Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

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NABAT. The anarchist organization Nabat (alternatively translated as “The Alarm” or “The Tocsin”)—formally, the Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations—was prominent in Ukraine in the civil-war years, particularly in Khar′kov and those areas controlled by Nestor Makhno and the Revolutionary-Insurgent Army of Ukraine. Following the Bolsheviks’ suppression of exponents of anarchism in Moscow and Petrograd during the spring of 1918, Nabat established its headquarters at Khar′kov and held its first (founding) General Assembly on 12–16 November 1918, at Kursk. This assembly sought to unite the various anarchist groups in Ukraine and affirmed the need to forcibly oppose the “reactionary forces” that were overrunning the region (that is, the Ukrainian State and the Whites). Nabat favored cooperation with the Red Army, but not subordination to it, and agitated for nonparty soviets. The most prominent leaders of the organization were Aaron Baron, P. A. Arshinov, and Voline.

To Voline was issued the task of drafting a “declaration of principles” that would define Nabat. This was never universally accepted; the gulf between anarchist-communists and anarcho-syndicalists and anarchist-individualists could not be bridged by Voline’s rather vague sketch of a “United Anarchism.” The confederation was organized on federal principles, with a central secretariat that was charged with providing ideological guidance (through its newspaper, also called Nabat), controlling finances and ascribing work to militants and agitators. It aimed to hold a congress at least once every six months. However, Nabat went into decline from late 1920, when the Soviet government, having defeated the White forces of General P. N. Wrangel and having signed an armistice in the Soviet–Polish War, had no more need to cooperate with anarchists in Ukraine and so began to arrest large numbers of its members, including Voline.

NABOKOV, VLADIMIR DMITRIEVICH (8 July 1870–28 March 1922). The minister of justice in the Crimean Regional Government of 1918–1919, V. D. Nabokov was born at Tsarskoe Selo into an aristocratic family. His father, D. N. Nabokov, had been minister of justice in the tsarist government from 1878 to 1885. V. D. Nabokov was a graduate of the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg University and authored a number of influential works on criminal law. A member of the Kadets from the party’s inception and the leading figure on its left wing, from 1904 to 1917 he was the editor of the party newspaper, Rech′ (“Discourse”), and in 1906 was an elected member of the First State Duma, representing St. Petersburg guberniia. During the First World War, he served in the 318th (Novgorod) Infantry Detachment.

In 1917, Nabokov served as cabinet secretary to the Russian Provisional Government and as deputy chairman of its electoral commission for the Constituent Assembly. He was elected to the assembly as a Kadet deputy, but in December 1917, in the wake of the October Revolution (during which he had been arrested and imprisoned by the Soviet authorities as a leader of the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution), he fled with his family to Crimea. There, in November 1918, he joined the anti-Bolshevik regime of S. S. Krym. Following the collapse of the Crimean government, he moved first to London and then to Berlin, where he coedited the newspaper Rul′ (“The Rudder”). He died at a political meeting in that city, shot dead as he grappled with a would-be assassin of the Kadet leader P. N. Miliukov. He was the father of the acclaimed émigré novelist V. V. Nabokov.

Nadezhnyi, Dmitrii Nikolaevich (24 October 1873–22 February 1945). Major general (18 April 1914), lieutenant general (29 April 1917), lieutenant general (Red Army, 1940). One of the most senior military specialists of Red forces during the civil wars, D. N. Nadezhnyi was born into a noble family at Nizhnii Novgorod and entered military service in 1892. He was a graduate of the Pavlovsk Military School (1894) and the Academy of the General Staff (1901) and occupied numerous staff positions prior to the First World War, culminating with a secondment to work as an adjutant of the chief of the General Staff (20 March 1913). From 1913 to 1914, he was placed in charge of military instructors with the Russian mission in Mongolia. At the outbreak of war in 1914, he was named commander of the 40th Regiment of the 10th Infantry Division, and from 3 August 1915 commanded a brigade in that same division. He was then for a time chief of staff of the 69th Infantry Division and (from 13 May 1916) commander of the 10th Native Infantry. Following the February Revolution, as a consequence of his broadly liberal and democratic sentiments, he was placed in command of the 3rd Army Corps and from 12 October 1917 was commander of the 42nd Army Corps.

In early 1918, Nadezhnyi joined the Red Army as a volunteer, then became chief of defense of the Finnish Region and military commander of the Urals Regional Commissariat. From June to July 1918, he was a member of the Military Collegium of the Northern–Urals–Siberian Front and subsequently served as commander of the Northern Front (26 November 1918–19 February 1919). In the latter capacity, during the Shenkursk operation, he successfully prevented a potential union between White forces in the north and those in Siberia. He then served as commander of the Western Front (19 February–22 July 1919). From 17 October to 17 November 1919, as commander of the 7th Red Army, he played a vital role in the defense of Petrograd against the Whites’ North-West Army of General N. N. Iudenich. From 1919 to 1922, he served as inspector of infantry on the Field Staff of the Revvoensovet of the Republic and as assistant chief inspector of the Red Army, before being named assistant head of the Red Military Academy (1923–1924) and chief inspector of infantry of the Red Army (1924–1925).

Nadezhnyi thereafter concentrated on educational work at the Frunze Military Academy (1926–1931). He was arrested during the night of 1–2 January 1931, as part of the OGPU’s Operation “Spring,” and was subsequently sentenced to five years’ exile in the Urals at Sverdlovsk, but was amnestied on 7 July 1932 and returned to educational work at the S. M. Kirov Military-Medical Academy (1933–1941). Nadezhnyi retired from the service in 1942 and died in Moscow.

Nansen Plan. Sometimes termed the Hoover–Nansen Plan, this was a scheme devised in April 1919, as the Allied powers (somewhat halfheartedly) sought to reach accommodation with the Soviet government and to bring the “Russian” Civil Wars and the Allied intervention in Russia to a negotiated end. Under the terms of the proposal, devised by President Herbert Hoover and, less directly, Fridtjof Nansen (the Norwegian polar explorer, who was then forging a career in humanitarian work that would later see him named the High Commissioner for Refugees with the embryonic League of Nations), food and medical aid would have been offered to Russia on condition that a cease-fire be proclaimed between the Reds and the Whites. It achieved no more success than the Prinkipo Proposal and the Bullitt Mission had done.

The French government reluctantly endorsed the plan on 16 April 1919, but the Omsk government of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, through the Russian Political Conference in Paris, rejected it, arguing that such relief would merely prolong the tyranny of the Bolsheviks. The Soviet government only heard of the scheme on 4 May 1919 and also immediately rejected it, blaming food shortages in Russia on the Allied blockade and on the Allies’ sponsorship of the Whites, nevertheless suggesting that formal peace talks might be held to address the political issues raised by the war. By the time the Soviet response was received in Paris, on 7 May 1919, news of the early successes of Kolchak’s Russian Army in its spring offensive had also arrived, and the Nansen Plan was quietly dropped.

NARGEN, SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF. Also known as the Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders, this short-lived polity was proclaimed on the heavily fortified island of Nargen (now Naissaar), northwest of Revel (now Tallinn), in December 1917, by a group of 82 Bolsheviks and anarchist sailors of the Baltic Fleet led, by S. M. Petrichenko (the future leader of the Kronshtadt Revolt). It ceased to exist on 26 February 1918, when German forces reached the island as part of the Austro-German intervention. The sailors were then evacuated to Kronshtadt, during the Ice March of the Baltic Fleet.

NARIMANOV, NARIMAN KERBALAI NAJAF OGLU (2 April 1870–19 March 1925). The most prominent Azeri revolutionary of the civil-war era (and also a prolific author), Nariman Narimanov was born into an impoverished Azeri family at Tiflis. He graduated from the Transcaucasian Teachers’ Seminary at Gori in Georgia and taught at a school at Gizel-Ajal, near Tiflis, and at Baku before enrolling in the Medical Faculty of Novorossiisk University in Odessa in 1902. He joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in 1905 and was active in the student movement during the revolution of that year. He subsequently assumed prominence in the Teachers’ Union in Transcaucasia and also helped found Persian socialist organizations in the region before, in 1909, being arrested and exiled to Astrakhan for five years. From 1913, he was engaged in party work, chiefly at Baku. He was a founding member of the Azerbaijan social-democratic party, Hummet, and in 1917 became the organization’s chairman and edited its eponymous newspaper, at the same time working on the Baku Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks).

From April to June 1918, Narimanov served as people’s commissar for economic affairs in the Baku Commune, and in 1919, having relocated to Moscow, he was named successively head of the Near Eastern Department of the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities and deputy people’s commissar for nationalities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. As the Red Army invaded the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, he became chairman of the Azerbaijan Revolutionary Committee (16–19 May 1920). He was also elected the first chairman of the Sovnarkom of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (28 April 1920–April 1922), and in March 1922 he was elected joint chairman of the Union Council of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (representing Azerbaijan).

In April 1923, Narimanov became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), but always a moderate Azeri nationalist at heart, he clashed with G. K. Ordzhonikidze and J. V. Stalin over the centralizing tendencies of Moscow and the People’s Commissariat for Nationalities. Consequently, he was transferred to Moscow. He had a senior post in the capital as one of the chairmen of the VTsIK of the USSR, but could be kept under tighter control. He died in Moscow in 1925, probably of a heart attack, shortly after a heated argument with Stalin. However, as his remains were immediately cremated—a procedure very uncommon among even nonbelieving Azeris—suspicions arose that he had been murdered. His ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

A district of Baku and a major street in the city were later renamed in Narimanov’s honor, as were the Azerbaijan Medical University and a metro station, while towns (including Narimanabad in the Lankaran region), streets, and all manner of institutions were named after him across the USSR. The Narimanov Memorial Museum was opened in Baku in November 1977, and the gigantic statue of him (adjacent to the Narimanov metro station) also remains one of the features of the city. Although fêted in Soviet historiography as a true Bolshevik and as the “Lenin of the East” (apart from a period after 1937 when he was denounced as a “bourgeois nationalist”), it is unclear whether Narimanov ever wholeheartedly supported the manner in which Soviet power was installed in Baku (at the point of a gun), and he is now regarded in Azerbaijan more as an anticolonialist hero and a defender and promoter of Azerbaijani culture, language, and literature.

