How does the white movement appear in the novel by M. A

Characteristic in this regard is the unsuccessful attempt by Tchaikovsky and Savinkov to convince their revolutionary "brother" Pilsudski, who already in the autumn of 1919 saved the Bolsheviks by concluding the first truce with them at the most critical moment - and even then consciously, in secret contact with Lenin ( through Yu. Markhlevsky) in order to give the Reds the opportunity to crack down on the Volunteer Army: "Cooperation with Denikin in his fight against the Bolsheviks does not meet the Polish interests." Negotiations between the Russian "brothers" and Pilsudski (January 1920) only led to Tchaikovsky and Savinkov promising the "complete democratization" of Denikin's government, which was to be headed by Tchaikovsky himself; Denikin had to agree (the Novorossiysk evacuation prevented the implementation of this plan). Moreover, from Savinkov's letter it is clear that one of the reasons for the conclusion of peace by the Poles with the Bolsheviks and with the Ukrainian independentists was "the persistent advice of Lloyd George" ...

That is, the Entente then used the Russian Freemasons as pawns in its geopolitical game: to overthrow and prevent the restoration of the monarchy in Russia, to dismember it, to create a "cordon sanitaire" (instead of liberating Russia from the Bolsheviks) - and then deceived their expectations. In exile, Russian Freemasons were not admitted either to the Peace Conference, or even to Western lodges for roles corresponding to theirs. Russian degrees dedications... They were suitable in the West, perhaps even for control over the Russian conservative abroad; conspiratorial emigrant organizations, headed by Masons, were tolerated by the Entente countries and the limitrophes controlled by it, not least because of intelligence services (Savinkov's organization is an example of this) ...

True, as has already been said, in exile many of the Februaryists began to realize what had happened. The same Tchaikovsky wrote already in 1920: “So, the governments of the great powers recognized the notorious criminals and traitors of the allied interests in the world war for legitimate power and not only entered into negotiations with it, but were also ready to conclude with it formal and deliberately inflated international contracts. Moreover, they not only did it themselves, but encouraged (if not forced) to do the same a whole number of weak ones who arose again at the expense of Russia with their own assistance, state formations... This is the whole horror of the modern world scandal! Sooner or later, all those guilty of this moral insanity, of course, will be called to account…” In another article, Tchaikovsky even reached such a true feeling: “There is something strange, unconscious and superstitious in this fear before the coming reaction in Russia. “Kolchak and Denikin are tsarists, and they are surrounded by well-known reactionaries and Black Hundreds!”...” (highlighted in the original).

At the Paris Foreign Congress in 1926, right-wing sentiments already prevailed among a considerable part of the Februaryists. Earlier, already in 1921, the monarchist congress in Reichenhall and the First All-Diaspora Council of the Russian Church Abroad in Sremski Karlovtsy, as well as the Far Eastern Zemsky Sobor in 1922, restored the tradition of monarchist legal awareness on the right flank of the Russian diaspora. Emigration straightened even more in the 1930s; at the same time, many Russian Masons left the lodges, returned to Orthodox Church...

The consequence of the betrayal of Russia by the democracies in the First World War was the fact that much fewer Russian emigrants fought on their side in the Second World War (most of all in French army: about 3,000 young conscripts) than in alliance with the Germans. The vast majority of the white military emigration (members of the ROVS, NTSNP, RNSUV, etc.), remembering the lesson learned during the years of the civil war, tried to fight for the creation of the Russian Liberation Army on the German side - both together with former Soviet military personnel (ROA General Vlasov) , and independently: the Cossack units of Krasnov, Shkuro, Turkula, the Russian Corps created in Yugoslavia, the 1st Russian National Army B.A. Holmston-Smyslovsky. And in these difficult years for Russia, both old and new "allies" again demonstrated that Russia has no friends...

Since my Second world war the Western democracies were all with the same ideology, they again preferred an alliance with the Bolsheviks, and not with the people of Russia, and not only traded with our "cannibals", but also fought with them, and after the war they gave them millions of their opponents - deceitful way, with cruel reprisals in Judenburg, Plattling, Lienz ... Former "allies" handed over thousands of white emigrants for execution - Krasnov, Shkuro and other officers ...

The author of the book “Victims of Yalta” N. Tolstoy recalls that those Western figures whose past was connected with the White movement also participated in their extraditions: “Lord Killirn, the ambassador in Egypt, which became a transit point for many Russians repatriated in 1943-1945 High Commissioner in Siberia under Admiral Kolchak; Lieutenant General Burrows, head of the military mission in Moscow since March 1944, and Major General Colin Gubbins, head of the MTR [Services special operations by issuance. - M.N.], in 1919 they were in Arkhangelsk with General Ironside, and Field Marshal Alexander, to whom ... the Cossacks surrendered, fought against the Bolsheviks along with the Baltic Landswehr "and was awarded the Yudenich Order of St. Anna of the 3rd degree". Many of these military men again turned out to be powerless against the order that came from the already familiar political spheres: they always acted according to the law of some other morality, another force that crushed human feelings and ethical norms ...

All this is informative not only from a historical point of view. The present time is not much different from the described era: there are plenty of leading neo-Feburalists in Russia, and the goals of the “help” of the West are the same, first he helped Gorbachev’s “perestroika”, then the independence of the “peoples oppressed by Russia”, now helps “building democracy” .. .

Against this background, the words of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, Metropolitan Vitaly, do not seem at all an exaggeration: “All forces, billions of gold, will be thrown, just to extinguish the flame of the Russian Renaissance. This is what Russia is facing now. This is cleaner than Napoleon and Hitler.

Behind these words is the 75-year experience of the Russian white emigration.

1991 - 1993

The article was published in the newspapers "North-East" (Novosibirsk. 1993. No. 2-3), "Our Country" (Buenos Aires. 1993. No. 2251-2259), as well as in the magazines "Kuban" (Krasnodar. 1993 . No. 9-10) and "Moscow Bulletin" (1994. No. 2).
It is reproduced here in a slightly modified form: separate paragraphs are added in the form of additional illustrations and the topics reflected in other articles of this collection are shortened.
Mikhail Nazarov, "Mystery of Russia"

In 1923, the Rossiya magazine published the news that Mikhail Bulgakov was finishing his novel “ white guard”, covering the era of the struggle against the whites in the south (1919 - 1920). In October 1924, Bulgakov pointed out: “The year he wrote the novel“ The White Guard ”. I love this novel more than all my other works.”
In fact, the material for the novel was not chosen by chance. The fact is that Bulgakov turned out to be a witness and even an unwitting participant in the events described. Returning to Kiev in 1918, he could directly observe an almost kaleidoscopic

Change of authorities in the capital of Ukraine. The author himself appears in the novel from the first lines, but not as a lawyer, but as a witness, far from impartial, but honest and objective. Another thing is that the trial in the novel is conducted not from party and not class positions, but from universal ones.
The first part of "The White Guard" is an explanation during which it turns out who is who. The Germans with the hetman and the white squads on one side, the peasant masses with Petliura at the head - on the other. In the north, from where "sweeps and sweeps" - the Bolsheviks, in the Don - Denikin. In the second part of the novel, these groups clash. The author sympathizes with the white squads, but nevertheless retains neutrality, since people die on both sides, most often simply deceived and drawn into a bloody whirlwind. And the third part is a reflection, the author's reflection about life and death, about the vain and the eternal.
There are many characters in the novel, and the author treats each of them differently. The Turbin family, their home, friends, quiet measured life - this is the white guard. This house has high culture life, traditions, human relations. The house of the Turbins cannot be called poor. This is the professor's house. But both its inhabitants and things are completely devoid of arrogance and stiffness, hypocrisy and vulgarity. They are hospitable and cordial, condescending to the weaknesses of people, but they are not suitable for everything that is beyond the threshold of decency, honor, and justice.
The further the disengagement proceeds, the more tragic is the position of the Turbins and all that part of the intelligentsia - army officers, "hundreds of ensigns and second lieutenants, former students ... knocked off the screws of life by war and revolution." They have nothing in common either with the Germans, or with the hetman, or with the "bastards" swept out of both capitals by the blizzard of the revolution. But it is they who take upon themselves the most cruel blows of this blizzard, it is they who will have to suffer and die.
And these people are convinced that mortal danger hung over the entire culture, over that eternal thing that has been growing for centuries, over Russia itself. And so, in their hearts sympathizing with the peasants who are being robbed and shot by the Germans and on whose necks “fat-faced landowners” returned under the hetman, but even more afraid of the peasant’s cudgel, they flock under the white banners. To fight to the death.
Here Shervinsky informs the entire Dubinsky circle of amazing news. The Sovereign Emperor was not killed at all and recently blessed the gentlemen of the officers to form an army, which he personally intends to lead against Bolshevik Moscow.
Both the Turbines and their guests are stunned. Turbines will drink for the “health of His Imperial Majesty”, and a threefold cheer will shake the walls of the house so that Lisovich will jump out of bed below in a cold sweat, and a powerful “God save the Tsar” will burst out. In a word, the moment of the highest rise will come. And the next day, in the Alexander Gymnasium, where one of the white squads is being formed, officers, in order to cheer up the show jumpers and gymnasium students, will tear the muslin from the picture depicting Russian troops on the Borodino field. And the bald and sparkling tsar will fly out in front of the squad on a blooded argamak, point with a naked broadsword to the Borodino fields, to a black cloud of Russian origins covering the distance. And the song will ring out over the column of the squad: “After all, there were fighting battles ...”
Russian history itself, as it seems to Turbin, is ready to step in for them and give them strength and give them a new education. But no matter how solemn such scenes are, the spirit of the author's irony hovers over each of them.
Among the fundamental moral concepts affirmed by Bulgakov in the novel, first of all, is the concept of honor. Turbins, Myshlaevsky and all their friends, even the frivolous and conceited Shervinsky, are, above all, people of honor. Their antipode in the novel is Thalberg. Alexei's contempt for Talberg is not even explained by the fact that he abandoned Elena at such moments. Alexey calls this a trifle and nonsense. Thalberg's trouble is that, according to Turbin, "... a damned doll, devoid of the slightest concept of honor!"
Bulgakov talks about the tragic events very vividly, realistically, objectively. He showed the white junkers not as villains, but as ordinary youths from a certain class environment, who are collapsing with their noble-officer “ideals”.
Bulgakov left the heroes of the "White Guard" at a crossroads. He showed how they broke away from the Whites, although they had not yet come to the Bolshevik camp. Years will pass before intellectuals like the Turbins understand the true causes of the revolution and support it. Therefore, they demanded too much from Bulgakov, accusing him of the fact that the Turbins would never join the Bolsheviks. The artist could not compromise the truth of history.

