An amazing thing is the observation of the Civil War. Parallel after parallel.
Despite the fact that the Kyiv authorities are desperately trying to call their aggression in the Donbass the Patriotic War, and the Donetsk militias the “Russian” army, it is clear to an unbiased observer that a Civil War is going on.
And as in any Civil War, faces appear on the stage of hostilities that no one knew yesterday. Back in the fall of 2013, Strelkov was Girkin, and Semenchenko was a swindler. Who knew them? And today, the newly-minted "Frunze" and "Gritian-Taurian" are heard by every Russian and Ukrainian.
Where do they come from? And, most importantly, where do they go?
The son of an innkeeper and a failed theologian Murat... Shot.
The son of a cooper and a scribe of a notary Ney ... Shot.
A Cossack from a poor family, a cornet Semyonov… Hanged.
A nobleman, lieutenant Lazo... Burnt in a locomotive firebox.
Of course, there are those who survived wars and repressions. Klim Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny are perhaps the most striking examples. Moreover, despite the post-Soviet legends that the “red marshals” were outdated by 1941, both Voroshilov and Budyonny fought quite well. So, on the front of the actions of the German army group "North", which Voroshilov opposed just, the Nazis did not manage to encircle large parts of the North-Western Front. Moreover, it was precisely under the leadership of Soviet troops that, for the first time in the war, they surrounded the 56th German corps of the famous Manstein near Luga in the summer of 1941. The Germans then broke out, at the cost of huge losses. Such losses that they never managed to take Leningrad right off the bat.
And who is Voroshilov against Manstein? A locksmith against a hereditary military man? Of course, it is unprofessional to attribute all the merits / failures to only one commander. Who, apart from stubborn fans, will now remember the chiefs of staff and quartermasters? But the outcome of a particular operation depends on them no less, if not more.
However, we are talking about the Civil War. And there are some other laws. When you don’t have prepared warehouses behind you, and all the reserves are from prisoners and peasants from the captured village, it’s not only the chief of staff who has to think.
Do you know that officers are divided into two categories?
There are "peacetime" officers. Their borders are painted, their uniforms are ironed, the soldiers' boots shine like a cat's household, there is always a fresh wall newspaper and there is not a speck of dust in the barracks. Parade battalion, simple. At least now under the cameras. Only here with the standards for shooting the fighters are not very good. Once on the shooting range to run.
But for officers of "wartime" the opposite is true. If there is an excellent result at the shooting range, then the soldiers walk around like buffoons. Yes, and the officer himself is always filthy - in the box at the BMP, he rubs along with the repairmen. Yes, and with a family like that, not everything is fine - he always spends the night in a disposition. And also drunk. No, everyone gets drunk, there is no need for hypocrisy. Only now “Peace” is exclusively for toasts and at the table, and “Military” is on the run and under stew.
And in peacetime, the first in letters and thanks, and the second in penalties. But when the war starts...
The "military" officer lives in war. He dreams of her, although he has never seen her. He is preparing for it, realizing that the term of life given to him by the Motherland is from five minutes to five days, depending on the position.
And there are also "military" civilians. I mean, they're not professional soldiers. They once served, or maybe not. But they live in readiness for war. They drink too much, break up, adrenaline prevents them from living. They cannot live peacefully.
But this is where it starts...
Who was Grigory Kotovsky at the very beginning of his journey?
Ordinary agronomist. Only after a muddy, incomprehensible story - where the landowner, for whom Grisha worked, accused him of theft and adultery with his wife - did he become the Bessarabian Robin Hood.
He robbed only the rich, he did not touch the poor.
But wait, what's the point of robbing the poor? Grigory Ivanovich was Napoleon in life. He was not interested in a pot of hominy from a peasant. He wanted to live well - in the sense, beautifully! And only the rich can be beautiful. They are the ones that need to be robbed. And even then, in the zero years of the twentieth century, it was fashionable to be political. Just like now - "I am for people's power, and not anyhow!". It is said that Kotovsky shared with the poor the loot from local oligarchs. Of course he shared. He wasn't a fool. Do you share with the poor? So they will give you shelter, and the police will not be told where he went. They will look at the constable with honest eyes, and send him in the other direction. I mean, in another forest, and not where the spoiled reader thought.
An adventurer, a grunt, a dashing and gambling kid with fun in his eyes - all life is a dashing game! An admirer of Pushkin, following the example of Dubrovsky, entering a rich house and taking out a revolver, smiled: "Everyone is calm, I am Kotovsky." That's right, through a theatrical pause: "I am Kotovsky!" Real Cat: he played with power with his paw, sometimes releasing his claws. He seemed to mock the police and the gendarmerie. Did he like the expression anarcho-communist? Excellent! Let's be anarcho-communists! And what is this woman? Vera Cold? And bring it here, I'll warm it up! And after all, he himself warmed up to the point that he played with her in the film. Alas, the film did not survive.
