SUPREME RULER

A. V. Kolchak

If in pre-revolutionary Russia, General M. V. Alekseev, as A. I. Denikin put it, was “the tactical leader of the Armed Forces of the Russian state,” then Rear Admiral A. V. Kolchak, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, was at that time the most prominent figure in the imperial fleet . Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak echoes Alekseev in the magnitude of accomplishments in the White Case founded by that.

The kinship of these two leaders in their February, republican moods, views on the fate of the new Russia directed the ideas of the White movement in the south and east of the country. The efforts of the military leaders Alekseev and Kolchak mainly determined the development and outcome of the struggle on all anti-Bolshevik Russian fronts.

Thus, the Supreme Leader of the Volunteer Army "grandfather" Alekseev became the patriarch of the Knights of the Crown of Thorns, the Supreme Ruler of Russia and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Land and Naval Forces Kolchak became the number one white leader. He created an all-Russian government in Siberia, he was recognized as the Supreme Ruler by all the other leaders of the White Struggle.

Interestingly, before the October Revolution, Alekseev and Kolchak, who had only met once and discussed common working issues, during the years of the Civil War strove for each other with some kind of unconscious persistence. But neither Alekseev and Kolchak (the general's nomination to the Samara Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly - Komuch, which was replaced by Kolchak's regime), nor Kolchak and Alekseev (the admiral's passage through Omsk to the Volunteer Army) were destined to meet again.

Let me remind you of a quote from a pro-Soviet historian that was quite accurate in meaning, with which the previous essay about Alekseev began, about “the resultant, which was formed from the ratio of the real forces of the white coalition and the possibilities in the fight against the RCP (b) and Soviet power”: “The pendulum of this resultant alternately stopped then on the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik (Komuch), then on the Socialist-Revolutionary-Cadet program (Directorate), then he reached pure right-wing Kadetism (the regimes of Denikin and Kolchak), straightened even more under Wrangel and, finally, united with Black-Hundred monarchism (General Dieterikhs).

So, to talk about Kolchak after the founder of the White Case, Alekseev, is also appropriate because the admiral's rule changed both the Komuch regime and the Ufa Directory (Provisional All-Russian Government). And since the political structures of Denikin and Kolchak are “ringed” in the quote, it means that it is realistic to look from this perspective at Alekseevsky’s successor-naval commander, who is in many ways different from Alekseev’s true student, General Denikin.

The Kolchak clan is ancient and very peculiar with its Polovtsian, then Serbo-Croatian, Turkish, Orthodox-Muslim roots. His surname translated into Russian means "mitten": "hand" in Turkish - "count". These iron gloves come from the Polovtsy, driven by the Tatar-Mongols to Hungary. Then they are traced from Ilias Pasha Kolchak - he was of Serbo-Croatian origin, a Christian who converted to Islam. He became the head of the famous Khotyn fortress and is noted in Lomonosov's ode to the capture of Khotyn. Kolchak rose to the rank of vizier, but in 1739, in the next Russian-Turkish war in that same Khotyn, he was captured along with his family.

The high-born captive and his eldest son, officer Mehmet Bey, were taken to St. Petersburg, then they were released with their relatives to Turkey. But Kolchak, on friendship with the dignitary Pototsky, settled with his family in Galicia. On the Slavic land, the descendants of the Three-Bunch Pasha returned to the Orthodox faith. The great-grandson of Ismail Pasha already served in the Russian Bug Cossack army. And in the documents of the reign of Paul I and Alexander I, the centurion of this army, Lukyan Kolchak, the great-grandfather of Admiral Kolchak, appears. From the eldest son of the centurion - Ivan Lukyanovich, the father of Admiral Vasily Ivanovich was born.

