The film "Admiral" went with us with a bang! The name of Admiral Kolchak in the media sounded loud and noisy. He is a handsome man, he is a talent, and an innovator, and a hero of wars, and an enviable lover ... Yes, there was a polar explorer admiral, there was an admiral - an innovator in the mine business, but there was also a failed commander of the Black Sea Fleet, an admiral - a punisher in the expanses of Siberia, a shameful hireling The Entente and the puppet in their hands. But the creators of the books, the film and the multi-part television movie are silent about this, as if they don’t know. Why did Kolchak turn from an enemy of the Bolsheviks into almost a hero of Russia?
In the spring of 1917, Vice-Admiral Alexander Kolchak, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, threw off his tsarist-era shoulder straps and put on a new uniform that had just been established by the Russian Provisional Government. But this did not save him from the decision of the Sevastopol Soviet of Deputies to remove him from office. On June 6 of the same year, he was out of work, in July he left for America, from there to Japan.
Kolchak in the service of Britain
There he decided on the issue of admission to the service in the British Navy and in early January 1918 he went to the Mesopotamian front. But already from Singapore he was returned by the Intelligence Department of the British General Staff, he was sent to the exclusion zone of the Chinese East railway. The administration of the road was located there, the failed government of autonomous Siberia, the Cossacks of atamans Semyonov and Kalmykov, numerous White Guard officer detachments, who did not obey anyone and did not recognize anyone, fled there.
Kolchak was introduced to the board of the CER, appointed head of the security guards, and his task was to unite the disparate military formations and rush into Russia "occupied" by the Bolsheviks. As before, he sewed on the shoulder straps of the admiral, but he walked in boots, riding breeches and an army-cut jacket.
Nothing worked for Alexander Vasilievich, he did not complete the task. In early July 1918, with his beloved Anna Timiryova, he left for Japan, allegedly for negotiations with the Chief of the Japanese General Staff on joint action. Kolchak lived in a small town, "corrected his health" in a resort town. But not for long.
Kolchak's life in Siberia
He was found by the English General A. Knox, who headed the Russian Department of the British War Office. Their meeting ended with Kolchak agreeing, with the help of England, to "recreate the Russian army in Siberia." The general happily reported to London: "... there is no doubt that Kolchak is the best Russian for the implementation of our goals in the Far East." Pay attention, reader, not to the goals of the Russian state, not to its people, but to their goals, English ones! Entente!
In mid-September, Kolchak, accompanied by General A. Knox and the French ambassador Regno, arrived in Vladivostok. By that time, Soviet power from the Volga to Pacific Ocean was overthrown by the Czechoslovak corps and local White Guard formations.
On October 14, Alexander Kolchak arrived in Omsk, he was immediately introduced into the government of P.V. Vologodsky as a military and naval minister.
On November 8, accompanied by an English battalion under the command of Colonel J. Ward, he went to the front, visited Yekaterinburg, near Ufa. On November 17, Kolchak returned to Omsk, and on the night of November 18, the military overthrew the power of the Directory, while, as the Socialist-Revolutionary D. Rakov wrote in his Parisian memoirs, a terrible orgy broke out on the banks of the Irtysh - the deputies were beaten with rifle butts, stabbed with bayonets, chopped with checkers.
Kolchak supreme ruler of Russia
Alexander Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, on the same day he was awarded the rank of Admiral. For a year and a half, this is the fourth time he changed his uniform!
Having overthrown the Soviet power, the white army unleashed unprecedented terror and mockery of the population. The people did not know the courts.
White dictatorship and obscurantism
The White Guards executed hundreds of people in Barnaul, they shot 50 people in the village of Karabinka in the Biysk district, 24 peasants in the village of Shadrino, 13 front-line soldiers in the village of Kornilovo ... , which could turn the victim's body into a piece of broken meat in a few blows.
Lieutenant Goldovich and Ataman Bessmertny, who operated in the Kamensky district, forced their victims to sing their own funeral service before being shot, and girls and women were raped. The obstinate and recalcitrant were buried alive in the ground. Lieutenant Noskovsky was known for being able to kill several people with one shot.
Drunken “their nobles” took the leaders of the first Soviet power M.K. Tsaplin, I.V. Prisyagin, M.K. Their bodies were never found, most likely they were chopped up with checkers and thrown from the railway bridge to the Ob. 
The brutal and senseless reprisals against people increased manifold with the coming to power of Kolchak, with the establishment of a military dictatorship by him. Only for the first half of 1919:
- more than 25 thousand people were shot in the Yekaterinburg province,
- in the Yenisei province, on the orders of General S.N. Rozanov, about 10 thousand people were shot,
- 14 thousand people were flogged with whips, 12 thousand peasant farms were burned and plundered.
- in two days - July 31 and August 1, 1919 - over 300 people were shot in the city of Kamen, even earlier - 48 people in the arrest house of the same city.
They created the police, but to establish order over what?
At the beginning of 1919, the government of Admiral Kolchak decided to create special police units in the provinces and regions of Siberia. The companies of the Altai detachment, together with the companies of the Blue Lancers regiment and the 3rd Barnaul regiment, scoured the entire province with punitive functions. They spared neither women nor the elderly, they knew neither pity nor compassion.
Who has not heard how he fought with enemies
Izhevsk regiment under bloody Ufa,
As with an accordionist he rushed to the attack,
Izhevets is a simple Russian worker.
Izhevsk soldiers in the Russian army of Kolchak
In Soviet times, we enthusiastically sang a song about "storm nights of Spassk, Volochaev days." And no one asked the question: why did the Red heroes get those Far Eastern hills so hard? The reality turned out to be not entirely heroic, rather tragic. In fact, in the winter of 1922, a division of Ural workers who fought for the Whites offered fierce resistance to the Reds in the winter of 1922 at the Volochaev line.
In August 1918, the Izhevsk-Votkinsk anti-Bolshevik mutiny took place - an armed uprising led by the Union of Front-line Soldiers organization under the slogan "For Soviets without Bolsheviks." The workers rebelled, outraged by the Russophobic lawlessness of the Red Terror, by numerous cruel and extrajudicial reprisals against their countrymen. The uprising was centered on two cities where large state defense factories were located. At the moment of the highest rise, the rebellion covered the territory with a population of more than a million people (most of modern Udmurtia), and the number of the rebel army reached 25 thousand bayonets. The most active participants in the uprising were the workers of Izhevsk and Votkinsk. It was from them that two divisions were formed. The workers went into battle against the Bolsheviks, first under a red banner on which was written "In the struggle you will find your right."
