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The Outbursts of Everett True — A.D. Condo

May 1920

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Reds Massacre Japanese at Nikolayevsk

Nikolayevsk, pictured after the massacre.

May 25 1920, Nikolayevsk-on-Amur--While the Red Army in Siberia had largely halted at Irkutsk (a spring offensive against Chita was repulsed), the White and Japanese forces in the area still had to deal with the threat of Red partisans. In February, Red partisans surrounded the town of Nikolayevsk, at the mouth of the Amur river. The town’s defenders were heavily outnumbered, and an agreement was soon reached that the Reds could occupy the town while the Japanese garrison would remain in place.

Tensions grew between the Reds and the Japanese, however, and fighting broke out again in March after the Japanese refused a demand to disarm; most of the Japanese garrison was killed, and the rest taken prisoner. The Japanese sent an expedition in May towards the city; knowing he could not fight them off, the Red commander evacuated his forces, destroyed much of the town, and killed around 700 Japanese PoWs and civilian captives on and around May 25, along with many Russian civilians he suspected of being sympathetic to the Whites.

The Japanese were understandably outraged, and used the incident as justification for their continued occupation of northern Sakhalin (which they had occupied the month before); they would continue to occupy it until 1925. The Soviet government, in an attempt to defuse tensions, had the Red commander responsible executed in July.

Sources include: Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War; Randal Gray, Chronicle of the First World War.