Generals of the Reds and Whites in civilian clothes. Evgeny Durnev

History is written by the winners. We know a lot about the heroes of the Red Army, but almost nothing about the heroes of the White Army. Let's fill this gap.

Anatoly Pepelyaev

Anatoly Pepelyaev became the youngest general in Siberia - at the age of 27. Prior to this, the White Guards under his command took Tomsk, Novonikolaevsk (Novosibirsk), Krasnoyarsk, Verkhneudinsk and Chita.
When Pepelyaev’s troops occupied Perm abandoned by the Bolsheviks, about 20,000 Red Army soldiers were captured by the young general, who, on his orders, were released home. Perm was liberated from the Reds on the day of the 128th anniversary of the capture of Ishmael, and the soldiers began to call Pepelyaev "Siberian Suvorov."

Sergei Ulagay

Sergei Ulagay, a Kuban Cossack of Circassian origin, was one of the most prominent cavalry commanders of the White Army. He made a serious contribution to the defeat of the North Caucasian front of the Reds, but especially the 2nd Kuban Corps Ulagay distinguished himself during the capture of the "Russian Verdun" - Tsaritsyn - in June 1919.

General Ulagay went down in history as the commander of the special forces group of the Russian Volunteer Army, General Wrangel, who landed troops from the Crimea to the Kuban in August 1920. To command the landing force, Wrangel chose Ulagay "as a popular Kuban general, it seems, the only one of the famous who did not stain himself with robbery."

Alexander Dolgorukov

The hero of the First World War, who for his exploits was awarded admission to the retinue of His Imperial Majesty, Alexander Dolgorukov proved himself in the Civil War. On September 30, 1919, his 4th Rifle Division in a bayonet battle forced the Soviet troops to retreat; Dolgorukov captured the crossing over the Plyussa River, which soon made it possible to occupy Struga Beliye.
Dolgorukov got into literature. In the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov "The White Guard" he is bred under the name of General Belorukov, and is also mentioned in the first volume of the trilogy of Alexei Tolstoy "Walking through the torments" (attack of the cavalry guards in the battle of Kaushen).

Vladimir Kappel

The episode from the film "Chapaev", where the Kappelites go on a "psychic attack", is fictional - Chapaev and Kappel never crossed paths on the battlefield. But Kappel was a legend without cinema.

During the capture of Kazan on August 7, 1918, he lost only 25 people. In his reports on successful operations, Kappel did not mention himself, explaining the victory by the heroism of his subordinates, up to the sisters of mercy.
During the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, Kappel got frostbite on the feet of both legs - they had to be amputated without anesthesia. He continued to lead the troops and refused a place on the hospital train.
The last words of the general were: "Let the troops know that I was devoted to them, that I loved them and proved it with my death among them."

Mikhail Drozdovsky

Mikhail Drozdovsky with a volunteer detachment of 1,000 people walked 1,700 km from Yassy to Rostov, freed him from the Bolsheviks, then helped the Cossacks defend Novocherkassk.

Drozdovsky's detachment participated in the liberation of both the Kuban and the North Caucasus. Drozdovsky was called "the crusader of the crucified Motherland." Here is his description from Kravchenko's book “Drozdovites from Iasi to Gallipoli”: “Nervous, thin, Colonel Drozdovsky was a type of ascetic warrior: he did not drink, did not smoke and did not pay attention to the blessings of life; always - from Jassy until death - in the same worn jacket, with a worn St. George ribbon in his buttonhole; out of modesty, he did not wear the order itself.

Alexander Kutepov

A colleague of Kutepov’s on the fronts of the First World War wrote about him: “Kutepov’s name has become a household name. It means fidelity to duty, calm determination, intense sacrificial impulse, cold, sometimes cruel will and ... clean hands - and all this is brought and given to the service of the Motherland.

In January 1918, Kutepov twice defeated the Red troops under the command of Sievers near Matveev Kurgan. According to Anton Denikin, "this was the first serious battle in which the art and enthusiasm of the officer detachments were opposed to the furious pressure of the unorganized and badly managed Bolsheviks, mostly sailors."

Sergey Markov

The White Guards called Sergei Markov the "White Knight", "the sword of General Kornilov", the "God of War", and after the battle at the village of Medvedovskaya - the "Guardian Angel". In this battle, Markov managed to save the remnants of the Volunteer Army retreating from Ekaterinograd, destroy and capture the armored train of the Reds, and get a lot of weapons and ammunition. When Markov died, Anton Denikin wrote on his wreath: "Both life and death - for the happiness of the Motherland."

Mikhail Zhebrak-Rusanovich

For the White Guards, Colonel Zhebrak-Rusanovich was a cult figure. For personal prowess, his name was sung in the military folklore of the Volunteer Army.
He firmly believed that "there will be no Bolshevism, but there will be only one United Great Indivisible Russia." It was Zhebrak who brought the Andreevsky flag with his detachment to the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, and soon he became the battle flag of the Drozdovsky brigade.
He died heroically, personally leading the attack of two battalions on the superior forces of the Red Army.

Viktor Molchanov

The Izhevsk division of Viktor Molchanov was awarded Kolchak's special attention - he handed her the St. George banner, and attached the St. George crosses to the banners of a number of regiments. During the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, Molchanov commanded the rearguard of the 3rd Army and covered the retreat of the main forces of General Kappel. After his death, he led the vanguard of the white troops.
At the head of the Insurrectionary Army, Molchanov occupied almost all of Primorye and Khabarovsk.

