Where did you get the Kolchak. Czechoslovak uprising and Kolchak's coup

Defeat Kolchak, the white groups would not be able to create a strong unified power. For their political incapacity, Russia would pay off large territories with the Western powers

Admiral Kolchak until 1917 was incredibly popular in Russia due to his polar expeditions and activities in the fleet before and during the First World War. It was thanks to such popularity (whether it corresponded to real merits or not is a separate question) that Kolchak fell to play a significant role in the White movement.

Kolchak met the February Revolution as vice admiral as commander of the Black Sea Fleet. One of the first he swore allegiance to the Provisional Government. “Since the emperor has abdicated, by doing so he releases from all obligations that existed in relation to him ... I ... served not this or that form of government, but serve the motherland”, - he will say later during the interrogation of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission in Irkutsk.

Unlike the Baltic Fleet, the first days of the revolution in Sevastopol passed without massacres of sailors against officers. Sometimes this is presented as a brilliant merit of Kolchak, who managed to maintain order. In fact, however, even he himself named other reasons for calm. In winter, ice is in the Baltic, and the Black Sea Fleet went on combat missions all year round, and did not stand in ports for months. And because coastal agitation was subjected to less.

Commander-in-Chief Kolchak quickly began to adapt to the revolutionary innovations - the sailors' committees. He asserted that the committees "brought a certain calm and order." Been to meetings. Set the time for the election. Approved nominations.

The directors of the sweet film "Admiral" ignored the pages of the transcript of Kolchak's interrogation, which described this period, depicting only the commander's endless contempt for the rebellious "sailor mob".

“The revolution will bring enthusiasm ... to the masses and will make it possible to end this war victoriously ...”, “The monarchy is not able to bring this war to an end ...” - Kolchak later told the Irkutsk investigators about his then mentality. Many thought the same, for example, Denikin. The generals and admirals hoped for revolutionary power, but quickly became disillusioned with the Kerensky Provisional Government, which had shown complete impotence. The socialist revolution, which is understandable, they did not accept.

However, in his rejection of October and the truce with the Germans, Kolchak went further than others - to the British Embassy. He asked to serve in the British army. He explained such an act, so original for a Russian officer during interrogation, with fears that the German Kaiser would not prevail over the Entente, who “then will dictate his will to us”: "The only thing I can be of any use is to fight the Germans and their allies, whenever and as anyone."

And, we add, anywhere, even in the Far East. Kolchak went to fight there against the Bolsheviks under the British command, and he never hid this.

In July 1918, the British War Office even had to ask him to be more restrained: military intelligence chief George Mansfield Smith-Cumming ordered his agent in Manchuria, Captain L. Steveni, to immediately "explain to the admiral that it would be highly desirable that he remain silent about his connections with us" .

At that time, the power of the Bolsheviks beyond the Volga was almost universally overthrown in May-June 1918 with the help of the Czechoslovak corps traveling to Vladivostok, stretching in echelons along the entire Trans-Siberian Railway. And with the help of the “real Russian naval commander” Kolchak, Great Britain could more effectively defend its interests in Russia.

After the overthrow of Soviet power in the Far East, political passions broke out. Among the contenders for power, the left-wing Samara Komuch stood out - socialists, members of the dispersed Constituent Assembly - and the right-wing Omsk Provisional Siberian Government (not to be confused with the Provisional Government of Kerensky). Only the presence of the Bolsheviks in power in Moscow prevented them from really grabbing each other's throats: being in an alliance, albeit a shaky one, the Whites were still able to hold the front line. The Entente did not want to supply small armies and the governments that were interrupted by them, because of their weakness they were not able to control even the already occupied territory. And in September 1918, a united center of white power was created in Ufa, called the Directory, which included most of the former members of Komuch and the Provisional Siberian Government.

Under pressure from the Red Army, the Directory soon had to hastily evacuate from Ufa to Omsk. And I must say that the right elite of Omsk hated the left anti-Bolsheviks from Komuch almost as much as the Bolsheviks. The Omsk right did not believe in the "democratic freedoms" supposedly confessed by Komuch. They dreamed of a dictatorship. The Komuchevites from the Directory realized that a rebellion was being prepared against them in Omsk. They could hardly hope only for the help of the Czechoslovak bayonets and for the popularity of their slogans among the population.

And in such a situation, Vice Admiral Kolchak arrives in Omsk, ready to explode. He is popular in Russia. Great Britain believes him. It is he who looks like a compromise figure for the British and French, as well as the Czechs who were under the influence of the British.

The leftists from Komuch, hoping that London would support them as "more progressive forces", began, together with the rightists, to invite Kolchak to the post of naval minister of the Directory. He agreed.

And two weeks later, on November 18, 1918, a Bonapartist coup took place in Omsk. The directorate was removed from power. Its ministers transferred all powers to the new dictator, Kolchak. On that day, he became the "Supreme Ruler" of Russia. And it was then, by the way, that he was promoted to the rank of full admiral.

England fully supported Kolchak's coup. Seeing the inability of the left to create a strong government, the British preferred "more progressive forces" moderate right-wing representatives of the Omsk elite.

Kolchak's opponents on the right - ataman Semyonov and others - were forced to come to terms with the personality of the new dictator.
At the same time, one should not think that Kolchak was a democrat, as they often try to present him today.

The "democratic" language of negotiations between the Kolchak government and the West was an obvious convention. Both sides were well aware of the illusory nature of the words about the upcoming convocation of a new Constituent Assembly, which would supposedly consider the issues of the sovereignty of the national outskirts and the democratization of the new Russia. The admiral himself was by no means embarrassed by the name "dictator". From the very first days, he promised that he would overcome the “post-revolutionary collapse” in Siberia and the Urals and defeat the Bolsheviks, concentrating all civil and military power in the country in his hands.

In fact, however, it was not easy to concentrate power in your hands at that time.

By 1918, there were already about two dozen anti-Bolshevik governments in Russia. Some of them advocated "independence". Others are for the right to gather around themselves “one and indivisible Russia.” All this, by the way, contributed to the collapse of Russia and the control of the allies over it.

There were far fewer political divisions within the Bolshevik Party. At the same time, the territory of the RSFSR controlled by the Bolsheviks occupied the center of the country with almost all industrial and military enterprises and a wide transport network.

In such a situation, the isolated centers of whites could hardly help each other. Transport and telegraph worked through abroad. Thus, couriers from Kolchak to Denikin traveled by steamboats across two oceans and by several trains for months. The transfer of manpower and equipment, which was promptly carried out by the Bolsheviks, was out of the question.

Kolchak's political task was to ensure a balance between socialists, cadets and monarchists. Part of the left turned out to be outside the law, but it was vital to come to an agreement with the rest, preventing them from reorienting themselves to the Bolsheviks. However, if Kolchak had yielded to the left, he would have quickly lost the vital support of the right, who were already dissatisfied with the “leftism” of the course of power.

The right and the left pulled the ruler each in their own direction, it was not possible to reach a compromise between them. And soon Kolchak began to rush between them. Increasingly, the explosions of his emotions alternated with depression, apathy. This could not be overlooked by others. “It would be better if he were the most cruel dictator than that dreamer rushing about in search of the common good ... It’s a pity to look at the unfortunate admiral being pushed around by various advisers and speakers,” wrote the right-minded General A. P. Budberg, one of the leaders of Kolchakovsky military ministry. He was echoed by Kolchak's consistent political opponent, Socialist-Revolutionary Founding Member E. E. Kolosov: “He was positively the same Kerensky ... (the same hysterical and weak-willed creature ...), only, having all his shortcomings, he did not have a single of his merits. Instead of rapprochement between left and right groups, a gulf widened between them.

On December 22, 1918, an anti-Kolchak uprising broke out in Omsk. Monarchist military circles, having suppressed it, at the same time dealt with 9 of the former Komuchevites who were in prison. The Komuchevites waited in prison for a court decision for their opposition to the admiral's authority.

D. F. Rakov, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, “founder” D.F. Rakov, who survived in the Omsk dungeons, recalled the bloody suppression of the uprising: “... No less than 1,500 people. Entire cartloads of corpses were transported around the city, as they carry sheep and pig carcasses in winter ... the city froze in horror. They were afraid to go outside, to meet each other.”

And the Socialist-Revolutionary Kolosov commented on this massacre in the following way: “It was possible, taking advantage of the turmoil, to get all the actual power into your own hands to suppress the rebellion and, having suppressed the rebellion, direct the tip of the same weapon ... against Kolchak’s “upstart” ... It turned out to cope with Kolchak not as easy as, for example, with the Directory. During these days, his house was heavily guarded ... by English soldiers, who rolled out all their machine guns right into the street.

