Kolchak civil war briefly. Admiral Kolchak, Alexander Vasilievich

The Central Archive of the FSB refuses to issue documents refusing to rehabilitate Admiral Kolchak. Activist Dmitry Ostryakov and the lawyers of Team 29 sent a statement to the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to conduct an investigation and respond to the decision of the FSB. Why Kolchak was not rehabilitated is known: he did not prevent terror against the civilian population in the territory occupied by his troops. However, the FSB still does not want to show documents on events that took place almost 100 years ago. On this occasion, we publish the story of Kolchak: how he became a dictator, how he was defeated and how he became a defendant.

You can learn about what Kolchak did before the revolution from ours.

Kolchak accepted the February Revolution coldly. Historian Andrey Kruchinin writes that, informing the Black Sea Fleet about the revolutionary events in Petrograd, even before the abdication of Nicholas II, Kolchak urged the sailors and officers "to be completely loyal to the sovereign, the emperor and the Motherland." Contrary to popular belief, he was not the first commander to recognize the Provisional Government. Kolchak's telegram contained greetings to the new government from the naval teams and the inhabitants of Sevastopol; he did not express his opinion about the coup in it. He managed to maintain a healthy, relative to other parts, environment in the fleet. The admiral did not interfere with the renaming of the ships, but he managed to avoid reprisals against officers, a ban on saluting and other democratic reforms in the army. The fleet continued to carry out combat missions, this diverted the sailors from revolutionary activities.

By the summer of 1917 the situation began to heat up. A large team of revolutionary agitators from the Baltic arrived at the Black Sea Fleet, Kolchak's relations with the Provisional Government began to deteriorate, where they saw him as a possible candidate for dictators. On June 5, the sailors demanded that Kolchak and other officers surrender their weapons, including award ones. The admiral threw his St. George saber overboard, telling the sailors that even the Japanese did not try to take it away when he was captured.

After the mutiny of the sailors, in mid-June 1917, Kolchak left the Black Sea Fleet and went to Alexander Kerensky, a former deputy of the State Duma, Minister of War of the Provisional Government. Kolchak demanded the abolition of democratic reforms in the army: the admiral saw how it was falling apart before his eyes. Among the officers and circles that were in sharp opposition to the Provisional Government, thoughts about appointing Kolchak as a dictator began to speak out louder and louder. War Minister Kerensky, who had long been planning to "topple" the weak Prime Minister Prince Lvov, could not allow this to happen. Kolchak went into de facto exile: by order of Kerensky, he had to go to the United States and advise the American military, who were going to carry out a landing operation in the Dardanelles and capture Istanbul.

Kolchak arrives in the USA at the end of August 1917. It turns out that the Americans did not plan any landing operation, but in Russian embassy he is informed that now he must head a certain military-diplomatic mission. Kolchak asks the governments of the allied powers to enroll him in any warring army in any rank, even as a private, and he himself goes to San Francisco, from where he sails to Japan in October. There he learns about the Bolshevik coup. The British report that they are ready to give him an assignment on the Mesopotamian front, but it will be better if the admiral goes to Harbin and restores order on the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway. Kolchak gathers a detachment in Harbin, defeats local robber chieftains who interfered with railway communication, and does not allow the Japanese to lay claims to the CER and Vladivostok.

In September 1918, Kolchak left Harbin, where he spent Last year. He makes a firm decision to make his way to the Don, to the Volunteer Army of General Alekseev. Through Siberia, Kolchak travels incognito and in civilian clothes, but he is recognized in Omsk. Members of the Directory - the Omsk government of the Cadets and Social Revolutionaries, former members of the State Duma - hold several meetings with Kolchak and persuade him to become Minister of War. He accepted this post on November 4, 1918.

The coming weeks convinced Kolchak of the incompetence of the Directory. In the rear of the Eastern Front of the Reds, an anti-Bolshevik uprising began at the Izhevsk arms factory. The directory did not support the uprising, Izhevsk fell, and the workers had to retreat behind the Kama. Among the military, a conspiracy had long been ripening, which led to a coup on November 18, 1918. The Social Revolutionary ministers were arrested, the conspirators elected Admiral Kolchak as a dictator, he received the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia.

