Event
1918 Red Army offensive during the Russian Civil War
Kazan Operation was the Red Army's offensive (5–10 September 1918) against the Czechoslovak Legion and the People's Army of Komuch during the Russian Civil War.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Kazan Operation”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Kazan Operation was the Red Army's offensive (5–10 September 1918) against the Czechoslovak Legion and the People's Army of Komuch during the Russian Civil War.
Following the capture of Samara by the Czech Legion on 8 June, several members of the Constituent Assembly, which had been dissolved by the Bolsheviks, organized a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (in Russian "Constituent Assembly" was "Uchreditel'noe Sobranie", hence the abbreviation for Committee was "Komuch"). This threatened to form an alternative socialist government to the Bolshevik regime. In August 1918, the Whites occupied Kazan. Bolshevik forces were defeated, and they dispersed to Kazan's neighborhood. The Whites killed the remaining of Bolsheviks in the city, including Mullanur Waxitov.
At the beginning of the operation, the Reds' disposition was as follows: To the west of Kazan were the Fifth Army of the Eastern Front under Pēteris Slavens and the Volga Flotilla under Fyodor Raskolnikov; to the east of Kazan was the Arsk group of the Second Army under Woldemar Azin. They opposed the Czechoslovak legion and KomUch People's Army under A. P. Stepanov.
On September 3 a workers' uprising erupted in Kazan which was liquadated by the army of KOMUCH but it diverged white forces from the front. On the 5th the operation began when the 5th Red Army, with support from the Volga Flotilla advanced towards Kazan by capturing several crucial positions such as Krasnaya Gorka (Yudino), Verkhniy and Nizhniy Uslon. After several days of fighting the red advance was slowing down which caused the direct intervention of Lenin. On September 10, after storming the city from three directions, Red Army troops took control of Kazan.
The majority of Whites managed to sail away via the Volga.
The capturing of Kazan and Simbirsk by the Red Army made continued strategic offensives westwards possible for the Red Army.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kazan Operation”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.