Kolchak held on to the English bayonets. And, having ensured, with the help of the English guards, the rest of the "constituent members" who miraculously escaped execution from Siberia, was forced to hush up the matter.

Ordinary performers were allowed to escape. Their leaders were not punished. The admiral did not have enough strength to break with the right-wing radicals. The same Kolosov wrote: “Ivanov-Rinov, who intensely competed with Kolchak, deliberately threw the corpses of the “founders” in his face ... in the expectation that he would not dare to refuse solidarity with them, and all this would bind him with a mutual bloody guarantee with the vicious of the reactionary circles.”

All Kolchak's reforms failed.

The ruler did not solve the land issue. The law he published was reactionary for the left (restoration of private property) and insufficient for the right (lack of restoration of landownership). In the countryside, wealthy peasants were deprived of part of their land for monetary compensation that was unacceptable to them. And the Siberian poor, resettled by Stolypin on lands unsuitable for farming and seizing suitable lands from wealthy peasants during the revolution, were all the more dissatisfied. The poor were offered either to return what they had seized, or to pay dearly to the state for land use.

Yes, and the white army, freeing the territory from the Bolsheviks, often arbitrarily, disregarding the law, took away land from the peasants and returned it to the former owners. The poor, seeing the return of the bar, took up arms.

The White Terror in Siberia under Kolchak, through which food was confiscated from the population for the front and mobilization was carried out, was terrible. Only a few months of Kolchak's rule would pass, and at the headquarters the maps of Siberia would be painted with centers of peasant uprisings.

Enormous forces will have to be thrown into the fight against the peasants. And it will no longer be possible to understand in which cases the incredible cruelty of the punishers took place with the blessing of Kolchak, and in which - contrary to his direct instructions. However, there was no big difference: the ruler, who called himself a dictator, is responsible for everything that his government does.

Kolosov recalled how the rebellious villages were drowned in the hole:

“They threw a peasant woman there, suspected of Bolshevism, with a child in her arms. So they threw the child under the ice. It was called to deduce treason "with the root" ... "

The evidence for this is endless. The uprisings were drowned in blood, but they flared up again and again with even greater force. The numbers of the rebels exceeded hundreds of thousands. Peasant uprisings will be a verdict on a regime that has decided to conquer the people by force.

As for the workers, they did not experience such lack of rights as under Kolchak either under Nicholas II or under Kerensky. Workers were forced to work for meager wages. The 8-hour day and sickness funds were forgotten. The local authorities, who supported the manufacturers, closed the trade unions under the pretext of fighting Bolshevism. Minister of Labor Kolchak sounded the alarm in letters to the government, but the government was inactive. The workers of non-industrial Siberia were few in number and resisted weaker than the peasants. But they were also dissatisfied and joined the underground struggle.

As for the financial reform of Kolchak, as the Socialist-Revolutionary Kolosov accurately put it, of his unsuccessful reforms, one should give “the palm of primacy to the financial measures of Mikhailov and von Goyer, who killed the Siberian monetary unit ... (depreciated 25 times - M.M.) and enriched ... speculators" associated with the reformers themselves.

Minister of Finance I. A. Mikhailov was also criticized by the right wing in the person of General Budberg: “He does not understand anything in finance, he showed it on the idiotic reform of withdrawing the Kerenok from circulation ...”, “Reform ... on such a scale that Vyshnegradsky, Witte and Kokovtsev stayed, was carried out in a few days.

Products went up in price. Household goods - soap, matches, kerosene, etc. - became scarce. Speculators got rich. Theft flourished.

The capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway by itself did not allow delivering enough cargo from distant Vladivostok to supply Siberia and the Urals. The difficult situation on the overloaded railway was exacerbated by partisan sabotage, as well as constant "misunderstandings" between the whites and the Czechs guarding the highway. Corruption wreaked havoc. So, the Prime Minister of Kolchak, P.V. Vologodsky, recalled the Minister of Railways, L.A. Ustrugov, who gave bribes at the stations so that his train was allowed to go ahead.

Due to the chaos on the lines of communication, the front was supplied intermittently. Cartridge, gunpowder, cloth factories and warehouses of the Volga and Urals were cut off from the white army.

And foreigners brought weapons from different manufacturers to Vladivostok. Cartridges from one did not always fit the other. There was confusion in deliveries to the front, sometimes tragically reflected in combat capability.

The clothes for the front bought by Kolchak for Russian gold were often of poor quality and sometimes spread out after three weeks of wear. But even these clothes were delivered for a long time. Kolchakovets G.K. Gins writes: "The outfit ... rolled along the rails, as the continuous retreat did not make it possible to turn around."

But even the supply that reached the troops was poorly distributed. General M.K. Diterikhs, who inspected the troops, wrote: "The inaction of the authorities ... a criminal bureaucratic attitude to their duties" . For example, out of 45,000 sets of clothes received by the quartermasters of the Siberian Army, 12,000 went to the front, the rest, as the inspection established, were gathering dust in warehouses.

The malnourished soldiers on the front line did not receive food from the warehouses.

Theft of the rear, the desire to cash in on the war was observed everywhere. Thus, the French general Jeannin wrote: “Knox (English General - M.M.) tells me sad facts about the Russians. The 200,000 uniforms he supplied them with were sold for next to nothing and some of them ended up with the Reds.

As a result, General of the Allied Army Knox, according to the memoirs of Budberg, was nicknamed by Omsk newspapermen "Quartermaster of the Red Army". A mocking "letter of thanks" was composed and published on Trotsky's behalf to Knox for good supplies.

Kolchak failed to achieve competent campaigning. Siberian newspapers have become an instrument of information wars among the whites.

Strife grew within the white camp. Generals, politicians - everyone sorted out relations with each other. They fought for influence in the liberated territories, for supplies, for positions. They framed each other, denounced, slandered. Minister of the Interior V.N. Pepelyaev wrote: “We were assured that the Western Army ... stopped withdrawing. Today we see that she... has leaned back quite a lot... Out of a desire to end (General - M.M.) Gaid here, they distort the meaning of what is happening. There must be a limit to this."

The memoirs of the Whites clearly show that in Siberia there were not enough competent commanders. Available, in conditions of poor supply and weak interaction between the troops, by May 1919 began to suffer successive defeats.

The fate of the Consolidated Shock Siberian Corps, completely unprepared for battle, but abandoned by the Whites to cover the junction between the Western and Siberian armies, is indicative. On May 27, the whites advanced without communications, field kitchens, wagon trains and partially unarmed. Company and battalion commanders were appointed only at the moment the corps advanced to the positions. Divisional commanders were generally appointed on May 30, during the rout. As a result, in two days of fighting, the corps lost half of its fighters, either killed or voluntarily surrendered.

By autumn, the Whites had lost the Urals. Omsk was surrendered by them practically without a fight. Kolchak appointed Irkutsk as his new capital.

The surrender of Omsk exacerbated the political crisis within the Kolchak government. The leftists demanded from the admiral democratization, rapprochement with the Social Revolutionaries and reconciliation with the Entente. The rightists, on the other hand, supported the tightening of the regime and rapprochement with Japan, which was unacceptable to the Entente.

Kolchak leaned towards the right. The Soviet historian G. Z. Ioffe, quoting telegrams from the admiral to his prime minister in November 1919, proves Kolchak's shift from London to Tokyo. Kolchak writes that "Instead of rapprochement with the Czechs, I would raise the question of rapprochement with Japan, which alone is able to help us with a real force to protect the railway."

Eser Kolosov gloatingly wrote about this: “The history of Kolchak's international policy is the history of a gradually deepening rupture with the Czechs and growing ties with the Japanese. But he followed this path ... with the hesitant steps of a typical hysteric, and, already on the verge of death, took a decisive ... course towards Japan, it turned out that it was already too late. This step ruined him and led to his arrest, in fact, by the same Czechs.

The White Army marched from Omsk on foot and was still far away. The Red Army advanced quickly, and the foreign allies feared a serious clash with the Bolsheviks. That is why the British, already so disappointed in Kolchak, decided not to suppress the uprisings. The Japanese also did not help Kolchak.

Ataman Semenov, sent by Kolchak to Irkutsk, with whom he urgently had to put up with, failed to suppress the uprising alone.

In the end, the Czechs surrendered Kolchak and the gold reserves of Russia that were with him to the Irkutsk authorities in exchange for unhindered passage to Vladivostok.

Some members of the Kolchak government fled to the Japanese. It is characteristic that many of them—Gins, the financial "genius" Mikhailov, and others—will soon join the ranks of the Nazis.

In Irkutsk, during interrogations arranged by the government, Kolchak gave detailed testimony, the transcripts of which were published.

