Why did the peasantry oppose Kolchak? Guerrilla warfare in Siberia. Blind Leaders of the Blind Documentary Film

Very often, Kolchak’s defenders justify his crimes against civilians by the peculiarities of the Civil War and write that the Supreme Ruler “did not sign documents on the mass extermination of people” and “Kolchak’s people allowed the excesses that were inevitable in war conditions.”

But some of his supporters, recognizing the arbitrariness of the Kolchak government, argue that it is not Kolchak’s fault, but “...relatively speaking, Captain Ivanov, Staff Captain Petrov or Lieutenant Colonel Sidorov, but this is literally a “kindergarten”, “handicraft” in compared with the centralized, purposeful practice of mass repression carried out by the Bolsheviks."

The editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Baikalskie Vesti”, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Yuri Pronin, went the furthest in justifying the essence of the genocide of Siberian peasants by Kolchak, who stated that “unlike the White Guard “excesses of the perpetrator,” the Red Terror was partly “part of a centralized state ideology and policy "

Monarchist Alexander Turik adheres to the same position:

The most interesting thing is that not one of Kolchak’s defenders cited the numbers of civilian deaths from the so-called “excesses of Kolchak’s perpetrators,” and if he did, it immediately became clear that we are not talking about “excesses,” but about the punitive system, the victims of which became tens of thousands of people.

After the Kolchak coup in Omsk on November 18, 1918, literally a month later, more than 80 peasant uprisings arose in Siberia over the course of six months, especially in the Yenisei province, which had to be suppressed with the help of military punitive detachments.

To legitimize the participation of army units in punitive operations against the population, the Kolchak government adopts a number of regulations that give the commanders of military districts the right to declare martial law in a given territory and the right to punish guilty persons up to and including the death penalty “to ensure general security.”

The surviving documents and orders make it possible to accurately establish that Admiral Kolchak decided to use against his people the punitive system of the Japanese interventionists, who “loved” to shoot Siberian villages along with their inhabitants with artillery fire.

The “Japanese” way of fighting their own rebellious people was reflected in the March order of the Supreme Ruler A.V. Kolchak on the suppression of the Yenisei uprising:

“It is possible to put an end to the Yenisei uprising as soon as possible, without stopping at the most severe, even cruel measures against not only the rebels, but also the population supporting them. In this regard, the example of Japan in the Amur region, which announced the destruction of villages hiding the Bolsheviks, was apparently caused by the need to achieve success in a difficult partisan struggle. In any case, strict measures should be applied to the villages of Kiyaiskoye and Naiskoye. I think the way to proceed should be something like this:

1. In populated areas, self-protection must be organized from reliable residents.

3. There must be merciless punishment for harboring Bolsheviks, propagandists and gangs, which should not be carried out only if the appearance of these persons (gangs) in populated areas was promptly reported to the nearest military unit, as well as the time of departure of this gang and the direction of its movement was promptly reported to the troops. Otherwise, a fine will be imposed on the entire village, and the village leaders will be court-martialed for concealment.

4. Conduct surprise raids on troubled points and areas. The appearance of an impressive detachment causes a change in the mood of the population.

7. Use local residents for reconnaissance and communications, taking hostages. In case of incorrect and untimely information or treason, the hostages are executed, and the houses belonging to them are burned... All men capable of fighting are collected in some large building, kept under supervision and guard for the duration of the night; in case of treason, betrayal - merciless reprisals.

Taking into account this order from Kolchak, on March 20, 1919, Minister of War N.A. Stepanov sent the following telegram to the commander of the Irkutsk Military District, Lieutenant General V.V. Artemyev:

“The Supreme Ruler ordered you to convey: 1) his urgent desire to put an end to the Yenisei uprising as quickly as possible, without stopping at the most severe, even cruel measures against not only the rebels, but also the population supporting them. In this regard, the example of the Japanese in the Amur region, who announced the destruction of villages hiding the Bolsheviks, was apparently caused by the very need to achieve success in difficult guerrilla warfare in a wooded area.”

In turn, the commander of the troops of the Irkutsk Military District, Lieutenant General V.V. Artemyev, sent General S.N. Rozanov a telegram dated March 23, 1919 No. 0175-632, with the following content:

“The Supreme Ruler ordered to put an end to the Yenisei uprising as quickly and decisively as possible, not stopping at the strictest, even harsh measures against not only the rebels, but also the population supporting them. In this regard, the example of the Japanese in the Amur region, who announced the destruction of villages hiding the Bolsheviks, was apparently caused by the very need to achieve success in difficult guerrilla warfare in a wooded area. In any case, strict punishment should be applied to Kiyaiskoye and Koiskoye.

I order:

1. In populated areas, organize self-protection from reliable residents.

2. Demand that in populated areas local authorities themselves arrest and destroy all agitators or troublemakers.

3. There should be merciless punishment for harboring Bolsheviks, propagandists and troublemakers, which should not be carried out only if the appearance of these persons (gangs) in populated areas was promptly reported to the nearest military unit, and also if the time of departure and direction of movement of this unit was reported in a timely manner. Otherwise, a fine will be imposed on the entire village, and the village leaders will be put on trial for concealment.

4. Conduct surprise raids on troubled points and areas. The appearance of an impressive detachment will cause a change in the mood of the population.

5. Establish strict discipline and order in the units subordinate to you. Do not allow any illegal actions - robberies, violence. Those caught will be dealt with on the spot. Drunkenness - eradicate. Drunken bosses should be dismissed, judged, punished.

6. Commanders who do not know how to keep the units entrusted to them at the proper level should be removed and put on trial for inaction of the authorities.

7. Use local residents for reconnaissance and communications, taking hostages. In case of incorrect and untimely information or treason, the hostages are executed and the houses belonging to them are burned. When stopping for the night and when stationed in villages, keep the units concentrated, adapt the occupied buildings for defense, post guards on all sides, adhering to the principle of quality, not numbers. Take hostages from neighboring, unoccupied villages. All men capable of fighting should be collected in some large building, kept under reliable guard, and in case of treason or betrayal - mercilessly shot.

This telegram gave General S.N. Rozanov the basis for issuing an even stricter order on hostages on March 27, 1919:

“To the heads of military detachments operating in the area of ​​the uprising:

1. When occupying villages previously captured by robbers, demand the extradition of their leaders and leaders; if this does not happen, and there is reliable information about the presence of such, shoot the tenth.

2. Villages whose population encounters government troops with weapons are to be burned; the adult male population should be shot without exception; property, horses, carts, bread, and so on are taken away in favor of the treasury.

6. Take hostages from among the population; in the event of actions by fellow villagers directed against government troops, shoot the hostages mercilessly.”

Apparently, Kolchak himself, by his order, freed the hands of the military for punitive operations not only against the rebel peasant partisans, but also against the civilian population.

At the same time, Kolchak’s military leaders, guided by Kolchak’s orders and resolutions, themselves issued orders and introduced new grounds for arrests and executions on the spot. The inaccuracy of the wording of Kolchak’s orders gave the military the opportunity for their free interpretation and arbitrariness, which resulted in robberies of the population, mass flogging of peasants, including women and children, and incessant executions for any suspicion or offense.

The actions of Kolchak’s military punitive detachments against civilians are a fact recorded and confirmed by an array of documents.

