There are a number of reports about the involvement of Chinese detachments in the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War. Chinese served as bodyguards of Bolshevik functionaries, [1] [2] served in the Cheka, [3] and even formed complete regiments of the Red Army. [4] It has been estimated that there were tens of thousands of Chinese troops in the Red Army, [5] and they were among the few groups of foreigners fighting for the Red Army. [6]
Other notable examples of foreigners serving in the Red Army include Koreans in the Russian Far East, [7] [8] Czech and Slovak nationals, Hungarian communists under Béla Kun, Red Latvian Riflemen as well as a number of other national detachments. [9] By the summer of 1919, the Red Army comprised over a million men. By November 1920, it comprised over 1.8 million men. [10] Foreign soldiers did not make up a significant bulk of the Red Army, and the majority of the soldiers of the Red Army fighting in the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War were Russians. [6]
Large numbers of Chinese lived and worked in Siberia in the late Russian Empire. Many of these migrant workers were transferred to the European part of Russia and to the Ural during World War I because of the acute shortage of workers there. [11] For example, by 1916 there were about 5,000 Chinese workers in Novgorod Governorate. In 1916-1917 about 2,000 Chinese workers were employed in the construction of Russian fortifications around the Gulf of Finland. A significant number of them were convicted robbers ( honghuzi , "Red Beards", transliterated into Russian as "khunkhuzy", хунхузы) transferred from katorga labor camps in Harbin and other locations in the Far Eastern regions of the Russian Empire. After the Russian Revolution, some of them stayed in Finland and took part as volunteers in the Finnish Civil War on the allied communist side. [12] After 1917 many of these Chinese workers joined the Red Army. [13] The vast majority of these Chinese were apolitical and become soldiers solely in order to gain rights as workers in a foreign country. [11]
Dungans fought alongside Kyrgyz rebels in attacking Przheval'sk during the 1916 Basmachi revolt. [14]
A Dungan Muslim and communist Commander Magaza Masanchi of the Dungan Cavalry Regiment fought for the Soviet Union against the Basmachis. [15] He also took part in other actions in central Asia.
All of the capitals of the major Soviet republics in the European sphere of the soon-to-be USSR (established 1922) and Petrograd/St. Petersburg had sizable contingents of "others" as Red Guards. "Others" refers to Buryats, Armenians, Cossacks, Tatars, Latvians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews and to some degree Chinese. Of note is the fact that after the October Revolution, Red Guards were organized in state commercial enterprises, factories and plants often at the request of the local or regional workers' Soviet (autonomous workers' council in the plant, factory, etc.). In the Paramonovskii settlement in the Donbas, there were 27 Chinese and 3 Austrian Red Guards. In the Almazno settlement, there were Chinese, Germans, Czechs, Slovaks and Poles in addition to Russians, Ukrainians and Cossacks. [16] Minsk supposedly had many Chinese Red Guards (but it is believed that "one thousand" the estimate given by Benton is too high). In the Russian Far East, from a total of 330 Red Guards in the city of Nikolsk-Ussuriisk, 57 were Koreans in May 1918. [17] The main duties of the Cheka were to fight against counter-revolution, sabotage and quell internal dissent. They were allowed to use "extra-legal" means to search, arrest, destroy and torture. In the beginning, there were three main sections which quickly grew into four or more. The first three sections were: information section (information collection and administration), organizational section (executive to determine who and how to fight against the "enemies" of the new state) and the fighting section. Later, the administrative section grew as the Cheka grew to approximately 100,000 by 1920. There are some who argue that the Cheka had grown to over 200,00 by 1920. [18] The Cheka grew from 23 men in the beginning to approximately 100,000 plus by 1919-1920 (a conservative estimate). They took their ranks from the pre-existing Bolshevik group, the MRC (the Military Revolutionary Committee), the Red Guards (the predecessor to the Soviet police (militsia), the pre-Revolution, Russian Army, mercenaries and recruits.
