Ukrainian Far Eastern Independent Army

In accordance with the decision of the Fourth All-Ukrainian Far Eastern Congress of October 25, 1918 :

• The Ukrainian units were to consist of separate military units composed of Ukrainians alone.
• The language, training, paperwork and team in those parts must be unconditionally Ukrainian.
• To train officials and foremen, separate Ukrainian military schools or Ukrainian departments at all-Russian military schools had to be formed.
• Ukrainian units were to be formed under the leadership of the Ukrainian Far Eastern Regional Council through the Ukrainian military headquarters.
• In the conditions of anarchy and the absence of generally recognized Russian power, characteristic of that time, the Ukrainian army should be subject only to the Ukrainian Far Eastern Secretariat and should not interfere in the inter-party struggle of Russian political parties, which was then waged in Siberia and the Far East, gaining a form of civil war.
• The congress specifically noted that the formation of Ukrainian national units was to serve the spread of national consciousness between the soldiers in order to avoid their denationalization, which was previously a consequence of the service of Ukrainians in Russian units.

Formation

The formation of the Far Eastern Ukrainian troops took place simultaneously in two different places: on the territory of the Green Wedge , in Vladivostok, under the leadership of Boris Khreschatitsky and in Manchuria, in the city of Harbin - under the leadership of Peter Tverdovsky.

For the first time, the formation of the Ukrainian armed forces on the Green Wedge could begin even in the spring of 1917 , when the Ukrainian military council of the Amur flotilla arose and existed for a short time, but the work did not go beyond organizational matters. ^[one]

In the summer of 1917 during the negotiations. Modzalevsky and Petr Tverdovsky with General Dmitry Horvath received permission to form the Ukrainian military departments. Soon, two hundred were created in Harbin at the expense of the Ukrainian communities of Manchuria: the first Ukrainian hundred named after Taras Shevchenko and the second - formed at the Hailar station. After a while, given the small size of the Second, it was annexed to the First, in which there were more than 200 people. The commander of the hundreds was the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian District of Manchurian Council Petr Tverdovsky. The formation of military units took place under the slogan of assistance to a distant homeland. The first hundred left for Ukraine in June 1917 from Vladivostok , the second - in the fall from Harbin . But these hundreds never reached Ukraine, the Bolsheviks blocked their path, and the Ukrainian units were disarmed. ^[2]

In the same period, the first Ukrainian armed self-defense units began to be created. In order to differ from the military personnel of the Russian units, Ukrainian soldiers sewed yellow-blue bandages onto the sleeves of their overcoats, threw Russian units and turned to Ukrainian self-government bodies for help. In the Vladivostok garrison, where Ukrainians constituted up to two-thirds of the personnel, it was customary to form from the local community on July 4, 1917, at a general meeting of soldiers of the 8th hundred of the 4th Fortress Cannon Regiment and the 1st hundred of the 2nd Fortress Cannon Regiment its composition of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian hundreds. On July 9, the Ukrainian soldiers of the 11th hundred of another cannon regiment declared themselves the 3rd Ukrainian hundred. In total, during the summer of 1917, 8 Ukrainian hundreds were formed and the ninth was in a state of formation.

The processes of Ukrainization of military units also took place in Nikolsk-Ussuri, Blagoveshchensk and other cities of the Far East. In Blagoveshchensk on July 7, 1917, a meeting of Ukrainian soldiers of the local outpost (chairman - Y. Sitnitsky) was held, at which it was decided to organize a separate Ukrainian military unit. However, in September 1917, by order of the Minister of War of the Provisional Government, the formation of Ukrainian units in the Amur Military District was strictly prohibited. At that time, a Ukrainian telegraph hundred was sent to the army from Vladivostok, which clearly expressed its intention to transfer to the UPR Army upon arrival at the front.

