White Guards in the Civil War. Heroes of the Civil War. Personnel and social cross-section of the White Army

WHITE ARMY DURING THE CIVIL WAR

White Army(Also White Guard) - a common collective name for armed formations in historical literature White movement and anti-Soviet governments during the Russian Civil War (1917-1922). During the construction of the White Army, the structure of the old Russian army was mainly used, while almost each individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of the White Army was based on the experience of the First World War, which, however, was strongly influenced by the specifics of the civil war.

ARMED FORMATIONS

In the north

In North-west

On South

In the East

In Central Asia

COMPOUND

The White armies were recruited both on a voluntary basis and on the basis of mobilizations.

On a voluntary basis, they were recruited mainly from officers of the Russian Imperial Army and Navy.

On a mobilization basis, they were recruited from the population of controlled territories and from captured Red Army soldiers.

The number of white armies fighting against the Red Army, according to intelligence estimates, by June 1919 was about 300,000 people.

Management. During the first period of the struggle - representatives of the generals of the Russian Imperial Army:

L. G. Kornilov ,

General Staff General of Infantry M. V. Alekseev ,

Admiral, Supreme Ruler of Russia since 1918 A. V. Kolchak

A. I. Denikin ,*

General of the Cavalry P. N. Krasnov ,

General of the Cavalry A. M. Kaledin ,

Lieutenant General E. K. Miller ,

General of Infantry N. N. Yudenich ,

Lieutenant General V. G. Boldyrev

Lieutenant General M. K. Diterichs

General Staff Lieutenant General I. P. Romanovsky ,

General Staff Lieutenant General S. L. Markov

and others.

In subsequent periods, the military leaders who ended the First War came to the fore. world war also officers and received general ranks during the Civil War:

General Staff Major General M. G. Drozdovsky

General Staff Lieutenant General V. O. Kappel ,

General of the Cavalry A. I. Dutov ,

Lieutenant General Y. A. Slashchev-Krymsky ,

Lieutenant General A. S. Bakich ,

Lieutenant General A. G. Shkuro ,

Lieutenant General G. M. Semenov ,

Lieutenant General Baron R. F. Ungern von Sternberg ,

Major General B.V. Annenkov ,

Major General Prince P. R. Bermondt-Avalov ,

Major General N. V. Skoblin ,

Major General K. V. Sakharov ,

Major General V. M. Molchanov ,

as well as military leaders who, for various reasons, did not join the white forces at the start of their armed struggle:

P. N. Wrangel - future Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in the Crimea General Staff, Lieutenant General Baron,

M. K. Diterichs - Commander of the Zemskaya Ratyu, Lieutenant General.

HISTORY OF CREATION

The first white army was created by the “Alekseevskaya organization” on a voluntary basis from former officers, which was reflected in the name of the army - on December 25, 1917 (01/07/1918) the Volunteer Army was created in Don.

Three months later, in April 1918, the Don Army Defense Council formed the Don Army.

In June 1918, the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, based on the detachment of Lieutenant Colonel V. O. Kappel created the People's Army, and the Provisional Siberian Government at the same time created its own Siberian Army.

On September 23, 1918, the Ufa Directorate united the Volga People's Army and the Siberian Army into one Russian Army (not to be confused with the Russian Army of General Wrangel).

In August 1918, the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region in Arkhangelsk created troops of the Northern Region, sometimes called Northern Army(not to be confused with the Northern Army of General Rodzianko).

In January 1919, the Don and Volunteer Armies were united into the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR).

In June 1919, the Northern Army was created from Russian officers and soldiers of the Northern Corps, which left the Estonian army. A month later the army was renamed the North-Western.

In April 1920, in Transbaikalia, from the remnants of the army of Admiral Kolchak under the leadership of General G. M. Semenov created the Far Eastern Army.

In May 1920, the Russian Army was formed from the troops of the All-Soviet Union of Socialists who had withdrawn to Krymostatkov.

In 1921, from the remnants of the Far Eastern army of General Semenov in Primorye, the White Rebel Army was formed, later renamed the Zemstvo Army, since in 1922 the Amur Zemstvo government was created in Vladivostok.

From November 1918 to January 1920, the armed forces of the White movement recognized the supreme leadership of Admiral A.V. Kolchak. After the defeat of Admiral Kolchak’s troops in Siberia, on January 4, 1920, supreme power passed to General A. I. Denikin.

THE WHITE MOVEMENT AND THE NATIONAL CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

Back in September 1917, while the future leaders of the White movement were imprisoned in Bykhov, the “Bykhov program”, which was the fruit of the collective labor of “prisoners” and the main theses of which were transferred to the “draft constitution of General Kornilov” - the very first political declaration of the White movement, which was prepared in December 1917 - January 1918 by L. G. Kornilov said: “Resolution of the main state-national and social issues postponed until the Constituent Assembly..." In the “constitution...” this idea was detailed: “The government created according to the program of the general. Kornilov, is responsible in her actions only to the Constituent Assembly, to which she will transfer the fullness of state legislative power. The Constituent Assembly, as the sole owner of the Russian Land, must develop the basic laws of the Russian constitution and finally construct the state system.”

Since the main task of the white movement was the fight against Bolshevism, the white leaders did not introduce any other state-building tasks into the agenda until this main task was resolved. Such a non-predecision position was theoretically flawed, but, according to the historian S. Volkov, in conditions when there was no unity on this issue even among the leaders of the white movement, not to mention the fact that in its ranks there were supporters of various forms of the future state structure of Russia, it seemed the only possible one.

HOSTILITIES

A) Fight in the Urals

It acted at the beginning against the Red Guard detachments, from June 1918 - against the 4th and 1st armies of the East, from August 15 - against the Turkestan Red Fronts. In April 1919, during the general offensive of Kolchak’s armies, it broke through the Red front, besieged Uralski, which had been abandoned in January 1919, and reached the approaches to Saratov and Samara. However, limited funds did not allow the Ural region to be captured.

At the beginning of July 1919, the troops of the Turkestan Front launched a counteroffensive against the Ural Army. The well-equipped and armed 25th Infantry Division, transferred from near Ufa, under the command of V. I. Chapaeva, July 5-11, defeated units of the Ural Army, broke the blockade of Uralsk and 07/11/1919. entered the city. The Ural army began to retreat along the entire front.

On July 21, 1919, operational control of the Ural Army was transferred by Admiral A. V. Kolchak to the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR) (Commander-in-Chief General A. I. Denikin). After the transition of the Ural Army to the operational subordination of the command of the AFSR, its composition was divided into 3 areas:

Buzulukskoye, as part of the 1st Ural Cossack Corps (commander, Colonel Izergin M.I.); with its 1st, 2nd and 6th Cossack and 3rd Iletsk, 1st Ural Infantry Divisions and their 13th Orenburg, 13th, 15th and 18th Cossack, 5th Ural infantry, 12th Consolidated Cossack and several other separate regiments (total 6,000 bayonets and sabers);

Saratov, as part of the 2nd Iletsk Cossack Corps (commander, Lieutenant General Akutin V.I.); and his 5th Cossack division with a number of separate regiments (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 16th, 17th Ural Cossacks, 33rd Nikolaevsky Rifle, Guryevsky Foot Regiment, total 8,300 soldiers);

Astrakhan-Gurievskoye, as part of the Ural-Astrakhan Cossack Corps (commander, Major General Tetruev N.G., partisan detachments of Colonels Kartashev and Chizhinsky and the Separate 9th Ural Cossack Regiment (about 1,400 fighters).

At the end of July 1919, the Ural Army retreated to Lbischensk (which it left on August 9, 1919), then further down the Urals. At the end of August and beginning of September, a special detachment of Cossacks from the 1st Division of T. I. Sladkova and peasants Lieutenant Colonel F. F. Poznyakov (1192 soldiers with 9 machine guns and 2 guns) under the overall command of Colonel N. N. Borodin, undertook a successful raid deep into the rear of the Reds, to Lbischensk, where on September 5, 1919. destroyed the entire headquarters of the 25th Infantry Division, which was also the headquarters of the entire military group of the Red Army of the Turkestan Front, led by St. I. Chapaev, returning Lbischensk to the Ural Army. According to rough estimates, during the Battle of Lbischen the Reds lost at least 2,500 people killed and captured. The total losses of the Whites during this operation amounted to 118 people - 24 killed (including Major General (posthumously) Borodin N.N.) and 94 wounded. The trophies taken in Lbischensk turned out to be very large. About 700 people were captured, a lot of ammunition, food, equipment, a radio station, machine guns, cinematographic devices, several airplanes, cars, etc. were captured.

During the raid, important results were achieved: the headquarters of the entire military group of the Red Army of the Turkestan Front was destroyed, as a result of which the front troops lost control, decomposed and were demoralized. Units of the Turkestan Front hastily retreated to the positions they occupied in July, in the Uralsk region, and virtually ceased active hostilities. In October 1919, the Cossacks again surrounded and besieged the city.

But after the collapse of Kolchak’s Eastern Front in October-November 1919, the Ural Army found itself blocked by superior Red forces, thereby depriving itself of all sources of replenishment of weapons and ammunition. The defeat of the Urals by the Bolsheviks was only a matter of time.

On November 2, the Turkestan Front, consisting of the 1st and 4th armies (18.5 thousand bayonets, 3.5 thousand sabers, 86 guns and 365 machine guns) launched a general offensive against the Ural Army (5.2 thousand bayonets, 12 thousand sabers , 65 guns, 249 machine guns), planning to encircle and destroy the main forces of the Urals with concentrated attacks on Lbischensk from the north and east. Under pressure from the superior forces of the Reds, the Ural Army began to retreat. On November 20, the Reds captured Lbischensk, however, they were unable to encircle the main forces of the Urals. The front has stabilized south of Lbischensk. The Turkestan Front increased its reserves and was replenished with weapons and ammunition. The Ural Army had neither reserves nor ammunition. On December 10, 1919, the Reds resumed their offensive. The resistance of the weakened Ural units was broken, the front collapsed. On December 11th Art. fell. Slamikhinskaya, on December 18, the Reds captured the city of Kalmykov, thereby cutting off the retreat routes of the Iletsk Corps, and on December 22 - the village of Gorsky, one of the last strongholds of the Urals before Guryev.

The army commander, General Tolstov V.S. and his headquarters retreated to the city of Guryev. The remnants of the Iletsk Corps, having suffered heavy losses in the battles during the retreat and from typhus and relapsing fever that decimated the ranks of the personnel, on January 4, 1920, were almost completely destroyed and captured by the Red troops near the village of Maly Baybuz. At the same time, the Kyrgyz regiment of this corps, almost in its entirety, went over to the side of the Alashordy people, who at that time acted as allies of the Bolsheviks, having previously “cut out” the headquarters of the Iletsk corps, the 4th and 5th Iletsk divisions, and “surrendered” the commander to the Reds corps of Lieutenant General Akutin V.I., who was shot by the troops of the 25th (“Chapaevskaya”) division (according to other sources, he was arrested and taken to Moscow, where he was later shot). The 6th Iletsk Division, retreating to the Volga through the steppe of the Bukeev Horde, almost completely died from disease, hunger and mainly from the fire of the red units pursuing it.

On January 5, 1920, the city of Guryev fell. Some of the Ural Army personnel and civilians were captured, and some of the Cossacks went over to the Red side. The remnants of the units of the Ural Army, led by the army commander, General V.S. Tolstov, with convoys and the civilian population (families and refugees), with a total number of approximately 15,000 people, decided to go south, hoping to unite with the Turkestan army of General Kazanovich B.I. (VSYUR troops of General Denikin). The transition took place in the most difficult conditions of a harsh winter, in January-March 1920, in the absence of a sufficient amount of drinking water, a catastrophic shortage of food and medicine. The transition was carried out along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to Fort Alexandrovsky. After arriving at the fort, it was planned that civilians, wounded and sick, would be evacuated on the ships of the Caspian flotilla of the AFSR to the other side of the sea in Port Petrovsk. By the time they arrived at Fort Alexandrovsky, less than 3 thousand Cossacks remained from the army, most of whom were sick (mainly various forms of typhus) or frostbite. The military meaning of the campaign was lost, since by this time Denikin’s troops in the Caucasus were retreating and the port of Petrovsk was abandoned in these days (the last days of March 1920). On April 4, 1920, from the port of Petrovsk, which became the main base of the red Volga-Caspian flotilla, the destroyer Karl Liebknecht (until February 1919 had the name Finn) and the fighter boat Zorkiy approached the fort. The detachment was commanded by the commander of the flotilla, F. F. Raskolnikov. Later he would write in a report:

A detachment of 214 people (several generals, officers, Cossacks, civilians (family members), led by Ataman V.S. Tolstov left for Persia on April 4, 1920, and the Ural Army ceased to exist. The campaign from Fort Alexandrovsky to Persia was detailed described in the book by V. S. Tolstov “From the Red Paws to the Unknown Distance” (Campaign of the Uralians), first published in 1921 in Constantinople, the book was currently republished in 2007 in Uralsk, in the “Ural Library” series by the publishing house Optima LLP.

B) Turkestan military organization

TVO was preparing an uprising against Soviet power in Turkestan. Active assistance to the organization was provided by agents of foreign intelligence services, primarily English ones from the border area, and agents operating under the cover of foreign diplomatic missions accredited in Tashkent under the government of the Turkestan Republic. Initially opposed Soviet power in the region was scheduled for August 1918, but for a number of reasons the date of this performance later had to be moved to the spring of 1919.

The Turkestan military organization included many officers, led by Colonel P. G. Kornilov (brother of the famous leader of the white movement L. G. Kornilov), Colonel I. M. Zaitsev, Lieutenant General L. L. Kondratovich, former assistant to the Governor General of Turkestan, General E. P. Dzhunkovsky Colonel Blavatsky. Later, the Commissar for Military Affairs of the Turkestan Republic also joined the ranks of TVO. P. Osipov, in whose circle such officers as Colonel Rudnev, Osipov’s orderly Bott, Gaginsky, Savin, Butenin, Stremkovsky and others played a prominent role.

All the anti-Bolshevik forces of the region ultimately rallied around TVO - Cadets, Mensheviks, right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries and bourgeois nationalists, Basmachi, and Muslim clergy, former officials of the tsarist administration, Dashnaks, Bundists. The TVO headquarters established contact with Ataman Dutov, General Denikin, Kazakh nationalists-Alashorda, the Emir of Bukhara, the leaders of the Fergana and Turkmen Basmachi, the Trans-Caspian White Guards, and the British consuls in Kashgar, Ghulja, and Mashhad. The leaders of the organization signed an agreement under which they pledged to transfer Turkestan to the English protectorate for a period of 55 years. In turn, the representative of the British intelligence services in Central Asia, Malleson, promised the TVO representatives assistance in the amount of 100 million rubles, 16 mountain guns, 40 machine guns, 25 thousand rifles and a corresponding amount of ammunition. Thus, representatives of the British intelligence services not only helped the conspirators, they determined the goals and objectives of the organization and controlled its actions.

However, in October 1918, the special services of the Turkestan Republic - the TurkChK, together with the criminal investigation department of Tashkent - got on the trail of TVO, after which a number of arrests were made among the leaders of the organization. The remaining leaders of the underground left the city, but some branches of the organization survived and continued to operate. General Malesson's representative in Tashkent, Bailey, went underground. It was TVO that played an important role in initiating the uprising under the leadership of Konstantin Osipov in January 1919. At the last stage of its existence, the ranks of TVO actually included representatives of the new Soviet nomenklatura - the Bolshevik-Leninist Agapov and the technician Popov.

After the defeat of the uprising, the officers who left Tashkent formed the Tashkent officer partisan detachment (101 people), which from March fought together with other anti-Bolshevik formations against the red units in the Fergana Valley, and then near Bukhara. Then the remnants of the Tashkent officer partisan detachment united with units of the Turkestan army.

IN) Fight in the North-West

General Nikolai Yudenich created the North-Western Army on the territory of Estonia to fight Soviet power. The army numbered from 5.5 to 20 thousand soldiers and officers.

On August 11, 1919, the Government of the North-West Region was created in Tallinn (Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance - Stepan Lianozov, Minister of War - Nikolai Yudenich, Minister of Marine - Vladimir Pilkini, etc.). On the same day, the Government of the North-Western Region, under pressure from the British, who promised weapons and equipment for the army for this recognition, recognized the state independence of Estonia. However, Kolchak's all-Russian government did not approve this decision.

After recognition of the independence of Estonia by the Government of the Russian North-West region, Great Britain provided him financial assistance, and also made minor supplies of weapons and ammunition.

N. N. Yudenich tried to take Petrograd twice (in spring and autumn), but each time was unsuccessful.

The spring offensive (5.5 thousand bayonets and sabers for the Whites against 20 thousand for the Reds) of the Northern Corps (from July 1, the North-Western Army) on Petrograd began on May 13, 1919. The Whites broke through the front near Narva and, by moving around Yamburg, forced the Reds to retreat. On May 15, they captured Gdov. On May 17, Yamburg fell, and on May 25, Pskov. By the beginning of June, the Whites reached the approaches to Luga and Gatchina, threatening Petrograd. But the Reds transferred reserves to Petrograd, increasing the size of their group operating against the North-Western Army to 40 thousand bayonets and sabers, and in mid-July they launched a counteroffensive. During heavy fighting, they pushed back the small units of the North-Western Army beyond the Luga River, and on August 28 captured Pskov.

Autumn offensive on Petrograd. On October 12, 1919, the North-Western Army (20 thousand bayonets and sabers versus 40 thousand for the Reds) broke through the Soviet front at Yamburgai and on October 20, 1919, having taken Tsarskoe Selo, it reached the outskirts of Petrograd. The Whites captured the Pulkovo Heights and, on the far left flank, broke into the outskirts of Ligovo, and scout patrols began fighting at the Izhora plant. But, having no reserves and not receiving support from Finland and Estonia, after ten days of fierce and unequal battles near Petrograd with the Red troops (whose numbers had grown to 60 thousand people), the North-Western Army was unable to capture the city. Finland and Estonia refused assistance because the leadership This white army never recognized the independence of these countries. On November 1, the retreat of the Northwestern White Army began.

By mid-November 1919, Yudenich's army retreated into Estonia through stubborn battles. After the signing of the Tartu Peace Treaty between the RSFSR and Estonia, 15 thousand soldiers and officers of Yudenich's North-Western Army, under the terms of this treaty, were first disarmed, and then 5 thousand of them were captured by the Estonian authorities and sent to concentration camps.

Despite the exodus of the White armies from their native land as a result of the Civil War, from a historical perspective the White movement was by no means defeated: once in exile, it continued to fight against the Bolsheviks in Soviet Russia and beyond.

"WHITE EMIGRATION"

White emigration, which became widespread in 1919, was formed in several stages. The first stage is associated with the evacuation of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, Lieutenant General A. I. Denikin from Novorossiysk in February 1920. The second stage - with the departure of the Russian Army, Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel from Crimea in November 1920, the third - with the defeat of the troops of Admiral A. V. Kolchakai on the evacuation of the Japanese army from Primorye in the 1920-1921s. After the evacuation of Crimea, the remnants of the Russian Army were stationed in Turkey, where General P. N. Wrangel, his headquarters and senior commanders had the opportunity to restore it as a fighting force. The key task of the command was, firstly, to obtain from the Entente allies material assistance in the required amount, secondly, to fend off all their attempts to disarm and disband the army and, thirdly, disorganized and demoralized by defeats and evacuation of the units as soon as possible to reorganize and put things in order, restoring discipline and morale.

The legal position of the Russian Army and military alliances was complex: the legislation of France, Poland and a number of other countries in whose territory they were located did not allow the existence of any foreign organizations “looking like formations organized on a military model.” The Entente powers sought to turn the Russian army, which had retreated but retained its fighting spirit and organization, into a community of emigrants. “Even more than physical deprivation, complete political lack of rights weighed on us. No one was guaranteed against the arbitrariness of any agent of power of each of the Entente powers. Even the Turks, who themselves were under the regime of arbitrariness of the occupation authorities, were guided in relation to us by the rule of the strong,” wrote N.V. Savich, Wrangel’s employee responsible for finance. That is why Wrangel decides to transfer his troops to the Slavic countries.