We will return to Grigory Ivanovich, Moses Volfovich Vinnitsky is waiting for us.
Another key figure in the Civil War in Odessa.
Alas, his life path is so covered with myths and legends of the lowest kind that the very personality of Mishka Yaponchik turned into an operetta Harlequin. In general, this is the tragedy of Odessa - the gangster Moldavanka became its face, and the language invented by filmmakers turned into a poster. Well, they don’t sing blatnyachok here at every step and the boater went out of fashion in the eighteenth century of the twentieth. Boaters lovers were shot.
So, Mishka Yaponchik, or rather just Musya then, at the age of ten he went to work in a mattress workshop. Until the age of 14, he managed to get the profession of an electrician - it's like a system administrator now - and even managed to finish four classes of the gymnasium. Only in the year 5, when he was 14, he joined the Jewish self-defense unit. Yes, he did not return to the factory. I must say that Jewish society was, like Russian, heterogeneous. Rich Jews studied to be lawyers and doctors, while the poor were begging. The pogroms targeted the poor. This is where Jewish self-defense came into being.
After the freemen-revolution, I no longer wanted to work, young adrenaline seethed in my blood and hit my head no worse than sex hormones. Of course, he was taken into custody. Like Kotovsky. They say they met in the cell.
Only in the summer of 1917, after Kerensky released the amnesty and criminal and part of the political ones, Mishka became Yaponchik. He put together, at first, a small gang. He started with roaring robberies under the brand name "Revolution" and "Freedom". He also robbed, only the rich - and what can you take from a shoemaker from Moldavanka? “Oh, “Rostislav” and “Almaz” for the republic! Our battle motto is to cut the audience!” The public was then called the rich. Those who could go to restaurants and theaters. I will keep silent about the cinematograph - it was quite expensive at first. It was under the Bolsheviks that cinema became accessible, as unlimited Internet is now.
For charity, Mishka also did not forget - the Moldovan woman was fed from his hand. They say that he was afraid of blood? Those who were afraid of blood did not live long in those days. Mishka didn't have to take so long, but if he hadn't shot himself, he wouldn't have survived. There are different legends.
They say that at the time of its heyday - in the summer of 1918 - the gang of Mishka Yaponchik was already 20 thousand fighters. Bigger than Al Capone's gang. Why, Al Capone, and now this record is not broken. Well, except perhaps the Colombian cartels - but who counted them? And who counted the Mishka fighters?
It is known that in the summer of 1919, in the 54th Infantry Soviet Ukrainian Regiment named after. V.I. Lenin included from 1000 to 2000 Mishka bandits. Plus, about seven hundred more students, who generally have a plug in every hole. And what is the result? After the second battle, this army simply fled.
And Mishka Yaponchik was shot by stern red commissars. Namely, Commissioner Feldman - whose name Primorsky Boulevard once bore. Misha was 28 years old. Goldfinch.
But the gangster Grishka "Birch" Kotovsky turned out to be an order of magnitude smarter than Mishka Yaponchik. Despite his adventurism, his dependence on adrenaline, Grigory Ivanovich made his choice on time and correctly.
The Japanese cowards were partially cut down by the Kotovites, by the way. And they themselves fought, fought even when the number of wounded and sick reached 70%. But the Kotovites survived the terrible winter of 1919-1920. And they experienced little, in 1920 they turned from a brigade to a division. And when they entered in full force ... Oh, and Kotovsky drove the whites from Kherson to Tiraspol.
Having passed through the suburbs of Odessa, the Kotovites began to pursue the White Guards of General Stessel, who were retreating to Romania, and on February 9-14 attacked the enemy near the village of Nikolaevka, captured Tiraspol, surrounded the whites, pressing them to the Dniester. Kotovsky managed to capture some of the demoralized White Guards, whom the Romanian border guards refused to let into their territory. The Romanians met the fugitives with machine-gun fire, and the “red” commander Kotovsky accepted some officers and privates into his unit, ordering them to be treated humanely. V. Shulgin writes about the good attitude of the Kotovites towards the captured Whites in his memoirs "1920".
Kotovsky did not shoot any of the White Guards. Neither personally nor by division. All who surrendered to him were either accepted into the division or sent home. Like this.
Ahead were fights with the White Poles, with Makhno, with Tyutyunnik - Kotovsky's biography is the topic of a separate article, and even a thick book ... And not all fights were successful. And yet, the commander becomes a commander.
The Civil War ends. Twin babies are dying. Gastric ulcer. Contusion. Nervous breakdowns. Injuries. But he's holding on.
Its Cavalry Corps is located in Uman. In the USSR - NEP.
