Tsarist generals in the service of the Red Army. Tsarist and white officers in the service of the Republic of Soviets. Beginning Political Directorate of the Glavsevmorput

In what proportions did the officers of the Russian Imperial Army share between the Whites and the Reds in the Civil. The quintessence of research is given in the book by V. Kozhinov “Russia. Century of the XX ”(former: an author with a pronounced monarchist orientation, in a sense, an anti-Soviet):

“Who knew how to collect information V.V. Shulgin wrote - and, as it is now found out, rightly - back in 1929: " Almost half of the officers of the General Staff remained with the Bolsheviks. And how many ordinary officers there were, no one knows, but a lot ", M.V. Nazarov refers to an article by an emigrant, General A.K. Baiov (by the way, his brother Lieutenant-General K.K. Baiov served in the Red Army!), published in 1932 in the Parisian newspaper "Sentry", and a treatise by the excellent military historian A.G. Kavtaradze, published in 1988 in Moscow. But M.B. Nazarov takes on faith exactly the figure of A.K. Baiov, who was unable to calculate the number of officers in the Red Army. Meanwhile, A.G. According to documents, Kavtaradze established the number of generals and officers of the General Staff who served in the Red Army (the vast majority of them appear in his book even by name), and it turned out that not 20, but 33 percent of their total number ended up in the Red Army.

If we talk about the officer corps in general, in general, then they served in the Red Army, according to A.G. Kavtaradze, 70,000-75,000 people, that is, approximately 30 percent of its total composition (a smaller proportion than among the General Staff officers, which had its own significant reason). However, even this figure - 30 percent - is, in essence, disorienting. For, as A.G. Kavtaradze, another 30 percent of the officers in 1917 found themselves out of any army service at all (op. cit., p. 117). And this means that not 30, but about 43 percent of the officers available by 1918 served in the Red Army, while 57 percent (about 100,000 people) served in the White Army.

But what is particularly striking is the fact that "the most valuable and trained part of the officer corps of the Russian army - the corps of officers of the General Staff"(p. 181) 639 (including 252 generals) people ended up in the Red Army, which accounted for 46 percent - that is, in fact, about half - continued serve after October 1917 as officers of the General Staff; there were about 750 of them in the White Army (op. cit., pp. 196-197). So, almost half of the best part, the elite of the Russian officer corps, served in the Red Army!

Until recently, these figures were not known to anyone: this historical fact they did not want to recognize either the whites or the reds (because this revealed one of the true, but not honoring them, reasons for their victory over the whites); however, this is still an indisputable fact. By the way, it was quite weightily recreated fiction; let us recall at least the image of Colonel of the General Staff Roshchin in A.N. Tolstoy. But this image, completely characteristic of the era, was perceived by most readers as a kind of exception, as a deviation from the "norm". Of course, one can try to argue that the generals and officers went to the Red Army under duress, or out of hunger, or for the subsequent transition to the Whites (however, many more officers went from the White Army to the Red than vice versa). But when it comes to choices made by tens of thousands of people, such explanations don't seem credible. The situation is, no doubt, much more complicated.

By the way, a calculation was recently published according to which (quote) "the total number of career officers who participated in the civil war in the ranks of the regular Red Army was more than 2 times the number of career officers who took part in hostilities on the side of the Whites"("Questions of history", 1993, N 6, p. 189). But this is obviously an exaggeration. "Enough"; and the fact that the number of officers in the White Army did not greatly exceed their number in the Red.
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To understand the mindset of a patriot who ended up in a white camp, read the memoirs of General Ya.A. Slashchev. And, of course, the work of A.N. Tolstoy "Walking through the torments".
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Bylym for reference: V.V. Shulgin is a monarchist,

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

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

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

The Soviet government tried to actively solve this problem by mobilizing former officers of the old army, as well as organizing various short-term command courses. However, the latter covered only the needs at the lower levels - the commanders of departments, platoons, and companies, and as for the old officers, the mobilizations had already exhausted themselves by 1919. At the same time, measures began to check the rear, administrative bodies, civilian organizations, military educational institutions and organizations of Vsevobuch in order to remove officers fit for military service from there and send the latter to the army in the field. So, according to Kavtaradze's calculations, in 1918-August 1920, 48 thousand former officers were mobilized, about 8 thousand more came to the Red Army voluntarily in 1918. However, with the growth of the army by 1920 to a number of several million (first to 3, and then to 5.5 million people), the shortage of commanders only became even more aggravated, since 50 thousand officers far from covered the needs of the armed forces.

In this situation, attention was paid to white officers taken prisoner or defectors. By the spring of 1920, the main white armies were basically defeated and the number of captured officers amounted to tens of thousands (for example, only near Novorossiysk in March 1920, 10 thousand officers of the Denikin army were taken prisoner, the number of former officers of the Kolchak army was similar - in the list , compiled in the Directorate for the command staff of the All-Glavshtab, there were 9660 of them as of August 15, 1920).

The leadership of the Red Army highly appreciated the qualifications of their former opponents - for example, Tukhachevsky, in his report on the use of military specialists and the promotion of communist command personnel, written on behalf of Lenin on the basis of the experience of the 5th Army, wrote the following: “ a well-trained command staff, thoroughly familiar with modern military science and imbued with the spirit of bold warfare, exists only among the young officers. This is the fate of the latter. A significant part of it, as the most active, perished in the imperialist war. Most of the surviving officers, the most active part, deserted after demobilization and collapse tsarist army to Kaledin, the only center of counter-revolution at that time. This explains the abundance of good bosses in Denikin.". The same point was also noted by Minakov in one of his works, albeit in relation to a later period: “Hidden respect for higher professional qualities The "white" command staff was also shown by the "leaders of the Red Army" M. Tukhachevsky and S. Budyonny. In one of his articles of the early 20s, as if “by the way”, M. Tukhachevsky expressed his attitude towards the white officers, not devoid of some hidden admiration: “ The White Guard presupposes energetic, enterprising, courageous people ...". Those who arrived from Soviet Russia in 1922 reported the appearance of Budyonny, who met Slashchev, and does not scold the other white leaders, but considers himself equal". All this gave rise to a very strange impression on the commanders of the Red Army. " The Red Army is like a radish: outside it is red, but inside it is white", ironically with hope in the white Russian diaspora."

In addition to the fact that the former white officers were highly appreciated by the leadership of the Red Army, it should be noted that in 1920–22. the war on individual theaters began to acquire already national character(Soviet-Polish war, as well as fighting in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, where it was about the restoration of central power in foreign regions, and the Soviet government looked like a collector of the old empire). In general, a sharp intensification of the process of using former white officers in military service began precisely on the eve of the Polish campaign and is largely due to the Soviet leadership's awareness of the possibility of using patriotic sentiments among the former officers. On the other hand, many former white officers had time to become disillusioned with the politics and prospects of the White movement. In this situation, it was decided to allow the recruitment of former white officers to serve in the Red Army, albeit under strict control.

Moreover, such an experience already existed. As Kavtaradze writes, in June 1919, the All-Glavshtab, in agreement with the Special Department of the Cheka, developed “the procedure for sending defectors and prisoners captured on the fronts of the civil war.” On December 6, 1919, the headquarters of the Turkestan Front turned to the Directorate for the Command Staff of the All-Glavshtab with a memorandum stating that former officers - defectors from Kolchak's armies were enrolled in its reserve, among which "there are many specialists and combatant command personnel who could be used in their specialty". Before being transferred to the reserve, all of them went through the office work of the Special Department of the Cheka of the Turkestan Front, from which "with respect to the majority of these persons" there were no "objections to their appointment to command positions in the ranks of the Red Army." In this regard, the headquarters of the front expressed the desire to use these persons "in parts of their front." The Directorate for Command Staff, while not objecting in principle to the use of these persons in the Red Army, at the same time spoke in favor of transferring them to another (for example, the Southern) front, which was approved by the Council of the All-Glavshtab. It is worth noting that there were examples of the transition of former white officers and their service in the Red Army even before June 1919, however, as a rule, it was not so much about prisoners, but about people who deliberately went over to the side of Soviet power. For example, the captain of the old army K.N. Bulminsky, who commanded a battery in the army of Kolchak, went over to the side of the Reds already in October 1918, the captain (according to other sources, lieutenant colonel) of the old army M.I. in the spring of 1919. At the same time, he held high positions in the Red Army during the Civil War - chief of staff of the Special Expeditionary Force of the Southern Front, commander of the 40th rifle division, commander of the 11th, 9th, 14th armies.

As already mentioned, the leadership of the country and the army, recognizing that it was fundamentally possible to accept white officers into the Red Army, sought to play it safe and put the process of using former white officers under strict control. This is evidenced, firstly, by sending these officers "not to the fronts where they were captured," and secondly, by their thorough filtering.

On April 8, 1920, the Revolutionary Military Council adopted a resolution, one of the points of which concerned the recruitment of former white officers to serve in the units of the North Caucasian Front, more precisely, on the extension of the instructions previously issued for the 6th Army to them. In pursuance of this paragraph of the resolution of the RVSR " On April 22, 1920, the special department of the Cheka reported to the secretariat of the RVSR that a telegram was sent to the special departments of the fronts and armies with an order to treat prisoners and defectors - officers of the White Guard armies. According to this order, these officers were divided into 5 groups: 1) Polish officers, 2) generals and officers of the General Staff, 3) counterintelligence officers and police officers, 4) senior officers and officers from students, teachers and clergy, as well as cadets, 5) wartime officers, with the exception of students, teachers and clergy. Groups 1 and 4 were to be sent to the concentration camps specified by order for further inspection, and the Poles were recommended to observe "especially the strictest supervision." Group 5 was to be subjected to strict filtration on the spot and then sent: "loyal" - to the labor army, the rest - to places of detention for prisoners of the 1st and 4th groups. The 2nd and 3rd groups were ordered to be sent under escort to Moscow to the Special Department of the Cheka. The telegram was signed by V. R. Menzhinsky, Deputy Chairman of the Cheka, D. I. Kursky, member of the RVSR, and G. G. Yagoda, head of the Special Department of the VChK».

In reviewing the above document, there are a few things to note.

