The moment of truth of the Red Army. Military specialists and the Red Army

The October Revolution led to a split in the armed forces. The officers who faithfully served the tsar took at least three positions in relation to the Bolsheviks: a position of non-reconciliation in relation to the Soviet power, expectant, and more or less loyal. The group of officers who took the third position eventually went over to the side of the Soviets.

A little about how former career generals, military leaders and officers of the tsarist army ended up in the Red Army.

For the newly created Soviet power in early 1918, a turning point comes: Lenin understands that the partisans, and that is how Lenin calls the Red Guard, will not be able to protect the newly created young state. And Lenin decides to recruit former tsarist officers - military experts, as they were later called, into the ranks of the Red Army. And he brought them to the service of the Bolsheviks on the orders of Commissar Trotsky Ephraim Sklyansky, his deputy. It was Sklyansky who was engaged in propaganda among former officers. By the summer of 1918, almost seven thousand officers had voluntarily signed up for the regular Red Army. The military experts were led by Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, who had recently been appointed military instructor of the Air Force.

Almost until the end of the twentieth century, it was generally accepted that it was the Bolshevik Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army that defeated the well-trained and heavily armed armies of Denikin and Wrangel, however, according to today's historians' estimates, about 500 top-echelon officers, brilliant graduates of the General Staff Academy, fought in the ranks of the Reds. imperial Russia. These are B. Shaposhnikov, D. Karbyshev, M. Bonch-Bruevich, S. Kamenev, A. Egorov and others. According to the historian Kavtaradze, almost thirty percent of the officers of the tsarist corps served in the ranks of the Bolsheviks. As Trotsky joked about this: "The Red Army is very reminiscent of a radish: it is red only on the outside."

Fate brought them a sad surprise: the military experts had to fight against their fellow students on the side of the Bolsheviks. However, military experts, many of whom joined the Bolshevik army out of a sense of patriotism, believed that they should defend their homeland, the Russian people, and their family members.
When in the fall of 1920 the regular Red Army finally completed the defeat of the Russian army, Wrangel admitted before his escape that he was not afraid for Russia, because she now has such a trained army that will repulse any external enemy. “It was we who honed their blades,” Wrangel said in conclusion. Of course, he meant precisely them - the military experts, thanks to whom the army of the Bolsheviks turned from a rabble, from partisans into an active army that won the Civil War.

However, the Bolsheviks always believed that military experts were alien elements for the revolution, they were never trusted.

And how did the Soviet state thank the military experts? In 1922, military experts began to be dismissed from command positions, and registration of all military experts began: they were forbidden to move around the country without the permission of the state security agencies. Many officers were shot in the dungeons of the Cheka: they were charged with participating in counter-revolutionary conspiracies. Lenin even had to create a new position in the General Staff, which controlled the arrests of military experts, which his associates did not really like. After Lenin's death, there was no one else to protect the military experts. Trotsky was expelled from the USSR, Sklyansky, whom Stalin strongly hated, was sent to America, with which there were then no diplomatic relations. From the curator of military experts, he turns into a representative of trade. In America, Sklyansky works as chairman of Amtorg. However, he soon dies under very mysterious circumstances.

When in the early thirties the threat of war looms over the USSR, and in the country itself peasant uprisings break out here and there, the Soviet government decides to neutralize the military experts. Criminal cases are opened against them, the only charge in which was a conspiracy. The largest and loudest was the criminal case called "Spring", or "Guards case". In Leningrad alone, more than a thousand former military experts were shot. Among them: division commander A. Svechin, P. Sytin - former commander of the Southern Front, Yu. Gravitsky, A. Verkhovsky, A. Snesarev and others.

In 1937, Marshal Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, the commander of the Belarusian Military District, Kork, the Commissar of the Military Academy, the commander of the Leningrad Military District, Iona Yakir, the chairman of the Sovaviahim Eideman, and others were shot in the notorious case of the “military”.

It is not known what fate would have awaited the curator of the military experts, Ephraim Sklyansky, if he had not drowned in 1925. Until now, many people think that it was on Stalin's orders that Sklyansky was removed.

Almost all the prominent military leaders who stood at the origins of the creation of the Red Army disappeared one after another. Among them are Vatsetis, who was repressed in the 1930s, and Yegorov, who was shot on charges of espionage. During the period of Stalinist repression, only a very few former military experts will survive. One of them was Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, Boris Shaposhnikov. Leonid Govorov.

We sharpened their blades. military drama

On August 27, 1925, in New York, under mysterious circumstances, Ephraim Sklyansky drowned, in the past - the right hand of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the young Soviet Republic, Lev Trotsky. Later, many will suspect that Sklyansky was removed at the direction of Stalin himself. Together with one of the founders of the Red Army, many secrets will drown in the waters of the American lake. Including the main one - who actually won the Civil War?

It was Ephraim Sklyansky, on the instructions of Trotsky, who was engaged in attracting former tsarist officers to serve in the young Red Army. They received a special status - military specialists or military experts. In the center of the film are the fates of Russian officers who happened to live in an era of historical turning point. First they lost their country and their army. Then they had to fight against their own brothers. And after the victory, most of them faced the sad fate of outcasts and candidates for destruction...

What prompted these people to serve the hated Bolsheviks? Who led the Red Army to victory: worker-peasant commanders or experienced tsarist officers? How did the Soviet authorities treat military experts after the Civil War? And why in the USSR did they try to forget about their merits and exploits?

Russia

Intra-party disputes about military experts

The leader of the Bolsheviks, V. I. Lenin, set the task of attracting military specialists from the Russian Empire to the construction of the Red Army and to command and control troops during hostilities against the White armies.

Number of military specialists in 1918–1920

It can be seen from the second and third chapters of the monograph that the replenishment of the Red Army with command personnel at the expense of former generals and officers took place first on a voluntary basis, and from October 1918 on the basis of mobilization on the basis of decrees of the Council of People's Commissars, resolutions of the Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense, orders of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic .

What was the number of military specialists in the Red Army in 1918, 1919 and by November 1920, i.e. by the end of the civil war, when the main fronts were liquidated?

