White Czechs in Kazan: “There was blood, there was bread and salt, there were balls, and counterintelligence worked. “They had no way back”: how the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps changed the history of Russia

In May 1918, an uprising of the 40,000-strong Czechoslovak Corps broke out in Chelyabinsk. The mutiny had a tremendous impact on subsequent events in Russia. Many historians are confident that it was the revolt of the legionnaires that marked the beginning of the Civil War in the country.

In Russian service

The first national unit within the Russian Imperial Army - the Czech squad - arose back in 1914. It accepted both civilian volunteers and captured Czechoslovaks - former soldiers of Austria-Hungary.

A few months later, the squad grew into a rifle regiment of about two thousand people. The future leaders of the rebellion served there - captain Radol Gaida, lieutenant Jan Syrovy and others. By the beginning of the February Revolution, the unit already had four thousand fighters.

After the fall of the monarchy, Czechoslovaks were able to find a common language with the Provisional Government and remained in military service. The regiment took part in the June offensive in Galicia and became one of the few units that achieved success on its sector of the front.

As a reward for this, the government of Alexander Kerensky lifted the restriction regarding the size of the regiment. The unit began to grow by leaps and bounds, it was replenished mostly by captured Czechs and Slovaks who wanted to fight the Germans. In the fall of 1917, the regiment turned into a corps, and its strength approached the mark of 40 thousand legionnaires.

Fear of extradition

After the October Revolution, the corps found itself in limbo. The Czechoslovaks were emphatically neutral towards the Bolsheviks, although, according to historian Oleg Airapetov, they were very worried about the peace negotiations that the new masters of the country were conducting with Kaiser Germany. There were rumors among the legionnaires that the corps could be disbanded and they themselves could be handed over to Austria-Hungary.

The Czechoslovakians decided to come to an agreement with the Entente. As a result, France agreed to transfer the corps to its territory to participate in the war on the Western Front. But the land route was closed, only the sea route remained - from Vladivostok. The Soviet government agreed. It was planned to deliver Czechoslovaks to the Far East in 63 trains, 40 cars each.

Incident in Chelyabinsk

The fears of the Czechoslovaks only intensified after the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty in March 1918. One of the points of the agreement was the exchange of prisoners of war. A situation arose in which Czechoslovaks moved to the East, and captured Germans and Hungarians moved to the West. There were periodic skirmishes between the two streams.

The most serious of them happened on May 14, 1918. A heavy cast-iron object flew from the carriage carrying the Hungarians into the crowd of Czechs, seriously injuring one of the fighters. They found the hooligan and dealt with him according to the laws of war - with three bayonet blows.

The situation was heating up. The Bolsheviks tried to solve the problem by arresting several Czechoslovaks, but this only provoked them into further opposition. On May 17, corps soldiers captured the Chelyabinsk arsenal, freed their fellow countrymen and called on detachments located in other cities to resist.

Corps offensive

Dividing into groups of several thousand people, the legionnaires began to capture a vast territory from Penza to Vladivostok. Irkutsk and Zlatoust quickly fell. In mid-July, corps detachments approached Yekaterinburg, where the royal family was at that moment. Fearing that the former Tsar and his household would fall into the hands of the White Czechs, the Bolsheviks shot the latter.

The capital of the Urals was taken on July 25, followed by Kazan. As a result, by the end of the summer, a colossal territory from the Volga to the Pacific Ocean was under the control of the corps; it completely controlled the most important infrastructure facility - the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Together with the whites

Anti-Bolshevik forces became more active in these territories. Many local governments and armed White Guard units were formed.

In the fall of 1918, Admiral Alexander Kolchak, who entered into an alliance with the Czechoslovaks, declared himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia. Around the same time, the intervention of Entente troops began.

The Czechs and Slovaks wanted to fight less and less. They brought their units to the rear. At the same time, control over the railway gave them huge advantages and a significant bargaining chip in negotiations.

Goodbye Russia

The situation changed dramatically in November 1918. The surrender of Germany and the collapse of Austria-Hungary opened up new prospects: the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia was planned. The corps lost all desire to fight, the soldiers got ready to go home.

The departure of the Czechs and Slovaks seriously complicated Kolchak’s already plight. In January 1920, legionnaires, in exchange for the opportunity to safely leave for Vladivostok, captured the admiral and handed him over to the Irkutsk rebels. The further fate of Kolchak is known to everyone.

The evacuation of Czechoslovaks from Russia began at the beginning of 1920. On 42 ships, 72 thousand people went to Europe - not only legionnaires, but also their wives and children, whom some of them managed to acquire in Russia. The epic ended in November 1920, when the last ship left the port of Vladivostok.

The Czechoslovak Corps in Russia from January 15, 1918 was formally subordinate to the French command.

In the spring and summer of 1918, the corps found itself drawn into hostilities against Soviet power. The revolt of the Czechoslovakian corps in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East created a favorable situation for the liquidation of Soviet authorities, the formation of anti-Soviet governments (the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Siberian Government, later the Provisional All-Russian Government) and the beginning of large-scale armed actions of the White Guard troops against Soviet power.

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It should be noted that within the Russian army, Czechoslovak national formations operated exclusively under the command of Russian officers. Since March 1915, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, allowed the admission of Czechs and Slovaks from among prisoners and defectors - former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army - into the ranks of the squad. As a result, by the end of 1915, it was deployed to the First Czechoslovak Rifle Regiment named after Jan Hus (with a staff strength of about 2,100 people). By the end of 1916, the regiment was deployed into a brigade ( Československá střelecká brigáda) consisting of three regiments, numbering about 3.5 thousand officers and lower ranks, under the command of Colonel V.P. Troyanov.