And on February 7, 1920, the Whites came close to Irkutsk, retreating from the Red Army. There was a threat of the capture of the city and the release of the admiral. It was decided to shoot Kolchak.

All perestroika and post-perestroika attempts to rehabilitate Kolchak were unsuccessful. He was recognized as a war criminal who did not resist the terror of his own power in relation to civilians.

Obviously, if Kolchak had won, the white groups, even at critical moments on the fronts, sorting out relations with each other and rejoicing at each other's defeat, would not have been able to create a strong unified power. For their political incapacity, Russia would have paid off large territories with the Western powers.

Fortunately, the Bolsheviks turned out to be stronger than Kolchak at the front, more talented and flexible than him in state building. It was the Bolsheviks who defended the interests of Russia in the Far East, where the Japanese were already in charge under Kolchak. The Allies were escorted out of Vladivostok in October 1922. And two months later, the Soviet Union was created.

based on the materials of M. Maksimov

P.S. Here it is, this "polar explorer" and "oceanographer" was, first of all, he was the executioner of the Russian people, whose hands were stained with blood, and the military who worked for the English crown, that's who he was not, but a patriot of his country , that's for sure, but lately they have been trying to present the opposite to us.

The first well-known representative of the Kolchak family was the Crimean Tatar commander Ilias Kolchak Pasha, commandant of the Khotyn fortress, who was taken prisoner by Field Marshal Kh. A. Minikh. After the end of the war, Kolchak Pasha settled in Poland, and in 1794 his descendants moved to Russia.

Alexander Vasilievich was born into the family of a representative of this family, Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak (1837-1913), a staff captain of naval artillery, later a major general in the Admiralty. V. I. Kolchak served his first officer rank with a severe wound during the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War of 1853-1856: he turned out to be one of the seven surviving defenders of the Stone Tower on Malakhov Kurgan, whom the French found among the corpses after the assault. After the war, he graduated from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and, until his retirement, served as an acceptance officer for the Naval Ministry at the Obukhov Plant, having a reputation as a straightforward and extremely scrupulous person.

Alexander Vasilyevich himself was born on November 4, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoe near St. Petersburg. The birth document of their first-born son testifies:

“... in the metric book of 1874 of the Trinity Church of the village of Aleksandrovsky, St. Petersburg district, under No. 50, it is shown: Naval artillery at the staff captain Vasily Ivanov Kolchak and his legal wife Olga Ilyina, both Orthodox and first-married, son Alexander was born on November 4, and baptized December 15, 1874. His successors were: Naval Staff Captain Alexander Ivanov Kolchak and the widow of the collegiate secretary Daria Filippovna Ivanova” [source not specified for 35 days].

Studies

The future admiral received his primary education at home, and then studied at the 6th St. Petersburg classical gymnasium.

In 1894, Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps, and on August 6, 1894 he was assigned to the cruiser of the 1st rank "Rurik" as an assistant to the chief of the watch, and on November 15, 1894 he was promoted to the rank of midshipman. On this cruiser he departed for the Far East. At the end of 1896, Kolchak was assigned to the cruiser of the 2nd rank "Cruiser" to the position of watch commander. On this ship, for several years he went on campaigns in the Pacific Ocean, in 1899 he returned to Kronstadt. On December 6, 1898, he was promoted to lieutenant. In the campaigns, Kolchak not only performed his official duties, but also actively engaged in self-education. He also became interested in oceanography and hydrology. In 1899, he published an article "Observations on surface temperatures and specific gravity of sea water, made on the cruisers" Rurik "and" Cruiser "from May 1897 to March 1898."

Toll's expedition

Upon arrival in Kronstadt, Kolchak went to Vice Admiral S. O. Makarov, who was preparing to sail on the Ermak icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Alexander Vasilievich asked to be accepted into the expedition, but was refused "due to official circumstances." After that, for some time entering the personnel of the vessel "Prince Pozharsky", Kolchak in September 1899 switched to the squadron battleship "Petropavlovsk" and went to the Far East on it. However, while staying in the Greek port of Piraeus, he received an invitation from the Academy of Sciences from Baron E. V. Toll to take part in the mentioned expedition. From Greece through Odessa in January 1900, Kolchak arrived in St. Petersburg. The head of the expedition suggested that Alexander Vasilievich be in charge of hydrological work, and besides, be the second magnetologist. Throughout the winter and spring of 1900, Kolchak prepared for the expedition.

On July 21, 1901, the expedition on the schooner "Zarya" moved along the Baltic, North and Norwegian seas to the shores of the Taimyr Peninsula, where the first wintering was coming. In October 1900, Kolchak participated in Toll's trip to the Gafner fjord, and in April-May 1901, the two of them traveled around Taimyr. Throughout the expedition, the future admiral carried out active scientific work. In 1901, E. V. Toll immortalized the name of A. V. Kolchak, naming the island in the Kara Sea and the cape discovered by the expedition after him. As a result of the expedition in 1906, he was elected a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.

Best of the day

In the spring of 1902, Toll decided to go on foot north of the New Siberian Islands, together with the magnetologist F. G. Seberg and two mushers. The rest of the expedition, due to a lack of food supplies, had to go from Bennett Island to the south, to the mainland, and later return to St. Petersburg. Kolchak and his companions went to the mouth of the Lena and arrived in the capital through Yakutsk and Irkutsk.

Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Alexander Vasilievich reported to the Academy on the work done, and also informed about the enterprise of Baron Toll, from whom no news had been received either by that time or later. In January 1903, it was decided to organize an expedition, the purpose of which was to clarify the fate of Toll's expedition. The expedition took place from May 5 to December 7, 1903. It consisted of 17 people on 12 sledges harnessed by 160 dogs. The journey to Bennett Island took three months and was extremely difficult. On August 4, 1903, having reached Bennett Island, the expedition discovered traces of Toll and his companions: expedition documents, collections, geodetic instruments and a diary were found. It turned out that Toll arrived on the island in the summer of 1902 and headed south with only 2-3 weeks of provisions. It became clear that Toll's expedition had perished.

Wife (Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak)

Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak (1876-1956) - wife of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. Sofya Fedorovna was born in 1876 in Kamenetz-Podolsk, Podolsk province of the Russian Empire (now the Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine).

Kolchak's parents

Father - real Privy Councilor V.I. Kolchak. Mother Olga Ilyinichna Kolchak, nee Kamenskaya, was the daughter of Major General, Director of the Forestry Institute F. A. Kamensky, sister of the sculptor F. F. Kamensky. Among the distant ancestors were Baron Munnich (brother of the field marshal, an Elizabethan nobleman) and general-in-chief M. V. Berg (who defeated Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War).

Upbringing

A hereditary noblewoman of the Podolsk province, Sofya Fedorovna was brought up at the Smolny Institute and was a very educated girl (she knew seven languages, she knew French and German perfectly). She was beautiful, strong-willed and independent by nature.

Marriage

By agreement with Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, they were supposed to get married after his first expedition. In honor of Sophia (at that time the bride) a small island in the Litke archipelago and a cape on Bennett Island were named. The wait dragged on for several years. They got married on March 5, 1904 in the St. Harlampi Church in Irkutsk.

Children

Sofia Fedorovna gave birth to three children from Kolchak:

the first girl (c. 1905) did not live even a month;

daughter Margarita (1912-1914) caught a cold while fleeing from the Germans from Libava and died.

Emigration

During the Civil War, Sofya Fedorovna waited for her husband to the last in Sevastopol. In 1919, she managed to emigrate from there: the British allies provided her with money and provided her with the opportunity to travel by ship from Sevastopol to Constanta. Then she moved to Bucharest, and then went to Paris. Rostislav was brought there too.

Despite the difficult financial situation, Sofya Fedorovna managed to give her son a good education. Rostislav Alexandrovich Kolchak graduated from the Higher School of Diplomatic and Commercial Sciences in Paris, served in an Algerian bank. He married Ekaterina Razvozova, the daughter of Admiral A.V. Razvozov, who was killed by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd.

Sofia Fedorovna survived the German occupation of Paris and the captivity of her son, an officer in the French army.

demise

Sofia Fedorovna died in the Lunjumo hospital in Italy in 1956. She was buried in the main cemetery of the Russian diaspora - Saint-Genevieve de Bois.

Russo-Japanese War

In December 1903, the 29-year-old Lieutenant Kolchak, exhausted by the polar expedition, set off on his way back to St. Petersburg, where he was going to marry his bride Sofya Omirova. Not far from Irkutsk, he was caught by the news of the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. He summoned his father and bride by telegram to Siberia, and immediately after the wedding he left for Port Arthur.