In August 1917, an active public figure G. Zhivago made an appeal about the need to create a Ukrainian war chicken in Manchuria in order to send him to Ukraine to defend the Central Rada. But in practice, this idea was realized only in November 1917 , when two separate Ukrainian smokers were created (about 1000 people). After the formation, these units took control of the Harbin and the Far Eastern Railway. At the end of December 1917 , when the power in Manchuria completely passed to China , these units were sent to the UPR to help in the war against the Russian Bolsheviks . ^[3] Petr Tverdovsky in the fall of 1918 returned from Kiev to Harbin , appointed Pavel Skoropadsky Consul General of the Ukrainian State in the Far East and in Manchuria.

Conflict with the White Guards

In October 1918, Pyotr Tverdovsky met with the Commander of the Entente in Siberia and the Far East, General Maurice Zhanen, to whom he handed over a special memorandum on the need to create a Ukrainian army in the Far East in the amount of 1-2 corps of up to 40 thousand people. ^[4] In general, it was believed that the Ukrainians, who made up the vast majority of the population of the Far East, could expose at least 200 thousand soldiers. General Zhanen agreed in principle and some concrete measures were taken in this case before the Siberian government, but the Kolchak coup in Omsk, which took place in November 1918 , significantly complicated the solution of this issue.

The Ukrainian national and military movement in Transbaikalia was actively supported by Grigory Semenov , who allocated a significant amount of gold to the activities of the Transbaikal Ukrainian District Council, recognized the national and cultural autonomy of Ukrainians. ^{[5] [6]} In October 1918, the Ukrainian District Council appointed Colonel Leonid Slishchenko as the Supreme Commander for the formation of Ukrainian self-defense detachments in Chita Zabaykalska, but their fate is not known. ^[7]

But due to the fact that most of the members of the Trans-Baikal District Council were socialists, they treated Semenov as a “right-wing reactionist,” and tried their best to minimize influence and cooperation with him. So when the Manzhursky Regional Ukrainian Council signed an agreement with Ataman Semenov on the inclusion of the Gaidamatsky kosh of the Free Cossacks formed in Manchuria, the provocateurs who acted in the Rada did everything to disrupt this treaty and destroy the Gaidamatsky kosh.

Despite all the contradictions between the state structures of Green Ukraine and the Trans-Baikal Cossack Republic, a significant number of Ukrainians volunteered for the Trans-Baikal Cossack army among them: Berezovsky, Efim Prokopyevich , Zhevchenko, Madievsky, Burdukovsky, Mezhak, Podgoretsky, Sotnikov, Lovitsky, etc.

So Semenov sent Khreschatsky, Verigo, Slishchenko, and Captain F. to create Ukrainian units on the ground. ^[eight]

In the same month of 1918, the first Ukrainian regiment named after Taras Shevchenko was able to form in Vladivostok , but due to lack of ammunition, the regiment did not have weapons.

The attitude of the Russian Republic to the creation of the Ukrainian army in the Green Wedge was mixed. On October 8, 1918, the Chairman of the Provisional Siberian Government, Peter Vologodsky, in a message to the commander of the Vladivostok fortress, confirmed the principles on which it was recognized as possible to agree to the creation of national military formations. However, the day before, on October 6, 1918 , a decree of the Siberian government was published “On the nationalities to which the conscription applies to the ranks of the Siberian Army”, according to which all Ukrainians-foremen of the Russian army who lived in this field were subject to conscription into the ranks of the Siberian Army on general grounds since the Siberian government did not recognize Ukraine as an independent state, and Ukrainians were further regarded as Russian citizens. Therefore, the Ukrainians of the Green Wedge were taken both to the White Russian and Ukrainian Far Eastern Army.

In December 1918, the Far Eastern Ukrainian Independent Army of over 5 thousand people was formed by General Boris Khreschatitsky at the Echo railway station in Manchuria, the first division was formed, and the other two were under formation. However, Admiral Kolchak, an unwavering supporter of “united and indivisible” Russia, banned the formation of a separate Ukrainian army, and ordered the already formed division to be sent to the front, where its units should be included in the white forces to fight the Bolsheviks. For the same reason, the idea of ​​the Ukrainians of Galicia and Bukovina , who were captured during the First World War, was not implemented. The Kolchak government did not allow them to create a separate chicken like the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen and use it to protect the national interests of the population of the Green Wedge.