Meanwhile, in February 1916, the Czechoslovak National Council (CSNS) was formed in Paris. Its leaders (Tomas Masaryk, Josef Dürich, Milan Stefanik, Edvard Benes) promoted the idea of creating an independent Czechoslovak state and made active efforts to obtain the consent of the Entente countries to form an independent volunteer Czechoslovak army. The CSNS officially subjugated all Czech military formations operating against the Central Powers on the Eastern and Western Fronts. The Union of Czechoslovak Societies began its work in Russia.

Both the Provisional Government and the command of the 1st Hussite Rifle Division, into which the Czechoslovak brigade deployed, emphasized their loyalty to each other. The successful actions of the Czechoslovaks contributed to the fact that Czech politicians obtained permission from the Provisional Government to create larger national formations. The new Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General L. G. Kornilov, on July 4, 1917, allowed the formation of the 2nd Division to begin, which proceeded at a rapid pace. The 5th Prague, 6th Hanack, 7th Tatra, 8th Silesian regiments, two engineering companies, and two artillery brigades were organized.

On September 26, 1917, the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander General N.N. Dukhonin signed an order to form a separate Czechoslovak corps of two divisions and a reserve brigade (at that time only two divisions with a total number of 39 thousand soldiers and officers were formed). The 1st Czechoslovak Division, in particular, included the Kornilov Shock Regiment, renamed the Slavic Regiment (its personnel included Czechs, Slovaks and Yugoslavs).

In all parts of the corps, the French military disciplinary regulations were introduced and the “Russian command language” was established. At the request of the Czechoslovak National Council (CSNS) and personally the head of the Russian branch, Tomas Masaryk, Russian generals were placed at the head of the corps: commander Major General V.N. Shokorov, chief of staff Major General M.K. Diterichs. The authorized representatives of the ChSNS were: at the corps - P. I. Max, at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief - Yu. I. Klatsand.

Czechoslovak Corps and the Russian Civil War

In the fall of 1917, the Czechoslovak Corps was being formed in the rear of the Southwestern Front on the territory of the Volyn and Poltava provinces. The October Revolution of 1917 and the peace negotiations launched by the Soviet government with the Central Powers put the Czechoslovaks in a difficult position. Upon receiving the news of the victory of the armed uprising of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd, the leadership of the Czechoslovak National Council declared unconditional support for the Provisional Government and entered into an agreement with the command of the Kyiv Military District and the Southwestern Front on the procedure for using Czechoslovak units, which, on the one hand, confirmed the latter’s non-interference in the armed forces. the struggle within Russia on the side of any political party, and on the other hand, it proclaimed their desire to “promote by all means the preservation of everything that contributes to the continuation of the war against our enemy - the Austro-Germans.” On October 27 (November 9), this agreement was brought to the attention of the command of the 1st and 2nd Czechoslovak divisions, and the assistant commissioner of the Provisional Government at the headquarters of the Southwestern Front N.S. Grigoriev ordered to send the specified formations to Kyiv. On October 28 (November 10), they, together with cadets from Kyiv military schools, took part in street battles against workers and soldiers - supporters of the Kyiv Soviet. The fighting continued until a truce was concluded between the warring parties on October 31 (November 13).

Meanwhile, the Czechoslovak National Council, which sought to transform the Russian-created Czechoslovak corps into a “foreign allied force located on Russian territory,” petitioned the French government and President Poincaré to recognize all Czechoslovak military formations as part of the French army. The representative of the CSNS, the future first president of independent Czechoslovakia, Professor Tomas Masaryk spent a whole year in Russia, from May 1917 to April 1918 - according to a prominent figure in the White movement, Lieutenant General K.V. Sakharov, Masaryk first contacted all the “leaders” of the February revolution, after which he “came entirely at the disposal of the French military mission in Russia.” Masaryk himself in the 1920s called the Czechoslovak corps “an autonomous army, but at the same time an integral part of the French army,” since “we were financially dependent on France and on the Entente.” For the leaders of the Czech national movement, the main goal of continuing to participate in the war with Germany was to restore independence from Austria-Hungary. In the same year, 1917, by a joint decision of the French government and the Czechoslovak National Guard, the Czechoslovak Legion was formed in France. The Czechoslovak National Council was recognized as the sole supreme body of all Czechoslovak military formations - this placed the Czechoslovak legionnaires(and now they were called that way) in Russia, depending on the decisions of the Entente. Based on the decree of the French government of December 19, 1917 on the organization of an autonomous Czechoslovak army in France, the Czechoslovak corps in Russia was formally subordinate to the French command and received instructions to be sent to France.

However, Czechoslovaks could only get to France through the territory of Russia, where at that time Soviet power was established everywhere. In order not to spoil relations with the Soviet government of Russia, the Czechoslovak National Council categorically refrained from any action against it, and therefore refused to help the Central Rada against the Soviet troops advancing on it.

During the unfolding offensive of the Soviet troops towards Kyiv, they came into contact with units of the 2nd Czechoslovak Division, which was in formation near Kiev, and Masaryk concluded a neutrality agreement with Commander-in-Chief M.A. Muravyov. On January 26 (February 8), Soviet troops captured Kyiv and established Soviet power there. On February 16, Muravyov informed Masaryk that the government of Soviet Russia had no objections to the departure of the Czechoslovaks to France.

With Masaryk's consent, Bolshevik agitation was allowed in Czechoslovak units. A small part of the Czechoslovaks (a little more than 200 people), under the influence of revolutionary ideas, left the corps and later joined the international brigades of the Red Army. Masaryk himself, according to him, refused to accept offers of cooperation that came to him from generals M.V. Alekseev and L.G. Kornilov (General Alekseev in early February 1918 appealed to the head of the French mission in Kyiv with a request to agree to send area Ekaterinoslav - Aleksandrov - Sinelnikovo, if not the entire Czechoslovak corps, then at least one division with artillery, in order to create the conditions necessary for the defense of the Don and the formation of the Volunteer Army, P. N. Milyukov addressed the same request directly to Masaryk). At the same time, Masaryk, in the words of K.V. Sakharov, “was firmly connected with the left Russian camp; in addition to Muravyov, he strengthened his relations with a number of revolutionary figures of the semi-Bolshevik type.” Russian officers were gradually removed from command positions, the Czech National Council in Russia was replenished with “left-wing, ultra-socialist people from prisoners of war.”