Innokenty Smolin

In the summer and autumn of 1918, at the head of the partisan detachment of his own name, Innokenty Smolin successfully operated in the rear of the Reds, captured two armored trains. Smolin's partisans played an important role in the capture of Tobolsk.

Mikhail Smolin participated in the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, commanded a group of troops of the 4th Siberian Rifle Division, which, numbering more than 1,800 fighters, came to Chita on March 4, 1920.
Smolin died in Tahiti. In the last years of his life he wrote memoirs.

Sergei Voitsekhovsky

General Voitsekhovsky accomplished many feats, performing the seemingly impossible tasks of the command of the White Army. A faithful “Kolchakist”, after the death of the admiral, he abandoned the assault on Irkutsk and led the remnants of the Kolchak army to Transbaikalia on the ice of Baikal.

In 1939, in exile, being one of the highest Czechoslovak generals, Wojciechowski advocated resistance to the Germans and created the underground organization Obrana národa ("Protection of the People"). Arrested by SMERSH in 1945. Repressed, died in a camp near Taishet.

Erast Hyacinths

Erast Hyacinths in the First World War became the owner of a full set of orders available to the chief officer of the Russian Imperial Army.
After the revolution, he was obsessed with the idea of overthrowing the Bolsheviks and even occupied with friends a number of houses around the Kremlin in order to start resistance from there, but in time he realized the futility of such tactics and joined the White Army, becoming one of the most productive scouts.
In exile, on the eve of and during the Second World War, he took an open anti-Nazi position and miraculously avoided being sent to a concentration camp. After the war, he resisted the forced repatriation of "displaced persons" to the USSR.

Mikhail Yaroslavtsev (Archimandrite Mitrofan)

During the Civil War, Mikhail Yaroslavtsev showed himself to be an energetic commander and distinguished himself by personal prowess in several battles.
Yaroslavtsev embarked on the path of spiritual service already in exile, after the death of his wife on December 31, 1932.

In May 1949, hegumen Mitrofan was elevated to the rank of archimandrite by Metropolitan Seraphim (Lukyanov).

Contemporaries wrote about him: "Always impeccable in the performance of his duty, richly endowed with wonderful spiritual qualities, he was a true consolation for very many of his flock ...".

He was rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Rabat and defended the unity of the Russian Orthodox community in Morocco with the Moscow Patriarchate.

Pavel Shatilov is a hereditary general, both his father and his grandfather were generals. He especially distinguished himself in the spring of 1919, when, in an operation in the area of the Manych River, he defeated a 30,000-strong group of Reds.

Pyotr Wrangel, whose chief of staff was later Shatilov, spoke of him as follows: "a brilliant mind, outstanding abilities, having great military experience and knowledge, with great capacity for work, he was able to work with a minimum expenditure of time."

In the autumn of 1920, it was Shatilov who led the emigration of whites from the Crimea.

History is written by the winners. We know a lot about the heroes of the Red Army, but almost nothing about the heroes of the White Army. Let's fill this gap.

Anatoly Pepelyaev

Anatoly Pepelyaev became the youngest general in Siberia - at the age of 27. Prior to this, the White Guards under his command took Tomsk, Novonikolaevsk (Novosibirsk), Krasnoyarsk, Verkhneudinsk and Chita. When Pepelyaev’s troops occupied Perm abandoned by the Bolsheviks, about 20,000 Red Army soldiers were captured by the young general, who, on his orders, were released home. Perm was liberated from the Reds on the day of the 128th anniversary of the capture of Ishmael, and the soldiers began to call Pepelyaev "Siberian Suvorov."

Sergei Ulagay

Alexander Dolgorukov

The hero of the First World War, who for his exploits was awarded admission to the retinue of His Imperial Majesty, Alexander Dolgorukov proved himself in the Civil War. On September 30, 1919, his 4th Rifle Division in a bayonet battle forced the Soviet troops to retreat; Dolgorukov captured the crossing over the Plyussa River, which soon made it possible to occupy Struga Beliye. Dolgorukov got into literature. In the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov "The White Guard" he is bred under the name of General Belorukov, and is also mentioned in the first volume of the trilogy of Alexei Tolstoy "Walking through the torments" (attack of the cavalry guards in the battle of Kaushen).

The episode from the film "Chapaev", where the Kappelites go on a "psychic attack", is fictional - Chapaev and Kappel never crossed paths on the battlefield. But Kappel was a legend without cinema.

During the capture of Kazan on August 7, 1918, he lost only 25 people. In his reports on successful operations, Kappel did not mention himself, explaining the victory by the heroism of his subordinates, up to the sisters of mercy. During the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, Kappel got frostbite on the feet of both legs - they had to be amputated without anesthesia. He continued to lead the troops and refused a place on the hospital train. The last words of the general were: "Let the troops know that I was devoted to them, that I loved them and proved it with my death among them."

Mikhail Drozdovsky

Mikhail Drozdovsky with a volunteer detachment of 1,000 people walked 1,700 km from Yassy to Rostov, freed him from the Bolsheviks, then helped the Cossacks defend Novocherkassk.

