Vyacheslav Bondarenko. Photos from open sources
D. Volodikhin
– Hello, dear radio listeners, this is a bright radio, radio “Vera”. The program “Historical Hour” is on air. I’m with you in the studio, Dmitry Volodikhin. And today we will remember with you the tragic and beautiful pages of Russian history associated with the civil war. Tragic - well, there’s nothing to explain here. As for the beautiful, in the most terrible periods of history, those who are ugly in soul show themselves in the worst way, and those who are beautiful in soul show themselves in the best way, and there is something to talk about here. So, today we are discussing the White Cause and the fate of its greatest heroes. Therefore, today with us in the studio is Vyacheslav Bondarenko, a historian, writer from Minsk, author of four books in the “Life of Remarkable People” series. The first was about Prince Vyazemsky, a writer of the 19th century, and all the rest are dedicated to the beginning of the 20th century - this is “Heroes of the First World War,” this is a book about Lavra Georgievich Kornilov. And this is, finally, a new product that recently appeared in bookstores, “Legends of the White Cause.” Hello, Vyacheslav.
V. Bondarenko
- Good evening.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, you are an expert on the White Case, on the officer corps, on the generals who took part in the First World War and in the Civil War. I remember that in the book about the First World War you also had people who would later find themselves on the civilian battlefield, the same Yudenich.
V. Bondarenko
D. Volodikhin
– And “Legends of the White Cause” are dedicated to five, as far as I remember, commanders...
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, that’s absolutely right.
D. Volodikhin
– Markov, Drozdovsky, May-Mayevsky...
V. Bondarenko
- Kutepov and Bredov.
D. Volodikhin
- Bredov and Kutepov. Well, at least we’ll talk about some of them today, but let’s start, perhaps, with something else. The fact is that the very concept of White Cause is discussed in science, especially in historical journalism. What it is? Does the White Cause have a pronounced element of unity, ideological unity, programmatic, social unity? Because, let’s say, in the Red camp, everything is quite clear here; if there are differences, then it’s somewhere at the level between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks. The white camp is much more complex. Moreover, sometimes people fought on the side of the whites who did not consider themselves, so to speak, in the camp of the whites; there were also socialists, there were also national separatists, from time to time even some greens sided with the whites. Everything is quite complicated here. So, so to speak, I would like to get from you a clearer picture of what the White Cause is, what is its unity, if there was one?
V. Bondarenko
– It seems to me that the White Case at the time of its existence was a fairly accurate cross-section of Russia in those years. Just as, probably, the Red Cause was also quite clearly, accurately, and clearly reflected the unique Russia of those years, so was the White Cause. Indeed, there was in fact a very wide spread between the left, relatively speaking, flank of the White Cause and the right flank and center. The people who came to this camp had very different beliefs, and, in fact, no one asked many of them. If this was an officer who was enlisted in the ranks of the White Army upon mobilization, he could have, in fact, any beliefs and, nevertheless, he found himself in the camp of the Whites. And yet, in my opinion, this section reflected Russia of those years very accurately. All these people still had something in common, of course. And, probably, initially their core was determined by the impulse, which was very well described by Shulgin in his time. Shulgin wrote that at the very beginning of the emergence of white resistance, at the end of 1917, it was an elementary impulse of offended people who saw how their homeland was being mocked. And, naturally, from this impulse arose the desire to avenge the homeland, to stand up for its defense and that’s it. And then everything else began to wrap around this impulse. Including theory, including many books already written in exile, and so on, and all this is still being written. But there was this impulse at the very beginning, from which everything started.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, if I understood you correctly, then the unifying element was more negative than positive. What united them was what they were against.
V. Bondarenko
– What is against is absolutely true.
D. Volodikhin
– Against the revolution, against the revolutionary government.
V. Bondarenko
- But for this reason, disagreements have already begun here.
D. Volodikhin
– This is where I would like some explanations. Let us imagine three antitheses that were and are now attributed to the White Cause. Please tell me which of this is really correct and which does not correspond to historical reality. The first is that the White Cause, so to speak, is a Russian cause against the international. The second is that this is an Orthodox case against atheism. And finally, the third is a cause, at the core of which is monarchism, against the revolutionary, republican state system. What is closer to the truth here, what next? Here, so to speak, is the word of a specialist.
V. Bondarenko
– Well, you know, in my opinion, all these provisions are very conditional. That is, they are true in principle, but only in a very indirect principle. Russian case versus international - I would object. Pre-revolutionary Russia, well, you can’t call it a Russian state. Russia has always been an international state, from time immemorial. And the huge world of Russia is anyone: these are Russian Germans, these are Russian Poles, these are Latvians, these are Kalmyks, these are Ukrainians, Belarusians - this is a whole universe. This is how it has always been and will always be.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, as part of the whites.
V. Bondarenko
– And the same thing happened among the whites. A huge number of officers, a huge number of rank and file in the White armies were not Russian by nationality. This can be seen very clearly if we take the list of participants in the Ice March and simply read the names of those people who followed Kornilov across the steppes at the beginning of 1918. There were Bulgarians, Serbs, Germans, Austrians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Kalmyks, Georgians, Armenians, Jews, Russians, Ukrainians - huge, all of Russia, if you take it by nationality, all of Russia was there. And all of these, of course, were Russian people. Of course, the Jewish officer, the Pole officer, and the German officer who stood up for the desecrated Russia, naturally, they were Russian. This is not a paradox, it's...
D. Volodikhin
- That is, in any case, they believed and said: I am a Russian person.
V. Bondarenko
- Certainly. So I would say that this was a national versus international case, not an exclusively Russian one.
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, Orthodox versus anti-religious. Many memories and documents have been preserved that the white army, in the strict sense of the word, was not so completely churched. On the contrary, the hierarchs who looked after the white armies very often noted with regret and sadness that the majority of people were non-believers, or weak believers, or went to church only for the sake of decency, as they say. This hurt them deeply, and it’s quite understandable why. But still, I think that this was, relatively speaking, not a lack of the white armies of those years, it was a disease of all of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, I think this antithesis is perhaps closer than others...
V. Bondarenko
– But it’s closer to the truth, of course.
D. Volodikhin
– Because if we compare, it will be clear that, relatively speaking, the percentage of Orthodox Christians who believe there in the white army, especially in the officer corps, will be significantly higher than in the red army.
V. Bondarenko
– Naturally, immeasurably higher. These numbers will be simply immeasurable. And, naturally, when the White Army enters a liberated city, the first thing is a prayer service, at which, I think, everyone stands not for show, even those who do not particularly believe.
D. Volodikhin
- OK then. But the question is: what is the situation with monarchists or non-monarchists in the White movement?
V. Bondarenko
– I think that in the White movement there were, naturally, quite a few monarchists, what they call personal monarchists, people who believed that the most optimal dispensation for Russia was a monarchy. People who were nostalgic for what had passed, people who loved the last Tsar, people who were ready to give their lives to bring it back. But it still seems to me that these people were disproportionately few in relation to people who thought differently.
D. Volodikhin
– In relation to the total mass.
V. Bondarenko
– In relation to the total mass. They didn't make the weather. And moreover, in any case, they did not fight for the restoration of the Russian Empire in the form in which it existed before the collapse of the monarchy. They fought for a new Russia, cleansed of everything bad. They did not consider old Russia as such.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, that is, if I understand you correctly, there was a certain monarchical sector within the White Cause.
V. Bondarenko
- Absolutely right.
D. Volodikhin
– One can argue about what the percentage of monarchists was, but it is clear that this percentage is certainly less than 50, less than half.
V. Bondarenko
- Much less. And the slogan of the revival of the monarchy in its previous form was never the main slogan of the White movement. And those people who spoke openly with such slogans, well, during Wrangel’s time, for example, they were simply awaiting trial.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, in any case, can we name some of the largest figures for whom monarchism was natural? This is precisely the desire for the restoration of the monarchy, perhaps not in the form in which it existed at the beginning of 1917, but, one way or another, the restoration of the monarchical state system?
V. Bondarenko
– Well, first of all, we should remember one of the most striking, significant, legendary figures of the White Cause, this is Mikhail Gordeevich Drozdovsky. Again, a man of ambiguous convictions, I would not call him such a tough, convinced supporter of the empire, since even in his diaries his doubts about this were preserved. He writes that I myself have not yet made up my mind, in my heart I am still a monarchist, but for now I am for the republic - this is Drozdovsky’s statement, that is, he also had hesitations. But, probably, it is his figure who will personify hopes for the restoration of the monarchy, if we remember the White Cause.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, who else? Say, Kutepov, Dieterichs, Keller?
V. Bondarenko
– Well, as for Keller, it was probably more nostalgia for the past time, rather than a strict desire to restore it. As for Kutepov, again, a difficult question. If we read what Alexander Pavlovich already wrote in exile, his main works are articles, speeches, this interview - the idea that we cannot return to old Russia comes through everywhere. We don't know what the new Russia will be like, but we know that it cannot be a copy of the old one. Although at heart he, of course, was a monarchist.
D. Volodikhin
- And Dieterichs?
V. Bondarenko
- Dieterichs? Well, here it’s probably worth saying that, again, he was probably a monarchist at heart, but again, he did not strive to recreate the empire in its previous form.
D. Volodikhin
– Maybe to recreate the monarchy in some form.
V. Bondarenko
– A modernized version of the monarchy, of course. But not restoration.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, I remind our radio listeners that this is a bright radio, radio “Vera”. The program “Historical Hour” is on air. I’m with you in the studio, Dmitry Volodikhin. And we are discussing with the historian and writer Vyacheslav Bondarenko the White Case of the Civil War in Russia. And now, I think it would be right if the favorite march of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment was heard on air. Actually, this melody sounded both during the First World War and after it. She is very beautiful.
D. Volodikhin
- We continue our conversation. And I am extremely interested in the question of whether there was a phenomenon that is now sometimes called the “Camelot” of the White Cause or, perhaps, a special moral code of the White Cause. I understand very well that in a time of civil war, the clash of huge armies in conditions of hunger, cold, impoverishment, and disease is accompanied by general embitterment, accompanied by a total decline in morality throughout the country. But let’s say there are two armies – Red and White. One way or another, each of them is subject to a certain number of acts of murder, looting, and robbery of the local population; this is inevitable, so to speak. But can we talk about the existence of this very moral code of the White Cause, not only in the ideological sense, not only in the sense of the selfless struggle against the revolution, but also in the everyday sense, that is, how people behaved on the ground. Are the White and Red armies equal in this sense, in the sense of the background of criminal acts? Or can we say that whites were somehow different in this sense?
V. Bondarenko
- Recently, a lot of works have appeared - this is probably significant - in which, say, the White Terror is equated with the Red Terror, or emphasizes that the White Terror was no less cruel and sinister than the Red Terror, and so on. But, in my opinion, the very formulation of such a question is not only wrong, not just fundamentally wrong, it is also blasphemous. Because well, on the part of the whites there could be individual excesses, individual acts of cruelty, individual manifestations of this cruelty, but they never elevated this cruelty to a principle. They proceeded from the fact that they do not destroy, they restore what was destroyed. They are trying to return Russia to its true appearance. And the very meaning of the White movement is resistance, this battle with what cannot be reconciled with and with which there will be reconciliation...
V. Bondarenko
- Dishonor.
V. Bondarenko
– Dishonorable for any normal person, that’s its meaning. And, secondly, restoration, revival of everything that was trampled and desecrated. Therefore, what attitude can White have towards his countless opponents? And the Reds, from the first battles, already at the end of the 17th year, showed themselves to be dishonest opponents who do not comply with the basic norms of war, who mock the wounded, the medical staff in hospitals, who bury prisoners alive in the ground, burn them in blast furnaces or in the furnaces of, say, these very ships of death and so on. That is, when entire groups of people are shot along class lines or taken hostage. The whites did not practice any of this and could not practice it; they had no class consciousness. Never, say, a white detachment entered a city and took hostage all the workers and all the peasants, for example. Well, simply because the whites did not believe that a priori all workers and all peasants were their enemies. For the Reds this was par for the course, it was the norm. Therefore, these two forces were guided by different principles, different ethics. And, accordingly, they cannot even be compared; these were completely different forces, different armies that acted for different goals and used different methods to achieve these goals.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, let's record that the moral code of the White Cause is not an empty phrase, and there really was a significant difference between the behavior of the armies of the two main camps during the civil war in Russia. Well, now, it seems to me, it would be correct to move on to specific figures. Here, in fact, at the very beginning of the program we listed five commanders, whose portraits were created by Vyacheslav Bondarenko. In my opinion, the biography of General Bredov is distinguished by the greatest amount of novelty in the selection of documents and facts. And since very few people studied him at all, I only remember some encyclopedic articles and, I think, it would be right if we now talk about his military path and the famous Bredov campaign, in which, in fact, his success.
