Slogans: “We will die for our Motherland”
"Fatherland or Death"
“Better death than the destruction of Russia”
Composition: representatives of the Cossack officers, bourgeoisie, nobility, bureaucrats, intelligentsia, wealthy peasantry.
General goals: – destruction of Bolshevism
– convocation of the Constituent Assembly
– restoration of a powerful united Russia
Features: – lack of a single generally recognized leader
– there is no unity in the future structure of the country
– lack of a clear action program
– heterogeneity of composition in terms of views, party affiliation and origin.
Kolchak Alexander Vasilyevich (1874, Alexandrovskoye village, St. Petersburg, died - 1920, Irkutsk). Born into the family of a naval artillery officer. A good home education, a classical gymnasium and the Naval Cadet Corps, which Kolchak was among the first to graduate in 1894, gave him an excellent knowledge of three European languages, the history of the fleet and instilled an interest in the exact sciences. Since 1895, Kolchak has served in the navy. In 1896–1899, he served on a cruiser and went to the Pacific Ocean: “The main task was purely combat on the ship, but, in addition, I specifically worked on oceanography and hydrology. From that time on, I began to engage in scientific work.” Promoted to lieutenant, Kolchak in 1900–1902 participated in the polar expedition of E.V. Toll and for “an outstanding geographical feat involving difficulty and danger” was nominated by the Russian Geographical Society for the large Konstantinovsky gold medal and was elected Fig. 1 Kolchak A.V. a full member of the Society. One of the islands of the Kara Sea was named after Kolchak.
During the Russo-Japanese War he commanded a destroyer; successfully engaged in laying a minefield; commanded a coastal artillery battery until the fall of Port Arthur. Wounded and suffering from rheumatism, Kolchak was released from Japanese captivity in 1905 and returned to St. Petersburg, where he was awarded orders and a golden saber “For Bravery.” In 1906, Kolchak was appointed head of the Naval General Staff Directorate. Anticipating the inevitability of war with Germany, he tried to obtain funds for the implementation of the shipbuilding program, for which he participated as an expert on naval issues work III State Duma, but failed and returned to scientific work. Kolchak took part in the design of special icebreaking ships. In 1909, Kolchak’s largest work, Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas, was published. In 1909–1910, Kolchak took part in an expedition to the Bering Strait, and in 1910 he was recalled to St. Petersburg to continue work on the shipbuilding program. Kolchak argued for the need to reorganize the Naval General Staff and demanded the elimination of parallel institutions not subordinate to each other, which strengthened the autocracy of the commander. In 1912, Alexander Vasilyevich transferred to the Baltic Fleet.
With the outbreak of the First World War, Kolchak practically directed the military operations of the fleet in the Baltic, successfully blocking the actions of the German fleet: he carried out the amphibious landing tactics he developed and attacked convoys of German merchant ships. In 1916, he was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet and promoted to vice admiral. Having learned about February Revolution, regarded it as an opportunity to bring the war to a victorious end, considering this “the most important and most important matter, standing above everything - both the form of government and political considerations.” Faced with a “new discipline” based on class consciousness, Kolchak defined it as “the disintegration and destruction of the Russian armed force.” In July 1917, having transferred his powers to Rear Admiral V.K. Lukin, Kolchak came to Petrograd to A.F. Kerensky and was sent as head of the naval military mission to the USA. Having learned about the October Revolution in San Francisco, I did not consider it worthy of attention. In November 1917, in Japan, Kolchak learned of the Soviet government’s intention to sign peace with Germany and decided not to return to his homeland: “As an admiral of the Russian fleet, I considered that our allied obligations towards Germany remained in full force.” Kolchak was accepted into British service and in 1918 began forming armed forces to fight the “German-Bolsheviks.”
In November 1918 he arrived in Omsk, where he was appointed Minister of War and Naval Affairs of the government of the Socialist Revolutionary Directory. In December 1918, Kolchak carried out a coup, declaring himself the “Supreme Ruler of Russia”, and set himself the goal of “victory over Bolshevism and the establishment of law and order.” Possessing half of Russia's gold reserves, having received military support from England, France, Japan, and the USA, he led a successful fight in Siberia, the Urals and Far East. By the spring of 1919, there were up to 400 thousand people in Kolchak’s army. His power was recognized by A.I. Denikin, N.N. Yudenich, E.K. Miller.
Restoring private ownership of enterprises and land, Kolchak gave the commanders of military districts the right to close press organs and impose death sentences, which caused resistance in Kolchak’s rear. Finnish General K. Mannerheim suggested that Kolchak move 100 thousand to Petrograd. army in exchange for Finnish independence, but Kolchak, who advocated for a “united and indivisible” Russia, refused. By the summer of 1919, the main group of Kolchak’s troops was defeated. Kolchak’s course towards the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders led to a massive partisan movement. Having suffered defeat, Kolchak transferred power to A.I. Denikin and Ataman G.M. Semenov, January 15. 1920 Kolchak was arrested by the Czechoslovaks, who handed him over to the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik “Political Center”. After the transfer of power to the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee, at the secret proposal of V.I. Lenin, the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee decided to shoot Kolchak. Kolchak's body was lowered into the hole.
Denikin Anton Ivanovich (1872, village of Shpetal Dolny, Warsaw province - 1947, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) - military leader, one of the leaders of the white movement. Born into a poor family of a retired major, a former serf. In 1882–1890 he studied at the Łovichi Real School and showed brilliant abilities in mathematics. Dreaming of military service since childhood, he graduated from the Kiev Infantry Junker School in 1892. In 1899 he graduated from the General Staff Academy and was promoted to captain. In 1898, in a military journal. “Scout” was Denikin’s first story, after which he worked a lot in military journalism. He expressed the essence of his political sympathies as follows: “1) Constitutional monarchy, 2) Radical reforms and 3) Peaceful ways to renew the country. I conveyed these worldviews inviolably to the revolution of 1917, without taking an active part in politics and devoting all my strength and labor to the army.” During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, he showed excellent qualities as a combat officer, rising to the rank of colonel, and was awarded two orders. He reacted extremely negatively to the revolution of 1905, but welcomed the Manifesto of October 17, considering it the beginning of transformations. He believed that the reforms of P. A. Stolypin would be able to resolve the main issue in Russia - the peasant one. Denikin served successfully and in 1914 was promoted to major general.
With the outbreak of the First World War, he commanded a brigade and division. Denikin's valor demonstrated in battles and the highest awards (two St. George's crosses, the St. George's weapon decorated with diamonds) elevated him to the top of the military hierarchy. The February Revolution of 1917 stunned Denikin: “We were not at all prepared for such an unexpectedly rapid outcome, nor for the forms that it took.” Denikin was appointed assistant chief of staff under the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, commanded the Western, then the South Western Front. In an effort to contain the collapse of the empire, he demanded the introduction death penalty not only at the front, but also in the rear. He saw a strong personality in L. G. Kornilov and supported his rebellion, for which he was arrested. Released by N.N. Dukhonin, Denikin, like other generals, fled to the Don, where, along with M.V. Alekseev, L.G. Kornilov, A.M. Kaledin, he was involved in the formation of the Volunteer Army. Participated in the 1st Kuban (“Ice”) campaign.
After the death of Kornilov in 1918, he took over the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. Having an army of 85 thousand, material assistance from England, France, and the USA, Denikin hatched plans to capture Moscow. Taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Red Army fought against A.V. Kolchak, Denikin launched the Volunteer Army on the offensive in the spring of 1919. In the summer of 1919, Denikin occupied Donbass and reached a strategically important line: Tsaritsyn, Kharkov, Poltava. In October, he took Orel and threatened Tula, but Denikin could not overcome the remaining 200 miles to Moscow. The mass mobilization of the population into Denikin's army, robberies, violence, the establishment of military discipline in militarized enterprises, and most importantly, the restoration of landowners' property rights to land doomed Denikin to failure. Denikin was personally honest, but his declarative and vague statements could not captivate the people. Denikin’s situation was aggravated by internal contradictions between him and the Cossack elite, who strived for separatism and did not want the restoration of a “united and indivisible Russia.”
The power struggle between Kolchak and Denikin prevented coordinated military action. Denikin's army, suffering heavy losses, was forced to retreat. In 1920, Denikin evacuated the remnants of his army to the Crimea and on April 4. 1920 left Russia on an English destroyer. Lived in England. Having abandoned the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks, Denikin wrote a 5-volume memoir-research “Essays on the Russian Troubles,” an important source on the history of the civil war. Financial difficulties forced Denikin to wander around Europe. In 1931 he completed work on a major military-historical study, The Old Army. After Hitler came to power, Denikin stated that it was necessary to support the Red Army, which, after the defeat of the fascists, could be used to “overthrow communist power.” He denounced emigrant organizations that collaborated with Nazi Germany. In 1945, under the influence of rumors about the possibility of forced deportation to the USSR, the United States emigrated. Denikin worked on the book. “The Path of the Russian Officer” and “The Second World War. Russia and Abroad,” which he did not manage to complete. Died of a heart attack.
Kornilov Lavr Georgievich (1870–1918) – infantry general. The son of a retired Cossack officer. He graduated from the Siberian Cadet Corps, the Mikhailovsky Artillery School and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff (1898). From the school he joined the Turkestan artillery brigade. After graduating from the academy, he served from 1889 to 1904 in the Turkestan Military District as an assistant to the senior adjutant of the district headquarters, and then as a staff officer for assignments at the headquarters. While serving in the Turkestan district, he made a number of long-term research and reconnaissance expeditions in East Turkestan (Sinkiang), Afghanistan and Persia, during which he mastered well local languages. Lieutenant Colonel Kornilov edited the secret publication of the district headquarters -
“Information concerning countries adjacent to the Turkestan Military District” and published a number of works, including “Kashgaria, or Eastern Turkestan.” At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War he was on a business trip to Balochistan, India. He obtained permission to transfer to the active army and from September 1904 to May 1, 1906, he served as a staff officer at the headquarters of the 1st Infantry Brigade, where he was actually the brigade's chief of staff. In February 1905, during the retreat from Mukden, he covered the army's retreat, being with the brigade in the rearguard. Surrounded by the Japanese in the village of Vazye, he broke through the encirclement with a bayonet attack and led the brigade with the units attached to it to join the army. He was awarded many orders, including the Order of St. George, 4th degree, the Arms of St. George and was promoted to the “rank of colonel for military distinction.” From May 1906 to April 1907 he served in the department of the 1st Chief Quartermaster of the Main Directorate of the General Staff. On April 1, 1907, he was appointed as an agent (military attache) in China, where he remained until February 24, 1911, after which he was appointed commander of the 8th Estonian Infantry Regiment.