The commander of the Pacific squadron, Admiral S. O. Makarov, offered him to serve on the battleship Petropavlovsk, which was the flagship of the squadron from January to April 1904. Kolchak refused and asked for an assignment to the fast cruiser Askold, which soon saved his life. A few days later, Petropavlovsk hit a mine and sank rapidly, taking to the bottom more than 600 sailors and officers, including Makarov himself and the famous battle painter V.V. Vereshchagin. Shortly thereafter, Kolchak achieved a transfer to the destroyer "Angry". Commanded a destroyer. By the end of the siege of Port Arthur, he had to command a coastal artillery battery, as severe rheumatism - a consequence of two polar expeditions - forced him to leave the warship. This was followed by a wound, the surrender of Port Arthur and Japanese captivity, in which Kolchak spent 4 months. Upon his return, he was awarded the St. George weapon - the Golden Saber with the inscription "For Courage".

Revival of the Russian fleet

Freed from captivity, Kolchak received the rank of captain of the second rank. The main task of the group of naval officers and admirals, which included Kolchak, was to develop plans for the further development of the Russian navy.

In 1906, the Naval General Staff was created (including on the initiative of Kolchak), which took over the direct combat training of the fleet. Alexander Vasilyevich was the head of his department, was engaged in developments on the reorganization of the navy, spoke in the State Duma as an expert on naval issues. Then the shipbuilding program was drawn up. To receive additional appropriations, officers and admirals actively lobbied for their program in the Duma. The construction of new ships progressed slowly - 6 (out of 8) battleships, about 10 cruisers and several dozen destroyers and submarines entered service only in 1915-1916, at the height of the First World War, and some of the ships laid down at that time were already being completed in the 1930s.

Taking into account the significant numerical superiority of the potential enemy, the Naval General Staff developed a new plan for the defense of St. Petersburg and the Gulf of Finland - in case of a threat of attack, all ships of the Baltic Fleet, at the agreed signal, were to go to sea and put up 8 lines of minefields at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, covered by coastal batteries.

Captain Kolchak took part in the design of the special icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Vaigach", launched in 1909. In the spring of 1910, these ships arrived in Vladivostok, then went on a cartographic expedition to the Bering Strait and Cape Dezhnev, returning to autumn back to Vladivostok. Kolchak in this expedition commanded the icebreaker "Vaigach". In 1908 he went to work at the Naval Academy. In 1909, Kolchak published his largest study - a monograph summarizing his glaciological research in the Arctic - "The Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas" (Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Ser. 8. Phys.-Math. Department. St. Petersburg, 1909. T.26, No. 1.).

Participated in the development of an expedition project to explore the Northern Sea Route. In 1909-1910. the expedition, in which Kolchak commanded the ship, made the transition from the Baltic Sea to Vladivostok, and then sailed towards Cape Dezhnev.

Since 1910, at the Naval General Staff, he was involved in the development of a shipbuilding program in Russia.

In 1912, Kolchak transferred to serve in the Baltic Fleet as a flag captain for the operational part of the headquarters of the fleet commander. In December 1913 he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank.

World War I

To protect the capital from a possible attack by the German fleet, the Mine Division, on the personal order of Admiral Essen, on the night of July 18, 1914, set up minefields in the waters of the Gulf of Finland, without waiting for the permission of the Minister of the Navy and Nicholas II.

In the autumn of 1914, with the personal participation of Kolchak, an operation was developed to mine the blockade of German naval bases. In 1914-1915. destroyers and cruisers, including those under the command of Kolchak, laid mines near Kiel, Danzig (Gdansk), Pillau (modern Baltiysk), Vindava, and even near the island of Bornholm. As a result, 4 German cruisers were blown up in these minefields (2 of them sank - Friedrich Karl and Bremen (according to other sources, the submarine E-9 was sunk), 8 destroyers and 11 transports.

At the same time, an attempt to intercept a German convoy carrying ore from Sweden, in which Kolchak was directly involved, ended in failure.

In addition to the successful setting of mines, he organized attacks on the caravans of German merchant ships. From September 1915 he commanded a mine division, then naval forces in the Gulf of Riga.

In April 1916 he was promoted to Rear Admiral.

In July 1916, by order of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, Alexander Vasilyevich was promoted to vice admiral and appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

After the oath to the provisional government

After the February Revolution of 1917, Kolchak was the first in the Black Sea Fleet to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. In the spring of 1917, the Stavka began preparations for a landing operation to capture Constantinople, but due to the disintegration of the army and navy, this idea had to be abandoned (largely due to active Bolshevik agitation). He received gratitude from the Minister of War Guchkov for his quick reasonable actions, with which he contributed to the preservation of order in the Black Sea Fleet.

However, due to the defeatist propaganda and agitation that penetrated the army and navy after February 1917 under the guise and cover of freedom of speech, both the army and the navy began to move towards their collapse. On April 25, 1917, Alexander Vasilievich spoke at a meeting of officers with a report “The situation of our armed forces and relations with the allies.” Among other things, Kolchak noted: We are facing the disintegration and destruction of our armed forces, [because] the old forms of discipline have collapsed, and new ones have not been created.

Kolchak demanded an end to homegrown reforms based on the "conceit of ignorance" and to accept the forms of discipline and organization of internal life already adopted by the allies. On April 29, 1917, with the authorization of Kolchak, a delegation of about 300 sailors and Sevastopol workers left Sevastopol in order to influence the Baltic Fleet and the armies of the front, "to wage war actively with full exertion of forces."

In June 1917, the Sevastopol Council decided to disarm the officers suspected of counter-revolution, including taking away his St. George weapon from Kolchak - the golden saber handed to him for Port Arthur. The admiral preferred to throw the blade overboard with the words: "The newspapers do not want us to have weapons, so let him go to sea." On the same day, Alexander Vasilievich handed over the case to Rear Admiral V.K. Lukin. Three weeks later, the divers raised the saber from the bottom and handed it to Kolchak, engraving the inscription on the blade: "To the Knight of Honor Admiral Kolchak from the Union of Army and Navy Officers." At this time, Kolchak, along with the General Staff General of Infantry L. G. Kornilov, was considered as a potential candidate for military dictators. It was for this reason that in August A.F. Kerensky summoned the admiral to Petrograd, where he forced him to resign, after which, at the invitation of the command of the American fleet, he went to the United States to advise American specialists on the experience of using mine weapons by Russian sailors in the Baltic and Black Seas into the First World War.

In San Francisco, Kolchak was offered to stay in the United States, promising him a minecraft department at the best naval college and a rich life in a cottage on the ocean. Kolchak refused and went back to Russia.

Defeat and death

On January 4, 1920, in Nizhneudinsk, Admiral A. V. Kolchak signed his last Decree, in which he announced his intention to transfer the powers of the “Supreme All-Russian Power” to A. I. Denikin. Pending receipt of instructions from A. I. Denikin, “the fullness of military and civil power throughout the entire territory of the Russian Eastern Outskirts” was provided to Lieutenant General G. M. Semyonov.

On January 5, 1920, a coup took place in Irkutsk, the city was captured by the SR-Menshevik Political Center. On January 15, A.V. Kolchak, who left Nizhneudinsk in the Czechoslovak train, in a carriage under the flags of Great Britain, France, the USA, Japan and Czechoslovakia, arrived in the suburbs of Irkutsk. The Czechoslovak command, at the request of the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center, with the sanction of the French General Janin, handed over Kolchak to his representatives. On January 21, the Political Center transferred power in Irkutsk to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. From January 21 to February 6, 1920, Kolchak was interrogated by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission.

On the night of February 6-7, 1920, Admiral A. V. Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian government V. N. Pepelyaev were shot on the banks of the Ushakovka River, by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee. The resolution of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee on the execution of the Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev was signed by Shiryamov, the chairman of the committee and its members A. Svoskarev, M. Levenson and Otradny.

According to the official version, this was done out of fear that the units of General Kappel, breaking through to Irkutsk, had the goal of freeing Kolchak. According to the most common version, the execution took place on the banks of the Ushakovka River near the Znamensky Convent. According to legend, sitting on the ice in anticipation of execution, the admiral sang the song "Burn, burn, my star ...". There is a version that Kolchak himself commanded his execution. After the execution, the bodies of the dead were thrown into the hole.

Kolchak's grave

Recently, previously unknown documents concerning the execution and subsequent burial of Admiral Kolchak were discovered in the Irkutsk region. Documents classified as “secret” were found while working on the performance of the Irkutsk city theater “Admiral’s Star” based on the play by former state security officer Sergei Ostroumov. According to the documents found, in the spring of 1920, not far from the Innokentievskaya station (on the banks of the Angara, 20 km below Irkutsk), local residents discovered a corpse in an admiral's uniform, carried by the current to the banks of the Angara. Arriving representatives of the investigating authorities conducted an inquiry and identified the body of the executed Admiral Kolchak. Subsequently, investigators and local residents secretly buried the admiral according to Christian custom. The investigators drew up a map on which Kolchak's grave was marked with a cross. Currently, all found documents are under examination.

