The town was heavily damaged during the Russian Civil War. In May 1920, Sergey Lazo, Alexey Lutsky, and Vsevolod Sibirtsev—three Bolsheviks taken prisoner by Japanese intervention troops after the Nikolayevsk Incident—were murdered by the White Army Cossacks at the Muravyovo-Amurskaya railway station near the town. This event was greatly expanded by the Soviet propaganda of later years; allegedly the three were burned alive in the firebox of a steam locomotive. The village and station at Muravyovo were renamed Lazo, as were a number of other places and streets in the krai.