NAROD. Literally “The People,” this was the name adopted in August 1919 by a group of members of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (PSR) led by V. K. Vol′skii, K. S. Burevoi, and others, who had been active in the Democratic Counter-Revolution of 1918, but who opposed their party Central Committee’s continued commitment to armed struggle against the Soviet government in the wake of the rightward swing in anti-Bolshevik politics, confirmed by the Omsk coup of 18 November 1918 and the establishment of a military dictatorship in Siberia under Admiral A. V. Kolchak. Instead, they sought agreement with the Bolsheviks for a joint military struggle against the Whites (while reserving for themselves the right to agitate peacefully among the masses for support against Bolshevik policies). Initially known as the “Ufa delegation,” members of the group had crossed the Eastern Front onto Soviet territory in the aftermath of the Omsk massacre and, on 13 January 1919, signed a declaration at Ufa, in the presence of the local Bolshevik revkom, recognizing the Soviet government. The group was legalized on Soviet territory by a decree of VTsIK on 28 February 1919, and a declaration was issued by V. I. Lenin to the effect that any members of the PSR who adopted a similar line would be welcomed as partners on Soviet territory.

By 1920, Narod had some 1,000 members (by Soviet estimates), with branches at Vologda, Nikolaevsk, Ufa, Buzuluk, Aleksandrovsk, Kherson, and elsewhere, and from December 1919 to December 1921, the group published its own journal, Narod. Following the Kronshtadt Revolt, however, many Narod members left the organization, despairing of the Bolshevik dictatorship ever being tempered by alliances with it, while Cheka harassment caused the organization to finally disintegrate in 1923.

NATIONAL CENTER. This underground anti-Bolshevik organization, founded in Moscow in the spring of 1919, principally united Right-Kadets with other right-wing and even monarchist political and public figures (some of them members of the former Right Center) around a platform of a provisional military dictatorship to coordinate efforts to overthrow the Soviet regime, continuation of the war against the Central Powers, and support for “Russia, One and Indivisible.”

Based in Moscow, under the leadership of the former Octobrist D. N. Shipov and the Kadets M. M. Fedorov, N. N. Shchepkin, P. B. Struve, P. V. Gerasimov, A. A. Cherven-Vodali, N. A. Ogorodnikov, and V. A. Stepanov, branches of the National Center were soon established in Siberia, Ukraine, South Russia, and Petrograd. The size of its membership is not clear, but it was certainly less than the “several thousands” suggested in some recent Russian sources. Particularly close contacts were maintained between the Center and the Whites in South Russia; some of its members entered General A. I. Denikin’s Special Council after representatives of the organization relocated to Odessa and then Ekaterinodar in the autumn of 1918, while in the summer of 1919 the Staff of the Volunteer Army for the Moscow Region was attached to the Center in the capital (although this was quickly liquidated by the Cheka). Members of the organization also claimed to have instigated the mutinies among Red units and in forts along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland (notably the Krasnaia Gorka uprising) during General N. N. Iudenich’s advance on Petrograd during September–October 1919; they were certainly charged with having done so by the Soviet regime, as the Cheka arrested and executed many of its leaders over the winter of 1919–1920.

Naumenko, Viacheslav Grigor′evich (25 February 1883–30 October 1979). Colonel (18 February 1918), major general (8 December 1918), lieutenant general (September 1920). One of the most senior Cossack figures among the White military leadership in South Russia, V. G. Naumenko was a graduate of Voronezh Mikhail Cadet Corps (1901), the Nicholas Cavalry School (1903), and the Academy of the General Staff (1914). In the First World War, with the rank of voiskovoi starshina (the equivalent of lieutenant colonel), he served on the staff of the 1st Kuban Cossack Division and as chief of staff of the 4th Kuban Division (August 1914–January 1917) and was subsequently chief of the field staff of the commander of Cossack forces (28 January 1917–January 1918).

In the White movement, Naumenko participated in the First Kuban (Ice) March of the Volunteer Army (February–April 1918) and served as chief of staff of the cavalry brigade commanded by General V. L. Pokrovskii, after its union with the Volunteers (April–June 1918). Subsequently, he was commander of the 1st Kuban (Kornilov) Mounted Regiment (from 27 June 1918), of the 1st Mounted Brigade of the 1st Mounted Division (14 August–19 November 1918), and of the 1st Mounted Division (19 November–15 December 1918). He was also a member of the government of the Kuban People’s Republic, with responsibility for military affairs, and was named campaign ataman (pokhodnyi ataman) of the Kuban Cossack Host (from 1 February 1919), although he later retired from that post under pressure from Black Sea Cossack separatists within the Host government (14 September 1919). He was in the reserve of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) from 14 September to 11 October 1919, before being recalled to the command of the 2nd Kuban Corps as a replacement for General S. G. Ulagai (11 October 1919–March 1920).

Following the collapse of the AFSR and the Soviet invasion of the North Caucasus in early 1920, Naumenko retreated with the remnants of his men into Georgia and in April 1920, was evacuated from Sochi to Crimea. Having joined the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel, he participated in the abortive White landing in the Kuban of July–August 1920, before taking command of the 1st Cavalry Division (9 September–1 October 1920). He was wounded on 3 October 1920 and saw no more action before being evacuated with Wrangel’s forces to Constantinople (18 November 1920). From there, he was initially sent with his men to a camp on the Greek island of Lemnos. On Lemnos, he was elected Host ataman (Voiskovoi ataman) of the Kuban Cossacks (a position he retained until his death almost 60 years later), before settling in Germany. During the Second World War, he collaborated with the Nazis in their struggle against Soviet Russia and briefly deputized for Ataman P. N. Krasnov as chief of the Main Directorate of Cossack Forces in emigration. After the war he moved to New York, where he collected and published materials on the forced repatriation of Cossacks to Russia in 1946, and eventually passed away in a rest home run by the Tolstoy Foundation. He is buried in the Uspenskii Graveyard of the Novo-Diveyevo Convent at Nanuet, New York.

NAZARBEKIAN, TOVMAS (NAZARBEKOV, FOMA IVANOVICH) (4 April 1855–19 February 1931). Colonel (9 February 1902), major general (1906), general of infantry (1919). A prominent and much-decorated Armenian military leader of the civil-war era, Tovmas Nazarbekian was born into a wealthy, Russianized, noble family at Tiflis, and was a graduate of the Third Alexander Military School (1876) and the Academy of the General Staff. He saw action in the Russo–Turkish War of 1877–1878 and in the Russo–Japanese War of 1904–1905, winning a gold sword of honor for bravery in the latter (awarded 18 June 1906), but then retired from the army, reportedly as a result of his disillusionment with the tsarist government’s Russifying policies in Armenia. He returned to the service upon the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, serving on the Caucasian Front as commander of a brigade of the 66th Infantry Division (from 6 November 1914) and then commander of the 2nd Caucasian Rifle Brigade (from 25 March 1915). With the latter, he inflicted a notable defeat on the Turks at Dilman in April 1915. Subsequently, he was in Persia as commander of the 7th Independent Caucasus Army Corps (from January 1917).

As the Russian Army collapsed in the wake of the October Revolution, on 26 December 1917 Nazarbekian was named governor of the Administration for Western Armenia and commander of the 17,000-strong Armenian Corps by the Transcaucasian Sejm, as local forces continued to fight the Turks. However, his army was driven back to Dilidjan during the Battle of Sardarapat (24–26 May 1918) and also abandoned the fortress of Kars (23–24 April 1918). From May 1918 to December 1920, he was commander in chief of the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Armenia, being chiefly engaged in fighting the Armenian–Azerbaijan War. Following the Soviet invasion of Armenia, he was arrested in January 1921 and taken first to Baku and then to a camp near Riazan′, but was amnestied in May of that year. He settled in Tiflis and remained there, in retirement, until his death.

Nazarov, anatolii mikhailovich (12 November 1876–18 February 1918). Colonel (1912), major general (28 April 1915). A prominent leader of the Don Cossack Host and one of the first notable casualties of the civil wars, A. M. Nazarov was born into the family of a teacher at Filonovka stanitsa on the Don and was a graduate of the Don Cadet Corps, the Mikhail Artillery School (1897), and the Academy of the General Staff (1903). In the Russo–Japanese War, he served as a senior adjutant on the Staff of the 8th Army Corps, and he entered the First World War as commander of the 20th Cossack Regiment. In April 1915, he was wounded and remained on the sick list until 4 February 1916, when he was placed in command of the 2nd Transbaikal Cossack Brigade. He remained in that post until August 1917, when he was made commander of a cavalry corps on the Caucasus Front. While en route to take up that post, however, in the aftermath of the October Revolution, he was ordered to halt at Novocherkassk by Ataman A. M. Kaledin and was subsequently made commandant of the Taganrog garrison (November 1917).

On 15 December 1917, Nazarov was elected campaign ataman (Pokhodnyi ataman) of the Don Cossack Host and was made full ataman of the Don Host following the suicide of Kaledin (29–30 January 1918). On 12 February 1918, when Soviet forces captured the Don capital, Novocherkassk, Naumov, and other leaders of the Don government were taken prisoner. He was executed a few days later, alongside a number of Cossack generals.