After a short stay as a detachment commander in the Zaamur border district, in December 1912 he was promoted to major general and appointed brigade commander of the 9th Siberian Rifle Division. He went to the front of the First World War as a brigade commander of the 48th Infantry Division and in August 1914, after the first battles, he was appointed head of this division; the 48th Division under his command fought in all battles in Galicia and the Carpathians as part of the 8th Army General Brusilov. Already for the battles in August 1914 he was promoted to lieutenant general. At the end of April 1915, during the general retreat of the Russian army after the breakthrough at Gorlitsa, the 48th division did not have time to retreat from the Duklinsky pass in the Carpathians, was surrounded and the wounded General Kornilov was captured. In July 1916, he changed into the uniform of an Austrian soldier and escaped from captivity to Romania. After his return, he was awarded the Order of St. George, 3rd degree, for fighting in the Carpathians and appointed commander of the 25th Army Corps. Under the Provisional Government in March 1917, he was appointed commander of the troops of the Petrograd Military District, where he restored relative order. At his own request, he was returned to the front and on April 29, 1917, he was appointed commander of the 8th Army. Achieved temporary success during the July offensive of the Russian armies of the Southwestern Front. Back on May 19, 1917, by order of the 8th Army, General Kornilov authorized the formation of the “1st Shock Detachment of the 8th Army” - the future Kornilov Shock Regiment under the command of Captain Nezhentsev (the first volunteer unit in the Russian Army). Captain Nezhentsev brilliantly carried out the baptism of fire of his detachment on June 26, 1917, breaking through the Austrian positions near the village of Yamshitsy, thanks to which Kalushch was taken.
After the Tarnopol breakthrough of the Germans and the general retreat of the Russian armies, General Kornilov, who held the front, was promoted to infantry general and on July 7, 1917 appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Southwestern Front, and on July 18, 1917 Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. In an effort to restore discipline in the army and law and order in the country in order to bring the war to a victorious end, General Kornilov, by agreement with representatives of the head of government A.F. Kerensky at Headquarters and with the knowledge of A.F. Kerensky, sent on August 25, 1917. The 3rd Cavalry Corps was sent to Petrograd in order to place reliable troops at the disposal of the Provisional Government in the event of an armed uprising of the Bolsheviks. During the advance of these troops to Petrograd, A.F. Kerensky changed his initial position under pressure from the Petrograd Soviet and declared General Kornilov a rebel on August 27, removed him from the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief and declared himself Commander-in-Chief. Not wanting to start a civil war, General Kornilov refused to use troops loyal to him, including the Kornilovsky and Tekinsky regiments, and was arrested on September 2, 1918. Together with many of his supporters, he was sent to Bykhov prison, where internal security was carried out by the Tekinsky regiment loyal to him .
On November 19, 1917, the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Dukhonin, sent Colonel Kusonsky to Bykhov with an order for the release of General Kornilov and his supporters and a message about the approach of Bolshevik detachments to Mogilev. At the same time, General Kornilov, accompanied by the Tekin convoy, went to the Don and arrived in Novocherkassk on December 6, 1917, where, together with General M.V. Alekseev, he began to form the Volunteer Army. On December 25, 1917, General Kornilov became its first commander. Convinced of the collapse on the Don, after General Kaledin shot himself, on February 14 (28), 1918, he set out on the 1st Kuban (“Ice”) campaign to create a base in the Kuban for further struggle against the Bolsheviks. Despite the enormous superiority of the Bolshevik troops, he victoriously led his small army to join the Kuban Volunteer Army and, taking overall command, approached the Kuban capital. Killed by a shell during the assault on Ekaterinodar on March 31 (April 13), 1918.
As a result of the February Revolution, which began on February 23, 1917, on International Women's Day, the Russian autocratic monarchy collapsed, and there were no significant forces that would come out in its defense. Moreover…
White movement - causes, essence, stages of development during the Civil War
1. The emergence of the white movement
As a result of the February Revolution, which began on February 23, 1917 http://militera.lib.ru/research/slobodin_vp/app.html - *3 on International Women's Day, the Russian autocratic monarchy collapsed, and no significant forces were found...
White movement - causes, essence, stages of development during the Civil War
3. The place of the white movement in the general anti-Bolshevik flow and its organizational structure
In general, four most combat-ready groups can be distinguished: 1) troops of the former allies in the First World War, together with the Czechoslovak corps, which rebelled against the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1918; 2) Cossacks; 3) armies...
1. General characteristics of the white movement
White movement during the Civil War, its ideas and leaders
2. Ideology of the white movement
The goals of the White movement at its stage after the seizure of power in Russia by the Bolsheviks were: the liberation of Russia from the Bolshevik dictatorship, the unity and territorial integrity of Russia...
White movement during the Civil War, its ideas and leaders
3.The main leaders of the white movement
1. Formation of the White movement
white war Denikin Kolchak The coming to power of the Bolsheviks and the policies they pursued immediately met resistance from part of the country's population, whose interests were affected by the actions of the Bolsheviks. Signed in March 1918...
White movement in Russia in 1918-1920
2. Ideology of the White movement
In the context of hostilities, the White movement proceeded from the priority of individual power over collegial power and, as a rule, military power over civilian (military dictatorship)...
1.1 General characteristics of the White movement: periodization, main stages
There is no historiography consensus about the start of the civil war. Some historians attribute it to October 1917, others to the spring-summer of 1918, when strong political and well-organized anti-Soviet pockets emerged...
White movement: ideology, organization, problems and contradictions of activity
1.2 Description of the ideology of the white movement
The initial ideological basis of the White movement in 1917-1918. there was a patriotic idea of saving the Russian Empire from collapse and death, which was presented to the white leaders as the results of the actions of the Provisional Government and, then...
The struggle for power in the Urals during the revolution and civil war
2.2 Main participants of the “white” movement
Certification work. Leaders of the white movement during the Civil War
Dutov A.I. Dutov Alexander Ilyich was born on August 5 (17), 1879 in the city of Kazalinsk in Kazakhstan. Russian military leader, lieutenant general (1919), ataman of the Orenburg Cossack Army (1917). From the nobles of the Orenburg Cossack Army...
State and law of Russia during the years of the Revolution and Civil War (October 1917-1920)
6. Constitutional and legal organization of the White movement
The communist genocide caused massive resistance among the peoples of Russia. Russian patriots grouped into a heterogeneous White movement, the basis of which was officers of the old army...
Leaders of the White Movement
1. Ideology of the White movement
There were differences in the ideology of the White movement, but the prevailing desire was to restore a democratic, parliamentary political system, private property and market relations in Russia...
Leaders of the White Movement
2. Leaders of the White movement and characteristics of their activities
What allowed the Bolsheviks to win the civil war?
2.2 Formation of the white movement and white armies
The white movement began to take shape in the spring and summer of 1917, when monarchists and cadets began to consolidate to fight against the growing revolutionary movement. It received wider development after the victory of the October Revolution...
Representatives of the red movement
Slogans: “Long live the world revolution”
"Death to global capital"
"Peace to the huts, war to the palaces"
"The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger"
Composition: proletariat, poor peasantry, soldiers, part of the intelligentsia and officers
Goals: – world revolution
-creation of a republic of councils and dictatorship of the proletariat
Features: 1. Single leader - Lenin
2. The presence of a clearer program focused on the interests of Bolshevism
3. More uniform composition
Frunze Mikhail Vasilievich
The father of the future Red Marshal Vasily Mikhailovich Frunze was a Moldavian by nationality and came from the peasants of the Tiraspol district of the Kherson province. After graduating from paramedic school in Moscow, he was drafted into the army and sent to serve in Turkestan. At the end of his service, he remained in Pishpek (later the city of Frunze, now the capital of Kyrgyzstan Bishkek), where he got a job as a paramedic and married the daughter of peasant migrants from the Voronezh province. On January 21, 1885, a son, Mikhail, was born into his family.
The boy turned out to be extremely capable. In 1895, due to the death of the breadwinner, the family found itself in a difficult financial situation, but little Mikhail was able to receive a state scholarship to the gymnasium in the city of Verny (now Alma-Ata), from which he graduated with a gold medal. In 1904, young Frunze went to the capital, where he entered the economics department of the Polytechnic Institute and soon became a member of the Social Democratic Party.
Frunze (underground nickname - Comrade Arseny) won his first victories as a professional revolutionary in 1905 in Shuya and Ivanovo-Voznesensk as one of the leaders of the local Council of Workers' Representatives. In December of the same year, a detachment of militants put together by Frunze went to Moscow, where they took part in the battles of workers’ squads with government troops on Krasnaya Presnya. After the suppression of the Moscow uprising, this detachment managed to safely get out of the Mother See and return back to Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
In 1907, in Shuya, Comrade Arseny was arrested and sentenced to death on charges of attempting to assassinate police officer Perlov. Through the efforts of lawyers, the death sentence was replaced by six years of hard labor. After the end of his term of hard labor, Frunze was sent to settle in the village of Manzurka, Verkholensky district, Irkutsk province. In 1915, the indomitable Bolshevik was again arrested for anti-government agitation, but managed to escape on the way to prison. Frunze showed up in Chita, where, using false documents, he managed to get a job as an agent in the statistical department of the resettlement department. However, his personality attracted the attention of local gendarmes. Arseny had to take off again and move to European Russia. After the February Revolution, he became one of the leaders of the Minsk Council of Workers' Deputies, then again headed to Shuya and Ivanovo-Voznesensk, which he knew well. During the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Moscow, at the head of a detachment of Ivanovo workers, Frunze again fought on the streets of the Mother See.
The appointment as commander of the 4th Army of the Eastern Front (January 1919) found Mikhail Vasilyevich when he was in the post of military commissar of the Yaroslavl Military District.
His finest hour came in the spring of 1919, at the moment when Kolchak’s troops launched a general offensive along the entire Eastern Front. In the southern sector, General Khanzhin’s army won a series of victories, but at the same time got so carried away that it exposed its right flank to the attack of the Red group. Frunze was not slow to take advantage of this...
During three successive operations - Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa - Mikhail Vasilyevich inflicted a major defeat on the enemy. Frunze was transferred to the post of commander of the newly formed Turkestan Front. By the end of the year, he managed to suppress the resistance of the Ural Cossacks and come to grips with the problems of Central Asia.
