The result of the uprising of the Czechoslovak corps in 1918. Course of events during the mutiny. Creation of the Czech squad as part of the Russian army

“... Form one or two regiments, or depending on the number of volunteers, a battalion of at least two companies. The use is not militant, but because of political considerations and with an orientation towards a future uprising in the Czech Republic. Do not give a permanent and stable organization, because in the future they will operate in separate parties. Form without machine-gun commands and communications ... " - read the order of the Minister of War of the Russian Empire V.A. Sukhomlinov dated August 8, 1914. It was about the creation of a battalion named after Jan Hus, better known as the "Czech squad" from among the subjects of the Russian crown, Czechs and Slovaks. Sukhomlinov could not have known that, by the evil irony of fate, his words would turn out to be prophetic.

By the beginning of the Great War, about 100 thousand Czechs and about 2 thousand Slovaks lived in the Russian Empire. For the most part, they were of Russian citizenship and had nothing to do with military affairs. However, even on the eve of the war, there was a surge in volunteerism among them. At the end of July 1914 in a number of cities, such as Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Odessa, Kharkov, demonstrations were organized to allow the creation of Czech military units. This initiative was supported by the military leadership, which resulted in an order and the formation of a squad.

Solemn oath and consecration of the banner of the Czech squad. 1914 year

Her soldiers were given Russian uniforms and weapons. A month later, four companies were already formed. On September 28 (October 11), 1914, the ceremonial taking of the oath of the Czech squad took place. All servicemen took an oath of loyalty to the Russian state and observed the Russian military regulations. The Russian government was suspicious of the increase in units of Czechs and Slovaks. Meanwhile, prominent figures of the Czech emigration saw in the created volunteer units the vanguard of the national liberation struggle. Their ideological leader T.G. Masaryk was extremely categorical on this score: "Without an army, we will achieve nothing from either allies or enemies.".

Charismatic leader of the Czech emigration, later President of the Czechoslovak Republic Tomas Masaryk

At the front, the "Czech squad" demonstrated high combat effectiveness. She went through Hell on Sana'a in November 1914, propagandized and encouraged the 3rd and 36th regiments from the 4th Honved and 43rd Landwehr divisions of the Austro-Hungarian army, respectively, to switch over to the Russian side. At the same time, the Czechs by no means replaced the Pan-Slavist idea, which they were driven by, with the Russophile - the same Masaryk did not expect much from tsarist Russia, either morally or militarily.

On February 22 (March 7), 1915, the first congress of representatives of Czech and Slovak societies in Russia was held in Moscow. The main result was the decision to create an independent state. Throughout the following spring, the Czechoslovak soldiers on the front line fought on the Beskyd ridge, as part of the troops of the Southwestern Front. Success continued to accompany the propaganda of the enemy troops: even personnel units went over to the side of Russia. As a result, the Austro-Hungarian General Staff even banned the use of units from the regiment and above, fully staffed by Czechs and Slovaks, on the Russian front.

The most distinguished Czech soldier is Karel Vashatko. He became a kind of record holder for the number of St. George's awards

In the summer, in the midst of the difficult "Great Retreat" of the Russian Imperial Army, the idea arose at Headquarters to replenish the Czechoslovak units not only with volunteers, but also with prisoners of war. Spy mania in society and the military elite prevented this, but the situation at the fronts forced the command to be more accommodating. As a result, by the end of 1915, the number of the "Czech squad" increased to 2090 people, and she herself was deployed in the 1st Czechoslovak named after Jan Hus regiment of two battalions. Both units were divided along the fronts and continued to participate in hostilities. The effectiveness spoke for itself: more than a thousand military awards of officers and lower ranks of the regiment for 14 months at the front.

• On January 27, 1916, by a personal decree of Nicholas II, they were granted the same rights and privileges as Russian servicemen;
• in April 1916, the Czechoslovak Rifle Brigade was created, consisting of two regiments (named after Jan Hus and Jan Zizka);
• October 24, 1916 - the 3rd regiment named after King Jiri Podebrad joined the brigade;
• By the end of 1916 - the number of the brigade reached about 5 thousand people.

Back in the summer of the same year, Masaryk sent a memorandum to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, defending the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a Czechoslovak Legion in Russia. Hiding behind the need "Prevent internecine revolutionary war", he knew for sure - such a military unit would be required to defend national independence. Domestic diplomacy did not show ardent support for this intention. On the other hand, charismatic Czech leaders had no illusions about the strength of the regime. No wonder they welcomed and supported the February Revolution.

Czech soldiers in a trench near Zborov. 1917 year

Driven to the state of the four-regimental rifle division, the brigade participated in the last offensive for the Russian army in the First World War in June 1917 on the Southwestern Front. She acted more successfully than most other units - and occupying three lines of enemy trenches near Zborov, and covering the retreat. Soon, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General from the cavalry A. A. Brusilov, the brigade was assigned two artillery divisions. Prime Minister A.F. Kerensky - allowed the formation of the 2nd Czechoslovak Division, the next Commander-in-Chief, Infantry General L.G. Kornilov, put this idea into practice. Finally, in September 1917, the formation of the Czechoslovak corps began, which went to Poltava and Volyn. Masaryk and the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General N. N. Dukhonin, concluded an agreement on non-intervention of Czech troops in the ups and downs of Russian domestic policy. However, its realities were such that such an armed group would certainly not be able to stand aside.

Kerensky shakes hands with the Czechoslovak legionnaires. 1917 year

Parts of the corps took part in suppressing unrest in the frontal zone. Two days after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, Deputy Commissar of the Southwestern Front Grigoriev called on the command of the 1st Czechoslovak Division to help fight the Bolsheviks in Kiev. There was already a civil war in full swing, as the historian L.G. Priceman writes: "... there were battles with the participation of the troops of the Kiev Military District, on the one hand, the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee, on the other, and the Ukrainian Central Rada, on the third."... In fact, during November 11-13, the Czechs had to fight against and for the Ukrainians acting together with the Bolsheviks!

They were not yet called "White Czechs". But the goals - the formation of an independent Chelo-Slovak state and the creation of a regular army - remained the same. On March 26, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR made it possible for the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps to return home, bypassing Vladivostok. To do this, it was necessary to first hand over weapons in Penza, leaving them in a quantity sufficient to carry out guard duty.

Infantry reconnaissance of the 8th Rifle Regiment of the Czechoslovak Corps. 1918 year

However, on April 5, 1918, two Japanese employees of a commercial enterprise, dressed in Russian uniforms, were killed by bandits in Vladivostok. The Japanese did not fail to take advantage of the excuse to stand up for the Mikado subjects - with the landing of two companies, the Japanese intervention in the Far East began. The head of Soviet Russia V. I. Lenin decided to suspend the movement of the Czechoslovakians. On April 10, their dispatch home was to resume. But for the legionnaires exhausted by all conceivable hardships of war and the path of the legionnaires, such a stop on the way was by no means a trifle.

The indignation grew. In Vladivostok, almost a third of the corps was assembled - about 14 thousand, in the Novosibirsk region - 4 thousand, 8 thousand in Chelyabinsk and the same number in the Penza region. The "Man with the Gun" was accustomed to bloodshed. The madness and mercilessness of the rebellion would hardly have seemed to him more terrible than the everyday war. And, as has happened more than once in history, a single victim could give rise to an uprising, like a fire breaks out from one match.

On May 14, 1918, an echelon with Austro-Hungarian prisoners departed from the station in Chelyabinsk, sent home in accordance with the provisions of the Brest Peace. There were also many soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps. Suddenly, one named Frantisek Dukhachek fell unconscious. It is believed that he was hit on the head by an iron poker that flew out of the departing train. Dukhachek did not die - a hat saved him from a more serious injury. However, this was enough for the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps to lose their temper and went to fix the lynching. As a result, one of the alleged perpetrators of the attack on the Czechs was killed.

The unrest grew, on May 17, 10 Czechoslovakians were arrested, guilty of the above-described mess. Their associates set out to deal with the ongoing "injustice". Even then, there was still an opportunity to prevent an escalation of the conflict. Fuel was added to the fire by an intercepted telegram from the People's Commissar for Military Affairs L.D. Trotsky about the disbandment of the corps and its transformation into a labor army: "... Immediately take urgent measures to delay, disarm and disband all parts of the Czechoslovak corps, as the remnant of the old regular army." .

After the Czechs decided to go to Vladivostok themselves, Trotsky issued a new order: "... By any means to stop the Czechoslovak echelons, and every person caught with weapons in their hands in the area of \u200b\u200bthe highway, immediately shoot".

On May 27, at the Penza III station, all the "white Czechs" were gathered by the chairman of the Council of Provincial Commissars V. V. Kuraev. His speech boiled down to one goal - to convince the soldiers that they would not be sent home, but sent to Africa. The legionnaires refused to surrender their weapons. During negotiations on a direct wire with the Penza Provincial Council of Deputies, Trotsky, again, was not alarmed: “Military orders are not given for discussion, but for execution. I will hand over to the military court all the representatives of the military commissariat, who will cowardly evade the execution of disarming the Czechoslovakians. ".

However, in reality, the Czechs occupied Penza on May 28, and on May 31 they received news of the capture of Chelyabinsk by their comrades-in-arms under the command of S.N. Voitsekhovsky. Its inhabitants recalled: “At night several dozen Czechs with rifles approached the barracks; the guards at the guns, at the barracks, slept serenely - the night was warm. The Czechs woke up the guards: “Shake yourself out, comrades! Your time has passed. " They fled safely, the Czechs entered the barracks. Nobody heard the shots ".

Penza, Syzran, Bezenchuk - cities that the Czechs took without the slightest resistance. And for this reason alone, the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps cannot be compared with the desperate mutiny of the Russian legionaries in the French camp of La Courtine. The Czechs would be just right to sympathize, if not for their main goal - to join forces and establish control over the Transsib, the backbone of the East of Russia. And on June 4, the Entente declared the Czechoslovak corps part of their armed forces.

Soldiers of the 5th regiment of the Czechoslovak corps at the station in Penza. May 1918

At an important point on the way to this, Samara, several anti-Bolshevik organizations were concentrated. They willingly agreed to cooperate with the rebels. Their commander, Lieutenant S. Chechek, acted decisively and skillfully. Weak Red Guard troops were retreating, a significant number of them simply drowned in the Volga. On July 9, the city was taken. The formation of anti-Bolshevik governments began there.

Three days before that, the Penza grouping of troops connected with the Chelyabinsk one: “Today at 19.30 the head echelons of our Samara and Chelyabinsk groups at the station. Minyar. The Reds scattered in all directions. We got rich military booty. "

The next target, Yekaterinburg, was important for the Czechoslovakians as a transport hub. During the attack on it, on July 17, 1918, the royal family was killed. This tragedy badly affected the reputation of the rebels, hitherto perceived by many as liberators from the Bolsheviks. Yekaterinburg was taken on 25 July. However, the rate of advancement of the Czechoslovakians decreased.