Mikhail Zhebrak-Rusanovich

For the White Guards, Colonel Zhebrak-Rusanovich was a cult figure. For personal prowess, his name was sung in the military folklore of the Volunteer Army. He firmly believed that "there will be no Bolshevism, but there will be only one United Great Indivisible Russia." It was Zhebrak who brought the Andreevsky flag with his detachment to the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, and soon he became the battle flag of the Drozdovsky brigade. He died heroically, personally leading the attack of two battalions on the superior forces of the Red Army.

Viktorin Molchanov

The Izhevsk division of Viktorin Molchanov was awarded Kolchak's special attention - he handed her the St. George banner, and attached the St. George crosses to the banners of a number of regiments. During the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, Molchanov commanded the rearguard of the 3rd Army and covered the retreat of the main forces of General Kappel. After his death, he led the vanguard of the white troops. At the head of the Insurrectionary Army, Molchanov occupied almost all of Primorye and Khabarovsk.

Innokenty Smolin

Mikhail Smolin participated in the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, commanded a group of troops of the 4th Siberian Rifle Division, which, numbering more than 1,800 fighters, came to Chita on March 4, 1920. Smolin died in Tahiti. In the last years of his life he wrote memoirs.

Sergei Voitsekhovsky

Erast Hyacinths

Erast Hyacinths in the First World War became the owner of a full set of orders available to the chief officer of the Russian Imperial Army. After the revolution, he was obsessed with the idea of overthrowing the Bolsheviks and even occupied with friends a number of houses around the Kremlin in order to start resistance from there, but in time he realized the futility of such tactics and joined the White Army, becoming one of the most productive scouts. In exile, on the eve of and during the Second World War, he took an open anti-Nazi position and miraculously avoided being sent to a concentration camp. After the war, he resisted the forced repatriation of "displaced persons" to the USSR.

General Khanzhin became a movie hero. He is one of the characters in the 1968 feature film Storm over Belaya. The role of the general was played by Yefim Kapelyan. A documentary film "The Return of General Khanzhin" was also filmed about his fate. For the successful command of the Western Army of the Western Front, Mikhail Khanzhin was promoted by Kolchak to the rank of general from artillery - the highest distinction of this kind, which was awarded by Kolchak when he was his Supreme Ruler.

Pavel Shatilov

A. V. Krivoshein, P. N. Wrangel and P. N. Shatilov. Crimea. 1920 Pavel Shatilov - hereditary general, both his father and his grandfather were generals. He especially distinguished himself in the spring of 1919, when, in an operation in the area of the Manych River, he defeated a 30,000-strong group of Reds.

Pyotr Wrangel, whose chief of staff was later Shatilov, spoke of him like this: "a brilliant mind, outstanding abilities, having great military experience and knowledge, with great capacity for work, he was able to work with a minimum expenditure of time."

In the autumn of 1920, it was Shatilov who led the emigration of whites from the Crimea.

In the post-Soviet period, a reassessment of the events and results of the Civil War began in Russia. The attitude towards the leaders of the White movement began to change to the exact opposite - now they are being filmed about them, in which they appear as fearless knights without fear and reproach.

At the same time, many people know very little about how the fate of the most famous leaders of the White Army developed. Not all of them managed to maintain honor and dignity after the defeat in the Civil War. Some were destined for an inglorious end and indelible shame.

Alexander Kolchak

On November 5, 1918, Admiral Kolchak was appointed military and naval minister of the so-called Ufa Directory, one of the anti-Bolshevik governments created during the Civil War.

On November 18, 1918, a coup took place, as a result of which the Directory was abolished, and Kolchak himself was endowed with the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia.

From the autumn of 1918 to the summer of 1919, Kolchak managed to successfully conduct military operations against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, in the territory controlled by his troops, methods of terror were practiced against political opponents.

A series of military setbacks in the second half of 1919 led to the loss of all previously captured territories. The repressive methods of Kolchak provoked a wave of uprisings in the rear of the White Army, and often at the head of these speeches were not the Bolsheviks, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

Kolchak planned to get to Irkutsk, where he was going to continue the resistance, but on December 27, 1919, power in the city passed to the Political Center, which included the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

On January 4, 1920, Kolchak signed his last decree - on the transfer of supreme power to General Denikin. Under the guarantees of the representatives of the Entente, who promised to take Kolchak to a safe place, the former Supreme Ruler arrived in Irkutsk on January 15.

Here he was handed over to the Political Center and placed in a local prison. On January 21, interrogations of Kolchak began by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission. After the final transfer of power in Irkutsk into the hands of the Bolsheviks, the fate of the admiral was sealed.

On the night of February 6 to February 7, 1920, 45-year-old Kolchak was shot by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee of the Bolsheviks.

General Staff Lieutenant General V.O. Kappel. Winter 1919 Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Vladimir Kappel

General Kappel gained fame thanks to the popular in the USSR film "Chapaev", where the so-called "psychic attack" was captured - when the chains of the Kappelites moved towards the enemy without firing a shot.

The “psychic attack” had rather mundane reasons - parts of the White Guards were seriously suffering from a shortage of ammunition, and such tactics were a forced decision.

In June 1918, General Kappel organized a detachment of volunteers, which was later deployed into the Separate Rifle Brigade of the Komuch People's Army. The Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (Komuch) became the first anti-Bolshevik government in Russia, and Kappel's unit became one of the most reliable in his army.