"Margarine Dictator"

In Soviet historiography, the admiral's regime was presented as despotic, but the Bolshevik leaders themselves called Kolchak a "margarine dictator", hinting at the softness of his power. Kolchak was soft only in comparison with the Reds. Any anti-government demonstrations, including strikes, were decisively suppressed by the troops, the death penalty and corporal punishment returned. To neutralize the threat from Bolshevik spies and red partisans, Kolchak gave great powers to counterintelligence. This affected the activities of counterintelligence officers: someone enriched himself, someone settled personal scores or satisfied sadistic inclinations.

There were also positive changes. Under Kolchak, for the first time in Siberia, a minimum wage was introduced, which was indexed along with inflation. The freedom of the press was preserved: the “military dictatorship” was burned by both left and right publications. The Socialist-Revolutionary ministers of the Directory were arrested, but no one arranged a hunt for party members. For example, the governor of the Irkutsk province was Pavel Yakovlev, a former bomber. And here is what he wrote partisan detachment Reds under the command of Kravchenko and Shchetinkin: “I, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, secretly landed in Vladivostok in order to start a fight against the traitor Kolchak, who had sold out to foreigners, together with the people's Soviet government. All Russian people are obliged to support me. Grand Duke Nicholas.

The appointment of people like Pavel Yakovlev Kolchak was not driven by liberal views, but by a shortage of personnel. It was he who was the main scourge of white Siberia, was especially keenly felt in the troops: almost all talented officers were either with Denikin or with the Reds. The rear was no better. Most of the civil servants felt like temporary workers and plundered everything that they could plunder.

Even under these conditions, Kolchak managed to organize a victorious offensive. From February to May, the Whites moved forward, took Perm and Ufa. The forward detachments of General Pepelyaev approached Vyatka, from where a direct road to Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow opened.

In the first days of May 1919, the offensive bogged down. The Reds were able to concentrate about 80 thousand people under the command of Frunze and Tukhachevsky on the decisive directions of the Eastern Front. Whites in these areas had a little less than 20 thousand. The very first defeats hit Kolchak's army very painfully: a general desertion of the mobilized began. White rolled back to the east as quickly as recently went to the west. November 10 Kolchak had to leave the capital, Omsk.

The government and state structures were evacuated rather quickly. According to rumors, the ministers had to pay bribes to the railway workers in order to provide them with wagons. Kolchak remained. He wanted to personally follow the train with the gold reserves of Russia, which the Whites captured in August 1918 in Kazan. French General Maurice Janin, representative of the Entente powers and formal commander Czechoslovak Corps, offered to take out the gold on Czechoslovak trains. Kolchak replied that he would rather leave the gold to the Bolsheviks than give it to the Allies. After these words, the Entente lost all interest in Kolchak, who defended Russian interests too zealously.

While the train with Kolchak and gold was slowly moving east, the government in Irkutsk tried to prevent mass uprisings through democratic changes and a change of administration. with the moderate left. Meanwhile, the leftists were already preparing a rebellion. Irkutsk became the center of attraction for the socialist intelligentsia. The city was ruled by the aforementioned bomber Yakovlev, the Menshevik Konstantinov was the chairman of the city duma.

In November 1919, the Political Center appeared, a union of non-Bolshevik left organizations in Siberia, in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries played the main role. The organization was led by Florian Fedorovich, a former deputy of the State Duma, who was part of the Samara government of Komuch, an anti-Bolshevik government of former members of the Constituent Assembly. The organization set as its goal the overthrow of Kolchak's power and the construction in Siberia of an independent socialist state with democratic governance, which, according to the members of the Political Center, could coexist with Red Russia.

