In the twentieth of May 1918, the so-called “White Czech rebellion” broke out in the country, as a result of which it spread across vast areas of the Volga region, Siberia and the Urals. The formation of anti-Soviet regimes there made war almost inevitable, and also pushed the Bolsheviks to sharply tighten their already quite tough policies.
But before this, the anti-Bolshevik formations did not represent any real force. Thus, poorly armed and deprived of any normal supplies, the Volunteer Army numbered only 1 thousand officers and approximately 5-7 thousand soldiers and Cossacks. At that time, everyone was completely indifferent to the “whites” in the south of Russia. General A.I. Denikin recalled those days: “Rostov struck me with its abnormal life. On the main street, Sadovaya, there is a lot of people wandering around, among whom there are a lot of combat officers of all branches and guards, in ceremonial uniforms and with sabers, but... without the national chevrons on the sleeves that are distinctive for volunteers!... On us, volunteers, both the public and and the “gentlemen officers” did not pay any attention, as if we were not here!” However, after the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, the situation changed dramatically, and the anti-Soviet forces received the necessary resources.
In addition, it must be borne in mind that in the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks, despite all their leftist bends, were ready for some kind of compromise in the field of domestic policy. If in 1917 Lenin acted as a “radical,” then in 1918 he already polemicized with the “left communists” (A. S. Bubnov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, N. I. Bukharin, etc.). This faction acted from a leftist position, demanding that the socialist reorganization of Russia be accelerated in every possible way. Thus, they insisted on the complete liquidation of banks and the immediate abolition of money. The “leftists” categorically objected to any use of “bourgeois” specialists. At the same time, they advocated complete decentralization of economic life.
In March, Lenin was in a relatively “compassionate” mood, believing that the main difficulties had already been overcome, and now the main thing was the rational organization of the economy. Strange as it may seem, the Bolsheviks at that moment (and even later) were not at all supporters of the immediate “expropriation of the expropriators.” In March, Lenin began writing his programmatic article “The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power,” in which he called for a suspension of the “attack on capital” and some compromise with capital: “... It would be impossible to define the task of the present moment with a simple formula: to continue the attack on capital ... in In the interests of the success of the further offensive, it is necessary to “pause” the offensive now.”
Lenin puts the following at the forefront: “The organization of the strictest and nationwide accounting and control over the production and distribution of products is decisive. Meanwhile, in those enterprises, in those branches and aspects of the economy that we have taken away from the bourgeoisie, we have not yet achieved accounting and control, and without this there can be no talk of the second, equally essential, material condition for the introduction of socialism, namely: on increasing, on a national scale, labor productivity.”
At the same time, he pays special attention to the involvement of “bourgeois specialists”. This question, by the way, was quite acute. Left communists opposed the involvement of bourgeois specialists. And it is very significant that on this issue we are at one with the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, who seem to have taken more “moderate positions” than the Bolsheviks. But no, for some reason the moderate socialists were against attracting specialists and strengthening discipline in production and in the troops.
The “leftists” criticized Lenin in every possible way for “state capitalism.” Vladimir Ilyich himself said ironically: “If, in about six months, we had established state capitalism, it would have been a huge success.” (“About “leftist” childishness and petty-bourgeoisism”). In general, in terms of relations with the urban bourgeoisie, many Bolsheviks expressed their readiness to make a significant compromise. There have always been trends in the leadership that suggested abandoning immediate socialization and using private initiative. A typical representative of such movements was Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council V.P. Milyutin, who called for building socialism in alliance with capitalist monopolies (the gradual socialization of the latter was assumed). He advocated corporatizing already nationalized enterprises, leaving 50% in the hands of the state, and returning the rest to the capitalists. (At the end of 1918, the communist faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets began to play the role of a kind of opposition to the regime, which developed a project for the complete restoration of free trade.)
Lenin himself did not approve of this plan, but at the same time he was not going to give up the idea of an agreement with the bourgeoisie. Ilyich put forward his own version of a compromise. He believed that industrial enterprises should be under workers' control, and their direct management should be carried out by former owners and their specialists. (It is significant that this plan was immediately opposed by the left communists and the left Socialist Revolutionaries, who started talking about the economic Brest of Bolshevism.) In March-April, negotiations were held with the major capitalist Meshchersky, who was offered the creation of a large metallurgical trust with 300 thousand workers. But the industrialist Stakheev, who controlled 150 enterprises in the Urals, himself turned to the state with a similar project, and his proposal was seriously considered.
As for the nationalization carried out in the first months of Soviet power, it did not have any ideological character and was primarily “punitive”. (Its various manifestations were examined in detail by the historian V.N. Galin in his two-volume study “Trends. Interventions and Civil War.”) In most cases, it was a conflict between workers who wanted to establish production and owners whose plans included its suspension and even curtailment - “until better times.” In this regard, the nationalization of the AMO plant, which belonged to the Ryabushinskys, is very indicative. Even before February, they received 11 million rubles from the government to produce 1,500 cars, but never fulfilled the order. After October, the factory owners disappeared, instructing the management to close the plant. The Soviet government, however, decided to allocate 5 million to the plant so that it could continue to function. However, the management refused, and the plant was nationalized.
