Third party materials: “On the fronts of the Civil War. “They had no way back”: how the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps changed the history of Russia

The October Revolution of 1917 threw a significant part of Russian society into confusion and at the same time caused a rather sluggish reaction from opponents of the Bolsheviks. Although the wave of uprisings began almost immediately, the Soviet government managed to localize and suppress the uprisings quite quickly. The white movement at first remained scattered and did not go beyond mute discontent.

And then the Czechoslovak corps rebelled - a large, well-armed and tightly built formation, which also stretched from the Volga region to the Pacific Ocean. The rebellion of the Czechoslovaks revived the anti-Bolshevik forces in eastern Russia and gave them time and reason for consolidation.

Czech squad

From the very beginning of the First World War, the Czechs on the territory of the Russian Empire showed enviable organization. The most socially and politically active of them formed the Czech National Committee. Already on the day of the official declaration of war, this committee accepted an appeal to Nicholas II, declaring the duty of the Czechs to help their Russian brothers. On September 7, the delegation even obtained an audience with the emperor and handed him a memorandum, which stated, among other things, that “the free and independent crown of St. Wenceslas (the prince and patron saint of the Czech Republic, who lived in the 10th century) will soon shine in the rays of the Romanov crown...”

At first, the enthusiasm of the Slavic brothers was met rather coolly. The military leadership of Russia was wary of movements organized “from below,” but still allowed the Czechs, as the order of the Minister of War V.A. Sukhomlinov, “to form one or two regiments in Kyiv or, depending on the number of volunteers, a battalion of at least two companies.” They were not going to be thrown into battle - it was too valuable a propaganda card. The Czechs were supposed to demonstrate in every possible way the unity of the Slavic peoples in the fight against the Germans.
Already on July 30, the Council of Ministers decided to form the Czech squad in Kyiv - because it was there that the center of the Czech diaspora in Russia and its largest part were located. Throughout August, volunteers eagerly signed up to join the ranks. The unit included Russian Czechs, primarily from the Kyiv province, but also from other regions. At the same time, they established the Czech Druzhina Foundation, which dealt with supplies, hospitals and caring for the families of the fighters.

The Czechs experienced a genuine and completely sincere national upsurge: it seemed that a little more, and the mighty Russian brother would give them independence. Their own armed forces, even if recruited from the subjects of the Russian Tsar under Russian command, provided serious grounds for creating their own state. The head of the military administration of the Czechoslovak legions, Rudolf Medek, later said: “The existence of the Czech Army would definitely play a decisive role in resolving the issue of restoring the independence of the Czech Republic. It should be noted that the emergence of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 directly depended on the existence of a combat-ready Czech-Slovak army.”

By September 1914, the Czech squad (one battalion) was already operating as a military unit within the Russian armed forces. In October it numbered about a thousand people and soon went to the front at the disposal of the 3rd Army under the command of General R.D. Radko-Dmitriev.

The officer corps was Russian - in Russia there simply was not a sufficient number of Czechs with experience and higher military education. This situation will change only during the Civil War.

Prisoner of War Corps

Throughout the war, Czechoslovaks on the other side of the front surrendered en masse. The idea of ​​the Austro-Hungarian government to distribute weapons to people who considered themselves oppressed was not the most successful. By 1917, out of 600 thousand prisoners of war from the entire Russian-Austrian front, about 200 thousand were Czechoslovaks. However, many continued to fight on the side of the Austro-Hungarians, including the future general secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, and the son of the future first president of Czechoslovakia, Jan Masaryk.

The Russian command treated the prisoners with suspicion. In addition, at the beginning of the war, the imperial army did not need much manpower. But in March 1915, at the direction of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, and at the numerous requests of various public organizations, Czech and Slovak prisoners of war began to be accepted into the Czech squad. By the end of 1915, the formation doubled its strength and became the First Czechoslovak Rifle Regiment named after Jan Hus. A year later, the regiment grew to four thousand people and turned into a rifle brigade. There were also disadvantages: the motley mass of subjects of Austria-Hungary eroded the squad, which previously consisted of ideological supporters of Russia. This will come out later.

After the February Revolution, the Slavic brothers became noticeably more active. In May 1917, a branch of the Czechoslovak National Council appeared in Russia. The Council met in Paris throughout the war under the leadership of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk. Let's talk about this man in more detail - his role in the formation of independent Czechoslovakia is difficult to overestimate. University professor Masaryk was a member of the Austrian parliament before the First World War, and then became an active figure in the underground organization “Mafia”, which sought the independence of Czechoslovakia.

The future father of the nation was married to Charlotte Garrigues (he took her last name as his middle name), a relative of the successful American entrepreneur Charles Crane, a great connoisseur of Eastern European culture. In his political views, Masaryk was a liberal nationalist, oriented toward Western countries. At the same time, he had enough diplomatic flair and the ability to use the real situation to his advantage. Thus, in a letter to the British Foreign Minister E. Gray in May 1915, he, as if yielding to Slavophile public opinion, noted: “The Czech Republic is projected as a monarchical state. Only a few radical politicians stand for a republic in the Czech Republic... The Czech people - this must be strongly emphasized - are a completely Russophile people. A Russian dynasty in whatever form would be the most popular... Czech politicians would like to create a Czech kingdom in full harmony with Russia. Russia's desire and intention will be decisive." After the overthrow of the Russian autocracy, the situation changed dramatically. The Romanov dynasty is leaving the political scene, and democratic forces of various kinds and orientations are coming to power. Under the new conditions, Czechoslovakians (despite all the statements, mostly democrats) receive greater government support than under the Tsar.

The Czechoslovak troops performed well during Kerensky's June offensive (perhaps this cannot be said about anyone else). During the Battle of Zborów (in Galicia) on July 1–2, 1917, the Czechoslovak Rifle Brigade defeated the Czech and Hungarian infantry divisions, which were almost twice its size. This victory could not change the deplorable democratic situation at the front, but it created a sensation in Russian society. The Provisional Government decided to lift the previously existing restrictions on the formation of military units from prisoners. The Czechoslovak brigade received recognition, honor and glory - as one of the few combat units that achieved at least some success in that shameful year.

Soon the expanded brigade was deployed into the 1st Hussite Rifle Division. Already on July 4, 1917, under the new commander-in-chief Lavra Kornilov, the 2nd Hussite Division appeared. Finally, in September-October 1917, by order of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Nikolai Dukhonin, the Czechoslovak Corps of 3 divisions began to be created, one of which, however, existed only on paper. It was a serious formation - approximately 40 thousand bayonets. Russian Major General Vladimir Shokorov was placed at the head of the Czech units. In August 1918, all Czechoslovaks in Russia were mobilized, and the corps grew to 51 thousand people.

The October Revolution dramatically changed the state of affairs. The leadership of the Czechoslovak National Council, on the one hand, declared its support for the Provisional Government and its readiness to continue the fight against the Germans, on the other hand, it decided not to interfere in the political affairs of Russia. The Bolshevik government did not have any special love for the allies of the previous regime, did not intend to fight the Germans, and the Czechoslovaks had to ask for help from the Entente. In December, the Poincaré government decided to organize an autonomous Czechoslovak army (“legion”). The Chekhovs were reassigned to the French command, and the French immediately ordered them to go to the Western Front by sea: either through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, or through Vladivostok.

It took the Bolsheviks and Czechoslovaks several months to establish permanent relations (this was done through separate detachments on the ground; the vertical of power at that moment was quite illusory). In order not to quarrel with the Reds, the Czechoslovak leadership allows communist agitation and refuses proposals from the white generals and Miliukov to oppose the Bolsheviks. Some Czechs even decided to support the Reds in the Russian civil strife (for example, Jaroslav Hasek, the future author of “Svejk”) - 200 people wanted to fight for the world revolution.

At the same time, many socialists from among prisoners of war appeared in the Czechoslovak National Council, which largely predetermined the political face of this body in subsequent years. The main task of the council is to evacuate the corps from Russia to France by sea and transfer it to the Western Front. The route through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk was considered too dangerous due to the threat of a German offensive, so they preferred a circuitous route through the Far East. It was problematic to disarm an organized delegation of Czechoslovak guests, so the agreement concluded on March 26, 1918 bashfully allowed the legionnaires to retain some of their weapons “for self-defense from attacks by counter-revolutionaries,” and the military personnel formally moved not in battle formation, but “as a group of free citizens.” In return, the Bolsheviks demanded the dismissal of all Russian officers as counter-revolutionary elements. For this, the Council of People's Commissars pledged to provide the legionnaires with all possible assistance along the way. The next day a telegram arrived with an explanation: “part of the weapon” meant one armed company of 168 people, one machine gun and several hundred rounds of ammunition per rifle. Everything else had to be handed over to a special commission in Penza against receipt. In the end, the Reds received 50 thousand rifles, 1200 machine guns, 72 guns.

