The attitude of the population of Siberia to the "white" regime during the period of the Kolchak regime. The atrocities of A. V. Kolchak and the Kolchakites against the peoples of Russia are forgotten! The Overton window in action Why the peasantry opposed Kolchak

Kolchak is now presented as a positive alternative to Soviet power. The widespread, unquenchable peasant uprisings in the territory occupied by the troops of the Entente and the Supreme Ruler, give rise to justified doubts.
A lot of material about this is in the book “ Siberia under Kolchak: Memories, materials, documents.» Evgeniya Kolosova: Socialist-Revolutionary, historian of the revolutionary movement in Russia.

We would like to draw your attention to a small excerpt from the first essay: "The Peasant Movement under Kolchak."

“The most striking fact in the life of Siberia during the period of the existence of power, the adm. Kolchak, there were undoubtedly peasant uprisings. They begin simultaneously with the coup on November 18, even earlier, with the first appearance of "Kolchakism" in the public arena (the murder of Novoselov in mid-September 1918), initially have the character of local conflicts that arose on the most diverse grounds, then relatively quickly take on a bright anti-Kolchak character, which they bear until the very fall of the power of the supreme ruler. During the entire stay, the administrator. Kolchak in power, peasant uprisings did not stop, then calming down, where the administration had forces to suppress them, and while these forces were operating, then flaring up under the slightest favorable conditions, then suddenly, like a forest fire, covering vast territories, dozens of volosts , even entire districts, and finally provinces. It was a long, stubborn and organized struggle, which did not stop for a single minute, if we take a general Siberian scale, and ended in the victory of the peasants, which seemed so impossible. Almost all the major leaders of the peasant detachments (Mamontov, Novoselov, Rogov, Kravchenko, Shchetinkin, Lubkov, Yakovenko, the Babkin brothers, etc.) survived Kolchak. They were the winners on the battlefield, not Kolchak.
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“As for the movement in the south of the Biysk district, which began in the late summer of 1919 and had a base in Gorny Altai, in particular with. Black Anui, then I had some personal ties with him, and I will talk about him in more detail below, but for now I will only note the following.

The map that I am in charge of here shows that by mid-November, four large peasant armies were operating in this area: Miloslavsky with 4000 men, Pletnev with 3000 men, Chauzov with 1000 men. and Rogov in 500-1000 people. They occupied the area on both sides of the river. Biysk, north of Biysk and west of Barnaul, overlooking the railway between Biysk and st. Ovchinnikovo. The movement began here in the steppe and then spread to the mountains, to Altai. The armament of the peasants was very primitive: there were almost no firearms, and even more so artillery, there were pikes in great use, here called "pokes"; with them the peasants in a solid mass went straight to the machine guns and, sprinkling everything around with their bodies, took them; those who defended the machine guns were destroyed by piercing with their pikes - "pokes". Sometimes they lured cavalry detachments, especially if they were Czechs, Poles and foreigners in general, who did not know the area well, into the interior of the country, led them into swamps and there, surrounded by a tight ring, waited for their enemy to shoot all the cartridges. After that, those who were ambushed were taken in hand-to-hand combat and every one was killed. It was a real Siberian "jaqueria" with all its characteristic features: cunning, as the main weapon, cruelty, as the main means for reprisals against the enemy. "

To go bare-handed to machine guns, you need to have a lot of hatred. Big score ...

Kolchak. He's such a sweetheart

Kolchak's victims in Novosibirsk, 1919

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

Tomichi carry the bodies of the spread participants of the anti-Kolchak uprising

The funeral of the Red Guard brutally killed by the Kolchakites

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

One young American officer sent to investigate Ivanov-Rynov's atrocities was so shocked that, after finishing his report to Grevs, he exclaimed:

“For God's sake, General, don't send me any more on such errands! A little more, and I would have ripped off my uniform and began to save these unfortunate people. "

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

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

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

But because the MOST of the Russian people, seeing the cruelty, baseness and venality of such "Kolchaks", supported the Red Army.

victims of Kolchak and Kolchak thugs

Such a touching series was filmed with public money about one of the main executioners of the Russian people during the civil war of the last century, that just tears welling up. And so touchingly, emotionally, we are told about this guardian of the Russian land. And hiking through Baikal is held commemorative and prayer services. Well, just grace descends on the soul.