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

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

« Fulfilling the task of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic on the registration and use of former white officers (in connection with mobilization calculations for the second half of the year 1920), and also “in view of the extreme need, it is possible to use this category of command personnel more widely”, the Directorate for Command Staff of the All-Glavshtab developed draft "Provisional rules on the use of former land officers from among the prisoners of war and defectors of the white armies." According to them, the officers had, first of all, to go for checks (“filtering”) to the nearest local special departments of the Cheka in order to carefully establish in each individual case the passive or active, voluntary or compulsory nature of their service in the White Army, the past of this officer, etc. e. After checking, the officers, whose loyalty to the Soviet government was “sufficiently clarified”, were subject to transfer to the jurisdiction of local military registration and enlistment offices, from where they were sent to the organized GUVUZ in Moscow and other large industrial cities 3 months political courses "numbering no more than 100 people in one point" to get acquainted with the structure of Soviet power and the organization of the Red Army; officers, whose "trustworthiness" in relation to the Soviet government "according to the initial material" was difficult to find out, were sent "to forced labor camps." At the end of the 3-month course, depending on the results of the examination of the state of health by medical commissions, all officers found fit for service at the front were to be sent to the spare parts of the Western Front and, as an exception, to the South-Western (the latter was not allowed to appoint officers of the Denikin army and officers from the Cossacks) “for the renewal of military knowledge in practice”, development “with new conditions of service” and faster and more appropriate, due to the proximity of the combat situation, the association of “former white officers with the Red Army masses”; at the same time, their staffing of spare parts should not exceed 15% of the available command staff. Officers deemed unfit for service at the front were assigned to the internal military districts in accordance with their suitability for combat or non-combat service, in part of the auxiliary assignment or to the corresponding rear institutions in their specialty (persons with military and pedagogical experience were sent to the disposal of the GUVUZ, "etapnikov" and "wanderers" - at the disposal of the Central Directorate of Military Communications, various technical specialists - according to their specialty), while also avoiding their number of more than 15% of the available command staff of a unit or institution. Finally, officers unfit for military service were dismissed "from such." All appointments (except for the General Staff officers, which were accounted for by the department for the service of the General Staff of the Organizational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab) were made “exclusively according to the orders of the Office for the Command Staff of the All-Glavstab, in which the entire account of former white officers was concentrated.” Officers who were in jobs that did not correspond to their military training, after being “filtered” by the Cheka, were to be transferred to the military commissariats “for army orders” in accordance with the decisions of the Special Departments of the Cheka and local Cheka on the possibility of their service in the ranks of the Red Army. Before being sent to the front, it was allowed to dismiss officers on short-term leave to visit relatives within the interior regions of the republic (as an exception, “on personal petitions” and with the permission of the district military commissariats) with the establishment of control at the places of the time of arrival on leave and departure and with a the guarantee of the remaining comrades "in the form of the termination of vacations for the rest in case of non-appearance of those released on time." The "Temporary Rules" also contained clauses on material support former white officers and their families during the time from the moment of capture or transfer to the side of the Red Army and until the transfer from the Special Department of the Cheka to the jurisdiction of the district military commissariat for subsequent dispatch to the headquarters of the Western and Southwestern fronts, etc., which was carried out on on the basis of the same orders of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic as for military specialists - former officers of the old army».

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

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

Kavtaradze writes that “according to the explanatory note drawn up in the Directorate for Command Staff of the All-Glavshtab on September 13, 1920, according to the information of the GUVUZ, “every 10 days” the Directorate for Command Staff should have “ receive at your disposal 600 white officers who have completed established courses”, that is, from August 15 to November 15, 5,400 former white officers could be sent to the Red Army. However, this number exceeded the number of red commanders who could be assigned to the Active Red Army after they completed the accelerated command courses. To avoid such a situation, on the internal state of the formations", it was considered expedient to establish in marching battalions "a certain percentage maximum for former white officers - no more than 25% of the red command staff».

In general, former officers who had previously served in the Whites and Nationals ended up in the Red Army in a variety of ways and at very different times. So, for example, since during the years of the civil war there were frequent cases of using prisoners by both sides to replenish their units, often many captured officers penetrated into Soviet units under the guise of captured soldiers. So, Kavtaradze, referring to the article by G. Yu. Gaaze, wrote that “ among the 10 thousand prisoners of war who arrived to staff the 15th rifle division in June 1920, many captured officers also penetrated “under the guise of soldiers”. A significant part of them were seized and sent to the rear for verification, but some who did not occupy responsible positions in the Denikin army “were left in the ranks, approximately 7-8 people per regiment, and they were given positions no higher than platoon commanders". The article mentions the name of the former captain P.F. Korolkov, who, having started his service in the Red Army as a clerk of a mounted scout team, finished it as an acting regiment commander and died heroically on September 5, 1920 in the battles near Kakhovka. At the end of the article, the author writes that “ nothing of them(former white officers. - A.K.) could not bind to the part as much as the trust placed in him»; many officers, not becoming adherents of Soviet power, they got used to their part, and some strange, inconsistent sense of honor forced them to fight on our side».

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

These biographies are taken from a collection of documents published in Ukraine on the case of "Spring", where in general you can find a lot of interesting facts from the biographies of former officers. So, for example, with regard to the service of white officers, one can note very frequent cases of recruitment of officers who managed to cross the front line more than once - that is, at least fled from the Reds to the Whites, and then again accepted into the service of the Reds. So, for example, offhand in the collection I found information about 12 such officers, only from among those who taught at the school. Kamenev in the 1920s (I note that these are not just white officers, but officers who managed to change the Soviet regime and return to serve in the Red Army again):

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

Naturally, such officers met not only at the school. Kamenev. For example, he managed to change the Soviet government, and then again enter the service in the Red Army, Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff V.I. Oberyukhtin. From the end of 1916, he served in the Academy of the General Staff, with it in the summer of 1918 he went over to the side of the Whites, held various positions in the White armies of A.V. Kolchak. In 1920 he again moved to the Red Army, where almost all the 20s and 30s, until his arrest in 1938, he taught at the Military Academy. Frunze. Occupied in 1921–22. the post of head of the Odessa School of Heavy Artillery (and then until 1925 taught in it) Major General of Artillery of the old army Argamakov N.N. in the same way: in 1919 he served in the Red Army in the artillery department of the Ukrainian Front, but remained in Kyiv after he was occupied by the Whites - and in 1920 he was already back in the Red Army.

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

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

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

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

Vladimir Kaminsky, who studied the issues of building fortified areas in the 20-30s, once wrote about the correspondence of the engineering department of the Ukrainian military district (authored by D.M. Karbyshev, assistant chief of engineers of the district) with the Main Military Engineering Directorate, which is available in the RGVA, in which the question of the demobilization of military engineers who served in the white armies surfaced. The GPU demanded that they be removed, while the Revolutionary Military Council and the GVIU, due to an acute shortage of specialists, allowed them to remain.

Separately, it is worth mentioning the white officers who worked for the red intelligence. Many have heard about the red intelligence officer Makarov, the adjutant of the white general Mai-Maevsky, who served as the prototype for the protagonist of the film "His Excellency's Adjutant", meanwhile, this was far from an isolated example. In the same Crimea, other officers also worked for the Reds, for example, Colonel Ts.A. Siminsky - the head of the Wrangel intelligence, who left for Georgia in the summer of 1920, after which the fact of his work for the intelligence of the Red Army was revealed. Also through Georgia (through the Soviet military representative in Georgia), information was transmitted about the Wrangel army and two more red intelligence officers - Colonel Ts.A. Skvortsov and captain ts.a. Dekonsky. In this regard, by the way, it can be noted that Colonel of the General Staff A.I. Gotovtsev, the future Lieutenant General, also lived in Georgia from 1918 to 1920. Soviet army(by the way, the notes in the collection of documents on "Spring" also indicate his service with Denikin, but it is not indicated in what period). Here is what is said in particular about him on the website www.grwar.ru: “ Lived in Tiflis, engaged in trade (06.1918-05.1919). Assistant Warehouse Manager of the American Benevolent Society in Tiflis (08.-09.1919). Sales agent in the representative office of an Italian company in Tiflis (10.1919-06.1920). Since 07.1920 he was at the disposal of the military department under the plenipotentiary representative of the RSFSR in Georgia. Special trip to Constantinople (01.-07.1921). Arrested by the British on 07/29/1921 and sent to his homeland. He explained his failure by the fact that "he was betrayed by his colleagues - officers of the General Staff." At the disposal of the II Department of Intelligence (since 08/22/1921). Head of the Intelligence Department of the Red Army Headquarters (08/25/1921-07/15/1922). "He coped with his position quite well. Suitable for promotion to quiet scientific work" (conclusion of the certification commission of the Intelligence Department of 03/14/1922).» Apparently, the work in the Crimea was organized by the Intelligence Industry of the Red Army through Georgia. The officers who worked for the intelligence of the Red Army were in other white armies. In particular, Colonel Ts.A. served in the Kolchak army. Rukosuev-Ordynsky V.I. - he joined the RCP (b) in the spring of 1919, while serving in the headquarters of the Kolchak governor in Vladivostok, General S.N. Rozanov. In the summer of 1921, he was arrested by white counterintelligence, along with five more underground workers - all of them were killed during an escape provoked by white counterintelligence.

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

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

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

Lieutenant General of the Red Army and hero Battle of Stalingrad, holder of four orders of the Red Banner, Timofey Timofeevich Shapkin, who served in the tsarist army for more than 10 years in non-commissioned officer positions and only by the end of World War I was sent to the ensign school for merit, in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia he spent from bell to bell, from January 1918 years to March 1920.

