The Labour Armies of the Soviet Republic

Abstract

The Russian Civil War was to all intents and purposes over by the end of 1919. On the Eastern Front Kolchak’s capital, Omsk, was taken by the Bolsheviks on 14 November 1919; as his forces retreated eastward the SRs and Mensheviks seized power in Irkutsk on 4 January 1920, and with the help of remnants of the Czechoslovak Legion arrested Kolchak as he tried to pass through the city. By the end of January the local Bolsheviks had persuaded the SRs and Mensheviks to co-operate with them and put Kolchak on trial, but on 6 February he was summarily executed to prevent him being rescued in what seemed, momentarily, to be a White counterattack. The Red Army finally secured Irkutsk on 6 March 1920. On the Southern Front the Red Army had at last discovered cavalry (see Chapter 2), and the Red Cavalry, created over the summer and autumn of 1919, drove Denikin back to the Don and beyond, with Rostov being recovered in January 1920. Although Denikin was able to make a final stand on the Kuban river in March 1920, it was only a temporary reprieve; by April 1920 he and his forces had been evacuated to the Crimea.