The difficulty of answering this question lies in the fact that some works give the total number of military specialists, including, in addition to former officers, also former officials of the military department, while others take into account only regular officers without wartime officers (ensigns). The lack of substantiation of the quantitative data given in them should also be attributed to the disadvantages of these works.

Meanwhile, the question of the number of military specialists in the Red Army during the Civil War, their proportion among the entire command staff is extremely important and is closely related to such key problems as the attitude of Russian officers to the October Revolution and Soviet power, the ratio of the number of military specialists in Red Army and officers in the White Guard armies, etc.

Let's make an attempt to determine the number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the civil war. It was composed of three main sources: former generals and officers of the old army who joined the Red Army voluntarily (including those who began to cooperate with the Soviet government immediately after the October Revolution); former generals and officers drafted into the Red Army for mobilization, including those who were in the territory liberated from the White Guards and did not take part in the civil war; former generals and officers of the Russian army who served in the White Guard, as well as in other anti-Soviet military formations (including those promoted to the first officer rank in them), taken prisoner and then recruited to serve in the Red Army or voluntarily defected to its side during civil war.

Regarding the number of former generals and officers who entered the service of the Soviet government voluntarily (since January 1918 - in the Red Army), in Soviet historical literature, as far as we know, there are no significant discrepancies. Thus, in the “History of the Civil War in the USSR” it is said that “during the period of voluntary recruitment, 8 thousand soldiers came to the Red Army. officers." In this regard, the figure given in the work of V.V. Britova: “By June 14, 1918 (that is, before the first mobilization of former generals and officers. - A.K.), there were more than 9,000 former officers in the military units and military institutions of Moscow alone.” In Soviet historical literature and archival materials, one can often find the assertion that so many former generals and officers voluntarily entered the Red Army that 20 divisions could be staffed with them in the positions of command and administrative staff. Assuming that there were approximately 400 officers in the infantry division of the old army (taking into account the officers who were part of the artillery brigade, sapper battalion, etc.), we get the figure indicated above - 8 thousand officers. True, N.I. Podvoisky in January 1921, in a conversation with the chief of staff of the commander-in-chief of all the Armed Forces of the Republic F.V. Kostyaev pointed out that the former generals and officers who voluntarily joined the Red Army would be enough to staff not 20, but 9-10 divisions. But, in our opinion, N.I. Podvoisky, unlike V.V. Britova underestimates the number of interest to us. There is no doubt that the "tide" in the Red Army of former generals and officers in February - March 1918 in connection with the intervention of the troops of the Quadruple Union was replaced after the conclusion of the Brest Peace by a certain "ebb" from the Red Army (some former officers were dismissed, as at that time, the Red Army had only a little over 150 thousand people in its ranks, some left on their own, having lost faith that they could be of any use in an army with an elected beginning, partisan orders, etc.). However, such a "tide", which affected mainly former generals and staff officers, was not as significant as N.I. Podvoisky.

According to the information of the Mobilization Department of the All-Glavshtab, in the period from July 29, when the first (partial) conscription of former generals and officers was announced by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars, to November 15, 1918, 20,488 former generals and officers, and by the end of 1918 - 22,295.

The movement of the called-up officers of the old army in the first six months of 1919 is presented in Table. 9.

Table 9

* Compiled according to: TsGVIA. F. 10. Op. 1. D. 449. L. 3, 4, 28, 29. Data on the Volga Military District show that as a result of the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps, up to 2.5 thousand former officers remained on the territory occupied by it.

With regard to the total number of former generals and officers drafted into the Red Army for mobilization, there is an authoritative judgment by N.A. Efimov, which was not disputed in historiography: “As a result of all calls from June 12 (at the initiative of the commander of the 1st Army M.N. Tukhachevsky, the private call of former officers began already on June 12, 1918, i.e. a month and a half before Decree of the Council of People's Commissars. - A.K.) on August 15, 1920 was taken into the ranks of the Red Army: b. officers - 48 409 ... ".

This figure is firmly established in the Soviet historical literature. However, in some works it is mistaken for the total number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the civil war. So, in particular, in the article "Military Specialists" in the encyclopedia "Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR" it is said: "Until the end of the civil war, a total of 48.5 thousand officers and generals were called up." Meanwhile, it is known that with the attack of bourgeois-landlord Poland on Soviet Russia, the size of the Red Army increased by 1 million people compared to the spring of 1920, which, in turn, required a significant increase in the command and administrative staff, primarily in the current army. However, the question of what categories of command staff made up for its deficiency remains open to this day. There is only a small article by G.Yu. Haase, which we will focus on below, and statements on this issue in a number of works. So, S.M. Klyatskin wrote that after the defeat of Kolchak's and Denikin's armies, "the Red Army was accepted (except for the soldiers. - A.K.) and many former officers who understood the futility of the struggle against Soviet power and went over to the side of the Red Army." Unfortunately, firstly, he speaks only about the white officers who went over to the side of the Red Army, and does not mention those taken prisoner by it during the civil war, and secondly (and this is the main thing), he does not indicate their number.

The defeat by the Red Army in late 1919 - early 1920 of the main forces of the counter-revolution in Siberia and southern Russia allowed V.I. Lenin to declare at the IX Congress of the RCP(b) in March 1920 that "we won a decisive victory on the decisive fronts of the civil war." In this regard, the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and the Soviet government took all measures to use the gained peaceful respite for the restoration of industry, agriculture, transport, procurement of fuel, raw materials, etc. The work of the VII All-Russian Congress of Soviets (December 5-9, 1919), the IX Congress of the RCP (b) (March 29 - April 5, 1920) and the 3rd All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions (6-13 April 1920), at which a resolution was adopted "to appeal to all the workers and working people of Soviet Russia with an appeal to take up together and energetically the fight against economic disruption." At the beginning of April 1920, the Council of Defense was transformed into the Council of Labor and Defense, which also corresponded to the new tasks facing the country.

The emergency measures taken by the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and the Soviet government in the specific conditions of the spring of 1920, when the Soviet Republic began to restore the national economy in the face of the possibility of a military attack on the Land of Soviets, include the creation of labor armies - military formations of the Red Army for use on economic front. The following figure can give an idea of ​​the scale of such use of military personnel: from April 15 to July 1, 1920, up to 2.5 million Red Army soldiers were involved in the national economy, i.e. more than half of the entire personnel of the Red Army.

