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WarChron - Lenin's Declaration of Rights of Peoples - The Cheka |
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The Year 1917
At London, the British Cabinet approved a grant of ten million pounds to White Russian Generals. General Alekseev had apparently received 300,000 rubles from French Colonel Hucher.
On 15 December, an Armistice agreement was signed between Germany and Soviet Russia at Brest Litovsk. It was to commence at noon on the 17th and continue until noon on 14 January 1918. The Bolsheviks played a wait and see game, while the Germans exerted more and more pressure on them to sign a full Treaty.
At Petrograd, Lenin and Stalin published the "Declaration of the Rights of Peoples," which proclaimed the equality and sovereignty of all Russian people; that all people should enjoy self-determination, the right to succeed and establish an independent state; abolishment of national and religious privileges and restrictions; and minorities and ethnographic groups were free to enjoy free development. Elections for the Constituent Assembly were to be scheduled. The Reds established a special extraordinary commission with full powers to combat the major problem of alcoholism. All looters were to be shot on the spot.
At Petrograd, return of Finnish General Mannerheim from Helsingfors, where he had been seeking the help of the French Military Mission stationed there.
In South Russia, General Kaledin and his small Volunteer Army stormed and retook Rostov. The local Bolshevik chiefs made their way to the Soviet controlled Black Sea Fleet.
In the Crimea, at Sevastopol, Red Guards from the warships Volya, Kagul, Fidonisiy, and Georgiy Pobyedononsets, began work on organizing armored trains by using the guns from warships, essentially creating armored gun platforms serving as part of the trains.
During December, at Petrograd, the Reds established Tsentrobron (Central Soviet Armored Vehicles Units).
In mid-December, the first Kuban volunteer unit was formed, headed by Polkovnik Galaev. By end of December, a second Kuban army unit was formed. It was led by former Air Fleet military pilot Kapitan A. Pokrovskiy.
On 16 December, in Paris, French President Poincare signed a decree establishing an autonomous Czecho-Slovak Army fighting alongside the French army. These instructions were finally issued on 7 February 1918. The Czecho-Slovak Army was militarily under the French High Command, while politically subordinated to Thomas Masaryk.
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On 17 December, at Petrograd, election of the All-Russian Collegiate for the Formation of the Red Army. The Reds sent the Ukrainian Rada an ultimatum, charging them with the disorganization of the front by recalling Ukrainian troops; disarming Red Guards in the Ukraine; preventing the passage of Bolshevik troops; and by permitting Cossack units to pass through Ukraine to the Don. The Reds gave them 48 hours to comply or a state of war would be ordered.
At Kiev, Ukrainian (UNR) military commanders issued orders that the former Southwest and Romanian Fronts now be made the Ukrainian Front, and that all aviation and military material should be collected immediately.
Red Commissar A.V. Sergeev was quickly sent from Mogilev to Kiev, but was unsuccessful in persuading UNR Air Fleet commander, Polkovnik V.Yu. Baranov to allow aviation units or equipment to be transported back to Russia.
In Japan, an Advisory Council on Foreign Affairs in Tokyo reserved its judgment on the expedition question.
On 18 December, Petrograd Bolsheviks sent another ultimatum to the Ukrainian Rada demanding they accept Bolshevik control in the Ukraine. The Ukrainians responded with a demand for full self-determination. At Kiev, French General Georges Tabouis of the Military Mission held talks with Ukrainian officials on their financial and technical needs. Tabouis reported these needs to General Niessel in Petrograd.
At Petrograd, the Bolsheviks formed the Supreme Council for the National Economy to co-ordinate the control of production.
At Petrograd, after a fourteen day conference, the 4th Congress of the Socialist Revolutionary Party agreed to work within the Soviet system, but at the same time strengthen the SR's and make efforts to weaken the Bolsheviks. The SR's hoped they could wrest control from the Bolsheviks.
At Petrograd, the Reds formed the Aviation Section of the Naval Department (Aviatsionnyi otdel morskogo vedomstva), which would now control the re-organization of naval air units.
At Kronshtadt Fortress, Admiral D.N. Verderevskiy was replaced as Commander of the Baltic Sea Fleet by Admiral A.V. Razvozov.
At Kishinev, there was a proclamation of a Moldavian Democratic Republic of Bessarabia.
In Central Asia, at Ashkabad, the Reds seized power in Turkmenistan.
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In Armenia, the Armenians had formed an Army Corps at Erivan.
In Manchuria, Trans-Baikal Cossack Ataman Semenov established a base a Manchouli.
In Switzerland, South African General Smuts met with the visiting Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to London, Count Mensdorff, in an unsuccessful attempt to make a separate peace.
In mid-December, in Central Asia, a Muslim Congress met at Kokand, the chief town of Fergana Province, and proclaimed an autonomous Turkestan. Tashkent government forces (Reds) took Kokand in heavy fighting on 22 February 1918.
By mid-December, at Novocherkassk, many members of the “Moscow Center,” who were non-socialists, Kadets, liberals and some from bourgeois circles, including P.N. Milyukov, Petr Struve, Mikhail Fedorov, Prince Grigori Trubetskoy, M.V. Rodzianko and known revolutionary Boris Savinkov, had arrived in the Don.
On 19 December, at Novocherkassk, the arrival of an echelon of General Kornilov's Shock Regiment. General Alekseev was to handle administration and financial matters, General Kaledin to command the Don Cossacks, and General Kornilov as military commander of the Volunteer Army.
On 20 December, at Petrograd, establishment of the “All-Russian Collegium for the Organization of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.” After 9 March 1918 it was moved to Moscow. The Collegium existed until 8 May 1918, when it was replaced by the All-Russian Supreme Staff.
At Petrograd, Vladimir Lenin finally authorized the formation of the CHeKa (Extraordinary Commission for Struggle Against Sabotage and Counter-Revolution) (Cheka), under the control of Feliks Dzerzhinskiy. The Bolsheviks declared war on "counter-revolutionary" Ukraine.
Red Guard detachments from Petrograd and Moscow were being sent to the Don Region, to support Red forces under General V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko.
At Helsingfors, the Finnish Government sent a note to Entente consuls, requesting their intervention to secure the removal of Russian troops. The Allies ignored the note. The Finnish Reds were calling for revolution.
The Reds seized power in the key industrial town of Tula, 175 km south of Moscow, as well as Novorossiisk in the Kuban.
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© WARCHRON 2007
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