He managed to lure two influential Basmachi leaders Madamin-bek and Akhunjan to the side of the Soviet government, whose detachments turned into the Uzbek, Margilan and Turkic cavalry regiments (so that none of the Kurbashi would be offended, both regiments received the serial number 1st) . In August-September 1920, under the pretext of helping the rebellious masses, Frunze carried out a successful campaign that ended with the liquidation of the Bukhara Emirate.
On September 26, Frunze took command of the Southern Front, operating against Wrangel. Here the “black baron” undertook another attempt escape from Crimea to the vastness of Ukraine. Having brought up reserves, the “red marshal” bled the enemy troops dry with stubborn defensive battles and then launched a counter-offensive. The enemy rolled back to Crimea. Not allowing the enemy to gain a foothold, on the night of November 8, Frunze launched a combined strike - head-on along the Turkish Wall and through Sivash to the Lithuanian Peninsula. The impregnable fortress of Crimea fell...
After the Battle of Crimea, the “Red Marshal” led operations against his former ally Makhno. In the person of the legendary father, he found a worthy opponent, who managed to oppose the actions of the regular army to the tactics of flying partisan detachments. One of the skirmishes with the Makhnovists even almost ended in the death or capture of Frunze himself. In the end, Mikhail Vasilyevich began to beat the father with his own weapon, creating a special flying corps that was constantly hanging on Makhno’s tail. At the same time, the number of troops in the combat zone was increased and coordination was established between individual garrisons and special purpose units (CHON). In the end, besieged like a wolf, the old man chose to stop fighting and go to Romania.
This campaign turned out to be the last in Frunze’s military biography. Even before the final liquidation of the Makhnovshchina, he headed the Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission to Turkey. Upon his return, Mikhail Vasilyevich noticeably increased his own status, both in the party and military hierarchy, becoming a candidate member of the Politburo and chief of staff of the Red Army. In January 1925, Frunze reached the pinnacle of his career, replacing L. D. Trotsky as People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR.
Keeping his distance from party squabbles, Frunze actively carried out the reorganization of the Red Army, placing in key posts people with whom he had worked together during the Civil War.
On October 31, 1925, Frunze died. According to official reports, Mikhail Vasilyevich died after an unsuccessful operation for an ulcer. It was rumored that the operation was by no means necessary and that Fruze lay down on the operating table almost on the direct orders of the Politburo, after which he was actually stabbed to death by the doctors. Although this version may well correspond to reality, it is hardly possible to talk about it as something obvious. The mystery of Frunze's death will forever remain a mystery.
Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich
(1893, Aleksandrovskoye estate, Smolensk province - 1937) - Soviet military leader. Born into the family of an impoverished nobleman. He studied at the gymnasium, after moving to Moscow he graduated from the last class of the Moscow Cadet Corps and Aleksandrovskoye military school, from which he was released as a second lieutenant in 1914 and sent to the front. In 6 months During the First World War, Tukhachevsky was awarded 6 orders, demonstrating outstanding leadership skills. In Feb. 1915, together with the remnants of the 7th company of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment, Tukhachevsky was captured by the Germans. During two and a half years of imprisonment, Tukhachevsky tried to escape five times, walking up to 1,500 km, but only in October. 1917 managed to cross the Swiss border. After returning to Russia, Tukhachevsky was elected company commander and promoted to captain, demobilized with the same rank. In 1918 he was enrolled in the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and joined the RCP (b).
He said about himself: “My real life began with the October Revolution and joining the Red Army.” In May 1918 he was appointed commissar of the Moscow Defense District of the Western Curtain. He took part in the formation and training of regular units of the Red Army, giving preference to command cadres from the “proletariat” rather than military specialists of the pre-revolutionary period, whom Tukhachevsky, contrary to the facts, characterized as persons who “received a limited military education, were completely downtrodden and deprived of any initiative.”
During the Civil War, he commanded the 1st and 5th armies on the Eastern Front; was awarded the Golden Arms “for personal courage, broad initiative, energy, stewardship and knowledge of the matter.” Successfully carried out a number of operations in the Urals and Siberia against the troops of A.V. Kolchak, commanded the troops of the Caucasian Front in the fight against A.I. Denikin. In May 1920 he was assigned to the General Staff; commanded the Western Front, led the attack on Warsaw and suffered defeat, the reasons for which he explained in the course of lectures published a separate book(see book: Pilsudski vs. Tukhachevsky. Two views on the Soviet-Polish war of 1920. M., 1991). In 1921 he suppressed the sailors' mutiny in Kronstadt and the peasant uprising of A. S. Antonov and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Since Aug. 1921 headed the Military Academy of the Red Army, commanded the Western troops. and Leningr. military districts. In 1924–1925 he took an active part in the technical reconstruction of the Armed Forces; worked on the development of operational art, military construction, compilation of military encyclopedias, etc. In 1931 he was appointed deputy. Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, chief of armaments of the Red Army. In 1934 he became deputy, and in 1936 first deputy. People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR. Unlike K. E. Voroshilov and S. M. Budyonny, Tukhachevsky argued for the need to create strong aviation and armored forces, rearm the infantry and artillery, and develop new means of communication. In 1935, he was the first in the history of the Red Army to conduct a tactical exercise using airborne assault, laying the foundation for the airborne troops. Tukhachevsky supported S.P. Korolev’s proposal to create a Jet Institute to conduct research in the field of rocketry. Tukhachevsky's creative thought enriched all branches of the Soviet Union. military science. G.K. Zhukov assessed him as follows: “A giant of military thought, a star of the first magnitude in the galaxy of military men of our Motherland.” In 1933 he was awarded the Order of Lenin, in 1935 Tukhachevsky was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union. In 1937, Tukhachevsky was accused of creating a Trotskyist military organization, condemned as an “enemy of the people” and executed. Rehabilitated in 1957.
Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev (1887–1919)
One of the most mythologized figures by Soviet propaganda. Entire generations have been raised by his example for decades. IN mass consciousness he is the hero of a film that glorified his life and death, as well as hundreds of anecdotes in which his orderly Petka Isaev and the no less mythologized Anka the machine gunner act.
According to the official version, Chapaev is the son of a poor peasant from Chuvashia. According to his closest associate, Commissar Furmanov, there is no exact information about his origin, and Chapaev himself called himself either the illegitimate son of the Kazan governor or the son of traveling artists. In his youth he was a wanderer and worked at a factory. During World War I he fought bravely (he had the Cross of St. George) and received the rank of ensign. There, at the front, Chapaev in 1917 joined the organization of anarchist-communists.
In December 1917, he became the commander of the 138th reserve infantry regiment, and in January 1918, he became the commissar of internal affairs of the Nikolaev district of the Saratov province. He actively helped establish Bolshevik power in these places and formed a Red Guard detachment. From that time on, his war “for people’s power” with his own people began: at the beginning of 1918, Chapaev suppressed peasant unrest in the Nikolaev district, generated by surplus appropriation.
Since May 1918, Chapaev was the commander of the Pugachev brigade. In September-November 1918, Chapaev was the head of the 2nd Nikolaev Division of the 4th Red Army. In December 1918, he was sent to study at the Academy of the General Staff. But Vasily Ivanovich did not want to study, insulted the teachers, and already in January 1919 he returned to the front. He didn’t embarrass himself in any way there either. Furmanov writes how, when building a bridge across the Urals, Chapaev beat an engineer for what he considered to be slow work. “...In 1918, he beat one high-ranking official with a whip, and answered another with obscenities via telegraph... An original figure!” – the commissioner admires.
At first, Chapaev’s opponents were parts of the Komuch People’s Army - the Committee of the Constituent Assembly (it was dispersed by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd and recreated on the Volga) and Czechoslovaks who did not want to rot in Soviet concentration camps, where Trotsky wanted to send them. Later, in April-June 1919, Chapaev acted with his division against the Western Army of Admiral A.V. Kolchak; captured Ufa, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. But his main and fatal enemy were the Ural Cossacks. They overwhelmingly did not recognize the power of the communists, but Chapaev faithfully served this power.
De-Cossackization in the Urals was merciless and after the capture of Uralsk by the Red (including Chapaev’s) troops in January 1919, it turned into real genocide. The instructions from Moscow sent to the Soviets of the Urals read:
Ҥ 1. All those remaining in the ranks of the Cossack army after March 1 (1919) are declared outlaws and subject to merciless extermination.
§ 2. All defectors who defected to the Red Army after March 1 are subject to unconditional arrest.
§ 3. All families remaining in the ranks of the Cossack army after March 1 are declared arrested and hostages.
§ 4. In the event of the unauthorized departure of one of the families declared hostages, all families registered with this Council are subject to execution...”
Zealous implementation of this instruction became the main task of Vasily Ivanovich. According to the Ural Cossack colonel Faddeev, in some areas Chapaev’s troops exterminated up to 98% of the Cossacks.
“Chapay”’s special hatred of the Cossacks is evidenced by the commissar of his division, Furmanov, who is difficult to suspect of slander. According to him, Chapaev “rushed across the steppe like a plague man, and ordered not to take any prisoners. “All of them,” he says, “kill the scoundrels!” Furmanov also paints a picture of the mass robbery of the village of Slamikhinskaya: the Chapaevites took away from those who did not have time to escape civilians even women's underwear and children's toys. Chapaev did not stop these robberies, but only sent them to the “common pot”: “Don’t drag them, but collect them in a heap, and give them to your commander what you took from the bourgeoisie.” The writer-commissar also captured Chapaev’s attitude towards educated people: “You are all bastards!” Intellectuals..."
Such was the commander, using the example of whose “exploits” some people still want to raise a new generation of defenders of the Fatherland.
Naturally, the Cossacks offered unusually fierce resistance to the Chapaevites: retreating, they burned their villages, poisoned the water, and entire families fled to the steppe. In the end, they took revenge on Chapaev for the death of relatives and devastation native land, defeating his headquarters during the Lbishchensky raid of the Ural Army. Chapaev was mortally wounded.
Cities bear the name of Chapaev (the former village of Lbischenskaya and the former Ivashchenkovsky plant in Samara region), villages in Turkmenistan and the Kharkov region of Ukraine and many streets, avenues, squares throughout Russia. In Moscow, in the Sokol municipality, there is Chapaevsky Lane. The three hundred kilometer left tributary of the Volga was named the Chapaevka River.
Leaders of the White Movement in the Civil War
Dmitry BELYUKIN (born 1962). White Russia. Exodus. 1992-1994.