On April 25, 1920, the troops of bourgeois-landlord Poland, with active support and assistance from the Entente, went on the offensive in Ukraine. Again, the tasks of defending the republic came to the fore. “Since it came to the war,” said V.I. Lenin, - then everything should be subordinated to the interests of the war ... "On April 30, 1920, the appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "To all workers, peasants and honest citizens" was published, on May 23 the Central Committee of the RCP (b) published the theses "The Polish Front and Our Tasks" .

On June 2, 1920, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars was adopted regarding the former officers who still remained in the White camp. The core issue of this decree was the use of the patriotic sentiments of the former officers in connection with the desire of the bourgeois-landlord Poland to seize the lands of Soviet Ukraine and Belarus. The decree stated that “all those former officers who, in one form or another, will assist in the speedy liquidation of the White Guard detachments still remaining in the Crimea, the Caucasus and Siberia and thereby facilitate and hasten the victory of worker-peasant Russia over gentry Poland, will be freed from responsibility for the deeds that they committed as part of the White Guard armies.

On May 30, 1920, "All former officers, wherever they are" were addressed by a Special Meeting chaired by A.A. Brusilov, created on May 9 under the Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Republic as an advisory body to discuss measures to combat the advancing troops of bourgeois-landlord Poland (the Special Meeting included major military experts, former generals of the Russian army: M.V. Akimov, P.S. Baluev, A. I. Verkhovsky, Alexey E. Gutor, N. A. Danilov, A. M. Zaionchkovsky, V. N. Klembovsky, D. P. Parsky, A. A. Polivanov, A. A. Tsurikov) . The appeal read, in part: “At this critical historical moment in our national life, we, your old comrades-in-arms, appeal to your feelings of love and devotion to the motherland and appeal to you with an urgent request to forget all grievances, no matter who and where no inflicted, and voluntarily go with complete selflessness and hunting to the Red Army to the front or to the rear, wherever the government of Soviet Workers 'and Peasants' Russia appoints you, and serve there not out of fear, but for conscience, so that with your honest service, not sparing life, to defend at all costs dear to us Russia and not allow it to be plundered, because in the latter case it can irretrievably disappear, and then our descendants will rightly curse us and rightly accuse us of being did not use their combat knowledge and experience, they forgot their native Russian people and ruined their mother Russia.

“As far as this appeal made a terrible and overwhelming impression on the irreconcilable,” wrote the White Guard publicist Yu. Arbatov, “it had the same opposite effect on the wavering masses ... On the very first day the appeal appeared on the streets of Moscow, thousands of officers appeared at the military commissariat, previously those who evaded service in the Red Army, and tens of thousands of intellectuals ... ”The captured officers also responded to this appeal.

On June 8, 1920, a group of former Kolchak officers, employees of the economic department of the Priuralsky Military District, turned to the military commissar of this department with a statement stating that in response to the appeal of the Special Conference and the decree of June 2, 1920, they were experiencing "deep desire by honest service "to atone for their stay in the ranks of the Kolchakites and confirm that for them there will be no more "honorable service than the service to the motherland and the working people," to whom they are ready to give themselves entirely to the service "not only in the rear, but also at the front."

After a number of conscriptions in 1920, including those born in 1901, the total strength of the Red Army increased to 5.5 million people, which again raised the issue of providing it with command staff quite sharply. It was not possible to compensate for its deficiency only at the expense of those who completed short-term courses (although the number of the latter reached 107 by January 1920) was not possible. In addition, red commanders were intended to fill positions, as a rule, at the level of platoon and company commanders.

In this regard, it was necessary to resort again to additional mobilization of former officers. So, on May 12, 1920, the Council of Labor and Defense adopted a resolution according to which all people's commissariats were obliged to "allocate former officers fit for the front" who worked in the system of the Soviet state apparatus, and send them to the Polish front within "three days". In addition, the following measures were taken: commissions were formed to examine territorial personnel to remove former officers fit for service in the ranks; the Main Directorate of Military Educational Institutions and command courses were once again checked to select former officers who held positions not in their specialty for the front; all deferrals for command personnel have been revised, etc. However, even with the implementation of all these measures, it was hardly possible to “place high hopes on them”, since some of them were of a “repeated nature” (carried out, in particular, after the work of the Special Commission on Registration of Former Officers, chaired by A.V. Eiduk ), so it was expected that only about 1 thousand former officers would enter the Active Army.

In these emergency conditions, the command of the Red Army decided to replenish the command staff of the Army at the expense of former white officers (prisoners of war and defectors), mainly Kolchak and Denikin's armies.

As rightly noted by L.M. Spirin, in the Soviet historical literature there is no complete information about the number of officers in the White armies (former regular officers and wartime officers of the Russian army, as well as those promoted to the first officer rank during the civil war). Therefore, we will accept, using Spirin's data, that in Kolchak's army there were about 30 thousand former officers, in Denikin's - up to 50 thousand, but with a significantly higher percentage of former career officers (including generals and staff officers); in the rest of the white armies (Krasnov, Yudenich, Miller, etc.) there were up to 20 thousand former officers.

By the spring of 1920, as a result of the defeat by the Red Army of the main White Guard groups (in Siberia, in the South, North-West and North of the country), tens of thousands of officers were taken prisoner or voluntarily went over to the side of Soviet power. Suffice it to say that only near Novorossiysk in March 1920, the Red Army captured 10,000 Denikin officers. Tens of thousands were prisoners of war and defectors - officers of the Kolchak army, which can be confirmed by the following data: in the reports of the commissar of the Urals military district of March 27 and 28, 1920, it was indicated that 1100 prisoners were sent from the 5th army (from Krasnoyarsk) to the district army officers, and in the list of captured white officers, compiled by the Directorate for the command staff of the All-Glavshtab by August 15, 1920, there were 9660 of them.