Based on these documents, the Irkutsk historian I.I. Kozlov established the alleged location of Kolchak's grave.

According to other sources, Kolchak's grave is located in the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery.

Real Russian officer
Artyom 22.10.2009 07:37:52

and a patriot of his country! Yes, there were people at that time, not like the current cattle!

Someday Russia will fully realize what happened in 1917...
*** 11.04.2010 11:58:18

Every time I think about the millions of lost lives, tears choke me. Our society can't even imagine what happened to the Russian people!!! As a result of everything that happened (1917-1987), the Russian gene pool was practically destroyed. I am not a nationalist, but I believe that the people on their land have the right to life and faith, to temples and monuments, to their unwritten history. Words are not enough to explain all this. Now it’s no secret to anyone who the leaders were from a moral and ethical point of view (By the way, Dzhugashvili is the only commander-in-chief in the history of Russia who has never been on the front line). Officers, military men and just laymen who swore to the Tsar and did not change their oath - these are people with the concept of the highest honor and dignity. Kolchak had the highest intelligence, was in battles, expeditions, was born in such a glorious family (not like Lenin), he understood everything perfectly. And he preferred death for his homeland to a rich and satisfying life in the USA. After all, he could simply write memoirs.
Boys, young men, future men, read more, learn to respect women, educate yourself, you have someone to learn from. Do not become those who, in a drunken stupor, laughed and mocked the weak, tortured and tortured women and teenagers, calmly looked at blood and tears, could live in filth and dishonor. Russia has raised real male heroes. Look up to them and learn to love your Motherland and be grateful.
Eternal memory to the servant of God Alexander! Forgive us, unreasonable for everything ...

It is a terrible state to give orders without having real power to ensure the execution of the order, except for one's own authority. (A. V. Kolchak, March 11, 1917)

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak was born on November 4, 1874. In 1888-1894 he studied at the Naval Cadet Corps, where he transferred from the 6th St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. He was promoted to midshipman. In addition to military affairs, he was fond of exact sciences and factory business: he learned to fitter in the workshops of the Obukhov plant, he mastered the navigational business at the Kronstadt Naval Observatory. V. I. Kolchak served his first officer rank with a severe wound during the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War of 1853-1856: he turned out to be one of the seven surviving defenders of the Stone Tower on Malakhov Kurgan, whom the French found among the corpses after the assault. After the war, he graduated from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and, until his retirement, served as an acceptance officer for the Naval Ministry at the Obukhov Plant, having a reputation as a straightforward and extremely scrupulous person.

At the end of 1896, Kolchak was assigned to the cruiser of the 2nd rank "Cruiser" to the position of chief of the watch. On this ship, for several years he went on campaigns in the Pacific Ocean, in 1899 he returned to Kronstadt. On December 6, 1898, he was promoted to lieutenant. In the campaigns, Kolchak not only performed his official duties, but also actively engaged in self-education. He also became interested in oceanography and hydrology. In 1899, he published an article "Observations on surface temperatures and specific gravity of sea water, made on the cruisers" Rurik "and" Cruiser "from May 1897 to March 1898." July 21, 1900 A. V. Kolchak went on an expedition on the schooner "Zarya" across the Baltic, North and Norwegian seas to the shores of the Taimyr Peninsula, where the first wintering. In October 1900, Kolchak participated in Toll's trip to the Gafner fjord, and in April-May 1901, the two of them traveled around Taimyr. Throughout the expedition, the future admiral carried out active scientific work. In 1901, E. V. Toll immortalized the name of A. V. Kolchak, naming the island in the Kara Sea and the cape discovered by the expedition after him. As a result of the expedition in 1906, he was elected a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.

Schooner Zarya

The long polar expeditions of his son, his scientific and military activities pleased the aging General Vasily Kolchak. And they were alarming: his only son was almost thirty years old, and the prospect of seeing grandchildren, heirs of the famous family in the male line was very vague. And then, having received news from his son that he would soon read a report in the Irkutsk Geographical Society, the general takes decisive measures. By that time, Alexander Kolchak had been engaged for several years to a hereditary Podolsk noblewoman. Sofia Omirova.

But, apparently, he was in no hurry to become a loving husband and father of the family. Long polar expeditions, in which he voluntarily took part, followed one after another. Sophia has been waiting for her fiancé for the fourth year. And the old general decided: the wedding should take place in Irkutsk. The chronicle of further events is swift: on March 2, Alexander reads a brilliant report at the Irkutsk Geographical Society, and the next day he meets his father and bride at the Irkutsk railway station. Preparations for the wedding take two days. March fifth Sofia Omirova And Alexander Kolchak get married. Three days later, the young husband leaves his wife and voluntarily goes to the army to defend Port Arthur. The Russo-Japanese War began. The long journey of the last, perhaps the most prominent representative of the Kolchak dynasty of Russian warriors, to the ice hole on the Angara began. And to great Russian glory.

The war with Japan was the first combat test of the young lieutenant. His rapid career growth - from watch officer to commander of a destroyer and, later, commander of coastal guns, corresponded to the amount of work done in the most difficult conditions. Combat raids, minefields approaches to Port Arthur, the destruction of one of the leading enemy cruisers "Takasago" - Alexander Kolchak served the fatherland in good faith. Although he could well retire for health reasons. For participation in the Russo-Japanese War, Alexander Kolchak was awarded two orders and a golden St. George dagger with the inscription "For Courage".

In 1912, Kolchak was appointed head of the First Operational Department of the Naval General Staff, in charge of all the preparation of the fleet for the expected war. During this period, Kolchak participates in the maneuvers of the Baltic Fleet, becomes a specialist in the field of combat firing and, in particular, mine work: since the spring of 1912 he has been in the Baltic Fleet near Essen, then he served in Libau, where the Mine Division was based. Before the start of the war, his family also remained in Libau: wife, son, daughter. Since December 1913, Kolchak has been a captain of the 1st rank; after the start of the war - the flag-captain for the operational part. He developed the first combat mission for the fleet - to close the entrance to the Gulf of Finland with a strong minefield (the same mine-artillery position Porkkala-udd-island Nargen, which was completely successfully, but not so quickly repeated by the sailors of the Red Navy in 1941). Having taken a group of four destroyers into temporary command, at the end of February 1915 Kolchak closes the Danzig Bay with two hundred mines. This was the most difficult operation - not only for military reasons, but also for the conditions of navigation of ships with a weak hull in the ice: Kolchak's polar experience came in handy again. In September 1915, Kolchak took command, at first temporary, of the Mine Division; at the same time, all naval forces in the Gulf of Riga come under his control. In November 1915, Kolchak received the highest Russian military award - the Order of St. George IV degree. On Easter 1916, in April, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was awarded the first admiral's rank. In April 1916 he was promoted to Rear Admiral. In July 1916, by order of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, Alexander Vasilyevich was promoted to vice admiral and appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

After the February Revolution of 1917, the Sevastopol Soviet removed Kolchak from command, and the admiral returned to Petrograd. After the February Revolution of 1917, Kolchak was the first in the Black Sea Fleet to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. In the spring of 1917, the Headquarters began preparations for a landing operation to capture Constantinople, but due to the disintegration of the army and navy, this idea had to be abandoned. He received gratitude from the Minister of War Guchkov for his quick reasonable actions, with which he contributed to the preservation of order in the Black Sea Fleet. However, due to the defeatist propaganda and agitation that penetrated the army and navy after February 1917 under the guise and cover of freedom of speech, both the army and the navy began to move towards their collapse. On April 25, 1917, Alexander Vasilievich spoke at a meeting of officers with a report “The situation of our armed forces and relations with the allies.” Among other things, Kolchak noted: “We are facing the disintegration and destruction of our armed forces, [because] the old forms of discipline have collapsed, and new ones have not been created.”

Kolchak receives an invitation from the American mission, which officially turned to the Provisional Government with a request to send Admiral Kolchak to the United States to provide information on mines and anti-submarine warfare. July 4 A.F. Kerensky authorized the implementation of Kolchak's mission and, as a military adviser, he is serving in England, and then in the USA.

Kolchak returns to Russia, but the October coup delays him in Japan until September 1918. On the night of November 18, a military coup took place in Omsk, which pushed Kolchak to the top of power. The Council of Ministers insisted on proclaiming him the Supreme Ruler of Russia, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and making him a full admiral. In 1919, Kolchak transferred Headquarters from Omsk to the government echelon, and Irkutsk was appointed the new capital. The Admiral stops at Nizhneudinsk.

