Estonian military unit, subordinated to Soviet Russia
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Estonian Riflemen, Estonian Red Riflemen, Estonian Red Army, Estonian Red Guards (Estonian: Eesti Kütiväed, Eesti Punased Kütid, Eestimaa Punaarmee, Eesti Punakaart) were military formations assembled starting 1917 in the Soviet Russia.
Formation
Initially the battalions were formed by volunteers, and by conscription among the Estonian population. A total of about 5,000 men were drafted into the Estonian Riflemen Division. As late as November 1918 the fate of the country was still up for grabs, and the Bolshevik alternative was attractive to all those for whom a social revolution promised a new life.
Russian Civil War and Estonian War of Independence
August Lillakas the commander of the 3rd Tartu Rifle Regiment of the Estonian Red Army (1919)
All through February, 1920 the Makhnovshchina was inundated with Red troops, including the 42nd Rifle Division and the Latvian & Estonian Division – in total at least 20,000 soldiers.[2] After the souring and dissolution of Nestor Makhno's Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine's alliance with the Bolsheviks, captured Red commanders and commissars were summarily executed. However, Makhno usually preferred to release the disarmed enlisted men that were captured, as "proletarian brothers", with a choice of joining his army or returning home, after all commanding officers were executed. This happened to an Estonian Red Army unit that surrendered to Makhno in 1920.[3]Viktor Bilash noted that even in the worst time for the revolutionary army, namely at the beginning of 1920, "In the majority of cases rank-and-file Red Army soldiers were set free". Of course Bilash, as a colleague of Makhno's, was likely to idealize the punishment policies of the Batko. However, the facts bear witness that Makhno really did release "in all four directions" captured Red Army soldiers. This is what happened at the beginning of February 1920, when the insurgents disarmed the 10,000-strong Estonian Division in Huliaipole.[4] To this it must be added that the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine included a choir of Estonian musicians.[5] The problem was further compounded by the alienation of the Estonians by Anton Denikin's inflexible Russian chauvinism and their refusal to fight with Nikolai Yudenich.[6]
^""Foreign Rule" during the Estonian War of Independence 1918-1920: The Bolshevik Experiment of the "Estonian Worker's Commune"". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^Litvinov, V. N. An Unsolved Mystery - The "Diary of Makhno's Wife".
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