Kotovsky created and controlled mills in 23 villages. He organizes the processing of old soldier's uniforms into woolen raw materials. Profitable contracts were signed with linen and cotton factories. Soldiers' free labor was used to harvest hay and harvest sugar beets, which were sent to the sugar factories of the cavalry corps, which produced up to 300 thousand poods of sugar per year. The divisions had state farms, breweries, butcher shops. Hops, which were grown on the fields of Kotovsky at the Reya state farm (an auxiliary farm of the 13th Cavalry Regiment), were bought by merchants from Czechoslovakia for 1.5 million gold rubles a year. In August 1924, Kotovsky organized the Bessarabian agricultural commune in the Vinnitsa region.
In 1924, Kotovsky, with the support of Frunze, seeks a decision on the creation of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Republic. Kotovsky personally draws the borders of this republic. Moldovans - erect monuments to him on every corner! He created your country.
In 1925 he dies.
Majorczyk Zayder
He was shot point-blank by Mayorchik Zayder, the former owner of a brothel, later one of the commanders of the Mishka Yaponchik regiment. They give Zayder - EVERYTHING! - ten years. But already in 1927 he was released.
In 1930, Zayder was already killed by the Kotovites - Valdman and Strigunov. Both will go unpunished.
It is clear that in the Civil War, not only the decisive ones survive, but also those who have time to figure out - which side is the right one?
However, everything is simple here - the side where there is internationalism and equal rights and obligations is historically more accurate.
The civil war became a terrible test for Russia. This page of history, which has been glorified for many decades, was in fact shameful. Fratricide, numerous betrayals, robberies and violence coexisted in it with exploits and self-sacrifice. The white army consisted of different people - people from all classes, representatives of various nationalities who inhabited a vast country and had different education. The Red troops were also not a homogeneous mass. Both opposing sides experienced largely similar difficulties. In the end, after four years, the Reds won. Why?
When did the Civil War start
When it comes to the beginning of the Civil War, historians give different dates. For example, Krasnov put forward units subordinate to him in order to take control of Petrograd on October 25, 1917. Or another fact: General Alekseev arrived in the Don to organize the Volunteer Army - this happened on November 2. And here is also the Declaration of Milyukov, published in the newspaper Donskaya Rech for December 27th. Why is there no reason to consider it an official declaration of war In a sense, these three versions, like many others, are true. In the last two months of 1917, the Volunteer White Army was formed (and this could not happen all at once). In the Civil War, she became the only serious force capable of resisting the Bolsheviks.
Personnel and social profile of the White Army
The backbone of the white movement was the Russian officers. Beginning in 1862, its social class structure underwent changes, but these processes reached a particular impetus during the First World War. If in the middle of the 19th century, belonging to the highest military leadership was the lot of the aristocracy, then at the beginning of the next century, commoners began to be increasingly admitted into it. The famous commanders of the White Army can serve as an example. Alekseev is the son of a soldier, Kornilov's father was a cornet of the Cossack army, and Denikin was a serf. Contrary to the propaganda stereotypes that were introduced into the mass consciousness, there could be no talk of some kind of “white bone”. The officers of the White Army, by their origin, could represent a social cross-section of the entire Russian Empire. Infantry schools for the period from 1916 to 1917 released 60% of people from peasant families. In Golovin, out of a thousand warrant officers (junior lieutenants, according to the Soviet system of military ranks), there were 700 of them. In addition to them, 260 officers came from the bourgeois, working and merchant environment. There were also nobles - four dozen.
The White Army was founded and shaped by the notorious "cook's children". Only five percent of the organizers of the movement were wealthy and eminent people, the income of the rest before the revolution consisted only of officer salaries.
Modest debut
The officers intervened in the course of political events immediately after It was an organized military force, the main advantage of which was discipline and combat skills. The officers, as a rule, did not have political convictions in the sense of belonging to a particular party, but they had a desire to restore order in the country and avoid the collapse of the state. As for the number, the entire White army, as of January 1918 (the campaign of General Kaledin against Petrograd), consisted of seven hundred Cossacks. The demoralization of the troops led to an almost complete reluctance to fight. Not only ordinary soldiers, but also officers were extremely reluctant (about 1% of the total) to obey orders for mobilization.
By the beginning of full-scale hostilities, the Volunteer White Army numbered up to seven thousand soldiers and Cossacks, commanded by a thousand officers. She did not have any stocks of food and weapons, as well as support from the population. It seemed that the imminent collapse was inevitable.
Siberia
After the seizure of power by the Reds in Tomsk, Irkutsk and other Siberian cities, underground anti-Bolshevik centers created by officers began to operate. corps was the signal for their open action against the Soviet regime in May-June 1918. The West Siberian Army was created (commander - General A.N. Grishin-Almazov), in which volunteers began to enroll. Soon its number exceeded 23 thousand. By August, the White army, having united with the troops of Yesaul G. M. Semenov, formed into two corps (4th East Siberian and 5th Amur) and controlled a vast territory from the Urals to Baikal. It numbered about 60 thousand bayonets, 114 thousand unarmed volunteers under the command of almost 11 thousand officers.