On January 5, 1920, he agrees to transfer supreme power to General Denikin, and control of the Eastern Outskirts to Semenov, and goes into the Czech carriage, under the protection of the Allies. On January 14, the last betrayal takes place: in exchange for free passage, the Czechs give up the admiral. On January 15, 1920, at 9:50 pm local time, Irkutsk time, Kolchak was arrested. At eleven o'clock in the morning, under a reinforced escort, the arrested were led across the hummocky ice of the Angara, and then Kolchak and his officers were transported in cars to the Alexander Central. The Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee intended to make an open trial of the former Supreme Ruler of Russia and the ministers of his Russian government. On January 22, the Extraordinary Investigative Commission began interrogations, which continued until February 6, when the remnants of Kolchak's army came close to Irkutsk. The Revolutionary Committee issued a decree on the execution of Kolchak without trial. February 7, 1920 at 4 o'clock in the morning Kolchak, together with Prime Minister V.N. Pepelyaev was shot on the banks of the Ushakovka River and thrown into the hole.

Last photo Admiral

Monument to Kolchak. Irkutsk

Severe. Haughty. Proudly
Sparkling bronze eyes
Kolchak looks silently
To the place of his death.

The brave hero of Port Arthur,
Wrestler, geographer, admiral -
Carried up by a silent sculpture
He is on a granite pedestal.

Great without any optics
He sees everything around now:
River; slope where the place of execution
Marked wooden cross.

He lived. Was bold and free
And even for a short time
He become the only Supreme
The ruler of Russia could!

Execution ahead of freedom,
And in the red stars of the rebels
Found the grave of a patriot
In the cold bowels of the Angara.

Among the people, a stubborn rumor roams:
He was saved. He is still alive;
He goes to the same temple to pray,
Where he stood under the crown with his wife ...

Now terror has no power over him.
He was able to be reborn in bronze,
And tramples indifferently
Heavy forged boot

Red Guard and sailor,
What, dictatorships again hungry,
Bayonets crossed with a mute threat,
Unable to overthrow Kolchak

Recently, previously unknown documents concerning the execution and subsequent burial of Admiral Kolchak were discovered in the Irkutsk region. Documents classified as “secret” were found while working on the performance of the Irkutsk city theater “Admiral’s Star” based on the play by former state security officer Sergei Ostroumov. According to the documents found, in the spring of 1920, not far from the Innokentievskaya station (on the banks of the Angara, 20 km below Irkutsk), local residents discovered a corpse in an admiral's uniform, carried by the current to the banks of the Angara. Arriving representatives of the investigating authorities conducted an inquiry and identified the body of the executed Admiral Kolchak. Subsequently, investigators and local residents secretly buried the admiral according to Christian custom. The investigators drew up a map on which Kolchak's grave was marked with a cross. Currently, all found documents are under examination.

One command to play Beethoven's symphonies is sometimes not enough to play them well.

A. V. Kolchak, February 1917

December 8, 2010 | Categories: People , History

Rating: +5 Article author: feda_july Views: 16296

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was born on November 1, 1874. In 1894 he graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps, and then, continuing the tradition of his ancestors, chose a military career. During 1895-1899. Kolchak went on several long voyages on the cruisers Rurik and Cruiser. In 1900, he was promoted to lieutenant, at the invitation of E.V. Tollya participated in the Russian polar expedition as a hydrologist and magnetologist.

In Irkutsk, on March 5, 1904, he married Sofya Omirova, but after a few days the young couple broke up. Kolchak was sent to the army, where he was appointed chief of the watch on the cruiser "Askold". Later, he was entrusted with the leadership of the destroyer "Angry". His career in the Navy was interrupted by severe pneumonia. Kolchak was forced to ask for a transfer to the ground forces, where he then began to command a battery of naval guns.

For courage, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Anna 4th degree. But soon after that he was again in the hospital due to rheumatism received in the northern expedition. For his bravery in the Battle of Port Arthur, he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 2nd degree with swords and a golden saber engraved "For Courage". Some time after that, he restored his shaken health on the waters.

Actively participated in the activities of the hydrographic department of the Moscow department. In 1912, he became the head of the First Operational Department of the Moscow State Staff and began to prepare the fleet for the approaching war. His first task was to block the Gulf of Finland with a powerful minefield. The most difficult task was to block the entrance to the Danzig Bay with minefields. It was brilliantly executed, despite the extremely difficult weather conditions.

In 1915, all naval forces concentrated in the Gulf of Riga passed under the command of Kolchak. He received the highest award - the Order of St. George of the 4th degree, and in the spring of 1916 he was awarded the rank of admiral. In the same year, Kolchak met Anna Timireva, who became his last lover. Since 1920, Anna Timireva and Kolchak lived as husband and wife. Anna did not leave him until the day of the execution. Soon after receiving a new title and meeting Timireva, a sharp turn took place in the biography of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak.

Removed from command after the February Revolution, Admiral Kolchak left for Petrograd, and from there (under Kerensky's sanction) went to England and the United States as a military adviser. From the party of Cadets, he ran as a deputy of the Constituent Assembly. But due to the October events, he remained in Japan until the autumn of 1918.

During the armed coup in Omsk, Kolchak became the military and naval minister of the "Council of Five", or "Directory" headed by Kerensky, and after its fall, the Supreme Commander and Supreme Ruler of Russia. But Kolchak's successes in Siberia gave way to defeats.

At this time, the first information about Kolchak's gold appeared. The leaders of the white movement, one of the leaders and founders of which was Kolchak, decided to transport the gold to a safer place. There are many assumptions about exactly where Kolchak's treasure is hidden. Both in the Soviet period and later, serious search attempts were made, but the values ​​​​have not yet been found. However, the version that Russian valuables have long been in the accounts of foreign banks also has a right to exist.

Having taken control of Siberia, Kolchak made Irkutsk its capital, and moved the headquarters from Omsk to the government echelon, which was soon blocked by the Czechs in Nizhneudinsk as a result of the defeats inflicted by the Bolsheviks on Kolchak's army. Although Kolchak was given a guarantee of personal security, he was extradited to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks who took power in Irkutsk. Later, the admiral ended up in the hands of the Bolsheviks. Kolchak was shot by Lenin's decree on February 7, 1920, not far from the river. Ushakov. His body was thrown into the water.

The Central Archive of the FSB refuses to issue documents refusing to rehabilitate Admiral Kolchak. Activist Dmitry Ostryakov and lawyers of Team 29 sent a statement to the Prosecutor General's Office with a request to conduct an investigation and respond to the FSB's decision. Why Kolchak was not rehabilitated is known: he did not prevent terror against the civilian population in the territory occupied by his troops. However, the FSB still does not want to show documents on events that took place almost 100 years ago. On this occasion, we publish the story of Kolchak: how he became a dictator, how he was defeated and how he became a defendant.

You can learn about what Kolchak did before the revolution from ours.

Kolchak accepted the February Revolution coldly. Historian Andrey Kruchinin writes that when informing the Black Sea Fleet about the revolutionary events in Petrograd, even before the abdication of Nicholas II, Kolchak urged the sailors and officers "to be completely loyal to the Emperor and the Motherland." Contrary to popular belief, he was not the first commander to recognize the Provisional Government. Kolchak's telegram contained greetings to the new government from the naval teams and the inhabitants of Sevastopol; he did not express his opinion about the coup in it. He managed to maintain a healthy, relative to other parts, environment in the fleet. The admiral did not interfere with the renaming of the ships, but he managed to avoid reprisals against officers, a ban on saluting and other democratic reforms in the army. The fleet continued to carry out combat missions, this diverted the sailors from revolutionary activities.

By the summer of 1917 the situation began to heat up. A large team of revolutionary agitators from the Baltic arrived at the Black Sea Fleet, Kolchak's relations with the Provisional Government began to deteriorate, where they saw him as a possible candidate for dictators. On June 5, the sailors demanded that Kolchak and other officers surrender their weapons, including award ones. The admiral threw his St. George saber overboard, telling the sailors that even the Japanese did not try to take it away when he was captured.

After the mutiny of the sailors, in mid-June 1917, Kolchak left the Black Sea Fleet and went to Alexander Kerensky, a former deputy of the State Duma, Minister of War of the Provisional Government. Kolchak demanded the abolition of democratic reforms in the army: the admiral saw how it was falling apart before his eyes. Among the officers and circles that were in sharp opposition to the Provisional Government, thoughts about appointing Kolchak as a dictator began to speak out louder and louder. War Minister Kerensky, who had long been planning to "topple" the weak Prime Minister Prince Lvov, could not allow this to happen. Kolchak went into de facto exile: by order of Kerensky, he had to go to the United States and advise the American military, who were going to carry out a landing operation in the Dardanelles and capture Istanbul.