In the spring of 1921, Baron P. N. Wrangel approached the Bulgarian and Yugoslav governments with a request for the possibility of resettling Russian Army personnel in Yugoslavia. The units were promised maintenance at the expense of the treasury, which included rations and a small salary. September 1, 1924 P. N. Wrangel issued an order on the formation of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS). It included all units, as well as military societies and unions that accepted the order for execution. The internal structure of individual military units was kept intact. The EMRO itself acted as a unifying and governing organization. Its head became the Commander-in-Chief, the general management of the affairs of the EMRO was concentrated at Wrangel's headquarters. From this moment we can talk about the transformation of the Russian Army into an emigrant military organization. The Russian General Military Union became the legal successor of the White Army. We can talk about this by referring to the opinion of its creators: “The formation of the EMRO prepares the opportunity, in case of need, under the pressure of the general political situation, to accept the Russian Army new uniform existence in the form of military alliances." This “form of being” made it possible to fulfill the main task of the military command in exile - maintaining existing and training new army personnel.

An integral part of the confrontation between the military-political emigration and the Bolshevik regime on the territory of Russia was the struggle of the special services: reconnaissance and sabotage groups of the EMRO with the organs of the OGPU - NKVD, which took place in various regions of the planet.

White emigration in the political spectrum of Russian diaspora

The political sentiments and preferences of the initial period of Russian emigration were quite wide range currents, almost completely reproducing the picture political life pre-October Russia. In the first half of 1921, a characteristic feature was the strengthening of monarchical tendencies, explained, first of all, by the desire of ordinary refugees to rally around a “leader” who could protect their interests in exile, and in the future ensure their return to their homeland. Such hopes were associated with the personality of P. N. Wrangel and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, to whom General Wrangel reassigned the ROVS as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

White emigration lived in hope of returning to Russia and liberating it from the totalitarian regime of communism. However, the emigration was not united: from the very beginning of the existence of the Russian Abroad, there was a fierce struggle between supporters of reconciliation with the regime established in sub-Soviet Russia (“Smenovekhovtsy”) and supporters of an irreconcilable position in relation to communist power and its legacy. White emigration, led by the EMRO and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, formed the camp of irreconcilable opponents of the “anti-national regime in Russia.” In the thirties, part of the emigrant youth, children of white fighters, decided to go on the offensive against the Bolsheviks. This was the national youth of the Russian emigration, first calling itself the “National Union of Russian Youth”, later renamed the “National Labor Union of the New Generation” (NTSNP). The goal was simple: to contrast Marxism-Leninism with another idea based on solidarity and patriotism. At the same time, the NTSNP never associated itself with the White movement, criticized the Whites, considering itself a political party of a fundamentally new type. This ultimately led to an ideological and organizational break between the NTSNP and the ROWS, which continued to remain in the previous positions of the White movement and was critical of the “national boys” (as NTSNP members began to be called in emigration).

Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchev-Krymsky, probably the most famous white officer in the service in the Red Army, colonel of the General Staff of the old army and lieutenant general in the Russian army of General Wrangel, one of the best commanders of the Civil War, who showed all his talents on the white side .

The topic of the service of former white officers in the ranks of the Red Army is little studied, but very interesting. To date, Kavtaradze has paid the greatest attention to this topic in his book “Military Experts in the Service of the Republic of Soviets”, however, the study of this problem in his book is limited to the Civil War, while quite a few former officers of the White armies continued their service later, including during the Great Patriotic War.

Initially, the theme of the service of white officers was closely related to the growth of the Red Army during the Civil War and the problem of a shortage of command personnel. A shortage of qualified command personnel was characteristic of the Red Army from the very first steps of its existence. Back in 1918, the General Headquarters noted the lack of a sufficient number of commanders, especially at the battalion level. Problems with the shortage of command personnel and its quality were constantly voiced among the main problems of the Red Army at the height of the civil war - back from 1918–19. Complaints about the shortage of command personnel - including qualified ones - and their low quality were repeatedly noted later. For example, before the start of the offensive on the Western Front, Tukhachevsky noted that the shortage of General Staff officers at the headquarters of the Western Front and its armies was 80%.

The Soviet government tried to actively solve this problem by mobilizing former officers of the old army, as well as organizing various short-term command courses. However, the latter met only the needs at the lower levels - commanders of squads, platoons, and companies, and as for the old officers, the mobilizations had exhausted themselves by 1919. At the same time, activities began to check the rear, administrative bodies, civilian organizations, military educational institutions and Vsevobuch organizations with the aim of removing from there officers fit for combat service and sending the latter to the active army. Thus, according to Kavtaradze’s calculations, 48 ​​thousand former officers were mobilized in 1918-August 1920, and about 8 thousand more voluntarily joined the Red Army in 1918. However, with the growth of the army by 1920 to a number of several million (first to 3, and then to 5.5 million people), the shortage of commanders only worsened, since 50 thousand officers did not cover the needs of the armed forces.

In this situation, attention was paid to white officers who were captured or defectors. By the spring of 1920, the main white armies were basically defeated and the number of captured officers amounted to tens of thousands (for example, 10 thousand officers of the Denikin army were captured near Novorossiysk in March 1920 alone, the number of former officers of the Kolchak army was similar - in the list , compiled in the Command Personnel Directorate of the All-Russian Headquarters, there were 9,660 people as of August 15, 1920).

The leadership of the Red Army quite highly valued the qualifications of their former opponents - for example, Tukhachevsky, in his report on the use of military specialists and the promotion of communist command personnel, written on behalf of Lenin based on the experience of the 5th Army, wrote the following: “ Well-trained command staff, thoroughly familiar with modern military science and imbued with the spirit of bold warfare, is available only among the young officers. This is the fate of the latter. A significant part of it, as the most active, died in the imperialist war. Most of the surviving officers, the most active part, deserted after demobilization and collapse tsarist army to Kaledin, the only center of counter-revolution at that time. This explains Denikin’s abundance of good bosses" The same point was noted by Minakov in one of his works, albeit in relation to a later period: “Hidden respect for the higher professional qualities of the “white” command staff was also shown by the “leaders of the Red Army” M. Tukhachevsky and S. Budyonny. In one of his articles of the early 20s, as if “by the way,” M. Tukhachevsky expressed his attitude towards the white officers, not without some hidden admiration: “ White Guard presupposes energetic, enterprising, courageous people..." Those who arrived from Soviet Russia in 1922 reported the appearance of Budyonny, who met Slashchev, and does not scold the rest of the white leaders, but considers himself equal" All this gave rise to a very strange impression from the commanders of the Red Army. " The Red Army is like a radish: it is red on the outside and white on the inside.", ironized with hope in the White Russian diaspora."

In addition to the fact of the high appreciation of former white officers by the leadership of the Red Army, it is also necessary to note the realization that in 1920–22. the war in individual theaters of war began to acquire a national character (the Soviet-Polish war, as well as military operations in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, where it was a question of restoring central power in foreign regions, and the Soviet government looked like a collector of the old empire). In general, the sharp intensification of the process of using former white officers in military service began precisely on the eve of the Polish campaign and is largely explained by the Soviet leadership’s awareness of the possibility of using patriotic sentiments among the former officers. On the other hand, many former white officers became disillusioned with the policies and prospects of the White movement. In this situation, it was decided to allow the recruitment of former white officers to serve in the Red Army, albeit under strict control.

Moreover, we already had similar experience. As Kavtaradze writes, “ in June 1919, the All-Russian General Staff, in agreement with the Special Department of the Cheka, developed “the procedure for sending defectors and prisoners captured on the fronts of the civil war.” On December 6, 1919, the headquarters of the Turkestan Front turned to the Command Staff Directorate of the All-Russian General Staff with a memorandum, which stated that former officers - defectors from Kolchak’s armies were included in its reserve, among whom “there are many specialists and combatant command personnel who could be used in their specialty" Before enlisting in the reserve, they all went through the paperwork of the Special Department of the Cheka of the Turkestan Front, from which “relative to the majority of these persons” there were no “objections to their appointment to command positions in the ranks of the Red Army.” In this regard, the front headquarters expressed a desire to use these individuals “in parts of their front.” The Command Staff Directorate, while not fundamentally objecting to the use of these individuals in the Red Army, at the same time spoke in favor of transferring them to another (for example, the Southern) front, which was approved by the Council of the All-Russian Headquarters.” It is worth noting that there were examples of the transition of former white officers and their service in the Red Army before June 1919, however, as a rule, it was not so much about prisoners, but about persons who deliberately went over to the side of Soviet power. For example, captain of the old army K.N. Bulminsky, who commanded a battery in Kolchak’s army, defected to the Reds already in October 1918, captain (according to other sources, lieutenant colonel) of the old army M.I. Vasilenko, who graduated from an accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff and managed to serve in the army of Komuch, also defected to the Reds in the spring of 1919. At the same time, he held positions in the Red Army during the Civil War. high positions- Chief of Staff of the Special Expeditionary Force of the Southern Front, commander of the 40th Infantry Division, commander of the 11th, 9th, 14th armies.

As already mentioned, the leadership of the country and the army, recognizing that it was fundamentally possible to accept white officers into the Red Army, sought to hedge their bets and put the process of using former white officers under strict control. This is evidenced, firstly, by the sending of these officers “to the wrong fronts where they were captured,” and secondly, by their careful filtering.

On April 8, 1920, the Revolutionary Military Council adopted a resolution, one of the points of which concerned the involvement of former white officers to serve in units of the North Caucasus Front, or rather, the extension to them of the instructions previously issued for the 6th Army. In pursuance of this paragraph of the resolution of the RVSR " On April 22, 1920, the special department of the Cheka informed the secretariat of the RVSR that it had sent a telegram to the special departments of the fronts and armies with an order regarding the attitude towards prisoners and defectors - officers of the White Guard armies. According to this order, these officers were divided into 5 groups: 1) Polish officers, 2) generals and officers of the General Staff, 3) counterintelligence officers and police officers, 4) career chief officers and officers from students, teachers and clergy, as well as cadets, 5) wartime officers, with the exception of students, teachers and clergy. Groups 1 and 4 were to be sent to concentration camps designated by order for further inspection, and it was recommended that the Poles be subject to “particularly strict supervision.” Group 5 was to be subjected to strict filtering on the spot and then sent: the “loyal” ones to the labor army, the rest to places of detention for prisoners of the 1st and 4th groups. The 2nd and 3rd groups were ordered to be sent under escort to Moscow to the Special Department of the Cheka. The telegram was signed by the Deputy Chairman of the Cheka V. R. Menzhinsky, a member of the Russian Military Socialist Republic D. I. Kursky and the manager of the Special Department of the Cheka G. G. Yagoda».

As you study the above document, there are a few things to note.

Firstly - a definitely undesirable element - Polish officers, career officers and wartime officers from students, teachers and clergy. As for the first, everything is clear here - as mentioned above, the involvement of former white officers intensified precisely in connection with the beginning of the Polish campaign and with the aim of using them in the war against the Poles. Accordingly, in this situation, the isolation of officers of Polish origin was quite logical. Last group- wartime officers from students, teachers and clergy - apparently was singled out as having concentrated the largest number of ideological volunteers and supporters of the white movement, while the level of their military training was, for obvious reasons, lower than that of career officers. With the second group, not everything is so simple - on the one hand, these are career officers, professional military men, who, as a rule, joined the White Army for ideological reasons. On the other hand, they had greater skills and knowledge than wartime officers, and therefore, apparently, the Soviet government subsequently took advantage of their experience. In particular, when studying the collections of documents published in Ukraine on the “Spring” case, it is striking a large number of former white officers - not general staff officers, and not even staff officers, but simply career chief officers of the old army (with the rank of captain inclusive), who served in the Red Army from 1919–20. and who in the 20s occupied predominantly teaching positions in military educational institutions (for example, captains Karum L.S., Komarsky B.I., Volsky A.I., Kuznetsov K.Ya., Tolmachev K.V., Kravtsov S. .N., staff captains Chizhun L.U., Marcelli V.I., Ponomarenko B.A., Cherkasov A.N., Karpov V.I., Dyakovsky M.M., staff captain Khochishevsky N.D. ., Lieutenant Goldman V.R.)

Returning to the document cited above - secondly - it is worth paying attention to useful groups- second and fifth. With the latter, everything is more or less clear - a significant part of the wartime officers of worker-peasant origin was mobilized, especially in the Kolchak army, where the command staff was much less represented by volunteers, in contrast to the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. This largely explains the less staunchness of the Kolchak army, as well as the larger number of Kolchak officers serving in the Red Army and the relative weakened regime in relation to the latter. As for the 2nd group - generals and officers of the General Staff - this group, due to the acute shortage of military specialists, was of interest even taking into account their disloyalty to the Soviet government. At the same time, disloyalty was offset by the fact that the presence of these specialists in the highest headquarters and central apparatus made it possible to keep them under tighter control.

« Fulfilling the task of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic to register and use former white officers (in connection with mobilization calculations for the second half of 1920), as well as “in view of the urgent need to use this category of command personnel as widely as possible,” the Command Staff Directorate of the All-Russian Main Staff developed draft “Temporary rules on the use of former ground officers from among prisoners of war and defectors of the white armies.” According to them, officers had to, first of all, submit for verification (“filtration”) to the nearest local special departments of the Cheka to carefully establish in each individual case the passive or active, voluntary or forced nature of their service in the White Army, the past of this officer, etc. d. After verification, officers whose loyalty to the Soviet government was “sufficiently established” were subject to transfer to the jurisdiction of local military registration and enlistment offices, from where they were sent to organized GUVUZ in Moscow and other large industrial cities 3-month political courses “of no more than 100 people at one point” to become familiar with the structure of Soviet power and the organization of the Red Army; officers whose “reliability” in relation to the Soviet government was difficult to determine “based on the initial material” were sent “to forced labor camps.” At the end of the 3-month course, depending on the results of a health examination by medical commissions, all officers recognized as fit for service at the front were subject to assignment to the reserve units of the Western Front and only as an exception to the Southwestern Front (the latter was not allowed to appoint officers from Denikin’s army and officers from the Cossacks) “to renew military knowledge in practice”, master it “with new conditions of service” and more quickly and appropriately, in view of the proximity of the combat situation, combine “former white officers with the Red Army masses”; at the same time, their supply of spare parts should not exceed 15% of the available command personnel. Officers declared unfit for service at the front were assigned to internal military districts in accordance with their suitability for combat or non-combatant service, for auxiliary purposes, or to the relevant rear institutions according to their specialty (persons with military-pedagogical experience were sent to the disposal of the GUVUZ, “estadniks” and “itinerants” - at the disposal Central Administration military communications, various technical specialists - by specialty), also avoiding their number exceeding 15% of the available command staff of the unit or institution. Finally, officers unfit for military service were dismissed “from such service.” All appointments (except for General Staff officers, whose records were handled by the service department of the General Staff of the Organizational Directorate of the All-Russian Headquarters) were made “exclusively according to the orders of the Command Personnel Directorate of the All-Russian Headquarters, in which all records of former white officers were concentrated.” Officers who were in jobs that did not correspond to their military training, after being “filtered” by the Cheka authorities, had to be transferred to military commissariats “for assignments in the army” in accordance with the decisions of the Special Departments of the Cheka and local Cheka on the possibility of their service in the ranks of the Red Army. Before being sent to the front, it was allowed to dismiss officers on short-term leave to visit relatives within the internal regions of the republic (as an exception, “on personal requests” and with the permission of district military commissariats) with the establishment of local control over the time of arrival and departure on leave and with circular guarantee for the remaining comrades “in the form of termination of vacations to the rest if those released do not appear on time.” The “Temporary Rules” also contained clauses on the material support of former white officers and their families for the time from the moment of capture or defection to the Red Army and until the transfer from the Special Department of the Cheka to the jurisdiction of the district military commissariat for subsequent dispatch to the headquarters of the Western and Southwestern fronts, etc., which was carried out on the basis of the same orders of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic as for military specialists - former officers of the old army».

As mentioned above, the active involvement of former white officers was caused, among other things, by the threat of war with the Poles. So, in the minutes of the meeting of the Revolutionary Military Council, number 108 dated May 17, 1920, the 4th paragraph was the report of Commander-in-Chief S.S. Kamenev on the use of captured officers, following the discussion of which the following was decided: “ In view of the urgent need to replenish the resources of the command staff, the RVSR considers it urgent to use (with all necessary guarantees) command elements of the former White Guard armies, which, according to available data, can benefit the Red Army on the Western Front. For this reason, D.I. Kursky is entrusted with the responsibility to enter into communication with the relevant institutions so that the transfer of suitable command personnel to the Red Army in a relatively short time would produce the largest possible number."D.I. Kursky reported on the work he personally did on May 20, reporting to the RVSR the following: " By agreement of the PUR and the Special Department of the Cheka, up to 15 people are being sent from mobilized communists from today to conduct current work in the Special Department so that more experienced investigators of the Special Department will immediately strengthen the work on the analysis of captured White Guard officers of the Northern and Caucasian fronts, singling them out for Zapadnaya at least 300 people in the first week».

In general, the Soviet-Polish war apparently turned out to be a peak moment in terms of attracting captured white officers to serve in the Red Army - a war with a real external enemy guaranteed their increased loyalty, while the latter even applied for enlistment in the army. So, as the same Kavtaradze writes, after the publication on May 30, 1920 of the appeal “To all former officers, wherever they are” signed by Brusilov and a number of other famous tsarist generals, “ a group of former Kolchak officers, employees of the economic department of the Priural Military District, addressed the military commissar of this department on June 8, 1920, with a statement in which it was said that in response to the appeal of the Special Meeting and the decree of June 2, 1920, they felt “deep desire to “honestly serve” to atone for their stay in the ranks of Kolchak’s followers and confirm that for them there will be no more “honorable service than service to the homeland and the working people,” to whom they are ready to devote themselves entirely to serving “not only in the rear, but also at the front"". Yaroslav Tinchenko in his book “Golgotha ​​of Russian Officers” noted that “ During the Polish campaign, only 59 former white General Staff officers came to the Red Army, of which 21 were generals" The figure is quite large - especially considering that the total number of General Staff officers who faithfully served the Soviet regime during the Civil War, according to Kavtaradze, was 475 people, and the number of former General Staff officers in the list of people serving in the Red Army with a higher military education was approximately the same, compiled as of March 1, 1923. That is, 12.5% ​​of them ended up in the Red Army during the Polish campaign and previously served various white regimes.

" receive at your disposal 600 white officers who have completed established courses", i.e. from August 15 to November 15, 5,400 former white officers could be sent to the Red Army. However, this number exceeded the number of Red commanders who could be assigned to the Active Red Army after they had completed accelerated command courses. So that such a situation does not affect " on the internal state of the formations,” it was considered advisable to establish in the marching battalions “a known percentage maximum for former white officers - no more than 25% of the red command staff».

In general, former officers who had previously served in the White and National Army ended up in the Red Army in a variety of ways and in the most different time. For example, since during the civil war there were frequent cases of both sides using prisoners to replenish their units, many captured officers often entered Soviet units under the guise of captured soldiers. Thus, Kavtaradze, referring to an article by G. Yu. Gaaze, wrote that “ Among the 10 thousand prisoners of war who entered the 15th Infantry Division in June 1920, many captured officers also infiltrated “under the guise of soldiers.” A significant part of them were seized and sent to the rear for inspection, but some who did not hold responsible positions in Denikin’s army “were left in the ranks, approximately 7-8 people per regiment, and they were given positions no higher than platoon commanders.”" The article mentions the name of the former captain P.F. Korolkov, who, having begun his service in the Red Army as a clerk for a team of mounted reconnaissance officers, ended it as an acting regiment commander and died heroically on September 5, 1920 in the battles near Kakhovka. At the conclusion of the article, the author writes that “ nothing of them(former white officers - A.K.) could not bind him to the unit as much as the trust he placed in him"; many officers, "n When they became adherents of Soviet power, they became accustomed to their unit, and some strange, inconsistent sense of honor forced them to fight on our side».

