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The Far Eastern Republic ( rus, Дальневосточная Республика, Dal'nevostochnaya Respublika, p=dəlʲnʲɪvɐˈstotɕnəjə rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə, links=yes; ), sometimes called the Chita Republic (, ), was a nominally independent state that existed from April 1920 to November 1922 in the easternmost part of the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...

and Transbaikal. Although nominally independent, it largely came under the control of the

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

(RSFSR), which envisaged it as a

buffer state A buffer state is a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually agreed upon area lying between t ...

between the RSFSR and the territories occupied by

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

of 1917–1922. The Far Eastern Republic came to an end in November 1922 when it voluntarily merged with the RSFSR, which became one of founding members of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

the following month. Its first president was Alexander Krasnoshchyokov. The Far Eastern Republic occupied the territory of modern

Zabaykalsky Krai Zabaykalsky Krai is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (a krai), located in the Russian Far East. Its administrative center is Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Chita. As of the Russian Census (2010), 2010 Census, the population was ...

Amur Oblast Amur Oblast () is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located on the banks of the Amur and Zeya rivers in the Russian Far East. The oblast borders Heilongjiang province of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the south. The administrati ...

, the

Jewish Autonomous Oblast The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO) is a federal subject of Russia in the far east of the country, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast in Russia and Heilongjiang province in China. Its administrative center is the town of Birobidzhan. ...

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. The administrative centre of the krai is the types of ...

, and

Primorsky Krai Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krais of Russia, krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The types of inhabited localities in Russia, ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

(the former Transbaikal and

Amur The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer Manchuria, Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ...

oblasts and

Primorsky krai Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krais of Russia, krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The types of inhabited localities in Russia, ...

). Its capital was established at Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude), but in October 1920 it moved to Chita. The

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

occupied

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...

on 25 October 1922. Three weeks later, on 15 November 1922, the Far Eastern Republic merged with the RSFSR.

History

Establishment

The Far Eastern Republic was established in the later stages of the Russian Civil War. During the Civil War local authorities generally controlled the towns and cities of the Russian Far East, cooperating to a greater or lesser extent with the

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

n government of

Alexander Kolchak Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (; – 7 February 1920) was a Russian navy officer and polar explorer who led the White movement in the Russian Civil War. As he assumed the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia in 1918, Kolchak headed a mili ...

and with the succeeding invading forces of the Japanese Army. When the Japanese evacuated the Trans-Baikal and Amur oblasts in the spring of 1920, a political vacuum resulted. A new central authority was established at Chita to govern the Far Eastern Republic remaining in the Japanese wake."The Far Eastern Republic," ''Russian Information and Review'', vol. 1, no. 10 (Feb. 15, 1922), pp. 232–233. The Far Eastern Republic was established comprising only the area around Verkhneudinsk, but during the summer of 1920, the Soviet government of the Amur territory agreed to join. The Far Eastern Republic was formed two months after Kolchak's death with the tacit support of the government of Soviet Russia, which saw it as a temporary

between the RSFSR and the territories occupied by

.Alan Wood, "The Revolution and Civil War in Siberia," in Edward Acton, Vladimir Iu. Cherniaev, and William G. Rosenberg (eds.), ''Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921''. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1997; pp. 716–717. Many members of the Russian Communist Party had disagreed with the decision to allow a new government in the region, believing that their approximately 4,000 members were capable of seizing power in their own right.George Jackson and Robert Devlin (eds.), ''Dictionary of the Russian Revolution''. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989; pp. 223–225. However,

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

and other party leaders in Moscow felt that the approximately 70,000 Japanese and 12,000 American troops might regard such an action as a provocation, which might spur a further attack that the Soviet Republic could ill afford. On 1 April 1920, the American Expeditionary Force, Siberia headed by General William S. Graves departed Siberia, leaving the Japanese the sole occupying power in the region with whom the Bolsheviks were forced to deal.N.G.O. Pereira, ''White Siberia: The Politics of Civil War''. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996; pg. 153. This detail did not change the basic equation for the Bolshevik government in Moscow, however, which continued to see the establishment of a Far Eastern Republic as a sort of

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, whi ...

in the east, providing the regime with a necessary breathing space that would allow it to recover economically and militarily.Pereira, ''White Siberia'', pg. 152. On 6 April 1920, a hastily convened Constituent Assembly gathered at Verkhneudinsk and proclaimed the establishment of the Far Eastern Republic. Promises were made that the republic's new constitution would guarantee free elections under the principles of universal, direct, and equal suffrage and that foreign investment in the country would be encouraged. The Far Eastern Republic, controlled by moderate socialists, was only grudgingly recognized by the various cities of the region towards the end of 1920. Violence, atrocities, and reprisals continued to erupt periodically for the next 18 months. One such example occurred at the Korean enclave Shinhanchon, where Korean civilians were massacred by Japanese soldiers. Japan agreed to recognize the new buffer state in a truce with the

signed on 15 July 1920, effectively abandoning Ataman Grigory Semenov and his Russia Eastern Outskirts. By October Semenov had been expelled from his base of operations in Chita. With Semenov out of the picture, the capital of the Far Eastern Republic moved to that city. On 11 November 1920 a provisional national assembly for the Far East met in

. The gathering recognized the government at Chita and set 9 January 1921 as the date for new elections for the Constituent Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic. A new constitution closely resembling the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

was written and approved on 27 April 1921.