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1. The novel by M. A. Bulgakov “The White Guard” is dedicated to the tragic events of 1918-1919 in Kiev - hometown writer. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the power in the city changed from 12 to 18 times over the years, while A. M. Bulgakov himself claimed that coups Read More ......
2. The first chapters of the novel "White Guard" appeared on the pages of the magazine "Russia" in 1924. But due to the closure of the journal, the writer could not publish the novel in its entirety. In the center of the work are several episodes of the civil war in Ukraine. The novel action ends Read More ......
3. “The White Guard” by M. A. Bulgakov is a novel about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia during the years of the revolution and civil war. In the center of the story is the Turbin family of White Guards. Their apartment is a warm, cozy home where friends gather. In the face of these heroes, Bulgakov draws Read More ......
4. The 1917 revolution was a turning point for the whole of Russia. It could not but be reflected in the fate of the Russian intelligentsia. M. A. Bulgakov considered himself a representative of the intelligentsia and a spokesman for his thoughts and aspirations. In his letter to the government of March 28, 1930 Read More ......
5. The novel “The White Guard” begins with a wonderful verbal, pathetic and mournful overture: “Great was the year and terrible year after the Nativity of Christ 1918, from the beginning of the second revolution ...” the exciting “energy of the historical landscape” immediately appears before the readers, it immediately captures: the real Read More ......
6. The years of revolution and civil war thundered throughout Russia. During this difficult time, thousands of destinies were broken, a huge number of people died. Orders and customs changed, power changed, chaos reigned in the minds of people. Most representatives of the Russian intelligentsia found themselves in a confused state. They Read More ......
7. “...Become impassively above the whites and reds”, - this is how Bulgakov defined his writing task. For Bulgakov, both the Bolsheviks and the Petliurists are in fact equivalent and perform the same function, since “it was necessary to lure this same peasant anger one by one Read More ......
8. M. Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard", written in 1925 about the Civil War, covers the period from December 1918 to February 1919. The old world is collapsing, and the heroes of the novel, Russian intellectuals, shocked by events that change their usual way of life, are drawn into in the fight between Read More ......

These July days mark the 95th anniversary of the tragic events on the Upper Volga. Then, in the summer of 1918, the White Guard organization "Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom" raised a bloody rebellion in Yaroslavl, Rybinsk and Murom. The rebellion failed, but the blood of hundreds of Russian people was shed, and the ancient Yaroslavl, during its assault by the Red Army, was literally destroyed by artillery fire. These events became one of the most dramatic episodes of the civil war. But few people know that the behind-the-scenes international intrigues of the then leading Western powers were behind the tragedy itself...

White guard, black baron...

As you know, the political program of the Russian white movement at the dawn of the civil war was formulated by General Lavr Georgievich Kornilov. Like that: Russia is one and indivisible; restoration of pre-revolutionary law and order; the overthrow of Bolshevism; loyalty to the allies in the Entente; national dictatorship up to the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, which should determine the future state structure of Russia, etc.

As it turned out, this program was mainly shared by the counter-revolutionary officer corps of the former imperial army. These officers, in fact, became the main pillar of the white movement and the most dangerous opponents of the Communist Bolsheviks who came to power in 1917.

The motives that pushed the professional military into the anti-Soviet camp are, in general, understandable. The army was at first neutral about the overthrow of the monarchy and other revolutionary changes. But then she started to get angry. And there was something to snarl about - the revolutionary democrats (by the way, long before the Bolsheviks, back in March 1917) canceled the military regulations, banned the wearing of shoulder straps, the lower ranks were allowed to talk with the authorities on an equal footing and not follow their orders if they looked "counter-revolutionary ". And in general, “freedom, equality and fraternity” were intensively introduced into the army, which were supposed to mold a certain single mass of fighters of “revolutionary Russia” from soldiers and officers.

It is clear that such transformations could not lead to anything good. The officers and generals were outraged not only by the fact that these innovations began to completely decompose the rank and file and rapidly disintegrate the army, but also by the fact that all former officer merits were actually thrown overboard. But for many of them promotion was given oh how not easy!

Let's take for example the most prominent leaders of the white movement: General Lavr Kornilov - a native of ordinary Cossacks; General Mikhail Alekseev - the son of a serf, who went from an ordinary soldier to the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander; General Anton Denikin - the son of an ordinary army captain (born, by the way, in a family of serfs); General Vladimir Kappel is a small landed nobleman, who for a long time no longer had his own estate and lived before the revolution exclusively on the officer's allowance.

One can imagine what it cost them to advance their careers in such a strictly hierarchical country as the Russian Empire, where all power and influence belonged mainly to noble noble families and families! These people in life could only rely on their intelligence and professionalism! And when some incomprehensible “revolutionary comrades” came to them and demanded to equate themselves with the mass of soldiers, calling for the actual rejection of their previous well-deserved life and difficult career ...

This gentlemen, the officers did not tolerate! The October Revolution and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, which actually brought Russia to its knees, became the last straw of patience for them. They took up arms...

I repeat once again - today it is possible to understand white officers, their motives and actions. But the fact remains that the people did not follow them in the end.

The majority of the people did not understand why the pressing problems of the state should not be solved now, but postponed until later, at the discretion of some incomprehensible Constituent Assembly? And what is this - "restoration of the rule of law"? That is, again it is necessary to transfer power to the tsarist corrupt officials, who brought the country to the revolution, to return the land to the landlords and kulaks, and to return the bourgeois bloodsuckers to the factories? None of the recognized leaders of the white movement - neither General Denikin, nor Admiral Kolchak, nor Baron Wrangel - could give a clear and convincing answer to any of these questions that worried the Russian public of that era.

Therefore, the masses of the whites did not support. Yes, the whites themselves felt it. Hence, their main stake in the civil war is not at all relying on the Russian people and their patriotic anti-Bolshevik consciousness, but on the support of the Western allies in the Entente.

One of the organizers military intervention to Russia, British Ambassador Bruce Lockhart quite cynically admitted in his memoirs:

“With our policy, we contributed to the intensification of terror and bloodshed ... Alekseev, Denikin, Kornilov, Wrangel tried with all their might to overthrow the Bolsheviks. But for this purpose, without support from abroad, they were too weak, because in their own country they found support only in the officer corps, which in itself was already very weakened ... My intelligence assistant Hicks served as an intermediary between me and enemies of the Bolsheviks. They were represented in Moscow by the so-called center, which had left and right wings, and in addition, by the League for the Salvation of Russia, headed by Savinkov ... Both counter-revolutionary bodies were unanimous in only one respect - both wanted to receive help from the allies in money and weapons.

It's a paradox, but the whites' loud and seemingly patriotic slogans about "one and indivisible" actually began to serve ... the interests of foreign states?!

Adventures of the great adventurer

This was especially evident in the history of such a white organization as the "Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom", led by a well-known terrorist in the past, Boris Savinkov, who had authority from Generals Kornilov and Alekseev, who settled on the Don.

As the St. Petersburg historian-journalist Aleksey Shcherbakov rightly noted, Savinkov clearly belonged to the admirers of the German Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, fashionable at the dawn of the 20th century, about the superman who stands “beyond good and evil” and who is not subject to the so-called “Christian morality” of society - they say, such a person should rule the world and absolutely everything is allowed to her! (These convictions brought Boris Viktorovich, in the end, into the admirers of fascism).