But for some reason, the inhabitants of the territories of Russia, where Kolchak and his comrades played a hero, have a different opinion. They remember how the whole villages of Kolchak people threw living people into the mines, and not only that.

By the way, why is it that the tsar is honored on a par with the priests and white officers? Didn't they blackmail the king from the throne? Didn't they plunge our country into bloodshed, betraying their people, their king? Didn't the priests joyfully restore the patriarchy immediately after their betrayal of the sovereign? Didn't the landlords and generals want power for themselves without the control of the emperor? Didn't they start organizing the civil war after the successful February coup, organized by them? Aren't they the Russian peasant who hanged and fired all over the country. It was only Wrangel, horrified by the death of the Russian people, left the Crimea himself, all the others preferred to slaughter the Russian peasant until they themselves were reassured forever.

Yes, and remembering the Polovtsian princes by the surnames Gzak and Konchak, cited in the Lay of Igor's Campaign, the conclusion involuntarily suggests itself that Kolchak is their kin. Maybe that's why you shouldn't be surprised at the following?

By the way, there is no point in judging the dead, neither white nor red. But mistakes cannot be repeated. Mistakes can only be made by the living. Because the lessons of history need to know by heart.

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

American, British and French millionaires took over the bulk of the supply of weapons, ammunition, and uniforms to Kolchak. In the first half of 1919 alone, the United States sent Kolchak more than 250 thousand rifles, millions of cartridges. In total, in 1919, Kolchak received from the United States, England, France and Japan 700,000 rifles, 3,650 machine guns, 530 guns, 30 aircraft, 2 million pairs of boots, thousands of sets of uniforms, equipment and underwear.

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

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

From the west, the White Poles were advancing along with the Petliura and White Guard troops. In the north and Turkestan, mixed detachments of Anglo-American and French interventionists and the army of the White Guard General Miller operated. From the northwest, supported by the White Finns and the British fleet, Yudenich advanced. Thus, all the forces of the counter-revolution and interventionists went over to the offensive. Soviet Russia found itself again in a ring of advancing enemy hordes. Several fronts were created in the country. Chief among them was the Eastern Front. Here the fate of the country of the Soviets was decided.

On March 4, 1919, Kolchak launched an offensive against the Red Army along the entire Eastern Front for 2 thousand kilometers. He fielded 145 thousand bayonets and sabers. The backbone of his army was the Siberian kulaks, the urban bourgeoisie and the wealthy Cossacks. In the rear of Kolchak there were about 150 thousand interventionist troops. They guarded the railways, helped to crack down on the population.

The Entente kept Kolchak's army under their direct control. At the headquarters of the White Guards, there were always military missions of the Entente powers. French General Janin was appointed commander-in-chief of all interventionist troops operating in Eastern Russia and Siberia. English General Knox was in charge of supplying Kolchak's army and the formation of new units for it.

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

On the Perm-Glazov sector, the strongest Siberian army of Kolchak operated under the command of General Gaida. The same army was supposed to develop an offensive in the direction of Vyatka, Sarapul and join up with the troops of the interventionists operating in the North.

victims of the atrocities of Kolchak in Siberia. 1919 g.

peasant hanged by Kolchak

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

Women, old people and children were subjected to violence, flogging and torture. Property, cattle, harness were taken away. The horses, which the Soviet government gave to the poor to maintain their economy, were taken away by the Kolchak people and given to their former owners (doc. No. 47).

A young teacher from the village of Zury, Pyotr Smirnov, was brutally hacked by a White Guard saber because he met a White Guard in good clothes (doc. No. 56).

In the village of Syam-Mozhge, the Kolchakites dealt with a 70-year-old woman because she sympathized with the Soviet regime (doc. No. 66).

