Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny - Soviet military leader, commander of the First Cavalry Army of the Red Army during the Civil War, one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union.

He created a revolutionary cavalry detachment that acted against the White Guards on the Don. Together with the divisions of the 8th Army, they defeated the Cossack corps of generals Mamontov and Shkuro. Troops under the command of Budyonny (14th Cavalry Division of O.I. Gorodovikov) took part in the disarmament of F.K. Mironov’s Don Corps, which went to the front against A.I. Denikin, allegedly for attempting to raise a counter-revolutionary rebellion.

Post-war activities:

Budyonny is a member of the RVS, and then deputy commander of the North Caucasus Military District.

Budyonny became the “godfather” of the Chechen Autonomous Region

Budyonny is appointed assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Red Army for cavalry and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR.

Inspector of the Red Army cavalry.

Graduates from the Military Academy. M. V. Frunze.

Budyonny commanded the troops of the Moscow Military District.

Member of the Main Military Council of NGOs of the USSR, Deputy People's Commissar.

First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense

Blucher V.K. (1890-1938)

Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher - Soviet military, state and party leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union. Knight of the Order of the Red Banner No. 1 and the Order of the Red Star No. 1.

He commanded the 30th Infantry Division in Siberia and fought against the troops of A.V. Kolchak.

He was the head of the 51st Infantry Division. Blucher was appointed sole commander of the 51st Infantry Division, transferred to the reserve of the Main Command of the Red Army. In May, he was appointed head of the West Siberian sector of military and industrial maintenance. Appointed Chairman of the Military Council, Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic and Minister of War of the Far Eastern Republic.

Post-war activities:

He was appointed commander of the 1st Rifle Corps, then commandant and military commissar of the Petrograd fortified area.

In 1924 he was seconded to the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR

In 1924 he was sent to China

Participated in the planning of the Northern Expedition.

Served as assistant commander of the Ukrainian Military District.

In 1929 he was appointed commander of the Special Far Eastern Army.

During the fighting at the lake, Khasan led the Far Eastern Front.

• He died from beatings during the investigation in Lefortovo prison.

Tukhachevsky M.N. (1893-1937)

Kamenev S.S. (1881-1936)

Post-war activities:

Inspector of the Red Army.

Chief of Staff of the Red Army.

Chief Inspector.

Head of the Main Directorate of the Red Army, chief head of the cycle of tactics at the Military Academy. Frunze.

At the same time a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR.

Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR.

Was accepted into the CPSU(b).

Was appointed head of the Red Army Air Defense Directorate

• Kamenev was awarded the rank of army commander of the 1st rank.

Vatsetis I.I. (1873-1938)

Joachim Joakimovich Vatsetis - Russian, Soviet military leader. Commander of the 2nd rank.

After the October Revolution, they went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. He was the head of the operational department of the Revolutionary Field Headquarters at Headquarters. He led the suppression of the rebellion of the Polish corps of General Dovbor-Musnitsky. Commander of the Latvian Rifle Division, one of the leaders of the suppression of the Left Socialist Revolutionary uprising in Moscow in July 1918. Commander of the Eastern Front, Commander-in-Chief of all Armed Forces of the RSFSR. At the same time commander of the Army of Soviet Latvia. Since 1921, he has been teaching at the Military Academy of the Red Army, commander of the 2nd rank.

Commander of the created Volunteer Army. Killed on 04/13/1918 during the storming of Ekaterinodar (Krasnodar) in the 1st Kuban (Ice) campaign.

Krasnov P.N. (1869-1947)

Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov - general of the Russian Imperial Army, ataman All-Great Don Army, military and political figure, famous writer and publicist.

Krasnov's Don Army occupied the territoryRegions of the Don Army, knocking out parts from there Red Army , and he himself was elected ataman Don Cossacks. The Don Army in 1918 was on the verge of destruction, and Krasnov decided to unite with the Volunteer Army under the command of A.I. Denikin. Soon Krasnov himself was forced to resign and went toNorthwestern Army Yudenich , based in Estonia.

Post-war activities:

Emigrated in 1920. Lived in Germany, near Munich

Since November 1923 - in France.

Was one of the founders of "Brotherhood of Russian Truth»

Since 1936 lived in Germany.

Since September 1943 chief Main Directorate of Cossack TroopsImperial Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories Germany.

In May 1945 surrendered to the British.

He was transferred to Moscow, where he was kept in Butyrka prison.

By verdict Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSRP. N. Krasnov was hanged in Moscow, inLefortovo prison January 16, 1947.

Grigory Mikhailovich Semenov - Cossack ataman, leader of the White movement in Transbaikalia and the Far East,lieutenant general White Army . Continued to form into Transbaikalia mounted Buryat-Mongolian Cossack detachment. Three new regiments were formed in Semenov’s troops: 1st Ononsky, 2nd Akshinsko-Mangutsky and 3rd Purinsky. Was created military school for cadets . Semyonov was appointed commander of the 5th Amur Army Corps. Appointed commander of the 6th East Siberian Army Corps, assistant to the chief commander of the Amur region and assistant commander troops of the Amur Military District, commander of the troops of the Irkutsk, Transbaikal and Amur Military Districts.

In 1946 he was sentenced to death.

Yudenich N.N. (1862-1933)












Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich- Russian military leader, infantry general.

In June 1919, Kolchak appointed him commander-in-chief of the north-west. army formed by Russian White Guards in Estonia, and became part of the Russian White Guard Northwestern government formed in Estonia. Undertook from the north-west. army's second campaign against Petrograd. The offensive was defeated near Petrograd. After the defeat of the north-west. army, was arrested by General Bulak-Balakhovich, but after the intervention of the allied governments he was released and went abroad. Died frompulmonary tuberculosis.




Results of the Civil War




In a fierce armed struggle, the Bolsheviks managed to retain power in their hands. All state formations that arose after the collapse of the Russian Empire were liquidated, with the exception of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland.




MARSHAL TUKHACHEVSKY

Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich (1893-1937), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). During the civil war, commander of a number of armies in the Volga region, the South, the Urals, and Siberia; commander of the Caucasian Front, Western Front in the Soviet-Polish War. In 1921 he participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, commanded the troops that suppressed peasant uprisings in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces. In 1925-28, chief of staff of the Red Army. Since 1931, Deputy People's Commissar of Military Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR. From 1934 Deputy, from 1936 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Defense. In 1937 commander of the Volga Military District troops.

Repressed, rehabilitated posthumously.

Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich was born on February 16, 1893 into a noble family near Smolensk. His father was a poor landowner, his mother was from a peasant family.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky dreamed of a military career from a young age. At the age of 19 he graduated from the Moscow Cadet Corps. As the first student to graduate, his name was put on a marble plaque. Then he entered the Alexander Military School, which he also graduated as the first student with the right to choose his place of service. Tukhachevsky chose the capital's Life Guards Semenovsky Regiment.

During the First World War, Second Lieutenant Tukhachevsky showed unparalleled courage, for which he was awarded six orders within six months. In one of the battles, he was captured by the Germans and made several unsuccessful escapes. In captivity, he became close friends with the Frenchman Charles de Gaulle, the future General de Gaulle, President of France.

Having learned about the February Revolution, Mikhail Tukhachevsky escaped from captivity and returned to the Semenovsky regiment stationed in Petrograd. The regiment was soon disbanded, and Tukhachevsky entered service in the Red Army in March 1918. He made this choice consciously. According to the reviews of the French who were in captivity with him, Mikhail Tukhachevsky did not accept Western civilization and persistently argued that Russia was destined for a special path of spiritual and state development. He openly and defiantly advocated the need for a strong government in Russia, for dictatorship. He also spoke approvingly of Vladimir Lenin.

Lenin was informed about an unusual young and bright officer, and he invited him to his place. The conversation with Lenin inspired the 25-year-old second lieutenant. Mikhail Tukhachevsky also made a strong impression on the leader of the Bolsheviks with his reasoned proposals on the need for the speedy creation of a professional army.

In 1918, Mikhail Tukhachevsky joined the Bolshevik Party, and the prospects for an extraordinary military career immediately opened up to him.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky began his brilliant career as a military leader immediately as army commander on the Eastern Front. Trotsky, Sergei Kamenev, Frunze, and Tukhachevsky who arrived at the front turned the tide of hostilities on the Eastern Front, which was unfavorable for the Bolsheviks, recaptured the Volga cities and threw the enemy beyond the Urals.

Tukhachevsky's army continued its victorious offensive in 1919 in the Urals and Siberia. Tukhachevsky took the city of Omsk, the capital of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak. After the victory over Kolchak's army, Mikhail Tukhachevsky successfully led military operations against the armies of General Denikin.

During the inglorious Soviet-Polish war, Mikhail Tukhachevsky suffered his first, but very difficult, defeat.

Trotsky, Lenin, Bukharin and other Bolshevik leaders, intoxicated by victories in the civil war, dreamed of a world revolution, the fire of which they wanted to kindle in Europe. They planned to capture Warsaw, Berlin and then move the Red Army to Paris. Tukhachevsky commanded the Western Front, which was tasked with encircling and capturing Warsaw. The Polish army under the command of Pilsudski bravely and skillfully defended its native lands. A situation of temporary balance of power has arisen. The left flank of the Western Front was weakened and instead of encircling Warsaw, Soviet troops themselves could be surrounded, “into a cauldron.” Tukhachevsky, through the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and the Military Commissar Trotsky, as well as Lenin, demanded the immediate reinforcement of the left flank of the front by the 1st Cavalry Army under the command of Budyonny, which was part of the Southwestern Front. On August 2, 1920, the Politburo decided to transfer the 1st Cavalry Army and two combined arms armies from the Southwestern Front to the Western Front. Stalin, as a member of the Politburo, agreed with this decision, but as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southwestern Front, he unexpectedly refused to sign the order of front commander A.I. Egorova. An order without his signature was invalid. Thus, Stalin delayed the resolution of the issue for two weeks. The troops of the Western Front were surrounded and defeated.

After the end of the civil war, Mikhail Tukhachevsky commanded the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising of sailors and the peasant uprising in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces. In both cases, Tukhachevsky mercilessly used chemical warfare agents against the rebels.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky, thanks to the breadth of his horizons, depth of education, authority and combat experience, after the civil war entered the elite of the Red Army, one of its top commanders. He was one of the first military leaders to understand the need for technical re-equipment of the Red Army and the creation of powerful tank formations to replace cavalry.

Disputes about the ways of military development of the Red Army were conducted between a group of military leaders who supported Tukhachevsky (Kork, Primakov, Uborevich, Yakir, Gamarnik, Egorov and others), and people from the lower classes, poorly educated “horsemen”: Voroshilov, Budyonny, Shchadenko, Kulik and other illiterate leaders of the Red Army, who mainly fought on the fronts of the civil war together with Stalin. Mikhail Tukhachevsky believed that cavalry had exhausted its usefulness in modern warfare, and that technical re-equipment of the Red Army was necessary. But he met stubborn resistance, especially from Budyonny and Voroshilov.

Stalin alternately supported one group or the other. Accordingly, Tukhachevsky's position changed: chief of staff of the Red Army, commander of the Military District, deputy people's commissar of defense, again district commander.

With the beginning of the repressions, Tukhachevsky perfectly understood what was happening in the country, being personally acquainted with all the old Bolsheviks against whom the repressions were first unleashed.

Stalin was aware of Tukhachevsky's high authority in the army, of his sentiments and conversations among the military, who condemned the repressions. Therefore, the Secretary General carefully prepared to eliminate the most authoritative commanders of the Red Army, who posed a serious threat to his personal power.

At the 17th turning point Party Congress, the voting results of which were falsified on Stalin’s instructions, Mikhail Tukhachevsky participated in behind-the-scenes negotiations with senior commanders and old Bolsheviks about the possibility of electing S.M. as General Secretary. Kirov. Through one of the old Bolsheviks, Kirov himself was probed. However, the straightforward and simple-minded Sergei Kirov did not find anything better than to inform Stalin about the offer made to him and that he, Kirov, refused it. Thus, Kirov signed his own death warrant. Stalin could not leave such a real and authoritative party rival alive. In the same year, 1934, Kirov was killed.

After the introduction of ranks in the Red Army in 1935, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, among the first five military leaders, was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

The arrest of Tukhachevsky was facilitated by German intelligence and white emigrants who were trying to take revenge on the red commander for their military defeats. White emigrants planted a document about the imaginary preparation by the military, led by Tukhachevsky, of a military coup in the USSR. However, Stalin did not proceed with this fake, although he showed it to some members of the Politburo.

Germany was preparing ahead of time for war with the USSR. The fascist leadership and German generals considered Mikhail Tukhachevsky, as well as his entourage, to be the most outstanding military leader of the Red Army. The plan to discredit him was discussed at the highest level with the participation of Adolf Hitler.

German military intelligence acted skillfully and professionally, taking into account Stalin's character traits. She leaked information about the alleged theft of secret documents during a fire in the German War Ministry. In fact, these documents were sent to Czechoslovakia and ended up with the president of that country, Benes. He believed them and, in turn, sent the documents to Moscow. Stalin most likely did not believe the fake, but it came in handy for him. He had long been wary of the popular and independent Marshal.

Stalin hesitated for a long time to arrest Tukhachevsky, slowly pondering a plan for reprisals against the famous Marshal and other senior commanders. Tukhachevsky was the most authoritative commander of the Red Army, and therefore Stalin tried to act carefully. On his instructions, Voroshilov issued an order appointing Tukhachevsky as commander of the Volga Military District and releasing him from his duties as deputy people's commissar of defense. By the same order, Marshal Egorov was appointed in his place, and Army Commander 2nd Rank B.M. was appointed Chief of the General Staff. Shaposhnikov. For Tukhachevsky, the transfer to the commander of the Military District was a clear demotion and this greatly alarmed him. Tukhachevsky felt that the threat of arrest hung over him. Stalin, following his rule of calming down the doomed person before arrest, accepted the Marshal. The content of the conversation between them remained unknown, although it can be assumed that Stalin gave some general political reassuring reasons for the appointment of the famous commander to a minor military district.

Tukhachevsky went to Kuibyshev, where he was arrested. According to one version, it happened like this: upon his arrival in the city of Kuibyshev, he spoke at a party conference. People who knew Tukhachevsky noticed that he had turned gray over the past two months. The next day he was invited to the regional party committee and arrested. According to another version, Tukhachevsky was arrested in his marshal's special carriage on May 22, 1937, on the third day after his arrival. He was not even offered an apartment in the city and these days he lived with his wife Nina Evgenievna in a special car. Tukhachevsky's marshal stars were torn off, his orders were taken away, and documents and letters were confiscated during the search.

Stalin, meanwhile, found out the opinion of the members of the Politburo, and then the following document was sent to members and candidates for membership of the Central Committee for voting:

“Based on data exposing member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Rudzutak and candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Tukhachevsky of participation in the anti-Soviet Trotskyist-right conspiratorial bloc and espionage work against the USSR in favor of fascist Germany, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks is betting on voting proposal to expel Rudzutak and Tukhachevsky from the party and transfer their case to the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs

Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks I. Stalin.”

Yezhov received another opportunity to distinguish himself before Stalin. Voroshilov - to get rid of an educated and intelligent deputy, whose presence nearby constantly emphasized his own professional unsuitability as a military leader.

Together with Tukhachevsky, the most prominent Soviet commanders were arrested and accused of a fascist military conspiracy: Yakir, Uborevich, Kork, Eideman, Feldman, Primakov, Putna. These were commanders who grouped around Tukhachevsky to carry out progressive reforms of the army and its rearmament. It was the color, the brain of the Red Army.

When Tukhachevsky was brought to Moscow on May 25 and placed in solitary confinement in the internal NKVD prison on Lubyanka, Marshal had already been expelled from the party. Feldman, Putna and Primakov, who were previously arrested, testified against him. Tukhachevsky tried to deny his participation in any conspiracies, but after confrontations with the above-mentioned military leaders and processing in the dungeons of the NKVD, he admitted “the presence of an anti-Soviet conspiracy.” Marshall lasted only a day. However, Tukhachevsky, in his six-page “confession” of May 26, denied the “Trotskyist” nature of the conspiracy. He wrote that the purpose of the “conspiracy” was to strengthen the influence of a group of like-minded people in the army and remove Voroshilov from the post of People’s Commissar of Defense. Tukhachevsky denied the accusation of intending to kill Voroshilov. He claimed that he only wanted to achieve Voroshilov’s transfer from the army to another job. Tukhachevsky accused Primakov and Putna of having connections with Trotsky and his supporters, who allegedly met with Trotskyists abroad (Encyclopedia of Military Art. Marshals and Admirals. Minsk. “Literature.” 1997). But already on May 27 (within three days) Tukhachevsky was finally broken and “confessed” to all the charges brought against him: leading a fascist military conspiracy, sabotage, espionage, organizing sabotage, etc.

NKVD investigators extracted the necessary testimony from the arrested military personnel “thoroughly.” They all signed the required testimony against each other and themselves, and did not refuse them at the trial.

But the trial was quick and unjust. Started at 9 am and finished after lunch. Present were the army lawyer Ulrich, one of the main Stalinist executioners in a judicial robe, Marshals Budyonny and Blucher, Army commanders of the 1st rank Shaposhnikov and Belov, Army commanders of the 2nd rank Alksnis, Dybenko, Kashirin, and Divisional Commander Goryachev.

Tukhachevsky, Kork, Uborevich, Putna, Primakov, Eideman, Feldman, Yakir were sentenced by their former comrades to death.

Stalin deliberately included senior commanders in the court. Thus, he tested them for loyalty to himself. Yezhov reported to Stalin that only Budyonny tried at the trial. Tukhachevsky at one time ridiculed Budyonny for his commitment to cavalry as the main fighting force of the modern army. And now it's time to settle scores. The rest of the commanders were mostly silent. Stalin did not like this and ordered them to be checked, which meant almost certain arrest.

All military participants in the meeting were arrested and shot, except Budyonny and Shaposhnikov. Marshal Blucher died in an NKVD cell from torture.

Vyacheslav Molotov justified the execution of the best Soviet military leaders in the following way: “I’m not sure that a person like, say, Tukhachevsky, whom we knew well, would not have staggered. Do not think that Stalin believed some falsehood allegedly transmitted through Benes. Tukhachevsky was shot because he was the military force of the right - Rykov and Bukharin. And coups d'etat cannot happen without the military. I don’t understand why Tukhachevsky was rehabilitated. Not just me. Voroshilov, for example, said after his rehabilitation: “I didn’t and don’t believe this master.”

The German army, represented by its intelligence, won its first victory over the Red Army. The Soviet army before the war was bled dry by Stalin and his satraps, and heavy defeats in the first months of the war became inevitable. The Voroshilovs, Budyonnys, Kuliks and other illiterate marshals and generals were not able to replace the destroyed flower of the Red Army, led by its most talented commander - Mikhail Tukhachevsky.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky himself chose his fate when he voluntarily joined the Red Army after meeting Lenin. He fought well in the civil war, suffering only one defeat near Warsaw, mainly due to the fault of Stalin, Voroshilov and Budyonny. However, having entered the service of the Bolsheviks, Mikhail Tukhachevsky adopted their “religion”. He brutally suppressed peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the Voronezh and Tambov provinces, inhumanely using poisonous gases. It was Mikhail Tukhachevsky who commanded the Red Army during the suppression of the sailors' uprising in Kronstadt in 1921. And again he inhumanly and criminally used chemical weapons to defeat the rebel sailors who brought the Bolsheviks to power.

The denial of universal human norms of morality and ethics allowed a man with clearly satanic inclinations, Joseph Stalin, to rise to the top of power in the USSR. And he began to rewrite with a bloody pen the history of the Bolshevik revolution, the history of the civil war, the history of the formation of Soviet power. And the largest living “builders” of this history, its witnesses, became an obstacle to the “leader of all times and peoples.” And he mercilessly destroyed them, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky.

MARSHAL BLUCHER

Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich (1890-1938), Marshal of the Soviet Union. Prominent commander of the Red Army during the Civil War. In 1921-22, Minister of War, Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. In 1929-38 commander of the Special Far Eastern Army. Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1916. Candidate member of the Central Committee in 1934-38. Member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Member of the USSR Supreme Council since 1937.

Vasily Blucher was one of the most prominent commanders of the Red Army during the Civil War. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner N1.

Vasily Blucher was born on November 19 (December 1), 1890 in the village of Barshchinka, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province. Vasily inherited his surname, which is quite unusual for a Russian person, on his father’s side from his great-great-grandfather Vasily Konstantinovich. At that time, peasants did not have surnames. Their surnames were replaced by nicknames. The brave soldier, who bravely fought against Napoleon's army, was jokingly nicknamed by his fellow soldiers as Blücher, after the name of the Prussian general Blücher. The nickname stuck firmly. After the abolition of serfdom, all peasants received surnames. The descendants of the Georgievsky Cavalier Vasily Konstantinovich have since officially begun to be written as Bluchers, thus receiving a German surname.

In 1910, Vasily Blucher received almost three years in prison for campaigning against the government and calling for a strike. Upon leaving prison, his father did not recognize him, and Vasily moved to Moscow, where he got a job as a mechanic on the Moscow-Kazan Railway. At the same time, he enrolled in one-year courses at Shanyavsky University. He did not have time to complete the courses - he was drafted into the army. The year 1914 came, and with it the First World War began.

The February Revolution of 1917 shook Russia. Blucher was in Samara during this turbulent time. The Revolutionary Committee here was led by Valerian Kuibyshev. He sent Vasily Blucher as a Bolshevik agitator to the army, where he was elected to the regimental committee, and then to the Samara Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

The October Bolshevik Revolution took place and civil war broke out. In the spring and summer of 1918, Blucher found himself at the epicenter of the fighting, being surrounded in the Beloretsk region. Blucher was elected commander-in-chief of the Combined Ural detachment of partisans and scattered Red Army detachments. Vasily Blucher managed to break through with his detachment to the main forces of the Red Army, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner N1 on September 28, 1918.

At the very end of the civil war, it was the 51st Division under the command of Blucher that broke through the defenses of General Wrangel’s Russian Army during the famous Soviet-era assault on Perekop in the Crimea. Blucher brilliantly fulfilled the military task assigned to him. And it’s not his fault that the “heroic” assault was senseless and unnecessary. The fact is that the commander of the troops, Mikhail Frunze, began negotiations with General Wrangel about the bloodless occupation of the Crimea by the Red Army in exchange for providing guarantees for the unhindered departure of the Russian army abroad. Vladimir Lenin canceled all Frunze’s guarantees by telegram and ordered an attack on Crimea and the complete extermination of Russian officers. Tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers died during this senseless operation, failing to achieve the goal set by Lenin. The Russian army and everyone who wanted it went abroad. The French government, on the security of Russian courts, undertook to accept and provide everything necessary for the first time to all those leaving Russia. On October 3, ships with refugees left the shores of their homeland. The landing took place without any complications. There was enough space on the ships for everyone. About 150 thousand people were taken out on 126 ships, not counting the ship's crews. This was the first time in the history of the civil war that an operation to evacuate a huge mass of people was brilliantly prepared and carried out. Lenin failed to disrupt this evacuation and destroy the Russian army. But on his orders, tens of thousands of Russian officers who believed Frunze’s promises to save their lives were shot in Crimea. Mikhail Frunze was forced to carry out the order of the Bolshevik leader and break his word of honor.

Having conquered the Crimea, Vasily Blucher left for the Far East, where he again achieved great military success.

After the introduction of the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in the Red Army in 1935, Vasily Blucher, among the first five military leaders, was awarded this highest military rank.

Blucher fell into disgrace during a short war with the Japanese in the Far East near Lake Khasan in July-August 1938. Stalin, through Voroshilov, gave the order for a total bombing by Soviet aviation of Japanese forces that had captured strategic heights. Blucher hesitated to carry out the order, since the positions of the Red Army soldiers were located in such a way that they came under bomb attacks from their own aircraft. In addition, civilians would suffer. Therefore, Blucher maneuvered to avoid unnecessary losses.

Stalin was impatient, he himself contacted Blucher and accused him of not following the order. Stalin needed not just a victory over the Japanese, but a terrifying victory, for which he did not feel sorry for the lives of some tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers.

After the successful completion of the Far Eastern campaign, Blucher was recalled to Moscow and placed at the disposal of the People's Commissariat of Defense, without receiving a new appointment. On September 4, People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov issued a secret order: “The leadership of the commander of the DC front, Marshal Blucher, during the fighting at Lake Khasan was completely unsatisfactory and bordered on conscious defeatism. His entire behavior in the time preceding the hostilities and during the battles themselves was a combination of duplicity, indiscipline and sabotage of the armed resistance to the Japanese troops who had seized part of our territory... Blucher failed or did not want to truly realize the cleansing of the front from the enemies of the people.” .

Blucher, like all senior commanders, passively participated in Stalin's repressions of senior military officers, in particular in the trial of Tukhachevsky. He did not dare to stand up for his comrades then, although he knew of their innocence. Now he realized that his turn had come.

Blucher was arrested on a warrant signed by Yezhov. Soon Yezhov himself was arrested. The little People's Commissar was replaced by the executioner of Georgia, Lavrentiy Beria.

Stalin decided at this time to take a short break from the repressions. However, this relaxation did not affect Vasily Blucher. He was left in the dungeons of the NKVD.

During interrogations, Vasily Blucher behaved extremely courageously. Eyewitnesses reported that Blucher’s body, after beatings and torture, was a complete bloody mess. His eye was gouged out. But Blucher did not give up. He never signed a false statement against himself, and in a rage he was beaten to death by drunken NKVD investigators.

