At the end of May, 1918 the situation on the east of the country, where the parts of the separate Czechoslovak corps were located, aggravated. Under the agreement with the government of RSFSR the corps was the subject to evacuation to France through Vladivostok on conditions of giving up of weapon, except for the minimal necessary for protection of echelons. However, the breach of the agreement by the command of the corps and attempts of organs of the Soviet authority to disarm the corps resulted in armed confrontations.
On the night of 25th-26th of May Czechoslovak units launched the attack on Chelyabinsk and soon together with White Guard formations occupied almost all the Transsiberian trunk-railway. The Soviet authority in the occupied areas was thrown down.
July 2, 1918 the Supreme Council of Entente made a decision of beginning an intervention in Russia. July 6 in Murmansk the ' Temporary agreement of exceptional circumstances of the representatives of Great Britain, North American United States and France with the presidium of Murmansk regional Soviet ' with a view of joint protection of the territory from the powers of the German coalition was signed. July 17 the state department of USA issued the memorandum of an admissibility of military actions in Russia. On the 2nd of August members of socialist-revolutionary (S.R.) and national socialists parties and cadets carried out anti-bolsheviks revolution in Arkhangelsk. The authority passed to the Supreme government of the Northern area headed by N.V.Chaikovsky, under the agreement with whom about one thousand of English, French and American soldiers and sailors landed in Arkhangelsk.
By the offer of the Dictatorship of Centrocaspy, formed after the fall of the Baku commune, the English armies entered Baku for its protection against the Turkish army. After short fights Turkish armies seized Baku.Left S.R.s, considering the Brest - Lithuanian peace treaty as a treachery of interests of world revolution, made the decision on turning back to the tactics of individual terror.
In July 1918 the members of " the Union of protection of the Homeland and freedom " raised the revolt in Yaroslavl, and the Commander-in-Chief of the East front M.A Muravyev ordered to stop operations against the Czechoslovak corps and to turn the weapon against the German armies. In conditions of threat of capture of Ekaterinburg by White Guards, according to the decision of Revkom (Revolutionary Committee) of the Ural area, coordinated with the government of RSFSR, on the 18th of July the former emperor Nikolay II and all his family were executed. In August the chairman of Petrograd ChK (Emergency Committee) and narkom of internal affairs of the Northern area M.S.Uritsky was killed, at the same time V.I.Lenin was wounded in Moscow. These acts of terrorism were the reason of accepting on September 5 the enactment of " The Red terror " by SNK of RSFSR.
The armed offensive of the separate Czechoslovak corps on June 13, 1918 compelled Sovnarkom of RSFSR to create Revvoensovet (the Revolutionary Military Soviet) on the East front for the struggle against it. After regrouping and reinforcement of the army of the East front a new operation was started and within two months the territories of the Middle Volga and the Kama regions were occupied. At the same time the Southern front (the former general P.P. Satin) conducted serious defensive battles against the Don army in Tsaritsyn, Povorin and Voronezh directions. In the middle of September the rests of the Soviet armies located to the southwest of Armavir united with the Taman army.
The autumn of 1918 in connection with the end of the World War I the essential changes took place on the international scene. On the 30th of October Turkey signed Mudrosskoe armistice with the countries of Entente, according to which in November Englishmen again occupied Baku. In the beginning of November the revolutions took place in Germany and Austria-Hungary. On the 11th of November the agreement of an armistice was signed between the countries of Entente and Germany in Kompyen. According to the confidential addition to it the German armies remained on occupied territories before arrival of armies of Entente.
In the note to the Supreme Soviet of Entente from November, 12 the General Staff of the Chief Headquarters of the allied armies offered to destroy Bolshevism and to encourage creation of the regime of the order on the basis of national interrogation in Russia. With this purpose it was considered to maintain the situation in the east, advance actions of the allies in the north to Petrograd and in the south to the Caspian sea and the Volga, carry out intervention in South Russia through Romania and the Black sea.
In November - December 1918 the allied troops landed in Novorossiisk, Odessa and Sevastopol, new allied contingents appeared in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and in Vladivostok. November 13, 1918 VTSYK took the decision of cancellation of the Brest - Lithuanian peace treaty. Under the arrangement with the German command the Red Army started occupation of the territories from which the German armies were called off. The advance of the Soviet armies was carried out despite protests of the governments of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian Republics. On the territories controlled by the Red Army, were formed the Estland labor commune (November, 29), the Lithuanian (December, 16) and the Latvian (December, 17) Socialist Soviet Republics.
In connection with the end of the World War I the changes occurred in the foreign policies of the countries of Entente. Thus, the English military cabinet made a decision not to send armies to Russia, except for technical units. By February 1919 there were total of 202,4 thousand of soldiers and officers of allied armies on the Russian territory. With the purpose of making up of the armies with the skilled military staff on October, 25, 1918 CK RKP (B) decided to release all captive officers, and in November recognized as necessary to achieve agreement with average peasants, not refusing from the struggle against the kulaks and strongly basing only on the poor.
All these measures led to crisis on the front in favor of the Red Army. Under the report of the member of Revvoensoviet of the Southern front G.Y. Sokolnikov on the 16th of March CK stopped the use of repressive measures against Cossacks and called upon carrying out the policy of stratification among them. However, the unlawful decision of Orgbureau (the Organizational Bureau) provoked on the night of the10th-11th of March the revolt of Cossacks on the Top Don, which seriously complicated the further approach of armies of the front.
In January 1919 general A.I.Denikin arranged measures on centralization of the government of all anti-soviet forces in the south of the country. The Voluntary and the Don armies were united in the armed forces of the south of Russia. Their structure also included the Crimean-Azov army, armies of Northern Caucasus, the Caucasian army and the Black Sea fleet. To facilitate the conditions of the Don army, general Denikin started shifting units of the Caucasian Voluntary army (the former Voluntary Army) from Northern Caucasus to Donbass. With joint efforts in the beginning of February the Voluntary and the Don armies stopped the advance of armies of the Southern front. |
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