Nationalization was also carried out to curb the expansion of German capital, which tried to take full advantage of the favorable situation that arose after the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. They began a massive purchase of shares in the country's leading industrial enterprises. The First All-Russian Congress of National Economic Councils noted that the bourgeoisie “is trying by all means to sell its shares to German citizens, trying to obtain the protection of German law through all sorts of tricks, all sorts of fictitious transactions.”
Finally, in June 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSO issued an order on the “nationalization of the largest enterprises,” according to which the state was supposed to give away enterprises with a capital of 300 thousand rubles. However, this resolution also indicated that nationalized enterprises are given for free rental use to owners who continue to finance production and make a profit. That is, even then, the implementation of Lenin’s state-capitalist program continued, according to which the owners of enterprises were not so much “expropriated” as included in the system of the new economy.
Under these conditions, long-term technocratic projects began to be conceived. Thus, on March 24, the “Flying Laboratory” of Professor Zhukovsky was created. She began working together with the Calculation and Testing Bureau at the Higher Technical School (now Bauman MSTU). Other promising projects were also planned. The Bolsheviks began to position themselves as a party of technocrats, a “party of action.”
However, excessive urbanism of consciousness seriously interfered with this “business”. The agrarian policy of the Bolsheviks alienated the broad masses of the peasantry from Soviet power. The Bolsheviks set a course for establishing a food dictatorship based on the forced confiscation of grain from the peasants. Moreover, there was opposition to this course, led by Rykov. Moreover, a number of regional Soviets resolutely opposed the dictatorship - Saratov, Samara, Simbirsk, Astrakhan, Vyatka, Kazan, which abolished fixed prices for bread and established free trade. However, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Supreme Economic Council, over the heads of the Soviets, reassigned local food authorities to the People's Commissariat for Food.
Of course, some elements of food dictatorship were necessary in those difficult conditions. Yes, they, in fact, existed - the seizure of grain, one way or another, was practiced by both the tsarist and the Provisional governments. The policy had to be toughened up somewhat, but the Bolsheviks here pretty much overdid it, which turned a lot of people against themselves. In essence, the Leninists underestimated the strength of the “peasant element”, the village’s ability to self-organize and resist. In the agrarian, peasant country, mass discontent with the Bolsheviks arose, which overlapped with the discontent of the “bourgeoisie and landowners.”
And so, in this situation, the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps took place, which made civil war inevitable. The performance itself became possible only thanks to the position of the Entente, which hoped to involve Czechoslovak units in the fight against both the Germans and the Bolsheviks. Back in December 1917, in Iasi (Romania), Allied military representatives discussed the possibility of using Czechoslovak units against the Bolsheviks. England was inclined towards this option, while France still considered it necessary to limit itself to the evacuation of the corps through the Far East. Disputes between the French and the British continued until April 8, 1918, when in Paris the Allies approved a document in which the Czechoslovak corps was considered as an integral part of the intervention forces in Russia. And on May 2, at Versailles, L. George, J. Clemenceau, V. E. Orlando, General T. Bliss and Count Mitsuoka adopted “Note No. 25,” ordering the Czechs to remain in Russia and create an eastern front against the Germans. Moreover, it was soon decided to use the corps to fight the Bolsheviks. Thus, the Entente openly set a course to sabotage the evacuation of the Czechs.
Western democracies were interested in permanent civil war. It was necessary for the Reds to beat the Whites as long as possible, and for the Whites to beat the Reds. Of course, this could not continue forever: sooner or later one side would have gained the upper hand. Therefore, the Entente decided to facilitate the conclusion of a truce between the Bolsheviks and the White governments. So, in January 1919, she made a proposal to all power structures located on the territory of the former Russian Empire to begin peace negotiations. It is quite obvious that a possible truce would be temporary and would be broken in the near future. At the same time, it would only stabilize the state of the split of Russia into a number of parts, primarily into the red RSFSR, Kolchak’s East and Denikin’s South. It is possible that the first truce would be followed by a second, and this would continue for a long time. By the way, a similar situation of permanent war developed in the 20-30s. in China, which was divided into territories controlled by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, Mao Zedong's Communists and various regional militaristic cliques. It is clear that this split only played into the hands of external forces, in particular the Japanese.
England never abandoned its plans to “reconcile” the whites with the reds. So, in the spring, in the form of an ultimatum, she proposed to start negotiations between the communists and P. Wrangel - under British arbitration. Wrangel himself resolutely rejected the British ultimatum, as a result of which in May 1920 London announced an end to aid to the whites. True, France has not yet refused this assistance and even strengthened it, but this was due to the circumstances of the Polish-Soviet war. The fact is that the French relied mainly on the Poles of J. Pilsudski, whose assistance far exceeded that of the whites. But in 1920 there was a threat of the defeat of Poland and the advance of the Red Army into Western Europe. It was then that the French needed the support of Wrangel, whose resistance forced the Reds to abandon the transfer of many selected units to the Polish front. But after the threat to Pilsudski passed, the French stopped helping the whites.
Mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps
The mutiny took place
May-August 1918, since August - support for the White Guards. The entire corps was evacuated from Russia in February 1920.
Place
Volga region, Ural, Siberia.
Occasion:
An attempt by the Soviet authorities to disarm the corps.