MARSHAL EGOROV

Egorov Alexander Ilyich (1883-1939), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935). During the civil war, the commander of a number of armies and fronts. In 1931-35, Chief of Staff of the Red Army, in 1935-37, Chief of the General Staff. In 1937-38, 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Defense. Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1918. Candidate member of the Central Committee in 1934-38. Member of the USSR Supreme Council since 1937.

Alexander Egorov went to serve in the army as a volunteer in 1901. He graduated from the Kazan Infantry School in 1905. During the First World War he commanded a company, battalion, and regiment at the front. Egorov, although he served as an officer in the tsarist army, showed interest in political life and joined the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, with whom he broke in 1918.

After the October Revolution, Egorov participated in the creation of the Red Army. In May 1918, he was appointed chairman of the Higher Attestation Commission for the selection of former officers in the Red Army and one of the commissars of the All-Russian General Staff. Egorov was an ardent supporter of the creation of a disciplined regular army. Based on his report to Lenin on the need to introduce the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic and create a unified headquarters, a positive decision was made. In 1918, Egorov joined the Bolshevik Party.

From December 1918, Egorov commanded the 10th Army defending Tsaritsyn, where Stalin was a member of the front's Revolutionary Military Council. In early October, Egorov was appointed commander of the Southern Front. He led the military actions of the Red Army against Denikin. At the end of the civil war, Egorov commanded the Southwestern Front, where Stalin was again a member of the Revolutionary Military Council.

From 1931 to 1935 Egorov worked as Chief of Staff of the Red Army, and in 1935-37. - Chief of the General Staff. In May 1937, he was appointed deputy people's commissar of defense.

In 1935, Alexander Egorov, among the first five military leaders, was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

As can be seen from Egorov’s track record, his career until 1938 was developing quite well. He held the key position of Chief of the General Staff for a long time. And after the release of Mikhail Tukhachevsky from the post of Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and his arrest, he took this position.

However, Stalin had already begun, with the complicity of the “cavalrymen” from the First Cavalry Army (Voroshilov, Budyonny, Kulik, Shchadenko), to destroy the Marshals he disliked one by one. The first to be arrested and shot was Mikhail Tukhachevsky and his “team” of Red Army reformers. The next withered general secretary chose his comrade Marshal Egorov.

Previously, Stalin appointed Egorov, as noted above, as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov. Perhaps Stalin with this appointment once again wanted to test his loyalty to himself. Egorov, however, continued Tukhachevsky’s line aimed at technical re-equipment of the Red Army with modern equipment and weapons. The “cavalrymen” met Egorov’s actions with hostility. The highly educated former colonel of the tsarist army turned out to be a black sheep in the flock of semi-literate promoters of Stalin. Therefore, Marshal Egorov did not last long as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense. In 1938, he was sent to the Caucasus as commander of a military district. He stayed in this position for only a little over two weeks. On February 21, Egorov was summoned to Moscow by People's Commissar Voroshilov. Egorov realized what awaited him. He did not even have time to hand over the files to the chief of staff, division commander V.N. Lvov. Before him, Voroshilov and Stalin did almost exactly the same thing with his predecessor as commander of the Military Corps, N.V. Kuibyshev, who upon arrival in Moscow was arrested and then shot.

For the former colonel of the tsarist army, Yegorov, a former member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, it was not difficult to fabricate charges. If Stalin had the will for this. Marshal Alexander Egorov belonged to the most educated and independent military leaders. The tyrant did not need such famous and independent commanders of the Red Army. Closer to him were the illiterate but obedient Marshals Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny, who he created out of nothing.

Perhaps the arrest of Marshal Egorov, who was happy in his family life, was also influenced by the black envy of the tyrant, whose young wife shot herself and whose family life did not work out. And the beautiful Galina Egorova, Marshal’s wife, turned out to be an unwitting accomplice in the ugly scene at one of the banquets, which became the reason for Nadezhda Alliluyeva’s suicide. Stalin, flirting with Yegorov's wife, openly threw a ball of bread at her. Proud Nadezhda Alliluyeva flared up, and Stalin rudely insulted her in front of everyone. Nadezhda Alliluyeva left the banquet, went home, and, without waiting for Stalin, shot herself. Little is known about the intimate relationships of Joseph Stalin when he was his general secretary. But knowing Stalin’s tenacity and consistency in achieving his goals, we can assume that he did not simply abandon Galina Egorova. And he probably met with strong resistance. One way or another, Marshal’s wife was arrested and forced to give false testimony that she worked for Polish intelligence.

Testimony against Marshal Egorov was extracted from Egorov's former colleague in the tsarist army, former lieutenant Zhigur, then brigade commander, officer of the department of the Academy of the General Staff, where Marshal Egorov worked for some time. Pressed against the wall, another former fellow soldier in Yegorov’s tsarist army, also a future Marshal of the Soviet Union, also testified. This was enough for Stalin.

Marshal Egorov himself, at the whim of Stalin, passively participated in the repressions against the senior commanders of the Red Army. The wheel of repression in the army spun according to a proven pattern. The commanders, their comrades in arms, were judged by those commanders whose turn to be in the dock had not yet come.

Stalin discussed the testimony with loyalists Molotov and Voroshilov. They decided to remove Egorov from the Central Committee, expel him from the party and transfer the case to the NKVD, which meant execution.

Stalin received consent from the members of the Central Committee in a proven way - through a written survey. Stalin no longer wanted to once again convene the Plenum of the Central Committee on such trivial matters as the expulsion of the Marshal of the Soviet Union from the party. The vote was unanimous, as always. The decree signed by Stalin cynically emphasized that Comrade Egorov lived in perfect harmony with the long-time Polish spy Galina Egorova, née Tseshkovskaya. The vengeful Stalin did not forget even the slightest insults inflicted on him, including by a woman.

Marshal Egorov was accused of criminal connections with anti-Soviet organizations during the civil war, of “aiding” Trotsky, of espionage, of creating a terrorist organization, etc. For some reason, the spy wife was “forgotten” in the final accusation. Probably, other fantastic accusations were enough for Stalin’s executioners.

According to official data, Marshal Egorov was shot on February 23, 1939 - Red Army Day.

According to the writer-historian D. Volkogonov, Marshal Egorov did not live to see the trial, but was beaten to death during interrogations, like another courageous military leader, Marshal Blucher.

In 1956, Marshal Egorov was posthumously rehabilitated.

COMMANDARM VATSETIS

Vatsetis Joachim (1873-1938), commander of the 2nd rank (1935). In the 1st World War com. 5th Latvian Zemgale Regiment, with which he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. In 1918, commander of the Latvian rifle division. In 1918 commander of the Eastern Front. In 1918-19, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic. Repressed, posthumously rehabilitated.

Vatsetis Joachim Iokimovich, a Latvian by nationality, quite unexpectedly for many in 1918 became the commander of the Eastern Front, where the fate of the Bolsheviks was decided, and then the commander-in-chief of all the Armed Forces of the Republic. However, this appointment of a former colonel of the Russian imperial army, who graduated from the Academy of the General Staff, was natural. After all, it was Vatsetis and his Latvian riflemen who saved Lenin and the government from the threat of a real loss of power during the uprising of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow in 1918. Lenin then directly asked Vatsetis whether the besieged Kremlin could hold out until the morning. Vatsetis asked for two hours to respond. He drove around the city and studied the situation. Exactly two hours later, at two o’clock in the morning, Vatsetis reported to Lenin that the Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion would be suppressed by 12 o’clock in the afternoon.

And so it happened, which made a strong impression on Lenin. He knew the value of words and deeds and did not meet many people on his path whose words coincided so accurately with deeds.

On July 8, 1919, Vatsetis was unexpectedly arrested on suspicion of treason and participation in a conspiracy. He spent 97 days in prison and was released due to lack of any evidence. From that time on, he no longer held senior command positions in the army.

During mass repressions, Vatsetis was arrested on the standard charge of spying for Germany and executed in 1938. Posthumously rehabilitated.

COMMANDER KAMENEV

Kamenev Sergei Sergeevich (1881-1936), commander of the 1st rank (1935). Colonel of the Russian Imperial Army. During the civil war in 1918-19, commander of the Eastern Front. In 1919-24, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic. In 1927-34 deputy. People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Deputy Chairman RVS USSR. Since 1934, head of the Air Defense Directorate of the Red Army.

Kamenev Sergei Sergeevich was born in Kyiv in the family of the chief mechanic of the Arsenal plant, engineer-colonel Sergei Ivanovich Kamenev.

Kamenev studied at the Kiev Vladimir Cadet Corps, about which he had gloomy impressions. In 1898 he entered the Alexander Military School in Moscow. After graduating from college, he continued his military education (since 1905) at the Academy of the General Staff.

During his service, Sergei Kamenev became close to Bolshevik soldiers who were conducting propaganda work in the army.

After the October Revolution, the army committee elected Sergei Kamenev as chief of staff of the 3rd Army, which was soon demobilized.

During the recruitment of military experts into the Red Army, Colonel Kamenev voluntarily entered the service of the new government.

In September 1918, Kamenev was appointed commander of the Eastern Front. Kamenev successfully commanded the front and occupied Kazan, Simbirsk, Samara and other cities. Frunze and Tukhachevsky fought under his command on the Eastern Front. In 1919, Kamenev was appointed instead of Vatsetis as commander-in-chief of all the Armed Forces of the Republic. He remained in this position until 1924.

Sergei Kamenev, working as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, together with Mikhail Tukhachevsky, took an active part in creating a combat-ready Red Army.

Former Tsarist Colonel S.S. It was only in 1930 that Kamenev applied for admission to the Bolshevik Party.

S.S. died Kamenev from a sudden heart attack on August 25, 1936. Fortunately, he did not have to endure the fate of the officers of the Russian imperial army - Egorov, Tukhachevsky, Vatsetis and others, killed in Stalin's dungeons.

COMMANDARM YAKIR

Yakir Iona Emmanuilovich (1896-1937), commander of the 1st rank (1935). During the Civil War, a member of the RVS of the army, he commanded a division and a group of troops on the Southern and Southwestern fronts. In 1925-37, commander of a number of military districts. Member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR (1930-34). Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1917. Member of the Central Committee of the Party and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Repressed, posthumously rehabilitated.

The son of a poor Jewish pharmacist from Chisinau, Ion Yakir, became a prominent commander of the Red Army during the civil war.

Yakir, a purely professional military man, was the only member of the party Central Committee. The rest were only candidates for membership of the Central Committee. Therefore, he, to a greater extent than other military leaders, participated in the political party struggle. In particular, he and Putna were among the commanders who signed a letter in support of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev during their struggle against Stalin.

Former military experts Tukhachevsky, Shaposhnikov, Sergei Kamenev, Egorov, Kork and others tried not to participate in political activities if they did not relate to military affairs. Yakir, as a member of the Central Committee, more often expressed his opinion on the most important issues at the Plenums of the Central Committee, and his opposition to repression could not be hidden. And even his silence was defined by Stalin as disagreement with him.

Yakir was a brave and determined man. In 1936, Divisional Commander Schmidt, commander of a tank formation in the Kiev Military District, commanded by Yakir, was arrested. The indignant army commander flew to Moscow to see People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov, and he, under pressure from Yakir, had to present him with denunciations and testimony against Schmidt. Yakir did not calm down and continued to monitor the fate of his division commander. He secured a personal meeting with him, at which Schmidt renounced his testimony extracted by investigators. Yakir went to Voroshilov and declared Schmidt’s innocence. The next day, Voroshilov called Yakir in Kyiv and reported that Schmidt had again confirmed his testimony against himself. Not every army commander defended his subordinates so boldly and persistently at that time.

To arrest the army commander, Voroshilov summoned Yakir from Kyiv to Moscow, allegedly to a meeting of the Military Council, and ordered him to go by train, and not fly, as usual, by plane.

The train stopped at dawn in Bryansk. NKVD workers entered the carriage. Yakir was arrested and taken out of the carriage. The army commander was taken to Moscow by car non-stop at high speed. Upon arrival, they placed me in solitary confinement in Lubyanka and tore off my orders and insignia.

Yakir was seething, indignant, and wrote a letter to Stalin with assurances of his devotion, on which he scribbled “A scoundrel and a prostitute.”

Yakir was accused of participating in a fascist military conspiracy led by Tukhachevsky, convicted and executed in 1937.

Yakir, “hero of the civil war”, winner of the Order of the Red Banner N2, died shouting on his lips: “Long live Comrade Stalin!” Such were the oddities of this dark and cruel era. Many victims, blinded by the cultic faith in the party and the leader, even during their tragic end did not believe in the unprecedented meanness and sophistication of their executioner.

COMMANDARM UBOREVICH

Uborevich Ieronim Petrovich (1896-1937), commander of the 1st rank (1935). During the civil war, army commander on the Southern, Caucasian and Southwestern fronts. In 1922, Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. Since 1925 commander of troops of a number of military districts. Repressed, rehabilitated posthumously.

Commander of the first rank Jerome Petrovich Uborevich was born in 1896. He joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917. During the civil war he commanded armies on various fronts.

Uborevich was one of the most educated and intelligent commanders of the Red Army.

After the civil war, Uborevich was elected as a candidate member of the party's Central Committee and a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee. Before his arrest, he commanded the troops of the most important Belarusian military district.

Uborevich, the commander of one of the two largest military districts, was arrested after Tukhachevsky. He was accused of participating in a fascist military conspiracy led by Tukhachevsky.

Two weeks later he was brought before a speedy trial and shot the next day.

Uborevich's wife was first exiled to Astrakhan and then arrested.

Uborevich’s daughter never saw her mother again and was brought up in a special NKVD orphanage for children of repressed people. Only after her father was rehabilitated did she learn that her mother had died in the camp in 1941.

COMMANDER DYBENKO

Dybenko Pavel Efremovich (1889-1938), army commander of the second rank (1935). Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1912. Sailor of the Baltic Fleet. In 1917 chairman of Tsentrobalt. During the October Revolution, he was a member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee and the Collegium for Military and Naval Affairs. In 1918, People's Commissar for Naval Affairs. During the civil war, he commanded a group of troops, the Crimean Army, commander. Since 1928 commander of a number of military units. Member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Member of the USSR Supreme Council since 1937.

Repressed. Posthumously rehabilitated.

Sailor Dybenko Pavel Efremovich took up revolutionary activities even before the revolution. He joined the Bolshevik Party in 1912, and in 1915 he led the uprising on the battleship Emperor Paul I. His finest hour came in 1917, when he became the leader of the revolutionary organization of sailors - Tsentrobalt.

Pavel Dybenko, as the head of Tsentrobalt, played one of the leading roles in the October Revolution and the subsequent retention of power by the Bolsheviks. It was Pavel Dybenko who organized the systematic dispatch of Baltic Fleet ships to Petrograd to support the Bolshevik performance. He also managed to detain the famous cruiser Aurora in Petrograd, which was supposed to go to its brigade in Helsingfors after completed repairs. "Aurora" did not leave Petrograd even after receiving a direct order from the Provisional Government. Combat platoons were organized on the ships of the Baltic Fleet, which, on the first order of the Bolshevik leaders, took to the streets of Petrograd and played a decisive role in the October coup. On October 24, detachments of sailors captured all Petrograd train stations and other important buildings in the city.

In his memoirs, Dybenko wrote: “October 25. 2am. Helsingfors, shrouded in darkness, sleeps...

A new Congress of Soviets has been convened in Russia...

Quietly, silently, without sirens, without disturbing the peace of the sleeping people, boats and tugboats approach the pier one after another. As if on a silent command, the companies in black and gray greatcoats line up and walk with measured, confident steps towards the station...

Kerensky's government is overthrown. The Peter and Paul Fortress is in our hands. Winter is busy. "Aurora" behaves heroically... Lenin was elected head of government. Composition of the military board: Antonov-Ovseenko, Krylenko and you. You must immediately leave for Petrograd...” (Steps of the revolution. M. “Politizdat.”, 1967)

The above excerpt indicates that Pavel Dybenko was one of the largest military leaders of the Bolshevik coup.

Pavel Dybenko accompanied Alexandra Kollontai during her speeches at sailor rallies. The rollicking, handsome sailor knew how to treat women. He also found an approach to the young Alexandra Kollontai, who was 17 years older than him. On the ramps, he carefully supported the passionate Bolshevik, and once even carried the lively agitator in his arms. Alexandra Kollontai adored tall and strong men. Her heart was conquered by her black-bearded sailor brother.

During Kerensky's attempt to break through to Petrograd with the Cossacks of General Krasnov, Dybenko arrived with Antonov-Ovseenko in Pulkovo and managed to stop the panic among the Red Guards fleeing the battlefield. He organized the defense and left behind the detachments of sailors. On October 29 (the next morning) he had already arrived at the Pulkovo Heights with two detachments of sailors and artillery. Krasnov's Cossacks showed passivity and missed a convenient time to attack. The sailors and Red Guards regrouped and easily repelled two attacks by the Cossacks, who retreated to Gatchina. Pavel Dybenko, taking the sailor Trushin with him, went to Gatchina for negotiations. He managed to carry out successful campaigning among the Cossacks for the Bolsheviks and almost arrested Alexander Kerensky, who had to flee. At the same time, the cheerful and cheerful Dybenko easily agreed to all the conditions of the Cossacks. Even such as the removal from power of the “German spies” Lenin and Trotsky.

The sailors under the command of Pavel Dybenko largely “made” the Bolshevik revolution and brought power to the Bolsheviks on a silver platter. Pavel Dybenko participated in all the brutal operations of the revolutionary, usually drunken sailors, and, as a rule, led them. Under his leadership, the brothers drowned hundreds of Russian officers in the sea, after tying their hands with barbed wire. He took power both on the ships and in Kronstadt, shooting with a revolver and bayoneting many of the best senior officers of the Russian fleet.

Pavel Dybenko himself was from a simple peasant family. But, having found himself in the Bolshevik elite, he forgot both about his origin and about his former sailor brothers. He traveled around the country on a personal train with a luxurious carriage and a mistress. Former simple sailor Pavel Dubenko was also a glamorous man at his place of permanent service as a corps commander in Odessa. The proverb is truly true: from rags to riches! At the same time, the policy of war communism pursued by the Bolsheviks brought peasants (and workers) to poverty, hunger and riots. The Kronstadt sailors knew from letters from their relatives about the unbearably difficult situation of their parents, brothers and sisters. Many went to their native villages on vacation and saw with their own eyes the results of the “deeds” of the surplus appropriation detachments, which robbed their relatives like crazy. The sailors of Kronstadt were indignant, seething and seething. During 1920, they themselves were fed very poorly and were not given new uniforms or bed linen. They closely followed events in Petrograd, which was threatened by famine.

And in Petrograd, starting in February 1921, there were hunger rallies and demonstrations of workers. The Bolshevik authorities sent red cadets against the workers, introduced a curfew, martial law, and made arrests. The sailors of Kronstadt came out in support of the workers' demands. The Bolsheviks feverishly began preparing to suppress a possible uprising.

On February 28, a crew meeting was held on the battleship Petropavlovsk, and demands were adopted: to hold immediate re-elections by secret ballot of the Soviets, to provide freedom of the press for all socialist parties, to give land to peasants, to allow freedom of trade and handicrafts, to abolish political departments, communist detachments, to declare a political amnesty .

The sailors have seen the light. They suddenly discovered that the Bolsheviks had brazenly deceived them. They promised land to the peasants, but took away even the last grain grown on it, promised peace, but they themselves shot thousands of peasants and workers who brought them to power. They promised factories and factories to the workers, but they themselves doomed the workers to hunger, leading a well-fed and luxurious life.

Pavel Dybenko was well-fed and happy with life, but a well-fed person, as you know, does not understand a hungry person. He entered the headquarters to eliminate the uprising of his former comrades. Kronstadt was shot with artillery guns, firing more than 5 thousand shells into the city. The commander of the operation, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, gave the order to use poisonous gases. On March 17, the rebel sailors were attacked by superior forces of units loyal to the Bolsheviks. The sailors' uprising was brutally suppressed, and only a small part of them managed to escape from the Bolshevik guillotine to Finland. The sailors did achieve something with their uprising. Lenin came to the conclusion that it was necessary to immediately change the economic policy of the Bolsheviks. And soon the policy of war communism was replaced by NEP - a new economic policy that absorbed most of the economic demands of the Kronstadters.

The revolutionary novel by Pavel Dybenko and Alexandra Kollontai was continued. In December 1918, the first in Soviet Russia to formalize a civil marriage were the most famous Bolshevik woman - People's Commissar of State Charity (Care) Alexandra Kollontai and People's Commissar for Maritime Affairs Pavel Dybenko. The bride at this time turned 46 years old, and Dybenko - 29. Overwhelmed with feelings, the young people (two people's commissars!) even secretly disappeared somewhere for a while from Petrograd, for which the Demon of the Revolution - Leon Trotsky demanded that they be brought to a revolutionary court. But the Chairman of the Government of People's Commissars, Vladimir Lenin, only sternly scolded the young people upon their return from the “honeymoon” and generously, hiding his smile in his mustache, forgave his people’s commissars.

In 1922, Alexandra Kollontai, who preached free love, learned that her illiterate but high-ranking husband turned out to be a capable student. He took a young mistress (and more than one). Having suffered a lot and thought anew about the vicissitudes of love, including free love, Kollontai decided to part with Dybenko. Former sailor and now corps commander Pavel Dybenko, when breaking up with his wife in Odessa, acted out a scene worthy of a sentimental women's novel. He shot himself, but did not hit himself, although he knew how to shoot professionally and rarely missed shots when shooting Russian officers. However, Alexandra Kollontai left the corps commander and went abroad for diplomatic service. This happened in 1922. Kollontai became the world's first female ambassador, and forever went down in history.

Pavel Dybenko's military career, taking into account his revolutionary past, was successful at first. In 1935 he was awarded the rank of army commander of the second rank. He commanded a number of military districts. But 1937 came. Stalin, with the help of Yezhov and then Beria, destroyed the best commanders of the Red Army, as well as the heroes of the civil war who played a prominent role in the October Revolution. Pavel Dybenko belonged to the latter. He was arrested at a meeting of the bureau of the district party committee in 1937 under Yezhov. A member of the bureau, the head of the regional department of the NKVD, stood up and, unexpectedly for the majority, declared Army Commander Dybenko an enemy of the people who was subject to arrest. Dybenko was confused, not believing that these terrible words were said about him. Two men in uniform came in and twisted his arms, took off his belt with a saber and a revolver in a beautiful holster, tore off his buttonholes, and turned out his pockets. All members of the bureau hid their eyes from his heavy, authoritative gaze. Dybenko was taken away to nowhere, and the bureau meeting continued.

Pavel Dybenko was shot in 1938. He was posthumously rehabilitated by the Soviet authorities, but is unlikely to be rehabilitated by history for the murders of thousands of Russian officers and soldiers in 1917 and during the civil war.

JAN GAMARNIK

Yan Borisovich Gamarnik was born in 1894, a prominent military and party leader of the USSR. Member of the Bolshevik Party since 1916. One of the organizers of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Kyiv. Since 1920, chairman of the Odessa and Kyiv provincial committees of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks). Since 1923 chairman of the Dalrevkom. In 1928, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Belarus. Since 1929, head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army. Since 1930, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Deputy Chairman of the USSR Revolutionary Military Council. Army CommissarI-first rank. Member of the Central Committee since 1927. Candidate since 1925. Committed suicide.

Yan Borisovich Gamarnik was born in 1894 in Zhitomir into the family of an employee, a Jew. He studied at the St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute and Kiev University. As a student, Gamarnik conducted Bolshevik propaganda among students and workers. In 1917, Gamarnik (at 23 years old) was elected secretary of the Kyiv Committee of the RSDLP (b). During the civil war, Gamarnik worked underground in Ukraine occupied by German troops, was a member of the RVS group of forces, and a military commissar of a rifle division.

In 1920-23 Gamarnik - headed the Odessa and Kiev provincial party committees, worked as chairman of the Kyiv City Executive Committee. In 1923, the Politburo transferred Gamarnik to the Far East. In 1923-28. he is the chairman of the Far Eastern Revolutionary Committee, the regional executive committee, and the secretary of the Far Eastern Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

In the Far East, Soviet power won, and Jan Gamarnik was transferred to Belarus, the first secretary of the Central Committee of this republic (1928-29).

in 1929, Jan Gamarnik was appointed head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army. At the same time, from June 1930, he worked as Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR (until 1934), then First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR.

The fateful year 1937 came for prominent military men. The bell rang for Gamarnik. He was transferred to the secondary position of commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Defense under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR.

Jan Gamarnik constantly irritated his narrow-minded boss, People's Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov. And Stalin was suspicious of him. After all, Gamarnik was a prominent, intelligent and authoritative military-political leader. He became close friends with many major military leaders, which was greatly facilitated by their living as neighbors in the same house in Moscow.

Gamarnik consistently supported the efforts of Marshal Tukhachevsky and his supporters to rearm and reform the Red Army in order to strengthen its combat power.

In May 1937, Gamarnik became seriously ill. Marshal Blucher visited him and said that a case had been opened against him and there were incriminating slanderous materials.

Then Gamarnik’s deputy, Bulin, came with the manager of the People’s Commissariat of Defense. They sealed Gamarnik’s safe in the apartment and left. Immediately after they left, Gamarnik shot himself.

More than other commanders of the Red Army, moving in Kremlin circles (with the possible exception of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky), Gamarnik had no illusions about his fate in the event of his arrest. And so he managed to shoot himself before his arrest, saving himself from severe moral and physical torment in the dungeons of the NKVD.