North
The White Army in the Civil War, in addition to Siberia and the Far East, fought on three more main fronts: Southern, Northwestern and Northern. Each of them had its own specifics both in terms of the operational situation and in terms of the contingent. The most professionally trained officers who went through the German war concentrated on the northern theater of operations. In addition, they were distinguished by excellent education, upbringing and courage. Many commanders of the White Army came from Ukraine and owed their salvation from the Bolshevik terror to the German troops, which explained their Germanophilia, others had traditional sympathies for the Entente. This situation has sometimes led to conflicts. The northern white army was relatively small.
Northwestern White Army
It was formed with the support of the German armed forces in opposition to the Bolshevik Red Army. After the departure of the Germans, its composition consisted of up to 7000 bayonets. It was the least prepared White Guard front, which, however, was accompanied by temporary success. The sailors of the Chudskaya flotilla, together with the cavalry detachment of Balakhovich and Permykin, having become disillusioned with the communist idea, decided to go over to the side of the White Guards. Volunteers-peasants also joined the growing army, and then high school students were forcibly mobilized. The Northwestern Army fought with varying success and became one of the examples of the curiosity of the entire war. Numbering 17 thousand fighters, it was controlled by 34 generals and many colonels, among whom were those who were not even twenty years old.
South of Russia
Events on this front were decisive in the fate of the country. A population of over 35 million, a territory equal in area to a couple of large European countries, equipped with a developed transport infrastructure (seaports, railways) was controlled by Denikin's white forces. The south of Russia could exist separately from the rest of the territory of the former Russian Empire: it had everything for autonomous development, including agriculture and industry. The generals of the White Army, who received an excellent military education and many-sided experience in combat operations with Austria-Hungary and Germany, had every chance of winning victories over the often poorly educated enemy commanders. However, the problems were still the same. People did not want to fight, and it was not possible to create a single ideological platform. Monarchists, democrats, liberals were united only by the desire to resist Bolshevism.
Deserters
Both the Red and the White armies suffered from the same disease: representatives of the peasantry did not want to voluntarily join them. Forced mobilization led to a decrease in overall combat capability. Russian officers, regardless of traditionally constituted a special caste, far from the soldier masses, which caused internal contradictions. The scale of punitive measures applied to deserters was monstrous on both sides of the front, but the Bolsheviks practiced executions more often and more decisively, including showing cruelty towards the families of those who had fled. In addition, they were bolder in their promises. As the number of conscripted soldiers grew, "eroding" combat-ready officer regiments, it became difficult to control the performance of combat missions. There were practically no reserves, the supply was deteriorating. There were other problems that led to the defeat of the army in the South, which was the last stronghold of the whites.
Myths and reality
The image of a White Guard officer, dressed in an impeccable tunic, certainly a nobleman with a sonorous surname, spending his leisure time drinking and singing romances, is far from the truth. We had to fight in conditions of a constant shortage of weapons, ammunition, food, uniforms and everything else, without which it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain an army in a combat-ready state. The Entente provided support, but this assistance was not enough, plus there was also a moral crisis, expressed in a sense of struggle with one's own people.
After the defeat in the Civil War, Wrangel and Denikin found salvation abroad. In 1920, the Bolsheviks shot Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. The army (White) with each bloody year lost more and more new territories. All this led to the forced evacuation from Sevastopol in 1922 of the surviving units of the once powerful army. A little later, the last pockets of resistance in the Far East were suppressed.
Many songs of the White Army, after a certain alteration of the texts, became Red Guards. The words “for Holy Russia” were replaced by the phrase “for the power of the Soviets”, a similar fate awaited other wonderful new names (“Through the valleys and along the hills”, “Kakhovka”, etc.) Today, after decades of oblivion, they are available to listeners who are interested in history of the White movement.
The choice of the best always carries an element of subjectivity and can be challenged. But rarely, even the best commander in history, escaped failure. And the success of a military leader is not always only victories, it is also a career. The title of Marshal in the Red Army was not given just like that.
Mikhail Vasilievich Frunze
Of those whom we will describe here, he is the only one who came to military posts not from the tsarist army, but from the revolutionary struggle, from tsarist hard labor. Frunze's organizational abilities were clearly revealed in the post of military leader. On January 31, 1919, he was appointed commander of the 4th Army, which acted against Kolchak's troops in the western Kazakhstan steppes. In May 1919, Frunze unified the command of the Southern Group of the Eastern Front, and under his leadership, Kolchak's armies advancing on Samara were defeated. This moment marked a radical turning point in the course of the war with Kolchak. Troops led by Frunze cleared the South Urals of the enemy.
In July 1919, Frunze became commander of the Eastern Front, and in August he headed the Turkestan Front. Here he carried out a series of operations, during which he not only restored the connection of Soviet Russia with the Turkestan Soviet Republic, but also completed the conquest of Central Asia, occupying the autonomous Bukhara emirate in September 1920 and proclaiming a Soviet republic in it. In the autumn of the same year, under the leadership of Frunze, Wrangel's armies in the Crimea were finally defeated.
