Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Along with his cabinet colleagues, Voldemaras retired from government on 19 June 1920, as elections took place for the Lithuanian Constituent Assembly. He returned to political life, however, in 1926, when he was a party to the coup d’état that brought Antanas Smetona to power, becoming prime minister once more (17 December 1926–23 September 1929). However, he soon broke with Smetona and was deposed as prime minister, due to his involvement with the Lithuanian fascist organization Geležinis Vilkas (“Iron Wolf”). That organization was forced underground in 1930, and in 1934 (with Voldemaras still at its head), attempted a coup against Smetona. When the coup failed, Voldemaras was arrested and subsequently served four years in prison before being pardoned and released into exile at Zarasai, in northeastern Lithuania. In June 1940, a few days after the Soviet invasion of Lithuania, he was arrested by the Soviet authorities. He died two years later in a Moscow prison.

VOLGA–CASPIAN MILITARY FLOTILLA. Formed on 31 July 1919, through the combination of the previously existing Astrakhan–Caspian Military Flotilla and the Volga Military Flotilla, this force was commanded by F. F. Raskol′nikov. It had as its main tasks the defense of Astrakhan and participation in the battles against the Armed Forces of South Russia for the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, in collaboration with first the Southern Front and later (from 30 September 1919) the South-Eastern Front of the Red Army, as well as the transportation of oil and other supplies north from the Caspian to Soviet Russia. The Volga–Caspian Military Flotilla consisted of some 200 vessels by August 1919, including 3 auxiliary cruisers, 6 destroyers, 3 torpedo boats, 4 submarine craft, 38 gunboats, 24 escort vessels, and 6 floating batteries. It included also, from August 1919, a sizable and effective aircraft brigade (commanded by S. S. Negerevich). The flotilla was divided into three sections: a northern section that operated around Tsaritsyn, a north Astrakhan section that was deployed close to the Chernyi Iar–Vladimirovka railway, and a section operating to the south of Astrakhan in the Volga delta and the northern reaches of the Caspian Sea.

By November 1919, the Volga–Caspian Military Flotilla had helped to ward off the threat of a White capture of Astrakhan, and having received a reinforcement of seven destroyers and numerous support craft from the Baltic Fleet, during the spring of 1920 it participated in the battles further south in the Caspian Sea. In particular, the flotilla undertook successful operations against White naval forces near Port Petrovsk, and on 5 April 1920, it captured Fort Aleksandrovsk in Transcaspia. It then transferred to Baku, and in early May 1920, captured Lenkoran′ before pursuing the Caspian remnants of the White Fleet south and then capturing those vessels from under the noses of their British protectors at Enzeli, in northen Persia (13–18 May 1920). In June 1920, A. K. Vekman took command of the flotilla, which soon thereafter (in July 1920) was reformed into the Caspian Fleet (composed of 3 auxiliary cruisers, 10 torpedo boats, 4 submarines, and other vessels). The Caspian Fleet subsequently merged with the Red fleet of Soviet Azerbaijan to form the Naval Forces of the Caspian Sea.

VOLGA GERMAN WORKERS’ COMMUNE. This Soviet polity was first established on 29 October 1917. On 19 October 1918, it was replaced by the Autonomous Oblast′ of Volga Germans. The latter was granted broad autonomy, as a constituent territory within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and encompassed a region of some 20,000 square miles, centered on the Volga port of Pokrovsk (Engels), opposite Samara, which was home to some 500,000 Germans (chiefly the descendants of 18th-century settlers who had been invited into Russia by Catherine the Great). However, as the German farmers were, in the main, devoutly religious Lutherans, they objected to the Soviet government’s antireligious campaigns and clashed repeatedly with the central authorities. The famine of 1921 also hit the region hard, killing up to a third of the population by some estimates.