All efforts of the Czechs were aimed at organizing the evacuation of the corps from Russia to France. The shortest route was by sea - through Arkhangelsk and Murmansk - but it was abandoned due to fear of German submarines. It was decided to send legionnaires along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok and further across the Pacific Ocean to Europe.

June 1917 - Stationed in the Left Bank Ukraine, in the areas of Kyiv and Poltava.
January 15, 1918 - The corps is declared an autonomous part of the French army.
March 1918 - Transferred to the Tambov and Penza region.
March 26, 1918 - The Soviet government announced its readiness to facilitate the evacuation of the Corps through Vladivostok, subject to their loyalty.
April 1918 - Under pressure from Germany, People's Commissar Chicherin orders a delay in the evacuation of the Corps to Siberia and the Far East.
May 2, 1918 - The Supreme Council of the Entente decided to use the corps to fight Soviet power in the North of Russia and Siberia.
May 24, 1918 - Trotsky gives the order to disarm the Czechoslovaks.
May 25, 1918 - Units of the corps launched an organized rebellion against Soviet power along the entire route.
End of 1919 - beginning of 1920 - The evacuation of the Czechoslovak Corps began.
February 7, 1920 - An armistice was signed between the Soviet government and the command of the Czechoslovak Corps.
September 2, 1920 - The last units of the corps left Vladivostok.

Memory

An agreement between the governments of the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic on the mutual maintenance of war graves was signed on April 15, 1999. The agreement is being implemented by the War Memorials Association.

In total, within the framework of the Czech Ministry of Defense project “Legions 100”, 58 monuments to the White Czechs are planned to be installed in Russia.

Due to the ambiguity of the role of the White Czechs in the history of Russia, initiatives to install monuments often lead to protests from both local residents and public organizations.

Notes

Saldugeev D.V. Czechoslovak Legion in Russia Footnote error: Invalid tag : the name "Saldugeyev" is defined several times for different contents
Tsvetkov V. Zh. Legion of the Civil War. “Independent military review” No. 48 (122), December 18 1998
Solntseva S. A. Shock formations of the Russian Army in 1917. “Domestic History” No. 2, 2007, pp. 47-59
Sakharov K. V. Czech legions in Siberia: Czech betrayal. Berlin. 1930.
Golovin N. N. Russian counter-revolution in 1917-1918. Volume 2. M.:Iris-press, 2011. 704 p. ISBN 978-5-8112-4318-1
Order of the People's Commissar for Military Affairs on the disarmament of the Czechoslovaks
War Memorials - Russian-Czech Agreement (undefined) . Retrieved August 1, 2016. Archived August 1, 2016.
Revenge of the White Czechs (undefined) . Retrieved July 28, 2016. Archived July 28, 2016.

Literature and sources

Nedbaylo, Boris Nikolaevich. Czechoslovakian Corps in Russia (1914-1920)
K. V. Sakharov Czech legions in Siberia: Czech betrayal. Berlin. 1930.
A. E. Kotomkin. About Czechoslovakian legionnaires in Siberia. 1918-1920. Paris. 1930.
I. S. Ratkovsky. Summer-autumn 1918: chronicle of the Czechoslovak rebellion // World of Economics and Law. 2013. No. 11-12. P.47-55
V. V. Khrulev. Czechoslovak rebellion and its liquidation. M., 1940.
Klevansky A. Kh. Czechoslovak internationalists and the sold corps. M., 1965
A. V. Sanin. Participation of the Czechoslovak Corps in the White Terror // Military Historical Journal, No. 5, 2011. pp. 25-27
Priceman L. G. Czechoslovakian corps in 1918 // Questions of history. 2012. No. 5. P. 75-103; No. 6. P. 54-76.

Links

Separate Czechoslovak corps and Russian gold reserves.
Cemeteries and memorials to Czechoslovakian legionnaires on the territory of the Russian Federation


	Military administration bodies Imperial Main Apartment Headquarters of the Supreme Commander in-Chief Military Ministry of the Russian Empire Fronts Northwestern in August 1915 was divided into Northern and Western Southwestern Romanian Caucasian incl. Persian Army 11 (Blockade) Dobrujan Danube Caucasian Special (from 08.1916) Corps

Opponents RSFSR Czechoslovak Corps Commanders V. F. Ryabov, Solonin S. Checek, J. Geier Military forces Rtishchevsky Red Guard detachment;
2nd Red Latvian Regiment;
a detachment of Atkar Red Guards;
135th Balashovsky Infantry Regiment 4th Prokop Great Infantry Regiment;
1st Jan Hus Rifle Regiment of the 1st Hussite Rifle Division Military losses n/a n/a

Mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps- armed uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May - August of the year in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, which created a favorable situation for the liquidation of Soviet authorities and the formation of anti-Soviet governments (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, Provisional Siberian Government, later - Provisional All-Russian Government ) and the beginning of large-scale armed actions by white troops against Soviet power.

Story

Background

On March 26, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR concluded an official agreement with the branch of the Czechoslovak National Council in Russia, according to which Czechoslovaks were given the right to travel through Russian territory to Vladivostok as private citizens. Czechoslovak units were obliged to hand over their weapons when passing through Penza. For guard duty, they were allowed to leave 168 rifles and 1 machine gun in each echelon. Artillery weapons were completely surrendered.

By May 1918, 14 thousand Czechoslovaks arrived in Vladivostok, 4 thousand were in the Novo-Nikolaevsk area (now Novosibirsk), 8 thousand in the Chelyabinsk area and 8 thousand in the Penza area (including at the Rtishchevo RUZD station).