V. Bondarenko
– Nikolai Emilievich, whom you mentioned, was indeed one of the brightest figures of the terrible war that shook our common homeland a hundred years ago. But, nevertheless, he found himself in the shadow of his immediate superiors; they really didn’t write about him. And even to this day, in quite authoritative publications, he is often confused with his younger brother, Fedor, also a general. Thanks to his family, his descendants, they live in Novosibirsk and Omsk, they have preserved a good archive, which contains unique documents, unique photographs that I used when writing an essay about the fate of Nikolai Emilievich. He was an outstanding general in every respect. An outstanding staff officer, an outstanding combat officer at any level - regimental, divisional, corps, and army. But, probably, in the history of the civil war he will be remembered, firstly, as the author of the most, in my opinion, outstanding military operation in general, the capture of Kyiv...
D. Volodikhin
- Well, in any case, very noticeable.
V. Bondarenko
– And as the leader of the Bredov campaign, yes.
D. Volodikhin
– A very noticeable military operation.
V. Bondarenko
– A very noticeable military operation. It was interesting because Kyiv was one of the four largest settlements taken by the White Army, with a population of over 400 thousand people, and with minimal losses, practically without fighting. Kyiv was defended by an army of 70 thousand people, Bredov had 10 times less. But, nevertheless, he took advantage of the fact that Ukrainian troops were marching from the west to Kyiv. He simply allowed the Ukrainians to knock out, in fact, the Reds from Kyiv, then entered Kyiv with small forces and, thanks to his talent, during the negotiations he made it so that the Ukrainians were forced to leave Kyiv. Both the city and the region remained with the whites. This is a magnificent example of military wisdom, intelligence and abilities...
D. Volodikhin
- And self-control.
V. Bondarenko
- Self-control, of course. Well, knowledge of local specifics, since the whole life of Nikolai Emilievich and his family was very closely connected with Kiev, he himself lived in this city for a long time and knew it very well. And the Bredovsky campaign is also a unique event in the history of the civil war. Firstly, this is the second largest campaign in the history of war after the great Siberian Ice Campaign. Secondly, this is the only campaign in the history of war, in fact, named after the military leader who led it. Because, you see, there is neither the Kornilov campaign nor the Drozdov campaign, yes. There is Ledyanaya, there is the Yassy-Don campaign, there is the Ekaterinoslav campaign.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, let’s say a few words about how it began. It all started very sadly.
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, it was a retreat, it was a retreat from Kyiv to Odessa, from where Nikolai Emilievich’s detachment had to be evacuated. But the Odessa evacuation, as we know, it was chaos, it was panic...
D. Volodikhin
- The disorganization is complete.
V. Bondarenko
– It was a complete, yes, catastrophe, for which public opinion blamed Nikolai Nikolaevich Schilling exclusively. And in this situation, Nikolai Emilievich’s detachment began to leave to the west, towards Romania, in order to leave for Romania and from Romania by sea to Novorossiysk. But, nevertheless, everything happened wrong, the Romanians refused to accept them.
D. Volodikhin
“And they refused quite harshly, threatening to use weapons.”
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, machine guns were sent to the Russian coast. Bredov, in fact, had two warrants: either cross the river and go to the Romanian bank by force, or take his detachment to God knows where. And so he chose the second option. It was, in fact, a very ingenious plan, since none of his opponents could have imagined that the Whites, having gone to the very south, would suddenly turn around and go north, towards Poland. And yet, this is exactly what happened. And in two weeks he managed to withdraw his detachment, in general, without strong fighting, without virtually any losses. A huge number of people were saved, including civilians and refugees.
D. Volodikhin
– This is a very important moment. The Bredov campaign is not a purely army operation. As far as I understand, Bredov generally tried to avoid major clashes, not only because his people were tired, exhausted, and there were many wounded, but also because any maneuvers of his detachment were aggravated by the huge number of civilians who stuck to these units.
V. Bondarenko
- Yes, a huge convoy, yes. And besides, everything was very bad with combat effectiveness in the army. Because it was an army that was actually eaten up by infectious diseases, and typhus, and many others. And what would have happened to her if she had come into real, serious contact with the Reds, one can only guess. But, fortunately, everything ended well, the army was saved and then returned from Poland to Crimea. After the camp, terrible, but also saving epic in Poland, she returned to Crimea.
D. Volodikhin
– Here’s a little more detail about this camp epic. That is, Bredov from the south, from the shore of the Black Sea, led through territories that were actually under the control of the Reds, but poorly guarded by them, to the land of Poland. How was he received? And, in fact, it is clear that after some time the combat element of the army was returned to Crimea, one way or another, undressed, shoeless, by and large, ruined, but they were returned. However, there was a several-month gap between the time people reached Poland and the time they were sent to Crimea.
V. Bondarenko
- Yes. When Nikolai Emilievich's detachment came to Poland and came into contact with the Poles, it was met quite kindly, since the Poles were interested in reinforcements. They defended their front with the Reds there with small forces. Therefore, an agreement was drawn up, according to which Nikolai Emilievich’s forces were stationed in Polish camps not as prisoners or as internees, but rather as an ally who was temporarily on Polish territory and would then return to Crimea. The officers kept their personal weapons, all other weapons were handed over to Polish warehouses.
D. Volodikhin
– But then they returned it, well, at least partially.
V. Bondarenko
– And then part of it was returned, yes. Because some of these warehouses have already been captured...
D. Volodikhin
- Red.
V. Bondarenko
– Actually red, yes. For some time, Nikolai Emilievich’s detachment even participated in battles with the Poles for four weeks. Then he was taken to the camps and remained there for several months. The conditions were bad, the guards treated the Russians differently: there was a good attitude, there was a bad attitude, and they beat and mocked. But, nevertheless, the most important thing is that the army was preserved. This was a huge merit of Nikolai Emilievich Bredov.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, it’s great that now I can talk about light with good reason. After all, there was light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the Bredov campaign. And now, here we have a bright radio, radio “Vera”. The program “Historical Hour” is on air. I’m with you in the studio, Dmitry Volodikhin. And we part for a while, only to meet again on the air in just a minute.
D. Volodikhin
– This is a light radio, radio “Vera”. “Historical Hour” is on air. I’m with you in the studio, Dmitry Volodikhin. And we are having a conversation with a wonderful writer, historian from Minsk, Vyacheslav Bondarenko, about the White Cause, about its destinies, about its legends, about its heroes. And here I would like to talk about a man who for a very long time was a black legend of the White Cause, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. On the contrary, in Soviet times they made him into some kind of ideal, beautiful white general. In the film “His Excellency’s Adjutant”, as far as I remember, Strzhelchik played the main role - a highly intelligent general who is opposed by a red intelligence officer. Well, two great actors...
V. Bondarenko
- A great movie.
D. Volodikhin
- A great movie. Two people who showed two beautiful images. But let's return to the character of the Civil War from whom the image of the white general was made. This is Vladimir Zenonovich May-Mayevsky. In appearance, he is very much inferior to Strzhelchik. As far as I remember, one of his contemporaries, you gave a quote in your book, called his appearance, in fact, the appearance of a provincial comedian.
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel spoke about him in such an unflattering way.
D. Volodikhin
– Moreover, the photographs confirm that Vladimir Zenonovich was ugly. He had such a puffy, fat face, and he wore pince-nez. And when we see a full-length photograph, and not just the face, the figure also says that this person, well, let’s say, took from life everything that he was entitled to, and much more that he was not entitled to. But, nevertheless, in the history of the White Cause it is somehow too clearly recorded that Mai-Maevsky was the main culprit for the defeat of the Whites in 1919, when Denikin’s units were advancing on Moscow, and therefore the White Cause as a whole, since this, apparently , there was the most realistic chance to take Moscow. As far as I understand, you do not agree with this assessment and, in any case, would like to correct it.
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, I don’t agree, because, in my opinion, Vladimir Zenonovich May-Maevsky was one of the most outstanding military leaders of the White Cause. He did not participate in it from the very beginning; he came there in the summer of 1918, when, in general, all the key positions were already occupied. He started from scratch, received the division that remained after Mikhail Gordeevich Drozdovsky. The division, which was not considered native in the Volunteer Army, was, again, people from the outside. They, of course, were respected for their heroism, but they were still not our own, this was not the Ice March, these were people from outside. And so he was assigned to this division. That is, he was a stranger twice: he did not participate in the Ice Campaign, and for the Drozdovites he was also not one of them. And one can imagine that at first they actually talked about him behind his back.
D. Volodikhin
- An ugly stranger came to us.
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, that’s absolutely right. Some general, absolutely, yes, unknown, from the outside. But, nevertheless, he managed to get up to speed unusually quickly, and moreover, he proved himself so competently and skillfully in the hardest battles in the Donbass region at the beginning of 19, that he soon received an army. Not just anyone, not a pioneer, is given an army, but this person from the outside. While Anton Ivanovich actually had a choice...
D. Volodikhin
- Huge.
V. Bondarenko
- Huge. But they gave him the army and put him in the most advantageous, most difficult direction, the Moscow direction.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, let’s stay a little longer in Donbass. By the way, not much has been written about this battle either, since the success of the Whites in this battle, the battle for Donbass at the beginning of 1919, to some extent faded into the background after the grandiose battles of a later period.
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, after the liberation of Ukraine.
D. Volodikhin
- Absolutely right. And it's worth talking about it. What was Mai-Maevsky’s strength as a tactician, what did he succeed in, why did he gain such enormous authority among the command of the white forces?
V. Bondarenko
– The fact is that he had minimal forces under his command; it was necessary to operate on a huge front, on a front where there were Ukrainians, where there were Bolsheviks, where there were local left-oriented workers’ detachments. In a word, before May-Maevsky, any stranger who stood at the front was an enemy, and there was no time to find out who it was, it was necessary to beat him. He had little strength, but he took advantage of the fact that the Donbass has a very well developed railway network. And so he quickly threw small detachments on armored trains from one flank to the other, quickly reacted to threats that arose in certain areas, it was to this area that reserves were sent. And the Reds had the feeling that there were actually a lot of Whites, they were here, and there, and here. But in fact, it was precisely Mai-Maevsky’s skill as a tactician. And with small forces, he corrected the situation, he did everything to create all the prerequisites for a successful attack on Ukraine. And it is precisely for this reason that he led this direction.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, we can say that he has the honor of victory in a big battle.
V. Bondarenko
- Certainly.
D. Volodikhin
– If this is a battle and not an offensive operation.
V. Bondarenko
- Fine. Well, Mai-Maevsky heads the strike force of the armed forces in the south of Russia. The group that is really marching towards Moscow, including the most capable formation in front, is the corps of General Kutepov, to which we will return later.
V. Bondarenko
- Yes, First Corps.
D. Volodikhin
- And now a) - firstly, a failure, and b) - the command of the armed forces in the south of Russia singles out Vladimir Zenonovich from the total mass of generals, one way or another, involved in this operation and points to him as the person who is guilty of first of all. What can you say about this? Is Mai-Maevsky really guilty, is it the circumstances or something else that is, so to speak, hidden from our eyes, from the eyes of non-specialists?
V. Bondarenko
– I think that Vladimir Zenonovich’s personal guilt, if there is any, is minimal. Because his troops did the impossible throughout the autumn of 1919. And we don’t know how they would have behaved under the leadership of a different military leader. Under the leadership of Mai-Maevsky they behaved superbly. These were the days when exhausted, bloodless troops, when only two hundred bayonets remained from a division, not only held back the advance of an enemy six times larger, but also struck back at them, drove them back, and recaptured some populated areas. It was a magnificent, courageous autumn, and this autumn took place thanks to Mai-Maevsky. The fact that his troops ultimately failed to hold back the enemy’s pressure, retreated, and abandoned everything they had occupied in the summer of 19 is not his fault. This, unfortunately, is an inevitable consequence of everything that has gone before, all previous policies, the military policies of the armed forces of southern Russia. Wrangel also pointed out that Denikin’s Moscow directive was unrealistic. It was a beautiful but unrealistic plan.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, it’s a kind of adventure - what if it succeeds?
V. Bondarenko
- Adventure. But we must not forget that in those days this adventure was necessary. Any other directive would have been received by people with bewilderment, with misunderstanding, and perhaps people would have simply refused to carry out any other order.
D. Volodikhin
- But why the adventure, what’s going on?
V. Bondarenko
- And this was necessary. It was a time when, after the liberation of Ukraine, the fantastically quick liberation of Ukraine, the army was inspired by inspiration, when everyone lived with one nervous impulse. It was something similar to when the Volunteer Army stood during the Ice Campaign in front of Ekaterinodar. The same thing: everyone was sure that one blow, and Ekaterinodar would be taken. We have always come out of all terrible troubles with a bang, and we will come out now. And the same thing happened then. One more last effort, first Kursk, then Tula, and then Moscow - and that’s it, Russia is free. There is very little left.
