Crimea in the five years after the Russian Revolution had a large number of governments culminating in being a stronghold of anti-Communist forces and the place on Russian soil where they made their last stand.
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the military and political situation in Crimea was chaotic like that in much of Russia. During the ensuing Russian Civil War, Crimea changed hands numerous times and was for a time a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. It was in Crimea that the White Russians led by General Wrangel made their last stand against Nestor Makhno and the Red Army in 1920. When resistance was crushed, many of the anti-Bolshevik fighters and civilians escaped by ship to Istanbul.
Approximately 50,000 White prisoners of war and civilians were summarily executed by shooting or hanging after the defeat of General Wrangel at the end of 1920. [1] This is considered one of the largest massacres in the Civil War. [2]
Between 56,000 and 150,000 of the Whites were murdered as part of the Red Terror, organized by Béla Kun's Crimean Revolutionary Committee.
Crimea changed hands several times over the course of the conflict and several political entities were set up on the peninsula. These included:
Country | Jurisdiction | Period | Details |
---|---|---|---|
Russian Revolution and Civil War (1917–1921) | Crimean People's Republic | December 1917 –January 1918 | Crimean Tatar government |
Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic | 19 March –30 April 1918 | Bolshevik government | |
Ukrainian State | May–June 1918 | ||
First Crimean Regional Government | 25 June –25 November 1918 | German puppet state under Lipka Tatar General Maciej (Suleyman) Sulkiewicz | |
Second Crimean Regional Government | November 1918 –April 1919 | Anti-Bolshevik government under Crimean Karaite former Kadet member Solomon Krym | |
Crimean Socialist Soviet Republic | 2 April –June 1919 | Bolshevik government | |
South Russian Government | February 1920 –April 1920 | Government of White movement's General Anton Denikin | |
Government of South Russia | April (officially, 16 August) –16 November 1920 | Government of White movement's General Pyotr Wrangel | |
Bolshevik Revolutionary committee government | November 1920 –18 October 1921 | Bolshevik government under Béla Kun (until 20 February 1921), then Mikhail Poliakov | |
Crimean Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic | 18 October 1921 –30 June 1945 | Autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR | |
Soviet era (1921–1991) |
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.
Anton Ivanovich Denikin was a Russian military leader who served as the acting supreme ruler of the Russian State and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of South Russia during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923. Previously, he was a general in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I.
The White movement, also known as the Whites, was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the communist Bolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923) and that to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations of rebels both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly World War II (1939–1945). The movement's military arm was the White Army, also known as the White Guard or White Guardsmen.
The Red Terror was a campaign of political repression and executions in Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine, as well as occupied territories in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland, 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 mass repressions, 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-cadres 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 10,000 to 20,000 revolutionaries had been killed by the Finnish Whites.
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, also known by his nickname the Black Baron, was a Russian officer of Baltic German origin in the Imperial Russian Army. During the final phase of the Russian Civil War, he was commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia.
Viktor Leonidovich Pokrovsky was a Russian lieutenant general and one of the leaders of anti-communist counterrevolutionary White Army during the Russian Civil War.
De-Cossackization was the Bolshevik policy of systematic repression against the Cossacks in the former Russian Empire between 1919 and 1933, especially the Don and Kuban Cossacks in Russia, aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a distinct collectivity by exterminating the Cossack elite, coercing all other Cossacks into compliance, and eliminating Cossack distinctness. Several scholars have categorised this as a form of genocide, whilst other historians have highly disputed this classification due to the contentious figures which range from "a few thousand to incredible claims of hundreds of thousands".
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 1st Cavalry Army was a prominent Red Army military formation. It was also known as "Budyonny's Cavalry Army" or simply as Konarmia.
The Southern Front was a military theatre of the Russian Civil War.
The Don Army was the military of the short lived Don Republic and a part of the White movement in the Russian Civil War. It operated from 1918 to 1920, in the Don region and centered in the town of Novocherkassk.
The Ukrainian War of Independence, also referred to as the Ukrainian–Soviet War in 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.
Wrangel's fleet was the last remnant of the Black Sea Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy and existed from 1920 until 1924. This squadron was a White (anti-Bolshevik) unit during the Russian Civil War. It was known also as the Russian Squadron.
The White Terror in Russia refers to the 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 September 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 Volunteer Army was a White Army active in South Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1920. The Volunteer Army fought against Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists on the Southern Front and the Ukrainian War of Independence. In 1919 it was made part of the Armed Forces of South Russia, becoming the largest force of the White movement until it was merged with the Army of Wrangel in March 1920.
South Russia or South of Russia, also known as White South was a short-lived military quasi-state that existed in Eastern Europe during the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War from 1919 to 1920.
August Ivanovich Kork was an Estonian Red Army commander who was tried and executed during the Great Purge in 1937.
The siege of Perekop, also known as the Perekop-Chongar Operation, was a battle of the Southern Front in the Russian Civil War from 7 to 17 November 1920. The White movement's stronghold on the Crimean Peninsula was protected by the Chongar fortification system along the strategic Isthmus of Perekop and the Syvash, from which the Crimean Corps under General Yakov Slashchov repelled several Red Army invasion attempts in early 1920. The Southern Front of the Red Army and the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, under the joint command of Mikhail Frunze, launched an offensive on Crimea with an invasion force four-times larger than the defenders, the White Russian Army under the command of General Pyotr Wrangel. Despite suffering heavy losses, the Reds broke through the fortifications, and the Whites were forced into retreat southwards. Following their defeat at the siege of Perekop, the Whites evacuated from the Crimea, dissolving the Army of Wrangel and ending the Southern Front in Bolshevik victory.
The Evacuation of the Crimea was an event in the Russian Civil War, in which the Government of South Russia evacuated over sea from the Crimean Peninsula, the last stronghold of the White movement on the Southern Front, bringing an end to the fighting on that Front.
Ulagay's Landing is the generally accepted name for a military operation by Pyotr Wrangel's White Russian Army, under command of Sergei Ulagay, against the Red Army in the Kuban between August 14 and September 7, 1920 during the Russian Civil War.