NEKLIUTIN, KONSTANTIN NIKOLAEVICH (?–?). A senior figure in the White movement in Siberia, but one whose biography remains obscure, the Samaran industrialist K. N. Nekliutin was a member of the Kadets, and from November 1918, served on the Eastern Section of its Central Committee at Omsk. Having been elected chairman of the Chamber of Trade and Industry at Samara in June 1918, from March 1919 he served as minister of food and supply in the Omsk government of Admiral A. V. Kolchak (having been assistant minister since December 1918). His tenure was marked by a tendency to favor private trade (much to the chagrin of Siberia’s powerful cooperative movement) and by repeated charges of malfeasance and negligence, laid against him by the military authorities (who sought their own monopoly over the supply system). He was forced out of office in August 1919, apparently as a consequence of the scheming of the Americanophile I. I. Sukin, whom Nekliutin had angered by refusing to seek to purchase foreign supplies exclusively in the United States.

In November 1919, when the Kolchak government relocated to Irkutsk, the new prime minister, V. N. Pepeliaev, sought to instigate an investigation into Nekliutin’s business affairs, but nothing came of that before the White movement in Siberia collapsed over the winter of 1919–1920. His subsequent fate is unknown.

NEKUNDE, KARL KARLOVICH. See BAIKALOV (NEKUNDE), KARL KARLOVICH.

NEMITTS, ALEKSANDR VASIL′EVICH (26 July 1879–1 October 1967). Rear admiral (August 1917), vice admiral (Red Fleet, 1941). A senior Red naval commander of the civil-war era, A. V. Nemitts, who was the son of a justice of the peace, was born in Bessarabia, and was a graduate of the Naval Cadet Corps (1899), the Artillery Officers School (1903), and the Naval Academy (1912). He acquired some fame during the disturbances in 1905–1906 for refusing to participate in the execution of sailors on the training ship Prut who had been found guilty of mutiny (they had seized the vessel in emulation of the Potemkin mutiny), and in 1906 acted as a defendant in the trial of those arrested for leading the Sevastopol′ uprising. He subsequently worked (from 1907) in the Historical Section of the Naval General Staff, researching the events of the Russo–Japanese War, and taught at the Naval Academy. On the outbreak of war in 1914, he was attached to the operational department of the Naval General Staff and was then transferred to the Staff of the Supreme Commander in Chief before (from 1915) being placed in command of, successively, the 5th and the 1st Destroyer Squadrons of the Black Sea Fleet. Following the February Revolution, he was one of the organizers of the Union of Officer-Republicans at Sevastopol′, and on 18 July 1917 he replaced Admiral A. V. Kolchak as commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

Following the October Revolution, Nemitts initially served the Soviet government, but as discipline in the fleet collapsed, on 13 December 1917 he left his post and made his way to the staff of the commander of the Romanian Front, General D. G. Shcherbachev, to whom he was officially subordinate. He subsequently lived in Odessa, until in August 1919 he joined (as chief of staff) the raiding Red force commanded by I. E. Iakir that fought its way north from the Black Sea coast, through Zhitomir, to unite with the 12th Red Army. Nemitts was twice wounded during this operation, and having been admitted to hospital in Moscow, was initially placed on the reserve list of the Red Fleet, but on 6 February 1920 he was named main commander of the Naval Forces of the Republic, succeeding Admiral E. A. Berens. He remained in that post until December 1921. Among his most successful achievements as commander was the planning of the Enzeli Operation. He also served, from 1920, as a business manager at the People’s Commissariat for Naval Affairs.

From 1924, Nemitts was attached to the Revvoensovet of the Republic and was at the same time employed in teaching at the Military-Naval Academy (1924–1926) and the Military-Aviation Academy (1926–1928). He later became a professor of strategy and tactics at both institutions (from 1940 to 1947), following service as deputy inspector of the Naval Forces of the Red Army (1930–1940). He retired to Sevastopol′ in 1947, although he was still involved in cartographical work with the Black Sea Fleet. Nemitts moved to Yalta to live with his daughter in 1955 and died there in 1967. He is buried in Sevastopol′. He was the author of numerous published works on naval affairs.

NENIUKOV, DMITRII VSEVOLODOVICH (18 January 1869–3 July 1929). Captain, 1st rank (1910), rear admiral (1914), vice admiral (6 December 1916). One of the senior figures in the White Fleet in South Russia, D. V. Neniukov was a graduate of the Naval Corps (1889) and the Military-Marine Section of the Academy of the General Staff (1908). He saw action in the defense of Port Arthur during the Russo–Japanese War and, at the outbreak of the First World War, was deputy chief of the Naval General Staff, with responsibility for shipbuilding (1 November 1913–5 January 1915). He then worked in the Black Sea Fleet (January 1915–March 1918).

In the White movement in South Russia, Neniukov served in the Naval Directorate of the Special Council (April 1918–June 1919) and commanded the naval operations of the Volunteer Army at Odessa, before becoming commander of the Black Sea Fleet in September 1919. On 8 February 1920, together with Generals P. N. Wrangel, A. S. Lukomskii, and P. N. Shatilov and his chief of staff, Admiral A. D. Bubnov, Neniukov was dismissed from his post by General A. I. Denikin, accused of plotting to have Wrangel replace General N. N. Shilling as commandant of Crimea. When Wrangel took over from Denikin, in late March 1920, Neniukov was recalled (28 April 1920) to the staff of the Black Sea Fleet, where he would often replace the ailing Admiral M. P. Sablin as fleet commander. In that capacity, he played a pivotal role in the preparation and execution of the operation to evacuate White forces from Crimea in November 1920. In emigration, he lived in Turkey and then the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, where he headed the émigré organization of fleet personnel. He died at Zemun, Belgrade, where he is buried in the Russian section of the local cemetery.

nep. See new economic policy.

NERATOV, ANATOLII ANATOL′EVICH (1863–10 April 1938). The diplomatist and White politician A. A. Neratov, a graduate of the Alexander Lyceum, made his career in the foreign ministry of tsarist Russia, initially (from 1886) in its Asiatic Department, which he eventually led. He rose to the rank of privy councilor (tainyi sovetnik) and in 1910 was made assistant minister of foreign affairs under S. D. Sazanov. He retained that post in 1917, under the Russian Provisional Government.

Following the October Revolution, Neratov served as foreign minister in the so-called Small Provisional Government, which met clandestinely in November 1917, but to evade the attention of the Cheka, he soon moved to South Russia, where he joined the Special Council of the Volunteer Army as (from 28 September 1918) director of its Political Department. In April 1920, he was named by General P. N. Wrangel as head of his mission in Constantinople. Neratov subsequently went into emigration, settling in France. He died at the Russian hospital at Villejuif, Paris, in 1938.

Nestorov, Ivan Petrovich (1887–1960). A key figure in the Democratic Counter-Revolution on the Volga, I. P. Nestorov was born into a middle-class family at Vol′sk, Saratov guberniia, and was a graduate of a commercial school, but from 1908 was under surveillance by the tsarist authorities as a member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (PSR). In 1917, he was elected chairman of the Minsk City Duma and was also elected to the Constituent Assembly, as a representative of Minsk guberniia. Following the Bolsheviks’ dispersal of the assembly, in May 1918 he journeyed to the Volga region and, in the aftermath of the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion, became one of the five founding members of Komuch at Saratov.

Following the Omsk coup of November 1918, Nestorov was arrested by the White authorities in Siberia, but was freed from prison during the workers’ uprising at Omsk in December 1918. He then lived underground in Siberia, as a militant opponent of the dictatorship of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, emerging as one of the organizers of the anti-Kolchak uprising at Irkutsk in December 1919 that led to the rise of the Political Center. With the arrival of the Red Army in eastern Siberia in early 1920, he managed to flee abroad, settling, like many other members of the PSR, in Czechoslovakia, where in emigration he was one of the organizers of the Russian Foreign Historical Archive. He was arrested by the Soviet security services when the Red Army entered Prague in 1945 and deported to the USSR, where he was sent to the Gulag. Nestorov was freed in 1956 and allowed to return to Czechoslovakia, where he lived for the remainder of his life.

NEVSKII, VLADIMIR IVANOVICH (KRIVIBOKOV, FEODOSII IVANOVICH) (2 May 1876–25 May 1937). A key Bolshevik military and political administrator of the civil-war era, V. I. Nevskii was born into a wealthy merchant’s family at Rostov-on-Don and was a graduate of the Natural Sciences Faculty of Khar′kov University (1911), having been expelled from Moscow University in 1899 for political activities. A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party from its inception in 1898, he sided with the Bolsheviks after the party schism in 1903; was a participant in the revolutionary events in Moscow, Voronezh, and elsewhere in 1905–1907; and was several times arrested and exiled by the tsarist authorities prior to the First World War. In 1913, he joined the editorial board of Pravda and was made a member of the Bolsheviks’ Russian Bureau; during the war, he was active in the revolutionary movement in the Urals. He returned to Petrograd in March 1917, to join the party’s Petrograd Committee, and became joint chairman of the Military Organization of the RSDLP(b) and editor of its newspapers, Soldatskaia pravda (April–June 1917) and Soldat (August–October 1917).

An active participant in the October Revolution as a member of the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, Nevskii subsequently became deputy people’s commissar (from November 1917) and then full people’s commissar (25 July 1918–15 March 1919) of ways and communications of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, from 1919 to 1920, was first a member of the presidium of VTsIK and then its deputy chairman. He also held important military posts as a member of the Revvoensovet of the Republic (30 September 1918–10 July 1919) and of the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense (1918–1919). Thereafter, the focus of his work shifted, as he was placed at the head of a Department for Work in the Countryside of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (July 1919–1920).