An indispensable participant in reprisals against the military, Kliment Voroshilov, did not fail to once again emphasize his devotion to Stalin and publicly called Gamarnik a coward. However, Gamarnik’s tragic suicide is only additional evidence of his courage, deep intelligence and knowledge of the terrible Stalinist reality.

KOMCOR PRIMAKOV

Primakov Vitaly Markovich (1897-1937), corps commander (1935). During the Civil War he commanded a cavalry brigade, division and cavalry corps of the Chervonnaya Cossacks. In 1925-26, military adviser in China, military attaché in Afghanistan and Japan. Since 1935, deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District.

Vitaly Primakov embarked on the revolutionary path in 1915. However, he did not have to engage in illegal activities for long. For spreading anti-war appeals, he was sentenced to lifelong exile in the same year and sent to Eastern Siberia. The February Revolution allowed Primakov to return to Petrograd. He took an active part in the preparation and conduct of the October Bolshevik Revolution, and commanded one of the detachments during the capture of the Winter Palace.

During the civil war, Primakov distinguished himself with great courage and military talent. He formed a Cossack regiment in Ukraine, which quickly grew into the First Cavalry Corps of the Red Cossacks. For his bravery, Primakov was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner. Primakov sincerely believed in the possibility of a world revolution. When it became clear that a “world fire” could not be fanned in civilized Europe, Soviet leaders turned their faces to the East: China, India, Iran, Afghanistan...

After the end of the Russian Civil War, Primakov worked abroad as a military adviser in China. In 1924, there was a Chinese civil war going on here. On behalf of the Central Committee, Primakov began supplying the Chinese “revolutionaries” with weapons and ammunition. The Chinese adventure of the Bolsheviks ended in failure. In October 1927, Chiang Kai-shek seized power and expelled Soviet military advisers from the country. Primakov had to return to his homeland.

Soon he was sent as a military attaché to another “hot spot” - Afghanistan. And then the restless Primakov intervened in the internal affairs of this country. With the support of the British in Afghanistan, Emir Amanullah Khan was removed from power at this time. Primakov, in order to restore the power of the emir, with a small detachment of Red Army soldiers crossed the border and took the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Then things stalled. The Soviet detachment did not receive the expected support from the local population. Amunalla and his supporters, including Primakov, were defeated.

In 1935, Primakov was appointed deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District. He was actively involved in the technical re-equipment of the district, working closely with Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky. In this field, he had repeated clashes with the People's Commissar of Defense, the illiterate conservative Kliment Voroshilov, Joseph Stalin's henchman. Primakov was arrested as one of the first senior Red Army commanders involved in the Tukhachevsky case. He held out for a long time, but then could not stand the torture and signed the testimony required by the NKVD investigators. Voroshilov hastened to declare him an agent of Trotsky.

In 1937, Primakov was accused of participating in a fascist military conspiracy led by Tukhachevsky, convicted and executed.

Primakov made the most odious “revelations” at the trial. Apparently, the longer preliminary “treatment” in the dungeons of the NKVD had an effect. Tukhachevsky refused to admit the charge of preparing the murder of Voroshilov. He stated at the trial that he was only going to seek Voroshilov’s transfer to another job, which was true. Primakov stated that he himself and the rest of the defendants, led by Tukhachevsky, “united under the banner of Trotsky,” spied for foreign states, were part of a “military-fascist conspiracy,” and prepared the murder of Voroshilov. Primakov said at the trial what the NKVD required, what Stalin needed. Probably, for this slander he was promised the preservation of his life. But he was shot along with the rest of the commanders.

KOMCOR VITOVT PUTUNA

Komkor Vitovt Kazimirovich Putna was born in 1893. He joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917. In the last years of his life he worked as a military attache in England.

Putna was an old comrade of Tukhachevsky’s from his service in the Semenovsky Guards Regiment. After Tukhachevsky’s arrest, all major military personnel close to the Marshal were also arrested. Putna did not escape their fate. He worked as a military attaché in London, was summoned to Moscow and arrested.

Putna at one time, together with Yakir and some other commanders, signed a document in support of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. Stalin did not forget about this. During interrogations from Tukhachevsky, NKVD investigators first of all obtained testimony against Putna and Primakov, who had worked abroad for a long time. Mikhail Tukhachevsky called Primakov and Putna bearers of the Trotskyist spirit in the “military organization.” Their goal was supposedly to seize power in the army. The arrested Marshal Tukhachevsky, army commanders and corps commanders, under torture, gave ridiculous, fantastic testimony about each other and about themselves. But Stalin, Voroshilov and Yezhov knew that famous military leaders could be brought to trial only for the most “monstrous” crimes against Soviet power. The first open trial of Kamenev, Zinoviev and other old Bolsheviks showed that the politically dark masses easily believed in the most incredible and ridiculous accusations of the former leaders of terrible crimes and “angrily” demanded the execution of “traitors, spies and murderers.” Moreover, this “indignation” of workers, peasants and the working intelligentsia could be falsified and inspired.

Putna was accused of participating in a fascist military conspiracy led by Tukhachevsky, convicted and executed in 1937.

ANTONOV-OVSEENKO

Antonov-Ovseenko Vladimir Aleksandrovich (1883-1939), political and statesman. During the October Revolution, the secretary of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee led the capture of the Winter Palace. In 1917-19, one of the organizers of the Red Army, commander of Soviet troops in the South of Russia. In 1922-24, head of the Political Directorate of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR. Since 1924, plenipotentiary representative in Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland. Since 1934, prosecutor of the RSFSR. Since 1936, Consul General in Barcelona. Since 1937 People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR. Repressed. Rehabilitated posthumously.

Antonov-Ovseenko was born in Chernigov in the family of captain Ovseenko. He studied at the Voronezh Cadet Corps, then at the St. Petersburg Infantry School.

In 1902, Antonov-Ovseenko joined the RSDLP and actively participated in underground work. In 1905, during the revolution, he left military service and became a professional revolutionary.

After the defeat of the revolution of 1905-07. Antonov-Ovseenko emigrated and continued revolutionary work abroad. He published the newspaper “Our Voice,” which sharply opposed the outbreak of the First World War.

After the February Revolution, Antonov-Ovseenko returned to Petrograd in April. The Bolshevik Party sent him to the Baltic Fleet for propaganda work among sailors. Antonov-Ovseenko campaigned brilliantly. One after another, the ships of the Baltic Fleet expressed support for the Bolsheviks.

At the All-Russian Conference of front-line and rear military organizations of the RSDLP (b) (July 16-23, 1917), Antonov-Ovseenko was elected to the All-Russian Bureau of Military Organizations.

After the situation in Petrograd aggravated by the Bolsheviks and their program of armed seizure of power was made public, the Provisional Government issued arrest warrants for leading Bolsheviks and disarmed their military units. Antonov-Ovseenko was arrested and imprisoned in the Petrograd “Crosses”. However, under public pressure, he was released a month later, like other Bolsheviks.

Antonov-Ovseenko was appointed commissioner to the Finnish governor-general. German warships approached Petrograd, and there was a threat of its capture. Antonov-Ovseenko took an active part in repelling the German threat. The battle between the Baltic Fleet ships and the German fleet continued for eight days. Some of the Russian ships sank, but the German fleet was stopped.

After the Bolsheviks made a decision on the armed seizure of power on October 10, 1917, Antonov-Ovseenko joined the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) and took part in the preparation of the uprising. He was involved, among other things, in arming the newly formed detachments.

Antonov-Ovseenko actually led the seizure of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the Provisional Government. Namely, Antonov-Ovseenko presented an ultimatum to surrender to the defenders of the Winter Palace.

In the first Bolshevik government, Antonov-Ovseenko became military commissar and concurrently commander-in-chief of the Petrograd Military District. He organized the defeat of the troops of Kerensky-Krasnov. At the same time, Antonov-Ovseenko himself was captured and almost died. The sailors and Red Guards managed to recapture him.

During the Civil War, Antonov-Ovsenko commanded the Southern Group of Forces of the Red Army and took Kyiv, Kharkov, and Rostov. He was the supreme commander of all troops of the Ukrainian Soviet People's Republic. He commanded an army group on the Eastern Front.

After the end of the civil war, he participated in the brutal suppression of the popular uprising of peasants in Tambov, being the chairman of the Tambov provincial executive committee.

In 1922, he was appointed to his last military position - head of the Political Directorate of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. He remained in this position for two years.

In 1923, during a party discussion, Antonov-Ovseenko spoke out against Stalin, accusing him of dictatorial habits. This speech cost him his political and public career and, moreover, his life.

Antonov-Ovseenko was removed from the army and sent into “exile” for diplomatic work.

During the period of mass repressions, Stalin destroyed all members of the Military Revolutionary Committee, all military leaders of the October Revolution, with the exception of Podvoisky. Krylenko, Dybenko, Nevsky, Mekhonoshin, Latsis and others were shot. Antonov-Ovseyenko did not escape their fate either.

In 1937, Antonov-Ovseenko was appointed People's Commissar of Justice and was soon arrested on charges of espionage. He was shot on February 8, 1938.

MARTEMYAN RYUTIN

Martemyan Nikitich Ryutin was born in 1890 in the village of Verkhneye Ryutino of the former Ust-Udinsk volost of the Irkutsk province. Member of the CPSU(b) since 1914. Son of a peasant. He graduated from public school and worked as a teacher. Talented publicist. Participant in the civil war in Transbaikalia. Chairman of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in Harbin (1917). Commander of the Irkutsk Military District. Chairman of the provincial executive committee and secretary of the Irkutsk provincial committee of the RCP (b). In 1923, secretary of the Dagestan regional party committee. Repressed, shot in 1938. Posthumously rehabilitated.

Bolshevik Martemyan Ryutin left a noticeable mark on the history of his party and the USSR. Having grown up in free Siberia, Ryutin was accustomed to freedom, truth and decency, for which he fought together with his ideological party comrades. However, being in practical work after the revolution, he quickly realized the fallacy of Stalin’s economic and any other policies. But before his belated insight, Martemyan Ryutin did a lot for Stalin’s victory over Trotsky and his supporters. It was Ryutin who led the dispersal of the demonstration of Trotsky’s supporters in Moscow in 1927. But already in 1928, he himself was accused of “conciliation” towards the “right deviation” (supporters of NEP) and fell into disgrace.

For the first time, Ryutin expressed all his accusations directly to the Secretary General’s face in 1930. Stalin was furious. Martemyan Ryutin was arrested, but then released for now. With great difficulty, he got a job in Moscow (with Stalin’s consent) in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

Ryutin was one of the first to understand the essence of power that Joseph Stalin created. The Secretary General, with the help of his people, closely monitored the mood of the old Bolsheviks. They, Lenin's comrades and students, represented the main danger to him.

Ryutin published an article in the newspaper “Stalin and the crisis of the proletarian dictatorship,” aimed, among other things, against Stalin’s policy of forced collectivization. Stalin, of course, paid attention to this article, and Ryutin’s future fate was sealed.

Ryutin did not limit his fight against the emerging dictatorship of Stalin to newspaper articles. He wrote a letter of amazing strength and truthfulness to members of the Bolshevik Party. On August 21, 1932, more than a dozen old Bolsheviks gathered at the apartment of ordinary employee Silchenko. They discussed the appeal written by Ryutin to party members and created the underground “Union of Marxists-Leninists.” Later, former party leaders Kamenev and Zinoviev took part in the discussion of this letter. But Ryutin took full responsibility for the “Address to all members of the CPSU (b)”, understanding what this threatened him with.

“The party and the proletarian dictatorship have been led to an unprecedented impasse by Stalin and his retinue and are experiencing a mortally dangerous crisis. With the help of deception and slander, with the help of incredible violence and terror, under the banner of the struggle for the purity of the principles of Bolshevism and party unity, relying on a centralized powerful party apparatus, Stalin over the past five years has cut off and removed from the leadership all the best, truly Bolshevik cadres of the party, established a personal dictatorship in the CPSU (b) and the whole country, broke with Leninism, took the path of the most unbridled adventurism and wild personal tyranny...”

Stalin convened a special Plenum of the Central Committee. 24 Ryutin supporters, including members of the Union, were expelled from the party. Zinoviev and Kamenev were also excluded.

At the Politburo, Stalin demanded that the old Bolshevik Ryutin be sentenced to death, but Kirov, Kuibyshev, and Ordzhonikidze did not support him. The sentence for Ryutin turned out to be, by Bolshevik standards, humane - ten years in prison. Ryutin, in order to save his family, was forced to repent and sign the “confessions” required of him.

But Stalin remembered Ryutin. In 1936, Ryutin was presented with a warrant for a new arrest in solitary confinement, tried again and sentenced to death. This time he did not bow his rebellious head to the tyrant. He refused to repent and incriminate himself, but wrote a statement unprecedented in courage and determination to the Presidium of the Central Election Commission.


Kamenev Sergey Sergeevich
Budyonny Semyon Mikhailovich
Frunze Mikhail Vasilievich
Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich






Kamenev Sergey Sergeevich

Battles and victories

One of the founders of the Red Army and its leaders during the Civil War. Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army is the highest position in Soviet Russia that a non-party military expert could count on.

For his services, he received, in particular, an Honorary Firearm - a Mauser pistol with the sign of the Order of the Red Banner on the handle.

Kamenev was born in Kyiv into a noble family, the son of a mechanical engineer at the Kyiv Arsenal plant, an artillery colonel. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a surgeon, but chose the military path. He graduated from the Vladimir Kiev Cadet Corps (1898), the elite Alexander Military School (1900, graduated third in his class) and the Nikolaev General Staff Academy in the 1st category (1907). Kamenev entered military service in 1900, going to his native Kyiv, to the 165th Lutsk Infantry Regiment, served in the army infantry and only after graduating from the academy, after serving the combat qualification, he joined the service of the General Staff.

Before World War I, he held the positions of assistant to the senior adjutant of the headquarters of the Irkutsk Military District, senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 2nd Cavalry Division and assistant to the senior adjutant of the headquarters of the Vilna Military District. In addition, Kamenev taught tactics and topography at a military school. In the pre-war period, Kamenev participated in numerous maneuvers and field trips, which significantly expanded his horizons and training as a general staff officer and commander. During these trips, Kamenev visited the fortresses of Kovno and Grodno. Kamenev also studied the unsuccessful experience of the participation of the Russian army in the war with Japan.

Kamenev went to the front of World War I with the rank of captain. He served as senior adjutant of the operational department of the 1st Army headquarters and commanded the 30th Poltava Infantry Regiment. According to the certification in connection with his service at the headquarters of the 1st Army, Kamenev was assessed by his superiors as “in all respects an outstanding officer of the General Staff and an excellent combat commander.”

The officer was considered worthy of promotion to general positions.

As a regimental commander, Kamenev proved himself to be a firm commander, possessing courage, discretion and composure, loving military affairs, knowing the life of an officer and a soldier and caring for them. Concern for the soldiers apparently played a role in the fact that in 1917 he was elected regiment commander.

Then Kamenev served as chief of staff of the XV Army Corps (in this position he met the events of October 1917), chief of staff of the 3rd Army. During this period, Kamenev had to mainly deal with issues of demobilization of troops. The army headquarters was located in Polotsk, but due to the German offensive it was evacuated to Nizhny Novgorod, where Kamenev’s service in the old army ended.




Kamenev in 1919




Having experience working with committees, Kamenev quite early joined the Reds as a military specialist, voluntarily enlisting in the Red Army. Apparently, he considered it necessary to continue the fight against the external enemy, but initially did not seek to be involved in the Civil War. (The party pseudonym “Kamenev” was also worn by a prominent Bolshevik, member of the Politburo, and chairman of the Moscow Soviet).

Since April 1918, Kamenev served in the veil troops, covering the territory of Soviet Russia from a possible resumption of war with Germany, and was an assistant military leader and military leader of the Nevelsky veil detachment. From the very beginning of his new service, Kamenev was faced with the costs of the first period of the Red Army - partisanship, disobedience to orders, the presence of criminal elements in subordinate units, desertion.

In August 1918, Kamenev was appointed assistant to the military leader of the Western Veil, V.N. Egoryev, and military commander of the Smolensk region, with the Nevelsk, Vitebsk and Roslavl regions subordinate to him. Kamenev’s task at this time was to take over the districts of the Vitebsk province from the Germans who had abandoned them, as well as to form divisions for the Red Army. In a short time, under his leadership, the Vitebsk division and the Roslavl detachment were formed and sent to the Eastern Front.

They noticed Kamenev and began to promote him to major posts in the fall of 1918. It was then, in September 1918, that he was entrusted with the key post of commander of the Eastern Front at that time. The front was still being created. It was necessary to create a front headquarters, since the former commander I. I. Vatsetis, who became commander-in-chief, took the former headquarters with him. The fight against the Whites unfolded in the Volga region, and already in October 1918, front troops pushed the enemy back from the Volga to the east. At the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919, the Reds captured Ufa and Orenburg. However, due to the spring offensive of Kolchak’s armies, these cities had to be abandoned, and the front again rolled back to the Volga region.




Blucher and Kamenev at the parade




According to legend, V.I. Chapaev, having learned about the appointment of a colonel of the General Staff of the old army to the post of front commander, sent his representative Yakov Pugach to Kamenev to find out what kind of person led the front and, probably, whether there was a threat of counter-revolution. The messenger, having returned, reported (there are different versions of this “report”): “First of all - oooh! The eyes are like those of the robber Churkin. What a kid you need.

Hands... in! One word, the old man is correct (Kamenev was actually 38 years old. - A G.). As soon as he blinks his eyes, goosebumps will appear on the back of his neck. He doesn't play around. He doesn’t keep orderlies or idlers in general around him. He cleans his boots himself, like our Vasily Ivanovich. Firm and bold in speech. He holds his assistants in his hands. They sit over the plans until the roosters crow. Baba didn’t notice at headquarters. The old man is “one of his own” and does not become arrogant: in one fell swoop he slipped into his hut. He says say hello to the valiant red troops of the Pugachev district and Chapaev. He himself, he says, will soon come to meet you, as soon as I take a breath here. He took my hand in farewell.”

During the 1919 campaign, Kamenev played an important role in the victory over the armies of Admiral A.V. Kolchak on the Eastern Front. However, in the midst of operations, as a result of a conflict with Commander-in-Chief I.I. Vatsetis, he was unexpectedly removed from his post and was forced to remain inactive for several weeks, although he tried to influence events at the front. Instead, the front was led by A. A. Samoilo, sent from the north of Russia. But due to a conflict with the front’s Revolutionary Military Council and his subordinates, Samoilo did not last long in this post, and the position of commander was again taken by Kamenev, who had secured the support of V.I. Lenin.




Personalized Mauser pistol




By his own admission, Kamenev was poorly oriented in the political situation, which he saw “as if in a fog.” An important role in Kamenev’s political development was played by S. I. Gusev, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front. In July 1919, as a result of the scandalous “case” of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, which became a manifestation of the political struggle of groups in the Bolshevik elite, Commander-in-Chief I. I. Vatsetis was removed and arrested along with his inner circle. Kamenev became the new commander-in-chief of all armed forces. It was S.I. Gusev who contributed to the fact that the Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin drew attention to Kamenev. As a result, Kamenev found himself in the post of commander-in-chief - the highest position in Soviet Russia that a non-party military expert could count on. Kamenev's closest ally during the Civil War, both on the Eastern Front and as commander in chief, was Pavel Pavlovich Lebedev, a former general and talented general staff officer.

“In the war of modern large armies, to truly defeat the enemy, you need a sum of continuous and systematic victories on the entire front of the struggle, consistently complementing one another and interconnected in time... Our 5th Army was almost reduced to nothing by Admiral Kolchak. Denikin almost destroyed the entire right flank of the Southern Front. Wrangel tore our 13th Army to the last.

And yet the victory did not belong to Kolchak, not to Denikin and not to Wrangel. The winner was the side that managed to sum up its blows, inflicting them continuously and thereby not allowing the enemy to heal his wounds.”




At the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic: S. S. Kamenev, S. I. Gusev, A. I. Egorov, K. E. Voroshilov, standing P. P. Lebedev, N. N. Petin, S. M. Budyonny, B M. Shaposhnikov




It fell to Kamenev to lead the fight against the troops of General A.I. Denikin, who were then advancing on Moscow. Even on the Eastern Front, he drew up a plan to fight Denikin, which included actions to prevent his connection with Kolchak’s armies. By the time Kamenev was appointed commander-in-chief, such a plan was already outdated, since Kolchak was defeated, and his union with the white armies of Southern Russia already seemed unlikely. Nevertheless, Kamenev showed great tenacity in defending his plan, which included an offensive through the Don region, where the Reds faced the most fierce resistance from the anti-Bolshevik Cossacks. Kamenev's plan was supported by the Bolshevik leader Lenin, who had little understanding of strategic issues. As a result, the Reds failed the August offensive of the Southern Front, and the Whites reached the distant approaches to Moscow (they reached Orel and Mtsensk, which threatened the main Soviet arsenal - Tula), threatening the existence of Soviet Russia.

“Only a successful combination of a communist and a general staff officer (officer of the General Staff) gives 100% command”

Plans had to be urgently changed and the situation urgently saved through coordinated actions of the fronts, as a result of which a turning point was achieved. As commander in chief, Kamenev led the struggle on other fronts - against General Yudenich near Petrograd, against the Poles during the Soviet-Polish War (Kamenev was the developer of plans for the attack on Poland), against General Wrangel in the South (in the latter case, Kamenev personally participated in the development of the plan Perekop-Chongar operation). After the end of the large-scale Civil War in November 1920, Kamenev had to lead operations to eliminate banditry, the insurgency, and suppress the uprising in Karelia (he traveled to the theater of military operations). He led the fight against Basmachism while directly in Turkestan. During this struggle, Enver Pasha, who tried to resist the Bolsheviks under the slogans of pan-Islamism, was eliminated.

Kamenev received mixed reviews from his contemporaries and descendants.




Military leaders of the Red Army are delegates to the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). 1934




Detractors described him as “a man with a big mustache and little ability.” An important characterization of Kamenev was given by the chairman of the Russian Military Socialist Republic L. D. Trotsky. In his opinion, Kamenev “was distinguished by optimism and quick strategic imagination. But his horizons were still relatively narrow, the social factors of the Southern Front: workers, Ukrainian peasants, Cossacks were not clear to him. He approached the Southern Front under the supervision of the commander of the Eastern Front. The closest thing was to concentrate the divisions removed from the East on the Volga and strike at Kuban, Denikin’s initial base. It was from this plan that he proceeded when he promised to deliver the divisions on time without stopping the offensive. However, my acquaintance with the Southern Front told me that the plan was fundamentally wrong... But my fight against the plan seemed to be a continuation of the conflict between the Military Council (RVSR. - A. G.) and the Eastern Front. Smilga and Gusev, with the assistance of Stalin, portrayed the matter as if I was against the plan because I did not trust the new commander-in-chief at all. Lenin apparently had the same fear. But it was fundamentally wrong. I did not overestimate Vatsetis, I met Kamenev in a friendly manner and tried in every possible way to make his work easier... It is difficult to say which of the two colonels (Vatsetis and Kamenev. - A. G.) was more gifted. Both had undoubted strategic qualities, both had experience of a great war, both were distinguished by an optimistic character, without which it is impossible to command. Vatsetis was more stubborn, more willful and undoubtedly succumbed to the influence of elements hostile to the revolution. Kamenev was incomparably more flexible and easily succumbed to the influence of the communists who worked with him... S.S. Kamenev was undoubtedly a capable military leader, with imagination and the ability to take risks. It lacked depth and firmness. Lenin later became very disappointed in him and more than once characterized his reports very harshly: “The answer is stupid and in places illiterate.”




Kamenev S.S. among the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army




In general, Kamenev enjoyed Lenin’s favor. It was under Kamenev that the Red Army defeated all its enemies and emerged victorious from the Civil War. He was an active proponent of the offensive strategy as the only possible method of warfare in the Civil War. A major military administrator, due to the severity of the conditions of the Civil War, he was forced to behave extremely carefully in relation to the party leadership, to curry favor with the party elite.

For his activities during the Civil War, Kamenev was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. He also had rarer awards, testifying to his special services to Soviet Russia. So, in April 1920, Kamenev was awarded an Honorary golden weapon (saber) from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for victories on the Eastern Front, and in January 1921 he received an Honorary firearm - a Mauser pistol with the sign of the Order of the Red Banner on the handle (besides him, such an award Only S. M. Budyonny was awarded).

In the summer of 1922, Kamenev received the Order of the Red Star, 1st degree, of the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic for organizing the fight against Enver Pasha, and in September 1922, he decorated his chest with the Military Order of the Red Banner of the Khorezm Autonomous Soviet Republic “for helping the Khorezm working people in their struggle for their liberation and for their services in the fight against the enemies of the working people of the whole world.”

After the Civil War, Kamenev continued to work to strengthen the Red Army. In his military scientific works and lectures, he rethought the experience of the First World War and the Civil War. He participated in the development of new regulations for the Red Army, after the abolition of the position of commander-in-chief in March 1924, he held the posts of inspector of the Red Army, chief of staff of the Red Army, deputy people's commissar for military and naval affairs and chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, chief leader of the Military Academy of the Red Army for tactics, head of the air defense department Red Army. In his last position, Kamenev made a significant contribution to increasing the country's defense capability; under him, the air defense troops were re-equipped with new equipment. Kamenev was also one of the founders of the famous Osoaviakhim (Society for Assistance to Defense, Aviation and Chemical Construction - a Soviet voluntary public organization dedicated to supporting the army and military industry), and contributed to the organization of Arctic development as chairman of the government Arctic Commission. He was the chairman of the commission on long flights organized by Osoaviakhim. Kamenev's last military rank in the old army was the rank of colonel, in the Red Army - army commander of the 1st rank.

