In September 1918, about 350 troops of the 14th division the Imperial Japanese Army held the town. They're were part of the Siberian Intervention. Early in February 1920, the town also had about 450 Japanese civilians. The Russian "White Army" also had about 300 members in Nikolayevsk. Roughly 15,000 civilians also lived in Nikolayevsk. In January 1920, the town had been surrounded by an army of four thousand controlled by Yakov Triapitsyn, an anarchist who was allied with the Red Army.