there in order to prevent a Soviet occupation. In general, however, German forces in the region not only opposed the Bolsheviks but also sought to promote the interests of the Baltic Germans and their United Baltic Duchy at the expense of the emergent national governments of the Baltic States.

The two most significant Freikorps were the Eiserne (Iron) Brigade (later Division), which was deployed around Riga in early 1919 to prevent the city’s capture by the advancing Red Army, and the Baltische Landeswehr. The former was commanded by General Josef Bischoff and General Rüdiger von der Goltz and the latter, which initially contained some Latvian elements, by Major Alfred Fletcher. Having seized Riga in March 1919, von der Goltz ignored Allied orders that all German forces should now be withdrawn from the Baltic theater, deposed the nationalist government of Kārlis Ulmanis, established a puppet government of Latvia under Pastor Andrievs Niedra, and began to advance north to engage with Estonian forces that had been summoned to the assistance of the Latvians. (It is possible that his ultimate objective was Petrograd.) However, the Estonians were victorious in what became known as the Landeswehr War and, on 23 June 1919, the Germans began a general retreat toward Riga. At this point the Allied chief commissioner in the Baltic, Sir Hubert Gough, brokered a cease-fire and insisted that von der Goltz transfer his forces to the command of the Western Volunteer Army of General P. R. Bermondt-Avalov, while formal command of the Landeswehr was assumed by Gough himself. Some 14,000 German troops, 64 aircraft, 56 artillery pieces, and 156 machine guns were subsequently transferred to the control of various White forces in the region, while the remainder of the Freikorps withdrew into Germany. By December 1919, all but a handful of German troops had left the Baltic region.

FRONTOVIKI. This term (meaning “men of the front”) came into common usage during the revolutionary and civil-war periods to denote those soldiers (often of peasant origin) who had served in active units at the front during the First World War and had subsequently returned to their home districts. Both contemporaries and historians have described them as often radical, or “Bolshevized,” and attributed to them a leading role in deepening the revolutionary process in the villages. Their experiences at the front, where they might have mixed with workers, students, and socialist agitators of various stripes, as well as (usually) their comparative youthfulness, set them apart from the village elders and engendered both class and generational conflicts, while their experiences of warfare led them to claim special status and made them useful (if potentially volatile) recruits to armed units on all sides during the civil wars.

FRONTS. In Russian usage of the civil-war era the term “front” denoted not a location but the highest operational-strategic grouping of armed forces (usually a number of separate armies) and could be translated as “army group.” The Whites tended to avoid the term (although Admiral A. V. Kolchak’s Russian Army did operate an Eastern Front from July 1919), but the Red Army was organized into separate fronts from June 1918. Initially these were created on an ad hoc basis, but from September 1918 Red fronts were organized according to directives of the Revvoensovet of the Republic. The first Red fronts (the Northern–Urals–Siberian Front, the Eastern Front, the Northern Front, the Southern Front, and the Ukrainian Front) were usually established simultaneously with the formation of the armies that were their constituent parts. Later fronts (the Caspian–Caucasian Front, the Western Front, the Turkestan Front, the South-East Front, the South-West Front, the Caucasian Front, and the second Southern Front) were created from the redeployment of preexisting armies. Red fronts would generally consist of from two to six field armies, other independent forces, reserve forces, and specialist units (such as armored trains and air forces), occasionally supplemented by military flotillas (the Volga Military Flotilla, the Astrakhan–Caspian Military Flotilla, etc.) and (from mid-1919 onward) cavalry armies (notably the 1st Cavalry Army and the 2nd Cavalry Army). Each Red front had its own Revvoensovet, revolutionary tribunal, PUR, and field staff. In isolated regions, local Bolsheviks also created independent local fronts, usually in the rear of White forces and especially in Central Asia (the Semirech′e Front, the Ferghana Front, the Aktiubinsk Front, etc.).

