Sorokin, Ivan Lukich (4 December 1884–1 November 1918). Esaul (1917). A Red commander who is alleged to have deliberately betrayed the Soviet regime, I. L. Sorokin was born into a family of the Kuban Cossack Host at the village of Petropavlovsk, in the Labinsk district of the Kuban oblast′, and was a graduate of the Tiflis Military Medical School (1916). He participated in the First World War in the 1st Labinsk Regiment (1914–1915) and the 3rd Line Regiment (1916–1917) on the Caucasus Front, working as a Feldscher.
Having been active in the left wing of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries from April 1917, in early 1918 Sorokin helped organize a partisan detachment of Red Cossacks in the Kuban and participated in battles with the Volunteer Army in his home district. In February 1918, he was named assistant commander of the South-East Revolutionary Army. During the First Kuban (Ice) March (22 February–30 April 1918) he was, in effect, in command of all Red forces opposing the Whites in the Kuban, and it was his forces that drove those of General V. L. Pokrovskii out of Ekaterinodar and thereafter defended the city against repeated White assaults (9–13 April 1918). Later in April 1918, he was made assistant to the main commander of the Red Army of the North Caucasus. He subsequently became temporary commander of that force (from 3 August 1918), and on 3 October 1918, was made acting commander of the 11th Red Army. In that last capacity, he unleashed a regime of terror in the area under his control, according to Soviet historians, as a deliberate ploy to disorganize the Soviet regime in the North Caucasus, to aid the Whites.
On 21 October 1918, Sorokin ordered the execution of a group of members of the regional committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and members of the Central Executive Committee of the North Caucasus Republic (including A. A. Rubin and V. I. Krainyi), as well as I. I. Matveev (the commander of the Taman Red Army). He was also responsible for the execution, on 19 October 1918, of a number of captured tsarist officers (including Generals R. D. Radko-Dmitriev and N. V. Ruzskii), but on 28 October 1918 a Second Extraordinary Congress of Soviets of the North Caucasus declared Sorokin to be an outlaw and removed him from his military posts. On 30 October 1918, he was arrested near Stavropol′, and he was subsequently killed in prison there by a Red commander (I. T. Vysenko of the 3rd Taman Regiment of the 1st Taman Infantry Division) before he could be brought to trial.
SOUTH-EAST FRONT. This Red front, with its staff headquarters at Saratov, was created by a directive of the main commander of the Red Army, on 30 September 1919, from the forces previously operating as the Special Group (under the command of V. I. Shorin) on the left flank of the Southern Front. It sought to unify Red forces across Saratov guberniia, the Don oblast′, and the Novokhopersk, Pavlovsk, and Bogucharsk districts of Voronezh guberniia, and to drive General A. I. Denikin’s Armed Forces of South Russia back toward Tsaritsyn. Included in the South-Eastern Front were the 9th Red Army and the 10th Red Army (both from 20 September 1919), the 11th Red Army, the 1st Cavalry Army (from 10 January 1920) and the 8th Red Army (all from 10 January 1920), the forces of the Penza Fortified Region, and the Volga–Caspian Military Flotilla (from 14 October 1919).
After defensive actions along the River Khoper in October 1919, the forces of the South-Eastern Front played a key role in the general offensive of the Red Army that commenced the following month. On 3 January 1920, its forces captured Tsaritsyn, and on 7 January 1920, they entered Novocherkassk, the capital of the Don Cossack Host. On 16 January 1920, by order of the Revvoensovet of the Republic, its forces were transformed into the Caucasian Front.
The commander of the South-Eastern Front was V. I. Shorin. Its chiefs of staff were F. M. Afanas′ev (1 October 1919–4 January 1920) and S. A. Pugachev (4–16 January 1920).
South-East Revolutionary Army. See Red Army of the North Caucasus.
SOUTHERN ARMY. This White force, consisting chiefly of Cossacks of the Orenburg Cossack Host, was created on 23 May 1919, as a consequence of the reformation of the Orenburg Army. Commanded by Major General G. A. Belov, from September to October 1919 it formed part of the Eastern Front of the forces of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, then was placed in the Moscow Army Group created by Kolchak’s new commander in chief, General K. V. Sakharov. As of 1 June 1919, it consisted of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Corps, the 4th Orenburg Rifle Corps, the 5th Sterlitamak Rifle Corps, and the 11th Iaits Rifle Corps, numbering some 27,000 men in all and commanding 247 machine guns and 27 cannon.