In the village of N. Multan, Malmyzhsky district, on the square in front of the people's house, the corpse of a young communist Vlasov was buried in 1918. The Kolchakites drove the working peasants into the square, forced them to dig up the corpse and publicly mocked him: they beat him on the head with a log, pushed through his chest and, finally, putting a noose around his neck, tied the tarantass to the front end and dragged it along the village street for a long time (doc. No. 66 ).

In workers' settlements and cities, in the huts of the poor peasants of Udmurtia, a terrible groan arose from the excesses and executions of the Kolchakites. For example, during the two months of the bandits' stay in Votkinsk, 800 corpses were found in Ustinov Log alone, not counting those individual victims in private apartments that were taken to an unknown destination. Kolchakites plundered and ruined the national economy of Udmurtia. From the Sarapul district it was reported that “after Kolchak, nothing and nowhere literally was left ... After the Kolchak robberies in the district, the availability of horses decreased by 47 percent and cows by 85 percent ... , 2000 carts, 1300 sets of harnesses, thousands of poods of grain and dozens of farms completely plundered. "

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

From the certificate of the Deputy Director of the Yalutorovsk Museum Complex N.M. Shestakova:

“I consider myself obliged to say that my grandfather Yakov Alekseevich Ushakov, a front-line soldier of the First World War, a St. George cavalier, was hacked to death with Kolchak's sabers behind Tobol. My grandmother was left with three young sons. My father at that time was only 6 years old ... And how many women throughout Russia were the Kolchak people made widows, and children - orphans, how many old people were left without son's supervision? "

Therefore, the logical result (please note neither torture nor bullying, just execution):

“We entered Kolchak’s cell and found him dressed - in a fur coat and a hat,” writes IN. Bursak. - It seemed that he was expecting something. Chudnovsky read him the resolution of the Revolutionary Committee. Kolchak exclaimed:
- How! Without a trial?
Chudnovsky replied:
- Yes, Admiral, just as you and your henchmen shot thousands of our comrades.
Climbing to the second floor, we entered the cell to Pepeliaev. This one was also dressed. When Chudnovsky read him the resolution of the Revolutionary Committee, Pepeliaev fell to his knees and, lying at his feet, begged not to be shot. He assured that, together with his brother, General Pepelyaev, he had long decided to rebel against Kolchak and go over to the side of the Red Army. I ordered him to get up and said: - You cannot die with dignity ...
We went down to Kolchak's cell again, took him away and went to the office. The formalities are over.
By 4 o'clock in the morning we arrived at the bank of the Ushakovka River, a tributary of the Angara. Kolchak behaved calmly all the time, and Pepelyaev — this huge carcass — was like in a fever.
Full moon, bright frosty night. Kolchak and Pepeliaev stand on a hillock. Kolchak refuses my offer to blindfold. The platoon is built, rifles at the ready. Chudnovsky whispers to me:
- It's time.
I give the command:
- Platoon, against the enemies of the revolution - or!
Both fall. We put the corpses on the sledge-sledge, bring them to the river and lower them into the ice-hole. So "the supreme ruler of all Russia" Admiral Kolchak leaves on his last voyage ... ".
("The defeat of Kolchak", military publishing house of the USSR Ministry of Defense, Moscow, 1969, pp. 279-280, circulation 50,000 copies).

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

MG Aleksandrov, commissar of the Red Guard detachment in Tomsk. He was arrested by the Kolchak people and imprisoned in Tomsk. In mid-June 1919, he recalled, 11 workers were taken out of the cell at night. Nobody slept.

“The silence was broken by faint groans that came from the prison yard, prayers and curses were heard ... but after a while everything was quiet. In the morning, the criminals told us that the Cossacks who had been taken out were chopped down with sabers and stabbed with bayonets in the back yard, and then they loaded the carts and took them away somewhere.