On May 14, an incident occurred in Chelyabinsk that created hostile tensions between the Czechoslovak legionnaires and the Soviets. At the railway station, trains with Czechoslovaks and Hungarian and German prisoners of war released under the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty met. A Czech soldier was seriously wounded by a cast iron stove leg thrown from a Hungarian train. In response, the Czechoslovaks lynched the culprit, in their opinion, a prisoner of war - a Hungarian. He received several bayonet blows to his chest and neck. The next day, Chelyabinsk authorities arrested ten Czechoslovak legionnaires from the 6th Czechoslovak Rifle Regiment. On May 17, 1918, soldiers of the 3rd and 6th Czechoslovak Rifle Regiments occupied the railway station in Chelyabinsk, and then the entire city and freed the imprisoned soldiers. The legionnaires disarmed the Red Guards and captured the city arsenal - 2,800 rifles and an artillery battery.

On May 23, Czechoslovak radio operators intercepted two secret telegrams from Moscow with an order to local Soviets to begin disarmament of Czechoslovak legionnaires and imprisonment of soldiers in concentration camps. On May 25, People's Commissar for Military Affairs L. D. Trotsky issued an order, which, in particular, said: “All Councils of Deputies are obliged, under penalty of liability, to disarm the Czechoslovaks. Every Czechoslovakian found armed on a railway line should be shot on the spot. Every train containing at least one armed soldier must be unloaded from the wagons and imprisoned in a concentration camp...”.

Events on the Rtishchevo-Penza line

Lieutenant S. Chechek (1918)

Rodion Tuseev

Banner of the 4th Infantry Regiment

Rtishchevo. Funeral of R. Tuseev and Nikolaev, who died in Penza in battles with the Czechoslovaks (June 2, 1918)

The train of the fourth rifle regiment of the first Czechoslovak division arrived in Rtishchevo from Umet station on April 19, 1918. On the first track there was a passenger train with command staff; on the third and fourth tracks there are freight cars in which soldiers were accommodated. On May 27, the Czechoslovaks refused to surrender their weapons to representatives of the executive committee of the Rtishchevsky Council. The officers at the negotiations announced that if they tried to disarm them by force, the legionnaires would resist.

Apparently, such an attempt was made. Having defeated the Rtishchevsky detachment of Red Guards, the Czechoslovaks captured the station. On the evening of the same day, the Saratov provincial executive committee received news of the rebellion. To suppress it, a detachment of the 2nd Red Latvian Regiment and a detachment of Red Guards from Atkarsk were sent from Saratov to Rtishchevo, who arrived at the station on the morning of May 28. The Latvians opened artillery fire on the Czechoslovaks from three-inch guns deployed on platforms; in particular, the Serdobsky dead-end area, where the legionnaires were located, came under fire. The rebel Czechoslovaks were surrounded and disarmed. In the afternoon, a detachment of two thousand legionnaires under the command of Lieutenant Stanislav Chechek approached the station from Tambov. The rebels surrounded the village, cut telegraph wires and began a siege.

On the same day, May 28, in Balashov, a general meeting of workers and employees of the railway junction decided to create a detachment to fight the Czechoslovak rebellion. For this purpose, the Balashov 135th Infantry Regiment was formed from railway workers aged 18 to 50, with the exception of employees and workers necessary to maintain small train traffic, repair tracks and locomotives (later it became part of Chapaev’s division). In the afternoon, the regiment headed by the chairman of the Balashov executive committee, Solonin, arrived in Rtishchevo in an emergency echelon.

Civil war on the territory of the Saratov region and adjacent areas (1918)

The poor peasants of Serdobsky district were also organized to fight the rebellion. Some volosts provided up to a thousand fighters. For example, the Lopukhovsky volost Council brought 1000 people, Baikovsky - 700, Malinovsky - 900, Studenovsky - 1000.

Through the joint efforts of the united detachments of railway workers, peasants, Atkar, Balashov and Saratov Red Guard work detachments, the first Czechoslovak revolutionary regiment on the morning of May 29, the legionnaires were driven out of Rtishchevo and thrown back to the northeast.

Having stolen three steam locomotives from the station, the Czechoslovak units headed towards Penza and, apparently fearing persecution, dismantled part of the railway track near the Dubasovsky crossing. The chairman of the Rtishchevsky volost executive committee, V. F. Ryabov, contacted by telephone the military commissar I. S. Tuseev, who, together with M. V. Serezhnikov and G. S. Fomichev, was at that time at the district congress of Soviets in Serdobsk, and invited him to organize the forces of the Red Guards to strike from the rear against the Czechoslovaks retreating from Rtishchevo. I. S. Tuseyev immediately announced the uprising of the Czechoslovaks, and the work of the congress was interrupted. Its participants began to disperse to the villages of Serdobsky district to organize local peasant detachments.

Having learned from the station duty officer that the Czechoslovak train had passed the Koldobash crossing, the congress delegates accepted Serezhnikov’s proposal to send an uncontrollable steam locomotive towards the train. 5 carriages were attached to the locomotive, in which a detachment of Serdob and Rtishchevsky Red Guards led by Serezhnikov was located, and a platform with ballast, and the train was taken out of the Serdobsk station. Having passed the bridge over the Serdoba River, the detachment landed and organized an ambush on the outskirts of Serdobsk across the river, and the locomotive was launched towards the Czechoslovaks. The train crash, which cost the Czechoslovaks great casualties and major material damage, occurred in the notch between Serdobsk and Koldobash. Having left the burning train with losses, the rebels went to Serdobsk in loose formation, but were met from an ambush by machine-gun and rifle fire. Without accepting the battle, the Czechoslovaks bypassed the city and headed to the Bayka station.