An interesting fact - the symbol of Komuch was a red banner, and the Internationale was used as the anthem. So the general, who became one of the symbols of the White movement, began the Civil War under the red banner.

After the anti-Bolshevik forces in the east of Rossi were united under the general command of Admiral Kolchak, General Kappel led the 1st Volga Corps, later called the "Kappelevsky".

Kappel remained loyal to Kolchak to the end. After the arrest of the latter, the general, who by that time had received the entire crumbling Eastern Front under his command, made a desperate attempt to save Kolchak.

In conditions of severe frosts, Kappel led his troops to Irkutsk. Moving along the channel of the Kan River, the general fell into a hole. Kappel received frostbite, which developed into gangrene. After the amputation of the foot, he continued to lead the troops.

On January 21, 1920, Kappel transferred command of the troops to General Wojciechowski. Severe inflammation of the lungs was added to gangrene. The already dying Kappel insisted on continuing the march to Irkutsk.

36-year-old Vladimir Kappel died on January 26, 1920 at the Utai junction, near the Tulun station near the city of Nizhneudinsk. His troops were defeated by the Reds on the outskirts of Irkutsk.

Lavr Kornilov in 1917. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Lavr Kornilov

After the failure of his speech, Kornilov was arrested, and the period from September 1 to November 1917, the general and his associates spent under arrest in Mogilev and Bykhov.

The October Revolution in Petrograd led to the fact that the opponents of the Bolsheviks decided to release the previously arrested generals.

Once free, Kornilov went to the Don, where he set about creating a Volunteer Army for the war against the Bolsheviks. In fact, Kornilov became not only one of the organizers of the White movement, but one of those who unleashed the Civil War in Russia.

Kornilov acted with extremely harsh methods. Participants of the so-called First Kuban "Ice" campaign recalled: "All the Bolsheviks captured by us with weapons in their hands were shot on the spot: alone, in tens, hundreds. It was a war of extermination.

The Kornilovites used tactics of intimidation against the civilian population: in the appeal of Lavr Kornilov, the inhabitants were warned that any "hostile action" against the volunteers and the Cossack detachments acting together with them would be punished by executions and burning of villages.

Kornilov's participation in the Civil War turned out to be short - on March 31, 1918, the 47-year-old general was killed during the storming of Yekaterinodar.

General Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich. 1910s Photo from Alexander Pogost's photo album. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Nikolai Yudenich

General Yudenich, who during the First World War successfully operated in the Caucasian theater of operations, returned to Petrograd in the summer of 1917. He remained in the city after the October Revolution, going into an illegal position.

Only at the beginning of 1919 did he leave for Helsingfors (now Helsinki), where, at the end of 1918, the Russian Committee, another anti-Bolshevik government, was organized.

Yudenich was proclaimed the head of the White movement in the North-West of Russia with dictatorial powers.

By the summer of 1919, Yudenich, having received funding and confirmation of her authority from Kolchak, created the so-called North-Western Army, which was tasked with capturing Petrograd.

In the autumn of 1919, the Northwestern Army undertook a campaign against Petrograd. By mid-October, Yudenich's troops reached the Pulkovo Heights, where they were stopped by the Red Army reserves.

The White front was broken through, and a rapid retreat began. The fate of Yudenich's army was tragic - the units pressed to the border with Estonia were forced to move to the territory of this state, where they were interned and placed in camps. Thousands of soldiers and civilians died in these camps.

Yudenich himself, announcing the dissolution of the army, left for London via Stockholm and Copenhagen. Then the general moved to France, where he settled.

Unlike many associates, Yudenich retired from political life in exile.

Living in Nice, he headed the Society of Zealots of Russian History.

Denikin in Paris, 1938 Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Anton Denikin

General Anton Denikin, who was one of General Kornilov's associates in the summer 1917 coup attempt, was among those who were arrested and then released after the Bolsheviks came to power.

Together with Kornilov, he went to the Don, where he became one of the founders of the Volunteer Army.

By the time of Kornilov's death during the storming of Yekaterinodar, Denikin was his deputy and assumed command of the Volunteer Army.

In January 1919, during the reorganization of the White forces, Denikin became the commander of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia - recognized by the Western Allies as "number two" in the White movement after General Kolchak.

Denikin's greatest successes came in the summer of 1919. After a series of victories in July, he signed the "Moscow directive" - a plan to take the capital of Russia.

Having captured large territories of southern and central Russia, as well as Ukraine, Denikin's troops in October 1919 approached Tula. The Bolsheviks seriously considered plans to leave Moscow.

However, the defeat in the Oryol-Kromsky battle, where Budyonny's cavalry loudly declared itself, led to an equally rapid retreat of the whites.

In January 1920, Denikin received from Kolchak the rights of the Supreme Ruler of Russia. At the same time, things were going disastrously at the front. The offensive launched in February 1920 ended in failure, the Whites were driven back to the Crimea.

The allies and the generals demanded that Denikin transfer power to the successor, for whom he was chosen Pyotr Wrangel.

On April 4, 1920, Denikin transferred all powers to Wrangel, and on the same day left Russia forever on an English destroyer.

In exile, Denikin withdrew from active politics, taking up literature. He wrote books on the history of the Russian army in pre-revolutionary times, as well as on the history of the Civil War.