Strategically, the Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising had a significant impact on the position of the Red Army, mainly on the actions of the 2nd and 3rd armies. The 2nd Army was actually defeated by the rebels, after which it had to be created again and until the very end of the uprising, it was chained to the Izhevsk-Votkinsk region, unable to contribute to the front. In turn, the 3rd Army was forced to allocate part of its forces for operations against the insurgent Votkinsk, in addition, significant forces were diverted to protect the Vyatka-Perm railway, which was in danger of being cut by the rebels. All this became an important factor that allowed the Russian army to concentrate its forces in the Perm direction and subsequently capture Perm on December 25, 1918. The defeat, flight and complete collapse of the 2nd Army of the Red Army, the obvious sympathy and help of the peasants to the insurgent workers made the uprising extremely dangerous for the red government. The unreliability of those mobilized from the local population made it necessary to send troops from the center of the country. Perseverance in combat clashes required the dispatch of especially steadfast units made up of communists, Latvians and Chinese. Detachments of hired foreigners in their cruelty did not differ from home-grown communists, and the struggle took on a ferocious, bloody character with heavy losses on both sides. As a result of the defeat of the uprising, the White movement lost the opportunity to use the potential of the Izhevsk arms factories in the Civil War, which produced up to one third of all small arms produced in Russia. These factories passed into the hands of the Reds. In connection with the departure of a significant part of the workers to the Whites, the production of rifles at the Izhevsk plant was sharply reduced. Only by January 1919 was it possible to bring it up to 1000 pieces a day, which, nevertheless, was twice as low as the volume of production before the uprising. Together with the rebels, their families also left their homes, not counting on the mercy of the Bolsheviks.
During the Civil War, the Izhevsk and Votkinsk divisions suffered losses and merged into one division. It was headed by Colonel Viktorin Molchanov. This unit became part of the troops of Admiral Kolchak. The civil war for Molchanov began with the fact that he led a detachment of peasant self-defense, which resisted the Bolshevik food detachments in the Kama region. Then Molchanov led an uprising in the Yelabuga district. At the same time, having broken through the front, a unit of Izhevsk workers retreated from the encirclement near Yelabuga, which became part of the 2nd White Guard Ufa Army Corps.
The division of the Ural workers was the most combat-ready formation of the Kolchak troops. She retreated last, holding back the onslaught of the Reds. She especially got it in Krasnoyarsk, where the Reds raised an uprising, cutting off the escape routes. Then the Izhevsk/Votkintsy broke into Krasnoyarsk with a fight, defeated the rebels and moved to Irkutsk.
Battle flag of the division of the Ural workers 
As we know, in the Baikal region, Kolchak's army ended its existence, and the Supreme Ruler himself was shot. Only a division of the Urals and a regiment of Kappel officers were able to cross the ice of Lake Baikal in full force. In Chita, General Molchanov received the post of deputy commander of the Far Eastern (White) Army and headed the Siberian Corps, created on the basis of the remaining troops of Kappel and Kolchak. In Primorye, Molchanov rearmed his fighters, replenished the regiments with volunteers from the local population, after which the corps became known as the Insurgent White Army. From Ussuriysk, Molchanov's army launched an offensive to the north, inflicting a number of significant defeats on the Red Far Eastern Army. On December 22, 1921, the Whites captured Khabarovsk and liberated almost all of the central Amur region and northern Primorye. The Molchonovists suffered their first defeat on February 12, 1922 from the superior forces of the Red Army near Volochaevka.
During the years of Soviet power, a museum was created on the June-Koran hill on the left bank of the Amur, near Khabarovsk. One of the most interesting expositions recreates the events of February 1922: the army of the red hero of the Civil War Vasily Blucher, having numerous superiority in manpower, with the support of artillery, tanks and armored trains, breaks through the defenses of the Whites. Sopka June-Koran and adjacent territories were occupied by the Izhevsk-Votkinsk division. She gave a chance to the rest of the White Guards, burdened with carts and families, to retreat beyond the Amur, in order to emigrate from Russia further, from Primorye, by sea or by land.
The division itself lost many fighters in those battles, but also put a lot of enemy manpower on the approaches to Volochaevka. Suffice it to say that the first regiment of Red Army soldiers who stormed the hill was completely destroyed. Commander Blucher had to urgently throw reserves into battle so that the Whites would not have time to bring ammunition from Khabarovsk. Since there were not enough cartridges, the Izhevsk people poured water on the slopes of the hill, creating an ice crust, and entangled everything with barbed wire. From the trenches they rose only in furious bayonet attacks. When Blucher's cavalry began to surround Volochaevka and the hill, Molchanov gave the order to retreat to Khabarovsk. From there, to the south, its units made their way with heavy fighting. The most violent clashes took place near the stations Rozengartovka and Bikin. By the way, all the Blucher regiments participating in them were awarded the Orders of the Red Banner.
In October 1922 fierce fighting began in Spassk. And again, the evacuation of the remnants of the White Army was covered by the Izhevsk-Votkinsk division under the command of General Molchanov. Of course, the Ural workers also protected their families, who were in a hurry to get out of Russia to China. On the morning of October 9, the Red troops went on the offensive along the entire front. After a short artillery preparation, they occupied the northern part of the city. By noon, four more forts were captured and the Whites withdrew to the last fortified line in the cement factory area. However, then, being under the threat of capture from the flanks, they were forced to leave Spassk ...
So the division of the Ural workers practically ceased to exist. She took only one more battle - on the border with China. In order for the convoy with women and children to have time to cross the border, the Urals rose in a bayonet attack against the Red Army commanded by Uborevich. Only a small number of surviving soldiers and officers, having retained the St. Andrew's banner, left Russia ...
Viktorin Mikhailovich Molchanov 
Permanent commander of the Izhevsk-Votkinsk division. He graduated from the Elabuga real and Moscow infantry cadet (later - Alekseevsky military) schools. He served in the Siberian sapper battalions in the Baikal region and in the village of Razdolny near Vladivostok. He did a lot of geodetic work in Primorye and Baikal. Member of the First World War. The end of the war found him on the Riga front in the position of an engineer of the army corps with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was wounded in both legs and was taken prisoner by the Germans. Ran. Returning to Yelabuga, he joined the White movement. At the end of the Civil War, together with several officers and the commander of the Zemstvo army, General Diterikhs, he left Vladivostok to the Korean border in Posyet. Here they were picked up by a squadron of ships of the Siberian Flotilla of Rear Admiral Georgy Stark. Victorin Molchanov emigrated to Korea, from there he moved to Manchuria. Some time later he left for the USA and settled near San Francisco. There he set up a chicken farm. During the years of the Great Patriotic War Molchanov supported fundraising in the United States to help the Red Army and the Soviet people who fought against fascism. Victorin Mikhailovich died in 1975.