While Kolchak's echelon slowly crawled along the Trans-Siberian Railway, constantly detained by the Czechs, the Political Center began to act. The technique was borrowed from the Bolsheviks: agitators were sent into the army, tired of fighting and practically defeated, who told the soldiers that only Kolchak was preventing peace between the Bolsheviks and independent free Siberia. A chain of uprisings gradually cut off Irkutsk from Kolchak and the retreating army of Kappel. In early December, Pepelyaev left the city and went to meet Kolchak. The political center began to prepare an uprising.

On December 21, 1919, a bridge over the Angara was torn off by a stream of water. The ice had not yet risen, and the city was cut off from the barracks of the 53rd regiment, which made up the bulk of the Irkutsk garrison. The Social Revolutionaries immediately began their agitation in the regiment. On the evening of December 24, Nikolai Kalashnikov, a former Socialist-Revolutionary bomber, and now a staff officer in the Kolchak army, came to the barracks. He announced to the soldiers that power had passed to the Political Center and a new, people's army would be formed to fight the Bolsheviks. In total, about three thousand people managed to agitate around the city.

Irkutsk in 1919, newsreel

The uprising could be suppressed on the very first day: the Irkutsk commandant Konstantin Sychev planned to fire cannons at the barracks where the rebels gathered. But there were five thousand Czechs and one and a half thousand Japanese in the city, who told him that in the event of a bombardment they would take the side of the rebels.

Sychev had several officer detachments, a company of instructors and rangers. The basis of his troops were high school students and junkers aged 14–20. They were fed by Irkutsk schoolgirls and college girls, but they could not organize the work of field kitchens in the city. On December 31, units of Ataman Semyonov tried to break through to the city, but the Cossacks were driven back by machine-gun fire. There was still the potential for a fight, but on July 5, Kolchak's ministers capitulated and fled the city without warning the defenders.

Kolchak, meanwhile, was stuck with the train in Nizhneudinsk. The Czechs received an order from the commander, Jan Syrovoy, not to let the echelons go to Irkutsk. The officers offered Kolchak to get horses and leave for Mongolia, since the Czechs agreed to let the admiral go in any direction, except for the direction to Irkutsk, but the admiral categorically refused to leave his convoy. There were still about five hundred people with him, and he firmly decided to share their fate.

On January 7, 1920, progress was made in negotiations with the Allies. The golden echelon passed under the protection of the Czech troops, the convoy disbanded, the admiral and his entourage continued to move in one of the Czech trains. At the same time, Kolchak could go to Mongolia along with the officers or start moving west, towards the army of Vladimir Kappel in the Kansk region. It was about five days of tobogganing before her.

The commander of the Czech echelon, Major Krovak, received a telegram from Syrovy: Kolchak should be escorted to Irkutsk, where he would be handed over to the Japanese or French for evacuation to Vladivostok. The political center demanded that General Zhanen and Syrovoy hand over the admiral, otherwise promising to attack the Czech echelons throughout Siberia. Zhanin and Syrovoy lost. Kolchak was handed over to representatives of the Political Center as soon as the train arrived in Irkutsk, at 21:55 on January 15, 1920.

"With the dignity of a captive commander in chief"

More than a hundred new prisoners turned up in the Irkutsk provincial prison. Kolchak, his prime minister Pepelyaev, the common-law wife of the Supreme Ruler, Anna Timiryova, Admiral Trubcheninov's adjutant, former Kolchak ministers and some of the convoy officers. Kolchak himself got a solitary cell.

Formally, the commission of inquiry was subordinate to the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center, but on the same day the actual power over it was transferred to the Bolshevik Provisional Revolutionary Committee (VRK). Interrogations began on January 21. The local Bolshevik underground, which supported the Socialist-Revolutionary uprising financially and organizationally, pressed on. The Social Revolutionaries did not resist, in the presence of representatives of the Czech troops, they solemnly signed the act of transferring power. Two days later, elections were held for the local Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, out of 524 seats, the Bolsheviks got 343, the Socialist-Revolutionary bloc - 121.