The building of the Czechoslovak counterintelligence in Samara. 1918 year

Their forces in Vladivostok were cut off from the rest, and therefore opposed the Bolsheviks much later than others. On the last day of summer, 31 August, the Czechoslovak corps was finally reunited. One of their goals was achieved. Control over the Trans-Siberian Railway was also taken.

Since the fall of 1918, the legionnaires began to withdraw to the rear and less and less participated in hostilities. They controlled the railway, and, in addition, were involved in against the partisan forces of the Reds in the territory from Novonikolaevsk to Irkutsk. Most of the soldiers were engaged in household work: repairing locomotives and tracks. The Czechoslovak corps, in fact, came to what became one of the reasons for its uprising - it became a labor army, however, with the function of punishers.

Czechoslovak troops in Irkutsk. 1918 year

Meanwhile, news came from Europe about Czechoslovakia's independence. The desire to return home prevailed in the ranks of the corps with renewed vigor. In the spring of 1919, the White Guard command was still making plans to return the Czechs to the front. Perhaps the corps would have been reorganized. One way or another, the "Supreme Ruler of Russia" Admiral A. V. Kolchak needed this reserve in view of the collapse of the front in the East of Russia.

However, in the fall of the same year, a memorandum was drawn up, which in many ways sounded like a funeral knell for Kolchak and his regime: “At the moment, the presence of our troops on the highway and its protection becomes impossible simply because of aimlessness, as well as because of the most elementary requirements of justice and humanity. Protecting the railway and maintaining order in the country, our army is forced to preserve the building of complete arbitrariness and lawlessness that reigned here. Under the protection of the Czechoslovak bayonets, the local Russian military authorities allow themselves actions that will horrify the entire civilized world. Burning out villages, beating up peaceful Russian citizens by hundreds ".

The rest is too well known, at least from the pop historical cinema ... Kolchak's car was hitched to one of the Czech echelons, the admiral himself was later issued red. The Czechs also took under armed guard the gold reserves of Russia, and its fate is one of the sensational mysteries of the history of the twentieth century.

Radola Gaida, commander of the Czechoslovak troops, with his guards

Finally, in November 1919, the first steamer with Czechoslovak legionnaires departed from the shores of disgusted Russia. Their return home was completed only a year later, when the main conflagrations of the Civil War in Russia had already flared up.

The Czechoslovak corps was a noticeable phenomenon even against the backdrop of the grandiose events and consequences of the First World War. A product of his time, he significantly accelerated the crystallization of the national identity of the Czechoslovakians. Tired of the war no less than other peoples, they have suffered in a foreign land. They did not have the opportunity to stay away from the series of shocks, and they had the right to strive home. However, the rebellion, which became a military adventure, brought significant calamities to the East of Russia, ruin and shed rivers of blood. This is how the clash at the Chelyabinsk railway station, caused by a poker unsuccessfully thrown from the carriage, turned out that way ...

Uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps (Czechoslovak mutiny) - an armed uprising of the Czechoslovak corps in May-August 1918 during the Civil War in Russia.

The uprising engulfed the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, the Far East and created a favorable situation for the liquidation of the Soviet authorities, the formation of anti-Soviet governments (the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, later - the Provisional All-Russian Government) and the beginning of large-scale armed actions of the White troops against Soviet power. The reason for the start of the uprising was an attempt by the Soviet authorities to disarm the legionnaires.

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✪ Intelligence poll: Yegor Yakovlev on the consequences of the uprising of the Czechoslovak corps

✪ revolt of the Czechoslovak Corps

✪ The uprising of the Czechoslovak corps. Part 1.

✪ Admiral A.V. Kolchak and the Czechoslovak Corps in 1919.