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

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

Summing up the information about the service of "white" officers in the Red Army during the Civil War, several points can be noted. Firstly, their involvement in the service was most widespread from the end of 1919-1920, with the defeat of the main White Guard armies in Siberia, in the South and North of Russia, and especially with the beginning of the Soviet-Polish war. Secondly, former officers could be divided into several groups - the bulk of these were wartime officers who often served with the Whites on mobilization - these persons, for obvious reasons, most often ended up in combat and command positions, however, as a rule, the level of platoon and company commanders . At the same time, for the purpose of insurance, the command of the Red Army sought to prevent the concentration of former officers in units, and also sent them to the wrong fronts where they were taken prisoner. In addition, various technical specialists were sent to the troops - aviators, artillerymen, engineers, railwaymen - including regular officers. As for the regular military and officers of the General Staff, the situation here was somewhat different. The latter - due to the acute shortage of such specialists - were taken on a special account and used to the maximum in their specialty at the highest headquarters, especially since it was much easier to organize political control there. Just career officers - due to their experience and knowledge, which were also a valuable element, were used as a rule in teaching positions. Thirdly, apparently the largest number of former officers went to the Red Army from the Kolchak army, which is explained by the following reasons. The defeat of the Kolchak troops nevertheless occurred earlier than in the South, and the captured officer of the Kolchak army had more chances to serve in the Red Army and take part in hostilities on its side. At the same time, in the South it was easier to avoid captivity - either by emigrating (to the Caucasus or through the Black Sea), or by evacuating to the Crimea. Given that in the East of Russia, in order to avoid captivity, it was necessary to walk thousands of kilometers in winter through all of Siberia. In addition, the officer corps of the Siberian armies was noticeably inferior in quality to the officer corps of the All-Russian Union of Youth Leagues - the latter got much more regular officers, as well as ideological wartime officers - since it was still much easier to flee to the Whites in the South, and the concentration of the population in the South and in Central Russia was several times higher than in Siberia. Accordingly, the Siberian White armies, the name of a small number of officers in general, not to mention personnel, were forced to be more actively engaged in mobilization, including forcible. And their armies got noticeably more unwilling to serve, as well as simply opponents of the white movement, who often defected to the red ones - so the leadership of the Red Army could use these officers with much less apprehension in their own interests.

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

So, in a very emotional letter from a group of commanders of the Red Army dated February 10, 1924, the following was noted: “ in the combatant lower units, a purge was carried out of the command staff, not only a hostile element, but even a dubious one, consciously or unconsciously staining itself either by serving in the white armies or by staying in the territories of the whites. Young people were cleaned out and thrown out, often of peasant and proletarian origin - from among wartime ensigns; young people who, by their stay after the White armies in parts of our Red Army, on the fronts against the same Whites, could not thereby atone for their mistake or crime, often committed out of unconsciousness in the past". And at the same time " in All well-deserved, well-groomed people from the bourgeois and aristocratic world, the former ideological leaders of the tsarist Army - the generals remained in their places, and sometimes even with a promotion. The counter-revolutionaries and ideological leaders of the White Guard, who hanged and shot hundreds and thousands of proletariat and communists during the civil war, relying on the support of their old comrades in the tsarist academy or family ties with specialists who settled in our central offices or departments, made themselves a solid, well-armored hornet's nest in the very heart of the Red Army, its central organizational and educational apparatus - the Headquarters of the R.K.K.A., GUVUZ, GAU, GVIU, FLEET HEADQUARTERS, Academy, VAK, Shot and Editions of our Military Scientific Thought, which in their undivided authorities and under their pernicious and ideological influence.

Of course, there were not so many “ideological leaders of the White Guard who hung and shot hundreds and thousands of proletariat and communists during the civil wars” among the highest command and teaching staff of the Red Army (of those, only Slashchev comes to mind), but nonetheless less does this letter indicate that the presence of former white officers was highly visible. Among them were both captured white officers and emigrants, like the same Slashchev and Colonel A.S. Milkovsky who returned with him. (Inspector of artillery of the Crimean Corps Ya.A. Slashchova, after returning to Russia, he was for special assignments of the 1st category of the inspection of artillery and armored forces of the Red Army) and Colonel of the General Staff Lazarev B.P. (major general in the White Army). In 1921, Lieutenant Colonel Zagorodniy M.A. returned from emigration, who taught at the Odessa Artillery School in the Red Army, and Colonel Zelenin P.E., in 1921–25. battalion commander, and then the head of the 13th Odessa Infantry School, who headed the command courses in the Red Army back in the Civil War, but after the occupation of Odessa by the Whites, he remained in place and later evacuated to Bulgaria with them. Former Colonel Ivanenko S.E., in the Volunteer Army since 1918, for some time commanding the consolidated regiment of the 15th Infantry Division, returned from emigration from Poland in 1922 and until 1929 taught at the Odessa Art School. In April 1923, Major General of the General Staff E.S. returned to the USSR. Gamchenko, who since June 1918 served in the armies of Hetman Skoropadsky and the UNR, and in 1922 submitted an application to the Soviet embassy with a request to be allowed to return to his homeland - upon his return, he taught at the Irkutsk and Sumy infantry schools, as well as at the school named after. Kamenev. In general, with regard to emigrants in the Red Army, Minakov gives the following interesting opinion of the former colonel of the old army and division commander in the red army V.I. Solodukhin, who When asked about the attitude of the command staff of the Red Army to the return of officers from emigration to Russia, he gave a very remarkable answer: "The new communist staff would have reacted well, but the old officer corps is clearly hostile." He explained this by the fact that “highly estimating emigration from a mental point of view and knowing that even a former White Guard can go well in the Red Army, they would have been afraid of him first of all as a competitor, and besides, ... they would see a direct traitor in every passing one ... »».

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

Separately, one can note white officers and generals who emigrated to China and returned to Russia from China in the 20s and 30s. For example, in 1933, together with his brother, Major General A.T. Sukin, Colonel of the General Staff of the old army Nikolai Timofeevich Sukin left for the USSR, in the white armies lieutenant general, participant in the Siberian Ice Campaign, in the summer of 1920 temporarily served as chief of staff of the commander-in-chief of all armed forces of the Russian Eastern outskirts, in the USSR he worked as a teacher of military disciplines. Some of them even in China began to work for the USSR, such as the colonel of the old army, in the Kolchak army, Major General Tonkikh I.V. Beijing. In 1927, he was an employee of the military attache of the plenipotentiary representation of the USSR in China, on 04/06/1927 he was arrested by the Chinese authorities during a raid on the premises of the embassy in Beijing, and probably after that he returned to the USSR. Also in China, another high-ranking officer of the White Army, also a participant in the Siberian Ice Campaign, Alexei Nikolaevich Shelavin, began to cooperate with the Red Army. It's funny, but this is how Kazanin, who came to Blucher's headquarters in China as an interpreter, describes the meeting with him: “ In the waiting room there was a long table set for breakfast. At the table sat a fit, graying military man and with appetite ate oatmeal from a full plate. In such closeness, eating hot porridge seemed to me a heroic feat. And he, not content with this, took three soft-boiled eggs from the bowl and dropped them onto the porridge. All this he poured with tinned milk and sprinkled thickly with sugar. I was so mesmerized by the enviable appetite of the old military man (I soon learned that it was the tsarist general Shalavin, who had transferred to the Soviet service), that I only saw Blucher when he was already standing right in front of me.". Kazanin did not mention in his memoirs that Shelavin was not just a tsarist, but a white general; in general, in the tsarist army he was only a colonel of the General Staff. A participant in the Russian-Japanese and world wars, in the Kolchak army he served as chief of staff of the Omsk military district and the 1st Consolidated Siberian (later 4th Siberian) Corps, participated in the Siberian Ice Campaign, served in the Armed Forces of the Russian Eastern Outskirts and the Amur Provisional government, then emigrated to China. Already in China, he began to cooperate with Soviet military intelligence (under the pseudonym Rudnev), in 1925–1926 he was a military adviser to the Henan group, a teacher at the Whampu military school; 1926-1927 - at the headquarters of the Guangzhou group, helped Blucher evacuate from China and also returned to the USSR in 1927.

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

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

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

As for other white officers, primarily wartime officers, who in the 20s made up the bulk of the reserve command staff, it is necessary to note the loyal attitude, the absence of ideological narrow-mindedness, as well as the pragmatic approach of the army leadership towards them. The latter understood that most of the officers of the White armies often served in them on mobilization and without much desire, and subsequently many rehabilitated themselves by serving in the Red Army. Realizing that, as having military training and combat experience, they were of particular value as reserve officers, the leadership of the Red Army made efforts to normalize their existence in civilian life: “ The existing unemployment and the prejudiced attitude towards them on the part of the people's commissariats and other Soviet organizations, who suspect them of political unreliability, which is not justified and essentially wrong, leads to refusals to serve. In particular, the majority of persons of the 1st category (former whites) cannot by any means be considered whites in the true sense of the word. All of them served loyally, but their further retention in the army, especially in connection with the transition to one-man command, is simply not advisable. According to reports, most of the demobilized eke out a miserable existence ...". In Frunze's opinion, many of the discharged, who had been in the army "for several years" and had experience of the civil war, were "reserves in case of war", in connection with which he believed that concern for the financial situation of those discharged from the army should not be the subject of attention. only military, but also civilian bodies. Considering that "the proper resolution of this issue goes beyond the limits of the Voenved and has great political significance”, Frunze, on behalf of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, asked the Central Committee to give a “directive along the party line”. The question was again raised by Frunze at a meeting of the Revolutionary Military Council on December 22, 1924, and a special commission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was even created to resolve the issue.

Leonid Sergeevich Karum, a career officer in the tsarist army and commander of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, between these two photographs, his life has undergone major changes: he managed to serve in the army of Hetman Skoropadsky, the Russian army, Gen. Wrangel, and being a relative famous writer M. Bulgakov, was captured in literature, becoming the prototype of Talberg in the novel "The White Guard".

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

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

« A common group of commanding officers are the former. officers who did not serve in either the White or Red Army, but lived on the territory of the Whites and worked throughout the civil war in their peaceful profession as a teacher, agronomist, or railway. The appearance and psychology of persons in this category, applying the old military terminology to them, are completely “civilian”. They do not like to remember military service, and sincerely consider their officer rank as an unpleasant accident, since they got into a military school solely thanks to their general education. Now they have plunged headlong into their specialty, they are passionately interested in it, but they have completely forgotten military affairs and show no desire to study it.

More vividly than the previous group, the type of former officer who served in the old and white army appears in memory. Hot temperament did not allow him to complete a full secondary school and he voluntarily went to "save" Russia from the Teutonic invasion. After graduating from a military school, he was sent to the front, where, in addition to being wounded, he received beautiful orders for "combat distinctions".

With the peals of the civil war, he entered the army of white generals, with whom he shared their inglorious fate. The vile bacchanalia and speculation on his own blood by these "saviors of faith and fatherland" disappointed him in beautiful phrases about the one and indivisible "and surrender to the mercy of the winner was the" swan song "of his quixotic dreams. Then follows a state on a special account and a modest service Now, in all likelihood, he sincerely would like to serve in the Red Army, but his past makes him cautious about his assignment and he is taken into account in the last line of stock.