By the way, service in the White Army was hidden quite often. I will give as a typical example the former warrant officer of the old army G.I. Ivanova. 2 months after graduating from college (1915), he was captured by the Austro-Hungarians (July 1915), where in 1918 he joined the Sirozhupan division, which was formed in the Austro-Hungarian camps from captured Ukrainians, and together returned to Ukraine with her. He served in this division until March 1919, commanded a hundred, was wounded and evacuated to Lutsk, where in May of the same year he was captured by Poland. In August 1919, in prisoner of war camps, he joined the White Guard Western Army of Bermont-Avalov, fought against the Latvian and Lithuanian national troops and at the beginning of 1920 he was interned with the army in Germany, after which he went to the Crimea, where he joined the 25th Infantry Smolensk Regiment of the Russian Army of Baron Wrangel. During the evacuation of whites from Crimea, he disguised himself as a Red Army soldier and secretly reached Aleksandrovsk, where he presented old documents of an Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war, with which he joined the Red Army, where from the end of 1921 he taught at various command courses, in 1925–26. He studied at higher military pedagogical courses in Kyiv, then served as a battalion commander at the school named after. Kameneva. In the same way, many began their service in the Red Army from ordinary positions - such as captain I.P. Nadeinsky: a wartime officer (he graduated from Kazan University and, as having a higher education, after being drafted into the army, apparently was immediately sent to the Kazan Military School, which he graduated in 1915), during the World War he also completed the Oranienbaum machine gun courses and rose to the rank of captain - the highest possible career for a wartime officer. During the Civil War he served in Kolchak's army, and in December 1919 he was captured by the 263rd Infantry Regiment. He was enlisted as a private in the same regiment, then became assistant adjutant and adjutant to the regimental commander, and ended the Civil War in 1921–22. as chief of staff of the rifle brigade - however, at the end of the war, as a former White Guard, he was dismissed from the army. By the way, there were also opposite examples, such as artillery colonel S.K. Levitsky, who commanded an artillery battery and a special purpose division in the Red Army and, being seriously wounded, was captured by the whites. Sent to Sevastopol, he was stripped of his rank and, after recovery, was enlisted as a private in the reserve units. After the defeat of Wrangel’s troops, he again enlisted in the Red Army - first in a special department of the Crimean strike group, where he was engaged in clearing Feodosia of the remnants of the White Guards, and then in the department for combating banditry of the Cheka in the Izyumo-Slavyansky region, after the civil war in teaching positions.

These biographies are taken from a collection of documents published in Ukraine on the “Spring” case, where you can generally find a lot interesting facts from biographies of former officers. So, for example, with regard to the service of white officers, we can note very frequent cases of hiring officers who managed to cross the front line more than once - that is, at a minimum, they fled from the Reds to the Whites, and then were again accepted into the service of the Reds. So, for example, I found offhand in the collection information about 12 such officers, only from among those who taught at the school named after. Kamenev in the 20s (note that these are not just white officers, but officers who managed to betray the Soviet regime and return to serve in the Red Army):

• Major General of the General Staff M.V. Lebedev in December 1918 volunteered to join the UPR army, where until March 1919. was chief of staff of the 9th Corps, then fled to Odessa. Since the spring of 1919, he had been in the Red Army: the head of the organizational department of the 3rd Ukrainian Soviet Army, but after the Reds retreated from Odessa, he remained in place, having been in the service of the Whites. In December 1920, he was again in the Red Army: in January - May 1921 - an employee of the Odessa State Archives, then - for special assignments under the commander of the KVO troops and the Kyiv military region, from 1924 - in teaching.
• Colonel M.K. After demobilization, Sinkov moved to Kyiv, where he worked at the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Ukrainian Republic. In 1919 he was a Soviet employee, and from May 1919 he was the head of the course for Red commanders of the 12th Army, but soon deserted to the Whites. Since the spring of 1920, again in the Red Army: head of the Sumy camp training, 77th Sumy infantry courses, in 1922–24. - teacher of the 5th Kyiv Infantry School.
• Batruk A.I., a lieutenant colonel of the General Staff in the old army, served in the Red Army in the spring of 1919: assistant to the head of the communications and information bureau of the People's Commissariat of Military Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR and chief of staff of the Plastun brigade of the 44th Infantry Division. At the end of August 1919, he went over to the side of the Whites, in April 1920, in Crimea, he joined a group of officers - former soldiers of the Ukrainian army, and with them he went to Poland - to the army of the UPR. However, he did not stay there, and in the fall of 1920 he crossed the front line and again joined the Red Army, where until 1924 he taught at the school named after. Kamenev, then taught military science at the Institute of Public Education.
• Former Lieutenant Colonel Bakovets I.G. During the civil war, he first served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky, then in the Red Army - chief of staff of the International Brigade. In the fall of 1919, he was captured by Denikin’s troops (according to another version, he transferred himself), and as a private he was enlisted in the Kiev officer battalion. In February 1920 he was captured by the Reds and was again accepted into the Red Army and in 1921–22. served as assistant chief of the 5th Kyiv Infantry School, then as a teacher at the Kamenev School.
• Lieutenant Colonel Luganin A.A. in 1918 he served in the Hetman Army, from the spring of 1919 he taught at the 5th Kyiv infantry courses in the Red Army. During the offensive of General Denikin's troops, he remained in place and was mobilized into the White Guard army, with which Odessa was retreating. There, at the beginning of 1920, he again went over to the side of the Red Army and taught first at infantry courses, and from 1923 at the Kyiv United School. Kameneva.
• Captain K.V. Tolmachev was mobilized into the Red Army in 1918, but fled to Ukraine, where he joined the army of Hetman P.P. Skoropadsky and was a junior adjutant of the headquarters of the 7th Kharkov Corps, and then in the UPR army the chief of staff of the 9th Corps. In April 1919, he again moved to the Reds, where he taught at the Kyiv infantry courses, and from 1922 at the school named after. Kameneva.
• Staff Captain L.U. After the demobilization of the Russian army, Chizhun lived in Odessa; after the arrival of the Reds, he joined the Red Army and was assistant chief of staff of the 5th Ukrainian Rifle Division. In August 1919, he went over to the side of the Whites, was under investigation for serving with the Reds, and as a native of the Vilna province accepted Lithuanian citizenship and thus avoided repression. In February 1920, he again joined the Red Army and was assistant chief and head of the inspection department of the 14th Army headquarters. Since 1921, he has been teaching: at the 5th Kyiv Infantry School, the school named after. Kameneva, assistant to the head of the Siberian repeated courses for command personnel, military instructor.
• Lieutenant of the old army G.T. Dolgalo commanded the artillery division of the 15th Inzen Rifle Division in the Red Army from the spring of 1918. In September 1919 he went over to Denikin's side, served in the 3rd Kornilov Regiment, fell ill with typhus and was captured in the Red Army. Since 1921, he was back in the Red Army - he taught at the school named after. Kamenev and Sumy artillery school.
• Captain of the old army Komarsky B.I., who graduated from the military school and officer military fencing school in the old army, taught at the 1st Soviet sports courses in Kyiv in 1919, and then served in a security company in Denikin’s troops. After the civil war, again in the Red Army - a physical education teacher in military units, the Kyiv school named after. Kamenev and civil universities of Kyiv.
• Another athlete, also a captain, Kuznetsov K.Ya., who graduated from the Odessa Military School and officer gymnastic fencing courses, in 1916–17. commanded a company of the Georgievsky headquarters security battalion in Mogilev. After demobilization, he returned to Kyiv, during the anti-Hetman uprising he commanded an officer company of the 2nd Officer Squad, and from the spring-summer of 1919 he served in the Red Army - he taught at the highest courses for sports instructors and pre-conscription training. Autumn 1919 – winter 1920 - he is in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, a teacher of machine gun courses, from the spring of 1920 again in the Red Army: a teacher of refresher courses for command personnel at the headquarters of the XII Army, military-political courses, a school named after. Kamenev and the Kyiv School of Communications named after. Kameneva. However, he hid his service in the White Army, for which he was arrested in 1929.
• The captain of the General Staff of the old army, Volsky A.I., also hid his White Guard past. (lieutenant colonel in the UPR army). Since the spring of 1918, he was on the lists of the Red Army, then in the UPR, chief of staff of the 10th personnel division. In February-April 1919 - again in the Red Army, at the disposal of the headquarters of the Ukrainian Front, but then transferred to the Volunteer Army. In April 1920, he returned to the Red Army: head teacher of the 10th and 15th infantry courses, and from October - acting. head of the 15th course (until January 1921), assistant chief of staff of the 30th Infantry Division (1921–22). In 1922, he was dismissed from the Red Army as politically unreliable (he hid his White Guard past), but in 1925 he returned to serve in the army - he taught at the Kyiv School of Communications, in 1927 - at the United School named after. Kamenev, since 1929 - military instructor in civilian universities.
• ·At the Kyiv school named after. Kamenev was also taught by former Colonel I.N. Sumbatov, a Georgian prince, participant in the Russo-Japanese and First World Wars. Having been mobilized into the Red Army in 1919, he served in the Kiev reserve regiment, where he was part of an underground officer organization, which, before Denikin’s troops entered the city, raised an anti-Soviet uprising. He served with the Whites in the Kiev officer battalion, with which he retreated to Odessa, and then at the beginning of 1920 he went to Georgia, where he commanded an infantry regiment and was an assistant commandant of Tiflis. After the annexation of Georgia to Soviet Russia, he again joined the Red Army and at the end of 1921 returned to Kyiv, where he was the chief of staff of the Kyiv cadet brigade and taught at the Kiev school. Kamenev until 1927.

Naturally, such officers were encountered not only at school. Kameneva. For example, Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff V.I. managed to betray the Soviet regime and then re-enter service in the Red Army. Oberyukhtin. From the end of 1916, he served in the Academy of the General Staff, with which in the summer of 1918 he went over to the side of the whites, and held various positions in the white armies of A.V. Kolchak. In 1920 he again transferred to the Red Army, where almost the entire 20s and 30s, until his arrest in 1938, he taught at the Military Academy. Frunze. Occupied in 1921–22. the position of head of the Odessa School of Heavy Artillery (and then taught there until 1925), Major General of Artillery of the Old Army N.N. Argamakov. exactly the same: in 1919 he served in the Red Army in the artillery department of the Ukrainian Front, but remained in Kyiv after its occupation by the Whites - and in 1920 he was back in the Red Army.

In general, the 20s. were a very controversial time, to which black and white assessments are not applicable. Thus, during the civil war, the Red Army often recruited people who, as it seems to many today, could not get there at all. Thus, former staff captain Aversky N.Ya., head of the regiment’s chemical service in the Red Army, served in the Hetman’s special services, teacher at the school named after. Kameneva Milles, a former military official, served under Denikin in OSVAG and counterintelligence; Vladislav Goncharov, referring to Minakov, mentioned the former white colonel Dilaktorsky, who served in the headquarters of the Red Army in 1923, and who in 1919 was Miller’s (in the North) chief of counterintelligence. Staff Captain M.M. Dyakovsky, who served as a teacher in the Red Army since 1920, previously served as an adjutant at Shkuro’s headquarters. Colonel Glinsky, since 1922, head of the administration of the Kyiv United School named after. Kamenev, while still serving in the old army, was an activist in the Ukrainian nationalist movement, and then a confidant of Hetman Skoropadsky. In the spring of 1918, he commanded the Officer Regiment, which became the military support of P.P. Skoropadsky during the organization of the coup; then - foreman for assignments from the Hetman's Chief of Staff (on October 29, 1918, he was promoted to the rank of general cornet). In the same way, in 1920, such an officer as Lieutenant Colonel S.I., who clearly did not want to serve in it, was enlisted in the Red Army. Dobrovolsky. Since February 1918, he has served in the Ukrainian army: head of movements of the Kiev region, commandant of the Kiev railway junction, since January 1919 - in senior positions in the military communications department of the UPR army, in May he was captured by Poland, in the fall he got out of captivity and returned to Kyiv . He entered the All-Russian Socialist Republic, with whom he retreated to Odessa and in February 1920 was captured by the Red Army. He was sent to Kharkov, but escaped along the road and reached Kyiv, occupied by the Poles, where he again entered the UPR army, but a few days later he was again captured by the Reds. From the end of 1920 in the Red Army, however, already in 1921 he was dismissed as an unreliable element.

Or here's another interesting biography. Major General (according to other sources, Colonel) V.P. Belavin, career border guard - served in the border troops under all authorities - in 1918–19. in the army of the Ukrainian Republic he commanded the Volyn border brigade (Lutsk) and was a general for assignments at the headquarters of the border corps (Kamenets-Podolsky), in December 1919 he was assigned to the guard battalion at the Odessa border department of Denikin’s troops, from February 1920 to service in the Red Army and the Cheka: commander of the 1st company of the Odessa border battalion, then in cavalry positions (assistant inspector of the 12th Army cavalry, chief of staff of the Bashkir cavalry division, assistant inspector of the KVO cavalry) and again in the border troops - chief of staff of the border division of the Cheka troops , senior inspector and deputy chief of troops of the Cheka district, since December 1921 - head of the border department of the Operations Department of the headquarters of the KVO.

Studying the biographies of former white officers from the appendices in this collection of documents, it is noticeable that career officers were usually appointed to teaching positions. For the most part, wartime officers or technical specialists were sent to combat positions, which confirms the picture that emerges from studying the documents cited above. Examples of officers in combat positions are, for example, staff captain V.I. Karpov, who graduated from the ensign school in 1916, from 1918 to 1919. who served with Kolchak as the head of a machine gun team, and in the Red Army from 1920 he held the position of battalion commander of the 137th Infantry Regiment, or Lieutenant Stupnitsky S.E., who graduated from the artillery school in 1916 - in 1918 he led an officer rebel detachment against the Bolsheviks, since 1919 in the Red Army, in the 20s, commander of an artillery regiment. However, there were also career officers - but as a rule, those who went over to the side of the Soviet regime early - like headquarters captain N.D. Khochishevsky, in 1918, as a Ukrainian, freed from German captivity and enlisted in the army of Hetman P.P. Skoropadsky. In December 1918 - March 1919. he commanded the cavalry hundred of the Sinezhupany regiment of the UPR army, but deserted in March 1919 to the Red Army: the commander of the cavalry division of the 2nd Odessa separate brigade was seriously wounded. Lieutenant Colonel Artillery L.L. Karpinsky managed to serve both there and there - since 1917 he commanded the division of heavy howitzers "Kane", evacuated by order of the Soviet authorities to Simbirsk, where the division was captured by Kappel's detachment along with its commander. Karpinsky was enlisted in the People's Army as commander of a battery of heavy howitzers, then appointed commander of an artillery depot. At the end of 1919 in Krasnoyarsk, he fell ill with typhus, was captured by the Reds and was soon enlisted in the Red Army - commander of a battery of heavy howitzers, commander of a heavy division and brigade, in 1924–28. commanded a heavy artillery regiment, then held teaching positions.

In general, the appointment of technical specialists who served in the white armies - artillerymen, engineers, railway workers - to combat positions was not uncommon. Staff Captain Cherkassov A.N., served under Kolchak and took an active part in the Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising; in the Red Army in the 20s he served as a division engineer. A career officer of the engineering troops, staff captain Ponomarenko B.A., joined the Ukrainian army in 1918, was an assistant to the hetman commandant of Kharkov, then in the UPR army as an assistant chief of communications for the Eastern Front, in May 1919 he was captured by the Poles. In 1920, he was released from captivity, again ended up in the UPR army, but deserted from it, crossed the front line and joined the Red Army, where he served in the engineering battalion of the 45th Infantry Division, then as an assistant commander of the 4th engineer battalion, commander of the 8th th engineer battalion, since 1925 he has been the commander of the 3rd motor-cycle regiment. The engineer was former lieutenant Goldman, who served in the hetman's troops, in the Red Army since 1919, and commanded a pontoon regiment. Ensign Zhuk A.Ya., who graduated from the 1st year of the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineers, the 2nd year of the Petrograd Institute of Railways and the Alekseevsky Engineering School, fought in the Kolchak army during the Civil War - as a junior officer and commander of a sapper company, commander of an engineering park. Having been captured in December 1919, he was tested in the Yekaterinburg Cheka until July 1920, and from September 1920 in the Red Army - in the 7th engineering battalion, brigade engineer of the 225th separate special purpose brigade. Staff Captain Vodopyanov V.G., who lived on the territory of the Whites, served in the railway troops in the Red Army, Lieutenant M.I. Orekhov also lived on the territory of the Whites, in the Red Army from 1919, in the 20s an engineer at the headquarters of the railway shelf.

Vladimir Kaminsky, who studies the construction of fortified areas in the 20-30s, once wrote about the correspondence available in the RGVA between the engineering department of the Ukrainian Military District (authored by the assistant chief of engineers of the district D.M. Karbyshev) with the Main Military Engineering Directorate, in which The question of the demobilization of military engineers who served in the white armies arose. The GPU demanded their removal, while the RVS and GVIU, due to an acute shortage of specialists, allowed them to remain.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the white officers who worked for red intelligence. Many have heard about the red intelligence officer Makarov, the adjutant of the white General Mai-Maevsky, who served as the prototype for the main character of the film “His Excellency’s Adjutant,” however, this was far from an isolated example. In the same Crimea, other officers also worked for the Reds, for example Colonel Ts.A. Siminsky is the head of Wrangel intelligence, who went to Georgia in the summer of 1920, after which it became clear that he was working for the intelligence of the Red Army. Also through Georgia (through the Soviet military representative in Georgia) two more red intelligence officers, Colonel Ts.A., transmitted information about Wrangel’s army. Skvortsov and captain Ts.A. Deconsky. In this regard, by the way, it can be noted that from 1918 to 1920, Colonel of the General Staff A.I. Gotovtsev, the future lieutenant general of the Soviet Army, also lived in Georgia (by the way, the notes in the collection of documents on “Spring” also indicate his service with Denikin, but it is not specified in what period). Here is what is said about him in particular on the website www.grwar.ru: “ Lived in Tiflis, was engaged in trade (06.1918-05.1919). Assistant to the warehouse manager of the American Charitable Society in Tiflis (08.-09.1919). Sales agent in the representative office of an Italian company in Tiflis (10.1919-06.1920). From 07.1920 he was at the disposal of the military department under authorized representative RSFSR in Georgia. Special mission to Constantinple (01.-07.1921). Arrested by the British on July 29, 1921, he was deported to his homeland. He explained his failure by the fact that “he was betrayed by his fellow soldiers - officers of the General Staff.” At the disposal of the beginning. II Department of Intelligence (from 08/22/1921). Head of the Intelligence Department of the Red Army Headquarters (08/25/1921-07/15/1922)."He coped well with his position. Suitable for promotion to a quiet position scientific work"(conclusion of the certification commission of the Intelligence Department dated March 14, 1922)."“Apparently, it was through Georgia that the RKKA Intelligence Industry organized work in Crimea. Officers who worked for the intelligence of the Red Army were also in other white armies. In particular, Colonel Ts.A. served in Kolchak’s army. Rukosuev-Ordynsky V.I. - he joined the RCP (b) in the spring of 1919, while serving at the headquarters of Kolchak’s governor in Vladivostok, General S.N. Rozanov. In the summer of 1921, he was arrested by white counterintelligence along with five other underground members - all of them were killed during an escape provoked by white counterintelligence.

