First Cavalry Army (Red Army)
붉은 군대 제1기병군
The Red Army cavalry army formed in November 1919 from Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Corps. It pursued Denikin's Armed Forces of South Russia down to Rostov and the North Caucasus in early 1920; in the Soviet-Polish War it broke the Polish front on 5 June and forced the Poles out of Kyiv, but it was tied down before Lwów and beaten at Komarów at the end of August. It then fought Wrangel in Northern Tauria and Makhno's army, and was disbanded in October 1923.
In depth
On 17 November 1919 the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic decided to raise Budyonny's cavalry corps of the 4th, 6th and 11th Cavalry Divisions to a cavalry army. Behind this lay the bond formed by Stalin, Voroshilov and Budyonny at Tsaritsyn in 1918, and in December Voroshilov and Shchadenko joined the cavalry army's revolutionary military council. The Russian source also cites the view that men such as Dumenko and Mironov did much of the actual founding but were erased by Soviet historiography. At Voronezh and Kastornoye in October 1919 Red cavalry defeated White cavalry in massed battle for the first time, and the drive on Tikhoretskaya in February 1920 split the Whites of the Don from those of the Kuban. Moved to the South-Western Front in April, it attacked the Poles with 16,700 sabres and many tachankas.
After the breakthrough at Samhorodok on 5 June the Poles left Kyiv, but the cavalry army massacred garrisons and burned hospitals at Zhitomir and Berdichev. In August, backed by Stalin and Yegorov, it refused commander-in-chief Kamenev's order to turn north and attacked Lwów, then abandoned the siege, a decision that fed the dispute over responsibility for the defeat at Warsaw. The battle of Komarów on 31 August is called the last great cavalry battle in history, and up to 4,000 men died in the retreat. In September mutiny and Jewish pogroms spread for three weeks in western Ukraine, centred on the 6th Cavalry Division, whose commissar Shepelev was killed. Isaac Babel wrote his story cycle Red Cavalry from his service with this army.