In the 1930s, Denikin, unlike many other leaders of the white emigration, advocated the need to support the Red Army against any foreign aggressor, with the subsequent awakening of the Russian spirit in the ranks of this army, which, according to the general, should overthrow Bolshevism in Russia.

The Second World War caught Denikin in France. After the German attack on the USSR, he received several offers of cooperation from the Nazis, but invariably refused. Former like-minded people who entered into an alliance with Hitler, the general called "obscurantists" and "Hitler's fans."

After the end of the war, Denikin left for the United States, fearing that he might be extradited to the Soviet Union. However, the government of the USSR, knowing about Denikin's position during the war years, did not put forward any demands for his extradition to the allies.

Anton Denikin died on August 7, 1947 in the USA at the age of 74. In October 2005, on the initiative Russian President Vladimir Putin the remains of Denikin and his wife were reburied in the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.

Pyotr Wrangel. Photo: Public Domain

Pyotr Wrangel

Baron Pyotr Wrangel, known as the "black baron" for wearing a black Cossack Circassian coat with gazyrs, became the last leader of the White movement in Russia during the Civil War.

At the end of 1917, Wrangel, who left, lived in Yalta, where he was arrested by the Bolsheviks. Soon the baron was released, as the Bolsheviks did not find any corpus delicti in his actions. After the occupation of the Crimea by the German army, Wrangel left for Kyiv, where he collaborated with the government of Hetman Skoropadsky. Only after that did the baron decide to join the Volunteer Army, which he joined in August 1918.

Successfully commanding the white cavalry, Wrangel became one of the most influential military leaders, and came into conflict with Denikin, not agreeing with him on plans for further action.

The conflict ended with the fact that Wrangel was removed from command and dismissed, after which he left for Constantinople. But in the spring of 1920, the allies, dissatisfied with the course of hostilities, succeeded in Denikin's resignation and his replacement with Wrangel.

The baron's plans were extensive. He was going to create an "alternative Russia" in the Crimea, which was supposed to win the competitive struggle against the Bolsheviks. But neither militarily nor economically, these projects were not viable. In November 1920, together with the remnants of the defeated White Army, Wrangel left Russia.

The "Black Baron" counted on the continuation of the armed struggle. In 1924, he created the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), which united most of the participants in the White movement in exile. Numbering tens of thousands of members, the ROVS was a serious force.

Wrangel failed to carry out plans to continue the Civil War - on April 25, 1928 in Brussels, he suddenly died of tuberculosis.

Ataman of the VVD, cavalry general P.N. Krasnov. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Petr Krasnov

After the October Revolution, Peter Krasnov, who was the commander of the 3rd cavalry corps, on the orders of Alexander Kerensky, moved troops not to Petrograd. On the outskirts of the capital, the corps was stopped, and Krasnov himself was arrested. But then the Bolsheviks not only released Krasnov, but also left him at the head of the corps.

After the demobilization of the corps, he left for the Don, where he continued the anti-Bolshevik struggle, agreeing to lead the uprising of the Cossacks after they captured and retained Novocherkassk. May 16, 1918 Krasnov was elected Ataman of the Don Cossacks. Having entered into cooperation with the Germans, Krasnov proclaimed the Great Don Army as an independent state.

However, after the final defeat of Germany in the First World War, Krasnov had to urgently change his political line. Krasnov agreed to the joining of the Don Army to the Volunteer Army, and recognized the supremacy of Denikin.

Denikin, however, remained distrustful of Krasnov, and forced him to resign in February 1919. After that, Krasnov went to Yudenich, and after the defeat of the latter he moved into exile.

In exile, Krasnov collaborated with the ROVS, was one of the founders of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, an organization that was engaged in underground work in Soviet Russia.

On June 22, 1941, Pyotr Krasnov issued an appeal stating: “I ask you to tell all the Cossacks that this war is not against Russia, but against communists, Jews and their henchmen who sell Russian blood. God help the German weapons and Hitler! Let them do what the Russians and Emperor Alexander I did for Prussia in 1813.”

In 1943, Krasnov became the head of the Main Directorate of the Cossack Troops of the Imperial Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories of Germany.

In May 1945, Krasnov, along with other collaborators, was captured by the British and extradited to the Soviet Union.

The military board of the Supreme Court of the USSR Peter Krasnov was sentenced to death. Together with his accomplices, the 77-year-old Nazi henchman was hanged in Lefortovo prison on January 16, 1947.

Photo by A. G. Shkuro, taken by the USSR Ministry of State Security after his arrest. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Andrey Shkuro

At birth, General Shkuro had a less euphonious surname - Shkura.

Oddly enough, Shkuro earned notoriety back in the years of the First World War, when he commanded the Kuban cavalry detachment. His raids were sometimes not coordinated with the command, and the fighters were seen in unseemly acts. Here is what Baron Wrangel recalled about that period: “The detachment of Colonel Shkuro, led by his chief, operating in the area of the XVIII Corps, which included my Ussuri division, mostly hung out in the rear, drank and robbed, until, finally, at the insistence corps commander Krymov, was not recalled from the corps section.

During the years of the Civil War, Shkuro began with a partisan detachment in the Kislovodsk region, which grew into a large unit that joined Denikin's army in the summer of 1918.