Summarizing the topic of the service of white officers during the Civil War, we can return to the work of A.G. Kavtaradze and his estimates of their total number: “in total, 14,390 former white officers served in the ranks of the Red Army “not for fear, but for conscience,” of which, before January 1, 1921, 12 thousand people.” Former white officers served not only in lower combat positions - like the bulk of wartime officers, or in teaching and staff positions - like career officers and general staff officers. Some rose to senior command positions, such as Lieutenant Colonels Kakurin and Vasilenko, who commanded armies by the end of the Civil War. Kavtaradze also writes about examples of former white officers serving “not for fear, but for conscience,” and about the continuation of their service after the war:

« After the end of the civil war and the transition of the Red Army to a peaceful situation, 1975 former white officers continued to serve in the Red Army, proving “by their labor and courage their sincerity in their work and devotion to the Union of Soviet Republics,” on the basis of which the Soviet government removed the name “former whites” from them. and equalized all the rights of the commander of the Red Army. Among them we can name Staff Captain L.A. Govorov, later Marshal of the Soviet Union, who from Kolchak’s army went over with his battery to the side of the Red Army, participated in the civil war as a division commander and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the battles near Kakhovka; Colonel of the Orenburg White Cossack Army F.A. Bogdanov, who went over with his brigade to the side of the Red Army on September 8, 1919. Soon he and his officers were received by M.I. Kalinin, who arrived at the front, who explained to them the goals and objectives of the Soviet government, its policies in relation to military specialists and promised to allow prisoners of war officers, after appropriate verification of their activities in the White Army, to serve in the Red Army; Subsequently, this Cossack brigade took part in battles against Denikin’s, White Poles, Wrangel’s and Basmachi. In 1920, M. V. Frunze appointed Bogdanov commander of the 1st Separate Uzbek Cavalry Brigade; for his distinction in battles with the Basmachi, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Sotnik T.T. In 1920, Shapkin and his unit went over to the side of the Red Army, and was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner for distinguished service in battles during the Soviet-Polish War; during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. with the rank of lieutenant general, he commanded a cavalry corps. Military pilot Captain Yu. I. Arvatov, who served in the “Galician Army” of the so-called “Western Ukrainian People’s Republic” and defected to the Red Army in 1920, was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner for his participation in the civil war. Similar examples could be multiplied».

Lieutenant General of the Red Army and hero of the Battle of Stalingrad, holder of four Orders of the Red Banner, Timofey Timofeevich Shapkin, who served in the Tsarist army for more than 10 years in non-commissioned officer positions and only towards the end of the First World War was sent to the school of warrant officers for his services in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia spent from bell to bell, from January 1918 to March 1920.

We will return to Shapkin later, but the above examples can really be multiplied. In particular, for battles during the Civil War, Captain A.Ya., who managed to serve in Denikin’s troops, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Yanovsky. He received the Order of the Red Banner and was introduced to the second captain of the old army K.N. Bulminsky, battery commander in Kolchak’s army, who had already served in the Red Army since October 1918. The head of the Western Front Air Force in the early 20s, former staff captain and observer pilot S.Ya., also served with Kolchak until 1920. Korf (1891-1970), also holder of the Order of the Red Banner. Cornet Artseulov, the grandson of the artist Aivazovsky, and a future famous Soviet test pilot and glider designer, also served in Denikin aviation. In general, in Soviet aviation the share of former white military pilots by the end of the civil war was very large, and Kolchak’s aviators especially managed to prove themselves. Thus, M. Khairulin and V. Kondratyev in their work “Aviation of the Civil War,” recently republished under the title “Warflights of the Lost Empire,” provide the following data: by July, a total of 383 pilots and 197 letnabs—or 583 people—served in Soviet aviation. From the beginning of 1920, white pilots began to appear en masse in Soviet air squads - after the defeat of Kolchak, 57 pilots joined the Red Army, and after the defeat of Denikin, about 40 more, that is, about a hundred in total. Even if we accept that the former white aviators included not only pilots, but also letnabs, then it even turns out that every sixth military aviator ended up in the Red Army. air fleet from white aviation. The concentration of participants in the white movement among military pilots was so high that it manifested itself much later, at the end of the 30s: in the Report of the Directorate for the command and command staff of the Red Army “On the state of personnel and on the tasks of personnel training” dated November 20, 1937 in the table , dedicated to the “facts of contamination of the academies’ student body,” it was noted that out of 73 students at the Air Force Academy, 22 served in the White Army or were in captivity, that is, 30%. Even taking into account the fact that in this category both participants of the white movement and prisoners were mixed, the numbers are large, especially in comparison with other academies (Frunze Academy 4 out of 179, Engineering - 6 out of 190, Electrotechnical Academy 2 out of 55, Transport - 11 out of 243, medical - 2 out of 255 and Artillery - 2 out of 170).

Returning to the Civil War, it is necessary to note that towards the end of the war there was some relaxation for those officers who had proven themselves in the service in the Red Army: “ On September 4, 1920, Order No. 1728/326 of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic was issued, concerning the rules of “filtration,” registration and use of former officers and military officials of the White armies. In comparison with the “Temporary Rules” discussed above, questionnaire cards consisting of 38 points were introduced for former white officers, it was specified where “political and military training courses” could be located, the number of these courses, their maximum number in one city, and also indicated on the need to reflect in the service records the former affiliation of officers “to the composition of the white armies" The order also contained a new, extremely important point: after a year of service in the Red Army, the former officer or military official of the White armies was removed “from special registration”, and from that time the “special rules” given in the order did not apply to this person, i.e. ... he completely transferred to the position of a “military specialist” serving in the Red Army.”

Summarizing the information about the service of “white” officers in the Red Army during the Civil War, several points can be noted. Firstly, their recruitment into service was most widespread from the end of 1919–1920, with the defeat of the main White Guard armies in Siberia, the South and North of Russia, and especially with the beginning of the Soviet-Polish War. Secondly, former officers could be divided into several groups - the bulk were wartime officers, who often served with the Whites upon mobilization - these persons, for obvious reasons, most often ended up in combat and command positions, however, usually at the level of platoon and company commanders . At the same time, for the purpose of insurance, the command of the Red Army sought to prevent the concentration of former officers in units, and also sent them to fronts other than those where they were captured. In addition, various technical specialists were sent to the troops - aviators, artillerymen, engineers, railway workers - including career officers. As for career military personnel and General Staff officers, the situation here was somewhat different. The latter - due to the acute shortage of such specialists - were taken into special account and used to the maximum in their specialty at the highest headquarters, especially since it was much easier to organize political control there. Just career officers - who, due to their experience and knowledge, were also a valuable element, were usually used in teaching positions. Thirdly, apparently the largest number of former officers went to the Red Army from Kolchak’s army, which is explained by the following reasons. The defeat of Kolchak’s troops nevertheless occurred earlier than in the South, and the captured officer of Kolchak’s army had a better chance of serving in the Red Army and participating in hostilities on its side. At the same time, in the South it was easier to avoid captivity - either by emigrating (to the Caucasus or through the Black Sea) or by evacuating to Crimea. Despite the fact that in the East of Russia, in order to avoid captivity, it was necessary to travel thousands of kilometers in winter across all of Siberia. In addition, the officer corps of the Siberian armies was noticeably inferior in quality to the officer corps of the AFSR - the latter received much more career officers, as well as ideological wartime officers - since it was still much easier to flee to the whites in the South, and the concentration of the population in the South and in Central Russia was several times higher than in Siberia. Accordingly, the Siberian White armies, with a small number of officers in general, not to mention personnel ones, were forced to engage more actively in mobilization, including force. And in their armies there were noticeably more people who did not want to serve, and simply opponents of the white movement, who often ran over to the red ones - so the leadership of the Red Army could use these officers in their own interests with much less fear.

With the end of the civil war, the Red Army faced the need for a serious reduction - from 5.5 million, its number was gradually increased to 562 thousand people. Naturally, the number of command and control personnel was also reduced, although to a lesser extent - from 130 thousand people to approximately 50 thousand. Naturally, faced with the need to reduce the command staff, first of all, the leadership of the country and the army began to dismiss precisely the former white officers, giving priority to the same officers, but who served in the Red Army initially, as well as to young painters, who usually occupied lower positions - at the level of platoon commanders and mouth. Of the former white officers, only the most valuable part of them remained in the army - general staff officers, generals, as well as specialists from technical branches of the military (aviation, artillery, engineering troops). The dismissal of white officers from the army began during the Civil War, however, simultaneously with the demobilization of Kraskom - from December 1920 to September 1921, 10,935 command personnel were dismissed from the army, plus 6,000 former white officers. In general, as a result of the army’s transition to a peaceful position, out of 14 thousand officers in 1923, only 1975 former white officers remained in it, while the process of their reduction continued further, simultaneously with the reduction of the army itself. The latter, from more than 5 million, was reduced first to 1.6 million people on January 1, 1922, then successively to 1.2 million people, to 825,000, 800,000, 600,000 - naturally, the process of reducing the number of command personnel went in parallel, including former white officers, whose number as of January 1, 1924 was 837 people. Finally, in 1924, the strength of the armed forces was fixed at 562 thousand people, of which 529,865 people were for the army itself, and at the same time another process of recertification of command personnel was carried out, during which 50 thousand commanders passed the test. Then 7,447 people were dismissed (15% of the number checked), together with universities and the navy, the number of dismissed people reached 10 thousand, and demobilization took place “according to three main criteria: 1) politically unreliable element and former white officers, 2) technically unprepared and not of particular value to the army, 3) have passed the age limits.” Accordingly, the dismissed 10 thousand commanders according to these characteristics were divided as follows: 1st characteristic – 9%, 2nd characteristic – 50%, 3rd characteristic – 41%. Thus, for political reasons in 1924, about 900 commanders were dismissed from the army and navy. Not all of them were white officers, and some served in the navy and in military educational institutions, since the latter numbered 837 people in the army at the beginning of 1924, and by 01/01/1925 there were 397 former white officers left in the Red Army. I repeat, as a rule, either technical specialists or qualified military experts from among the generals and officers of the General Staff were left in the army - which, by the way, outraged some Red military leaders.

Thus, in a very emotional letter from a group of Red Army commanders dated February 10, 1924, the following was noted: “ in the lower combat units, a purge was carried out of the command staff, not only a hostile element, but even a dubious one, who, consciously or unconsciously, had stained themselves either by serving in the white armies or by staying in the territories of the whites. Young people, often of peasant and proletarian origin, were purged and thrown out - from among the wartime warrant officers; youth, who, by their stay after the white armies in parts of our Red Army, on the fronts against the same whites, could not thereby atone for their mistakes or crimes, often committed out of ignorance in the past" And at the same time " V All honored, well-groomed people from the bourgeois and aristocratic world, former ideological leaders of the Tsarist Army - generals remained in their places, and sometimes even with promotion. The counter-revolutionaries and ideological leaders of the White Guard, who hanged and shot hundreds and thousands of proletariat and communists during the Civil War, relying on the support of their old comrades at the Tsarist Academy or family ties with specialists who settled in our headquarters or Directorates, built themselves a strong, well-armored hornet's nest in the very heart of the Red Army, its central organizational and training apparatus - the Headquarters of the R.K.K.A., GUVUZ, GAU, GVIU, FLEET HQ, Academy, Higher Attestation Commission, Shot and the Editorial Boards of our Military Scientific Thought, which in their undivided authorities and under their pernicious and ideological influence."

Of course, there were not so many “ideological leaders of the White Guard, who hanged and shot hundreds and thousands of proletariat and communists during the civil war” among the senior command and teaching staff of the Red Army (of these, only Slashchev comes to mind), but nevertheless However, this letter indicates that the presence of former white officers was very noticeable. Among them were both captured white officers and emigrants, like the same Slashchev and Colonel A.S. Milkovsky who returned with him. (artillery inspector of the Crimean Corps Y.A. Slashchova, after returning to Russia he was for special assignments of the 1st category of artillery inspection and armored the Red Army) and Colonel of the General Staff Lazarev B.P. (major general in the White Army). In 1921, Lieutenant Colonel M.A. Zagorodniy, who taught at the Odessa Artillery School in the Red Army, and Colonel P.E. Zelenin returned from emigration, in 1921–25. battalion commander, and then the head of the 13th Odessa Infantry School, who headed command courses in the Red Army back in the Civil War, but after the occupation of Odessa by the Whites, he remained in place and then evacuated with them to Bulgaria. Former Colonel Ivanenko S.E., in the Volunteer Army since 1918, for some time commanding the combined regiment of the 15th Infantry Division, returned from emigration from Poland in 1922 and taught at the Odessa art school until 1929. In April 1923, Major General of the General Staff E.S. returned to the USSR. Gamchenko, who served in the armies of Hetman Skoropadsky and the UPR from June 1918, and in 1922 submitted an application to the Soviet embassy asking for permission to return to his homeland - upon his return, he taught at the Irkutsk and Sumy infantry schools, as well as at the school named after. Kameneva. In general, with regard to emigrants to the Red Army, Minakov gives the following interesting opinion of the former colonel of the old army and division commander in the red army V.I. Solodukhin, who " when asked about the attitude of the Red Army command staff towards the return of officers from emigration to Russia, he gave a very remarkable answer: “The new communist staff would react well, but the old officer staff would be clearly hostile.” He explained this by the fact that “valuing emigration highly from a mental point of view and knowing that even a former White Guard can do well in the Red Army, they would fear him primarily as a competitor, and besides, ... in everyone who crossed over they would see a direct traitor ... »».

Major General of the Red Army A.Ya. Yanovsky, a career officer of the old army, who completed an accelerated course at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, his service in Denikin’s troops was limited to three months. However, the fact of voluntary service in the White Army in his personal file did not prevent him from making a career in the Red Army.

Separately, we can note the white officers and generals who emigrated to China and returned to Russia from China in the 20s and 30s. For example, in 1933, together with his brother, Major General A.T. Sukin, Colonel of the General Staff of the Old Army went to the USSR, Nikolai Timofeevich Sukin, a lieutenant general in the white armies, a participant in the Siberian Ice Campaign, in the summer of 1920 he temporarily held the post of chief of staff of the commander in chief of all Russian armed forces Eastern outskirts, in the USSR he worked as a teacher of military disciplines. Some of them began working for the USSR while still in China, such as a colonel of the old army, in the Kolchak army, Major General Tonkikh I.V. - in 1920, in the armed forces of the Russian Eastern outskirts, he served as chief of staff of the marching ataman, in 1925 he lived in Beijing. In 1927, he was an employee of the military attache of the plenipotentiary mission of the USSR in China; on 04/06/1927 he was arrested by the Chinese authorities during a raid on the premises of the plenipotentiary mission in Beijing, and probably after that he returned to the USSR. Also, while still in China, another high-ranking officer of the White Army, also a participant in the Siberian Ice Campaign, Alexey Nikolaevich Shelavin, began to collaborate with the Red Army. It’s funny, but this is how Kazanin, who came to Blucher’s headquarters in China as a translator, describes his meeting with him: “ In the reception room there was a long table set for breakfast. A fit, graying military man sat at the table and ate with appetite from a full plate. oatmeal. In such stuffiness, eating hot porridge seemed to me a heroic feat. And he, not content with this, took three soft-boiled eggs from the bowl and threw them onto the porridge. He poured canned milk over it all and sprinkled it thickly with sugar. I was so hypnotized by the enviable appetite of the old military man (I soon learned that it was the Tsarist General Shalavin, who had transferred to Soviet service), that I saw Blucher only when he was already standing completely in front of me" Kazanin did not mention in his memoirs that Shelavin was not just a tsarist, but a white general; in general, in the tsarist army he was only a colonel of the General Staff. A participant in the Russian-Japanese and World Wars, in Kolchak’s army he held the positions of chief of staff of the Omsk Military District and the 1st Combined Siberian (later 4th Siberian) Corps, participated in the Siberian Ice Campaign, served in the Armed Forces of the Russian Eastern Outskirts and the Amur Provisional government, then emigrated to China. Already in China, he began to collaborate with Soviet military intelligence (under the pseudonym Rudnev), in 1925–1926 - military adviser to the Henan group, teacher at the Whampoa military school; 1926-1927 - at the headquarters of the Guangzhou group, helped Blucher evacuate from China and himself also returned to the USSR in 1927.

Returning to the issue of the large number of former white officers in teaching positions and in the central apparatus, the Report of the Bureau of Cells of the Military Academy dated February 18, 1924 noted that “ the number of former General Staff officers compared to their number in the army during the Civil War increased significantly" Of course, this was a consequence of their growth, largely due to the captured white officers. Since the General Staff officers represented the most qualified and valuable part of the officer corps of the old army, the leadership of the Red Army sought to attract them into service as much as possible, including from among the former White Guards. In particular, the following generals and officers with higher military education received in the old army, participants in the White movement, served in the Red Army at different times in the twenties:

• Artamonov Nikolai Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served in Kolchak’s army;
• Akhverdov (Akhverdyan) Ivan Vasilyevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, Major General of the old army, from 05.1918 Minister of War of Armenia, Lieutenant General of the Armenian Army, 1919, served in the Red Army after returning from emigration;
• Bazarevsky Alexander Khalilevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, served in various staff positions in the armies of adm. Kolchak;
• Bakovets Ilya Grigorievich, accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff (2nd grade), lieutenant colonel of the old army, served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky and Denikin;
• Baranovich Vsevolod Mikhailovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, served in Kolchak’s armies;
• Batruk Alexander Ivanovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, captain of the old army, in 1918 in the hetman’s army and from 1919 in the All-Soviet Socialist Republic;
• Belovsky Alexey Petrovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, served with Kolchak;
• Boyko Andrey Mironovich, accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff (1917), captain (?), in 1919 he served in the Kuban Army of the All-Soviet Union of Socialist Republics;
• Brylkin (Brilkin) Alexander Dmitrievich, Military Law Academy, major general of the old army, served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky and the Volunteer Army;
• Vasilenko Matvey Ivanovich, accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff (1917). Staff captain (according to other sources, lieutenant colonel) of the old army. Member of the White movement.
• Vlasenko Alexander Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, career officer, apparently served in the white armies (since June 1, 1920, he attended repeated courses “for former whites”)
• Volsky Andrey Iosifovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, captain of the old army, served in the army of the UPR and in the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• Vysotsky Ivan Vitoldovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, captain of the old army, served in various white armies;
• Gamchenko Evgeniy Spiridonovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served in the army of the UPR, served in the Red Army after returning from emigration;

• Gruzinsky Ilya Grigorievich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served in the white troops of the East. Front;
• Desino Nikolai Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky
• Dyakovsky Mikhail Mikhailovich, accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff, staff captain of the old army, served in the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• Zholtikov Alexander Semenovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served under Kolchak;
• Zinevich Bronislav Mikhailovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, major general under Kolchak;
• Zagorodniy Mikhail Andrianovich, accelerated course of the Academy of the General Staff, lieutenant colonel of the old army, served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky and in the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• Kakurin Nikolai Evgenievich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, served in the Ukrainian Galician Army;
• Karlikov Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, lieutenant general in Kolchak’s army
• Karum Leond Sergeevich, Aleksandrovsk Military Law Academy, captain of the old army, served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky, in the All-Russian Socialist Republic and in the Russian Army, General. Wrangel;
• Kedrin Vladimir Ivanovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served with Kolchak;
• Kokhanov Nikolai Vasilievich, Nikolaev Engineering Academy, ordinary professor of the Academy of the General Staff and extraordinary professor of the Nikolaev Engineering Academy, colonel of the old army, served with Kolchak;
• Kutateladze Georgy Nikolaevich, accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff, captain of the old army, served in the national army for some time in Georgia;
• Lazarev Boris Petrovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, major general in the Volunteer Army, returned with General Slashchev to the USSR;
• Lebedev Mikhail Vasilyevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served in the army of the UPR and in the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• Leonov Gavriil Vasilievich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, lieutenant colonel of the old army, major general under Kolchak;
• Lignau Alexander Georgievich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served in the hetman’s army and under Kolchak;
• Milkovsky Alexander Stepanovich, colonel of the old army, participant in the white movement, returned to Soviet Russia with Y.A. Slashchev;
• Morozov Nikolai Apollonovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, served in the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• Motorny Vladimir Ivanovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, lieutenant colonel of the old army, participant in the white movement;
• Myasnikov Vasily Emelyanovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served under Kolchak;
• Myasoedov Dmitry Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, major general in Kolchak’s army;
• Natsvalov Anton Romanovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old army, served in the Georgian army;
• Oberyukhtin Viktor Ivanovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, captain of the old army, colonel and major general in Kolchak’s army;
• Pavlov Nikifor Damianovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served under Kolchak;
• Plazovsky Roman Antonovich, Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, colonel of the old army, served with Kolchak;
• Popov Viktor Lukich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel,? old army, participant in the white movement;
• Popov Vladimir Vasilievich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, captain of the old army, colonel in the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• De-Roberti Nikolai Alexandrovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, lieutenant colonel of the old army, served in the Volunteer Army and the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• Slashchev Yakov Aleksandrovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel of the old and lieutenant general of the white armies.
• Suvorov Andrey Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, there is indirect evidence of service in the white armies - he served in the Red Army since 1920, and in 1930 he was arrested in the case of former officers;
• Sokiro-Yakhontov Viktor Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, served in the UPR army;
• Sokolov Vasily Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, lieutenant colonel of the old army, served in the army of Admiral Kolchak;
• Staal German Ferdinandovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, in 1918 he served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky;
• Tamruchi Vladimir Stepanovich, accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff, captain (staff captain?) of the old army, served in the army of the Armenian Republic;
• Tolmachev Kasyan Vasilyevich, studied at the Academy of the General Staff (did not complete the course), captain of the old army, served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky and in the All-Russian Socialist Republic;
• Shelavin Alexey Nikolaevich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, colonel in the old army and major general under Kolchak;
• Schildbach Konstantin Konstantinovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, major general of the old army, in 1918 he served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky, later he was registered in the Volunteer Army;
• Engler Nikolai Vladimirovich, Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff, captain, Kavtaradze - captain of the old army, participant in the white movement.
• Yanovsky Alexander Yakovlevich, accelerated course at the Academy of the General Staff, captain, in the Denikin army from September to December 1919 (by the way, his brother, P.Ya. Yanovsky, also served in the White Army);
• Somewhat later, in the 30s, colonels of the old army began their service in the Red Army. Vladimir Andreevich Svinin - graduated from the Nikolaev Engineering Academy, major general in Kolchak’s army, and the above-mentioned Sukin N.T., graduated from the Academy of the General Staff, general in Kolchak’s army -lieutenant. In addition to the above officers and generals, we can also mention high-ranking military leaders of the White and national armies who served in the Red Army who did not have a higher military education - such as former Major General Alexander Stepanovich Sekretev, a participant in the White movement, one of the best combat commanders of the First World War, artillery general Mehmandarov (held the post of Minister of War of the Republic of Azerbaijan) and Lieutenant General of the old army Shikhlinsky (held the post of Assistant Minister of War in the Musavat government, promoted to artillery general of the Azerbaijan Army) - personal pensioner in the USSR and author of memoirs, died in Baku in the 40s .