Reproduction from the site http://lj.rossia.org/users/john_petrov/
White movement in faces
WHITE MOVEMENT - an ideological, political and military direction in the general flow of anti-Bolshevik political movements in Russia in the 1917-1920s. The origin of the term is associated with the symbolism of white as the color of supporters of legal order as opposed to red (revolutionary) color. The origins of the movement date back to the summer of 1917, when monarchists, cadets and part of the generals united into a single bloc to fight revolutionary anarchy and establish the power of a “firm hand” - a military dictatorship. L. G. Kornilov was nominated for the role of dictator.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the ideologists of the White movement (V.V. Shulgin, N.N. Lvov, P.B. Struve and others) called on all “state-minded” people to fight against the Bolsheviks to “save the great, united and indivisible Russia from the dominance of the International." The idea of fidelity to historical “beginnings” was put forward and Orthodox religion, patriotism, “non-predetermination” of the future state system, which will be established by the legislative assembly (such as the Zemsky Sobor), as opposed to the communist ideology, class approach and party dictatorship of the Bolsheviks. The slogan of “no decision” for some time united the monarchists, cadets, Cossack leaders and part of the officer corps with representatives of the “moderate socialists” (Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks).
The first document on the ideological and political foundations of the White movement - “The Political Program of General Kornilov” (December 1917) - was adopted by the Don Civil Council in Novocherkassk (generals: M. V. Alekseev, L. G. Kornilov, A. M. Kaledin). The Program formulated the goals of the White movement - the restoration of private property, the denationalization of industry, the end of the division and redistribution of land by peasants, the creation of a new army (without military committees, elected commanders and commissars). Solution to the most acute social issues(agrarian, national) was postponed until the final restoration of order in the country.
During the Civil War in Russia in 1918-1922. The restorationist-monarchist essence of the practice of the White movement became more and more clearly evident. The alliance of the White Guards with liberal democratic elements gradually collapsed. All this determined the main reasons for the defeat of the White movement.
Orlov A.S., Georgieva N.G., Georgiev V.A. Historical Dictionary. 2nd ed. M., 2012, p. 32-33.
All pointers:
| AB | BA | VA | GA | YES | EA | ZHA | FOR | IA | KA | LA | MA | ON | OA | PA | RA | CA | TA | UA | FA | HA | TA | CHA | SH-SHCHA | EA | YA | JA |
List of abbreviations
During the work on the biographical directory “The White Movement in Persons,” several publications were used, executed in compliance with different design standards.
All in one place. Russian history. Briefly. Civil War. Leaders of the Red and White Movement.
In some books, the author's coherent speech makes it easy to understand all the twists and turns in the destinies of the participants in those battles. Other publications are made in an encyclopedic style using numerous and not always immediately understandable abbreviations. Here's a short example: "b. 24 Aug. 1884. KvKK 1903, EKU 1905. Of. L-Guards Jaeger Regiment". This short line should be understood as follows: “Born on August 24, 1884. He received his education at the Kiev Military School (which was an infantry cadet school until 1902), graduating in 1903 at the Elisavetgrad Cavalry School (which was a cadet school until 1902), graduating from it in 1905. Officer of the Life Guards Regiment." Agree, if you decipher each biography in this way, then the amount of work becomes commensurate with writing a new book. On the other hand, reading the text in such a way that you constantly have to scroll down the biographical reference book to the notes is very inconvenient. Therefore, we limited ourselves to deciphering only the most rare abbreviations in terms of frequency of use, such as KvKK, EKU, AlVU, ViVU, VoKK, etc. We left other abbreviations that appear relatively often in the literature unchanged. These include the abbreviations VSYUR, ROVS, UNR, etc. However, if questions still arise with these abbreviations (or we missed some undeciphered abbreviation), then their decoding can be found in the special section of CHRONOS - Abbreviations. And for ease of use, we have placed some of them separately right here:
ab - artillery brigade
AVU - Alexander Military School
AGSH - Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff
hell - artillery battalion
ak - army corps
AlVU - Alekseevsky Military School (until 1906 Moscow, until 1902 - infantry cadets)
AlKK - Alexander Cadet Corps (3rd St. Petersburg military gymnasium)
AmKV - Amur Cossack Army
art. - artillery
AstrKV - Astrakhan Cossack Army
AS - aviation school
bn - battalion
BT - battery
in schedule - at disposal
in the next - in service with
VVD - All-Great Don Army
VVNK - Higher military scientific courses
VVU - Vilna Military School (until 1911 - infantry cadets)
VkKK - Vladikavkaz Cadet Corps
VlVU - Vladimir Military School (until 1911 - St. Petersburg Infantry Junkers) VO - military district
VoKK - Volsky Cadet Corps (military school) VSYUR - Armed Forces in the South of Russia VTA - Military Technical Academy (USSR) VU - military school
VLA - Aleksandrovsk Military Law Academy
GAU - Main Artillery Directorate
guard - Guards
general quarter - Quartermaster General
George. Cav. - Knight of St. George
hymn. - gymnasium
GINTU - Main Quartermaster Directorate
SIE - Main Engineering Directorate
GC - Commander-in-Chief
green - grenadier
lips - province
GUGSH - Main Directorate of the General Staff
DKB - Don Cossack Battery
DKV - Don Cossack Army
Dkp - Don Cossack Regiment
DnKK - Don Cadet Corps
Dobra - Volunteer Army
DonA - Don Army
DS - theological seminary
EKU - Elisavetgrad Cavalry School (until 1902 - cadet school)
head - manager
zap. - spare
ZKV - Transbaikal Cossack Army
ZPP - reserve infantry regiment
Eng. - engineering
inspector - inspector
int - institute
IRVU - Irkutsk Military School (until 1911 - infantry cadets)
kabt - horse artillery battery
Cav. - cavalry
cad - horse artillery division
Kaz. - Cossack
KAU - Konstantinovsky Artillery School
KBO - Kuban region
kbt - horse battery
KVVU - Kiev Military School (until 1902 - infantry cadets)
KvKK - Kiev (Vladimir Kiev) cadet corps (1865-1882 - military gymnasium)
KVU - Konstantinovsky Military School
kgad - horse-mountain artillery division
cd - cavalry division
KzVU - Kazan Military School (until 1911 - infantry cadets)
KZYU - Cossack cadet school
KIAF - Corps of the Imperial Army and Navy
KK - cadet corps
KKV - Kuban Cossack Army
knp - cavalry regiment
knd - cavalry division
crepe. - serf
KrKK - Crimean Cadet Corps (Yugoslavia)
k-schiy - commander
KYU - cavalry cadet
lag - camp
MAA - Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy
mad - mortar artillery battalion
MAU - Mikhailovsky Artillery School
MvKK - Voronezh (Mikhailovsky Voronezh) cadet corps (1865-1882 - military gymnasium)
MIU - Marine Engineering School
MK - Marine Corps
mpad - mortar park artillery battalion
MSKK - Moscow Cadet Corps (military school)
beginning - boss
NVU - Nikolaev (2nd Kiev) military school
NzhKK - Nizhny Novgorod Cadet Corps (1866-1882 - military gymnasium)
NIA - Nikolaev Engineering Academy
National Research University - Nikolaev Engineering School
NKKK - Nikolaev Cadet Corps
NKU - Nikolaev Cavalry School
Nchu - Novocherkassk Cossack School (until 1911 - cadet school)
OAS - Officer Artillery School
ObKK - Oryol (Oryol Bakhtin) cadet corps (1864-1882 - military gymnasium)
region - region
OBO - promoted to officer for combat distinction
OVVV - Great War Veterans Society (San Francisco)
OVD - Region of the Don Army
OVO - promoted to officer from volunteer
OVORAF - Mutual Aid Society for Officers of the Former Russian Army and Navy (Germany)
OG - Gallipoli Society
ODVU - Odessa Military School (until 1911 - infantry cadets)
OdKK - Odessa Cadet Corps
OK. - graduated
OKV - Orenburg Cossack Army
OKZH - Separate Corps of Gendarmes
OKPS - Separate Border Guard Corps
OKSG - Society of Knights of the Order of St. George
OKSH - Officer Cavalry School
Olad - separate light artillery battalion
OnKK - Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps (1866-1882 - military gymnasium)
OOA - Society of Artillery Officers
OOGDV - Society of Guard Officers in the Far East
OOGSH - Society of General Staff Officers
OrKK - Orenburg Cadet Corps
Orkp - Orenburg Cossack Regiment
ORO - Society of Russian Officers in the Kingdom of SHS
OROVCH - Society of Russians who graduated from universities in Czechoslovakia
ORU - Orenburg Cossack School (until 1911 - cadet school)
otad - separate heavy artillery division
of. - Officer
OETSH - Officer Electrical Engineering School
PD - infantry division
PVU - Pavlovsk Military School
lane - renaming
PC - Corps of Pages
plast. - Plastunsky
PlKK - Polotsk Cadet Corps (1865-1882 - military gymnasium)
PO - regimental association
pom. - assistant
PP - infantry regiment
PpKK - Poltava (Petrovsky Poltava) cadet corps (1865-1882 - military gymnasium) pred. - Chairman Rev. - teacher
Prik. - on secondment, seconded
PRKK - First Russian Cadet Corps (Yugoslavia)
PsKK - Pskov Cadet Corps (military school)
PTI - Polytechnic Institute
PYU - infantry cadet school
RA - Russian Army
res. - reserve
REU - real school
EMRO - Russian All-Military Union
sub - rifle artillery brigade
garden - rifle artillery battalion
glanders. - sapper
Self-propelled guns - Sergiev Artillery School
SbKK - Siberian (1st Siberian) cadet corps (1866-1882 - military gymnasium)
SvKK - Suvorov (in Warsaw) cadet corps
sd - rifle division
SEIVK - Own E.I.V. convoy
Sib.- Siberian SKV - Siberian Cossack Army
Sl. - in service with
SMKK - Simbirsk Cadet Corps (military gymnasium)
sp - rifle regiment
SRVI - Union of Russian Military Disabled Persons
SSRAF - Union of Those Who Served in the Russian Army and Navy (Shanghai)
Art. - village
st. - with seniority from
page - rifle
STU - Stavropol Cossack Junker School
SuKK - Sumy Cadet Corps
TAU - Technical Artillery School
TerO - Terek region
Turk. - Turkestan
TKV - Terek Cossack Army
TKU - Tver Cavalry School (until 1911 - cadet school)
TFVU - Tiflis Military School (until 1911 - infantry cadets)
TfKK - Tiflis Cadet Corps (military gymnasium)
TshVU - Tashkent Military School. - county
uvn - district military commander
VHF - Ural Cossack Army
UPR - Ukrainian People's Republic
univ - university
Urkp - Ural Cossack Regiment
US - teachers' seminary
Finnish
FnKK - Finnish Cadet Corps
KhbKK - Khabarovsk Cadet Corps
household - economic
ChgVU - Chuguev Military School (until 1911 - infantry cadets)
ShP - school of warrant officers
Evac. - evacuated
Em. - in exile
YarKK - Yaroslavl Cadet Corps (military school)
The beginning of the white movement - the arrested generals (Denikin, Alekseev, Kornilov) leave the city of Bykhov.