The Chinese with the Red Army were recruited from factory workers who had been attracted into Russia before the war and sided with the urban proletariat with whom they worked. Separate Chinese units fought for the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine, Transcaucasia and Siberia. [6]
One estimate suggests that there were hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops in the Red Army. [5] Nonetheless, Brian Murphy asserts that "the number of Chinese troops did not constitute a significant fraction of the Red Army." [6] By summer of 1919, the Red Army comprised over a million men. By November 1920, it comprised over 1.8 million men. [19]
Chinese units were involved in virtually every front of the Russian Civil War. Some sincerely sympathized with the Bolsheviks who treated them as "proletarian brothers". Others simply joined the Red Army in order to survive and others wanted to fight their way home to China.
The Chinese were one of several foreign contingents dubbed in Soviet historiography as "internationalist detachments" ("отряды интернационалистов"). [20] Chinese internationalist troops wore the same uniform as the rest of the Red Army. [21]
The Chinese Cheka and Chekists typically served in four special category units of the Cheka: CHON (special purpose para military units), VNUS (internal service troops), VOKhR (internal service troops) and the Cheka OOs (Frontier Cheka). VNUS and VOKhR troops served as an internal security force on the military front in times of war. Sometimes, they served as police in rear guard, military areas (policing soldiers). When necessary they fought along Red Army troops. CHON were mainly used to protect key military, political or state buildings, bases and installations, assisting Cheka operations, quelling uprisings and giving combat support to the Red Army. After 1921, several East Asian Cheka formed the Frontier Cheka, Border Guards and or Cheka OOs (standing for Frontier Cheka). [22] The Bolsheviks found special value in the use of Chinese troops who were considered to be industrious and efficient. In addition, they were seldom able to understand Russian, which kept them insulated from outside influences. [21]
The use of Chinese troops by the Bolsheviks was commented on by both White Russian and non-Russian observers. [13] In fact, the Bolsheviks were often derided for their reliance on Chinese and Latvian volunteers. [23] Anti-Bolshevik propaganda suggested that the Bolsheviks did not have the support of the Russian people and thus had to resort to foreign mercenaries who ran roughshod over the Russian populace. [24]
In 1918, Dmitri Gavronsky, a member of the Russian Constituent Assembly, asserted that the Bolsheviks based their power chiefly on foreign support. He asserted that, "in Moscow, they have at their disposal 16,000 well-armed Lettish soldiers, some detachments of Finnish Red Guards and a large battalion of Chinese troops." Gavronsky added that "The latter are always used for executions." [25]
In his book Between Red and White, Leon Trotsky makes sarcastic reference to the charge that the Soviets held Petrograd and Moscow "by the aid of 'Lettish, Chinese, German and Bashkir regiments'". [26]
The Red Army commander Iona Yakir headed a Chinese detachment guarding Lenin and Trotsky. Later he headed a regiment made up of volunteer Chinese workers, which achieved distinction in battle when the Red Army heavily defeated (temporarily) Romanian troops in February 1918 during the Romanian occupation of Bessarabia.[ citation needed ]
There was also a Chinese detachment in the "Konarmiya" 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny. [27]
Some Chinese volunteers, who had fanatical devotion to the revolution, were allowed to join the Cheka and various military guard detachments. [4] In 1919, there were some 700 Chinese troops in the Cheka. [3] The Cheka utilized them for the arrest and execution of anti-Soviet soldiers. [21]
The Beiyang government in north China joined the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. They sent forces numbering 2,300 in Siberia and North Russia beginning in 1918, after the Chinese community in the area requested aid. Many of these soldiers later defected to the Red Army. [28]
Despite many Chinese serving in the Red Army, the Soviet Chinese were repressed and arrested starting in 1928. By 1938, few Chinese remained in European Russia or the Russian Far East. [27] [29]
Ren Fuchen (任辅臣) (1884–1918) from Tieling was the first Bolshevik in North Liaoning and a commander of the Chinese regiment of the Soviet Red Army. He is commemorated as a revolutionary hero in the People's Republic of China. [30] [31] [32]
There is a 1923 short story, Chinese Story by Mikhail Bulgakov, about a Chinese mercenary in the Red Army. [33]
The 1929 comic book by Hergé, "Tintin au pays des soviets" includes a scene where Tintin is put in a cell to be tortured by Chinese Cheka/NKVD professionals.