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

American General W. Graves recalled:

“The soldiers of Semyonov and Kalmykov, under the protection of the Japanese troops, flooded the country like wild animals, killed and robbed the people, while the Japanese could have stopped these killings at any time if they wanted. If at that time they asked what all these brutal murders were for, they usually received in response that the killed were Bolsheviks, and this explanation, obviously, satisfied everyone. Events in Eastern Siberia were usually presented in the darkest colors and human life there was not worth a penny.
In Eastern Siberia, there were horrific murders, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as is usually thought. I will not be mistaken if I say that in Eastern Siberia for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, there were one hundred people killed by anti-Bolshevik elements. "

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

There is a board for Mannerheim in St. Petersburg, now it will be for Kolchak ... Next - Hitler?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salvation under the Stars and Stripes

To the timid attempts of the White Guards to find out what the Americans are doing here, a discouraging answer was received: "We have come to help the people of Primorye defend their democratic rights." After standing in bewilderment for several hours, awaiting the decision of their command, Kolchak's executors left without fulfilling the instructions given to them.

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

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

"During the arrest, clothes were taken away ..."

No less colorful in this respect is the "case of the Shcheglov police", begun after the Czechoslovak lieutenant Kauril helped the head of the garrison of the city of Shcheglov, Tomsk province, on the night of August 21-22, 1919 (today - Kemerovo) arrest almost all of the local Kolchak police, headed by its chief Ozerkin. This case was unique even for the dashing years of the Civil War, because, in fact, some Kolchakites opposed other Kolchakites, and even with the direct help of foreign interventionists!

To investigate the events, the Minister of the Kolchak Interior Ministry, Viktor Pepeliaev, sent an official on special assignments Shklyaev to Shcheglov. Contrary to expectations, having familiarized himself with the case on the spot, he not only did not take the side of his colleagues, but also supported the actions of the "revolutionaries". According to Shklyaev, “policemen were arrested ... for their wrong actions ... Those arrested are charged with murder, torture, extortion, bribery and other crimes ...” The investigation he launched confirmed these charges. Shcheglov's militiamen began their fight against "crime" with mass extortion of money from the population. Shklyaev wrote that “on May 5-7 this year, a village clerk and four citizens were arrested by the police in the village of Dideevo for the fact that the society imposed fees not attributed to their village by sentence. During the arrest, the clothes were confiscated, the secretary was flogged so that they spattered the walls with blood, "after which the detainees were released for bribes in the amount of 1 - 1.3 thousand rubles." At the same time, the police, under various pretexts, arrested the wealthiest local residents in order to extract more money from them. And, as it turned out, "... the police themselves initiated robberies under the guise of criminals and red partisans ..."

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

Meanwhile, impunity gave rise to more and more crimes, which became more and more sophisticated and challenging. For example, police officers who arrested local residents for no reason other than money often demanded intimacy from women they liked in order to release their relatives, and, according to the investigation, "usually it was carried out by intimidated women." Shklyaev testifies: "One arrested person was released for a bribe given to Ozerkin, and Berezovsky pronounced the right to night with the red's wife ... He asked her to give the money and agree to the proposal because of the unbearable torture ..."

"Mischief" of the Kolchak police

The guards did not stop before direct violence. So, as a result of the investigation carried out by Shklyaev, it turned out that in May 1919, near the pier on the Tom River near the village of Shevelev, Shcheglovsky district, “by order of the chief of the 1st police station Kuzevanov, three peasant girls were delivered to the steamer, one of whom, Anna Sheveleva, was she was raped by police officer Voronin, and the other two were released only because they were menstruating. " However, there were more serious cases in the lists of the actions of the local police. In particular, on the same day they shot the peasant Smirnov on suspicion of espionage on the orders of drunken Kuzevanov, stripped him and threw him into the river. His own brother was beaten to a pulp ”. For this they were almost torn to pieces by the soldiers of the local Kolchak garrison who witnessed this crime, according to the confession of its chief, second lieutenant Lugovsky, who openly threatened the guards "to raise them with bayonets." According to him, this desire was strengthened in them after "... on June 23, a drunken policeman seriously wounded peasant Alexander Dyukov ..."

Soon after, a drunken passenger Anisimov, disguised as a Bolshevik, was killed and robbed in front of the crowd by a policeman, although, according to Shklyaev's investigation, it was established that this was a murder to cover up the robbery. In addition, a circus actress was killed by the police after refusing to intimacy with the guards.