True, according to the commander of the western group of the corps, Stanislav Chechek, many soldiers hid their weapons, and he himself, like many other officers, approved of their actions. Three regiments of the corps did not disarm at all, because by the beginning of the uprising they simply did not have time to get to Penza. With the demand for the resignation of Russian officers, approximately the same thing happened: only 15 people were fired, and the majority (including, for example, corps commander Shokorov and his chief of staff Diterichs) remained in their previous positions.

At the forefront of the counter-revolution

Despite the Bolsheviks' interest in the speedy transfer of the corps to the sea, the Czech trains were constantly delayed and driven into dead ends - trains full of Hungarians and Germans, who were traveling from captivity back to their armies after Brest, were coming towards them in a continuous stream. There was logic in this: the prisoners had already been pumped up with red propaganda by agitators, the Council of People's Commissars hoped that at home they would kindle the fire of the world revolution.

By April, the movement of the corps had completely stopped: the Japanese landed in Vladivostok, Ataman Semyonov was advancing in Transbaikalia, the Germans demanded their prisoners back as soon as possible, the general chaos reached the last degree. The Czechs began to fear (not unreasonably) that the Reds would hand them over to the Germans. By May 1918, Czechoslovak trains stretched along the entire Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Vladivostok.

And then the Chelyabinsk incident happened. The Russians took the most indirect part in it: some Hungarian at some station threw an iron object at some Czech. The comrades of the offended fighter took the Magyar off the train and lynched him. For this they were arrested by the local red authorities. The legionnaires did not appreciate this treatment and began to destroy Soviet institutions: they freed prisoners, disarmed the Red Guards and seized a warehouse with weapons. Among other things, artillery was found in the warehouse. The stunned friends of the workers offered no resistance. And then, realizing that since such fun had begun, they needed to kill the last Bolshevik, the rebellious Czechs contacted their comrades-in-arms on other sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway. There was a full-scale uprising.

The legionnaires elected the Provisional Executive Committee of the Congress of the Czechoslovak Army, which was headed by 3 group commanders - Stanislav Chechek, Radola Gaida and Sergei Voitsekhovsky (a Russian officer, who would later become the fourth person in the military hierarchy of independent Czechoslovakia). The commanders decided to sever relations with the Bolsheviks and move to Vladivostok, if necessary, then with fighting.

The Bolsheviks did not react to the events immediately - on May 21, representatives of the Czechoslovak National Council Max and Cermak, who were in Moscow, were arrested. They had to order the legionnaires to disarm. However, the Czechoslovak executive committee ordered the troops to continue moving. For some time the parties tried to find a compromise, but to no avail. Finally, on May 25, Trotsky gives a clear order to disarm the corps. Railway workers are ordered to detain its trains, armed legionnaires are threatened with execution on the spot, and “honest Czechoslovaks” who have laid down their arms are threatened with “brotherly help.” The craziest Red Guards sincerely tried to carry out the instructions of the People's Commissar, but it was useless. The legionnaires crossed their Rubicon.

From the tactical side, the position of the legion was quite vulnerable - there was no established communication between the echelons, the Reds could easily cut through the Czechs and break them into parts. The Slav brothers were saved by the revolutionary chaos and the general uselessness of the Red Army commanders: the Bolsheviks were simply confused - they had neither a plan, nor an organization, nor any reliable troops. In addition, the local population had already tried the delights of war communism and were not eager to help the workers’ friends. As a result, the Soviet government, which triumphantly marched across the country after the October Revolution, turned around and began to retreat just as triumphantly. The Czechoslovaks took (or actively helped to take) Penza, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Petropavlovsk, Novonikolaevsk, in early June - Samara and Tomsk, in July - Tyumen, Yekaterinburg and Irkutsk. Officer circles and other anti-Bolshevik organizations arose everywhere. At the very end of August, parts of the Czechoslovak corps united with each other and thus secured control over the Trans-Siberian Railway from the Volga region to Vladivostok.

Of course, political life immediately came into full swing. All sorts of governments and committees began to mushroom. In the Volga region, the Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, consisting mainly of Socialist Revolutionaries, creates the People's Army, at first similar to the armed forces of the Kerensky era - with soldier committees and without shoulder straps. A Czech, Stanislav Chechek, is put in command of it. The Czechoslovaks fight side by side with this army, advance, capture Ufa, Simbirsk, Kazan. In Kazan - a huge success - part of Russia's gold reserves falls into the hands of the whites. The eastern counter-revolution meets almost no resistance: the Reds just pulled together everything more or less combat-ready against Denikin, who after the Second Kuban Campaign turned into a serious threat. The worst enemies of the Czechs (several authors note this) were the Austrians and Hungarians - they did not take them prisoners at all. As a rule, Russian Red Army soldiers were treated somewhat more humanely.

In the twentieth of May 1918, the so-called “White Czech rebellion” broke out in the country, as a result of which it spread across vast areas of the Volga region, Siberia and the Urals. The formation of anti-Soviet regimes there made war almost inevitable, and also pushed the Bolsheviks to sharply tighten their already quite tough policies.

But before this, the anti-Bolshevik formations did not represent any real force. Thus, poorly armed and deprived of any normal supplies, the Volunteer Army numbered only 1 thousand officers and approximately 5-7 thousand soldiers and Cossacks. At that time, everyone was completely indifferent to the “whites” in the south of Russia. General A.I. Denikin recalled those days: “Rostov struck me with its abnormal life. On the main street, Sadovaya, there is a lot of people wandering around, among whom there are a lot of combat officers of all branches and guards, in ceremonial uniforms and with sabers, but... without the national chevrons on the sleeves that are distinctive for volunteers!... On us, volunteers, both the public and and the “gentlemen officers” did not pay any attention, as if we were not here!” However, after the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, the situation changed dramatically, and the anti-Soviet forces received the necessary resources.

In addition, it must be borne in mind that in the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks, despite all their leftist bends, were ready for some kind of compromise in the field of domestic policy. If in 1917 Lenin acted as a “radical,” then in 1918 he already polemicized with the “left communists” (A. S. Bubnov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, N. I. Bukharin, etc.). This faction acted from a leftist position, demanding that the socialist reorganization of Russia be accelerated in every possible way. Thus, they insisted on the complete liquidation of banks and the immediate abolition of money. The “leftists” categorically objected to any use of “bourgeois” specialists. At the same time, they advocated complete decentralization of economic life.

In March, Lenin was in a relatively “compassionate” mood, believing that the main difficulties had already been overcome, and now the main thing was the rational organization of the economy. Strange as it may seem, the Bolsheviks at that moment (and even later) were not at all supporters of the immediate “expropriation of the expropriators.” In March, Lenin began writing his programmatic article “The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power,” in which he called for a suspension of the “attack on capital” and some compromise with capital: “... It would be impossible to define the task of the present moment with a simple formula: to continue the attack on capital ... in In the interests of the success of the further offensive, it is necessary to “pause” the offensive now.”

Lenin puts the following at the forefront: “The organization of the strictest and nationwide accounting and control over the production and distribution of products is decisive. Meanwhile, in those enterprises, in those branches and aspects of the economy that we have taken away from the bourgeoisie, we have not yet achieved accounting and control, and without this there can be no talk of the second, equally essential, material condition for the introduction of socialism, namely: on increasing, on a national scale, labor productivity.”

At the same time, he pays special attention to the involvement of “bourgeois specialists”. This question, by the way, was quite acute. Left communists opposed the involvement of bourgeois specialists. And it is very significant that on this issue we are at one with the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, who seem to have taken more “moderate positions” than the Bolsheviks. But no, for some reason the moderate socialists were against attracting specialists and strengthening discipline in production and in the troops.

The “leftists” criticized Lenin in every possible way for “state capitalism.” Vladimir Ilyich himself said ironically: “If, in about six months, we had established state capitalism, it would have been a huge success.” (“About “leftist” childishness and petty-bourgeoisism”). In general, in terms of relations with the urban bourgeoisie, many Bolsheviks expressed their readiness to make a significant compromise. There have always been trends in the leadership that suggested abandoning immediate socialization and using private initiative. A typical representative of such movements was Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Economic Council V.P. Milyutin, who called for building socialism in alliance with capitalist monopolies (the gradual socialization of the latter was assumed). He advocated corporatizing already nationalized enterprises, leaving 50% in the hands of the state, and returning the rest to the capitalists. (At the end of 1918, the communist faction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets began to play the role of a kind of opposition to the regime, which developed a project for the complete restoration of free trade.)