History of the mutiny
Czechoslovak Corps - this is a corps that included willing captured Czechs and Slovaks. The corps was formed in April - June 1917 years with the aim of participating in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The corps numbered about 45 thousand Human.
After the victory of the October Revolution, under the influence of the Entente, part of the corps was sent to the Tambov and Penza region (March 1918) to combat Bolsheviks, and part of the corps remained in Ukraine to continue the war with Germany.
Outwardly, the transfer of the corps to the Far East looked harmless: Russia agreed to the transfer of the corps, which was an autonomous part of France, to Western Europe to fight Germany.
26 March The Soviet government decided to withdraw the corps from Russian territory to Vladivostok, and from there to France, but subject to surrender of weapons.
May 1918- the right Socialist Revolutionaries provoked a rebellion in the corps, saying that after disarmament everyone would be arrested and imprisoned in prisoner of war camps.
May 25- White Czechs(as they began to be called), the echelons of which stretched from Penza to Vladivostok, captured Mariinsk.
May 26-31- they overthrew Soviet power in many cities: Chelyabinsk, Novonikolaevsk (Novosibirsk), Penza, Petropavlovsk, Syzran, Tomsk. They were actively supported by the White Guards, Social Revolutionaries, and Mensheviks.
From June to August The cities were taken: Kurgan, Oms, Samara, Vladivostok. Ufa, Simbirsk, Ekaterinburg, Kazan.
Thus , it was a huge territory of the Volga region, the Urals, and Siberia. Almost half of the country's gold reserves were stolen. Bourgeois power was established throughout the occupied territory, and the Soviets were overthrown.
Governments that arose in the occupied territory:
Founding Assembly Committee- Komuch- in Samara
Ural government- In Ekaterinburg
Provisional Siberian Government- in Omsk
Was held on the territory white terror: Communists, activists from workers and peasants were killed.
The fight against the White Czechs and White Guards
June 1918 - creation of the Eastern Front under the command of Vatsetis I.I.
End of August - beginning of September began counteroffensive Red Army.
End of october- Volga region liberated
Underground propaganda work of the Bolsheviks was carried out throughout the territory. The result is that about 4 thousand White Czechs went over to the side of the Soviets.
From mid-1919, the corps was used by A.V. Kolchak only to protect roads and did not take part in hostilities.
After the defeat of Kolchak, the corps was withdrawn to the Far East, and from there sent to its homeland. February 7 An agreement was signed with the leadership of the corps on its evacuation. The complete evacuation of the building ended only September 2, 1920.
Results
The armed uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May - August 1918 in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, which created a favorable situation for the liquidation of Soviet authorities and the formation of anti-Soviet governments (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, Provisional Siberian Government, later - Provisional All-Russian Government ) and the beginning of large-scale armed actions by white troops against Soviet power.
The reason for the start of the uprising was the attempt of the Soviet authorities to disarm the legionnaires.The beginning of the uprising
The Soviet government became aware of secret Allied negotiations on Japanese intervention in Siberia and the Far East. On March 28, in the hope of preventing this, Trotsky agreed to Lockhart for an all-Union landing in Vladivostok. However, on April 4, Japanese Admiral Kato, without warning the allies, landed a small detachment of marines in Vladivostok “to protect the lives and property of Japanese citizens.” The Soviet government, suspecting the Entente of a double game, demanded that new negotiations begin on changing the direction of the evacuation of Czechoslovaks from Vladivostok to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.
The German General Staff, for its part, also feared the imminent appearance of a 40,000-strong corps on the Western Front, at a time when France was already running out of its last manpower reserves and so-called colonial troops were hastily sent to the front. Under pressure from the German Ambassador to Russia, Count Mirbach, on April 21, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin sent a telegram to the Krasnoyarsk Council to suspend further movement of Czechoslovak trains to the east.
On May 25-27, at several points where Czechoslovak trains were located (Maryanovka station, Irkutsk, Zlatoust), clashes occurred with Red Guards who were trying to disarm the legionnaires.
On May 27, Voitsekhovsky took Chelyabinsk.
The Czechoslovaks, having defeated the forces of the Red Guard thrown against them, occupied several more cities, overthrowing the power of the Bolsheviks in them. The Czechoslovaks began to occupy cities lying in their path: Petropavlovsk, Kurgan, and opened the road to Omsk. Other units entered Novonikolaevsk, Mariinsk, Nizhneudinsk and Kansk (May 29). At the beginning of June 1918, the Czechoslovaks entered Tomsk.
On May 29, Chechek’s group, after a bloody battle that lasted almost a day, captured Penza.
Not far from Samara, legionnaires defeated Soviet units (June 4-5, 1918) and made it possible to cross the Volga. June 4 The Entente declares the Czechoslovak Corps part of its armed forces and declares that it will consider its disarmament as an unfriendly act towards the Entente. The situation was aggravated by pressure from Germany, which continued to demand that the Bolshevik government disarm the Czechoslovaks. In Samara, captured by the Czechoslovaks, on June 8, the first anti-Bolshevik government was organized - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), on June 23 - the Provisional Siberian Government in Omsk. This marked the beginning of the formation of other anti-Bolshevik governments throughout Russia.
The commander of the First Division, Stanislav Chechek, gave an order in which he especially emphasized the following:
Our detachment is designated as the predecessor of the allied forces, and the instructions received from headquarters have the sole purpose of building an anti-German front in Russia in alliance with the entire Russian people and our allies.