It should be noted that the involvement of prisoners of war and defectors from the White armies (primarily soldiers, non-commissioned officers, as well as officers) for service in the Red Army took place already in 1919. So, in June 1919, the All-Glavshtab, in agreement with the Special Department The Cheka worked out "the procedure for sending defectors and prisoners captured on the fronts of the civil war." On December 6, 1919, the headquarters of the Turkestan Front turned to the Directorate for the Command Staff of the All-Glavshtab with a memorandum stating that former officers - defectors from Kolchak's armies were enlisted in its reserve, among which "there are many specialists and combatant command personnel who could be used in their specialty. Before being transferred to the reserve, all of them went through the records management of the Special Department of the Cheka of the Turkestan Front, from which "with respect to the majority of these persons" there were no "objections to their appointment to command positions in the ranks of the Red Army." In this regard, the headquarters of the front expressed the desire to use these persons "in parts of their front." The Directorate for Command Staff, while not objecting in principle to the use of these persons in the Red Army, at the same time spoke in favor of transferring them to another (for example, the Southern) front, which was approved by the Council of the All-Glavshtab.

Since “the central authorities (it was. - A.K.) recognized in principle as possible” to accept white officers (prisoners of war or defectors) into the Red Army and even appoint them “to command positions after the Special Department of the Cheka clarifies the circumstances of the transfer or surrender and their political physiognomy”, The Directorate for Command Staff petitioned in several memorandums to the Council of the All-Glavshtab "in view of the special events taking place on the Western Front" and "the general lack of command personnel" for the immediate removal of all such persons from civilian institutions, Vsevobuch, etc., where they occupied posts that did not at all correspond to their military training, and sending them to the Army in the field, "but not to the fronts where they were captured." At the same time, the officers of the White armies were to be “entirely” at the disposal of the Directorate for Command Staff and receive appointments in the usual manner according to the orders of this directorate “in accordance with the general tasks of the highest authorities of the republic.”

Fulfilling the task of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic on the registration and use of former white officers (in connection with mobilization calculations for the second half of the year 1920), as well as “in view of the extreme need, it is possible to make wider use of this category of command personnel”, the Directorate for Command Staff of the All-Glavshtab developed draft "Provisional rules on the use of former land officers from among the prisoners of war and defectors of the white armies." According to them, the officers had, first of all, to go for a check (“filtering”) to the nearest local special departments of the Cheka in order to carefully establish in each individual case the passive or active, voluntary or compulsory nature of their service in the White Army, the past of this officer, etc. d. After checking, the officers, whose loyalty to the Soviet government was “sufficiently clarified”, were subject to transfer to the jurisdiction of local military registration and enlistment offices, from where they were sent to 3-month political courses organized by the GUVUZ in Moscow and other large industrial cities “numbering no more than 100 people in one point" to get acquainted with the structure of Soviet power and the organization of the Red Army; officers, whose "trustworthiness" in relation to the Soviet government "according to the initial material" was difficult to find out, were sent "to forced labor camps." At the end of the 3-month course, depending on the results of the examination of the state of health by medical commissions, all officers found fit for service at the front were to be sent to the spare parts of the Western Front and, as an exception, to the South-Western (the latter was not allowed to appoint officers of the Denikin army and officers from the Cossacks) “for the renewal of military knowledge in practice”, development “with new conditions of service” and faster and more appropriate, due to the proximity of the combat situation, the association of “former white officers with the Red Army masses”; at the same time, their staffing of spare parts should not exceed 15% of the available command staff. Officers deemed unfit for service at the front were assigned to the internal military districts in accordance with their suitability for combat or non-combat service, in part of the auxiliary assignment or to the corresponding logistics institutions by specialty (persons with military pedagogical experience were sent to the disposal of the GUVUZ, "etapniks" and "wanderers" - at the disposal of the Central Directorate of Military Communications, various technical specialists - according to their specialty), while also avoiding their number of more than 15% of the available command staff of a unit or institution. Finally, officers unfit for military service were dismissed "from such." All appointments (except for the General Staff officers, which were accounted for by the department for the service of the General Staff of the Organizational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab) were made "exclusively according to the orders of the Office for the Command Staff of the All-Glavstab, in which all the records of former white officers were concentrated." Officers who were in jobs that did not correspond to their military training, after being “filtered” by the Cheka, were to be transferred to the military commissariats “for army orders” in accordance with the decisions of the Special Departments of the Cheka and local Cheka on the possibility of their service in the ranks of the Red Army. Before being sent to the front, it was allowed to dismiss officers on short-term leave to visit relatives within the interior regions of the republic (as an exception, “on personal petitions” and with the permission of district military commissariats) with the establishment of control at the places of the time of arrival on leave and departure and with a circular the guarantee of the remaining comrades "in the form of the termination of vacations for the rest in case of non-appearance of those released on time." The "Provisional Rules" also contained clauses on the material support of former white officers and their families during the time from the moment of captivity or transfer to the side of the Red Army and until the transfer from the Special Department of the Cheka to the jurisdiction of the district military commissariat for subsequent dispatch to the disposal of the headquarters of the Western and South-Western fronts, etc., which was carried out on the basis of the same orders of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic as for military specialists - former officers of the old army.

On September 4, 1920, the order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic No. 1728/326 was issued, concerning the rules for "filtering", accounting and using former officers and military officials of the White armies. In comparison with the “Provisional Rules” discussed above, questionnaire cards were introduced for former white officers, consisting of 38 points, it was specified where “political and military training courses” could be located, the number of these courses, their maximum number in one city, and also indicated on the need to reflect in the service records the former affiliation of officers "to the composition of the white armies." The order also contained a new, extremely important clause: after a year of service in the Red Army, a former officer or military official of the White armies was removed “from special registration”, and from that time on, the “special rules for this person” given in the order did not apply, i.e. . he completely switched to the position of a "military specialist" serving in the Red Army.

According to an explanatory note drawn up in the Directorate for Command Staff of the All-Glavshtab on September 13, 1920, according to the GUVUZ, “every 10 days” the Directorate for Command Staff was supposed to “receive at its disposal 600 white officers who had passed the established courses”, i.e. . from August 15 to November 15, 5,400 former white officers could be sent to the Red Army. However, this number exceeded the number of red commanders who could be assigned to the Active Red Army after they completed the accelerated command courses. So that such a situation would not affect "the internal state of the formations", it was considered expedient to establish in marching battalions "a certain percentage maximum for former white officers - no more than 25% of the red commanders."