It is interesting that the authorities standing over the police in the person of the governor of the Tomsk province B.M. Mikhailovsky defended such "law enforcement officers" as "ideological fighters against Bolshevism", while trying to prove Shklyaev's "incompetence". So, speaking about the murder of Anisimov, the governor justified it by the fact that the deceased was "a Bolshevik agitator who campaigned on a steamer for Soviet power and, being arrested, was killed on the way while trying to escape." In turn, in a letter to Pepeliaev about the murder of the worker Kolomiets committed by the police, he tried to portray the latter as a dangerous state criminal who "led the preparation of the uprising", "killed while trying to escape." However, this version was not confirmed by the investigation, and further Shklyaev was able to establish that "... Ozerkin was arrested to death Kolomiets."

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

And such crimes were not special cases, but reflected the general picture of the white terror unleashed against the population. Even when Mikhailovsky was “pinned to the wall” with evidence, he tried to justify his subordinates, pointing to “... the martyrdom role that falls to the lot of the police officers, who are persecuted by the Bolsheviks in the first place with particular cruelty. Under such conditions, they ... respond to the Red Terror with anti-Bolshevik terror. Hence these "liquidations", "attempts to escape" and so on. " As a result, as Shklyaev reported “upstairs”, “... the villagers hid at the sight of the police no worse than from any bandit ... The horror of the situation is that this mischief of the police was shifted to the head of the government (Kolchakovsky)recalling the blissful times of tsarism, when such acts were unacceptable in the presence of bailiffs and sergeants ... "According to Shklyaev's disappointing conclusions, it was precisely this behavior of the guards that ultimately led to the very spread of Bolshevism, which Mikhailovsky complained about.

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

What is the reason for such massive lawlessness? As Shklyaev established, the police posts here were occupied by representatives of local youth aged 23-24, who had neither the knowledge nor the experience of such work. In an atmosphere of massive rejection of the "legacy of tsarism" on the territory of White Siberia, former tsarist police officers were dismissed from service, and non-professionals were recruited to replace them. Many of them, who received no education, also had a dark past. And, having got to such a responsible job, they often turned out not only to be dishonest, but also committed much more serious crimes that undermined the authority of the Kolchak government as a whole. It is not surprising that such a management system turned out to be unviable and that the Bolsheviks came to replace the White Guards, who were then shot for malfeasance.

An official on special assignments, who fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks in Irkutsk, Shklyaev remained to serve in the red in their internal affairs bodies. Governor Mikhailovsky managed in January 1920 to leave the rebellious Tomsk province and in 1923 to take part in the Yakutsk campaign of his former boss's brother, General A.N. Pepelyaev, during which he was taken prisoner and got off for his arts and "exploits" of his subordinates in ten years in prison. His boss, Interior Minister Viktor Pepelyaev, was less fortunate: in February 1920, already the head of the Kolchak government, he was shot together with Admiral Kolchak in Irkutsk, before being shot, according to the testimony of its participants, he humbly lay at the feet of the Bolsheviks, praying for mercy. It is significant that when they and the former Supreme Ruler were brought to the ice hole on the Angara, the admiral asked in surprise why this was happening without trial, but he was immediately reminded that under his rule, mass executions were also carried out without any trial. So the boomerang is back. And, as you know, then he returned many times.

Sergey Balmasov

"Top Secret", No.1 / 402 Sergey Balmasov.

In 1919, in the Suchansky district of Primorye, the local population, irritated by extortions and violence from the whites, began to protest. But instead of a dialogue against them, troops were sent out, whose commanders, not deeply delving into the reasons for the riot, preferred to shoot the disaffected, and burn the most "restless" settlements.
However, this did not always happen. In at least three cases, the punitive detachments that arrived at the scene, whose members were anticipating the bloody massacre of the "Bolsheviks," were unable to do their job.
They stopped, amazed at the following sight: red flags fluttered over the rebel settlements, adjacent to the stars and stripes of the United States, under which the American invaders from the expeditionary corps of General Graves were located, with machine guns.
To the timid attempts of the White Guards to find out what the Americans are doing here, a discouraging answer was received: "We have come to help the people of Primorye defend their democratic rights." After standing in bewilderment for several hours, awaiting the decision of their command, Kolchak's executors left without fulfilling the instructions given to them.

