Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

In 1917–1918, Trubetskoi was active in the All-Russian Church Council (Sobor′), campaigning successfully for the restoration of the patriarchate to the Russian Orthodox Church. Following the October Revolution, he moved first to Kiev and then to Ekaterinodar, where from 1919 to 1920 he served as chief of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in the Special Council of General A. I. Denikin and in the Government of South Russia of General P. N. Wrangel. In emigration, he lived briefly in Austria, then settled in the Paris suburb of Clamart, and was again active in church affairs, as a campaigner for church reform and the unification of the Orthodox community throughout the world.

Tsaritsyn affair. This incident in the autumn of 1918 was the most visible manifestation of tensions between revolutionaries and professionals in the nascent Red Army. Tsaritsyn was a key strategic city on the Volga, as a conduit for grain, oil, and other supplies that the Soviet government wished to extract from Baku and the North Caucasus, and was then holding out against attacks from White and Cossack forces moving north from the Don. The commander of its garrison, K. E. Voroshilov, supported by J. V. Stalin (who had been sent south to organize food supplies), were at loggerheads on a number of strategic issues with their fellow member of the Revvoensovet of the Southern Army Group, General P. P. Sytin (an appointee of commander in chief Jukums Vācietis), whom they instinctively distrusted as a military specialist.

On 31 September 1918, Voroshilov and Stalin abruptly informed Moscow that they had dismissed Sytin from his post. This breach of discipline and hierarchy was intolerable to War Commissar L. D. Trotsky, who had the support of V. I. Lenin, and subsequently Sytin was reinstated, while Stalin was recalled to Moscow for a dressing down. Thus, in the short term a victory was secured for Trotsky and his faith in centralism and the use of tsarist officers. However, in the longer term the future dictator’s resentment of Trotsky was certainly reinforced (as was the alliance among Stalin, Voroshilov, and S. M. Budennyi, who was also in Tsaritsyn at this juncture, that was to endure for decades). The disproportionate number of members of the 1919 Military Opposition to Trotsky who had served on the Tsaritsyn front is also of note.

TSARMOIEV (CHERMOEV), TAPA ABDUL MIGIT BEY ORTSA (1882–28 August 1937). Coronet (1901), captain (191?). The leader of the Mountain Republic of the North Caucasus, Tapa Tsarmoiev was born at Groznyi, in Chechnia, into the Chechen family of a general of the Russian Army, and was a graduate of the Vladikavkaz Gymnasium and the Nicholas Cavalry School in St. Petersburg (1901). He served with the Tsar’s Own Life Guard Regiment, but in 1908, following the death of his father, he retired from the army to run his family’s business concerns. He subsequently became one of the leading figures in the booming oil industry around Groznyi. During the First World War, he reenlisted in the Russian Army and served with distinction in the famous Savage Division, which was made up of men from various tribes of the Caucasus, rising to the command of its Chechen regiment. In that capacity, he played a role, albeit a secondary one, in the Kornilov affair of August 1917.

Following the October Revolution, Tsarmoiev returned, with his men, to Groznyi and was one of the prime movers behind the establishment, on 11 May 1918, of the anti-Bolshevik Mountain Republic of the North Caucasus, in which he served as prime minister (from 11 May 1918). In that capacity, he sought to establish good relations between the mountain peoples and the leaders of the Kuban Cossack Host. In March 1919, he led a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference to seek Allied recognition of the Mountain Republic, which he did not achieve. He did, however, sign an accord, in July 1919, with the Kuban Cossack delegation led by A. I. Kulabukhov, that seemed to strengthen the security and independence of the Mountain Republic. When the latter was overrun by the Red Army in January 1921, Tsarmoiev remained in emigration. He died in Lausanne, Switzerland, and is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. In 2009, his long-neglected and crumbling gravestone was restored on the initiative of Chechen nationalists.

Tsentrokaspyi.See Central Caspian Dictatorship.