Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War Powers to withdraw from North Russia and Siberia in 1920, though Japanese forces occupied parts of Siberia until 1922 and the northern half of Sakhalin until 1925. In 1917, Russia was in a state of political strife, and public support for World War I and the Tsar was dwindling. The country was on the brink of revolution. The February Revolution changed the course of the war; under intense political pressure, the Tsar abdicated and the Russian Provisional Government was formed, led initially by Georgy Lvov and later by Alexander Kerensky. The Provisional Government pledged to continue fighting the Germans on
Butovo firing range after Saints Cosmas and Damian) until the 19th century. In 1889 the estate's owner, N.M. Solovov, turned it into a large stud farm with stables and a racetrack. His descendant, I.I. Zimin, donated the farm to the state in the aftermath of the October Revolution in exchange for the right to flee the country. The farm then became the property of the Red Army. In the 1920s, the Red Army ceded the site, now officially named Butovo, to the OGPU, the Soviet secret police, as an agricultural colony. After the OGPU was incorporated into the Security and Intelligence Agency (NKVD)