The 1936 historical novel Names in Marble by the Estonian author Albert Kivikas describes the fate of some captured Chinese soldiers whose units were part of the invading Russian army, in the hands of the Estonian patriots during the Estonian War of Independence.
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, abbreviated as VChK, and commonly known as Cheka, was the first of a succession of Soviet secret-police organizations. Established on December 5 1917 by the Sovnarkom, it came under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish aristocrat-turned-Bolshevik. By late 1918, hundreds of Cheka committees had sprung up in the Russian SFSR at all levels.
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Bolshevik Party, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established in January 1918. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Starting in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces, taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in 1991.
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.
The Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1922 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik government during the Russian Civil War. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part of the Voronezh Oblast, less than 500 kilometres (300 mi) southeast of Moscow.
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was a campaign of political repression and executions which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. It officially started in early September 1918 and lasted until 1922. Arising after assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky along with the successful assassinations of Petrograd Cheka leader Moisei Uritsky and party editor V. Volodarsky in alleged retaliation for Bolshevik atrocities, the Red Terror was modeled on the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, and sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power. The decision to enact the Red Terror was also driven by the initial 'massacre of their "Red" prisoners by the office-caders during the Moscow insurrection of October 1917', allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and the large-scale massacres of Reds during the Finnish Civil War in which 10,00-20,000 revolutionaries had been killed by the Finnish Whites.
The Latvian Riflemen were originally a military formation of the Imperial Russian Army assembled starting 1915 in Latvia in order to defend Baltic governorates against the German Empire in World War I. Initially, the battalions were formed by volunteers, and from 1916 by conscription among the Latvian population. A total of about 40,000 troops were drafted into the Latvian Riflemen Division. They were used as an elite force in the Imperial and Red armies.
The Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War consisted of a series of multi-national military expeditions that began in 1918. The initial impetus behind the interventions was to secure munitions and supply depots from falling into the German Empire's hands, particularly after the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, and to rescue the Allied forces that had become trapped within Russia after the 1917 October Revolution. After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the Allied plan changed to helping the White forces in the Russian Civil War. After the Whites collapsed, the Allies withdrew their forces from Russia by 1925.
The Left SR uprising, or Left SR revolt, was a rebellion against the Bolsheviks by the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party in Moscow, Soviet Russia, on 6–7 July 1918. It was one of a number of left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks that took place during the Russian Civil War.
Maria Hryhorivna Nikiforova was a Ukrainian anarchist partisan leader that led the Black Guards during the Ukrainian War of Independence, becoming widely renowned as an atamansha. A self-described terrorist from the age of 16, she was imprisoned for her activities in Russia before managing to escape to western Europe. With the outbreak of World War I, she took up the defencist line and joined the French Foreign Legion on the Macedonian front before returning to Ukraine with the outbreak of the 1917 Revolution.
The White Army or White Guard, also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. They fought against the Red Army of Soviet Russia.
The Ukrainian War of Independence, also referred to as the Ukrainian–Soviet War in post-Soviet Ukraine, lasted from March 1917 to November 1921. It saw the establishment and development of an independent Ukrainian republic, most of which was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of 1922–1991.
Estonian Riflemen, Estonian Red Riflemen, Estonian Red Army, Estonian Red Guards were military formations assembled starting 1917 in the Soviet Russia.