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

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

As follows from the documents, "the flogging extended to the arrested women, even pregnant women ... 17 bandits were brought from the village of Buyapakskaya. Among them - 11 women. They brought in and all were flogged (we are talking about a sophisticated and cruel beating with whips and ramrods, after which the punished often became disabled or were bedridden for at least several days).
Three women were pregnant. The women were accused of their husbands leaving for the Reds, all property and homes were taken away from everyone, although earlier, without any coercion, they publicly renounced any relationship with their husbands. The treatment of those arrested was cruel. Policeman Ziganshin hit the arrested person with the butt of his gun only for the fact that she began to give birth, in which he was inclined to see a simulation ... "
Meanwhile, impunity gave rise to more and more crimes that became more sophisticated and defiant. For example, police officers who arrested local residents for no reason other than money often demanded intimacy from women they liked in order to free their relatives, and, according to the investigation, "usually it was done by intimidated women."
Shklyaev testifies: "One arrested person was released for a bribe handed over to Ozerkin, and Berezovsky pronounced the right to night with the red's wife ... He asked her to give the money and agree to the proposal in view of unbearable torture."

The guards did not stop before direct violence. So, as a result of the investigation carried out by Shklyaev, it turned out that in May 1919, near the pier on the Tom River near the village of Shevelev, Shcheglovsky district, "by order of the chief of the 1st police station Kuzevanov, three peasant girls were delivered to the steamer, one of whom, Anna Sheveleva, was she was raped by policeman Voronin, and the other two were released only because they were menstruating. "
However, there were more serious cases in the lists of the actions of the local police. In particular, on the same day they shot the peasant Smirnov on suspicion of espionage on the orders of drunken Kuzevanov, stripped him and threw him into the river. They beat his brother half to death.
For this they were almost torn to pieces by the soldiers of the local Kolchak garrison who witnessed this crime, according to the confession of its chief, second lieutenant Lugovsky, who openly threatened the guards "to raise them with bayonets." According to him, this desire was strengthened in them after "on June 23, the peasant Alexander Dyukov was seriously wounded by a drunken policeman ..."
Soon after, a drunken passenger Anisimov, disguised as a Bolshevik, was "killed and robbed in front of the crowd by a policeman," although, according to Shklyaev's investigation, it was established that this murder was intended to cover up the robbery. In addition, a circus actress was killed by the police after refusing to intimacy with the guards.

Ozerkin himself was not inferior to his subordinates, who committed the murder of the Shcheglov tradesman Novikov in May 1919. It happened under the following circumstances: policeman Anokhin entered his house with the aim of robbery. Novikov, who was there, defending himself, disarmed him. The ashamed police officer complained to Ozerkin. He called Novikov and shot him through the front door.
It is interesting that the authorities standing over the police in the person of the governor of the Tomsk province B.M. Mikhailovsky defended such "law enforcement officers" as "ideological fighters against Bolshevism," while trying to prove Shklyaev's "incompetence".
So, speaking about the murder of Anisimov, the governor justified this by the fact that the deceased was "a Bolshevik agitator who campaigned on a steamer for Soviet power and, being arrested, was killed on the way while trying to escape."
In turn, in a letter to Pepeliaev about the murder of the worker Kolomiets committed by the police, he tried to portray the latter as a dangerous state criminal who "led the preparation of the uprising", "killed while trying to escape." However, this version was not confirmed by the investigation, and further Shklyaev was able to establish that "Ozerkin was arrested to death by Kolomiets".