In total, 14,390 former white officers served in the ranks of the Red Army “not for fear, but for conscience”, of which, until January 1, 1921, 12 thousand people.

In the article mentioned above, G.Yu. Haase said that among the 10 thousand prisoners of war who arrived to staff the 15th Infantry Division in June 1920, many captured officers also penetrated "under the guise of soldiers". A significant part of them were seized and sent to the rear for inspection, but some who did not occupy responsible positions in Denikin's army "were left in the ranks, approximately 7-8 people per regiment, and they were given positions no higher than platoon commanders." The article mentions the name of the former Yesaul P.F. Korolkov, who, having started his service in the Red Army as a clerk of a team of mounted scouts, finished it as an acting regiment commander and died heroically on September 5, 1920 in the battles near Kakhovka. At the end of the article, the author writes that “nothing could tie them (former white officers. - A.K.) to the unit as much as the trust placed in them”; many officers, "not becoming adherents of Soviet power, got used to their unit, and some strange, inconsistent sense of honor forced them to fight on our side."

After the end of the civil war and the transition of the Red Army to a peaceful position, 1975 former white officers continued to serve in the Red Army, proving "by their work and courage sincerity in work and devotion to the Union of Soviet Republics", on the basis of which the Soviet government removed the title "former whites" from them and equalized in all rights the commander of the Red Army. Among them can be called staff captain L.A. Govorov, later Marshal of the Soviet Union, who from the Kolchak army went over with his battery to the side of the Red Army, participated in the civil war as a division commander and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the battles near Kakhovka; Colonel of the Orenburg White Cossack Army F.A. Bogdanov, who went over with his brigade to the side of the Red Army on September 8, 1919. Soon he and his officers were received by M.I. Kalinin, who explained to them the goals and objectives of the Soviet government, its policy towards military specialists and promised to admit officers of war, after an appropriate check of their activities in the White Army, to serve in the Red Army; Subsequently, this Cossack brigade participated in the battles against Denikin, White Poles, Wrangel and Basmachi. In 1920 M.V. Frunze appointed Bogdanov commander of the 1st Separate Uzbek cavalry brigade, for his distinction in battles with the Basmachis he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Sotnik T.T. Shapkin in 1920, with his unit, went over to the side of the Red Army, for differences in battles during the Soviet-Polish war he was awarded two orders of the Red Banner; during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. in the rank of lieutenant general he commanded a cavalry corps. Military pilot captain Yu.I. Arvatov, who served in the "Galician Army" of the so-called "Western Ukrainian People's Republic" and defected to the side of the Red Army in 1920, was awarded two orders of the Red Banner for participation in the civil war. Similar examples could be multiplied.

Thus, in order to determine the total number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the civil war, one should take into account, in addition to 8 thousand people who voluntarily joined the Red Army, and 48,409 people called up to it on August 15, 1920, also 12 thousand people. former white officers of the Kolchak, Denikin and other armies who were captured and recruited to serve in the Red Army or defected to the Red Army before January 1, 1921, and also mobilized from August 15 to November 15, 1920, including in the territory liberated from the Whites.

Soviet historiography provides various data on the number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the civil war, which can be grouped into three groups.

The authors of works that can be attributed to the first group, when determining the number of military specialists - former generals and officers, took it as one third of the total number of command personnel of the Red Army by the end of the civil war (130 thousand people) and considered it equal to 43.5 thousand . Human. However, it should be noted that K.E. Voroshilov, the only one from this group of authors who substantiated this number in the first place, did not consider ensigns (former wartime officers) to be military specialists, equating them to non-commissioned officers and even soldiers; secondly, he did not indicate to which category he attributed a very large part of wartime officers (as well as warrant officers) - second lieutenants, lieutenants and staff captains who received these ranks during the world war, and, finally, thirdly, included in the number of military specialists is only combatant officers and officers of the "old General Staff", although the former officer corps of the old army included a significant number of military engineers (including artillery), officers who served in the administrative part, in the military educational department, etc. .

The authors of the second group of works, when determining the number of military specialists, proceed from the total number of command personnel of all categories in the Red Army by the end of the civil war at 217 thousand people. This figure was first published in the work of S.M. Klyatskin, they immediately cite the testimony of V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko that as of January 1, 1921, military specialists in the Red Army accounted for 34%; it follows from this that an average of 73,000 military specialists served in the Red Army. From the point of view of S.M. Klyatskina is in solidarity with S.A. Fedyukin (in his work he gives rounded data - 70-75 thousand people); the same number is indicated in the work “50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR”, to which Yu.I. Korablev.

The number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the civil war in the range of 70-75 thousand people, adopted by the authors of this group of works, seems to us quite real. Unfortunately, S.M. Klyatskin, who first cited these data in his work, did not substantiate the number of command personnel of the Red Army in 217 thousand people, there is no such justification in the references to the archive he indicated.

As for the works that we assigned to the third group, their data (65–68 thousand people), as S.A. Fedyukin, are not substantiated by references to sources, and the period to which this figure refers is not specified.

Having outlined the existing points of view on the issue of the number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the civil war and in solidarity with the authors who believe that it was in the range of 70-75 thousand people, we will try to offer our justification on this issue.

In December 1920, a special commission was created under the chairmanship of the Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic E.M. Sklyansky, whose task "was to determine the size of the army and find out its need for privates and commanders in connection with the planned reorganization." The number of command and administrative personnel of the Red Army as of December 1920, "according to the data collected by the commission, was expressed in 446,722 people"; of these, 130,932 command personnel (including 39,914 paint committees who graduated from accelerated command courses). By January 1, 1921, 44% (57,610 people) of the command staff of the Red Army (former non-commissioned officers and soldiers, as well as paint committees) did not have any preliminary military training. The number of 39,914 people included commanders who graduated from higher military courses (in 1919 - 638 people, in 1920 - 1259). It can be assumed that 50% of those who graduated from higher courses were former officers: for example, out of 111 commanders and commissars who arrived in Yekaterinburg in May 1918 for an accelerated course at the Military Academy of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, 89 people (80%) were former officers. Thus, military specialists accounted for approximately 56% of 130,914 people, i.e. 73,311 people, or roughly 75 thousand former generals and officers.

