Krasnoiarsk Operation of 1920

an offensive operation by forces of the Fifth Detached Army (commander G. Kh. Eikhe and members of the Revolutionary Military Council I. N. Smirnov and B. P. Pozern).

The objective of the operation on January 3–6 was to crush the remnants of Kolchak’s armies. Having suffered a defeat at Novonikolaevsk (present-day Novosibirsk), Kolchak’s shattered units retreated to the Krasnoiarsk region, intending to dig in at the Enisei River and stop the Red Army offensive. The plan of the Soviet command was to encircle and destroy Kolchak’s forces in the area between the Chulym and Enisei rivers south of the railroad.

The main strike was delivered by the 30th Division (commanded by A. la. Lapin), which went around Krasnoiarsk to the northwest. The 35th Division (commanded by K. A. Neiman) and the partisan detachments of A. D. Kravchenko and P. E. Shchetinkin attacked the city from the south and southwest. Joining battle on January 3 near the stations of Kemchug, Chernorechenskaia,’ and Kozul’ka, the 30th Division beat off attacks by remnants of Kolchak forces, which emerged from the taiga and tried to break through to the railroad. On that same day, in the region of the towns of Bol’shaia Serezhskaia and Balakhtinskoe, the division routed the Volga Group of Kolchak forces.

At the peak of the fighting on January 4 the Bolsheviks of Krasnoiarsk mounted an uprising and took power. For 48 hours the 8,000 worker-militiamen and the rebellious soldiers who had joined them beat back fierce White attacks. At this time I. K. Griaznov’s brigade (moving from the northwest), the advance guard of the 30th Division, and units of the 35th Division with partisan detachments (moving from the southwest) completely cut off the enemy’s path of retreat to the east. Finding themselves in a hopeless situation, the main forces of Kolchak’s Second and Third armies (more than 60,000 men) surrendered. Only a small group of the troops of General V. O. KappeF managed to flee across the Enisei. During the night of January 6 the 30th Division entered Krasnoiarsk.