Kamenev joined the party only in 1930, and in general his fate in Soviet times was successful, unlike dozens of his colleagues. Kamenev died as a result of a heart attack before the start of the Great Terror and did not go through the slander, humiliation and betrayal of his comrades. The urn with Kamenev's ashes was buried in the Kremlin wall. Nevertheless, Kamenev was posthumously ranked among the “enemies of the people,” and his name and works were consigned to oblivion for several decades. Subsequently, Kamenev's name was rehabilitated.






Budyonny Semyon Mikhailovich

Battles and victories

Soviet military leader, legendary hero of the Civil War, Marshal of the Soviet Union, three times Hero of the Soviet Union.

By defeating Denikin’s troops, the Budyonnovites essentially saved Soviet Russia from destruction; without their actions, the path to Moscow would have been open for the Whites. The strategic cavalry in the Red Army, as a powerful striking force, became an important factor in the victory of the Reds. In the conditions of the Civil War, Budyonny's First Cavalry Army made it possible to carry out deep breakthroughs of the front, which changed the strategic situation.

Budyonny was born into the family of a farm laborer in the Kozyurin village of the Platovskaya Don Region. His ancestors came from the Voronezh province. In his childhood and youth, Budyonny worked as a merchant's boy, a blacksmith's assistant, a hammer hammer, a fireman, and a threshing machine operator. As for military education, initially Budyonny actually did not have one. He has completed equestrian courses for lower ranks at the Officer Cavalry School. But after the Civil War, he studied privately with an outstanding military scientist, General Staff of the old army, former General A.E. Snesarev, and in 1932 he graduated from the Military Academy. M. V. Frunze.

In the fall of 1903, the future marshal was drafted into the army, into the Primorsky Dragoon Regiment. He took part in the Russo-Japanese War, mainly in skirmishes with the Honghuzes. After the war, Budyonny was promoted to non-commissioned officer and remained for long-term service. During the First World War, Budyonny gained fame as a brave cavalryman, for his bravery he became a full Knight of St. George, received four St. George Crosses and four St. George medals, and ended the war as a senior non-commissioned officer. Among his exploits are the capture of a German convoy near Brzeziny in 1914, and the capture of a Turkish battery near Van. Budyonny repeatedly participated in risky reconnaissance searches in enemy territory.

After the February Revolution in Russia, in the summer of 1917, in Minsk he was elected chairman of the regimental committee and deputy chairman of the division committee. Participated in the disarmament of units loyal to L. G. Kornilov in Orsha. At the end of 1917 he returned home and did not take part in political events. Elected a member of the district executive committee and head of the land department of the Salsky district.

In February 1918, he formed and led a cavalry detachment, with which he acted against the whites, subordinate to B. M. Dumenko. The partisan detachment gradually grew to a regiment, brigade and division. Budyonny acted near Tsaritsyn. In 1919, Budyonny joined the RCP (b), although he did not intend to do so initially.

In June 1919, Budyonny's troops were deployed into a corps, and in November - into the First Cavalry Army. The creation of strategic cavalry in the Red Army as a powerful striking force became an important factor in the victory of the Reds. During the Civil War, cavalry made it possible to carry out deep breakthroughs at the front, which changed the strategic situation. Moreover, along with the superior cavalry and excellent equipment of the fighters, the First Cavalry had artillery, airplanes, armored trains and armored cars. At its core, the First Cavalry Army was peasant-Cossack. Captured White Guards were also put into service. Budyonny participated in the defeat of the troops of General A.I. Denikin in the Voronezh-Kastornensky operation. In fact, the Budyonnovites then saved Soviet Russia from destruction, since on the approaches to Moscow the Whites were able to defeat the 8th Soviet Army.




Semyon Budyonny - full Knight of St. George, hero of the First World War




Subsequently, the First Cavalry Army participated in the Donbass, Rostov-Novocherkassk, Tikhoretsk operations, and in the Battle of Yegorlyk. At the same time, during the fight against Denikin’s cavalry, Budyonny was twice defeated by the Whites on the Don - near Rostov and on Manych at the beginning of 1920.

The Battle of Yegorlyk took place from February 25 to March 2, 1920 during the Tikhoretsk operation. The confrontation unfolded between the Budennovites and the cavalry group of General A. A. Pavlov, a major cavalry commander on the White side. During an unexpected clash south of the village of Srednegorlykskaya, the Budennovites shot the marching columns of Cossacks with artillery and machine guns, after which they attacked them on horseback, putting them to flight. A total of up to 25,000 people took part in the battle on both sides.

“If we talk about myself, I don’t wish for a different fate than the one that befell me. I am happy and proud that I was the commander of the 1st Cavalry... I still have a photograph in which I was taken in the uniform of a senior non-commissioned officer of the Seversky Dragoon Regiment with four St. George crosses on the chest and four medals. As they used to say in the old days, I had a full St. George’s bow.

The medals bear the motto: “For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland.” But we, Russian soldiers, fought for the Fatherland, for Russia, for the people."

During the Soviet-Polish War, Budyonny's army was transferred in marching order to the Polish front (in 53 days), where it participated in the Kyiv operation, carried out the Zhitomir breakthrough, reaching deep behind enemy lines. The army liberated Zhitomir and Berdichev, Novograd-Volynsky, Rivne, Dubno, Brody. During the Lvov operation, Budyonny's army pinned down significant enemy forces and emerged from encirclement in Zamosc. However, the army was not transferred to Warsaw, where it was urgently needed. Budyonnovists took part in battles in Northern Tavria against Wrangel’s troops, in the Perekop-Chongar operation.




S. M. Budyonny, M. V. Frunze and K. E. Voroshilov. 1920




In 1920–1921 The army was engaged in eliminating banditry in Ukraine and the North Caucasus. The history of the First Cavalry was immortalized by a participant in the events, the writer Isaac Babel, in the collection of stories “Cavalry.” Budyonny was outraged by the way Babel described the events of the Polish campaign, and responded with a sharp rebuke: “Babel’s Babism from Krasnaya Novy.” The article was published in the magazine “October” in 1924, and the writer was called “a literary degenerate.”

Budyonny proved himself to be an excellent tactician in cavalry combat, but he did not have military leadership abilities or strategic thinking. For military distinctions during the Civil War, he was awarded three Orders of the Red Banner (1919, 1923, 1930), and honorary revolutionary edged weapons and firearms (1919, 1923). Abroad, Budyonny received the nickname “Red Murat”.

At the same time, the strength of the Red Army was precisely the possibility of promoting to leadership positions such “people’s commanders” who were unlikely to be promoted by the Whites, although they had outstanding leadership qualities.

In 1921–1923 Budyonny was a member of the RVS of the North Caucasus Military District. The First Cavalry Army was disbanded in October 1923. Budyonny took the post of assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Red Army for cavalry, and became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR.

Veterans of the First Cavalry - K. E. Voroshilov and Budyonny - came to leadership positions in the Red Army. The cavalrymen formed a kind of community in the Red Army and helped each other.

In 1924–1937 Budyonny was an inspector of the Red Army cavalry.

In 1931, together with academy students, he made a parachute jump. In 1935, Budyonny became one of the first marshals of the Soviet Union. The question of Budyonny’s attitude to repression is ambiguous. On the one hand, he was one of the supporters of the policy of terror in the army, on the other, he contributed to the release of some of those arrested. During the repressions, Budyonny's wife was arrested.

Since 1937, he commanded the troops of the Moscow Military District. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (since 1937), since 1938 - member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, since 1934 - candidate member, since 1939 - member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From August 1940 he held the post of 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR (since 1939 he was Deputy People's Commissar). An active supporter of the formation of horse-mechanized formations in the army.

Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin gave a high, somewhat idealized assessment of Budyonny. In a conversation with Clara Zetkin in the fall of 1920, he said: “Our Budyonny should now probably be considered the most brilliant cavalry commander in the world. You know, of course, that he is a peasant guy. Like the soldiers of the French Revolutionary Army, he carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack, in this case in his saddle bag. He has a remarkable strategic instinct. He is brave to the point of extravagance, to the point of insane audacity. He shares with his cavalrymen all the cruelest hardships and the gravest dangers. For him they are ready to let themselves be cut into pieces.”




S. M. Budyonny with K. E. Voroshilov




During the Great Patriotic War he was a member of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. Commander-in-Chief of the troops of the South-Western direction from July to September 1941. He gave the order to blow up the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station during the retreat of the Red Army, which led to extensive flooding, but the Germans did not get the industrial reserves of Zaporozhye.




Marshals of the Soviet Union: M. N. Tukhachevsky, S. M. Budyonny, K. E. Voroshilov, A. I. Egorov, V. K. Blyukher. 1935




During the September-October period he commanded the Reserve Front. It was he who hosted the legendary parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941. In April - May 1942, Budyonny served as commander-in-chief of the North Caucasus direction, and from May to August 1942 - commander of the North Caucasus Front. His activities during the war were not successful. In 1942 he was removed from command posts. In January 1943, he received an honorary appointment as commander of the cavalry of the Red Army and a member of the Supreme Military Council of the People's Commissariat of Defense.




Moscow, November 7, 1941 Red Square. Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny accepts the parade




After the war, along with the post of cavalry commander in 1947–1953. - Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the USSR for horse breeding. He was removed from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1952, again becoming a candidate member of the Central Committee. Since 1954 - honorable retirement in the group of inspectors general of the USSR Ministry of Defense. Until a very old age, Budyonny rode horseback and loved horses all his life.




Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny




Already in old age, Budyonny became three times Hero of the Soviet Union for his previous services (1958, 1963, 1968), and published three-volume memoirs “The Path Traveled.” Budyonny died in Moscow at the age of 91 on October 26, 1973; his ashes were buried on Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

After the Great Terror, official propaganda turned him into one of the victors of the whites in the Civil War. Several settlements and many streets bear Budyonny’s name.

Ganin A.V., Ph.D., Institute of Slavic Studies RAS






Frunze Mikhail Vasilievich

Battles and victories

Soviet military-political figure, one of the leading officials of the Red Army during the Civil War and the first half of the 1920s. Frunze acquired the status of the conqueror of Kolchak, the Ural Cossacks and Wrangel, the conqueror of Turkestan, the liquidator of the Petliurists and Makhnovists.

Having replaced Trotsky in the military leadership, he was not a member of the Stalinist group, remaining a mysterious and unusual figure in the party leadership.

Mikhail Frunze was born in the city of Pishpek (Bishkek) in the Semirechensk region in the family of a Moldavian paramedic who served in Turkestan and a Voronezh peasant woman. Apparently, he was the bearer of a certain Turkestan worldview, imperial consciousness. Mikhail graduated from the gymnasium in Verny with a gold medal, and studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, where he studied economics. The student environment of the capital influenced the formation of Mikhail’s political views. Frunze was a romantic and an idealist.

Populist views played a significant role in his beliefs, but he saw his going to the people not in moving to the village and working there, but in working with the proletariat in factories.

Frunze's views changed over time. The pre-revolutionary period of Frunze’s activity can be called anti-state and anti-social (it is interesting that he combined this with patriotic views, for example, during the Russian-Japanese War). He never graduated from the institute, being carried away by the revolutionary struggle. In 1904, at the age of 19, Frunze joined the RSDLP. He took part in the demonstration on January 9, 1905 (Bloody Sunday), and was wounded in the arm. Under the pseudonym “Comrade Arseny” (there were other underground nicknames - Trifonych, Mikhailov, Vasilenko), Frunze became involved in active anti-government activities. Already in 1905, he worked in Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Shuya, which were the centers of the country's textile industry (the 3rd largest industrial region in the Russian Empire after St. Petersburg and Moscow), led a general strike of textile workers and created a fighting squad. The first Soviet of Workers' Deputies in Russia arose in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. Under the leadership of Frunze, strikes, rallies, seizures of weapons are held, leaflets are compiled and published. During this period, Frunze also collaborated with representatives of other political parties. In December 1905, Frunze and his fighters took part in an armed uprising in Moscow on Presnya. In 1906, at the IV Congress of the RSDLP in Stockholm, Frunze (the youngest delegate to the congress) met V.I. Lenin.

Frunze did not shy away from terrorist acts. Thus, under his leadership, an armed seizure of a printing house in Shuya was organized on January 17, 1907, and an armed attack on a police officer. For this, Frunze was twice sentenced to death, but under public pressure (including as a result of the intervention of the famous writer V.G. Korolenko), the sentence was commuted. He ended up in hard labor and later lived in exile in Siberia. In 1916 he escaped, moved to European Russia and went to the front as a volunteer. However, soon Frunze, on instructions from his party, got a job in the All-Russian Zemstvo Union, while simultaneously doing revolutionary work among soldiers on the Western Front (including campaigning for fraternization with the Germans). By this time, Frunze already had a reputation among the Bolsheviks as a military man (although he never received a military education), as a person associated with underground militant organizations. Frunze loved weapons and tried to carry them with him.




M. V. Frunze in 1907 Vladimir Central




In 1917, Frunze led the Minsk organization of the Bolsheviks, participated in battles in Moscow, where he ordered to send his detachment. With the coming of the Bolsheviks to power, the nature of Frunze's activities radically changed. If before 1917 he worked to destroy the state and disintegrate the army, now he became one of the active builders of the Soviet state and its armed forces. At the end of 1917, he was elected as a deputy of the Constituent Assembly from the Bolsheviks. At the beginning of 1918, Frunze became chairman of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk provincial committee of the RCP (b), military commissar of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk province. In August 1918, Frunze became military commissar of the Yaroslavl Military District, which included eight provinces. It was necessary to restore the district after the recent uprising in Yaroslavl; it was necessary to quickly form rifle divisions for the Red Army. This is where Frunze’s collaboration with former General Staff Major General F. F. Novitsky began. Cooperation continued with Frunze’s transfer to the Eastern Front.

According to Novitsky, Frunze had an amazing ability to quickly understand the most complex and new issues for him, separate the essential from the secondary, and then distribute the work between performers in accordance with the abilities of each. He also knew how to select people, as if by instinct, guessing who was capable of what...

Of course, the former volunteer Frunze did not have technical knowledge of preparing and organizing combat operations. However, he valued military professionals, former officers, and united around himself a galaxy of experienced General Staff officers, with whom he tried not to part ways. Thus, his victories were predetermined by the active and highly professional activities of the team of military specialists of the old army, whose work he led. Realizing the inadequacy of his military knowledge, Frunze carefully studied military literature and engaged in self-education. However, according to the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, L. D. Trotsky, Frunze “was fascinated by abstract schemes, he had a poor understanding of people and easily fell under the influence of specialists, mostly secondary ones.”




M. V. Frunze and V. I. Chapaev near Ufa. Artist Plotnov A. 1942




There is no doubt that Frunze had the charisma of a military leader, capable of leading the Red Army masses, and great personal courage and determination. It is no coincidence that Frunze loved to be in front of the troops, with a rifle in his hands in battle formations. He was shell-shocked in June 1919 near Ufa. However, above all, he was a talented organizer and political leader who knew how to organize the work of headquarters and the rear in emergency conditions. On the Eastern Front under Frunze, local mobilizations were successfully carried out.

From Frunze’s speech in 1919: “Every fool can understand that there, in the camp of our enemies, there cannot be a national revival of Russia, that on that side there can be no talk of fighting for the well-being of the Russian people. Because it is not because of their beautiful eyes that all these French and English are helping Denikin and Kolchak - it is natural that they are pursuing their own interests. This fact should be quite clear that Russia is not there, that Russia is with us... We are not weaklings like Kerensky. We are engaged in a mortal battle. We know that if they defeat us, then hundreds of thousands, millions of the best, most persistent and energetic in our country will be exterminated, we know that they will not talk to us, they will only hang us, and our entire homeland will be covered in blood. Our country will be enslaved by foreign capital. As for factories and factories, they have long been sold..."

Frunze gained direct front-line experience only in 1919, when he took the post of commander of the 4th Army of the Eastern Front and commander of the Southern Group of Front Forces, which delivered the main blow to the advancing troops of Admiral A.V. Kolchak. The attack by the Frunze group on the flank of the White Western Army in the Buzuluk area brought success and ultimately led to a turning point in the situation at the front and the transfer of initiative from the Whites to the Reds. The entire series of Red operations turned out to be successful - the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa operations, carried out from the end of April to the second half of June 1919. As a result of these operations, the Kolchakites were thrown back from the Volga region to the Urals, and later ended up in Siberia. Frunze commanded the Turkestan Army and the entire Eastern Front. For successes on the Eastern Front he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.




M. V. Frunze. Turkestan. 1920




From Frunze’s appeal to the Cossacks in 1919: “Has Soviet power collapsed? No, it exists in spite of the enemies of the working people, and its existence is stronger than ever. That this is so, just think about the following words of the sworn enemy of labor Russia, the English First Minister Lloyd George, which he said the other day in the English Parliament: “Apparently, hopes for a military defeat of the Bolsheviks are not destined to come true. Our Russian friends have recently suffered a number of significant setbacks..."

Who are Mr. Lloyd George's Russian friends? These are Denikin, Yudenich, Kolchak, who sold the property of the Russian people to English capital - Russian ore, timber, oil and bread, and for this they were awarded the title of “friends”.

What happened to Lloyd George's friends that made them lose faith in the military defeat of the Bolsheviks?

The answer to this is given by the picture of the military situation on the fronts of the Soviet Republic... two of the three main enemies of labor Russia: Kolchak and Yudenich have already been removed from the scene... Soviet power, which is the power of the working people, is indestructible.”

“A people of many millions can be defeated, but they cannot be crushed... The eyes of the enslaved all over the world are turned to our poor, tormented country.”





From August 1919 to September 1920 he commanded the Turkestan Front. As a native and expert of Turkestan, he found himself in the right place. During this period, under the leadership of Frunze, the blockade of Turkestan was broken (on September 13, at the Mutodzharskaya station south of Aktyubinsk, units of the 1st Army united with Turkestan Red formations), the region was cleared of whites, the Southern, Separate Ural, Separate Orenburg and Semirechensk white armies were defeated , the Bukhara Emirate was liquidated, successes were achieved in the fight against the Basmachi.




M. V. Frunze. Artist Brodsky I. I.




In September 1920, Frunze, who had acquired a reputation as a successful party military leader, was appointed commander of the Southern Front, whose task was to defeat the Russian army of General P. N. Wrangel in the Crimea. The Perekop-Chongar operation against Wrangel’s Russian army with the passage through the Sivash was developed by a team of staff workers of the Southern Front that formed around M.V. Frunze on the Eastern and Turkestan fronts. Direct participation in the preparation of the operation was taken by Commander-in-Chief S.S. Kamenev and Chief of the Field Headquarters of the RVSR P.P. Lebedev. As a result of this operation, Wrangel's army was forced to evacuate from Crimea abroad. The large-scale Civil War in Russia ended here.

As a result of the Civil War, Frunze acquired the status of the winner of Kolchak, the Ural Cossacks and Wrangel, the conqueror of Turkestan, the liquidator of the Petliurists and Makhnovists. This was the status of a real party military nugget. In fact, of the three main enemies of Soviet power, Kolchak, Denikin and Wrangel, Frunze was considered the winner of two.




M. V. Frunze receives a parade of troops on Red Square. 1925




In the early 1920s. Frunze headed the armed forces of Ukraine and Crimea. His main focus was on eliminating banditry in Ukraine, which he did brilliantly, earning the second Order of the Red Banner. In the summer of 1921, Frunze was wounded in a shootout with the Makhnovists. As a contemporary noted, “from the Central Committee of the CPB(u) for this risk, comrade. Frunze received the nadir, and from the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic - the second Order of the Red Banner.” In 1921–1922 Frunze went on a military-diplomatic mission to Turkey, where he brought financial aid to Mustafa Kemal.

Frunze was not a cruel person. During the Civil War, orders were issued under his signature on humane treatment of prisoners, which, for example, displeased party leader V.I. Lenin. As a decent person, he was a bad politician. It is no coincidence that V. M. Molotov subsequently noted that Frunze was not completely one of the Bolsheviks. Possessing a special sense of responsibility, he was more of a talented executor of orders from above than a leader.

During the period of the struggle of the Stalinist group with L. D. Trotsky in 1924, Frunze took the posts of Chief of Staff of the Red Army, Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, and Head of the Military Academy of the Red Army. In 1925, he became chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR and People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. Contrary to subsequent myths, Frunze, in leadership positions in the Red Army, continued Trotsky’s policy of reforming the army. The reform consisted of an attempt to create a personnel army, organize a territorial system of troops, improve the quality of command personnel and improve combat training, remove unreliable elements, reduce the central apparatus, reorganize supplies, introduce new military equipment, and strengthen unity of command. The military reform was not very well thought out and was largely influenced by the political struggle in the party.

From an article by Frunze in 1925: “The lack of modern military equipment is the weakest point of our defense... We must become independent from abroad not only in mass industrial activity, but also in constructive and inventive work.”

Frunze compiled a number of military theoretical works, including developing the military doctrine of the Red Army.




Monument to M. V. Frunze in Ivanovo




Having replaced Trotsky's henchmen, and later the leader of the Red Army himself in the military leadership, Frunze, nevertheless, was not a member of the Stalinist group. He remained independent and had a certain authority among the troops, which, of course, could not suit the party elite. It is doubtful that Frunze had any Bonapartist intentions. However, for those around him he remained a mysterious and unusual figure at the top of the party.

The untimely death of 40-year-old Frunze on the operating table at the Soldatenkovsky (Botkin) hospital still remains largely mysterious. Versions that he was killed during a surgical operation on the orders of I.V. Stalin have become widespread since the mid-1920s. Frunze was buried near the Kremlin wall. Frunze's son Timur became a fighter pilot, died in battle in 1942, and was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.




Academy named after Frunze. Moscow




After his death, the figure of M. V. Frunze was mythologized and idealized. His merits were beneficial for propagating the official ideology, since he was dead, and during his lifetime he was weakly associated with Trotsky. In fact, the figure of Frunze as the leader of the Red Army was replaced by the figure of the true leader of the army during the Civil War and the early 1920s. - Leon Trotsky. In the USSR, a posthumous cult of Frunze developed; his name was immortalized in the names of numerous settlements, districts, streets and squares, metro stations, in the names of geographical objects (Frunze Peak in the Pamirs, Cape Frunze in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago), in the names of various enterprises and organizations , in many monuments, in books, philately and cinema.

Ganin A.V., Ph.D., Institute of Slavic Studies RAS






Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich

Battles and victories

A legendary figure of the Russian Civil War, a people's commander, a self-taught man who rose to high command positions due to his own abilities in the absence of special military education.

It is difficult to classify Chapaev as a traditional commander. This is more of a partisan leader, a kind of “red chieftain.”

Chapaev was born in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province, into a peasant family. Chapaev's grandfather was a serf. The father worked as a carpenter to support his nine children. Vasily spent his childhood in the city of Balakovo, Samara province. Due to the difficult financial situation of the family, Chapaev graduated from only two classes of the parish school. Chapaev worked from the age of 12 for a merchant, then as a floor worker in a tea shop, as an organ grinder's assistant, and helped his father in carpentry. After serving his military service, Chapaev returned home. By this time, he managed to get married, and by the beginning of the First World War he was already the father of a family - three children. During the war, Chapaev rose to the rank of sergeant major, participated in the famous Brusilov breakthrough, was wounded and shell-shocked several times, his military work and personal bravery were awarded three St. George Crosses and the St. George Medal.




Chapaev. World War I




Due to his injury, Chapaev was sent to the rear of Saratov, the garrison of which was subjected to revolutionary disintegration in 1917. Chapaev also took part in the soldiers’ unrest, who initially, according to the testimony of his comrade in arms I. S. Kutyakov, joined the anarchists and eventually found himself the chairman of the company committee and member of the regimental committee. Finally, on September 28, 1917, Chapaev joined the Bolshevik Party. Already in October 1917, he became the military leader of the Nikolaev Red Guard detachment.

Chapaev turned out to be one of the military professionals on whom the Bolsheviks of the Nikolaev district of the Samara province relied in the fight against the uprisings of peasants and Cossacks. He took the post of district military commissar. At the beginning of 1918, Chapaev formed and led the 1st and 2nd Nikolaev regiments, which became part of the Red Army of the Saratov Council. In June, both regiments were consolidated into the Nikolaev brigade, which was headed by Chapaev.

In battles with the Cossacks and Czech interventionists, Chapaev showed himself to be a firm leader and an excellent tactician, skillfully assessing the situation and proposing the optimal solution, as well as a personally brave commander who enjoyed the authority and love of the fighters. During this period, Chapaev repeatedly personally led troops into attack. Since the fall of 1918, Chapaev commanded the Nikolaev division, which, due to its small numbers, was sometimes called Chapaev’s detachment.

According to the temporary commander of the 4th Soviet Army of the former General Staff, Major General A. A. Baltiysky, Chapaev’s “lack of general military education affects the technique of command and control and the lack of breadth to cover military affairs. Full of initiative, but uses it unbalanced due to the lack of military education. However, Comrade Chapaev clearly outlines all the data on the basis of which, with appropriate military education, both technology and a justified military scope will undoubtedly appear. The desire to receive a military education in order to get out of the state of “military darkness”, and then again join the ranks of the battle front. You can be sure that Comrade Chapaev’s natural talents, combined with military education, will give bright results.”

In November 1918, Chapaev was sent to the newly created Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army in Moscow to improve his education.