Sources:
"The white commander walked under the red banner"
The spring offensive of the Kolchak army in 1919 could be safely called the Russian Spring - just like the events that played out in the Donbass 95 years later. The past year 1918 not only did not bring victory to the White Movement on the eastern front of the Civil War, but, on the contrary, left under the roar of Bolshevik victories. The Reds managed to completely expel the Whites from the Volga region, capture many cities in the Urals, defeat the Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising, forcing the rebel workers to retreat from their native factories and go beyond the Urals. The Whites, however, kept Ekaterinburg, where the investigation into the murder of the holy Royal Family continued - as if the Lord Himself wanted this investigation to be brought to an end without fail. The attempt of the anti-Bolshevik forces to create a unified all-Russian government in the Volga region, relying on the deputies of the Constituent Assembly dispersed by the Bolsheviks, also failed. After the capture of Ufa by the Reds, the "provisional all-Russian government" created there was forced to evacuate to Omsk, where there was its own, Siberian government, much more right. The result of the confrontation between the Siberians and the Directory, in which the monarchically-minded white officers intervened, was the coup on November 18 and the establishment of the military dictatorship of Admiral A.V. Kolchak, which I already had pleasure . Kolchak reorganized the army on a regular basis, significantly strengthened it through mobilizations and the call of volunteers, and somehow formed a more or less efficient headquarters from the human resources at his disposal. Now the question of the future of Russia had to be decided at the front. And in the spring of 1919, Kolchak's army managed at first to achieve such success that the Bolsheviks began to seriously fear for the strength of their power. The Russophobic and Christophobic regime established in Petrograd and Moscow by Lenin cracked under the blows of the Russian patriotic forces.Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the White Troops Admiral A.V. Kolchak
The main strategic idea for the spring campaign of 1919 initially consisted in advancing on Vyatka and further to the north-west to achieve a strong connection with the troops of the Northern Region of General E.K. Miller. In addition, the capture of Vyatka allowed the Whites to again "saddle" the Volga - an important transport artery. Thus, the possibilities of the Bolsheviks in supplying their armies were significantly reduced, while the possibilities of the Whites increased. The fact is that almost all the industrial centers of Russia were under the control of the Reds. In Siberia, industry at that time had not yet had time to develop as we see today. As a result, if the Reds had the opportunity to supply their troops with weapons and ammunition in an unlimited amount, then the Whites had only one opportunity in this regard - the help of the former allies in the Entente. But before Vladivostok, British and French ships with military supplies for Kolchak had to sail almost around everything. Earth Globe, and then it was also necessary to carry these goods along the only railway from Vladivostok to the west. Do I need to say how long this circuitous route took?
And there were already military supplies in the north. They were concentrated in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk during the First World War, under Nicholas II. When the Bolsheviks staged a coup and started negotiations with the Germans for a truce, the British and French hurried to occupy Arkhangelsk and Murmansk with their limited contingent and guard the warehouses with military equipment. Now Miller's army was fighting in the north of Russia, although not numerous, but ideologically close to Kolchak's army, headed by monarchist officers. The connection with the Millerites gave Kolchak the opportunity to immediately receive supplies from the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk warehouses, and later from the allies along the northern route, much shorter than Vladivostok. Moreover, from the side of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk in central regions Many railways went to Russia, and the Volga, if mastered, could serve as a transport artery.
The Kolchakites intended to strike an auxiliary blow in the center of their front - on Ufa. Subsequently, these plans became a reason for criticism of Kolchak for unjustified dispersion of forces. However, Andrei Kruchinin, reflecting on Kolchak's strategy, came to the conclusion that these accusations were initially false. In fact, Kolchak did not even think of "beating with outstretched fingers instead of a fist." The Kolchak headquarters kept to quite traditional operational approaches, planning one main and one auxiliary strike. It's just that the strike, which was originally planned as an auxiliary one - on Ufa - became the main one as the situation became clearer. If initially the Vyatka option seemed the most promising (for the reasons outlined above), then over time the Stavka came to the conclusion that it was expedient to concentrate the main efforts in the direction of Ufa and further to Simbirsk. And the attack on Vyatka automatically turned into an auxiliary one, designed to tie down the Bolshevik forces and protect the main strike force from a blow to the flank from the north.
There were reasons for such a transfer. Firstly, advancing on Ufa and Simbirsk, Kolchak kept under attack the Bolshevik capital - Moscow, which directly became his ultimate goal. Secondly, by the beginning of 1919, the Reds divided their forces almost equally between the northern (against Miller) and southern (against Denikin) operational directions. Khanzhin's army advancing on Ufa - Simbirsk, in fact, wedged between the two red groups, isolating them from each other and thereby facilitating the task of Denikin and Miller. Thirdly, it was easy to launch an offensive from the Ufa direction both to the North and to the South - if the situation required an early joining of forces with Miller or Denikin. In both cases, the Kolchakists would have found themselves in the rear of the Bolsheviks. Finally, fourthly, the Kolchak command was well aware of the Bolshevik terror unfolding in the Volga region. White Army not only attacked where the greatest success could be achieved with less resistance: at the February meeting in Chelyabinsk, Kolchak specifically emphasized that the offensive would develop in the direction "where help is needed"
General Hanzhin. It was he who, in the end, fell to deal the main blow.
in the spring campaign of 1919 on the Kolchak front.
In order to protect the advancing troops of Khanzhin from a blow to the flank (and at the same time - to try to break through to the military reserves and transport routes of the North), the Siberian Army of General Gaida was to advance on Vyatka-Kotlas and tie up the northern group of the Reds in battle. Thus, finally, a secondary direction became the main one, and the former main blow became an auxiliary one. The planning of the Kolchak Headquarters should be recognized as quite reasonable, and the idea underlying the offensive - realistic.
There was, however, an alternative idea. It was very actively promoted by Ataman A.I. Dutov, Baron Budberg just as actively advocated for her retroactively. The idea was to deliver the main blow in the direction of Tsaritsyn and further - to connect with Denikin's Volunteer Army. Kolchak's opponents later slandered that Kolchak deliberately left Denikin's army to bleed to evade unification - after all, in the event of such, according to these same critics, the "random people" who settled in Kolchak's headquarters would be immediately replaced by professionals from Denikin's army.
Enough has been said about the reasons that forced Kolchak to abandon the offensive in a southerly direction: in the south, Kolchak would have neither a place to concentrate a large military fist, nor the means of communication necessary to supply the army and bring in reinforcements. Alas, geography inexorably intervened in the plans of the white command, making it impossible to unite the forces of the two most powerful anti-Bolshevik groups. However, advancing on Ufa and Simbirsk, Kolchak simultaneously facilitated the task of Denikin - after all, his troops, firstly, went into the rear of the southern Bolshevik group, and secondly, pulled its forces against themselves.
White troops were divided into three armies. Siberian, under the command of R. Gaida, advancing on Vyatka, had 53 thousand fighters. That is, it outnumbered the opposing red group (about 47 thousand fighters). In the center is the Western Army of M.V. Khanzhina had 40 thousand people under arms, while the red group opposing them (Blumberg's 5th Army) numbered only 11 thousand fighters. Weak point Kolchak’s troops had a southern flank: in addition to undeveloped communications and treeless steppes, where it was impossible to concentrate reserves, there were only 14 thousand people, led by ataman Dutov, and as many as three Bolshevik armies numbering 36 thousand fighters opposed the Cossack general. In the event of the defeat of Dutov, these troops were able to outflank the advancing Khanzhin and hit him in the rear.
However, Kolchak took into account the weakness of the center of the Reds and the fact that their troops were exhausted by local battles. That's why he made a bet on Khanzhin. The calculation of Kolchak and his headquarters was based on the swiftness of the offensive. Go to the rear of the weakened 5th Red Army, cut it off from the center and defeat it - and then the Western Army broke out into operational space.
On March 4, 1919, Blumberg went on the offensive, unaware of the forces of the Kolchakites standing against him. On the same day, the Whites delivered a distracting blow to Sterlitamak, and 2 days later, on March 6, they began the main operation. Gaida, who launched an offensive against Vyatka, immediately ran into fierce resistance from the Reds - but this was also beneficial for White, because the main task of Gaida was precisely to tie down the enemy forces. At the same time, Khanzhin successfully broke through the thin front of the Reds, further upset by the unsuccessful offensive of Blumberg. His movement was swift - he put his infantry on a sled, taking advantage of the fact that the snow had not yet melted. On March 8, the Western Army occupied Birsk, and then turned south, covering Ufa from the west and cutting off the 5th Red Army from the rear. Panic arose in the ranks of the Reds. Blumberg, together with the RVS of the 5th Army, hastily left Ufa, and on March 14, White troops entered there. The Reds, as Pavel Zyryanov wrote, retreated so hastily that all their supplies went to the Whites, down to their overcoats and boots.