Russian volunteers of the General Staff of Lieutenant Colonel V.O. Kappel retake Syzran (07/10/1918), and Chechek - Kuznetsk (07/15/1918). The next part of the People's Army of KOMUCH V.O. Kappel made its way through Bugulma to Simbirsk (07/22/1918) and together they marched on Saratov and Kazan. In the Urals, Colonel Voitsekhovsky occupied Tyumen, and ensign Chila - Yekaterinburg (07/25/1918). In the east, General Gaida occupied Irkutsk (07/11/1918) and later Chita.
Under the pressure of superior Bolshevik forces, units of the People's Army of KOMUCH abandoned Kazan on September 10, Simbirsk on September 12, and Syzran, Stavropol, and Samara in early October. In the Czechoslovak legions, there was growing uncertainty about the need to fight in the Volga region and the Urals.
Already in the fall of 1918, Czechoslovak units began to be withdrawn to the rear and subsequently did not take part in battles, concentrating along the Trans-Siberian Railway. News of the proclamation of independent Czechoslovakia increased the desire of the legionnaires to return home. Even the Minister of War of the Czechoslovak Republic, Milan Stefanik, could not stop the decline in the morale of the legionnaires in Siberia during his inspection in November-December 1918. He issued an order ordering all units of the Czechoslovak Corps to leave the front and hand over positions on the front line to Russian troops.
On January 27, 1919, the commander of the Czechoslovak army in Russia, General Jan Syrovy, issued an order declaring the section of the highway between Novonikolaevsk and Irkutsk the operational area of the Czechoslovak army. The Siberian railway thus came under the control of the Czech legionnaires, and the actual manager of it was the commander-in-chief of the allied forces in Siberia and the Far East, French General Maurice Janin. It was he who established the order of movement of trains and evacuation of military units.
During 1919, the corps' combat effectiveness continued to decline. Its units also participated in security and punitive operations against the Red partisans from Novonikolaevsk to Irkutsk, but they were mainly involved in economic work: repairing locomotives, rolling stock, and railway tracks.
Retreat.
On February 7, Kolchak and Pepelyaev were shot by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee.
On the same day, at the Kuytun station near Irkutsk, a truce agreement was signed between the command of the Red Army and the Czechoslovak Corps, guaranteeing the withdrawal of parts of the corps to the Far East and evacuation. With regard to the Russian gold reserves, it was agreed that they would be transferred to the Soviet side after the last Czechoslovak echelon left Irkutsk for the east. Until this date, a truce was in effect, prisoners were exchanged, coal was loaded into locomotives, and lists of Russian and Czechoslovak representatives to escort the trains were drawn up and agreed upon. The transfer of the train with gold reserves to the Soviet authorities took place on March 1. On the night of March 1–2, the last Czech trains left Irkutsk, and regular units of the Red Army entered the city.
Legionnaires at the funeral of their comrades killed in battle with the Bolsheviks near Nikolsk-Usuriysky. 1918
Already in December 1919, the first ships with legionnaires began to leave Vladivostok. 72,644 people (3,004 officers and 53,455 soldiers and warrant officers of the Czechoslovak Army) were transported to Europe on 42 ships. More than four thousand people - dead and missing - did not return from Russia.
In November 1920, the last train with legionnaires from Russia returned to Czechoslovakia.
The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918 occupies a period in Russian history that, in the general catastrophe of fratricide, seems insignificant and hardly noticeable. However, it started the civil war. The beginning of the creation of the corps was of a patriotic nature, and the end of its stay on Russian territory was painted in black tones of punitive operations against civilians, murders, open robbery, and looting.
The situation of the Czechs and Slovaks in 1914
At the beginning of the First World War, the Czechoslovaks did not have their own state; its original territory was part of Austria-Hungary, where the local population was treated extremely unkindly. A large number of Czechoslovaks lived on the territory of Russia, who wished to fight for the independence of their native country at the beginning of the war.
After the outbreak of hostilities, Czechoslovak patriots sought to join the fight against Austria-Hungary, which, together with Germany, was part of the Triple Alliance. Czechs living in Russia formed the “Czech National Committee”.
He turned to Emperor Nicholas II with a request for assistance in the formation of the Czech squad, which, fighting as part of the Russian army, would fight for the freedom of the homeland. The appeal received approval for the creation of a military unit. It was this event that subsequently led to the creation of the Czechoslovak Corps and its uprising on Russian territory. 
Creation of the Czech squad as part of the Russian army
On the last day of July 1914, the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire decided to create a Czech squad. Two months later the banner was consecrated. In October 1914, she went to the front as part of the 3rd Army, under the command of a Bulgarian by birth, General Radko Dmitriev. The squad took part in the battles for Galicia, where it proved itself to be the best.
The Czechs and Slovaks, participating in the war on the side of Austria-Hungary, surrendered en masse to the countries participating in the war on the side of the Entente. A huge number of prisoners of war accumulated in Russia. Most of them expressed a desire to join the Czech squad.
Due to numerous requests, Grand Duke Nicholas, the emperor’s uncle, being at that time the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, issued a decree in May 1915 authorizing the formation of military units in the Russian army from among captured Czechs, Slovaks and Poles.
