Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

ZEMGOR. Founded on 10 July 1915, to assist the tsarist government’s war efforts (chiefly in the fields of medicine, sanitation, food supply, and the care of refugees), Zemgor (the United Committee of the Union of Zemstvos and Municipal Councils) was officially disbanded by the Soviet government in January 1918, but was reactivated in February 1921 by local government leaders among the emigration, in response to the massive evacuation of military and civilian refugees from South Russia following the defeat of the forces of General P. N. Wrangel.

The organization was registered and based in Paris (although it had branches in Prague, Berlin, and other centers of the Russian diaspora) and was led, in succession, by G. E. L′vov, A. I. Konovalov, and N. D. Avksent′ev. In accordance with the wishes of the Russian Conference of Ambassadors in Paris, it became the central organization in the international efforts to assist Russian refugees across the world in the wake of the “Russian” Civil Wars. The organization received funds from various tsarist Russian bank accounts via the Conference of Ambassadors (which regarded Zemgor as the single organization authorized to disperse such monies). Although the dispensation of those funds caused many internal arguments (partly as a consequence of the variety of political affiliations—from socialists through liberals to monarchists—of those involved in Zemgor’s leadership) and although there were sharp conflicts over access to and control of funds with other émigré organizations (notably ROVS, which Zemgor, encouraged by French governments of the 1920s, refused to recognize as in any respect a repository of Russian state authority), the organization contributed significantly to the settlement, integration, and sometimes even survival of refugees during a difficult period. By October 1921, it was managing 370 refugee institutions across Europe, the majority of them in Turkey, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, and was feeding 2,500 people each day in Constantinople alone. Among its most outstanding achievements was the opening of dozens of schools and orphanages (as many as 90 by some accounts), in which work it was assisted by the Committee of Help to the Russian Child, which organized fund-raising drives (chiefly in the United States). The Paris Zemgor remains in existence to this day, running a rest home in the Cormeilles-en-Parisis district, northwest of the French capital.

ZEMLIACHKA (zalkind), ROSALIIA SAMOILOVNA (20 March 1876–21 January 1947). Probably the most famous (or infamous) of all female soldiers who served in the Red Army during the civil wars, Rosa Zemliachka, the daughter of a Jewish merchant, was born at Kiev and was educated at the Kiev Girls’ Gymnasium and the Faculty of Medicine of Lyons University. She joined a social-democratic organization in 1896 and engaged in underground work in France and Russia (where she was sentenced to a year’s internal exile in 1899) before becoming an agent of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party’s newspaper, Iskra (“The Spark”) at Odessa and Ekaterinoslav. Following the party schism in 1903, she gravitated toward the Bolsheviks, was active with the forerunners of the Military Organization of the RSDLP(b) during the 1905 Revolution, and was frequently arrested. Following further party work in Baku, she went into emigration in 1909, but returned to party work with the Bolsheviks’ Moscow Regional Bureau during the First World War. In early 1918, she sympathized with the Left Bolsheviks, opposing the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918). That same year, she began work as a military commissar in the Red Army, initially at brigade level, but soon rising to become chief military commissar of the 8th Red Army (1918–1919) and the 13th Red Army (1919–1920) on the Southern Front. In 1919, she was an active member of the Military Opposition, calling for the enhancement of the powers of the commissars. In 1920, she was also, briefly, chief military commissar of the Northern Railways.