The attempt of Irkutsk liberals and monarchists to explain Kolchak’s punitive policy towards Siberian civilians by “individual excesses of the perpetrators” is not only a justification of war crimes, but also a desecration of the memory of the dead Siberians. After all, in the Yenisei province alone, on the basis of the orders of General S.N. Rozanov, about 10 thousand people were shot and 12 thousand peasant farms were destroyed.

At the same time, Kolchak himself knew about the atrocities that his military committed, and did nothing to stop the brutal repressions against the population.

So what is the monument to this man worth in Irkutsk?

For tens of thousands of people shot, tortured, screwed up and robbed?
________________________________________ ______________

Materials used from the books: Chronicle of White Terror in Russia. Repressions and lynchings (1917-1920) / Ilya Ratkovsky. - Moscow: Algorithm, 2017 - 464 p. and Law Enforcement Policy of A.V. Kolchak / S.P. Zvyagin - Kemerovo: Kuzbassvuzizdat, 2001. - 352 p.

Remembering the events of a century ago, historians are always trying to answer the question: how did it happen that the entire huge country followed the Reds and not the Whites? After all, according to the new mythology, the White movement was fought entirely by noble knights who dreamed of giving freedom and happiness to the people.

And at their head was the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak, known for his romanticism and subtle spiritual organization - at least that’s how he is portrayed to us in recent films and books. Then it is all the more incomprehensible why the power of this Supreme Ruler, who planned to be the first to enter Moscow faster than Denikin, collapsed like a house of cards 98 years ago, at the beginning of January 1920 - just a little over a year after his appearance on the historical stage.

In the spring of 1919, Kolchak’s troops completely captured the Urals and in a number of directions were only 30 kilometers from the Volga. But a few months passed, and the forces of the victoriously advancing admiral were defeated, and he himself was shot. This happened thanks to the military successes of new Soviet military leaders like the dropout student Kamenev and second lieutenant Tukhachevsky. But the partisans played an even more important role in this. The peasant uprisings that began at the end of 1918 in the spring of 1919 spread to a significant part of Siberia and the Far East. As a result, out of the entire Kolchak army (“on paper” reaching 400–600 thousand bayonets), no more than 150 thousand people were on the front of the fight against the Red Army. In addition to the “non-combatants”, the rest were sent to the “internal” front. It turned out that an ordinary Siberian peasant, whose prosperity was legendary in Russia and who, logically, should have become the support of the White Guards who protected him from the “Bolshevik expropriators,” suddenly abandoned his farm, took up a rifle and became their worst enemy. The answer to the question of why this happened, in particular, can be given by little-known facts that clearly explain why almost the entire eastern outskirts of Russia so quickly rebelled against Kolchak.

Rescue under the Stars and Stripes

To the timid attempts of the White Guards to find out what the Americans were doing here, they received a discouraging answer: “We have arrived to help the people of Primorye defend their democratic rights.” After standing in bewilderment for several hours waiting for the decision of their command, Kolchak’s executors left without fulfilling the instructions given to them.

And similar American interventions were repeated at least three times: in January, March-April and November 1919. In the latter case, the Americans protected the local rebel White Guard garrisons from reprisals by the Japanese. These incidents caused the most serious friction between the American and White command. It got to the point that Ataman Semyonov openly accused General Graves of “Bolshevism,” contrasting them with his Japanese “intercessors.”

Indeed, the comparison between the losses of the Americans and the Japanese in Russia clearly did not look in favor of the former: the Yankees in the North and Far East lost only 48 people in battles, while the Japanese on the Far Eastern outskirts alone lost more than 5,000. You need to understand what Graves’ behavior is like. was determined not only by “knightly” motives, but also by the desire to prevent the strengthening of their Japanese competitors, who relied on local chieftains. Nevertheless, the Americans, alien to the local population, turned out to be really closer to the peasants than “their” Kolchakites, who first brought the situation to a boiling point, and then tried to pacify those dissatisfied with force, committing such atrocities that could not leave indifferent the soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force, many of whom were specially recruited from Russian-speaking emigrants.

Just a year of Kolchak's power left the darkest memories among the people for several generations of Siberians
For example, Lieutenant Walter Reming reported to his command that only on March 9, 1919, in the villages of Brovnichi and Gordeevka, he recorded the facts of the brutal murder after sophisticated torture of 23 people who were hiding from mobilization into the army or were relatives of such persons. And this was just one episode when the Americans kept supporters of “one and indivisible” from brutal reprisals.

“During the arrest, clothes were taken away...”

To investigate the events, the Minister of the Kolchak Ministry of Internal Affairs, Viktor Pepelyaev, sent an official on special assignments, Shklyaev, to Shcheglov. Contrary to expectations, having familiarized himself with the case on the spot, he not only did not side with his colleagues, but also supported the actions of the “turnovers.” As Shklyaev stated, “the policemen were arrested... for their wrong actions... Those arrested were charged with murder, torture, extortion, bribery and other crimes...” The investigation he began confirmed these accusations. Shcheglovsky policemen began their fight against “crime” with mass extortion of money from the population. Shklyaev wrote that “On May 5–7 of this year, in the village of Dideevo, the police arrested a village clerk and four citizens for the fact that the society imposed taxes on those not assigned to their village. During the arrest, the clothes were taken away, the secretary was flogged so much that the walls were splattered with blood,” after which the detainees were released for bribes in the amount of 1–1.3 thousand rubles.” At the same time, the police, under various pretexts, arrested the wealthiest local residents in order to extort more money from them. And, as it turned out, “... the police themselves initiated robberies under the guise of criminals and red partisans...”

As follows from the documents, “flogging extended to arrested women, even pregnant women... 17 bandits were brought from the village of Buyapakskaya. Among them are 11 women. They brought and flogged everyone (we are talking about sophisticated and brutal beatings with whips and ramrods, after which those punished often became disabled or were bedridden for at least several days). Three women were pregnant. The women were accused that their husbands had gone to the Reds, their property and houses were taken away from everyone,” although previously they had publicly renounced all kinship with their husbands without any coercion. The treatment of those arrested was cruel... Policeman Ziganshin... hit the arrested woman with the butt of his gun only because she began to give birth, which he was inclined to see as a simulation..."

Meanwhile, impunity gave rise to more and more new crimes, which became more and more sophisticated and provocative. Thus, police officers who arrested local residents for no reason other than money often demanded intimate intimacy from women they liked in order to free their relatives, and, according to the investigation, “this was usually carried out by intimidated women.” Shklyaev testifies: “One arrested person was released for a bribe given to Ozerkin, and Berezovsky negotiated the right to spend the night with the Red’s wife... He asked her to give the money and agree to what was proposed due to the unbearable torture...”

"Mischief" of the Kolchak police

Soon after this, “a drunken passenger, Anisimov, under the guise of a Bolshevik, who was removed from the ship by a policeman, was “killed and robbed in front of the crowd by a policeman,” although, according to Shklyaev’s investigation, it was established that this was a murder in order to conceal the robbery. In addition, a circus actress was killed by police after refusing intimacy with law enforcement officers.

Ozerkin himself, who committed the murder of the Shcheglovsky tradesman Novikov in May 1919, was not inferior to his subordinates. This happened under the following circumstances: policeman Anokhin entered his house for the purpose of robbery. Novikov, who was there, defended himself and disarmed him. The disgraced law enforcement officer complained to Ozerkin. He called Novikov and shot him through the front door.