Frunze did not know defeat as a military leader. A civilian, he not only mastered the practice of war, but also became a prominent Soviet military theorist.
Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky
Tukhachevsky, as a front commander, suffered a series of major defeats from the Poles in August-September 1920. Nevertheless, he became one of the most successful military leaders of the civil war. A lieutenant from the nobility, in six months he earned five awards for bravery, in 1915, seriously wounded, he was taken prisoner by the Germans, from where he managed to escape on the fifth attempt. In June 1918 he was appointed commander of the 1st Army of the Eastern Front.
Tukhachevsky was repeatedly defeated by the Whites, but he also knew how to win. He developed good relations with Trotsky, who always saw Tukhachevsky as his reliable support in the army. In September 1918, Tukhachevsky carried out a successful operation to capture Simbirsk, Lenin's hometown. Tukhachevsky showed himself best of all, commanding the 5th Army on the Eastern Front in the summer of 1919. Under his leadership, the Reds carried out the Zlatoust and Chelyabinsk operations and overcame the Ural Range.
Tukhachevsky skillfully massaged the forces in the direction of the main attack, seeing this as the key to victory. In February-March 1920, in the rank of commander of the Caucasian Front, he completed the defeat of Denikin's troops in the North Caucasus, and then commanded the Western Front against the Poles, where he first won a decisive victory in Belarus, but then was defeated near Warsaw.
In 1921, he led the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising of sailors and the Tambov uprising of peasants, personally gave orders for the use of chemical weapons, the burning of villages and the execution of hostages. As one who knew him testified, "he was not cruel - he just had no pity."
Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny
He became famous for commanding the famous First Cavalry Army and also did not escape serious setbacks. During the First World War, non-commissioned officer Budyonny became a full Knight of St. George. Consistently commanded a regiment, brigade and division of the red cavalry on the Don Front. In the summer of 1919, Budyonny's division was deployed into a corps, of which he became the commander. In October 1919, when the situation on the Southern Front threatened the Soviet Republic, Budyonny's corps played an important role in defeating the White Cossack troops of Mamontov and Shkuro near Voronezh.
In November 1919, Budyonny's corps was transformed into the 1st Cavalry Army, which became the main strike force of the Red Army in a maneuver war. The army won important victories over the whites, broke into Rostov in January 1920, but was soon defeated by the white cavalry of generals Toporkov and Pavlov. Budyonny suffered another defeat in February in the battle of Yegorlyk. Nevertheless, they did not prevent the defeat of Denikin's troops in the North Caucasus, and even then an aura of legend had formed around Budyonny. It did not fade even after the First Cavalry suffered a cruel defeat near Zamostye from the Poles in August 1920, got into an encirclement and miraculously escaped from it.
Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher
Having begun to serve as a private on mobilization in August 1914 and rose to the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, the namesake of the famous Prussian field marshal was in 1916 discharged after being wounded and, working at a factory, joined the Bolshevik Party. Such a person was a valuable cadre for the Red Army. Back in the winter of 1917/18, he participated in the suppression of the rebellion of the Cossack ataman Dutov in the South Urals. In the summer of 1918, with the intensification of the civil war, Blucher found himself behind enemy lines.
Glory to Blucher brought a thousand-mile raid of his partisan detachment on the white rear in the Urals in August-September 1918. For this campaign, Blucher was the first in the Red Army to receive the Order of the Red Banner. His military talent was revealed at the post of head of the 51st Infantry Division, at the head of which he fought against Kolchak, having traveled from Tyumen to Baikal. Blucher also commanded the same unit during the liquidation of Wrangel's troops in the Crimea. The 51st division took Perekop, crossing part of the forces through the Sivash, and ensured the success of the entire operation.
Nevertheless, Blucher received an unenviable appointment to a distant outskirts - in June 1921 he became Minister of War of the buffer Far Eastern Republic. Having successfully carried out the legendary Volochaev operation in February 1922, he was recalled to Moscow.
Vasily Ivanovich Shorin
The colonel of the tsarist army is little known, probably because, soon after the end of the civil war, he left the ranks of the Red Army due to age. This, however, did not save him in 1938 from execution. After the October Revolution, when the Bolsheviks experimented with the election of military leaders, he became one of those popular officers whom the soldiers elected as their commander. In September 1918, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Army on the Eastern Front after it was completely disorganized by the Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising in its rear, and in a short time brought it to a combat-ready state.
He unsuccessfully led the actions of the army during Kolchak's winter offensive on Perm, but in the spring of 1919, as commander of the Northern Group of Forces of the Eastern Front, he conducted successful offensive operations near Perm and Yekaterinburg, which ended in the defeat of Kolchak's main forces and the occupation of the Urals. In 1921, he led the suppression of peasant uprisings in Western Siberia.