At the end of 1915, the Czechoslovakian regiment was formed, bearing the name of Jan Hus, which by the beginning of 1916 turned into a brigade. It consisted of three regiments with a total number of 3.5 thousand military personnel. The brigade, as before, was part of the Russian army and its commanders were Russian officers. The presence of a large number of foreign military personnel in Russia and subsequent events in the country led to the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918.
The idea of creating a Czechoslovak state was voiced not only in Russia, but also in Europe. The liberal intelligentsia, who settled in Paris, created the ChSNS, whose leaders were E. Benes, T. Mosarik, M. Stefanik. His goal was the revival of the independent state of Czechoslovakia. They made efforts to obtain permission from the Entente countries to create a national army that would help them fight Austria-Hungary.
The fact is that similar Czechoslovak military formations operated both on the western front and on the eastern front. The ChSNS achieved official recognition by them and became the official center to which all military units on the territory of the Entente countries, including Russia, were subordinate. 
yly to the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. In turn, the Bolshevik government perceived the Czechoslovaks as interventionists.
Two ways to return home
After the October Revolution, the position of the Czechoslovak Corps was unenviable. The legionnaires sincerely wanted to leave Russia, as they had their own goals. They could do this in two ways: through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk or the Far East. The first option is the shortest, they immediately rejected it, justifying it by the dominance of German submarines in the Baltic and North Seas.
The second option, the longest, suited both sides. The Bolsheviks did not want to have a large combat-ready foreign military unit on their territory, and agreed to any conditions. In addition, the situation in the country was heating up every day. On the Don, which did not recognize the Bolsheviks, its own government was created and the formation of the white movement was in full swing. France demanded that Russia transport the legionnaires to their homeland. Therefore, the port of Vladivostok and Transsib was chosen. 
Agreement on sending home
The primary deployment of the Czechoslovak Corps was near Zhitomir. Events in Ukraine, the signing of a peace treaty by the Rada with Germany and Austria-Hungary, required the urgent movement of the Czechs inland. The place of their new deployment was Poltava. Near Bakhmach, the Czechs, together with the Russians, held back the German offensive.
In Penza on March 26, 1918, an agreement was signed between the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, representatives of the ChSNS in Russia and the Czechoslovak Corps. The agreement stipulated that the shipment would take place from Penza to Vladivostok. Movement throughout the country will be carried out not as a military unit, but as a trip of free citizens. The Bolsheviks made concessions and agreed that a small amount of weapons for the purpose of self-defense should remain with the legionnaires.
The number of weapons was stipulated in the agreement; for each echelon there should be one company, consisting of 168 people with rifles and 300 cartridges for each, one machine gun with 1200 cartridges. It was decided that the evacuation would take place in 63 trains of 40 cars each. The first train was sent on March 26, 1918 and a month later safely reached Vladivostok. Trains with Czechoslovaks stretched along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Vladivostok. In total, about 60 thousand people needed to be transferred.
Reasons for the start of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps
The reasons are considered to be a domestic conflict between Hungarian prisoners of war and legionnaires. It consisted of a piece of iron being thrown from a passing carriage, which wounded the legionnaire. After this, stopping the train, the Czechs carried out lynching on the culprit. The Red Army intervened in the matter and tried to disarm the Czechs and understand the causes of the incident. But the Czechs took this as a desire to disarm them and hand them over to Austria-Hungary for reprisals.
At the same time, the situation in the Far East sharply deteriorated. The Bolshevik government learned of secret Allied negotiations about the beginning of Japanese intervention. The double game of the Entente countries was obvious. The Japanese, taking advantage of the current situation in the country, landed troops in Vladivostok.
In these difficult conditions, the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps turned out to be a well-planned action. A congress of Czechoslovak legionnaires took place in Chelyabinsk, at which it was decided not to surrender their weapons. In Moscow, representatives of the ChSNS were arrested and issued an order to surrender their weapons, but it was already too late. The uprising covered almost the entire territory through which the Trans-Siberian Railway passed. The rebels captured entire cities; the Bolshevik Soviets did not have sufficient forces to resist the Czechoslovaks. 
Who benefited from the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps?
At the time of the uprising, the creation of the White Army was intensively underway. The Red Army was at the stage of formation. In Russia there was no large organized force capable of resisting the Czechoslovaks at that time. Relations with the Bolsheviks became simply hostile; for them they were interventionists.
The command of the corps was exercised by a French general. Members of the Entente could not forgive the Bolsheviks for leaving the war. Czech control of the Trans-Siberian Railway served as a lever of influence over the Bolsheviks, which allowed them to manipulate and control the situation. The Entente issued an ultimatum in which it stated that the disarmament of the corps would be considered an unfriendly act towards the allies.
The German side was extremely uninterested in the evacuation of the Czechoslovak corps, which demanded that the Bolsheviks return them and hand them over as traitors. The Bolsheviks found themselves in a difficult situation. The Czechoslovaks eliminated the Soviets in large cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Governments hostile to the Bolsheviks with their armies began to form in them. In Samara, on June 8, 1918, a government was formed - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch); on June 23, 1918, the Provisional Siberian Government was created in Omsk. The leadership of the corps issues an order in which they take the side of the White armies and undertake to build an anti-German front in Russia. In other words, they declared war on the Bolsheviks and sided with the White governments.
