Uniforms of the Far Eastern Army, 1920

Material kindly provided by researcher V. Romanov, Moscow.

Reconstructions by A. Karevskiy

Order No. 40 to the Far Eastern Army, 11 May 1920, Chita

I hereby announce the design of the shoulder-boards for the permanent staff of the Chita Officer Training Battalion, approved by the Commander-in-Chief of all Armed Forces of the Russian Far East.

Signed: Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Lokhvitskiy
Chief of Staff, Major-General Akintievskiy.

Appendix to Order No. 40 of 11 May 1920.

Description of shoulder-boards for officers of the Officer Training Battalion. Officers and non-commissioned officers have khaki shoulder-boards with raspberry piping and stripes. The letter "O" is embroidered with white thread and the letter "Б" with yellow thread. For soldiers, the entire shoulder-board is raspberry with a yellow stencil.

Signed: Duty officer, Major-General Gafner

Shoulder-boards of the Chita Officer Instructor Battalion

Order No. 41 to the Units of the Far Eastern Army, 11 May 1920, Chita

In addition to the order of the Commander of the Russian Far Eastern Forces of 6 April this year, No. 102, in accordance with the instructions received from the Commander-in-Chief, I hereby announce: Due to the current difficulty in obtaining correct shoulder-boards, the wearing of officer shoulder-boards is permitted only on strictly dress uniforms and not on field uniforms. When wearing field uniforms, in the absence of correct shoulder-boards khaki shoulder-boards must be worn.

Signed: Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Lokhvitskiy
Chief of Staff, Major-General Akintievskiy.

Order No. 6 to the units of the Far Eastern Army, 15 May 1920, Chita

In amendment to Order No. 368 of 30 April of this year to the Russian Far Eastern Army, in accordance with the instructions of the Commander-in-Chief, the Army Commander orders that officers be prohibited from wearing red cloth trousers and coloured field caps with their wartime uniforms.

Signed: Chief of Staff, Major-General Akintievskiy

Order No. 25 to the Units of the Far Eastern Army, 28 May 1920, Chita

The army commander orders: a) to confirm the ban on wearing coloured field caps with wartime uniforms (caps must be khaki)...

Order No. 198 of the Assistant to the Commander-in-Chief of all Armed Forces of the Russian Far East, Chita

The Commander-in-Chief orders a clarification that officers are allowed to wear light-coloured braid shoulder-boards only with the old-style uniform tunic (field uniform) with light-coloured buttons and with the old-style uniform coat, and that shoulder-boards are allowed only with the old-style officer's braid...

Signed: Acting Assistant to the Commander-in-Chief of all Armed Forces, Major-General Zubkovskiy

Order No. 65 to the Units of the Far Eastern Army, 16 May 1920, Chita.

§1. Some officers and officials of the Far Eastern Army units, departments and institutions are wearing civilian clothing, which often causes various kinds of undesirable misunderstandings. I categorically prohibit all military personnel in the army entrusted to me from wearing civilian clothing.

§2. Military personnel found wearing civilian clothes after the announcement of this order shall be court-martialed for failure to comply.

§3. I entrust the supervision of the execution of this order to commanders of all ranks, garrison commanders and city commandants.

Signed: Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Lokhvitskiy
Chief of Staff, Major-General Akintievskiy

A Red Army counter-intelligence report.

The former 3rd Corps, led by General Molchanov, is in sharp opposition to Semenov. In order to prevent a split in the army, Semenov dismissed the corps commander in an order to the units. General Molchanov did not surrender and, in turn, gave the order to remove the shoulder-boards from the corps.

Kulikov, K. I. in "Leaders of the Izhevsk Uprising // Collection: The Civil War in Udmurtia, 1918-1919", Izhevsk, 1988, p.140, citing TsGSA F.185 Op.3 D.1125 L.17.