On the same day, March 14, the whites occupied the Chishma station. The threat of encirclement loomed over Bloomberg's army. Unfortunately, Khanzhin failed to block the Ufa-Sterlitamak highway in time, and most of the 5th Army escaped defeat. It was possible to encircle only a few regiments, which surrendered to the mercy of the winner in full force.
Kolchak's spring offensive
Delighted by the success, Khanzhin tried to repeat his maneuver to encircle the 5th Army, but the maneuver failed. And reinforcements numbering six regiments approached the Reds. With these forces, the Reds launched a counteroffensive, trying to return Ufa, and the fighting took on a protracted character. The arrival of the Izhevsk brigade, which on April 2 went on the offensive, helped to turn the tide for the Whites. On April 5, Sterlitamak was taken.
The 5th Bolshevik Army finally lost organization, its retreat took on a chaotic character. The Red Army soldiers surrendered en masse and ran to the Whites. Encouraged by success, Khanzhin led a further offensive in five directions at once - to Orenburg, Bugulma, Buzuluk, Belebey and Menzelinsk. This is where the insufficient military maturity of Kolchak's generals affected. It was from this moment that the white army really began to beat with outstretched fingers instead of a fist. Nevertheless, the Kolchakites continued to be successful.
On April 22, the whites, advancing on Orenburg, reached the line of the Salmysh River and began crossing, intending to cut the railway connecting Orenburg with Moscow. On April 7, Khanzhin's troops captured Belebey, an important transport hub on the Samara-Zlatoust railway. By April 14, the Western Army started fighting for Buguruslan. On April 15 Buguruslan was taken, Bugulma fell two days earlier. The road to Simbirsk opened before the Whites.
On April 21, the Western Army broke through to the Kama and captured Naberezhnye Chelny, where 18 ships and 47 barges became its prey. It was these successes of the Whites that made Lenin seriously worried, who realized that the Kolchakites were about to reach the Volga. On April 26, the Bolshevik leader telegraphed about the need to "help Chistopol." But on that day, Chistopol was already in the hands of the Whites.
Kolchak attack
Concerned about the success of the Whites, the Reds decided to abandon plans for a deep bypass of the advancing Kolchak troops by the forces of the 1st and 4th Turkestan armies with access to Chelyabinsk (I remind you: these armies were opposed by the numerically inferior and fairly battered army of Dutov). These two armies, under the general command of Frunze, were transferred significantly to the west - to Orenburg, for operations against the advancing troops of Khanzhin.
At this very time, Gaida's Siberian Army was engaged in protracted battles south of the Perm railroad. Nevertheless, here, too, some success accompanied White. On April 8, the Votkinsk plant was liberated from the Bolsheviks, on April 11 - Sarapul (a city in the Vyatka province). On April 13, the Whites liberated Izhevsk. The centers of anti-Bolshevik resistance in 1918 still waited for their deliverance. Alas, the rebels who returned to their homes often found that they had nowhere to return: having failed to surround and destroy rebel army, the Bolsheviks took revenge on civilians, having perpetrated bloody terror in recalcitrant cities.
And in the rear of the Reds multiplied peasant uprisings. Dissatisfied with the surplus appropriations and inspired by rumors about the successes of the whites, the peasants rose up against the robbery power of the newcomers. In the Sengilei and Syzran districts, numerous but poorly armed peasant detachments fought with the Bolshevik punishers, suffering severe defeats from them. But they pulled the forces of the Bolsheviks onto themselves, and pulled off a lot.
Thus, it can be argued that the initial planning of the spring campaign by the Kolchak Headquarters was not erroneous. And the commanders of the armies and corps of the Whites demonstrated the ability not only to persistently attack and vigorously develop the offensive, but also skillfully maneuver, make deep detours and envelopments. At the same time, Kolchak’s lack of experienced and truly competent command personnel, the inexperience of commanders who became such only directly during the Civil War, quickly led to the fact that a well-planned operation eventually degenerated into a rather chaotic improvisation. The White commanders, inspired by the lofty idea of the speedy liberation of the Fatherland, got carried away, made hasty decisions, sought to embrace the immensity - and as a result, the Reds avoided the final defeat. The blame for this lay not on Kolchak and not on his Headquarters.
Meanwhile, by mid-April 1919, spring came into its own. The snow melted, the roads became slushy, and the rivers began to overflow. The offensive of the white troops slowed down, and the ability to quickly transfer troops from one direction to another was sharply reduced. In the second half of April, each step was already taken by White with incredible difficulty. It became impossible to travel by sleigh, as in March. As a result, the Reds received a long-awaited respite and were able to pull up reserves along the railway and waterways.
Kolchakites on a halt.
Why did the "Russian spring" run out of steam in the east of Russia? Why was Kolchak's army, numbering more than 400 thousand bayonets and sabers in its ranks, unable to reach the Volga, despite the panic that had obviously seized the Bolsheviks?
As always, there are a whole range of reasons, and there is no need to blame everything on Kolchak's imaginary "mediocrity" or his no less imaginary inability to lead military operations on land. The first and most important reason was that, unlike the Reds, Kolchak did not have the opportunity to replenish his army with fresh reserves due to the peculiarities of the Siberian mentality - after all, his army relied primarily on Siberia. Siberian peasants lived largely with an anarchist worldview. Among them were many convicts, exiled settlers and their descendants. This peasantry did not want to bear the obligations, they did not want to send their people to the army, all the more. The power of the Bolsheviks in 1918 did not have time to spread over the boundless Siberian expanses and was overthrown by the Czechs. “The Bolsheviks didn’t flog us,” the peasants grumbled at the whites, not thinking about the fact that the Bolsheviks simply shot us for the slightest disobedience. The Reds, on the other hand, relied on the industrial regions, where they had no shortage of sympathizers among the workers, and the influx of reinforcements to the Red Army did not stop for a single day.
An important factor that predetermined White's defeat was partisan movement they have in the rear. The overwhelming majority of the Red partisans were not ideological Bolsheviks, or even just revolutionaries - for the most part, they were a criminal-anarchist element, which the Bolsheviks themselves had to actively fight against later. However, from the fronts of the Civil War, the partisan movement diverted significant forces (primarily troops Cossack atamans). According to the apt observation of P. Zyryanov, the peasants were reluctant to participate in any mobilization, but if it became completely impossible to evade, they preferred to join the partisans: the White Army is a campaign thousands of miles away from their native threshold with unknown prospects, and the partisans are always here, at hand , besides, they constantly brought into the house what they managed to loot in neighboring villages ... An additional incentive for the partisan struggle was the fact that Kolchak entrusted the protection of the rear to the troops of the Entente allies, which created the illusion of foreign occupation among the peasants. The peasants did not know about Kolchak's conflicts with the interventionists, about his intransigence towards them - but other people's uniforms loomed before their eyes daily, arousing irritation.
Czechoslovak Legionnaires in Siberia.
It was on them that Kolchak entrusted the functions of protecting his rear.