The German occupation put an end to the spread of Soviet power to new territories and contributed to the formation of bridgeheads on which counter-revolutionary forces could organize: the Don, the North Caucasus, etc. Under the new conditions, the white movement strengthened, receiving the support of wide sections of the population. It became widespread due to the influx of Cossacks and previously inert citizens.
The White movement gradually formed at the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918 after the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks' dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, which was called upon to peacefully resolve the issue of the state structure of Russia after the February Revolution of 1917
The goals of the White movement were: the liberation of Russia from the Bolshevik dictatorship, the unity and territorial integrity of Russia, the convening of a new Constituent Assembly to determine the state structure of the country.
Contrary to popular belief, monarchists made up only a small part of the White movement. The White movement consisted of forces that were heterogeneous in their political composition, but united in the idea of rejection of Bolshevism. This was, for example, the Samara government, “Komuch”, in which representatives of left-wing parties played a large role.
The core of the White movement in southern Russia was the Volunteer Army, created under the leadership of generals Alekseev and Kornilov in Novocherkassk. The area of initial operations of the Volunteer Army was the Don Army Region and Kuban. After the death of General Kornilov during the siege of Yekaterinodar, command of the white forces passed to General Denikin. In June 1918, the 8,000-strong Volunteer Army began its second campaign against Kuban, which rebelled against the Bolsheviks. On August 17, they take Yekaterinodar, and by the end of August they completely clear the territory of the Kuban army from the Bolsheviks. In the winter of 1918-1919, Denikin’s troops established control over the North Caucasus, defeating and destroying the 90,000-strong 11th Red Army operating there.
Having repulsed the offensive of the Red Southern Front (100 thousand) in the Donbass and Manych in March-May, on May 17, 1919, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (70 thousand) launched a counter-offensive. They broke through the front and, having inflicted a heavy defeat on units of the Red Army, by the end of June they captured Donbass, Crimea, Kharkov on June 24, Ekaterinoslav on June 27, and Tsaritsyn on June 30. On July 3, Denikin set his troops the task of capturing Moscow.
During the attack on Moscow in the summer and autumn of 1919, the 1st Corps of the Volunteer Army under the command of General. Kutepov took Kursk (September 20), Orel (October 13) and began moving towards Tula. October 6 parts of the general. Shkuro occupied Voronezh. Since the main provinces and industrial cities of central Russia were in the hands of the Reds, the latter had an advantage. Makhno, having broken through the White front in the Uman region, with his raid across Ukraine in October 1919, destroyed the rear of the AFSR and diverted significant forces of the Volunteer Army from the front. The offensive on Moscow failed and, under the pressure of superior forces of the Red Army, Denikin’s troops began to retreat to the south
On January 10, 1920, the Reds occupied Rostov-on-Don, a large center that opened the road to Kuban, and on March 17, 1920, Ekateri-Nodar. The Whites fought back to Novorossiysk, and from there crossed by sea to the Crimea. Denikin resigned and left Russia
By the beginning of 1920, Crimea turned out to be the last bastion of the White movement in southern Russia. The command of the army was taken by Gen. Wrangel. The size of Wrangel's army in mid-1920 was about 25 thousand people. In the summer of 1920, Wrangel's Russian army launched an offensive in Northern Tavria. In June, Melitopol was occupied. In August, an amphibious landing was undertaken on Kuban, under the command of General. S.G. Ulagaya, however, this operation ended in failure.
At the end of August 1920, the Red Army near Warsaw was defeated, and on October 12, 1920, the Poles signed a truce with the Bolsheviks, and Lenin’s government threw all its forces into the fight against the White Army. In addition to the main forces of the Red Army, the Bolsheviks managed to win over Makhno’s army, which also took part in the assault on Crimea.
To storm Crimea, the Reds pulled together enormous forces(up to 200 thousand people versus 35 thousand for whites). The attack on Perekop began on November 7. Despite the gigantic superiority in manpower and weapons, the Red troops for several days could not break the defense of the defenders of the Crimea, and only after, having forded the shallow Chongar Strait, units of the Red Army and Makhno’s allied detachments entered the rear of the main positions of the Whites and on November 11, the Makhnovists near Karpova Balka, Borbovich's cavalry corps was defeated, the White defense was broken through. The Red Army broke into Crimea. Wrangel's army and many civilian refugees were evacuated to Constantinople on ships of the Black Sea Fleet.
Fight in the North-West
General Yudenich created the North-Western Army on the territory of Estonia to fight Soviet power, from 5.5 to 20 thousand soldiers and officers.
N.N. Yudenich tried to take Petrograd twice (in spring and autumn), but was unsuccessful each time. The spring offensive (5.5 thousand whites against 20 thousand 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. Yamburg fell on May 17, and Pskov fell on May 25. 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, and in mid-July 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 they captured Pskov.
Autumn offensive on Petrograd. On October 12, 1919, the North-Western Army (20 thousand against 40 thousand Reds) broke through the Soviet front near Yamburg and on October 20, 1919, taking Tsarskoe Selo, reached the suburbs of Petrograd. The Whites captured the Pulkovo Heights and, on the far left flank, broke into the outskirts of Ligovo, having no reserves and having received no support from Finland and Estonia, after ten days of fierce and unequal battles near Petrograd with the Red troops (the number of which had grown to 60 thousand people) North -The Western army was unable to capture the city. Finland and Estonia refused assistance because the leadership of the 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 to Estonia with stubborn fighting. 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.
The military operations of the white armies were opened by the Eastern Front. The offensive of Kolchak’s troops, due to disagreements among the Entente, developed in 2 directions. On March 4, the Siberian Army went on the offensive, developing it in the direction of the Botkin plant and further to Vyatka. Votkinsk and Sarapul were occupied. On March 6, the Western Army began its offensive. She was opposed by the weakened 5th Soviet army. On March 14, the Whites occupied Ufa. By mid-April, Bugulma, Belebey, Sterlitamak and Buguruslan fell. The Eastern Front was recognized as the main front. On April 28, 1919, the troops of the Southern Group launched a counteroffensive (until June 19). Liberation of previously lost territories, capture of the Urals (Ekaterinburg (July 14), Chelyabinsk (July 24)). Defeat of Kolchak's troops near Chelyabinsk By the beginning of 1920, Kolchak's troops were completely defeated, he was arrested and executed on February 7, 1920.
Russian Civil War(1917-1922/1923) - a series of armed conflicts between various political, ethnic, social groups and state entities on the territory of the former Russian Empire that followed the transfer of power to the Bolsheviks as a result of the October Revolution of 1917.
The Civil War was the result of the revolutionary crisis that struck Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, which began with the revolution of 1905-1907, aggravated during the World War and led to the fall of the monarchy, economic ruin, and a deep social, national, political and ideological split in Russian society. The apogee of this split was a fierce war throughout the country between armed forces Soviet power and anti-Bolshevik authorities.
White movement- a military-political movement of politically heterogeneous forces formed during the Civil War of 1917-1923 in Russia with the goal of overthrowing Soviet power. It included representatives of both moderate socialists and republicans, as well as monarchists, united against the Bolshevik ideology and acting on the basis of the principle of “Great, United and Indivisible Russia” (white ideological movement). The White movement was the largest anti-Bolshevik military-political force during the Russian Civil War and existed alongside other democratic anti-Bolshevik governments, nationalist separatist movements in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Crimea, and the Basmachi movement in Central Asia.
A number of features distinguish the White movement from the rest of the anti-Bolshevik forces of the Civil War:
The White movement was an organized military-political movement against Soviet power and its allied political structures; its intransigence towards Soviet power excluded any peaceful, compromise outcome of the Civil War.
The White movement was distinguished by its emphasis on the priority in wartime of individual power over collegial power, and military power over civilian power. White governments were characterized by the absence of a clear separation of powers; representative bodies either did not play any role or had only advisory functions.
The White movement tried to legalize itself on a national scale, proclaiming its continuity from pre-February and pre-October Russia.
Recognition by all regional white governments of the all-Russian power of Admiral A.V. Kolchak led to the desire to achieve commonality of political programs and coordination of military actions. The solution to agrarian, labor, national and other basic issues was fundamentally similar.
The white movement had common symbols: a tricolor white-blue-red flag, the official anthem “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion.”
Publicists and historians who sympathize with whites cite the following reasons for the defeat of the white cause:
The Reds controlled the densely populated central regions. There were more people in these territories than in the white-controlled territories.
Regions that began to support whites (for example, Don and Kuban), as a rule, suffered more than others from the Red Terror.
The inexperience of white leaders in politics and diplomacy.
Conflicts between whites and national separatist governments over the slogan “One and Indivisible.” Therefore, whites repeatedly had to fight on two fronts.
Workers' and Peasants' Red Army- the official name of the types of armed forces: ground forces and air fleet, which, together with the Red Army MS, the NKVD troops of the USSR (Border Troops, Internal Security Troops of the Republic and State Convoy Guards) constituted the Armed Forces of the RSFSR/USSR from February 15 (23), 1918 years to February 25, 1946.
The day of the creation of the Red Army is considered to be February 23, 1918 (see Defender of the Fatherland Day). It was on this day that mass enrollment of volunteers began in the Red Army detachments, created in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army,” signed on January 15 (28).
L. D. Trotsky actively participated in the creation of the Red Army.
The supreme governing body of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (since the formation of the USSR - the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR). The leadership and management of the army was concentrated in the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, in the special All-Russian Collegium created under it, since 1923, the Labor and Defense Council of the USSR, and since 1937, the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. In 1919-1934, direct leadership of the troops was carried out by the Revolutionary Military Council. In 1934, to replace it, the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR was formed.
Detachments and squads of the Red Guard - armed detachments and squads of sailors, soldiers and workers, in Russia in 1917 - supporters (not necessarily members) of left parties - Social Democrats (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and “Mezhraiontsev”), Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, as well as detachments Red partisans became the basis of the Red Army units.