V. I. Kolchak was a match for his military family. He was brought up in the Odessa Richelieu gymnasium, and served in the naval artillery. As a young man, he fought in the Crimean War and defended Malakhov Kurgan. Wounded, he was captured by the French, who sent him to the Princes' Islands in the Sea of ​​Marmara. Returning from there to his homeland, Vasily Ivanovich graduated from the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers. He practiced in metallurgical and weapons business at the Ural Zlatoust plant.

Then Kolchak Sr. moved to St. Petersburg and served as an inspector of the Maritime Department at the Obukhov Steel Plant. He retired as a major general, but continued his factory work as an engineer, head of a workshop. Vasily Ivanovich was a major specialist in the field of artillery, published in 1894 the scientific work "History of the Obukhov Plant, in connection with the progress of artillery technology." He also had other publications, among which the most interesting book is War and Captivity, 1853-1855. From the memories of a long time ago.

These memoirs were published in 1904 in St. Petersburg, and in 1913 the 76-year-old Kolchak Sr. died. Close acquaintances remembered Vasily Ivanovich for his restraint, ironic turn of mind. He was a Francophile, having brought this addiction, obviously, from French captivity, about which he was not too lazy to write about even in his declining years.

The mother of Admiral Kolchak, Olga Ilyinichna Possokhova, came from Don Cossacks and Kherson nobles. Her family moved from the Kherson province to Odessa. Olga Ilyinichna's father was the last Odessa mayor, whom the Bolsheviks would shoot in 1920. Olga Posokhova married 36-year-old V.I. Kolchak, twice her senior. At the age of 18, on November 4, 1874, her son Alexander was born in St. Petersburg. In addition to him, O. I. Kolchak later had daughters Ekaterina and Lyubov, who died in childhood. Olga Ivanovna herself died in 1894, when Alexander Kolchak was 20 years old. The son of Admiral Rostislav Aleksandrovich wrote about his grandmother and father:

“She was brought up at the Odessa Institute and was very pious ... Alexander Vasilyevich loved her very much and for the rest of his life kept the memory of the long evening services that he went to church with his mother as a boy somewhere not far from the gloomy Obukhov factory, near which they lived on father's service. Alexander Vasilievich was a very religious, Orthodox man; his character was lively and cheerful (at least before the revolution and Siberia), but with a rather strict, even ascetic-monastic outlook. He had monk confessors, and I heard how he, being the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, visited an old man in the St. George Monastery in the Crimea. Probably, these traits were laid in him by his mother.

Sasha Kolchak studied at the 6th St. Petersburg classical gymnasium until the third grade, and then, from 1888, he studied at the Naval School, since 1891 renamed the Naval Cadet Corps. The future naval service was written to him in kind. In addition to the father's naval artilleryman, the uncles of Kolchak also had the same naval specialty: Pyotr Ivanovich - captain of the 1st rank, Alexander Ivanovich - major general. On the junior line of Kolchakov, from Fyodor Lukyanovich, Alexander Fedorovich was Rear Admiral. And the Possokhovs have the closest relatives of their mother Sergei Andreevich - Rear Admiral.

So Sasha transferred from high school students to naval cadets both by his father and by his own will. In his corps issue, he went first, then second. He was fond of the exact sciences, mastered the navigational business at the Kronstadt Naval Observatory, learned to locksmith from his father in the workshops at the Obukhov plant. In 1892 he was promoted to junior non-commissioned officer in the Naval Cadet Corps. As the best in science and behavior, next year Kolchak was appointed sergeant major of the junior company. One of his local wards later recalled:

“Kolchak, a young man of short stature with a concentrated look of lively and expressive eyes, a deep chest voice, the imagery of beautiful Russian speech, the seriousness of thoughts and actions, inspired us boys with deep respect for ourselves. We felt in him a moral force that was impossible to disobey, we felt that this is the person who must be unquestioningly followed. Not a single officer-educator, not a single teacher of the corps inspired us with such a sense of superiority as midshipman Kolchak. The future leader was visible in him. Another classmate of Kolchak described him this way:

“A cadet, of medium height, a slender, thin brunette with an unusual, southern type of face and an aquiline nose, is teaching a tall and stout cadet who has approached him. He looks at his mentor with hope ... This mentor, one of the first cadets in the class, was like a constant reference book for his less successful comrades. If something was not clear in a mathematical problem, there was only one way out: "You need to ask Kolchak."