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

Returning to the former white officers who remained in the service of the Red Army and their fates, it is difficult to ignore the repressive measures against them. Immediately after the end of the civil war, harsh repressions against former white officers who served in the Red Army were rather sporadic. For example, Major General of the General Staff Vikhirev A.A., on June 6, 1922, was arrested by the GPU, was under arrest on 03/01/1923, and was excluded from the lists of the Red Army in 1924, Captain of the General Staff Gakenberg L.A. (in the government of Kolchak, chairman of the military-economic society) was invited to work at the All-Glavshtab, but in Moscow in June 1920 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Butyrka prison, Colonel of the General Staff Zinevich B.M. who served in the Red Army as an assistant inspector of infantry at the commander in chief for Siberia, was arrested in November 1921 and an emergency troika of the Cheka representation in Siberia on charges of serving with Kolchak was sentenced to imprisonment in a concentration camp until the exchange with Poland, Major General Slesarev K.M. , head of the Orenburg Cossack School since 1908, including under Kolchak, after the defeat of the latter’s troops, he served in the Red Army as head of the school for cadets of the command staff in Omsk, but in March 1921, during the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Western Siberia, he was arrested and shot on charges of aiding the rebels, career border guard Belavin V.P., demobilized in July 1921 - June 21, 1924 he was arrested on charges of "active participation in the work of the counter-revolutionary organization of" cadre Russian officers "created by Wrangel" and "in collecting secret military information about the quartering of the Red Army, which he transmitted to the central organization through the Polish consulate", and on July 4, 1925 by a military tribunal 14th Rifle Corps sentenced to death and shot. In 1923, during the case of military topographers, General N.D. Pavlov was also arrested, but he was soon released and worked as a professor in Omsk until his death. However, the bulk of the officers were simply dismissed during the massive reductions in the army and enrolled in the reserve. As a rule, there were those who passed the checks from among either valuable specialists (general staff officers, pilots, artillerymen and engineers), or who proved their usefulness and devotion to the Soviet government and who proved themselves in battles on the side of the Red Army, combat and staff commanders.

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

In general, the topic of "Spring" is little studied today, and the scale of the operation is somewhat exaggerated, although it can be called a prologue to the military repressions of the late 30s. As for its scale, they can be tentatively estimated using the example of Ukraine, where the scale of repressive measures among the military was the largest (even Moscow and Leningrad were apparently inferior to Ukraine in terms of the mass arrests). According to the certificate prepared by the OGPU in July 1931, through Sudtroika and the Collegium of the OGPU in the “Spring” case, 2014 people were arrested in the “Spring” case, including: military personnel 305 people. (including 71 military instructors and teachers of military subjects in civilian and military institutions), civilians 1706 people. Of course, not all of them had time to serve in the white and national armies, although the former White Guards who went to serve in the Red Army met both among the arrested military personnel and among the arrested civilians. So, among the latter there were 130 former white officers and 39 former officers of various Ukrainian national armed formations - in turn, among them were both those who did not serve in the Red Army at all, and those dismissed from it at different times in the 20s. Of course, former white officers were also encountered among the Red Army soldiers affected by the “Spring”, primarily among teachers of military educational institutions and military instructors and teachers of military affairs at civilian universities. The fact that most of the former white officers were concentrated not on command positions, but on teaching positions and in military educational institutions, is striking even with a superficial study of the available biographies - for example, for 7 officers who held command positions, I found 36 teaching staff. composition or military personnel of military educational institutions.

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

At the same time, among the teaching staff of the school, as we saw, there were quite a few white officers, even among the 5 generals of the General Staff listed above, four went through the white armies. By the way, both the educational part and the selection of the teaching staff of the school were also engaged in a personnel officer who managed to serve in the white army, and not even in one. Captain of the old army L.S. Karum is a man with an extraordinary destiny. Sister's husband M.A. Bulgakov, Varvara, he was bred in the novel "The White Guard" under the name of Talberg, not the most pleasant character in the work: after writing the novel, Bulgakov's sister Varvara and her husband even quarreled with the writer. Captain Karum managed to graduate from the Aleskandra Military Law Academy in the old army; he is a teacher at the Konstantinovsky Military School in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. Then the Latvian consul in the Russian army, General Wrangel, after the evacuation of the Whites, remained in the Crimea, successfully passed the check of the Cheka (as he sheltered the Bolshevik underground) and transferred to the Soviet service. In 1922–26 he was assistant chief, head of the educational department of the Kiev Unified School. Kameneva is an untalented officer, but apparently without firm convictions, a careerist. Here is what was written about him in the information reports of the OGPU in the mid-20s: “From among the teachers, one feels there are a lot of all sorts of "bastards", but they obviously know their job and do it well ... The selection of teachers, especially officers, depends most of all on Karum. Karum is a fox who knows his stuff. But there probably isn't... a more unreliable person in the school than Karum. In a conversation about political work and in general with political workers, he cannot even hold back a caustic smile ... He also has a great propensity for careerism ... The head of the educational department Karum, who devotes a lot of time to work on the side (lectures reads in civilian universities and lives 7 miles from the school). He himself is very intelligent, capable, but finishes everything at speed". During the "Spring" Karum was arrested and sentenced to several years in the camps, after his release he lived in Novosibirsk, where he headed the Department of Foreign Languages of the Novosibirsk Medical Institute.

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

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

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

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

Nevertheless, despite the repressions of the early 30s, many former white officers were present in the ranks of the Red Army in the 30s. However, we have already seen that the same “Spring” touched several dozen white officers who served in the armed forces, despite the fact that after all the purges of the early 20s, about 4 hundred of them remained in the Red Army. In addition, many ended up in the army, hiding their past, someone was called up from the reserve, and the above-mentioned purge of the political apparatus from former whites led, among other things, to their transfer to command positions. So in the 30s, former white officers in the Red Army were not so rare. And not only in teaching positions - such as Bazarevsky, Vysotsky, Oberyukhtin or Lignau mentioned above - but also in staff and command positions. We have already mentioned a large number of former servicemen of the White armies in the Soviet Air Force, they also met in the ground forces, moreover, in senior command and staff positions. For example, former captain M.I. Vasilenko served as an infantry inspector and deputy commander of the Ural Military District, former captain G.N. Kutateladze - Assistant Commander of the Red Banner Caucasian Army and Commander of the 9th Rifle Corps, former Captain A.Ya Yanovsky - Deputy Chief of Staff of the Red Banner Caucasian Army and Deputy Head of the Directorate for Staffing and Service of the Troops of the Main Directorate of the Red Army, former captain (colonel in the All-Union Socialist Republic) V.V. . Popov commanded rifle divisions, served as chief of staff of the corps and chief of the operational department of the Kiev Military District, and then assistant chief of the Military Engineering Academy. The previously mentioned T.T. Shapkin in the 20s and 30s commanded the 7th, 3rd and 20th mountain cavalry divisions, successfully fought with the Basmachis and, in the interval between commanding divisions, finished military academy them. Frunze. The latter's career did not in the least interfere with the fact that he was removed from the register (as a former White Guard) only in the early 1930s. A colonel who graduated from the Nikolaev Engineering Academy in 1905 (Kolchak has a major general, from hereditary noblemen Kostroma province) Svinin V.A., was enlisted in the Red Army only in 1931 and was immediately appointed deputy head of the Special Engineering Construction, and then - deputy chief of engineers of the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army and head of the branch of the Research Institute of Engineering Administration of the Red Army in Khabarovsk. For merits in strengthening the Far Eastern borders, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. From 1932 to 1935, the head of the engineers of Minsk Ur was also a former Kolchak man, P.T. Zagorulko, like L. Govorov, who went over to the side of the Reds during the Civil War.

Military positions in the 30s were also occupied by former Petliurists, a regular cavalry officer of the old army, staff captain S.I. orders of the Red Banner, and a wartime officer of the old army, Lieutenant Mishchuk N.I., in the 30s, commander of the 3rd Bessarabian Cavalry Division named after. Kotovsky. By the way, both of the last commanders were purged from the army in the early twenties, but were reinstated in it through the efforts of Kotovsky.

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

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

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

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

Along with the military leaders mentioned above, other generals of the Red Army managed to serve in the White Army, who received officer epaulets while still in the old army. These are Major Generals of the Red Army Zaitsev Panteleimon Alexandrovich (ensign of the ts.a., in the white army from December 1918 to February 1919), Sherstyuk Gavriil Ignatievich (ensign, in September 1919 he was mobilized into the Denikin army, but fled and led a partisan detachment) , major generals of the Red Army Kuparadze Georgy Ivanovich served in the army of the Georgian Democratic Republic (ensign and platoon commander in the old army, commanders in the Red Army since 1921) and Mikeladze Mikhail Gerasimovich (second lieutenant in the old army, in the Georgian army from February 1919 to March 1921 in the Red Army since 1921 as a commander). With the accession of the Baltic States to the Red Army, Lukas Ivan Markovich, a major general, also got to the general positions (in the old army, a staff captain and commanders, from 1918 to 1940 he served in the Estonian army - from commanders to commanders, in the Red Army - regimental commanders since 1940,) and Karvyalis Vladas Antonovich, major general (colonel of the Lithuanian army, in 1919, in its composition, he fought against the Red Army in ordinary positions). Many representatives of the Soviet generals served in the white and national armies in private and non-commissioned officer positions.

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

Former White Guards met and not only in general positions. N. Biryukov in his diaries, published under the title “Tanks to the Front”, for example, has such an entry dated September 21, 1944 regarding the command of the 2nd Guards Mechanized Brigade: “Brigade commander Colonel Khudyakov. Fought in the corps. In a difficult situation, without a neighbor, he does not go forward. In all other respects, it works exceptionally well. According to SMERSH, he worked for the Whites and allegedly served in counterintelligence. SMERSH does not yet give official data on this issue. Deputy brigade commander - Colonel Muravyov. Non-partisan. Served with the whites. Haven't fought in the corps yet. There are anti-Soviet statements." Moreover, there were quite unusual careers, such as Eduard Yanovich Ryuttel, a lieutenant colonel of the General Staff of the old army and a participant in the famous Siberian Ice Campaign, in 1923 he moved from Harbin to Estonia, where, with the rank of colonel, he served in the Estonian army as the head of the Estonian military school. After Estonia joined the USSR in 1940, he was mobilized into the Red Army and in 1943 served as a colonel in the Red Army in the Estonian reserve battalion.

Not good known fact- out of ten commanders of the fronts at the final stage of the war (see photo), two military leaders had marks in their personal files about service in the white and national armies. This is Marshal Govorov (in the second row in the center) and General of the Army, later also Marshal Bagramyan (in the second row, far right).