In 1921, Nevskii was associated with the Workers’ Opposition faction and thereafter found himself sidelined into historical and educational work, as rector of the Communist University (from 1920 to 1921) and deputy chief of the party’s historical commission, Istpart (from 1922). From 5 May 1925 to January 1935, he was also director of the Lenin Library. He was arrested in January 1935, in the aftermath of the assassination of S. M. Kirov, and was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on 25 May 1937, accused of being “an active participant in an anti-Soviet terrorist organization of the Right.” Nevskii was executed the same day. He was posthumously rehabilitated on 1 June 1955.

New Economic Policy. New Economic Policy (universally referred to as “NEP”) was the catchall term applied to the economic policies of Soviet Russia from the closing stages of the civil wars (from the spring of 1921) to the “Stalin revolution” (from 1928). It was introduced, largely on the initiative of V. I. Lenin and with little (initial) opposition, at the 10th Party Congress of March 1921, as an admitted retreat from earlier attempts to build a socialist economy through what was later termed War Communism. At the forefront of Lenin’s concerns was the wide-scale unrest across the country, evinced by such events as the Tambov Rebellion, the Western Siberian Uprising, and the Kronshtadt Revolt (although, contrary to many accounts, the decision to introduce NEP actually predated Kronshtadt).

Under the NEP, according to Lenin, Soviet Russia would have a mixed economy “seriously and for a long time,” although his illness, incapacitation, and early death make it difficult to judge what he meant by “a long time.” The aim was said to be to cement the alliance (smychka) between the workers and the peasantry, although NEP might better be interpreted as an attempt on the part of the Soviet government to appease the peasantry. In practice, this meant the replacement of the requisitioning of agricultural produce from the peasants (prodrazverstka) with a regulated tax in kind (prodnalog), which in 1923–1924 was gradually converted to a monetary tax. Peasants could retain excess produce and sell it for a profit (to state agencies or to private traders). At the same time, from 1921, most medium- and small-sized industrial enterprises were leased back to private owners or to cooperatives and were expected to operate on established capitalist methods of accounting (khosraschet). Only 8.5 percent of industrial enterprises, the “commanding heights” of the economy (coal, iron, steel, etc.), was retained in state hands (coordinated by VSNKh), although these large factories still employed more than 80 percent of industrial workers and produced more than 90 percent of total industrial output even at the peak of NEP in 1925–1926. Banks, railroads, and foreign trade also remained a state monopoly. Local and interregional retail trade, though, was deregulated and fell into the hands of small-scale businessmen, known as “Nepmen.” Retail prices were also determined by the free market (although some effort was made, ineffectively, to fix the price of essential goods such as matches, kerosene, salt, and tobacco, over which state trusts maintained a monopoly). Employment practices too were deregulated, with a consequent erosion of the power of trade unions. Unemployment grew rapidly (affecting at least a quarter of the workforce by the mid-1920s), and efforts to tempt foreign businesses to take up “concessions” in the Soviet economy were stillborn; by 1928, only 68 such concessions existed in the USSR, providing less than 1 percent of industrial output. At the same time, state expenditure on social welfare, benefits, and especially, education was cut, leading to no little discontent among the working class and a growing sense of disillusionment among the more radical elements of the party (which crystallized into the Left Opposition, associated with L. D. Trotsky, the economist E. A. Preobrazhenskii, and others). Indeed, a contemporary quip had it that NEP stood for “New Exploitation of the Proletariat.”

All these changes did enable stabilization of the new currency (chervonets), which in 1924 had replaced the depreciated ruble and sovnak notes used previously, and by 1926–1927 agricultural production was attaining prewar levels. A shortage of manufactured items (the “goods famine”) and a sharp decline in the price of agricultural goods, however, meant that less grain was being marketed by peasants, resulting in a state-led squeeze on the Nepmen and the reintroduction of elements of rationing in 1928, and inducing J. V. Stalin and his associates (now supported by Leftist elements of the party that had previously opposed him) to begin the drive for the collectivization of agriculture and the state planning of industrial production. At that point NEP came to an end, and soon thereafter its foremost proponents among the party leadership, notably N. I. Bukharin and A. I. Rykov, were marginalized and ultimately deposed.

NIEDRA (NEEDRA), ANDRIEVS (8 February 1871–25 September 1942). A Lutheran pastor, leading Latvian author, and head of a pro-German puppet government in Latvia during the civil-war era, Andrievs Niedra was born at Tirzas (Tirza), near Gulbene, in northeastern Latvia, and was a graduate of the Theological Faculty of the University of Iur′ev (Dorpat, 1899). A published author from the age of 16, his poems, stories, plays, and other works focused on the Latvian intelligentsia and its relationship to both the Latvian peasantry and the Baltic Germans. A fierce opponent of socialism, Niedra preached the need for evolutionary and peaceful political change.

As a long-standing adversary of Kārlis Ulmanis, whose nationalist regime had been overthrown by German forces at Liepāja (Libau), on 26 April 1919 Niedra was selected to serve as chairman of the Reconciliation and Understanding Commission, prime minister, and minister of internal affairs in the puppet government of Latvia established by the German General Rüdiger von der Goltz. He led this regime (which included six Latvian and three German ministers) until 26 June 1919, when, following the German forces’ defeat in the Landeswehr War, he fled to East Prussia and took German citizenship. Niedra returned to Latvia in 1924, but was tried for treason and banished, while his books, including his Tautas nodevēja atmiņas (“The Memoirs of a Traitor to the Nation”) were banned. After working as a Lutheran pastor in East Prussia, he returned again to Latvia during the German occupation in the Second World War and died at Riga in 1942.

NIKIFOROV, BORIS MIKHAILOVICH (30 September 1882–6 January 1974). The Soviet politician B. M. Nikiforov was born in the village of Oek, near Irkutsk, into the family of a worker. He joined the revolutionary movement in his youth and entered the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904. That same year he was called up and became a sailor in the Baltic Fleet, where he was active during the uprising at Kronshtadt during the 1905 Revolution. He subsequently went underground, working for the party in cities across Russia (notably as a leader of the RSDLP’s military organization at Irkutsk from 1908). He was arrested by the tsarist authorities in 1910 and sentenced to death (subsequently commuted to 20 years’ imprisonment).

Nikiforov was liberated by the general amnesty following the February Revolution and in 1917 was active as a member of the Irkutsk Soviet, deputy chairman of the Vladivostok Soviet, and editor of the Bolsheviks’ newspaper Krasnoe znamia (“Red Star”). He was arrested by the Whites in 1918 and remained in prison until 1920. He then served as a member of the Dal′biuro of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and was chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Far Eastern Republic (8 May–December 1921). He was subsequently assigned to numerous roles in economic management, including spells as chairman of the directorate of the Elektrobank conglomerate (from 1923), deputy chairman of the Directorate of Foreign Trade (1923–August 1925), and head of the Soviet trade mission to the Mongolian People’s Republic (29 August 1925–14 September 1927). He retired on a pension in 1945 and lived thereafter in Moscow.

NIKIFOROVA, MARIIA (“MARUSSIIA”) (1885–16 September 1919?). An anarchist partisan, whose activities are said to have influenced Nestor Makhno, Mariia Nikiforova was born into the family of a worker at Aleksandrovsk in Ukraine and was sentenced to death there in 1908, for terrorist activities (including the bombing of a train) and robbery, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. After two years in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, she was exiled to Siberia in 1910. From there she escaped and journeyed, via Japan and the United States, to Western Europe, involving herself in a variety of anarchist organizations along the way, and only returning to Ukraine in the summer of 1917. There, she organized a unit of Black Guards (the Free Combat Druzhina) at Aleksandrovsk, which attacked the military authorities at Orikhiv station in August 1917, executing the officers, and passed the weapons and ammunition captured to Makhno. Having spoken at a meeting chaired by Makhno at Guliai-Pole on 27 August 1917, Nikiforova accompanied him on a tour of the factories at Aleksandrovsk and was arrested by the local authorities. However, she was quickly freed by protesting workers, who seized the Menshevik chairman of the local soviet, and (in October–November 1917) she subsequently fought to establish Soviet power at Khar′kov, Ekaterinoslav, and Aleksandrovsk.

At this point, and over the subsequent months, as she led various armed detachments in combat against the forces of the Ukrainian National Republic, the Ukrainian State, and the forces of the Austro-German intervention across broad swaths of Ukraine, Nikiforova received subsidies and commendations from the Soviet leader in Ukraine, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, but she was also twice put on trial by the Soviet regime, charged with banditry and insubordination. In April 1918, she was acquitted of those charges at Taganrog, but at a second trial at Moscow (in January 1919) she was sentenced to “six months’ deprivation of the right to hold responsible posts.” She is reported as fighting alongside Makhno’s forces later in 1919, but her subsequent fate is unclear. According to some sources, she was executed at Simferopol′ in the autumn of 1919, on the orders of the White General Ia. A. Slashchev, but reports also exist of a “Marussiia” leading a Ukrainian partisan detachment against the Reds in 1921, while a Yugoslav Communist who visited the Soviet Union in 1929 claimed to have met an alcoholic vagrant who was introduced to him as “the celebrated Marussiia.”