✪ Digital story: Yegor Yakovlev on the escalation of the Civil War

Subtitles

I welcome you categorically! Egor, good afternoon. Kind. What is it about today? Finally, we continue about the Civil War, about its unfolding. We ended up with the revolt of the Czechoslovak corps, and today we will talk about the consequences of this uprising, because they were, indeed, fateful share of the fate of our country, for the fate of the emerging Soviet Republic and for the White movement, too, because without the uprising of the Czechoslovak corps, the White movement would hardly have been able to take shape. The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps completely turned the situation inside the country, and its consequences were the most tragic. I will remind you a little of how this uprising unfolded. I've expressed the point of view that it's not that the culprits of this uprising ... Of course, the Entente instigated, and first of all it was France, and first of all, the French ambassador Noulens was an ardent supporter of the Czechoslovak corps and education, as it was then said, the anti-German front, against the German-Bolshevik forces, as it was called in certain circles of the Entente. Of course, the Entente instigated, and there is a lot of evidence of this, and I talked about all this last time. But there were also those forces within the Entente itself, which, on the contrary, sought to ensure that the Czechoslovak corps would quickly leave Russia and arrive on the French front, on the Western front, to defend France from the impending German offensive. And unfortunately, these forces were not sufficiently used by the Soviet leadership, it was not possible to rely on them and to propagandize the mass of the Czechoslovak soldiers, which, by and large, became a victim of deception, became a victim of propaganda, because the extremist wing of the Czechoslovakians was essentially went to a direct forgery, explaining to their soldiers against whom they would fight in Russia. They explained, of course, that they would fight against the same Germans, because for the Czechoslovakians, the Bolsheviks are some completely alien story absolutely. Your internal showdown, huh? Yes Yes. Czechoslovakia, in general, the Czechoslovak corps, I recall, was formed precisely as a military force that will fight for the independence of Czechoslovakia from Austria-Hungary, i.e. this is their national affair, this is practically a Patriotic war, however, on an incomprehensible foreign territory, but nevertheless, here they are defending the idea of \u200b\u200ban independent Czechoslovakia. It is clear that they must fight against the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans. There are no Austro-Hungarians and Germans here, how to explain who they will fight here? For this, such a semi-mythical threat was used - prisoners of war of the countries of the Quadruple Alliance. It was considered and officially proclaimed in this pro-Antante propaganda, with which the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps were zombified, that there is a huge number of German prisoners of war in Russia. This was partly true - indeed, there were almost 2 million prisoners of war in the countries of the Quadruple Alliance. Whoa! Let me remind you that the most ... most of the prisoners were Russians during the entire First World War, more precisely, citizens of the Russian Empire, subjects of the Russian Empire. The assessments are very different, by the way, this is an interesting topic: the assessment of General Golovin is now accepted - this is an emigre historian, very famous, who estimated the number of prisoners of war in the Russian Empire at 2.4 million people. This assessment is accepted by a significant part of historians, but if we honor Golovin himself, then we learn that it is based in the following way: Golovin, being interested in how this number came about, asked two of his colleagues - an Austrian historian and a German military historian, who checked these data on archives and sent him their results, and he derived 2.4 from them. But no one has ever checked these figures, at least those historians who refer to Golovin, and this, by the way, for example, is the well-known work of General Krivosheev on army losses in the wars of the 20th century, and now he directly refers to Golovin, and Golovin refers to two historians who sent him these results, but no one checked these figures, they were interned there. But this is not so important for our topic, something else is important - that in second place was Austria-Hungary, which was, as we remember, a patchwork empire, in which, as we know, a significant number of nationalities that did not have their own statehood within the dual monarchy , did not want to fight, which, in fact, can be read about in the famous novel by Yaroslav Hasek. And now the Russians are there, if you remember how Schweik went to surrender, and towards the Russians, who are also going to surrender. This is about a typical story, the Austro-Hungarians were not much lagging behind, and so they made up the bulk of these 2 million prisoners of war, and the Germans, in fact, of them were only about 150 thousand ... Not rich, yes. Those. yes, it didn’t work with Germany, i.e. if we take an estimate directly for Germany, then the proportion is strongly not in favor of the Russian Empire. And in general, in scale, these forces, of course, were scattered, unlike the Czechoslovak corps, and they could not represent any kind of military force. Nobody was going to organize this military force, and the Germans did not demand it. But the Entente propaganda presented the matter in such a way that military units are formed from these prisoners of war, which, in fact, will be the occupation corps in Bolshevik Russia and, together with the Bolsheviks, they will fight against the Czechs, in particular, and, in general, carry out German rule in defeated Russia, and that's what you will fight with. For these German units, international units of the army, the Red Guard were issued, which, indeed, were being formed, but I must say that these were numerically insignificant units, i.e., naturally, most of the prisoners dreamed of sitting out until the end of the war in captivity, not was going to fight further for nothing, and only the most convinced, the most ardent, the most believing, captured by this Bolshevik idea, joined the international units of the Red Guard. In Penza, for example, there was the 1st Czechoslovak revolutionary regiment, or it is also called the 1st International Revolutionary Regiment under the leadership of ... under the command of Jaroslav Strombach, also a Czech. There were 1200 people of all nationalities, they were prisoners of war, mainly from Austria-Hungary: there were Czechs, Slovaks, Yugoslavs, Hungarians, of course. Well that is the mass of people who did not want to die for the Austrians or the Hungarians? They didn't want to just fight, yes, and fight, and die for this, in this particular war. They enrolled in the revolutionary regiment because they were close to the international ideas of the Bolsheviks. And the Entente propaganda tried to pass off these extremely few international units as the Kaiser's battalions, which are carrying out occupation rule in Russia - that is why we must fight against them. And in general, this propaganda was successful, but the counter propaganda, the Bolshevik, was not successful, although I will remind you that, for example, Jean Sadoul was in the French military mission - this is a captain who was extremely sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, then he will become a member of the Communist Party France, and I have to say that recently, by some miracle, I watched a very curious episode from the series "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones", where Indiana Jones, as an agent of the French military mission, finds himself in revolutionary Petrograd - here you can feel that some features are visible in it Zhana Sadul. Have you watched this episode? No. Well, quite curiously: he was sent just with the task of preventing the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, he infiltrates the labor movement in Petrograd, but he is introduced so well that he begins to sympathize with young workers who have joined the Bolsheviks, and it is there that the action unfolds during the July performances in 1917 when his friends are killed. Quite a tragic story, but this biography of Jean Sadul is clearly traced in the interpretation of the adventures of Indiana Jones here. But let's get back, in fact, to the events associated with the uprising of the Czechoslovak Legion. It was not possible to rely on Zhan Sadul, and I will remind you that there was an extremely harsh telegram from Trotsky, which called for the disarming of the Czechoslovakians by force, and those who do not obey to be shot and imprisoned in concentration camps. But this telegram was sent to all Soviets along the route, in fact, along the Trans-Siberian Railway, and almost all Soviets were extremely perplexed by this telegram, since the Soviets simply did not have the Red Guard forces to carry out this task. It is necessary to explain - many do not know what the Soviets are? Soviets of Deputies - Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. This is not a dirty word. Yes. And as an example of how these Soviets were put in a difficult position, we can cite the Penza Council, because, having received Trotsky's telegram, he immediately gathered for a meeting and began to discuss what, in principle, could be done. And first of all, they contacted the military commissar of Simbirsk and requested reinforcements, saying that there are now more than 2 thousand Czechoslovakians with machine guns in Penza, and today they just left for the front, just at that time there were still battles with Ataman Dutov in Orenburg , they sent 800 people to the front, and they have little strength, the Center demands to complete the task today or tomorrow, a conflict is inevitable, so we ask for help - what can you give? From Simbirsk they replied that they could not give much - they also sent companies to the Dutov front, there is an opportunity to send, however, 90 people from the International. When the Council realizes that, firstly, they have few people, and secondly, they are not particularly trained, they directly inform Trotsky that they have come to the conclusion that they cannot fulfill the prescription: “... at a distance of 100 versts there is about 12 000 troops with machine guns. Ahead of us are echelons with 60 rifles for 100 people. The arrest of the officers will inevitably trigger a protest against which we cannot resist. " What Lev Davidovich answers - he answers the following: “Comrade, military orders are given not for discussion, but for execution. I will hand over to the military court all the representatives of the military commissariat who will cowardly evade the execution of disarming the Czechoslovakians. We have taken measures to move the armored trains. It is your responsibility to act decisively and immediately. I can't add anything else. " In general, do whatever you want. Well, on the one hand, you can’t argue - Lev Davydovich is right, on the other hand, I don’t know, it only occurs to me, since they were traveling in trains, only to derail the trains. But then it is not clear ... They were standing. They no longer went, they stood there. Well, in general, again, the Soviet party bodies consulted, realized that it was just, well, well, impossible, and therefore, in principle, they made the right decision - they went to engage in propaganda, to negotiate. But the forces of the Penza Soviet were not enough, in order to propagandize the Cossacks, other forces were needed here - representatives of the military mission of the Entente were needed, that is, from my point of view, of course, this is such, perhaps, it seems arrogant teaching, we know better how to proceed, etc., but it seems to me that it was rational to take by the scruff the members of the Entente military mission, who said in words that this was an incident, this was an accident, we will explain, etc., take the members of the Czech National Council loyal to the Soviet power and lead them directly, lead them and force them to disarm under their cover. Well, the Penza Soviet did not succeed, the legionnaires did not disarm, and as a result a battle took place, as a result of which the legionnaires captured Penza, and since this Czechoslovak revolutionary regiment was just there, the battle and subsequent events took place with extreme ferocity, because here the features of the Czechoslovak civil war have already appeared - they fought against their own people, they perceived each other as traitors, enemies, and since the White Czechs won, they, naturally, perpetrated a literal sadistic reprisal against the Red Czechs, which is still remembered in Penza. And in general, I must say that from the capture of the very first cities, it appears that the Czechs are on a foreign land, because, for example, the whites took ... the Yaroslavl uprising won for a short time - there was no terrible pogrom there. Yes, there were ... some were killed, Soviet party workers were arrested, they were put on a barge there, they were kept under arrest, but there was no such large-scale robbery. And the Czechs, having taken Penza, immediately behave like the Landsknechts, who were given the city for plunder - so they immediately rampant robbery, murder, rape, i.e. absolutely such a horde came. Occupant, yes. Yes, the occupying horde has come, while, of course, the classic story begins with the settling of scores, they show the Czechs the unwanted, the unwanted deal with those whom they were shown without understanding, a communist, a Bolshevik - it doesn't matter. Well, in short, a terrible thing has begun. And I must say that in Penza, by the way, they did not stay, they were very afraid that they would be kicked out of there, and, simply destroying the local Council, plundering the city, the Czechs went to Samara, which they would soon take. Samara is a very important moment, the capture of Samara, we managed to take it very easily, as Lieutenant Chechik, who commanded this Volga group of Czechs, said, “they took Samara like a rake of hay”. There was no strength, i.e. The Red Army could not just yet ... could not just organize a competent defense. It was Samara that became the capital of an alternative government to the Bolsheviks - it was the government, the so-called. Komuch, i.e. Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly. The Czechs brought the members of the Constituent Assembly in a wagon train. I must say that these were mainly Right SRs, with the exception of the Menshevik Ivan Maisky, who would later become a Bolshevik, Russian Ambassador to London and Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who left very interesting diaries. The Right SRs, who constituted the majority, they knew that the Czechs were going to revolt, and expected intervention, and this once again testifies to the fact that they had extensive connections with the leadership of the SR party, in particular, in the French military mission. This indicates that the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps was inspired by the Entente. They waited, and as soon as the Czechs revolted, immediately 5 members of the Constituent Assembly from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party arrived at the location of the Czechoslovak troops, they were brought in a car to the building of the Samara City Duma and put there as a government, and they themselves later admitted that they no one supported, no one took it seriously, and they were such wedding generals who were planted here - and now they ... rule. How did the Entente countries perceive the events that took place? Well, first of all, here - I will remind you, I spoke about this last time - a big role was played by the statement of a member of the French military mission Guinet, who, having arrived at the disposal of the Czechoslovak troops, said that the Entente countries welcomed the appearance and creation of an anti-German front. Sadul demanded to disavow this statement, but the statement was not disavowed, and this testified to the fact that the Entente had already made its final choice, i.e. it is betting on the overthrow of the Soviet regime and on the Czechoslovak ... on the actions of the Czechoslovakians. Let me remind you that the Czechoslovakians were not on their own, but they were officially considered part of the French army and obeyed, respectively, the French commander-in-chief, so the French began to look at them as their own troops, which should act in the interests of the French Republic. Likewise, we meet with full approval from the British. Lloyd George wrote to the head of the Czech National Council Masaryk: “I am sending you my heartfelt congratulations on the impressive successes your troops have achieved in the fight against German and Austrian troops in Siberia. The fate and triumph of this small army constitutes one of the most outstanding epics in history. " So that's it. Well, Masaryk immediately starts hinting to all of his, I don’t know, colleagues, I don’t know, to major political figures that all this is not just that, keep your promises. In particular, Masaryk wrote to the US State Department: “I believe that the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council has become practically necessary. I am, I would say, the master of Siberia and half of Russia. " Here. Not bad. Masaryk demands recognition, yes, with an eye to the fact that this entire Czech National Council, after the end of the war, will move to Prague already as the government of independent Czechoslovakia - like, we did what you wanted, let's now pay with the recognition of Czechoslovakia. True, there were also selfish interests, which are immediately recorded in the sources, because ... there were generally 3 reasons why the intervention began: the first reason is, of course, of course, an attempt to return Russia to the war, i.e. allies all this nonsense that England deliberately overthrew the tsar, because the war had already been won - this is complete nonsense, because in the spring of 1918 the situation develops in such a way that Germany may well win the war, everything hangs in the balance. If, for example, Germany would have taken Paris in 1918, then the American troops would have arrived for a nodding analysis, and in any case it would have been possible to conclude quite a decent draw at the end of the First World War, therefore ... But the situation for the British at this moment is very, very heavy, and even worse for the French. The second reason was that, yes, indeed, there was a fear of the Soviet government, because the Soviet government clearly took a course towards the elimination of private property, and the Western countries, for which private property is sacred and inviolable, were naturally afraid of this. Well, there was a third reason, of course, the third reason was obvious - Russia weakened, it could have been robbed, and all these countries, which had long coveted a variety of Russian riches, they naturally wanted to take advantage of this. And these 3 reasons very often went like 3 in 1, i.e. without singling out any one, the same figures tried to achieve the first, and the second, and the third. And it is interesting in this connection that, for example, how is it being discussed in the United States at this moment whether to participate in the intervention or not to participate. Here is the presidential adviser Bullitt writes to Colonel House, this is Wilson's special envoy: “In favor of the intervention are Russian idealist liberals, personally interested investors who would like to leave the American economy from the Western Hemisphere. The only people in Russia who profit from this adventure will be landowners, bankers and merchants - they will go to Russia to protect their interests. " Those. clearly this third motive sounds, and not only in Bullitt. It is also interesting that the Czechoslovakians are thought of as some kind of force that can restrain imperialist opponents, for the Americans it is Japan, and the American ambassador to China, for example, writes to the president about the Czechs: “They can take control of Siberia. If they were not in Siberia, they would have to be sent there from the farthest. The Czechs must block the Bolsheviks and push the Japanese out as part of the allied interventionist forces in Russia. " And the Americans are Japanese ... Oh, twisted, listen! Those. Everyone has big plans for the Czechs, but what the Czechs are doing - the Czechs take city after city, rob and shoot. "Rob, booze, rest," huh? Yes Yes Yes. And they killed a lot of people? A lot of. On May 26, Chelyabinsk was already captured, all members of the local Council were shot, Penza on May 29, Omsk on June 7, Samara on June 8 - and so city after city along the entire route. Do you know, yes, that a monument was erected to them in Samara? I am aware, yes, and I will come to this now - this is extremely regrettable news, but this is not only Samara, this is generally a whole program of the Czech Ministry of Defense, which, in agreement with the Russian Ministry of Defense, erects monuments along the entire route. Well, what did the Czechoslovakians do along the way? We have evidence of this: well, for example, “in the first days of the occupation of Simbirsk, arrests were carried out right on the street on the basis of denunciations, it was enough for someone from the crowd to point at someone, how suspicious a person was, how a person was seized. The executions were carried out right there without any hesitation in the street, and the corpses of the executed were lying around for several days. Eyewitness Medovich about the events in Kazan: “It was a truly unrestrained revelry of the victors - mass executions of not only responsible Soviet workers, but also everyone who was suspected of recognizing Soviet power. The executions were carried out without trial, and the corpses were lying around for days on the street. " But the most interesting thing is that the Czechoslovaks were cursed not only by the Soviet workers, not only by the Communists, the Bolsheviks - later the White Guards also cursed the Czechoslovakians, because the Czechs betrayed them too, they were engaged only in ... there it is - at first, it seems like they were citizens of Austria-Hungary and betrayed Austria-Hungary, then they betrayed the Reds, then they betrayed the Whites, and as a result, they left with the looted property. Well done! And now one of Kolchak's associates, General Sakharov, even wrote a whole book in exile in Berlin, "Czech Legions in Siberia: Czechoslovak Treachery." This book, well, as I understand it, monuments to the Czechs are erected by fans of the White movement, so this book should first of all be read to them, because on behalf of the military general of the White movement, it is written with such pain about all Czech arts, I’m here I would like to tell and read a little about it. Well, first of all, Sakharov, with great humor and painfully at the same time, describes the behavior of the Czechs, because, of course, no one among the Czechs wanted to die for the White Idea, i.e. clearly ... The idealists of the White movement thought as: agents of imperial Germany seized power, we raised the banner of struggle here, liberated occupied Russia, and our allies help us (well, it's something like we have a Normandie-Niemen regiment), we together with our allies are driving out the invaders. But these white idealists were very soon awaited by severe disappointment, because no ... allies of the Entente countries were only in quotation marks, because they indulged in unrestrained plunder and clearly realized their interventionist goals, not caring at all about the White movement, and this was a terrible disappointment for the whites. And this is what Sakharov writes: during one of the battles they asked for reinforcements, and a Czech armored car was sent to them: “The two-day battle cost us great losses, and had only local success. The Czech armored car did not support us, keeping all the time to cover the railway cut and not even leaving after our homemade armored car, which went on the attack and damaged the Bolshevik armored car. The Czechs did not fire a single shot. After the battle, the Czechs announced their resignation, but before that, the commander of the Czech armored train asked for a certificate of the participation of the Czech armored car in the battle. Lieutenant Colonel Smolin, not knowing what to write to the Czechs, suggested that the Czech commander draw up a text of the certificate, hoping for his modesty. I sat down at the typewriter, and the Czech, dictating to me, entered into the text of the certificate a phrase that I remember to this day: "... the people of the Czech armored train fought like lions ..." Lieutenant Colonel Smolin, having read the finished certificate, looked long into the eyes Czech commander. The Czech did not even look down. Lieutenant Colonel Smolin sighed deeply, signed a piece of paper and, without giving the Czech his hand, went to the railroad track. A few minutes later, the Czech armored train was gone forever. During the whole time of the offensive struggle at the front, I had no contact with the Czechs, only from the distant rear a ditty, popular at that time, flew to the front: “Russians are fighting each other, Czechs sell sugar ...”