As for other white officers, primarily wartime officers, who made up the bulk of the reserve command staff in the 1920s, it is necessary to note the loyal attitude, lack of ideological narrow-mindedness, as well as the pragmatic approach of the army leadership towards them. The latter understood that most of the officers of the White armies often served in them upon mobilization and without much desire, and subsequently many rehabilitated themselves by serving in the Red Army. Realizing that, as having military training and combat experience, they were of particular value as reserve command personnel, the leadership of the Red Army made efforts to normalize their existence in civilian life: “ The existing unemployment and prejudiced attitude towards them on the part of the People's Commissariats and other Soviet organizations, suspecting them of political unreliability, which is unfounded and essentially incorrect, leads to refusals of service. In particular, the majority of people in category 1 (former whites) cannot at all be considered white in the real meaning of the word. All of them served loyally, but their further retention in the army, especially in connection with the transition to unity of command, is simply inappropriate. According to available information, the majority of those demobilized are eking out a miserable existence..." According to Frunze, many of those dismissed, who had been in the army for “several years” and had experience of the civil war, were “reserves in case of war,” and therefore he believed that concern for the financial situation of those dismissed from the army should not be the subject of attention only military, but also civilian bodies. Considering that “the proper resolution of this issue goes beyond the boundaries of Military Science and is of great importance political significance", Frunze, on behalf of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, asked the Central Committee to give a “directive along the party line.” The question was again raised by Frunze at a meeting of the Revolutionary Military Council on December 22, 1924, and a special commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was even created to resolve the issue.

Leonid Sergeevich Karum, a career officer in the tsarist army and commander of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, between these two photographs his life underwent serious changes: he managed to serve in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky, the Russian army of General. Wrangel, and being a relative of the famous writer M. Bulgakov, he was also imprinted in literature, becoming the prototype of Thalberg in the novel “The White Guard”.

At the same time, the leadership of the Red Army constantly monitored the problems of former white officers and constantly raised this topic - in particular in a memo by the head of the Main Directorate of the Red Army V.N. Levichev in the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR on the preparation of reserve command personnel, it was noted: “ especially the difficult situation [in relation to] former white officers... It must be borne in mind that this group of former whites at different periods of the Civil War came over to our side and took part already as part of the Red Army. The moral state of this category, which by its social status in the past belonged to the “commoners,” is aggravated by the fact that objectively it is the most affected part of the representatives of the old regime. Meanwhile, she cannot admit to being more guilty than that part of the bourgeois class that “speculated” from around the corner and sold out Soviet power. The NEP, the development of industry in general, placed all categories of intelligent labor in the service of both the state and private capital, the same part - former officers, torn from production since 1914, have lost all qualifications in peaceful labor, and, of course, cannot be in demand, as on "specialists" and, in addition, bears the brand of former officers" Noting the lack of attention to the problems of the reserve command staff (largely represented by former white officers - so, as for the former White Guards, “about officers and officials from among prisoners of war and defectors of the white armies and who lived on the territory of these armies", then from the number of people who were specially registered with the OGPU on September 1, 1924, 50,900 people by September 1, 1926, 32,000 were removed from special registration and transferred to the reserves of the Red Army), both from local party bodies and from district military registration and enlistment offices, and considering “that the severity of the situation and the importance of the problem of Soviet training of reserve command personnel for war requires the intervention of the Party Central Committee,” the Main Directorate of the Red Army proposed a number of measures to resolve this issue. It was about reserving positions in civilian people's commissariats, as well as about providing reserve commanders with advantages when applying for jobs as teachers in civilian universities, about constant monitoring of the employment of unemployed command staff and material assistance to the latter, monitoring the political and military preparedness of the reserve, as well as about removing accounting for former white commanders who served in the ranks of the Red Army for at least a year. The importance of employing former commanders was due to the fact that, as noted in documents of that time, “ on the basis of material insecurity, a negative attitude towards conscription into the Red Army is easily created. This forces us to pay attention to improving the financial situation of our reserves, otherwise, during mobilization, a relatively large percentage of dissatisfied people will join the ranks of the army" In January 1927, after the instructions for elections to the councils most of the reserve command staff, namely former whites who did not serve in the Red Army, were deprived of participation in the elections, the Command Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Red Army, noting that “ the quantitative shortage of reserves makes us count on attracting, albeit with some caution, this group", and deprivation of it " voting rights goes against this intention", demanded "d fill out the instructions for re-election to the councils with an indication that only former whites who have not been removed from the special register of the OGPU are deprived of voting rights, considering that persons removed from it and included in the reserve resources have already been sufficiently filtered and, as a source of future replenishment of the army, should enjoy all rights citizens of the Union».

Dry excerpts from documents relatively here can be diversified with bright and memorable illustrations. Here is how typical representatives of the reserve command personnel from among the former whites or those living in the “white” territories are described in an article by Zefirov, who worked as part of the commission for the re-registration of reserve command personnel in 1925, in the magazine “War and Revolution”:

« A common group of command personnel are former. officers who served neither in the White nor in the Red Army, but lived on the territory of the Whites and throughout the civil war worked in their peaceful profession as a teacher, agronomist or on the railway. The appearance and psychology of people in this category, applying old military terminology to them, are completely “civilian”. They don’t like to remember their military service, and they sincerely consider their officer rank to be an unpleasant accident, since they ended up in a military school solely thanks to their general education. Now they have plunged headlong into their specialty, they are passionately interested in it, but they have completely forgotten military affairs and show no desire to study it.

With greater vividness than the previous group, the type of former officer who served in the old and white army appears in memory. His hot temperament did not allow him to fully graduate from a secondary educational institution and he voluntarily went to “save” Russia from the Teutonic invasion. After graduating from military school, he was sent to the front, where, in addition to wounds, he received beautiful orders for “ combat distinctions".

With the outbreak of the civil war, he entered the army of white generals, with whom he shared their inglorious fate. The vile bacchanalia and speculation on his own blood of these “saviors of faith and fatherland” disappointed him in beautiful phrases about the one and indivisible,” and surrender to the mercy of the winner was the “swan song” of his quixotic dreams. What follows is a state on special registration and modest service accountant in the accounting department of the mine. Now he, in all likelihood, sincerely would like to serve in the Red Army, but his past makes him cautious about his purpose and he is taken on the register at the last turn of the reserve.

The author also includes former officers who served in all three armies, that is, in the old, white and red, very similar to the group just outlined. The fate of these individuals is in many ways similar to the fate of the previous ones, with the difference that they were the first to realize their error and, in battles with their recent like-minded people, largely atoned for their guilt before the Red Army. They were demobilized from the Red Army in 21-22 and now serve in ordinary positions in Soviet institutions and enterprises».

Returning to the former white officers who remained in service in the Red Army and their fates, it is difficult to ignore the repressive measures against them. Immediately after the end of the civil war, harsh repressions against former white officers who served in the Red Army were rather sporadic. For example, Major General of the General Staff Vikhirev A.A., was arrested by the GPU on June 6, 1922, was under arrest on March 1, 1923, and was excluded from the lists of the Red Army in 1924, Captain of the General Staff L.A. Hackenberg. (in the Kolchak government, the chairman of the military-economic society) was invited to work at the Vseroglavshtab, but in Moscow in June 1920, Colonel of the General Staff Zinevich B.M. was arrested and imprisoned in Butyrka prison, in December being the head of the garrison of Krasnoyarsk, who surrendered the city to the Reds and who held the position of assistant inspector of infantry in the Red Army under the commander-in-chief for Siberia, was arrested in November 1921 and by the emergency troika of the Cheka representative office in Siberia, on charges of serving under Kolchak, he was sentenced to imprisonment in a concentration camp until exchanged with Poland, Major General Slesarev K.M. , head of the Orenburg Cossack School since 1908, including under Kolchak, after the defeat of the latter’s troops, he served in the Red Army as head of the school for command cadets in Omsk, but in March 1921, during the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Western Siberia, was arrested and shot on charges of aiding the rebels, career border guard Belavin V.P., demobilized in July 1921 - June 21, 1924, he was arrested on charges of “active participation in the work of the counter-revolutionary organization of “career Russian officers” created by Wrangel ” and “in collecting secret military information about the cantonment of the Red Army, which he transferred to the central organization through the Polish consulate,” and on July 4, 1925, by the military tribunal of the 14th Rifle Corps he was sentenced to death and executed. In 1923, during the case of military topographers, General N.D. Pavlov was also arrested, but he was soon released and worked as a professor in Omsk until his death. However, the bulk of the officers were simply dismissed during mass layoffs in the army and enlisted in the reserves. What remained, as a rule, were those who had passed the checks, either from among valuable specialists (general staff officers, pilots, artillerymen and engineers), or from combatant and staff commanders who had proven their usefulness and devotion to Soviet power and had proven themselves in battles on the side of the Red Army.

Next after 1923–24 a wave of purges and repressions took place at the turn of the decade, in 1929–1932. This time was characterized by a combination of a tense foreign policy situation (“War Alert” in 1930) with a complicated internal political situation associated with the resistance of the peasant population to collectivization. In an effort to strengthen its power and neutralize internal political opponents, real and potential - in the opinion of the party leadership - the latter took a number of repressive measures. It was at this time that the famous “Industrial Party” case against civilians and Operation Spring against military personnel, as well as former officers, were unfolding. Naturally, the latter also affected former white officers, in particular, from the above list of white General Staff officers, someone was fired and in 1923–24. (such as Artamonov N.N., Pavlov N.D.), but a significant part was affected by the “Spring” case and the accompanying repressions - Bazarevsky, Batruk, Vysotsky, Gamchenko, Kakurin, Kedrin, Kokhanov, Lignau, Morozov, Motorny, Sekretev , Sokolov, Schildbach, Engler, Sokiro-Yakhontov. And if Bazarevsky, Vysotsky, Lignau were released and reinstated in the army, then fate was less favorable for others - Batruk, Gamchenko, Motorny, Sekretev and Sokolov were sentenced to VMN, and Kakurin died in prison in 1936. During “Spring”, A.Ya.’s brother was also shot. Yanovsky, P.Ya. Yanovsky - both of them served in the White Army.

In general, the topic of “Spring” is little studied today, and the scale of the operation is somewhat exaggerated, although it can well be called a prologue to the military repressions of the late 30s. As for its scale, they can be roughly assessed using the example of Ukraine - where the scale of repressive measures among the military was greatest (even Moscow and Leningrad were apparently inferior to Ukraine in terms of the number of arrests). According to a certificate prepared by the OGPU in July 1931, the Sudtroika and the OGPU Collegium in the “Spring” case passed through 2014 people arrested in the “Spring” case, including: 305 military personnel. (of which 71 are military instructors and teachers of military subjects in civilian and military institutions), civilians 1,706 people. Of course, not all of them managed to serve in the White and national armies, although former White Guards who went over to serve in the Red Army were found both among the arrested military personnel and among the arrested civilians. Thus, among the latter there were 130 former white officers and 39 former officers of various Ukrainian national armed formations - in turn, among them were those who did not serve in the Red Army at all, and those who were dismissed from it at various times in the 20s. Of course, former white officers were also found among the Red Army servicemen affected by the “Spring”, primarily among teachers of military educational institutions and military instructors and teachers of military affairs at civilian universities. The fact that most of the former white officers were concentrated not in command positions, but in teaching positions and in military educational institutions, is striking even with a superficial study of the available biographies - for example, for 7 officers who held command positions, I found 36 teaching persons composition or military personnel of military educational institutions.

What is also striking is the large number of former white officers who taught at the school in the 1920s. Kamenev, who was unique in her own way educational institution for the Red Army of that time. In the 20s, the Red Army, along with the preparation of new command personnel, was faced with the task of retraining and additional training of command personnel from among the Kraskom officers, who, as a rule, became commanders during the Civil War. Their military education was often limited to either the training commands of the old army or short-term courses from the Civil War, and if they had to turn a blind eye to this during the war, after its end the low level of military training became simply intolerable. At first, the retraining of paint specialists was spontaneous and took place at a large number of different courses with a variety of curricula, different levels of teacher training, etc., etc. In an effort to streamline this procession and improve the quality of education for commanders, the leadership of the Red Army concentrated retraining in two military educational institutions - the United School named after. Kamenev and at the Siberian refresher courses. The teaching staff of the first was represented almost 100% by officers of the old army, as a rule, highly qualified specialists (mainly career officers, among whom there were often general staff officers and generals of the old army - it was there that, for example, Lieutenant General of the General Staff of the old army Kedrin, major generals of the General Staff Olderroge, Lebedev, Sokiro-Yakhontov, Gamchenko, major generals of artillery of the old army Blavdzevich, Dmitrievsky and Shepelev, not to mention the general staff and career military personnel in lower ranks). A significant portion of the repeaters passed through the Kamenev school in the 1920s, and many of them occupied senior command positions during the Great Patriotic War.

Moreover, among the teaching staff of the school, as we have seen, there were quite a few white officers; even among the 5 General Staff generals listed above, four passed through white armies. By the way, both the educational part and the selection of the school’s teaching staff were also handled by a career officer who managed to serve in the White Army, and even more than one. Captain of the old army L.S. Karum is a man with an extraordinary destiny. M.A.'s sister's husband Bulgakov, Varvara, he was introduced in the novel “The White Guard” under the name of Talberg, not the most pleasant character in the work: after writing the novel, Bulgakov’s sister Varvara and her husband even quarreled with the writer. Captain Karum managed to graduate from the Aleksandrovsky Military Law Academy in the old army, in 1918 he served in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky as a military lawyer (and according to family legends he was even Skoropadsky’s adjutant), in September 1919 - April 1920. he is a teacher at the Konstantinovsky Military School in the Armed Forces of Southern Russia. Then the Latvian consul in the Russian army of General Wrangel, after the evacuation of the whites, remained in the Crimea, successfully passed the check of the Cheka (since he was sheltering the Bolshevik underground fighters) and transferred to Soviet service. In 1922–26 he was an assistant to the head, head of the educational department of the Kyiv United School named after. Kameneva is an untalented officer, but apparently without strong convictions, a careerist. This is what was written about him in the OGPU information reports of the mid-20s: “With There are a lot of “bastards” among the teachers, but they obviously know their job and do it well... The selection of teachers, especially officers, depends most of all on Karum. Karum is a fox who knows his stuff. But probably not... there is a more unreliable person at school like Karum. When talking about political work and with political workers in general, he cannot even hold back a sarcastic smile... He also has a great inclination towards careerism... His studies are carried out by the head of the educational unit, Karum, who devotes a lot of time to work on the side (he gives lectures in civilian universities and lives 7 miles from the school). He himself is very smart, capable, but he finishes everything quickly" During “Spring” Karum was arrested and sentenced to several years in the camps; after his release, he lived in Novosibirsk, where he headed the department of foreign languages ​​at the Novosibirsk Medical Institute.

Returning to the question of former white officers serving in the Red Army - as already mentioned, the largest number of them ended up in the Red Army from Kolchak’s troops, and accordingly their concentration in Siberia was quite large. However, there, the cleansing of the armed forces from former White Guards apparently took place in a softer way - through purges and dismissals. One of the forum participants on the Red Army website at one time posted the following information: “ In the spring of 1929, the military commissar of Krasnoyarsk issued an order. obliging the commanders of the red units to report to whom how many former whites are serving. At the same time, the bar was set - no more than 20%, the rest should be expelled... However, most of the commanders ignored the order - in many units the white (former) was more than 20%... Additional orders and instructions were required for the commanders to report. The military commissar was even forced to threaten that those who did not report within the specified time frame would lose all former whites. All this funny correspondence - orders - instructions is stored in the local archive».

At the same time, the political apparatus (sic!) of the armed forces was cleared of former white officers. Souvenirov in his book “The Tragedy of the Red Army” writes in particular the following:

« In a special memorandum to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the command and political composition of the Red Army” (May 1931), Ya. B. Gamarnik reported that a lot of work was being carried out to thoroughly identify and clear the political composition of persons who served even for short periods ( two to three months) in the white armies. Total for 1928-1930 242 “former whites” were dismissed from the army, mainly political instructors, zabbibs (library managers), and teachers. During April-May 1931, the last remaining group of about 150 people was dismissed (or transferred to the reserve), including about 50 senior and senior political personnel. In addition to dismissal from the army, for 1929-1931. over 500 people who had previously served with the whites were removed from political positions and transferred to administrative, economic and command work. (This was the specificity of the selection of political workers at that time). These events, reported the head of the Political Department of the Red Army, “made it possible to completely clear the political staff at all levels of former whites.”».

In general, it is interesting to note the fact that former members the white movement ended up in the Red Army through illegal means - so at a meeting of the Military Council at the NPO in December 1934, the head of the Special Department of the Red Army M. Gai gave the following examples: “ For example, a former white officer who arrived illegally from abroad, where he was connected with active white emigrant centers, enlisted in the Red Army using crudely forged documents and managed to get a responsible job in one of the most serious sectors. Or another case: in a very responsible job in the central apparatus was the former head of Kolchak’s counterintelligence, an active White Guard, who managed to hide this fact through simple and uncomplicated machinations in documents».