Therefore, Savinkov, being before the revolution one of the leaders of the Fighting Organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, with the cold-blooded calmness of a professional killer, organized numerous assassination attempts on tsarist dignitaries, preparing to kill the tsar himself. And after the October Revolution, he plotted against Soviet power. At the same time, he himself never went to terrorist actions, preferring to send others to death - still, the superpersonality should only conduct and manage the process ...

He showed up in Moscow in the early spring of 1918. He began to form his "Union of Defense" on a military basis. By the summer, according to various estimates, this organization numbered at least 5 thousand people, mainly military officers. The organization was built on the principles of strict secrecy: the detached commander knew only the platoon commander, the platoon commander knew only the company commander, the company commander knew the battalion commander, the battalion commander knew the regiment commander. The head of the division knew four regimental commanders, the regimental commander knew four battalion commanders, etc. The Union was headed by a headquarters led by Colonel Alexander Perkhurov. In various institutions of the headquarters, there were up to 200 people. There were departments - the formation and recruitment of new members, out-of-town, operational, intelligence and counterintelligence, terrorist ...

The divisions of the organization, according to the testimony of its members themselves, were located not only in Moscow, but also in Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas, Kazan, Murom, Rybinsk, Ryazan. Thus, the Union, as it were, enveloped the red capital in a semicircle - in the event of a rebellion, it was possible to end not only the red Council of People's Commissars, but also the Soviets in the nearest cities with one blow.

However, at the end of May there was an “unfortunate” failure. One of the members of the Union, a certain junker Ivanov, blabbed to his friend a nurse about the impending putsch. She turned to the Lubyanka in the Cheka, where they immediately assessed the impending threat. A series of arrests followed in the capital and in Kazan. And although the leadership of the Union managed to escape, the blow of the Chekists destroyed many of the Union's ties - contacts with some cities were lost, so the number of combat units fell sharply.

Nevertheless, in July, Savinkov raised armed uprisings in the cities of the Volga region ...

One does not have to be well-versed in military affairs to understand the whole adventurism of this action! Trying to capture several cities at once, separated by more than one hundred kilometers from each other, and with very modest forces of no more than a thousand people left after the May defeat ... It was real madness, but the Union headquarters gave the appropriate order.

As it turned out, the main sponsors of the conspirators - Western diplomats - insisted on this. The thing is that from the very beginning, the Union was fully supported by the ambassadors of foreign Western states, who dreamed of drawing Russia into the war against Germany again - in the event of his victory, Savinkov firmly promised them a new Eastern anti-German front. I have already spoken about the memoirs of the British Ambassador Lockhart, who confessed to the generous financing of the white movement. French Ambassador Joseph Noulens did not lag behind the British, who took over the sponsorship of the "Union of Defense" - we are talking about tens of thousands of rubles (the French immediately "rolled off" two million directly for the Volga uprisings!)

Boris Savinkov was generally on the staff of the French embassy as an assistant to the ambassador at large!

By the way, a very vivid description of the policy pursued by the West in relation to the White Guards was given in his fundamental work “The Russian Counter-Revolution in 1917-1918” by the military historian-immigrant Nikolai Golovin:

“Russia has become for the Entente only an arena of struggle against the Germans. Russian interests were excluded from sight. Any measure, even disastrous for Russia, but promising at least minor harm to the Germans, was considered useful. Representatives of France carried out such tactics especially brightly. This explains the frivolity, almost adventurism of the allied plans and the obvious impracticability of the promises made ... And this, in turn, led to the preference given by the French representatives to the Russian politicians adventurous streak. Very indicative in this regard is that... they contributed to the formation by B. Savinkov of such an adventurist organization as the "Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom ...".

It was the French ambassador Noulens who most of all insisted on the uprising of the Union - allegedly in order to facilitate the landing of the Anglo-French troops in Arkhangelsk and its subsequent advance towards Moscow. In 1924, appearing before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Savinkov spoke about this “request” of the French, which clearly had the character of an order:

“I thought about this plan ... I was ready to reject it ... It didn’t seem to me that we had enough strength ... I told myself that it was more reasonable to transfer the organization, at least partially, to Kazan and raise an uprising there when the Czechs approached . But a telegram from Vologda was sent to me through Grenard, in which he categorically confirmed that the landing force would land between July 5 and 10 and categorically asked me to start an uprising on the Upper Volga precisely on these days, and not on any other, because otherwise it might it may happen that "the landing force will land, but you have not set out yet." It was this telegram that forced me to speak.

It seems to me that there was another reason why Savinkov decided on an adventure with the uprisings. After the capture of the Russian capital by the interventionists and the White Guards, it was supposed to form a new anti-Bolshevik government. In 1924, this circumstance interested the Soviet judges. Here is what Major General of Soviet Justice N. Polyakov, who was present at the Savinkov trial, writes about this:

“Regarding the program of the Union, Savinkov explained that it basically boiled down to the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. At the same time, power was to be exercised by a kind of dictatorship.

Presiding. Whom's dictatorship?

Savinkov. (embarrassed) It wasn't specified.

There was laughter in the hall. It is clear to all those present whose dictatorship we are talking about. And the feigned naivete of the defendant does not mislead anyone.”

In general, the Westerners, apparently, not only ordered an uprising, but also promised Savinkov the post of "dictator of all Russia." After all, they knew how to play on the pride of the “superman” ...

shameful ending

Alas, the failed "dictator" turned out to be a worthless commander. The main blow of the rebels was to fall on Rybinsk, where the artillery depots were located, the leader himself headed here at the head of a large detachment of officers. If successful, the Rybinsk rebels, together with the captured artillery, were to join the rebel Yaroslavl, and then hold out until the approach of the Western invaders.

However, everything went wrong. In Rybinsk, the rebels ran into the vigilant Red Army sentries, who with their fire drove the advancing officers away from military depots. The White Guards scattered in all directions, and the "superman" Savinkov himself fled. In Murom, the rebels, led by Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Sakharov and Dr. Nikolai Grigoriev, managed to occupy the city. But when the Red Army detachments approached, the rebels shamefully fled, never accepting the battle.

More "successfully" acted Colonel Perkhurov, who managed to capture Yaroslavl with his people and hold it for 16 days. However, he did not wait for help from the Westerners. As it turned out later, the foreigners did not even think of landing at that time (the landing of the interventionists in Arkhangelsk took place only on August 2). They just wanted to make sure of the viability of the white conspirators, and for this they organized such a cynical "reconnaissance in force." Perkhurov in this situation also turned out to be not a hero. In fact, he abandoned his fighters in a city surrounded by reds and, with a small detachment of close officers, fled down the Volga towards the advancing Czechoslovaks.

Therefore, it is very strange to hear from some of the current anti-Soviet arguments about the "heroic white uprising" in Yaroslavl. How good are the “heroes” who acted on the instructions of foreigners, and even abandoned their comrades in difficult times?!

After the defeat of the uprising, the leaders of the Union crossed the line of the Eastern Front and gathered in white Kazan. However, despite such a fortunate combination of circumstances, Savinkov's explanations with associates in the "Union of Protection" turned out to be very difficult. It is unlikely that the chief leader was able to give intelligible and convincing explanations about the unsuccessful organization of uprisings in the Upper Volga region, and about the betrayal of foreign invaders. Savinkov was forced to dissolve his Union - most likely, the white officers no longer wanted to have any business with the former SR terrorist.

The failed “dictator of all Russia” himself hung around in Kazan for some time. And then he decided to engage in big politics, for which he headed east. On behalf of Admiral Kolchak, Savinkov left for Europe as an emissary of the Kolchak government to lobby for the interests of the white movement. Then - already after the civil war - he had political tricks with British intelligence, with Mussolini's fascists, with a rabid Russophobe, Polish dictator Jozef Pilsudski, who helped Savinkov organize bandit raids into Soviet Belarus. In a word, the adventurer remained true to himself.

As you know, as a result of the multi-way operation "Syndicate-2", the Chekists lured Boris Viktorovich to the territory of the USSR, where he was immediately arrested. The court took into account Savinkov's remorse and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. In May 1925, disillusioned with everything and everything, the “superman” committed suicide by throwing himself out of the window of the Lubyanka prison.

But Perkhurov was much less fortunate. In 1920, after the defeat of the Kolchak armies, he was captured near Irkutsk, after which he went over to the side of Soviet power and began to serve in the red headquarters of the Ural Military District. In 1922, he was exposed as one of the organizers of the Yaroslavl rebellion. According to the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Tribunal, former Colonel Perkhurov was sentenced to death...