It is interesting that the authorities standing above the police in the person of the governor of the Tomsk province B.M. Mikhailovsky came to the defense of such “guardians of order” as “ideological fighters against Bolshevism,” while simultaneously trying to prove Shklyaev’s “incompetence.” So, speaking about the murder of Anisimov, the governor justified it by the fact that the deceased was “a Bolshevik agitator who campaigned on the ship for Soviet power and, being arrested, was killed on the way while trying to escape.” In turn, in a letter to Pepelyaev about the murder of the worker Kolomiyets committed by the police, he tried to present the latter as a dangerous state criminal who “led the preparations for the uprising,” “killed while trying to escape.” However, this version was not confirmed by the investigation, and Shklyaev was further able to establish that “... Ozerkin beat the arrested Kolomiets to death.”

This behavior is quite understandable: protecting subordinates (under Kolchak, the governor was subordinate to the Minister of Internal Affairs, to whom, in turn, local police officers were accountable), Mikhailovsky tried to shield himself. After all, what happened directly cast a shadow on him. As Shklyaev established, in his actions Ozerkin indicated that he was acting with the approval of Governor Mikhailovsky. Which, however, was already clear, given how he defended his police subordinates in front of Pepelyaev. Mikhailovsky tried in every possible way to prevent Shklyaev from conducting the investigation, and when he realized that the “confidential conversations” with him had no effect, he complained about the inspector to his immediate superior, Pepelyaev. He wrote to him that Shklyaev “exaggerated” the scale of violations committed by his subordinates, which arose during the “active struggle of Ozerkin and his colleagues against banditry and red partisans,” as a result of which they made numerous enemies. Mikhailovsky also insisted that the people who fell at the hands of his bonebreakers were “notorious criminals.” In addition, those who died from accidents were included in their number. As an example, Mikhailovsky cited the death of the aforementioned circus performer, who died as a result of “certainly established suicide,” while Shklyaev managed to prove that it was a deliberate murder.

And such crimes were not isolated cases, but reflected the general picture of the white terror unleashed against the population. Even when Mikhailovsky was “pinned to the wall” with evidence, he tried to justify his subordinates, pointing to “... the martyrdom that falls to the lot of police officers, who are persecuted by the Bolsheviks primarily with particular cruelty. Under such conditions, they... respond to the Red Terror with anti-Bolshevik terror. This is where these “liquidations”, “attempts to escape”, etc. follow.” As a result, as Shklyaev reported “to the top,” “... the villagers hid at the sight of the police no worse than from any bandit... The horror of the situation is that this mischief of the police was transferred to the head of the government (Kolchaksky), recalling the blissful times of tsarism, when such acts under bailiffs and constables were unacceptable...” According to Shklyaev’s disappointing conclusions, it was precisely this behavior of law enforcement officers that ultimately led to the very spread of Bolshevism that Mikhailovsky complained about.

In October 1919, two months before the seizure of the Tomsk province by the Bolsheviks, Pepelyaev decided to “punish” Governor Mikhailovsky... by removing him from his post, offering to take it over to Shklyaev. However, the latter refused, realizing that he did not have the necessary management skills for this, and was not particularly eager to indirectly take responsibility for the actions of the previous manager. As a result, Mikhailovsky held his post until the arrival of the Reds.

It should be noted that reports of such crimes committed by police officers and government officials in general were then widespread and came literally from everywhere where Kolchak’s followers stood, which caused mass uprisings against them. For example, the same Shklyaev, sent in December 1919 for an audit to the Irkutsk province, reported in his report to the Minister of Internal Affairs that almost all local police chiefs had committed serious official crimes or were suspected of committing them. As a result, those same wealthy Siberian peasants, who until recently were alien to any politics, abandoned everything and joined the partisans. And this happened throughout almost the entire vast territory controlled by Kolchak.

What is the reason for such mass lawlessness? As Shklyaev established, police posts here were occupied by representatives of local youth aged 23–24 years old, who had neither knowledge nor experience in such work. In an atmosphere of mass rejection of the “legacy of tsarism” in the territory of White Siberia, former tsarist police officers were dismissed from service, and non-professionals were recruited to replace them. Many of them, who did not receive any education, also had a dark past. And, having found themselves in such a responsible job, they often turned out to be not only dishonest, but also committed much more serious crimes that undermined the authority of the Kolchak government as a whole. It is not surprising that such a control system turned out to be unviable and that the Bolsheviks took the place of the White Guards, who were then shot for malfeasance.

Having fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviks in Irkutsk, the official on special assignments Shklyaev remained to serve the Reds in their internal affairs bodies. Governor Mikhailovsky managed to leave the rebel Tomsk province in January 1920 and in 1923 took part in the Yakut campaign of the brother of his former boss, General A.N. Pepelyaev, during which he was captured and got off with a ten-year prison sentence for his art and the “exploits” of his subordinates. His boss, Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Viktor Pepelyaev, was less fortunate: in February 1920, he, already the head of the Kolchak government, was shot along with Admiral Kolchak in Irkutsk; before the execution, according to the testimony of its participants, he humiliatedly lay at the feet of the Bolsheviks, begging for mercy. It is significant that when he and the now former Supreme Ruler were brought to the ice hole on the Angara, the admiral asked in surprise why this was happening without a trial, but he was immediately reminded that during his reign, mass executions were also carried out without any trial. So the boomerang is back. And, as you know, he returned many more times.

Sergey Balmasov

The surname “Kolchak” itself is of Turkic origin and means “sword”, “saber”. He was a recognized monarchist, the embodiment of the honor of a Russian officer who laid down his life for the glory of the Russian Empire, some admit. Others call him a cruel political adventurer, a tragic phenomenon of troubled times. In today’s situation of ideological activity of extremist movements in Russia, the significance of Kolchak’s personality has acquired a new interpretation - the “Supreme Ruler of Russia” was called “the first Russian fascist.” Moreover, he became such during his activities in Siberia.

The first Russian fascist (in the European sense), both his comrades and opponents, called Admiral Kolchak during his rule of Siberia. It was precisely because of his fascism, the backbone of which was made up of intellectuals, that Kolchak lost to the “reds,” since his ideology was rejected by the extreme wings of the “whites” - the Black Hundreds and socialists.

In Russia, even among educated people, there is still an idea of ​​the monolithic nature of the “white movement” during the Civil War. In fact, the “reds” were opposed by a diverse mass of ideologically unrelated forces. These were the extreme right, and the left, and liberals, and national democrats of ethnic minorities. The fascists also played a prominent role among them. True, the White emigrants began to call them that way when this term finally took shape in Europe after Mussolini’s victory in Italy.

The “whites” called Kolchak a fascist, who during the Civil War bore the title “Supreme Ruler of Russia” (i.e., who claimed leadership among all anti-Bolshevik forces). And the proto-fascist is Prime Minister Stolypin. It was on Stolypin’s principles, which evolved into fascism, according to the White emigrants, that Kolchak intended to build a new Russia.

The participants of the “white movement” themselves, after the Civil War, believed that Kolchak and his circle failed to fully formulate the fascist ideology. Kolchak’s general K.V. Sakharov stated in his memoirs that “the desire of the white idea to acquire the form of fascism in Siberia during the Civil War was only its first timid experience.” He continued: “The White movement in its very essence was the first manifestation of fascism. The white movement was not even a forerunner, but a pure manifestation of it.”

Privates of the cavalry unit of Kolchak’s army, spring 1919.