For the trial, a special SR investigative commission was created: Konstantin Popov, Vsevolod Denike, Nikolai Alekseevsky, Georgy Lukyanchikov. The Social Revolutionaries interrogated the admiral, and the minutes of the meetings were signed by Samuil Chudnovsky, appointed by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee to the post of head of the Irkutsk Cheka. It was at the same time, as it were, an independent special judicial body created by the previous government, and formally, after the establishment Soviet power, a branch of the local Cheka, in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries simply met with the Bolshevik.

This duality persisted in everything, including in relation to the prisoners. The food in prison was disgusting, but they allowed transfers from the outside, so that most of the prisoners did not starve. The arrested were allowed to move along the inner corridors of the prison castle, to visit each other. At the same time, Chudnovsky, for example, forbade bringing tea to Kolchak, noting at one of the interrogations that the Supreme Ruler drinks it with great pleasure. Then the commission of inquiry itself began to give him tea.

Members of the commission treated the admiral with respect. Popov writes in his memoirs that Kolchak behaved with the “dignity of a captive commander in chief”, answered all questions in detail and gave evidence, but never gave the commission materials to convict anyone for crimes against the Soviet regime. However, he could say anything - the decision had already been made.

Behind Kolchak's train, the remnants of the Siberian White Army under the command of Vladimir Kappel were still moving east, bloodless, but still quite combat-ready, about five thousand people. Realizing that people who traveled several thousand kilometers through the taiga in winter could well take Irkutsk, the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Red Army, which then represented the central government in Siberia, decided: “Keep Admiral Kolchak under arrest with the adoption of exceptional measures of strategy and saving his life ... using execution only if it is impossible to keep Kolchak in their hands ... ”This telegram arrived in Irkutsk on January 23.

On January 27, martial law was introduced in the city. The Izhevsk brigade of Kappel's army defeated the forward units of the Reds near the Zima station. The guards in the prison were replaced by a detachment of Red Guards, the liberal order ended. Now everyone was sitting in their cells, transmissions were allowed extremely rarely, according to the mood of the guards, and meetings too. Immediately after the news of the battle near Zima, the Military Revolutionary Committee sent a request to the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army - what to do with Kolchak. The answer came immediately: "The Revolutionary Military Council has no objection to the execution."

The interrogations continued until February 6, until a telegram arrived in Irkutsk from the same Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army: “Today, by direct wire, I gave the order to shoot Kolchak.” This day was the last day of the meetings of the commission of inquiry, there were nine in all. The admiral managed to testify before the period of the February Revolution, transcripts of interrogations have been preserved.

On February 6, the White army broke through to the city, which, after the death of Kappel on January 26, was led by General Sergei Voitsekhovsky from pneumonia. He put forward an ultimatum in which he demanded that the Bolsheviks extradite Kolchak and his headquarters. The ultimatum was rejected, Voitsekhovsky appointed an assault. The Bolsheviks feared an uprising in Irkutsk itself, where there were still supporters of the Supreme Ruler and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, dissatisfied with the transfer of power to the Bolsheviks.

It is still not clear how the decision to execute Kolchak was made. They came to shoot at two in the morning from the sixth to the seventh of February. The resolution was adopted and signed by the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee Shiryamov and members of the Military Revolutionary Committee Snoskarev and Levenson, but some researchers believe that it was drawn up retroactively, and the real decision was made by the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, Smirnov and Lenin. As proof of this version, Lenin’s telegram is cited: “Cipher. Sklyansky: Send Smirnov (RVS 5) a cipher: Do not spread any news about Kolchak, print absolutely nothing, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival acted in this and that way under the influence of Kappel's threat and danger Whiteguard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin. The signature is also in cipher.1. Do you undertake to make archi-reliably?

The date of this telegram is unknown. Opponents of the version with the direct participation of Lenin in the decision to shoot Kolchak say that it was sent at the end of February 1920 and the postscript “archically reliable” related to another matter. But why Lenin sent instructions on information coverage of the death of the admiral only at the end of February is not clear. The decision to execute such a significant figure in the white movement was hardly taken by the Siberian Bolsheviks without consultations with the center, but Lenin, as in the case with the execution royal family, chose to remove responsibility from the central Bolshevik government, shifting it to local executive authorities.