Shkuro's habits have not changed: successfully operating in raids, his so-called "wolf hundred" also became famous for total robberies and unmotivated reprisals, before which the exploits of the Makhnovists and Petliurists pale.

Shkuro's decline began in October 1919, when his cavalry was defeated by Budyonny. A wholesale desertion began, because of which only a few hundred people remained under the command of Shkuro.

After Wrangel came to power, Shkuro was dismissed from the army, and already in May 1920 he found himself in exile.

Abroad, Shkuro worked odd jobs, was a rider in a circus, an extra in silent films.

After the German attack on the USSR, Shkuro, together with Krasnov, advocated cooperation with Hitler. In 1944, by a special decree of Himmler, Shkuro was appointed head of the Reserve of Cossack troops at the Main Headquarters of the SS troops, enrolled in the service as an SS gruppenfuehrer and lieutenant general of the SS troops with the right to wear a German general's uniform and receive maintenance for this rank.

Shkuro was engaged in the preparation of reserves for the Cossack corps, which carried out punitive actions against the Yugoslav partisans.

In May 1945, Shkuro, along with other collaborating Cossacks, was arrested by the British and handed over to the Soviet Union.

Passing on the same case with Pyotr Krasnov, a 60-year-old veteran of raids and robberies shared his fate - Andrei Shkuro was hanged in Lefortovo prison on January 16, 1947.

Almost a century later, the events that unfolded shortly after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and resulted in a four-year fratricidal massacre receive a new assessment. The war of the Red and White armies, presented by the Soviet ideology as a heroic page in our history for many years, is today regarded as a national tragedy, to prevent the repetition of which is the duty of every true patriot.

Beginning of the Way of the Cross

Regarding the specific date of the beginning of the Civil War, the opinions of historians differ, but it is traditionally customary to call the last decade of 1917. This view is based mainly on three events that took place during this period.

Among them, it should be noted the performance of the forces of General P.N. Red in order to suppress the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd on October 25, then on November 2 - the beginning of the formation on the Don by General M.V. Alekseev of the Volunteer Army, and, finally, the publication of P.N. Milyukov, which essentially became a declaration of war.

Speaking about the social class structure of the officers who became the head of the White movement, one should immediately point out the fallacy of the ingrained idea that it was formed exclusively from representatives of the highest aristocracy.

A similar picture became a thing of the past after the military reform of Alexander II, carried out in the period of the 60-70s of the XIX century and opened the way to army command posts for representatives of all classes. For example, one of the main figures of the White movement, General A.I. Denikin was the son of a serf, and L.G. Kornilov grew up in the family of a cornet Cossack army.

The social composition of the Russian officers

The stereotype developed during the years of Soviet power, according to which the White army was led exclusively by people who called themselves "white bones", is fundamentally wrong. In fact, they were representatives of all social strata of society.

In this regard, it would be appropriate to cite the following data: the graduation of infantry schools in the last two pre-revolutionary years consisted of 65% of former peasants, in connection with which, out of every 1000 ensigns of the tsarist army, about 700 were, as they say, “from the plow”. In addition, it is known that for the same number of officers, 250 people came from the bourgeois, merchant, and working environment, and only 50 from the nobility. What kind of “white bone” could we talk about in this case?

White army at the beginning of the war

The beginning of the White movement in Russia looked rather modest. According to reports, in January 1918, only 700 Cossacks, led by General A.M., joined him. Kaledin. This was explained by the complete demoralization of the tsarist army by the end of the First World War and the general unwillingness to fight.

The vast majority of servicemen, including officers, defiantly ignored the order to mobilize. Only with great difficulty, by the beginning of full-scale hostilities, the White Volunteer Army was able to replenish its ranks to 8 thousand people, of which about 1 thousand were staffed by officers.

The symbolism of the White Army was quite traditional. In contrast to the red banners of the Bolsheviks, the defenders of the former world order chose a white-blue-red banner, which was the official state flag of Russia, approved at one time by Alexander III. In addition, the well-known double-headed eagle was also a symbol of their struggle.

Siberian rebel army

It is known that the answer to the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Siberia was the creation of underground combat centers in many of its large cities, headed by former officers of the tsarist army. The signal for their open action was the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, formed in September 1917 from among the captured Slovaks and Czechs, who then expressed a desire to take part in the struggle against Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Their rebellion, which broke out against the background of general dissatisfaction with the Soviet authorities, served as a detonator for a social explosion that swept the Urals, the Volga region, the Far East and Siberia. On the basis of disparate battle groups, the West Siberian Army was formed in a short time, headed by an experienced military leader, General A.N. Grishin-Almazov. Its ranks were rapidly replenished with volunteers and soon reached the number of 23 thousand people.

Very soon, the White army, united with parts of Yesaul G.M. Semyonov, got the opportunity to control the territory stretching from Baikal to the Urals. It was a huge force, consisting of 71 thousand soldiers, supported by 115 thousand local volunteers.

Army that fought on the Northern Front

During the years of the Civil War, hostilities were conducted almost throughout the country, and, in addition to the Siberian Front, the future of Russia was also decided in the South, North-West and North. It was on it, as historians testify, that the concentration of the most professionally trained military personnel who went through the First World War took place.