The following passage will say a lot about his academic success: “I haven’t read about Hannibal before, but I see that he was an experienced commander. But I disagree with his actions in many ways. He made many unnecessary changes in sight of the enemy and thereby revealed his plan to him, was slow in his actions and did not show persistence in order to completely defeat the enemy. I had an incident similar to the situation during the Battle of Cannes. This was in August, on the N. River. We let up to two white regiments with artillery through the bridge to our bank, gave them the opportunity to stretch out along the road, and then opened hurricane artillery fire on the bridge and rushed into the attack from all sides. The stunned enemy did not have time to come to his senses before he was surrounded and almost completely destroyed. His remnants rushed to the destroyed bridge and were forced to rush into the river, where most of them drowned. 6 guns, 40 machine guns and 600 prisoners fell into our hands. We achieved these successes thanks to the swiftness and surprise of our attack.”

Military science turned out to be beyond the capabilities of the people's leader; after studying for several weeks, Chapaev voluntarily left the academy and returned to the front to do what he knew and was able to do.

“Studying at the academy is a good thing and very important, but it’s a shame and a pity that the White Guards are being beaten without us.”




S.P. Zakharov - head of the Nikolaev division and brigade commander of this division V.I. Chapaev. September 1918




Subsequently, Chapaev commanded the Alexandrovo-Gai group, which fought the Ural Cossacks.

The opponents were worth each other - Chapaev was opposed by Cossack cavalry formations of a partisan nature.

At the end of March 1919, Chapaev, by order of the commander of the Southern Group of the Eastern Front of the RSFSR, M.V. Frunze, was appointed head of the 25th Infantry Division. The division acted against the main forces of the Whites, participated in repelling the spring offensive of the armies of Admiral A.V. Kolchak, and participated in the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa operations, which predetermined the failure of the Kolchak offensive. In these operations, Chapaev's division acted on enemy messages and carried out detours. Maneuver tactics became the calling card of Chapaev and his division. Even the whites singled out Chapaev and noted his organizational skills.

A major success was the crossing of the Belaya River, which led to the capture of Ufa on June 9, 1919 and the further withdrawal of the Whites. Then Chapaev, who was on the front line, was wounded in the head, but remained in the ranks. For military distinctions he was awarded the highest award of Soviet Russia - the Order of the Red Banner, and his division was awarded the honorary revolutionary Red Banners.

Chapaev stood out as an independent commander from the non-commissioned officers of the old army. This environment gave the Red Army many talented military leaders, including such as S. M. Budyonny and G. K. Zhukov. Chapaev loved his fighters, and they paid him the same. His division was considered one of the best on the Eastern Front. In many ways, he was precisely the people's leader, who fought using guerrilla methods, but at the same time possessed a real military instinct, enormous energy and initiative that infected those around him. A commander who strived to constantly learn in practice, directly during battles, a man who was simple-minded and cunning at the same time. Chapaev knew very well the combat area, located on the far-from-center right flank of the Eastern Front. By the way, the fact that Chapaev fought in approximately the same area throughout his entire career is a weighty argument in favor of the partisan nature of his activities.

Chapaev - Furmanov. Ufa, June 1919: “Comrade Furman. Please pay attention to my note to you, I am very upset by your departure, that you took my expression personally, of which I inform you that you have not yet managed to bring me any harm, and if I am so frank and a little hot , not at all embarrassed by your presence, and I say everything that is in my thoughts against some individuals, which you were offended by, but so that there are no personal scores between us, I am forced to write a report on my removal from office, rather than be in disagreement with my closest employee , which I am informing you about as a friend. Chapaev."

At the same time, Chapaev managed to fit into the structure of the Red Army and was fully used by the Bolsheviks in their interests. He was an excellent commander at the divisional level, although not everything in his division was going well, especially in terms of discipline. It is enough to note that as of June 28, 1919, in the 2nd brigade of the division, “unlimited drunkenness and outrages with strangers flourished - this does not indicate a commander at all, but a hooligan.” Commanders clashed with commissars, and there were even cases of beatings. The relationship between Chapaev and the commissar of his division, D. A. Furmanov, who met in March 1919, was difficult. They were friends, but sometimes quarreled because of the explosive nature of the division commander.




Chapaev. September 1918 Shot from the chronicle




After the Ufa operation, the Chapaev division was again transferred to the front against the Ural Cossacks. It was necessary to operate in the steppe area, far from communications (which made it difficult to supply the division with ammunition), in hot conditions with the superiority of the Cossacks in the cavalry. This situation constantly threatened the flanks and rear. The struggle here was accompanied by mutual bitterness, atrocities against prisoners, and uncompromising confrontation. As a result of a mounted Cossack raid into the Soviet rear, the headquarters of the Chapaev division in Lbischensk, located at a distance from the main forces, was surrounded and destroyed. On September 5, 1919, Chapaev died: according to some sources, while swimming across the Urals, according to others, he died from wounds during a shootout. Chapaev's death, which occurred as a result of carelessness, was a direct consequence of his impetuous and reckless character, expressing the unbridled element of the people.





Chapaev's division subsequently participated in the defeat of the Ural Separate Army, which led to the destruction of this army of Ural Cossacks and the death of thousands of officers and privates during the retreat through the desert regions of the Eastern Caspian region. These events fully characterize the cruel fratricidal essence of the Civil War, in which there could be no heroes.

Chapaev lived a short (died at 32 years old), but bright life. Now it is quite difficult to imagine what he really was like - too many myths and exaggerations surround the image of the legendary division commander. For example, according to one version, in the spring of 1919 the Reds did not surrender Samara to the enemy only because of the firm position of Chapaev and Frunze and contrary to the opinion of military experts. But, apparently, this version has nothing to do with reality. Another later legend is that L. D. Trotsky fought against Chapaev in every possible way. Unfortunately, even today such propaganda legends have their short-sighted supporters. In fact, on the contrary, it was Trotsky who awarded Chapaev a gold watch, distinguishing him from other commanders. Of course, it is difficult to classify Chapaev as a traditional commander. This is more of a partisan leader, a kind of “red chieftain.”

Appeal to the enemy: “I am Chapaev! Drop your weapons!





Some legends were created not by official ideology, but by popular consciousness. For example, that Chapaev is the Antichrist. Demonization of the image was a characteristic reaction of the people to the outstanding qualities of this or that figure. It is known that Cossack atamans were demonized in this way. Chapaev, over time, entered folklore in its more modern form - as the hero of many popular jokes. However, the list of Chapaev legends is not exhausted. Consider the widely spread version that Chapaev fought against the famous General V.O. Kappel. In reality, they most likely did not fight directly against each other. However, in the popular understanding, a hero like Chapaev could only be defeated by an opponent equal in strength to him, which Kappel was considered to be.





Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev had no luck with an objective biography. After the publication of D. A. Furmanov’s book in 1923 and especially after the release of the famous film by S. D. and G. N. Vasiliev in 1934, Chapaev, who was far from being a figure of the first order, was once and for all credited into the cohort of selected heroes of the Civil War. This group included politically safe (mostly already deceased) Red military leaders (M.V. Frunze, N.A. Shchors, G.I. Kotovsky and others). The activities of such mythologized heroes were covered only in a positive light. However, in the case of Chapaev, not only official myths, but also artistic fiction firmly overshadowed the real historical figure. This situation was reinforced by the fact that many former Chapaevites occupied high positions in the Soviet military-administrative hierarchy for a long time. From the ranks of the division came at least one and a half dozen generals alone (for example, A. V. Belyakov, M. F. Bukshtynovich, S. F. Danilchenko, I. I. Karpezo, V. A. Kindyukhin, M. S. Knyazev, S. A. Kovpak, V. N. Kurdyumov, A. A. Luchinsky, N. M. Mishchenko, I. V. Panfilov, S. I. Petrenko-Petrikovsky, I. E. Petrov, N. M. Khlebnikov) . The Chapaevites, along with the cavalrymen, formed a kind of veteran community in the ranks of the Red Army, kept in touch and helped each other.

Turning to the fate of other people's leaders of the Civil War, such as B. M. Dumenko, F. K. Mironov, N. A. Shchors, it is difficult to imagine Chapaev surviving to the end of the war. The Bolsheviks needed such people only during the period of fighting the enemy, after which they became not only inconvenient, but also dangerous. Those of them who did not die due to their own recklessness were soon eliminated.

Ganin A.V., Ph.D., Institute of Slavic Studies RAS






Blucher Vasily Konstantinovich

Battles and victories

Marshal of the Soviet Union, Soviet military-political figure, one of the prominent Soviet military leaders of the Civil War and the interwar period, led the Soviet armed forces in the Far East for a long time. The first holder of the Order of the Red Banner and the Red Star.

A number of successful operations made Blucher a legend of the Red Army, and in the Far East he embodied Soviet power itself. G.K. Zhukov admitted that he always wanted to be like this commander, and the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek said that one Blucher is equal to an army of one hundred thousand.

Blucher was born into a peasant family in the village of Barshchinka, Rybinsk district, Yaroslavl province. His family received an unusual surname during the Crimean War from a landowner in honor of the Prussian field marshal G. L. von Blucher. Vasily Blucher studied at the Serednevsky parochial school.

He worked from childhood. Already in the summer of 1904, his father took him to St. Petersburg, where Vasily began to serve as a boy at the store of the merchant Klochkov, then as a worker at the Berd factory.

It was in the capital that the first Russian revolution found young Vasily Blucher, which could not but influence the formation of his political views.

In 1906, Blucher returned to his native village and continued his studies.

In the fall of 1909 in Moscow, Blucher got a job in a metalworking workshop, later at a carriage building plant in Mytishchi, took part in riots, as a result of which he was imprisoned for three years. After his release, Blucher worked as a mechanic in the workshops of the Kazan Railway until he was mobilized.




Junior non-commissioned officer V.K. Blucher




Blücher participated in the First World War. As a militia warrior, he was enlisted in the 56th Kremlin reserve battalion, and from November 1914 he served at the front as a private in the 19th Kostroma Infantry Regiment. During the war years, he rose to the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, and distinguished himself as a brave and skillful fighter, and was awarded the St. George Medal, 4th degree. In March 1916, due to injury, Blucher was dismissed from the army. He worked at the Sormovsky shipyard near Nizhny Novgorod and in Kazan at the Osterman mechanical plant. In June 1916 he joined the Bolsheviks, and in May 1917, on instructions from the party leadership, he re-joined the army, ending up in the 102nd reserve regiment, where he became a comrade of the chairman of the regimental committee. In November 1917, Blucher became a member of the Samara Military Revolutionary Committee and participated in the establishment of Soviet power in the Samara province.

Blucher was one of the creators and organizers of the Red Army. From the end of 1917, as a commissar of one of the Red Guard detachments, he participated in the fight against the Orenburg Cossacks of Ataman A.I. Dutov, who opposed the Reds. Blucher was mainly based in Chelyabinsk, where until the spring of 1918 he carried out organizational work to create new local authorities. In March 1918, he was even elected chairman of the Chelyabinsk Council of Deputies and became chief of staff of the Red Guard.

The fight against the Orenburg Cossacks developed with varying degrees of success. Ataman A.I. Dutov with a small number of associates at the beginning of 1918 was driven into the Ural outback and was actually surrounded. However, his troops managed to break through and go to the Turgai steppes. Meanwhile, in the spring of 1918, a large-scale uprising of the Cossacks began, as a result of which the Bolsheviks were forced to send punitive expeditions to the villages. Blucher also took part in these expeditions, and he gained fame as a leader of decisive measures. At the same time, Blucher personally met with representatives of the Cossacks and negotiated with them. In May 1918, at the head of the 1,500-strong Consolidated Ural Detachment, Blucher was sent to Orenburg. The large-scale growth of Cossack uprisings was facilitated by the armed uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps against the Bolsheviks at the end of May 1918.




Engineering equipment of the Kakhovka bridgehead in August - October 1920




Blucher gained wide fame already in 1918, when he led an amazing 1,500-kilometer campaign along the white rear. After Orenburg was blocked as a result of the uprising of the Orenburg Cossacks, the leaders of the Red Guard detachments located in the city decided to break through to their own at the end of June 1918. Part of the troops retreated to Turkestan, and the detachments of Blucher and the Red Cossacks - N.D. Tomin and brothers I.D. and N.D. Kashirins moved north, hoping to find support in their native villages. However, the villagers for the most part were anti-Bolshevik, they failed to gain a foothold in Cossack territory, and as a result it was necessary to break through further. The movement passed through the Ural factories. During the campaign, the scattered detachments were united under the leadership of Blucher, and on August 2 he was elected commander-in-chief of the Combined Detachment of South Ural Partisans (over 10,500 people). The campaign revealed Blucher's great military-administrative abilities and ability to maneuver. From time to time, Blucher's troops encountered heterogeneous white forces, but there was no continuous front line. The formations of Blucher and his comrades not only passed through the entire Urals, but by September 12 they were able to connect with the main forces of Soviet Russia (parts of the 3rd Army of the Eastern Front), which was facilitated by both the intermittent front line of the Civil War and the low density of troops. For this campaign, on September 28, 1918, by resolution of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Blucher was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, becoming its first holder in Soviet Russia.

On September 20, 1918, Blucher headed the 4th Ural Division of the Red Army (from November - the 30th Infantry Division). From the end of January 1919, he was assistant to the commander of the 3rd Army of the Eastern Front of the RSFSR, and then formed and led the 51st Infantry Division, which later became legendary. Together with the division, Blucher participated in the offensive through the Urals into the territory of Siberia and in the defeat of Kolchak’s troops. The division captured Tobolsk, and it also took part in the capture of Omsk, the capital of White Siberia.




V. Blucher and I. Stalin. March 1926




In August 1920, Blucher's division was transferred to the south of Russia, where it took part in the fight against the troops of the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel. The Blucherites defended the Kakhovka bridgehead, where the Whites used English tanks en masse. In October 1920, Blucher's division was significantly strengthened by a shock-fire brigade and became the striking force of the front. Later, the division reached Perekop and participated in the assault on the Turkish Wall and its capture on November 9, 1920 (according to the White participants in the events, they left Perekop before the assault); on November 11, the Yushun positions of the Whites were taken. On November 15, units of the division entered Sevastopol and Yalta. For these successes, Blucher was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner. Blucher's division, which suffered heavy losses in the battles, received the honorary name of Perekopskaya.

Due to the fact that the Civil War was still ongoing in the Far East, Blücher was sent to this region. There he took the key post of Minister of War of the buffer Far Eastern Republic, created specifically to ensure that parts of the Red Army avoided clashes with Japanese invaders in the Far East. Under the leadership of Blucher as commander-in-chief, the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic was created, which by the end of 1922 liberated the Far East from the whites and interventionists (Blucher was recalled from the Far East in July 1922). The most famous battles of this army were the battles near the Volochaevka station near Khabarovsk on February 10–12, 1922 (the assault on the White-fortified June-Koran heights) and near Spassk in October 1922. At the request of Blucher, his old comrade-in-arms from 1918 was sent to the Far East N. D. Tomin.

“In my letter sent to you before the battle near Volochaevka, I pointed out to you the behind-the-scenes diplomatic work of the interventionists, which is now going on behind your back, and the uselessness of your resistance. Now, through the battles near Volochaevka and Kazakevichevo, the People's Revolutionary Army has proven to you the insanity of further struggle against the people's will.

Draw an honest conclusion from this and submit to the will of the working Russian people without further persistent playing with human heads, who have entrusted their fate to you... I would like to know what number of victims, what number of Russian corpses is still needed to convince you of the uselessness and futility of your last attempts to fight the power of the revolutionary Russian people, who are building their new statehood on the ashes of economic ruin? How many Russian martyrs have you been ordered to throw at the foot of Japanese and other foreign capital?..

Do you now understand the tenacity with which our staunch revolutionary regiments are fighting under the Red Banner for their great new Red Rus'? We will win, because we are fighting for progressive principles in history, for a new statehood in the world, for the right of the Russian people to build their lives as their forces, awakened from centuries-old torpor, tell them...

The only way out for you, and the honorable way out, given your current situation, is to lay down your fratricidal weapons and end the last outbreak of the civil war with an honest soldier’s confession of your error and refusal of further service to foreign headquarters.”

From a letter to White General V.M. Molchanov on February 23, 1922.

Since the end of the Civil War, Blucher, despite the lack of military education and a very weak general education, became part of the military elite of Soviet Russia. On the fronts of the World War and the Civil War, Blucher received eighteen wounds.





In 1922, Blucher was appointed commander of the 1st Rifle Corps, and later headed the Petrograd fortified area. In 1924, he was seconded to the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR for particularly important assignments.

In 1924–1927 By decision of the leadership of the USSR (in connection with the request of the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen), Blucher, instead of the tragically deceased corps commander P. A. Pavlov, was sent to serve in China as the main military adviser in the south of the country. Blucher worked in the interests of the Cantonese government under the pseudonym Galin. During this period, Blucher was subordinate to a group of military-political advisers (their number reached approximately one hundred people by mid-1927), who oversaw the reform of the army and the creation of a new type of armed forces in China - the Kuomintang party army. In accordance with Blucher's plans in 1926–1927. The Northern Campaign of the National Revolutionary Army was implemented, the goal of which was to be the national unification and liberation of China. Blucher gained popularity and respect from the Chinese authorities. Subsequently, the leader of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek, who knew Blucher, said that Blucher’s arrival in China during the struggle with Japan in the second half of the 1930s. “would be equivalent to sending an army of one hundred thousand.” For his work in China, Blucher was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and received a gold cigarette case with diamonds from the Comintern.

According to Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, who met Blucher for the first time in the mid-1920s, “I was fascinated by the sincerity of this man. A fearless fighter against the enemies of the Soviet Republic, the legendary hero V.K. Blucher was an ideal for many. I won’t lie, I always dreamed of being like this wonderful Bolshevik, wonderful comrade and talented commander.”




The defeat of the Chinese militarists in 1929




Blücher commanded the Special Far Eastern Army since 1929, and in the same year he led the fight against Chinese militarists during the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway. In December 1929, a Soviet-Chinese agreement was signed to eliminate the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway. In 1930, Blucher became a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee. He was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st convocation, a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks since 1934. He was a kind of symbol of Bolshevik power in the Far East, and his sphere of influence extended to both military and economic issues, right up to participation in collective farm construction, supplying cities and mines. Blucher was a true legend of the Red Army. In the 1930s parents of conscripts sent him thousands of letters asking him to accept their children to serve in the Far Eastern Army.

“The Special Far Eastern Army achieved its victories due to the fact that it is strong in the support of the working class, strong in the alliance of the working class with the peasantry, and strong in the wise leadership of the party.

Comrade People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, I was only one of the particles of this glorious army forging the victory of the working class.

I was not embarrassed in battles and did not get lost. Today I am confused and therefore I can respond to the high award received with what a fighter, a proletarian, a party member can answer.

To the best of my ability and ability, I will honestly serve the party, the proletariat, and the socialist revolution. I assure you, People's Commissar, and ask you to convey to the Central Committee of the party and the government that I will continue to be an honest fighter of the party and the working class. And if the party and the working class demand my life for the cause of socialist construction, I will give my life without hesitation, fear, without a moment’s hesitation.”

From the speech of V.K. Blucher at the solemn plenum of the Khabarovsk city council when he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star on August 6, 1931.




Blücher in 1930




Blucher was the first holder of not only the Order of the Red Banner, but also the Order of the Red Star. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin and five Orders of the Red Banner. In 1935, Blucher was awarded the highest military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. The People's Commissar of Defense and his deputies received similar titles.

Blucher was interested in the development of military thought, cared about increasing the horizons of the command staff, and even prepared some military scientific works himself. Despite the strictures of the 1930s, Blucher, through the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, subscribed to foreign magazines and studied them.





Blucher also led the military operations against the Japanese on Lake Khasan in July - August 1938; the Japanese attack was then repelled, and the inviolability of the Soviet border was protected. After these events, Blucher was summoned to Moscow and never returned to the Far East.

Blucher actively participated in organizing political repressions against commanding officers in the Far East. Ultimately, he himself fell victim to them. He was arrested on October 22, 1938. During the investigation, the famous military leader was subjected to beatings and torture, in which the First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria personally participated.

During the investigation, Marshal Blucher was killed in the internal prison of the NKVD (according to other sources, in the Lefortovo prison). Rehabilitated posthumously on March 12, 1956.

Ganin A.V., Ph.D., Institute of Slavic Studies RAS






Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich

Battles and victories

Soviet military leader, military political figure, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1935).

Tukhachevsky perfectly understood the nature of the Civil War and learned to achieve success in its conditions by imposing his will on the enemy and active offensive actions.

Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky was born on the Aleksandrovskoye estate, Dorogobuzh district, Smolensk province, into a noble family. The commander's childhood was spent in the Penza province, on the estate of his grandmother Sofia Valentinovna, located near the village of Vrazhskoye, Chembar district. Since childhood, Misha was interested in playing the violin, astronomy, invention and design, and was involved in Russian and French wrestling. Tukhachevsky studied at the 1st Penza gymnasium, later at the 10th Moscow gymnasium and at the 1st Moscow Empress Catherine and Cadet Corps, which he graduated in 1912. For excellent studies, the name of Tukhachevsky was listed on the marble plaque of the corps. That same year he entered the Alexander Military School. After graduating in 1914, he was promoted to second lieutenant of the guard with assignment to the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment. Other representatives of the Tukhachevsky family had previously served in this regiment.

Literally a week after Tukhachevsky’s promotion to officer, the First World War began. The Semenovsky regiment was sent to East Prussia, and then reassigned to Warsaw. In battles, Tukhachevsky proved himself to be a brave officer. On February 19, 1915, near Warsaw, Tukhachevsky, who led the battle after the death of the commander, was captured. He was held captive together with future French President Charles de Gaulle. The young guards officer, thirsting for exploits and glory, was forced to remain inactive for several years. During his captivity, Tukhachevsky made five escape attempts. Only the last one was successful. In September 1917, he made his way to Switzerland, from where he went to France and, with the assistance of the Russian military agent in France, Count A. A. Ignatiev, returned to Russia through Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries. Tukhachevsky arrived in the reserve battalion of the Semenovsky regiment, stationed in Petrograd, where he was elected company commander, and then demobilized and left for an estate near Penza.

In the spring of 1918, Tukhachevsky arrived in Moscow, where he decided to link his future fate with the Red Army. Having missed, in fact, the entire world war, he could not boast of any awards or ranks that were awarded to the surviving fellow officers. Given Tukhachevsky’s morbid ambition, arrogance, posturing, his desire to “play a role”, imitate Napoleon, and his undoubted careerism, noted by his contemporaries, this turned out to be a significant factor influencing his further choice. Perhaps, not seeing any prospects for himself in the Whites, Tukhachevsky bet on the Reds - and he was right. Fate elevated him, a potentially hostile nobleman to the new government, a former monarchist, an officer of an elite guards regiment, to the top of the Soviet military-political Olympus for almost two decades. During the Civil War, Tukhachevsky was often driven by the desire to show his superiority to the old generals who led the white armies.

Already on April 5, 1918, he joined the Bolshevik Party. Apparently, his career aspirations had an effect, since neither at that time, nor ten or twenty years later, joining the party was still mandatory even for representatives of the senior command staff (it became such only after the Great Patriotic War). And in the future, Tukhachevsky, appropriately and inappropriately, demonstrated his devotion to party ideals. Former officers who joined the Bolshevik Party were such a rare occurrence that Tukhachevsky was immediately offered the post of representative of the military department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and a job in the Kremlin. It was necessary to inspect local military establishments, which gave Tukhachevsky insight into the nascent Red Army.

Soon, on May 27, a new responsible appointment followed - military commissar of the Moscow defense region, and on June 19, Tukhachevsky went to the Eastern Front at the disposal of front commander M. A. Muravyov to organize units of the Red Army into higher formations and lead them. On June 27, he accepted this post as commander of the 1st Army operating in the Middle Volga. During Muravyov's speech against the Reds that soon took place, Tukhachevsky was arrested by a rebel in Simbirsk and barely escaped execution as a Bolshevik. After Muravyov was killed on July 11, Tukhachevsky temporarily, until the arrival of I. I. Vatsetis, commanded the front.

It fell to Tukhachevsky and his comrades not only to create and strengthen the army, but also to reorganize it from disparate partisan formations into a regular unification. Tukhachevsky, who did not have military-administrative experience, relied on highly qualified cadres of old officers with higher military education. In the selection of personnel he showed himself to be a talented organizer. At the same time, he loved to be in battle formations, as if making up for what he was almost deprived of during the World War.

On September 12, Tukhachevsky’s troops took Simbirsk, the hometown of the Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin. In this regard, Tukhachevsky did not fail to send a congratulatory telegram to Lenin, who was wounded after the assassination attempt, stating that the capture of the city was the answer for one of Lenin’s wounds, and the second wound would be answered by the capture of Samara. Subsequently, victories followed one after another. Tukhachevsky took Syzran, the Whites retreated to the east.

In connection with the growing tension in the South, Tukhachevsky was appointed assistant commander of the Southern Front, and at the front he led the 8th Army, operating near Voronezh against the Don Army. It is interesting that back in the spring of 1919, Tukhachevsky advocated offensive actions by the Reds not through the Don region, but through the Donbass to Rostov. As a result of a conflict with front commander V.M. Gittis, Tukhachevsky asked for a transfer to another front.

He again found himself on the Eastern Front, now as the commander of the 5th Army, operating in the direction of the main attack of the Whites. Tukhachevsky successfully proved himself in the defeat of the Whites during the Buguruslan, Bugulma, Menzelinsk, Birsk, Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk, and Omsk operations. As a result of a series of victories, the Whites from the Volga region were thrown back to Siberia. For the liberation of the Volga region and the Urals and successes in the Chelyabinsk operation, Tukhachevsky was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and at the end of 1919, following the results of the campaign, he was awarded an honorary golden weapon. The 27-year-old former second lieutenant defeated the troops of Admiral A.V. Kolchak.