However, despite the repressions of the early 30s, many former white officers were present in the ranks of the Red Army in the 30s. However, we have already seen that the same “Spring” affected several dozen white officers who served in the armed forces, despite the fact that after all the purges of the early 20s, about 4 hundred of them remained in the Red Army. In addition, many ended up in the army, hiding their past, some were called up from the reserves, and the above-mentioned purge of the political apparatus from former whites led, among other things, to their transfer to command positions. So in the 30s, former white officers in the Red Army were not so rare. And not only in teaching positions - such as the above-mentioned Bazarevsky, Vysotsky, Oberyukhtin or Lignau - but also in staff and command positions. A large number of former servicemen of the White armies in the Soviet Air Force have already been mentioned above; they were also found in the ground forces, and in senior command and staff positions. For example, former captain M.I., who completed the accelerated course of the AGSh in 1917. Vasilenko served as infantry inspector and deputy commander of the Ural Military District, former captain G.N. Kutateladze - assistant commander of the Red Banner Caucasian Army and commander of the 9th Rifle Corps, former captain A.Ya Yanovsky - deputy chief of staff of the Red Banner Caucasian Army and deputy head of the Directorate for Recruitment and Troop Service of the Main Directorate of the Red Army, former captain (colonel in the AFSR) V.V. . Popov commanded rifle divisions, held the positions of chief of staff of the corps and head of the operational department of the Kyiv Military District, and then assistant to the head of the Military Engineering Academy. The previously mentioned T.T. Shapkin in the 20s and 30s commanded the 7th, 3rd and 20th mountain cavalry divisions, successfully fought with the Basmachi and, in the interval between commanding divisions, graduated from the Military Academy. Frunze. The latter’s career was not hampered at all by the fact that he was removed from the register (as a former White Guard) only in the early 30s. Colonel V.A. Svinin, who graduated from the Nikolaev Engineering Academy in 1905 (Kolchak had a major general, from the hereditary nobles of the Kostroma province), was recruited into the Red Army only in 1931 and was immediately appointed deputy head of the Special Engineering Construction, and then deputy chief of engineers of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army and head of the branch of the Research Institute of Engineering Management of the Red Army in Khabarovsk. For his services in strengthening the Far Eastern borders, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. From 1932 to 1935, the head of the engineers of Minsk Ur was also a former Kolchakite, P.T. Zagorulko, like L. Govorov, who went over to the Red side during the Civil War.

Combat positions in the 30s were also occupied by former Petliurists: a career cavalry officer of the old army, staff captain S.I. Baylo, in the Red Army brigade commander and chief of staff of the 2nd Cavalry Corps (1932-37), Doctor of Military Sciences, awarded two Orders of the Red Banner, and a wartime officer of the old army, Lieutenant Mishchuk N.I., in the 30s, commander of the 3rd Bessarabian Cavalry Division named after. Kotovsky. By the way, both of the last commanders were purged from the army in the early twenties, but were reinstated through the efforts of Kotovsky.

In educational institutions, it seemed that it was much easier to meet White Guards, and not only in the academies where the General Staff officers mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph taught. Appointed in 1937 as assistant head of the Kazan Tank Technical School, I. Dubinsky, who began his activities in the new post by getting acquainted with the personal affairs of teachers, was sincerely indignant in his book “Special Account”: “ Almost everyone had their own “tail” behind them. One served under Kolchak, another was involved in the Industrial Party case, the third had a brother abroad. Teacher Andreenkov wrote frankly - in 1919, he believed that only Denikin could save Russia. Under his banner he marched from Kuban to Orel and from Orel to Perekop. Colonel Keller is the chief of the fire cycle. His father, the former head of the Warsaw road, was a drinking companion of Tsar Alexander III. The son kept the royal portrait with a personal inscription for a long time. This was the top of the school. She taught! She raised! She gave an example!" And a little further about the same Andreenkov: “ this was the same Andreenkov who in 1919 firmly believed that only Denikin could save Russia, and rushed from revolutionary Tula to the counter-revolutionary Don to stand under the White Guard banners" V.S. Milbach, in his book about the repression of OKDVA command staff, wrote that Mehlis, during a trip to Siberia and the Far East during the conflict on Lake. Hasan, " discovered “a significant number of Kolchakites and former whites” in the troops and sought their dismissal from the NGO. Despite the complexity of the situation, when every Far Eastern commander counted, K. E. Voroshilov supported the idea of ​​another purge».

However, it was difficult for people who held fairly high positions and had a similar past to survive 1937: in particular, of the persons listed above (Bazarevsky, Baylo, Vasilenko, Vysotsky, Kutateladze, Lignau, Mishchuk, Oberyukhtin, Popov, Shapkin, Yanovsky) only Shapkin managed to do this and Yanovsky.

The biography of the latter, set out in the Komkor directory, by the way, is very interesting and worthy of special mention, while the voluntary nature of his service in the White Army is quite controversial. In 1907, he began serving in the Russian Imperial Army, entering the cadet school, after which he was promoted to second lieutenant and sent to serve in the fortress artillery in Sevastopol. As a rule, the most successful graduates of military and cadet schools received the right to be assigned to technical units, in particular to artillery. During his service, he completed the Kyiv foreign language courses, 2 courses at the Kyiv Commercial Institute, and in July 1913 passed the entrance exam for the geodesy department of the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, but did not pass the competition, and entered the First World War as a company commander. He was wounded twice, and in September 1916 he was subjected to a chemical attack, and after recovery, as a combat officer, he was sent to study at the Nikolaev General Staff Academy. From December 1917, he was the elected chief of staff of the 21st Army Corps and temporary commander, in this position he formed Red Guard detachments to repel the German offensive near Pskov, and in February 1918 he joined the Red Army. Then he studied and taught at the Academy of the General Staff in Yekaterinburg, and although the Academy, almost in its entirety, led by its chief, General Andogsky, went over to the side of the whites, he himself was evacuated first to Kazan, and then, with the capture of the latter, he was able to escape with a group of students and teachers to Moscow. After that, as chief of staff of the 9th Infantry Division, he participated in battles on the Southern Front against the troops of Krasnov and Denikin, but became seriously ill and was captured. Placed in the Kursk provincial prison, he was released from the latter at the request of the White Guard military leaders known from the First World War, Lieutenant General of Artillery V.F. Kirei and the Kursk district military commander, Colonel Sakhnovsky, who apparently knew the military officer. In Yanovsky’s personal file there is evidence that he joined Denikin’s army voluntarily, but he seems to have sabotaged the service. Sent to Kharkov “to allocate premises under the control of the Kursk military commander during the evacuation from Kursk,” he did not return, and after the liberation of Kursk by units of the Red Army, he arrived at the headquarters of the 9th Army, and actively participated in the battles at the final stage of the Civil War , for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1922. Judging by his behavior during his service at the Academy of the General Staff in 1918, when he remained loyal to the Soviet regime, having every opportunity to go to the Whites who were victorious at that time, and his far from active service in parts of the AFSR in 1919, Yanovsky belonged to those 10% of the number of officers who served with the Reds and were captured by the Whites, who - according to Denikin - went back to the Bolsheviks in the very first battles. This is supported by his active service in the Red Army and the Order of the Red Banner he received. During the interwar period, Yanovsky commanded rifle divisions, held the positions of deputy chief of staff of the Red Banner Caucasian Army and deputy head of the Directorate for Recruitment and Troop Service of the Main Directorate of the Red Army, taught at the Military Academy. Frunze and the Academy of the General Staff, during the war he commanded rifle corps, was wounded twice, after the war again in a teaching position.

Returning to the main topic - despite all the waves of repression, some former white officers and officers of the national armies survived until the Great Patriotic War, during which they occupied high positions in the Red Army. Most famous examples these are, of course, the Marshals of the Soviet Union Govorov and Bagramyan, one can also note the above-mentioned captains of the old army, who completed a crash course at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, A.Ya. Yanovsky and V.S. Tamruchi. However, the fate of the second was very tragic - a career artillery officer of the old army, he turned out to be one of the oldest tankmen of the Red Army - since June 1925 he held the position of chief of staff of the separate and 3rd tank regiments, since 1928 he has been teaching - first at the Leningrad armored tanks advanced training courses for command personnel, then at the Faculty of Motorization and Mechanization of the Military Technical Academy of the Red Army and at the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army, then at the Department of Motorization and Mechanization of the Military Academy of the Red Army. M. V. Frunze. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he was the chief of staff of the 22nd mechanized corps, and with the death of the corps commander, on June 24, he assumed command of the corps, then the head of the ABTV (commander of the BT and MV) of the Southwestern Front, participated in the Battle of Stalingrad and many other operations, but on May 22, 1943, he was arrested by the NKVD, and in 1950 he died in custody.

Along with the military leaders mentioned above, other generals of the Red Army, who received officer's shoulder straps while still in the old army, also managed to serve in the White Army. These are Major Generals of the Red Army Zaitsev Panteleimon Aleksandrovich (ensign Ts.A., in the White Army from December 1918 to February 1919), Sherstyuk Gavriil Ignatievich (ensign, in September 1919 he was mobilized into the Denikin army, but fled and led a partisan detachment) , Major Generals of the Red Army Georgiy Ivanovich Kuparadze (in the old army a warrant officer and platoon commander, in the Red Army company commander since 1921) and Mikhail Gerasimovich Mikeladze (in the old army a second lieutenant, in the Georgian army from February 1919 to March 1921) served in the army of the Georgian Democratic Republic g., in the Red Army since 1921 as a company commander). With the annexation of the Baltic States to the Red Army, Lukas Ivan Markovich, major general, also received general positions (in the old army, staff captain and company commander, from 1918 to 1940 he served in the Estonian army - from company commander to regiment commander, in the Red Army - regiment commander from 1940) and Karvelis Vladas Antonovich, major general (colonel of the Lithuanian army, in 1919 he fought against the Red Army in his rank-and-file positions). Many representatives of the Soviet generals served in the white and national armies in private and non-commissioned officer positions.

However, the service of all of the above commanders in the white armies was usually of an episodic nature, usually due to mobilization, and practically none of them took part in hostilities against the Red Army; moreover, they sought to go over to the side of the Red Army as quickly as possible, often with their in parts - such as Govorov or Sherstyuk. Meanwhile, white officers fought in the Red Army who went through the Civil War on the white side almost from start to finish, like the commander of the 4th Cavalry Corps, Lieutenant General T.T. Shapkin. It was his corps during the Battle of Stalingrad that tied up the advancing German troops in battle, trying to release the 6th Army of Paulus, and made possible the deployment of the 2nd Guards Army, and as a result, the formation of a strong external front encircling the German group. This is how N.S. described T.T. Shapkin in his memoirs. Khrushchev: " Then Timofey Timofeevich Shapkin, an old Russian warrior, an elderly man, of average height, with a thick beard, arrived to us. His sons were either generals or colonels. He himself served in the tsarist army and fought in the First World War. Eremenko told me that he had four St. George's Crosses. In a word, a fighting man. When he introduced himself to us, there were no St. Georges on his chest, but three or four Orders of the Red Banner adorned his chest" For obvious reasons, Nikita Sergeevich did not mention the fact that Timofey Timofeevich Shapkin served not only in the tsarist army, but also in the white army. Moreover, Shapkin served in the White Army from January 1918 until the complete defeat of the Armed Forces of southern Russia in March 1920. T.T. Shapkin served in the tsarist army since 1906, in the 8th Don Cossack Regiment, where he rose to the rank of sergeant. In 1916, for military distinction, he was sent to the ensign school, and he finished the First World War with the rank of sub-sergeant. In January 1918, he was mobilized into the Volunteer Army, in May of the same year he was sent to the 6th Don Cossack Regiment as a commander of hundreds - as part of the Volunteer Army he fought with the Reds near Tsaritsyn, reached Kursk and Voronezh, and after the defeat of Denikin’s troops retreats almost to Kuban. Only after the complete defeat of the AFSR, when the remnants of the white troops were evacuated to the Crimea, and the prospects for continued resistance were more than vague, Shapkin and his hundred, already with the rank of captain, went over to the side of the Reds. With his squadron, he joins the 1st Cavalry Army, where he later heads a regiment, then a brigade, and after the death of Divisional Commander 14, the famous civil war hero Parkhomenko, his division. As part of the Red Army, he managed to fight on the Polish and Wrangel fronts, received 2 Orders of the Red Banner for these battles, and took part in battles with the Makhnovist formations. He received two more Orders of the Red Banner (in 1929 and 1931, including one - the Red Banner of Labor of the Tajik SSR) for successful battles with the Basmachis - so Khrushchev was not mistaken with the Orders of the Red Banner - there really were four of them. In the 20-30s. Shapkin, as mentioned above, commanded mountain cavalry divisions, in between he studied at the Higher Attestation Commission and at the Military Academy named after. Frunze, and in January 1941 he headed the 4th Cavalry Corps, with which he successfully fought during the Great Patriotic War. In March 1943, he became seriously ill and died in a hospital in Rostov-on-Don, which was liberated and with his participation. The biography is bright and extraordinary.

We met former White Guards and not only in general positions. N. Biryukov in his diaries, published under the title “Tanks to the Front,” has, for example, the following entry dated September 21, 1944 regarding the command of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Brigade: “Brigade commander Colonel Khudyakov. He fought in the corps. In a difficult situation, one cannot move forward without a neighbor. In all other matters it works exceptionally well. According to SMERSH, he worked for the whites and allegedly served in counterintelligence. SMERSH does not yet provide official data on this issue. The deputy brigade commander is Colonel Muravyov. Non-partisan. Served with the whites. I haven’t fought in the corps yet. There are anti-Soviet statements." Moreover, there were very unusual careers, such as Eduard Yanovich Ruttel, a lieutenant colonel of the General Staff of the old army and a participant in the famous Siberian Ice Campaign; in 1923 he moved from Harbin to Estonia, where, with the rank of colonel, he served in the Estonian army as the head of the Estonian Military School. After Estonia joined the USSR in 1940, he was mobilized into the Red Army and in 1943 served with the rank of colonel in the Red Army in the Estonian reserve battalion.

A not very well-known fact - out of ten front commanders at the final stage of the war (see photo), two military leaders had notes in their personal files about service in the white and national armies. This is Marshal Govorov (in the second row in the center) and the army general, later also a marshal, Bagramyan (in the second row on the far right).

Summarizing the topic of the service of former white officers in the Red Army, it should be noted that this topic is very controversial, to which it is difficult to apply black-and-white assessments. The attitude of the country's leadership and the army towards this category, no matter how strange it might seem to the modern reader, was rather pragmatic and lacking any kind of narrow-mindedness. The use of former White Guards in command positions was quite common during the Civil War. And although with the end of the Civil War a significant part of them were dismissed from the army (as well as many Kraskom or former military experts - the process was largely due to an almost tenfold reduction in the army) - nevertheless, throughout the 20s and 30s years, a former “white” general or officer in the Red Army was not such a curiosity. For objective reasons, they were more often found in teaching positions (this also applied to military experts in general) - but individual representatives of this group also occupied command - and quite significant - positions. However, the command of the Red Army did not forget the demobilized white officers, paying quite a lot of attention to their fate and position in civilian life. The fact that among those who served in the Red Army, former white officers were more often found in military educational institutions (from military schools to military academies) is quite understandable: on the one hand, this was explained by doubts about the loyalty of this category, on the other, since only the most valuable were retained in the army. its representatives, general staff officers and technical specialists, then the most rational thing was to use them to train others and prepare new command staff. Naturally, the repressions of command personnel also affected former whites, however, to a much greater extent they also affected the commanders who served in the Red Army from its founding, especially in 1937. The higher any commander climbed the career ladder by 1937 (and among the white officers in the army by this time only truly valuable specialists remained, who, thanks to this value and scarcity, occupied high positions), the more difficult it was for him to survive this year , especially with a note about service in the White Army in the personal file. Nevertheless, some former White Guards “golden chasers” successfully fought in the Great Patriotic War (one of the most prominent figures is Timofey Timofeevich Shapkin). Moreover, out of 10 front commanders in the spring of 1945 - essentially the top of the Soviet military elite - two had in their personal file a note about service in the white and national armies. The people who lived through that time faced difficult trials; fate forced them to make difficult choices, and it’s probably not for us to judge those who made this or that decision. Nevertheless, being military by vocation, their main task, who fought on both the red and white sides, was to protect their country. As Captain of the General Staff M. Alafuso, who later rose to the rank of corps commander in the Red Army, said in response to the question of how he can work honestly for the Reds if he wants victory for the Whites: “ I won’t hide it, I sympathize with whites, but I will never resort to meanness. I don't want to get involved in politics. I worked at our headquarters for only a short time, but I already feel that I am becoming a patriot of the army... I am an honest officer of the Russian army and true to my word, and even more so to my oath... I will not change. The officer’s task, as stated in our charters, is to defend the homeland from external and internal enemies. And this duty, if I entered your service, I will fulfill honestly" And it was the defense of the Motherland that was seen as their first and main task by the officers who, due to the prevailing circumstances, served on both the White and Red sides.

________________________________________________________________

Here are just a few excerpts from the documents in the collection “Directives of the High Command of the Red Army (1917-1920)”, Moscow, Voenizdat, 1969:

« On the Southern Front we are taking decisive action against the Don Cossacks. We are currently concentrating maximum forces to resolve the issues raised and the numerical superiority of forces is undoubtedly on our side, but nevertheless, combat success is difficult for us and only through prolonged continuous combat. The reason for this is, on the one hand, the poor combat training of our troops, and on the other hand, our lack of experienced command personnel. There is a particularly big shortage of experienced battalion commanders and above. Those who were previously in these positions gradually fall out of action, killed, wounded and sick, while their positions remain vacant for lack of candidates, or completely inexperienced and unprepared people find themselves in very responsible command positions, as a result of which combat operations cannot be started correctly, the development of the battle goes the wrong way, and the final actions, even if they are successful for us, very often cannot be used.» From the report of Commander-in-Chief V.I. Lenin on the strategic position of the Republic and the quality of reserves, January 1919, “Directives...”, p. 149, with reference to the RGVA, f. 6, op. 4, no. 49. pp. 49-57.

"AND Other major shortcomings of both units at the fronts and in the internal districts should be noted:

1) Lack of training and insufficient command staff. This very serious shortcoming had a particularly unfavorable impact and is still affecting the correct organization of military units and their formations, the training of troops, their tactical training and, as a result, their combat activity. It can be stated with confidence that the combat success of the units was proportional to the combat training of their commanders.

2) Lack of staff and directorates. All headquarters and departments of fronts, armies and divisions are in the same position as the command staff. There is a large shortage (40-80%) of general staff specialists, engineers, artillerymen, and various types of technicians. This deficiency affects the entire work extremely hard, depriving it of proper planning and productivity...” From the report of Commander-in-Chief V.I. Lenin on the strategic position of the Soviet Republic and the tasks of the Red Army, No. 849/op, Serpukhov, February 23-25, 1919, “Directives...”, p. 166, with reference to RGVA, f. 6, op. 4, no. 222, pp. 24-34.

“in all operations against Denikin, the High Command has to create the massing of forces required at the front in attack directions by supplying the front with fresh divisions, and not by regrouping units operating at the front. This characteristic feature southern fronts was determined, on the one hand, by the very weak personnel of the southern divisions, both in quality and in number, and, on the other, by the significantly low training of the command staff, for whom in most cases such maneuvers were beyond their strength, and they had to put up with the simplest types of maneuver , where straightness was the main technique" Report of the High Command to the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic on accelerating assistance to the Caucasian Front, No. 359/op, January 22, 1920, “Directives...”, p. 725, with reference to the RGVA, f. 33987, op. 2, no. 89, pp. 401-403.

« In addition to all of the above, it should be noted that the combat tension in the eastern half of the RSFSR is weakened by the immense organization of Vsevobuch, which absorbs a huge mass of command personnel and political figures. If we compare the number of command personnel (instructors) in Vsevobuch and the number of such in reserve units of the Red Army, it turns out that in reserve units throughout the Republic the number of command personnel is equal to 5,350 people, while in Vsevobuch there are 24,000 of them. This ratio in the number of command personnel composition is absolutely harmful to the success of the organization and formation of the army: spare parts are preparing replacements for the units currently operating at the front at a critical moment, while Vsevobuch is preparing contingents for the distant future" From the report of the High Command to V.I. Lenin on the need for military unity of the Soviet Republics, No. 1851, Serpukhov, April 23, 1919, “Directives of the High Command of the Red Army (1917-1920)”, Moscow, Voenizdat, 1969, p. 310, with reference to RGVA, f. 5, op. 1, no. 188, pp. 27-28. Certified copy. No. 286

Kavtaradze A.G. Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917–1920. M., 1988. P.166–167. As for the officers who volunteered for service, Kavtaradze gives several estimates of his work - from 4 thousand to 9 thousand in Moscow alone, and he himself stops at the estimate of 8 thousand people (Kavtaradze A.G. Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets , 1917–1920 p. 166). It should be borne in mind that many entered the service “mechanically” - going into service with entire headquarters, as a rule, expecting to serve in parts of the curtain in order to fight the Germans, and many of those who voluntarily went into service soon either quit or fled to serve the whites (such as the famous white military leader Kappel or the teaching staff and students of the General Staff Academy evacuated to Yekaterinburg, who in the summer of 1918 almost completely transferred to Kolchak).