D. Volodikhin
– And I must say, a little was not enough.
V. Bondarenko
- A little was missing. But this was the straw that breaks the camel's back.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, let’s say that we are now talking about the fact that this was an adventure, first of all, because the balance of forces was extremely unequal. And from the beginning of the offensive to its end, the gap in the numbers of white and red troops was colossal in favor of the reds.
V. Bondarenko
- In favor of the Reds. And, besides, the Whites had practically no strength to secure their rear. They could only move forward, only free up space. But they had no garrisons in the rear, no military commandants, no clearly functioning civil administration...
D. Volodikhin
– Why, exactly, wasn’t it? Here, can’t this be blamed on Vladimir Zenonovich May-Maevsky, why didn’t he create these reserves to protect the rear of the army? The Reds succeeded, but the Whites, not so much. Who is to blame for this? May-Mayevsky, someone else or the force of circumstances?
V. Bondarenko
– Responsibility lies with May-Mayevsky here, naturally, since he was not only the commander-in-chief of the army, but he was also the commander-in-chief of the region, a huge region that included the Kharkov province, Poltava, part of Kyiv and so on. It was a huge state formation in which he was king and god. And it was up to him how to competently appoint local administrations, how to control them, and so on. Apparently, they missed this moment. Because as soon as Makhno’s uprising broke out in the rear, Makhno, undefeated, raised his head again - and that’s it, the entire rear collapsed. And in fact, the White cause in this sector was doomed, since the army was exhausted under attacks from the front, and the rear was already burning under its feet.
D. Volodikhin
- So, they accused Mai-Maevsky of the collapse of the rear and drunkenness, as far as I remember...
V. Bondarenko
– But it still seems to me that drunkenness was put at the forefront already when everything was clear, when everything was decided with Vladimir Zenonovich. And we all know that in losing moments, in difficult moments, military leaders pay with their positions. All wars have their anti-heroes.
D. Volodikhin
- That is, someone must...
V. Bondarenko
- Someone has to answer.
D. Volodikhin
– Answer, yes, I understand.
V. Bondarenko
- So you will answer.
D. Volodikhin
“He may not be entirely guilty, but one way or another, the culprit must be named.” Here is a question with such a little trick, if you like. Could another military leader, in Mai-Maevsky’s place, have dealt with all these problems and provided the rear? Well, the same Wrangel, the same Kutepov, the same Denikin, who was far from, so to speak, the main direction of hostilities, but still he existed as commander in chief. Or maybe someone else is there, Mamontov, I don’t know. Was there such a possibility or do you think that Mai-Maevsky, not Mai-Maevsky, is still hopeless?
V. Bondarenko
- It's still hopeless. I believe that if in his place there had been a military leader of a slightly different type, say, a cavalryman, Yuzefovich, for example, or Wrangel the same, he could have been more active in terms of cavalry. He could organize a raid on Moscow with a small, mobile cavalry unit, and this raid, in principle, could be successful. In any case, they could have dealt with Tula. Because in Tula, as Lenin wrote in those days, “the masses are not ours,” Tula could have fallen. But again, this success would be purely temporary and would not decide matters in favor of the Whites. So...
D. Volodikhin
- That is, a little better, a little worse...
V. Bondarenko
– A little better, a little worse, but in principle, the situation would be the same.
D. Volodikhin
– Due to what, the strength of the Reds, the organizational strength of the Reds, or due to the fact that the military, who formed the backbone of the elite of the White cause, were, in principle, not very good at solving such matters?
V. Bondarenko
– I would say it’s all together. This, of course, is the forces of the Reds - “Everything to fight Denikin!” This is mass mobilization. These are gigantic masses of people who marched precisely to this front. And even if the whites had laid down their bones to the last man, they would not have been able to break them.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, after all, the Reds had the center of Russia, the largest number of factories, warehouses, and the most populated cities.
V. Bondarenko
- Certainly. Factories, weapons, ammunition, uniforms. Let's not forget that autumn gave way abruptly to winter that year. That is, autumn immediately ended and a sharp winter immediately set in. That is, frosts, again, food, uniforms - all these factors must not be forgotten either. Naturally, this is the white rear itself. As I already said, this is a collapsed rear, and this is an army that, on the one hand, was exhausted under blows, on the other hand, an army weighed down by huge echelons, an army weighed down by bloated headquarters services. For one combatant - seven people in the rear. Well, this is a disgrace.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, this is an objective weakness of the White cause.
V. Bondarenko
“And everyone talked about it openly back then.” Well, no one succeeded in putting this very rear in order, neither Mai-Maevsky nor Wrangel, who replaced him.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, here, obviously, what was needed was not a military man, but a specialist of a different kind.
V. Bondarenko
- Certainly.
D. Volodikhin
– I remind our radio listeners that this is a bright radio, radio “Vera”. The program “Historical Hour” is on the air. I’m with you in the studio, Dmitry Volodikhin. And you and I do not lose hope that perhaps the defeat of the White cause is not final. Well, I would like to remember the last bright, tragic episode from the life of General Mai-Maevsky, his death. After all, as far as I remember, a place was designated for him for evacuation by ship when Wrangel’s Russian army left Crimea and went to Constantinople. Mai-Maevsky knew that he should go to the ship and take this place. And he apparently died on the way to the ship. It seems to me that there is something both terrible and beautiful in this, bewitchingly strong, in any case. The man loved his country to such an extent and worried so much that he failed...
V. Bondarenko
– I couldn’t bear the separation, yes.
D. Volodikhin
“My heart couldn’t stand to do what needed to be done.”
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, I stayed in my homeland forever. By the way, there is an interesting testimony from the famous Soviet director Yutkevich, who was sixteen years old during the war. He was just in Sevastopol. And in his memoirs there is an interesting phrase that I remember the chaos that was in Sevastopol when the evacuation happened there. Before my eyes, Mai-Maevsky stood up in the car and shot himself in the temple. There is such an interesting phrase in Yutkevich’s memoirs. It is not supported by anything, there are no more witnesses, but nevertheless. Did he make it up or something, I don’t know what it’s connected with. The evidence is interesting. Although it is officially believed that he died of a broken heart.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, if it’s a heartbreak, then it’s sad, scary, and at the same time you empathize with this person. If it’s a shot to the temple, then it’s sad, scary, but this is Orthodox radio...
V. Bondarenko
- It's a sin, of course.
D. Volodikhin
- It is a sin. And no matter how scary and painful a person is, this cannot be a solution. Well, let's say goodbye to the memory of General Mai-Maevsky. And I think we should now talk about another person, about a man who was the star of the White Cause for a very long time, was one of its most strong-willed, brave commanders. And he was, to some extent, a unifier of the White cause when it lost and was looking for a place and certainty for itself in a foreign land. This is General Kutepov. Here, in fact, is the first question. There is a myth according to which February 1917 passed quite peacefully. And at the same time, when we read Kutepov’s memoirs and next to them we put, say, the memoirs of an absolutely red man, a Bolshevik among the Bolsheviks, Shlyapnikov, we see that people died in batches on the streets of Petrograd. And what about ten people, hundreds, thousands of people?
V. Bondarenko
- Certainly.
D. Volodikhin
– And here, so to speak, Kutepov played the role of an active monarchist. Because he is almost the only real combat officer, as far as I remember, with the rank of colonel...
V. Bondarenko
D. Volodikhin
– Which was a real threat to the Reds in Petrograd in February 17th.
V. Bondarenko
– This is a terrible, symbolic page in his biography. Because he came to Petrograd on leave from the front, to visit his sister, he was going to rest. And a colonel he knew by chance remembered him and recommended Kutepov’s candidacy to the city leadership as a person who could really do something. They accidentally remembered him and accidentally gave him this order. What if they didn’t remember, if they didn’t give it away? Well, he found himself right at the epicenter of these events, he assembled a combined detachment of five hundred people. And this combined detachment did everything that others did not do. But in Petrograd there were a lot of generals, a lot of staff officers, chief officers, a lot of soldiers - no one did anything.
D. Volodikhin
- Yes, he is a man of duty, of course, Kutepov.
V. Bondarenko
“But for them he tried to stop the inevitable.”
D. Volodikhin
“And it was even successful for a while.”
V. Bondarenko
“He tried to stop the inevitable.” Naturally, these attempts were doomed, but he didn’t know it that day. And, in principle, it does not matter that his attempts were doomed. It was a high attempt, it was a courageous act by an excellent officer. I consider Kutepov to be the ideal Russian officer for all times. So for this alone he would have remained in our history forever, I think
D. Volodikhin
- Yes, the figure is magnificent. They remembered that even after being seriously wounded, almost crying from pain, he remained in his positions and commanded his men in the most desperate situations. As far as I understand, he had enormous authority among the elite of the White movement, the so-called colored regiments. How did this authority develop?
V. Bondarenko
– This authority was formed due to the fact that Kutepov possessed all the advantages of an officer. He was excellent at doing everything a military man needed. He was a great shooter, he was great with cold steel. He knew how to talk with people of different ranks, from a soldier to a senior rank. He knew what to say to people in difficult situations. He knew when people could be sacrificed and when they should be spared. He read the war like an open book; for him it was the ABC. He was a man of war, a man of honor, a man of duty. And people, seeing him, wanted to follow him, they just wanted to match him, they wanted to be close to him.
D. Volodikhin
- And, let’s say, what kind of tactician was he? Does he have any serious military successes to his name?
V. Bondarenko
– Well, as a tactician he was excellent back in the First World War, when during one of the attacks he led his battalion for two miles, if I’m not mistaken, under hurricane artillery fire. But he led his battalion so skillfully, constantly changing formation, constantly changing course, relatively speaking, that there were practically no losses in the battalion. It’s even hard to imagine, but it happened. This is a great skill...
D. Volodikhin
– Intuition.
V. Bondarenko
– At the level, yes, of a battalion commander. But then he was an excellent regimental commander. And he also commanded the Kornilovites, who, by the way, at first received him coldly, since he was not one of them, but very quickly fell in love with him. Then a brigade, a division, a corps, and an army. And everyone adored him on every level. This was probably the only military leader of the White Cause who could wear the uniform of all colored units with equal success. He wore Kornilov’s uniform, Markov’s, and Drozdov’s; everyone adored him. Although there was a certain antagonism between these parts.
D. Volodikhin
- Well, actually, it’s already a civil war. Kutepov is in endless demand, he is constantly at the front. Are there any significant successes or victories behind him?
V. Bondarenko
- Well, probably his most famous achievements were the participation of his corps in the attack on Moscow in 1919, when his corps was always ahead during the offensive, and he was a shield during the retreat.
D. Volodikhin
– I think Kutepov took Kursk.
V. Bondarenko
– Kursk took Kutepov, absolutely right, yes. He, I’m sure, if it were Moscow, he would be the first to enter Moscow. But this is my guess, but I think that it would be so. And he was a shield during the retreat. He actually structured the Novorossiysk evacuation; he prevented it from breaking into final chaos. She was chaos, but she did not become the final chaos precisely thanks to Kutepov. The exit of his corps from Crimea during the offensive in Northern Tavria, this is already Wrangel’s Russian army, this is already the 20th year. His first corps, breaking the resistance of the Reds, goes to Kakhovka, there is a continuous chain of successes, and in a matter of days, with huge forces of the Reds against him, and all this happens quickly and, at first glance, easily. He had a very significant talent. The only thing that was reproached for his tactics was his not entirely advantageous behavior during the retreat to the Crimea already in November 20, but this is a controversial reproach.
D. Volodikhin
– Well, despite all these great successes, Kutepov became famous to a greater extent for those actions that do not relate to military operations. He became famous to a very considerable extent as the leader of the white army abroad. First, he disciplined and organized the White Army, which began to lose its human appearance and literally crawl away in drunkenness and lack of discipline, in the camp at Gallipoli. And he again gave people vigor and military spirit and deprived them of the opportunity to indulge in the terrible scourge of chaos. Subsequently, he headed the Russian All-Military Union abroad for quite a long time and fell there at the hands of Red agents. There is a version that he was kidnapped and killed in Russia, but most believe that he was not brought there. That is, he was kidnapped as the most dangerous enemy of Soviet power in Paris, but whether he was taken to the coast or not, that’s the question. And maybe you can clarify for us the situation of this man’s triumphant death.
V. Bondarenko
– I would say that his death was the logical crown of his life. He fell in his individual battle, his civil war, alone, surrounded by opposing enemy forces, without a tombstone, without an epitaph - just as many, many of his comrades were killed. Previously, it was a magnificent death, a very courageous, very powerful, worthy death of a courageous person. I think that the very activity of Alexander Pavlovich in structuring the military organization and precisely in its active activities, in the so-called activism, when agents were dropped into the territory of Soviet Russia, when terrorist attacks were carried out - this was a consequence of his relationship with Wrangel. The fact is that Kutepov wanted, somehow he had a complicated relationship with Pyotr Nikolaevich, he wanted to prove to him that he could act independently, that he needed to act actively, that Soviet power needed to be destroyed from within. And that's why...