The main thesis of the white idea of ​​supporters of fascism was defined by the formula “United and indivisible Russia” as “a democratic, legal and national state. The great-power chauvinistic slogan of the white movement in Siberia, voiced by General A.F. Matkovsky, was also clearly outlined: “It’s time for all Russians to remember that they are the children of Great Rus', which cannot but be a Great State. We are Russian, and we should be proud of this."

Under the banner of the white idea, the economic content of the practice of the fascist movement during the Civil War was determined, which largely repeated the principles of P.A. Stolypin.

A special place in the economic program of the Kolchak counter-revolution was occupied by the continuation of Stolypin’s agrarian policy, which had the goal of creating a layer of “strong owners” with the right of private ownership of land. This can be traced from the text of the “Declaration of the Russian Government”, published on April 8, 1919, where it was stated that “the lands of farmers, trubniks, and fortifications are subject to return to their rightful owners.” At the same time, the general line of the Russian government of Kolchak was declared to extend the institution of private ownership to state and communal land ownership, for which, “by promoting the transfer of lands into the hands of working peasant farms, the government will widely open up the possibility of acquiring these lands into full ownership.”

An integral part of the emerging fascist ideology in Siberia was the attitude of the Kolchakites towards the system of autocracy in Russia of the previous period. It was clearly stated by the Supreme Ruler: “I myself witnessed how the old regime had a disastrous effect on Russia, which failed in the difficult days of trials to give it the opportunity to resist defeat. And, of course, I will not strive to bring back these difficult days of the past, in order to restore everything that the people themselves have recognized as unnecessary.”

It was planned to introduce state guarantees for workers in White Siberia. In the leaflet “What is our army fighting for? “The priorities in the labor policy of the Kolchak government were outlined, “so that a worker, working eight hours a day, is provided with insurance during illness, inability to work and old age.”

Kolchak with representatives of the Allied powers at the St. George holiday in Omsk, December 9, 1918.

Kolchak's fascism was rejected by the overwhelming majority of Siberian society. For example, local Black Hundreds, who numbered up to 10 thousand people in Siberia, sabotaged the activities of the white authorities. For example, they refused to join the paramilitary organizations of the Holy Cross squad and the Crusaders squad. Thus, the representative of the Entente at the headquarters of the Supreme Ruler, English General Alfred Knox, believed that with appropriate propaganda work in Siberia, at least 600 thousand volunteers could be gathered under the banner of the squads of the Holy Cross, but in September-October 1919 it was possible to involve no more than 400 people. This indicates the distrust of the population of the region in the system of Stolypin Bonapartism revived in Siberia. One of the reasons for the failure of the campaign to involve the conservative and Black Hundred sections of the Siberian population in the ranks of paramilitary religious groups was Kolchak’s refusal of the traditional triad of the “doctrine of the official nationality.” On the green banners of the squads of the Holy Cross there were only two slogans: “For the faith! For the Fatherland!

The emerging fascist ideology of the white movement met with misunderstanding and rejection of other participants in the anti-Soviet movement. This applies, first of all, to the political parties of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, who, despite a significant layer of “defencists” in their midst, for example, the influential group of N.D. Avksentiev, remained convinced internationalists and federalists, as opposed to the chauvinism and unitarianism of the Kolchakites.

One of the leaders of the Siberian organization of the Social Revolutionaries, E.E. Kolosov, later pointed out a number of differences between the phenomenon of “Russian fascism,” which, in his opinion, developed in the east of Russia, from its analogue that was emerging at the same historical time in European countries:

Leader of the Siberian Socialist Revolutionaries Evgeny Kolosov.

“For me personally, however, there was no hesitation here. I looked at the power that reigned as an organization of “Siberian fascists,” using modern terms and analogies. And if it differed in any way from European fascism in my eyes, it was only to its disadvantage. These were fascists in a purely Siberian style, thoroughly imbued with a specific criminal element, which in this form was impossible in the European situation. This government was not at all looking for that broadest possible base, which European fascists are still trying to find, knowing full well that it is no longer accepted to govern without the people.

European fascists are therefore trying to attract the masses of the people in the same way that the “Zubatovites” once attracted them here, but for the Siberian fascists, given their state mediocrity, even Zubatov’s policy turned out to be inaccessible. Yes, however, they didn’t need it beyond that. The Siberian fascists, led by Admiral Kolchak, represented a purely caste power, narrowly limited and closed, the power of the upper stratum of military circles. European fascists still retain the civilian structure of power and do not encroach on its complete breakdown, but the Siberian fascists have completely subordinated civil power to military power, reducing the former to nothing.”

The monument to Kolchak was unveiled on November 4, 2004 in Irkutsk. The author of the idea is S. V. Andreev, sculptor V. M. Klykov. Photo Wikipedia.

When the local population became disillusioned with Kolchak’s domestic policy, the social support of the white and, more broadly, fascist regime in Siberia was the intelligentsia from among the refugees from the European part of Russia. It is in this fact that the second side of the casteism of the emerging “Siberian fascism” is presented, which can be qualified as the “philosophy of fascism of the Russian intelligentsia.”

During the period of military defeats and political crisis in Siberia, the white authorities resorted to forceful pressure against disgruntled social groups in the region. The leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party Kolosov, Rakitnikov, Rakov write about this, who pointed out the tactics of political terrorism of the carriers of fascist ideology in Siberia in the fight against their ideological opponents in the anti-Soviet movement. Thus, Rakitnikov gave examples of political murders of leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party from the camp of the Siberian counter-revolution. He designated this practice as “Mexican morals.”

Socialist Revolutionary Kolosov accused Kolchak's minister Mikhailov of organizing the murder of the famous Siberian Socialist Revolutionary A.E. Novoselov. According to Kolosov, Mikhailov “was the most talented person among those state-incompetent people who surrounded Kolchak, but he only possessed the talent of an intriguer, a virtuoso in this area, who did not hesitate to use purely fascist methods of eliminating his opponents.”

Further, Kolosov wrote: “In the spring of 1919, this whole gang - for it was really a gang - was reaching the culmination of its influence, and at one time it seemed that it was about to gain all-Russian significance, which it so strived for. If this had happened then, the “Siberian fascists” would have acquired the right to demand a place for themselves on the international stage and, perhaps, would have laid the foundation for the creation of an alliance of world reaction.”

In 1920, in the afterword to the memoirs “Siberia, Allies and Kolchak,” G. K. Gins, Minister of the All-Russian Government, expressed, among other things, his versions of the reasons for the defeat of the White movement. Gins’s words also touched upon the intelligentsia:

“The Russian Revolution is a brain disease. It requires the rebirth of the urban intelligentsia. And since the latter stubbornly refuses to be reborn, the revolution destroys it.

How blatantly the inability of Russian intellectuals, politicians and ideologists to find the use of their forces was revealed. How impractical the Russian intelligentsia turned out to be during the revolution. And all because she was historically raised in the nobility. She did not want to “languish” in the ignorant atmosphere of the province and rushed to large cities or abroad. It was not in her nature to work on the reconstruction of local life. And when hunger drove her from large cities, and war from abroad, she goes to other cities, and larger ones, overwhelms them, hangs around without anything to do or meaning, but will never go to the village, where she needs to unwind, but where You can find the honorable work of a doctor, teacher, technician. No, this is not only beneath our dignity, it is scary. Yes, we are afraid of our people.