FRUNZE, MIKHAIL VASILEVICH (Frunză, Mihail) (21 January 1885–31 October 1925). Only M. N. Tukhachevskii might rival M. V. Frunze as the most influential commander and theorist of Red forces in the civil wars. Moreover, as (unlike Tukhachevskii) Frunze did not live long enough to experience calumny during the Stalinist purges, he remained (and even remains) a revered figure in Soviet/Russian military circles.

He was born at Pishek (now Bishek, but from 1926 to 1991 named Frunze in his honor), Semirech′e oblast′, to a Romanian-Moldavian peasant father (who had become a medical orderly in the Imperial Russian Army) and a Russian mother and attended school at Vernyi (Almaty), where he first became associated with revolutionary circles. In 1904, he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnical Institute and there he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, quickly associating himself with the Bolsheviks. Expelled from the Russian capital in November 1904 on account of his association with revolutionary groups, Frunze moved to Ivanovo-Voznesensk, where he was a leader of the great textile workers’ strike in 1905, before participating in the December 1905 uprising in Moscow. Following that event and the crushing of the revolution by tsarist forces, he was arrested (24 March 1907) and on 27 January 1909 was sentenced to death (commuted to four years’ hard labor). He was again sentenced to death on 23 September 1909, but this sentence was again commuted, this time to 10 years’ hard labor, on 7 October 1910. He escaped from Siberian exile in Irkutsk guberniia in 1914 and subsequently lived in Russia illegally, engaged in party work, before joining the Russian Army in 1916 in order to agitate among the soldiers.

In 1917, Frunze led Bolshevik groups, including branches of the Military Organization of the RSDLP(b), at Minsk, in Bessarabia, and on the Western Front, before organizing workers and soldiers in Moscow during the October Revolution. In April 1918, he was simultaneously Soviet chairman and military commander of Ivanovo-Voznesensk guberniia and from August 1918 was military commander of the Iaroslavl′ Military District. In those capacities, he participated in military operations against the Left-SR Uprising and the Iaroslavl′ Revolt. On 31 January 1919, he took command of the 4th Red Army on the Eastern Front and from 5 March 1919, he commanded the Southern Army Group of that front. In that capacity, he played a vital role in the Red Army’s successful counteroffensive against the advance of the White forces of Admiral A. V. Kolchak in the late spring of 1919, punching a hole in the left flank of the Whites’ overextended Western Army. He subsequently commanded the Turkestan Red Army (24 May–15 June 1919) and then served as commander of the Eastern Front (19 July–14 August 1919), as the Red Army took control of the northern and central Urals, and was then transferred to become commander of the newly established Turkestan Front (15 August 1919–10 September 1920), masterminding the defeat of the remnants of White forces in that region, as well as overcoming the resistance of Alash Orda and toppling the regimes of the khans of Khiva (Said-Abdulla) and Bukhara (Said-Alim-khan). From 8 October 1919, Frunze was also a member of VTsIK and Sovnarkom’s Turkestan Commission, overseeing the reestablishment of Soviet power in Turkestan. Subsequently, he was transferred again to become commander of the Southern Front (21 September–10 December 1920), masterminding the Red Army’s decisive operations against the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel in Northern Tauride and Crimea.

From 22 November 1920 to 12 May 1924, Frunze was also a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine and a member of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (16 March 1921–31 October 1925), and in 1924 he became a candidate member of the latter’s politbiuro. From December 1920 to March 1924, he headed the Revvoensovet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and was commander (3 December 1920–April 1924) of the Ukrainian and Crimean armies (overseeing, in 1921, operations against the forces of Nestor Makhno). From August 1921 to January 1922, he served as chief plenipotentiary of the Ukrainian SSR in Turkey. On 14 March 1924, he was named chairman of the Revvoensovet of the USSR and from 19 April 1924 was simultaneously chief of staff of the Red Army and head of the Red Military Academy. He was also a member of the executive committee of the Komintern (from July 1924).