On May 29, detachments of the 1st Infantry Regiment and parts of the 4th Infantry Regiment occupied Penza. The Czechoslovaks managed to surround the city from three sides: closing the encirclement on the western outskirts was prevented by the Red Guard detachment that had arrived the day before from Rtishchev. 400-450 people of the 1st Czechoslovak Revolutionary Regiment fought on the side of the Soviet troops. The fighting in Penza was brutal and bloody. On May 30, the legionnaires began a fighting retreat from Penza towards Syzran. The newspaper “Izvestia of the Saratov Council” dated June 1, 1918 reported: “Penza is occupied by our troops, some of which continue to move towards Syzran. The railway tracks on the Rtishchevo - Penza section are free for the unhindered movement of trains". In the battles for Penza, active fighters of the Rtishchev detachment Rodion Stepanovich Tuseev and sailor Nikolaev were mortally wounded.

On May 31, 1918, the newspaper “Izvestia of the Saratov Council” in No. 104 published the resolution of the meeting of the Czechoslovak military detachment in Saratov, which stated:

We, Czechoslovakians and Poles, having learned about the events in Rtishchev and other cities, recognize these actions as unfair and criminal and protest against them with all our energy.

Since we suspect that this incident was prepared by German agents with the aim of creating chaos and hatred between the Russian brothers and us, the Czechoslovaks, the detachment headquarters is sending a three-member delegation to clarify the matter with a demand to stop the fratricidal bloodshed.
We, Czechoslovaks, having made a revolution in Austria-Hungary, came here with the goal of supporting and protecting the Russian revolution from German-monarchist gangs and counter-revolutionary movements.
We, Czechoslovakians, stand guard over the gains of the revolution and fully support the Russian Federative Soviet Republic. Down with fratricidal war!
Down with the imperialist system of the whole world!
Long live the International! Long live freedom, equality and fraternity! Long live the Czech Commune! Long live the power of the Soviets!

Notes

Literature

Gubcheka: Sat. documents and materials from the history of the Saratov Provincial Extraordinary Commission, 1917-1921 / Compiled by: N. I. Shabanov, N. A. Makarov. - Saratov: Privolzhskoe book. publishing house, 1980
Unforgettable days: From the memories of one of the first Rtishchev Komsomol members Dmitry Alekseevich Siryapin // Lenin’s Path. - February 6, 1971
Kuvanov A. Sons and daughters of the native land: From the series of essays “Rtishchevo” // Lenin’s Path. - February 13, 1971
Kuvanov A. All-Union Elder Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin and Rtishchevo (1. Russian crossroads) // Lenin’s Path. - November 19, 1975
So it was...: Memoirs of an old driver, pensioner A.I. Zakharov // Lenin’s Path. - September 19, 1967

Rtishchevo and Rtishchevsky district in topics

Symbols and awards

People of the city and region

Administrative
territorial division

None"The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik" would not have existed in nature if their author, Jaroslav Hasek, lost in 1918 in the Russian expanses, then fell into the hands of his fellow tribesmen - the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps. They sentenced Hasek to death: he was among those few Czechoslovaks who responded to the calls of Bolshevik agitators and went over to the side of the “builders of a bright future.” The rest declared war on the Reds exactly a hundred years ago, starting one of the most amazing military epics in history.

The Czechoslovak Corps is the main contender for the title of the smallest army in history to conquer a vast territory. At the end of the spring and summer of 1918, the Czechs and Slovaks - at that time a little more than 40 thousand fighters - took control of colossal regions of Russia - from the Volga region to Primorye. The corps, located in several dozen echelons, stretched along the railway from Penza to Vladivostok, awaiting shipment along ocean routes to Europe. But then an obstacle appeared on his way in the form of Soviet power.

“The first Czech unit in Russia was created at the beginning of the First World War, in 1914,” says the Czech military historian Eduard Steglik. – It was called the Czech Squad and was made up of Czechs who lived in the Russian Empire before the war and were its subjects. Gradually the squad was transformed into a division; at the beginning of 1917 there were about four thousand fighters in it. In the summer of 1917, they entered into battle with German and Austro-Hungarian units at Zborov in Ukraine and showed themselves very well - they broke through the enemy front. After this, the Provisional Government allowed the recruitment of former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, Czechs and Slovaks by nationality, from prisoner-of-war camps to serve in the legions. (Československé legie - the official name of the formations that fought against Austria-Hungary and its allies, for the creation of an independent state of Czechs and Slovaks. – RS). This ensured an influx of tens of thousands of fighters.

There was a Bolshevik coup, and they were stuck in a foreign country engulfed in revolution.

They were subordinate politically to Tomas G. Masaryk, the head of the Czechoslovak National Council, located in the West. He formally included the Czechoslovak Corps, located in Russia, in the legions that fought against the Germans on the Western Front in France. It was there that the legionnaires from Russia were supposed to be transferred. But there was a Bolshevik coup, and they were stuck in a foreign country engulfed in revolution. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the declaration of independence of Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1918, the Western Front disappeared, and the task of the Czechoslovaks was now to return to their homeland.

– That is, the legionnaires did not have any ideological message, and they intervened in the outbreak of the Civil War in Russia, simply put, because they wanted to leave and get home as quickly as possible?

– Masaryk emphasized more than once, addressing the legionnaires (and he spent most of 1917 and the beginning of 1918 in Russia): there is no need to get involved in internal Russian conflicts, the task of the legionnaires is to get to France and take part in the war on the Western Front, so that later , as a result of the defeat of the Central Powers, a new state of Czechs and Slovaks was created. And it should be noted that initially the conflict that flared up in the spring of 1918 was not a clash between legionnaires and Bolsheviks. We were talking about banal fights - the most serious consequences were the one that occurred on May 14 at the station in Chelyabinsk, after which the legionnaires, in fact, began hostilities. The fight was between Czechs and Slovaks traveling to the east, and Austro-Hungarian prisoners - Hungarians and Germans - who were traveling in the opposite direction. Indeed, in March 1918, the Bolshevik government concluded the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and Austria-Hungary, after which the exchange of prisoners began. It was in these skirmishes between legionnaires and Austro-Hungarian soldiers that the Soviet government intervened in a very unfortunate way. Trotsky declared that “every armed Czechoslovak found must be shot.” The legionnaires responded to attempts to disarm them with resistance - and an uprising began, or, in Soviet terminology, a “rebellion” of the Czechoslovak Corps, says Eduard Steglik.