Lenin himself did not approve of this plan, but at the same time he was not going to give up the idea of ​​an agreement with the bourgeoisie. Ilyich put forward his own version of a compromise. He believed that industrial enterprises should be under workers' control, and their direct management should be carried out by former owners and their specialists. (It is significant that this plan was immediately opposed by the left communists and the left Socialist Revolutionaries, who started talking about the economic Brest of Bolshevism.) In March-April, negotiations were held with the major capitalist Meshchersky, who was offered the creation of a large metallurgical trust with 300 thousand workers. But the industrialist Stakheev, who controlled 150 enterprises in the Urals, himself turned to the state with a similar project, and his proposal was seriously considered.

As for the nationalization carried out in the first months of Soviet power, it did not have any ideological character and was primarily “punitive”. (Its various manifestations were examined in detail by the historian V.N. Galin in his two-volume study “Trends. Interventions and Civil War.”) In most cases, it was a conflict between workers who wanted to establish production and owners whose plans included its suspension and even curtailment - “until better times.” In this regard, the nationalization of the AMO plant, which belonged to the Ryabushinskys, is very indicative. Even before February, they received 11 million rubles from the government to produce 1,500 cars, but never fulfilled the order. After October, the factory owners disappeared, instructing the management to close the plant. The Soviet government, however, decided to allocate 5 million to the plant so that it could continue to function. However, the management refused, and the plant was nationalized.

Nationalization was also carried out to curb the expansion of German capital, which tried to take full advantage of the favorable situation that arose after the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. They began a massive purchase of shares in the country's leading industrial enterprises. The First All-Russian Congress of National Economic Councils noted that the bourgeoisie “is trying by all means to sell its shares to German citizens, trying to obtain the protection of German law through all sorts of tricks, all sorts of fictitious transactions.”

Finally, in June 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSO issued an order on the “nationalization of the largest enterprises,” according to which the state was supposed to give away enterprises with a capital of 300 thousand rubles. However, this resolution also indicated that nationalized enterprises are given for free rental use to owners who continue to finance production and make a profit. That is, even then, the implementation of Lenin’s state-capitalist program continued, according to which the owners of enterprises were not so much “expropriated” as included in the system of the new economy.

Under these conditions, long-term technocratic projects began to be conceived. Thus, on March 24, the “Flying Laboratory” of Professor Zhukovsky was created. She began working together with the Calculation and Testing Bureau at the Higher Technical School (now Bauman MSTU). Other promising projects were also planned. The Bolsheviks began to position themselves as a party of technocrats, a “party of action.”

However, excessive urbanism of consciousness seriously interfered with this “business”. The agrarian policy of the Bolsheviks alienated the broad masses of the peasantry from Soviet power. The Bolsheviks set a course for establishing a food dictatorship based on the forced confiscation of grain from the peasants. Moreover, there was opposition to this course, led by Rykov. Moreover, a number of regional Soviets resolutely opposed the dictatorship - Saratov, Samara, Simbirsk, Astrakhan, Vyatka, Kazan, which abolished fixed prices for bread and established free trade. However, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Supreme Economic Council, over the heads of the Soviets, reassigned local food authorities to the People's Commissariat for Food.

Of course, some elements of food dictatorship were necessary in those difficult conditions. Yes, they, in fact, existed - the seizure of grain, one way or another, was practiced by both the tsarist and the Provisional governments. The policy had to be toughened up somewhat, but the Bolsheviks here pretty much overdid it, which turned a lot of people against themselves. In essence, the Leninists underestimated the strength of the “peasant element”, the village’s ability to self-organize and resist. In the agrarian, peasant country, mass discontent with the Bolsheviks arose, which overlapped with the discontent of the “bourgeoisie and landowners.”

And so, in this situation, the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps took place, which made civil war inevitable. The performance itself became possible only thanks to the position of the Entente, which hoped to involve Czechoslovak units in the fight against both the Germans and the Bolsheviks. Back in December 1917, in Iasi (Romania), Allied military representatives discussed the possibility of using Czechoslovak units against the Bolsheviks. England was inclined towards this option, while France still considered it necessary to limit itself to the evacuation of the corps through the Far East. Disputes between the French and the British continued until April 8, 1918, when in Paris the Allies approved a document in which the Czechoslovak corps was considered as an integral part of the intervention forces in Russia. And on May 2, at Versailles, L. George, J. Clemenceau, V. E. Orlando, General T. Bliss and Count Mitsuoka adopted “Note No. 25,” ordering the Czechs to remain in Russia and create an eastern front against the Germans. Moreover, it was soon decided to use the corps to fight the Bolsheviks. Thus, the Entente openly set a course to sabotage the evacuation of the Czechs.

Western democracies were interested in permanent civil war. It was necessary for the Reds to beat the Whites as long as possible, and for the Whites to beat the Reds. Of course, this could not continue forever: sooner or later one side would have gained the upper hand. Therefore, the Entente decided to facilitate the conclusion of a truce between the Bolsheviks and the White governments. So, in January 1919, she made a proposal to all power structures located on the territory of the former Russian Empire to begin peace negotiations. It is quite obvious that a possible truce would be temporary and would be violated in the near future. At the same time, it would only stabilize the state of Russia’s split into a number of parts, primarily into the red RSFSR, Kolchak’s East and Denikin’s South. It is possible that the first truce would be followed by a second, and this would continue for a long time. By the way, a similar situation of permanent war developed in the 20-30s. in China, which was divided into territories controlled by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, Mao Zedong's Communists and various regional militaristic cliques. It is clear that this split only played into the hands of external forces, in particular the Japanese.

England never abandoned its plans to “reconcile” the whites with the reds. So, in the spring, in the form of an ultimatum, she proposed to start negotiations between the communists and P. Wrangel - under British arbitration. Wrangel himself resolutely rejected the British ultimatum, as a result of which in May 1920 London announced an end to aid to the whites. True, France has not yet refused this assistance and even strengthened it, but this was due to the circumstances of the Polish-Soviet war. The fact is that the French relied mainly on the Poles of J. Pilsudski, whose help far exceeded that of the whites. But in 1920 there was a threat of the defeat of Poland and the advance of the Red Army into Western Europe. It was then that the French needed the support of Wrangel, whose resistance forced the Reds to abandon the transfer of many selected units to the Polish front. But after the threat to Pilsudski passed, the French stopped helping the whites.

July 13th, 2017

Russian society reacts indifferently to the glorification of the Czechoslovak Corps, primarily due to ignorance. As it turned out from a survey conducted in 2013, in Chelyabinsk 64% of respondents did not know the history of the Czechoslovak Corps in Russia

The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, which occurred during the Civil War, from May 1918 to March 1920, had a huge impact on the political and military situation in Soviet Russia. This uprising affected more than half of the country's territory and a number of cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway: Maryinsk, Chelyabinsk, Novo-Nikolaevsk, Penza, Syzran, Tomsk, Omsk, Samara, Zlatoust, Krasnoyarsk, Simbirsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Kazan. At the time of the start of the armed uprising, units of the Czechoslovak Corps stretched along the Trans-Siberian Railway from the Rtishchevo station in the Penza region to Vladivostok, a distance of about 7 thousand kilometers.

In Soviet historical science, the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps was interpreted as a planned armed anti-Soviet uprising, provoked by counter-revolutionary officers and the Entente countries .

In Western literature, on the contrary, the idea of ​​the independence of the Czechoslovak Corps and the extreme fate of its action was imposed. The Czechs were presented as “true democrats” who fought against the “terrible Bolsheviks who threatened the world.” The situation in which the corps found itself in Russia was portrayed as a tragedy. And the bandit actions of the White Czechs - the hijacking of steam locomotives, the seizure of provisions, violence against the population - were forced by circumstances and the desire to quickly reach Vladivostok and go to France, and from there to the front, to fight under the leadership of the French for the freedom of Czechoslovakia.

These same ideas are actively broadcast in modern Russian society.
For example, the head of the White Russia Research Center in Yekaterinburg, N.I. Dmitriev, stated that the Czechoslovaks, fighting the Bolsheviks, “made a sacrifice in the name of protecting democracy and freedom of the Russian people”.

As a result of Dmitriev’s efforts, on November 17, 2008, in Yekaterinburg, at the cemetery where the corps soldiers were buried, a monument to Czechoslovak legionnaires was erected.

On October 20, 2011, in Chelyabinsk, with the participation of Czech, Slovak and Russian officials, a monument to Czechoslovak legionnaires was solemnly opened on the station square in the city center. The inscription on this monument reads: “Here lie Czechoslovak soldiers, brave fighters for freedom and independence of their land, Russia and all the Slavs. In the fraternal land they gave their lives for the revival of humanity. Bare your heads before the grave of heroes". These lines do not reflect anyone’s private opinion, but a very ingenious general policy of recent times, according to which Kolchak is portrayed as “just” a polar explorer, Mannerheim as a “simple” tsarist general, and the Czechoslovak Corps as “just” volunteers and patriots of the Russian empires that responded to the call of Nicholas II for the liberation of the Slavs. Why not heroes worthy of monuments?