As practice has shown - erroneously.
Erroneous, according to Zyryanov - and here it is impossible not to agree with him - there were also some strategic decisions of the white command. In particular, after success was indicated in one of the directions, it was necessary to make this direction the main one, concentrating maximum efforts on it, and not disperse forces in five divergent directions, as Khanzhin did. Nor was time to be wasted trying to catch the Reds in a new "sack" after most of them had safely escaped from the first "sack". Having put up barriers against flank attacks, it was possible to throw all the forces into the Samara direction - and then, before the onset of the flood, it was quite realistic to go to the Volga and connect with Denikin. But Siberia was unlucky with people. The color of the imperial army turned out to be either in the White South (it was easier to get there from the Russian-German fronts than to Siberia), or among the Reds.
The White army did not have its own industrial base at its disposal. The main part of the military industry of the former Russian Empire was in the hands of the Reds. The Whites could only be supplied by supplies from the allies in the Entente. Much has been written about how these "allies" treated their allied duty, how they essentially sabotaged military supplies (receiving payment for them in pure gold) and should not be repeated here. Only for a very short time did the Whites succeed in capturing the Izhevsk and Votkinsk factories, but already in July they had to be ceded to the Reds again.
Kolchak never reached the Volga. And the storming of Moscow remained an unattainable dream for him. Nevertheless, his army managed to do a lot in March-April 1919. Significant territories were cleared of the Bolsheviks (according to Alexander Samsonov, 5 million people lived in these territories in total), on which firm power was immediately established on a solid legal basis, and economic, social and religious life intensified. The peasantry, crushed by the Bolshevik terror and the requisitioners, rose to the struggle, freeing themselves from the dope of revolutionary propaganda. This was largely facilitated by the statements of the Kolchak government on the land issue. Andrey Kruchinin convincingly refuted the widespread opinion in modern Russian historiography that Kolchak postponed the solution of the land issue until the Constituent Assembly, as a result of which the sympathies of the peasants leaned towards Bolshevik propaganda. In reality, Kolchak repeatedly stated that he respected the property rights in relation to the peasants and that the white government finally decided to transfer the land to those who cultivate it. As the events in the Sengiley and Syzran districts show, the peasants believed.
The Kolchakites also managed to achieve certain military successes. As A. Samsonov points out, White broke through the red Eastern front, inflicted a serious defeat on the 5th Soviet Army and badly battered parts of the 2nd Soviet Army. The Bolsheviks had to transfer their strategic reserves against Kolchak, which greatly facilitated the position of Denikin in the South of Russia, allowed the Volunteer Army to inflict a number of strategically important defeats on the Reds and ultimately launch their own offensive against Moscow. These successes could have been more significant if more literate and less emotional people were at the head of Kolchak's formations. A good idea from the beginning was ruined by a lack of reserves, an offensive along diverging operational directions, and a spring thaw that disrupted communications between units.
1. THE DESTRUCTION OF KOLCHAK'S SOUTHERN ARMY
By the time of the October Revolution, Russian Turkestan was no longer such a backward part of the country as during the childhood of Mikhail Frunze.
The Orenburg-Tashkent railway was already completely completed and continued deep into the Ferghana Valley, far beyond Kokand; the Semirechenskaya line Tashkent - Pishpek was under construction. Ties with Central Russia grew stronger and stronger.
With the help of Russian revolutionary organizations, the working people of Turkestan fought against the bourgeois-landlord system, against their feudal lords - khans, bais and beks ... Their own Turkestan proletariat was quickly born.
Shortly before the Great October Revolution, in the summer and autumn of 1916, spontaneous uprisings against tsarism broke out in a number of regions of Turkestan, and the February Revolution of 1917 caused a great upsurge of the broad masses of the people.
The Turkestan bourgeoisie tried in November 1917 to revive the nationalist "Kokand autonomy" with a focus on England. But this idea was thwarted by revolutionary forces. In December 1917, a regional congress of workers' and soldiers' deputies met in Tashkent. He elected the Council People's Commissars Turkestan region. Soon the region was proclaimed the Turkestan Soviet Federative Republic.
The riches of the Turkestan region are enormous. Alpine pastures of the mountains are richly fed by numerous flocks of cattle, herds of excellent horses. The most fertile land of the oases repays the labor applied to it with millions of poods of cotton and rice. Mulberry groves and orchards turn into bales of superb silk. And many centuries ago, cities of amazing beauty, palaces, mausoleums, mosques were built from loess that is malleable for processing ...
The riches of the bowels of Turkestan are inexhaustible - from coal to oil, from ceresites to uranium ores, from marble to precious metals.
It is not surprising that foreign colonizers have long looked at the Turkestan region with lust.
In July 1918, a significant group of British troops under the command of General Malleson, with the help of the nationalist bourgeoisie, counter-revolutionary officers and Social Revolutionaries, invaded Soviet Turkestan. In Ashgabat, Kzyl-Arvat, Krasnovodsk and other cities of the Transcaspian region, Soviet power temporarily fell.
Soviet Turkestan government and command Soviet troops immediately, to repulse the enemies, they formed the Trans-Caspian Front. A months-long, very difficult struggle began on two fronts: in the north of Turkestan - against Kolchakism, in the south - against the interventionists.
Kolchak's temporary successes inspired the counter-revolutionary forces and complicated the position of the Soviet government in Turkestan. The region was teeming with detachments of Basmachi, that is, either simply bandits or counter-revolutionary rebels who followed the mullahs and beks under the slogan of "holy war".
The interventionists made their main bet on two the largest feudal lords, which were still preserved within the borders of Turkestan: on the emir of Bukhara Seid-Alim, who retained power over Bukhara (including the territories of present-day Tajikistan), as well as on the Khiva dictator - adventurer Bek Junaid. But the hatred of the peoples of Turkestan for the interventionists and counter-revolution was so great that, despite all the enormous difficulties and hardships, despite being isolated from the center, the Turkestan Soviet Republic did not lay down its arms, resisted all enemies throughout 1918-1919.
After the victories won by the Soviet troops under the command of Frunze, Kolchak's retreating army was divided into northern and southern groups. There was a need to divide the armies of the Eastern Front into two directions: Eastern and Turkestan, it became possible to lend a helping hand to Soviet Turkestan.
Just for this, Lenin proposed the creation of a special, Turkestan front, the command of which, at his own suggestion, was entrusted to a native of Kyrgyzstan, M.V. Frunze.
At the same time, Frunze was introduced to the commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Central Committee of the RCP (b) for Turkestan affairs, with the broadest political powers.
During these days, Frunze involuntarily worried about the family that remained on the territory captured by the enemy.
While Mikhail Vasilyevich was the commander of the 4th Army and the Southern Group of the Eastern Front, the danger for his mother and loved ones to be in the hands of the “black admiral” Kolchak as hostages or direct victims was somewhat less. It was not immediately possible to guess, to sniff out the Kolchak bloodhounds, that the red commander Frunze-Mikhailov was the son of a modest Vernensky resident - Mavra Efimovna Frunze.
But when Mikhail Frunze, by the will of the party and the Soviet state, became the commander of the Turkestan Front, and the news of this undoubtedly reached the most remote corners of Kolchak, that is, places that were still accessible to the "supreme ruler", it is not difficult to understand how much the threat to life and the safety of his mother, sisters, brother Konstantin ...