The crown of his military career was the command of the Turkestan Front in 1922. Under his leadership, in the summer of that year, the main forces of the Basmachi in Eastern Bukhara (Tajikistan) were defeated. During them, the leader of the Basmachi gangs, the former Minister of War of Ottoman Turkey, Enver Pasha, was destroyed.
The Reds played a decisive role in the civil war and became the driving mechanism for the creation of the USSR.
With their powerful propaganda, they managed to win the commitment of thousands of people and unite them with the idea of creating an ideal country of workers.
Creation of the Red Army
The Red Army was created by a special decree on January 15, 1918. These were voluntary formations from the worker-peasant part of the population.
However, the principle of voluntariness brought with it disunity and decentralization in the command of the army, from which discipline and combat effectiveness suffered. This forced Lenin to declare universal military service for men aged 18-40.
The Bolsheviks created a network of schools for the training of recruits, who studied not only the art of war, but also underwent political education. Commander training courses were created, for which the most outstanding Red Army soldiers were recruited.
The main victories of the red army
The Reds in the civil war mobilized all possible economic and human resources to win. After the annulment of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Soviets began to expel German troops from the occupied regions. Then the most turbulent period of the civil war began.
The Reds managed to defend the Southern Front, despite the considerable efforts it took to fight the Don Army. Then the Bolsheviks launched a counteroffensive and won back significant territories. On the Eastern Front, a very unfavorable situation developed for the Reds. Here the offensive was launched by very large-scale and strong troops of Kolchak.
Alarmed by such events, Lenin resorted to emergency measures, and the White Guards were defeated. Simultaneous anti-Soviet speeches and the entry into the struggle of the Volunteer Army of Denikin became a critical moment for the Bolshevik government. However, the immediate mobilization of all possible resources helped the Reds win.
War with Poland and the end of the civil war
In April 1920 Poland decided to enter Kyiv with the intention of liberating Ukraine from illegal Soviet rule and restoring its independence. However, the people took this as an attempt to occupy their territory. The Soviet commanders took advantage of this mood of the Ukrainians. The troops of the Western and Southwestern fronts were sent to fight against Poland.
Soon Kyiv was liberated from the Polish offensive. This revived hopes for an early world revolution in Europe. But, having entered the territory of the attackers, the Reds received a powerful rebuff and their intentions quickly cooled. In the light of such events, the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty with Poland.
reds in civil war photo
After that, the Reds concentrated all their attention on the remnants of the Whites under the command of Wrangel. These fights were incredibly furious and cruel. However, the Reds still forced the Whites to surrender.
Notable Red Leaders
- Frunze Mikhail Vasilievich. Under his command, the Reds carried out successful operations against the White Guard troops of Kolchak, defeated the Wrangel army in the territory of Northern Tavria and Crimea;
- Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich. He was the commander of the troops of the Eastern and Caucasian Fronts, with his army he cleared the Urals and Siberia from the White Guards;
- Voroshilov Kliment Efremovich. He was one of the first marshals of the Soviet Union. Participated in the organization of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 1st Cavalry Army. With his troops, he liquidated the Kronstadt rebellion;
- Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich. He commanded a division that liberated Uralsk. When the whites suddenly attacked the reds, they fought courageously. And, having spent all the cartridges, the wounded Chapaev started running across the Ural River, but was killed;
- Budyonny Semyon Mikhailovich The creator of the Cavalry Army, which defeated the Whites in the Voronezh-Kastornensky operation. The ideological inspirer of the military-political movement of the Red Cossacks in Russia.
- When the workers' and peasants' army showed its vulnerability, former tsarist commanders who were their enemies began to be recruited into the ranks of the Reds.
- After the assassination attempt on Lenin, the Reds dealt particularly cruelly with 500 hostages. On the line between the rear and the front, there were barrage detachments that fought desertion by shooting.
The events of the civil war in Russia, what happened in the country in 1917-1922, becomes for new and new generations of Russians almost the same ancient history as, for example, the oprichnina. If some 20 years ago the Civil War was presented in heroic and romantic tones, then in recent years the struggle between the "reds" and "whites" is presented as a senseless bloody meat grinder in which everyone lost, but the whites look more "fluffy". Under the slogan of the final reconciliation of the "Reds" and "Whites", the reburial of Generals A. I. Denikin, V. O. Kappel and others from foreign cemeteries to domestic graveyards was initiated. Some of today's youth believe that the whites defeated the reds more than eight decades ago. So, some American schoolchildren sometimes imagine that in World War II the United States defeated Germany and the USSR.
M. V. Frunze
In this situation, it is useful to ask the question posed in the title. Why did the Red Army units under the leadership of the half-educated student Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze, lieutenant Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, sergeant major Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny and others defeat the white armies of Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, generals Anton Ivanovich Denikin, Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich, Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel and others ?
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was 32 by 1917 (born 1885). He studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, but could not complete his studies. In 1904 he joined the RSDLP, became a Bolshevik, and already in 1905 (at the age of 20!) led the Ivanovo-Voznesenskaya strike, during which the first Soviets were formed. In 1909-1910. Mikhail Frunze was twice sentenced to death, in 1910-1915. he was in hard labor, from where he fled.
