You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (February 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the Russian article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,068 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Восточный фронт Русской армии]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|Восточный фронт Русской армии}} to the talk page.
The Red Army mounted a counter-offensive in the autumn of 1918. Throughout the winter and spring of 1918/1919, the White Army had dominance over this front. In the summer of 1919, and from then onward, the Red Army defeated the White commander Aleksandr Kolchak. The White Army collapsed in the East as well as on other fronts throughout the winter of 1919/1920. Smaller-scale conflicts in the region went on until as late as 1923.
In May 1918, soldiers of the Czechoslovak Legion revolted against the Bolsheviks in Chelyabinsk. The revolt was triggered by Trotsky's order to local Bolshevik commanders to disarm the Czechslovaks (in violation of previous agreements) following a confrontation between the Czechslovaks traveling Eastwards and a train full of Austro-Hungarian former POWs traveling westward. The Czechslovak Legion was formed out of Czech and Slovak POWs of the Austro-Hungarian army who volunteered to fight against the empire ruling their homeland. Consequently, The Legion was trying to evacuate to the Western Front to continue the fight against the Central powers, but after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March, the Bolsheviks no longer supported this move.[1] The revolt quickly spread across Siberia, because the Czechoslovaks used the Trans-Siberian Railway to move their troops east quickly and because they were supported by local uprisings instigated by Russian army officers. When the uprising reached Yekaterinburg, the former Tsar and his family who were being held there by the Bolsheviks were executed to prevent their release by the Whites. By the end of August, Vladivostok was in Czechoslovak hands.[2]
The Komuch quickly ordered a general mobilisation, with its troops coming from the anti-Bolshevik forces of the former Volga Military District. The Czechoslovaks allied with Komuch and advanced to the west as they formed a Volga Front, taking key cities in the region, including Kazan, where they captured the tsar's gold reserves which had been moved east for safekeeping.[3][4]
The Komuch government in Samara and the Provisional Siberian Government organized the Ufa Conference to unite anti-Bolshevik forces, but their alliance was tenuous from the beginning. Komuch was controlled by the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, whose goal was to restore the Russian Constituent Assemblyelected in 1917, which had been dominated by the SRs and had no significant non-socialist representation. The right-wing factions leading the Omsk government, the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) and the military, had no interest in reviving the Constituent Assembly or cooperating with the socialists, but this was the outcome of the conference. The Provisional All-Russian Government, with a five-member Directory at its head, was created by the Ufa Conference on 23 September 1918 to fight Bolshevism and continue the war against Germany.[7]
The Provisional All-Russian Government united all White Russian forces east of the Urals, at least in name, but only lasted for eight weeks. The Directory was transferred from Ufa to Omsk, where the institutions of the former Provisional Siberian Government were based, and where the Western Allies had established their diplomatic and military missions. The Directory was opposed to this, but having no administrative state of its own, had to rely on the Omsk government to carry out day-to-day functions. Not long after the move to Omsk, a coup d'etat was carried out against the Directory by Admiral Alexander Kolchak, supported by Kadets, army officers, and Cossacks on 18 November 1918. He was declared the Supreme Ruler of Russia without much opposition among the Whites in Siberia, and pledged to wipe out Bolshevism. Kolchak quickly gained the support of the Siberian Army command, Cossack leaders in Siberia and the Far East (including Ataman Grigory Semyonov), and the local industry.[6][8]