The White Terror in Russia refers to the organized violence and mass killings carried out by the White Army during the Russian Civil War (1917–23). It began after the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, and continued until the defeat of the White Army at the hands of the Red Army. The Red Terror started a year after the initial White Terror in early Septemebr 1918 in response to several, planned assassinations of Bolshevik leaders and the initial massacres of Red prisoners in Moscow and during the Finnish Civil War. According to some Russian historians, the White Terror was a series of premeditated actions directed by their leaders, although this is contested by most Russian historians who view it as spontaneous and disorganized. Estimates for those killed in the White Terror vary between 20,000 and 100,000 people.
The Revolutions of 1917–1923 were a revolutionary wave that included political unrest and armed revolts around the world inspired by the success of the Russian Revolution and the disorder created by the aftermath of World War I. The uprisings were mainly socialist or anti-colonial in nature. Some socialist revolts failed to create lasting socialist states. The revolutions had lasting effects in shaping the future European political landscape, with for example the collapse of the German Empire and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary.
The Red Cossacks was a military formation of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government of Ukraine. Red Cossacks was a collective name for one of the biggest cavalry formations of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) and was part of the Ukrainian, Southern, and Southwestern fronts during the Russian Civil War and later was stationed in the Ukrainian SSR.
The Ukrainian–Soviet War is the term commonly used in post-Soviet Ukraine for the events taking place between 1917–21, nowadays regarded essentially as a war between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Bolsheviks. The war ensued soon after the October Revolution when Lenin dispatched Antonov's expeditionary group to Ukraine and Southern Russia.
During the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923, a number of former Tsarist officers joined the Red Army, either voluntarily or as a result of coercion. This list includes officers of the Imperial Russian Army commissioned before 1917 who joined the Bolsheviks as commanders or as military specialists. For former Tsarist NCOs promoted under the Soviets, see Mustang.
Nikolai Gurevich Tolmachyov was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and participant of the February and October Revolutions, the Civil War. He was a political worker of the Red Army and one of the first military commissars.
An index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War period (1905–1922). It covers articles on topics, events, and persons related to the revolutionary era, from the 1905 Russian Revolution until the end of the Russian Civil War. The See also section includes other lists related to Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union, including an index of articles about the Soviet Union (1922–1991) which is the next article in this series, and Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
The Establishment of Soviet power in Russia was the process of establishing Soviet power throughout the territory of the former Russian Empire, with the exception of areas occupied by the troops of the Central Powers, following the seizure of power in Petrograd on October 25, 1917, and in mostly completed by the beginning of the German offensive along the entire front on February 18, 1918.
"Personnel Strength[s] of the Fighting Troops" and "Personnel Strength[s] of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic" (both figures including naval infantry, internal security, etc.)
"Personnel Strength[s] of the Fighting Troops" and "Personnel Strength[s] of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic" (both figures including naval infantry, internal security, etc.):
- June/July 1918 - 225,000 and 374,551
- June/July 1919 - 1,307,376 and 2,320,542
- 1 June 1920 - 1,539,667 and 4,424,317
- On p. 15, Krivosheev shows the strength of the fighting troops at 1,866,313, on 15 November 1920 - shortly before demobilization began.
In 1917 there were several thousand of Chinese, mostly industrial workers. In December 1917 the Union of Chinese Workers in Russia. In 1918 the Chinese internationalist Шэн Ченхо formed a Chinese internationalist detachment.
The Bolsheviki came into power by violence and have sustained themselves in power by violence and terrorism. Their main support, the so-called Red Army, in which the Chinese and Letts have played a prominent part, is an army of mercenaries...
Then there occurred another story which has become traumatic, this one for the Russian nationalist psyche. At the end of the year 1918, after the Russian Revolution, the Chinese merchants in the Russian Far East demanded the Chinese government to send troops for their protection, and Chinese troops were sent to Vladivostok to protect the Chinese community: about 1600 soldiers and 700 support personnel.
The number remained almost constant for the next decade, but in the middle of the 1930s, an expulsion of the Chinese began, reaching its climax in 1938, when the last Chinese were repatriated or deported to Central Asia