Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

On 21 October 1918, Sorokin ordered the execution of a group of members of the regional committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and members of the Central Executive Committee of the North Caucasus Republic (including A. A. Rubin and V. I. Krainyi), as well as I. I. Matveev (the commander of the Taman Red Army). He was also responsible for the execution, on 19 October 1918, of a number of captured tsarist officers (including Generals R. D. Radko-Dmitriev and N. V. Ruzskii), but on 28 October 1918 a Second Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of the North Caucasus declared Sorokin to be an outlaw and removed him from his military posts. On 30 October 1918, he was arrested near Stavropol′, and he was subsequently killed in prison there by a Red commander (I. T. Vysenko of the 3rd Taman Regiment of the 1st Taman Infantry Division) before he could be brought to trial.

SOUTH-EAST FRONT. This Red front, with its staff headquarters at Saratov, was created by a directive of the main commander of the Red Army, on 30 September 1919, from the forces previously operating as the Special Group (under the command of V. I. Shorin) on the left flank of the Southern Front. It sought to unify Red forces across Saratov guberniia, the Don oblast′, and the Novokhopersk, Pavlovsk, and Bogucharsk districts of Voronezh guberniia, and to drive General A. I. Denikin’s Armed Forces of South Russia back toward Tsaritsyn. Included in the South-Eastern Front were the 9th Red Army and the 10th Red Army (both from 20 September 1919), the 11th Red Army, the 1st Cavalry Army (from 10 January 1920) and the 8th Red Army (all from 10 January 1920), the forces of the Penza Fortified Region, and the Volga–Caspian Military Flotilla (from 14 October 1919).

After defensive actions along the River Khoper in October 1919, the forces of the South-Eastern Front played a key role in the general offensive of the Red Army that commenced the following month. On 3 January 1920, its forces captured Tsaritsyn, and on 7 January 1920, they entered Novocherkassk, the capital of the Don Cossack Host. On 16 January 1920, by order of the Revvoensovet of the Republic, its forces were transformed into the Caucasian Front.

The commander of the South-Eastern Front was V. I. Shorin. Its chiefs of staff were F. M. Afanas′ev (1 October 1919–4 January 1920) and S. A. Pugachev (4–16 January 1920).

South-East Revolutionary Army.See Red Army of the North Caucasus.

SOUTHERN ARMY. This White force, consisting chiefly of Cossacks of the Orenburg Cossack Host, was created on 23 May 1919, as a consequence of the reformation of the Orenburg Army. Commanded by Major General G. A. Belov, from September to October 1919 it formed part of the Eastern Front of the forces of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, then was placed in the Moscow Army Group created by Kolchak’s new commander in chief, General K. V. Sakharov. As of 1 June 1919, it consisted of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Corps, the 4th Orenburg Rifle Corps, the 5th Sterlitamak Rifle Corps, and the 11th Iaits Rifle Corps, numbering some 27,000 men in all and commanding 247 machine guns and 27 cannon.

From May through the middle of June 1919, the force was chiefly occupied with efforts to capture Orenburg, but despite this lengthy siege, the city remained in Red hands. Moreover, with the collapse of Kolchak’s Western Army to the north and the Red counterattack across the Urals, as well as the approach from the southeast of the advancing Turkestan Red Army, the Southern Army was forced to retreat in late June; its northern group (the 4th Orenburg and 5th Sterlitamak Corps), under General Belov, moved east toward Omsk, while its Southern group (the 1st Orenburg and 11th Iaits Corps) moved southeast towards Orsk and Aktiubinsk. In August 1919, the Belov group took part in the failed counteroffensive of Kolchak’s forces from the River Tobol′. In the aftermath of that failure, Belov’s forces became separated from the other elements of the Moscow Group and retreated independently, southeast, toward Semipalatinsk.