In the spring of 1919 , after appropriate agreements with General Leonid Verigo in April 1919, the creation of voluntary formations of the “free Cossacks” began. At that time, the 1st Ukrainian Far Eastern Novo-Zaporizhzhya Kuren Free Cossacks (commander Captain Mikitenko) was organized in Vladivostok . However, these newly created units also lacked weapons and ammunition. ^[eight]

On June 20, 1919, all Ukrainian military formations were disbanded by the White Guard troops. All opponents (150 Cossacks and 27 foremen) were arrested along with secretary Yuri Glushko-Mova. From that moment until January 31, 1920, Ukrainian peasants and soldiers created self-defense and partisan detachments, and under yellow-blue-green flags they successfully fought against the whites until the final overthrow of the Kolchak regime.

In response to the actions of the White Guards in Ukrainian villages, the creation of partisan detachments that fought with the White Guards began. Later, Bolshevik propaganda presented these partisans as red, although, in fact, the units of Shevchenko and Klimenko were essentially green, that is, self-defense of peasants against robberies of various newcomers. This is especially true for Gavril Shevchenko, who successfully smashed the white generals and did not allow the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee to enter the region controlled by him. Shevchenko led one of the units of the “Ukrainian Free Cossacks”, which, similarly to Ukraine or the Kuban, were organized in the Far East. The largest centers of the Free Cossacks were in the cities of Vladivostok and Svobodnoye.

As a result of various feasts, parts of the free Cossacks were forced to join the army of the Far Eastern Republic (FER). One of these commanders was J. Tinchenko, the commander of the Free Cossacks, who acted within the Far Eastern Democratic Republic, was automatically considered the commander of the Red Army. His detachment consisted of a thousand foot and mounted guerrillas, had four guns and a significant number of machine guns. He acted in the Anuchino area. ^[9]

In the fight against the Bolsheviks

During the uprising against Kolchak, the Ukrainian revolutionary headquarters was created, headed by Colonel F. Steshko, who had the goal of rebuilding the Ukrainian Far Eastern army. Svobodnenska Ukrainian District Council even announced recruitment to the Ukrainian army, after which a partisan detachment with the Ukrainian flag arrived in Svobodnoye in response to this call. However, the new Russian-Bolshevik government in the region reacted to this with hostility. Svobodny’s authorities closed the Svobodnenska Ukrainian District Council, took the property of the Ukrainian Khleborob cooperative, and carried out arrests and executions of local Ukrainians.

The local population also began to seek the formation of Ukrainian military units from the authorities, on February 29, 1920, Ukrainian soldiers of the former 1st Novo-Zaporizhzhya Kuren submitted a request to the local Military Revolutionary Committee for its restoration, but this initiative was met negatively by the new pro-Bolshevik government Amur region, and after the retreat of the Japanese interventionists on April 4-5, 1920, it was never realized.

In October 1920, the chairman of the Regional Secretariat Yuri Glushko-Mova held a series of negotiations with the chieftains of the Usurian Cossacks, representatives of other "white" formations to create a united military front to fight the Bolsheviks. In November of the same year, the Far Eastern Council ordered General Leonid Verigo to form two Ukrainian regiments in Vladivostok , where the highest Ukrainian authorities of the Green Wedge were located. In the early days, 300 volunteers enrolled in the Ukrainian army. Within two months, it was possible to form one regiment, the barracks of which were located on the outskirts of the city of Vladivostok (now Tikhaya Bay). The lack of weapons did not allow the rapid formation of battle-worthy Ukrainian units, often they had to refuse to join the Ukrainian army.

The process of creating a national army was interrupted in January 1921 , when the Bolshevik Military Council, worried about the growth of the Ukrainian national movement, seized the arms and food depots of the Ukrainian army. After that, the Bolsheviks began to demand from the Far Eastern Rada the dissolution of its Armed Forces. With virtually no weapons, no serious resistance to the Bolsheviks was out of the question, and General Verigo was forced to submit.

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