Initially, the main unit of formation of the Red Army, on a voluntary basis, was a separate detachment, which was a military unit with an independent economy. The detachment was headed by a Council consisting of a military leader and two military commissars. He had a small headquarters and an inspectorate.
With the accumulation of experience and after attracting military experts to the ranks of the Red Army, the formation of full-fledged units, units, formations (brigade, division, corps), institutions and establishments began.
The organization of the Red Army was in accordance with its class character and military requirements of the early 20th century. The combined arms formations of the Red Army were structured as follows:
The rifle corps consisted of two to four divisions;
The division consists of three rifle regiments, an artillery regiment (artillery regiment) and technical units;
The regiment consists of three battalions, an artillery division and technical units;
Cavalry Corps - two cavalry divisions;
Cavalry division - four to six regiments, artillery, armored units (armored units), technical units.
The technical equipment of the military formations of the Red Army with fire weapons) and military equipment was mainly at the level of modern advanced armed forces of that time
The USSR Law “On Compulsory Military Service”, adopted on September 18, 1925 by the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, determined the organizational structure of the Armed Forces, which included rifle troops, cavalry, artillery, armored forces, engineering troops, signal troops, air and naval forces, troops United State Political Administration and Convoy Guard of the USSR. Their number in 1927 was 586,000 personnel.
White movement(also met "White Guard", "White Case", "White Army", "White Idea", "Counter-revolution") - a military-political movement of politically heterogeneous forces, formed during the Civil War of 1917-1923 in Russia with the goal of overthrowing Soviet power. It included representatives of both moderate socialists and republicans, as well as monarchists, united against Bolshevik ideology and acting on the basis of the principle of “one and indivisible Russia.” The White movement was the largest anti-Bolshevik military-political force during the Russian Civil War and existed alongside other democratic anti-Bolshevik governments, nationalist separatist movements in Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Basmachi movement in Central Asia. The term "White Movement" originated in Soviet Russia, and since the 1920s. began to be used in Russian emigration.
A number of features distinguish the White movement from the rest of the anti-Bolshevik forces of the Civil War:
- The White movement was an organized military-political movement against Soviet power and its allied political structures; its intransigence towards Soviet power excluded any peaceful, compromise outcome of the Civil War.
- The White movement was distinguished by its emphasis on the priority of individual power over collegial power, and military power over civilian power in wartime. White governments were characterized by the absence of a clear separation of powers; representative bodies either did not play any role or had only advisory functions.
- The White movement tried to legalize itself on a national scale, proclaiming its continuity from pre-February and pre-October Russia.
- Recognition by all regional white governments of the all-Russian power of Admiral A.V. Kolchak led to the desire to achieve commonality of political programs and coordination of military actions. The solution to agrarian, labor, national and other basic issues was fundamentally similar.
- The white movement had common symbols: a tricolor white-blue-red flag, a double-headed eagle, and the official anthem “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion.”
The ideological origins of the White movement can begin with the preparation of Kornilov’s speech in August 1917. The organizational development of the White movement began after the October Revolution and the liquidation of the Constituent Assembly in October 1917 - January 1918 and ended after Kolchak came to power on November 18, 1918 and the recognition of the Supreme Ruler of Russia as the main centers of the White movement in the North, North-West and South of Russia.
Despite the fact that there were serious differences in the ideology of the White movement, it was dominated by the desire to restore a democratic, parliamentary political system, private property and market relations in Russia.
Modern historians emphasize the national-patriotic nature of the struggle of the White movement, consolidating on this issue with the ideologists of the White movement, who, since the Civil War, have interpreted it as a Russian national patriotic movement.
Origin and identification
Some participants in discussions about the date of the emergence of the White movement considered its first step to be the Kornilov speech in August 1917. The key participants in this speech (Kornilov, Denikin, Markov, Romanovsky, Lukomsky, etc.), later prisoners of the Bykhov prison, became leading figures of the White movement in the South Russia. There was an opinion about the beginning of the White movement from the day General Alekseev arrived on the Don on November 15, 1917.
Some participants in the events expressed the opinion that the White movement originated in the spring of 1917. According to the theorist of the Russian counter-revolution, General of the General Staff N. N. Golovin, positive idea movement was that it originated exclusively to save the collapsing statehood and army.
Most researchers agreed that October 1917 interrupted the development of the counter-revolution that began after the fall of the autocracy in the direction of saving the collapsing statehood and initiated its transformation into an anti-Bolshevik force that included the most diverse and even political groups hostile to each other.
The White movement was characterized by its state purpose. It was interpreted as a necessary and mandatory restoration of law and order in the name of preserving national sovereignty and maintaining Russia's international authority.
In addition to the struggle against the Reds, the White movement also opposed the Greens and separatists during the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923. In this regard, the White struggle was differentiated into all-Russian (the struggle of Russians among themselves) and regional (the struggle of White Russia, which gathered forces on the lands of non-Russian peoples, both against Red Russia and against the separatism of peoples trying to separate from Russia).
Participants in the movement are called “White Guards” or “Whites”. The White Guards do not include anarchists (Makhno) and the so-called “greens”, who fought against both the “reds” and the “whites”, and national-separatist armed formations created on the territory of the former Russian Empire with the aim of gaining the independence of certain national territories.
According to Denikin’s general P.I. Zalessky, and the leader of the Cadet Party P.N. Milyukov, who agreed with him, who based this idea on his concept of the Civil War in the work “Russia at the Turning Point,” the White Guards (or White Army soldiers, or simply whites) - these are people of all strata of the Russian people persecuted by the Bolsheviks, who, by the force of events, because of the murders and violence perpetrated against them by the Leninists, were forced to take up arms and organize White Guard fronts.
The origin of the term “White Army” is associated with the traditional symbolism of white as the color of supporters of legal order and the idea of sovereignty, as opposed to the destructive “red”. White color has been used in politics since the time of the “white lilies of the Bourbons” and symbolized the purity and nobility of aspirations.
The Bolsheviks called various rebels who fought with the Bolsheviks, both in Soviet Russia itself and in attacks on the border regions of the country, “White bandits,” although for the most part they had nothing to do with the White movement. When naming foreign armed units that provided support to the White Guard troops or acted independently against the Soviet troops, the Bolshevik press and in everyday life also used the root “White-”: “White Czechs”, “White Finns”, “White Poles”, “White Estonians”. The name “White Cossacks” was used similarly. It is also noteworthy that often in Soviet journalism “whites” were called any representatives of the counter-revolution in general, regardless of their party and ideological affiliation.
The backbone of the White movement was the officers of the old Russian army. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of junior officers, as well as cadets, came from peasant backgrounds. The very first persons of the White Movement - generals Alekseev, Kornilov, Denikin and others - also had peasant origins.
Management. During the first period of the struggle - representatives of the generals of the Russian Imperial Army:
- General Staff Infantry General L. G. Kornilov,
- General Staff, Infantry General M.V. Alekseev,
- Admiral, Supreme Ruler of Russia since 1918 A. V. Kolchak
- General Staff, Lieutenant General A. I. Denikin,
- cavalry general Count F.A. Keller,
- cavalry general P. N. Krasnov,
- cavalry general A. M. Kaledin,
- Lieutenant General E. K. Miller,
- Infantry General 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, military leaders who ended the First World War as officers and received general ranks during the Civil War came to the fore:
- General Staff Major General M. G. Drozdovsky
- General Staff, Lieutenant General V. O. Kappel,
- cavalry general A.I. Dutov,
- Lieutenant General Ya. 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 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:
- future Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in Crimea of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel,
- Commander of the Zemstvo Army, Lieutenant General M.K. Diterichs.
Goals and ideology
A significant part of the Russian emigration of the 20-30s of the XX century, led by the political theorist I. A. Ilyin, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel and Prince P. D. Dolgorukov, equated the concepts of “White Idea” " and "state idea". In his works, Ilyin wrote about the colossal spiritual power of the anti-Bolshevik movement, which manifested itself “not in everyday passion for the homeland, but in love for Russia as a truly religious shrine.” Modern scientist and researcher V.D. Zimina emphasizes in her scientific work:
General Baron Wrangel, during his speech on the occasion of the formation of the empowered anti-Soviet government of the Russian Council, said that the White movement “with limitless sacrifices and the blood of its best sons” brought back to life the “lifeless body of the Russian national idea,” and Prince Dolgorukov, who supported it, argued that the White movement , even in emigration, the idea of state power must be preserved.
The leader of the cadets, P. N. Milyukov, called the White movement “a core with a high patriotic spirit,” and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia of the General Staff, Lieutenant General A. I. Denikin, called “the natural desire of the national body for self-preservation, for state existence.” Denikin very often emphasized that white leaders and soldiers died “not for the triumph of this or that regime... but for the salvation of Russia,” and A. A. von Lampe, the general of his army, believed that the White movement was one of the stages of a great patriotic movements.
There were differences in the ideology of the White movement, but the prevailing desire was to restore a democratic, parliamentary political system, private property and market relations in Russia. The goal of the White movement was proclaimed - after the liquidation of Soviet power, the end of the civil war and the advent of peace and stability in the country - to determine the future political structure and form of government of Russia through the convening of the National Constituent Assembly (the Principle of Non-Decision). During the Civil War, the White governments set themselves the task of overthrowing Soviet power and establishing a military dictatorship in the held territories. At the same time, the legislation in force in the Russian Empire before the revolution was reintroduced, adjusted taking into account the legislative norms of the Provisional Government acceptable to the White movement and the laws of new “state formations” on the territory of the former Empire after October 1917. The political program of the White movement in the area foreign policy proclaimed the need to comply with all obligations under treaties with allied states. The Cossacks were promised to maintain independence in the formation of their own government bodies and armed forces. While maintaining the territorial integrity of the country, the possibility of “regional autonomy” was considered for Ukraine, the Caucasus and Transcaucasia.
According to the historian General N.N. Golovin, who attempted a scientific assessment of the White movement, one of the reasons for the failure of the White movement was that, unlike its first stage (spring 1917 - October 1917), with its positive idea, for the sake of whose service the White movement appeared - solely for the purpose of saving the collapsing statehood and army, after the October events of 1917 and the Bolsheviks' dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, which was called upon to peacefully resolve the issue of the state structure of Russia after the February Revolution of 1917, the counter-revolution lost positive idea, understood as a general political and/or social ideal. Now only negative idea- the fight against the destructive forces of revolution.