Kolchak arrives in the USA at the end of August 1917. It turns out that the Americans did not plan any landing operation, and in the Russian embassy they inform him that now he should head some kind of military-diplomatic mission. Kolchak asks the governments of the allied powers to enlist him in any warring army in any rank, even as a private, and he himself goes to San Francisco, from where he sails to Japan in October. There he learns about the Bolshevik coup. The British report that they are ready to give him an assignment on the Mesopotamian front, but it will be better if the admiral goes to Harbin and restores order on the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway. Kolchak gathers a detachment in Harbin, defeats local robber chieftains who interfered with railway communication, and does not allow the Japanese to lay claims to the CER and Vladivostok.

In September 1918, Kolchak left Harbin, where he spent the last year. He makes a firm decision to make his way to the Don, to the Volunteer Army of General Alekseev. Through Siberia, Kolchak travels incognito and in civilian clothes, but he is recognized in Omsk. Members of the Directory - the Omsk government of the Cadets and Social Revolutionaries, former members of the State Duma - hold several meetings with Kolchak and persuade him to become Minister of War. He accepted this post on November 4, 1918.

The coming weeks convinced Kolchak of the incompetence of the Directory. In the rear of the Eastern Front of the Reds, an anti-Bolshevik uprising began at the Izhevsk arms factory. The directory did not support the uprising, Izhevsk fell, and the workers had to retreat behind the Kama. Among the military, a conspiracy had long been ripening, which led to a coup on November 18, 1918. The Social Revolutionary ministers were arrested, the conspirators elected Admiral Kolchak as a dictator, he received the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia.

"Margarine Dictator"

In Soviet historiography, the admiral's regime was presented as despotic, but the Bolshevik leaders themselves called Kolchak a "margarine dictator", hinting at the softness of his power. Kolchak was soft only in comparison with the Reds. Any anti-government demonstrations, including strikes, were decisively suppressed by the troops, the death penalty and corporal punishment returned. To neutralize the threat from Bolshevik spies and red partisans, Kolchak gave great powers to counterintelligence. This affected the activities of counterintelligence officers: someone enriched himself, someone settled personal scores or satisfied sadistic inclinations.

There were also positive changes. Under Kolchak, for the first time in Siberia, a minimum wage was introduced, which was indexed along with inflation. The freedom of the press was preserved: the “military dictatorship” was burned by both left and right publications. The Socialist-Revolutionary ministers of the Directory were arrested, but no one arranged a hunt for party members. For example, the governor of the Irkutsk province was Pavel Yakovlev, a former bomber. And here is what the Red partisan detachment under the command of Kravchenko and Shchetinkin wrote: “I, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, secretly landed in Vladivostok in order to start a fight against the traitor Kolchak, who sold himself to foreigners, together with the Soviet people’s government. All Russian people are obliged to support me. Grand Duke Nicholas.

The appointment of people like Pavel Yakovlev Kolchak was not driven by liberal views, but by a shortage of personnel. It was he who was the main scourge of white Siberia, was especially keenly felt in the troops: almost all talented officers were either with Denikin or with the Reds. The rear was no better. Most of the civil servants felt like temporary workers and plundered everything that they could plunder.

Even under these conditions, Kolchak managed to organize a victorious offensive. From February to May, the Whites moved forward, took Perm and Ufa. The forward detachments of General Pepelyaev approached Vyatka, from where a direct road to Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow opened.

In the first days of May 1919, the offensive bogged down. The Reds were able to concentrate about 80 thousand people under the command of Frunze and Tukhachevsky on the decisive directions of the Eastern Front. Whites in these areas had a little less than 20 thousand. The very first defeats hit Kolchak's army very painfully: a general desertion of the mobilized began. White rolled back to the east as quickly as recently went to the west. November 10 Kolchak had to leave the capital, Omsk.

The government and state structures were evacuated rather quickly. According to rumors, the ministers had to pay bribes to the railway workers in order to provide them with wagons. Kolchak remained. He wanted to personally follow the train with the gold reserves of Russia, which the Whites captured in August 1918 in Kazan. The French General Maurice Janin, the representative of the Entente powers and the formal commander of the Czechoslovak Corps, proposed to take the gold out on Czechoslovak echelons. Kolchak replied that he would rather leave the gold to the Bolsheviks than give it to the Allies. After these words, the Entente lost all interest in Kolchak, who defended Russian interests too zealously.

While the train with Kolchak and gold was slowly moving east, the government in Irkutsk tried to prevent mass uprisings through democratic changes and a change of administration with the moderate left. Meanwhile, the leftists were already preparing a rebellion. Irkutsk became the center of attraction for the socialist intelligentsia. The city was ruled by the aforementioned bomber Yakovlev, the Menshevik Konstantinov was the chairman of the city duma.

In November 1919, the Political Center appeared, a union of non-Bolshevik left organizations in Siberia, in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries played the main role. The organization was led by Florian Fedorovich, a former deputy of the State Duma, who was part of the Samara government of Komuch, an anti-Bolshevik government of former deputies of the Constituent Assembly. The organization set as its goal the overthrow of Kolchak's power and the construction in Siberia of an independent socialist state with democratic governance, which, according to the members of the Political Center, could coexist with red Russia.

While Kolchak's echelon slowly crawled along the Trans-Siberian Railway, constantly detained by the Czechs, the Political Center began to act. The technique was borrowed from the Bolsheviks: agitators were sent into the tired and almost defeated army, who told the soldiers that only Kolchak was preventing peace between the Bolsheviks and independent free Siberia. A chain of uprisings gradually cut off Irkutsk from Kolchak and the retreating army of Kappel. In early December, Pepelyaev left the city and went to meet Kolchak. The political center began to prepare an uprising.

On December 21, 1919, a bridge over the Angara was torn off by a stream of water. The ice had not yet risen, and the city was cut off from the barracks of the 53rd regiment, which made up the bulk of the Irkutsk garrison. The Social Revolutionaries immediately began their agitation in the regiment. On the evening of December 24, Nikolai Kalashnikov, a former Socialist-Revolutionary bomber, and now a staff officer in the Kolchak army, came to the barracks. He announced to the soldiers that power had passed to the Political Center and a new, people's army would be formed to fight the Bolsheviks. In total, about three thousand people managed to agitate around the city.

Irkutsk in 1919, newsreel

The uprising could be suppressed on the very first day: the Irkutsk commandant Konstantin Sychev planned to fire cannons at the barracks where the rebels gathered. But there were five thousand Czechs and one and a half thousand Japanese in the city, who told him that in the event of a bombardment they would take the side of the rebels.

Sychev had several officer detachments, a company of instructors and rangers. The basis of his troops were high school students and junkers aged 14–20. They were fed by Irkutsk gymnasium and college girls, they could not organize the work of field kitchens in the city. On December 31, units of Ataman Semyonov tried to break through to the city, but the Cossacks were driven back by machine-gun fire. There was still the potential for a fight, but on July 5, Kolchak's ministers capitulated and fled the city without warning the defenders.

Kolchak, meanwhile, was stuck with the train in Nizhneudinsk. The Czechs received an order from the commander, Jan Syrovoy, not to let the echelons go to Irkutsk. The officers offered Kolchak to get horses and leave for Mongolia, since the Czechs agreed to let the admiral go in any direction, except for the direction to Irkutsk, but the admiral categorically refused to leave his convoy. There were still about five hundred people with him, and he firmly decided to share their fate.

On January 7, 1920, progress was made in negotiations with the Allies. The golden echelon passed under the protection of the Czech troops, the convoy disbanded, the admiral and his entourage continued to move in one of the Czech trains. At the same time, Kolchak could go to Mongolia along with the officers or start moving west, towards the army of Vladimir Kappel in the Kansk region. It was about five days of tobogganing before her.

The commander of the Czech echelon, Major Krovak, received a telegram from Syrovy: Kolchak should be escorted to Irkutsk, where he would be handed over to the Japanese or French for evacuation to Vladivostok. The political center demanded that General Zhanen and Syrovoy hand over the admiral, otherwise promising to attack the Czech echelons throughout Siberia. Zhanin and Syrovoy lost. Kolchak was handed over to representatives of the Political Center as soon as the train arrived in Irkutsk, at 21:55 on January 15, 1920.

"With the dignity of a captive commander in chief"

More than a hundred new prisoners turned up in the Irkutsk provincial prison. Kolchak, his prime minister Pepelyaev, the common-law wife of the Supreme Ruler, Anna Timiryova, Admiral Trubcheninov's adjutant, former Kolchak ministers and some of the convoy officers. Kolchak himself got a solitary cell.