Following the political demise of L. D. Trotsky in the power struggles among the Soviet elite, on 26 January 1925, Frunze replaced him as People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. He subsequently became a member of the Council for Labor and Defense of the USSR (10 February 1925). In the early 1920s, he had also established himself as a leading military theorist of Soviet, “revolutionary” warfare (as the author of more than 20 books between 1919 and 1925); as the founder of the “Unified Military Doctrine”; as the author of new field regulations and descriptions of duties for Red commanders and military commissars; and as editor of the leading journals in the field, including Voina i revoliutsiia (“War and Revolution”).

Frunze died on 31 October 1925, during an operation to treat stomach ulcers. As the party Central Committee (and particularly its General Secretary J. V. Stalin) had insisted that he should submit to treatment, despite the fact that his heart was too weak to permit him to be anaesthetized, speculation immediately arose that his death was a “medical murder,” not least because in 1926 the author Boris Pil′niak somehow managed to publish a story, Povest′ nepogashennoi luny (“The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon”), making precisely such an allegation in the leading Soviet literary journal of the day, Novyi mir (although the issue was hurriedly withdrawn). Also suspicious was that all four surgeons who had operated on him died suddenly in 1934.

Frunze was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, in Red Square, Moscow. As well as a number of settlements, from his own hometown to towns from Tadjikistan to Azerbaijan (the latter now renamed now Suvorovka), the Red Military Academy in Moscow was renamed in Frunze’s honor (from 31 October 1925 to September 1998), as was (in 1926) the battleship Poltava and (in 1978) a Soviet battle cruiser (renamed the Admiral Lazarev in 1992) and metro stations in both St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as Minsk, while numerous other organizations, streets, buildings, parks, and even mountains were also named after him. His image appeared on Soviet stamps on several occasions. The feature film Groza nad Beloi (“Storm across the Belaia,” dir. E. Nemchenko and S. V. Chaplin, 1968) focuses on Frunze’s role in the Red Army counteroffensive across the Urals of April–May 1919, while Marshal revoliutsii (“Marshal of the Revolution,” dir. S. Ia. Linkov, 1978) focuses on his command of the Southern Front and the storming of Crimea in November 1920. A Frunze memorial museum still operates at Shuia, Ivanovo oblast′ (where Frunze led a strike in 1905), and among the many monuments to him, a bust stands before the Russian Army Cultural Center in Moscow, and an imposing equestrian statue of him remains in Bishek; he can also be seen standing just behind Kemal Atatürk as part of the Liberation Monument (the Monument of the Republic) on Taksim Square in Istanbul. (Frunze had been sent to Ankara in December 1921 to consolidate Soviet relations with the Kemalists.) Across the Caucasus and Central Asia in Soviet times, it was also popular to name children with some variation of “Frunze” (e.g., Frunzik).

FUNTIKOV, FEDOR ADRIANOVICH (?–5 May 1926). The anti-Bolshevik activist F. A. Funtikov, who worked prior to the revolutions of 1917 as a railway mechanic, was a member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries. On 11–12 July 1918, he participated in the revolt against Soviet rule in Transcaspia (the Ashkhabad uprising) and was then elected head of the Transcaspian Provisional Government (12 July 1918–2 January 1919). In that capacity, in August 1919 he appealed for assistance to the commander of British forces in the region (Norperforce), General William Malleson. Consequently, Funtikov appeared in Soviet histories as nothing more than a puppet of the Allied intervention in Central Asia, although it was convenient for Moscow that during all subsequent investigations of the execution of the Twenty-Six Commissars by forces of the Transcaspian regime, Funtikov placed the blame on the British in general and Reginald Teague-Jones in particular.

Funtikov disappeared from Ashkhabad in early 1919, having been briefly arrested and imprisoned by the more conservative anti-Bolshevik authorities that succeeded the Transcapian Provisional Government, and appears to have moved to Russia, settling on a smallholding at the Liapichevo khutor on the lower Volga. However, he was betrayed to the Soviet intelligence services (according to some sources, by his own daughter) and was arrested in January 1925. He was tried at Baku from 17 to 27 April 1926, found guilty of complicity in the execution of the Twenty-Six Commissars, and subsequently shot.