"Let's do whitewashing!" The Czech legionnaire “repaints” Russia from red to white. Poster by František Parolek (1918)

Dividing into several battle groups of 10–15 thousand fighters each, the Czechoslovaks during the summer of 1918 took control of the entire Trans-Siberian Railway, as well as several large centers in the Volga region. They fought famously: for example, on August 6, Kazan was occupied by only 3,300 soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps, the Serbian squad and local anti-Bolshevik formations, knocking out the 10,000-strong Red garrison from the city. “In the territories occupied by legionnaires, democratic institutions liquidated by the October Revolution were restored. At the beginning of June, the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) met in Samara, a body whose legitimacy was based on the first free elections in Russian history, held at the end of 1917,” - notes a columnist for the Czech weekly "Echo" (Týdeník Echo) Peter Golub, who published a series of articles about legionnaires on the eve of the anniversary of the uprising. And he quotes from the order of the corps command dated June 17, 1918 - it follows from it that the rise of the anti-Bolshevik movement, which provoked the uprising of the Czechoslovaks, in turn, influenced the mood of the legionnaires: “Our actions gave rise to a movement, the goal of which is the liberation of all Russia. Therefore, we are obliged to remain here until the situation is cleared up and the political problems that have arisen as a result of the military operations we have undertaken have been resolved."

Our actions gave rise to a movement whose goal is the liberation of all of Russia

The alliance with the Russian democrats, however, was short-lived. At the end of 1918, as a result of a military coup, power in the eastern part of Russia passed into the hands of Admiral Kolchak, who assumed the title of “supreme ruler”. Relations between the Czechoslovaks and the Kolchak government and command were not easy. After all, the legionnaires found themselves between two fires: between the Russian White movement, for which the presence of the Czechoslovak Corps in Russia was a great help, and the Entente powers, under whose operational subordination the legionnaires were. While Kolchak was advancing, there were fewer problems - moreover, some Czechoslovaks actually joined the ranks of the whites, and the former military paramedic Radola Gaida rose to the rank of general with Kolchak, but at the end of 1919, when things went very badly for the admiral, he rebelled against him .

There were also the opposite cases: Russian officers and generals, once assigned to the Czechoslovak Corps, remained to serve with the legionnaires. Some left Russia with them after the Civil War. The most famous is the tragic fate of Sergei Voitsekhovsky, who rose to the rank of army general in interwar Czechoslovakia. In the fall of 1938, he, along with other military men, tried to convince President Benes not to accept the terms of the Munich Treaty, and in May 1945, when Soviet troops arrived in Prague, he was arrested by counterintelligence Smersh and thrown into a Siberian camp. Woitsekhovsky died in the early 50s near Irkutsk - exactly in those places where 30 years earlier he fought with the Czechoslovaks against the Bolsheviks.

There were other examples of legionnaires “merging” with the Russian environment. In 1920, when the last units of the Czechoslovak Corps left Vladivostok, over 70 thousand people boarded allied transport ships, although there were just over 50 thousand military personnel and service personnel. The rest are family members, wives and children, whom the Czechoslovaks acquired during their Russian epic. Many legionnaires, having returned to their homeland, actively helped refugees from Russia who settled in Czechoslovakia.

However, they did not help Alexander Kolchak, who by the beginning of 1920 was defeated by the Red Army. Probably the most controversial episode in the history of the Czechoslovak Corps remains the January episode, when, with the consent of the head of the allied mission, the French General Janin, the legionnaires handed over the admiral to the leftist rebels who seized power in Irkutsk - in exchange for the right of free passage further east, to the sea. Soon Kolchak, as we know, fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks and was shot. According to Eduard Steglik, in general, Czechoslovaks, however, did not stain themselves in Russia with either special cruelty or crimes against civilians:

“For the most part, they left in an orderly manner. There were cases of looting, and during the period of retreat there were also refusals to go into battle - the legionnaires felt more and more acutely that this was not their war. The uplift gave way to disappointment - largely under the influence of the atrocities committed by both the Reds and the Whites, which the legionnaires witnessed. It was very unpleasant for me to encounter publications in modern Russian media when, for example, photographs of Bolsheviks posing near the bodies of killed legionnaires were presented as the opposite - Czechs and Slovaks standing over the corpses of Red Army soldiers allegedly tortured by them! In this case, we are talking about photographs from Czech or Western archives, well studied by historians - in some cases it is known by name who these killed were. And suddenly this is presented as “atrocities of the White Czechs,” who allegedly behaved like this towards the Russians.

There were also refusals to go into battle - the legionnaires felt more and more acutely that this was not their war

Of course, legionnaires sometimes killed prisoners, but almost always this was a reaction to the brutal executions of corps members committed by the enemy - when the Czechs and Slovaks stumbled upon traces of these atrocities. But I have never seen any documentary evidence of legionnaires’ war crimes against civilians, although I have studied a very large number of documents relating to the Czechoslovak Corps in Russia. And on the contrary, there is evidence of the sadness with which many legionnaires left Russia - a country that they had come to love, but which at that moment was experiencing a catastrophe.

– What is true and what is false in the legend that the Czechoslovaks stole and took away part of the Russian gold reserve entrusted to them by the Kolchak government? Even in the interwar period, for example, there were accusations from German representatives that more than 30 million rubles in gold were taken out of Russia by the Czechoslovaks. Sometimes larger amounts were also mentioned.