Although local officials do not think too much about whether they erect monuments to the worthy. After all, as the now disgraced ex-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Mikhail Yurevich noted: “To be honest, I found out about this myself on the Internet. Apparently the municipality gave permission. I can’t say anything here: I’m not good at the history of the passage of the Czech Legion through our region. When I was at school, they explained to us that the Czechs beat the Red Army, and then other information came out: that on the contrary, they helped our soldiers, that they helped Chelyabinsk with something specific. Believe me, as a governor, I simply do not interfere in such trifles. If the municipality decided to erect this monument, for God’s sake, let it erect monuments to anyone.”

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Czech Ministry of Defense has developed the “Legions 100” project, which involves the installation of 58 monuments to soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps on Russian territory. At the moment, monuments have been installed throughout the Trans-Siberian Railway: in addition to Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk - in Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk, Buzuluk, Kungur, Nizhny Tagil, Penza, Pugachev, Syzran, Ulyanovsk, the village of Verkhniy Uslon in Tatarstan and the village of Mikhailovka in the Irkutsk region.

It is obvious that Russian society reacts indifferently to the glorification of the Czechoslovak Corps, primarily due to ignorance. As it turned out from a survey conducted in Chelyabinsk in 2013 by the Agency for Cultural and Social Research (ACSIO), only 30% of respondents knew about the existence of the monument. At the same time, 64% of respondents did not know the history of the presence of the Czechoslovak Corps in Russia.

What actually was the armed action of the Czechoslovak Corps?

Let's turn to history.

History of the creation of the Czechoslovak Corps

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slavic peoples, including Czechs and Slovaks, were subjected to national and religious persecution. Not having strong loyal feelings for the Habsburg Empire, they dreamed of creating independent states.

In 1914, about 100 thousand Czechs and Slovaks lived in Russia. B O The majority of them lived in Ukraine, near the border with Austria-Hungary.

At the outbreak of the First World War, the bulk of Czech and Slovak settlers found themselves in a difficult situation in Russia. Most of them were not Russian subjects. As citizens of a country at war with Russia, they faced strict police control, internment, and confiscation of property.

At the same time, the First World War gave the Czechs a chance for national liberation.

On July 25, 1914, the organization of Russian Czech colonists, the Czech National Committee (CHNK), adopted an appeal to Nicholas II, which said “that the duty falls on the Russian Czechs to give their strength to the liberation of our homeland and to be side by side with our Russian heroic brothers...” And on August 20, a delegation of the Czech diaspora handed over a letter to Nicholas II, in which the idea of ​​liberation he expressed was warmly supported "of all the Slavs." The Czechs expressed hope that it would work out “to integrate our Czechoslovak people within their ethnographic borders into the family of Slavic peoples, taking into account their historical rights.” The letter ended with the phrase “Let the free, independent crown of St. Wenceslas shine in the rays of the Romanov crown!”, hinting at the possibility of Czechoslovakia joining the Russian Empire in the event of a Russian victory and the defeat of Austria-Hungary.

On July 30, 1914, the Russian Council of Ministers approved the project of forming a Czech squad from among volunteers of Czech and Slovak nationalities - subjects of Russia.

By mid-September 1914, 903 Czech subjects of Austria-Hungary accepted Russian citizenship and joined the Czech squad. On September 28, 1914, in Kyiv, the Czech squad was solemnly presented with a battle flag and sent to fight at the front.

However, the Czechs pinned their hopes for national liberation not only on Russia. Since 1914, national associations began to emerge in Paris, with the ultimate goal of establishing Czech (later Czechoslovak) statehood.

Czech and Slovak volunteers went to the French army, where national formations were also created. As a result, the center of the national liberation struggle of the Czechs and Slovaks was formed not in Russia, but in France. In February 1916, the Czechoslovak National Council (CNS) was created in Paris. The CNS acted as a unifying center for all Czechs and Slovaks fighting for independence, including those fighting in the Russian army.

Czechoslovak Corps from Galicia to Chelyabinsk

Gradually, the number of the Czech squad in Russia grew, including due to volunteers from among prisoners of war. The Czechs, who did not want to fight for Austria-Hungary, surrendered en masse into Russian captivity from the very beginning of the war.
By the end of March 1916, there was already a Czech brigade of two regiments with a total number of 5,750 people.

After the February Revolution, the number of Czech formations began to grow again. The “democratization of the army” by the Provisional Government led to the loss of the principle of unity of command in the armed forces, lynching of officers and desertion. The Czechoslovak units escaped this fate.

In May 1917, the chairman of the ChNS Tomas Masaryk sent a request to the Minister of War of the Provisional Government Alexander Kerensky for the departure of Czechoslovak units to France. But the route by land was closed. Only later, in the fall, about 2 thousand people were taken out on French ships through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.

The situation at the front became more complicated. Soon the Russian command suspended the dispatch of combat-ready Czech units, not wanting to weaken the front. On the contrary, they began to actively replenish them. The Czechs and Slovaks continued to fight, but did not abandon their intentions to go to the Western Front - to France - at the first opportunity.

In July, the second Czech division was formed, and in September, a separate Czechoslovak corps consisting of two divisions and a reserve brigade. The French charter was in force in the corps. There were many Russian officers in the senior and middle command of the corps.

By October 1917, the number of personnel in the corps amounted to 45,000 people. Further, according to various estimates, it will range from 30,000 to 55,000 people.

Among the soldiers and officers of the corps there were both communists and monarchists. But the majority of Czechoslovaks, especially among the leadership, were close in views to the Social Revolutionaries and supported the February Revolution and the Provisional Government.

The leaders of the ChNS entered into an agreement with representatives of the Provisional Government in Kyiv. This agreement contained two clauses that in practice contradicted each other. On the one hand, Masaryk stated that the corps would adhere to a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of Russia. On the other hand, the possibility of using the corps to suppress unrest was discussed.
Thus, one of the regiments of the corps was involved by the commissar of the Southwestern Front from the Provisional Government N. Grigoriev in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising in Kyiv in October 1917. Having learned about this, the leadership of the Russian branch of the ChNS protested against the use of corps units that had not been agreed upon with it and demanded that the regiment stop participating in the suppression of the uprising.

For some time, the corps did not really interfere in the internal affairs of Russia. The Czechs refused both the Ukrainian Rada and General Alekseev when they asked for military assistance against the Reds.

Meanwhile, the Entente countries already at the end of November 1917, at military meeting in Iasi began to make plans to use the Czechs to invade Russia. This meeting was attended by representatives of the Entente, White Guard officers, the Romanian command and delegates from the Czechoslovak Corps. The Entente representative raised the question of the readiness of the Czechoslovaks for an armed uprising against Soviet power and the possibility of occupying the region between the Don and Bessarabia.

This region, in accordance with the “Franco-English Agreement of December 23, 1917” concluded in Paris on the division of Russia into spheres of influence, was defined as a French sphere of influence. On January 15, 1918, the leadership of the ChNS, in agreement with the French government, officially proclaimed the Czechoslovak armed forces in Russia“an integral part of the Czechoslovak army under the jurisdiction of the French Supreme Command”

. In fact, in this way the Czechoslovak Corps became part of the French army. The situation is very ambiguous. On the territory of Russia at the moment when the army of the Provisional Government collapsed and the Red Army was just beginning to take shape, there turned out to be a fully equipped foreign unit of about 50 thousand people, possessing training, discipline and combat experience.“Only one thing is clear: we had an army and in Russia we were the only significant military organization,”

- Masaryk would write later.

The French General Staff almost immediately ordered the corps to depart for France. According to an agreement reached in February 1918 with the Soviet government, soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps were to travel by rail from Ukraine to Vladivostok and transfer there to French ships.

On March 3, the Soviet government concluded the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany. Under the terms of the treaty, all foreign troops were to be withdrawn from Russian territory. This was another argument in favor of sending the Czechs out of the country as soon as possible.

But in order to transport thousands of people to Vladivostok, trains, carriages, food, etc. were required. The Soviet government could not quickly provide all this in the required quantities during the Civil War. Then the Czechs began to “supply” themselves with their own forces. At the Bakhmach station, Czech troops captured 52 locomotives and 849 carriages, into which units of the 6th and 7th regiments loaded and, under the guise of trains with the wounded, set off to the east. In order to prevent such incidents, in mid-March in Kursk, with the participation of representatives of the ChNS, the corps and the Soviet command, an agreement was reached on the surrender of weapons by the Czechoslovaks. They were also promised assistance in the unhindered movement of the corps to Vladivostok, provided that its soldiers did not support counter-revolutionary uprisings in the Far East.