NIKOLAEVSK INCIDENT. This term refers to events at Nikolaevsk-na-Amure in the Russian Far East, in early 1920, that culminated in the massacre of several hundred Japanese soldiers and civilians and many more Russians. Nikolaevsk had been occupied by a 350-strong contingent of the 14th Infantry Division of the Japanese Army since September 1918, and by 1920 was also home to some 450 Japanese fishermen and traders and their families. In January 1920, the town was suddenly surrounded by a 4,000-strong Red partisan force commanded by Ia. I. Triapitsyn that had emerged from the taiga. A truce was arranged, on 24 February 1920, that allowed partisans into the town, but on 12 March 1920 Japanese forces attacked the partisans, who had been executing anyone suspected of supporting the Whites. After three days of fighting, the Japanese were defeated (with some 100 of their men having been killed during the battles).

In retribution, Triapitsyn ordered the execution of at least 300 Japanese prisoners. Many more were killed (including all the remaining Japanese), and much of the town was razed, as a Japanese relief expedition approached Nikolaevsk in late May 1920. Although Triapitsyn was soon arrested and executed by the Soviet authorities, the Japanese army used the Nikolaevsk incident (and Moscow’s refusal to offer satisfactory compensation for it) to tighten its grip on Vladivostok and maintain its occupation of northern Sakhalin until 1925.

9TH RED ARMY. The 9th Red Army was formed, according to a decree of the Revvoensovet of the Southern Front, on 3 October 1918 (following an instruction from the Revvoensovet of the Republic of 11 September 1918), from Soviet forces around Povorinsk and Balashovo-Kamyshinsk. (After 4 May 1920 it was called the 9th Kuban Army.) It formed part of the Southern Front from 2 October 1918, then the South-East Front (from 1 October 1919) and the Caucasian Front (from 16 January 1920), before being transferred to the command of the North Caucasus Military District (from 29 May 1921). Attached to the 9th Red Army were the 2nd Don (August–September 1920), 9th (April–September 1920 and January–February 1921), 12th (February–March 1920), 14th (October 1918–April 1920 and September 1920–January 1921), 16th (October 1918–May 1919), 18th (November–December 1920), 22nd (September 1919–June 1921), 23rd (October 1918–June 1920), 24th (January–March 1920), 33rd (March–April and May 1920), 34th (April 1920–May 1921), 36th (April–June 1919 and July 1919–February 1920), 40th (October 1919), 50th (April 1920), 52nd (February–March 1920), 56th (July–October 1919), Independent (later 11th) (January–February 1919), and Urals (December 1918–February 1919) Rifle Divisions; the Independent Cavalry Corps (November 1918–April 1920); and the 1st Caucasian (May–September 1920), 2nd ( November 1919–February 1920), 5th Kuban (September 1920), 7th (September 1920), 12th (August–November 1920), 16th (April–June 1920 and January–February 1921), and 21st (February–March 1921) Cavalry Divisions.

From October to December 1918, the 9th Red Army was engaged in battles against the Don Cossack Host, and in early 1919 was part of the Red offensive that captured Borisoglebsk and Novokhopersk. From March 1919, it was engaged in suppressing the Veshensk uprising in its rear and in defensive operations across the Donbass against the Armed Forces of South Russia, and in August–September 1919 it was included in the Special Group of Red forces commanded by V. I. Shorin that undertook a counteroffensive against the Whites in the Donbass. In November–December 1919, it was part of the offensive operation on the South-East Front that forged a bridgehead across the Don River and captured Millerovo. It then moved on to capture Rostov-on-Don and Novocherkassk in January 1920, before entering the North Caucasus region to destroy White resistance on the Taman peninsula and crush the White partisan forces of General M. A. Fostikov (the People’s Army for the Regeneration of Russia). In February–March 1921, the 9th Red Army engaged with forces of the Democratic Republic of Georgia on the Black Sea coast, as Soviet power was established in that region. The army was disestablished on 22 June 1921.

Commanders of the 9th Red Army were A. I. Egorov (28 September–24 November 1918); P. E. Kniagnitskii (23 November 1918–6 June 1919); N. D. Vsevolodov (6–16 June 1919; deserted); A. K. Stepin (16 June 1919–9 February 1920); A. A. Dushkevich (acting, 9 February–1 March 1920); I. P. Uborevich (1 March–3 April 1920); M. I. Vasilenko (5 April–19 July 1920); M. K. Levandovskii (19 July–5 October 1920; 21 November 1920–26 January 1921 and 22 April–13 June 1921); V. N. Chernyshev (acting, 5 October–21 November 1921); and I. F. Sharskov (13–22 June 1921). Its chiefs of staff were P. E. Kniagnitskii (28 September–28 October 1918); N. D. Vsevolodov (29 October 1918–20 April 1919); I. I. Gar′kavyi (acting, 20 April–8 May 1919); Karepov (acting, 1–29 May 1919); E. I. Zakharevich (acting, 30 May–16 June 1919 and 29 May–13 June 1920); V. I. Preobrazhenskii (16 June–25 July 1929); G. D. Sukhodol′skii (acting, 25 July–10 August 1919); A. A. Dushevskii (10 August 1919–23 May 1920); M. E. Medvedev (13 June–21 July 1920); I. G. Kulev (21 July–12 August 1920); G.O. Mattis (12–21 August 1920); V. N. Chernyshev (21 August–5 October 1920 and 21 November 1920–28 January 1921); S. N. Bartenev (acting, 6 October–21 November 1920); and B. N. Kondrat′ev (28 January–25 June 1921).

NJDEH (TER-HARUTIUNIAN), GAREGIN (1 January 1886–21 December 1955). The Armenian military and political leader Garegin Njdeh (this adopted name means “exile” in Armenian) was born in the village of Güznüt (Kiuznut) in Nakhchivan and was the son of a priest. He was educated in a local Russian school and at the Tiflis Gymnasium and, after joining the Dashnaks in his teens, graduated from the Dmitrii Nikolov Military Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1907 (having in 1904 abandoned his studies in the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg University). In 1909, after returning to Armenia, he was arrested by the tsarist authorities, but escaped; in 1912, along with Andranik Ozanian, he formed an Armenian volunteer battalion that fought with Bulgarian forces against the Turks during the First Balkan War. During the First World War, he advocated cooperation with the Russian Army and organized and fought alongside Armenian volunteer forces on the Caucasian Front, as an adjutant to General Dro (Drastamat Kanayan) and as commander of the 3rd Volunteer Battalion. In 1917, he was named by the Russian Provisional Government as its commissar of Alexandropol′.

In May 1918, Njdeh fought alongside General Tovmas Nazarbekian against the Army of Islam at the Battle of Sardarapat; following its declaration of independence (28 May 1918), he became one of the chief organizers of the army of the Democratic Republic of Armenia. He was particularly active in 1919–1920, as commander of the Armenian forces that crushed Azeri rebellions in Nakhchivan and Zangezur during the Armenian–Azerbaijan War. In April 1921, he was proclaimed prime minister, minister of war, and minister of foreign affairs of the short-lived Republic of Mountainous Armenia. Following the collapse of that regime and the establishment of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, Njdeh went into emigration (July 1921), moving from Iran to Turkey, Bulgaria, and the United States.

In the United States, Njdeh founded an Armenian youth movement (Tseghakron) that in 1933 became the Armenian Youth Federation of the Dashnaks. (Njdeh, however, was expelled from the party in 1938, on account of his extremist views.) During the Second World War, he offered his services to the Nazis, and having moved to Berlin in 1942, he went with General Dro to Crimea and the North Caucasus during the German invasion of the USSR. He allowed himself to be arrested by Soviet security forces in Bulgaria in September 1944, apparently in the hope that he would be given a command with the Red Army in its anticipated invasion of Turkey, but instead he was tried for his anti-Soviet activities during the civil wars and given a 25-year sentence. He spent the following decade in prison, first at the Lubianka and later in Yerevan and Tashkent, but is reported to have died in a prison at Vladimir.

Njdeh’s family were forbidden to bury him in Armenia. His ashes were only taken there, in secret, on 31 August 1983, and in 1987 they were buried in the courtyard of the Spitakavor monastery (above the town of Yeghegnadzor). However, in his will Njdeh had expressed his desire to be buried at the foot of Mount Hustup, in Syunik (Kapan, southeastern Armenia), and his ashes were moved there and reburied on 26 April 2005. A metro station in Yerevan is now named after him, and a plaque in his memory has been placed on the house in which he was arrested in Sofia.

NON-PREDETERMINATION. This was the term used by political and military leaders of the Whites across Russia to denote the fact that they were fighting for a national, not a political, cause and that they would take no political decisions that would compromise, or predetermine, decisions that were the prerogative of a future national assembly. (Somewhat oddly, given the distain with much most Whites regarded that body, this had also been, officially, the stand of the Russian Provisional Government of 1917.) It explains the provisional nature of key White initiatives, such as the decree on land issued by Admiral A. V. Kolchak in April 1919, which promised peasants use of land that they had seized from landowners and the fruits of their labors (i.e., the harvest of 1919), but remained noncommittal on the future ownership of the seized lands. The Whites’ enemies, on the other hand, painted “non-predetermination” as a screen behind which the forces of reaction were girding themselves to launch an attack on the “gains of the revolution.” The principle of non-predetermination was eventually breached by the land laws issued by General P. N. Wrangel in June 1920, but by then it was too late to make any difference for the Whites.