. In the rear, behind the back of the Siberian army, there was an orgy of speculation, insubordination, and sometimes outright robbery. Officers and soldiers arriving at the front talked about the capture by the Czechs of echelons with uniforms on their way to the front, about the use of stocks of weapons and firearms in their favor, about their occupation of the best apartments in cities, and on the railways of the best cars and steam locomotives. They didn't restrain themselves with anything, did they? Yes. Well, what is Sakharov's conclusion, this is a white general, what he writes about the allies: “They betrayed the Russian White Army and its leader, they fraternized with the Bolsheviks, they, like a cowardly herd, fled to the east, they committed violence and murder over the unarmed, they they stole hundreds of millions of private and state property and took it out of Siberia with them to their homeland. Not even centuries will pass, but tens of years, and mankind, in search of a fair balance, will clash more than once in a struggle, more than once, perhaps, will change the map of Europe; the bones of all these Blessings and Paul will rot in the ground; Russian values \u200b\u200bbrought by them from Siberia will also disappear - in their place humanity will obtain and make new, different ones. But betrayal, a Cain cause, on the one hand, and the pure suffering of the Cross in Russia, on the other, will not pass, will not be forgotten and will be passed on from offspring to posterity for a long time, for centuries. And Blagoshi and Co. firmly reinforced the label on this: This is what the Czechoslovak corps did in Siberia! And how should Russia ask the Czech and Slovak peoples how they treated the traitorous Jews and what do they intend to do to rectify the atrocities inflicted on Russia? " Well, now General Sakharov has received an answer to his question - they have erected monuments to them along the entire route of the echelons of the Czechoslovak corps. Here are the monuments that should have been made of this plaque, if only by reason. Shameless, eh! I absolutely agree, absolutely! Those. the Czechoslovak corps was noted here by robbery, murder, violence. Monuments to erect them - I don't know ... they went crazy in general, just. Well, there is already someone there, I saw the photographs, someone already painted it with a spray can, writing over the monument with red paint: "They killed the Russians." What do people who erect such monuments think? What do they think and what do they want in the end? What are the unfinished Reds writing on these monuments, right? Has your power come now? Well, what did your government say about it? Well, maybe it's some kind of wrong white? What's in your heads? In addition to the fact that the Czechs robbed, killed, raped, they, of course, in principle, gave impetus to a full-scale civil war in Russia, and one can absolutely agree with Ivan Maisky, who, I recall, is a member of Komuch, and later he will become a very important Soviet diplomat. academician. And so he gives an absolutely exact, in my opinion, definition of what happened: “Do not interfere with Czechoslovakia in our struggle, the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly would not have arisen, and Admiral Kolchak would not have come to power on the shoulders of the latter. For the forces of the Russian counter-revolution itself were absolutely insignificant. And if Kolchak had not been strengthened, neither Denikin, nor Yudenich, nor Miller could have deployed their operations so widely. The civil war would never have assumed such fierce forms and such grandiose proportions as they were marked; perhaps even there would not have been a civil war in the true sense of the word ”. This is an absolutely accurate definition, in my opinion. But a few words about Komuch: naturally, the formation of an alternative to the Bolshevik government attracted all the anti-Bolshevik forces, well, first of all, of course, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, they all began to gather in Samara, and soon Viktor Chernov, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was there. The policy was peculiar - they immediately announced that now was not the time for socialist experiments, and already on July 9, the denationalization of enterprises and a timid policy of compensation for losses to former owners began, and a very incomprehensible policy with the land. This, by the way, seriously worried the peasants, because the Bolshevik slogan "Land for the peasants!" no one canceled, everyone was worried about the question of whether the landowners would return, who, in fact ... would declare their rights to their former land. But so far Komuch has announced that the main task is to eliminate the power of the Bolsheviks. To eliminate the power of the Bolsheviks, an army is needed, and so far everything rests on Czech bayonets, and as, by the way, the French consul in Samara wrote quite rightly to the French ambassador Noulens, “there is no doubt for anyone that without our Czechs the Constituent Assembly Committee would not have existed and one week. " They felt very insecure, and the Socialist-Revolutionary Brushvit wrote: "There was support only from the peasants, a small handful of intelligentsia, officers and bureaucrats, everyone else stood aside." This is what I was talking about - nobody wants war. Yes, and there was such support from the peasants, because the Socialist-Revolutionaries were known in this environment, and it is impossible to say that they have some kind of super support there. Well, first of all, Komuch creates an army, he calls it the People's Army, forms a volunteer Samara squad, but one cannot say that there was a huge number of people willing. The only thing that could be noticed in this was that Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel was arriving in Samara from the General Staff - this is a very large person for the White movement, well, Kappel is also a veteran of the First World War, after he was demobilized in the fall of 1917, he lived In Perm. By convictions, Kappel is an extreme monarchist, a talented man as a military man, and naturally, he ... well, the Bolsheviks are not his power, he does not want to have anything to do with them, and as soon as an alternative arises, he immediately rushes to Samara. True, Komuch is also not his power, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, too, for him are practically the same as the Bolsheviks, and subsequently that is why he will support Admiral Kolchak, who, so to speak, is a classical military dictatorship, but at the moment, since all forces are on suppressing the Bolsheviks, Kappel arrives, since there are no others who want to lead this squad, he ... they appoint him. And this was the right decision on the part of Komuch, because such a talented military man at the head of the forces, indeed, for some time changes the course of hostilities in favor of the anti-Bolshevik movement, in favor of the whites. Subsequently, Kappel will take Kazan, and this will be a very strong blow to the positions of the Reds, because in Kazan: a) part of the gold reserve will be captured, some of which will then be taken away by the Czechs, and the second important point is that the Military Academy of the General Staff was evacuated to Kazan in in full force, and in full force she went over to the side of White. But this is not all that is interesting in this situation, because the Bolsheviks - this is probably a unique case in world history - will completely rebuild this Military Academy, using, again, the personnel of the old tsarist army. And as a result of all these events, a united anti-Bolshevik front begins to form, i.e. the Bolsheviks find themselves in a very difficult situation. And here we move on to such an important topic as the relationship of the Bolsheviks with the peasantry, because in addition to the White movement, which consists of officers, intelligentsia and the middle strata of the city, gradually begins into the White movement ... well, I would not say that the peasantry supports the White movement , but, let's say, the peasants are beginning to act in favor of the White movement, their spontaneous peasant uprisings are an important moment. The fact is that, having come to power, the Bolsheviks faced the same problem that the tsarist government and the Provisional Government were unsuccessfully solving - it was the problem of buying grain from the peasants. Let me remind you that by the end of 1916 a food crisis arose, it was associated with the fact that the state established fixed food prices for the purchase of grain in the countryside. Prices were low, peasants did not want to sell anything at low prices. The invisible hand of the market immediately started working, right? Yes, the invisible hand of the market immediately started working, and in this regard, on December 2, 1916, the Minister of Food Rittich introduced the surplus appropriation. This surplus was voluntary, i.e. the peasants had to hand over their surplus to the local authorities themselves. As a result, nothing was handed over, nothing was obtained, and the food crisis intensified. The provisional government, realizing that the case smells like kerosene, introduced the so-called. a grain monopoly, but, again ... all surpluses must be handed over to the state, but the Provisional Government had no strength to withdraw these surpluses, and naturally, no one carried them on a silver platter. Moreover, what was the problem: the fact is that the trade turnover between the city and the countryside was disrupted, the peasants could not buy much - not nails ... the peasants could not buy any goods in the range from nails to tea, so instead of money they held grain , they believed that we do not really need money now, let it be better to keep the grain with us. Well, the Bolsheviks, having come to power, the Soviets, or rather, having come to power, inherited this whole problem, but they did not just inherit this problem - it was seriously aggravated, why - because according to the Brest Peace, Russia lost Ukraine, i.e. essentially a granary, and the grain became less and less, in general, the country was on the verge of starvation. Hunger is primarily in the cities, of course, because grain from the countryside does not flow to the city. What to do? Well, naturally, well-to-do peasants, kulaks, as before, as they did not want to give grain to the state, they do not want to. Well, at the same time, one must understand that it was these people who set the tone for public opinion in the villages, and whoever wanted to sell bread would have burned down the hut. Yes, and they even have the opportunity to either advance to some local councils themselves, or to promote proteges there, and such a village conflict begins. Well, and the city needs to be fed somehow? And in this sense, the Bolsheviks begin to act quite energetically and tough - they introduce a policy of effective surplus appropriation, sending food detachments to the villages. But so that the food detachments are not perceived in the village, as some sent Cossack women came and pulled everything out, separate commissaries are created in the villages. Committees of the poor. Yes, the committees of the poor, i.e. the class policy in the countryside begins to be implemented. To keep the fist from concealing grain from the state, it needs constant supervision. The food detachment came and went, who will look after him - his own, the poor. The poor have a direct goal of keeping an eye on the fist. And now committees of the poor are being created in the village, which, in fact, should provide support to the food detachments and show that this one has hidden grain, here this one here ... Well, who does not understand, it is quite obvious - what if this under arable land of 10 hectares, then on average this will grow from it, and then they will come and ask the question: where are ours, there, I don’t know, 1000 poods? And he says: I only have 20. 20 will not work, I have to give everything. And these people, accordingly, will show. This is the same field for settling scores, grievances and all that. Well, colossal, of course, all this is happening, the result - peasant uprisings break out, and the village begins to polarize, i.e. the poor are drawn to the Bolsheviks, the Red Army, the kulaks are drawn to any anti-Bolsheviks in general and to the White Army, but who is the middle peasant for? That for whom the middle peasant will be, he will win, that and the sneaker. A struggle for the middle peasant begins: agitation, violence, but in any case, since the summer of 1918, we have recorded more than a hundred peasant uprisings, large and small, throughout the country, because the peasantry cannot like this policy, because it provokes ... reveals an internal conflict. Well, in general, here, it seems to me, it makes no difference, you are a fist, not a fist - from the point of view of me, as a peasant: I grew it with my sweat, with my blood, and for as much as I want, for as much and I will sell it - and then they will come and take it away just. Yes. Peasant psychology, in general, sharply rejected all this. And after all these ... well, practically in parallel with all these events, the Soviet government makes another decision, which, so to speak, sharply, so to speak, the peasants, firstly, polarizes, and secondly, it does not generally enjoy popularity: since the enemy does not sleep, gathers forces, you need to create an army. Let me remind you that the Red Army already exists, but it is voluntary, whoever wants it goes. Something on a voluntary basis, not very many people enter there for obvious reasons - the 4th year the war has been going on, everyone is tired, they want a peaceful life, etc., well, not popular, the war, in principle, is not popular. But since the enemies are mobilized, the Bolsheviks are forced to declare mobilization, or rather, the forced recruitment of workers into the Red Army, this happens by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on May 29, 1918. Mobilization begins on June 12, 5 ages of workers and peasants who do not exploit other people's labor in 51 districts of the Volga, Ural and West Siberian military districts, located in the immediate vicinity of the theater of operations. And the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets in July has already consolidated the transition from the volunteer principle of the formation of the Red Army to the creation of a regular army of workers and working peasants on the basis of conscription. The peasants do not want to join the army, they are disrupting the mobilization - well, they seem to have fought for 4 years, just returned, here the land ... and again demand to fight, it is not clear against whom, why. There is a well-known song: "In the Red Army, there will be bayonets, tea, the Bolsheviks will manage without you." Yes, this is Demyan Bedny. Everything, if he doesn’t want to, mobilization fails, and now we have such a document as the report of a member of the Supreme Military Inspectorate Nikolayev, who tells the Council of People's Commissars: “Mobilization has no chance of success, enthusiasm, faith, no desire to fight.” All this is happening against the background of, well, not that the failure of this food policy, but this food policy, it is clear that even on paper, in the plans it looked normal: here food detachments, they come, here they are met by the committees of the poor, they show where the grain is at the kulaks, the kulak has nowhere to go, he gives away the grain - and everything is fine. When all this begins to be put into practice, this inevitably leads to some colossal excesses: in the same Penza province, an uprising begins, because there was such a woman commissar of the food detachment Yevgeny Bosch, who, after all, was apparently not particularly balanced. lady, she personally shot one peasant who refused to hand over the grain - it caused ... led to an uprising, well, there is a war, in fact, such a peasant war. We have data on how these attempts to take away grain took place in different places: well, for example, in some places food detachments are simply dispersed by peasants. On the other hand, in some places food detachments consisting of workers behave in national villages, completely ignoring local national customs and traditions: for example, “one of the national traditions of the Udmurt peasants was the laying of grain stacks in honor of the birth of their daughter. Such ricks, called maidens, were set up every year before the wedding, as a dowry for the daughter. Therefore, every owner who had daughters had supplies of bread untouched before their wedding. The food detachments who did not know this, thrashing the girls' hacks, dishonored, according to the notions of the peasants, their homes. Such tactlessness created favorable conditions for nationalist agitation and armed actions against food detachments. " But, nevertheless, the author notes that in the Vyatka province there was a very effective commissar of the food detachment, Schlichter, who applied the system of contracts with the peasant Soviets and paid for part of the grain in goods, i.e. he managed to fulfill the grain procurement plan. But nevertheless, let's just note for ourselves that this policy caused a sharp discontent among the peasantry, and the peasants swung at that moment to the whites. And in principle, these problems with the peasants will remain until the end of the Civil War, all subsequent events, all subsequent these famous peasant uprisings will be caused by the same reasons. But, in principle, the same problem that faced the Bolsheviks, it stood ... became inevitable in general for any power that was organized in the space of the former Russian Empire, and this power had to do the same - the cities need to be fed. Therefore, in any power, for example, the Germans come to power, Ukraine has been occupied - the food detachments must be seized, the grain must be seized, and also sent to Germany and Austria-Hungary, Kolchak comes - the same thing. Therefore, in principle, this problem was the same for all authorities. And we see the same in relation to mobilization, because when Komuch strengthened himself, the first thing he announced was mobilization. "Against your will, you will go or willingly, Vanya-Vanya, you will be lost for nothing." On June 8, on the day of the capture of Samara, Komuch, announcing the creation of the People's Army, emphasizing the non-class nature, announces mobilization - the same thing, no one wants to fight. One of the organizers of the army, Shmelev, writes that former officers, student youth, the intelligentsia poured into the ranks of the volunteer units, but the people do not want to go to it, the peasants of 5 of the 7 districts of the Samara province did not support volunteering for the Komuch army, only the most the rich counties of the province provided volunteers. But they also sent tens of thousands of poor and low-powered middle peasants to the Red Army, and the right SR Klimushin was forced to admit in September 1918 that "despite the general jubilation, real support was negligible - not hundreds, but only dozens of citizens came to us." Well, as a result, almost compulsory mobilization begins, parts of the formed people's army go to the villages, trying to find people there, but they do not succeed. And in those places where Komuch's army is already passing through, there already begins, on the contrary, sympathy for the Bolsheviks. Here is how Shmelev writes - that the population, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the people's army, often, almost from the first days, was bitterly disappointed in their expectations. In the Menzelinsky district, inhabited by Tatars, a wave of peasant uprisings against Soviet power took place during the Czechoslovak offensive. But it was enough to "walk" around the county for several days, Colonel Shch. And his fellows, as the mood completely changed in the opposite direction. When the Menzelinsky district was again occupied by Soviet troops, almost all the male population of the district, capable of carrying weapons, without waiting for forced mobilization, joined the ranks of the Soviet troops. Strong! A very characteristic confession. So, let us note that the peasantry as a whole is rather passive and does not want to fight at the moment. But nevertheless, the confrontation is determined, the fronts are determined, and at this moment - the middle of 1918 - the prospects for the victory of the whites begin to emerge, why - because, firstly, they enjoy the support of the Entente countries, and secondly, alternative authorities are created, around which you can build armies, etc., all forces unite, flock, and thirdly, the Bolsheviks are losing their social base, they are losing the social base of the peasants, and they are losing their allies - the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who blame the wrong policy of the Bolsheviks for everything that happens ... Let me remind you that in tandem, in this alliance, in the coalition of the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs, the Bolsheviks are still the leaders, and the Left SRs are the followers, but the Left SRs do not like it very much, and the Left SRs, first of all, extremely disapprove of Brestsky peace, they believe that everything that is happening is all because they signed the obscene Peace of Brest. Now, if the Brest-Litovsk Peace had not been signed, we would have continued the revolutionary war, in Germany there would have already been, in general, there would have already been a world revolution, we would have already been, in general, on horseback. And now we have only strengthened the German army, from here we are forced, after the occupation of Ukraine we are forced to start putting pressure on the peasant, which means peasant uprisings - the Bolsheviks are to blame for all this, they made the whole mess. Therefore, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries are already thinking about a mutiny with the aim of a coup and coming to power by this time. This is one problem of the Bolsheviks, in addition to this, the so-called. in historiography, it is known as the conspiracy of ambassadors, because the Entente, while outwardly maintaining a diplomatic politeness in relation to the power of the Bolsheviks, although not recognizing it, is clearly aiming at overthrowing the Council of People's Commissars and restoring some kind of provisional government capable, first of all, to renew the war against Germany, and secondly, accountable to the forces of the Entente, controlled. And thirdly, officers' performances are being prepared in parallel, which are secretly conducted by Boris Savinkov, the Socialist Revolutionary, probably the most energetic person in the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who, having received a mandate to organize underground officer organizations from the commander of the Volunteer Army Alekseev, really created them, not just spoke and he really created. And all this surrounds the Bolsheviks in a ring, i.e. everywhere around them knots are tightening, and it seems that it is impossible to cope with it, because there are such enormous problems, such a rush on them, that it is not clear how to cope with this, but nevertheless they coped. This is how it happened, we'll talk next time. Into the plot! Thank you, Egor. And that's all for today. Until next time.