A 26 March In Penza, representatives of the Council of People's Commissars and the Czechoslovak Corps signed an agreement guaranteeing the sending of the corps to Vladivostok. At the same time, it was stipulated that the Czechs were moving not as members of military formations, but as private individuals, but to protect them from counter-revolutionary elements, a security company of 168 people was allowed to be in each echelon. Security companies were supposed to have 300 rounds of ammunition for each rifle and 1,200 rounds of ammunition for each machine gun. The Czechs had to hand over the rest of their weapons. In fact, the agreement on the surrender of weapons was far from being fully implemented.
There were still not enough trains, and the Czechs did not want to wait. Seizures of trains, food and fodder began again. The echelons moved slowly, with stops. The corps gradually stretched along the railway for thousands of kilometers.

April 5, 1918 of the year Japan began an intervention in Vladivostok. Fearing the support of the interventionists by the Czechoslovak Corps, the Soviet government revised its agreement with the Czechs. Now we could only talk about their complete disarmament and evacuation in small groups.

These fears were not unfounded. So, in April 1918 at a meeting at the French embassy in Moscow representatives of the Entente decided to use the corps for intervention inside Russia. The French representative to the corps, Major A. Guinet, informed the Czech command that the Allies would launch an offensive at the end of June and considered the Czech army, together with the French mission attached to it, as the vanguard of the Allied forces...

And on May 11, 1918, the First Lord of the British Admiralty, J. Smuts, and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, G. Wilson, presented a note to the War Cabinet, which said the following: “It seems unnatural that at a time when great efforts are being made to secure intervention on the part of Japan..., Czechoslovak troops are about to be transferred from Russia to the Western Front.”. The note proposed that Czechoslovak troops already in Vladivostok or on their way to it should be “headed and organized there into effective military units... the French government, which must be asked to until they are delivered to France, use them as part of the Allied interventionist forces...»

On May 16, the British Consul in Vladivostok, Hodgson, received a secret telegram from the British Foreign Office, which indicated that the body “can be used in Siberia in connection with the Allied intervention...”

And May 18 the French ambassador to Russia Noulens directly informed the military representative at the corps, Major Guinet, that “ the allies decided to begin intervention at the end of June and consider the Czech army as the vanguard of the allied army».

The Czechoslovak Corps, as part of the French army, was obliged to obey the orders of the command; moreover, it depended on France and, in general, on the Entente countries not only formally, but also financially. At the same time, not only representatives of France, but also other countries were present in the corpus; for example, there are references to American carriages.

The Czech communists mostly abandoned the trains and joined the Red Army. Among those who remained, anti-Bolshevik sentiments prevailed.

Armed rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps

Along the entire route to Vladivostok, conflicts periodically flared up between the Czechs and German prisoners of war, Austrians and Hungarians returning home according to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which included a clause on the exchange of prisoners. During one of the conflicts that occurred May 14, 1918 years at the station Chelyabinsk, a Hungarian prisoner of war was killed by the Czechs.

May 17 The investigative commission arrested ten Czechs suspected of murder, and then a delegation that came demanding their release.
Then Czech units entered the city, surrounded the station and captured the arsenal with weapons. The Chelyabinsk council, not wanting to escalate the situation, released the detainees.

The day after the incident, the Czechoslovak command assured the Russian authorities of its peacefulness by issuing an appeal to the population signed by the commander of the 3rd Czechoslovak regiment. The appeal stated that the Czechs “they will never go against Soviet power”.

May 20 at a meeting of the corps command with members of the CHNS branch, a Temporary Executive Committee (TEC) was created, which included 11 people, including corps regiment commanders; On the 3rd - Lieutenant Colonel S.N. Voitsekhovsky, on the 4th - Lieutenant S. Chechek and on the 7th - Captain R. Gaida.

May 21st In Moscow, the deputy chairmen of the Russian branch of the ChNS, P. Max and B. Chermak, were arrested. On the same day they ordered the corps to disarm.

22nd of May The congress of delegates of the Czechoslovak Corps, held in Chelyabinsk, expressed no confidence in the leadership of the ChNS branch and decided to transfer control of transporting the corps to Vladivostok to the VIK. Overall command of the corps was entrusted to Lieutenant Colonel Voitsekhovsky.

The congress decided not to carry out the disarmament order, but to preserve weapons all the way to Vladivostok as a guarantee of their security. In other words, after the congress the corps obeyed only the orders of its officers. And they, in turn, carried out orders coming from the French command, that is, from the Entente countries, whose leaders were determined to intervene in Russia.

May 25 Trotsky's order No. 377 was transmitted by telegram, obliging all local councils " disarm the Czechoslovakians under pain of grave responsibility. Each train containing at least one armed person must be thrown out of the carriage and imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp... Honest Czechoslovaks who surrender their weapons and submit to Soviet power will be treated like brothers... All railway units are informed that neither one carriage with Czechoslovaks should not move to the East.”

Trotsky's order is often justifiably criticized for its harshness and haste. The Bolsheviks, who were weaker than them at that time, were in fact unable to disarm the Czechs. Several disarmament attempts by local councils ended in clashes and did not lead to the desired result.

However, to blame Trotsky alone for the rebellion of the Czechoslovaks, as is sometimes done (see, for example, the book of the American ideologist Richard Pipes), is very strange, given that the Czechs in any case, in a month, according to the decision of the Entente countries, would have risen in rebellion, finding any other convenient reason for this.

On the same day when Trotsky’s order came out, May 25 Czech units captured the Siberian city of Mariinsk, and on the 26th - Novo-Nikolaevsk.

Commander of the 7th Regiment, member of the VIC R. Guy-da gave the order to the echelons to capture the stations where they were currently located. May 27 he telegraphed along the entire line: « To all echelons of Czechoslovaks. I order you to advance on Irkutsk if possible. Soviet power to arrest. Cut off the Red Army operating against Semenov» .

May 27, 1918. The Czechs captured Chelyabinsk, where all members of the local Council were arrested and shot. The prison, designed for 1 thousand places, turned out to be overcrowded with supporters of the Soviet regime.

May 28 Miass was captured. City resident Alexander Kuznetsov testified: « Fyodor Yakovlevich Gorelov (17 years old), who was captured, was hanged, he was executed by a platoon of Czechs for rude treatment of the convoy, he threatened to avenge his comrades killed in battle».

On the same day, the corps captured Kansk and Penza, where most of the 250 Czechoslovak Red Army soldiers captured were killed.

The ChNS and the Soviet government took several steps towards reconciliation. Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G. Chicherin offered his assistance in evacuating the Czechs. May 29, 1918 Max telegraphed to Penza:
“Our comrades made a mistake by speaking in Chelyabinsk. We, as honest people, must accept the consequences of this mistake. Once again on behalf of the professor Masaryk I urge you to stop all speeches and maintain complete calm. The French military mission also advises you this...<...>Our name will be covered with indelible shame if we shed even a drop of fraternal Russian blood and prevent the Russian people from organizing their affairs as they wish during the difficult time of the most intense revolutionary struggle in our homeland...”

However, reconciliation did not take place. Yes, it could not have happened.

May 30 Tomsk was taken June 8— Omsk.
By the beginning of June, Zlatoust, Kurgan and Petropavlovsk were captured, where 20 members of the local Council were shot.
June 8 Samara was taken, where on the same day 100 Red Army soldiers were shot. In the first days after the capture of the city, at least 300 people were killed here. By June 15, the number of prisoners in Samara reached 1,680 people, and by the beginning of August - more than 2 thousand.
TO 9 Jun I the entire Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Vladivostok came under the control of the Czechs.

After the capture of Troitsk, according to the testimony of S. Moravsky, the following happened:
“Around five o’clock in the morning on June 18, 1918, the city of Troitsk was in the hands of the Czechoslovaks. Mass killings of the remaining communists, Red Army soldiers and sympathizers of Soviet power immediately began. A crowd of merchants, intellectuals and priests walked with the Czechoslovaks through the streets and pointed out communists and co-workers, whom the Czechs immediately killed. At about 7 o'clock in the morning on the day of the occupation of the city, I was in the city and from the mill to the Bashkirov hotel, no further than one mile away, I counted about 50 corpses of tortured, mutilated and robbed. The killings continued for two days, and according to Captain Moskvichev, an officer of the garrison, the number of those tortured amounted to at least a thousand people ».

IN July Tyumen, Ufa, Simbirsk, Yekaterinburg and Shadrinsk were captured.
August 7 Kazan fell.

It would seem that the Czechs are eager to go to Europe with all their hearts, but for some reason they do not travel to Vladivostok via the Trans-Siberian Railway, but interfere in the internal affairs of Russia. It is easy to notice that Kazan, taken on August 7 by parts of the corps in cooperation with Kappel’s troops, is clearly located somewhat away from Vladivostok.