This is the great tragedy of the Russian intelligentsia and revolutionary democracy. There is no difference between socialists and non-socialists. Everyone is the same."

The nationwide crisis of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century, the country’s entry into the stage of monopoly capitalism and the formation of an industrial society in Russia became the main reasons for the emergence of “Russian fascism” of various directions, reflecting probable options for bourgeois reform of society. However, public nature could not be deceived, and “Russian fascism” in the first half of the twentieth century broke through wherever it could: from small fascist parties in Manchuria, the USA and Europe to the proto-fascism of Stalin and his Russian opponents in the Great Patriotic War (numerous republics of the fascist sense in the occupied territory, as the Interpreter’s Blog wrote about - the Rossono Republic, Lokotskaya, etc.). The defeat of Germany and its allies in World War II delegitimized the idea of ​​fascism, and only seventy years later its renaissance begins in the post-Soviet space (like a hundred years ago, its vanguard is again the intelligentsia).

Quotes: Mikhail Vtorushin, “The phenomenon of fascism at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia and its development in Siberia during the Civil War,” Omsk Scientific Bulletin, No. 5, 2012.

Reference

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (November 4 (November 16) 1874, St. Petersburg, Obukhov Plant - February 7, 1920, Irkutsk) - Russian military and political figure, naval commander, oceanographer. Admiral (1918). Participant in the Russo-Japanese War. During the First World War, he commanded the mine division of the Baltic Fleet (1915-1916), the Black Sea Fleet (1916-1917). Knight of St. George. Leader of the White movement during the Civil War. Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920). Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. One of the largest polar explorers of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, participant in a number of Russian polar expeditions. On the night of February 6-7, 1920, Admiral A.V. Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Government V.N. Pepelyaev were shot without trial, by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee of the Bolsheviks - in accordance with the data of many modern historians - in execution of direct Lenin's order. The Kolchakov family belonged to the service nobility of the Russian Empire, was quite extensive, and in different generations its representatives very often found themselves associated with military affairs. The surname “Kolchak” itself is of Turkic origin and means “sword”, “saber”. Memorial plaques in honor and memory of Kolchak were installed on the building of the Naval Corps, which Kolchak graduated from, in St. Petersburg (2002), on the station building in Irkutsk, in the courtyard of the chapel of St. Nicholas of Myra in Moscow (2007). On the facade of the building of the Museum of Local Lore (Moorish Castle, the former building of the Russian Geographical Society) in Irkutsk, where Kolchak read a report on the Arctic Expedition of 1901, an honorary inscription in honor of Kolchak, destroyed after the revolution, has been restored - next to the names of other scientists and explorers of Siberia. Kolchak’s name is carved on the monument to the heroes of the White movement (“Gallipoli Obelisk”) at the Parisian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. In Irkutsk, a cross was erected at the “resting place in the waters of the Angara.” On December 18, 2006, in Irkutsk, in the building of the Irkutsk prison, the Museum of the History of the Irkutsk Prison Castle named after A.V. Kolchak was opened, and there is an exhibition in Kolchak’s former cell. Excursions “Kolchak in Irkutsk” are conducted by the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. The role of Kolchak in the history of Russia is revealed by the exhibitions of the Center for the Study of the History of the Civil War, opened on January 13, 2012 in Omsk. By a resolution of the Duma of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, the name of Kolchak was returned to the island in the Kara Sea. Arctoseius koltschaki, a tick species endemic to the Arctic and Siberia, discovered in 2013, is named after the admiral. In April 2014, the Monarchist Party of the Russian Federation announced plans to erect a monument to Kolchak in Sevastopol. The monument to Kolchak was unveiled on November 4, 2004 in Irkutsk. Kolchak’s symbolic grave is located at his “resting place in the waters of the Angara” not far from the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery, where the cross is installed. Recently, previously unknown documents relating to the execution and subsequent burial of Admiral Kolchak were discovered in the Irkutsk region. Documents marked “secret” were found during work on the Irkutsk City Theater’s play “The Admiral’s Star,” based on the play by former state security officer Sergei Ostroumov. According to the documents found, in the spring of 1920, not far from the Innokentyevskaya station (on the bank of the Angara, 20 km below Irkutsk), local residents discovered a corpse in an admiral's uniform, carried by the current to the shore of the Angara. Representatives of the investigative authorities arrived and conducted an inquiry and identified the body of the executed Admiral Kolchak. Subsequently, investigators and local residents secretly buried the admiral according to Christian custom. Investigators compiled a map on which Kolchak’s grave was marked with a cross. Currently, all found documents are being examined.

And similar American interventions were repeated at least three times: in January, March-April and November 1919. In the latter case, the Americans protected the local rebel White Guard garrisons from reprisals by the Japanese.
These incidents caused the most serious friction between the American and White command. It got to the point that Ataman Semyonov openly accused General Graves of Bolshevism, opposing them to his Japanese intercessors.
Indeed, the comparison between the losses of Americans and Japanese in Russia clearly did not look in favor of the Japanese: the Yankees in the North and Far East lost only 48 people in battles, while the Japanese on the Far Eastern outskirts alone lost more than 5,000.
It must be understood that this behavior of Graves was not determined by “knightly” motives, but by the desire to prevent the strengthening of their Japanese competitors, who relied on local chieftains.
Nevertheless, the Americans, alien to the local population, turned out to be really closer to the peasants than “their” Kolchakites, who first brought the situation to a boiling point, and then tried to pacify those dissatisfied with force, committing such atrocities that could not leave indifferent the fighters of the American Expeditionary Force, many of whom were specially recruited from Russian-speaking emigrants.
For example, Lieutenant Walter Reming reported to his command that only on March 9, 1919, in the villages of Brovnichi and Gordeevka, he recorded the facts of the brutal murder after sophisticated torture of 23 people who were hiding from mobilization into the army or were relatives of such persons. And this was only one episode when the Americans kept the whites from brutal reprisals.

No less colorful in this regard is the “case of the Shcheglov police,” which began after, on the night of August 21-22, 1919, the Czechoslovak lieutenant Kauril helped the head of the garrison of the city of Shcheglov, Tomsk province (today Kemerovo) to arrest almost the entire local Kolchak police during led by its chief Ozerkin.
This case was unique even for the dashing years of the Civil War, because, in fact, some Kolchakites opposed other Kolchakites, and even with the direct help of foreign interventionists!
To investigate the events, the Minister of the Kolchak Ministry of Internal Affairs, Viktor Pepelyaev, sent an official on special assignments, Shklyaev, to Shcheglov. Contrary to expectations, having familiarized himself with the case on the spot, he not only did not side with his colleagues, but also supported the actions of the “turnovers.”
As Shklyaev stated, “the policemen were arrested... for their wrong actions. Those arrested were charged with murder, torture, extortion, bribery and other crimes...” The investigation he began confirmed these accusations. Shcheglovsky policemen began their fight against “crime” with mass extortion of money from the population.
Shklyaev wrote that “On May 5-7 of this year, in the village of Dideevo, the police arrested a village clerk and four citizens for the fact that the society imposed taxes on those not assigned to their village. During the arrest, the clothes were taken away, the secretary was flogged so much that "They splattered blood on the walls," after which the detainees were released for bribes in the amount of 1 - 1.3 thousand rubles."
At the same time, the police, under various pretexts, arrested the wealthiest local residents in order to extort more money from them. And, as it turned out, “the police themselves initiated the robberies under the guise of criminals and Red partisans.”