D. Volodikhin
- That is, he wanted to act not only as a general, but also as a politician.
V. Bondarenko
– Yes, he wanted to act like a politician, he had the ambitions of a politician. And, ultimately, he died, but he died very honorably, as I already said.
D. Volodikhin
- Died in the struggle. That's why I called it a triumphant death. A military man accepted a terrible, but military death, death with honor. And his last days and hours are even shrouded in the darkness of mystery. I don’t know when the documents that tell about the last stage in his life will be published. But, in any case, Alexander Pavlovich did everything that his duty required of him and went to his grave as a man for whom there is nothing to reproach.
V. Bondarenko
- Absolutely.
D. Volodikhin
– And I, in turn, would like to thank our guest, Vyacheslav Bondarenko, for the wonderful conversation.
V. Bondarenko
- Thank you.
D. Volodikhin
– I would like to remind you that the civil war is a terrible tragedy that did not bring anything good to Russia. This civil war, which was initiated by the 1917 revolution, about which I also have nothing good to say. That great exodus, when 150 thousand people of Wrangel’s army and peaceful refugees left Crimea on ships to a foreign land, leaves an unhealed wound on my heart. These are our Russian people who found themselves in a desperate situation and had to flee Russia. Few of them returned, and that's scary. It is scary that the civil war divided the common Russian home into two parts, and these parts are still barely merging with pain and blood. Therefore, now our bright radio will play sad music - the march “Homesickness”. He will complete our transmission. And I thank you for your attention, goodbye, dear radio listeners.
First, true historical events are hushed up, then retouched, then completely rewritten, and... Voila! Tales about Vikings, gladiators, the empire of Genghis Khan, the Great October Socialist Revolution, etc. were born.
Let’s look at the fairy tale about the “popular uprising” directed against “disgusted tsarism.” After all, we have just witnessed an absolute copy of this “uprising”, when the Libyan people allegedly became indignant at the fact that they live in a country of developed socialism, and exchanged free housing, education and medical care for “democracy”.
part I
RED TERROR
Second example. Once upon a time, Alla Pugacheva, when she was still a singer, sang a song based on the poems of O. Mandelstam, and it was called “politically correct” in the conditions of the Soviet state, “Leningrad”. I listened to the words of the song many times, but its meaning remained somewhere out there, behind the stern. Years passed, and everything fell into place, everything became clear as day! This is a hidden message; only those who have at least a vague idea of what actually happened in Petrograd during the “bloodless revolution” can understand it.
Petrograd
I returned to my city, familiar to tears,
To the veins, to the swollen glands of children.
You're back here, so swallow it quickly
Fish oil of Petrograd river lanterns,
Find out soon the December day,
Where the yolk is mixed with the ominous tar.
Petersburg! I don't want to die yet!
You have my phone numbers.
Petersburg! I still have addresses
I live on the black stairs, and to my temple
A bell torn out with meat hits me,
And all night long I wait for my dear guests,
Moving the shackles of the door chains.
<декабрь 1930>
So I became convinced that everything is clear to me now...
Previously, I was filled only with vague premonitions, guesses, heavy thoughts that I tried to drive away from myself, so as not to “wind it up”, not to fill my head with “garbage”. However, scattered information and facts popped up everywhere, like signs.
Once upon a time, at different ages, in different places in what was now the USSR, I came across evidence that was striking in its unprecedented savagery. The information received contradicted everything I knew previously, and I involuntarily questioned the veracity of the stories, but put them aside in my mind. As if he felt that one day they would need to collect the scattered fragments into a single mosaic.
I knew the phrase “red terror” from school, but how could I realize what these words really meant? I experienced the first shock after reading the chronicles of revolutionary events in Kharkov, Kyiv, Odessa and Kherson.
My blood ran cold when I read about how the Bolsheviks killed everyone who, in their opinion, did not have a proletarian origin. Typically, public buildings with increased capacity, such as theaters, for example, were used for mass executions.
So in the Kharkov Drama Theater, several thousand officers were killed in two days just because they were officers. They killed on stage, the bodies were thrown into the orchestra pit, where the wounded were finished off with shovels. The corpses from the overflowing pit were taken out of town by truck and dumped somewhere in a ravine.
They killed everyone, women, children, old people, just because they belonged to the merchants, clergy, nobility or state or municipal service. From firefighters to deputies. And members of their families, because there was a class struggle that did not imply a place in the “bright future” for those whose fathers were brutally executed.
The proletariat was well aware that in order not to lose what they had conquered in the future, the expropriated property should not have heirs - claimants, in principle. And for this, it was necessary to completely cleanse the former owners of the property that now belonged to the proletariat, according to the laws of the “revolutionary zeal”.
The killers didn’t just try, they enjoyed their work! They resorted to sophisticated tortures that cannot even occur to a normal person. A normal person, even a scoundrel, simply gets rid of an obstacle, forcedly, without experiencing the pleasure of killing. But this was done by non-humans. Only extraterrestrial monsters are capable of this.
In order to understand the meaning of words, it is necessary to support them with visual images so that it is not an empty phrase. Sorry, but you'll have to watch this:
01
The depleted, burnt corpse of a tortured man, in the courtyard of the Kherson Cheka
02
Corpses of unknown persons in the Kherson Cheka, with signs of torture.
03
Corpses of hostages with signs of torture. Kherson.
04
Skin taken from the hands of victims of the Kharkov Cheka.
05
Skin flayed from a person in the Kherson GUBCHK,
06
Those who died from torture in the Kharkov GUBCHK
07
Kharkiv. Corpses of tortured female hostages.
Second from left is S. Ivanova, owner of a small shop.
Third from the left - A.I. Karolskaya, wife of a colonel.
The fourth is L. Khlopkova, landowner.
Everyone's breasts were cut open and peeled out alive, the genitals were burned and coals were found in them
08
Kharkiv. The body of the hostage Lieutenant Bobrov, to whom the executioners cut out his tongue and chopped off his handsand removed the skin along the left leg
Kharkov, emergency yard.
The corpse of hostage I. Ponomarenko, a former telegraph operator.
The right hand is chopped off. There are several deep cuts across the chest. There are two more corpses in the background
The corpse of hostage Ilya Sidorenko,
owner of a fashion store in the city of Sumy. The victim's arms were broken, his ribs were broken,genitals cut open.Martyred in Kharkov
11
Snegirevka station, near Kharkov. The corpse of a tortured woman.No clothing was found on the body.
The head and shoulders were cut off
12
Kharkiv. Corpses of the dead dumped in a cart
13
Kharkiv. Corpses of those tortured in the Cheka
14
Courtyard of the Kharkov gubchek (Sadovaya street, 5) with the corpses of the executed
15
Kharkiv. Photo of the head of Archimandrite Rodion, Spassovsky Monastery, scalped by the Bolsheviks
16
Excavation of one of the mass graves near the building of the Kharkov Cheka
Farmers I. Afanasyuk and S. Prokopovich, scalped alive. At the neighbor's, I. Afanasyuk,on the body there are traces of burns from a red-hot saber
18
The bodies of three hostage workers from the striking factory. The middle one, A. Ivanenko, has his eyes burned out,lips and nose cut off. Others have their hands cut off
19
The bodies of four peasant hostages (Bondarenko, Plokhikh, Levenets and Sidorchuk).The faces of the dead are terribly cut up.
The genitals were mutilated in a special savage way. The doctors conducting the examination expressed the opinion that
that such a technique should only be known Chinese executioners and according to the degree of painexceeds anything imaginable to man
20
On the left is the corpse of hostage S. Mikhailov, grocery store clerkapparently hacked to death with a saber.
In the middle is the body of a man hacked to death with ramrods, with a broken lower back, teacher Petrenko.
On the right is the corpse of Agapov, with his previously described genital torture
21
The corpse of a 17-18 year old boy, with a cut-out side and a mutilated face
22
Siberia. Yenisei province. Officer Ivanov, tortured to death
23
Siberia. Yenisei province. Corpses of tortured victims of Bolshevik terror.In the Soviet encyclopedia
24
Doctor Belyaev, Czech. Brutally killed in Verkhneudinsk.The photograph shows a severed handand a disfigured face
25
Yeniseisk. Captured Cossack officer brutally killed by the Reds (legs, arms and head burned)
Odessa. Reburial of victims from mass graves, excavated after the Bolsheviks left
I think everyone understands now, where did the “millions of victims of the Stalinist regime” come from? The unfinished leaders of the Red Terror simply attributed their own crimes to Stalin, this is clear as day! They drowned the country in a sea of blood, and when Joseph Vissarionovich stopped this bacchanalia and punished the most ardent sadists, perverts, vampires, maddened by blood and impunity, they raised a wild howl throughout the world that they were illegally repressed! The old method is when a thief, in order to escape from the scene of a crime, shouts: “Stop the thief!”
This is what the Red Army, Red Terror, and class struggle are. We know the leaders and organizers by name, for example, the list of the Central Office of the NKVD, which was headed by N.I. Ezhov.
Eichmans F.I. - head of the Gulag (that is, the officer who directly supervised the repressions);
Agranov Y.S. - Head of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR (his affairs are mentioned above);
Feldman V.D. - special commissioner at the NKVD Collegium;
Tkalun P.P. - Commandant of the Moscow Kremlin;
Slutsky A.A. - Head of the Foreign Department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR;
Deig Y.A. - Head of the NKVD Secretariat;
Leplevsky I.M. - Head of the Special Department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR;
Radzivilovsky A.P. - Head of the 3rd Department of the 3rd Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR;
Berman B.D. - Head of the 3rd Directorate of the NKVD;
Reichman L.I. - Head of the 7th Department of the 3rd Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR;
Shneerson M.B. - Head of the Central Trade Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR;
Passov Z.I. - Head of the 5th Department of the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR;
Dagan I.Ya. - Head of the 1st Department of the Main Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR;
Shapiro E.I. Head of the 9th Department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR;
Pliner I.I. - Head of the Resettlement Department of the NKVD of the USSR;
Berman M.D. - (obviously, the brother of the previous Berman B.D.) - Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Weinshtok Ya.M. - Head of the Personnel Department of the NKVD of the USSR;
Zalpeter A.K. - Head of the 2nd Department of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR;
Kogan L.I. responsible employee of the Gulag of the NKVD of the USSR;
The Red Terror was a set of punitive measures carried out by the Bolsheviks in 1917-1923 against social groups declared class enemies, as well as against individuals accused of counter-revolutionary activities. Terror was part of the repressive state policy of the Bolshevik government, and was applied in practice both through the implementation of legislative acts and outside the framework of any legislation. It served as a means of intimidation for both anti-Bolshevik forces and the population. The Bolsheviks widely used terror and violence against “class enemies” earlier, even before the official proclamation of the decree of September 5, 1918 “On the Red Terror”.
On September 5, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issues a resolution on the “red terror”, which the Soviet government launched allegedly in response to counter-revolutionary terror. The “last straw” was the assassination attempt on V.I. at the Mikhelson plant. Lenin, which led to his serious injury.
Responsibility for carrying out the terror was assigned to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission and “individual party comrades,” who made every effort to tighten repression. So, already on September 17, the chairman of the Cheka F.E. Dzerzhinsky demands that local commissions “speed up and complete, that is, liquidate, unresolved cases.”
Head of a village in Kherson province E.V. Marchenko, tortured in the Cheka.
Executioner - N.M. Demyshev. Chairman of the executive committee of Yevpatoria, one of the organizers of the red “Bartholomew’s Night”. Executed by the Whites after the liberation of Yevpatoria.
The executioner is Kebabchants, nicknamed “the bloody one.” Deputy Chairman of the Evpatoria Executive Committee, participant in the “Bartholomew’s Night”. Executed by whites.
Female executioner - Varvara Grebennikova (Nemich). In January 1920, she sentenced officers and the “bourgeoisie” to death on board the steamer Romania. Executed by whites.
Dora Evlinskaya, under 20 years old, a female executioner who executed 400 officers in the Odessa Cheka with her own hands.
Kharkiv. Corpses of tortured female hostages. Second from left is S. Ivanova, owner of a small shop. Third from the left - A.I. Karolskaya, wife of a colonel. The fourth is L. Khlopkova, landowner. All their breasts were cut open and peeled alive, their genitals were burned and coals were found in them.
The courtyard of the Kharkov gubchek (Sadovaya street, 5) with the corpses of those executed.
The bodies of three hostage workers from the striking factory. The middle one, A. Ivanenko, had his eyes burned out, his lips and nose cut off. Others had their hands cut off.
The corpse of a 17-18-year-old boy, with his side cut out and his face mutilated.