NORTH CAUCACASIAN EMIRATE. This putative polity existed across the territory of Chechnia and the northwest reaches of Daghestan (Avaristan) from September 1919 to March 1920 (at which point it was overrun by the 11th Red Army). It had its long-term origins in the Muslim peoples of the region’s resistance to incursions into the Caucasus of Russian settlers, particularly after the discovery of large oil reserves around Grozny in 1893 and the completion of the Rostov–Baku railway. Of more immediate concern, though, were the occupation of many parts of the Caucasus by the Armed Forces of South Russia in 1918–1919, which provoked resistance in the form of a guerrilla force controlled by the pan-Islamist fanatic Sheikh Uzun-Hadji at the Vedeno aul (fortified settlement). In the wake of a visit from an emissary of the Turkish sultan, in September 1919 Uzun-Hadji proclaimed himself “His Majesty the Imam and the Emir of the North Caucasus Emirate Sheikh Uzun Haji Khair Khan.” Sharia law was then proclaimed across the region, an impromptu government was formed of eight ministers, and a Muslim army was created of some 10,000 volunteers, although the ability of Uzun Hadji to control this force remains open to debate. With the approach of the Reds, the army melted away, and in February 1919, the emir accepted that his domain would become an autonomous constituent of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. It was duly incorporated into the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in November 1920.

North Caucasus Soviet Republic. Established at the First North Caucasus Congress of Soviets on 7 July 1918 (on the initiative of G. K. Ordzhonikidze), as a means to Sovietize the North Caucasus, this constituent republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was created by the merging of the Kuban–Black Sea Soviet Republic, the Stavropol′ Soviet Republic, and the Terek Soviet Republic. Its original capital was at Ekaterinodar (Krasnodar), but that town was captured by forces of the Volunteer Army on 17 August 1918, and the Soviet authorities were forced to transfer their headquarters to Piatigorsk. The republic suffered a further blow on 21 October 1918, when I. L. Sorokin, the commander of its army (the Red Army of the North Caucasus), rebelled and arrested and shot a number of its leaders. As White forces overran the North Caucasus in late 1918, the republic ceased to exercise any meaningful authority, and on 11 January 1919, VTsIK decreed its dissolution.

NORTHERN (ARCTIC) OCEAN, FLOTILLA OF THE. When Allied forces captured Russian vessels off Murmansk and Arkhangel′sk in 1918, they were incorporated under this name and made operationally subordinate to the command of the White Northern Army. The Flotilla of the Northern (Arctic) Ocean included the battleship Chesta (“The Honorable”), four destroyers, and numerous other vessels. However, there was little military work to be done in the Arctic by this element of the White Fleet, so it was involved chiefly with hydrographic expeditions and the Kara Sea Expedition of the summer of 1919, which carried agricultural goods out of Siberia via the Ob River and thence westward to Europe and ferried 100,000 poods of military supplies in the opposite direction. Crews from the flotilla were also utilized on the Whites’ Lake Onega, Pechora, and Northern Dvina River Flotillas in campaigns against the Red Army and the Northern Dvina Military Flotilla in 1919. When, in February–March 1920, Arkhangel′sk and then Murmansk were evacuated by the Allies, the flotilla was incorporated into the Red Fleet under the same name.

Commanders of the Flotilla of the Northern (Arctic) Ocean were Rear-Admiral N. E. Vikorst (August–3 November 1918); Vice Admiral L. L. Ivanov (November 1918–July 1919); and G. E. Chaplin (July 1919–February 1920).

NORTHERN ARMY. This White force had its origins in an agreement reached, on 2 March 1918, by the Murmansk Soviet and local representatives of the Allies that British (and later French, American, and other Allied troops) should land in north Russia to protect the region (and the vast quantities of Allied war supplies it housed) from the potential predations of Germany (and White Finns) in the wake of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) and the Finnish Whites’ victory (with German assistance) in the Finnish Civil War. By June 1918, there were some 8,000 members of an Allied expeditionary force around Murmansk, under the command of General F. Poole (March–October 1918) and later General W. Ironside (October 1918–January 1920). In addition, as forces moved south to capture Kem (3 July 1918), efforts were made to raise a Slavo-British Legion, initially at Murmansk, as well as a Murmansk Volunteer Army under Major-General N. I. Zvegintsev. By August 1918, there were 17,000 Allied troops in the region (including 8,000 British, 5,000 Americans, 700 French, and 1,300 Italians), who were joined by 5,000 Russian volunteers.

From 2 August 1918, the center of military operations in North Russia moved to Arkhangel′sk, following the coup organized by Captain G. E. Chaplin against the left-leaning (but anti-Bolshevik) Supreme Administration of the Northern Region there and that regime’s eventual replacement by the center-right Provisional Government of the Northern Region. On 3 November 1918, Chaplin was replaced as head of forces in the Arkhangel′sk region by the more senior Colonel B. A. Durov, while units of the Slavo-British Legion in the town had mustered almost 5,000 by that point. On 19 November 1918, all White forces in the region, now dubbed the Northern Army or the Forces of the Northern Region (which were facing the 6th Red Army of A. A. Samoilo) were united under the command of General V. V. Marushevskii, although he remained in practice subordinate to General Ironside. In early 1919, General E. K. Miller arrived at Arkhangel′sk and took on supreme military and political command.

In the sparsely populated, forested, and alternately frozen and boggy terrain of Northern Russia, where communication and travel were very difficult, forces remained organized on a territorial basis. As of April 1919, they consisted chiefly of the following: the Forces of the Murmansk Region, commanded by General Zvegintsev (May–November 1918) and Colonel L. V. Kostandi (November 1918–June 1919), which in August 1918 merged with the Olonets Volunteer Army of General V. S. Skobel′tsin; the Forces of the Railway Region (Northern Front); the Forces of the Onega Region, commanded by Colonel I. I. Mikheev (March–August 1918) and General V. I. Zamshin (29 August 1919–February 1920); and the Forces of the Northern Dvina Region, commanded by Colonel A. A. Murzi (March–September 1919) and Colonel I. D. Danilov (25 September 1919–19 February 1920). By the summer of 1919, the force numbered some 25,000 men, at least half of whom were deserters from the Red Army or former POWs, commanded by some 600 officers of the old army. (By September 1919, these numbers had increased to 39,000 men and 1,500 officers.)

The early successes enjoyed by the Northern Army in 1918, however, were not carried through; the front stabilized at midway points on the Arkhangel′sk–Vologda and Murmansk–Petrograd railways and moved little thereafter. Little success was achieved in making contact with the right flank of the Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak in the northern Urals (although men from the two armies did meet at Pechora, in the Komi region, on 21 March 1919), and attempts in May–June 1919 to force advances down the railway toward Petrozavodsk and up the Dvina toward Kotlas petered out. The British decided to withdraw from the region in July 1919, and the arrival of a new contingent of men (the North Russian Relief Force) and another attack along the Dvina in August merely covered the evacuation of Arkhangel′sk, which was completed by 27 September 1919. Murmansk was evacuated by the Allies two weeks later, and the White forces collapsed, or were evacuated, over the following winter.

Northern Army Corps. See North-west army.

NORTHERN DVINA MILITARY FLOTILLA. This constituent force of the Red Fleet was created, in August 1918, to oppose forces of the Allied intervention that had landed at Archangel′sk. Initially based at Kotlas, and comprising just three steam tugs, by 30 October 1918 it had expanded to five steamers and a number of floating artillery platforms and had contained the initial threat to Kotlas posed by White forces in the region. The flotilla was under the operational command of the 6th Red Army on the Northern Front (from September 1918) and was again in action against White and interventionist forces of the Northern Army in May–June 1919. The force was decommissioned on 26 May 1920.

Commanders of the Northern Dvina Military Flotilla were K. I. Pronskii (30 August 1918–4 June 1919); V. N. Varvatsi (5 June 1919–February 1920); E. K. Prestin (acting, February–April 1920); and E. E. Auerbakh (acting, May 1920).

NORTHERN FRONT. This Red front was created on 15 September 1918 (by a directive of the Revvoensovet of the Republic of 11 September 1918) to combat forces of the Whites and the Allied intervention in North Russia and the Baltic region. Its initial field of action stretched in a broad curve from Pskov to Viatka, with its staff based initially at Iaroslavl′. Attached to the Northern Front were the 6th Red Army (1 October 1918–19 February 1919), the 7th Red Army (1 November 1918–19 February 1919), the (Red) Army of Soviet Latvia (7–19 February 1919), the Onega Military Flotilla, the Ladoga Military Flotilla, the Northern Dvina Military Flotilla, and the Kronshtadt Fortress.

In the alternately (according to the season) swampy and frozen reaches of northern Russia, the military operations of the Northern Front were characterized by railway war and battles along major rivers (notably the Northern Dvina). The front’s main objective was to prevent a union between the Whites’ Northern Army and the Siberian Army, and in this it was successful, but it also faced attacks from the Baltic region during the Estonian War of Independence, and its forces were pushed back to the Narva River, 90 miles west of Petrograd. To defend the former capital, on 12 February 1919 the Western Front was established, and soon afterward (on 19 February 1919) the Northern Front was abolished.

Commanders of the Northern Front were D. P. Parskii (15 September–26 November 1918) and D. N. Nadezhnyi (26 November 1918–19 February 1919). Its chiefs of staff were F. V. Kostiaev (20 September–21 October 1918) and N. N. Domozhirov (21 October 1918–19 February 1919).

NORTHERN INGRIA, REPUBLIC OF. Also known as the Republic of Kirjasalo (after the village that became its capital), this short-lived, anti-Bolshevik state was proclaimed across five parishes (with a total population of some 400 souls) on the southeastern part of the Karelian isthmus, on 19 June 1919. Its prime movers were Ingrian Finns, who aimed at ultimate union with Finland. Arms and finance from Helsinki were smuggled into the republic to assist local volunteer units in a series of battles against Red forces, but they were eventually overrun. Under the terms of the Treaty of Tartu (14 October 1920), Finland accepted the incorporation of Northern Ingria (sometimes referred to as Northern Ingermanland) into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic; on 5 December 1920, the Northern Ingrian Republic collapsed, although the region enjoyed a limited degree of autonomy within the USSR until 1939, when it was joined to the Pargolovo district.