As follows from the documents, “flogging extended to arrested women, even pregnant women... 17 bandits were brought from the village of Buyapakskaya. Among them were 11 women. They brought them in and flogged everyone (we are talking about a sophisticated and brutal beating with whips and ramrods, after which the punished often became disabled or at least bedridden for several days).
Three women were pregnant. The women were accused of having their husbands go to the Reds; their property and homes were taken away from everyone, although previously they had publicly renounced all kinship with their husbands without any coercion. The treatment of those arrested was cruel. Policeman Ziganshin hit the arrested woman with the butt of his gun only because she began to give birth, which he was inclined to see as a simulation..."
Meanwhile, impunity gave rise to more and more new crimes, which became more and more sophisticated and provocative. Thus, police officers who arrested local residents for no reason other than money often demanded intimate intimacy from women they liked in order to free their relatives, and, according to the investigation, “this was usually carried out by intimidated women.”
Shklyaev testifies: “One arrested person was released for a bribe given to Ozerkin, and Berezovsky negotiated the right to spend the night with the Red’s wife... He asked her to give the money and agree to what was proposed due to the unbearable torture.”

Law enforcement officers did not hesitate to use direct violence. Thus, as a result of the investigation carried out by Shklyaev, it turned out that in May 1919, near the pier on the Tom River near the village of Shevelevo, Shcheglovsky district, “by order of the head of the 1st police station Kuzevanov, three peasant girls were delivered to the ship, one of whom, Anna Sheveleva, was raped by policeman Voronin, and the other two were released only because they were menstruating."
However, there were more serious matters on the lists of actions of local police representatives. In particular, there on the same day they shot "on suspicion of espionage on the orders of the drunken Kuzevanov, the peasant Smirnov, stripped him and threw him into the river. His brother was beaten half to death."
For this, they were almost torn to pieces by the soldiers of the local Kolchak garrison who witnessed this crime, and, according to the admission of its chief, Second Lieutenant Lugovsky, openly threatened the law enforcement officers to “raise them at bayonets.” According to him, this desire became stronger in them after “on June 23, peasant Alexander Dyukov was seriously wounded by a drunken policeman...”
Soon after this, “a drunken passenger, Anisimov, under the guise of a Bolshevik, who was removed from the ship by a policeman, was killed and robbed in front of the crowd by a policeman,” although, according to Shklyaev’s investigation, it was established that this was a murder in order to conceal the robbery. In addition, a circus actress was killed by police after refusing intimacy with law enforcement officers.

Ozerkin himself, who committed the murder of the Shcheglovsky tradesman Novikov in May 1919, was not inferior to his subordinates. This happened under the following circumstances: policeman Anokhin entered his house for the purpose of robbery. Novikov, who was there, defended himself and disarmed him. The disgraced law enforcement officer complained to Ozerkin. He called Novikov and shot him through the front door.
It is interesting that the authorities standing above the police in the person of the governor of the Tomsk province B.M. Mikhailovsky came to the defense of such “guardians of order” as “ideological fighters against Bolshevism,” while simultaneously trying to prove Shklyaev’s “incompetence.”
So, speaking about the murder of Anisimov, the governor justified it by the fact that the deceased was “a Bolshevik agitator who campaigned on the ship for Soviet power and, being arrested, was killed on the way while trying to escape.”
In turn, in a letter to Pepelyaev about the murder of the worker Kolomiyets committed by the police, he tried to present the latter as a dangerous state criminal who “led the preparations for the uprising” and “was killed while trying to escape.” However, this version was not confirmed by the investigation, and Shklyaev was further able to establish that “Ozerkin was responsible for flogging the arrested Kolomiets to death.”

This behavior is quite understandable: while protecting his subordinates (under Kolchak, the governor was subordinate to the Minister of Internal Affairs, to whom, in turn, local police officers were accountable), Mikhailovsky tried to protect himself. After all, what happened directly cast a shadow on him.
As Shklyaev established, in his actions Ozerkin indicated that he was acting with the approval of Governor Mikhailovsky. Which, however, was already clear, given how he defended his police subordinates in front of Pepelyaev.
Mikhailovsky tried in every possible way to prevent Shklyaev from investigating, and when he realized that the “confidential conversations” with him had no effect, he complained about the inspector to his immediate superior, Pepelyaev.
He wrote to him that Shklyaev “exaggerated” the scale of violations committed by his subordinates, which arose during the “active struggle of Ozerkin and his colleagues against banditry and red partisans,” as a result of which they made numerous enemies.
Mikhailovsky also insisted that the people who fell at the hands of his bonebreakers were “notorious criminals.” In addition, those who died from accidents were included in their number. As an example, Mikhailovsky cited the death of the aforementioned circus performer, who died as a result of “certainly established suicide,” while Shklyaev managed to prove that it was a deliberate murder.

And such crimes were not isolated cases, but reflected the general picture of the white terror unleashed against the population. Even when Mikhailovsky was pinned against the wall with evidence, he tried to justify his subordinates, pointing to “... the martyrdom that falls to the lot of police officers, who are persecuted by the Bolsheviks, first of all, with particular cruelty.
Under such conditions, they respond to the Red Terror with anti-Bolshevik terror. This is where these “liquidations”, “attempts to escape”, etc. follow.”
As a result, as Shklyaev reported, “... the villagers hid at the sight of the police no worse than from any bandit. The horror of the situation is that this mischief of the police was transferred to the head of the government” (Kolchak’s)
According to Shklyaev’s disappointing conclusions, it was precisely this behavior of law enforcement officers that ultimately led to the very spread of Bolshevism that Mikhailovsky complained about.
In October 1919, two months before the seizure of the Tomsk province by the Bolsheviks, Pepelyaev decided to “punish” Governor Mikhailovsky... by removing him from his post, offering to take it over to Shklyaev.
However, the latter refused, realizing that he did not have the necessary management skills for this, and was not particularly eager to indirectly take responsibility for the actions of the previous manager. As a result, Mikhailovsky held his post until the arrival of the Reds.

It should be noted that reports of such crimes committed by police officers and government officials in general were then widespread and came literally from everywhere where Kolchak’s followers stood, which caused mass uprisings against them.
For example, the same Shklyaev, sent in December 1919 for an audit to the Irkutsk province, reported in his report to the Minister of Internal Affairs that almost all local police chiefs had committed serious official crimes or were suspected of committing them.
As a result, those same wealthy Siberian peasants, who until recently were alien to any politics, abandoned everything and joined the partisans. And this happened throughout almost the entire vast territory controlled by Kolchak.
Having fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviks in Irkutsk, the official on special assignments Shklyaev remained to serve the Reds in their internal affairs bodies. Governor Mikhailovsky managed to leave the rebel Tomsk province in January 1920 and in 1923 took part in the Yakut campaign of the brother of his former boss, General A.N. Pepelyaev, during which he was captured and got off with a ten-year prison sentence for his art and the “exploits” of his subordinates.
His boss, Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Viktor Pepelyaev, was less fortunate: in February 1920, he, already the head of the Kolchak government, was shot along with Admiral Kolchak in Irkutsk; before the execution, according to the testimony of its participants, he humiliatedly lay at the feet of the Bolsheviks, begging for mercy.
It is significant that when he and the now former Supreme Ruler were brought to the ice hole on the Angara, the admiral asked in surprise why this was happening without a trial, but he was immediately reminded that during his reign, mass executions were also carried out without any trial. So the boomerang is back.