Tukhachevsky M.N. Selected works in 2 volumes. - M.: Voenizdat, 1964. - T.1 (1919–1927), pp. 26-29

In particular, colonel of the old army N.V. Svechin spoke about the Caucasian Front from a similar point of view: “ At the beginning of Soviet power, I shared neither sympathy for it nor confidence in the strength of its existence. The Civil War, although I took part in it, was not to my liking. I fought more willingly when the war took on the character of an external war (Caucasian Front). I fought for the integrity and preservation of Russia, even if it was called the RSFSR" Y. Tinchenko “Golgotha ​​of Russian officers” http://www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/Author/Russ/T/TimchenkoJaJu/golgofa/index.html with reference to GASBU, FP, d. 67093, t. 189 (251), case of Afanasyev A.V., p. 56.

A.G. Kavtaradze “Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917–1920,” Moscow “Science”, 1988, p. 171

Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. Protocols 1920–23, / Collection of documents - Moscow, Editorial URSS, 2000, p. 73, with reference to RGVA, F. 33987. Op. 1, 318. L. 319–321.

“From the archives of VUCHK, GPU, NKVD, KGB”, special issue of a scientific and documentary journal in 2 books, publishing house “Sfera”, Kyiv, 2002

A.G. Kavtaradze “Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917–1920,” Moscow “Science”, 1988, p. 171

Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. Protocols 1920–23, / Collection of documents - Moscow, Editorial URSS, 2000, pp. 87,90, with reference to RGVA F. 33987. Op. 1. D. 318. L. 429.

A.G. Kavtaradze “Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917–1920”, Moscow “Science”, 1988, p. 169

Y. Tinchenko “Golgotha ​​of Russian officers”, http://www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/Author/Russ/T/TimchenkoJaJu/golgofa/index.html

A.G. Kavtaradze “Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917–1920”, Moscow “Science”, 1988, pp. 170-174

S. Minakov “Stalin and the Conspiracy of the Generals”, Moscow, Eksmo-Yauza, pp. 228, 287. Former staff captain S.Ya. Korf (1891-1970) served in the army of Admiral Kolchak until January 1920, and then in the Red Army he rose to the rank of chief of the Air Force of the Moscow Military District and the Western Front. At the end of 1923, Korf was recalled to Moscow, a few years later he was transferred to teaching, and then to civil aviation.

M. Khairulin, V. Kondratiev “Military pilots of the lost empire. Aviation in the Civil War", Moscow, Eksmo, Yauza, 2008, p. 190. According to information from this book, K.K. Artseulov (died in 1980) hid the fact of his service in the White Army, and according to information provided in the martyrology of army cavalry officers S.V. Volkov, in the Soviet army he received the rank of major general (S.V. Volkov, “Officers of the army cavalry. The experience of a martyrology,” Moscow, Russian Way, 2004, p. 53), however, I did not find confirmation of this information in other sources.

M. Khairulin, V. Kondratiev “Military pilots of the lost empire. Aviation in the Civil War", Moscow, Eksmo, Yauza, 2008, pp. 399-400

Report of the Directorate for the command and command staff of the Red Army “On the state of personnel and tasks for personnel training” dated November 20, 1937, “Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR. June 1–4, 1937: Documents and materials”, Moscow, Rosspen, 2008, p. 521

A.G. Kavtaradze “Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917–1920”, Moscow “Science”, 1988, p. 173

Report of the Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Republic S. Kamenev and the Chief of Staff of the Red Army P. Lebedev to the Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense of the RSFSR through the Chairman of the RVSR, dated September 23, 1921, Bulletin of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation “The Red Army in the 1920s”, Moscow, 2007, p. 14

From the Report on the work of the Red Army Administration dated April 21, 1924, “Reform in the Red Army. Documents and materials. 1923–1928", Moscow 2006, book 1, p. 144

Letter from a group of commanders of the Red Army, dated February 10, 1924, Bulletin of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation “The Red Army in the 1920s”, Moscow, 2007, pp. 86-92

S. Minakov, “Stalin and his Marshal”, Moscow, Yauza, Eksmo, 2004, p. 215

Kazanin M.I. “At Blucher’s headquarters” Moscow, “Science”, 1966, p. 60

Report of the Bureau of Cells of the Military Academy dated February 18, 1924, Bulletin of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation “The Red Army in the 1920s”, Moscow, 2007, pp. 92–96.

From the notes to the table-register of summary data on the reduction of command and administrative personnel in accordance with the circular of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR No. 151701, “Reform in the Red Army. Documents and materials. 1923–1928", Moscow 2006, book 1, p. 693

Memorandum by the head of the Main Directorate of the Red Army V.N. Levichev in the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR on the training of reserve command personnel, prepared no later than February 15, 1926. “Reform in the Red Army. Documents and materials. 1923–1928", Moscow 2006, book 1, pp. 506-508

Certificate from the Command Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Red Army for the report of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR to the Government with a description of the Red Army, including the commanders who were transferred to the reserve, January 24, 1927, “Reform in the Red Army. Documents and materials. 1923–1928", Moscow 2006, book 2, p. 28

P. Zefirov “Reserve Commanders as They Are”, “War and Revolution” magazine, 1925

Certificate dated July 1931, on the composition of persons arrested in the “Spring” case, decisions on which were made by the Judicial Troika at the Collegium of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR and the Collegium of the OGPU, “Z archives of the VUCHK, GPU, NKVD, KGB,” special issue of the scientific and documentary journal in 2 -x books, publishing house "Sfera", Kyiv, 2002, book 2, pp. 309–311 with reference to the DA of the Security Council of Ukraine. - F. 6. Ref. 8. Arc. 60–62. Uncertified copy. Typescript. There:

“The following measures have been taken against them social protection:

a) Military personnel: 27 people were shot, 23 people were sentenced to VMSZ and replaced by 10 years of imprisonment in a concentration camp, 215 people were sentenced to a concentration camp with imprisonment in local Dopras, 40 people were sentenced to exile.

b) Civilians: 546 people were shot, 842 people were sentenced to a concentration camp to imprisonment in local Dopras, 166 people were administratively expelled, 76 people were sentenced to other measures of social protection, 79 people were released.”

GPU of the Ukrainian SSR, Accounting and Statistical Department. Digital information about persons convicted by the decisions of the judicial troika at the Collegium of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR in the case of the counter-revolutionary organization “Spring”, ibid., p. 308

For example, those dismissed from the Red Army: in 1922 - captain Nadeinsky I.P. and Lieutenant Yatsimirsky N.K. (dismissed from the army and purged from the party as a former White Guard), in 1923 - Major General Brylkin A.D., captains Vishnevsky B.I. and Stroev A.P. (the first two taught at the 13th Odessa Infantry School, Stroev at the Poltava Infantry School, Vishnevsky and Stroev were dismissed as former White Guards), in 1924, staff captain V.I. Marcelli was dismissed, in 1927, a teacher at Kamenev’s school, Colonel Sumbatov I.N., in 1928 and 1929 teachers of the Odessa art school, Lieutenant Colonel Zagorodniy M.A. and Colonel Ivanenko S.E.

Various command positions from among the former military personnel of the white and national armies were occupied by the staff captains of the old army Ponomarenko B.A. (in the Red Army regiment), Cherkasov A.N. (development engineer), Karpov V.N. (battalion commander), Aversky E.N. (chief of the regiment's chemical service), as well as lieutenants Goldman V.R. and Stupnitsky S..E. (both regiments in the Red Army), and Orekhov M.I. (regimental headquarters engineer). At the same time, there were much more teachers from among former white officers: these are teachers from the school named after. Kamenev Major General M.V. Lebedev, Colonel Semenovich A.P., captains Tolmachev K.P.V. and Kuznetsov K.Ya., Lieutenant Dolgallo G.T., military official Milles V.G., Kiev School of Communications - Lieutenant Colonel Snegurovsky P.I., Staff Captain Dyakovsky M.M., Lieutenant Dmitrievsky B.E., Kievskoy art schools - Colonel Podchekaev V.A., captain Bulmisky K.N., warrant officer Klyukovsky Yu.L., Sumy art school - warrant officer Zhuk A.Ya., military instructors and teachers of military affairs in civilian universities, Lieutenant General V.I. Kedrin, Major General Argamakov N.N. and Gamchenko E.S., colonels Bernatsky V.A., Gaevsky K.K., Zelenin P.E., Levis V.E., Luganin A.A., Sinkov M.K., lieutenant colonels Bakovets I.G. and Batruk A.I., captains Argentov N.F., Volsky A.I., Karum L.S., Kravtsov S.N., Kupriyanov A.A., staff captains Vodopyanov V.G. and Chizhun L.U., staff captain Khochishevsky N.D. Of these, three had previously been discharged from the army - Gaevsky (in 1922), Sinkov (in 1924 as a former White Guard), Khochishevsky (in 1926), eight people had previously taught at the school named after. Kameneva - Bakovets, Batruk, Volsky, Gamchenko, Karum, Kedrin, Luganin and Chizhun. Another 4 former white officers held combat and administrative positions in military educational institutions - warrant officers Voychuk I.A. and Ivanov G.I. – battalion commanders at Kamenev’s school, warrant officer Drozdovsky E.D. was the head of office work at the Kyiv art school, and second lieutenant Pshenichny F.T. - head of ammunition supply there.

Of the 670 representatives of the senior command staff of the Red Army, who held the positions of commanders of combined arms armies and commanders of rifle corps, about 250 people who were not officers of the old army received their first “officer” ranks before 1921, of which half passed through various repeated promotions in the 1920s. courses and schools, and of this half, almost every fourth studied at the Kamenev school.

For example, in this school in the 20s, future general-arms commanders, Hero of the Soviet Union, Army General G.I., studied at this school. Khetagurov, Colonel General L.M. Sandalov, Heroes of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General A.L. Bondarev, A.D. Ksenofontov, D.P. Onuprienko, Lieutenant General A.N. Ermakov, F.S. Ivanov, G.P. Korotkov, V.D. Kryuchenkin, L.S. Skvirsky, commanders of rifle corps Heroes of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General I.K. Kravtsov, N.F. Lebedenko, P.V. Tertyshny, A.D. Shemenkov and Major General A.V. Lapshov, Lieutenant General I.M. Puzikov, E.V. Ryzhikov, N.L. Soldatov, G.N. Terentyev, Ya.S. Fokanov, F.E. Sheverdin, Major General Z.N. Alekseev, P.D. Artemenko, I.F. Bezugly, P.N. Bibikov, M.Ya. Birman, A.A. Egorov, M.E. Erokhin, I.P. Koryazin, D.P. Monakhov, I.L. Ragulya, A.G. Samokhin, G.G. Sgibnev, A.N. Slyshkin, Colonel A.M. Ostankovich.

“From the archives of VUCHK, GPU, NKVD, KGB”, special issue of a scientific and documentary journal in 2 books, publishing house “Sfera”, Kyiv, 2002, book 1, pp. 116, 143

O.F. Souvenirs, “Tragedy of the Red Army. 1937-1938", Moscow, "Terra", 1988, p. 46

Transcript of the morning meeting on December 12, 1934, speech by M.I. Guy, “Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR. December 1934: Documents and materials”, Moscow, Rosspan, 2007 p. 352

Dubinsky I.V. “Special Account” Moscow, Voenizdat, 1989, pp. 199, 234

V.S. Milbach “Political repressions of the command staff. 1937–1938. Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army", p. 174, with reference to the RGVA. Right there. F. 9. Op. 29. D. 375. L. 201–202.

"The Great Patriotic War. COMCORA. MILITARY BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY", in 2 volumes, Moscow-Zhukovsky, KUCHKOVO POLE, 2006, Vol. 1, pp. 656-659

Like, for example, Lieutenant Generals and Heroes of the Soviet Union F.A. Volkov and S.S. Martirosyan, Lieutenant General B.I. Arushanyan, Major Generals I.O. Razmadze, A.A. Volkhin, F.S. Kolchuk.

A.V. Isaev “Stalingrad. There is no land for us beyond the Volga,” p. 346, with reference to N.S. Khrushchev. "Time. People. Power. (Memories)". Book I. M.: IIC “Moscow News”, 1999. P.416.

"The Great Patriotic War. COMCORA. MILITARY BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY", in 2 volumes, Moscow-Zhukovsky, KUCHKOVO POLE, 2006, Volume 2, pp. 91-92

N. Biryukov, “Tanks to the front! Notes of a Soviet General" Smolensk, "Rusich", 2005, p. 422

S. Minakov, “The military elite of the 20-30s of the twentieth century,” Moscow, “ Russian word", 2006, pp. 172-173

History is written by the winners. We know a lot about the heroes of the Red Army, but almost nothing about the heroes of the White Army. Let's fill this gap.

Anatoly Pepelyaev

Anatoly Pepelyaev became the youngest general in Siberia - at 27 years old. Before this, the White Guards under his command took Tomsk, Novonikolaevsk (Novosibirsk), Krasnoyarsk, Verkhneudinsk and Chita.
When Pepelyaev’s troops occupied Perm, abandoned by the Bolsheviks, the young general captured about 20,000 Red Army soldiers, who, on his orders, were released to their homes. Perm was liberated from the Reds on the day of the 128th anniversary of the capture of Izmail and the soldiers began to call Pepelyaev “Siberian Suvorov.”

Sergey Ulagay

Sergei Ulagai, a Kuban Cossack of Circassian origin, was one of the most prominent cavalry commanders of the White Army. He made a serious contribution to the defeat of the North Caucasian front of the Reds, but Ulagai’s 2nd Kuban Corps especially distinguished itself during the capture of “Russian Verdun” - Tsaritsyn - in June 1919.

General Ulagai went down in history as the commander of the special forces group of the Russian Volunteer Army of General Wrangel, who landed troops from the Crimea to Kuban in August 1920. To command the landing, Wrangel chose Ulagai “as a popular Kuban general, it seems, the only famous one who has not stained himself with robbery.”

Alexander Dolgorukov

A hero of the First World War, who for his exploits was honored with inclusion in the Retinue of His Imperial Majesty, Alexander Dolgorukov also proved himself in the Civil War. On September 30, 1919, his 4th Infantry Division forced the Soviet troops to retreat in a bayonet battle; Dolgorukov captured the crossing over the Plyussa River, which soon made it possible to occupy Strugi Belye.
Dolgorukov also found his way into literature. In Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” he is depicted under the name of General Belorukov, and is also mentioned in the first volume of Alexei Tolstoy’s trilogy “Walking in Torment” (attack of the cavalry guards in the battle of Kaushen).

Vladimir Kappel

The episode from the film “Chapaev”, where Kappel’s men go on a “psychic attack”, is fictitious - Chapaev and Kappel never crossed paths on the battlefield. But Kappel was a legend even without cinema.

During the capture of Kazan on August 7, 1918, he lost only 25 people. In his reports on successful operations, Kappel did not mention himself, explaining the victory by the heroism of his subordinates, right down to the nurses.
During the Great Siberian Ice March, Kappel suffered frostbite on both feet and had to undergo amputation without anesthesia. He continued to lead the troops and refused a seat on the ambulance train.
The general’s last words were: “Let the troops know that I was devoted to them, that I loved them and proved this by my death among them.”

Mikhail Drozdovsky

Mikhail Drozdovsky with a volunteer detachment of 1000 people walked 1700 km from Yassy to Rostov, liberated it from the Bolsheviks, then helped the Cossacks defend Novocherkassk.

Drozdovsky's detachment took part in the liberation of both Kuban and the North Caucasus. Drozdovsky was called “the crusader of the crucified Motherland.” Here is his description from Kravchenko’s book “Drozdovites from Iasi to Gallipoli”: “Nervous, thin, Colonel Drozdovsky was the type of ascetic warrior: he did not drink, did not smoke and did not pay attention to the blessings of life; always - from Iasi until death - in the same worn jacket, with a frayed St. George's ribbon in the buttonhole; Out of modesty, he did not wear the order itself.”

Alexander Kutepov

Kutepov’s colleague on the fronts of the First World War wrote about him: “Kutepov’s name has become a household name. It means fidelity to duty, calm determination, intense sacrificial impulse, cold, sometimes cruel will and... clean hands - and all this was brought and given to serve the Motherland.”

In January 1918, Kutepov twice defeated the Red troops under the command of Sivers at Matveev Kurgan. According to Anton Denikin, “this was the first serious battle in which the fierce pressure of the unorganized and poorly managed Bolsheviks, mainly sailors, was opposed by the art and inspiration of officer detachments.”

Sergey Markov

The White Guards called Sergei Markov the “White Knight”, “the sword of General Kornilov”, “God of War”, and after the battle near the village of Medvedovskaya - “Guardian Angel”. In this battle, Markov managed to save the remnants of the Volunteer Army retreating from Yekaterinograd, destroy and capture a Red armored train, and obtain a lot of weapons and ammunition. When Markov died, Anton Denikin wrote on his wreath: “Both life and death are for the happiness of the Motherland.”

Mikhail Zhebrak-Rusanovich

For the White Guards, Colonel Zhebrak-Rusanovich was a cult figure. For his personal valor, his name was sung in the military folklore of the Volunteer Army.
He firmly believed that “Bolshevism will not exist, but there will only be one United Great Indivisible Russia.” It was Zhebrak who brought the St. Andrew’s flag with his detachment to the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, and soon it became the battle banner of Drozdovsky’s brigade.
He died heroically, personally leading the attack of two battalions against the superior forces of the Red Army.

Victor Molchanov

The Izhevsk division of Viktor Molchanov was awarded special attention by Kolchak - he presented it with the St. George banner and attached it to the banners of a number of regiments St. George's Crosses. During the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, Molchanov commanded the rearguard of the 3rd Army and covered the retreat of General Kappel's main forces. After his death, he led the vanguard of the white troops.
At the head of the Insurgent Army, Molchanov occupied almost all of Primorye and Khabarovsk.

Innokenty Smolin

At the head of a partisan detachment named after himself, Innokenty Smolin, in the summer and autumn of 1918, successfully operated behind Red lines and captured two armored trains. Smolin's partisans played an important role in the capture of Tobolsk.

Mikhail Smolin took part in the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, commanded a group of troops of the 4th Siberian Rifle Division, which numbered more than 1,800 soldiers and arrived in Chita on March 4, 1920.
Smolin died in Tahiti. In the last years of his life he wrote memoirs.

Sergei Voitsekhovsky

General Voitsekhovsky accomplished many feats, fulfilling the seemingly impossible tasks of the White Army command. A loyal “Kolchakite,” after the death of the admiral, he abandoned the assault on Irkutsk and led the remnants of Kolchak’s army to Transbaikalia across the ice of Lake Baikal.

In 1939, in exile, as one of the highest Czechoslovak generals, Wojciechowski advocated resistance to the Germans and created the underground organization Obrana národa (“Defense of the People”). Arrested by SMERSH in 1945. Repressed, died in a camp near Taishet.

Erast Hyacintov

During the First World War, Erast Giatsintov became the owner of the full set of orders available to the chief officer of the Russian Imperial Army.
After the revolution, he was obsessed with the idea of ​​overthrowing the Bolsheviks and even occupied with friends a whole row of houses around the Kremlin in order to start resistance from there, but in time he realized the futility of such tactics and joined the White Army, becoming one of the most productive intelligence officers.
In exile, on the eve of and during World War II, he took an open anti-Nazi position and miraculously avoided being sent to a concentration camp. After the war, he resisted the forced repatriation of “displaced persons” to the USSR.

Mikhail Yaroslavtsev (Archimandrite Mitrofan)

During the Civil War, Mikhail Yaroslavtsev proved himself to be an energetic commander and distinguished himself with personal valor in several battles.
Yaroslavtsev embarked on the path of spiritual service already in exile, after the death of his wife on December 31, 1932.

In May 1949, Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov) elevated Hegumen Mitrofan to the rank of archimandrite.