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

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

It should be noted that reports of such crimes committed by policemen and in general by representatives of the authorities were then of a massive nature and came literally from everywhere where the Kolchakites stood, which caused massive uprisings against them.
For example, the same Shklyaev, sent in December 1919 for audit to the Irkutsk province, in his report to the Minister of Internal Affairs reported that almost all local police chiefs had committed serious official crimes or were suspected of committing them.
As a result, those very prosperous Siberian peasants, until recently alien to any politics, threw everything and went to the partisans. And so it happened almost throughout the vast territory controlled by Kolchak.
An official on special assignments, who fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks in Irkutsk, Shklyaev remained to serve in the red in their internal affairs bodies. Governor Mikhailovsky managed in January 1920 to leave the rebellious Tomsk province and in 1923 to take part in the Yakutsk campaign of his former boss's brother, General A.N. Pepeliaev, during which he was taken prisoner and got off for his arts and "exploits" of his subordinates with a ten-year imprisonment.
His boss, Interior Minister Viktor Pepelyaev, was less fortunate: in February 1920, already the head of the Kolchak government, he was shot together with Admiral Kolchak in Irkutsk, before being shot, according to the testimony of its participants, he humbly lay at the feet of the Bolsheviks, praying for mercy.
It is significant that when they and the former Supreme Ruler were brought to the ice hole on the Angara, the admiral asked in surprise why this was happening without trial, but he was immediately reminded that under his rule, mass executions were also carried out without any trial. So the boomerang is back.

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

Why did the Siberians rebel against Kolchak?

The history of Siberia in the 20th century is inconceivable without the history of the partisan movement during the Kolchak era. Much contradictory has been said about the Red partisans. Under the dominance of the Communist Party, popular uprisings against Kolchak were declared Bolshevik. Then, after the rehabilitation of the admiral (now there are monuments to him in Siberia), they were bandits. Now, having lost a little bit of momentary political interpretations of the past, we seem to come to a common denominator. But there is still no consensus on the partisan movement.

Below are the subjective notes of a journalist about the historical truth, as he sees it after reading numerous sources and testimonies.

The civil war in Kuzbass, and throughout Siberia, began with the revolt of the Czechoslovak corps. The mutiny broke out throughout Siberia, from the Urals to Irkutsk.

A few words about the case. It was formed from prisoners. He took part in hostilities against Austria-Hungary and Germany. After the fall of the monarchy in Russia, he was formally included in the French army. By agreement with the new Russian government (first with the bourgeois, and then with the Soviet), the corps was to be withdrawn from the territory of Russia along the Transsib to Vladivostok, and then by military transports by sea to Europe. Small arms were kept for the personnel.

The first echelon reached Vladik safely at the beginning of 1918. The rest stretched across the entire Transsib. Fifty thousand armed men. This was at a time when the old army practically ceased to exist, and the Red Army had just begun to form.

The withdrawal of the corps coincided with the beginning of military intervention against Soviet Russia by the side, including the Entente. The central government issued an order to disarm the corps. But it was almost impossible to fulfill such an order. The insurgent corps overthrew the still weak Soviet power.

In Kuzbass, a mutiny began in Mariinsk. A large Czechoslovak detachment was stationed there. By the end of July 1918, the entire Kuzbass was in the hands of the rebels.

The Czechoslovakians brought the bourgeois intelligentsia to power, who held elections and created a coalition (without the Bolsheviks, however) government in Omsk, but not for long. Intellectuals and doctrinaires called (as it later turned out - on their own head) into the power of Admiral Kolchak, first the Minister of War, and then, after the dispersal of the talkative but indecisive Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik government, which for some time proclaimed the Siberian Republic, the self-styled sole dictator and "supreme ruler of Russia ".

Kolchak was a creature of the Entente, or rather Britain: his military units were equipped from British arsenals, soldier's greatcoats and officer's tunics were English. And the habits in relation to the local population are quite colonialist. The then British Secretary of War Churchill, after the coup in Omsk, openly declared in parliament: "The British government called Kolchak to be with our help when the need demanded it."