As it turned out later, Kolchak's emissary in Semirechye, ataman Annenkov, really found out about the relationship of Mavra Efimovna with the red commander Frunze and tried to organize a search for her in order to capture her as a hostage. It cost Mavra Efimovna a lot of work, with the help of friends and acquaintances, for some time to hide from Kolchak agents, being in a kind of underground.
Mikhail Vasilyevich was not mistaken in assuming the possibility of all this. And although he did his best to hide from those around him, even from the closest employees at the headquarters of the front, his anxiety about the fate of his mother, sisters and brother, nevertheless, no, no, and this natural human feeling broke through.
The situation that developed by the end of the summer of 1919 imperiously demanded close interaction between the fronts: the Eastern one, which completely moved to Siberia, where Kolchak was still trying to hold on and gain a foothold; Turkestansky, against whom the Ural, Orenburg and Semirechensk White Cossacks acted; Southern, holding back the onslaught of the main forces of Denikin, rushing to Moscow; West, where the White Poles captured Minsk and Borisov.
The Entente was now leading against Soviet Republic second trip. This time, the main stake was placed on General Denikin, who bore the title of "Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia."
Denikin's base was the North Caucasus, Don, Crimea, the southern part of Ukraine. Dreaming of "supreme" power himself, Denikin began his offensive later than Kolchak demanded, just when the retreat of the "black admiral" had already begun. Now the reinforcements of the Entente went mainly to Denikin. Military and diplomatic representatives of England and France were seconded to Denikin's headquarters. The first stage of Denikin's actions proceeded successfully for him. At the end of July, he was already approaching the central regions of Russia.
However, on his right flank, Denikin could not boast of success. His so-called Caucasian army operated here under the command of the notorious General Wrangel. She was opposed by the Astrakhan group of Soviet troops, where S. M. Kirov was a member of the RVS. After the formation of the independent Turkestan Front, this group was renamed the 11th Army, which became subordinate to Frunze.
The White Army of Wrangel, on the instructions of Denikin, was to defeat the 11th Soviet Army of the Turkestan Front, occupy Astrakhan and connect with the Ural Kolchak White Cossack Army of Tolstov, which occupied the lower reaches of the Ural River and the area adjacent to the Caspian Sea.
But no matter how hard the whites tried to approach Astrakhan, they did not succeed: each time they were severely beaten at Cherny Yar, the impregnable outpost of the 1st Army.
“As long as there is at least one communist in Astrakhan, the mouth of the Volga was, is and will be Soviet,” said Kirov.
On September 3, Frunze personally went to the 11th Army and stayed there until September 10. Together with Kuibyshev and the army command, he checked the troops in the most important areas and led the preparation of the offensive against the Denikin-Wrangel forces.
On September 23, 1919, an avant-garde uniting of the troops of the 10th Army (whose headquarters was near Saratov) and the 11th Army (whose headquarters was in Astrakhan) took place. The threat of capturing the lower reach of the Volga and especially its forcing was repelled.
But one should not forget about the main tasks of the Turkestan Front - the liberation of Kazakhstan and Turkestan.
Frunze closely followed the behavior of the enemy in Turkestan. It was necessary to get ahead of the active actions of the White Guard command in this direction as well.
The 1st Army of the Turkestan Front, having launched an offensive, smashed the Kolchak Southern Army, which was blocking the path to Turkestan.
Towards the 1st Army from Turkestan, on the orders of Frunze, the Special Kazaly Group of Forces moved with battle from the Aral Sea, to the north-west, along the railway, attacking the Whites from the rear.
The 4th Army of the Turkestan Front carried out an equally important task set by Frunze - to capture the Ural region and the entire course of the Ural River to the Caspian Sea.
Fulfilling Lenin's advice, Frunze skillfully combined bold, quick and resolute fighting troops with extensive agitation and propaganda, explanatory work among the enemy troops. The hardened Bolshevik Frunze knew the value of a living, truthful word - a word that sinks into a person's soul, he well understood the importance of the moral factor in war.
Often red-star planes took off into the air with many thousands of printed leaflets. Slowly swaying in the air, they flew down to the quiet Cossack villages, fields, copses, steppes, river reeds, ravines and ravines, to the location of the White Cossack and Kolchak regiments. White soldiers and Cossacks hurriedly caught leaflets, hid them from officers.
In simple and clear words, the leaflets told about the defeats of Kolchak, about the intrigues of the interventionists, about the strength of the Red Army, about the hopelessness of further resistance by the Whites. The leaflets announced complete forgiveness to all the Cossacks who went over to the side of the Red Army. Each Cossack who read such a leaflet could calmly cross the front line and surrender to the Soviet soldiers without fear for their fate.
“You can be immediately released at your choice to go home to your family and household, or, if you wish, be enlisted in the Red Army with the honorary title of “Red Cossack” ...” the leaflets read.
The White Guard officers were unable to prevent this agitation from the air. The Cossacks read the leaflets, their meaning easily reached the minds of thousands of people who were forcibly involved in the White Guard adventure.
But well written! - discussed the bearded Orenburg Cossacks, yearning for peace, home, family, household, but being led farther and farther from their native places by their unfortunate chieftains, to the Orsk-Aktobe steppe, under the incessant onslaught of the Red Army.
The crossings of the Cossacks through the battle line became more frequent, their surrender to the Soviet command with the presentation of an "air amnesty" - leaflets compiled under the personal supervision of Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze.
On September 13, the brilliant offensive of the 1st Army ended with the complete defeat of the entire Southern Army Kolchak. At the Mugodzharskaya station, a meeting took place between the troops of the 1st Army and units marching from Turkestan. This meeting was joyful, especially for the soldiers of Turkestan. The small steppe station of Mugodzharskaya has never heard such a powerful Russian "hurrah" in honor of the Red Army, the Soviet Republic and its leader Lenin.
“We have now received a message about the connection of troops
1st Army with Turkestan. From Chelkar, a train with the wounded arrived in Aktobe, which indicates the integrity of this section of the railway line. The troops of the Turkestan Front congratulate you and the Republic on this good news.”
The answer to this new great victory was the decision of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense, issued at the suggestion of Lenin and signed by him. On behalf of the Defense Council, all commanders and Red Army men of the Turkestan Front were thanked.
K. E. Voroshilov, evaluating the operation performed by Frunze, wrote:
“The operation he conceived and then brilliantly carried out to reunite the small revolutionary army of Turkestan, cut off and suffocating in the grip of the enemy encirclement, with the victorious units of the Eastern Front only confirmed and finally strengthened the reputation and glory of a true commander for Mikhail Vasilyevich ...”