The 1921 coup

However, right-wing elements rejected the idea of a fledgling democratic republic in the Russian Far East. On 26 May 1921 a White coup took place in Vladivostok, backed by Japanese occupying forces. A '' cordon sanitaire'' of Japanese troops protected the insurgents, who established a new régime, the Provisional Government of the Priamur, in the Primorskaya Oblast. Shortly after the coup, Kolchak's designated successor, Ataman Semenov, arrived in Vladivostok and attempted to proclaim himself commander-in-chief—an effort which failed when his Japanese benefactors forsook him.Pereira, ''White Siberia,'' pg. 155. The new Provisional Government of the Priamur attempted—with little success—to rally the various anti-Bolshevik forces to its banner.Pereira, ''White Siberia,'' pg. 156. Its leaders, two Vladivostok businessmen—the brothers Spiridon Merkulov and —found themselves left isolated when the Japanese Army announced on 24 June 1922 that it would remove all of its troops from Siberia by the end of October. A July 1922 ''

Zemsky sobor The ''Zemsky Sobor'' ( rus, зе́мский собо́р, p=ˈzʲemskʲɪj sɐˈbor, t=assembly of the land) was a parliament of the Tsardom of Russia's estates of the realm active during the 16th and 17th centuries. The assembly represented ...

'' deposed the Merkulov brothers and named a Russian general who had served with the Czechoslovak Legion, M.K. Dieterichs, as military dictator.

FER victory and demise, 1922

With the Japanese exiting the country throughout the summer of 1922, panic swept through the White Russian insurgents. As the Red Army, thinly disguised as the , moved eastwards, thousands of Russians, including Dieterichs and his remaining troops, fled abroad to escape the new régime. The army of the Far Eastern Republic retook Vladivostok on 25 October 1922, effectively bringing the Russian Civil War to a close. With the Civil War finally over, Soviet Russia absorbed the Far Eastern Republic on 15 November 1922. The government of the Far Eastern Republic dissolved itself and transferred all its authority and territory to the Bolshevik government in Moscow.

Aftermath

retained the northern half of

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

Island until 1925, ostensibly as compensation for Nikolayevsk incident - the massacre of about 700 Japanese civilians and soldiers at Nikolaevsk-na-Amure in May-June 1920. This "compensatory" motive for holding the territory belied the fact that Japanese retaliation for the actions of Russian partisans had taken between two and three times as many Russian lives.

Territory and resources

The Far Eastern Republic consisted of four provinces of the former

Russian empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

—Trans-Baikal, Amur, the Maritime Province, and the northern half of

Sakhalin island Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

. Primarily, it represented the boundaries of the regions of Transbaikal and

Outer Manchuria Outer Manchuria, sometimes called Russian Manchuria, refers to a region in Northeast Asia that is now part of the Russian Far East but historically formed part of Manchuria (until the mid-19th century). While Manchuria now more normatively refer ...

. The frontiers of the short-lived nation followed the western coastline of

Lake Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...

along the northern borders of

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

and

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

to the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

and the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk; Historically also known as , or as ; ) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, Japan's island of Hokkaido on the sou ...

. The total area of the Far Eastern Republic was reckoned at approximately and its population at about 3.5 million people. Of these an estimated 1.62 million were ethnic

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

and just over 1 million were of Asian extraction, with family lineages originating in China, Japan, Mongolia, and

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

. The Far Eastern Republic was an area of substantial mineral wealth, including territory which produced about one-third of the entire Russian output of gold as well as that country's only source of domestically produced tin. Other mineral reserves of the Far Eastern Republic included

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

, and

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

. The fishing industry of the former Maritime Province was substantial, with a total catch exceeding that of

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

and featuring ample stocks of

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

, and

sturgeon Sturgeon (from Old English ultimately from Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European *''str̥(Hx)yón''-) is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the ...

. The Republic also boasted extensive forestry resources, including over of harvestable

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

fir Firs are evergreen coniferous trees belonging to the genus ''Abies'' () in the family Pinaceae. There are approximately 48–65 extant species, found on mountains throughout much of North and Central America, Eurasia, and North Africa. The genu ...

, cedar, poplar, and

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

People's Revolutionary Army

Оn 20 July 1922, the 104th Balagansk Rifle Brigade was reorganized into the 1st Transbaikal Rifle Division of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. The division defended the border with Manchuria from its formation, and between 4 and 25 October took part in the Primorsky operation to defeat the Zemskaya Rat, the last remnants of the Whites in the Far East. During the operation, the 1st Transbaikal Rifle Division fought in the capture of Grodekovo, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, and

. The 5th Army (fourth formation) was created by order of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR of November 16, 1922 by renaming the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. The 1st Transbaikal Rifle Division came under its command. It was based at

. In honor of its defeat of White troops on the shores of Pacific and basing on the Pacific coast, the division was redesignated the 1st Pacific Rifle Division () on 22 November 1922.

Chairmen of the Government (heads of state)

* Alexander Krasnoshchyokov 6 April 1920 – December 1921 * Nikolay Matveyev December 1921 – 15 November 1922

Chairmen of the Council of Ministers (Prime Ministers)

*Alexander Krasnoshchyokov 6 April 1920 – November 1920 * Boris Shumyatsky November 1920 – April 1921 * Pyotr Nikiforov 8 May 1921 – December 1921 *Nikolay Matveyev December 1921 – 14 November 1922 * Pyotr Kobozev 14 November 1922 – 15 November 1922

Prominent people born in the Far Eastern Republic

Yul Brynner Yuliy Borisovich Briner (; July 11, 1920 – October 10, 1985), known professionally as Yul Brynner (), was a Russian-born actor. He was known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical ''The King and I'' (19 ...

(11 July 1920 – 10 October 1985), actor

History

Establishment

The 1921 coup

FER victory and demise, 1922

Aftermath

Territory and resources

People's Revolutionary Army

Chairmen of the Government (heads of state)

Chairmen of the Council of Ministers (Prime Ministers)

Prominent people born in the Far Eastern Republic

See also

Footnotes

Further reading