"Red Gas" 1925. In the role of the Kolchak officer - former Kolchak officer Georgy Pozharnitsky.

Victims of Kolchak in Novosibirsk, 1919

Excavation of the grave in which victims of the Kolchak repressions of March 1919 were buried, Tomsk, 1920.

Tomsk residents carry the bodies of spread out participants in the anti-Kolchak uprising

Funeral of a Red Guard soldier brutally murdered by Kolchak's troops

Novosobornaya Square on the day of the reburial of the Kolchak victims on January 22, 1920.

One young American officer sent to investigate the atrocities of Ivanov-Rynov was so shocked that, having finished his report to Grevs, he exclaimed:

“For God’s sake, general, don’t send me on such errands again! Just a little more - and I would tear off my uniform and begin to save these unfortunate people.”

When Ivanov-Rynov faced the threat of popular indignation, the English commissioner Sir Charles Elliott hastened to Greves to express his concern for the fate of the Kolchak general.

“For me,” General Grevs answered him fiercely, “let them bring this Ivanov-Rynov here and hang him on that telephone pole in front of my headquarters - not a single American will lift a finger to save him!”

Ask yourself why, during the Civil War, the Red Army was able to defeat the well-armed and Western-sponsored White Army and troops of 14!! states that invaded Soviet Russia during the intervention?

But because the MAJORITY of the Russian people, seeing the cruelty, baseness and corruption of such “Kolchaks”, supported the Red Army.

victims of Kolchak and Kolchak’s thugs

Such a touching series was filmed with public money about one of the main executioners of the Russian people during the civil war of the last century that it just brings tears to your eyes. And just as touchingly, heartfeltly they tell us about this guardian for the Russian land. And memorial trips and prayer services are held on trips through Baikal. Well, just grace descends on the soul.

But for some reason, residents of the territories of Russia, where Kolchak and his comrades were heroes, have a different opinion. They remember how entire villages of Kolchak’s people threw people who were still alive into mines, and not only that.

By the way, why is it that the Tsar’s father is honored on an equal basis with priests and white officers? Weren't they the ones who blackmailed the king from the throne? Didn’t they plunge our country into bloodshed, betraying their people, their king? Wasn’t it the priests who joyfully restored the patriarchy immediately after their betrayal of the sovereign? Was it not the landowners and generals who wanted power without the control of the emperor? Didn’t they begin to organize a civil war after the successful February coup, organized by them? Weren't they the ones who hanged Russian peasants and shot them all over the country? It was only Wrangel, horrified by the death of the Russian people, who left Crimea himself; all the others preferred to slaughter the Russian peasant until they themselves were calmed down forever.

Yes, and remembering the Polovtsian princes with the last names Gzak and Konchak, cited in the Tale of Igor’s Regiment, the conclusion involuntarily arises that Kolchak is related to them. Maybe that’s why we shouldn’t be surprised by the following?

By the way, there is no point in judging the dead, neither white nor red. But mistakes cannot be repeated. Only the living can make mistakes. Therefore, the lessons of history need to be known by heart.

In the spring of 1919, the first campaign of the Entente countries and the United States of America against the Soviet Republic began. The campaign was combined: it was carried out by the combined forces of internal counter-revolution and interventionists. The imperialists did not rely on their own troops - their soldiers did not want to fight against the workers and toiling peasants of Soviet Russia. Therefore, they relied on the unification of all the forces of internal counter-revolution, recognizing the main ruler of all affairs in Russia, Tsarist Admiral A.V. Kolchak.

American, English and French millionaires took on the bulk of Kolchak's supplies of weapons, ammunition, and uniforms. In the first half of 1919 alone, the United States sent Kolchak more than 250 thousand rifles and millions of cartridges. In total, in 1919, Kolchak received from the USA, England, France and Japan 700 thousand rifles, 3650 machine guns, 530 guns, 30 aircraft, 2 million pairs of boots, thousands of sets of uniforms, equipment and linen.

With the help of his foreign masters, by the spring of 1919, Kolchak managed to arm, clothe and shoe an army of almost 400,000.

Kolchak’s offensive was supported by Denikin’s army from the North Caucasus and the south, intending to unite with Kolchak’s army in the Saratov region in order to jointly move towards Moscow.

The White Poles were advancing from the west together with Petliura and White Guard troops. In the north and Turkestan, mixed detachments of Anglo-American and French interventionists and the army of the White Guard General Miller operated. Yudenich was advancing from the north-west, supported by the White Finns and the English fleet. Thus, all the forces of counter-revolution and interventionists went on the offensive. Soviet Russia again found itself surrounded by advancing enemy hordes. Several fronts were created in the country. The main one was the Eastern Front. Here the fate of the Soviet Union was decided.

On March 4, 1919, Kolchak launched an offensive against the Red Army along the entire Eastern Front over 2 thousand kilometers. He fielded 145 thousand bayonets and sabers. The backbone of his army was the Siberian kulaks, the urban bourgeoisie and the wealthy Cossacks. There were about 150 thousand intervention troops in Kolchak’s rear. They guarded the railways and helped deal with the population.

The Entente kept Kolchak's army under its direct control. Military missions of the Entente powers were constantly located at the headquarters of the White Guards. French General Janin was appointed commander-in-chief of all intervention forces operating in Eastern Russia and Siberia. The English General Knox was in charge of supplying Kolchak’s army and forming new units for it.

The interventionists helped Kolchak develop an operational plan of attack and determined the main direction of the attack.

In the Perm-Glazov sector, Kolchak’s strongest Siberian Army operated under the command of General Gaida. The same army was supposed to develop an offensive in the direction of Vyatka, Sarapul and connect with the interventionist troops operating in the North.

victims of the Kolchak atrocities in Siberia. 1919

peasant hanged by Kolchak's men

From everywhere, from the territory of Udmurtia liberated from the enemy, information was received about the atrocities and tyranny of the White Guards. For example, at the Peskovsky plant, 45 Soviet workers, poor peasant workers, were tortured. They were subjected to the most cruel torture: their ears, noses, lips were cut out, their bodies were pierced in many places with bayonets (doc. Nos. 33, 36).

Women, old people and children were subjected to violence, flogging and torture. Property, livestock, and harness were confiscated. The horses that the Soviet government gave to the poor to support their farms were taken away by the Kolchakites and given to their former owners (Doc. No. 47).

The young teacher of the village of Zura, Pyotr Smirnov, was brutally hacked to pieces with a White Guard saber because he walked towards a White Guard in good clothes (Doc. No. 56).

In the village of Syam-Mozhga, Kolchak’s men dealt with a 70-year-old old woman because she sympathized with Soviet power (Doc. No. 66).

In the village of N. Multan, Malmyzh district, the corpse of the young communist Vlasov was buried in the square in front of the people's house in 1918. Kolchak’s men herded the working peasants to the square, forced them to dig up the corpse and publicly mocked him: they beat him on the head with a log, crushed his chest, and finally, putting a noose around his neck, tied him to the front of the tarantass and in this form dragged him along the village street for a long time (Doc. No. 66 ).

