The Siberian "White" grain for the "Red" Arkhangelsk (the food issue in the European North of Russia during the Civil War of 1918-1921)

The article is devoted to the problems of the food situation of the European North of Russia during the Civil War. The state of the society and the reasons for the growing demands of centralized intervention in the matters of grain procurement are examined. In the context of this paradigm the question of purchase of food in Siberia to Archangelsk Province is described. In the summer of 1918 there was a very difficult situation with the supply of food to the population in the most developed eastern counties Mezen and Pechora of Archangelsk Province. The Soviet authorities in Arkhangelsk decided to purchase food in Siberia, using the cooperative structure for this purpose. Arkhangelsk agents brought a bold plan to Siberia to provide grain and exchange it for manufactured goods that five icebreakers were to deliver to the mouth of the Yenisei River. Siberia was rich in grain and needed tankered industrial goods, so the local authorities facilitated the commercial exchange. Grain was purchased in the Minusinsk District of Yenisei Province and was ready to be sent to the lower reach of the Yenisei. The situation changed when anti-Bolsheviks came to power in Siberia. However, Omsk Government gave grain to the Bolsheviks, guided by economic and propaganda reasons. Omsk must have known about the impending coup in Arkhangelsk, therefore, there was no risk. In contrast to the original plan, the grain was sent down the Ob to the Gulf of Ob. About 200 thousand poods of grain were sent to the wharf Lyapino, closer to the Urals. On August 2, 1918 in Arkhangelsk the Soviet government was overthrown and anti-Bolshevik government was created - the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region (later - the Provisional Government of the Northern Region). During 1918-1921 in the area of Subpolar Ural the struggle for this grain was the basis of all of the fighting between the ''Whites'' (Arkhangelsk, Russia, Omsk) and the ''Reds'' (Veliky Ustyug, Vologda, Cherdyn). In 1918, the Reds managed to take some grain from behind the Urals by the old Sibiryakov highway. Lyapino was the end point of this road named after its discoverer, a famous entrepreneur, explorer and patron of culture, A.M. Sibiryakov (1849-1933). It connected the European North of Russia with Siberia through the Urals. The start of the highway was in the upper reaches of the Pechora River in the village of Ust-Shchugor. The operation provided joint military expedition of the detachments of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, sent from Veliky Ustyug under the command of the Austrian internationalist M. Mandelbaum and the Red detachments of the Cherdyn District of Perm Province under the command of brothers E.F. Appoga and F.F. Appoga. In the subsequent time in the region the Bolshevik parts of the Sixth Army of the Northern Front, commanded by A.A. Samoilo, were involved. The Whites won the fierce struggle for the ''Lyapin" grain. At the end of March 1919 in the area of Ust-Kozhva on the Pechora the White military part of the Northern and Eastern Fronts united. The power of the Provisional government of the Northern region was reestablished along the Pechora. In 1919-1920s part of the grain went to the White Pechora, some - to the Kolchak's army. In 1921, the "Lyapinsk" issue should be considered in the context of the West Siberian peasant revolt. The habitants of Lyapino (Saranpaul) ate the remaining grain till the 1930s.

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