Situation on the Trans-Siberian Railway
The cities were occupied by the White Czechs: Syzran, Samara, Stavropol (Tolyatti), Kazan, Kuznetsk, Bugulma, Simbirsk, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, Omsk, Chita, Irkutsk. The situation for the Bolsheviks was becoming threatening. The uprising of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps is considered to be the beginning of the Civil War in Russia, which claimed the lives of millions of its citizens. The newly formed one was thrown into the fight against the White armies and detachments of White Czechs.
In September, Kazan, Syzran, Simbirsk and Samara were recaptured. The Belochekhs were not content to fight in the Urals and the Volga region. They began to retreat to the east, trying not to take part in battles with the Red Army and performing the role of guarding the railway, as well as participating in punitive operations carried out by Kolchak’s detachments.
The formation of independent Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918 made them want to return home as soon as possible. At the beginning of 1919, they concentrated directly along the entire railway, blocking any traffic along it. This played a cruel joke on the retreating army of Admiral Kolchak, the cars whose fuel were taken away to transport numerous goods looted during punitive operations. Cars and fuel were also taken away from the civilian population, forcing them to walk along the railroad in the snowy and frosty winter of 1919-1920 along with Kolchak’s retreating army, leaving frozen corpses and thousands of graves. 
Flight to the East
Demoralization and decay are the results of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. Four thousand Czechoslovaks found their rest in Russia. In the 90s, when there was talk about the construction of monuments to fallen legionnaires in Siberian cities, the population spoke out against it, remembering the atrocities and robberies committed by Czechoslovak and especially Polish legionnaires, as well as Kolchak’s punitive detachments.
Admiral Kolchak, who was allocated one carriage, along with Russia's gold reserves, became a hostage to the White Czechs. His fate was predetermined and, at the right opportunity, he was handed over to the Bolsheviks in exchange for passage through the Circum-Baikal railway tunnels.
From December 1919 to December 1920 72,600 people were evacuated from the port of Vladivostok. The command of the Czechoslovak Corps, finding itself in a difficult political situation on the territory of a foreign country, was unable to orient itself and resist outside influence.
The October Revolution of 1917 threw a significant part of Russian society into confusion and at the same time caused a rather sluggish reaction from opponents of the Bolsheviks. Although the wave of uprisings began almost immediately, the Soviet government managed to localize and suppress the uprisings quite quickly. The white movement at first remained scattered and did not go beyond mute discontent.
And then the Czechoslovak corps rebelled - a large, well-armed and tightly built formation, which also stretched from the Volga region to the Pacific Ocean. The rebellion of the Czechoslovaks revived the anti-Bolshevik forces in eastern Russia and gave them time and reason for consolidation.
Czech squad
From the very beginning of the First World War, the Czechs on the territory of the Russian Empire showed enviable organization. The most socially and politically active of them formed the Czech National Committee. Already on the day of the official declaration of war, this committee accepted an appeal to Nicholas II, declaring the duty of the Czechs to help their Russian brothers. On September 7, the delegation even obtained an audience with the emperor and handed him a memorandum, which stated, among other things, that “the free and independent crown of St. Wenceslas (the prince and patron saint of the Czech Republic, who lived in the 10th century) will soon shine in the rays of the Romanov crown...”
At first, the enthusiasm of the Slavic brothers was met rather coolly. The military leadership of Russia was wary of movements organized “from below,” but still allowed the Czechs, as the order of the Minister of War V.A. Sukhomlinov, “to form one or two regiments in Kyiv or, depending on the number of volunteers, a battalion of at least two companies.” They were not going to be thrown into battle - it was too valuable a propaganda card. The Czechs were supposed to demonstrate in every possible way the unity of the Slavic peoples in the fight against the Germans.
Already on July 30, the Council of Ministers decided to form the Czech squad in Kyiv - because it was there that the center of the Czech diaspora in Russia and its largest part were located. Throughout August, volunteers eagerly signed up to join the ranks. The unit included Russian Czechs, primarily from the Kyiv province, but also from other regions. At the same time, they established the Czech Druzhina Foundation, which dealt with supplies, hospitals and caring for the families of the fighters.
The Czechs experienced a genuine and completely sincere national upsurge: it seemed that a little more, and the mighty Russian brother would give them independence. Their own armed forces, even if recruited from the subjects of the Russian Tsar under Russian command, provided serious grounds for creating their own state. The head of the military administration of the Czechoslovak legions, Rudolf Medek, later said: “The existence of the Czech Army would definitely play a decisive role in resolving the issue of restoring the independence of the Czech Republic. It should be noted that the emergence of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 directly depended on the existence of a combat-ready Czech-Slovak army.”
By September 1914, the Czech squad (one battalion) was already operating as a military unit within the Russian armed forces. In October, it numbered about a thousand people and soon went to the front at the disposal of the 3rd Army under the command of General R.D. Radko-Dmitriev.
The officer corps was Russian - in Russia there simply was not a sufficient number of Czechs with experience and higher military education. This situation will change only during the Civil War.
