Alexander Krasnoshchyokov - Return To Russia

Return To Russia

In August 1917 he returned to Russia by ship to Vladivostok with his wife and two children. There he became the secretary of the Domestic Servants Union and acted as the union representative on the existing Vladivostok Soviet. He then joined the city council of Nikolsk-Ussurisk despite his known Bolshevik affiliation, and within two weeks had set up a rival Soviet which elected him its President. He was at a workers convention in Vladivostok October 28, 1917 when news of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd reached the city. The convention broke up having failed to agree on whether to recognise the new government, as members of the old Zemstvos opposed the Bolshevik coup and rule by soviets. Krasnoshchyokov returned to Nikolsk to organise a new conference of soviets which met at Khabarovsk December 11, 1917 to press for rule by soviets throughout the Maritime Province, while a rival conference organised by the Zemstvos opened a day earlier. Failing to agree once more, the Soviet dispersed their rival and set up a Coalition Government in the Amur valley at Khabarovsk in January 1918 called the Far Eastern Council of Peoples Commissars, leaving a minority of members to Zemstvo nominees. Krasnoshchyokov was elected President but the Blagoveschensk Zemstvo refused to join and was expelled. A new soviet was chosen which then voted to join the Amur government in February 1918, but Vladivostok and the Maritime Province still held out. In March 1918 Chinese forces crossed the Amur from Aigun to protect its nationals in Blagoveschensk, where they joined a (White) 'City Guard' force of about 5,000 and 2,000 Cossacks. The Soviet was surrounded at Government House protected only by remnants of the old Alexander Kerensky troops and Krasnoshchyokov was promptly imprisoned when he came to intercede. However the Khabarovsk soviet sent more soldiers and 15,000 peasants came to his aid, which enabled the 'Red' forces to retake the city a week later. Krasnoshchyokov was freed and with difficulty managed to restore order among the peasants who were now intent on looting the city after the Whites had fled along with the city bankers and merchants across the river into Chinese territory. In April 1918 the local soviet dissolved the Vladivostok Zemstvo and city council and declared itself the local government, and in May 1918 recognised the Amur government headed by Krasnoshchyokov. Thus the whole of the Russian Far East was now unified under one government, although this was not to last for very long.