The fate of Dr. Nikolai Grigoriev was even more dramatic. From Kazan, he left for Kolchak's Siberia, where he tried to deal with issues of agitation and propaganda, editing the newspaper "Military Vedomosti" in Novo-Nikolaevsk. At the end of 1919, he was lured to him by the commander of the Siberian White Army, General Rudolf Gaida, from the Czech legionnaires. Together with Gaida, Grigoriev was drawn into a new adventure, directed against the Kolchak authorities. In Vladivostok, Gaida tried, under the banner of the Socialist-Revolutionary "democracy", to raise an armed rebellion against the dictator-admiral, but unsuccessfully - the local garrison remained loyal to Kolchak. During the suppression of the uprising, Dr. Grigoriev was killed - according to some reports, he blew himself up with a grenade, according to others, he was simply shot dead by white punishers. In general, the adventurer Grigoriev turned out to be a match for his leader. It is a paradox, but the whites in Vladivostok, in essence, carried out the death sentence of the revolutionary tribunal of the Vladimir province, which condemned Grigoriev to death for organizing the Murom rebellion ...

Alas, the lessons of Savinkov's adventure did not benefit the Whites. They, right up to the last battles of the civil war, were ready to pray for their "Western friends". And the foreign invaders themselves, who settled in the white rear, brutally robbed and tortured Russia - the white generals dependent on them were forced to turn a blind eye to this. The discrediting of the white idea was complete! And as soon as the support of foreigners weakened, the entire white camp collapsed ...

Oleg Valentinov, especially for "Ambassadorial Prikaz"

WHITE GUARD

The name of the military formations of the counter-revolutionary White movement that fought in the years civil war(1918–1920) vs. Soviet power.

General A.I. Denikin:


Lieutenant General P.N. Wrangel:


Vice Admiral A.V. Kolchak:


General N.N. Yudenich:

Russia. Large linguo-cultural dictionary. - M .: State Institute of the Russian Language. A.S. Pushkin. AST-Press. T.N. Chernyavskaya, K.S. Miloslavskaya, E.G. Rostova, O.E. Frolova, V.I. Borisenko, Yu.A. Vyunov, V.P. Chudnov. 2007 .

See what "WHITE GUARD" is in other dictionaries:

white guard- can have the following meanings: The White Guard is another name for the White Army in the Russian Civil War. The White Guard novel by Mikhail Bulgakov Running is a 1970 feature film directed by Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov (according to ... Wikipedia

white guard- The White Guard. 1. Officer of the Kornilov shock regiment. 1919. 2. Officer of the 2nd Cavalry General Drozdovsky Regiment. 1919. WHITE GUARD, the unofficial name of the military formations that fought during the Civil War in Russia against ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

white guard- White Guard Dictionary of Russian synonyms. white guard n., number of synonyms: 1 white guard (7) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trish ... Synonym dictionary

WHITE GUARD- the unofficial name of the military formations that fought during the Civil War against Soviet power. The origin of the term is associated with the traditional symbolism of white as the color of supporters of law and order. The basis of the White Guard ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

WHITE GUARD- WHITE GUARD, the unofficial name of the military formations that fought during the Civil War against the Soviet regime (see WHITE MOVEMENT). Source: Encyclopedia Fatherland ... Russian history

white guard- the unofficial name of the military formations that fought during the Civil War against Soviet power. The origin of the term is associated with the traditional symbolism of white as the color of supporters of "legal order". The basis of the white ... ... Political science. Dictionary.

"WHITE GUARD"- Novel. First published (not completely): Russia, M., 1924, No. 4; 1925, No. 5. In full: Bulgakov M. Days of the Turbins (White Guard). Paris: Concorde, vol. 1 1927, vol. 2 1929. The 2nd volume in 1929 as "The End of the White Guard" was also published in Riga in ... ... Encyclopedia Bulgakov

white guard- Russian military volunteer formations created during the years of the 1917 revolution and the civil war to overthrow the new Soviet power and restore the legitimate tsarist power in Russia. "White" in this case brings the meaning of "purity ... ... Fundamentals of spiritual culture (encyclopedic dictionary of a teacher)

white guard- see White movement. * * * WHITE GUARD WHITE GUARD, the unofficial name of the military formations that fought during the Civil War (see CIVIL WAR in Russia) against Soviet power. The origin of the term is connected with the traditional ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

1. Was the "white army" - White?

After leaving feature film about Kolchak "Admiral", a new wave of "white mania" has risen in Russian society. There are already proposals to rename the streets and avenues of Russian cities in honor of the leaders of the so-called "white movement", and these leaders themselves are presented as national heroes. We are present at the creation of a new historical myth, which is intended to replace another myth that has existed to one degree or another until now: the red myth. Moreover, the birth of a new myth about "white heroes" takes place on the eve of November 4, that is, the holiday of National Unity. But how does the chanting of the "white" movement and its leaders contribute to this national unity? And how historically fair is it to make the moral basis of a new national idea out of the “white” movement? What is behind the defeat of the "white army": the tragic doom of the heroes who fell in the fight against evil, or the natural collapse of political losers who could not find reliable support in Russian society? Let's try to figure it out.

However, in fact, these forces, firstly, were very different in their ideological component, and secondly, they did not call themselves “whites” and did not consider themselves. Moreover, once, while talking with a venerable Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, I used the expression “White Guards”, to which my interlocutor, whose father was a member of the “White” movement, rather sharply told me: “ My father perceived the word "White Guard" as offensive.". The Hierarch was not the first person I heard such words from. There is an opinion that the word "White Guards" was coined by Trotsky, and then this expression has become firmly established in history. But it is not so.

As we have said in other articles, for the first time the concept of the White Army appears in France during the French Revolution. The White Army was the army of French peasants and royalist aristocrats who rebelled against the republic. The rebels set as their goal the restoration of the monarchy, and their banner was a white flag with the inscription "God and the King."

In Russia, the word "white guard", "white" also first appears during the revolution, but not the revolution of 1917, but of 1905-1907. Everyone knows about the existence of the Black Hundreds, but almost no one knows that at the same time there was the White Guard, a monarchist militant organization that was part of the Union of the Russian People, but acted independently. The White Guard effectively resisted the terror and violence of the revolutionaries in Odessa. Members of the White Guard, respectively, were called White Guards.

Thus, we see that the concept of "White Army" and "White Guard" was almost always associated with the monarchical resistance of the people to the republican and anti-Christian forces. The White Guard, the White Army were firmly linked with the concept of the White Tsar.

Under the conditions of the Russian Civil War, as far as is known, there were only two cases when anti-Bolshevik forces called themselves "White". For the first time it was on October 27, 1917 in Moscow, when the cadets and cadets who opposed the Bolshevik coup called themselves the "White Guard". The second time, the name "white" appears in the North-Western Army of General Yudenich, but not as an official one.

No other anti-Bolshevik forces called themselves white. Those who are considered to be "whites" called themselves "volunteers", "Kornilovites", "Drozdovites", "Markovites". Only already in emigration did the participants in the anti-Bolshevik struggle begin to call themselves "whites" in order to separate themselves from the "reds", "Makhnovists", "independence", "greens". Nevertheless, already during the Civil War, all Bolshevik propaganda called its enemies “White Guards”, or “Whites”. The initiator of the introduction of this term "whites" was indeed Leon Trotsky. The goal he pursued at the same time was understandable: to fix the image of the “White Guards”, that is, monarchists advocating the restoration of the “old order”, for the enemies of Soviet power. Thus, a sophisticated substitution of concepts took place: the anti-Bolshevik regimes of Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel began to be perceived as monarchist regimes, but the fact of the matter is that they never were.

2. Where did the White Movement come from?

In February 1917, during the most difficult World War, a coup d'état took place in Russia. Emperor Nicholas II, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Empire, was dethroned and arrested. The monarchy in Russia was illegally abolished. The coup was led by the foreign forces of the Entente countries, representatives of the ruling circles of Russia's allies in the World War, who relied on the Russian Duma opposition, which, in turn, used most of the top generals for the coup. Suffice it to say that of the five main organizers and leaders of the "white cause" (Alekseev, Kornilov, Kolchak, Denikin and Wrangel), only Wrangel was not involved in the overthrow of Emperor Nicholas II. The rest, to one degree or another, were either among the direct organizers of the coup, or were aware of it and sympathized with it.

Immediately after the coup, all conspiring generals receive, though not for long, a promotion and prospects for political influence. Alekseev becomes supreme commander in chief, adviser to the Provisional Government, Brusilov, following Alekseev, also becomes supreme, Kornilov becomes commander in chief of the troops of the key Petrograd military district, then replaces Brusilov as supreme commander in chief.

Kolchak remains commander of the Black Sea Fleet, but is listed among the favorites of the new regime. Denikin makes a dizzying leap in his military career: from the post of commander of the 8th corps, he becomes chief of staff of the supreme commander, and then commander Western Front. It is noteworthy that Denikin was appointed to the post of Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on the personal order of Guchkov. Moreover, Guchkov gave this order to Alekseev, who was against the appointment of Denikin, in an ultimatum form. Touching care of the main enemy of the Sovereign about the little-known commander of the 8th Corps!