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

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

« On the Southern Front, we are conducting decisive actions against the Don Cossacks. We are currently concentrating maximum forces to resolve the issues raised and the numerical superiority of the forces is undoubtedly on our side, but nevertheless, military success is given to us slowly and only through prolonged uninterrupted combat. The reason for this is, on the one hand, the poor combat training of our troops, and, on the other hand, our lack of experienced officers. Especially great is the lack of experienced battalion commanders and above. Those who were previously in the aforementioned positions gradually fall out of action killed, wounded and sick, while their positions remain vacant for lack of candidates, or completely inexperienced and unprepared people get into very responsible command positions, as a result of which hostilities cannot be properly tied up, the development of battle goes the wrong way, and the final actions, if they are successful for us, quite often cannot be used.» From the report of the Commander-in-Chief V.I. Lenin on the strategic position of the Republic and the quality of reserves, January 1919, "Directives ...", p. 149, with reference to the RGVA, f. 6, op. 4, d. 49. ll. 49-57.

"AND Of the other major shortcomings, both of the units on the fronts and in the internal districts, it should be noted:

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

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

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

« In addition to all of the above, it should be noted that the combat tension of the eastern half of the RSFSR is weakened by the immense organization of Vsevobuch, which absorbs a huge mass of command personnel and politicians. If we compare the number of commanders (instructors) in Vsevobuch and the number of those in the spare parts of the Red Army, then it turns out that in the spare parts throughout the Republic the number of command personnel is 5350 people, while in Vsevobuch there are 24000 of them. composition is absolutely harmful to the success of the organization and formation of the army: spare parts are preparing replacements for us at the present critical moment at the front of the units, while Vsevobuch is preparing contingents for the distant future". From the report of the High Command to V. I. Lenin on the need for the military unity of the Soviet Republics, No. 1851, Serpukhov, April 23, 1919, “Directives of the High Command of the Red Army (1917-1920)”, Moscow, Voenizdat, 1969, p. 310, with reference to the RGVA, f. 5, op. 1, d. 188, ll. 27-28. Certified copy. No. 286

Kavtaradze A.G. Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917–1920 M., 1988. S.166–167. As for the officers who volunteered for service, Kavtaradze gives his work several estimates - from 4 thousand to 9 thousand in Moscow alone, and he himself stops at an estimate of 8 thousand people (Kavtaradze A.G. Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets , 1917–1920 p.166). At the same time, it should be borne in mind that many ended up in the service "mechanically" - switching to the service of entire headquarters, as a rule, expecting to serve in parts of the curtain in order to fight the Germans, and many of those who voluntarily entered the service soon either quit or fled to the service of the Whites (for example, the famous white military leader Kappel or the teaching staff and students of the Academy of the General Staff evacuated to Yekaterinburg, in the summer of 1918, almost in full force passed to Kolchak).

Tukhachevsky M.N. Selected works in 2 volumes.

In particular, N.V. Svechin, colonel of the old army, spoke about the Caucasian Front from a similar point of view: “ At the beginning of Soviet power, I did not share either sympathy for it, or confidence in the strength of its existence. The civil war, although I took part in it, was not to my liking. I fought more willingly when the war took on the character of an external war (the Caucasian front). I fought for the integrity and preservation of Russia, even if it was called the RSFSR". Ya. Tinchenko "Golgotha of Russian Officers" http://www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/Author/Russ/T/TimchenkoJaJu/golgofa/index.html with reference to GASBU, fp, d. 67093, v. 189 (251), the case of Afanasiev A.V., p. 56.

A.G. Kavtaradze "Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917-1920", Moscow "Nauka", 1988, p. 171

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

"From the archive of the VUCHK, GPU, NKVD, KGB", special issue of the scientific documentary journal in 2 books, publishing house "Sphere", Kyiv, 2002

A.G. Kavtaradze "Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917-1920", Moscow "Nauka", 1988, p. 171

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

A.G. Kavtaradze "Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917-1920", Moscow "Nauka", 1988, p. 169

Ya. Tinchenko "Golgotha of Russian officers", http://www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/Author/Russ/T/TimchenkoJaJu/golgofa/index.html

A.G. Kavtaradze "Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917-1920", Moscow "Nauka", 1988, pp. 170-174

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

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

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

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

A.G. Kavtaradze "Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets, 1917-1920", Moscow "Nauka", 1988, p. 173

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

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

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

S. Minakov, "Stalin and his marshal", Moscow, Yauza, Eksmo, 2004, p. 215

Kazanin M. I. "At the headquarters of Blucher" Moscow, "Nauka", 1966, p. 60

Report of the bureau of cells of the Military Academy of February 18, 1924, Bulletin of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation "The Red Army in the 1920s", Moscow, 2007, pp. 92–96.

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

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

Reference from the Command Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Red Army for the report of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR to the Government with a description of the Red Army, including the retired commanders, January 24, 1927, “Reform in the Red Army. Documents and materials. 1923–1928”, Moscow 2006, book 2, p. 28

P. Zefirov "Reserve commanders as they are", magazine "War and Revolution", 1925

Certificate dated July 1931, on the composition of the persons arrested in the case of "Spring", decisions on which were made by the Judicial troika at the Collegium of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR and the Collegium of the OGPU, "From the archive of the VUCHK, GPU, NKVD, KGB", special issue of the scientific and documentary journal in 2 books, Sphere publishing house, Kyiv, 2002, book 2, pp. 309–311 with reference to the DA of the Security Council of Ukraine. - F. 6. Ref. 8. Ark. 60–62. Uncertified copy. Typescript. In the same place:

“The following measures of social protection have been issued in relation to them:

a) Military personnel: 27 people were shot, 23 people were sentenced to the VMSZ with a replacement of 10 years in a concentration camp, 215 people were sentenced to a concentration camp to imprisonment in local Doprah, 40 people were sentenced to exile.

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

GPU of the Ukrainian SSR, Accounting and Statistical Department. Numerical information about the persons who passed according to the decisions of the judicial troika at the Collegium of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR in the case of the counter-revolutionary organization "Vesna", ibid., p. 308

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

Various command posts from among the former military personnel of the white and national armies were occupied by the staff captains of the old army Ponomarenko B.A. (in the Red Army regiment commander), Cherkasov A.N. (diving engineer), Karpov V.N. (battalion commander), Aversky E.N. (head of the chemical service of the regiment), as well as lieutenants Goldman V.R. and Stupnitsky S..E. (both commanders in the Red Army), and Orekhov M.I. (Regimental Staff Engineer). At the same time, there were much more teachers from among the former white officers: these are teachers from the school named after. Kamenev, Major General M.V. Lebedev, Colonel Semenovich A.P., Captains Tolmachev K.PV. and Kuznetsov K.Ya., lieutenant Dolgallo G.T., military officer Milles V.G., Kiev school of communications - lieutenant colonel Snegurovsky P.I., staff captain Dyakovsky M.M., lieutenant Dmitrievsky B.E., Kievskoy artillery schools - Colonel Podchekaev V.A., captain Bulmisky K.N., ensign Klyukovsky Yu.L., Sumy artillery school - ensign Zhuk A.Ya., military instructors and teachers of military affairs in civilian universities, Lieutenant General Kedrin V.I., Major General Argamakov N.N. and Gamchenko E.S., colonels Bernatsky V.A., Gaevsky K.K., Zelenin P.E., Levis V.E., Luganin A.A., Sinkov M.K., lieutenant colonels Bakovets I.G. and Batruk A.I., captains Argentov N.F., Volsky A.I., Karum L.S., Kravtsov S.N., Kupriyanov A.A., captains Vodopyanov V.G. and Chizhun L.U., staff captain Khochishevsky N.D. Of these, three had previously been dismissed from the army - Gaevsky (in 1922), Sinkov (in 1924 as a former White Guard), Khochishevsky (in 1926), eight people had previously taught at the school named after. Kamenev - Bakovets, Batruk, Volsky, Gamchenko, Karum, Kedrin, Luganin and Chizhun. Another 4 former white officers occupied combat and administrative positions in military educational institutions - warrant officers Voychuk I.A. and Ivanov G.I. - battalion commander in the Kamenev school, ensign Drozdovsky E.D. was the head of office work at the Kiev Art School, and Lieutenant Pshenichny F.T. - in the same place as the head of the ammunition supply.

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

For example, in this school in the 1920s, the future army commanders-combined arms soldiers studied. Hero of the Soviet Union, General of the Army G.I. Khetagurov, Colonel General L.M. Sandalov, Heroes of the Soviet Union Lieutenant General A.L. Bondarev, A.D. Ksenofontov, D.P. Onuprienko, Lieutenant General A.N. Ermakov, F.S. Ivanov, G.P. Korotkov, V.D. Kryuchenkon, L.S. Skvirsky, commanders of rifle corps Heroes of the Soviet Union Lieutenant General I.K. Kravtsov, N.F. Lebedenko, P.V. Tertyshny, A.D. Shemenkov and Major General A.V. Lapshov, Lieutenant General I.M. Puzikov, E.V. Ryzhikov, N.L. Soldatov, G.N. Terentiev, Ya.S. Fokanov, F.E. Sheverdin, Major General Z.N. Alekseev, P.D. Artemenko, I.F. Bezugly, P.N. Bibikov, M.Ya. Birman, A.A. Egorov, M.E. Erokhin, I.P. Koryazin, D.P. Monakhov, I.L. Ragulya, A.G. Samokhin, G.G. Sgibnev, A.N. Slyshkin, Colonel A.M. Ostankovich.

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

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

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

Dubinsky I. V. "Special Account" Moscow, Military Publishing House, 1989, pp. 199, 234

V.S. Milbach " Political repression commanding officers. 1937–1938 Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army”, p. 174, with reference to the RGVA. There. F. 9. Op. 29. D. 375. L. 201–202.

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

For example, lieutenant generals and Heroes of the Soviet Union F.A. Volkov and S.S. Martirosyan, Lieutenant General B.I. Arushanyan, major generals I.O. Razmadze, A.A. Volkhin, F.S. Kolchuk.

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

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

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

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

The fundamental political differences between the workers' and peasants' power, which took the helm after October revolution, and representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia lost their importance when the country was threatened by external enemies. When it comes to survival, and the ring of fronts closes around the country, prudence dictates its own rules, and the place of ideological interests is taken by the desire to save the Fatherland, making concessions and compromises with internal opponents.