From a lecture by M. N. Tukhachevsky in 1919: “We all see that our Russian generals failed to understand the Civil War, failed to master its forms. Only a very few White Guard generals, capable and imbued with bourgeois class consciousness, rose to the occasion. The majority arrogantly declared that our Civil War was not quite a war, just some kind of small war or commissar partisanship. However, despite such ominous statements, we see before us not a small war, but a large, systematic war, with almost millions of armies, imbued with a single idea and performing brilliant maneuvers. And in the ranks of this army, among its devoted commanders, born of the Civil War, a certain doctrine of this war begins to take shape, and with it, its theoretical justification ... "

Tukhachevsky's army had a powerful political composition - the largest number of communists were gathered here in comparison with other armies of the front. On the Eastern Front, Tukhachevsky collaborated with another genius in the highest positions of the Red Army - M. V. Frunze. At the same time, already at this time the obstinate character of the ambitious military leader manifested itself. Tukhachevsky, for example, came into conflict with former General A. A. Samoilo, who briefly commanded the front. As a result of Tukhachevsky’s alliance with members of the Front’s Revolutionary Military Council, who did not accept Samoilo (instead of the former commander S.S. Kamenev), the latter was recalled.




The first five marshals: Tukhachevsky, Voroshilov, Egorov (sitting), Budyonny and Blucher (standing)




After the defeat of Kolchak, Tukhachevsky at the beginning of 1920 was again sent to the South, where he headed the Caucasian Front. His tasks included completing the defeat of the white armies of Southern Russia under the command of General A.I. Denikin. After the elimination of white resistance in the Caucasus, Tukhachevsky issued an order to the 11th Army, which was part of the front, to occupy Azerbaijan, which was done. However, at this time Tukhachevsky was sent to save Soviet Russia to a new site - to the Western Front, where the fight against the Poles was becoming increasingly intense.

“We will shake Russia like a dirty carpet, and then we will shake the whole world... We will enter chaos and emerge from it only by completely destroying civilization.”

Tukhachevsky was appointed to the post of commander of this front on April 28. By this time he had gained a reputation as one of the best Bolshevik commanders. The most powerful specialists of the General Staff and experienced command staff in the republic were concentrated on the front entrusted to the Tukhachevsky Front. The rapid offensive undertaken by Tukhachevsky brought the Red Army from the Berezina to the Vistula in a month. In the first half of August 1920, Tukhachevsky’s units were actually under the walls of Warsaw, but there was not enough strength to capture the Polish capital.

Tukhachevsky’s military style was characterized by deep ramming strikes with the rapid introduction of reserves into battle (later Tukhachevsky became the developer of the theory of deep combat), which led to the depletion of troops and all sorts of surprises that there was nothing to counter. This approach was developed into the concept of sequential operations, in which enemy forces are sequentially depleted in successive battles.

In practice, Tukhachevsky implemented this concept in the fight against Kolchak’s troops.

“Successive operations will constitute, as it were, dismemberments of the same operation, but dispersed, due to the enemy’s retreat over a large area... Constant pursuit and pressure, associated with the increasing disorganization of the retreating, extremely increase the morale of the attacking troops, bringing it to a state capable of high heroism. On the contrary, even if discipline is maintained, the retreating person’s combat effectiveness is constantly decreasing.”

M. N. Tukhachevsky. High command issues. M., 1924




Soviet military commanders of the Red Army are delegates to the 17th Party Congress. 1934




Tukhachevsky made repeated attempts (both against the Whites and the Poles), but attempts to encircle the enemy widely were not crowned with success. Contemporaries noted not only the deep intelligence of the young Soviet commander, but also his penchant for adventurous enterprises. In general, Tukhachevsky perfectly understood the nature of the Civil War and learned to achieve success in its conditions by imposing his will on the enemy and active offensive actions. In this regard, his adventurism sometimes had a beneficial effect on the results of operations. At the same time, Tukhachevsky always relied on highly qualified staff teams. The question of the leadership abilities of Tukhachevsky himself remains open. It is also unknown how he could have shown himself as a commander in a major war, which was radically different from the Civil War.




At the celebration of the 18th anniversary of the revolution




The end of the Civil War was marked for Tukhachevsky by the leadership of the liquidation of the Kronstadt uprising and the suppression of the uprising of the Tambov peasants (at the same time, asphyxiating gases were used to a limited extent, but not in the form of large-scale gas attacks destroying all living things, as appears from the experience of the First World War, but in the form of shelling with chemical shells, widely used in the Civil War by both Reds and Whites).

“I am convinced that with good management, good staffs and good political forces, we can create a large army capable of great feats.”

During the Civil War and especially after it, Tukhachevsky began to actively speak out in the military-scientific field. His books “Class War” and “Maneuver and Artillery” were published one after another. And here he worked closely with the country's leading military-scientific personnel. Thus, his closest collaborator was the famous military scientist V.K. Triandafillov. Tukhachevsky’s in-depth acquaintance with the military-scientific world is associated with the period of his leadership of the Military Academy of the Red Army.




Marshal of the Soviet Union Tukhachevsky M.N.




In 1922–1924 Tukhachevsky commanded the Western Front, and the party elite, bogged down in internal squabbles and struggles, was extremely wary of his intervention in the political life of the country. Tukhachevsky really had political ambitions. He was under covert surveillance and compromising material was collected.

As a result, during the most intense period of confrontation between the supporters of I.V. Stalin and L.D. Trotsky, Tukhachevsky turned out to be completely passive.

In 1924 he became assistant chief of staff of the Red Army, and in 1925–1928. - Chief of Staff of the Red Army. Despite his busy schedule, Tukhachevsky also found time for military pedagogical work and gave lectures to academy students. In May 1928, he was commander of the troops of the Leningrad Military District.

In 1931, Tukhachevsky became deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR K. E. Voroshilov. On the initiative of Tukhachevsky, new equipment was introduced into the army. The troops were rearmed and re-equipped with aircraft, tanks, and artillery. Tukhachevsky’s support included such innovative developments for that time as airborne assaults, radar, rocket-propelled weapons, missile technology, air defense, and torpedo-carrying aircraft. At the same time, Tukhachevsky was also characterized by excessive projectism, sometimes far from reality (it is enough to note that in 1919, according to an informed contemporary, he proposed to the Bolshevik leadership a project for introducing paganism in the country, and in 1930 he put forward an absurd program for an annual tank building standard in a country of 100,000 tanks by armoring tractors - in this way he counted on the practical implementation of the theory of deep operation).

As a supporter of the strategy of destruction, Tukhachevsky opposed the famous military scientist, former General A. A. Svechin, who was the ideologist of the strategy of starvation. In the spirit of the times, this discussion turned into persecution of the scientist, headed by Tukhachevsky. The executed “Red Bonaparte” was by no means averse to bullying his opponents. Tukhachevsky’s opponent was also the future Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov.

In November 1935, Tukhachevsky became Marshal of the Soviet Union.

As A.I. Todorsky, who knew him, rightly noted, Tukhachevsky was not destined to live to see the Great Patriotic War. But Tukhachevsky, together with its heroes, smashed the fascist armies. The enemies were attacked by the equipment that Tukhachevsky built together with the party and the people. Soldiers and commanders destroyed the enemy, relying on Soviet military art, to which Tukhachevsky made a great contribution."

In 1937, Tukhachevsky, on false charges of preparing a fascist military conspiracy against the leadership of the USSR, was arrested and executed (rehabilitated in 1957). The reason for the repressions was Tukhachevsky’s ambitions, which went beyond his official boundaries, his undoubted authority, leadership in the senior command and many years of close ties with other high-ranking military leaders, which threatened a military coup. At the same time, he, of course, was not any foreign spy.

Ganin A.V., Ph.D., Institute of Slavic Studies RAS


Background to the conflict

To understand the nature of Russian-Polish relations, it is very important to apply the concepts discussed when analyzing the Polish national and national liberation movement.

For a hundred years (1815–1915), when the territory of ethnic Poland was part of the Russian Empire, a certain image of a “Russian” as a representative of the ruling system in the state took shape in the Polish public consciousness.

With such an interpretation of the manifestations of the national liberation struggle of the Polish people, when the main emphasis was placed on the presence or absence of an anti-Russian moment, an equal sign was put, as it were, between tsarism and Russia, the Russian people. At the same time, historians have strongly emphasized that these are different concepts, using to characterize the Polish uprisings and other actions such formulations as “anti-autocratic”, “anti-tsarist”, “directed against tsarism”, etc. These formulations, on the whole, correctly reflected the objective fact the non-identity of tsarism and the Russian people, nevertheless, did not take into account an important subjective factor, namely, that in the minds of the Poles such an identification occurred under the influence of hatred of the tsarism that oppressed them, and this hatred was transferred to everything Russian. Just as in Russian society only a small part was able to resist the ideas of the great power and rise to a true understanding of the Polish question, so in Poland not every revolutionary could separate the Russian people from the hated tsarism, but only the most perspicacious, thoughtful and sensitive. Distrust and hostility towards Russians became an element of national consciousness during the period of its formation. On the one hand, they affected the Polish national character, and on the other, they largely determined the stereotype of the Russian, entrenched in the consciousness of Polish society. All these moments were and are of great importance not only for Russian-Polish, and then Soviet-Polish relations, but in general for the destinies of peoples.

When analyzing national issues, assessing certain national manifestations, the researcher, as a rule, faces the question: where, when, under what conditions, why patriotism, national feeling, national liberation aspirations move into another category; where is the border separating them from nationalism.

It seems that we can talk about nationalism in a negative way when manifestations of national feeling are aimed at distrust and hatred of other peoples or to the detriment of the interests of these peoples, when one’s own people are put above others and judged by other standards. Such trends can be traced in Polish patriotism. Elements of national egoism and domination characterize the views of many of the most prominent representatives of the Polish liberation movement. This concerned not only the attitude towards Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, whom most Polish ideologists did not recognize as independent nations.

It should also be remembered that in 1815 Poland again disappeared from the political map of Europe. The borders established in Eastern Europe by the Congress of Vienna lasted until 1914, when the outbreak of the First World War raised the question of a new territorial redistribution.

Already on August 14, 1914, the Russian government announced its desire to unite all Poles within the borders of the Kingdom of Poland under the scepter of the Russian emperor. For their part, Germany and Austria-Hungary limited themselves to rather general declarations about the future freedom of the Poles without any specific promises.

On the first day of the war, the famous Appeal of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, to the Poles was published. Written in a high style, it became the basis of Russia's policy towards its Slavic neighbor. The text of the appeal read: “Poles! The hour has struck when the cherished dream of your grandfathers and fathers can come true. A century and a half ago, Poland's living body was torn to pieces, but her soul did not die. She lived in hope that the hour would come for the resurrection of the Polish people, their fraternal reconciliation with Great Russia!

Russian troops bring you the good news of this reconciliation. Let the borders that cut the Polish people into pieces be erased! May he be reunited under the scepter of the Russian Tsar! Under this scepter Poland will be reborn, free in its faith, in its language, in self-government.

Russia expects one thing from you - the same respect for the rights of those peoples with whom history has connected you!

With an open heart and a brotherly outstretched hand, Great Russia is coming to meet you halfway. She believes that the sword that defeated the enemy at Grunwald will not rust. Russian armies are moving from the shores of the Pacific Ocean and the Northern Seas. The dawn of a new life is dawning for you. May the sign of the cross, the symbol of suffering and resurrection of nations, shine in that dawn!”

Written in a high style, with pathos quite appropriate here and designed for a strong emotional impact, the Appeal, according to the testimony of many Polish political figures of that time, found a fairly broad positive response from many parties and individual authorities both within Poland and among the Polish emigration.

The People's Democracy Party, the Polish Progressive Party, the Real Politics Party, and the Polish Progressive Association adopted a joint document on August 16, 1914, welcoming the Appeal of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. In addition, the People's Democracy Party and the Real Politics Party protested in connection with the formation of J. Pilsudski's legions in Austria-Hungary with the aim of participating in the war against Russia. In general, the Appeal was assessed by the Polish side as an important positive political step towards granting Poland autonomy with the prospect of further transferring relations with Russia to a federal one and promoting the restoration of Polish state independence following the example of Finland.

A year later, speaking at the Russian Council of Ministers, its chairman I. L. Goremykin described the government’s Polish policy as follows: “I consider it my duty today to touch upon only one issue that stands, as it were, on the brink between the war and our internal affairs: this is the Polish issue. Of course, it can be resolved in its entirety only after the end of the war. Now Poland is waiting first of all for the liberation of its lands from heavy German oppression. But even these days, it is important for the Polish people to know and believe that their future structure is finally and irrevocably predetermined by the Proclamation of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, announced by supreme command in the very first days of the war.

...His Majesty ordered the Council of Ministers to develop bills to grant Poland, at the end of the war, the right to freely structure its national, cultural and economic life on the basis of autonomy under the scepter of the Russian sovereigns and while maintaining a unified statehood.”

However, subsequent events showed a completely different course of events than the Petrograd plans. During the war, national Polish military units were created within the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and French armies. After the occupation of the Kingdom of Poland by German and Austro-Hungarian troops in 1915, the overwhelming majority of the Polish population came under the control of Germany and Austria-Hungary, which on November 5, 1916 proclaimed the “independence” of the Kingdom of Poland without specifying its borders. The Provisional State Council was created in December 1916 as a governing body. Russia's countermeasure was a statement on December 12, 1916 about the desire to create a “free Poland” from all its three parts. In January 1917, this statement was generally supported by England, France and the USA.

The conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty on March 3, 1918 set the government of the RSFSR the task of protecting its western border. Initially, this was carried out with the help of partisan and volunteer detachments put forward by the population of the border strip and reinforced by several similar formations sent from the center.

Already in March 1918, to unify the management of all these detachments, the headquarters of the Western section of the veil detachments was created. The task of this headquarters in combat terms was to guard and defend our western border; organizationally, it was necessary to rebuild all these partisan detachments and bring them into the same type of regular military formations in accordance with the decree on the formation of the Red Army.

At the same time, the position of the German Empire and its allies was increasingly deteriorating. On October 31, 1918, the revolution began in Austria-Hungary. In Lviv, on October 18, the Ukrainian National Council was created, headed by E. Petrushevich, which proclaimed the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (WUNR), the army of which was created on the basis of the Ukrainian military units of the Austro-Hungarian army. Accordingly, the Polish national movement intensified.

On October 1, the National Polish Council was formed in the Duchy of Cieszyn, which announced on October 30 the return of this territory to Poland. On October 23, the Polish Regency Council announced the creation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War, headed by Józef Pilsudski, who was at that time imprisoned in the Magdeburg fortress in Germany.

On October 25, a Liquidation Commission was created in Krakow, taking over power in Western Galicia on behalf of the Polish state. On October 27, the Regency Council announced the creation of the Polish army with the inclusion of all Polish military formations. On November 7, a “people's government” arose in Lublin, which announced the dissolution of the Regency Council, proclaimed civil liberties, an 8-hour working day, the nationalization of forests, grants and primordial estates, the creation of self-governments and civil militia. All other social demands were postponed until decisions of the Legislative Diet.

Realizing that power was slipping from their hands, the Regency Council obtained from Germany the release of Pilsudski, who arrived in Warsaw on November 10. Negotiations with the Regency Council and the Lublin government led to the transfer of power to Piłsudski on November 14. On November 22, 1918, he signed a decree on the organization of supreme power in the Polish Republic, according to which Pilsudski was appointed “temporary head of state”, who had full legislative and executive power. In fact, it was about the creation of Pilsudski's dictatorship, covered with a beautiful position - at the end of the 18th century. The head of state was Tadeusz Kościuszko.

On November 11, 1918, Germany signed an armistice in Compiegne, according to which it abandoned the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. On November 13, Moscow also annulled this treaty, making its provisions non-existent. On November 16, Pilsudski notified all countries except the RSFSR about the creation of an independent Polish state. On November 26–28, during an exchange of notes on the fate of the Regency Council mission located in Moscow, the Soviet government announced its readiness to establish diplomatic relations with Poland. On December 4, Warsaw announced that there would be no discussion of this problem until the issue of the mission was resolved.

During the exchange of notes in December 1918, the Soviet side offered to establish diplomatic relations three times, but Poland, under various pretexts, refused these proposals. On January 2, 1919, the Poles shot the mission of the Russian Red Cross, which caused a new exchange of notes, this time with accusations from the RSFSR. Thus, Moscow recognized Poland and was ready to normalize relations with it, but Warsaw was preoccupied with defining its borders. Like most other politicians, Pilsudski was a supporter of restoring the Polish border of 1772 and believed that the longer the confusion continued in Russia, the more territory Poland would be able to control. Pilsudski’s unique maximum program was the creation of a number of national states on the territory of European Russia, which would be under the influence of Warsaw. This, in his opinion, would allow Poland to become a great power, replacing Russia in Eastern Europe.

It faced problems typical of young states born after the collapse of three empires: the formation of an internal power structure and the design of external borders. The latter was largely associated with the decision of the fate of the eastern territories still occupied by Oberkommando-Ost troops, although Austria-Hungary and Germany, paralyzed by the revolution, had already ceased hostilities. Under the terms of the armistice on November 11, 1918, Germany refused the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and, in the matter of evacuation of troops from the eastern territories it occupied, was placed under the complete control of the Allied powers until the conclusion of a peace treaty. On November 13, after the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Red Army began its offensive to the west. Under these conditions, the head of the only representative of the Polish state in the international arena of the PNK in Paris, the leader of the National Democratic Party (Endek) Roman Dmowski appealed to the Entente with a request to delay the evacuation of German troops due to the threat to Poland from Bolshevik Russia, as well as the absence of the Polish army and the insecurity of the eastern borders.

By the autumn of 1918, two most common points of view on the problem of the eastern territories had emerged in Polish society. The Endeks developed the so-called “incorporation” doctrine, according to which the eastern territories that were part of Poland before 1772 were supposed to be included in the Polish state. In the memorandum on the territory of the Polish state, presented by the Endeks to US President William Wilson in Washington on October 8, 1918, there was the territory to which, according to the authors, Poland has the right as historically Polish, is designated.

It included part of Courland (the southern part of Lithuania), most of the Minsk province with Minsk and Slutsk, Kovno, the northwestern part of Vilna with Vilno, a significant part of the Suwalki province, as well as lands along the Lower Neman. Autonomy within the Polish state was provided for the 2.5 million Lithuanians living in this territory. In addition, the Endeks made claims to Eastern Galicia with Lvov and part of Volyn and Podolia and Kamenets-Podolsk. Territorially, Poland was supposed to be equal to Germany and border on Russia. As a result of expansion, its population would have grown to 38 million people, of which only 23 million were Poles. Later, the territorial program of the Endeks expanded further.

The peoples who inhabited the territories that, according to the Endeks, should have become part of Poland - Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians - were considered as not having the right to claim their own state due to their small numbers. This point of view was shared by Pilsudski's supporters.


The beginning of large-scale military operations

By the end of 1919, the Polish armed forces consisted of 21 infantry divisions and 7 motorized brigades - a total of 600 thousand soldiers. In the first months of 1920, mobilization was announced, which brought significant reinforcements to personnel. By the start of the 1920 campaign, Poland had deployed more than 700 thousand soldiers.

The Soviet government, seeking to move to a long-term peace, approached a number of European states, including Poland, with proposals for peace. However, the Polish government rejected the peace proposal, counting on a quick victory over the Soviet Republic devastated by the Civil War, and together with the Petliurists launched an offensive on April 25, 1920.

The Red Army could oppose the White Poles on the Southwestern Front with the 12th and 14th armies, and on the Western Front with the 15th and 16th armies. The four armies included 65,264 Red Army soldiers, 666 guns and 3,208 machine guns.

By the beginning of hostilities, the White Poles had a significant superiority in forces. On the Southwestern Front it was fivefold. This allowed the White Poles to succeed and create a direct threat to Kyiv.

Units of the 12th Army, having put up stubborn resistance, were still unable to hold back the superior forces of the White Poles and abandoned the cities of Ovruch, Korosten, Zhitomir, and Berdichev.

In the rear of the Red Army, the Petliurist, Makhnovist and other gangs significantly complicated the situation. To fight them, it was necessary to withdraw some troops from the Southwestern Front.




M. P. Grekov. Trumpeters of the first Cavalry Army. 1934 Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow




The 12th Army retreated to Kyiv across the Irpen River. And its flanks are towards the Dnieper River; The 14th Army fought stubborn battles in the Gaisin-Vapnyarka area. A gap of about 200 km formed between the armies, which was used by the White Poles command. The White Poles approached Kyiv. On May 6, units of the 12th Army left Kyiv and retreated beyond the Dnieper. Having captured Kiev, the Poles occupied a small bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper.

The Red Army command took decisive measures to disrupt the offensive of the Polish troops. The military operations of the troops of the 12th and 14th armies were intensified, and on May 14, 1920, the armies of the Western Front went on the offensive.

However, having underestimated the enemy and overestimated its own strength, the command of the Western Front led by M.N. Tukhachevsky, faced with the need to provide support to the troops of the Southwestern Front, launched an offensive without completing preparations and without organizing the interaction of the 15th and 16th armies. Due to poor communications, control of the troops was lost, which led to their dispersion in different directions. All this allowed the Polish troops not only to avoid defeat, but also to counterattack and push back parts of the Western Front. However, the May offensive of the Red Army in Belarus still had a certain positive significance. It was possible to thwart the plans of the Polish command to attack in Belarus, and the area occupied by Soviet troops on the left bank of the Western Dvina could be used as a springboard for preparing a new offensive by the Red Army. The May offensive of Soviet troops in Belarus forced the Polish command to expend a significant part of its reserves and transfer some troops from the South-Eastern Front to the north, which weakened its strike force in Ukraine and forced it to abandon new operations in this direction. All this made it easier for the troops of the Southwestern Front to go on the offensive.

By that time, the Red Army had completely defeated the Kolchakites, the Ural and Orenburg White Cossacks and Denikin’s troops. But, unfortunately, many of the liberated Red Army units were located at a great distance from the new front, and the railways operated at low capacity.

To strengthen the Southwestern Front, the command of the Red Army sent the 25th Chapaev Division from the Uralsk region, the Bashkir Brigade from the Urals, and the 1st Cavalry Army from the Maykop region. Other military units were sent from different parts of the country.

During the battles with the Poles, the troops of the Southwestern Front, offering stubborn resistance, exhausted the enemy, but also suffered significant losses. To strengthen the front, Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Army and Murtazin’s Bashkir Brigade arrived in the combat area. The 25th Chapaevskaya Division was also approaching. The offensive of the troops of the Southwestern Front was scheduled for May 26.

By the beginning of the operation, the armies of this front had 22.3 thousand bayonets and 24 thousand sabers. Opposite them were three Polish armies with 69.2 thousand bayonets and 9 thousand sabers.

The 3rd Polish Army occupied the Kyiv area, from the mouth of the Pripyat River to the Belaya Tserkov, and a small bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper. The White Poles had orders to hold the Kiev region at all costs. To the south of this army, to Lipovets, the 2nd Polish Army was located, and the 6th Army of the White Poles was located in the Lipovets - Gaysin sector to the Dniester. The enemy troops outnumbered the Red Army troops three times in the number of infantry. However, we had 2.5 times more cavalry. This was of great importance at that time. The troops of the Southwestern Front were given the immediate task: to encircle and destroy the 3rd Polish Army of General Rydz-Smigly, and then, together with the troops of the Western Front, defeat the enemy and liberate Ukraine.

The plan outlined by the command of the Southwestern Front to encircle and destroy the 3rd Polish Army, which was retreating from Kyiv, unfortunately, was not implemented. Firstly, because units of the 12th Army were unable to quickly cross the Dnieper: while retreating, the enemy blew up bridges. Secondly, a strong strike group was not created in a timely manner to cover the 3rd Polish Army from the north-west. Thirdly, the Fastov group failed to envelop the enemy from the flank and connect with the 12th Army. The 1st Cavalry Army was located in the areas of Zhitomir and Berdichev and was not transferred to the area of ​​the Borodyanka station, where the enemy fought major battles, breaking through to the northwest.

After bloody battles, units of the 3rd Polish Army with heavy losses retreated through Borodyanka and Teterev, abandoning a large number of convoys and weapons.





The successful offensive of the Red Army on the Polish front caused confusion among the Pilsudski government and alarm in Entente circles. The Entente presented an ultimatum to the Republic of Soviets, which went down in history as the “ultimatum of Lord Curzon.” The Soviet government was demanded to stop military operations against the Polish invaders and conclude a truce. The line of location of the Polish troops was indicated: Grodno - Yalovka - Nemirov - Brest-Litovsk - Ustilug - Krylov, further west of Rava-Russkaya and east of Przemysl - to the Carpathians. The Red Army was asked to withdraw 50 kilometers east of this line.

British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon demanded that a truce also be signed with Wrangel and that the Crimean Isthmus be declared a “neutral zone.” If the Soviet government refused to accept these conditions, the Entente threatened to provide all possible assistance to the Polish troops.

Curzon's ultimatum caused general indignation of the Soviet people. In accordance with the decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the Soviet government sent a response note to England on July 17, 1920. The Bolshevik Party and government rejected the ultimatum. Curzon was told that England had no grounds or right to act as a mediator between Soviet Russia and lordly Poland.

