Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

URALS ARMY MARCH. The name given to the much-fêted trek in the rear of White forces undertaken by south Urals Red partisan forces over the period 18 July to 12 September 1918, with the aim of uniting with the regular forces of the Red Army on the Eastern Front. In early July 1918, Red forces around Ural′sk, Iuzhnyi, Verkhneural′sk, and Troitsk, which had been cut off from the center by the uprisings of the Orenburg Cossack Host and the Czechoslovak Legion, began to concentrate around Beloretsk as the Free Urals Detachment, under the command of N. D. Kashirin and (after Kashirin was injured) V. K. Bliukher. After a prolonged series of battles against the Cossack forces of Ataman A. I. Dutov around Beloretsk, the partisans headed west to Petrovoskoe and then north, through the working-class settlements of Bogoiavlenskii Zavod, Arkhangel′skoe, Iglino, Krasnyi Iar, Askin, and Tiuno-Ozerskaia, gathering volunteers along the way. They covered 1,000 miles in 58 days, engaging en route in some 20 serious battles with White and Czechoslovak forces, before rendezvousing with units of the 3rd Red Army on the Kungur River, near Bogorodskoe. The force, thereafter dubbed the Urals Army, reached Kungur on 21 September 1918, where its men were reorganized into three brigades of the 4th Urals (later 30th) Rifle Division.

URALS COSSACK HOST. Occupying lands almost exclusively on the right bank of the Ural River in the Urals oblast′, by 1917 the Urals Cossack Host (formerly the Iaik Cossack Host) lived in some 30 stanitsy and 450 farmsteads (khutora) and smaller settlements. Its territory was divided into three administrative units (Ural′sk, Lbishchensk, and Gur′ev), with its capital at Ural′sk. By 1917, the Host population was 174,000, of which some 13,000 were under arms. Following the Cossacks’ rising against the Soviet authorities of April 1918, a Host government was formed, under G. M. Fomichev, that ordered the mobilization of all Urals Cossacks of 19–55 years of age. The units formed thereby were then assigned to the Whites’ Urals Army and shared its tragic fate. On 23 March 1919, the Host government dissolved, and all power was passed to the Host ataman, General V. S. Tolstov.

urals, Provisional Oblast′ Government of the. This regional anti-Bolshevik polity was formally established at Ekaterinburg on 13 August 1918, although it had been in existence, de facto, since soon after the Czechoslovak Legion had captured the city on 25 July 1918. Leftist Kadets dominated the Urals Oblast′ Government, notably the influential local businessman P. V. Ivanov (as premier and head of the department of industry) and the well-connected Freemason L. A. Krol′ (as deputy premier and head of the department of finance), but its coalition cabinet included also a number of Mensheviks (P. B. Murashov) and members of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries (V. M. Anastas′ev and A.V. Pribylev) and the Party of Popular Socialists (N. V. Aseikin), as well as nonparty figures (N. N. Glasson and A. E. Gutt). The Urals government claimed sovereignty over Perm′ guberniia and parts of Viatka, Ufa, and Orenburg gubernii; sought to steer an independent path between Komuch and the Provisional Siberian Government; and set as its chief aim the restoration of the mining industries of the northern Urals. It claimed also (in its inaugural declaration of 19 August 1918) to be an administrative rather than a law-making body, proclaiming that legislation on political and social reform was the preserve of a future Urals Assembly, but it was broadly in favor of some state regulation of the economy (through a mandatory eight-hour working day and minimum wage) and professed the belief that land should belong to those who farmed it. However, the Urals government was unable to develop its progressive program, as it was subservient to the Provisional Siberian Government in most matters, not least because the Ekaterinburg garrison, consisting of units of the the 2nd (later 7th) Urals Mountain Rifle Division, commanded by General V. V. Golitsyn, remained subordinate to the Siberian Army. The regime sent representatives to the Ufa State Conference and (like other regional governments in the east) was formally disbanded in early November 1918 by order of the Ufa Directory.