In 1917, Frunze took part in the revolutionary events in Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Moscow. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he was, as they said then, sent to military work. Frunze showed himself as a major military leader. He commanded the army, then the Southern Group of Forces of the Eastern Front and, at the head of the entire Eastern Front, inflicted a decisive defeat on the armies of A. V. Kolchak. Under the command of Frunze, the troops of the Southern Front broke into the Crimea in the fall of 1920 and defeated the remnants of the Whites under the command of P. N. Wrangel. About 80 thousand soldiers, officers of the "Russian Army" and refugees were evacuated to Turkey. These events marked the official end of the Civil War. He commanded Frunze and the Turkestan Front.
V. K. Blucher
The opponents of the half-educated student were professional military men with serious combat experience.
Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak ten years older than Mikhail Frunze. He was born in 1874 in the family of a naval officer, graduated from the Naval Corps in St. Petersburg (1894), participated in the Russian-Japanese and World War I. In 1916-1917. Kolchak commanded the Black Sea Fleet and received the rank of admiral (1918).
Kolchak was a direct protege of Great Britain and the United States, where he was after the February Revolution of 1917. He was considered a strong, integral and decisive person. In November 1918 he returned to Russia. He overthrew the Social Revolutionary government in Omsk, took the title of "Supreme Ruler of the Russian State" and the title of Supreme Commander. It was Kolchak who captured almost the entire gold reserve of the Russian Empire, which he paid for the help of his patrons. With their support, he organized a powerful offensive in March 1919, setting the goal of reaching Moscow and destroying the Bolshevik government. Ufa, Sarapul, Izhevsk, Votkinsk were occupied.
M. H. Tukhachevsky
However, the Bolsheviks were able to withstand the blow. The Red troops under the command of Frunze went on the offensive, in April-June 1919 they carried out the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa operations. By August 1919, the Reds took control of the Urals, the cities of Perm and Yekaterinburg; by the beginning of 1920 - Omsk, Novonikolaevsk and Krasnoyarsk. Soviet power was established throughout Siberia up to the Far East. In January 1920, Kolchak was arrested by the Czechs near Irkutsk. Guided by their own interests, they handed over Kolchak to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who considered it good to extradite the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief to the Bolsheviks. The latter conducted a short investigation and shot Kolchak and Pepelyaev.
Another opponent of Mikhail Frunze - Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel - died a natural death in exile. He, a nobleman and a Baltic baron, was also older than Frunze, born in 1878. Pyotr Nikolaevich graduated from the Mining Institute and the General Staff Academy, was a participant in the Russian-Japanese and World War I, rose to the rank of lieutenant general and received the title of baron. After the October Revolution, P. N. Wrangel left for the Crimea.
S. M. Budyonny
In August 1918, he joined Denikin's Volunteer Army, commanded a cavalry corps, and from January 1919, the Caucasian Volunteer Army. For criticizing A. I. Denikin and trying to remove him from the post of commander in chief, Wrangel was removed from his post, went abroad, which spoke of confusion in the leadership of the White movement. In May 1920, P. N. Wrangel not only returned to Russia, but also replaced A. I. Denikin as commander of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. The harsh repressive regime he established in the Crimea in April-November 1920 was called "Wrangelism." He was able to mobilize up to 80 thousand people into his army. The government of the South of Russia was created. Wrangel's troops, taking advantage of the offensive of the White Poles, set out from the Crimea, but they again had to hide behind the fortifications of Perekop, which they counted on very much.
The operation to liberate Crimea took Frunze less than a month. Wrangel in November 1920 was evacuated to Constantinople. He created in Paris the "Russian All-Military Union" (1924), which numbered up to 100 thousand people. Already after the death of Wrangel, the ROVS was paralyzed by the actions of the OGPU-NKVD agents.
Perhaps the most colorful and popular figure of the Civil War - Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny(1883-1973). He was born in the Don region, but his father was not a Cossack with his own land, but a tenant peasant. Semyon grazed the calves and pigs of his settlement Bolshaya Orlovka, worked as a farm laborer. In 1903, called up for military service, during the Russian-Japanese war in the Far East, he participated in the fight against the hunghuz. The strong young guy preferred the fate of the farm laborer to serve in the army, he rode horses, preparing them for service.
During the First World War, in the cavalry units, he went from non-commissioned officer to sergeant major (January 1917). In the summer of 1917, S. M. Budyonny became chairman of the regimental soldiers' committee, and on his initiative, at the end of August 1917, part of the troops of General L. G. Kornilov was detained and disarmed.