Contemporaries wrote about him: “Always impeccable in the performance of his duty, richly gifted with wonderful spiritual qualities, he was a true consolation for so many of his flock...”

He was rector of the Resurrection Church in Rabat and defended the unity of the Russian Orthodox community in Morocco with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Pavel Shatilov is a hereditary general; both his father and his grandfather were generals. He particularly distinguished himself in the spring of 1919, when in an operation in the area of ​​the Manych River he defeated a 30,000-strong Red group.

Pyotr Wrangel, whose chief of staff Shatilov was later, spoke of him this way: “a brilliant mind, outstanding abilities, possessing extensive military experience and knowledge, with enormous efficiency, he was able to work with a minimum amount of time.”

In the fall of 1920, it was Shatilov who led the emigration of whites from Crimea.

Why did the white generals lose to the red lieutenants?

The events of the civil war in Russia, what happened in the country in 1917-1922, becomes for new and new generations of Russians almost the same ancient history as, for example, the oprichnina. If some 20 years ago the Civil War was presented in heroic and romantic tones, then in recent years the struggle between the “reds” and “whites” has been presented as a meaningless bloody meat grinder in which everyone lost, but the whites look more “fluffy”. Under the slogan of the final reconciliation of the “reds” and “whites”, the reburial of generals A.I. Denikin, V.O. Kappel and others from foreign cemeteries to domestic graveyards was initiated. Some of today's youth believe that more than eight decades ago the whites defeated the reds. Thus, some American schoolchildren sometimes imagine that the United States defeated Germany and the USSR in World War II.

M. V. Frunze

In this situation, it is worth asking the question posed in the title. Why did units of the Red Army under the leadership of half-educated student Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, Lieutenant Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky, sergeant Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny and others defeat the white armies of Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, generals Anton Ivanovich Denikin, Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Vladimir Oskarovich Kap Pelya and others ?

Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze by 1917 he was 32 years old (born 1885). He studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, but was unable to complete his studies. In 1904 he joined the RSDLP, became a Bolshevik, and already in 1905 (at the age of 20!) he led the Ivanovo-Voznesensk strike, during which the first Soviets were formed. In 1909-1910 Mikhail Frunze was twice sentenced to death penalty, in 1910-1915. he was in hard labor, from where he escaped.

In 1917, Frunze took part in the revolutionary events in Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Moscow. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he was, as they said then, sent to military work. Frunze proved himself to be a major military leader. He commanded the army, then the Southern Group of Forces of the Eastern Front and, at the head of the entire Eastern Front, inflicted a decisive defeat on the armies of A.V. Kolchak. Under the command of Frunze, the troops of the Southern Front broke into the Crimea in the fall of 1920 and defeated the remnants of the Whites under the command of P. N. Wrangel. About 80 thousand soldiers, officers of the “Russian Army” and refugees were evacuated to Turkey. These events marked the official end of the Civil War. Commanded Frunze and the Turkestan Front.

V. K. Blucher

The opponents of the dropout student were professional military men with serious combat experience.

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak ten years older than Mikhail Frunze. He was born in 1874 in the family of a naval officer, graduated from the Naval Corps in St. Petersburg (1894), and participated in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. In 1916-1917 Kolchak commanded the Black Sea Fleet and received the rank of admiral (1918).

Kolchak was a direct protege of Great Britain and the USA, where he was after the February Revolution of 1917. He was considered a strong, integral and decisive person. In November 1918 he returned to Russia. He overthrew the Socialist Revolutionary government in Omsk, took the title “Supreme Ruler of the Russian State” and the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. It was Kolchak who captured almost the entire gold reserve Russian Empire, to whom he paid for the help of his patrons. With their support, he organized a powerful offensive in March 1919, setting the goal of reaching Moscow and destroying Bolshevik power. Ufa, Sarapul, Izhevsk, Votkinsk were occupied.

M. N. Tukhachevsky

However, the Bolsheviks were able to withstand the blow. The Red troops under the command of Frunze went on the offensive and in April-June 1919 carried out the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa operations. By August 1919, the Reds took control of the Urals, the cities of Perm and Yekaterinburg; by the beginning of 1920 - Omsk, Novonikolaevsk and Krasnoyarsk. Soviet power was established throughout Siberia all the way to the Far East. In January 1920, Kolchak was arrested by the Czechs near Irkutsk. Guided by their own interests, they handed Kolchak over to the Socialist Revolutionaries, who considered it best to hand over the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief to the Bolsheviks. The latter conducted a short investigation and shot Kolchak and Pepelyaev.

Another opponent of Mikhail Frunze - Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel - died of natural causes in exile. He, a nobleman and a Baltic baron, was also older than Frunze, born in 1878. Pyotr Nikolaevich graduated from the Mining Institute and the Academy of the General Staff, was a participant in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars, rose to the rank of lieutenant general and received the title of baron. After the October Revolution, P. N. Wrangel left for Crimea.

S. M. Budyonny

In August 1918, he joined Denikin’s Volunteer Army, commanded the cavalry corps, and from January 1919, the Caucasian Volunteer Army. For criticizing A.I. Denikin and attempting to remove him from the post of commander in chief, Wrangel was removed from his post and went abroad, which indicated confusion in the leadership of the White movement. In May 1920, P. N. Wrangel not only returned to Russia, but also replaced A. I. Denikin as commander of the Armed Forces of southern Russia. The harsh repressive regime he established in Crimea in April-November 1920 was called “Wrangelism.” He was able to mobilize up to 80 thousand people into his army. The government of the South of Russia was created. Wrangel's troops, taking advantage of the advance of the White Poles, set out from the Crimea, but they had to again hide behind the fortifications of Perekop, on which they had counted heavily.

The operation to liberate Crimea took Frunze less than a month. Wrangel evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920. He created the Russian All-Military Union in Paris (1924), which numbered up to 100 thousand people. After Wrangel's death, the EMRO was paralyzed by the actions of OGPU-NKVD agents.

Perhaps the most colorful and popular figure of the Civil War - Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny(1883-1973). He was born in the Don region, but his father was not a Cossack with his own land, but a tenant farmer. Semyon grazed calves and pigs in his Bolshaya Orlovka settlement and worked as a farm laborer. In 1903, called up for military service, during Russo-Japanese War in the Far East he took part in the fight against the Honghuzes. The strong young guy chose to serve in the army over the fate of a farm laborer; he rode horses, preparing them for service.

During the First World War, in cavalry units he passed the ranks from non-commissioned officer to sergeant (January 1917). In the summer of 1917, S. M. Budyonny became chairman of the regimental soldiers' committee, and on his initiative, at the end of August 1917, part of the troops of General L. G. Kornilov was detained and disarmed.

In the Platovskaya village of the Salsky district, a demobilized cavalryman at the beginning of 1918 organized a village council of peasants and Kalmyks. But the councils were dispersed, and Budyonny began to form red detachments. At the beginning of 1919, he already commanded a cavalry division. During the Civil War, tanks, cars, and airplanes were used, but cavalry remained the main striking force. An important innovation of the Reds was the creation of large cavalry units, called cavalry armies. The creator of the first such army, Mironov, died due to the intrigues of Trotsky. In March 1919, S. M. Budyonny joined the RCP (b), in June he became a corps commander, and in November 1919, the formation he led was called the 1st Cavalry Army.

A. V. Kolchak

Budyonny's red cavalrymen broke enemy lines on the Southern Front in 1919, on the Polish Front in 1920, and in the Crimea. For Budyonny, the Civil War became the peak of his personal career. He was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and an Order of the Red Banner from the Azerbaijan Central Executive Committee. The former sergeant received golden weapons - a saber and a Mauser, both with the Order of the Red Banner.

Later he held command positions in the Red Army, and was deputy and first deputy people's commissar of defense. In 1941-1942. commanded troops on a number of fronts and directions, then the cavalry of the Red Army. He became one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union. By his 90th birthday, S. M. Budyonny was three times Hero of the Soviet Union.

He lived a long life and Anton Ivanovich Denikin(1872-1947), with whose troops Budyonny’s cavalry fought. The son of an officer who graduated from the General Staff Academy, Anton Ivanovich rose to the rank of lieutenant general.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, he became one of the organizers and then commander of the Volunteer Army (1918). From January 1919 to April 1920 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. In June 1919, he led the White campaign against Moscow from the south, when the Donbass, Don region, and part of Ukraine were captured. In September 1919, units of the Volunteer and Don armies captured Kursk, Voronezh, Orel and reached Tula. But on October 7, 1919, the troops of the Southern Front of the Red Army launched a counteroffensive, which lasted until January 1920. The Whites retreated to Crimea. Already in April 1920, A.I. Denikin transferred command to P.N. Wrangel and emigrated. While in exile, he wrote a huge work, “Essays on Russian Troubles.”

Guard second lieutenant of the Russian army was a participant in the First World War Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky. He comes from the nobility, was born in 1893, and in 1914 he graduated from a military school.

8 During the First World War he was awarded several orders, he was captured, from which he escaped several times, including together with the future President of France Charles de Gaulle.

From the beginning of 1918, Tukhachevsky was in the Red Army, working in the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. As you know, the Bolsheviks initially decided that the Red Army would be formed solely on the basis of the principle of voluntariness. It was assumed that revolution volunteers would receive two recommendations from trustworthy persons. By April 1918, about 40 thousand people had signed up for the Red Army, a quarter of whom were officers of the old Russian army. One of them was M.N. Tukhachevsky. In May 1918, he was the military commissar of defense of the Moscow region, and in June 1918, at the age of 25, he led the 1st Army on the Eastern Front, proving himself to be an outstanding commander in battles against the White Guard and White Czechoslovak troops. In 1919, M. N. Tukhachevsky commanded armies on the Southern and Eastern fronts. For the battles during the defeat of Kolchak's troops, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Honorary Revolutionary Weapon. In February-April 1920 he commanded the Caucasian Front, and from April 1920 to March 1921 - the Western Front.

Tukhachevsky led the troops that suppressed the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921 and the “Antonovism” in 1921-1922.

On September 4, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee appointed the first commander-in-chief of all the Armed Forces of the RSFSR Joakim Joakimovich Vatsetis(1873-1938), not spoiled by the attention of authors and readers. Meanwhile, during the year that I. I. Vatsetis was in this post, 62 corps were created, consolidated into 16 armies, making up 5 fronts. To a much greater extent than Trotsky or Stalin, the creator of the Red Army is I. I. Vatsetis.

Joachim's childhood and youth were difficult. His grandfather was ruined by the Courland baron, and his father worked as a laborer all his life. Joachim himself also had to work as a laborer. An alternative to this fate was military service. The former farm laborer attended the Riga non-commissioned officer training battalion, the Vilna Military School and the Academy of the General Staff in 1891-1909.

In 1909-1915 I. I. Vatsetis rose from captain to colonel.

Nothing connected Vatsetis with the old system, just like the thousands of Latvian riflemen, whose corps he became the head of in December 1917. During the Civil War, the red Latvian riflemen, mostly children of the poor and farm laborers, formed a reliable support for Soviet power, guarded the most important objects, including the Kremlin.

At the age of almost 50 years, I. I. Vatsetis fulfilled his youthful dream - he became a student at the Faculty of Social Sciences in the Law Department of the 1st Moscow State University. Later, like many other prominent Soviet military leaders, he became a victim of Stalin's suspicion.

Why did the red lieutenants win the Civil War against the generals of the old formation? Apparently because at that moment history, the support of most of the people, and other circumstances were on their side. And military leadership talent is an acquired taste. In addition, about 75 thousand people from among the old officers served with the “Reds”. We can say that 100 thousand old officers formed the combat core of the White movement. But this was not enough.

Who dedicated his entire life to the army and Russia. He did not accept the October Revolution and until the end of his days he fought the Bolsheviks with all the means that the honor of an officer could allow him.
Kaledin was born in 1861 in the village of Ust-Khoperskaya, in the family of a Cossack colonel, a participant in the heroic defense of Sevastopol. From childhood he was taught to love his Fatherland and defend it. Therefore, the future general received his education, first at the Voronezh Military Gymnasium, and later at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School.
Military service he began in the Far East in the horse artillery battery of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. The young officer was distinguished by his seriousness and concentration. He constantly strived to master perfectly military science and entered the Academy at the General Staff.
Kaledin's further service takes place as staff officers in the Warsaw Military District, and then in his native Don. Since 1910, he has held only command positions and gained considerable experience in leading combat formations.

Semenov Grigory Mikhailovich (09/13/1890 - 08/30/1946) - the most prominent representative in the Far East.

Born into a Cossack officer family in Transbaikalia. In 1911 With the rank of cornet, he graduated from the Cossack military school in Orenburg, after which he was assigned to serve on the border with Mongolia.

He had an excellent command of local languages: Buryat, Mongolian, Kalmyk, thanks to which he quickly became friends with prominent Mongolian figures.

During the separation of Mongolia from China, in December 1911. took the Chinese resident under guard, delivering him to the Russian consulate located in Urga.

In order not to cause unrest between the Chinese and the Mongols, with a platoon of Cossacks, he personally neutralized the Chinese garrison of Urga.

Alexander Sergeevich Lukomsky was born on July 10, 1868 in the Poltava region. In Poltava he graduated from the Cadet Corps named after, and by 1897 he completed his studies with honors at the Nikolaev Engineering School and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff in. Alexander Sergeevich’s military career began with the 11th Engineer Regiment, from where a year later he was transferred as an adjutant to the headquarters of the 12th Infantry Division, and from 1902 his service took place in the Kiev Military District, where he was appointed to the headquarters as a senior adjutant. For the excellent performance of his official duties, Lukomsky was awarded the rank of colonel, and in 1907 he took the post of chief of staff in the 42nd Infantry Division. Since January 1909, Alexander Sergeevich dealt with mobilization issues in case of war. He participated in all changes to the Charter related to mobilization, personally supervised draft laws on personnel recruitment, being in the position of head of the mobilization department of the Main Directorate of the General Staff.
In 1913, Lukomsky was appointed assistant to the head of the office of the War Ministry and, already serving in the ministry, received another military rank Major General, and as a reward to what he has - the ribbon of the Holy Great Martyr and St. George the Victorious.

Markov Sergei Leonidovich was born on July 7, 1878 in the family of an officer. Having graduated with honors from the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps and the Artillery School in St. Petersburg, he was sent to serve in the 2nd Artillery Brigade with the rank of second lieutenant. Then he graduated from the Nikolaev Military Academy and went to military service, where he showed himself to be an excellent officer and was awarded: Vladimir 4th degree with swords and a bow. Sergei Leonidovich's further career continued in the 1st Siberian Corps, where he served as a headquarters adjutant, and then at the headquarters of the Warsaw Military District, and eventually, in 1908, Markov ended up serving in the General Staff. It was during his service in the General Staff that Sergei Leonidovich created a happy family with Putyatina Marianna.
Sergey Leonidovich Markov was engaged in teaching at various St. Petersburg schools. He knew military affairs very well and tried to convey all his knowledge of strategy and maneuvering to the students in full and at the same time sought the use of non-standard thinking during combat operations.
At the beginning, Sergei Leonidovich was appointed chief of staff of the “iron” rifle brigade, which was sent to the most difficult areas of the front and very often Markov had to put his unconventional strategic moves into practice.

Roman Fedorovich von Ungern-Sternberg is perhaps the most extraordinary personality in everything. He belonged to an ancient warlike family of knights, mystics and pirates, dating back to the times Crusades. However, family legends say that the roots of this family go back much further, to the times of the Nibegungs and Attila.
His parents often traveled around Europe; something constantly attracted them to their historical homeland. During one of these trips, in 1885, in the city of Graz, Austria, the future irreconcilable fighter against the revolution was born. The boy's contradictory character did not allow him to become a good high school student. For countless offenses, he was expelled from the gymnasium. The mother, desperate to get normal behavior from her son, sends him to the Naval Cadet Corps in. He was only one year away from graduating when he began. Baron von Ungern-Sternberg quits training and joins an infantry regiment as a private. However, he did not get into the active army and was forced to return to St. Petersburg and enter the elite Pavlovsk Infantry School. Upon completion, von Ungern-Sternber is enrolled in the Cossack class and begins service as an officer of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. He again finds himself in the Far East. There are legends about this period in the life of the desperate baron. His persistence, cruelty and flair surrounded his name with a mystical aura. A dashing rider, a desperate duelist, he had no loyal comrades.

The leaders of the White movement had a tragic fate. People who suddenly lost their homeland, to which they swore allegiance, and their ideals, could not come to terms with this for the rest of their lives.
Mikhail Konstantinovich Diterichs, outstanding, lieutenant general, was born on April 5, 1874 in a family of hereditary officers. The knightly family of Dieterichs from Czech Moravia settled in Russia in 1735. Thanks to his origin, the future general received an excellent education in the Corps of Pages, which he then continued at the Academy of the General Staff. With the rank of captain, he participated in the Russian-Japanese War, where he distinguished himself as a brave officer. For heroism shown in battles he was awarded III and II degrees, IV degrees. He finished the war with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Further service took place at army headquarters in Odessa and Kyiv.
The First World War found Dieterichs in the position of chief of staff in the mobilization department, but he was soon appointed quartermaster general. It was he who led the development of all military operations of the Southwestern Front. For successful developments that brought victories to the Russian army, Mikhail Konstantinovich was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav with swords, 1st degree.
Diterikhs continues to serve in the Russian Expeditionary Force in the Balkans and participated in the battles for the liberation of Serbia.

Romanovsky Ivan Pavlovich was born into the family of a graduate of the artillery academy on April 16, 1877 in the Lugansk region. He began his military career at the age of ten, entering the cadet corps. He graduated with brilliant results in 1894. Following in his father's footsteps, he began studying at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, but finished his studies at the Konstantinovsky School for religious reasons. And after graduating with honors from the next level of education - the Nikolaev General Staff Academy, Ivan Pavlovich was appointed company commander of the Finnish Regiment.
In 1903, he started a family, marrying Elena Bakeeva, the daughter of a landowner, who later bore him three children. Ivan Pavlovich was a devoted family man, a caring father, always helping friends and relatives. But she broke the idyll of family life. Romanovsky left to fulfill his duty as a Russian officer in the East Siberian artillery brigade.

Outstanding, active participant in the White movement, born in 1881 in Kyiv. Being the son of a general, Mikhail never thought about choosing a profession. Fate made this choice for him. He graduated from the Vladimir Cadet Corps, and then from the Pavlovsk Military School. Having received the rank of second lieutenant, he began serving in the Life Guards Volyn Regiment. After three years of service, Drozdovsky decided to enter the Nikolaev Military Academy. Sitting at a desk turned out to be beyond his strength, it began, and he went to the front. A brave officer in the unsuccessful Manchurian campaign was wounded. For his courage he was awarded several orders. He graduated from the Academy after the war.
After the academy, Drozdovsky served first at the headquarters of the Zaamur Military District, and then at the Warsaw Military District. Mikhail Gordeevich constantly showed interest in everything new that appeared in the army, studied everything new in military affairs. He even completed courses for pilot observers at the Sevastopol Aviation School.
and enters the cadet school, after which, having received the rank of second lieutenant, he begins service in the 85th Vyborg Infantry Regiment.
It begins, while participating in battles, the young officer proved himself so well that he was awarded a rare honor: with the rank of lieutenant, he was transferred to the Preobrazhensky Life Guards, serving in which was very honorable.
When it started, Kutepov was already a staff captain. He takes part in many battles and shows himself to be a brave and decisive officer. He was wounded three times and awarded several orders. Alexander Pavlovich was especially proud of the 4th degree.
The year 1917 begins - the most tragic year in the life of the thirty-five-year-old officer. Despite his young age, Kutepov is already a colonel and commander of the second battalion of the Preobrazhensky Regiment.
Petersburg, where he graduated from high school. After graduating from the Nikolaev Engineering School, with the rank of second lieutenant, he begins his military career in the 18th engineer battalion. Every two years, Marushevsky receives another military rank for excellent service. During these same years, he graduated from the Nikolaev Academy under the General Staff.
By the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, he was already a captain and chief officer for especially important assignments. He served at the headquarters of the IV Siberian Army Corps. During the fighting, Marushevsky was quickly promoted in service for his courage.