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In January 1919, the 17,000-strong 4th Army, created from peasant partisan detachments, having defeated the Cossacks and taken Uralsk, rapidly began to decompose. Nobody wanted to go into the winter steppe to storm the bristling villages. Attempts to curb them with "communist discipline" troops responded with riots. 2 regiments of the Nikolaev division rebelled, killed the commissars. They were joined by an armored train team, supported by the peasants of the Novo-Uzensky district. A member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the army Lindov, members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Republic of Mayorov and Myagi, who came to restore order, were shot. In such circumstances, Frunze took command. He assessed the situation and forgave the rebels. He left the murder of representatives of the central government and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the army without consequences! He didn’t even appoint an investigation, reporting to the top that the main culprits had already fled! He simply weighed two possibilities - that in the event of repressions, the rebellious units would rush to the White Cossacks and pull the rest after them, and on the other hand, the crazed regiments, suspended in uncertainty, would happily seize the opportunity for an amnesty. And he sent an order to the Nikolaev division: “Wash away the crime against the Soviet government with your blood.” The division remained in service. In a few days, Frunze traveled around the battlefields clinging to housing, flashed at rallies with the art of an agitator - he had no shortage of experience. He took part in small skirmishes, appeared with a rifle in chains - and popularity was won. And then he began to clean up the freemen to his hands. He mixed parts of different divisions, making two groups out of them, the Ural and Aleksandrov-Gai. And in February, the frosts barely subsided, he launched an offensive. The Alexandrov-Gai group of Chapaev took the large village of Slomikhinskaya, the Ural group - Lbischensk.
The way to Turkestan was opened again. The troops were aiming at Guryev in order to press the Cossacks to the Caspian Sea, to the deserted sands, and finish them off. In connection with the party's program for "decossacking" Frunze was given all possible support. New units for the 4th Army were formed in Samara, sent from his “patrimony” of Ivanovo-Voznesensk (under the pretext that the weavers who were out of work should themselves make their way to the Turkestan cotton). The shock 25th division under the command of Chapaev was re-formed, which was planned to move to Orenburg in order to finally defeat Dutov. Frunze also drew attention to several derelict regiments that had broken through during the previous offensive from Turkestan. He did not begin to distribute them among his formations, but decided to create a new Turkestan army on their basis. And he achieved the appointment of commander of the Southern Group of two armies.
While this group, building up its forces, launched an offensive to the south, and Blumberg's 5th Army was preparing for another strike to the east, the day of Kolchak's general offensive was approaching. In the literature, you can find a different number of his troops - and 300, and 400, and even 700 thousand. All these figures are not true. Sometimes they were deliberately inflated with white propaganda. Even if we take into account the payroll of the rear garrisons, headquarters, training teams, police, Cossack chieftains who do not want to obey anyone, all the same, these figures will remain overestimated. And at the front, by the beginning of March, Kolchak had 137.5 thousand people, 352 guns, 1361 machine guns. The 6 armies of the Eastern Front opposing him numbered 125 thousand people, 422 guns, 2085 machine guns, that is, the advantage in manpower was negligible, and the White Guards were inferior to the enemy in armament.
Another tragic feature of the Eastern Front should be noted. Unlike the South of Russia, Kolchak had no advantage over the Reds as an army. In 1917 - 1918. all the best officers rushed south, to Kornilov and Alekseev. And from the moment of the Czechoslovak rebellion until November 18, it was easier to get from the center of Russia to the Don to the Kuban through neutral Ukraine than to Siberia through the front. In the east, people gathered largely random, spontaneously joined the liberation uprising or fell under the mobilization. Of the 17,000 officers in Kolchak's army, only about 1,000 were regulars. The rest are, at best, storerooms and ensigns of wartime production, at worst, of dubious production of “founding houses”, directories and regional governments. The acute shortage of officers was made up by youngsters who had not been shot at, putting on shoulder straps after a six-week course - pure in soul, but having nothing at all behind this soul and not able to do anything at all.
In the photo: A.V. Kolchak rewards the soldiers of his army
A galaxy of prominent generals gathered in the south. There was an excess of military leaders, for example, such major military figures as Lukomsky, Dragomirov were sitting in civilian positions. Kutepov, Wrangel, Erdeli, Pokrovsky and many others held administrative positions for a long time or were in the reserve command. In the east, not only talented, but simply competent military leaders were lacking. Kolchak himself could only be a banner; he was poorly versed in land strategy and tactics. And around him, the commanding heights were occupied by those who were put forward or accidentally carried up to the top by the White Rebel movement. For example, Kolchak's chief of staff (in fact, the first person under the sailor-in-chief) turned out to be Captain Lebedev, just a Kornilov courier to Siberia, who crawled into the generals under changing governments. Yes, and many corps and divisions were commanded by lieutenant generals, who proved themselves, at best, to be good commanders of semi-partisan detachments during the liberation of Siberia and the Urals. This was at a time when a staff of General Staff military experts was placed in command and staff positions in every Bolshevik army.
In the south, the strong backbone of the army was made up of "nominal" officer units - Markov, Drozdov, Kornilov, Alekseev, soldered by common traditions, victories and losses. There were none in the East. The newly created regiments and divisions had neither a common past nor a strong bond. The strongest and most combat-ready units of Kolchak were the Izhevsk and Botkin regiments from the rebel workers of these cities. strike force the south was the Cossacks. But Cossack troops were too different. Don - 2.5 million Cossacks, Kuban - 1.4 million, Terskoe - 250 thousand. The Eastern Cossack troops were small in number, did not have such deep traditions as their older brothers, and each pulled in its own direction. Amur (40 thousand) and Ussuri (34 thousand) got bogged down in the internal war of Primorye. Ataman Kalmykov ruled there, ignoring the Supreme Power. The larger Trans-Baikal (250,000) sat at the hand of Semyonov, who openly did not recognize Kolchak. Again, there was a war going on there - part of the Cossacks recoiled from the self-styled chieftain and created red detachments. More or less supported by the Siberian Cossacks (170 thousand). Semirechenskoye (45 thousand) was entirely occupied by the war for its own backyard. The largest was the Orenburg army (500 thousand), but there the Bashkirs also entered the Cossack estate, squinting either in the direction of Dutov, or in the direction of the traitor Validov. The Ural Cossacks (170 thousand) fought bravely, but fought on their own, the connection with them was weak.
In such conditions, the two forces were preparing for confrontation. In December, Kolchak had every chance to defeat the loose red front, as Perm did, but then he did not yet have a sufficient army. By February, the draconian measures of Stalin and Dzerzhinsky had strengthened the northern flank. The decomposed southern flank, no doubt, could still be easily crushed. But the betrayal of Validov's corps, the loss of Ufa, Orenburg, and Uralsk forced them to postpone the offensive for a month. By March, when the offensive began, the 40,000-strong Frunze group was already hanging on the southern flank near Kolchak and was getting stronger and stronger. By the beginning of spring, the Siberian army of Gaida, about 50 thousand people, was deployed in the Perm region, with a strike directed at Izhevsk - Glazov - Vyatka. To the south, the Western army of M.V. Khanzhin in 43 thousand with the direction of Ufa - Samara. The 14,000-strong Cossack Southern Group of Gen. Belova, and a Separate Cossack army Dutov, 15 thousand people. The Volga Corps of Kappel remained in reserve with Kolchak.
In literature, and not only red, but also white, there is a very slippery legend about the wrong choice of the direction of the main attack. About the fact, they say, that the northern direction was mistakenly chosen out of rivalry with Denikin in order to get ahead of him in the capture of Moscow. It is even alleged that the direction of the main attack was chosen from the rivalry between the British and the French. The British, they say, pulled Kolchak to the north, to join with their Arkhangelsk group, and the French to the south - to their protege Denikin. This version is pure nonsense. It was born in the white camp by Kolchak's political opponents, and the Reds picked it up and developed it in order to make a more caricature of the white generals, ready even to cut each other's throats.
