Spassk Operation of 1922

combat actions near Spassk by the People’s Revolutionary Army (PRA) of the Far East Republic on October 8 and 9, 1922, as the remaining pockets of White Guard forces in the Far East were being eliminated.

On October 7, after the initial stage of the Primor’e Operation of 1922, PRA units pursuing retreating enemy forces found themselves on the close approaches to Spassk. The Spassk Fortified Region, organized in 1921 by the Japanese interventionists, was the heart of the White Guards’ defense in Primor’e. Consisting essentially of seven field forts connected by trenches protected by three to five rows of barbed-wire entanglements, it was defended by the Volga Group of General Molchanov, a group numbering 1,800 infantrymen, 700 cavalrymen, 28 machineguns, and nine artillery pieces.

The PRA command dispatched a strike force of two columns, formed out of the 2nd Priamur’e Division, to mount an assault on Spassk. Ia. Z. Pokus commanded the right column, which consisted of the 6th Khabarovsk Regiment, a cavalry battalion, two batteries, and an armored train. S. S. Vostretsov commanded the left column, which consisted of the 5th Amur Regiment, the 4th Volochaevka Regiment, and an armored train. The two columns struck from the north and northwest and from the south, respectively. Partisans under the command of M. P. Vol’skii operated behind White Guard lines. During the assault on October 8, the left column seized one of the forts. On October 9, Soviet troops began an advance along the entire front; by 2:30 P.M., they had taken four more forts. The White Guards lost more than 1,000 killed and wounded and approximately 300 captured, and they withdrew from Spassk. The Soviet forces’ road to southern Primor’e lay open.