It is known that many officers and generals of the White Army who fought on the Northern Front got there from Ukraine, where they escaped the terror unleashed by the Bolsheviks only thanks to the help of German troops. This largely explained their subsequent sympathy for the Entente and partly even Germanophilia, which often caused conflicts with other military personnel. In general, it should be noted that the White army that fought in the north was relatively small.

White forces on the Northwestern Front

The White Army, which opposed the Bolsheviks in the northwestern regions of the country, was mainly formed thanks to the support of the Germans and, after their departure, consisted of about 7 thousand bayonets. Despite the fact that, according to experts, among other fronts, this one was distinguished by a low level of training, the White Guard units were lucky on it for a long time. In many ways, this was facilitated by a large number of volunteers who joined the ranks of the army.

Among them, two contingents of persons were distinguished by increased combat readiness: the sailors of the flotilla, created in 1915 on Lake Peipsi, who were disillusioned with the Bolsheviks, as well as the former Red Army soldiers who went over to the side of the Whites - cavalrymen of the detachments of Permykin and Balakhovich. Significantly replenished the growing army of local peasants, as well as high school students who were subject to mobilization.

Military contingent in southern Russia

And, finally, the main front of the Civil War, on which the fate of the whole country was decided, was the South. The hostilities that unfolded on it covered a territory equal in area to two average European states and had a population of more than 34 million people. It is important to note that, thanks to the developed industry and multifaceted agriculture, this part of Russia could exist independently of the rest of the country.

The generals of the White Army who fought on this front under the command of A.I. Denikin, were all, without exception, highly educated military specialists who already had the experience of the First World War behind them. At their disposal was also a developed transport infrastructure, which included railways and seaports.

All this was a prerequisite for future victories, but the general unwillingness to fight, as well as the lack of a single ideological base, eventually led to defeat. The entire politically motley contingent of troops, consisting of liberals, monarchists, democrats, etc., was united only by hatred of the Bolsheviks, which, unfortunately, did not become a sufficiently strong link.

An army far from ideal

It can be said with confidence that the White Army in the Civil War failed to fully realize its potential, and among many reasons, one of the main reasons was the unwillingness to let the peasants, who made up the majority of the population of Russia, into its ranks. Those of them who could not avoid mobilization soon became deserters, greatly weakening the combat capability of their units.

It is also important to take into account that the white army was an extremely heterogeneous composition of people both socially and spiritually and morally. Along with the true heroes, ready to sacrifice themselves in the fight against the impending chaos, she was joined by many scum who took advantage of the fratricidal war to commit violence, robbery and looting. It also deprived the army of universal support.

It must be admitted that the White Army of Russia was far from always being the "holy army" so sonorously sung by Marina Tsvetaeva. By the way, her husband, Sergei Efron, an active participant in the volunteer movement, also wrote about this in his memoirs.

The hardships suffered by the white officers

Over the course of almost a century that has passed since those dramatic times, a certain stereotype of the image of the White Guard officer has been developed by mass art in the minds of most Russians. He appears, as a rule, as a nobleman, dressed in a uniform with golden shoulder straps, whose favorite pastime is drunkenness and singing sentimental romances.

In reality, things were different. As the memoirs of the participants in those events testify, the White Army faced extraordinary difficulties in the Civil War, and officers had to fulfill their duty with a constant shortage of not only weapons and ammunition, but even the most necessary things for life - food and uniforms.

The assistance provided by the Entente was not always timely and sufficient in scope. In addition, the general morale of the officers was depressingly influenced by the consciousness of the need to wage war against their own people.

bloody lesson

In the years that followed perestroika, there was a rethinking of most of the events of Russian history related to the revolution and the Civil War. The attitude towards many participants in that great tragedy, who were previously considered enemies of their own Fatherland, has changed radically. Nowadays, not only the commanders of the White Army, such as A.V. Kolchak, A.I. Denikin, P.N. Wrangel and the like, but also all those who went into battle under the Russian tricolor, took a worthy place in people's memory. Today, it is important that that fratricidal nightmare become a worthy lesson, and the current generation has made every effort to ensure that it never happens again, no matter how political passions boil in the country.

But Russia had and will always have opponents. Against the background described, it is better to ask the question about our Russian “leaders”: could the then white governments and foreign representations be the “indisputable moral center of the Russian cause”, what did they claim?

So many documents on this subject have been published in exile that an answer can be given immediately. The courage of white warriors is a glorious page in Russian history. Less glorious was the behavior of their rear governments, in which, although there were many sincere patriots, the liberal Februaryists, with the support of the Entente, almost everywhere dominated the more right-wing figures and became one of the reasons for the defeat. The White movement was laid by them in the Procrustean bed of the struggle of the losing February against the victorious October - without understanding that both February and October were milestones in the same process of destruction of historical Russia; It was the Februaryists themselves, through their lack of understanding of what was happening, that led to October. They began to understand this only in emigration (below we will use their own assessments - both early and late) ...

The first appeals of these politicians to the West (“Appeal of the Volunteer Army to the Allies”, “Statement of the Main Committee of the All-Russian Zemstvo and Urban Association”) are already characteristic, as are the documents of the Iasi meeting. They set off not only the unfulfilled debt of the Entente countries that betrayed Russia, but also the fact that the Februaryist politicians, who lost power and hoped to restore it with the help of their former Western patrons, were far from understanding both their true goals and the causes of the Russian catastrophe and the World War II. war. The war "had a democratic ideology," therefore, "Russia fell, as it were, into the category of defeated countries," P.B. Struve. Only through the prism of this ideology of war, in which the democracies managed to push the main European monarchies against each other and lead them all to defeat, is the behavior of the Entente in our civil war understandable.