Not only foreigners, but also local anti-Soviet forces took part in the preparation and implementation of the rebellion.
Thus, the Czechoslovak leadership had connections with the Socialist Revolutionary Party (the Czechs, among whom there were many socialists, considered them “real democrats”). Socialist-Revolutionary Klimushkin said that the Samara Socialist-Revolutionaries “another week and a half to two weeks” We learned that a Czech performance was being prepared in Penza. “The Samara group of Socialist Revolutionaries, which was then definitely preparing an armed uprising, considered it necessary to send its representatives to the Czechs...”

According to the recollections of the major J. Kratokhvila, battalion commander of the 6th Czechoslovak Regiment,
“Russian officers, with whom Western Siberia was crowded, aroused and supported in us distrust of Soviet power. Long before the performance, at stations where we stayed for a long time... they persuaded us to take a violent action... Later, just before the performance, they contributed to successful actions with their help, as they delivered plans of cities, placement of garrisons, etc. .".

In June, after the first successes of the corps, the US Ambassador to China Reinisch sent a telegram to the president in which he proposed not to withdraw the Czechoslovaks from Russia. Having received minimal support, the message said, “They can seize control over all of Siberia. If they were not in Siberia, they would have to be sent there from the furthest distance.".

June 23, 1918 US Secretary of State R. Lansing offered to help the Czechs with money and weapons, expressing the hope that those “perhaps they will mark the beginning of the military occupation of the Siberian Railway”. A July 6 President of the U.S.A Wilson read out a memorandum on intervention in Russia, in which he expressed hope "to achieve progress by acting in two ways - by providing economic assistance and by providing assistance to the Czechoslovakians."

Prime Minister of Great Britain D. Lloyd George June 24, 1918 year informed the French about his request to the Czechoslovak units not to leave Russia, but « form the core of a possible counter-revolution in Siberia » .

Finally, in July the American leadership sent admiral to Vladivostok Knight instructions on providing military assistance to the Czechoslovaks.

After the Czechs captured large cities on the Trans-Siberian Railway, about a dozen anti-Bolshevik governments were formed in them. The most significant of these governments are the Komuch (Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly), the rival Provisional Siberian Government (VSP) and the Czech puppet Provisional Regional Government of the Urals (VOPU). These governments were constantly in conflict with each other, which did not help restore order. And in September a united Provisional All-Russian Government (Directory) was created. However, conflicts within the Directory continued, and it also turned out to be incapacitated.

After the formation of the independent Czechoslovak Republic, the majority of Czechs, who were a significant support of the Directory, completely lost understanding of why they were in Russia. There were cases of units refusing to go to the front.

Already on the third day after the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic, October 31, 1918, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia Chicherin sent a radiogram to the provisional government of Czechoslovakia:
“The Soviet government, despite the success of its weapons, - it said, - does not strive for anything so ardently as to end the useless and regrettable shedding of blood for it and declares that it is ready to provide the Czechoslovaks with full opportunity, after they have laid down their arms, to proceed through Russia in order to return to their native country, with full guarantee of their safety."

However, even after the creation of the Czechoslovak independent state, the Czechs in no way deviated from the previous course of the CNS towards cooperation with the interventionists.

Czechoslovak Corps and Kolchak

In November 1918 came to power in Siberia Kolchak.
Three days after the establishment of his rule, the CNS announced that “The Czechoslovak army, fighting for the ideals of freedom and democracy, cannot and will neither promote nor sympathize with violent coups that run counter to these principles.” So what “The coup in Omsk on November 18 violated the beginning of the rule of law”. Soon, obeying the orders of the Entente, the Czechs began to collaborate with Kolchak.

However, the soldiers of the corps fought for Kolchak reluctantly, and used their position for robbery and looting.
War Minister of the Kolchak government, General A. P. Budberg will write later in his memoirs:
“Now the Czechs are carrying about 600 loaded wagons, very carefully guarded... according to counterintelligence data, these wagons are filled with cars, machine tools, valuable metals, paintings, various valuable furniture and utensils and other goods collected in the Urals and Siberia.”.

CHNS in Paris presented to the commander of the Entente forces in Siberia M. Janenu authority to use the Czechoslovak Corps for the purposes of the interests of the Allies. Together with Janin, the Minister of War of the Czechoslovak Republic M. arrived in Vladivostok. R. Stefanik. Stefanik tried to raise the morale of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps, but soon became convinced that they did not want to fight in Russia. The Allies and Kolchak agreed to send the corps home. Before the departure, the Czechs pledged to protect the railways.

On the railway, corps soldiers encountered sabotage by partisans. Here the Czechs often acted with the cruelty of real punitive forces.
« In the event of train crashes and attacks on employees and guards, they are subject to extradition to a punitive detachment, and if within three days the culprits are not identified and extradited, then for the first time the hostages are shot through one, the houses of those who left with the gangs, regardless of the remaining families, are burned , and the second time, the number of hostages to be shot increases several times, suspicious villages are burned entirely » , - said the order of the commander of the 2nd Czechoslovak division, Colonel R. Krejci.

November 13, 1919 Czechs tried to distance themselves from politics Kolchak. The memorandum they issued stated: “Under the protection of Czechoslovak bayonets, local Russian military authorities allow themselves actions that would horrify the entire civilized world. The burning of villages, the beating of hundreds of peaceful Russian citizens, the execution without trial of representatives of democracy on simple suspicion of political unreliability is a common occurrence, and responsibility for everything before the court of the people of the whole world falls on us. Why did we, having military force, not resist this lawlessness? This passivity of ours is a direct consequence of the principle of our neutrality and non-interference in internal Russian affairs. We ourselves see no other way out of this situation other than an immediate return home.”. At the same time, as we have already seen, the Czechs themselves were more than once noticed doing the same thing that they rightly accused the Kolchakites of.

Finally, the Czechs were allowed to go home. However, the path to Vladivostok was blocked by Red partisans. Fulfilling the order of General Janin, the commander-in-chief of the Czechoslovak corps Yan Syrovy handed over Kolchak to the Irkutsk Political Center in exchange for free passage to Vladivostok. Many white historians would then call this the “Czech betrayal.”
Later, some members of the corps, including Yan Syrov, will no longer betray their ally, but their own people and state. As Minister of National Defense and Chairman of the Government of the Czechoslovak Republic, Jan Syrovy accepted the terms of the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938. Counting resistance to fascists "desperate and hopeless", he ceded the Sudetenland, which belonged to the Czechs, and surrendered a significant part of the weapons to Nazi Germany. Later, in March 1939, during the Wehrmacht's attack on Czechoslovakia, General Syrov, who at that time held the post of Minister of Defense, gave the army the order not to resist the Germans. After which all army warehouses, equipment and weapons of the “military forge of Europe” were handed over to the fascists intact. Until the fall of 1939, Syrovy worked in the Ministry of Education of the government of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

In 1947, Jan Syrovy was sentenced by a Czechoslovak court to 20 years for collaborating with the German occupiers.
Another famous Czech collaborator who served as an officer in the Czechoslovak Corps is Emmanuel Moravec. In 1919, he was an employee of the Political and Information Department of the Czechoslovakia's military mission in Siberia. Returning from Russia to his homeland, Moravec held high positions in the Czechoslovak army, was a professor at the Higher Military School, and a famous publicist. After the Munich Agreement, Moravec wrote the book “As a Moor,” in which he called on the Czechs not to resist the Germans in order to preserve themselves. The Nazis published the book in large quantities, and Moravec was appointed Minister of Schools and Public Education of the government of the Imperial Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In this position, Moravec launched a large-scale propaganda campaign, calling on the Czechs to fully cooperate with the occupation regime. Moravec was also the initiator of the creation in the Czech Republic in 1943 of the Czech League against Bolshevism (ČLPB) and a fascist youth organization.

Moravec's sons Igor and Jiri, having received German citizenship, went to serve in the Wehrmacht. The eldest son Igor served in the SS units (he was executed in 1947), and Jiri was a front-line artist in the German army.
During the Prague Uprising on May 5, 1945, Emmanuel Moravec shot himself.

This is how fighters for freedom and independence of their land, Russia and all Slavs“Monuments are being erected in Russian cities today.

On September 2, 1920, a sea transport departed from the pier in Vladivostok, on board of which the last unit of the Czechoslovak Corps was returning home. The Czechs took with them a lot of stolen property.
White emigrant A. Kotomkin recalled:
“Newspapers published caricatures - feuilletons of leaving Czechs like this: Caricature. Return of the Czechs to Prague. The legionnaire rides on a thick rubber tire. On the back there is a huge load of sugar, tobacco, coffee, leather, copper, cloth, fur. Manufactures, furniture, triangle tires, gold, etc.”