From May through the middle of June 1919, the force was chiefly occupied with efforts to capture Orenburg, but despite this lengthy siege, the city remained in Red hands. Moreover, with the collapse of Kolchak’s Western Army to the north and the Red counterattack across the Urals, as well as the approach from the southeast of the advancing Turkestan Red Army, the Southern Army was forced to retreat in late June; its northern group (the 4th Orenburg and 5th Sterlitamak Corps), under General Belov, moved east toward Omsk, while its Southern group (the 1st Orenburg and 11th Iaits Corps) moved southeast towards Orsk and Aktiubinsk. In August 1919, the Belov group took part in the failed counteroffensive of Kolchak’s forces from the River Tobol′. In the aftermath of that failure, Belov’s forces became separated from the other elements of the Moscow Group and retreated independently, southeast, toward Semipalatinsk.
On 18 September 1919, the remnants of the Southern Army (with the exception of the 4th Orenburg Corps of General A. S. Bakich) were again reformed and were renamed the Orenburg Army. This army was placed under the command of Ataman A. I. Dutov, under whom it retreated farther into Central Asia, where on 6 January 1920, it was incorporated (as the Orenburg Detachment) into the Semirech′e Army of Ataman B. V. Annenkov.
SOUTHERN FRONT. This term was used to designate two Red fronts during the civil-war era.
The first Southern Front (sometimes termed the “Southern Front against Denikin”) was created by an order of the Revvoensovet of the Republic on 11 September 1918, from forces previously attached to the Western and Southern Screens, the Red Army of the North Caucasus, and the Astrakhan group of forces. Its staff, formed from elements of the command of the Southern Screen and the Military Council of the North Caucasus, was based at Kozlov, then Orel, Tula, Sergievsk, Serpukhov, and once more Orel. The original aims of the first Southern Front were to maintain the demarcation line between Soviet forces and the forces of the Austro-German intervention in Ukraine and to combat forces of the Don Cossack Host and the Volunteer Army in southeastern Russia. Attached to this front were the 8th (3 October 1918–9 January 1920), 9th (3 October 1918–30 September 1919), 10th (3 October 1918–30 September 1919), and 11th (3 October–7 December 1918) Red Armies; the 11th Independent Army (23 May–12 June 1919); the 12th (3 October–7 December 1918, and in its second formation, 27 June–27 July 1919), 13th (5 March 1919–10 January 1920), and 14th (until 4 June 1919, the 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Army, 27 April 1919–10 January 1920) Red Armies; the 1st Cavalry Army (19 November 1919–9 January 1920); the Special Corps (10 June–7 July 1919); and other smaller formations. In September–November 1918, the Southern Front conducted defensive operations against Don Cossack attacks on Tsaritsyn and Voronezh. An unsuccessful attempt to go on the offensive in November 1918 was followed by a successful offensive from January 1919 against the Don Army. By April 1919, forces of the Southern Front had captured Rostov-on-Don, had forced the River Manych, and were advancing on Bataisk and Tikhoretsk. The May 1919 offensive of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) then pushed the forces of the Southern Front into retreat, obliging them to abandon the Don oblast′, the Donbass, Khar′kov, Belgorod, and Tsaritsyn. Further pressure from the Whites drove forces of the Southern Front from Kiev, Odessa, Kursk, Voronezh, and Orel in August–October 1919. On 11 October 1919, the successful counterattack of the Southern Front began, driving the Whites back to the Black Sea and the North Caucasus by early 1920. Having virtually destroyed the AFSR, on 10 January 1919, the Southern Front’s forces were reorganized as the South-West Front. Commanders of the first Southern Front were P. P. Sytin (11 September–9 November 1918); P. A. Slaven (9 November 1918–24 January 1919); V. M. Gittis (24 January–13 July 1919); V. N. Egor′ev (13 July–11 October 1919); and A. I. Egorov (11 October 1919–10 January 1920). Its chiefs of staff were I. I. Zashchuk (acting, 11 September–12 November 1918); V. F. Tarasov (13 November 1918–7 June 1919); N. V. Pnevskii (9 June–17 October 1919); and N. N. Petin (14 November 1919–10 January/26 September 1920).