Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

On 19 December 1923, the region was transformed once more into the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Volga Germans. During the revolutionary period, its leaders were Ernst Reuter (chairman of the Volga Commissariat for German Affairs, 1918); Hugo Schaufler (chairman of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Autonomous Oblast′, 1919–1920); and the chairmen of the Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets of the Autonomous Oblast′: Alexander Dotz (1920), V. R. Pakun (1920–1921), Alexander Moor (1921–1922), and Wilhelm Kurtz (1922–1924). The Volga German ASSR was abolished on 28 August 1941, following the German invasion of the USSR, and most of its population was deported to Central Asia.

VOLGA MILITARY FLOTILLA. This formation of the Red Fleet was created in June 1918, to combat anti-Bolshevik forces along the Volga and its tributaries (notably the Kama and Belaia Rivers). The earliest of the Reds’ military flotillas to be established, it took shape at Nizhnii Novgorod: three torpedo boats were transferred there from the Baltic Fleet (via the river and canal system of northern Russia) and (together with five steamers and motor ships, four floating batteries, and four seaplanes) were fitted out with weaponry at the Sormovo factory under the command of N. G. Markin.

The Volga Military Flotilla first saw action against forces of the People’s Army and the Czechoslovak Legion at Sviazhsk (28–29 August 1918) and in landings at Kazan′ (10 September 1918), and subsequently assisted in the capture of Vol′sk, Syzran′, and Samara. In September 1918, it was divided into Volga and Kama groups and subsequently played a notable part in supporting the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Red Armies on the Eastern Front, as they fought off the spring advance of the Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak (notably, its Kama Flotilla) and launched a counteroffensive during the early summer of 1919. The flotilla played an important part in the capture of Chistopol′ (5 May 1919), Sarapul (3 June 1919), and Ufa (9 June) during those operations. As the White forces were pushed back across the watershed of the Urals, the Volga Military Flotilla was merged with the Astrakhan–Caspian Flotilla to form the Volga–Caspian Flotilla on 31 July 1919. On Markin Square, in Nizhnii Novgorod, there stands a memorial to the soldiers and sailors of the flotilla.

Commanders of the Volga Military Flotilla were R. M. Berngardt (3–22 August 1918); F. F. Raskol′nikov (23 August–11 November 1918 and 25–31 July 1919); V. N. Varvatsi (11 November 1918–17 April 1919); and P. I. Smirnov (17 April–25 July 1919).

VolinE (Eikhenbaum, Vsevolod Mikhailovich) (11 August 1882–18 September 1945). A leading Russian proponent of anarchism (whose assumed name sometimes appears as “Volin”), Voline was born into a well-to-do Jewish family near Voronezh, to parents who were both village doctors. He spent some time as a student in the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg University, but abandoned his studies in 1904 and joined the revolutionary movement as a member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries. On 9 January 1905 (“Bloody Sunday”), he was part of the demonstration fired on by soldiers in St. Petersburg and later that year was active in the St. Petersburg Soviet. He was subsequently arrested, in 1907, but the following year, while en route to exile in Siberia, escaped and fled abroad to France, where he was converted to anarchism (joining the group of A. A. Karelin in 1911). As a vocal opponent of the First World War, Voline fell foul of the French authorities and was almost interned in 1915, but managed to smuggle himself aboard a ship bound from Bordeaux to the United States. In New York, he joined the Confederation of Russian Workers and helped edit its mouthpiece, Golos truda (“The Voice of Labor”).