The White movement in general gravitated toward cadet socio-political values, and it was the interaction of cadets with the officer environment that determined both the strategic and tactical guidelines of the White movement. Monarchists and Black Hundreds made up only a small part of the White movement and did not enjoy the right to cast a decisive vote.
Historian S. Volkov writes that “in general, the spirit of the White armies was moderate-monarchical,” while the White movement did not put forward monarchist slogans. A.I. Denikin noted that the vast majority of the command staff and officers of his army were monarchists, while he also writes that the officers themselves were of little interest in politics and the class struggle, and for the most part they were purely service elements, typical “intelligent proletariat ". Historian Slobodin warns against viewing the White movement as a party monarchist movement, since no monarchist party led the White movement.
The White movement consisted of forces that were heterogeneous in their political composition, but united in the idea of rejection of Bolshevism. This was, for example, the Samara government, “KOMUCH”, in which the main role was played by representatives of the left parties - the Socialist Revolutionaries. According to the head of the defense of Crimea against the Bolsheviks in the winter of 1920, General Ya. A. Slashchev-Krymsky, the White movement was a mixture of the Cadets and Octobrist upper classes and the Menshevik-Esserist lower classes.
As General A.I. Denikin noted:
The famous Russian philosopher and thinker P. B. Struve also wrote in “Reflections on the Russian Revolution” that the counter-revolution must unite with other political forces that arose as a result and during the revolution, but were antagonistic in relation to it. The thinker saw in this the fundamental difference between the Russian counter-revolution of the early 20th century and the anti-revolutionary movement during the time of Louis XVI
Whites used the slogan “Law and Order!” and hoped to discredit the power of their opponents by this, while simultaneously strengthening the people’s perception of themselves as the saviors of the Fatherland. Increased unrest and tension political struggle made the arguments of the white leaders more convincing and led to the automatic perception of whites as allies by that part of the population that psychologically did not accept the riots. However, soon this slogan about law and order manifested itself in the population’s attitude towards whites from a side that was completely unexpected for them and, to the surprise of many, played into the hands of the Bolsheviks, becoming one of the reasons for their final victory in the Civil War:
A participant in the White resistance, and later its researcher, General A. A. von Lampe testified that the slogans of the Bolshevik leaders, who played on the base instincts of the crowd, such as “Beat the bourgeoisie, rob the loot,” and told the population that everyone can take everything they have whatever, were infinitely more attractive to the people who had experienced a catastrophic decline in morals as a result of the 4-year war than the slogans of the white leaders who said that everyone was entitled only to what was due by law.
Denikin’s General von Lampe, the author of the above quote, further continuing his thought, wrote that “the Reds absolutely denied everything and elevated arbitrariness to law; Whites, denying the Reds, of course could not help but deny the methods of arbitrariness and violence used by the Reds...... The Whites failed or could not be fascists, who from the first moment of their existence began to fight using the methods of their opponent! And perhaps it was the unsuccessful experience of the whites that later taught the fascists?”
General von Lampe's conclusion was as follows:
Big problem for Denikin and Kolchak there was the separatism of the Cossacks, especially the Kuban. Although the Cossacks were the most organized and worst enemies of the Bolsheviks, they sought first of all to liberate their Cossack territories from the Bolsheviks, and had difficulty obeying central government and were reluctant to fight outside their lands.
The white leaders envisioned the future structure of Russia as a democratic state in its Western European traditions, adapted to the realities of the Russian political process. Russian democracy was supposed to be based on democracy, the elimination of estate and class inequality, the equality of all before the law, the dependence of the political position of individual nationalities on their culture and their historical traditions. So the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, argued that:
And the Commander-in-Chief of V.S.Yu.R. General A.I. Denikin wrote that after...
The Supreme Ruler pointed to the elimination of the autonomy of local self-government by the Bolsheviks and the first task in his policy was the establishment of universal suffrage and the free operation of zemstvo and city institutions, which together he considered the beginning of the revival of Russia. He said that he would convene the Constituent Assembly only when all of Russia was cleared of the Bolsheviks and law and order was established in it. Alexander Vasilyevich argued that he would disperse Kerensky’s elected party if it gathered on its own. Kolchak also said that when convening the Constituent Assembly, he would focus only on state-healthy elements. “This is the kind of democrat I am,” Kolchak summed up. According to the theorist of the Russian counter-revolution N. N. Golovin, of all the white leaders, only the Supreme Ruler, Admiral A. V. Kolchak, “found the courage not to leave the state point of view.”
Speaking about the political programs of the white leaders, it should be noted that the policy of “non-decision” and the desire to convene a Constituent Assembly was not, however, a generally accepted tactic. The white opposition, represented by the extreme right - primarily the top officers - demanded monarchist banners, overshadowed by the call “ For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland!" This part of the White movement looked at the struggle against the Bolsheviks, who disgraced Russia with the Brest-Litovsk Peace, as a continuation of the Great War. Such views were expressed, in particular, by M. V. Rodzianko and V. M. Purishkevich. “The first checker of the Empire,” cavalry general Count F.A. Keller, who exercised overall command of all white troops in Ukraine from November 15, 1918, criticized Denikin for the “uncertainty” of his political program and explained to him his refusal to join his Volunteer Army :
The people are waiting for the Tsar and will follow the one who promises to return him! |
According to I. L. Solonevich and some other authors, the main reasons for the defeat of the White cause were the absence of a monarchist slogan among the Whites. Solonevich also provides information that one of the Bolshevik leaders, the organizer of the Red Army, Leon Trotsky, agreed with this explanation of the reasons for the failure of the Whites and the victory of the Bolsheviks. In support of this, Solonevich cited a quotation that, according to him, belonged to Trotsky:
At the same time, according to historian S.V. Volkov, the tactic of not putting forward monarchist slogans in the conditions of the Civil War was the only correct one. He cites the example of the Southern and Astrakhan white armies, which openly marched with the monarchical banner, and by the autumn of 1918 suffered complete defeat due to the rejection of monarchical ideas by the peasantry, confirming this.
If we consider the struggle of ideas and slogans of whites and reds during the Civil War, then it should be noted that the Bolsheviks were in the ideological vanguard, who took the first step towards the people with plans to end the First World War and develop a world revolution, forcing the whites to defend themselves with their main slogan “ Great and United Russia”, understood as the obligation to restore and respect the territorial integrity of Russia and the pre-war borders of 1914. At the same time, “integrity” was perceived as identical to the concept of “Great Russia”. In 1920, Baron Wrangel tried to deviate from the generally accepted course towards a “Unified and Indivisible Russia,” whose head of the Department of Foreign Relations, P. B. Struve, stated that “Russia will have to co-organize on a federal basis through a free agreement between the state entities created on its territories.”
Already in exile, the whites regretted and repented that they could not formulate clearer political slogans that took into account changes in Russian realities, General A. S. Lukomsky testified to this.
Summarizing the analysis of the political and ideological models proposed by the white rulers, historian and researcher of the White movement and the Civil War V.D. Zimina writes:
One thing was constant - the White movement was an alternative to the Bolshevik process of leading (saving) Russia out of a multilateral imperial crisis by combining world and domestic traditions of political, socio-economic and cultural development. In other words, torn from the hands of Bolshevism and democratically renewed, Russia was supposed to remain “Great and United” in the community of developed countries of the world
- Zimina V.D. White matter of rebellious Russia: Political regimes of the Civil War. 1917-1920 - M.: Ros. humanist univ., 2006. - P. 103. - ISBN 5-7281-0806-7
Hostilities
Fighting in the South of Russia
The core of the White movement in southern Russia was the Volunteer Army, created in early 1918 under the leadership of generals Alekseev and Kornilov in Novocherkassk. The areas of initial action of the Volunteer Army were the Don Army Region and Kuban. After the death of General Kornilov during the siege of Yekaterinodar, command of the white forces passed to General Denikin. In June 1918, the 8,000-strong Volunteer Army began its second campaign against Kuban, which had completely rebelled against the Bolsheviks. Having defeated the Kuban Red group consisting of three armies (about 90 thousand bayonets and sabers), volunteers and Cossacks took Yekaterinodar on August 17, and by the end of August they completely cleared the territory of the Kuban army from the Bolsheviks (see also Development of the war in the South).
Winter 1918-1919 Denikin's troops established control over the North Caucasus, defeating and destroying the 90,000-strong 11th Red Army operating there. Having repulsed the offensive of the Red Southern Front (100 thousand bayonets and sabers) in the Donbass and Manych in March-May, on May 17, 1919, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (70 thousand bayonets and sabers) launched a counter-offensive. They broke through the front and, having inflicted a heavy defeat on units of the Red Army, by the end of June they captured Donbass, Crimea, Kharkov on June 24, Ekaterinoslav on June 27, and Tsaritsyn on June 30. On July 3, Denikin set his troops the task of capturing Moscow.
During the attack on Moscow (for more details, see Denikin’s March on Moscow) in the summer and autumn of 1919, the 1st Corps of the Volunteer Army under the command of General. Kutepov took Kursk (September 20), Orel (October 13) and began moving towards Tula. October 6 parts of the general. Shkuro occupied Voronezh. However, White did not have enough strength to develop success. Since the main provinces and industrial cities of central Russia were in the hands of the Reds, the latter had an advantage both in the number of troops and in weapons. In addition, the Polish leader Pilsudski betrays Denikin and, contrary to the agreement, at the height of the attack on Moscow, concludes a truce with the Bolsheviks, temporarily stopping hostilities and allowing the Reds to transfer additional divisions from their no longer threatened flank to the Oryol area and increase the already overwhelming quantitative advantage over parts of the AFSR. Denikin would later (in 1937) write that if the Poles had made any minimal military efforts at that moment on their front, the Soviet government would have fallen, directly stating that Pilsudski saved the Soviet government from destruction. In addition, Denikin had to in the created the most difficult situation remove significant forces from the front and send them to the Yekaterinoslav region against Makhno, who broke through the White front in the Uman region, and with his raid across Ukraine in October 1919 destroyed the rear of the AFSR. As a result, the attack on Moscow failed, and under the pressure of superior forces of the Red Army, Denikin's troops began to retreat to the south.
