Yakut Revolt

The Yakut Revolt (Russian: Якутский мятеж) or the Yakut Expedition (Russian: Якутский поход) was the last episode of the Russian Civil War. The hostilities took place between September 1921 and June 1923 and were centred on the Ayano-Maysky District of the Russian Far East.

A formidable rising flared up in this part of Yakutia in September 1921. About 200 White Russians were led by Cornet Mikhail Korobeinikov. In March 1922 they established the Provisional Yakut Regional People's Government in Churapcha. On 23 March Korobeinikov's "Yakut People's Army" took the major town of Yakutsk, with six machine guns. The Red Army garrison was decimated.

In April, the White Russians contacted the Provisional Priamurye Government in Vladivostok, asking for help. On 27 April, the Soviets declared the Yakut ASSR and sent an expedition to put down the uprising. In summer 1922, the Whites were ousted from Yakutsk and withdrew to the Pacific coast. They occupied the port towns of Okhotsk and Ayan and again asked Vladivostok for reinforcements.

On 30 August, the Pacific Ocean Fleet, manned by about 750 volunteers under Lieutenant General Anatoly Pepelyayev, sailed from Vladivostok to assist the White Russians. Three days later, this force disembarked in Ayan and moved upon Yakutsk. By the end of October, when Pepelyayev occupied the locality of Nelkan, he learned that the Bolsheviks had wrested Vladivostok from the White Army and the Civil War was over.

When the Soviet Union was formed on 31 December, the only Russian territory still controlled by the White Movement was the region of the Pepelyayevshchina ("пепеляевщина"), that is, Ayan, Okhotsk, and Nelkan. A unit of Bolsheviks under Ivan Strod was sent against Pepelyayev in February. On 12 February, they defeated the Pepelyayevists near Sasyl-Sasyg; in March the White Army were ousted from Amga.

On 24 April 1923 the ships Stavropol and Indigirka sailed from Vladivostok for Ayan. They contained a contingent of the Red Army under Stepan Vostretsov. Upon his arrival in Ayan on 6 April, Vostretsov learnt that Pepelyayev had evacuated to Nelkan. The remainder of the White Army were defeated near Okhotsk on 6 June and near Ayan on 16 June. The general, 103 White officers, and 230 soldiers were taken prisoner and transported to Vladivostok.