A heavy-duty Ural with a red cross on the hood at full speed demolishes the barrier of a checkpoint (checkpoint) and tries to break through to the entrance gate to a military facility. "These are suicide bombers! Fire!" - commanded by an officer of the battalion tactical group (BTG) of the multinational forces serving here. Soldiers shoot at the wheels. The car stops. The soldiers are cordoning it off. “Commander, there are three two-hundredths here,” one of them can be heard reporting. “Two-hundredth” means a corpse. The bodies are being taken out of the cabin. And there is a mine in it! “Everyone take cover!” A sapper is working. The mine is neutralized, the vehicle and the dead are inspected continues...
So, at the “Dashki-2” training ground of the Ryazan Higher Military Command School of Communications (RVVKUS), cadets from 16 military universities in Russia and a number of CIS countries (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine), united in four BTGs, practiced the “Kamikaze driving a car” element. Everything happened during a multi-hour control tactical training session as part of the international competition "General Skobelev-8". It’s clear that the truck was shot with blank cartridges, and the real driver and his passengers only pretended to be “two hundred.” The uniqueness of “Skobelev”, which exists thanks to the mutual interest in it of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Russian Ministry of Defense, is that while practicing various inductions, future officers are required to take into account the norms of international humanitarian law (IHL). Having completed all the tasks at the checkpoint, the groups went out to the combat training route, where quite a lot of other “surprises” awaited them.
HARD JUDGING
Each unit consisted of 16 cadets, led by an officer who was a student of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Surprises awaited the competitors literally at every turn. For example, at the same checkpoint, a conditional stringer (this is the name given to unaccredited journalists who show up in an armed conflict zone), who was conducting a “photo shoot” from behind the bushes to detain and search civilians (their roles were played by RVVKUS cadets), was an eyesore for a long time before he was noticed one of the fighters. For this, the group received one of the first minuses.
By the way, if everything had happened in reality, the stringer would have been able to publish “sensational” pictures of how IHL norms were violated during the search of civilians. The guys were forced to strip down to their underpants right at the place of detention. The photographs could well be used to discredit the multinational forces serving in the confrontation zone. This is what Lieutenant Colonel Vyacheslav Suchkov, one of the competition judges and winner of the “General Skobelev-5” competition (2004), spoke about this situation with, a senior officer of the Main Directorate of International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. “This qualifies as a humiliation of human dignity,” he explained to NVO. “In this situation, it was necessary to inspect the detainees in a specially designated room.”
The cadets discovered conventionally ingenious tripwires, found “kidnapped” people in a bunker, someone in a carefully camouflaged cache of ammunition stumbled upon a well-hidden topographical map with the situation marked... One day, information was provided to them by a local boy (the son of an officer, a third-grader Oleg Yakovlev, who was involved in the game) - his information, before acting headlong on it, was first carefully checked... When meeting with “unknowns”, when they did not show aggressive actions, they did not go too far. The BTG acted very professionally when they discovered a “wounded” pilot of a conditionally downed “enemy” plane in a rescue boat on the water surface. The pilot, who splashed down on the lake, was pulled ashore and was immediately provided with first aid.
I had to make sure - and this was confirmed by the head of the RVVKUS medical service - that the cadets skillfully made dressings; Later they also provided assistance to the “wounded” who suffered during the mock bombing. This was noted in a conversation with an NVO reporter by the regional delegate of the ICRC, head of the department for relations with the armed forces and security forces of the regional delegation of the ICRC in the Russian Federation, Bill Bowie (he is a brigadier general, has repeatedly visited hot spots of the world): “I saw how "At many stages of the exercise, participants came across "wounded" people, and the cadets rushed to immediately help them. I was very impressed by how well the cadets were prepared to provide first aid! From the point of view of IHL, all this is very important."
"AND MERCY TO THE FALLEN..."
While some were “babysitting” the pilot, others had to prevent an attempt by a group of saboteurs to mine the dam and come into fire contact with the “enemy’s” search and rescue group. At the shooting range, the target environment also corresponded to the conditions of Skobelev-8: some of the targets depicted civilians, and the fire had to be fired “over their heads.”
In the finale, the group rescued from the “fortress” (ruins of a house) conditional hostages who had fallen into the hands of “radicals from Islam.” But here the organizers of the competition themselves admitted that, perhaps, this was, if not superfluous, then just an introductory point for a tactical competition. Still, negotiating with terrorists (the contestants' negotiations were less than amateurish - they exchanged all the hostages for rations and a handful of cartridges) is a matter for specialists.
Judges of the General Skobelev-8 competition and ICRC experts with whom the NVO reporter had a chance to communicate admit that IHL, “of course, there are some nuances.” But they emphasize that since IHL is recognized by the world community, then commanders and military leaders, when planning some kind of operation or battle, must assess its consequences from the point of view of this law. So that later such notorious incidents would not arise as with Colonel Budanov or Captain Ulman, not to mention what American soldiers are doing in Iraq.
The participants of Skobelev-8 themselves are more than satisfied. “The competition gave me a lot of experience in terms of training and the understanding that everything we practiced in Ryazan could be useful to me in war,” cadet Vyacheslav Sapozhnikov, a future Marine Corps officer (Far Eastern Higher Military Command School), told NVO. But not only that. This is also a huge experience of communication, finding mutual understanding between cadets of military universities of different countries, which can also be useful in the future."
The oval emblem of the competition on a black background with the outline of a tower depicts in white and on a galloping white horse the silhouette of Infantry General Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev with a raised hand with a saber. Below in red is the inscription “Laws and Customs of War.” Why - "White General"? The fact is that, as the chairman of the jury and expert of the military department of the ICRC, reserve colonel Oleg Bondarenko, explained to NVO, “Suvorov of the 19th century” (and that’s what Skobelev’s contemporaries called him), despite all his victoriousness, treated defeated enemies and the local population of the conquered territories very humanely .
"Skobelev" has been held annually in May since 2000 (each school nominates four pre-graduation cadets and one mentor officer for the competition).
The history of these competitions for future officers is as follows. “General Skobelev” was invented by military enthusiasts in the late 1990s. One of them is called reserve lieutenant colonel Nikolai Rumyantsev, director of the IHL course at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (he composed the questions for this year’s competition). The idea was supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and it received approval from the Russian Ministry of Defense. Moreover, by that time, according to General Vinogradov (he served in the Main Directorate of International Military Cooperation), a lot of work had already been done in terms of “bringing IHL to the troops”: for example, the regulations were being improved, and later the Senezh courses were created. The general calls them “the best in the world, since the officers who study there receive not only theoretical knowledge, as happens at similar international courses in San Remo, Italy, but also practical knowledge - they practice actions not on the globe, but on maps and on a specific area.” .
For his part, the regional delegate of the ICRC in Russia, Bill Bowie, highly appreciates the importance of “General Skobelev.” “The competition made a very big impression on me,” he told NVO. “Naturally, not a single field exercise can reflect all the horrors that war brings with it. But for us, the most important thing is to prepare future officers for what they may encounter in life."
And to the cadets themselves, at the end of the competition (the competition lasted a week), he said: “The military has many secrets. But the knowledge that you received at these competitions is not secret. When you return to your schools, tell everyone about everything you learned, so that future the warriors were as humane as possible!"
In an interview with NVO, General Bowie also noted that he is very satisfied with how cooperation between the ICRC and the Russian Ministry of Defense is developing: “Every year we sign a joint cooperation plan, the Minister himself signs it from the Ministry of Defense, the whole plan is being implemented. Moreover, when we If any additional proposals arise, they always meet us halfway.” He is pleased that Russian generals are doing a lot to ensure that IHL norms are reflected in the documents of the military department (say, in regulations and manuals), and contribute to ensuring that these norms are implemented in practice (Senezh courses, competitions " Generalissimo Suvorov" and "General Skobelev").
As for the financial side of Skobelev, then, according to General Bowie, “the point of all the programs that we conduct in Russia, and in other countries, is that we provide assistance and support in the integration of IHL provisions into national legislation.” . “The ICRC is therefore willing to pay a significant share of all costs initially,” he explains. “As programs become stronger and develop, we reduce our share of them.” Bill Bowie was not ready to provide financial figures for Skobelev, but noted that while before 2007 the ICRC paid 100% of officer fees, this year the Russian Ministry of Defense paid more than 60%.
Publication by P. N. Strelyanov (Kalabukhova)
It is impossible to present all the facts of the Reds’ terror in Kuban, even if limited to the time frame of 1918–1920, in a short article. And the reason for this is not only their huge number. Not all atrocities were documented during the Civil War: the grief of the relatives of those executed and desecrated was too great at that time; eyewitnesses who were afraid to speak and terrorized by the Bolsheviks.
Every Red Army soldier could arrest innocent people in the name of Soviet power; they surrendered to the Cheka, revolutionary committees and other Soviet institutions without documents; It often became impossible to find out the reason for the arrest, trace the place of detention and the fate of those arrested.
Searches and requisitions grew into general plunder of private and public property. Everything was taken from the Cossacks, from cattle, a combat horse, and ending with a child’s shirt. The stolen property was given to Soviet leaders and activists from other cities. The Soviet government destroyed Cossack farms, subjecting them to land redistribution; widows, families of those executed and Cossacks who went to the mountains were deprived of even a piece of land.
Servants of the Church who delivered sermons condemning the Soviet regime, who served parting prayers to the passing units of the Volunteer Army, who participated in the burial of the “cadets” were given over to cruel torture and death.
Let us note that mass executions and individual numerous murders, bullying and robberies of civilians did not take place on the battlefields, but in village houses, hospitals, schools and churches; mainly before the Civil War, which was in full swing in the Kuban, and after its end. In the spring and summer of 1918 - after uprisings against the Soviet power that had already managed to “prove itself” on military soil - the villages were subjected to brutal repression, thousands of Cossacks died. “The terror of the Reds was extraordinary,” the military historian of the Cossacks, Colonel F.I. Eliseev, wrote about the Labinians. “Having driven the arrested people to the square of the village, they were chopped down with swords... And in no department of the Kuban Army there was such a massive uprising against the Reds, as well as terror over the Cossacks, as in the Labinsky Regimental District.”438
Today's “objective” historians define the Civil War by the old standard, the cliche – as “fratricidal”, and put “white terror” on the same level as the Red Terror. But will the Whites remember at least one case similar to the one first reported by F. Eliseev? This is a case of the wholesale destruction of the entire officer and military-bureaucratic class of the entire Cossack region at the end of the war. The Kuban Army suffered a bloody tribute after an unsuccessful landing from the Crimea in August 1920. “No one described - what was the massacre of the Reds in the villages after the landing? But the 6 thousand officers and military officials of the Kuban Army, with whom we met in Moscow, were the first victims.” The Bolsheviks drove trains with officers through Moscow to the Arkhangelsk province, trains with police officers - beyond the Urals. The fate of the Cossacks was terrible. Arriving in Arkhangelsk in August–September 1920, they were loaded in batches into closed barges, taken up the Northern Dvina and shot in vacant lots with machine guns. Then the barges returned, the next ones were loaded into them, and so on - until all six thousand were destroyed... “Kuban, our Kuban Cossack Army, was also overwhelmed by the tears of six thousand widows!.. and how many orphans were left after them - we now WILL NOT KNOW "
The beginning of terror
Ekaterinodar. On March 1, 1918, Red troops entered Yekaterinodar. On the same day, 83 people were arrested, all detainees were hacked to death or shot without trial. The corpses were buried in three pits in the city; in some cases, people were still alive, which was later confirmed by witnesses and doctors. Among those killed were children 14-16 years old and old people over 65 years old; The victims were mocked, their fingers, toes, and genitals were cut off and their faces were disfigured. At the Gubkin Hotel on March 4, after bullying, Colonel Orlov was hacked to death and his family was destroyed: his wife and four children. In March, in the village of Abukai, the Bolsheviks hacked and bayoneted 5 residents of Yekaterinodar: half-dead, they were thrown into a hole and covered with earth. Together with them, 240 Circassians were killed. On May 31, the Cossacks of the village of Novotitarovskaya and other persons, a total of 76 people, were taken out of the Yekaterinodar regional prison and shot with machine guns. Some of the corpses were buried in a hole, and those that did not fit in the hole were thrown into the Kuban River. The victims were executed without trial by order of the Cheka. The killings of the Cossacks were carried out by the Red Army soldiers of the Dnieper Regiment, which also included criminals; The regiment was considered one of the most reliable by the Soviets.