I must say that in the first months of the "great bloodless" the above-mentioned generals went out of their way to demonstrate loyalty to the new revolutionary regime. At the same time, it is impossible not to be surprised at the degree of meanness and betrayal that these former adjutant generals went to in relation to their Tsar. Reading about this, it should be remembered that they were all generously endowed with royal favors and rewards. Adjutant General Alekseev, in addition to the decisive role in the blockade of the Sovereign and the fabrication of the so-called "abdication", personally announced to Nicholas II that he was under arrest, General Kornilov with a red bow on his uniform arrested Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the August Children, Adjutant General Ruzsky gave interviews, in which he boasted of his participation in the overthrow of the Emperor.

Mass betrayal was shown by many generals and senior officers of the representatives of the national outskirts. Among them are the ethnic Swede General Baron Karl Mannerheim, the future dictator of Finland, the Georgian General Georgy Kvinitadze, the future commander-in-chief of the Menshevik Georgia, the Pole General Vladislav Klembovsky, the future commander of the Red Army, the Little Russian adjutant wing of the Sovereign, Lieutenant-General Pavlo Skoropadsky, the future "Hetman of Ukraine" other.

At the same time, these same generals and admirals hurried to assure the new rulers of their loyalty. Here, for example, what order on the front was given by the former Adjutant General Brusilov on May 22 / June 4, 1917: “ To raise the revolutionary offensive spirit of the army, it is necessary to form special shock revolutionary battalions, recruited from volunteers in the center of Russia, in order to instill in the army the belief that the entire Russian people are following it in the name of a speedy peace and brotherhood of peoples.

Admiral Kolchak specially visited Petrograd, where he met with the worst enemies of the Throne: Guchkov, Lvov, Rodzianko, Plekhanov. All of them, the admiral assured of devotion to the new ideas of freedom, and called the terrorists the Social Revolutionaries "heroes."

At the same time, it must be remembered that many future leaders of the “white movement”, as well as other generals who ended up in the camp of the Bolsheviks, were closely connected with secret and foreign structures. The nature of these links is still not entirely clear, but their very existence is not in doubt.

It is clear that the Western structures, with which the future white leaders were associated, were the structures of the Entente, and not Germany. Meanwhile, in the bowels of the Entente itself there was no unity about the future government of Russia. Beginning in August 1917, the British and French, realizing that the Kerensky regime was not capable of continuing the war "to the bitter end," began to secretly promote the figure of General Kornilov. He is tipped to become military dictators. The same Savinkov, long recruited by British intelligence, is in charge of the Kornilov project.

Even earlier, in June 1917, the promotion of another candidate for dictatorship, Admiral Kolchak, begins. In general, Kolchak was a protégé of Guchkov. Closely associated with the latter since pre-revolutionary times, Kolchak enjoyed the constant patronage of Guchkov when he was Minister of War of the first Februaryist government. The positions of Guchkov, who claimed the first role in the revolutionary government, were weakening day by day. Kerensky and his patrons increasingly took power into their own hands. Under these conditions, Guchkov counted on a military coup and on the coming to power of a dictator, under which he, Guchkov, would regain his primacy in power. In one of the letters written already in exile, Guchkov wrote that he especially counted on Kolchak.

There is no doubt that it was precisely for the purpose of participating in a big political game that Kolchak was summoned to Petrograd from Sevastopol. But when he arrived in Petrograd, Guchkov had already been removed from the post of Minister of War, which, of course, weakened the admiral's chances of breaking into dictators. Nevertheless, Guchkov continued to provide Kolchak with all possible support. It was Guchkov who connected Kolchak with the Republican Center, in the depths of which preparations were underway for a military coup in the country.

Kolchak spoke at meetings of the Provisional Government with outrageous speeches that "the Motherland is in danger." At the same time, Kolchak was in no hurry to return to the Black Sea Fleet and do his immediate business, the defense of the Motherland. In some newspapers of that time, the headlines "All power to Admiral Kolchak!"

In those days, the admiral actively cooperated with the "Republican Center". The "Republican Center" supported Kornilov and was closely associated with the British. At the same time, the "Republican Center" to support Kolchak. P. K. Milyukov, many years later, wrote: “ The natural candidate for sole power was Kolchak, who was once intended by the St. Petersburg officers for the role later played by Kornilov».

However, Kornilov's performance was defeated. Not the last role was played by the fact that Kerensky was supported by influential American forces, who did not need a pro-British protege. Limited Kornilov was used in the "dark", and then sent to the Bykhov prison.

In connection with the decisive role of the Americans in the "suppression of the Kornilov rebellion", it is very interesting that Kolchak, for all his ambition, refused the role of a candidate for "dictators", kindly giving it to Kornilov, and he left for the USA.

Meanwhile, the Provisional Government of Kerensky was irresistibly leading Russia to a military catastrophe: the army almost perished, the front was falling apart, desertion assumed deadly proportions. At the same time, the army was mostly led by generals who were in secondary roles in the Imperial Army. Their main "merit" was the support of the revolutionary coup in the days of February. This does not mean that they were bad generals, but they had no experience in leading military operations. of strategic importance, that is, they did not command the fronts.

Nevertheless, the generals of the Provisional Government, for the most part, understood that the war was lost and that it needed to end. The generals believed that the only way out of the war was by concluding a separate peace with the Germans. That is why part of the Russian generals relied on the Bolsheviks and actually carried out the October Revolution, overthrowing Kerensky and his ministers. At the same time, the generals broke another American game, planning a "peaceful" transfer of power from Kerensky to Trotsky at the Congress of Soviets. Trotsky was the new protege of some American financial circles, and even before the October Revolution, the influential New York Times hurried out with a portrait of Trotsky in the editorial and the inscription "the new head of the revolutionary government in Russia." But the figure of Trotsky did not suit many generals, and they helped Lenin to play a performance called "storming the Winter Palace" and thereby disrupted the "peaceful" transfer of power to Trotsky. Kerensky was forced to flee Petrograd, and not Trotsky, but Lenin became the head of the government.

It is clear that without the support of the army, the Bolsheviks would not have been able to take power. It is also clear that these generals had some connection with the Germans, and that the Germans also gave the Leninist group their support in seizing power. At the same time, the generals believed that they were using the Bolsheviks for their own purposes, and then they would also be removed. The Bolsheviks thought the same way and, in the end, they outplayed the generals. Most of"Red" generals was shot by the Bolsheviks in the 20-30s.

Thus, in the autumn of 1917, a strange team came to power in Russia, consisting of Leninists, Mezhrayontsy, Left Social Revolutionaries, various American anarchists, German agents, and part of the generals of the former Imperial Army who joined them.

The coming to power of the Bolsheviks was a political disaster for the pro-Entant Russian generals, that is, the future "white leaders". And they immediately declared that they would fight these Bolsheviks not for life, but for death.

main reason The apologists of the “white movement” explain their hatred of Bolshevism and their desire to fight with it by the fact that the Bolsheviks agreed to a separate peace with the Germans and signed a predatory peace with Germany. Partly it is. But only in part.

Future "white" leaders declared war on Bolshevism even before the Brest-Litovsk peace. Here is how Admiral Kolchak wrote about this: “ I left America on the eve of the Bolshevik coup and arrived in Japan, where I learned about the government of Lenin that was formed and about the preparations for the Brest-Litovsk peace. I could not recognize either the Bolshevik government or the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, but as an admiral of the Russian fleet, I considered our allied commitment to Germany to be fully valid. The only form in which I could continue my service to the Motherland, which fell into the hands of German agents and traitors, was participation in the war with Germany on the side of our allies. To this end, I applied, through the British ambassador in Tokyo, to the British government with a request to accept me in the service so that I could participate in the war and thereby fulfill my duty to the Motherland and its allies.».

In general, the strange behavior of Kolchak! If he understood that the Bolsheviks were such enemies of Russia, traitors to her interests, then why did he, instead of rushing to Russia to fight these enemies, ask to join the ranks of the British army? Why did he return to Russia only in the second half of 1918? What was Kolchak waiting for? In addition, when Kolchak wrote these lines, he could not know what the Brest Peace would be like. Peace negotiations began only in December, and initially the Bolshevik government insisted on peace "without annexations and indemnities." So, Kolchak was outraged not by the terms of the peace, he could not know about them, but by the very fact of a separate peace with Germany. But Kolchak himself, even before the Bolshevik coup, understood that the war was lost. He wrote: “... The war is lost, but there is still time to win a new one, and we will believe that Russia will be reborn in a new war. The revolutionary democracy will drown in its own filth or be drowned in its own blood. She has no other future. There is no rebirth of a nation apart from war, and it is conceivable only through war. Will wait new war as the only bright future."