– You used the word “legend” correctly. In fact, from the very beginning, a detailed inventory of the gold reserves that ended up in the hands of the Czechs was made. (He was captured in the summer of 1918 in Kazan and later was once again entrusted to the legionnaires during the retreat of Kolchak’s army through Siberia. - RS). It was signed not only by Czech, but also by Russian representatives. At the moment when the legionnaires left Russia, this gold was transferred to the Russian side in accordance with this inventory. The idea that the Czechoslovak Corps left Russia, taking with them wagons with looted Russian gold, and then interwar Czechoslovakia flourished at the expense of this gold, is, to put it mildly, erroneous, says Eduard Steglik.

Petr Golub notes that the opponents of the legionnaires in Russia were not only local Bolsheviks, but also recent compatriots - former subjects of Austria-Hungary, who stood under the banner of the “world revolution”. “During the battles at Spassk and Kaul on the Ussuri River, the legionnaires felt the hard way how much better the red units fought, which included recent German and Hungarian prisoners. Therefore, one of the tasks of the Czechoslovaks in Siberia was to keep the prisoners in the camps that existed there - sometimes with considerable cruelty. The Czechs and Slovaks themselves were prisoners of war until recently, but, having received freedom, they mercilessly denied it to the rest."

Now, a hundred years later, there are few memorial sites left in Russia associated with the epic of the Czechoslovak Corps. Only one cemetery for legionnaires has survived - in Vladivostok. During the years of Soviet power, everything that was connected with the “White Czechs” was destroyed for obvious reasons. According to Eduard Steglik, in the last 15–20 years, monuments or memorial plaques have been erected at the sites of unsurvived burials. Local authorities in some cases meet the Czech side halfway, in others they oppose it, as, for example, in Samara, where, thanks to the activity of local communists, the installation of a monument to the dead legionnaires was postponed indefinitely. “Another problem that has emerged recently is vandalism,” says the Czech military historian. “The new monuments that we have managed to erect in recent years have become targets of attacks: one or another detail has been knocked off, paint has been poured over, inscriptions have been applied - in one case , for example, they wrote “They killed the Russians.” Unfortunately, the situation worsened.”

A hundred years ago, an uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps broke out in Chelyabinsk.

It is this moment that many historians consider the beginning of the Civil War in Russia. Scientists are still arguing about what actually caused the Chelyabinsk incident, but in any case, the events that followed led to the death of millions of our compatriots. Where did the Czechoslovak soldiers in the Urals come from and what role did they play in the history of Russia - in the RT material.

Bolshevik armored train "Lenin", captured by the Czechoslovak military on July 22, 1918 during the battles on the outskirts of Simbirsk and renamed "Orlik" © czechlegion.com

Back in the Middle Ages, being under strong military-political pressure from its neighbors, the Czech Republic was forced to recognize the power of the German emperors. The Czech people then repeatedly rose up in national liberation uprisings, but could not achieve the desired independence for centuries. In the 19th century, after the official end of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, the lands of the Czech Republic were included in Austria.

Like many other Slavic peoples, the Czechs pinned their hopes on restoring national independence on Russia.

“In the second half of the 19th century, Russophile sentiments were very strong in the Czech Republic. In Prague it was even fashionable to speak Russian - this was considered evidence of progressive views. Many Czechs left the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and moved to Russia, where they worked as Latin teachers or became colonists and worked the land,” said Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor at Moscow State University in an interview with RT. M.V. Lomonosov Oleg Airapetov.

According to the scientist, immediately after the outbreak of the First World War, representatives of Czech organizations approached Nicholas II with a proposal to create volunteer military units as part of the Russian army.

Emperor Nicholas II and regiment commander Major General N.M. Kisilevsky bypass the formation. Tsarskoye Selo. May 17, 1909 © topwar.ru

“There were very strong patriotic, national-romantic and anti-German sentiments among the Czechs. By the way, it was they who initiated the renaming of St. Petersburg to Petrograd,” the historian emphasized.

In the fall of 1914, the first Czech squad was created and sent to the front. Against the background of military successes in Russia, they started talking about the creation of an independent Czechoslovak state and that Czech volunteers could become the core of its future army. However, the Russian leadership was unable to realize its plans. The front rolled back, and repressions against Russophiles began on the territory of Austria-Hungary. In the spring of 1915, the Russian command decided to recruit not only Czechs living in Russia, but also prisoners of war into the Czech national formations. At the end of 1915, a rifle regiment was created on the basis of the squad, and a year later - a brigade.

“Chekhovs were very often used in reconnaissance: they spoke languages and knew the terrain well. This service was dangerous, but they willingly did it,” Airapetov noted.

In 1917, the Czechoslovak Division and the Czechoslovak Corps were formed alternately from Czechs, Slovaks, Rusyns and Balkan Slavs.

“The October Revolution and talk about peace seriously agitated the corps members. In the eyes of the Austro-Hungarian authorities, they were traitors; they had no way back,” said Oleg Airapetov.

Representatives of Czechoslovak organizations began negotiations on cooperation with the governments of the Entente countries. As a result, France announced in December 1917 that the Czechoslovak Corps would come under its command. Czech organizations and official Paris began to seek permission from Moscow to transfer the Czechoslovak Corps by sea to Europe - to the Western Front. In March 1918, the Council of People's Commissars approved the project of sending Czechoslovak soldiers and officers to Vladivostok with their subsequent transfer to France (63 trains, 40 cars each). At the same time, the Czechoslovak units were subject to partial disarmament: they could leave only one company with rifles and machine guns for each echelon.

The Czechoslovak uprising in the heart of Russia

The authorities of the Entente countries were very unhappy with the withdrawal of Soviet Russia from the war. Moreover, the Western powers feared for the fate of the military cargo they had delivered to Russia, but never used, and which was in the warehouses of the largest domestic ports. Therefore, in the spring of 1918, the Entente raised the issue of intervention by Soviet Russia.

After the signing of peace between the Bolshevik government and the Central Powers, not only Czechs and Slovaks moved en masse across Russia, but also prisoners of war of German and Hungarian origin who were to be released.

