The Nikolayevsk incident or Nikolaevsk incident () was a series of mass killings that took place in the region of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur during the Russian Civil War. The massacre and terrorism perpetrated by the Red Army under Yakov Tryapitsyn (a group of Russian Bolshevik-anarchist, Chinese and Korean guerrillas led by Ilya Park) killed thousands of Russians in Nikolaevsk and devastated the region.The following papers acknowledge that the Red Army partisan detachment under Yakov Tryapitsyn committed massacres and war crimes against civilians: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; .
In general, historians agree that the event was a massacre in which there was "unprecedented and unprovoked brutality" that killed and devastated many people. Following a hastily prepared court-martial, Tryapitsyn and 29 of his colleagues were executed, while another 33 received prison terms.
According to Bolshevik documents and trial verdicts, half of the population was killed in the massacre, of which the majority were Russians. At the time of the massacre, Japan deliberately omitted facts about the thousands of Russians slaughtered by the Red Army and exaggerated the number of Japanese killed. As a result, the Nikolayevsk Massacre is often mistakenly perceived as a 'massacre against the Japanese'.
Prelude: Red Terror in the Russian Far East
According to Dr. Alexey Teplyakov, episodes of Red massacres were not new to the inhabitants of the Russian Far East until 1920.
In March 1918, Red Guards seized Blagoveshchensk after Ataman I. M. Gamov's mutiny, resulting in over a thousand resident deaths. Chekist I. P. Pavlunovsky reported in 1922 that mine workers stormed the city and massacred perceived bourgeoisie, killing those suspected of rebellion or sympathy, including most of the city administration and mining office staff. In March 1918, over a thousand residents of Blagoveshchensk fell victim to the Red Guards, who seized the city after the mutiny of Ataman I. M. Gamov. As reported in 1922 by the prominent Chekist I. P. Pavlunovsky, «A mass of workers from the mines rushed into the city, stormed it, and organized a massacre of the bourgeoisie 'in general'. They went in squads from house to house and slaughtered all those suspected of rebellion and those sympathizing with them. By the way, they slaughtered almost the entire staff of the Blagoveshchensk City Administration and especially cut up the specialists and employees of the mining offices.»
Press reports in spring 1919 detailed Red atrocities in Blagoveshchensk, stating over 1,000 locals were shot, and grave excavations began. After the city's capture, many students reportedly joined anti-Red forces.The press in the spring of 1919 reported on terrorist actions in Blagoveshchensk under the Reds: «Bolshevik atrocities in the city reached terrible proportions. From the local population, more than 1,000 people were shot. Excavation of graves has started. After the capture of the city, most of the students joined our army as volunteers.»
In early April 1920, P. V. Volgodsky, Kolchak's former head of government, met officers who escaped Red Terror in Vladivostok. They claimed that despite a socialist coalition government, Bolsheviks were active, arresting and torturing White officers before killing them, often staging fake escape attempts.At the beginning of April 1920, the former head of Kolchak's government, P. V. Volgodsky, met in Shanghai with two officers who had escaped from the Red Terror in Vladivostok, who said that there, despite the coalition socialist government of A. S. Medvedev, "the Bolsheviks were actually at work there," arresting and, after almost obligatory torture, killing Whites: «...In Vladivostok, there are systematic murders of White Guard officers. They are arrested and shot on their way to prison under the pretext of stopping escape attempts, etc.»
Far Eastern Socialist-Revolutionary-Maximalist I. I. Zhukovsky-Zhuk noted that many revolutionaries in the Far East, particularly in Blagoveshchensk, employed "ragtag" methods of ruthless revolutionary struggle, including frequent extrajudicial killings. He cited Amur authorities like Matveev and S. Dimitriev, who executed numerous suspected counter-revolutionaries without trial, a practice widely known but largely unopposed, except by Blagoveshchensk anarchists.I. I. Zhukovsky-Zhuk, a well-known Far Eastern Socialist-Revolutionaries-Maximalist, wrote: «almost all revolutionaries in the D.-East, especially in Blagoveshchensk on the Amur River, resorted to the ‘ragtag’ methods, i.e., to the methods of active, ruthless revolutionary struggle that knew no compromise. Shootings without trial, which served as the main accusation against the ragpickers, were not uncommon here. Individual representatives of the Amur authorities, such as Matveev, the head of the regional prison, and his assistant S. Dimitriev (both Communists), shot dozens of persons suspected and accused of counter-revolution and White Guardism without trial. This was known to the Revolutionary Committee, and many people in the city also learned about it, but no one protested against it, with the exception of the Blagoveshchensk group of anarchists, because everyone was so "accustomed" to this kind of phenomenon.»
However, according to Dr. Alexey Teplyakov, Tryapitsyn's band members managed to carry out the Red Terror in its most ruthless form, when almost all socially and nationally alien elements were physically exterminated, along with a considerable number of "socially close" people.