It is clear that by the "new war" Kolchak meant the war with the "revolutionary democracy", that is, the Civil War. It is clear that Kolchak understood very well what Kerensky and his ministers were. How could he not understand the fact that they are leading Russia to destruction. But he was not going to fight to the death with the Kerenskys and the temporary workers. Why? Kolchak himself was tied to the same forces with which Kerensky was tied. Like Kerensky, Kolchak owed his political career to the Entente. Or rather, certain groups adjoining it. And when people from these groups demanded that Kolchak take part in the Civil War in Russia, Kolchak obeyed them.

In addition, the pro-Entente generals had another good reason to want the overthrow of the Bolsheviks: with their help, it was not they who made their careers, but other generals. It was clear to Kolchak and Kornilov that under the Bolsheviks they would not be either "dictators" or "supreme rulers." On the other hand, Manikovsky and Bonch-Bruevich, in turn, understood that in the event of the victory of Kolchak and the Entente, they were threatened not only with the end of the military and political career, but also quite possible physical violence.

Thus, the Civil War in Russia that began in early 1918 was, among other things, a war some generals against others. Moreover, these generals, both "white" and "red", were direct participants or sympathizers of the February Revolution.

Of course, we are not going to simplify the complex picture of the Civil War and think that the generals, both "White" and "Red", were driven by one sense of ambition and the desire for personal power. But the fact that these properties of their personality played an important role in their activities is indisputable.

The reason for the confrontation of these generals was the same for which they supported the plot against the Tsar and the February coup: the desire to participate in political life country. And if, after these lines, the admirers of the “white leaders” once again say to us: “what were they to do? they could not have done otherwise…”, we will answer: not true, they could!

At the same time, when Alekseev, Brusilov, Kornilov, Denikin, Krymov, Bonch-Bruevich, Manikovsky, Kolchak overthrew the Tsar and were engaged in political games, there were other generals who remained true to the spirit and word of the oath given to them and refused any cooperation, with both reds and whites. Many of them paid for it with their lives.

Let's remember them.

Keller spoke even more frankly about Kornilov: “ Kornilov is a revolutionary general. I can only lead an army with God in my heart and the King in my soul. Only faith in God and in the power of the Tsar can save us, only the old army and the repentance of the whole people can save Russia, and not the democratic army and the “free” people. We see what freedom has led us to: to disgrace and unprecedented humiliation... Absolutely nothing will come of the Kornilov enterprise, mark my word [...] It will end in death. Innocent lives will be lost."

Keller was ready to fight only in the ranks of the army, whose goal was to restore the legitimate monarchy in Russia. In fact, General Keller can be called the only real white general. By the way, when at the end of 1918, the count agreed to start forming a monarchist army, white crosses were sewn on her uniforms - symbols of the true White Army. As for those who went over to the service of the revolutionaries, it doesn’t matter to the “reds” or “whites”, Count Keller shrewdly said that some of them “ adheres to the allied orientation, the other adheres to the German orientation, but both of them have forgotten about their Russian orientation.

Count Keller was killed by the Petliurists on December 8/21, 1918 in Kiev. Until his last breath, General Keller remained faithful to the royal oath and to his monarchical convictions.

Think about these words! The general, even in the face of death, refuses to participate in a fratricidal war! And compare these words with Kolchak's enthusiasm about the upcoming war "for a brighter future"!

On the personal order of Antonov-Ovseenko, General Rennenkampf was brutally murdered on the night of April 1, 1918. The grand-nephew of the general, who lives today in France, spoke about the last minutes of his ancestor. According to this story, the Russian soldiers refused to shoot at the old general, and then he was handed over to the Circassians to be torn to pieces. They gouged out Rennenkampf's eyes and killed him long and painfully with cold steel. It is noteworthy that General Rennenkampf converted to Orthodoxy a few days before the assassination.

As you can see, among the Russian generals there were those who preferred death to betrayal of the oath and participation in a fratricidal war.

Speaking about what could save Russia, General Keller pointed to popular repentance. Keller felt the spiritual reasons for what was happening as well as possible. And, of course, the first to repent were the Russian generals, those who had changed their oath and entered the service of the revolution (it doesn't matter whether it was for Kerensky or for Lenin). But instead, these generals took part in a fratricidal war.

3. The superiority of the "red" generals over the "white".

When they talk about the Civil War, they usually represent the matter as if the "bastard" "Reds", commanded by everyone, were opposed by the "whites", commanded by generals and officers. In fact, if we compare the number and rank of generals and senior officers of the former Imperial Army among the "Reds" and those of the "Whites", then this list will not be in favor of the latter. So, let's compare the leading military leaders, former generals of the Imperial Army, among the "whites" and the "reds":

As we can see, the "whites" are represented mainly by combat generals, while the "reds" have almost all staff officers and intelligence officers, that is, analysts and strategists. At the same time, the list of "reds" is undoubtedly more serious than the list of "whites". In terms of significance, the “whites” have only two major strategists who had experience in planning strategic military operations and command and control: Alekseev and Yudenich. If, we recall that Alekseev died at the very beginning of the "White movement", and Yudenich did not take part in the main battles of the Civil War, then the preponderance of the "Reds" is undeniable. In addition, the "Reds" are widely represented by the leading leaders of military intelligence, that is, people who own a huge amount of information, capable of analytical thinking. They were three heads taller than the "white" strategists.

It was these staff officers and strategists who formed the regular Red Army and it was they who defeated Kolchak, Denikin and Wrangel. It's time to forget the false myth that the Red Army was organized and created by Leon Trotsky. The only thing Trotsky was good at was speaking at rallies and killing innocent people. All other "talents" of Trotsky are to a large extent the fruit of myth-making and the imagination of his admirers, from Raskolnikov to Mlechin.

It is also ridiculous to think that the Civil War for the Bolsheviks was won by the former lieutenant Tukhachevsky, or the former sergeant major Budyonny with the former senior non-commissioned officer Chapaev.

Or General Manikovsky, under whose leadership the “shell hunger” was overcome during the First World War, organized the provision and supply of shells to the Red Army. And very well organized.

It was only at school that we were told that Wrangel had been defeated by Frunze. It is quite clear that the revolutionary bandit, who was Frunze until 1917, with all his natural abilities, knew nothing about military affairs. Therefore, the headquarters of the Southern Front, whose troops defeated Wrangel and Shatilov, was headed by the former Lieutenant Colonel of the Imperial General Staff I. Kh. Spider, and his right hand was the former Major General of the Imperial Army V. A. Olderogge, who had extensive combat experience.

We see the same thing in the army of General Denikin. The chief of staff of the All-Union Socialist League, General I.P. Romanovsky in the Imperial Army, had the experience of the chief of staff of the army corps and the quartermaster general of the army, that is, he had no experience in conducting and planning large front-line operations.

Things were better with Baron Wrangel. His chief of staff, General P. N. Shatilov, first of all, was himself a capable military leader, and in addition, during the World War he acquired both staff and combat experience. But even Shatilov's experience in the front headquarters was at the level of an assistant head of department.

Thus, it is quite clear that, strategically, the Reds, thanks to the cooperation former leaders Imperial Headquarters, incomparably superior to the "whites".

They say that no one wanted to go to the "reds", they had solid Chinese and Germans, but the "whites" consisted of only Russian people. However, it is not. For example, the so-called army of Komuch could not have done anything if it were not for the actions of the Czechoslovak corps, but for the detachments of Ataman Semyonov or Baron Ungern, they were vitally dependent on Japanese or Mongolian assistance. I'm not talking about the Cossack General Krasnov, who was simply on full German military pay.

The strategy of the "white" leaders, such as Kolchak, Denikin and Wrangel, was completely dependent on the Entente. And the Entente helped them only as long as it was part of its plans for crushing and dismembering Russia. Kolchak himself said in a narrow circle that the allies (especially after the defeat of Germany in the autumn of 1918) did not strive for a quick and decisive victory of the “whites” over the Bolsheviks, because it was in their interests to weaken Russia during the civil war.

4. The "Whites" ideologically lost to the Bolsheviks.

By the spring of 1918, Russian people began to understand what Bolshevism was. And the point was not even that extrajudicial executions began, hostages began to be taken, that robbery and “expropriation” of “bourgeois” property began. All this was in abundance both in the days of the "great bloodless" and in the days of temporary workers.

The thing was that for the first time in Russia, people took power, most of whom completely rejected human morality. Actually, the “Febralists” like Kerensky or Savinkov were also deprived of this morality, but the Bolsheviks were the first to introduce anti-morality into the official ideology of their regime. Kerensky could not openly declare that he did not give a damn about "bourgeois morality" and "bourgeois" justice, while the Bolsheviks said this openly. Of course, Bolshevism did not fall on Russia like "snow on its head." For many years it was cultivated in the consciousness of Russian society, cherished in the feverish fantasies of the Russian intelligentsia. In essence, Lenin differed from the idol of his youth, Chernyshevsky, only in that the leader of the world proletariat tried to put into practice "Vera Pavlovna's dreams." But besides Lenin's bloody fantasies, in Bolshevism there was an alien anti-human force brought from outside, and it was this force that gave Bolshevism the most satanic atheistic features. This force was initially introduced into the Russian political revolutionary movement in all its manifestations and in October 1917 concentrated on the Bolsheviks, as the most organized and most combat-ready political organization. But this does not mean at all that this force did not control other political organizations Russia, and since these organizations were widely represented in the so-called "White movement", it also controlled the "White movement" in many respects.