Civil confrontation significantly weakened the forces of the newly formed Red Army (Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army). It was not possible to strengthen its commanding staff at the expense of young specialists from among the working people, because their training required time, which simply did not exist. The need for the immediate creation of a sufficiently strong regular army, which would be able to repel not only the imperialist interventionists, but also the troops of the White Guards, led the Soviet leadership to consider it appropriate to use the accumulated military and theoretical experience of specialists who, before the events of 1917, were in the service of Royal army.

Justifying the need to use significant cultural heritage capitalism, Lenin turned to the country's governing bodies. He emphasized the need to pay special attention to attracting scientifically educated specialists not only in the military, but also in other areas, regardless of their origin and who and to whom they served before the advent of Soviet power. Setting a goal was certainly easy, but how to achieve it? Most of the former nobles remained either hostile to the Soviet regime, or took a wait-and-see attitude towards it. Confident that the revolution would bring only destruction and the fall of culture, they expected the inevitable death of the Russian intelligentsia. It was difficult for them to comprehend that, in meeting halfway, the Soviet government was striving to transfer to a renewed Russia the most valuable achievements of the capitalist way of life.

The coercive factor would hardly have been able to give positive results then. In addition, it was necessary to work not only on changing the attitude of the intelligentsia towards the new government, but also to influence the negative attitude of the working masses towards the former representatives of the bourgeoisie. Another problem was that some of the leading party workers did not at all share Lenin's opinion about the need to cooperate with the opposite side in terms of worldview, even in conditions of total control over their activities. And of course, such interaction with people who were simply saturated with an ideology so alien to the Bolsheviks quite often turned into sabotage. However, without using the knowledge and experience that the intelligentsia Tsarist Russia received in the best educational institutions in Europe and while working in high positions even before the revolution, it was impossible to raise the country and defeat external enemies.

In the end, many former officers and generals came to the realization that Soviet power is the only force that represents the national interests of Russia and is able to protect the country from external enemies in this period of time. All patriotic professional soldiers, feeling their connection with the people, considered it their duty to support the "Reds" in the struggle for the independence of the Motherland. At the same time, the position of the new government on not encroaching on the political convictions of military specialists was also of great importance, which was even legally fixed at the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets (dated July 10, 1918). Unfortunately, we must not forget about other former nobles and officers who are ready to give our country to the outrage of external enemies. They wanted to get rid of the communists and their pernicious ideas in every possible way, not wanting to understand the consequences of such “devilish” deals.

The first steps towards cooperation good example for other military men who still doubt the correctness of such a decision. The generals who had already gone over to the side of the Bolsheviks called on the rest of the officers of the Tsarist Army to defend the country in the ranks of the Red Army. Remarkable words of their appeal have been preserved, which well show the moral position of these people: “At this important historical moment, we, the elders fighting comrades, we appeal to your feelings of devotion and love to the Motherland, we ask you to forget all insults and voluntarily go to the Red Army. Wherever you are appointed, to serve not for fear, but for conscience, so that, not sparing life, with your honest service to defend our dear Russia, not allowing it to be plundered.

There is no hiding the fact that sometimes not entirely humane methods and means were used to attract specialists from pre-revolutionary Russia. Some historians tend to call the post-revolutionary period "the road to Golgotha" for the Russian intelligentsia, because the repressive methods of forcing them to work for Soviet power were widespread. However, the highest authorities did not welcome such an attitude towards connoisseurs of noble origin, as evidenced by the order of the Presidium of the Cheka adopted on December 17, 1918. This document contains strict instructions to exercise special caution when holding bourgeois-noble specialists accountable for certain actions and to allow their arrest only if there are proven facts of anti-Soviet activity. The country could not afford to mindlessly scatter valuable personnel, difficult times dictated new rules. Also, contrary to numerous allegations about the forced involvement of military experts of Imperial Russia in the Red Army, it is worth noting that the negative transformations that took place in the army even before the revolution significantly changed the mood among the officers. This only contributed to the fact that with the advent of Soviet power, many senior army officials considered it their duty, and not out of fear, to support the Bolsheviks in the battle for the Fatherland.

The result of the measures taken was that out of one hundred and fifty thousand professional soldiers who served in the officer corps of pre-revolutionary Russia, seventy-five thousand people fought in the Red Army against thirty-five thousand old officers in the service of the White Guards. Their contribution to the victory in the Civil War is undeniable, fifty-three percent of the command staff of the Red Army were officers and generals of the Imperial Army.

Since the situation demanded immediate and sure action, already in November 1917 none other than a hereditary nobleman, Lieutenant General of the former Imperial Army M.D. was appointed Chief of Staff and Supreme Commander of the Army. Bonch-Bruevich, nicknamed "Soviet General". It was he who happened to lead the Red Army in February 1918, created from separate units of the Red Guard and the remnants of the former Imperial Army. It was the most difficult period for the Soviet Republic, which lasted from November 1917 to August 1918.

Mikhail Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich was born in Moscow on February 24, 1870. His father was a land surveyor, a native of an old noble family. At the age of twenty-one, Bonch-Bruevich graduated from the Konstantinovsky Land Survey Institute by profession as a geodesist, and a year later the Moscow Infantry Cadet School. Until 1898, he studied at the Academy of the General Staff, where he remained until 1907 to teach tactics. He was a participant in the First World War. His brother, Vladimir Dmitrievich, was a Bolshevik since 1895, he was engaged in the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars. Perhaps that is why, after the October Revolution, Bonch-Bruevich was the first of the generals to take the side of the new government and accept the post of chief of staff. His assistant was the former major general nobleman S.G. Lukirsky. Mikhail Dmitrievich died in 1956 in Moscow.

From the end of 1918, the newly established position of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the country was occupied by His Excellency S.S. Kamenev (but not the Kamenev who was later shot along with Zinoviev). Having led an infantry division after the revolution, this most experienced regular officer quickly advanced through the ranks.

Sergei Sergeevich Kamenev was born into the family of a military engineer from Kyiv. He graduated from the Kyiv Cadet Corps, the Alexander Military School and the St. Petersburg Academy of the General Staff. He was highly respected by the soldiers. During World War I, Kamenev held various staff positions. At the beginning of the revolution, Kamenev read a collection of Lenin and Zinoviev entitled Against the Current, which, in his words, "opened new horizons for him and made a stunning impression." In the winter of 1918, by voluntary consent, he joined the Red Army and led operations to destroy Denikin, Wrangel and Kolchak. Kamenev also helped to suppress resistance in Bukhara, Ferghana, Karelia, in the Tambov province (Antonov's uprising). From 1919 to 1924 he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army. He created a plan for the defeat of Poland, which was never implemented due to opposition from the leadership of the Southwestern Front (represented by Yegorov and Stalin). After the end of the war, he held major positions in the Red Army, was one of the founders of Osoaviakhim, and conducted research in the Arctic. In particular, Kamenev organized assistance to the Chelyuskin, which was iced over, and to the Italian expedition Nobile.

The immediate subordinate of Sergei Sergeevich Kamenev and his first assistant was P.P. Lebedev, who under the Imperial Army was listed in the rank of major general. Replacing Bonch-Bruevich at the indicated post, Lebedev skillfully led the Field Staff throughout the war (from 1919 to 1921), actively participating in the preparation and conduct of major operations.

Pavel Pavlovich Lebedev was born in Cheboksary on April 21, 1872. Coming from a family of impoverished nobles, he received training at public expense. He graduated with honors from the Cadet Corps, the Alexander Military School, the Academy of the General Staff. With the rank of staff captain, Lebedev was assigned to the General Staff, in which, thanks to his extraordinary abilities, he quickly made a brilliant career. Participated in the First World War. He refused to go over to the side of the Whites, and after a personal invitation from V.I. Lenin joined the Bolshevik army. It is considered one of the main developers of operations to destroy the troops of N.N. Yudenich, A.I. Denikina, A.V. Kolchak. Lebedev was distinguished by amazing endurance, worked seven days a week, returning home only at four in the morning. After the end of the Civil War, he remained to work in leading positions in the Red Army. Lebedev was awarded the highest awards of the Soviet Republic. He died on July 2, 1933 in Kharkov.

Another hereditary nobleman A.A. Samoilo was a direct colleague of Lebedev, holding the post of chief of the All-Russian General Staff. Having risen to the rank of major general in the Imperial Army, after the revolutionary transformations in October, Alexander Alexandrovich went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, and for his significant services he was awarded numerous orders and medals, including two Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree.

Alexander Aleksandrovich Samoilo was born on October 23, 1869 in the city of Moscow. His father was a military doctor from the family of the hetmans of the Zaporizhzhya Army. In 1898, Alexander Alexandrovich graduated from the Academy of the General Staff. During the war he served in the General Staff in the operations department. On the side of the "Reds", he took part in negotiations with Germany (in Brest-Litovsk), with Finland (in April 1920), with Turkey (in March 1921). It is the prototype of the protagonist of the novel "I have the honor", written by Valentin Pikul. He died in 1963 at the age of ninety-four.

An outsider may have a false idea that Lenin and Trotsky, when deciding on candidates for senior command posts, certainly sought to appoint representatives of the generals of the Imperial Corps to them. But the truth is that only those who were awarded such high military ranks possessed the necessary skills and abilities. It was they who helped the new government instantly orient themselves in the most difficult situation and defend the freedom of the Fatherland. The harsh conditions of wartime quickly placed people in their well-deserved places, pushing forward real professionals and "pushing" those who only seemed like that, being in fact the usual "revolutionary balabolka".

On the basis of a detailed file of officers of the Russian army compiled for October 1917, as well as further verification of the data obtained with later data, the most relevant information about the number of military officers of the Imperial Army who served on the side of the new government was determined. Statistics show that during the civil war, 746 former lieutenant colonels, 980 colonels, 775 generals served in the army of workers and peasants. And the Red Fleet was generally an aristocratic military unit, since the General Staff of the Russian Navy, after the October events, almost in its entirety went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and selflessly fought on the side of the Soviet government throughout the civil war. The flotilla commanders during the war were former rear admirals of the Imperial Navy and hereditary nobles: V.M. Altfater, E.A. Berens and A.V. Nemitz. They also voluntarily supported the new government.