The indicated number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the civil war was up to 30% of the entire officer corps of the old army, the number of which in October 1917 we accepted at 250 thousand people. We took the officers of the old army who served in the white and other armies as 100 thousand people, which averaged up to 40% of the officer corps of the old army. As for the remaining approximately 30% of the officer corps of the old army, this part in the period from the breakup of the old army to the end of the civil war, avoiding all legal (in particular, health) and illegal ways of serving both in the Red and in the armies that opposed it , "turned into a primitive state", i.e. passed to civil status and scattered throughout the territory of the former Russian Empire, went missing, deserted from the Red and White armies, emigrated, died, etc. The above considerations are purely indicative. As far as we know, White émigré literature and the works of foreign bourgeois authors do not contain information based on documentary materials about the number of military specialists in the Red Army by the end of the Civil War, and the published ones do not stand up to scrutiny. So, for example, the former General Staff Colonel A.A. Zaitsov believed that if on August 15, 1920 there were 48,409 military specialists in the Red Army, then, consequently, only 25% were on the side of the Soviet government (if we count the number of officer corps on October 25, 1917 at 200 thousand people) or 20% (if it is considered equal to 250 thousand people) of former generals and officers; the remaining 80% (or 75%) Zaitsov enrolled in the White and other hostile to Soviet power armies, completely ignoring the fact that on average 30% of Russian officers did not serve in either the Red or White armies at all.

Taking the average number of military specialists at the end of the civil war to be 75,000 people, we will try to figure out how many generals and staff officers (colonels and lieutenant colonels) were among them, especially since in Soviet historical literature the number of this category of command personnel is either not given, or indicated in the range from 200 to 1 thousand people. So, L.M. Spirin writes that “in the spring of 1919, there were a little over 200 former generals and about 400 former colonels and lieutenant colonels in the Red Army. This meant that about one-fifth of the old generals and one-fifteenth of the staff officers served the Soviet government. In this regard, it should be noted that the statement of some historians (L.M. Spirin gives the name of S.A. Fedyukin. - A.K.) about a thousand generals who served during the civil war in the Red Army is erroneous.

There is still no work in Soviet historical literature that would give exact information about the number of generals, colonels, lieutenant colonels, etc. by October 1917. In 1916, the last in the Russian army, “List to generals by seniority (corrected as of July 10)” and “List to colonels by seniority (corrected as of August 1)”, were published. But in the time before October 1917, these lists (especially the lists of generals after the February Revolution) underwent significant changes. Therefore, to determine how many generals, staff officers, etc. was in the Russian army by October 1917, it would be necessary, strictly speaking, to trace from July - August 1916 according to the so-called "highest orders" (until February 1917 inclusive), and then according to the orders of the Provisional Government on the ranks of the military ( until October 24, 1917 inclusive) the service of each general, staff officer, etc. But such a problem can be solved only in a special study.

Therefore, in this work, the following method was adopted: the card file of generals and staff officers of the Russian army compiled by us over the years, as well as the corps of officers of the General Staff for October 1917, was verified (according to the service records of fund 409 in the Central State Military Aviation Institute, registration cards in the Central State Aviation Administration and materials stored in these archives) with the above lists of seniority to generals and colonels, as well as with the "General List of Officers of the Russian Imperial Army (as of January 1, 1910)", since all generals and staff officers, as personnel officers are on this list. As a result, the following data were obtained: 775 former generals and 1,726 staff officers (including 980 colonels and 746 lieutenant colonels) served in the Red Army during the Civil War. Therefore, the data on the number of military specialists in the Red Army, given in the above article by L.M. Spirin (true, as of the spring of 1919), - "a little over 200" former generals and "about 400" staff officers - are underestimated.

It was noted above that we do not have accurate data on the number of officer corps of the Russian army, and in particular the number of generals and staff officers, as of October 1917, we also do not know the number of these categories of officers according to combat schedules, etc. in the White Guard and other armies hostile to the Soviet Republic. Therefore, we do not consider it possible to draw conclusions about what part of the former generals and staff officers who served in the Red Army during the Civil War in relation to their total number in October 1917, as well as in relation to those generals and staff officers who served in the White Guard and other anti-Soviet armies.

The third section of this chapter will talk about military specialists, including former generals and staff and chief officers who occupied command and staff positions from the “veil” to the front-army-division scale; here they only listed the most famous military specialists in the Red Army (except for former officers of the General Staff and infantry officers, about which see below).

Cavalrymen: former generals: A.A. Abaleshev, N.N. Baggovut, D.P. Bagration, V.A. Done, S.V. Gladky, L.P. Kiselev, N.P. Serebrennikov, M.P. Trankvilevsky, V.A. Khimets, A.A. Schmidt; former colonels: A.A. Bolotov, A.P. Vasiliev, D.S. Golynsky, A.A. Gubin, N.A. Kiselev, P.V. Osipov, I.A. Poltoratsky, V.M. Lermontov, A.A. Rogovsky, G.A. Rosenberg, P.I. Rudnev, M.N. Slatin, A.S. Tolstov, F.M. Franich, D.I. Yakovlev; former lieutenant colonels: V.V. Zenin, A.V. Lopatsinsky, N.I. Svidersky, V.V. Fomin, V.P. Shein and others.

Combat artillerymen: former generals: M.V. Baranov, S.T. Belyaev, S.N. Boyarsky, V.A. Vatatsi, V.N. Vakharlovsky, A.G. Gantimurov, M.F. Zaikovsky, R.F. Seitz, K.V. Lomikovsky, L.S. Lysenko, A.V. Nikitin, G.A. and L.A. Pozoevs, A.M. Sievers, E.K. Smyslovsky, V.P. Starov, K.I. Tikhonravov, N.M. Chelyustkin, Yu.M. Scheidemann; former colonels: S.V. Agokas, N.I. Betticher, A.N. Vakharlovsky, N.A. Vladislavsky, V.A. Goerts, V.D. Grendal, V.M. Ionov, N.D. Isakov, P.P. Lappo, M.A. Lisovsky, V.A. Maslovsky, I.P. Mikhailovsky, A.V. Rudolf, V.K. and M.K. Smyslovsky, N.G. Telshevsky, M.K. Tikhonravov, G.S. Tregubov, B.R. Trizna, L.A. Chumakovsky, P.A. Shlossman, N.A. Janovich; former lieutenant colonels: E.V. and N.V. Agokas, M.M. Barsukov, L.I. Belorussky, I.A. Brzhevsky, L.V. Vnukov, D.D. Muev, V.K. Sadlutsky, A.N. Sakkilari, A.V. Tyssky, A.I. Ungerman, M.N. Florensky and others.