The chairmen of the governing council of the Republic of Northern Ingria were Santeri Termonen (9 July–September 1919); Juho Pekka Kokko (14 September–November 1919); Georg (Yrjö) Elfvengren (16 November 1919–May 1920); and Jukka Tirranen (June–15 December 1920).

Northern Region, Provisional Government of the. This anti-Bolshevik government was formed, on 28 September 1918, at Arkhangel′sk, in association with the military and diplomatic leaders of Allied forces in the area, to replace the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region in the aftermath of the Chaplin “coup.” Led by N. V. Chaikovskii of the Party of Popular Socialists (until his departure for Paris in January 1919) and left-leaning Kadets, such as P. Iu. Zubov (who was also a member of the Union for the Regeneration of Russia), the government included representatives of numerous parties—including the Kadets, the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries, and the Party of Popular Socialists—as well as the military (notably General V. V. Marushevskii). On 30 April 1919, it subordinated itself to the White supreme ruler, Admiral A. V. Kolchak. On 10 September 1919, the latter pronounced General E. K. Miller governor-general of the northern region and formally abolished the government.

NORTHERN REGION, SUPREME ADMINISTRATION OF THE. A prominent feature of the Democratic Counter-Revolution, this anti-Bolshevik authority was created at Arkhangel′sk on 2 August 1918, as Soviet rule was overthrown by a military uprising assisted by Allied military and diplomatic personnel in the region. The government was dominated by members of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries—notably, S. S. Maslov (head of the Department of Defense), Ia. T. Dedusenko (head of the Department of Trade and Industry), M. A. Likhach (head of the Department of Labor), A. I. Gukovskii (head of the Department of Justice), and G. A. Martiushin (head of the Department of Finance)—but included one member of the Kadets (P. Iu. Zubov, the former deputy mayor of Vologda, who was head of the Department of the Interior) and was chaired by the veteran leader of the Party of Popular Socialists, N. V. Chaikovskii, who served also as head of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The Supreme Administration was committed to the program of the Union for the Regeneration of Russia, and its first act was to invite the landing of forces of the Allied intervention, which began to disembark at Arkhangel′sk during the evening of 2 August 1918. It then proceeded to cancel all Soviet laws, close Soviet institutions, and initiate the formation of a Slavo-British Legion for an armed struggle with the Soviet government. However, on 6 September 1918, a group of right-wing officers under Captain G. E. Chaplin (possibly encouraged by the local Allied military authorities) arrested Chaikovskii and most of the members of the regime and briefly interned them at the Solovetskii Monastery in the White Sea. Although their release was soon secured by the intervention of Allied diplomats in the port, as a result of the Chaplin coup the Leftist coalition government had lost all authority, while the self-confidence of the military grew. Subsequently, on 12 September 1918, when the government resumed its activities, Chaikovskii immediately dissolved all its departments, appointed V. A. Durov military governor of North Russia, and resigned. On 28 September 1918, a new, more right-wing authority was founded, the Provisional Government of the Northern Region.

NORTHERN-URALS–SIBERIAN FRONT. This Red front was created on the orders of the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs on 14 June 1918, with the purpose of bringing order to the various units of Red Guards operating between Omsk, Cheliabinsk, and Ekaterinburg, so that they might more effectively oppose the uprising of the Czechoslovak Legion. Its staff, located at Ekaterinburg, was headed by a military collegium led by R. I. Berzin, supported by S. A. Anuchin and D. N. Nadezhnyi. By a directive of the commander of the Eastern Front of 20 July 1918, the front was reorganized as the 3rd Red Army.

Northern (white) Front. See NORTHERN ARMY.

North-west Army. This anti-Bolshevik force (until 1 July 1919 called the Northern Army Corps) was created on 19 June 1919, in Estonia, on the basis of the former Pskov Volunteer Corps and other White units operating in the Baltic region (numbering perhaps 6,000 men in total), many of which had initially been sponsored, armed, and uniformed by the local German forces. Command of the army was taken by General N. N. Iudenich, who on 5 June 1919 had been named by Admiral A. V. Kolchak as main commander of forces on the North-West Front. (In theory this included also the Western Volunteer Army of General P. R. Bermondt-Avalov.) From 24 August 1919, the North-West Army consisted of the 1st and 2nd Army (Rifle) Corps (commanded by General A. P. von der Pahlen and General E. K. Arsen′ev, respectively) and the 1st (Independent) Infantry Division. By October 1919, this had expanded to two rifle corps, five infantry divisions, and other smaller units (totaling some 18,500 men in the active army and 50,000 in all), supported by four armored trains, six tanks, two armored cars, and six aircraft. The North-West Army also had operational command of some small sections of the White Fleet (e.g., flotillas on the Narva River and Lake Chud). One in ten of the complement of the army were officers, including some fifty-three generals.

The Northern Corps undertook an initial offensive from 13 May 1919, capturing Gdov (15 May 1919), Iamburg (17 May 1919), and Pskov (25 May 1919), but was driven back from Luga and Gatchina in early June and evacuated Pskov on 28 August 1919. A second strategic offensive was launched on 12 October 1919, leading to the Whites’ capture of Luga (16 October 1919), Gatchina (16 October 1919), and Tsarskoe Selo (20 October 1919), but largely due to the insubordination of Bermondt-Avalov (who refused to send his forces north from Latvia to assist in the offensive) and the inability of Iudenich’s forces to cut the Moscow–Petrograd railway, the Red Army was able to concentrate sufficient forces in Petrograd to save the city from being overrun.

The North-West Army was reorganized again, on 25 December 1919, into three rifle divisions and a reserve, but from 22 January 1920, following an agreement between Soviet Russia and Estonia at the end of the Estonian War of Independence, the force was disbanded, and its men were interned in Estonia. In the summer of 1920, some members of the army were allowed to move to Poland, where they joined what was to become the 3rd Army Corps of the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel and subsequently journeyed to Crimea.

The main commander in chief of the North-West Army was General N. N. Iudenich. The assistant main commander (and minister of war) was Major General P. K. Kondzerovskii (Kondyrev) (2 October–28 November 1919). The army commanders were Colonel (later General) A. P. Rodzianko (19 June–2 October 1919), General N. N. Iudenich (2 October–24 November 1919), and General P. V. Glazenap (24 November 1919–22 January 1920). The chiefs of staff were Colonel Zeidlits (June–July 1919) and General A. E. Vandam (from July 1919).

North-West Front. This combination of anti-Bolshevik forces in the Baltic region in May–October, chiefly the North-West Army of General N. N. Iudenich and the Western Volunteer Army of P. R. Bermondt-Avalov, existed only on paper, as Bermondt-Avalov refused to obey the orders of the front’s main commander (Iudenich); instead of assisting in the Whites’ advances on Petrograd in the summer and autumn of 1919, the Bermondtians became entangled in the Landeswehr War.

North-west Government. This anti-Bolshevik polity was formed at Helsingfors on 24 May 1919, as the Political Conference, and moved to Tallinn (Revel) under its new name on 11 August 1919, on the initiative of the head of the British military mission in the region, General F. Marsh. Its aim was to provide political advice to the leader of White forces in the region, General N. N. Iudenich, although he had little time or respect for its civilian members.

The North-West Government was initially chaired by S. G. Lianozov (who served also as minister of foreign affairs and minister of finance). It included Iudenich as minister of war (and later as chairman), Rear Admiral V. K. Pilkin as minister of marine, and P. K. Kondzerovskii as chief of staff of Russian forces in the northwest, and it united members of the Kadets with Right-Mensheviks and right-leaning members of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries. Its program included the recognition of the independence of Estonia and a summons to unity of all anti-Bolshevik forces in the northwest region (Petrograd, Novgorod and Pskov gubernii). Its real authority, however, was limited, and at the height of the advance on Petrograd of the North-West Army, plans were well advanced to replace the North-West Government with a new, Kadet-dominated Petrograd Government. The regime disintegrated in December 1919, following the collapse of Iudenich’s offensive.

NOVEMBER UPRISING. This action by Ukrainian nationalists at Lemberg (L′viv) in late 1918 marked the opening stage of the Ukrainian–Polish War. It was organized by the Ukrainian Military Committee under Dmytro Vitkovskii, acting on instructions of the Ukrainian Central Rada. Plans were laid for the seizure of L′viv by Ukrainian forces of the Austro-Hungarian Army based in the city, aided by a brigade of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen garrisoned in Bukovina, before Polish forces from Kraków could enter the city. Thus, early on 1 November 1918, Ukrainian troops captured key public buildings and raised the Ukrainian flag. The following day, the Austrian military governor of the city recognized Ukrainian sovereignty of L′viv. However, some 60 percent of the population of L′viv was Polish, and over the following days the Ukrainians faced fierce resistance across the city, as forces of the Ukrainian Army and Polish troops converged on the region. Polish assaults were initially repelled by the Ukrainians, but on 21 November 1918 the latter withdrew from the city, leaving it in Polish hands.

NOVGORODTSEV, PAVEL IVANOVICH (28 February 1866–23 April 1924). The lawyer, philosopher, historian, and politician P. I. Novgorodtsev was born at Bakhmut, in Ekaterinoslav guberniia, into the family of a Khar′kov merchant. After attending the Ekaterinoslav Gymnasium, he graduated from the Law Faculty of Moscow University (1888) and studied also in Berlin and Paris. In 1902, having worked as a lawyer and lecturer for the previous decade, he defended his PhD thesis (on the legal philosophy of Kant and Hegel) at St. Petersburg University and subsequently taught in the Law Faculty at Moscow University. From 1904, he was a member of the governing council of the liberal Union of Liberation, and in 1905 became a founding member of the Kadets. In 1906, he was elected to the First State Duma, as a representative of Ekaterinoslav guberniia, but as a signatory of the Vyborg Manifesto, protesting the tsar’s dissolution of the Duma, was subsequently imprisoned for three months in 1906 and deprived of his political rights. From 1906 to 1918, he was rector of the Moscow Higher Commercial Institute. During the First World War, he was active as a member of Zemgor and served also as head of the Moscow Special Council on Fuel. In 1917, he was elected to the Kadet Central Committee and became a leading spokesman for the right wing of the party.