Art. Elizavetinskaya and Ekaterinodar. On April 1, 1918, Red detachments entered the Elizavetinskaya village after the Volunteer Army had withdrawn from it. In village colleges and schools adapted for hospitals, the seriously wounded and sick remained (it was not possible to take them all out) with doctors and nurses. A sick boy, a cadet of the 3rd class of the Novocherkassk Cadet Corps, came running to the two-year school and asked to hide him. Someone from out of town reported to the Bolsheviks about the cadet. The Red soldier approached the boy standing among the Cossack children and asked if he was a cadet. The boy answered in the affirmative, and the soldier stabbed him with a bayonet in front of everyone. On April 2, a Bolshevik punitive detachment appeared in the village. At the women's school, a Bolshevik who was there before the arrival of the punitive detachment pointed out several wounded officers. The Reds began to shoot and chop down everyone; one of them took out an ax and used it. The head of the two-class Elizabeth School and the Cossacks who lived nearby made sure that the Bolsheviks drove all the “free” from the premises and, having placed guards at the doors and gates, entered the school, from where the groans and cries of the wounded were soon heard. After some time, the Bolsheviks began to leave the school, smeared with blood, washed themselves and their weapons, axes and shovels from the blood in the troughs standing in the yard, and then returned to continue their bloody work. On the evening of April 2, the Bolsheviks ordered the Cossacks to remove the bodies of the wounded and sick they had killed from all hospitals and take them “to pus” in the reeds (throw them out so they could rot in the reeds). The Cossacks took the corpses to the cemetery and buried them in a common grave. After the Bolsheviks left, people entering the school infirmaries showed that the mutilated bodies of the dead were lying everywhere: one officer lay holding his severed leg in his ossified hands, another had his eyes gouged out, others lay with severed heads or severed faces, others had chests and faces stabbed with bayonets. Among the corpses lay the groaning, half-dead wounded. The floor was covered in pools of blood; the straw that served as bedding for the wounded was soaked through with blood. The priest and Cossacks who were in the cemetery said that the mutilated and chopped bodies were separate pieces of human flesh. It was not possible to find out the exact number and names of those killed by the Bolsheviks in the hospitals of the Elizavetinskaya village; only one Cossack, burying the corpses, counted 69 bodies. Two sisters of mercy were killed at the same time: one was thrown into Kuban, and a young girl, a 6th grade student at the Kuban Mariinsky Institute V. Parkhomenko, they shot him outside the village cemetery.
On April 3, the Bolsheviks loaded the wounded survivors onto carts and sent them to Yekaterinodar. In the city, the wounded were first taken to the Military Hospital, where the Reds did not accept them, threatening that they would kill everyone; in the 44th infirmary (at the Diocesan School) they were again beaten. On the way to the Ataman's palace, the Bolsheviks mocked the wounded: when the carts stopped close to each other, the Reds began to whip the horses, and they, rearing up, jumped onto the cart standing in front and trampled the wounded lying in it with their hooves. The wounded remained in custody until August 3, 1918, the day of the capture of Yekaterinodar by the Volunteer Army; They were constantly subjected to bullying and threats of being “wasted,” did not receive any medical care, and some of them died. Caucasian department. After the Cossack uprising against Soviet power, on March 24, 1918, they were killed by the Reds: Art. Caucasian. Military foreman I. Kh. Lovyagin - the red soldiers mutilated the officer’s body with bayonets and sabers, threw the corpse onto the road, forbidding burial with a church funeral. Cossack I. G. Eliseev, the father of three officer sons, was shot dead. Old guards and constables Sevostyanov, I. Didenko, I. Naumov, M. Mishnev, G. Chaplygin were shot in the village. Romanovsky. Lieutenant Vazhensky, not wanting to fall into the hands of the Reds, shot himself on the banks of the Kuban.
Art. Tiflis. 35 Cossacks were killed along with junior constable R. Koltsov. Art. Ilyinskaya. Student A. Solodukhin, a Cossack, was stabbed to death with bayonets; there were 18 wounds on his body. Art. Temizhbekskaya. Colonel G.S. Zhukov was shot. A military official, Terek Cossack T.S. Chirskov - the Reds mistook him “for a general” and came up with a special death for him: tying him to the buffer of a carriage, they rolled another one on top of him and crushed the innocent man alive. Military foreman Popov was shot; Cossack Kozminov, with a broken leg, was finished off with bayonets while transporting him to Kh. Romanovsky.
“Socialization” of girls and women
In the spring of 1918, in Yekaterinodar, the Bolsheviks issued a decree, published in the Izvestia of the Council. Posted on poles, it stated that girls between the ages of 16 and 25 were to be “socialized”; Those wishing to take advantage of the decree could contact revolutionary institutions. The initiator of “socialization” was the Jewish Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Bronstein, who issued “mandates” for it. Mandates were also issued by the head of the red cavalry detachment Kobzyrev, commander-in-chief Ivashev and others; the documents were stamped by the headquarters of the “revolutionary troops of the North Caucasus Soviet Republic.” Mandates were issued to Red Army soldiers and Soviet commanders, for example, in the name of Karaseev, the commandant of the palace where Bronstein lived. Sample: MANDATE. The bearer of this, Comrade Karaseev, is given the right to socialize in the city of Yekaterinodar 10 souls of girls aged from 16 to 20 years, whom Comrade Karaseev points out. Commander-in-Chief Ivashev (signature). Place of seal (seal). Based on the mandates, the Red Army soldiers captured more than 60 young girls - from the bourgeoisie and students of educational institutions - during a raid organized in the city garden, four were raped there. 25 girls were taken to the Palace of the Military Ataman to Bronstein, the rest to the Starokommercheskaya Hotel to Kobzyrev and to the Bristol Hotel to the sailors, where they were raped. Some were then released - for example, a girl raped by the head of the Bolshevik criminal investigation police, Prokofiev; others were taken away by departing Red Army detachments, and their fate is unclear. After cruel torture, several girls were killed and thrown into the Kuban and Karasun rivers. A group of Red Army soldiers raped a 5th grade student at one of the Ekaterinodar gymnasiums for 12 days, then the Bolsheviks tied her to a tree and burned her with fire, and then shot her (the names of the victims are not published for obvious reasons).
Terror in the Labinsky department
The Bolsheviks seized power in the Labinsky department in January–February 1918, surrounding the villages with Red Army detachments with guns and machine guns. The commissars ordered the confiscation of weapons from the Cossacks, arrested the most influential Cossacks and local priests; arrests numbered in tens and hundreds. Armavir. In February 1918, the Reds were the first in the city to kill the commander of the 18th Kuban Plastun battalion. For six days the officer’s corpse lay on the street, dogs tore it to pieces. Two months later, 12 officers were executed by a crowd of soldiers; 79 arrested officers, transferred to the command of the commander of the Soviet sapper battalion, went missing. More than 500 civilian Armavir residents were stabbed with bayonets, hacked to pieces with swords and shot. They were executed in the streets, in houses, in squares, being taken out in batches. They killed fathers in front of their daughters, husbands in front of their wives, children in front of their mothers. The former ataman of the department, Tkachev, and the teacher were taken out into the field, forced to dig a grave for themselves, and both were bayoneted in it, covering the half-dead ones with earth. The horrors of the Armavir executions drove many women to complete insanity. Until September 1918, the Reds killed 1,342 people in Armavir.
According to the memoirs of General M.A. Fostikov, in Armavir there was an organization of the Labinsky department, which was discovered by the Bolsheviks on June 15, 1918, and executions were carried out. The Cossacks of the village of Barsukovskaya attacked the village of Nevinnomysskaya and failed. Red terror began in the villages. Art. Chalmykskaya. The executions of Cossacks began on June 5, 1918. After an unsuccessful performance against the Bolsheviks, most of the Cossacks went to the mountains, while the minority returned to the village. The Red Army detachment began searches and arrests. The Bolsheviks brought 38 Cossacks to the village square, lined them up in two ranks back to back, opened their ranks, and themselves lined up in two ranks of 35 people against those doomed to execution; At the command of the detachment commander Kronachev, the Red Army soldiers, shouting “hurray,” rushed to stab the Cossacks with bayonets. On June 12, a party of 16 Cossacks was led to the cemetery fence, lined up, having previously undressed them, and bayoneted them all. With bayonets, like pitchforks, they threw the bodies into the grave over the fence; Cossacks who were still alive were buried in the ground. The Cossack Sedenko, hacked to pieces by swords, groaned and asked for a drink, the Bolsheviks offered him to drink blood from the fresh wounds of the hacked villagers. 183 Cossacks were executed, 71 of them were subjected to special torture: their noses and ears were cut off, their legs and arms were chopped off. The corpses of those executed remained unburied for several days; pigs and dogs dragged the bodies across the fields. Kh. Khlebodarovsky. Primary school teacher Petrov is hacked to death with sabers. Art. Ereminskaya. On June 5, 12 Cossacks were arrested; The Bolsheviks took them out into the field, fired three volleys at them and left. Among the fallen were five Cossacks alive. One of them, Kartashov, crawled into a wheat field. Soon the Bolsheviks came to the place of execution with iron shovels and used them to finish off the still living Cossacks. The witness heard the groans of those being finished off and the cracking of skulls being crushed. Art. Labinskaya. In January, the Bolshevik Ryndin killed three Labin residents and robbed the station ticket office; The Cossacks who tried to detain him were prevented by soldiers of the local garrison. The executions of Cossacks began on June 7; 50 innocent Cossacks were shot without trial. The young officer Pakhomov and his sister were shot; their mother went to the village government to look for the corpses of those killed; They responded to her with rudeness, and then they shot her too. On the same day, in front of his wife and daughter, the former village ataman Alimenyev was killed; with a blow from a saber, the Red Army soldier tore off the skull cap, his brains fell out and broke into pieces on the sidewalk; the widow rushed to pick them up so as not to let the dogs grab them. The red executioner drove the widow away, shouting: “Don’t touch me, let the dogs eat you.” The daughters of the executed man asked to give the body for burial; The Bolsheviks replied: “A dog has a dog’s honor; if you think about it, we’ll put you on a bayonet.” On June 8, Officer Pulin was killed. To the father and mother’s request to bury the body, the answer was the same. Cossack Efremov was stabbed with bayonets on the street, his relatives found him dying and took him home. In the evening, the Bolsheviks, who learned about this, burst into the house and stabbed the Cossack in the throat with a bayonet. Commissar Danilyan supervised the arrests and executions. Art. Voznesenskaya. The first executions of the Cossacks - Khakhal and Ramakha - began in February. The Cossacks lived under the constant threat of death; at rallies it was heard: “give the Cossacks St. Bartholomew’s Night, cut them down to the cradle (to cradle age).” At the end of September, leaving the village, the Bolsheviks shot the Cossacks working in the field with machine guns, within two days they executed 40 old Cossacks, the young ones went to the mountains as partisans. Cossacks were executed individually and in batches: they were shot, stabbed with bayonets, chopped with swords. The place of execution was a village pasture; the doomed were placed near dug graves, and the Red Army soldiers cut off their heads, throwing their bodies into the grave; the living were covered with earth along with the corpses. They killed the arrested officer Chislov in the cellar with a revolver and the Cossack Malinkov with rifle butts. The officer’s body was taken outside the village and thrown into a dung heap; the carcasses of dead horses were soon brought there and thrown next to the officer’s body. Pigs and dogs tore the horses and the officer's body to pieces. Art. Persistent. The executions of Cossacks continued from June 7 until the end of the month. They killed on the streets, in houses, one by one, took them out in batches to the cemetery, and executed them at dug graves. They killed him in the basement of the village administration, stabbing a Cossack with three bayonets in the side and carrying him while still alive to the square, where the gathered crowds of Bolsheviks and Bolshevik women shouted “hurray” and applauded the atrocity. 113 Cossacks were executed in the village. Art. Kaladzhinskaya. Executions began after the Bolsheviks seized power. Up to 40 Cossacks were arrested, the more prominent and those with whom the local Bolsheviks had personal scores; 14 were executed. They were taken out of the village basement one by one, commanded to “undress,” “take off your shoes,” “bend over,” and with two or three blows they chopped off their bowed heads. The dead were thrown into a ravine outside the village. On June 7, the killings continued. 