Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Reader’s Note

At midnight on 31 January 1918, the new Soviet government, which had already laid claim to sovereign control of most of the old Russian Empire, adopted the Gregorian (“new style”) calendar, which had prevailed farther west in Europe since its adoption by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and which, in the early 20th century, was 13 days ahead of the Julian (“old style”) calendar, which until that date had been in use in Orthodox Russia (where the church authorities anathematized the new calendar as a Catholic fallacy). The day following 31 January 1918, consequently (and to the consternation of many Orthodox souls), became 14 February 1918. In these volumes, dates of events in areas of what had been the Russian Empire prior to the change in the calendar are given in the old style. Dates of events in Russia after the change of calendar are given in the new style, although it should be noted that many of the Russian military, political, cultural, and of course religious forces that opposed the Soviet regime during and after the “Russian” Civil Wars refused to recognize this revolutionary and heretical breach with the past and continued to use the Julian calendar throughout—and beyond—the civil-war period (just as they long refused to accept the Soviet government’s reform of the Russian alphabet and thus for some decades persisted with the old Cyrillic orthography). Dates of events outside the Russian Empire are given always according to the Gregorian calendar, although the mutable nature of borders in this turbulent era will certainly have introduced some inconsistencies and errors.

In these volumes, all Russian words (including names) have been transliterated according to the Library of Congress (LoC) system, except for Anglicized versions of personal names that gained general acceptance prior to the widespread adoption of the LoC system of transliteration, often as a consequence of their bearer’s domestication or publication in the West (chiefly, for example, for our purposes, “Trotsky” not “Trotskii,” “Kerensky” not “Kerenskii,” and “Wrangel’ not “Vrangel′”). But early 20th-century Russia was a multinational empire—indeed, it was the multinational empire of the modern era. Consequently, of the figures who came to prominence in it, many were not Russian at all, even if they sided with ostensibly “Russian” political and/or military formations. In this regard, it might be worth mentioning that even the bearers of the names most familiar to those with only a passing acquaintance with the “Russian” Civil Wars had a very heterogeneous mix of forebears: thus, on the side of the Reds, we find V. I. Lenin (who had Tatar, German, and Jewish ancestors), L. D. Trotsky (a Jew), J. V. Stalin (a Georgian), and commander-in-chief of the Red Army Jukums Vācietis (a Latvian); on the White side we find A. I. Denikin (half Polish), P. N. Wrangel (of German and Swedish heritage), L. D. Kornilov (a Cossack), and A. V. Kolchak (descended, through his father’s line, from a Bosnian/Turkish family). In deference to this, the personal names of non-Russians have been rendered, for the most part, according to the most common transliteration of their names from Latvian, Ukrainian, Polish, etc., rather than from the Russian/Russified version; therefore, for example, the aforementioned “Vācietis” not “Vatsetis,” and “Dzierżyński” not “Dzerzhinskii.” This, at least, has the advantage of conveying the multinational (even international) nature of the wars that wracked “Russia” in the revolutionary era, even if it is not in line with what the subjects themselves might have preferred. Probably most would have preferred it, but perhaps not most of those on the left: many non-Russian Bolsheviks and socialists of the old empire welcomed—and indeed invited—their Russification (or, as they perceived it, “internationalization”) as releasing them from parochial concerns, while German was chosen as the lingua franca of what we have learned to call the “Russian-dominated” Communist International (the Komintern). It is worth remembering here as well that there were also many Red enthusiasts of Esperanto—N. V. Krylenko, for one.

Alternative versions of personal names (or alternative names) are sometimes given in parentheses, together with personal nicknames or pen names. The latter are placed in inverted commas for clarity, but are generally incomplete, as members of the revolutionary underground in tsarist Russia who came to prominence during the civil wars had sometimes garnered dozens of pseudonyms during their careers. Indications of rank (usually military) following personal names refer, unless otherwise indicated, to ranks obtained in the Imperial Russian Army and the various White armies (who regarded themselves as successors of the tsar’s forces). Generally, only the three or four highest ranks obtained are indicated.

Personal names are one thing; place-names are another minefield. Here, due to their familiarity, exceptions have been made for Moscow and St. Petersburg and (for purely aesthetic reasons) Yalta, but the line has been drawn at Archangel/Arkhangel′sk in rendering English versions of Russian names. More consequential is that place-names can be piquant political and ethnic markers. During civil wars such as those endured by imperial Russia and its borderlands in the period after 1917 (not to mention the overlapping collapse of its German, Austrian, and Turkish neighbors, as well as the contemporaneous upheavals afflicting Persia, Mongolia, and China), they become doubly significant. (Indeed, insofar as a name employed might be read, by an interlocutor—with a big gun—as betraying some hostile political or national sympathy, it could be a matter of life or death.) Thus, many of the places mentioned in these volumes were called by two or more different names (usually as a consequence of national differences and military conquests) even before the Soviet government began renaming towns and cities (and even mountains and other natural features) in honor of “heroes of the revolution.” For example, in the accepted transliteration, Lwów (Polish), L′vov (Russian), L′viv (Urkainian), Lemberg (German), and Liov (Roumanian) were all current during the revolutionary period. For the sake of consistency, I have here, in general and not without regret, become all too often a Russianizer, giving the Russian version of a place-name in the first instance, sometimes followed, for clarification, by the chief native form—for example, Kiev (Kyiv), for what is now the capital of Ukraine—or presenting the historical name followed by its current name. However, there were about 100 or 200 “nationalities” (depending on definitions of ethnicity) in what up until the revolutionary period was called “Russia,” and at least half as many linguistic groups, and I am certain that I have not done justice to all of them, or even to most of them. Hopefully, though, the meaning will be clear.

Finally, in this regard (and emblematically for something that might seem to be so straightforward), the city that is now, once again, St. Petersburg (and from 1924 to 1991 was called Leningrad) is often herein referred to as “Petrograd.” This was the name adopted for the city by the tsarist government upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, so that the name of the Russian capital should not sound too “German.” This was in naked defiance of the fact that in 1703 the city had actually been christened with the Dutch name Sankt-Peterburg by its founder, Peter the Great, according to his infatuation with all things Netherlandish (whose lands, in August–September 1914, were of course actually being threatened, though never invaded, by the Germans), and even though, in repudiation of these niceties, through war, revolution, and civil wars, its inhabitants persisted in referring to it, familiarly, as “Piter”—which is not German, Dutch, or even Russian. What, indeed, is in a name?

Readers should also note that, to facilitate rapid and efficient location of relevant information and to make this work as useful a reference tool as possible, within individual entries terms that have their own, separate entries are in boldface type the first time they appear.