By this time, “Directives on the Use of Tanks in Battle” for the Red Army had been published (Moscow, September 1920), according to which the role of tanks was mainly to support infantry in breaking fixed enemy positions and to work with artillery units in coordinated firing patterns. Ten Renault tanks from the United States that had been dispatched to Vladivostok to assist anti-Bolshevik forces were captured by Red partisans near Blagoveshchensk in March 1920 and were assigned to the 1st Amur Heavy Tank Division of the People’s-Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. They were deployed against White forces during the summer and autumn of 1920, but by 1922, due to a lack of munitions and spare parts, only one tank, the Vigilant, remained operational. On 10 February 1922, near Volochaevka, it was immobilized after being hit by fire from the White armored train, The Kappel′evtsy, and the crew blew it up with grenades, lest it fall into enemy hands.
TANKS (WHITE AND INTERVENTIONIST FORCES). None of the White forces had the industrial capacity to manufacture their own tanks, so all had to be imported from the Allies. The first tanks arrived with French forces at Odessa, on 18 December 1918: 20 Renault FT-17s were assigned to the 501st Special Artillery Regiment, 6 of which were captured by Red forces and 6 more abandoned during the French evacuation of Odessa in April 1919.
Subsequently, in South Russia, a mission of 10 officers and 55 other ranks of the British Royal Tank Corps trained more than 200 volunteer officers of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) at the Russian Tank School (Tankadrom) established at Ekaterinodar on 22 March 1919 (relocated to Taganrog in June 1919). These men operated the British tanks that were shipped into Russia via Novorossiisk from mid-April 1919 (a total of 73 of them, according to White records, 74 according to British records). These were a combination of Mark Vs (heavy), Mark As (medium), and Mark Bs (medium). How many of these vehicles saw action in the 1st and 2nd Tank Divisions of the White forces in South Russia, however, is unclear, as almost half of them (35) arrived only in October 1919, just as the AFSR was about to collapse, and White orders of battle indicate that, as of 18 November 1919, 11 tanks were still at Novorossiisk, 11 were being used for training at the tank school at Taganrog, and 16 were undergoing repair or assembly there. White tanks were certainly present at Orel in October 1919, however (the most northerly point reached by the AFSR), and they had been used to some effect in earlier engagements, notably with the Caucasian Army during the capture of Tsaritsyn in late June 1919, when the army used them to smash through the city’s barbed-wire defenses (even though two of the six vehicles deployed broke down during transit and could not be used), captured six armored trains, and took Siavarsk unopposed by the terrified enemy. The 1st Tank Division (with some 25 vehicles) reformed in Crimea as part of the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel in May 1920 and was utilized expertly in the breakout through the Perekop peninsula in June 1920. Thereafter, the division was based at Melitopol′. Most its tanks were captured by the Reds or sabotaged (often ineffectively) by their crews during the Whites’ defeat at Khakovka of 14–16 October 1920.
Opportunities for the deployment of tanks by anti-Bolshevik forces in North Russia were limited by the forested and swampy terrain, but a North Russian Tank Detachment (of four Mark Vs and two Mark Bs), under Major J. N. L. Ryan, was formed at Arkhangel′sk on 11 August 1919, to fight alongside the Whites’ Northern Army. Three of the tanks were deployed alongside an armored train on the Vologda railway on 29 August 1919, and 34 officers and men of the North Russian Tank Corps were trained by Bryan at his headquarters at Solombala, before the final British evacuation of Arkhangel′sk on 27 September 1919. Two British tanks were left behind for the Russians and saw action in October against Red forces around Plestetskaia station. On 19 February 1920, as Red forces entered Arkhangel′sk, their crews loaded the tanks onto barges and sank them in the Dvina River. They were subsequently salvaged by the Reds and sent to Moscow for analysis.
The British North-West Russian Tank Detachment, comprising 22 officers, 26 men, and 6 Mark V (composite) tanks, under Lieutenant Colonel E. Hope-Carson, arrived at Revel (Tallinn) starting on 6 August 1919. They saw action in the Narva region during the advance toward Petrograd of the Whites’ North-West Army in September–October 1919 and were used to train 22 officers and 9 enlisted men of the Russian Tank Battalion. On 18–25 October 1919, the tanks were deployed at Gatchina and Tsarskoe Selo, alongside three Russian-crewed Renault FT-17s that had been loaned by Finland. When the White forces retreated, the tanks were entrained and sent back to Revel. The Finnish tanks were returned to Helsinki, and the British tanks were given to the Estonian Army.
TARANOVSKII, EFIM (1888–18 August 1921). Ensign (1917). A prominent follower of Nestor Makhno, Efim Taranovskii was born into a well-to-do Jewish peasant family in Mariupol′ uezd. Having served in the Russian Army during the First World War, he became a proponent of anarchism in 1917, styling himself an “anarchist-communist” when he returned to Ukraine. In 1918, he moved to the Guliai-Pole region to combat the forces of the Austro-German intervention at the head of a Jewish regiment of Black Guards. His group united with Makhno in the autumn of 1918, and Taranovskii then served in the Revolutionary-Insurgent Army of Ukraine as a member of its main staff (from autumn to winter 1918). In 1920, he also commanded a cavalry regiment, while maintaining his staff post, and in October of that year was named commander of the 1st Army Group of the Insurgent Army. He assisted the Red Army in clearing the forces of General P. N. Wrangel from Crimea. Having successfully evaded the Reds’ subsequent attempts to smash the Makhnovists, during the summer of the following year Taranovskii was captured by a group of anti-Semitic peasants and burned alive at the stake.
TARASOV, VLADIMIR FEDOROVICH (?–?). Captain (191?). One of the most prominent of those Red military specialists who deserted to the Whites in the course of the civil wars, V. F. Tarasov had served, in the imperial army, as an officer with the 13th Mounted Artillery Brigade during the First World War, and in 1918 completed an accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff. Later that year, he volunteered for service with the Red Army and assisted in preparing the defenses of Petrograd. From 23 March 1918, he was assigned to the general staff, transferring to Vseroglavshtab on 27 June 1918. He then worked as an advisor to the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs, before being assigned to the post of acting chief of staff of the Eastern Front (10–23 July 1918), and from 5 November 1918 was head of the 2nd (Secret) Department of Registration Directorate of the Revolutionary Field Staff of the Revvoensovet of the Republic. However, he was almost immediately sent back to the front, as chief of staff of the Southern Front (from 13 November 1918). On 7 June 1919, he was arrested by the Cheka as a suspected traitor, but was soon released to become acting chief of staff of the 8th Red Army (10 August–2 October 1919). When the Armed Forces of South Russia captured Voronezh on 6 October 1919, he remained in that city and went over to the Whites. His subsequent fate is unknown.