Due to mutual antipathy, the fighters of the Czechoslovak Corps constantly had clashes with them. The nervous atmosphere was also intensified by the fact that Moscow, under pressure from Germany, was delaying the process of sending the Czechoslovak Corps to Vladivostok. The servicemen feared that they might be deported to Austria-Hungary, where “traitors” would face execution or hard labor.

On May 14, 1918, in Chelyabinsk, from a train transporting Hungarian prisoners, a cast-iron stove leg flew at the Czechs, seriously injuring soldier Frantisek Duhacek. Soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps detained the culprit and “punished” him by inflicting several blows with a bayonet. Local Bolshevik authorities arrested Czechoslovak soldiers and attempted to completely disarm the trains in the city. In response, soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps captured the local arsenal and artillery battery on May 17 and freed their fellow countrymen.

A few days later, members of the Czechoslovak National Council were arrested in Moscow, who, at the request of Leon Trotsky, appealed to their compatriots for disarmament and an end to the rebellion. But the corps personnel had already elected their own self-government bodies, which, in response to attempts by the Soviet authorities to disarm the Czechs and Slovaks, called on their fellow countrymen not to surrender their weapons, but, if necessary, to resist the local authorities.

On May 26-27, 1918, armed clashes began between Czechoslovak units and Red Guards in Irkutsk and Zlatoust. Being a powerful organized military force, the corps defeated Soviet units and in just a few weeks captured Petropavlovsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Novonikolaevsk, Mariinsk, Tomsk and other cities.

Civil War. Eastern front. Soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps with a captured pennant of a Soviet detachment © State Archive of the Russian Federation / russiainphoto.ru

On June 4, the Entente declared that the Czechoslovak Corps was part of its troops. In June, the first Russian anti-Bolshevik governments were formed in Samara and Omsk captured by the corps.

Bloody whirlwind of war

Historians today give different dates for the start of the Civil War. Some are “attached” to the Chelyabinsk incident, others believe that the war actually began much earlier.

“Of course, conflicts took place back in 1917, but they were focal in nature. Without external intervention, the war would never have become so bloody. Anti-Bolshevik forces initially did not have support and could not hold out on their own anywhere. But after the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps, a full-scale war began,” Oleg Airapetov expressed his opinion.

The civil war began gradually, notes Alexander Krushelnitsky, candidate of historical sciences, associate professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities.

“In reality, the Civil War unfolded gradually, long before the Uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, since the beginning of 1917. First, soldiers killed officers, then the Bolsheviks carried out an armed coup, and military clashes took place in Moscow. It soon became clear that we must expect intervention from the Entente, which would lead to the removal of the Bolsheviks from power,” notes Alexander Krushelnitsky.

According to the historian, intervention in the border areas would not have had a mobilizing effect on the population, and battles along the entire length of the railway leading from the European part of Russia to the Far East drew residents of the entire country into the conflict, to whom the war literally came home.

“The so-called Czechoslovak rebellion served as a catalyst for the formation of the Red Army,” Krushelnitsky emphasized.

According to the expert, there is every reason to believe that this process could somehow have been deliberately provoked by Leon Trotsky.

Oleg Airapetov, on the contrary, is inclined to link the actions of the Czechoslovak Corps with the Entente’s decision to intervene.

“The rebellion led to the emergence of a new force, which was not taken into account in any way, and its very appearance was not considered in any way by the Bolsheviks,” Maxim Timonov, general director of the Fifth Rome publishing house, told RT. “It was a powerful maneuvering force that could not be ignored and to counter which it was necessary to quickly find resources, and resources in the summer of 1918 were small.”

According to Timonov, since the Chelyabinsk incident, the process of starting the Civil War has become irreversible.

The command of the Czechoslovak Corps took an extremely hostile position towards the Bolsheviks, which led to a sharp strengthening of the counter-revolutionary movement.

In the winter - spring of 1918, a significant part of Soviet Russia was occupied on the one hand by German troops, and on the other by the Entente. Against the backdrop of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, anti-Bolshevik forces within the country sharply intensified.

In the fall of 1918, representatives of the White movement led by Anton Denikin and Pyotr Krasnov launched an attack on the Bolsheviks in the south, and Alexander Kolchak declared himself the supreme ruler of Russia in Omsk. Anglo-French troops carried out massive landings in the ports of the Black Sea region. At the same time, after the creation of independent Czechoslovakia was announced, the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps lost all desire to fight, and they retreated to the rear, handing over their positions to the White Guards.

Military luck at the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919 switched to the side of the Bolsheviks. They stopped Kolchak's advance, defeated Krasnov and provoked revolutionary unrest in the French units. Subsequently, the Red Army successfully operated in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the North.

Representatives of the Czechoslovak Corps by this time were largely demoralized and were thinking mainly about how to leave Russia, taking with them a lot of looted property. At the beginning of 1920, they actually handed Kolchak into the hands of the Soviet authorities and signed a truce with Moscow.

The evacuation of the corps from Russia lasted almost a year. During this time, more than 72 thousand natives of the Czech Republic and Slovakia left Vladivostok on 42 ships.

The civil war in Russia continued until 1922. It claimed, according to scientists, from 13 to 25 million human lives. Moreover, only about 1 million people died during the fighting; the rest became victims of war-induced famine, epidemics and rampant crime. The damage caused to the country's economy was estimated at 50 billion gold rubles, agricultural production decreased by half, and industrial production decreased several times.

According to Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, member of the Public Council under the Russian Ministry of Defense, the role of the Czechoslovak Corps in these events was rather negative. “The war would have started anyway - a compromise could not be found between old and new Russia, but without the intervention of the Czechoslovaks it most likely would not have become so large-scale. Many people today paint black everything that the Bolsheviks did, but this is unfair. They raised power that was literally lying on the pavement, and then ensured the economic development of the country, created nuclear weapons, and launched man into space. It makes no sense to argue that everything could have been different. History does not tolerate the subjunctive mood. Instead, you just need to recognize the mistakes of the past and try not to repeat them,” Korotchenko said.