A few days later, the Red Army, having launched a large-scale counteroffensive, not only liberated the occupied territory, but on August 12, 1920, approached Warsaw. However, the Polish troops defending their capital managed not only to repel the attack, but also, launching a counteroffensive, moved forward hundreds of kilometers and captured the western territories of Belarus and Ukraine.

The Battle of the Vistula began on August 13, 1920. As Soviet troops approached the Vistula and the capital of Poland, the resistance of Polish troops increased. The enemy tried, using water barriers, to delay the further advance of the Soviet troops and put their units in order in order to subsequently launch a counteroffensive. On August 13, the 21st and 27th Soviet divisions captured a strong enemy stronghold - the city of Radzimin, located 23 km from Warsaw. The breakthrough in the Radzimin area created an immediate threat to Warsaw. In this regard, General Haller ordered to accelerate the start of the counterattack of the 5th Polish Army and the strike force on the river. Wieprze. Having brought up two fresh divisions from the reserve, the Polish command launched fierce counterattacks on August 14, trying to restore the situation in the Radzimin area. Soviet troops repelled the enemy's onslaught and even advanced forward in some places. The Soviet 3rd Army, in cooperation with the left flank of the 15th Army, captured two forts of the Modlin fortress on that day. In the battles near Radzimin, the Soviet troops clearly showed a shortage of ammunition and especially shells. It is no coincidence that on the evening of August 13, the commander of the 27th division, V.K. on your own initiative, rather than to retreat under duress from the enemy and defeated.” Of course, this proposal was rejected.

On August 14, the Polish 5th Army went on the offensive. North of Warsaw, her cavalry group at 10 am on August 15 broke into Ciechanów, where the headquarters of the 4th Soviet Army was located. The disorderly retreat of the army headquarters led to their loss of contact both with their troops and with the front headquarters, as a result of which the entire right flank was left without control. Having received information about enemy action north of Warsaw, the command of the Western Front ordered the troops of the 4th and 15th Soviet armies to defeat the enemy wedged between them. However, unorganized counterattacks did not bring results, although units of the 4th Army had the opportunity to reach the rear of the Polish troops north of Warsaw. On August 14, by order of the chairman of the RVSR L. D. Trotsky, the commander-in-chief demanded that the troops of the Western Front occupy the Danzig corridor, cutting off Poland from the military supplies of the Entente.

During the fighting on the outskirts of Warsaw on August 14–15, Soviet troops were still fighting fiercely for Radzimin, which was eventually occupied by the enemy, and the 8th Infantry Division of the 16th Army broke through to the Vistula at Gura Kalwaria, but it was felt that these successes were achieved at the limit of their strength. At 14.35 on August 15, the command of the Western Front gave the order to regroup the 1st Cavalry Army in the Ustilug - Vladimir-Volynsky area in 4 transitions. However, the order, signed only by Tukhachevsky, caused correspondence between headquarters about its confirmation. On the same day, the front command, having received information from the 12th Army about the concentration of enemy forces across the river. Wieprz ordered the 16th Army to move the front south, but time had already been lost. News from the front indicated that the initiative was slowly beginning to pass to the enemy.

On August 16, the offensive of Polish troops began on the Ciechanow-Lublin front. At dawn of this day, Pilsudski's strike group went on the offensive from the Wieprz River, which without much effort broke through the weak front of the Mozyr group and began to quickly advance to the northeast. Having received information about the activation of the enemy on the front of the Mozyr group, its command and the command of the 16th Army initially decided that it was just a small counterattack. In this situation, Polish troops received an important gain in time for their operation and continued their rapid advance towards Brest-Litovsk, trying to cut off and press all the armies of the Western Front to the German border. Realizing the danger from the south, the Soviet command decided to create a defense along the pp. Lipovets and the Western Bug, however, it took time to regroup the troops, and there were no reserves in the rear of the front. Already on the morning of August 19, the Poles knocked out the weak units of the Mozyr group from Brest-Litovsk. An attempt to regroup the troops of the 16th Army also failed, since the enemy was ahead of the Soviet units when reaching any lines suitable for defense. On August 20, Polish troops reached the line Brest-Litovsk - Vysoko-Litovsk - pp. Narew and Western Bug, covering the main forces of the Western Front from the south. It should also be taken into account that all this time the Polish command had the opportunity to intercept and read radiograms from the Soviet command, which, of course, facilitated the actions of the Polish Army.





By August 25, the front had stabilized along the line Augustow - Lipsk - Kuznica - Wisloch - Belovezh - Zhabinka - Opalin. Back on August 19, when the troops of the Western Front had already retreated from Warsaw, the 1st Cavalry Army began to be withdrawn from near Lvov. However, sensing the weakening of the onslaught of the Soviet troops, the enemy launched a series of counterattacks, and on August 21–24, Cavalry formations had to support their neighbors. Trotsky’s directive of August 20 did not add clarity, demanding “energetic and immediate assistance from the Cavalry Army to the Western Front,” but drawing “special attention of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Army to ensure that the occupation of Lvov itself does not affect the deadline for the implementation of these orders.” Thus, instead of a clear order to stop Lvov’s attack, Moscow again limited itself to a vague order. Not to mention the fact that now the transfer of the 1st Cavalry Army was no longer needed. Moreover, on August 25, the 1st Cavalry Army, by order of the commander-in-chief, was thrown into a raid on Zamosc, which had neither meaning nor purpose.

After the hostilities, long peace negotiations began, the result of which was the Riga Peace Treaty, signed at 20.30 on March 18, 1921. The parties pledged to respect each other’s state sovereignty and not to create or support organizations fighting the other side. A procedure was provided for the selection of citizens. The Soviet side undertook to pay Poland 30 million rubles in gold in coins or bars and transfer the train and other property worth 18,245 thousand rubles in gold. Poland was freed from the debts of the Russian Empire and negotiations on an economic agreement were envisaged. Diplomatic relations were established between the parties. The treaty was ratified by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR on April 14, by the Polish Sejm on April 15, and by the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian SSR on April 17, 1921. On April 30, after the exchange of ratification instruments in Minsk, the treaty came into force. The Soviet-Polish war ended.

The events of 1920 showed that it was impossible to fully implement both Polish and Soviet plans, and the parties had to compromise. They finally looked at each other as equals, which was reflected in the peace negotiations and the Treaty of Riga. The territorial issue was resolved between Moscow and Warsaw by a classic compromise of force. The Soviet-Polish border was determined arbitrarily according to the randomly formed configuration of the front line. This new border had no other justification, and could not have had it. Having received 1/2 of the territory of Belarus and 1/4 of Ukraine, which were perceived as “wild outskirts” intended for polonization, Poland became a state in which Poles made up only 64% of the population. Although the parties abandoned mutual territorial claims, the Riga border became an insurmountable barrier between Poland and the USSR.

N. Kopylov






For some time now, we have been instilled with the idea that we must sympathize with the whites. They are nobles, people of honor and duty, the “intellectual elite of the nation”, innocently destroyed by the Bolsheviks...

Some modern heroes, heroically leaving half of the territory entrusted to them to the enemy without a fight, even introduce White Guard shoulder straps into the ranks of their militia... While being in the so-called. “red belt” of a country now known to the whole world...

It became fashionable, on occasion, to cry about the innocent murdered and expelled nobles. And, as usual, all the troubles of the present time are blamed on the Reds, who treated the “elite” this way.

Behind these conversations, the main thing becomes invisible - the Reds won in that fight, and yet the “elite” not only of Russia, but also of the strongest powers of that time fought against them.

And why did the current “noble gentlemen” get the idea that the nobles in that great Russian turmoil were necessarily on the side of the whites?

Let's look at the facts.

75 thousand former officers served in the Red Army (62 thousand of them were of noble origin), while about 35 thousand out of the 150 thousand officer corps of the Russian Empire served in the White Army.

On November 7, 1917, the Bolsheviks came to power. Russia by that time was still at war with Germany and its allies. Whether you like it or not, you have to fight. Therefore, already on November 19, 1917, the Bolsheviks appointed the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief... a hereditary nobleman, His Excellency Lieutenant General of the Imperial Army Mikhail Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich.

It was he who would lead the armed forces of the Republic during the most difficult period for the country, from November 1917 to August 1918, and from scattered units of the former Imperial Army and Red Guard detachments, by February 1918 he would form the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. From March to August M.D. Bonch-Bruevich will hold the post of military leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Republic, and in 1919 - chief of the Field Staff of the Rev. Military Council of the Republic.

At the end of 1918, the post of Commander-in-Chief of all Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic was established. We ask you to love and favor - His Highness the Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic Sergei Sergeevich Kamenev (not to be confused with Kamenev, who was then shot along with Zinoviev). Career officer, graduated from the General Staff Academy in 1907, colonel of the Imperial Army.

First, from 1918 to July 1919, Kamenev made a lightning-fast career from the commander of an infantry division to the commander of the Eastern Front and, finally, from July 1919 until the end of the Civil War, he held the post that Stalin would occupy during the Great Patriotic War. Since July 1919 Not a single operation of the land and naval forces of the Soviet Republic was completed without his direct participation.

Great assistance to Sergei Sergeevich was provided by his direct subordinate - His Excellency the Chief of the Field Headquarters of the Red Army Pavel Pavlovich Lebedev, a hereditary nobleman, Major General of the Imperial Army. As chief of the Field Staff, he replaced Bonch-Bruevich and from 1919 to 1921 (almost the entire war) he headed it, and from 1921 he was appointed chief of staff of the Red Army. Pavel Pavlovich participated in the development and conduct of the most important operations of the Red Army to defeat the troops of Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich, Wrangel, and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Red Banner of Labor (at that time the highest awards of the Republic).

We cannot ignore Lebedev’s colleague, the head of the All-Russian General Staff, His Excellency Alexander Alexandrovich Samoilo. Alexander Alexandrovich is also a hereditary nobleman and major general of the Imperial Army. During the Civil War, he headed the military district, the army, the front, worked as Lebedev’s deputy, then headed the All-Russia Headquarters.

Isn't it true that there is an extremely interesting trend in the personnel policy of the Bolsheviks? It can be assumed that Lenin and Trotsky, when selecting the highest command cadres of the Red Army, made it an indispensable condition that they should be hereditary nobles and career officers of the Imperial Army with the rank of no lower than colonel. But of course this is not true. It’s just that tough wartime quickly brought forward professionals and talented people, and also quickly pushed aside all sorts of “revolutionary talkers.”

Therefore, the personnel policy of the Bolsheviks is quite natural; they had to fight and win now, there was no time to study. However, what is truly surprising is that the nobles and officers came to them, and in such numbers, and served the Soviet government for the most part faithfully.

There are often allegations that the Bolsheviks forcefully drove nobles into the Red Army, threatening the families of officers with reprisals. This myth has been persistently exaggerated for many decades in pseudo-historical literature, pseudo-monographs and various kinds of “research”. This is just a myth. They served not out of fear, but out of conscience.

And who would entrust command to a potential traitor? Only a few betrayals of officers are known. But they commanded insignificant forces and are sad, but still an exception. The majority honestly performed their duty and selflessly fought both with the Entente and with their “brothers” in class. They acted as befits true patriots of their Motherland.

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet is generally an aristocratic institution. Here is a list of his commanders during the Civil War: Vasily Mikhailovich Altfater (hereditary nobleman, rear admiral of the Imperial Fleet), Evgeniy Andreevich Behrens (hereditary nobleman, rear admiral of the Imperial Fleet), Alexander Vasilyevich Nemitz (profile details are exactly the same).

What about the commanders, the Naval General Staff of the Russian Navy, almost in its entirety, went over to the side of Soviet power, and remained in charge of the fleet throughout the Civil War. Apparently, Russian sailors after Tsushima perceived the idea of ​​a monarchy, as they say now, ambiguously.

This is what Altvater wrote in his application for admission to the Red Army: “I have served until now only because I considered it necessary to be useful to Russia where I can, and in the way I can. But I didn’t know and didn’t believe you. Even now I still don’t understand much, but I am convinced... that you love Russia more than many of ours. And now I have come to tell you that I am yours.”

I believe that these same words could be repeated by Baron Alexander Alexandrovich von Taube, Chief of the Main Staff of the Red Army Command in Siberia (former Lieutenant General of the Imperial Army). Taube's troops were defeated by the White Czechs in the summer of 1918, he himself was captured and soon died in the Kolchak prison on death row.

And a year later, another “red baron”—Vladimir Aleksandrovich Olderogge (also a hereditary nobleman, major general of the Imperial Army), from August 1919 to January 1920, commander of the Red Eastern Front—finished off the White Guards in the Urals and eventually eliminated the Kolchak regime .

At the same time, from July to October 1919, another important front of the Reds - the Southern - was headed by His Excellency the former Lieutenant General of the Imperial Army Vladimir Nikolaevich Egoriev. The troops under the command of Yegoryev stopped Denikin’s advance, inflicted a number of defeats on him and held out until the arrival of reserves from the Eastern Front, which ultimately predetermined the final defeat of the Whites in the South of Russia. During these difficult months of fierce fighting on the Southern Front, Yegoriev’s closest assistant was his deputy and at the same time the commander of a separate military group, Vladimir Ivanovich Selivachev (hereditary nobleman, lieutenant general of the Imperial Army).

As you know, in the summer and autumn of 1919, the Whites planned to end the Civil War victoriously. To this end, they decided to launch a combined strike in all directions. However, by mid-October 1919, the Kolchak front was already hopeless, and there was a turning point in favor of the Reds in the South. At that moment, the Whites launched an unexpected attack from the northwest.

Yudenich rushed to Petrograd. The blow was so unexpected and powerful that already in October the Whites found themselves in the suburbs of Petrograd. The question arose about surrendering the city. Lenin, despite the well-known panic in the ranks of his comrades, decided not to surrender the city.

And now the 7th Red Army is moving forward to meet Yudenich under the command of His Excellency (former Colonel of the Imperial Army) Sergei Dmitrievich Kharlamov, and a separate group of the same army under the command of His Excellency (Major General of the Imperial Army) Sergei Ivanovich Odintsov enters the White flank. Both are from the most hereditary nobles. The outcome of those events is known: in mid-October, Yudenich was still looking at Red Petrograd through binoculars, and on November 28 he was unpacking his suitcases in Revel (the lover of young boys turned out to be a useless commander...).

Northern front. From the autumn of 1918 to the spring of 1919, this was an important site in the fight against the Anglo-American-French interventionists. So who leads the Bolsheviks into battle? First, His Excellency (former Lieutenant General) Dmitry Pavlovich Parsky, then His Excellency (former Lieutenant General) Dmitry Nikolaevich Nadezhny, both hereditary nobles.

It should be noted that it was Parsky who led the Red Army detachments in the famous February battles of 1918 near Narva, so it is largely thanks to him that we celebrate February 23. His Excellency Comrade Nadezhny, after the end of the fighting in the North, will be appointed commander of the Western Front.

This is the situation with nobles and generals in the service of the Reds almost everywhere. They will tell us: you are exaggerating everything here. The Reds had their own talented military leaders, and they were not nobles and generals. Yes, there were, we know their names well: Frunze, Budyonny, Chapaev, Parkhomenko, Kotovsky, Shchors. But who were they in the days of the decisive battles?

When the fate of Soviet Russia was being decided in 1919, the most important was the Eastern Front (against Kolchak). Here are his commanders in chronological order: Kamenev, Samoilo, Lebedev, Frunze (26 days!), Olderogge. One proletarian and four noblemen, I emphasize - in a vital area! No, I don’t want to diminish the merits of Mikhail Vasilyevich. He is a truly talented commander and did a lot to defeat the same Kolchak, commanding one of the military groups of the Eastern Front. Then the Turkestan Front under his command crushed the counter-revolution in Central Asia, and the operation to defeat Wrangel in the Crimea is deservedly recognized as a masterpiece of military art. But let’s be fair: by the time the Crimea was captured, even the whites had no doubt about their fate; the outcome of the war was finally decided.

Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was the army commander, his Cavalry Army played a key role in a number of operations on some fronts. However, we should not forget that there were dozens of armies in the Red Army, and to call the contribution of one of them decisive in victory would still be a big stretch. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Shchors, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, Alexander Yakovlevich Parkhomenko, Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky - division commanders. Because of this alone, with all their personal courage and military talents, they could not make a strategic contribution to the course of the war.

But propaganda has its own laws. Any proletarian, having learned that the highest military positions are occupied by hereditary nobles and generals of the tsarist army, will say: “Yes, this is counter!”

Therefore, a kind of conspiracy of silence arose around our heroes during the Soviet years, and even more so now. They won the Civil War and quietly faded into oblivion, leaving behind yellowed operational maps and meager lines of orders.

But “their excellencies” and “high nobility” shed their blood for Soviet power no worse than the proletarians. Baron Taube has already been mentioned, but this is not the only example.

In the spring of 1919, in the battles near Yamburg, the White Guards captured and executed the brigade commander of the 19th Infantry Division, former Major General of the Imperial Army A.P. Nikolaev. The same fate befell the commander of the 55th Infantry Division, former Major General A.V., in 1919. Stankevich, in 1920 - commander of the 13th Infantry Division, former Major General A.V. Soboleva. What is noteworthy is that before their death, all the generals were offered to go over to the side of the whites, and everyone refused. The honor of a Russian officer is more valuable than life.

That is, you believe, they will tell us, that the nobles and the career officer corps were for the Reds?

Of course, I am far from this idea. Here we simply need to distinguish “nobleman” as a moral concept from “nobility” as a class. The noble class found itself almost entirely in the white camp, and it could not have been otherwise.

It was very comfortable for them to sit on the neck of the Russian people, and they did not want to get off. True, the help from the nobles to the whites was simply meager. Judge for yourself. In the turning point of 1919, around May, the number of shock groups of the white armies was: Kolchak’s army - 400 thousand people; Denikin’s army (Armed Forces of the South of Russia) - 150 thousand people; Yudenich's army (North-Western Army) - 18.5 thousand people. Total: 568.5 thousand people.

Moreover, these were mainly “lapotniks” from villages, who were forced into the ranks under the threat of execution and who then, in entire armies (!), like Kolchak, went over to the side of the Reds. And this is in Russia, where at that time there were 2.5 million nobles, i.e. at least 500 thousand men of military age! Here, it would seem, is the strike force of the counter-revolution...

Or take, for example, the leaders of the white movement: Denikin is the son of an officer, his grandfather was a soldier; Kornilov is a Cossack, Semyonov is a Cossack, Alekseev is the son of a soldier. Of the titled persons - only Wrangel, and that Swedish baron. Who is left? The nobleman Kolchak is a descendant of a captured Turk, and Yudenich with a very typical surname for a “Russian nobleman” and an unconventional orientation. In the old days, the nobles themselves defined such classmates as nobles. But “in the absence of fish, there is cancer – a fish.”

You should not look for Princes Golitsyn, Trubetskoy, Shcherbatov, Obolensky, Dolgorukov, Count Sheremetev, Orlov, Novosiltsev and among less significant figures of the white movement. The “boyars” sat in the rear, in Paris and Berlin, and waited for some of their slaves to bring others on the lasso. They didn't wait.

So Malinin’s howls about lieutenants Golitsins and cornets Obolenskys are just fiction. They did not exist in nature... But the fact that the native land is burning under our feet is not just a metaphor. It really burned under the troops of the Entente and their “white” friends.

But there is also a moral category - “nobleman”. Put yourself in the place of “His Excellency”, who went over to the side of Soviet power. What can he count on? At most, a commander's ration and a pair of boots (an exceptional luxury in the Red Army; rank and file were shod in bast shoes). At the same time, there is suspicion and mistrust of many “comrades”, and the watchful eye of the commissar is constantly nearby. Compare this with the 5,000 rubles annual salary of a major general in the tsarist army, and yet many excellencies also had family property before the revolution. Therefore, selfish interest is excluded for such people, only one thing remains - the honor of a nobleman and a Russian officer. The best of the nobles went to the Reds to save the Fatherland.

During the Polish invasion of 1920, Russian officers, including nobles, went over to the side of Soviet power in the thousands. From representatives of the highest generals of the former Imperial Army, the Reds created a special body - a Special Meeting under the Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Republic. The purpose of this body is to develop recommendations for the command of the Red Army and the Soviet Government to repel Polish aggression. In addition, the Special Meeting appealed to former officers of the Russian Imperial Army to defend the Motherland in the ranks of the Red Army.

The remarkable words of this address, perhaps, fully reflect the moral position of the best part of the Russian aristocracy:

“At this critical historical moment in our people’s life, we, your senior comrades, appeal to your feelings of love and devotion to the Motherland and appeal to you with an urgent request to forget all grievances, voluntarily go with complete selflessness and eagerness to the Red Army at the front or in the rear, wherever the government of Soviet Workers' and Peasants' Russia assigns you, and serve there not out of fear, but out of conscience, so that through your honest service, not sparing your life, you can defend at all costs our dear Russia and prevent its plunder.” .

The appeal bears the signatures of their excellencies: General of the Cavalry (Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in May-July 1917) Alexey Alekseevich Brusilov, General of the Infantry (Minister of War of the Russian Empire in 1915-1916) Alexey Andreevich Polivanov, General of the Infantry Andrey Meandrovich Zayonchkovsky and many other generals of the Russian Army.

I would like to end the brief review with examples of human destinies, which perfectly refute the myth of the pathological villainy of the Bolsheviks and their total extermination of the noble classes of Russia. Let me note right away that the Bolsheviks were not stupid, so they understood that, given the difficult situation in Russia, they really needed people with knowledge, talents and conscience. And such people could count on honor and respect from the Soviet government, despite their origin and pre-revolutionary life.

Let's start with His Excellency General of Artillery Alexei Alekseevich Manikovsky. Aleksey Alekseevich headed the Main Artillery Directorate of the Russian Imperial Army back in the First World War. After the February Revolution, he was appointed comrade (deputy) minister of war. Since the Minister of War of the Provisional Government, Guchkov, did not understand anything in military matters, Manikovsky had to become the de facto head of the department. On a memorable October night in 1917, Manikovsky was arrested along with the rest of the members of the Provisional Government, then released. A few weeks later he was arrested again and again released; he was not noticed in any conspiracies against Soviet power. And already in 1918 he headed the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, then he would work in various staff positions of the Red Army.

Or, for example, His Excellency Lieutenant General of the Russian Army, Count Alexey Alekseevich Ignatiev. During the First World War, with the rank of major general, he served as a military attaché in France and was in charge of arms purchases—the fact is that the tsarist government prepared the country for war in such a way that even cartridges had to be purchased abroad. Russia paid a lot of money for this, and it was in Western banks.

After October, our faithful allies immediately laid their paws on Russian property abroad, including government accounts. However, Alexey Alekseevich got his bearings faster than the French and transferred the money to another account, inaccessible to the allies, and, moreover, in his own name. And the money was 225 million rubles in gold, or 2 billion dollars at the current gold rate.

Ignatiev did not succumb to persuasion about the transfer of funds either from the Whites or from the French. After France established diplomatic relations with the USSR, he came to the Soviet embassy and modestly handed over a check for the entire amount with the words: “This money belongs to Russia.” The emigrants were furious, they decided to kill Ignatiev. And his brother volunteered to become the killer! Ignatiev miraculously survived - the bullet pierced his cap a centimeter from his head.

Let's invite each of you to mentally try on Count Ignatiev's cap and think, are you capable of this? And if we add to this that during the revolution the Bolsheviks confiscated the Ignatiev family estate and the family mansion in Petrograd?

And the last thing I would like to say. Do you remember how at one time they accused Stalin, accusing him of killing all the tsarist officers and former nobles who remained in Russia?

So, none of our heroes were subjected to repression, all died a natural death (of course, except for those who fell on the fronts of the Civil War) in glory and honor. And their younger comrades, such as: Colonel B.M. Shaposhnikov, staff captains A.M. Vasilevsky and F.I. Tolbukhin, second lieutenant L.A. Govorov - became Marshals of the Soviet Union.

History has long ago put everything in its place and no matter how all sorts of Radzins, Svanidzes and other riffraff who don’t know history but know how to get paid for lying try to distort it, the fact remains: the white movement has discredited itself.

On January 20, 1918, the following decree was published in the official organ of the Bolshevik government:

The old army served as an instrument of class oppression of the working people by the bourgeoisie. With the transfer of power to the working and exploited classes, the need arose to create a new army, which would be the stronghold of Soviet power in the present, the foundation for replacing the standing army with all-people's weapons in the near future and would serve as support for the coming socialist revolution in Europe.

In view of this, the Council of People's Commissars decides: to organize a new army called the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, on the following grounds:

1) The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army is created from the most conscious and organized elements of the working masses.

2) Access to its ranks is open to all citizens of the Russian Republic at least 18 years of age. Anyone who is ready to give their strength, their life to defend the gains of the October Revolution, the power of the Soviets and socialism, joins the Red Army. To join the Red Army, recommendations are required: from military committees or public democratic organizations standing on the platform of Soviet power, party or professional organizations, or at least two members of these organizations. When joining in whole parts, mutual responsibility of everyone and a roll-call vote are required.

1) The soldiers of the Workers' and Peasants' Army are on full state pay and, on top of this, receive 50 rubles a month.

2) Disabled members of the families of Red Army soldiers, who were previously their dependents, are provided with everything necessary according to local consumer standards, in accordance with the decrees of local bodies of Soviet power.

The supreme governing body of the Workers' and Peasants' Army is the Council of People's Commissars. Direct leadership and management of the army is concentrated in the Commissariat for Military Affairs in the special All-Russian Collegium created under it.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin).

Supreme Commander N. Krylenko.

People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs: Dybenko And Podvoisky.