Background

The Czechoslovak corps was formed as part of the Russian army in the fall of 1917, mainly from Czechs and Slovaks prisoners who expressed a desire to participate in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The first national Czech unit (Czech squad) was created from Czech volunteers who lived in Russia, at the very beginning of the war, in the fall of 1914. As part of the 3rd Army of General Radko-Dmitriev, she participated in the Battle of Galicia and subsequently performed mainly intelligence and propaganda functions. Since March 1915, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, allowed to accept Czechs and Slovaks from among prisoners and defectors into the ranks of the squad. As a result, by the end of 1915, it was deployed to the Jan Hus First Czechoslovak Rifle Regiment (with a staff of about 2,100 people). It was in this formation that the future leaders of the rebellion began to serve, and later - prominent political and military leaders of the Czechoslovak Republic - Lieutenant Yan Syrovy, Lieutenant Stanislav Chechek, Captain Radola Gaida and others. By the end of 1916, the regiment turned into a brigade ( Československá střelecká brigáda) as part of three regiments, numbering approx. 3.5 thousand officers and lower ranks, under the command of Colonel V.P. Troyanov.

Meanwhile, in February 1916, the Czechoslovak National Council ( Československá národní rada). Its leaders (Tomas Masaryk, Josef Dürich, Milan Stefanik, Edvard Beneš) promoted the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating an independent Czechoslovak state and made vigorous efforts to obtain the consent of the Entente countries to form an independent volunteer Czechoslovak army.

1917 year

The representative of the CSNS, the future first president of independent Czechoslovakia, Professor Tomas Masaryk spent a whole year in Russia, from May 1917 to April 1918. As a prominent figure of the White movement, Lieutenant General Sakharov writes in his book, Masaryk first contacted all the "leaders" of the February revolution, after what " entered entirely at the disposal of the French military mission in Russia". Masaryk himself in the 1920s called the Czechoslovak corps “ an autonomous army, but at the same time an integral part of the French army", because the " we were financially dependent on France and the Entente". For the leaders of the Czech national movement, the main goal of continuing to participate in the war with Germany was the creation of a state independent from Austria-Hungary. In the same 1917, by a joint decision of the French government and the CSNS, the Czechoslovak Legion was formed in France. ČSNS was recognized as the only supreme body of all Czechoslovak military formations - this put the Czechoslovak legionnaires (and now they were called that way) in Russia, depending on the decisions of the Entente.