Prisoner of War Corps
Throughout the war, Czechoslovaks on the other side of the front surrendered en masse. The idea of the Austro-Hungarian government to distribute weapons to people who considered themselves oppressed was not the most successful. By 1917, out of 600 thousand prisoners of war from the entire Russian-Austrian front, about 200 thousand were Czechoslovaks. However, many continued to fight on the side of the Austro-Hungarians, including the future general secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, and the son of the future first president of Czechoslovakia, Jan Masaryk.
The Russian command treated the prisoners with suspicion. In addition, at the beginning of the war, the imperial army did not need much manpower. But in March 1915, at the direction of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, and at the numerous requests of various public organizations, Czech and Slovak prisoners of war began to be accepted into the Czech squad. By the end of 1915, the formation doubled its strength and became the First Czechoslovak Rifle Regiment named after Jan Hus. A year later, the regiment grew to four thousand people and turned into a rifle brigade. There were also disadvantages: the motley mass of subjects of Austria-Hungary eroded the squad, which previously consisted of ideological supporters of Russia. This will come out later.
After the February Revolution, the Slavic brothers became noticeably more active. In May 1917, a branch of the Czechoslovak National Council appeared in Russia. The Council met in Paris throughout the war under the leadership of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk. Let's talk about this man in more detail - his role in the formation of independent Czechoslovakia is difficult to overestimate. University professor Masaryk was a member of the Austrian parliament before the First World War, and then became an active figure in the underground organization “Mafia”, which sought the independence of Czechoslovakia.
The future father of the nation was married to Charlotte Garrigues (he took her last name as his middle name), a relative of the successful American entrepreneur Charles Crane, a great connoisseur of Eastern European culture. In his political views, Masaryk was a liberal nationalist, oriented toward Western countries. At the same time, he had enough diplomatic flair and the ability to use the real situation to his advantage. Thus, in a letter to the British Foreign Minister E. Gray in May 1915, he, as if yielding to Slavophile public opinion, noted: “The Czech Republic is projected as a monarchical state. Only a few radical politicians stand for a republic in the Czech Republic... The Czech people - this must be strongly emphasized - are a completely Russophile people. A Russian dynasty in whatever form would be the most popular... Czech politicians would like to create a Czech kingdom in full harmony with Russia. Russia's desire and intention will be decisive." After the overthrow of the Russian autocracy, the situation changed dramatically. The Romanov dynasty is leaving the political scene, and democratic forces of various kinds and orientations are coming to power. Under the new conditions, Czechoslovakians (despite all the statements, mostly democrats) receive greater government support than under the Tsar.
The Czechoslovak troops performed well during Kerensky's June offensive (perhaps this cannot be said about anyone else). During the Battle of Zborów (in Galicia) on July 1–2, 1917, the Czechoslovak Rifle Brigade defeated the Czech and Hungarian infantry divisions, which were almost twice its size. This victory could not change the deplorable democratic situation at the front, but it created a sensation in Russian society. The Provisional Government decided to lift the previously existing restrictions on the formation of military units from prisoners. The Czechoslovak brigade received recognition, honor and glory - as one of the few combat units that achieved at least some success in that shameful year.
Soon the expanded brigade was deployed into the 1st Hussite Rifle Division. Already on July 4, 1917, under the new commander-in-chief Lavra Kornilov, the 2nd Hussite Division appeared. Finally, in September-October 1917, by order of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Nikolai Dukhonin, the Czechoslovak Corps of 3 divisions began to be created, one of which, however, existed only on paper. It was a serious formation - approximately 40 thousand bayonets. Russian Major General Vladimir Shokorov was placed at the head of the Czech units. In August 1918, all Czechoslovaks in Russia were mobilized, and the corps grew to 51 thousand people.
The October Revolution dramatically changed the situation. The leadership of the Czechoslovak National Council, on the one hand, declared its support for the Provisional Government and its readiness to continue the fight against the Germans, on the other hand, it decided not to interfere in the political affairs of Russia. The Bolshevik government did not have any special love for the allies of the previous regime, did not intend to fight the Germans, and the Czechoslovaks had to ask for help from the Entente. In December, the Poincare government decided to organize an autonomous Czechoslovak army (“legion”). The Chekhovs were reassigned to the French command, and the French immediately ordered them to go to the Western Front by sea: either through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, or through Vladivostok.
It took the Bolsheviks and Czechoslovaks several months to establish permanent relations (this was done through separate detachments on the ground; the vertical of power at that moment was quite illusory). In order not to quarrel with the Reds, the Czechoslovak leadership allows communist agitation and refuses proposals from the white generals and Miliukov to oppose the Bolsheviks. Some Czechs even decided to support the Reds in the Russian civil strife (for example, Jaroslav Hasek, the future author of “Schweik”) - 200 people wanted to fight for the world revolution.
At the same time, many socialists from among prisoners of war appeared in the Czechoslovak National Council, which largely predetermined the political face of this body in subsequent years. The main task of the council is to evacuate the corps from Russia to France by sea and transfer it to the Western Front. The route through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk was considered too dangerous due to the threat of a German offensive, so they preferred a circuitous route through the Far East. It was problematic to disarm an organized delegation of Czechoslovak guests, so the agreement concluded on March 26, 1918 bashfully allowed the legionnaires to retain some of their weapons “for self-defense from attacks by counter-revolutionaries,” and the military personnel formally moved not in battle formation, but “as a group of free citizens.” In return, the Bolsheviks demanded the dismissal of all Russian officers as counter-revolutionary elements. For this, the Council of People's Commissars pledged to provide the legionnaires with all possible assistance along the way. The next day a telegram arrived with an explanation: “part of the weapon” meant one armed company of 168 people, one machine gun and several hundred rounds of ammunition per rifle. Everything else had to be handed over to a special commission in Penza against receipt. In the end, the Reds received 50 thousand rifles, 1200 machine guns, 72 guns.