The total number of invaders in Siberia, in addition to the Czechoslovakians, amounted to over 200 thousand bayonets. These were: the 10,000-strong American corps under the command of General Grevs; three Japanese divisions with a total strength of 120 thousand people (according to official data), located behind Baikal; a Polish division under the command of Colonel Rumshi, numbering 11,200 soldiers and officers; two British battalions, one of which, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ward, served in the protection of Kolchak; Canadian brigade; French units (1100 people), including aviation; legion of Romanians (4500 people); several thousand Italians under the command of Colonel Comossi; a regiment of Croats, Slovenes and Serbs; battalion of Latvians (1300 people).

The Siberian peasantry, which made up the overwhelming part of the population, was generally indifferent to the overthrow of the Bolshevik revolutionary committees. But the tax levies under Kolchak grew more than fourfold compared to the tsar. Discontent arose and, as a result, clashes with the armed detachments collecting those taxes. In parallel, Kolchak began mobilizing into the White Army. And no one wanted to fight against their own in Kolchak's tax-punitive detachments.

In reality, only local Cossacks became Kolchak's allies - they were rewarded with an increase in land allotments by 100 dessiatines each.

The Kolchak oprichniks willingly committed atrocities. The above-mentioned American General Grevs, who daily observed the actions of the Cossack chieftains in Eastern Siberia, recalled: "The soldiers of Semenov and Kalmykov, being protected by Japanese troops, flooded the country like wild animals, beat and robbed the people." And he made a very important addition: “In Eastern Siberia, terrible murders were committed, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as was usually thought. I will not be mistaken if I say that in Eastern Siberia for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, there were 100 people killed by anti-Bolshevik elements ".

Kolchak's government adopted an emergency "riot law". Everyone who was noticed in connection with the "reds" (as such were all non-monarchists, from ideological Bolsheviks, anarchists, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, to simply sympathetic and indifferent), were subjected to repression. They were tried by military-field courts as part of "troikas" (that's where it came from, not from the NKVD). The prisons were overcrowded. Concentration camps were created (the practice was taken from the British colonialists, who first mastered this know-how during the Anglo-Boer War); by 1920, more than a million people were simultaneously held in them.

In comparison with the data of the Cheka, Kolchak repressed the people 24 times more than the "evil" Chekists in Soviet Russia during the entire period of the Civil War.

I note that there were camps in Kuzbass and in the settlements close to it: Omsk, Tomsk, Novonikolaevsk, Barnaul, Biysk, Achinsk. The most numerous was in Omsk (33 thousand people), rather large in Tomsk (11 thousand prisoners). In Kuzbass there were two prisons for "political" ones: in Mariinsk there were just over a thousand people, in Kuznetsk - 292 people.

The first Kuzbass and one of the first partisan detachments in Siberia was created by a peasant from the village of Svyatoslavka, Mariinsky district, Pyotr Lubkov. In the fall of 1918, the detachment struck at the echelon of Czechs guarding the Mariinsk station, and then withdrew to Antibes station. In December 1918, a punitive detachment was sent to the village of Malopeschanka to defeat the Lubkovites. The commander of the punitive forces, Lieutenant Kolesov, and two soldiers were killed in the battle. Later, in a battle near Svyatoslavka, the partisans destroyed a detachment of ensign Sokolovsky.

In June 1919, a detachment of Ivan Novosyolov appeared within the Cherninsky region (this was the name of the vast subtaiga area on the border adjacent to Gornaya Shoria and the Salair ridge). A little later, partisans came under the command of Grigory Rogov, who had previously operated within the Barnaul and Biysk districts. Having united, the detachments began to operate in the area along the Chumysh River. Rogov's detachment grew in battles to five thousand people and by the fall of 1919 freed a significant territory from the Kolchakites.

In parallel with these detachments, other people's armies were actively grinding Kolchak. In general, partisan units in late 1919 - early 1920 numbered up to 140 thousand fighters in Siberia.

The armament was awful. Peaks. Hunting rifles, up to capsule and even flintlock. Used museum fortress tools. And they even made wooden cannons. One of these is kept in the Barnaul Museum of Local Lore.

The partisan war in Kuzbass continued until the arrival of the heroic Fifth Red Army, which was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the liberation of Siberia from Kolchak.