It is very easy to refute this version. Firstly, both directions were considered equivalent, and the main thing was still not the north, but the south. Secondly, the zones of British “interests” were closer in the south, in Petrovsk (Makhachkala) and Baku, while the north was not included in the state British “interests” in any way, they simply did not know how best to get rid of it. And by this time Denikin was in a disgusting relationship with the French because of their policy in Odessa, unwillingness to help the Don and flirting with Petliura. Thirdly, the version of rivalry deliberately confuses different periods war. In March, Denikin did not have to think about any Moscow, with a 60,000-strong army, he barely kept the flanks from more than 200,000 Bolshevik groups that had fallen from Ukraine and from Tsaritsyn. Therefore, the only form of mutual assistance turned out on the part of Denikin - to draw more red forces onto himself, and on the part of Kolchak - to take advantage of this.
And finally, learning from experience civil war, we can conclude that the uniform distribution of forces in several directions was ... correct. Maybe by accident, but correct. The strategy of the civil war is very different from the classical one, and success was determined not only by the arithmetic ratio of troops, but also by a host of other factors - moral, political, economic, etc., which could not be taken into account in advance. The original Kolchak offensive plan in several directions can be considered correct. If only the command had guessed to act correctly as it developed!
The operation of the Siberian army began. On March 4, Pepelyaev's corps crossed the Kama ice between the cities of Osa and Okhansk. To the south, Verzhbitsky's corps launched an offensive. They penetrated the defenses of the 2nd Red Army, and on March 8 both cities were taken. For 7 days of stubborn fighting, the Bolsheviks retreated 90-100 km, but the breakthrough failed. After the work of the "Stalin-Dzerzhinsky Commission", the quantitative and qualitative strengthening of the front, the Reds here were no longer the same as in December. Retreating, they retained the integrity of the front and combat readiness.
Almost simultaneously, on March 5, near Ufa, the 5th Red Army of Blumberg tried to go on the offensive. It was poked at random by two divisions, the 26th and 27th (about 10 thousand people in both), which also subdivided into big city, - and ran into Khanzhin's entire army, which was preparing to strike. And, of course, so received that only the dust went. The Reds ran. And the next day, Khanzhin went on the offensive. This was one of the best commanders of Kolchak, at least a real, not fake lieutenant general who advanced during the years of the world war. True, he was not a drill commander, but a staff commander - he used to head the main artillery department. But all the same, Khanzhin stood out favorably against the general background of the Siberian precocious commanders.
His strike group, under the command of Gen. Golitsyn from the 2nd Ufa Corps (17 thousand) and the 3rd Ural Corps of the gene. Boytsekhovsky (9 thousand) attacked the Reds north of Ufa and broke through the front, completing the defeat of the 5th Army. The 6th Ural Corps of Gen. Bitch (10 thousand). The Bolsheviks took to flight. Communication between the army headquarters and the troops was broken. On March 10, the Whites occupied Birsk, followed by Menzelinsk, reaching the Kama and cutting the red Eastern Front in two.
The breakthrough also went south of Ufa. There was an encirclement that threatened to destroy the entire 5th Army. Gen group. Belova occupied Sterlitamak, cutting off railway communication with Ufa from the south. The 4th Ural Mountain Rifle Division went to the station. Chishmy, cutting off the city from the east. Escaping from the ring, the headquarters of the 5th Army, led by Blumberg, on 12.03 left Ufa and fled, giving the order to the troops to withdraw to the line of the river. Chermasan, 100 km to the east. We tried to get on the st. Chishma, but it was clogged with traffic jams from trains and convoys, panic reigned. Throwing everything they could, the Red Army men rolled down the road. The front command canceled Blumberg's order to withdraw, gave the directive to return and defend Ufa to the last drop of blood. However, there was no connection between the parts. The remnants of the 5th Army scattered, fleeing the steppes, without roads, to the south and east.
This loss of control helped the Reds avoid complete annihilation. When the encirclement closed, it contained only a mass of property, weapons and supplies. In the same way, the second ring near the village of Repyevka slammed shut for nothing. The Bolsheviks fled so swiftly that no maneuvers and forced marches could any longer capture them in pincers. On March 14, White troops occupied Ufa without a fight, losing only about 100 people during the operation. On the southern flank, the 4th Red Army was defeated. Again, for the umpteenth time, the Ural Cossacks unanimously took up drafts and rebelled against the “antichrists”. The victorious procession to Guryev choked. 2 presumptuous regiments were defeated. Cossacks under the command of Gen. Tolstov moved to Uralsk.
Meanwhile, discrepancies quickly began to accumulate among these victories. A separate Cossack army of Dutov approached Orenburg and got stuck under it. The Cossacks and Bashkirs, mostly cavalry, were unsuitable for the siege and assault of fortified positions. And the command could not tear them away from their own “capital”, let them go to a more promising direction, agreeing with their desire to first liberate “their” land. Dutov's direction was automatically attached to Khanzhin's army: Sterlitamak - Beloretsk Plant. The southern Cossack group of Belov was pulled back to cover the gap between parts of Khanzhin, Dutov and Tolstov. As a result, at the very beginning of the offensive, the huge advantage of the Whites in the cavalry was lost. Instead of entering the gap and moving in raids along the red rear, all the white cavalry forces were tied up with a task that was completely overwhelming and unusual for the cavalry - the siege of Orenburg and Uralsk. And Khanzhin's corps, pursuing the Reds, began to fan out across the endless steppes, losing contact with each other.
In the photo: Sitting in the front row (from left to right): the first is the commander of the 1st Volga Corps, General V.O. Kappel, the third - the commander of the Western Army, General M.V. Khanzhin, the fourth - Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General D.A. Lebedev.
The success was complete, the front was destroyed. This is where the Western army would be strengthened at the expense of the Siberian. But the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, headed by Lebedev, missed even such a possibility. The Bolshevik command was already considering plans and sent out directives to the armies on a general withdrawal beyond the Volga ... And again the month-long delay in the offensive had an effect. Spring thaw broke out, and the planned breakthrough to Samara got stuck in seas of liquid mud. The muddy steppe slowed down both the victorious march of the Whites and the stampede of the Reds.
They continued to beat the Bolsheviks. As soon as they tried to remove part of the forces from the northern flank to plug the holes, the Siberian army struck again. 10.04 she took Sarapul, 13.04 - Izhevsk. A white flotilla with a landing force entered the mouth of the Kama. And Khanzhin's army still won one victory after another. In early April, Bugulma and Belebey fell. The city of Chistopol at the mouth of the Kama was occupied - the whole river turned white. Kolchakites went to the Volga. Kazan was under threat. In two directions, the Whites approached Samara. From the northeast, Voitsekhovsky's corps occupied the city of Sergiopol, 100 km from it. From the east, Sukin's corps and the cavalry corps of Gen. Bakich (17 thousand sabers) started heavy battles near the city of Buguruslan with the forces of the 1st and Turkestan red armies. They broke them, throwing them to the south. One of the best on the front, the 24th Iron Division lost half of its artillery, was demoralized and retreated in complete panic ... But the Frunze grouping remained aloof from the main attack and now threatened from the flank of Khanzhin's army, which had stretched communications.
Based on the materials of the book by V. E. Shambarov - "White Guard".