"Ends in the Water"

They came to the cell for Kolchak at two in the morning. He was already dressed. He asked: "Will there be no judgment?" Chudnovsky laughed. The admiral asked for a last meeting with Timiryova, but he was refused. At the same time, they went up for Pepelyaev, who had never been interrogated. While the Chekists were taking the former prime minister away from the cell, Kolchak handed Chudnovsky a capsule of cyanide. Her admiral was handed over by sympathizers from the city with one of the food parcels. He explained to Chudnovsky that suicide is not compatible with the principles of a Christian. No decrees were read out, they were simply taken to the Znamensky Monastery. Samuil Chudnovsky in his memoirs described the moment before the execution as follows: “Kolchak stood and looked at us, a thin, type of Englishman. Pepelyaev prayed. Before the execution, Kolchak and Pepelyaev were offered to blindfold, both refused. The story that Kolchak himself commanded his execution is not confirmed by the memories of the participants.

“Chudnovsky whispers to me:“ It’s time. I give the command. Both fall. The corpses are on a sledge sledge, we bring them to the river and lower them into the hole. So Admiral Kolchak set off on his last voyage. They didn’t bury it, because the Socialist-Revolutionaries could talk, and the people would be thrown to the grave. And so - ends in the water, ”this is already from the memoirs of Boris Blatlinder, the commandant of Irkutsk, known under the party pseudonym Ivan Bursak. The Bolsheviks abolished the death penalty on January 17, 1920.

The chairman of the commission of inquiry, Popov, died in Moscow in 1949. Alekseevsky, a member of the commission of inquiry, fled abroad in 1920 and died in an accident in 1957. A member of the commission of inquiry, Denike was shot in 1939 as an enemy of the people. Lukyanchikov, a member of the investigative commission, was sentenced in exile to Turkestan in 1924 in the AKP case, he did not return from exile, the date of his death is unknown. Samuil Chudnovsky, head of the Irkutsk Cheka, was executed in 1937 as an enemy of the people. Rehabilitated in 1957. Ivan Smirnov, head of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, who gave the direct order to be shot, was executed in 1936 as an enemy of the people. Boris Blatlinder, commandant of Irkutsk, convicted in 1924 of embezzlement, shot in 1937 as an enemy of the people. Rehabilitated in 1988.

Dmitry Ostryakov independently tried to obtain the rulings of the military court of the Trans-Baikal Military District dated January 26, 1999 on the refusal to rehabilitate Kolchak, and also asked to publish it on the court's website. The military court of the Trans-Baikal Military District itself was renamed the East Siberian District Military Court in December 1999.

In February 2017, the East Siberian District Military Court refused to issue a copy of the judicial act to Dmitry, explaining that such a judicial act is served only on the applicants in the case, and Dmitry is not. In response to Ostryakov’s request, the Supreme Court of Russia in April 2017 replied that the original of the judicial act was stored in the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia, and in the East Siberian District Military Court itself it was destroyed due to the expiration of the document’s storage period. After that, Team 29 connected to this case.

In April 2017, through the unregistered Rosotvet media outlet, the Team's lawyers sent a request to the FSB of Russia with a request to provide a copy of the judicial act refusing to rehabilitate Kolchak. The FSB of Russia forwarded the media request to the East Siberian District Court, which in May 2017 replied that Rosotvet was not the applicant in the case, and the criminal case against Kolchak A.V. contains the stamp "top secret".

In June 2017, with the help of Team 29, Dmitry Ostryakov again sent a request to the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia, in which he asked for a copy of the judicial act refusing to rehabilitate Kolchak, and also to inform him whether it refers to information of restricted access.

In July 2017, the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia reported that it could not provide a copy of the judicial act, but it was not secret. In August 2017, Team 29 filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General of Russia in connection with the refusal of the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia to provide the requested judicial act.