Military engineers: former generals: V.P. Apyshkov, M.A. Bogdanovsky, K.I. Velichko, N.L. Kirpichev, V.A. Pykhachev, A.A. Satkevich, I.P. Stavitsky, S.A. Tsabel, A.V. Schwartz, A.P. Shoshin, V.V. Yakovlev; former colonels: A.A. Brilevich, N.P. Zalessky, V.A. Zashchuk, I.A. Leontiev, N.N. Luknitsky, A.A. Milyukov, N.N. Nadezhdinskiy, V.F. Naidenov, A.P. Firsov, N.I. Florinsky; former lieutenant colonels: E.V. Alexandrov, V.V. Arenbrist, E.A. Bernardelli, D.M. Karbyshev (later Lieutenant General of the Engineering Troops, Hero of the Soviet Union), E.A. Likhonin, A.Yu. Malchevsky, N.M. Slyusarev, V.V. Stashevsky, S.A. Khmelkov, N.I. Ungerman and others.

Military pilots: former colonels: N.A. Kovalevsky, A.I. Potomin, A.G. Solovyov, V.Yu. Jungmeister; former lieutenant colonels: A.S. Vorotnikov, V.M. Zernov, G.K. Linno, N.S. Monastyrev and others.

Military railway workers: former generals: A.V. Ivashkevich, I.I. Fedorov; former lieutenant colonels: M.M. Arzhanov, V.F. Dolinin, A.P. Drunin, I.V. Richter, A.A. Skrebnev, A.A. Udolsky and others.

Armored forces: former generals: P.D. Gladkov; former colonels: A.A. Krzhivitsky, K.V. Lviv; former lieutenant colonels: A.E. Gromychenko, I.M. Prokofiev, K.P. Tikhotsky, N.I. Filippovsky and others.

Shooting specialists: former generals: V.G. Fedorov, N.M. Filatov; former colonels: V.A. Kovrovtsev, F.V. Tokarev and others.

Border guards: former generals: G.I. Karachun, A.K. Krenke, G.G. Makosey-Shibinsky, V.V. Panpushko; former colonels: K.A. Zhdanovich, S.G. Makosey-Shibinsky, A.D. Postnikov, V.N. and V.Ya. Teterevyatnikovs, S.V. number; former lieutenant colonels: V.G. Akro, M.P. Makaveev, Yu.R. Khotinsky. S.G. Shamshev and others.

Artillerymen-engineers: former generals: R.I. Bashinsky, L.V. Walter, S.N. Bankov, N.I. Gabin, G.D. Grodsky, V.V. Gun, V.N. Dekhanov, N.F. Drozdov, R.A. Durlyakhov, G.A. Zabudsky, D.E. Kozlovsky, A.L. Korolkov, A.I. Markevich, V.A. Mikeladze, V.S. Mikhailov, V.N. Nikolsky, M.N. Orlov, S.G. Petrovich, A.K. Rukteshel, A.V. Sapozhnikov, I.D. Simaiovsky, A.A. Solonin, V.M. Trofimov; former colonels: P.A. Gelvikh, I.P. Grave, A.A. Dzerzhkovich, V.L. Dymman, P.M. Siegel, M.M. Kostevich, V.V. Pestov, V.I. Rdultovsky, V.R. Ruppeneit; former lieutenant colonels: V.A. Alekseev, G.A. Aparin, S.A. Berkalov and others.

Administrative service: former generals: I.S. Balashev, F.P. Balkanov, N.I. Kalugin, M.A. Kushnirov, M.E. Kalinin, G.V. Livadia, A.M. Mavrin, F.F. Mukhin, A.D. Nosov; former colonels: I.A. Belopolsky, A.I. Grigorovich, B.N. Grigorovich, An. E. Gutor, K.P. Dedov, A.A. Dorofankin, R.R. Karachan, L.K. Kuhn, T.F. Nikiforov, N.I. Orlovtsev, M.V. Panov, M.I. Plus, A.F. Poplavsky, A.V. Strelbitsky, D.N. Tekutiev, A.E. Fedorov; former lieutenant colonels: A.S. Ivanov, A.A. Kinareev, P.A. Muchnik, B.V. Pyatnitsky, V.A. Ushakov, A.P. Fedorov, N.N. Chabrov and others.

Quartermaster department: former generals: M.V. Akimov, I.R. Karachan, T.D. Kostitsyn, N.E. Elsner, P.V. Yakubinsky; former colonels: K.E. Goretsky, N.P. Dzhigubsky, N.O. Deutsch, A.O. Dombrovsky, A.P. Evetsky, V.A. Levitsky, G.L. Lukin, V.K. Mikini, E.E. Mikhailov, N.N. Prozorovsky, V.V. Freigang, M.S. Shevchuk, V.P. Yakubovsky; former lieutenant colonel: V.A. Frolov and others.

Military educational department: former generals: A.A. Babchenko, M.I. Borodin, M.P. Borodin, S.N. Butyrkin, N.I. Genishta, A.B. Golovinsky, M.A. Zhelenin, V.V. Quadri, Yu.S. Lazarevich, V.P. Muratov, N.S. Pestrikov, N.F. Rafalovich, E.E. Shashkovsky; former colonels: G.F. Gire, A.N. De-Lazari, M.N. Dreyer, W.R. Kannenberg, A.T. Kuzmin-Karavaev, I.A. Mastyko, V.N. Novitsky, V.F. Roth, N.A. Stravinsky, A.A. Tkachenko, V.M. Chetkov, S.V. Shepelev; former lieutenant colonel K.P. Sangailo and others.