In workers' settlements and cities, in the huts of the poor peasants of Udmurtia, a terrible groan arose from the atrocities and execution of Kolchak's men. For example, during the two months of the bandits’ stay in Votkinsk, 800 corpses were discovered in Ustinov Log alone, not counting those isolated victims in private apartments that were taken to an unknown location. The Kolchakites robbed and ruined the national economy of Udmurtia. From the Sarapul district it was reported that “after Kolchak, there was literally nothing left anywhere... After Kolchak’s robberies in the district, the availability of horses decreased by 47 percent and cows by 85 percent... In the Malmyzh district, in the Vikharevo volost alone, Kolchak’s men took 1,100 horses and 500 cows from the peasants , 2000 carts, 1300 sets of harness, thousands of pounds of grain and dozens of farms were completely plundered.”

“After the capture of Yalutorovsk by the Whites (June 18, 1918), the previous authorities were restored there. A brutal persecution of everyone who collaborated with the Soviets began. Arrests and executions became a widespread phenomenon. The Whites killed Demushkin, a member of the Soviet of Deputies, and shot ten former prisoners of war (Czechs and Hungarians) who refused to serve them. According to the memoirs of Fyodor Plotnikov, a participant in the Civil War and a prisoner of Kolchak’s dungeons from April to July 1919, a table with chains and various torture devices was installed in the basement of the prison. The tortured people were taken outside the Jewish cemetery (now the territory of a sanatorium orphanage), where they were shot. All this happened since June 1918. In May 1919, the Eastern Front of the Red Army went on the offensive. On August 7, 1919, Tyumen was liberated. Sensing the approach of the Reds, Kolchak’s men committed brutal reprisals against their prisoners. One day in August 1919, two large groups of prisoners were taken out of the prison. One group - 96 people - was shot in a birch forest (now the territory of a furniture factory), another, 197 people, were hacked to death with sabers across the Tobol River near Lake Ginger...".

From a certificate from the deputy director of the Yalutorovsky museum complex N.M. Shestakova:

“I consider myself obliged to say that my grandfather Yakov Alekseevich Ushakov, a front-line soldier of the First World War, Knight of St. George, was also hacked to death by Kolchak’s sabers beyond Tobol. My grandmother was left with three young sons. My father was only 6 years old at that time... And how many women throughout Russia did Kolchak’s men make widows, and children orphans, how many old people were left without filial supervision?”

Therefore, the logical result (please note that there was no torture, no bullying, just execution):

“We entered Kolchak’s cell and found him dressed - in a fur coat and hat,” writes I.N. Bursak. “It seemed like he was expecting something.” Chudnovsky read him the resolution of the Revolutionary Committee. Kolchak exclaimed:

- How! Without trial?

Chudnovsky replied:

- Yes, admiral, just like you and your henchmen shot thousands of our comrades.

Having gone up to the second floor, we entered Pepelyaev’s cell. This one was also dressed. When Chudnovsky read him the resolution of the revolutionary committee, Pepelyaev fell to his knees and, lying at his feet, begged not to be shot. He assured that, together with his brother, General Pepelyaev, he had long decided to rebel against Kolchak and go over to the side of the Red Army. I ordered him to stand up and said: “You can’t die with dignity...

They went down to Kolchak’s cell again, took him and went to the office. The formalities are completed.

By 4 o'clock in the morning we arrived on the bank of the Ushakovka River, a tributary of the Angara. Kolchak behaved calmly all the time, and Pepelyaev - this huge carcass - seemed to be in a fever.

Full moon, bright frosty night. Kolchak and Pepelyaev stand on the hillock. Kolchak refuses my offer to blindfold him. The platoon is formed, rifles at the ready. Chudnovsky whispers to me:

- It's time.

I give the command:

- Platoon, attack the enemies of the revolution!

Both fall. We put the corpses on the sleigh, bring them to the river and lower them into the hole. So the “supreme ruler of all Rus'” Admiral Kolchak leaves for his last voyage...”

(“The Defeat of Kolchak”, military publishing house of the USSR Ministry of Defense, M., 1969, pp. 279-280, circulation 50,000 copies).

In the Yekaterinburg province, one of the 12 provinces under Kolchak’s control, at least 25 thousand people were shot under Kolchak, and about 10% of the two million population were flogged. They flogged both men, women and children.

M. G. Alexandrov, commissar of the Red Guard detachment in Tomsk. He was arrested by the Kolchakites and imprisoned in Tomsk prison. In mid-June 1919, he recalled, 11 workers were taken from their cell at night. Nobody was sleeping.

“The silence was broken by faint groans coming from the prison yard, prayers and curses were heard... but after a while everything died down. In the morning, the criminals told us that the Cossacks hacked the prisoners with sabers and bayonets in the back exercise yard, and then loaded the carts and took them away somewhere.”

Aleksandrov reported that he was then sent to the Aleksandrovsky Central Station near Irkutsk, and out of more than a thousand prisoners there, the Red Army soldiers released only 368 people in January 1920. In 1921-1923 Alexandrov worked in the district Cheka of the Tomsk region. RGASPI, f. 71, op. 15, d. 71, l. 83-102.

American General W. Graves recalled:

“The soldiers of Semenov and Kalmykov, under the protection of Japanese troops, flooded the country like wild animals, killing and robbing the people, while the Japanese, if they wished, could have stopped these killings at any time. If at that time they asked what all these brutal murders were about, they usually received the answer that those killed were Bolsheviks, and this explanation, obviously, satisfied everyone. Events in Eastern Siberia were usually presented in the darkest colors and human life there was not worth a penny.

Horrible murders were committed in Eastern Siberia, but they were not carried out by the Bolsheviks, as was usually thought. I will not be mistaken if I say that in Eastern Siberia for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, there were a hundred people killed by anti-Bolshevik elements."

Graves doubted whether it was possible to point out any country in the world during the last fifty years where murder could be committed with such ease and with the least fear of responsibility as in Siberia during the reign of Admiral Kolchak. Concluding his memoirs, Graves noted that the interventionists and White Guards were doomed to defeat, since “the number of Bolsheviks in Siberia by the time of Kolchak had increased many times in comparison with their number at the time of our arrival.”

There is a plaque for Mannerheim in St. Petersburg, now there will be one for Kolchak... Next is Hitler?

The opening of the memorial plaque to Admiral Alexander Kolchak, who led the White movement in the Civil War, will take place on September 24... The memorial plaque will be installed on the bay window of the building where Kolchak lived... The text of the inscription is approved:

“The outstanding Russian officer, scientist and researcher Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak lived in this house from 1906 to 1912.”

I will not argue about his outstanding scientific achievements. But I read in the memoirs of General Denikin that Kolchak demanded (under pressure from Mackinder) that Denikin enter into an agreement with Petliura (giving him Ukraine) in order to defeat the Bolsheviks. For Denikin, his homeland turned out to be more important.

Kolchak was recruited by British intelligence while he was a captain of the 1st rank and commander of a mine division in the Baltic Fleet. This happened at the turn of 1915-1916. This was already a betrayal of the Tsar and the Fatherland, to which he swore allegiance and kissed the cross!

Have you ever wondered why the Entente fleets calmly entered the Russian sector of the Baltic Sea in 1918?! After all, he was mined! Moreover, in the confusion of two revolutions in 1917, no one removed the minefields. Yes, because Kolchak’s ticket to joining the British intelligence service was to hand over all the information about the location of minefields and obstacles in the Russian sector of the Baltic Sea! After all, it was he who carried out this mining and had all the maps of minefields and obstacles in his hands!