True, according to the commander of the western group of the corps, Stanislav Chechek, many soldiers hid their weapons, and he himself, like many other officers, approved of their actions. Three regiments of the corps did not disarm at all, because by the beginning of the uprising they simply did not have time to get to Penza. With the demand for the resignation of Russian officers, approximately the same thing happened: only 15 people were fired, and the majority (including, for example, corps commander Shokorov and his chief of staff Diterichs) remained in their previous positions.
At the forefront of the counter-revolution
Despite the Bolsheviks' interest in the speedy transfer of the corps to the sea, the Czech trains were constantly delayed and driven into dead ends - trains full of Hungarians and Germans, who were traveling from captivity back to their armies after Brest, were coming towards them in a continuous stream. There was logic in this: the prisoners had already been pumped up with red propaganda by agitators, the Council of People's Commissars hoped that at home they would kindle the fire of the world revolution.
By April, the movement of the corps had completely stopped: the Japanese landed in Vladivostok, Ataman Semyonov was advancing in Transbaikalia, the Germans demanded their prisoners back as soon as possible, the general chaos reached the last degree. The Czechs began to fear (not unreasonably) that the Reds would hand them over to the Germans. By May 1918, Czechoslovak trains stretched along the entire Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Vladivostok.
And then the Chelyabinsk incident happened. The Russians took the most indirect part in it: some Hungarian at some station threw an iron object at some Czech. The comrades of the offended fighter took the Magyar off the train and lynched him. For this they were arrested by the local red authorities. The legionnaires did not appreciate this treatment and began to destroy Soviet institutions: they freed prisoners, disarmed the Red Guards and seized a warehouse with weapons. Among other things, artillery was found in the warehouse. The stunned friends of the workers offered no resistance. And then, realizing that since such fun had begun, they needed to kill the last Bolshevik, the rebellious Czechs contacted their comrades-in-arms on other sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway. There was a full-scale uprising.
The legionnaires elected the Provisional Executive Committee of the Congress of the Czechoslovak Army, which was headed by 3 group commanders - Stanislav Chechek, Radola Gaida and Sergei Voitsekhovsky (a Russian officer, who would later become the fourth person in the military hierarchy of independent Czechoslovakia). The commanders decided to sever relations with the Bolsheviks and move to Vladivostok, if necessary, then with fighting.
The Bolsheviks did not react to the events immediately - on May 21, representatives of the Czechoslovak National Council Max and Cermak, who were in Moscow, were arrested. They had to order the legionnaires to disarm. However, the Czechoslovak executive committee ordered the troops to continue moving. For some time the parties tried to find a compromise, but to no avail. Finally, on May 25, Trotsky gives a clear order to disarm the corps. Railway workers are ordered to detain its trains, armed legionnaires are threatened with execution on the spot, and “honest Czechoslovaks” who have laid down their arms are threatened with “brotherly help.” The craziest Red Guards sincerely tried to carry out the instructions of the People's Commissar, but it was useless. The legionnaires crossed their Rubicon.
From the tactical side, the position of the legion was quite vulnerable - there was no established communication between the echelons, the Reds could easily cut through the Czechs and break them into pieces. The Slav brothers were saved by the revolutionary chaos and the general uselessness of the Red Army commanders: the Bolsheviks were simply confused - they had neither a plan, nor an organization, nor any reliable troops. In addition, the local population had already tried the delights of war communism and were not eager to help the workers’ friends. As a result, the Soviet government, which triumphantly marched across the country after the October Revolution, turned around and began to retreat just as triumphantly. The Czechoslovaks took (or actively helped to take) Penza, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Petropavlovsk, Novonikolaevsk, in early June - Samara and Tomsk, in July - Tyumen, Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk. Officer circles and other anti-Bolshevik organizations arose everywhere. At the very end of August, parts of the Czechoslovak corps united with each other and thus secured control over the Trans-Siberian Railway from the Volga region to Vladivostok.
Of course, political life immediately came into full swing. All sorts of governments and committees began to mushroom. In the Volga region, the Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, consisting mainly of Socialist Revolutionaries, creates the People's Army, at first similar to the armed forces of the Kerensky era - with soldier committees and without shoulder straps. A Czech, Stanislav Chechek, is put in command of it. The Czechoslovaks fight side by side with this army, advance, capture Ufa, Simbirsk, Kazan. In Kazan - a huge success - part of Russia's gold reserves falls into the hands of the whites. The eastern counter-revolution meets almost no resistance: the Reds just pulled together everything more or less combat-ready against Denikin, who after the Second Kuban Campaign turned into a serious threat. The worst enemies of the Czechs (several authors note this) were the Austrians and Hungarians - they did not take them prisoners at all. As a rule, Russian Red Army soldiers were treated somewhat more humanely.
