Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

1922    January: Red forces crush a Finnish-inspired uprising in Karelia. 5 January: Ten prominent anarchists are expelled from Soviet Russia. 6 February: The Cheka is recast as the Main Political Administration (GPU). 14 February: Khabarovsk is captured by forces of the FER. 23 February: A Sovnarkom decree is issued on the confiscation of church valuables. 12 March: The Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is formed. 3 April: Stalin is appointed as the first general secretary of the RKP(b). 10 April–19 May: Soviet Russia participates in the Genoa Conference on economic reconstruction in Europe. 16 April: A Russo–German treaty is signed at Rapallo. A secret supplement (signed in Berlin on 29 July) permits Germany to train its forces on Soviet territory, thereby breaching the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. 26 April: The trial of 54 religious leaders begins in Moscow. 25 May: Lenin suffers his first stroke. 8 June–7 August: The trial of members of the SR Central Committee is held in Moscow. 4 August: Enver Pasha is killed by a Red Army patrol near the Afghan border, marking the end of unified (and therefore threatening) Basmachi operations against the Soviet regime. September–November: Some 160 anti-Bolshevik intellectuals are expelled from Soviet Russia on the “Philosophers’ Ships.” 27 September: Japanese forces evacuate Nikolaevsk. 4–25 October: Forces of the Far Eastern Republic crush the army of the Vladivostok Zemstvo government in the Maritime Province. 25 October–1 November: Soviet forces enter Vladivostok, as the last Japanese forces evacuate the city and the Inter-Allied Railway Board is abolished. 14 November: The Far Eastern Republic applies for union with the RSFSR (effectively voting itself out of existence), an appeal that is granted by VTsIK on the following day. 29 December: The treaty on the creation of the USSR unites the Russian and Transcaucasian SFSRs and the Belorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. 30 December: The First Congress of Soviets of the USSR meets in Moscow.

1923    January–17 June: General V. N. Pepeliaev leads a White landing on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk and an incursion into Iakutia, beginning the Iakutsk Revolt—the final White campaign on Russian soil. 14 March: The Conference of Allied Ambassadors in Paris recognizes the annexation of Eastern Galicia (Western Ukraine) by Poland. 8 May: British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon delivers an ultimatum to Moscow (the “Curzon note”), threatening to abrogate the Anglo–Soviet Trade Agreement if Soviet Russia does not desist from instigating subversion within the territories of the British Empire. 6 July: The Constitution of the USSR is adopted by the All-Union TsIK (formally confirmed by the Second All-Union Congress of Soviets on 31 January 1924).

1924    21 January: V. I. Lenin dies. 1 February: A note delivered to Moscow by the new Labour government in London recognizes the authorities of the USSR as “the de jure rulers of those territories of the old Russian Empire which acknowledge their authority.” Full diplomatic recognition is subsequently offered by Italy (7 February), Norway (15 February), Austria (25 February), Greece (8 March), Free City of Danzig (13 March), Sweden (15 March), Canada (24 March), China (31 May), Denmark (18 June), Albania (4 July), Mexico (4 August), Hejaz (6 August), Hungary (18 September), and France (28 October). 27–28 August: The anti-Soviet “August Uprising” in Georgia is crushed by the Red Army. As many as 3,000 rebels are killed in the fighting and as many as 10,000–12,000 prisoners and hostages may be executed in reprisals by the Cheka. 25 November: The Mongolian People’s Republic is established.

1925    26 January: L. D. Trotsky is removed as People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and head of the Revvoensovet of the USSR. He is replaced by M. V. Frunze. 4 April: In accordance with an agreement signed between Soviet and Japanese representatives at Peking (on 20 January 1925), withdrawal is completed of the last remaining interventionist forces on Soviet Russian soil, as Japan evacuates northern Sakhalin.

1926    4 June: The closure of the last active Red front, the Turkestan Front, marks the end of the “Russian” Civil Wars.

Introduction