On September 15, 1894, 19-year-old Kolchak was released from the Naval Cadet Corps, receiving the first naval officer rank of midshipman. He finished second among classmates, since he himself refused a commission in favor of the superiority of midshipman D. Filippov, whose abilities he considered higher. Very symbolic in terms of the future fate of the graduate Kolchak was his distinction with the Admiral P.I. Rikord Prize. This Russian naval commander became famous in battles with the Turks in the Mediterranean, and then became a famous navigator, prominent scientist, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

The newly minted midshipman Kolchak served for several months in the St. Petersburg 7th naval crew, in the spring of 1895 he left the capital as an assistant watch officer to sail to the Far East on the newly launched armored cruiser Rurik. At the end of 1896, in Vladivostok, he transferred as a watchman to the Kreyser clipper, on which he sailed for several years along the Pacific routes.

Visiting Chinese and Korean ports, Kolchak becomes related to the local way of life, enthusiastically studies the world of the East, independently crams the Chinese language, and delves into Eastern philosophy and metaphysics. On duty, he is working on oceanography, hydrology, working on maps of currents off the coast of Korea. All this inspires the young sailor to engage in science and expedition voyages. The commander of the "Cruiser" G.F. Tsyvinsky already recalled as an admiral:

“One of the watch commanders was midshipman A. V. Kolchak. He was an unusually capable and talented officer who had a rare memory, was fluent in three European languages, knew well the directions of all seas, knew the history of almost all European fleets and naval battles.

In 1899, summing up his first scientific steps, Kolchak published the article “Observations on surface temperatures and specific gravity of sea water made on the cruisers Rurik and Cruiser from May 1897 to March 1898.” At this time, the Cruiser returns to Kronstadt, Kolchak is trying to visit the Arctic Ocean together with the legendary pioneer and warrior Vice Admiral S. O. Makarov, who was preparing the next voyage there on the Ermak icebreaker he built.

Alexander Vasilievich calmly spoke about this in January 1920, half a month before his execution, during interrogation in Irkutsk by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission:

“When I returned to Kronstadt in 1899, I met Admiral Makarov there, who went on the Yermak on his first polar expedition. I asked him to take me with him, but due to official reasons he could not do this, and "Yermak" left without me. Then I decided to go to the Far East again, believing that maybe I would be able to get on some kind of expedition - I was very interested in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean in hydrological terms. I wanted to get on some ship that was leaving to protect the fur seal trade on the Commander Islands to the Bering Sea, to Kamchatka. I got to know Admiral Makarov very closely these days, since he himself worked a lot in oceanography.

But then there were big changes in my plans. In September, I left on the Petropavlovsk for the Mediterranean Sea in order to pass through Suez to the Far East, and in September I arrived in Piraeus. Here, quite unexpectedly for myself, I received an offer from Baron Toll to take part in the northern polar expedition organized by the Academy of Sciences under his command. My works and some printed works attracted the attention of Baron Toll. He needed three naval officers, and of the naval officers he chose me. I received an offer through the Academy of Sciences to participate in this expedition.”

In 1900, Kolchak was already a lieutenant and entered the disposal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. From Greece, through Odessa, he returns to St. Petersburg and appears to the head of the Russian polar expedition, Baron E. V. Toll. Kolchak begins to intensively prepare for swimming - he worked at the Pavlovsk Magnetic Observatory, at the Main Physical Observatory of St. Petersburg, practiced in Norway with a friend of Toll F. Nansen. The polar explorers were going to set off on a specially equipped former Norwegian whaling ship Zarya. In June 1900, their ship goes on an expedition.