Hyda will call this return “anabasis,” that is, “ascent,” by analogy with the historical return of 10,000 Greeks under the command of Xenophon after the Battle of Kunax. However, the great Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek, an eyewitness and participant in those events, had every reason to doubt such an interpretation, which he ironically reflected in one of the chapters of his book entitled “Svejk’s Budejovice Anabasis.”

So, the performance of the Czechoslovak Corps was part of the intervention of the Entente powers in Russia. Russia as such was of interest to the Czechs and Slovaks from a very pragmatic point of view - first as a country capable of fighting the Austro-German alliance and thereby contributing to the liberation of Czechoslovak lands, and then as an object of plunder. Having become involved in the Civil War, Czech legionnaires acted on our territory with the harshness of the occupiers.
And calling them heroes by erecting monuments to them in Russia means condoning the most blatant falsification of history.

The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in the spring of 1918 is considered by some historians to be the beginning of the fratricidal Civil War. Finding themselves in a very difficult political situation on the territory of another state, the leaders of a huge military group were forced to make decisions under the influence of a number of influential political forces of that time.

Prerequisites for the formation of the Czechoslovak Corps

The history of the formation of the Czechoslovak Corps, whose uprising in the late spring of 1918 served as a signal for the beginning of the Civil War on the territory of the Russian state, still causes a lot of controversy among historians not only in Russia. Finding themselves in difficult political conditions and dreaming of continuing the fight for the liberation of their homeland, they turned out to be the “bargaining chip” of political forces not only in Russia, but also in warring Europe.

What were the prerequisites for creating the corps? First of all, the intensification of the liberation struggle against Austria-Hungary, in whose power were the lands of the Czechs and Slovaks, who dreamed of creating their own state. Its creation dates back to the beginning of the First World War, when a large number of Czech and Slovak migrants lived in Russia, who dreamed of creating their own state in the ancestral territories belonging to these peoples and under the yoke of Austria-Hungary.

Formation of the Czech squad

Taking into account these patriotic sentiments of the Slav brothers, the Russian government, meeting the numerous appeals addressed to Emperor Nicholas II, in particular, the “Czech National Committee” created in Kyiv, decided on July 30, 1914 to create a Czech squad. It was the predecessor of the Czechoslovak Corps, whose uprising occurred four years later.

This decision was accepted with enthusiasm by the Czech colonists. Already on September 28, 1914, the banner was consecrated, and in October the squad as part of the 3rd Army under the command of General Radko-Dmitriev took part in the battle for Eastern Galicia. The squad was part of the Russian troops and almost all command positions in it were occupied by Russian officers.

Replenishment of the Czech squad with prisoners of war

In May 1915, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, gave his consent to replenish the ranks of the Czech squad with prisoners of war and defectors from among the Czechs and Slovaks, who surrendered en masse to the Russian army. By the end of 1915, a regiment bearing the name of Jan Hus was formed. It consisted of more than 2,100 military personnel. In 1916, a brigade was already formed, consisting of three regiments, numbering more than 3,500 people.

However, Russia's allies could not come to terms with the fact that its authority in the matter of creating a Czechoslovak state was increasing. The liberal intelligentsia from among the Czechs and Slovaks in Paris creates the Czechoslovak National Council. It was headed by Tomas Masaryk, who later became the first president of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Benes, later the second president, Milan Stefanik, an astronomer, general of the French army, and Joseph Dürich.

The goal is to create the state of Czechoslovakia. To do this, they tried to obtain permission from the Entente to form their own army, formally subordinating to the Council all military formations operating against the powers that fought with the Entente on all fronts. They formally included units that fought on the side of Russia.

The situation of the Czechoslovaks after the October Revolution

After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government did not change its attitude towards Czechoslovak military personnel. After the October Uprising, the Czechoslovak corps found itself in a difficult situation. The policy of the Bolsheviks, who sought to make peace with the powers of the Triple Alliance, did not suit the Czechoslovaks, who sought to continue the war in order to liberate the territory of their homeland. They support the Provisional Government, which advocates war to a victorious end.

An agreement was concluded with the Soviets, which included clauses according to which the Czechoslovak units pledged not to interfere in the internal affairs of the country on the side of any party and to continue military operations against the Austro-Germans. A small part of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps supported the uprising in Petrograd and went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. The rest were transported from Poltava to Kyiv, where, together with cadets from military schools, they took part in street battles against soldiers and workers' councils of the city of Kyiv.

But in the future, the leadership of the Czechoslovak Corps did not want to spoil relations with the Soviet government, so the military tried not to enter into internal political conflicts. That is why they did not take part in the defense of the Central Rada from the advancing Soviet detachments. But mistrust grew day by day, which ultimately led to the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918.

Recognition of the corps as part of the French army

Seeing the difficult situation of the Czechoslovak corps in Russia, the CSNS in Paris addressed the French government with a request to recognize it as a foreign allied military unit on Russian territory. French President Poincaré in December 1917 recognized the Czechoslovak Corps as part of the French army.

After Soviet power was established in Kyiv, the Czechoslovak Corps received assurances that the government of Soviet Russia had no objections to its sending to its homeland. There were two ways to get there. The first was through Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, but the Czechoslovakians rejected it for fear of being attacked by German submarines.

The second is through the Far East. It was this way that the decision was made to send foreign legionnaires. An agreement on this was signed between the Soviet government and representatives of the CSNS. The task was not an easy one - approximately 35 to 42 thousand people had to be transported across the entire country.

Prerequisites for the conflict

The main prerequisite for the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps was the tense situation around this military unit. The presence of a huge armed formation in the middle of Russia was beneficial to many. The tsarist army ceased to exist. On the Don, the formation of the White Army was in full swing. Attempts were made to create a Red Army. The only combat unit was the corps of legionnaires, and both the Reds and the Whites tried to win it over to their side.

They did not particularly want a speedy withdrawal of the corps and the Entente country, trying to influence the course of events through the Czechoslovaks. They were not particularly interested in the rapid withdrawal of the corps of the country of the Triple Alliance, since they understood that, having arrived in Europe, this military unit would oppose them. All this served as a kind of prerequisite for the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps.

Tense, if not hostile, relations developed between the ChSNS, which was completely under French rule, and the Bolsheviks, who did not trust the legionnaires, remembering their support for the provisional government, thereby receiving a time bomb in their rear in the form of armed legionnaires.

Tension and mistrust delayed the disarmament process. The German government issued an ultimatum in which it demanded the return of all prisoners of war from Siberia to western and central Russia. The Soviets stop the advance of the legionnaires, this became the reason for the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps.

The beginning of the uprising

The beginning of the rebellion was a domestic incident. A quarrel between captured Hungarians and Czechoslovaks, who staged lynching of their former allies due to a legionnaire’s injury caused by negligence. Authorities in Chelyabinsk, where this happened, arrested several participants in the massacre. This was perceived as the authorities’ desire to stop the evacuation, which resulted in the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. At the congress of the Czechoslovak Corps held in Chelyabinsk, a decision was made to break with the Bolsheviks and not surrender arms.

In turn, the Bolsheviks demanded the complete surrender of weapons. In Moscow, representatives of the ChSNS were arrested and appealed to their compatriots with orders for complete disarmament, but it was too late. When the Red Army soldiers tried to disarm the legionnaires at several stations, they showed open resistance.

Since the regular army of the Bolsheviks was just being created, there was practically no one to defend Soviet power. Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, and Zlatoust were taken. Throughout the Trans-Siberian Railway, fierce resistance was offered to units of the Red Army and the cities of Petropavlovsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Tomsk were captured, units of the Red Army were defeated near Samara, and a path was made through the Volga.

Along the entire length of the railway, temporary anti-Bolshevik governments with their own armies were created in the cities. In Samara, the army of Komuch, in Omsk - the provisional Siberian government, under whose banners all those dissatisfied with the power of the Soviets stood. But having suffered a series of crushing defeats from the Red Army and under its pressure, the detachments of the White Army and the Czechoslovak Corps were forced to leave the occupied cities.

Results of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps

Gradually loading the trains with looted goods, the Czechoslovak legionnaires felt a desire to stop hostilities and quickly go home. By the fall of 1918, they began to move further and further to the rear, not wanting to fight, participating in security and punitive operations. The atrocities of the legionnaires even exceeded the reprisals of Kolchak’s detachments. This situation was strengthened by the news of the formation of Czechoslovakia. More than 300 trains filled with looted goods slowly moved towards Vladivostok.