Following the October Revolution, Novgorodtsev, who had been elected to the Constituent Assembly on the Kadet ticket, was a founding and leading member of both the anti-Bolshevik Right Center and later the National Center, operating underground in Moscow and elsewhere. In October 1918, he moved to South Russia to join the Whites, acting as a legal advisor to the Special Council of General A. I. Denikin. Ill health then forced him abroad, but he returned to Crimea in June 1920 to advise the Government of South Russia of General P. N. Wrangel. He went into emigration in September 1921, and after teaching at the Athens Technical School, helped found and run the Russian Juridical Institute in Czechoslovakia, where he died in 1924. He is buried in the Olšanské cemetery in Prague.

NOVIKOV, ALEKSANDR VASIL′EVICH (2 February 1864–after 1932). Lieutenant colonel (24 March 1896), colonel (9 April 1900), major general (31 May 1907), lieutenant general (8 October 1913). One of the most senior of the Red Army’s military specialists, A. V Novikov was born into a noble family in Kazan′ guberniia. He was educated at the Arakcheev Military School in Novgorod, and having entered military service on 1 September 1891, graduated from the Mikhail Artillery School (1884) and the Academy of the General Staff (1891). In his early career, Novikov occupied numerous staff posts, rising to chief of staff with the 1st Cavalry Division (5 May 1902–2 February 1905), before becoming head of the Tver′ Cavalry Officers School (2 February 1905–24 February 1907) and the Elizavetgrad Cavalry School (24 February 1907–15 June 1910) and then commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 5th Cavalry Division (15 June 1910–8 October 1913) and of the 14th Cavalry Division (from 8 October 1913). During the First World War he was, successively, commander of the 1st Cavalry Corps (from 13 October 1914), attached to the staff of the main commander in chief (from 31 January 1915), and commander of the 43rd Army Corps (25 June 1915–2 April 1917). He was removed from that final post by the Russian Provisional Government and attached instead to the reserve of the staff of the Petrograd Military District (from 2 April 1917), but soon retired due to ill health (on 28 April 1917).

Novikov volunteered for service in the Red Army in 1918 and became chief of staff and then commander of the Western Screens (from June 1918), then chief of staff (15 November 1918–13 March 1919 and 9–14 June 1919) and commander (14 June–22 July 1919) of the 16th Red Army. He was then co-opted onto the Field Staff of the Revvoensovet of the Republic (from 1 September 1919). As the civil wars wound down, he was transferred to teaching work as head of the Moscow Topographical School (from 9 September 1920), then inspector of works of the Supreme Geodesic Directorate of the Red Army (from 26 April 1921), before retiring in 1922 (although he continued to teach in various institutions). Novikov was arrested on 29 November 1930, as part of Operation “Spring,” and on 18 July 1931, was sentenced to 10 year’s imprisonment. His subsequent fate is unknown.

NOVITSKII, FEDOR FEDOROVICH (2 August 1870–6 April 1944). Colonel (17 April 1905), major general (17 November 1914), komdiv (29 November 1935), lieutenant general of aviation (1943). A military specialist in the Red Army, F. F. Novitskii was born into a noble family at Opatów, in Russian Poland, and was educated in the Polish Cadet Corps. Having entered military service on 1 September 1887, he graduated from the 1st Military Pavlovsk School (1889) and the Academy of the General Staff (1895). Following a number of junior postings, he served as chief of staff of the 8th Infantry Division (14 October 1903–27 July 1910), and during the First World War was chief of staff of the 1st Army Corps (2 October 1914–25 April 1917) and commander of the 82nd Infantry Division (from 25 April 1917).

Novitskii joined the Red Army voluntarily on 28 March 1918 and was made commander of the Kaluga section of the Western Screens (27 April–1 August 1918). He subsequently served as commander of the Iaroslavl′ Military District (August 1918–January 1919), where his military commissar was M. V. Frunze, and was then chief of staff of the 4th Red Army (31 January–23 February 1919), followed by a stint as assistant commander of that same force, again under Frunze, through the summer of 1919. He then followed Frunze to the Turkestan Front, where from November 1919 he served as assistant front commander. In October 1920, he joined the Soviet delegation in Latvia for the negotiations that would eventually lead to a settlement of the Soviet–Polish War (the Treaty of Riga, 18 March 1921) and the following month joined Frunze again on the Southern Front, in battles against the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel. He was instrumental in the elaboration of plans for the storming of the Perekop isthmus and breaking into Crimea in November 1920.

On 1 September 1921, Novitskii became chief of staff of the Worker-Peasant Red Air Fleet; from 1923 to 1930, he was head of faculty at the N. E. Zhukovskii Military-Aviation Academy. He was arrested on 20 June 1930, as part of Operation “Spring,” but was subsequently released (on 18 July 1931) and returned to his teaching work, becoming head of the Zhukovskii Academy in 1933. He retired from the service in 1938, but returned to work in 1943–1944, as a lecturer in the military history department of the Frunze General Staff Academy. Novitskii died in Moscow and is buried there, in the Novodevich′e cemetery.

NOVOSELOV AFFAIR. In September 1918, the Leftist ministers of the Provisional Siberian Government (PSG) attempted to increase socialist representation in the government, which was leaning further and further to the right under pressure from the Siberian Army, but events turned out badly in what became infamous as the “Novoselov affair.”

Taking advantage of the departure on a diplomatic mission to the Far East of the more conservative chairman of the Council of Ministers, P. V. Vologodskii, and the departure of his assistant, I. I. Serebrennikov, for the Ufa State Conference, on 19 September 1918, ministers M. B. Shatilov and V. M. Krutovskii arrived at Omsk accompanied by the Siberian author and activist A. E. Novoselov and the chairman of the Siberian Regional Duma, I. A. Iakushev, demanding a seat on the Council of Ministers for Novoselov. In circumstances that remain obscure, all were arrested by troops of the Omsk garrison, commanded by Colonel V. I. Volkov. Shatilov and Krutovskii were forced to resign from the government and left the city (as did the other Siberian regionalist minister, P. G. Patushinskii), and Iakushev escaped to Tomsk, but Novoselov was shot “while trying to escape” en route to prison.

A subsequent investigation by A. A. Argunov suggested the involvement in the affair of the PSG’s finance minister, I. A. Mikhailov, as well as Volkov, but nothing could be proved, as Volkov was rapidly sent on a mission to the Far East and avoided questioning, while Argunov was himself arrested during the Omsk coup and all his papers were destroyed. Some commentators have viewed the events as symptomatic of the military’s distrust of socialists, the illegality of the times, and the doomed nature of the Democratic Counter-Revolution.

Novoselov (“novesov”), Aleksandr Efimovich (5 November 1884–22/23 September 1918). A Siberian political activist who ranked among the most prominent casualties of the White struggle against forces of the Democratic Counter-Revolution in 1918, A. E. Novoselov was born in Semipalatinsk oblast′ into the family of a Cossack officer. He studied in the Siberian Cadet Corps, but left before the final examinations, not wishing to enter military service. Instead, he devoted himself to the writing of fiction, one of his stories (“Belovod′e”) earning the admiration of Maxim Gorky, and the study of Siberian ethnography. In pursuit of the latter, prior to 1914 he participated in several expeditions sponsored by the West-Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and had his findings published. Following the February Revolution, he joined the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries and was increasingly active in Siberian politics, being named commissar of Akmolinsk oblast’ by the Provisional Government on 28 August 1917.

In January 1918, Novoselov was elected as a member of the Siberian Regional Duma and was named head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia. He later moved to Kiev and established links with the Ukrainian Central Rada, then traveled to the Far East to meet with P. Ia. Derber. He was killed by Cossack officers at Omsk on 22–23 September 1918, during the so-called Novoselov affair.

Nurijanian, Avis (AVETIS) (1896–12 September 1938). One of the leading Armenian Bolsheviks, Avis Nurijanian was born at Verin Vachagan (Vachakan), in southern Armenia. He was orphaned at the age of three and attended the local diocesan school at Shushi before entering higher education in the Economics Faculty of the Kiev Commercial Institute. He served on the Caucasian Front during the First World War and joined the Dashnaks in 1917, but soon left the party.

From April to August 1918, Nurijanian was a member of the Baku Commune, eventually becoming its chief secretary. He joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in September 1918 and was assigned a number of underground roles in the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan on behalf of the Soviet government. In 1919, he was arrested by the Azeri authorities, jailed for two months, and then expelled from the country. He sought sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Armenia, settling in Alexandropol′. There, from January 1920, he was secretary of the underground Bolshevik Armenkom and became Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Military-Revolutionary Committee that briefly seized power in the town in May 1920. He escaped when the rebellion was crushed and subsequently became military commissar of the Bolshevik revkom that coordinated political affairs when the 11th Red Army entered Armenia in December 1920. In that role, he instigated a wave of Red Terror that led to the anti-Soviet uprising in Armenia of February 1921. Consequently, he was expelled from Armenia when Alexander Miasnikian assumed control. He went to Petrograd to study in 1923 and subsequently was engaged in party work in Petrograd, Riazan′, and Transcaucasia. He died in 1938 in the purges.