From 1900 to 1902, Kolchak sailed on the Zarya in the Arctic seas to explore the Arctic Ocean in the area of ​​the New Siberian Islands and Bennett Island. First, the expedition passed through the Kara Sea and wintered in the western part of the Taimyr Strait, studying the Taimyr Peninsula. The next wintering, also at eleven months, was on Kotelny Island.

Kolchak was a hydrologist and the expedition's second magnetologist. On wintering grounds, he had to make throws up to five hundred miles on dog sleds and skis in order to determine astro points, conduct route surveys and barometric leveling. Once, together with Toll, he got stuck on the route: it took nine days to stop because of a snowstorm and four wasted digging the snow, never finding the previously abandoned warehouse.

Baron Toll noted in his notes that Kolchak "is not only the best officer, but he is also lovingly devoted to his hydrology", "this scientific work was carried out by him with great energy, despite the difficulties in combining the duties of a naval officer with the activities of a scientist." Under the leadership of Kolchak, complex hydrological studies were carried out. He himself measured the depths, went out for reconnaissance on a boat, in a boat, observed the state of the ice, and monitored the tides hourly during wintering.

One of the islands and one cape discovered by the expedition off the coast of Taimyr was named after Kolchak by Toll not by chance. For example, where with satellites, where alone, Alexander Vasilyevich crossed Kotelny Island for the first time, measuring the heights. He drove across the land of Bunge. Traveling west and north from Belkovsky Island, the lieutenant served as the opening of a year-round shore ice polynya in this part of the ocean. Kolchak discovered an island named after Strizhev. He went on the expedition as the fiancé of Sophia Omirova, and the lieutenant named one of the capes of Bennett Island discovered by him after his future wife, Sophia. The island and the cape named after Kolchak himself were lucky for a long time under the Soviets, the communists renamed them, realizing it, only at the end of the twenties.

On the first wintering, Kolchak, together with another magnetologist at Cape Chelyuskin, carried out full astronomical observations to clarify the coordinates. Alexander Vasilyevich also helped the zoologist of the expedition a lot, accompanying him on coastal excursions, collecting beetles, spiders, ticks, observing birds. When it became tight, everyone, regardless of rank and title, had to strain on an equal footing. They removed the ship from the shoals, collected a fin for kindling, the dogs got tired - they themselves took on the straps of the sled. The sailors of the expedition were more willing than all the chiefs to obey Kolchak.

In the spring of 1902, the desperate Baron Toll decided on a risky journey. On the schooner, due to the state of the ice, it was not possible to break through to the north of the New Siberian Islands, and he ventured, together with the magnetologist F. G. Seeberg and two mushers, to move there on foot. The baron firmly believed in the still undiscovered northern continent - the legendary land of Sannikov!

The remaining members of the expedition, because the food supplies were running out, the baron ordered to go south from Bennett Island, conduct research and return to St. Petersburg. At first, Toll wanted to take Kolchak with him, but was afraid to leave Zarya without such an authoritative officer. Perhaps that is why, without relying on a reliable partner, the baron himself will die. Toll, together with his companions, was going to independently return to the mouth of the Lena, for this the expedition had to leave food for them in the agreed places.

Alexander Vasilievich spoke in detail about this emergency in Irkutsk before his execution:

“In 1902, in the spring, Baron Toll left us with Seeberg in order to never return: he died during the transition back from Bennett's land.

We used the summer to try to get north to Bennett's land, but we did not succeed. The ice condition was even worse. When we passed the northern parallel of the Siberian Islands, we encountered large ice, which prevented us from penetrating further. With the end of navigation, we came to the mouth of the Lena, and then the old steamer "Lena" came to us and removed the entire expedition from the mouth of the Tiksi. The collections were loaded onto the Lena, and we returned to Yakutsk, then to Irkutsk, and in December 1902 arrived in Petrograd.