Meanwhile, the Czechoslovak National Council (CSNS), seeking to transform the Russian-created Czechoslovak corps into a "foreign allied army on Russian territory," petitioned the French government and President Poincare to recognize all Czechoslovak military formations as part of the French army. Since December 1917, on the basis of a decree of the French government of December 19 on the organization of an autonomous Czechoslovak army in France, the Czechoslovak corps in Russia was formally subordinate to the French command and received an instruction to send it to France.

1918 year

Nevertheless, the Czechoslovakians could get to France only through the territory of Russia, where at that time Soviet power was established everywhere. In order not to spoil relations with the Soviet government of Russia, the Czechoslovak National Council categorically refrained from any action against it, and therefore refused to help the Central Rada against the Soviet troops advancing on it.

In the course of the unfolding offensive of Soviet troops on Kiev, they came into contact with units of the 2nd Czechoslovak division, which was in formation near Kiev, and Masaryk concluded an agreement on neutrality with Commander-in-Chief M.A.Muravyov. On January 26 (February 8), Soviet troops captured Kiev and established Soviet power there. On February 16, Muravyov told Masaryk that the government of Soviet Russia had no objection to the departure of the Czechoslovakians to France.

With the consent of Masaryk, Bolshevik agitation was allowed in the Czechoslovak units. A small part of the Czechoslovakians (a little more than 200 people), under the influence of revolutionary ideas, left the corps and later joined the international brigades of the Red Army. Masaryk himself, according to him, refused to accept offers of cooperation that came to him from Generals Alekseev and Kornilov (General Alekseev at the beginning of February 1918 appealed to the head of the French mission in Kiev with a request to agree to send to the Yekaterinoslav-Aleksandrov-Sinelnikovo region, if not the entire Czechoslovak corps, then at least one division with artillery to create the conditions necessary for the protection of the Don and the formation of the Volunteer Army. PN Milyukov addressed Masaryk directly with the same request). At the same time, Masaryk, in the words of KN Sakharov, “became firmly connected with the Russian left camp; besides Muravyov, he strengthened his relations with a number of revolutionary leaders of the semi-Bolshevik type. " Russian officers were gradually removed from command posts, the CSNS in Russia was replenished with "leftist, ultra-socialist prisoners of war."

At the beginning of 1918, the 1st Czechoslovak Division was stationed near Zhitomir. On January 27 (February 9), a delegation of the Central Rada of the UPR in Brest-Litovsk signed a peace treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary, enlisting their military assistance in the fight against Soviet troops. After the introduction of German-Austrian troops into the territory of Ukraine, which began on February 18, the 1st Czechoslovak division was urgently redeployed from near Zhitomir to the Left-Bank Ukraine, where from March 7 to March 14 in the Bakhmach area the Czechoslovakians had to act together with Soviet troops, holding back the onslaught of the German divisions to ensure the evacuation.

All efforts of the CSNS were aimed at organizing the evacuation of the corps from Russia to France. The shortest route was by sea - through Arkhangelsk and Murmansk - but it was abandoned out of fears of the Czechs that the corps might be intercepted by the Germans if they went on the offensive. It was decided to send the legionnaires along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok and further across the Pacific Ocean to Europe.

The former tsarist army had already ceased to exist by the summer of 1918, while the Red Army and white armies had just begun to form and, often, did not differ in combat effectiveness. The Czechoslovak Legion turns out to be almost the only combat-ready force in Russia; its number grows to 50 thousand people. Because of this, the attitude of the Bolsheviks to the Czechoslovakians was wary. On the other hand, despite the consent expressed by the Czech leaders to the partial disarmament of the trains, among the legionnaires themselves this was received with great discontent and became a reason for hostile distrust of the Bolsheviks.

In the meantime, the Soviet government became aware of the secret negotiations of the Allies on Japanese intervention in Siberia and the Far East. On March 28, hoping to prevent this, Leon Trotsky agreed to Lockhart for an all-Union landing in Vladivostok. However, on April 4, Japanese Admiral Kato, without warning from the Allies, landed a small detachment of marines in Vladivostok "to protect the lives and property of Japanese citizens." The Soviet government, suspecting the Entente of a double game, demanded to start new negotiations on changing the direction of the evacuation of the Czechoslovakians from Vladivostok to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.

The German General Staff, for its part, also feared the imminent appearance of a 40,000th corps on the Western Front, at a time when France was already running out of its last manpower reserves and so-called colonial troops were hastily sent to the front. Under pressure from the German Ambassador to Russia, Count Mirbach, on April 21, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin sent a telegram to the Krasnoyarsk Council to suspend the further movement of Czechoslovak echelons to the east:

Fearing a Japanese offensive in Siberia, Germany resolutely demands that an emergency evacuation of German prisoners from Eastern Siberia to Western or European Russia be started. Please use all means. Czechoslovak units must not move east.
Chicherin

The legionnaires took this order as an intention of the Soviet government to hand them over to Germany and Austria-Hungary as former prisoners of war. In an atmosphere of mutual mistrust and suspicion, incidents were inevitable. One of them occurred on May 14 at the Chelyabinsk station. A Czech soldier was wounded by a cast-iron leg from a stove thrown out of a train carrying Hungarian prisoners of war. In response, the Czechoslovakians stopped the train and lynched the culprit. In the wake of this incident, the Soviet authorities of Chelyabinsk arrested several legionnaires the next day. However, their comrades freed the arrested by force, disarmed the local Red Guard detachment and destroyed the arsenal of weapons, capturing 2,800 rifles and an artillery battery.

The course of events during the uprising

In such an atmosphere of extreme excitement, a congress of Czechoslovak military delegates gathered in Chelyabinsk (May 16-20), at which, in order to coordinate the actions of disparate groupings of the corps, the Provisional Executive Committee of the Congress of the Czechoslovak troops was formed from three echelon commanders (Lieutenant Chechek, Captain Gaida, Colonel Voitsekhovsky) under chaired by ČSNS member Pavel. The congress decisively took the position of a break with the Bolsheviks and decided to stop the surrender of weapons (by this time the weapons had not yet been surrendered by three rearguard regiments in the Penza region) and to move "in their own order" to Vladivostok.

On May 21, Max and Cermak, representatives of the ChSNS, were arrested in Moscow, and an order was given to completely disarm and disband the Czechoslovak echelons. On May 23, the head of the operational department of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs Aralov telegraphed to Penza: “... I propose to immediately take urgent measures to delay, disarm and disband all echelons and units of the Czechoslovak corps as a remnant of the old regular army. From the personnel of the corps, form the Red Army and workers' artels ... "The representatives of the CSNS arrested in Moscow accepted Trotsky's demands and gave the order on behalf of Masaryk that the Czechoslovakians surrender all weapons, declaring the incident in Chelyabinsk a mistake and demanding an immediate cessation of all kinds of actions that hinder the implementation of the" national cause ". The legionnaires, however, were already subordinate to their own "Provisional Executive Committee", elected by the congress. This emergency body sent an order to all the echelons and units of the corps: "Do not give up weapons anywhere to the Soviets, do not cause clashes themselves, but in case of an attack to defend themselves, continue the eastward advance in their own order."

On May 25, a telegram from the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs Trotsky "to all Sovdeps along the line from Penza to Omsk" followed, which left no doubt about the decisive intentions of the Soviet authorities:

... All councils on the railroad are obliged, on pain of heavy responsibility, to disarm the Czechoslovakians. Every Czechoslovakian found armed on the railroad lines must be shot on the spot; each echelon, in which there is at least one armed, must be unloaded from the cars and confined to a prisoner of war camp. Local military commissariats undertake to immediately carry out this order, any delay will be tantamount to treason and will bring down severe punishment on the guilty. At the same time, I am sending reliable forces to the rear of the Czechoslovak echelons, which are instructed to teach the disobedient a lesson. With honest Czechoslovakians who will surrender their weapons and submit to Soviet power, act as with brothers and provide them with all kinds of support. All railway workers are told that not a single carriage with Czechoslovakians should move east ...
People's Commissar for Military Affairs L. Trotsky.

Quoted from the book. Parfyonov "The Civil War in Siberia". P. 25-26.

On May 25-27, at several points where the Czechoslovak echelons were located (Maryanovka station, Irkutsk, Zlatoust), there were clashes with the Red Guards, who were trying to disarm the legionaries.

On May 27, a unit of Colonel Voitsekhovsky took Chelyabinsk. The Czechoslovakians, having defeated the forces of the Red Guard thrown against them, also occupied the cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway, Petropavlovsk and Kurgan, overthrowing the power of the Bolsheviks in them and opening their way to Omsk. Other units entered Novonikolaevsk, Mariinsk, Nizhneudinsk and Kansk (May 29). At the beginning of June 1918, the Czechoslovakians entered Tomsk.

On June 4-5, 1918, not far from Samara, the legionnaires defeated Soviet units and made a way for themselves to cross the Volga. On June 4, the Entente declared the Czechoslovak Corps part of its armed forces and announced that it would view its disarmament as an unfriendly act towards the Allies. The situation was aggravated by the pressure from Germany, which did not stop demanding that the Soviet government disarm the Czechoslovakians. In Samara, captured by the legionaries, on June 8, the first anti-Bolshevik government was organized - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), and on June 23 in Omsk - the Provisional Siberian Government. This marked the beginning of the formation of other anti-Bolshevik governments throughout Russia.

In early July, as the commander of the 1st Czechoslovak division, Chechek gave an order in which he emphasized the following:

Our detachment is defined as the predecessor of the allied forces, and the instructions received from the headquarters have the sole purpose of building an anti-German front in Russia in alliance with the whole Russian people and our allies.

Wars do not provide an opportunity to choose who to fight for - belonging to one or another state makes you go to the front and shed blood for the interests of the ruler, sometimes the most diverse and ridiculous. With the First World War, it turned out almost the same: completely different interests were pursued by Germany and Austria-Hungary, starting a conflict (the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand can hardly be called a weighty reason for war). And the soldiers sent to the front line to die were not asked if they wanted to, if they were ready. The history of the Czechoslovak corps is a vivid example of this.

Corps history

Austria-Hungary in the 19th century became a multinational state: its possessions stretched for many kilometers, touching the territories of modern Italy, Serbia, Austria, Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia.

If we look at the world map of that time, we will see that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the largest and most densely populated states. Even the French Empire of Napoleon and the Ottoman state could not boast of such vast possessions. On this basis, the army of Austria-Hungary was also multinational - it included representatives of all the conquered lands.

Participation in the First World War (and in any other) is not always death. Many were lucky in the sense that they were captured by the enemy. Making a deal with your conscience, accepting a new citizenship and fighting for another country, or defending the interests of your homeland and perishing for this is a voluntary choice of every soldier.

However, it should be noted that representatives of the conquered lands dreamed of overthrowing the Austro-Hungarian emperor and liberating their native land. Czechoslovakia just belonged to such minorities. In the war on the side of Austria-Hungary, soldiers-riflemen took part, who were captured by the Russian military. Since they were professionals in their field, it was decided (of course, with full consent and voluntary participation) to create on their basis a special legion, which was named the Czechoslovak Corps.