Massacre
The march to Nikolayevsk-on-Amur Anarchist Yakov Ivanovich Tryapitsyn, a Red Army Partisan leader who came from Petrograd, was a World War I volunteer who rose to the rank of non-commissioned officer. In the Russian Far East, he worked in the Olginsky district and the Suchan valley of Primorye. At the end of 1919, Tryapitsyn was sent by the Military Revolutionary Staff of Red Army Partisan detachments and revolutionary organizations of Khabarovsk and Nikolaev districts to the lower reaches of the Amur River to organize an insurgency there. There is a version that Tryapitsyn left with the detachment arbitrarily, dissatisfied with the passivity of Red Army Partisan command. Nina Lebedeva-Kiyashko, an active Socialist-Revolutionaries-Maximalist from Blagoveshchensk, left with him as commissar.
The movement of about two thousand troops of Tryapitsyn and Lebedeva down the Amur River was accompanied by the almost complete extermination of rural intellectuals (for revolutionary "passivity") and anyone who looked like a town "bourgeois"; priests were drowned in ice-holes, taken prisoners, including those who voluntarily went to the partisans, were shot.
One of Tryapitsyn's assistants, Ivan Lapta (Yakov Rogozin), organized a Red Army detachment that "raided villages and camps, robbed and killed people," destroyed those who did not give up gold at the Limursk mines, and looted the Amgun gold mines and surrounding villages. Lapta's detachments, together with the Tryapitsyns Zavarzin, Bitsenko, Dyldin, Otsevilli, and Sasov, killed hundreds of Indigenous peoples of Lower Amurian even before the occupation of the regional center.
There were about 200 Chinese in Tryapitsyn's detachment, and the same number of Koreans. The Koreans were commanded by Ilya Pak. The Chinese and Koreans were recruited from the gold mines of the taiga. Tryapitsyn paid them generous cash up front, promising them gold from the mines and Russian women. Recruited from the gold mines, these troops were criminal and brutal. Partisan chiefs were appointed by the most determined and cruel personalities, who kept the units in submission by giving them the right to plunder and kill.
Lepers were also victims of an incident in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. In December 1919, the army of the anarchist Tryapitsyn invaded the living quarters of the Leper colony. For two days the Tryapitsyns captured and robbed people who passed the leprosarium on their way to and from Nikolaevsk-on-Amur and Krasnoye. Paramedic had to leave the place.
March The town of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur was located some distance from the main events. However, as part of the 1918 intervention, a Japanese garrison was stationed there because of the city's strategic location at the mouth of the Amur River, opposite Sakhalin Island. In addition, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur had been a gold mining center since the late 19th century. In addition to the small garrison stationed there in 1918, Japanese citizens, including the consul and his family, lived in the town.
When the Japanese occupied Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in September 1918, the Japanese navy quickly withdrew, leaving only the Japanese army behind for fear of the river freezing over. In addition to the original Russian and Chinese inhabitants, the town was also home to Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilian immigrants. Nikolayevsk-on-Amur was cut off from the sea by the frozen river, making overland transportation difficult. The Japanese troops tyrannically controlled Nikolayevsk-on-Amur.
To delay the intervention in the south of the Far East (mainly in Primorye, Priamurye and northern Sakhalin), Japan used as an excuse the actions of extremist guerrilla groups of looting and outright terror against the population (mostly wealthy) and foreigners (Japanese, Americans). Dr. Azarenkov said, For these extremist guerrillas, "red" was a guise.
In 1920, Soviet Russia and Japan discussed a buffer state in the Russian Far East. Recognizing that Kolchak's government had collapsed, the Japanese agreed to allow the Red Army to enter Vladivostok in late January 1920. With so many foreign troops stationed in Primorye, the Bolsheviks were forced to accept the socialist zemstvo. At the same time, Tryapitsyn besieged, and after an artillery bombardment at the end of February, captured Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, where a Japanese battalion (350 men) and about the same number of white garrisons were stationed. There were no roads to it before the ice drift, so the defenders of the almost 20,000-strong city could rely only on their own forces. The Red Army entered the area after promising the Japanese garrison and the white garrison that it would not commit atrocities. The Red Army signed a pact with the Japanese garrison on February 28, 1920, promising to abide by the agreement. Nevertheless, the Red Army immediately began looting and killing.
Survivor M. V. Sotnikov-Goremyka recalled detainees being hastily shot near the prison, stripped to their underwear. He noted that bodies piled up, many men fainted, but women faced death bravely. The militia killed 72 people. The next day, their naked corpses were taken by sledge and drowned in ice holes, with the perpetrators saying, "Let's send them to Japan."M. V. Sotnikov-Goremyka, one of the survivors of this massacre, recalled how the next morning the detainees were hastily shot in front of each other near the prison, stripped to their underwear:"...The corpses fell one on top of the other. Many of the men fainted, but the women went to the slaughter very bravely. ...During these days, 72 people were killed by the militia. On the next day, several sledges arrived and took the corpses, already completely naked, to drown them in specially made ice holes. They drowned them and said, "Let's send them to Japan.""