In the Platovskaya stanitsa of the Salsk district, the demobilized cavalryman at the beginning of 1918 organized a stanitsa council of peasants and Kalmyks. But the Soviets were dispersed, and Budyonny began to form red detachments. At the beginning of 1919, he was already in command of a cavalry division. During the Civil War, tanks, cars, planes were used, but the cavalry remained the main striking force. An important innovation of the Reds was the creation of large cavalry units, called cavalry armies. The creator of the first such army, Mironov, died because of Trotsky's intrigues. In March 1919, S. M. Budyonny joined the RCP (b), in June he became a corps commander, and in November 1919, the formation he led was called the 1st Cavalry Army.
A. V. Kolchak
The Red cavalrymen of Budyonny broke the enemy lines on the Southern Front in 1919, on the Polish Front in 1920, in the Crimea. For Budyonny, the Civil War was the peak of his personal career. He was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Order of the Red Banner from the Azerbaijan Central Executive Committee. The former sergeant-major received a golden weapon - a saber and a Mauser, both with orders of the Red Banner.
Later he held command positions in the Red Army, was deputy and first deputy people's commissar of defense. In 1941-1942. commanded the troops of a number of fronts and directions, then the cavalry of the Red Army. He became one of the first Marshals of the Soviet Union. By his 90th birthday, S. M. Budyonny was three times Hero of the Soviet Union.
Lived a long life and Anton Ivanovich Denikin(1872-1947), with whose troops Budyonny's horsemen fought. The son of an officer who graduated from the Academy of the General Staff, Anton Ivanovich rose to the rank of lieutenant general.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, he became one of the organizers and then commander of the Volunteer Army (1918). From January 1919 to April 1920 he was Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. In June 1919, he led the White campaign against Moscow from the south, when Donbass, the Don region, and part of Ukraine were captured. In September 1919, units of the Volunteer and Don armies captured Kursk, Voronezh, Orel and reached Tula. But on October 7, 1919, the troops of the Southern Front of the Red Army launched a counteroffensive, which lasted until January 1920. The Whites retreated to the Crimea. Already in April 1920, A. I. Denikin transferred command to P. N. Wrangel and emigrated. In exile, he wrote a huge work, Essays on Russian Troubles.
Guards lieutenant of the Russian army was a participant in the First World War Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky. He comes from the nobility, was born in 1893, and in 1914 he graduated from a military school.
During the First World War he was awarded several orders, he was captured, from which he escaped several times, including together with the future French President Charles de Gaulle.
From the beginning of 1918, Tukhachevsky was in the Red Army, worked in the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. As you know, the Bolsheviks initially decided that the Red Army would be formed solely on the basis of the principle of voluntariness. It was assumed that the volunteers of the revolution will receive two recommendations from persons who are trustworthy. By April 1918, about 40 thousand people signed up for the Red Army, a quarter of which were officers of the old Russian army. One of them was M. N. Tukhachevsky. In May 1918, he was the military commissar of defense of the Moscow region, and in June 1918, at the age of 25, he led the 1st Army on the Eastern Front, proved to be an outstanding commander in battles against the White Guard and White Czechoslovak troops. In 1919, M. H. Tukhachevsky commanded the armies on the Southern and Eastern fronts. For the battles during the defeat of Kolchak's troops, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Honorary Revolutionary Weapon. In February-April 1920 he commanded the Caucasian Front, and from April 1920 to March 1921 - the Western Front.
Tukhachevsky led the troops that suppressed the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921 and the "Antonovshchina" in 1921-1922.
On September 4, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee appointed Ioakim Ioakimovich Vatsetis(1873-1938), not spoiled by the attention of authors and readers. Meanwhile, during the year I. I. Vatsetis was in this post, 62 corps were created, consolidated into 16 armies, which made up 5 fronts. To a much greater extent than Trotsky or Stalin, the creator of the Red Army is I. I. Vatsetis.
Joachim's childhood and youth were difficult. His grandfather was ruined by the Courland baron, and his father was a laborer all his life. Joachim himself also had to work as a laborer. An alternative to this lot was military service. The Riga training non-commissioned officer battalion, the Vilna military school and the Academy of the General Staff, the former farm laborer passed in 1891-1909.
In 1909-1915. I. I. Vatsetis grew from a captain to a colonel.
Vatsetis had nothing to do with the old system, just like thousands of Latvian riflemen, whose corps he headed in December 1917. During the Civil War, the red Latvian riflemen, mostly children of the poor and farm laborers, formed a reliable support for Soviet power, guarded the most important objects, including the Kremlin.
At the age of almost 50, I. I. Vatsetis fulfilled his youthful dream - he became a student of the Faculty of Social Sciences in the Law Department of the 1st Moscow State University. Later, like many other prominent Soviet military leaders, he became a victim of Stalinist suspicion.
Why did the red lieutenants win the Civil War against the generals of the old formation? Apparently, because at that moment history, the support of most of the people, other circumstances were on their side. And leadership talent is a thing that will come with time. In addition, about 75 thousand people from among the old officers served with the "Reds". We can say that 100,000 old officers made up the combat core of the White movement. But this was not enough.