Why was it called that? Everything is very simple. The name was determined by its ethnic composition - the corps consisted mostly of captive Czechs and Slovaks, who wanted to liberate their homelands and oppose the hated emperor. Note that the first military units were formed from Czechs who lived in Russia at the beginning of the war. And only then the captured soldiers were added to them.

Of course, they all counted on certain rewards for serving a foreign king, the most important of which was the independence of their territories, the recognition of autonomy. More than 60 thousand people stood under the flags of the Russian Empire to gain the independence of Czechoslovakia. However, fate decreed otherwise.

Flaring up the conflict

In 1918, when it became clear that the war was nearing its logical conclusion, the foreign soldiers felt it was time to pay the bills. In addition, Austria-Hungary lost, the lands that were once part of it were gaining independence. There was little left to do - recognition of Russia and assistance in this matter.

But not everything was so simple. In Paris, the Czechoslovak National Council (CNS) was created, which pursued its own goals: it wanted to create a full-fledged Allied army from the corps on the territory of Russia, under the rule of France.

President Poincare met halfway and issued an appropriate decree, according to which the arrows were to arrive in Paris. However, for this it was necessary to drive almost through the entire west of Russia. By that time, the power of the Soviets was established, and the Czechoslovak National Council did not want to quarrel with its neighbors. In addition, the former imperial army ceased to exist, instead it appeared, which was not distinguished by professionalism in battles. In fact, the corps was the only hope of the rulers of Soviet Russia in the beginning of the Civil War.

Another problem was the order for partial disarmament. The CNS agreed with this proposal, but the soldiers themselves were reluctant to give up their weapons.

At the same time, it turned out that the Allies were negotiating with Japan on intervention in the Far East. The order was given to send the Czechoslovak corps located there, as well as all German prisoners closer to Moscow. He relied on the document of the German ambassador to Russia. The legionnaires considered that they were also going to be extradited to Germany and Austria-Hungary as prisoners of war. Thus, a conflict arose, which grew into a full-fledged rebellion.

A lot of legionnaires were in Ukraine, part of which, as a result of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, came under the rule of the Kaiser of Germany. Since in Austria-Hungary and Germany, Czechs and Slovaks were considered traitors to their homeland, they were in real danger of being shot on the spot without trial or investigation. Therefore, the corps hastened to leave the troubled region and go to the Far East. The target was getting closer and closer. Do not forget that formally the Czechoslovak corps was subordinate to the French government, which planned to use it in military conflicts. As soon as Berlin learned that the corps was advancing to the Pacific Ocean to leave Russia, he immediately sent a request to Moscow demanding that this be prevented at any cost. Soviet Russia, not wanting a new conflict with Germany, was forced to submit.

The beginning of the battle

In May 1918, the Bolsheviks tried to stop the corps near Chelyabinsk and disarm it. The Czechs responded with a decisive refusal. A battle began, marking the beginning of a bloody war between the two sides. Since the corps was professional, they easily managed to capture cities in Siberia. They carried out their own policies in the occupied territories, even published a newspaper on the train. Which, by the way, was very well fortified both inside and outside. In Kazan, the soldiers managed to discover gold deposits, which they packed and took with them.

When the Civil War broke out, the Czechoslovak Corps sided with the White movement. Given their professionalism, there was no doubt about the victory of the white.

The Bolsheviks were afraid of such a strong army. When rumors spread that the corps would pass through Yekaterinburg, an urgent order was given to shoot the entire royal family. The allies, who were concerned about the growing power of the Bolsheviks, did not stand aside either. Under the pretext of concern for the Czechs and Slovaks, the British and Americans began to intervene in Russia, hoping that their participation in the conflict would overthrow the Bolshevik regime and return the country to the war against Germany.

In August 1918, the first Allied military units, consisting of Canadians, Italians, French, British and Americans, landed on the shores of Vladivostok. The corps continued to move towards - the Czechs and Slovaks wanted to participate in the battles on the Western Front. Some wanted to move to France. Closer to autumn, information appeared that the war was over. The former territories of Austria-Hungary gained independence, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia, having united into a single state. But the government ordered its corps to stay in Russia, which was dangerous, because a full-fledged Civil War began.

By 1920, the white movement began to lose and in the end was forced to flee or die at the hands of the Red Army. And then the corps put forward the terms of the deal: they give gold to the Bolsheviks, and in return they release them to their homeland. To seal the deal and show their loyalty to the new government, the Czechs arrested and handed over several white allies. The ships were waiting in the wings - someone sailed across the Indian Ocean, someone through the Panama Canal. But gradually all Czechs and Slovaks ended up in their homeland.

There is an opinion that the corps did not transfer all the gold to the Bolsheviks. They took some of them with them, after which Legiobanka appeared in Prague. Whether this is so or not, we leave it to the readers to judge. However, three years of traveling in Russia and defending their interests were remembered for a long time by the former military citizen of Austria-Hungary.

CZECHOSLOVAC HOUSING AND KOMUCH

There was a consolidation of anti-Bolshevik forces in the east of the country. An important role in their activation was played by the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918.

This corps was formed in Russia during World War II from prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian army to participate in the war against Germany. In 1918, the corps located on Russian territory was preparing to be sent to Western Europe via the Far East. In May 1918, the Entente prepared an anti-Bolshevik uprising of the corps, whose echelons stretched along the railroad from Penza to Vladivostok. The uprising activated the anti-Bolshevik forces everywhere, encouraging them to fight, and creating local governments.

One of them was the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) in Samara, created by the Social Revolutionaries. He declared himself a temporary revolutionary power, which was supposed, according to the plan of its creators, covering all of Russia, to become a part of the Constituent Assembly, designed to become a legitimate power. The chairman of the Komuch Socialist-Revolutionary V.K. Volsky proclaimed the goal of preparing conditions for real unity of Russia with a socialist Constituent Assembly at its head. This idea of \u200b\u200bVolsky was not supported by part of the elite of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. The right SRs also ignored Komuch and went to Omsk to prepare there for the creation of an all-Russian government in coalition with the Cadets instead of the Samara Komuch. In general, anti-Bolshevik forces were hostile to the idea of \u200b\u200ba Constituent Assembly. Komuch, on the other hand, demonstrated a commitment to democracy without having a specific socio-economic program. According to its member V.M. Zenzinov, the Committee tried to follow a program that was equally distant both from the socialist experiments of Soviet power and from the restoration of the past. But equidistance did not work out. The property nationalized by the Bolsheviks was returned to the old owners. In the territory controlled by Komuch, in July all banks were denationalized, and industrial enterprises were denationalized. Komuch created his own armed forces - the People's Army. It was based on the Czechs, who recognized his power.

The political leaders of the Czechoslovakians began to seek unification from Komuch with other anti-Bolshevik governments, but its members, considering themselves the only heirs of the legitimate authority of the Constituent Assembly, resisted for some time. At the same time, the confrontation between Komuch and the coalition Provisional Government formed in Omsk from representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cadets grew. It came to the point of declaring a customs war on Komuch. Ultimately, the members of Komuch, in order to strengthen the front of the anti-Bolshevik forces, capitulated, agreeing to the creation of a unified government. An act on the formation of the Provisional All-Russian Government - Directory was signed, signed by Komuch by its chairman Volsky.

In early October, Komuch, without the support of the population, adopted a decree on its liquidation. Soon the capital of Komuch, Samara, was occupied by the Red Army.

Encyclopedia "Krugosvet"

http://krugosvet.ru/enc/istoriya/GRAZHDANSKAYA_VONA_V_ROSSII.html?page\u003d0,1#part-4

ORDER OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSIONER FOR MILITARY AFFAIRS ON THE DISARMAMENT OF CZECHOSLOVAK

All Soviets, on pain of responsibility, must immediately disarm the Czechoslovakians. Every Czechoslovakian who is found armed on the railway line must be shot on the spot; each echelon, in which there is at least one armed man, must be unloaded from the cars and locked up in a prisoner of war camp. Local military commissars undertake to immediately carry out this order, any delay will be tantamount to dishonest treason and will bring severe punishment on the guilty. At the same time, reliable forces were sent to the rear of the Czechoslovakians, who were instructed to teach the disobedient a lesson. With honest Czechoslovakians who will surrender their weapons and submit to Soviet power, act as brothers and provide them with all kinds of support. All railroad workers should be informed that not a single armed carriage of the Czechoslovakians should move east. Whoever succumbs to violence and assists the Czechoslovakians with their advancement to the east will be severely punished.

Read this order to all Czechoslovak echelons and inform all railway workers at the location of the Czechs. Every military commissar must report on the execution. No. 377.

People's Commissar for Military Affairs L. Trotsky.

Quoted from the book: Parfenov P.S. Civil war in Siberia. M., 1924.

NOTE OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSIONER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS CHICHERIN ABOUT CZECHOSLOVAK

The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs handed over to the Chief of the British Mission, the French Consul General, the American Consul General and the Italian Consul General the following note:

“The disarmament of the Czechoslovakians can in no case be regarded as an act of unfriendliness towards the powers of the Accord. It is caused primarily by the fact that Russia, as a neutral state, cannot tolerate armed detachments on its territory that do not belong to the army of the Soviet Republic.

The immediate reason for the use of decisive and strict measures to disarm the Czechoslovakians was their own actions. The Czechoslovak rebellion began in Chelyabinsk on May 26, where the Czechoslovakians, having seized the city, stole weapons, arrested and removed the local authorities, and in response to the demand to stop the atrocities and disarm, they met military units with fire. The further development of the rebellion led to the occupation of Penza, Samara, Novo-Nikolaevsk, Omsk, and other cities by the Czechoslovakians. Czechoslovakians everywhere acted in alliance with the White Guards and the counter-revolutionary Russian officers. In some places there are French officers among them.

Institutions abolished by the Workers 'and Peasants' Soviet Republic are being restored at all points of the counterrevolutionary Czechoslovak mutiny. The Soviet government took the most decisive measures to suppress the Czechoslovak rebellion with an armed hand and to unconditionally disarm them. No other outcome is permissible for the Soviet Government.

The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs expresses confidence that, after all the above, the representatives of the four Accord powers will not regard the disarmament of the Czechoslovak troops under their patronage as an act of unfriendliness, but, on the contrary, recognize the necessity and expediency of the measures taken by the Soviet Government against the rebels.

In addition, the People's Commissariat expresses the hope that the representatives of the four powers of the Accord will not hesitate to express their condemnation of the Czechoslovak troops for their counter-revolutionary armed rebellion, which is the most frank and decisive intervention in the internal affairs of Russia.

People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin.