31 Cossacks were hacked to death on the edge of a ravine with swords, their corpses were thrown into the ravine and barely covered with manure; Cossack bones, stolen by dogs, were found in different parts of the village. The bound Cossack Kretov was tied by the legs with a rope to a cart and the horse was driven to gallop throughout the village. Rushing down the street, a Bolshevik sitting in a cart shouted: “Stay aside, the Cossack is galloping, give way.” The mutilated and bloodied Cossack was dragged to the church square and executed here: one of the Red Army soldiers stuck a saber in the executed man’s mouth and, moving it from side to side, said: “Here’s your Cossacks.” Art. Zassovskaya. On June 5, the Bolsheviks arrested 130 Cossacks. The red detachment that arrived from the village of Vladimirskaya took the arrested from the basement of the village administration and hacked them with sabers; officers Balykin and Skrylnikov were hacked to death. The Cossacks imprisoned in the school were taken one by one to the square and asked the assembled crowd whether to “execute” or “justify”; The fourth part remained acquitted. The Cossacks were stripped down to their shirts and hacked with swords all over their bodies, blood flowed in a stream. From morning to evening, corpses lay in piles in the square, uncollected, only by nightfall were graves dug in the cemetery. The bodies were transported on carts, and the living were thrown into the grave with the corpses. Some arrived at the cemetery sitting, they asked to be allowed to die at home, they were stabbed to death or, like the others, thrown into graves and buried alive. The Cossacks Martynov and Sinelnikov got out from under the earth that had covered them. The latter kept asking to be turned face up. Cossack Emelyanov, all cut up, crawled to a bucket near the grave, drank water, washed his face and began to wipe himself with a beshmet. The Red Army soldier noticed this and stabbed the Cossack with a bayonet. A total of 104 Cossacks were executed. During short breaks, the red executioners entered the village administration, took the food prepared for them with blood-stained hands and ate. Art. Vladimirskaya. The executions began on June 5, and 264 Cossacks were killed in a few days. The first to be executed in front of the daughter of the beloved priest, Fr. Alexandra. The Red Army soldiers searched houses, caught Cossacks in the fields and executed them on the spot or in the square. When bringing out the arrested, the Bolsheviks forced them to sing: “Lord, save your people” - and then they chopped the Cossacks with swords, but not to death, so that the Cossack would suffer. At first, executions took place without trial; on the fourth day, the Bolsheviks formed a special tribunal of tramps and slackers; the tribunal “sentenced” to death or granted life for a ransom. Cossack Penev, 16 years old, was skinned from the skull by the Bolsheviks, gouged out his eyes, and then hacked to death. Cossack A. Devoseev was killed because his son was in a partisan detachment. The Bolsheviks beat him with rifle butts, then shot him and bayoneted him while he was already dead. Three Sinilov brothers were killed: Andrei was shot for no reason, his body was mocked; Grigory was hiding, returned home, the Bolsheviks grabbed him and began to chop him with sabers, he managed to escape, lived for 5 days, hiding in a hole, where he died in terrible agony; Gabriel was hacked to death outside the village. They killed a 70-year-old Cossack, four Bolsheviks stabbed him with bayonets in front and behind, despite the terrible scream and torment of the old man; they took the body by the legs and dragged it into the street, where it lay for a whole day. Four Oseyev brothers were executed. All those tortured, shot and executed in the village numbered about 700 people. Art. Sengileevskaya. Military foreman Fostikov with the 1st Kuban Regiment entered the village on August 17, 1918. During the Bolsheviks’ stay there, everything was looted down to kitchen utensils, many houses were burned, women and girls were raped, the corpses of the killed Cossacks had not yet been removed. The cisterns where rainwater was stored as drinking water are filled with corpses of people and animals. List of leaders of the Soviet government of the Labinsk Department, who were commissars, members of executive committees, tribunals, and chairmen of the Soviets
In Armavir - tailor Nikitenko, veterinary paramedic Gutnev, baker Smirnov the fratricide, Latvian Vilister. In Art. Labinskoy - convict Miroshnichenko, drunkard Ryndin, roofer Koshuba, warrant officers Shtyrkin and Dakhov, former lower school teacher Danilyan. In Art. Chamlykskaya - soldier V. Kropachev, Cossack M. Soprykin, sergeant D. Kasyanov, constable M. Tsukanov, Cossack I. Mironov, paramedic P. Ananyev and tailor A. Kirilenko. In Art. Ereminskaya - Red Army soldier Proskurnya. In Art. Voznesenskaya - out-of-town Sakhno. In Art. Persistent - Cossack Dubrovin, shoemakers I. Aleinikov, F. Biglaer, thief-arsonist N. Kravtsov, blacksmith I. Grigorenko, soldier Kryukov, Cossack K. Zabiyaka and thugs F. Babaev, S. Stolyarov and A. Bondarenko. In Art. Kaladzhinskaya - tramp Shutkin, tramp Klimenko. In Art. Zassovskaya - postman M. Brivirtsov, expelled from service. In Art. Vladimirskaya - Cossack S.P. Alekseev. Leaders of Soviet power in Yeisk
The commissioner of the detachment, F. Mitskevich, is a convict, served 8 years in prison for forging banknotes; sailor Khomyakov - served 12 years in hard labor for the murder of a family in Vladivostok; Commissioner of the Zhloby detachment - last name unknown; Cheka Commissioner Kolosov - without a nose, sentenced to 8 years of hard labor for the murder of a girl; Yeisk council member Kolesnikov is a famous thief; Voronin - was in Yeisk prison for stabbing; Gotarov is the son of the famous Yeisk thief; sailor Vasilyev - assistant commissar of the flotilla, convict; 6 members of the Cheka are convicts who served 8-10 years of hard labor.
Yeisk. On May 4, the Cheka shot 10 arrested people, 70 officers, 1 priest and other people returning home from the Caucasian front. On July 11, the commission shot 11 more people; those arrested were chopped in their cells, in the restroom, at the door, etc. Art. Novoshcherbinovskaya. After the uprising in the Yeisk department in mid-May 1918, a punitive detachment of Bolsheviks led by Lebedev and Bogdanov burst into the village and demanded the extradition of the perpetrators. Ensign Cherny was shot in the head; There were no trials or interrogations, they were sent “discarded.” G. Katkov was shot, G. Sushko was shot “by mistake” instead of S. Grishko, the Reds said: “there’s no time to hang around here, it doesn’t matter.” On May 20, the detachment left and took away the arrested officers. Two miles from the city they were stripped, lined up and shot one by one so that “the damn cadets would suffer.” Art. Key. On March 7, 1918, 6 people were shot at the station. The corpses were chopped into small pieces and thrown into a common pit. Art. Crimean. In March 1918, the village ataman P.I. Levchenko was arrested and placed in the guardhouse of the village administration. On March 22, the Bolsheviks Chelombit, Goncharov and Dolgush burst in and, stabbing the ataman with bayonets, cut off his arms and legs. On the third day after the torture, the village ataman died. In April 1918, 67 people were shot in the village. Art. Raevskaya. On August 6, 1918, Cossack S. M. Kulin was killed during the Bolshevik requisition. Art. Dzhiginskaya (German colony). At the beginning of June 1918, the Bolsheviks killed I. Klep, Alexander and Ivan Reinske. Art. Varenikovskaya. On May 17, 1918, Cossacks F.P. Gerasimov and Kh.A. Rudenko, opponents of Bolshevism, were brutally hacked to death; constable S. M. Sergienko was killed by a bomb on August 10, 1918. Death of the Sultan Gireyev brothers. Sultan Crimea-Girey, who was making his way to his homeland through the Tuapse district, was arrested by the Bolsheviks in the village of Kaluzhskaya. They took him through Goryachiy Klyuch to the village of Knyazemikhailovskoye, where they tortured the prince for several days, then, tying his legs to a tree, they made a fire under him and burned him alive. His brother Mohammed died the same death. The third brother, Sultan Doulet-Girey, with Colonel Markozov and others, was captured in Goryachiy Klyuch, transported to the village of Gabukai and bayoneted to death along with 180 Circassians of the village who rose to their defense. The fourth brother, Sultan Kaplan Girey, was captured in the village of Isabanahabl outside the Kuban, near Ekaterinodar, and hacked to death with sabers.
Crimes against the church
Cynical desecration of temples and sacred objects of worship. In Ekaterinodar and many villages of the Kuban region, during their double occupation by the Bolsheviks in the first half of 1918 and in October of the same year, the Reds plundered most of the churches, monasteries, bishops' houses, sacristies and theological seminaries. Property was stolen, from food supplies to church vestments, which were converted into dresses, women's skirts and horse blankets; precious items of church utensils. After the retreat of the Red Army soldiers, the returning clergy and parishioners found scattered icons and church books in the churches, broken lamps, trampled candles, crosses and gospels broken and piled up, and icons kicked out in the lower tiers of iconostases. Ekaterinodar. In the church of the Diocesan School, the Reds mocked the icons; in the Theological School, the eyes were cut out from the image of St. Nicholas and the image itself was thrown into a dung heap. Art. Prochnookopskaya. The royal doors were chopped up, the curtains were torn from them, sacred clothes were removed from the altars and altars, the ark and crowns were broken, holy gifts were scattered, shrouds and antimenses were cut up, monstrances, pectoral crosses and other valuable items were stolen. Art. Novokorsunskaya. Red Army soldiers rode into churches on horseback, wearing hats, with cigarettes in their mouths; in the villages of Baturinskaya and Kirpilskaya they broke into churches with abuse, broke locks, stole money and church valuables. Art. Labinskaya. Red horsemen covered their saddles with brocade stolen from churches; Kovalev’s entire cavalry detachment sat on brocade saddles. Art. Sengileevskaya. According to the local priest, he was led around the pulpit on a mare in the church, wearing vestments, and water was poured from a bucket on him. They organized a riot and debauchery in the church, driving women there day and night.
Art. Barsukovskaya. Priest Grigory Zlatorunsky, 40 years old, was killed in the spring of 1918 by the Red Army for serving a prayer service at the request of the Cossacks for deliverance from the Reds. Art. Along the way. Archpriest Pavel Vasilyevich Ivanov, 60 years old, served in the village for 36 years, stabbed to death in 1918 for pointing out in his sermons that the Reds were leading Russia to destruction. Art. Voznesenskaya. The priest of the Trinity Church, Alexey Ivlev, over 60 years old, was killed in 1918 because he was a Cossack and had once served in the Guard. The Bolshevik Sakhno fired from a machine gun, a Red Army soldier nicknamed Durnopyan smashed the fallen shepherd’s temple with the butt of his gun. The body was not buried, it lay in a field by the road for three days, the dogs had already chewed out the side, when, at the insistence of the Voznesensk Cossack women, the Bolsheviks threw the body of the murdered man into a common grave. At the execution of the priest, the Bolsheviks said: “You covered our eyes with a horse’s tail, now we have seen the light... we don’t need priests.” O. Alexei stood silently in front of the executioners and only crossed himself when a machine gun was pointed at him. Before burying the priest's body, the mounted Bolshevik tried to trample it under his horse's hooves, but the horse did not go towards the corpse or jumped over it. Art. Vladimirskaya. Priest Alexander Podolsky, 50 years old, a university graduate, was brutally murdered for serving a prayer service for the speech of his Cossack parishioners against the Reds. Before they killed him, they took him around the village for a long time, mocked him and beat him, then took him out of the village, chopped him up and threw him in a landfill, forbidding him to bury him. A parishioner, wanting to protect the body of the deceased from being torn apart by dogs, came at night and began to bury him; spotted by drunken Red Army soldiers, chopped up and thrown there. Art. Convenient. Priest Fyodor Berezovsky, over 50 years old, killed in 1918 by Red Army soldiers for speaking disapprovingly of the Bolsheviks; His body was forbidden to be buried. Art. Ust-Labinskaya. Priest Mikhail Lisitsyn, about 50 years old, killed on February 22, 1918. For three days, the Reds, with a noose around his neck, drove him around the village and beat him, so that in the end he himself begged to end things with him as soon as possible. There were more than 10 wounds on his body, his head was chopped into pieces; his wife had to pay 600 rubles to be allowed to bury him. Art. Dolzhanskaya. Priest John Krasnov, 40 years old, was killed in 1918 for serving a prayer service before the parishioners protested against the Bolsheviks. Art. Novoshcherbinovskaya. Priest Alexey M. (surname varies in documents), 50 years old, killed in 1918 for condemning the Red Army that they were leading Russia to destruction, and for serving a prayer service before the performance of Cossack parishioners. Art. Georgie-Afipskaya. Priest Alexander Fleginsky, over 50 years old, beaten by the Reds, taken out of the village with endless mockery and chopped into pieces; His remains were found a long time later. Art. Nezamaevskaya. Priest John Prigorovsky, 40 years old, was beaten in the church on Holy Saturday 1918, then taken to the square, the Red Army soldiers gouged out his eyes, cut off his ears and nose, and crushed his head; The bloodied man was dragged out of the village and killed, forbidden to bury him. Art. Plastunovskaya. Priest Georgy Boyko was martyred and a terrible wound was found on his throat - apparently his throat had been torn. Art. Korenovskaya. Priest Nazarenko was killed in 1918. The temple altar was turned into a latrine, and sacred vessels were used. Art. Popovichevskaya. Priests Nikolai Sobolev and Vasily Klyuchansky were killed in 1918.