The unleashing of the Civil War in Russia was part of the plans of the world "behind the scenes". This "behind the scenes" had to be sure that whoever won the bloody Russian battle, "red" or "white", these winners would be completely under her control.

The Russian military was most outraged, of course, by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the fact that vast Russian territories were given to Germany by a gang of political adventurers. This indignation mainly embraced front-line combat officers who shed their blood in the war for four years and perceived this world as a "knife in the back." This indignation took advantage of the "white" generals. Probably, many of them were also really outraged by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and they rightly denounced the Bolsheviks for it. Only with all their indignation, they forgot to repent that a huge share of the responsibility for this world fell on them and on their March 1917 betrayal.

In this regard, the memoirs of E. Dil are very characteristic, who, after the liberation of Yekaterinburg by the Komuch army and the Czechs in July 1918, was sent by military circles to transport archival materials relating to Royal Family to Tomsk. In Yekaterinburg, Dil was introduced to the counterintelligence officer midshipman Kh., who helped the investigator I.A. Sergeev investigate the murder of the Royal Family. " First of all, it turned out- writes Diehl, - that he is convinced SR and was much more interested in the vicissitudes of the formation of the Siberian Government than in the search for a murder case».

The performance of the "volunteers" marked the beginning of the "white cause". But it was doomed in advance. God did not grant victory to the royal traitors who stood at its head. The words of General Keller came true that Kornilov "will only ruin innocent lives in vain." And the best proof of this is the death of General Kornilov himself. " enemy grenade- wrote General Denikin, - only one got into the house, only into Kornilov's room when he was in it, and killed only him alone. The mystical veil of eternal mystery covered the paths and accomplishments of the Unknown Will". You can't really say.

- You see, Your Excellency, what happened, bad luck. And then, after all, the people were completely dreaming, the end of the torment, they thought. We hear that Mikhail Lyaksandrych himself is walking with the white army, he has declared himself Tsar again, he has mercy on everyone, he gives land. Well, the Orthodox people came to life, grew bolder, which means they even began to beat the commissars. Everyone was waiting, ours will come, there is little left to endure. And in fact, it didn’t turn out that way.”

And what was the common people to think when the first "white army", the army of Komuch, entered Kazan, liberated from the Bolsheviks, to the sounds of the Marseillaise?

By the spring of 1918, the high command of the Allies in the Entente had developed a general plan to overthrow the Bolshevik regime, which they perceived as pro-German, and establish their control over Russia. All anti-Bolshevik forces were subordinate to the French general M. Janin. It was decided to start with Japanese intervention, which would be based on anti-Soviet elements inside Russia. General Janin himself wrote in his memoirs: I was recommended to make every effort to organize the widest Japanese intervention, up to the Urals.

If we take into account that by that time the British had landed in Murmansk, the Romanians had occupied Bessarabia, and the Japanese, French and Americans were making plans to occupy the Far East, Siberia and the Urals, then it was about the actual dismemberment of Russia by the Entente countries. It is interesting that for instructions, General Janin went to New York.

Since there were no serious formations in the East of Russia to start large-scale hostilities, the allies supported the performance of the Czechoslovak corps against the Bolsheviks. In May-June 1918, the Czechoslovak corps seized a number of major cities in the east of the country.

With the support and consent of the Entente in the occupied areas, two "white" governments are formed in Samara and Omsk. At the same time, the so-called "People's Army of Komuch" was formed, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel N. A. Galkin and the Siberian Army under the command of Major General A. N

All these were frankly Socialist-Revolutionary regimes. " At the beginning of May 1918- wrote General Denikin, - it was announced that power was transferred to the Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly ("Komuch"). The democratic cover, popular even in the Russian public, covered the new dictatorship - the parties of social revolutionaries, who seized power undividedly».

There is no need, I think, to explain who the Socialist-Revolutionaries are. The Social Revolutionaries are exactly the same criminal revolutionary group as the Bolsheviks were. But the Czech uprising and Komuch took advantage of many Russian people who had already more than learned all the delights of Bolshevism, they did not fail to join this anti-Bolshevik movement. Among them were many officers, including monarchists. However, they not only did not constitute the majority in the so-called "People's Army" of Komuch, but also had no influence in it. This is how General Sakharov recalled the image of Komuch's army: “ In Buzuluk I saw the first regiment of the new people's army. Without epaulettes, with a shield similar to the Czech one on the right sleeve, for some reason with St. George ribbon, instead of a cockade, on a cap. Kind of semi-comradely».

At the same time, it would be wrong to think that the "Socialist-Revolutionary" "Whites" were fundamentally different from the "Whites" of the so-called right wing (Kolchak, Denikin, etc.). The same Grishin-Almazov was in the army of Kolchak, then a close assistant to Denikin and served as military governor of Odessa. At the same time, his adviser was the pseudo-monarchist V. V. Shulgin.

The notion of "whites" as "anti-Semites" is also absurd. This lie was actively promoted by Trotsky and his henchmen. In general, I have already had to write that during the Civil War, the Jewish population of Russia was subjected to merciless terror. This terror came from both the Bolsheviks and the "Whites", and from the Petliurists. And the most big enemies of the Jewish people were Trotsky, Sverdlov and the like. This is well said in the memoirs of Rabbi Aharon Chazan: The most bitter and merciless enemy of religious Jewry was the infamous Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the RCP(b). /…/ After the revolution in the Russian Empire, an event unprecedented in Jewish history took place: the religious and communal life of the sons of Israel was abolished by the efforts of the grandchildren of the great European rabbis. /…/ In the very first years of terror, the victims of the Bolsheviks were, first of all, leaders of yeshivas, rabbis, melameds and heads of Jewish communities. The Evsektsiya sought their arrest on false charges of various crimes, and their fate was decided at the trial. Some of these people were thrown into prison, where they died from torture, others were deported to Siberia, from where no more news about them was received. All Jewish communities lived in constant fear.”

As for the "white movement", the Jews took the widest part in it. Moreover, interestingly, the motives for which the ordinary Jewish population participated in the fight against Bolshevism were the same as those of the Russians: to liberate Russia from the oppressors. Among the Jews of the South of Russia, the following phrase was common: "" It is better to save Russia with the Cossacks than to destroy it with the Bolsheviks.

The appeal of the National Council of the Jews of Siberia and the Urals to Admiral Kolchak stated the following: “ The Jews who take part in the Bolshevik movement and in the destruction of the State are the dregs of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people as a whole reject indignantly any responsibility that its enemies try to place on it.

But, as in the case of the Russian volunteers, the Jews involved in the "white movement" were deceived. Often, where the “white” regimes won, left-wing Jewish organizations very close to the Bolsheviks were established. Here, for example, which organizations were established by order of the head of the garrison, Colonel Sherekhovsky in Yekaterinburg, immediately after he was liberated from the Bolsheviks on July 30, 1918: the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, the Zionist organization, the Jewish organization of the RSDLP Bund, the Jewish People's Group.

There is no need to talk about Kolchak's connections with the Socialist-Revolutionaries: he was completely entangled by them. But there were people in the camp of Kolchak who were more terrible than the Socialist-Revolutionaries. One of his advisers was Sverdlov's brother, Zinovy ​​Sverdlov, known as Zinovy ​​Peshkov. Peshkov arrived in Siberia as a representative of the French army. He held the rank of captain. In fact, Zinovy ​​Sverdlov was closely associated with American secret structures, the organizers of the revolution in Russia. Supported Zinovy ​​and ties with his brother, Yakov Sverdlov. Under Kolchak, Zinovy ​​Sverdlov played a very important role.

The Bolsheviks lied to the people. They promised land to the peasants, factories to the workers, peace to the peoples. They did not give any of this and were not going to give anything. They lied that their government was the dictatorship of the proletariat.

But the “whites” also lied to the people. They lied that they were going to overthrow the power of the Bolsheviks in order to restore the power of the Constituent Assembly. What meeting? The same one that the Bolsheviks dispersed in January 1918. What was this meeting? It was a meeting of Socialist-Revolutionaries, Cadets, Mensheviks, that is, enemies of historical Russia, enemies of the Monarchy, participants in terrorist attacks, coups and revolutions. So, why were these bloody radicals and enemies of the Throne better than the Bolsheviks? Nothing. Meanwhile, it was their power that Kolchak and Denikin were going to restore at the cost of Russian blood. Meanwhile, both of them lied to the people that they were going to restore historical Russia. A historical Russia could only be a monarchy.

The people immediately understood the lie of the “whites”, because it was in plain sight. The people did not believe in any Constituent Assembly. R. Gul well described the dialogue of a “white” officer with a simple peasant at the height of the Civil War:

«- Here you are educated, so to speak, but tell me this: why did they start fighting with each other? What did it come from?

