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
Mikhail Matveyev (NKVD officer) Mikhail Matveyev (NKVD officer) Mikhail Rodionovich Matveyev (1892-1971) (Михаил Родионович Матвеев) was a senior NKVD executioner, sent to begin the mass shootings at Sandarmokh in Karelia in the late 1930s. After completing two years of education at a village school, the young Matveyev moved to St Petersburg where he held various occupations: he was a doorman at an apartment block, for instance, before becoming in 1913 an assistant to a metal-worker at the Vulcan works. Following the 1917 February Revolution he joined the Bolsheviks and soon was serving as a Cheka executioner. In 1923 he took a few years away