Vasily Mikhailovich Altfater was born in Warsaw in the family of a general on December 4, 1883 and received an excellent education. He participated in the defense of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War. He showed himself to be a courageous person when rescuing the team of the battleship Petropavlovsk. During the First World War he worked in the Naval Administration. Having gone over to the side of the Bolsheviks in 1917, Vasily Mikhailovich became the first commander of the RKKF. Here is what he wrote in his statement: “Until now, I served only because I considered it necessary to be useful to Russia. I didn't know you and didn't believe you. Even now there is much that I do not understand, but I am convinced that you love Russia more than many of ours. That's why I came to you." V.M. Altvater died from heart attack On April 20, 1919, he was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Separately, one can note white officers and generals who emigrated to China and returned to Russia from China in the 20s and 30s. For example, in 1933, together with his brother, Major General A.T. Sukin, Colonel of the General Staff of the old army Nikolai Timofeevich Sukin left for the USSR, in the white armies lieutenant general, participant in the Siberian Ice Campaign, in the summer of 1920 temporarily served as chief of staff of the commander-in-chief of all armed forces of the Russian Eastern outskirts, in the USSR he worked as a teacher of military disciplines. Some of them even in China began to work for the USSR, such as the colonel of the old army, in the Kolchak army, Major General Tonkikh I.V. Beijing. In 1927, he was an employee of the military attache of the plenipotentiary representation of the USSR in China, on 04/06/1927 he was arrested by the Chinese authorities during a raid on the premises of the embassy in Beijing, and probably after that he returned to the USSR. Also in China, another high-ranking officer of the White Army, also a participant in the Siberian Ice Campaign, Alexei Nikolaevich Shelavin, began to cooperate with the Red Army. It's funny, but this is how Kazanin, who came to Blucher's headquarters in China as an interpreter, describes the meeting with him: “There was a long table laid out for breakfast in the reception room. At the table sat a fit, graying military man and with appetite ate oatmeal from a full plate. In such closeness, eating hot porridge seemed to me a heroic feat. And he, not content with this, took three soft-boiled eggs from the bowl and dropped them onto the porridge. All this he poured with tinned milk and sprinkled thickly with sugar. I was so mesmerized by the enviable appetite of the old military man (I soon learned that it was the tsarist general Shalavin, who had transferred to the Soviet service), that I only saw Blucher when he was already standing right in front of me. Kazanin did not mention in his memoirs that Shelavin was not just a tsarist, but a white general; in general, in the tsarist army he was only a colonel of the General Staff. A participant in the Russian-Japanese and world wars, in the Kolchak army he served as chief of staff of the Omsk military district and the 1st Consolidated Siberian (later 4th Siberian) Corps, participated in the Siberian Ice Campaign, served in the Armed Forces of the Russian Eastern Outskirts and the Amur Provisional government, then emigrated to China. Already in China, he began to cooperate with Soviet military intelligence (under the pseudonym Rudnev), in 1925–1926 he was a military adviser to the Henan group, a teacher at the Whampu military school; 1926-1927 - at the headquarters of the Guangzhou group, helped Blucher evacuate from China and also returned to the USSR in 1927.

You can name many more well-known names of officers and generals of the old army, who selflessly fought on the side of the Red Army and commanded entire fronts, which, in the end, defeated the White Guard hordes. Among them, the former lieutenant general Baron Alexander Alexandrovich von Taube, who became the chief of the General Staff of the Red Army in Siberia, stood out in particular. The brave military leader was captured by Kolchak in the summer of 1918 and died on death row. And a year later, the hereditary nobleman and Major General Vladimir Alexandrovich Olderogge, commanding the entire Eastern Front of the Bolsheviks, completely destroyed the White Guards in the Urals, completely eliminated Kolchakism. At the same time, the Southern Front of the Reds, led by experienced lieutenant generals old army Vladimir Nikolaevich Egoryev and Vladimir Ivanovich Selivachev stopped Denikin's army, holding out until the arrival of reinforcements from the East. And this list can go on and on. Despite the presence of "home-grown" red military leaders, among whom there are many legendary names: Budyonny, Frunze, Chapaev, Kotovsky, Parkhomenko and Shchors, in all the main directions at the decisive moments of the confrontation, those very "hated" representatives of the former bourgeoisie were at the helm. It was their talent in managing armies, multiplied by knowledge and experience, that led the troops to victory.

The laws of Soviet propaganda did not allow for a long time to objectively cover the role of certain sections of the military cadres of the Red Army, belittling their significance and creating a certain halo of silence around their names. Meanwhile, they honestly fulfilled their role in a difficult period for the country, helped win the Civil War and went into the shadows, leaving only military reports and operational documents about themselves. However, they, like thousands of other people, shed their blood for the Fatherland and are worthy of respect and memory.

As an objection to the allegations that Stalin and his associates later deliberately destroyed representatives of the noble intelligentsia with their repressive measures, one can only say that all the war heroes mentioned in the article above, like many other military specialists, lived quietly to old age, with the exception of those who fell in battle. And many representatives of junior officers managed to make a successful military career and even become Marshals of the USSR. Among them are such well-known military leaders as the former second lieutenant L.A. Govorov, staff captains F.I. Tolbukhin and A.M. Vasilevsky, as well as Colonel B.M. Shaposhnikov.

Of course, one should not deny that, in the words of Lenin, “excesses” and ill-considered actions were observed on the ground, there were undeserved arrests and too harsh sentences, but it is completely unreasonable to talk about prepared mass repressions aimed at destroying the noble military corps. It is much more instructive to recall how the rest, the “white” officers, whom it is now fashionable to sympathize with and sing praises, at the first threat fled to French and Turkish cities. Saving their own skins, they gave everything they had to the direct enemies of Russia, who at the same time fought with their compatriots. And these are those who swore allegiance to the Motherland and promised to defend the Fatherland until their last breath. While the Russian people fought for their independence, such "officers", not worthy of such a high rank, sat in Western taverns and brothels, littering with money that they had taken out of the country during their escape. They have long discredited themselves in

Officers of the tsarist army in the Civil War

I was asked about them some time ago. Here is the information. Source: http://admin.liga-net.com/my/analytics/nobles-backbone-rkka.html

For some time now it has become fashionable for us to sympathize with the whites. They are de nobles, people of honor and duty, "the intellectual elite of the nation." Almost half of the country remembers its noble roots.
It has become fashionable on occasion to cry about the innocently murdered and exiled nobles. And, as usual, the Reds, who treated the “elite” in such a way, are blamed for all the troubles of the present time. Behind these conversations, the main thing becomes invisible - the Reds still won that fight, and after all, the “elite” of not only Russia, but also the strongest powers of that time, fought with them.

And why did the current “noble gentlemen” take that the nobles in that great Russian turmoil were necessarily on the side of the whites? Other nobles, like Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, did much more for the proletarian revolution than Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Let's turn to the facts.

75,000 former officers served in the Red Army, while about 35,000 of the 150,000 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. 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 in the most difficult period for the country, from November 1917 to August 1918, and from the scattered units of the former Imperial Army and Red Guard detachments, by February 1918, he would form the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. March to August M.D. Bonch-Bruevich will hold the post of military head of the Supreme Military Council of the Republic, and in 1919 - chief of the Field Headquarters Rev. Military Council of the Republic.

At the end of 1918, the post of Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic was established. We ask you to love and favor - his high nobility, Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic Sergey Sergeevich Kamenev (not to be confused with Kamenev, who was then shot together with Zinoviev). Regular officer, graduated from the Academy of the General Staff in 1907, colonel of the Imperial Army. From the beginning of 1918 to July 1919, Kamenev made a lightning 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. From July 1919 not a single operation of the land and sea forces of the Soviet Republic was complete without his direct participation.

Sergei Sergeevich was greatly assisted by his immediate subordinate, His Excellency Pavel Pavlovich Lebedev, Chief of the Field Staff of the Red Army, 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, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Red Banner of Labor (at that time top honors Republic).

One cannot ignore Lebedev's colleague, the Chief 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 a deputy for Lebedev, then headed the All-Glavshtab.

Isn't it true that an extremely interesting trend can be traced 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, set an indispensable condition for them to be hereditary nobles and regular officers of the Imperial Army with a rank no lower than a colonel. But of course it is not. Just a tough wartime quickly put forward professionals in their field and talented people, also quickly pushing all kinds of "revolutionary balabolok".
That's why personnel policy Bolsheviks is quite natural, they needed to fight and win right now, there was no time to study. However, it is truly surprising that the nobles and officers went to them, and even in such numbers, and served the Soviet government for the most part faithfully.

There are often allegations that the Bolsheviks drove the nobles into the Red Army by force, threatening the families of officers with reprisals. This myth has been stubbornly 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 a sad, but still exception. The majority honestly performed their duty and selflessly fought both with the Entente and with their "brothers" in class. They acted as true patriots of their Motherland should.

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet is generally an aristocratic institution. Here is a list of his commanders during the Civil War: Vasily Mikhailovich Altvater (hereditary nobleman, Rear Admiral Imperial Navy), Evgeny Andreevich Berens (hereditary nobleman, Rear Admiral of the Imperial Navy), Alexander Vasilyevich Nemitz (personal data is exactly the same).

Why are there commanders, the Naval General Staff of the Russian Navy, almost in full force, went over to the side of the Soviet government, 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.

Here is what Altvater wrote in his application for admission to the Red Army: “I have served so far only because I considered it necessary to be useful to Russia where I can, and in the way I can. But I did not know and did not 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 the 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 a Kolchak prison on death row.

And a year later, another "red baron" - Vladimir Alexandrovich 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 liquidated Kolchakism .

At the same time, from July to October 1919, another important front of the Reds - the Southern - was headed by His Excellency, former Lieutenant General of the Imperial Army Vladimir Nikolaevich Egoriev. The troops under the command of Yegoriev stopped Denikin's offensive, inflicted a number of defeats on him and held out until the reserves approached 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, Egoriev'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-autumn of 1919, the Whites planned to victoriously end the Civil War. To this end, they decided to launch a combined strike in all directions. However, by mid-October 1919, the Kolchak front was already hopeless, there was a turning point in favor of the Reds and in the South. At that moment, the Whites made an unexpected blow 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 the surrender of the city. Lenin, despite the well-known panic in the ranks of his comrades, the city decided not to surrender.