People's Commissars: Proshyan, Zatonsky And Steinberg.

Administrator of the Council of People's Commissars Vlad. Bonch-Bruevich.

Controls

The supreme governing body of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was the Council of People's Commissars. 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 Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR, since 1937, the Defense Committee of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, since 1941, the State Defense Committee of the USSR.

Military authorities

The direct leadership of the Red Army is carried out by the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR (Union) (RVS) (formed on September 6, 1918), headed by the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and the Chairman of the RVS.

People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs - committee, consisting of:

• 26.10.1917-? - V. A. Ovseenko (Antonov) (in the text of the Decree on the formation of the Council of People's Commissars - Avseenko)
• 26.10.1917-? - N.V. Krylenko
• 10.26.1917-18.3.1918 - P. E. Dybenko

People's Commissars for Military and Naval Affairs:

• 8.4.1918 - 26.1.1925 - Trotsky L. D.

The central apparatus of the Red Army consists of the following main bodies:

2) Main Directorate of the Red Army

3) Management; subordinate to the chief of armaments of the Red Army

• Artillery (since 1921 Main Artillery Directorate)
• Military Engineering (since 1921 Main Military Engineering Directorate)
• On August 15, 1925, the Military Chemical Directorate was created under the chief of supply of the Red Army (in August 1941, the “Directorate of Chemical Defense of the Red Army” was renamed the “Main Military Chemical Directorate of the Red Army”)
• in January 1918, the Council of Armored Units (“Tsentrobron”) was created, and in August 1918 - the Central, and then the Main Armored Directorate. In 1929, the Central Directorate of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army was created, in 1937 it was renamed the Automotive and Tank Directorate of the Red Army, and in December 1942 the Directorate of the Commander of Armored and Mechanized Forces was formed.
• and others

4) Directorate for combat training of the ground armed forces of the Red Army with inspections of the military branches

5) Directorate of Military Air Forces

6) Directorate of Naval Forces

7) Military Sanitary Department

8) Military veterinary department.

The body in charge of party-political and political-educational work in the Red Army is the Political Directorate of the Red Army.

Local military control is carried out through revolutionary military councils, commands and headquarters of military districts (armies), to which all troops located in the territory of a given district, as well as regional military commissariats, are subordinated. The latter are the bodies for registering the population liable for military service. All work of central and local government bodies in the Red Army is carried out in close connection with party, Soviet and professional organizations. In all parts and divisions of the Red Army there are organizations of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Komsomol.

Artillery

The largest unit of artillery was an artillery regiment. It consisted of artillery battalions and regimental headquarters. The artillery division consisted of batteries and division control. The battery consisted of platoons. The battery has 4 guns.

Personnel



Commanders and soldiers of the Red Army, 1930

In general, the military ranks of junior command personnel (sergeants and foremen) of the Red Army correspond to the tsarist non-commissioned officer ranks, the ranks of junior officers - chief officer (the statutory address in the tsarist army is “your honor”), senior officers, from major to colonel - headquarters officers (the statutory address in the tsarist army is “your honor”), senior officers, from major general to marshal - general (“your excellency”).

A more detailed correspondence of ranks can only be established approximately, due to the fact that the very number of military ranks varies. Thus, the rank of lieutenant roughly corresponds to lieutenant, and the royal rank of captain roughly corresponds to the Soviet military rank of major.

It should also be noted that the insignia of the Red Army of the 1943 model was also not an exact copy of the tsarist ones, although they were created on their basis. Thus, the rank of colonel in the tsarist army was designated by shoulder straps with two longitudinal stripes and without stars; in the Red Army - two longitudinal stripes, and three medium-sized stars, arranged in a triangle.

Repressions 1937-1938

Human resources

Since 1918, the service has been voluntary (based on volunteers). But volunteerism could not provide the required number of fighters to the armed forces at the right time. On June 12, 1922, the Council of People's Commissars issued the first decree on conscription of workers and peasants of the Volga, Urals and West Siberian military districts. Following this decree, a number of additional decrees and orders on conscription into the armed forces were issued. On August 27, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the first decree on the conscription of military sailors into the Red Fleet. The Red Army was a militia (from lat. militia- army), created on the basis of the territorial police system. Military units in peacetime consisted of an accounting apparatus and a small number of command personnel; Most of it and the rank and file, assigned to military units on a territorial basis, underwent military training using the method of non-military training and at short-term training camps. The construction of the Red Army from 1923 to the end of the 30s was carried out on the basis of a combination of territorial police and personnel formations. In modern conditions, with the growth of technical equipment of the armed forces and the complication of military affairs, the police armed forces have practically become obsolete. The system was based on military commissariats located throughout the Soviet Union. During the conscription campaign, young people were distributed on the basis of General Staff quotas by branch of the armed forces and services. After distribution, the conscripts were taken from the units by officers and sent to the young fighter course. There was a very small stratum of professional sergeants; Most of the sergeants were conscripts who had undergone a training course to prepare them for positions as junior commanders. In the 1970s, the ranks of warrant officers were introduced.

After the Civil War, representatives of the “exploiting classes” - children of merchants, priests, nobles, Cossacks, etc. - were not conscripted into the Red Army. In 1935, the conscription of Cossacks was allowed; in 1939, restrictions on conscription based on class were abolished, but restrictions on admission to military schools remained. .

The term of service in the army for infantry and artillery is 1 year, for cavalry, horse artillery and technical troops - 2 years, for the air fleet - 3 years, for the navy - 4 years.

During the period of post-war mass demobilization 1946-1948, conscription into the army was not carried out. Instead, conscripts were sent to reconstruction work. A new law on universal conscription was passed in 1949; in accordance with it, conscription is established once a year for a period of 3 years, in the navy 4 years. In 1968, the service period was reduced by one year, instead of conscription once a year, two conscription campaigns were introduced.

Military training

In the first half of 1918, universal education went through several stages of its development. On January 15, 1918, a decree was issued on the organization of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the All-Russian Collegium for the formation of the Red Army was created under the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs. She launched active work in the center and locally. In particular, all military specialists and career officers were registered. In March 1918, the VII Congress of the RCP (b) decided on universal training of the population in military affairs. The day before, Izvestia All-Russian Central Executive Committee published an appeal: “Every worker, every woman worker, every peasant, every peasant woman must be able to shoot a rifle, revolver or machine gun!” Their training, which had already practically begun in the provinces, districts and volosts, was to be led by military commissariats formed in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of April 8. On May 7, the Central Department of All-Russian Education was established at the All-Russian General Staff, headed by L.E. Maryasin, local departments were created at the military registration and enlistment offices. On May 29, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued the first decree on the transition from recruiting volunteers to the mobilization of workers and poor peasants.

In June 1918, the First Congress of General Education Workers took place, which made important decisions. In accordance with them, the activities of local educational institutions were also structured. Back in January, a provincial military department with an accounting subdepartment arose in Kostroma. The People's Commissariat for Military Affairs published instructions on the operating procedures of such bodies, recruitment centers were opened to enroll volunteers in the Red Army, and for the first time, widespread military training was launched. In February - March, Kostroma and Kineshma residents, mainly workers, enlist in the proletarian Red Army detachments. The military departments were training them. On March 21, the very day when the elective beginning in the Red Army was canceled (by order of the Supreme Military Council of the RSFSR), the All-Russian Collegium appealed to military specialists, to all officers of the old army, with an appeal to join the Red Army for command positions.

- A.M. Vasilevsky. "Life's work."

The military education system in the Red Army is traditionally divided into three levels. The main one is the system of higher military education, which is a developed network of higher military schools. Their students are traditionally called cadets in the Red Army, which roughly corresponds to the pre-revolutionary rank of “cadet.” The duration of training is 4-5 years, graduates receive the rank of lieutenant, which corresponds to the position of platoon commander.

If in peacetime the training program in schools corresponds to obtaining a higher education, in wartime it is reduced to secondary specialized education, the duration of training is sharply reduced, and short-term command courses lasting six months are organized.



Main building of the Military Medical Academy

A traditional feature of Russia is the system of secondary military education, consisting of a network of cadet schools and corps. After the collapse of the Armed Forces of the Russian Empire (Russian Imperial Army and Navy) in 1917-1918, this system ceased to exist. However, in the 40s it was actually restored as part of the general turn of the USSR towards pre-revolutionary Russian traditions caused by the Great Patriotic War. The leadership of the Communist Party authorized the founding of five Suvorov military schools and one Nakhimov naval school; The pre-revolutionary cadet corps served as a model for them. The training program in such schools corresponds to obtaining a complete secondary education; Suvorov and Nakhimov students usually enter higher military schools.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, a number of new educational institutions were organized in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, directly called “cadet corps”. The pre-revolutionary military rank of “cadet” and the corresponding insignia have been restored.

Another traditional feature of Russia is the system of military academies. Students who study there receive higher military education. This is in contrast to Western countries, where academies typically train junior officers.



Monument to Suvorov in the Swiss Alps

The military academies of the Red Army have experienced a number of reorganizations and redeployments, and are divided into various branches of the military (Military Academy of Logistics and Transport, Military Medical Academy, Military Academy of Communications, Academy of Strategic Missile Forces named after Peter the Great, etc.). After 1991, the point of view was promoted that a number of military academies were directly inherited by the Red Army from the tsarist army. In particular, the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze comes from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, and the artillery Academy comes from the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy, founded by Grand Duke Mikhail in 1820. This point of view was not shared during the Soviet period, because the history of the Red Army began in 1918. In addition, the Higher Military Scientific Courses (VVNK), created in the White emigration on the initiative of the former, were considered the direct successor of the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army Vel. Book Nikolai Nikolaevich the Younger as the successor and continuer of the traditions of the Academy of the General Staff.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation retained the Soviet system of military education in general terms, while disbanding a number of schools as part of the general reduction of the Armed Forces in the 90s of the 20th century. However, the greatest loss for the military education system was the collapse of the USSR. Since the Soviet Army was a single system for the USSR, military schools were organized without taking into account the division into union republics. As a result, for example, out of 5 artillery schools of the USSR Armed Forces, 3 remained in Ukraine, despite the fact that the Ukrainian army did not require such a number of artillery officers.

Reserve officers

Like any other army in the world, the Red Army organized a system for training reserve officers. Its main goal is to create a large reserve of officers in case of general mobilization in wartime. The general trend of all armies of the world during the 20th century was a steady increase in the percentage of people with higher education among officers. In the post-war Soviet Army, this figure was actually increased to 100%.

In keeping with this trend, the Soviet Army viewed virtually any civilian with a college education as a potential wartime reserve officer. For their training, a network of military departments has been deployed at civilian universities, the training program in them corresponds to a higher military school.

A similar system was used for the first time in the world, in Soviet Russia, and adopted by the United States, where a significant part of officers are trained in non-military training courses for reserve officers, and in officer candidate schools. The developed network of higher military schools is also very expensive; the maintenance of one school costs the state approximately the same as the maintenance of a division fully deployed in wartime. Reserve officer training courses are much cheaper, and the United States places great emphasis on them.

Weapons and military equipment

The development of the Red Army reflected the general trends in the development of military equipment in the world. These include, for example, the formation of tank troops and air forces, the mechanization of infantry and its transformation into moto rifle troops, the disbandment of the cavalry, the appearance of nuclear weapons on the scene.

Role of the cavalry

The First World War, in which Russia took an active part, differed sharply in character and scale from all previous wars. A continuous multi-kilometer front line and protracted “trench warfare” made the widespread use of cavalry almost impossible. However, the Civil War was very different in nature from the First World War.

Its features included the excessive extension and unclearness of front lines, which made possible the widespread combat use of cavalry. The specifics of the civil war include the combat use of “carts,” which were most actively used by the troops of Nestor Makhno.

The general trend of the interwar period was the mechanization of troops, the abandonment of horse-drawn traction in favor of automobiles, and the development of tank forces. However, the need to completely disband the cavalry was not obvious to most countries of the world. In the USSR, some commanders who grew up during the Civil War spoke in favor of the preservation and further development of cavalry. Unfortunately, ardent supporters of the development of tank forces, such as Tukhachevsky, were mowed down by repression, while supporters of the cavalry, such as Budyonny and Kulik, were rather raised.

In 1941, the Red Army consisted of 13 cavalry divisions, deployed to 34. The final disbandment of the cavalry occurred in the mid-50s. The US Army command issued an order to mechanize the cavalry in 1942; the existence of cavalry in Germany ceased with its defeat in 1945.

Armored trains

Armored trains were widely used in many wars long before the Russian Civil War. In particular, they were used by British troops to protect vital railway communications during the Boer Wars. They were used during the American Civil War, etc. In Russia, the “armored train boom” occurred during the Civil War. This was caused by its specifics, such as the virtual absence of clear front lines, and the intense struggle for railways, as the main means for the rapid transfer of troops, ammunition, and grain.

Some armored trains were inherited by the Red Army from the Tsarist army, while mass production of new ones was launched. In addition, until 1919, mass production of “surrogate” armored trains continued, assembled from scrap materials from ordinary passenger cars in the absence of any drawings; such an “armored train” could be assembled literally in a day.

By the end of the Civil War, the Central Council of Armored Units (Tsentrobron) was in charge of 122 full-fledged armored trains, the number of which was reduced to 34 by 1928.

The widespread combat use of armored trains during the Civil War clearly demonstrated their main weakness. The armored train was a large, bulky target, vulnerable to artillery (and later air) strikes. It was also dangerously dependent on the railway line. To immobilize him, it was enough to destroy the canvas in front and behind.

However, during the interwar period, the Red Army did not abandon plans for the further technical development of armored trains. During the Great Patriotic War, railway artillery remained in service. A number of new armored trains were built, and railway air defense batteries were deployed. Armored train units played a certain role in the Great Patriotic War, primarily in protecting the railway communications of the operational rear.

At the same time, the rapid development of tank forces and military aviation that occurred during the Second World War sharply reduced the importance of armored trains. By a resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers of February 4, 1958, further development of railway artillery systems was stopped.

The rich experience accumulated by Russia in the field of armored trains allowed the USSR to add to its nuclear triad also railway-based nuclear forces - combat railway missile systems (BZHRK) equipped with RS-22 missiles (in NATO terminology SS-24 “Scalpel”). Their advantages include the ability to avoid impact due to the use of a developed railway network, and the extreme difficulty of tracking from satellites. One of the main demands of the United States in the 80s was the complete disbandment of the BZHRK as part of a general reduction in nuclear weapons. The United States itself has no analogues to the BZHRK.

Nuclear forces

In 1944, the Nazi leadership and the population of Germany began to come to the conclusion that defeat in the war was inevitable. Although the Germans controlled almost all of Europe, they were opposed by such powerful powers as the Soviet Union, the United States, and the British colonial empire, which controlled about one-quarter of the globe. The superiority of the Allies in people, strategic resources (primarily oil and copper), and the capabilities of the military industry became obvious. This entailed Germany's persistent search for a “miracle weapon” (wunderwaffe), which was supposed to change the outcome of the war. Research was carried out simultaneously in many areas, they led to significant breakthroughs and the emergence of a number of technically advanced combat vehicles.

One of the areas of research was the development of atomic weapons. Despite the serious successes achieved in Germany in this area, the Nazis had too little time; In addition, the research had to be carried out in conditions of the actual collapse of the German military machine, caused by the rapid advance of the Allied forces. It is also worth noting that the policy of anti-Semitism pursued in Germany before the war led to the flight of many prominent physicists from Germany.

This flow of intelligence played a certain role in the implementation by the United States of the Manhattan Project to create atomic weapons. The world's first atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 heralded the beginning of a new era for humanity - the era of atomic fear.

The sharp deterioration of relations between the USSR and the USA, which occurred immediately after the end of World War II, created a strong temptation for the United States to take advantage of its atomic monopoly. A number of plans were drawn up (“Dropshot”, “Chariotir”), which provided for a military invasion of the USSR simultaneously with the atomic bombing of the largest cities.

Such plans were rejected as technically impossible; At that time, nuclear weapons stockpiles were relatively small, and the main problem was delivery vehicles. By the time adequate delivery means had been developed, the US atomic monopoly had ended.

Both powers have deployed strategic nuclear triads: nuclear weapons that are based on land (intercontinental ballistic missiles in silos), water (strategic submarines) and air (strategic aircraft). Belonging to the “nuclear club” has become for many countries of the world an indicator of their authority on the world stage, but few nuclear powers can afford to create a full-fledged nuclear triad.

The doctrine of “nuclear deterrence” or “mutually assured destruction” became the doctrine of both countries. MAD- Mutual Assured Destruction). Any military conflict between superpowers inevitably meant the use of nuclear weapons, which should have entailed, apparently, the death of all life on the planet. However, the USSR and the USA continued to prepare for a potential military conflict without the use of nuclear weapons.

Modern Russia continues to view its nuclear arsenal as the only reliable guarantee of the country's preservation as an independent state. However, given the latest anti-missile systems, Russia's nuclear potential does not guarantee maximum security.

Preserving the Soviet nuclear legacy obviously does not serve the national interests of the United States. The existing balance may change if the United States manages to build an effective missile defense system capable of intercepting 100% of Russian nuclear missiles before approaching American territory.

In modern Russia, the greatly exaggerated concern of the United States about the safety of Russian nuclear weapons, the desire to provide technical means of security, assistance in training personnel, etc., have also not gone unnoticed. This has given rise to suspicions in Russia that, under the pretext of improving the security of nuclear weapons, the United States is trying to seize He has complete control. In 2004, presidential candidates' promises about who would "best secure Russian nuclear weapons" became a prominent factor in the US elections. In 2005, at the Bush-Putin summit in Bratislava, a joint commission was formed to study the issue of the safety of Russian nuclear weapons. In fact, the assistance of the United States (real or imaginary) was sharply rejected by the Russian side. Currently, the question of the safety of the Soviet nuclear legacy is no longer raised by the United States.

Warrior rituals

Their purpose is to maintain morale and remind us of military traditions, often dating back to the Middle Ages.

Revolutionary Red Banner

Revolutionary Red Banner of one of the units of the Red Army during the civil war:


The imperialist army is a weapon of oppression, the Red Army is a weapon of liberation.

Each individual combat unit of the Red Army has its own revolutionary Red Banner, awarded to it by the Soviet government. The revolutionary Red Banner is the emblem of the unit and expresses the internal unity of its fighters, united by a constant readiness to act at the first request of the Soviet government to defend the gains of the revolution and the interests of the working people.

The revolutionary Red Banner is in the unit and accompanies it everywhere in its military and peaceful life. The banner is awarded to the unit for the entire duration of its existence. The Order of the Red Banner awarded to individual units is attached to the revolutionary Red Banners of these units.

Military units and formations that have proven their exceptional devotion to the Motherland and have shown outstanding courage in battles with the enemies of the socialist fatherland or have shown high success in combat and political training in peacetime are awarded the “Honorary Revolutionary Red Banner”. The “Honorary Revolutionary Red Banner” is a high revolutionary award for the merits of a military unit or formation. It reminds military personnel of the ardent love of the Lenin-Stalin party and the Soviet government for the Red Army, of the exceptional achievements of the entire personnel of the unit. This banner serves as a call to improve the quality and pace of combat training and constant readiness to defend the interests of the socialist fatherland.

For each unit or formation of the Red Army, its Revolutionary Red Banner is sacred. It serves as the main symbol of the unit, and the embodiment of its military glory. In case of loss of the Revolutionary Red Banner, the military unit is subject to disbandment, and those directly responsible for such disgrace are subject to trial. A separate guard post is established to guard the Revolutionary Red Banner. Every soldier passing by the banner is obliged to give it a military salute. On especially solemn occasions, the troops perform a ritual of solemnly carrying out the Revolutionary Red Banner. To be included in the banner group directly conducting the ritual is considered a great honor, which is awarded only to the most worthy military personnel.

Military oath



Military oath of the Red Army. The copy is signed by Joseph Stalin

It is mandatory for recruits in any army in the world to take an oath. In the Red Army, this ritual is usually carried out a month after conscription, after the young soldier has completed the course. Before being sworn in, soldiers are prohibited from being entrusted with weapons; There are a number of other restrictions. On the day of the oath, the soldier receives weapons for the first time; he breaks ranks, approaches the commander of his unit, and reads a solemn oath in front of the formation. The oath is traditionally considered an important holiday, and is accompanied by the ceremonial carrying out of the Battle Banner.

The text of the oath read as follows:

I, a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, joining the ranks of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, take the oath and solemnly swear to be an honest, brave, disciplined, vigilant fighter, strictly keep military and state secrets, unquestioningly carry out all military regulations and orders of commanders, commissars and bosses.

I swear to conscientiously study military affairs, to protect military property in every possible way and to my last breath to be devoted to my people, my Soviet Motherland and the workers' and peasants' government.

I am always ready, by order of the workers' and peasants' government, to defend my Motherland - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and, as a warrior of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, I swear to defend it courageously, skillfully, with dignity and honor, not sparing my blood and life itself to achieve complete victory over the enemy.

If, out of malicious intent, I violate this solemn oath of mine, then may I suffer the severe punishment of Soviet law, the general hatred and contempt of the working people.

Military salute



Facade of the Mausoleum

3. Greetings in and out of formation. To greet direct superiors, the command “at attention”, “turn to the right (left, middle)” is given. At this command, the military personnel take the “at attention” position, and the unit commanders (and political instructors) at the same time put their hand to the headdress and do not lower it until the “at ease” command given by the person who gave the “at attention” command. After the command is given, the senior commander approaches the newcomer and, stopping three steps from him, reports for what purpose the unit was built. Example: “Comrade Corps Commander, the 4th Infantry Regiment has been built for inspector shooting. The regiment commander is Colonel Sergeev." In the same order, a Red Army soldier, appointed senior over several other Red Army soldiers, greets his direct superiors. His approximate report: “Comrade Lieutenant, the team of Red Army soldiers of the 2nd squad, assigned to work on the target yard, has been built. The team leader is Red Army soldier Vasiliev.” At the meeting of the chairmen of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and Union Republics, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and Union Republics, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR and his deputies, the orchestra performs the anthem “Internationale”. When direct superiors meet - from the commander and military commissar of their unit and above - the orchestra performs a counter march. If the commander greets a unit or individual military personnel, they answer “hello.” To congratulations, the military unit (unit) responds with a drawn-out cry of “hurray,” and individual military personnel respond with “thank you.” In response to gratitude, the military unit and individual servicemen respond: “We serve (serve) the Soviet Union.” When saying goodbye, they say “goodbye.” When passing by the Lenin Mausoleum, as well as state monuments declared by order of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, military units greet them with the command “at attention”. For mutual greeting when meeting military units (subunits), as well as separately following commands, their commanders also give commands: “at attention”, “align to the right (left)”. The commands “stand up” and “at attention” are not given during maneuvers, tactical exercises, shooting (at the firing line), marching movements, work in workshops, garages, parks, hangars, at radio and telegraph stations, in laboratories, clinics, drawing rooms , when performing various chores, after the evening dawn, before the morning dawn, during lunch, dinner and tea. In these cases, the senior commander present or the duty officer (orderly) approaches the arriving (or encountered) chief and reports which unit (unit) is doing what. Examples: “Comrade Colonel, the team of the 3rd company is determining distances. The senior team member is Red Army soldier Sidorov.” “Comrade regimental commissar, the communications company has arrived from lunch, Red Army orderly Voloshin.” The command “at attention” and a report to the boss are given only when he attends classes for the first time on a given day. In the presence of a senior superior, the command “attention” and the report are not given to the junior superior. In the presence of the unit commander, the command “at attention” and the report to the military commissar of the unit are not given; in this case, the unit commander reports to the military commissar what the unit (unit) is doing. In the absence of the unit commander, the command “at attention” and the report are given to the military commissar of the unit. in cases where a person from the commanding staff arrives at the unit, whom the military personnel (duty officer, orderly) of this unit do not know, the senior commander (duty officer, orderly) approaches the arrival according to the rules of the Military Regulations and asks to present a document. Example: “Comrade Brigade Commander, I don’t know you, please show me your ID.” The procedure for checking a document is as follows. On the back of the top cover of the ID card, look for a photo card, the edge of which should be covered with the seal of the institution or military unit. Compare the photo with the face of the ID holder. On the first and second pages, read the title, surname, first name, patronymic and position. On page six, check for signatures and seals and return the ID. If the newcomer turns out to be the direct superior, give the command “at attention” (when required) and give a report, as indicated above. As a sign of belonging to the Red Army, mutual respect and military courtesy, military personnel greet each other. Never wait for another service member to greet you. First of all, greet yourself. Those sitting stand up to greet. Get up cheerfully and abruptly. When singing the “International” anthem, when you are out of formation (at parades, parades and in public places), take a position “at attention”; if you are wearing a headdress, apply it to it and stand in this position until the end of the anthem.

Notes

Links

• Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's appeal to the Red Army (1919) (, phonogram(info)
• War and military affairs. A manual on military affairs for party, Soviet and trade union activists, Voenizdat, 1933, 564 pp.
• Andrew Mollo, “The Armed Forces of World War II. Structure. A uniform. Insignia.". ISBN 5-699-04127-3.
• Yu. F. Kotorin, N. L. Volkovsky, V. V. Tarnavsky. Unique and paradoxical military equipment. ISBN 5-237-024220X (AST), ISBN 5-89173-045-6 (“Polygon”)
• The Crush of Nazi Germany Chapter Twelve. The offensive of the Red Army in the winter and spring of 1944.

see also

• Armored and mechanized troops of the Great Patriotic War

People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs: L.D. Trotsky
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic: I.I. Vatsetis (from September 1, 1918 to July 9, 1919), S.S. Kamenev (1919-1924)
Boss