The leader of the Bolsheviks, V. I. Lenin, set the task of attracting military specialists from the Russian Empire to the construction of the Red Army and to command and control troops during hostilities against the White armies.

Although, from the point of view of communist ideology, the tsarist officers and generals belonged to the exploiting class hostile to the proletariat, the military necessity to create a regular Red Army forced the recruitment of a large number of former officers and generals.

At the same time, the "left communists" and later the "military opposition" opposed the use of former officers. On the other hand, the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, L. D. Trotsky, and his associates were against excessive control over the work of military specialists.

On March 19, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars decided on the wide involvement of military specialists in the Red Army, and on March 26, the Supreme Military Council issued an order to abolish the elective beginning in the army, which opened up access to the ranks of the Red Army for former generals and officers.

By the summer of 1918, several thousand officers voluntarily joined the Red Army. In Soviet literature, there is a figure of 8 thousand such officers, which, however, from the point of view of some modern researchers, is overestimated. It was even argued that during the period of voluntary recruitment of the Red Army, only 765 officers joined it [ need attribution ] . As the Civil War expanded and the size of the Red Army increased, the need for experienced military personnel increased rapidly. Under such conditions, the principle of voluntariness no longer suited the leadership of the Bolsheviks, and it switched to the mobilization principle (to the mobilization of officers, but a little later - at the beginning of 1919 - the opponents of the Bolsheviks were also forced to switch).

On June 29, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree, according to which the mobilization of former officers and officials was introduced. By September 1919, 35.5 thousand officers and generals and about 4 thousand military officials were enrolled in the ranks of the Red Army. Until the end of the Civil War, a total of 48.5 thousand officers and generals, as well as 10.3 thousand military officials and about 14 thousand military doctors were drafted into the ranks of the Red Army. In addition, up to 14 thousand officers who served in the white and national armies were enrolled in the Red Army until 1921, including, for example, the future Marshals of the Soviet Union L. A. Govorov and I. Kh. Bagramyan.

According to A. G. Kavtardze, a total of about 30% of the pre-revolutionary officer corps served in the Red Army. Excluding about a third of the officer corps, who did not take part in the Civil War at all, 43% of the officers who were in the Russian army by the beginning of 1918 fought on the side of the "reds", with 57% on the side of the "whites". According to S. V. Volkov, the number of those who fought for the Bolsheviks is less and amounts (excluding former white officers taken prisoner) to 19-20% of the pre-revolutionary officers.

The personnel shortage in the Red Army was eliminated thanks to the creation of military schools and accelerated training courses for red commanders from workers and peasants. Gradually, due to commanders from workers and peasants who graduated from military schools and courses, the proportion of former officers decreased. So in 1918, military experts accounted for 75% of the command staff of the Red Army, in 1919 - 53%, in 1920 - 42%, at the end of 1921 - 34%, while the decrease in the proportion of former officers did not mean a decrease in their absolute number and was explained by an increase in the size of the army and its command staff as a whole.

Transferring their operational and technical experience, military knowledge and skills, military specialists of the old school provided great assistance to the Reds in building their armed forces and in organizing the victories of the Red Army over the interventionists and the White Guards in the battles of the Civil War in Russia. In this regard, the following statistics are indicative:

Red Army in the interwar years and repression

After the end of the Civil War, due to a large-scale (almost tenfold) reduction in the army, a significant part of the military experts were dismissed from the Red Army, many switched to teaching at military academies. The military experts who remained in the service, who in the 1920s occupied the main positions in the country's top military leadership and in the system of military education, largely determined the appearance and development of the Red Army.

In 1928-1929, a number of military engineers were arrested and shot in the case of a "counter-revolutionary conspiracy" in the military-industrial department of the Supreme Economic Council. The arrested persons accounted for 1/3 of the military engineers of the VPU and trusts, and in terms of specific weight (experience, knowledge) at least 50%. The following were executed: V. S. Mikhailov, V. L. Dymman, V. N. Dekhanov, N. G. Vysochansky, N. V. Shulga. The organizer of the military chemical industry, former General V. N. Ipatiev, having learned about the massacre, became a defector.

The turn of the decades was marked by a massive repressive operation against the military (see the Vesna case), which was aimed primarily at regular officers of the old army.

Many of the military experts who remained in the service of the Red Army were subjected to various repressions during the purges in the Red Army in 1937-1938.

The Great Patriotic War

Some military experts, who were not affected by the repressions and were not dismissed from the army due to age and health, took an active part in the Great Patriotic War in combat and staff positions, including both regular officers of the old army and wartime officers.

Among the first, the following can be noted - these are the chiefs of the General Staff Marshal of the Soviet Union B.M. Shaposhnikov (colonel) and A.M. Vasilevsky (headquarters captain), commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front F.I. Tolbukhin (headquarters captain), commander of the Leningrad Front L. A. Govorov (lieutenant), commander of the Bryansk Front, Colonel General M. A. Reiter (colonel), commander of the 24th Guards Rifle Corps, Lieutenant General A. Ya. Kruse (lieutenant colonel), lieutenant general of engineering Troops D. M. Karbyshev (lieutenant colonel), chief of staff and acting commander of the 89th Rifle Corps, Major General A. Ya. Yanovsky (captain), chief of staff of the 5th Guards Airborne Division, Lieutenant Colonel G. S. Gorchakov ( captain). During the war, the armies and corps were commanded by former career officers of the tsarist army N. Ya. Averyanov (captain), A. N. Bakhtin (colonel), A. V. Blagodatov (lieutenant), S. V. Vishnevsky (staff captain), N. M. Dreier (captain), I. P. Karmanov (second lieutenant), B. K. Kolchigin (captain), V. A. Krylov (captain), V. S. Tamruchi (captain). The outstanding artillery scientist Colonel-General of Artillery V. D. Grendal (colonel) did not live to see the war.

A much larger number of career officers continued to engage in military scientific and teaching activities: Lieutenant Colonel E. V. Aleksandrov, Colonel L. G. Aleksandrov, Lieutenant Colonel V. A. Alekseev, Major General of the General Staff E. Z. Barsukov, Major General of the General Staff V E. Belolipetsky, Colonel N. I. Betticher, Colonel