And now the 7th Army of the Reds under the command of his high nobility (former colonel of the Imperial Army) Sergei Dmitrievich Kharlamov is advancing towards Yudenich, and the Whites are entering the flank separate group of the same army under the command of His Excellency (Major General of the Imperial Army) Sergei Ivanovich Odintsov. Both are from the most hereditary nobles. The result of those events is known: in mid-October, Yudenich was still examining Red Petrograd through binoculars, and on November 28 he was unpacking his suitcases in Reval (a 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 sector of the struggle against the Anglo-American-French invaders. So who is leading 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 in the famous February battles of 1918 near Narva, so it is largely thanks to him that we celebrate February 23rd. 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 the nobles and generals in the service of the Reds almost everywhere. We will be told: you are exaggerating everything here. The Reds had their own talented military leaders and not from 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 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 nobles, I emphasize - in a vital area! No, I do not want to belittle the merits of Mikhail Vasilyevich. He is a really 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 taken, even the whites did not doubt 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 of 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 Alexandrovich Shchors, Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev, Alexander Yakovlevich Parkhomenko, Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky - commanders. By virtue 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 contra!”

Therefore, a kind of conspiracy of silence arose around our heroes in the Soviet years, and even more so now. They won the Civil War and quietly disappeared into oblivion, leaving behind yellowed operational maps and mean lines of orders.
But “their excellencies” and “high nobility” shed their blood for the 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 rifle division of the former major general Imperial Army A.P. Nikolaev. The same fate befell in 1919 the commander of the 55th Infantry Division, former Major General A.V. Stankevich, in 1920 - commander of the 13th Infantry Division, former Major General A.V. Sobolev. Remarkably, before his 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 dearer than life.

That is, do you think they will tell us that the nobles and the regular officer corps were for the Reds?
Of course, I am far from this idea. Here it is simply necessary to distinguish "nobleman" as a moral concept from "nobility" as a class. The noble class almost entirely ended up in the camp of the whites, it could not be 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, even white help from the nobles was simply scanty. 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 are mainly “bast shoes” from the villages, who, under the threat of execution, were driven into service and who then with whole 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 shock detachment 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 even that Swedish baron. Who is left? The nobleman Kolchak is a descendant of a captive Turk, but Yudenich with a surname very characteristic of a “Russian nobleman” and a non-standard orientation. In the old days, the nobles themselves defined such their brothers in class as poor-born. But “in the absence of fish, cancer is a fish.”

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

So Malinin's howls about the lieutenants Golitsins and the Obolensky cornets are just a fiction. They did not exist in nature... But the fact that the native land is burning under the feet is not just a metaphor. She 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 expect? At most - a commander's ration and a pair of boots (an exceptional luxury in the Red Army, the rank and file were shod in bast shoes). At the same time, the suspicion and distrust of many "comrades", the watchful eye of the commissar is constantly nearby. Compare this with the 5,000 rubles of the annual salary of a major general in the tsarist army, and after all, many excellencies also had family property before the revolution. Therefore, selfish interest for such people is excluded, 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 the nobles, went over to the side of Soviet power by the thousands. Of the 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 Armed Forces Republic. The purpose of this body is to develop recommendations for the command of the Red Army and Soviet government to repel Polish aggression. In addition, the Special Meeting appealed to former officers of the Russian Imperial Army to come out in defense of the Motherland in the ranks of the Red Army.

The wonderful 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 national life, we, your senior comrades-in-arms, 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 hunting to the Red Army to the front or to the rear, wherever the government of Soviet Workers 'and Peasants' Russia appoints you, and serve there not out of fear, but for conscience, so that by your honest service, not sparing your life, to defend in no matter what becomes dear to us Russia and not allow it to be plundered.

The appeal is signed by their Excellencies: General of the Cavalry (Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in May-July 1917) Alexei Alekseevich Brusilov, General of the Infantry (Minister of War of the Russian Empire in 1915-1916) Alexei Andreyevich Polivanov, General of the Infantry Andrei Meandrovich Zaionchkovsky and many other generals of the Russian Army.

In absolute terms, the contribution of Russian officers to the victory of Soviet power is as follows: during the Civil War, 48.5 thousand were drafted into the Red Army. royal officers and generals. In the decisive year of 1919, they accounted for 53% of the entire command staff of the Red Army.

I would like to finish this brief review with examples of human destinies, which in the best possible way refute the myth of the pathological villainy of the Bolsheviks and the total extermination of the noble classes of Russia by them. I will note right away that the Bolsheviks were not stupid, therefore 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, back in the First World War, headed the Main Artillery Directorate of the Russian Imperial Army. After February Revolution was appointed Comrade (Deputy) Minister of War. Since the Minister of War of the Provisional Government, Guchkov, knew nothing about military matters, Manikovsky had to become the actual 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 seen in conspiracies against the Soviet regime. And already in 1918 he headed the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army, then he would work in various staff positions in the Red Army.

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

After October, our faithful allies immediately laid their hands on Russian property abroad, including government accounts. However, Aleksey Alekseevich got his bearings faster than the French and transferred the money to another account, inaccessible to the allies, and besides, 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 to transfer funds from either the Whites or 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 own brother volunteered to be the killer! Ignatiev miraculously survived - a bullet pierced his cap a centimeter from his head.

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

And the last thing I would like to say. Remember how Stalin was accused in his time, imputing to him that he killed all the tsarist officers and former nobles who remained in Russia. So, none of our heroes was subjected to repression, everyone died a natural death (of course, except for those who died 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, Lieutenant L.A. Govorov - became Marshals of the Soviet Union.

History has long put everything in its place, and no matter how many Radzins, Svanidzes and other riffraff who do not know history, but who know how to get money for lying, try to misrepresent it, the fact remains: the white movement has discredited itself. For the most part, these are punishers, marauders and just a petty crook in the service of the Entente ...

Here we are talking only about 185 generals who served in the Headquarters of the Red Army. Most of them were in the service of the Red Army voluntarily, and only six were mobilized.

The lists are taken from the book by A.G. Kavtaradze "Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets 1917-1920". USSR Academy of Sciences, 1988

To the same list of generals of the General Staff Imperial Army, who served in the Headquarters of the Red Army, included officers with the rank of colonel, lieutenant colonel and captain. The entire list (including generals) is 485 people.

In order to evaluate the stunning figure of 185 generals in the service of the Red Army, it is interesting to compare it with the number of generals of the General Staff on the eve of great war. On July 18, 1914, the corps of officers of the General Staff (General Staff) consisted of 425 generals. At the end of the war there were undoubtedly more of them. An indicative figure will still be the ratio of 185 to 425, which is 44%. Forty-four percent of the tsarist generals out of their total number on the eve of the war transferred to the service of the Red Army, i.e. served on the red side; of these, six generals served on mobilization, the rest voluntarily.

It is worth naming these six generals who did not want to voluntarily serve in the Red Army and served against their will, on mobilization, i.e. under duress, which does them credit. All six major generals: Alekseev (Mikhail Pavlovich, 1894), Apukhtin (Alexander Nikolaevich, 1902), Verkhovsky (Alexander Ivanovich, 1911), Solnyshkin (Mikhail Efimovich, 1902) and Engel (Viktor Nikolaevich, 1902). The years in which they graduated from the Academy of the General Staff are given in parentheses. The ranks of colonels, lieutenant colonels and captains also include a very large number of people who served in the Red Army.

The total figure - 485 officers of the tsarist General Staff, as well as the figure of 185 from among the generals on this list who served in the General Staff of the Red Army, is also unexpected.

Of the other career officers of the Imperial Army, 61 people are listed, of which 11 are in the rank of general, in the list under the heading "Military specialists - commanders of the armies." (Probably, this list should be understood in the sense that 61 people occupied high command positions in the Red Army, since 61 armies could not exist with the Reds.)

The list indicating 185 tsarist generals in the service of the Red Army should be understood, apparently, in the sense that most of them in the rank of generals worked in the Soviet headquarters and 11 of them worked at the fronts.

In addition to the officers of the General Staff who made up the Soviet General base, the author gives lists of officers by types of weapons and specialties that were not part of the Soviet General Staff.

Among them were also many officers in the ranks of generals. Without giving their names, we will indicate their number:

Rank in the royal army	generals	colonels	lieutenant colonels
cavalrymen	10	15	15
Combat artillerymen	19	22	11
military engineers	11	10	10
military pilots	-	4	4
Military railroad workers	2	6	-
Armor	1	2	4
Shooting Specialists	2	2	-
border guards	4	6	4
Artillery Engineers	23	9	3
Administrative service	9	16	7
Quartermaster department	5	13	1
Military Education Department	13	12	1
	99	117	50

If we add to the previous figure of officers in the rank of general in the General Staff of the Red Army 185 the figure in the above table 99, the total number of tsarist generals in the Soviet service will be 284 people.

The number 284 is so impressive that it is in doubt. Did the Soviet historian include officers of the tsarist army who did not actually serve on the red side?

The assumption may be the following: the Soviet historian could include in these lists of executed officers of the tsarist army in order to show the reader that the majority of tsarist officers, especially generals, were in the Soviet military service.

This assumption can be verified only by publishing in the foreign press the names listed in the lists of the Soviet historian and asking the descendants of regular officers of the Imperial Army and Guards to check the Soviet source.

From my experience of life in the USSR, which is partly described in my "Memoirs", published in the foreign press, for example, in the newspaper "Russian Life" in San Francisco, I can give several examples of officers who remained on the red side. Among them is my uncle (brother of my mother) Lavrenty Lavrentievich Buman, a black midshipman and midshipman of the fleet, manufactured in 1916. Then Bek-Agamalov, a white midshipman, midshipman of the fleet, and Kedrov, who was in the rank of captain of the 2nd rank of the Soviet fleet.

All three hated Soviet power. All three were teachers at the Tolmachev Military-Political Academy in Petrograd. None of them was a member of the Communist Party of the USSR.

My uncle Buman stayed on the red side due to inertia. He lived in Petrograd in 1917, got married and could not or did not want to run south with his young wife and did not go into politics. He was mobilized by the Reds in 1918 to the Volga Flotilla, then he was a civilian for many years, and then entered the academy mentioned, from which he was soon dismissed for correspondence with foreign countries.

Agamalov and Kedrov continued to serve at the academy, but they stopped meeting my uncle after he was fired. I will also mention Bellevich, a naval officer whom I met in 1935 in Vladivostok, where he commanded the schooner Rabotnitsa in the position of an exile. He later died in the gold mines in Kolyma.

Thus, even from my very narrow circle of acquaintances in Soviet Petrograd, it is clear that the military of the tsarist time remained in the USSR and, apparently, there really were a lot of them.