Formally, the commission of inquiry was subordinate to the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center, but on the same day the actual power over it was transferred to the Bolshevik Provisional Revolutionary Committee (VRK). Interrogations began on January 21. The local Bolshevik underground, which supported the Socialist-Revolutionary uprising financially and organizationally, pressed on. The Social Revolutionaries did not resist, in the presence of representatives of the Czech troops, they solemnly signed the act of transferring power. Two days later, elections were held for the local Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, out of 524 seats, the Bolsheviks got 343, the Socialist-Revolutionary bloc - 121.

A special SR investigative commission was created for the trial: Konstantin Popov, Vsevolod Denike, Nikolai Alekseevsky, Georgy Lukyanchikov. The SRs interrogated the admiral, and the minutes of the meetings were signed by Samuil Chudnovsky, appointed by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee to the post of head of the Irkutsk Cheka. It was at the same time, as it were, an independent special judicial body created by the previous government, and formally, after the establishment of Soviet power, a branch of the local Cheka, in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries simply sat together with the Bolshevik.

This duality persisted in everything, including in relation to the prisoners. The food in prison was disgusting, but they allowed transfers from the outside, so that most of the prisoners did not starve. The arrested were allowed to move along the inner corridors of the prison castle, to visit each other. At the same time, Chudnovsky, for example, forbade bringing tea to Kolchak, noting at one of the interrogations that the Supreme Ruler drinks it with great pleasure. Then the commission of inquiry itself began to give him tea.

Members of the commission treated the admiral with respect. Popov writes in his memoirs that Kolchak behaved with "the dignity of a captive commander in chief", answered all questions in detail and gave evidence, but never gave the commission materials to convict anyone for crimes against the Soviet regime. However, he could say anything - the decision had already been made.

Behind Kolchak's train, the remnants of the Siberian White Army under the command of Vladimir Kappel were still moving east, bloodless, but still quite combat-ready, about five thousand people. Realizing that people who traveled several thousand kilometers through the taiga in winter could well take Irkutsk, the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Red Army, which then represented the central government in Siberia, decided: “Keep Admiral Kolchak under arrest with the adoption of exceptional measures of strategy and saving his life ... using execution only if it is impossible to keep Kolchak in their hands ... ”This telegram arrived in Irkutsk on January 23.

On January 27, martial law was introduced in the city. The Izhevsk brigade of Kappel's army defeated the forward units of the Reds at the Zima station. The guards in the prison were replaced by a detachment of Red Guards, the liberal order ended. Now everyone was sitting in their cells, transmissions were allowed extremely rarely, according to the mood of the guards, and meetings too. Immediately after the news of the battle near Zima, the Military Revolutionary Committee sent a request to the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army - what to do with Kolchak. The answer came immediately: "The Revolutionary Military Council has no objection to the execution."

The interrogations continued until February 6, until a telegram arrived in Irkutsk from the same Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army: “Today, by direct wire, I gave the order to shoot Kolchak.” This day was the last day of the meetings of the commission of inquiry, there were nine in all. The admiral managed to testify before the period of the February Revolution, transcripts of interrogations have been preserved.

On February 6, the White army broke through to the city, which, after the death of Kappel on January 26, was led by General Sergei Voitsekhovsky from pneumonia. He put forward an ultimatum in which he demanded that the Bolsheviks extradite Kolchak and his headquarters. The ultimatum was rejected, Voitsekhovsky appointed an assault. The Bolsheviks feared an uprising in Irkutsk itself, where there were still supporters of the Supreme Ruler and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, dissatisfied with the transfer of power to the Bolsheviks.

It is still not clear how the decision to execute Kolchak was made. They came to shoot at two in the morning from the sixth to the seventh of February. The resolution was adopted and signed by the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee Shiryamov and members of the Military Revolutionary Committee Snoskarev and Levenson, but some researchers believe that it was drawn up retroactively, and the real decision was made by the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, Smirnov and Lenin. As proof of this version, Lenin’s telegram is cited: “Cipher. Sklyansky: Send Smirnov (RVS 5) a cipher: Do not spread any news about Kolchak, print absolutely nothing, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival acted in this and that way under the influence of Kappel's threat and danger Whiteguard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin. The signature is also in cipher.1. Do you undertake to make archi-reliably?

The date of this telegram is unknown. Opponents of the version with the direct participation of Lenin in the decision to shoot Kolchak say that it was sent at the end of February 1920 and the postscript “archically reliable” related to another matter. But why Lenin sent instructions on information coverage of the death of the admiral only at the end of February is not clear. The decision to execute such a significant figure in the white movement was hardly taken by the Siberian Bolsheviks without consultations with the center, but Lenin, as in the case with the execution of the royal family, preferred to remove responsibility from the central Bolshevik government, shifting it to local executive authorities.

"Ends in the Water"

They came to the cell for Kolchak at two in the morning. He was already dressed. He asked: "Will there be no judgment?" Chudnovsky laughed. The admiral asked for a last meeting with Timiryova, but he was refused. At the same time, they went up for Pepelyaev, who had never been interrogated. While the Chekists were taking the former prime minister away from the cell, Kolchak handed Chudnovsky a capsule of cyanide. Her admiral was handed over by sympathizers from the city with one of the food parcels. He explained to Chudnovsky that suicide is not compatible with the principles of a Christian. No decrees were read out, they were simply taken to the Znamensky Monastery. Samuil Chudnovsky in his memoirs described the moment before the execution as follows: “Kolchak stood and looked at us, a thin, type of Englishman. Pepelyaev prayed. Before the execution, Kolchak and Pepelyaev were offered to blindfold, both refused. The story that Kolchak himself commanded his execution is not confirmed by the memories of the participants.

“Chudnovsky whispers to me:“ It’s time. I give the command. Both fall. The corpses are on a sledge sledge, we bring them to the river and lower them into the hole. So Admiral Kolchak set off on his last voyage. They didn’t bury it, because the Socialist-Revolutionaries could talk, and the people would be thrown to the grave. And so - ends in the water, ”this is already from the memoirs of Boris Blatlinder, the commandant of Irkutsk, known under the party pseudonym Ivan Bursak. The Bolsheviks abolished the death penalty on January 17, 1920.

The chairman of the commission of inquiry, Popov, died in Moscow in 1949. Alekseevsky, a member of the commission of inquiry, fled abroad in 1920 and died in an accident in 1957. A member of the commission of inquiry, Denike was shot in 1939 as an enemy of the people. Lukyanchikov, a member of the investigative commission, was sentenced in exile to Turkestan in 1924 in the AKP case, he did not return from exile, the date of his death is unknown. Samuil Chudnovsky, head of the Irkutsk Cheka, was executed in 1937 as an enemy of the people. Rehabilitated in 1957. Ivan Smirnov, head of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, who gave the direct order to be shot, was executed in 1936 as an enemy of the people. Boris Blatlinder, commandant of Irkutsk, convicted in 1924 of embezzlement, shot in 1937 as an enemy of the people. Rehabilitated in 1988.

Dmitry Ostryakov independently tried to obtain the rulings of the military court of the Trans-Baikal Military District of January 26, 1999 on the refusal to rehabilitate Kolchak, and also asked to publish it on the court's website. The military court of the Trans-Baikal Military District itself was renamed the East Siberian District Military Court in December 1999.

In February 2017, the East-Siberian District Military Court refused to issue a copy of the judicial act to Dmitry, explaining that such a judicial act is served only on the applicants in the case, and Dmitry is not. In response to Ostryakov’s request, the Supreme Court of Russia in April 2017 replied that the original of the judicial act was stored in the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia, and in the East Siberian District Military Court itself it was destroyed due to the expiration of the document’s storage period. After that, Team 29 connected to this case.

In April 2017, through the unregistered Rosotvet media outlet, the Team's lawyers sent a request to the FSB of Russia with a request to provide a copy of the judicial act refusing to rehabilitate Kolchak. The FSB of Russia forwarded the media request to the East Siberian District Court, which in May 2017 replied that Rosotvet was not the applicant in the case, and the criminal case against Kolchak A.V. contains the stamp "top secret".

In June 2017, with the help of Team 29, Dmitry Ostryakov again sent a request to the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia, in which he asked for a copy of the judicial act refusing to rehabilitate Kolchak, and also to inform him whether it refers to information of limited access.

In July 2017, the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia reported that it could not provide a copy of the judicial act, but it was not secret. In August 2017, Team 29 filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General of Russia in connection with the refusal of the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia to provide the requested judicial act.

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