Kolchak's retreating troops walked along the railroad, through mud and snow, since all the echelons, including the echelon with the gold reserve, were captured by the White Czechs, and they defended them with weapons in their hands. Of the eight echelons of the Supreme Ruler, he was left with one carriage, which departed after all the trains had passed and stood idle for weeks on sidings. In January 1920, Kolchak was handed over by the “brothers” to the Bolsheviks in exchange for an agreement on the departure of Czech legionnaires.

The shipment lasted almost a year, from December 1918 to November 1919. For this purpose, 42 ships were used, on which 72,600 people were transported to Europe. More than 4 thousand Czechoslovaks found peace in Russian soil.

The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in the spring of 1918 is considered by some historians to be the beginning of the fratricidal Civil War. Finding themselves in a very difficult political situation on the territory of another state, the leaders of a huge military group were forced to make decisions under the influence of a number of influential political forces of that time.

Prerequisites for the formation of the Czechoslovak Corps

The history of the formation of the Czechoslovak Corps, whose uprising in the late spring of 1918 served as a signal for the beginning of the Civil War on the territory of the Russian state, still causes a lot of controversy among historians not only in Russia. Finding themselves in difficult political conditions and dreaming of continuing the fight for the liberation of their homeland, they turned out to be the “bargaining chip” of political forces not only in Russia, but also in warring Europe.

What were the prerequisites for creating the corps? First of all, the intensification of the liberation struggle against Austria-Hungary, in whose power were the lands of the Czechs and Slovaks, who dreamed of creating their own state. Its creation dates back to the beginning of the First World War, when a large number of Czech and Slovak migrants lived in Russia, who dreamed of creating their own state in the ancestral territories belonging to these peoples and under the yoke of Austria-Hungary.

Formation of the Czech squad

Taking into account these patriotic sentiments of the Slav brothers, the Russian government, meeting the numerous appeals addressed to Emperor Nicholas II, in particular, the “Czech National Committee” created in Kyiv, decided on July 30, 1914 to create a Czech squad. It was the predecessor of the Czechoslovak Corps, whose uprising occurred four years later.

This decision was accepted with enthusiasm by the Czech colonists. Already on September 28, 1914, the banner was consecrated, and in October the squad as part of the 3rd Army under the command of General Radko-Dmitriev took part in the battle for Eastern Galicia. The squad was part of the Russian troops and almost all command positions in it were occupied by Russian officers.

Replenishment of the Czech squad with prisoners of war

In May 1915, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, gave his consent to replenish the ranks of the Czech squad with prisoners of war and defectors from among the Czechs and Slovaks, who surrendered en masse to the Russian army. By the end of 1915, a regiment bearing the name of Jan Hus was formed. It consisted of more than 2,100 military personnel. In 1916, a brigade was already formed, consisting of three regiments, numbering more than 3,500 people.

However, Russia's allies could not come to terms with the fact that its authority in the matter of creating a Czechoslovak state was increasing. The liberal intelligentsia from among the Czechs and Slovaks in Paris creates the Czechoslovak National Council. It was headed by Tomas Masaryk, who later became the first president of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Benes, later the second president, Milan Stefanik, an astronomer, general of the French army, and Joseph Dürich.

The goal is to create the state of Czechoslovakia. To do this, they tried to obtain permission from the Entente to form their own army, formally subordinating to the Council all military formations operating against the powers that fought with the Entente on all fronts. They formally included units that fought on the side of Russia.

The situation of the Czechoslovaks after the October Revolution

After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government did not change its attitude towards Czechoslovak military personnel. After the October Uprising, the Czechoslovak corps found itself in a difficult situation. The policy of the Bolsheviks, who sought to make peace with the powers of the Triple Alliance, did not suit the Czechoslovaks, who sought to continue the war in order to liberate the territory of their homeland. They support the Provisional Government, which advocates war to a victorious end.

An agreement was concluded with the Soviets, which included clauses according to which the Czechoslovak units pledged not to interfere in the internal affairs of the country on the side of any party and to continue military operations against the Austro-Germans. A small part of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps supported the uprising in Petrograd and went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. The rest were transported from Poltava to Kyiv, where, together with cadets from military schools, they took part in street battles against soldiers and workers' councils of the city of Kyiv.

But in the future, the leadership of the Czechoslovak Corps did not want to spoil relations with the Soviet government, so the military tried not to enter into internal political conflicts. That is why they did not take part in the defense of the Central Rada from the advancing Soviet detachments. But mistrust grew day by day, which ultimately led to the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918.

Recognition of the corps as part of the French army

Seeing the difficult situation of the Czechoslovak corps in Russia, the CSNS in Paris addressed the French government with a request to recognize it as a foreign allied military unit on Russian territory. French President Poincaré in December 1917 recognized the Czechoslovak Corps as part of the French army.

After Soviet power was established in Kyiv, the Czechoslovak Corps received assurances that the government of Soviet Russia had no objections to its sending to its homeland. There were two ways to get there. The first was through Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, but the Czechoslovakians rejected it for fear of being attacked by German submarines.

The second is through the Far East. It was this way that the decision was made to send foreign legionnaires. An agreement on this was signed between the Soviet government and representatives of the CSNS. The task was not an easy one - approximately 35 to 42 thousand people had to be transported across the entire country.

Prerequisites for the conflict

The main prerequisite for the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps was the tense situation around this military unit. The presence of a huge armed formation in the middle of Russia was beneficial to many. The tsarist army ceased to exist. On the Don, the formation of the White Army was in full swing. Attempts were made to create a Red Army. The only combat unit was the corps of legionnaires, and both the Reds and the Whites tried to win it over to their side.

They did not particularly want a speedy withdrawal of the corps and the Entente country, trying to influence the course of events through the Czechoslovaks. They were not particularly interested in the rapid withdrawal of the corps of the country of the Triple Alliance, since they understood that, having arrived in Europe, this military unit would oppose them. All this served as a kind of prerequisite for the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps.

Tense, if not hostile, relations developed between the ChSNS, which was completely under French rule, and the Bolsheviks, who did not trust the legionnaires, remembering their support for the provisional government, thereby receiving a time bomb in their rear in the form of armed legionnaires.

Tension and mistrust delayed the disarmament process. The German government issued an ultimatum in which it demanded the return of all prisoners of war from Siberia to western and central Russia. The Soviets stop the advance of the legionnaires, this became the reason for the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps.

The beginning of the uprising

The beginning of the rebellion was a domestic incident. A quarrel between captured Hungarians and Czechoslovaks, who staged lynching of their former allies due to a legionnaire’s injury caused by negligence. Authorities in Chelyabinsk, where this happened, arrested several participants in the massacre. This was perceived as the desire of the authorities to stop the evacuation, which resulted in the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. At the congress of the Czechoslovak Corps held in Chelyabinsk, a decision was made to break with the Bolsheviks and not surrender arms.

In turn, the Bolsheviks demanded the complete surrender of weapons. In Moscow, representatives of the ChSNS were arrested and appealed to their compatriots with orders for complete disarmament, but it was too late. When the Red Army soldiers tried to disarm the legionnaires at several stations, they showed open resistance.

Since the regular army of the Bolsheviks was just being created, there was practically no one to defend Soviet power. Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, and Zlatoust were taken. Throughout the Trans-Siberian Railway, fierce resistance was offered to units of the Red Army and the cities of Petropavlovsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Tomsk were captured, units of the Red Army were defeated near Samara, and a path was made through the Volga.

Along the entire length of the railway, temporary anti-Bolshevik governments with their own armies were created in the cities. In Samara, the army of Komuch, in Omsk - the provisional Siberian government, under whose banners all those dissatisfied with the power of the Soviets stood. But having suffered a series of crushing defeats from the Red Army and under its pressure, the detachments of the White Army and the Czechoslovak Corps were forced to leave the occupied cities.

Results of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps

Gradually loading the trains with looted goods, the Czechoslovak legionnaires felt a desire to stop hostilities and quickly go home. By the fall of 1918, they began to move further and further to the rear, not wanting to fight, participating in security and punitive operations. The atrocities of the legionnaires even exceeded the reprisals of Kolchak’s detachments. This situation was strengthened by the news of the formation of Czechoslovakia. More than 300 trains filled with looted goods slowly moved towards Vladivostok.

Kolchak's retreating troops walked along the railroad, through mud and snow, since all the echelons, including the echelon with the gold reserve, were captured by the White Czechs, and they defended them with weapons in their hands. Of the eight echelons of the Supreme Ruler, he was left with one carriage, which departed after all the trains had passed and stood idle for weeks on sidings. In January 1920, Kolchak was handed over by the “brothers” to the Bolsheviks in exchange for an agreement on the departure of Czech legionnaires.

The shipment lasted almost a year, from December 1918 to November 1919. For this purpose, 42 ships were used, on which 72,600 people were transported to Europe. More than 4 thousand Czechoslovaks found peace in Russian soil.