- Because of which? The Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly ... they seized power by force - that's what has risen.

- Again you didn't say... What are you fighting for?

-... For the Constituent Assembly...

- Well, of course, it can, you understand, you are a scientist.

- Don't you understand? Tell me what you need What would you like?

- What? In order for the working man to have freedom, real life, and, moreover, land ...

- So who will give it to you if not the Constituent Assembly?

The owner shakes his head...

“Our brother will not be admitted to this meeting.

- How will they not allow it? After all, they still choose, after all, you chose?

“They chose, but how they chose, whoever has the capital, they will get it,” the owner stubbornly declares.

Meanwhile, before the monarchy, the "white" leaders experienced downright pathological fear. There are cases when Denikin forbade the performance of "God save the Tsar!", For the performance of the old Russian anthem, officers of the Denikin army were put in a guardhouse.

According to the memoirs of V. V. Shulgin, Denikin’s white counterintelligence conducted a real persecution of monarchist officers.

The myth about the “monarchism” of the Cossack ataman, General P. N. Krasnov, is especially incomprehensible. Krasnov from the first days of the February Revolution was guided by Kerensky, although he despised him. By the way, when Kerensky was deciding who to appoint as commander of the 3rd Corps, on which special hopes were placed to suppress the Bolsheviks, the military advised appointing General Wrangel, but Kerensky ordered Krasnov to be appointed, as the person he trusted more. Krasnov headed the Don Cossacks and directly stated that Russia had always been the oppressor of the Cossacks, and that her fate did not interest him, Krasnov. I would like to note that the predecessor of Krasnov, true hero Don Cossacks

The "Whites" have never been able to develop either a single ideology or a single strategy. The leaders of the "white" movement were constantly in captivity of various left-wing radical groups. Kolchak and Denikin perfectly understood the danger of the latter, but in the name of seizing power they were ready to collude with anyone. Most accurately, this tactic was expressed by Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel: “ Though with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks". Today we must unequivocally admit that this tactic was vicious.

Wrangel himself was ready to take any steps that could strengthen his power. He was even ready to tear away certain territories from Russia and to cooperate with any odious personalities, as long as they were against the Bolsheviks. Maklakov wrote in the same letter to Bakhmetiev: I am involuntarily struck by the ease with which Wrangel would be ready, if necessary, to recognize now the independence of any nationality, enter into an agreement with Petliura and Makhno, send Savinkov as his representative to Warsaw, and, as I myself witnessed, offer a Jew to replace the press manager Pasmanik".

Again, a vicious idea, "even with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks," prompted Wrangel to launch a major offensive in Northern Tavria at the same time as the Polish offensive against the Soviet troops. It turned out that the Russian troops provided assistance to the centuries-old enslavers of the Russian people - the Polish interventionists, who carried with them an occupation no less terrible than the Bolshevik occupation.

Now two words about the Orthodoxy of the “white cause”. Despite the fact that the “whites” flirted with Orthodoxy in every possible way, it never became the essence of the “white movement”. Kolchak, by the time of his participation in the Civil War, had great disagreements with the Orthodox faith. While still in Japan, the admiral became interested in the teachings of the Zen Militant Buddhism sect. He shared its basic dogmas. The main idea of ​​Kolchak was the idea of ​​military absolute dictatorship. Orthodoxy was supposed to play a prominent role in this system, but aimed primarily at maintaining this very dictatorship. In relation to Orthodoxy, Kolchak acted like Napoleon with the Catholic Church, which, according to Bonaparte's plan, was to become an instrument in his hands. In Ufa, the Provisional Higher Church Administration (VVTsU) was formed - the governing body of the Orthodox dioceses in Siberia, created on the initiative of the highest clergy and with the support of the Supreme Ruler. At the insistence of Kolchak, the location of the Temporary Higher Church Administration was determined in Omsk, and it contacted the government not directly, but through the Minister of Confessions, who was entrusted with the responsibility of directing the activities of the All-Russian Higher Educational Center. At each liturgy, the clergy were instructed to commemorate the "Blessed Supreme Ruler." That is, Kolchak usurped all the prerogatives of the Russian Tsar.

General Wrangel was, of course, a believing Orthodox person. Wrangel was closer than all the "white" leaders to understanding the spiritual meaning of Russia and the Russian monarchy.

But, firstly, Wrangel was not free in his actions and was forced, following Kolchak and Denikin, although not in this form, to resort to the terminology of the Februaryists of 1917.

Secondly, in the most "white" army environment, the Orthodox faith was shaken. Former Protopresbyter of the Imperial Army, Fr. Grigory Shavelsky, who was in the camp of the "whites", recalled: " the authority of the clergy in the army was not high. So, when at a meeting of the Union of Army and Home Front Officers during the speech of Metropolitan Anthony, the officers listened to him carelessly: some turned their backs to him and lit cigarettes.

In this regard, I would like to recall the words of the perspicacious elder Archpriest Mikhail Prudnikov, which he said in a conversation with one of his admirers: ““ Father Mikhail, Russia is perishing, and we, the nobles, are not doing anything, something must be done!" On this about. Michael, who had just celebrated the early Liturgy, answered sharply: No one can do anything until the end of the measure of punishment appointed by God to the Russian people for sins; when the punishment appointed by God to the Russian people for sins is over, then the Queen of Heaven Herself will have mercy; but what will have mercy - I know!»

To the objections of his admirer about the situation in the country: “Excuse me, because now Denikin is already approaching Moscow, Kolchak, Yudenich, Miller - everyone is successfully operating"- perceptively remarked" All this is useless, they only shed blood in vain, nothing will come of it!»

How these words are consonant with what the truly white warrior Count Keller said at the very beginning of the fratricidal war! By the way, Count Keller was the only opponent of Bolshevism whom His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon blessed to fight. His Holiness sent General Keller a prosphora and the Sovereign Icon of the Mother of God. The letter of the Saint to Admiral Kolchak, in which the Patriarch allegedly blessed the admiral, is nothing more than apocryphal.

By the end of 1921, it became clear to everyone that the "whites" had lost the battle for Russia. The Reds won the civil war. But they won it not because they were strong, but because the "whites" were weak. They won the war not because the Bolshevik ideology was correct, but because the ideology of the "white" movement was wrong. The best Russian people from various strata of society believed in the "white" cause. Hundreds of thousands of them fell in the fight against Bolshevism, in order to ensure that the "red" project never triumph in Russia. Not they, but the leadership of the "white" movement is responsible for the fact that the mortal battle with Bolshevism turned into a fatal failure.

As the "white" wrestling failed, more and more of its participants began to think about the reasons for this failure. And an increasing number of thinking people, Russian patriots, began to understand that they fought for the wrong values. Hardened by the Civil War, soldiers, officers and generals who were not infected with liberalism or “leaderism”, who sincerely wanted to overthrow Bolshevism, began to understand that only Orthodoxy could be a real White ideology and only a Tsar could be a real White Leader.

This understanding of what happened was very well expressed in the early 20s by one Russian officer, a member of the "white movement": We, all of us, are responsible for the blood of the Sovereign and for the death of our land. Some, in their madness, rebelled against the authorities that created Russia; others, due to negligence and cowardice, failed to suppress this rebellion; still others, out of their ignorance, looked indifferently at the collapse of the age-old foundations of our State. And all, and each of us are guilty of the fact that they failed to preserve and protect their Tsar. And God punishes the Russian people for this. With the fall of the Throne, with the death of the Tsar, Russia lost everything. Greatness and glory, shrines and riches... Everything... Everything... and even her name she lost... She lost everything, and she herself flew off like a dream... And there, in the far North, where in the nameless, the ashes of her last Sovereign rest in an unclean grave, Russia lay down and hid there. And it will lie there until then, until the whole Russian people kneel before this grave and irrigate it with the living water of their repentance. And then Russia will rise from the Royal grave, and her awakening will be terrible.

In 1922, at the very sunset of the false "white" idea, the image of the real White Idea rises. On July 23, 1922, the Amur Zemsky Sobor met in Vladivostok. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon was unanimously elected Honorary Chairman of the Council in absentia. The actual chairman and organizer of the Council was General M. K. Diterikhs. In an appeal to the Patriarch, in the charter of the Zemsky Sobor it was said: “ The Russian Land of the Far Russian Land is uniting around you as its Leader, with a fiery desire to restore freedom to the Russian people and to gather together the Russian people wandering apart in a troubled time under the high hand of the Orthodox Tsar. May Holy Russia be restored to its former greatness and glory!»

At the end of the work of the Zemsky Sobor, General M. K. Diterichs, one of the noblest Russian military leaders, uttered words that so accurately explain why the “whites” lost: “ I believe that Russia will return to the Russia of Christ, the Russia of the Anointed of God. We were unworthy of this mercy of the Most High Creator.”