This "democratic" factor (which consisted primarily in the rejection of the Orthodox monarchy) is visible at the Iasi Conference both among the representatives of the Entente and among many Russian delegates. Which was logical: was it worth starting the February Revolution in Russia (prepared by the Februaryists together with the emissaries of the Entente) in order to allow the restoration of the “reactionary autocracy” now? .. (Meeting participant K.R. Krovopuskov: “Russia can be revived and united only on a democratic basis ... the restoration of the monarchy would seem harmful from this point of view). The majority considered unacceptable for the role of "leader" even the former Commander-in-Chief of the Army Vel. Book. Nikolai Nikolaevich (because of the "royal blood", although he supported the February revolution); approved Denikin, in whose army the Russian anthem "God Save the Tsar!" was replaced by the Transfiguration March ...

For the left part of the Februaryists (many members of the Union of the Renaissance, represented at the Jassy meeting), even Kolchak and Denikin soon turned out to be “reactionary”. The Social Revolutionaries proclaimed them "conscious supporters of a return to the old regime", abandoned the fight against the Bolsheviks and declared war on the whites "with all the methods that the party used against the autocracy." This struggle took on a large scale in the rear of the whites, "undermining their cause from within" - together with the Bolsheviks. And Kerensky declared in the Western press (November 1919) that “the terror and anarchy created there by the Kolchak-Denikin regime surpass all probability ... There is no crime that Kolchak’s agents would not have committed against the population, they represent tyranny and the blackest reaction.

For the more right-wing Februaryists, the “democratic” policy turned into external pressure on the White armies through similar “Russian delegations” that became White governments. Thus, the “Russian Political Conference” created in Paris in early 1919 (under the chairmanship of Prince G.E. Lvov, the first head of the Provisional Government), which played the role of representing the White armies in the West, constantly demanded from the white generals the proclamation of a “deeply democratic nature of the goals pursued by the Russian anti-Bolshevik movement. Here is the characteristic text of one of the telegrams of the "Political Conference", sent from Paris on March 5, 1919, to all the White armies: "On January 6, we telegraphed you about the strengthening of democratic ideas after the war, which ended in the victory of democracy. Today the Political Conference considers it its duty to inform you of the further growth of their authority in the international conjuncture. In public opinion, they are gaining more and more power and their influence is becoming more demanding. Under their influence, the work of the Conference [of the Versailles Peace Conference. - MN], they also determine to a large extent the attitude towards the issue of recognizing the independence of individual parts of Russia. Even the possibility of helping our national armies in the fight against the Bolsheviks is measured by the degree of democracy of our Governments and the Political Conference, the trust and sympathy that they inspire. Every shadow of old Russia inspires mistrust. Fearing the specters of political and social reaction, they are inclined at every step to look for and exaggerate doubts about the sincere democracy of the new national Russia. Our Political Conference is being criticized from the point of view of the vagueness of the democratic physiognomy. This is not the only, but one of the reasons hindering the success of achieving our ultimate goals ... ". Therefore, it is necessary to “practically lay down the democratic foundation of Russian statehood through elections in any form(highlighted in the original).

In order to appreciate the criticism that even this “Political Conference” was subjected to by the democratic circles of the Entente, it is necessary to note its “physiognomy”: it consisted of three-quarters of Freemasons - that is, the democrats criticized even them for their “rightness”! The most right-wing member of the Meeting, the tsarist minister Sazonov, who was supported by Kolchak, was simply hunted down by the Februaryists, although he was sometimes forced to send, for example, such telegrams to the Commander-in-Chief:

“Secret telegram of the Minister of Foreign Affairs addressed to Admiral Kolchak dated May 10, 1919 No. 985.
Personally.
In view of the ever growing political importance of Jewish international circles and the fears they reveal of Jewish pogroms in connection with the further successes of your troops, it would be highly desirable that you make some reassuring statement in this regard even now. Such a statement could take the form of a telegram addressed to me, of course, without reference to mine, in which you would inform me of your firm decision to vigorously suppress any anti-Jewish movements, wherever they appear. Such a telegram could privately be used by me to great advantage and would attract the sympathy of the Russian Government from local and British political and banking circles.
Sazonov" .

And in order to assess the possibility of implementing the cited democratic demands of the Meeting, one must take into account that the vast majority of white soldiers were monarchists (later, in exile, this became obvious, as P.B. Struve noted). It is not surprising that the White movement steadily ruled, and each of its subsequent leaders (Denikin, Kolchak, Wrangel) relied on more and more right-wing politicians (up to a completely competent government in the Crimea). And in the Far East, where the white power in the person of the gene M.K. Diterikhs existed until the end of 1922, the Zemsky Sobor even proclaimed the Orthodox-monarchist ideology of the struggle for Holy Russia and restored the Basic Laws of the Russian Empire; though it was too late...

Isn't that why, in the end, the Entente's bet on the Bolsheviks prevailed, since in her eyes they were less "reactionary" than the White armies with their latent monarchism?