Art. Roadside. Priest Peter Antonievich Tantsgora, 41 years old, killed in 1918, leaving five children. Art. Calm. Priest Alexander Bubnov, 53 years old, killed in 1918. Art. Urupskaya. Deacon Vasily Nesterov was killed in 1918. Art. Key. Priest Moses Tyryshkin was killed in 1918. Art. Ubinskaya. Priest Arkady Dobrovolsky was killed in 1918. Art. Uspenskaya. Deacon Kotlov was killed in 1918. Art. Nekrasovskaya. Priest Georgy Rutkevich was killed in 1918. Mary Magdalene Monastery of the Kuban region. Priest Grigory Nikolsky, over 60 years old, enjoyed the love and respect of parishioners, a deeply religious man. On June 27, 1918, after the liturgy, during which he communed the worshipers, he was taken by the Red Army, taken outside the fence and there killed with a shot from a revolver in the mouth, which he was forced to open with shouts: “we will commune you.” Art. Eastern. The psalmist of the Holy Trinity Church, Alexander Mikhailovich Donetsky, was sentenced to imprisonment for “belonging to the cadet party”; on March 9, 1918, he was killed and hacked to death by Red Army soldiers on the way, and, by their order, was buried in a local cemetery without a funeral service. ***
In March 1920, most of the Kuban region was already in the hands of the Bolsheviks. The administration in Kuban changed; in the villages, the atamans were replaced by the chairmen of the revolutionary committees. In April, when the red units began to leave for the Polish front, the pre-revolutionary committees were replaced by arriving communists from central Russia. The new pre-revolutionary committees began to organize the militia, recruiting the basest element into it: drunkards, horse thieves, local communists, homeless tramps. Once registered, the officers were sent to central Russia and the north, many were shot at departments and stations. The same fate then befell the police officers. They took everything into account from the residents: bread in grain, fodder grain and hay, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, poultry, bees, etc. and, having determined the rate of expenses for each yard, a strict ban was imposed on spending the rest. Investigation flourished in the villages; combat horses, saddles and uniforms were taken from the Cossacks (weapons were handed over earlier). At the end of April they began forcibly requisitioning grain and cattle. The police robbed, killed, shot, many Cossacks were betrayed by local homeless people. In May, the Cossacks openly rebelled, killed policemen and communists at night, and fled to the mountain forests. Villages that did not fulfill the allocations were subjected to terror.
The Bolsheviks were afraid to advance into the mountains, and by the end of June 1920, the mountainous region of the Batalpashinsky department (the villages of Kardonikskaya, Zelenchukskaya, Storozhevaya, Pregradnaya), and then part of the Labinsky and Maykop departments, were under the control of the “Russian Revival Army” of Major General M. A. Fostikova. In the villages, atamans were elected and commandants were appointed. In July 1920, Fostikov learned about the brutal murder of his relatives: his grandmother, father, widowed sister with six children and several other relatives were shot by the Bolsheviks. In 1920, surplus appropriations were carried out by special purpose units (CHON), subordinate to Gubchek. Thus, in the village of Rozhdestvenskaya, all residents over 18 years of age were herded to a rally on Krasnaya Street and surrounded by Red Army soldiers. Machine-gun carts deployed, horse patrols scurried through the streets. The security officer Starchenko demanded that the bread be taken to the Ryzdvyanskaya station. The 71-year-old old man Chuiko, a former sergeant, began to ask the security officer to leave the village alone, since they had given everything they could. Starchenko commanded: “Machine guns - fire!” Under hurricane fire, people fell to the ground screaming, not knowing that the cartridges were blank. In the village of Sengileevskaya, machine guns were loaded with live ammunition. Ten men and two women were shot for “refusal” to carry out food appropriation. Bread from the Cossacks, using such methods, was taken to the last grain. In the area of the indicated villages, the uprising against the Bolsheviks was led by the Cossack of the village of Novo-Marevskaya, captain V. A. Bezzubov. Fierce fighting lasted for about a month; under pressure from the Cheka troops, the Cossacks went into the mountain forests and continued the fight. On October 1, 1921, Yesaul Bezzubov’s detachment of 700 people went deep into the Caucasus Mountains, and on October 4, the Bolsheviks shot the old people taken hostage, the fathers of the departed, near Cold Spring. In the spring of 1922, Bezzubov’s detachment returned to the forest. The security officers took new hostages: mothers, wives, sisters and minor girls. In response to this, a month and a half later, the rebels took hostage the wives of government officials and Cheka employees. Negotiations began and it was decided to release innocent people on both sides. In Novo-Marevskaya, 770,780 hostages were kept in the basement, house and barns of the Belyaevskys. The security officers sent two women with infants into the forest with a note stating the release of the hostages. The rebels believed and released their hostages. That same night, security officers began to take 25 women to the cattle burial ground and shoot them. Relatives were not allowed to approach the dead. It's hot July, the smell around the victims is unbearable. And only two months later, when it was impossible to recognize either the corpse or the clothes on it, the Soviet authorities “allowed” the burial of those executed. A common grave was dug in the same place where the victims of bloody Bolshevism were shot.
Secret documents of the Caucasian Red Front
The presented secret and top-secret correspondence between the command of the Caucasian Front and the 9th Kuban Red Army contains information about the use of repression and general terror in 1920 against the Cossack population of “counter-revolutionary” villages. Documents show how and in what ways units of the Red Army acted against the Cossacks who supported the “Russian Revival Army” and returned to their villages. (Style, spelling and underlined places in documents are left unchanged, italics are ours). On August 5, 1920, the Commander of the 9th Kuban Nashtavoysk North Caucasus Military District reports that, according to information received from the chief political department of Ekaterinodar, the detachments operating against gangs in the Labinsky department area are carrying out robberies and unauthorized requisitions, creating an anti-Soviet mood... Nashtakavkaz Pugachev Military Commissar of Pechersk Ekaterinodar. August 5, 1920 To the head of the operational department of the 9th Kuban Army ... military commissar of the 65th brigade, Comrade. Spector reported that a special department has transferred the case to the departmental military commissar<...>because during the search, items of a non-military nature were taken away, such as carpets, ladies' toilet accessories and the like. Having established Solntsev as military commissar Cavalier
Ekaterinodar August 10, 1920 telegram series “G” Nashtakavkaz ... August 7 in connection with the enemy raid on Belomechetskaya and the threat created by Batalpashinskaya<...>Before the departure of the regiments from Kardonikskaya, this village was destroyed. Vr. Nashtarm 9 Kub Mashkin August 10, 1920 Urgent Secret to the Caucasian Front ... in the Terek region, the Ingush regiment is being formed, which, due to knowledge of the characteristics of the mountainous terrain and the historical relationship with the Cossacks, can be successfully and fully used in the Kuban region in the fight against White Guard gangs... Commander Levandovsky Member of the RVS Yan Poluyan VRID Nashtarma Mattis
In a secret telegram dated September 14, 1920 to the commander of the Caucasian Front, the commander of the 9th Kuban Levandovsky and a member of the RVS Kosior report: “... Regardless of the fact that the population of almost every village is sharply divided into Cossacks and non-residents, not all Cossacks of the villages are even counter- revolutionary left with the enemy point To the most compromised villages, not only for the enemy’s last landing operation (General Ulagai’s landing on the Kuban in August 1920 - P.S.), but also for the war in general according to the report to the Revolutionary Council 9 Comrade. Lander ZPT, according to not fully verified information, should be assigned to about one hundred and twenty villages point.” Based on this, the Reds are turning route junctions, cities and villages along the coast into strong points and military towns: Yeisk, Starominskaya, Staroderevyankovskaya, Kanevskaya, village. Akhtarsky, Novodzherelievskaya, Timashevskaya, Novonizhesteblievskaya, Slavyanskaya, Temryuk, Dzhiginskaya, Anapa, Crimean, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik, Arkhipo-Osipovskaya, Dzhubga, Tuapse, Sochi, Adler. Inside the region there are junctions of railway and dirt tracks and points at the exit from the mountains: Kushchevka, Kushchevskaya, Sosyka, Pavlovskaya, Tikhoretskaya, Ekaterinodar, Klyuchevaya, Khadyzhenskaya, Ust-Labinskaya, Belorechenskaya, Maykop, Labinskaya, Kurgannaya, Kaladzhinskaya, Perepravnaya, Kavkazskaya, Romanovsky , Novoaleksandrovskaya, Armavir, Grigoropolisskaya, Novo-Mikhailovskaya, Urupskaya, Voznesenskaya, Peredovaya, Otradnaya, Nevinomysskaya, Batalpashinskaya, Krasnogorskaya. Having thus occupied the Military Territory and the adjacent areas, the Red Army, in the name of Soviet power, begins repression against the Cossack population (“bandits” in the documents of the headquarters of the 9th Army are Cossacks who have already laid down their arms). Information about the use of repression against the population of the villages that were occupied by white gangs, and their results from September 1 to September 20, 1920 (Top secret correspondence of an operational nature)
1. Which and in which villages repressions were applied from September 1 to September 20, 1920, what they were expressed in, the number of those executed. 2. The attitude of the population of the villages towards the Soviet power before the offensive and the application of repression, during the offensive and approx. repression at present. 3. The number of bandits who voluntarily returned with and without weapons. 4. What else would it be desirable to do to secure our final foothold in Kuban?
100th Brigade: 1. Art. Kuzhorskaya - all the families of the bandits were evicted to Maykop. 18 bandits were shot. Art. Makhoshevskaya - the property of those who fled to the bandits was confiscated and 1 person was shot. Art. Kostroma - shot 6. Art. Yaroslavskaya - confiscation of the property of those who fled, 5 people were shot. 2. Before the onset and application of repression, the attitude of the Cossacks towards the Soviet power was hostile, but among non-residents it was sympathetic. After the repressions, the mood of the Cossacks is submissive, and those from other cities are sympathetic. 3. Art. Kuzhorskaya. 9 people returned without weapons. Not one with a weapon.
Art. Makhoshevskaya. 228 returned without weapons. 5 people with weapons. Art. Yaroslavskaya. 60 people returned without weapons. Not one with a weapon.
101st Brigade: 1. Art. Khadyzhenskaya - shelled by artillery fire. Art. Kabardinskaya - shelled with artillery fire, 8 houses burned, destruction. 2 people. The Kubansky farm was shelled by artillery fire. Art. Gurian - obstr. artillery fire, hostages were taken. Chichibaba farm and hut. Armenian burned to the ground. Art. Chernigovskaya - shelled with artillery fire and 3 houses burned. Art. Pshekhskaya – shelled by artillery fire, hostages were taken. Art. Bzhedukhovskaya - 60 houses were burned. Art. Martanskaya – 9 houses were burned. Art. Apsheronskaya and H. Kurinka was shelled with artillery fire, and the chieftain’s house was burned down. 2. Before the application of repression, the population of the villages was hostile to the Soviet government, but during the application of repression and after it, they promised to fully support the Soviet government... with the exception of Art. Bzhedukhovskaya, Martanskaya and Chernigovskaya, which to this day are hostile and counter-revolutionary to the Soviet government. 3. 29 people returned voluntarily without weapons and 25 with weapons. Lab[insk] group: 1. Art. Chamlykskaya - 23 people were shot. Art. Rodnikovskaya - 11 people were shot. Art. Labinskaya – 42 people.
Art. Mostovaya and Zassovskaya – 8 people. Art. Kaladzhinskaya - 12 people. Art. Psebayskaya - 48 people. Art. Andryukovskaya - 16 people. In addition, they were shot by regiments during the occupation of villages for which no records were kept. 2. The attitude of the population of the villages before the use of repression was anti-Bolshevik, as a result of which there was a general departure of residents to the mountains with all their property; after the application of repression, the residents gradually began to return to the villages and treat the Soviet authorities with indifferent submissiveness, like the vanquished...
3. Returned unarmed to st. Vladimirskaya - 108 people. [...] group:
1. Art. Tula - property was confiscated and arrests were made. Art. Khanskaya - 100 people were shot, property was confiscated and the families of the bandits were sent into the interior of Russia. 2. The attitude of the population of the villages before the use of repression was hostile to the Soviet government, now the population little by little got to work... 3. 38 people returned, one of them with weapons. 1 bandit returned. 4. General conclusion: it is desirable to carry out the most severe repressions and total terror in the counter-revolutionary villages.”
Diaries of Cossack officers. M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2004. // Diary of General M. A. Fostikov. pp. 18, 21, 84, 85, 91, 108.
Eliseev F.I. With Kornilovsky equestrian. M.: AST, 2003. P. 195, 197–198.
Eliseev F.I. Labintsi and the last days in the Kuban. 1920; Odyssey through Red Russia. USA, 1962–1964, rotator.
General Cossack magazine. New Jersey, USA. October, 1950. ? 10. pp. 58–60.
Russian State Military Archive (RGVA). Administration of the 9th Kuban Army of the North Caucasus Military District 1918–1921. F. 192. Op. 3. D. 1063. L. 28, 31; D. 1064. L. 38, 39; D. 1050. L. 3, 5, 5 vol. and 6.
Russian State Library. Materials of the Special Commission to Investigate the Atrocities of the Bolsheviks, consisting of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia. D. 2, 5, 10, 15, 18, 43, 44, 116.
