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
Greek Operation of the NKVD publishing houses. Then, the secret police indiscriminately arrested all Greek men 16 years old or older. All Greeks who were wealthy or self-employed professionals were sought for prosecution first. On many occasions, the central authorities sent telegrams to police forces with orders to arrest a certain number of Greeks, without giving any individual names, and the police officers would arrest at random any persons of Greek origin until they reached the requested total number of arrests, until the process was repeated at a later date. In all, some 50,000 Greeks died from this persecution. Some soures claim that there was