The Lena Front in the context of the establishment of Soviet power in Yakutia (July–August 1918)

This article provides a comprehensive study of the military operations on the Lena Front in July–August 1918 as a key factor in the process of establishing and the subsequent temporary fall of Soviet power in Yakutia. Based on materials from the National Archive of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), including orders from the Lena Front command and operational telegrams, as well as published sources and scholarly literature, the military-political situation in the region is reconstructed. The alignment of forces of the opposing sides is analyzed in detail: the Red expeditionary detachment under the command of Apollinary Rydzinsky and the White Guard formations under the leadership of Ivan Krasilnikov. Particular attention is paid to the role of the Olekminsky District as a strategic hub, control over which predetermined the outcome of the campaign. The phenomenon of the successful actions of the small White partisan detachment of Mikhail Gordeev, formed in the Red Rear from local peasants, is investigated. A complex of reasons for the defeat of the Soviet troops is identified, including strategic miscalculations by the command, overstretched communication lines, the weak social base of the new government in the Yakut countryside, and insufficient control over key territories. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the systemic analysis of a local, yet fateful for the region, front, which often remained on the periphery of attention in Soviet historiography. It is concluded that it was the events on the Lena Front that became the turning point leading to the establishment of White government power in Yakutia for almost a year and a half. The materials of the article are valuable for researchers of the Russian Civil War, regional history, and military affairs.

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