OVERCOMING OF SOVIET POWER IN SIBERIA

From Novonikolaevsk - Mariinsk. In all cities, villages - citizens of Siberia. The hour has come to save the homeland! Provisional government Sibirsk. The regional Duma overthrew the Bolshevik power and took control into its own hands. Most of Siberia is occupied, citizens are joining the ranks of the people's army. The Red Guards are disarming. The Bolshevik government was arrested. In Novonikolaevsk, the coup ended in 40 minutes. Power in the city was taken by the representatives of the Provisional Siberian Government, who suggested that the city and zemstvo councils begin work.

There were no casualties. The coup was greeted with sympathy. The coup was carried out by a local detachment of the Siberian Government with the assistance of Czechoslovak units. Our tasks are to defend the homeland and save the revolution through the All-Siberian Constituent Assembly. Citizens! overthrow the power of the rapists immediately. Restore the work of zemstvo and city self-governments, dispersed by the Bolsheviks. Provide assistance to government troops and help Czechoslovak troops.

Representatives of the Provisional Siberian Government.

Mariinsky Public Security Committee.

Telegram of the representatives of the Siberian Government about the overthrow of Soviet power

DENIKIN'S OPINION

As for Mr. Massarik and Max, they, completely devoted to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe national revival of their people and their struggle against Germanism, in the confused conditions of Russian reality, failed to find the right path and, being under the influence of Russian revolutionary democracy, shared its vacillations, delusions and suspicion.

Life took cruel revenge for these mistakes. It soon forced both national forces, which so stubbornly avoided interfering "in internal Russian affairs", to take part in our internecine strife, placing them in a stalemate between the German army and Bolshevism.

Already in February, during the German offensive on Ukraine, the Czechoslovaks, amid the general shameful flight of Russian troops, will conduct fierce battles against the Germans and their former allies - the Ukrainians on the side of the Bolsheviks. Then they will move to the endless Siberian route, fulfilling the fantastic plan of the French command - the transfer of a 50-thousandth corps to the Western European theater, separated from the eastern one by nine thousand miles of railroad and oceans. In the spring they will go up in arms against their recent allies, the Bolsheviks, who are betraying them to the Germans. In the summer, the allied policy will turn them back to form a front on the Volga. And for a long time they will participate actively in the Russian tragedy, evoking an intermittent feeling of anger and gratitude among the Russian people ...

A.I. Denikin. Essays on Russian Troubles

YAROSLAV HASHEK AND CZECHOSLOVATSKY CORPUS

During the Civil War in 1918, Hasek was on the side of the Reds and was in Samara, participated in its defense against the White Army and the suppression of the anarchist rebellion.

And it all started with the fact that the future writer did not want to take part in the First World War. He tried his best to avoid serving in the army, but in the end, in 1915, he was enrolled in the Austrian army and was brought to the front in a prison carriage. However, Hasek soon voluntarily surrendered to Russian captivity.

He ended up in the Darnitsky prisoner of war camp near Kiev, then he was redirected to Totsky near Buzuluk. Inspired by the ideas of communism, at the beginning of 1918 he joined the RCP (b) and stood under the banner of the Bolsheviks, in the Civil War flaring up in Russia.

At the end of March 1918, the Czechoslovak section of the RCP (b) in Moscow sent Yaroslav Hasek to Samara at the head of a group of comrades to form an international detachment of the Red Army and explanatory work among the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps.

Arriving in Samara, Hasek launched agitation among the soldiers of the corps and other Czechs and Slovaks who were in POW camps or worked in factories. Members of Hasek's group, meeting echelons with legionnaires at the station, explained to them the policy of Soviet power, exposed the counter-revolutionary plans of the corps commanders, called on the soldiers not to leave for France, but to help the Russian proletariat in the struggle against the bourgeoisie.

To work on attracting soldiers to the Red Army, the "Czech military department for the formation of Czech-Slovak detachments under the Red Army" was created. It was located on the second floor of the San Remo hotel (now Kuibysheva st., 98). There was also a section of the RCP (b) and Yaroslav Hasek's apartment.

During April and May, a detachment of 120 fighters from Czechs and Slovaks was formed. Jaroslav Hasek became its political commissar. It was assumed that within the next two months the detachment would increase to a battalion, and possibly a regiment. But this did not succeed: at the end of May, a revolt of the Czechoslovak corps began. In the days when the White Czechs attacked Samara, Yaroslav Hasek were on the outskirts of the Samara railway station.

Early in the morning on June 8, 1918, under the onslaught of the superior forces of the White Czechs, detachments of the defenders of Samara, including a detachment of Czechoslovak internationalists, were forced to leave the city. At the very last moment, Gashey went to the San Remo hotel to take or destroy the lists of volunteers and other documents of the military department and the RSC (b) section, so that they would not fall into the hands of enemies. He managed to destroy the materials, but it was no longer possible to return to the station to the detachment - the station was occupied by the White Czechs, and the detachment surrounded it by rail.

With great difficulty and risk, Hasek got out of the city. For about two months he was hiding with the peasants in the villages, then he managed to cross the front. Hasek's activity as an agitator for the Red Army in the Czech environment was short-lived, but did not go unnoticed. In July, that is, just three months after arriving in Samara, in Omsk, a field court of the Czechoslovak Legion issued a warrant for the arrest of Hasek as a traitor to the Czech people. For several months he was forced to hide from patrols, hiding behind a certificate that he was “the half-witted son of a German colonist from Turkestan”.

Samara ethnographer Alexander Zavalny gives the following story about this stage in the writer's life: “Once, when he was hiding with his friends in one of the Samara dachas, a Czech patrol appeared. The officer decided to interrogate the unknown, to which Hasek, playing an idiot, told how he saved a Czech officer at the Batraki station: “I sit and think. Suddenly an officer. Exactly like you, so delicate and puny. He purrs a German song and seems to be dancing like an old maid on an Easter holiday. Thanks to the tested sense of smell, I immediately see - the officer is at gunpoint. I look, heading straight for the restroom, from which I just left. I sat down not far. I sit for ten, twenty, thirty minutes. The officer does not come out ... "Then Hasek depicted how he went into the toilet and, pushing the rotten boards apart, pulled a drunk loser out of the outhouse:" By the way, you do not know what award I will be awarded for saving the life of a Czech officer? "

Only by September Hasek crossed the front line, and in Simbirsk again joined the units of the Red Army. Together with the soldiers of the 5th Army, he marched from the banks of the Volga to the Irtysh. At the end of 1920, Yaroslav Hasek returned to his homeland, where he died on January 3, 1923, still very young, not having reached the age of 40 for about 4 months.

The word "monument" in Russian has a very specific meaning - a sign, a symbol that helps to remember things that are important for the people.

It is no coincidence that the Bolsheviks and today's neo-Nazi nationalists of Ukraine are actively fighting precisely with the monuments. With different - yes. But the general meaning is exactly this - to change MEMORY. Change history and in this way remake the future.

Therefore, the setting up of monuments must be approached very carefully.

Resource correspondents On the eve.RU asked me to comment on the following news. In the city of Miass, they want to erect a monument to the White Czechs - Czech legionaries.

Let me remind you what this is about.

1. During the First World War, there were many Slavs in the army of Austria-Hungary. No Czech Republic, no Slovakia, no Croatia, etc. was not on the map. There was Austria-Hungary. Many of the Slavic soldiers of the Habsburg empire gladly surrendered to the Russian army. There were cases of transfer of entire regiments.


2. It was decided to form two divisions from the captured Czechs and Slovaks and other Slavs. And they were formed.


3. The Czechoslovak Corps was an integral part of the Russian army. Unfortunately, its final formation fell on the period of the "revolutionary turmoil" in 1917. As a result, the corps did not actually get to the front.


4. Then a difficult diplomatic game began. The Germans and the Entente also pressed on the Bolsheviks. The Entente demanded the withdrawal of the Czechs from Russia, allegedly to the Western Front. Trotsky gave the order to actually hand over (donate) two divisions, uniform and armed at Russian state expense to the Allies in the Entente. The divisions of the Czechoslovakians became an integral part of the French army and began to obey the French. It was decided to withdraw them to the Western Front for the war with the Germans ... through Vladivostok. In fact, London and Paris, through the hands of Lev Davydovich Trotsky, decided to use the Czechs to foment a civil war in Russia. Which did not flare up before.


5. Allegedly, at the request of the Germans, Trotsky gave the order to disarm the corps, whose parts were stretched along the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. In response, an uprising began, which, like a match, set fire to a lot of Russian cities, where they were just waiting for a signal and help for the uprising. Back in 1918, the Bolsheviks published documents on how much money England transferred to the leadership of the Czech corps so that they could revolt.


6. Instead of helping the Russians fight the Bolsheviks, the Czech units were withdrawn to the rear. They were not sent to the western front, but they began to guard the railway on the territory of Kolchak. Neither the whites nor the reds associated with the Czechs. They were like the third force within Russia. A force that obeyed London and Paris.


7. The Czechs were engaged in punitive functions, robbed the population and did not fight the Reds at all. When the white began to retreat THEY CONSCIOUSLY blocked the railway. Despite the requests, pleas (!) Of the white leadership to let the military echelons, ammunition, ambulance trains pass, the Czechs completely stopped the railway. The pretext is the removal of the Czechoslovak trains.


8. The result of this stab in the back was the military disaster of Kolchak's army. The defeat became a defeat.


9. Because of the Czechs, tens of thousands of wounded and civilians died. Echelons with wounded and refugees drove away from Omsk and other cities. And they got up in the taiga. Minus 30, minus 40. Frozen trains with the wounded and sick. The dead women, children and old people.


10. But that's not all. In the rear of Kolchak, an uprising began in Irkutsk. The scales hesitated. It was the Czechs who stabbed the whites in the back and prevented them from suppressing the uprising in the city. It was the Czechs who attacked and defeated the reinforcements sent by the ataman Semyonov. All this was done on the direct orders of General Janin. The Frenchman who commanded them.


11. This was done in order to obtain a pretext for betraying Kolchak, who refused to give the gold reserves to the allies. (Kolchak had half of Russia's gold reserves. The second part remained with the Bolsheviks).


12. Allegedly by order of the Political Center in Irkutsk, the Czechs arrested Kolchak and handed him over to the revolutionaries. That is, they helped start the uprising, prevented the whites from suppressing it, and then “frightened” the revolutionaries GIVEN Kolchak to them.


13. Kolchak's gold reserves were partly plundered by the Czechs and taken to their homeland, partly returned to the Bolsheviks. In fact, the Czechs (French and British) came to an agreement with the Bolsheviks and divided the gold. The political center, consisting of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, disappears, not forgetting to shoot Kolchak, power passes to the Bolsheviks.


14. In gratitude for the betrayal of Russia, the Entente creates Czechoslovakia for the Czechs. Before the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Hitler, the Czech crown was the hardest currency. The reason is stolen Russian gold.


15. Throughout World War II, the Czechs “worked peacefully” at the Skoda military factories, producing weapons for Hitler. Slovaks, being allies of Germany, revolted in 1944. The Czechs revolted in May 1945. About a week after the capture of Berlin.

So is it necessary to erect a monument to the White Czechs?