On January 10, 1920, the Reds occupied Rostov-on-Don, a large center that opened the road to Kuban, and on March 17, 1920, Yekaterinodar. The Whites fought back to Novorossiysk and from there crossed by sea to the Crimea. Denikin resigned and left Russia. Thus, by the beginning of 1920, Crimea turned out to be the last bastion of the White movement in the south of Russia (for more details, see Crimea - the last bastion of the White movement). Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel took command of the army. The size of Wrangel's army in mid-1920 was about 25 thousand people. In the summer of 1920, the Russian Army of General Wrangel launched a successful offensive in Northern Tavria. In June, Melitopol was occupied, significant Red forces were defeated, in particular, the Zhloba cavalry corps was destroyed. In August, an amphibious landing was undertaken on Kuban under the command of General S.G. Ulagai, but this operation ended in failure.
On the northern front of the Russian army, stubborn battles took place throughout the summer of 1920 in Northern Tavria. Despite some successes for the Whites (Aleksandrovsk was occupied), the Reds, during stubborn battles, occupied a strategic bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper near Kakhovka, creating a threat to Perekop. Despite all the efforts of the Whites, it was not possible to eliminate the bridgehead.
The situation in Crimea was made easier by the fact that in the spring and summer of 1920 large Red forces were diverted to the west, in the war with Poland. However, at the end of August 1920, the Red Army near Warsaw was defeated, and on October 12, 1920, the Poles signed a truce with the Bolsheviks, and Lenin’s government threw all its forces into the fight against the White Army. In addition to the main forces of the Red Army, the Bolsheviks managed to win over Makhno’s army, which also took part in the assault on Crimea.
To storm Crimea, the Reds gathered significant forces (up to 200 thousand people versus 35 thousand for the Whites). The attack on Perekop began on November 7. The fighting was characterized by extraordinary tenacity on both sides and was accompanied by unprecedented losses. Despite the gigantic superiority in manpower and weapons, the Red troops for several days could not break the defenses of the defenders of the Crimea, and only after, having crossed the shallow Chongar Strait, units of the Red Army and Makhno’s allied detachments entered the rear of the main white positions (see. scheme), and on November 11, the Makhnovists defeated Barbovich’s cavalry corps near Karpova Balka, and the White defense was broken through. The Red Army broke into Crimea. By November 13 (October 31), Wrangel's army and many civilian refugees on ships of the Black Sea Fleet sailed to Constantinople. The total number of people who left Crimea was about 150 thousand people.
Fighting in Siberia and the Far East
- Eastern Front - Admiral A.V. Kolchak, General Staff Lieutenant General V.O. Kappel
- People's Army
- Siberian Army
- Western Army
- Ural Army
- Orenburg separate army
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-Western 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 Pilkin, etc.). On the same day, the Government of the North-Western Region, under pressure from the British, who promised recognition, weapons and equipment for the army for this, recognized the state independence of Estonia. However, Kolchak's all-Russian government did not approve this decision.
After the recognition of Estonia's independence by the Government of the Russian North-Western Region, Great Britain provided him with financial assistance and also made minor supplies of weapons and ammunition.
N.N. Yudenich tried to take Petrograd twice (in spring and autumn), but was unsuccessful each time.
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. Yamburg fell on May 17, and Pskov fell on May 25. 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 they 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 near Yamburg and on October 20, 1919, taking Tsarskoe Selo, reached the suburbs 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 of the 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 to Estonia with stubborn fighting. 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 Army in exile
White emigration, which has become massive since 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 of Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel from Crimea in November 1920,
The third - with the defeat of the troops of Admiral A.V. Kolchak and 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 turned to 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. On 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. The Commander-in-Chief became its head, and the general management of the affairs of the EMRO was concentrated at Wrangel's headquarters. From this moment on, 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 - preserving 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 represented a fairly wide range of trends, 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 EMRO 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 a 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 identified 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).
In 1931, in Harbin in the Far East, in Manchuria, where a large Russian colony lived, the Russian Fascist Party was also formed among part of the Russian emigration. The party was created on May 26, 1931 at the 1st Congress of Russian Fascists, held in Harbin. The leader of the Russian Fascist Party was K.V. Rodzaevsky.
During the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Bureau of Russian Emigrants was created, headed by Vladimir Kislitsyn.
Cossacks
Cossack units also emigrated to Europe. Russian Cossacks appeared in the Balkans. All the villages, or rather, only the village atamans and boards, were subordinate to the “United Council of the Don, Kuban and Terek” and the “Cossack Union,” which were headed by Bogaevsky.
One of the largest was the Belgrade General Cossack village named after Peter Krasnov, founded in December 1921 and numbering 200 people. By the end of the 20s. its number was reduced to 70 - 80 people. For a long time, the ataman of the village was the captain N.S. Sazankin. Soon the Terets left the village, forming their own village - Terskaya. The Cossacks who remained in the village joined the EMRO and it received representation in the “Council of Military Organizations” of the IV Department, where the new ataman, General Markov, had the same voting rights as other members of the council.
In Bulgaria by the end of the 20s, there were no more than 10 villages. One of the most numerous was Kaledinskaya in Ankhialo (ataman - Colonel M.I. Karavaev), formed in 1921 with 130 people. Less than ten years later, only 20 people remained in it, and 30 left for Soviet Russia. Public life Cossack villages and farms in Bulgaria consisted of helping the needy and disabled, as well as holding military and traditional Cossack holidays.
Burgas Cossack village, formed in 1922 with 200 people by the end of the 20s. also consisted of no more than 20 people, and half of the original composition returned home.
During the 30s - 40s. Cossack villages ceased to exist due to the events of the Second World War.
Anton Denikin
Anton Ivanovich Denikin was one of the main leaders of the White movement during the Civil War, its leader in the south of Russia. He achieved the greatest military and political results among all the leaders of the White movement. One of the main organizers, and then commander of the Volunteer Army. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, Deputy Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Admiral Kolchak.
After the death of Kolchak, all-Russian power was supposed to pass to Denikin, but on April 4, 1920, he transferred command to General Wrangel and on the same day he left with his family for Europe. Denikin lived in England, Belgium, Hungary, and France, where he was engaged in literary activities. While remaining a staunch opponent of the Soviet system, he nevertheless refused German offers of cooperation. Soviet influence in Europe forced Denikin to move to the United States in 1945, where he continued to work on autobiographical story“The Path of a Russian Officer,” but never had time to finish it. General Anton Ivanovich Denikin died of a heart attack on August 8, 1947 at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor and was buried in a cemetery in Detroit. In 2005, the ashes of General Denikin and his wife were transported to Moscow for burial in the Holy Don Monastery.
Alexander Kolchak
The leader of the White movement during the Civil War, Supreme Ruler of Russia Alexander Kolchak was born on November 16, 1874 in St. Petersburg. In November 1919, under the pressure of the Red Army, Kolchak left Omsk. In December, Kolchak’s train was blocked in Nizhneudinsk by the Czechoslovaks. On January 4, 1920, he transferred the entirety of the already mythical power to Denikin, and the command of the armed forces in the east to Semyonov. Kolchak's safety was guaranteed by the allied command. But after the transfer of power in Irkutsk to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee, Kolchak was also at his disposal. Upon learning of Kolchak's capture, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin gave orders to shoot him. Alexander Kolchak was shot along with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev on the banks of the Ushakovka River. The corpses of those shot were lowered into the hole on the Angara.
Lavr Kornilov
Lavr Kornilov - Russian military leader, participant in the Civil War, one of the organizers and Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, leader of the White movement in the South of Russia.
On April 13, 1918 he was killed during the assault on Yekaterinodar by an enemy grenade. The coffin with Kornilov's body was secretly buried during the retreat through the German colony of Gnachbau. The grave was razed to the ground. Later, organized excavations discovered only the coffin with the body of Colonel Nezhentsev. In Kornilov’s dug up grave, only a piece of a pine coffin was found.
Peter Krasnov
Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov - general of the Russian Imperial Army, ataman of the All-Great Don Army, military and political figure, writer and publicist. During World War II, he served as head of the Main Directorate of Cossack Troops of the Imperial Ministry of Eastern Occupied Territories. In June 1917, he was appointed head of the 1st Kuban Cossack Division, in September - commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, promoted to lieutenant general. He was arrested during the Kornilov speech upon arrival in Pskov by the commissar of the Northern Front, but was then released. On May 16, 1918, Krasnov was elected ataman Don Cossacks. Having relied on Germany, relying on its support and not obeying A.I. To Denikin, who was still focused on the “allies,” he launched a fight against the Bolsheviks at the head of the Don Army.
The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR announced the decision to execute Krasnov P.N., Krasnov S.N., Shkuro, Sultan-Girey Klych, von Pannwitz - for the fact that “they waged an armed struggle against the Soviet Union through the White Guard detachments they formed and carried out active espionage, sabotage and terrorist activities against the USSR.” On January 16, 1947, Krasnov and others were hanged in Lefortovo prison.
Peter Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel was a Russian military commander from the main leaders of the White movement during the Civil War. Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in Crimea and Poland. Lieutenant General of the General Staff. Knight of St. George. He received the nickname “Black Baron” for his traditional everyday dress - a black Cossack Circassian coat with gazyrs.
On April 25, 1928, he died suddenly in Brussels after suddenly contracting tuberculosis. According to his family, he was poisoned by the brother of his servant, who was a Bolshevik agent. He was buried in Brussels. Subsequently, Wrangel's ashes were transferred to Belgrade, where they were solemnly reburied on October 6, 1929 in the Russian Church of the Holy Trinity.
Nikolai Yudenich
Nikolai Yudenich - a Russian military leader, an infantry general - during the Civil War he led the forces operating against Soviet power in the northwestern direction.
He died in 1962 from pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried first in the Lower Church in Cannes, but subsequently his coffin was transferred to Nice to the Cocade cemetery. October 20, 2008 in the church fence near the altar of the Church of the Holy Cross Church in the village of Opole, Kingisepp district Leningrad region As a tribute to the memory of the fallen ranks of General Yudenich's army, a monument to the soldiers of the North-Western Army was erected.
Mikhail Alekseev
Mikhail Alekseev was an active participant in the White movement during the Civil War. One of the creators, Supreme Leader of the Volunteer Army.
He died on October 8, 1918 from pneumonia and after a two-day farewell to thousands of people, he was buried in the Military Cathedral of the Kuban Cossack Army in Yekaterinodar. Among the wreaths laid on his grave, one attracted the attention of the public with its genuine touchingness. It was written on it: “We didn’t see, but we knew and loved.” During the retreat of the white troops at the beginning of 1920, his ashes were taken to Serbia by relatives and colleagues and reburied in Belgrade. During the years of communist rule, in order to avoid the destruction of the grave of the founder and leader of the “White Cause,” the slab on his grave was replaced with another, on which only two words were laconically written: “Mikhail the Warrior.”