At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, the general status of the work of the expedition and the status of Baron Toll were reported. His fate greatly alarmed the Academy. Indeed, his enterprise was extremely risky. There were very few chances, but Baron Toll was a man who believed in his star and that everything would work out for him, and he went on this enterprise. The Academy was extremely alarmed, and then at the meeting I raised the question of what is needed now, immediately, without postponing a single day, to equip a new expedition to the land of Bennett to assist Baron Toll and his companions, and since on the "Dawn" it is it was impossible to do it (it was December, and in the spring one had to be on the New Siberian Islands in order to use the summer) - the Zarya was all broken - it was necessary to provide quick and decisive help. Then I, having thought and weighed everything that could be done, proposed to make our way to Bennett's land and, if necessary, even to search for Baron Toll in boats.

Many former companions of Kolchak reacted to his idea with doubt:

The same madness as the step of Baron Toll. The Academy nevertheless approved Kolchak's plan and gave him the means and complete freedom of action in this rescue operation. For his first polar expedition, Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir IV degree. The boatswain and the helmsman from the Zarya again went with Kolchak to the rescue of the missing polar explorers, and Kolchak found four more comrades among the worldly-wise seal hunters, although he had to go to Mezen for them. Alexander Vasilyevich conspired by telegraph with the Yakut exiled Olenin to prepare for him dogs and a heavy whaling whaleboat from the Zarya on the coast.

When Kolchak's team of seventeen people arrived in the lower reaches of the Yana River, the whaleboat was not there. The lieutenant got on a reindeer sledge and headed a thousand miles away to Tiksi, where the Zarya was crushed by ice. Here he learned that the whaleboat, also on reindeer, had already left for its destination. Kolchak finally caught up with him in the village of Cossack on the Yana.

In early May 1903, the rescuers set off. The whaleboat is driven on a fantastic train of two sleds pulled by dogs, and in front and behind a dozen more sleds. Each of them with people and supplies is dragged by thirteen dogs. The May snow and ice are loose; The path through the huge hummocks has to be cut; when the dogs are exhausted, the sledges are dragged by people.

The campaign was unsuccessful. When we went to the New Siberian Islands, we changed our original plan twice. We rushed along a different route, quickly got rid of the auxiliary party. Saving food, they fed deer hunted to the dogs, and then they had to kill the unnecessary part of the dogs.

They waited for the opening of the sea, making supplies from hunting prey, made runners for the whaleboat, and yet, on the first attempt to get out on the water, it was not possible to break through because of the mass of small ice. They went to sea on July 18, and immediately heavy snow fell on them. In his report on this expedition, Kolchak wrote:

“I have never seen such a mass of snow during the Arctic summer; the snow fell incessantly, in thick flakes, covering everything on the whaleboat with a soft, wet cover that melted during the day, soaking us worse than rain and making us feel colder than on dry frosty days. From time to time, for rest and to keep warm, we undertook a landing on the shore. Finding a passage in the ice bank, we entered a quiet, as if in a lake, strip of water, sometimes about a cable wide, and immediately ran aground.

Everyone had to get into the water and drag, as far as they could, the whaleboat closer to the shore. Then we carried the tent and the necessary things to the shore, made a fire from the fin, rested and began to wander again through the icy water until we managed to pull the whaleboat to a deep place, where we set the sails and set off further. Sometimes we chose a site right on the hummock and settled on it, preferring to undertake rather distant excursions behind the fin to the shore than to drag the whaleboat along the shallows. So the Kolchak team walked along the Bunge land, then along the Fadeevsky Island. The most difficult still remained ahead: the Blagoveshchensk Strait with tidal currents, shoals, powerful ice jams. They overcame it too, finally moving across the open ocean to Bennet.

The sea was smooth, but a continuous fog fell. Kolchak's men marched continuously for two days. They fell asleep after paddling for 12 hours on a small piece of ice. At night, it cracked under them, the whaleboat almost swept away.

Only on August 4, this incredibly courageous team landed on Bennett Island and began to explore it. Kolchak, crossing the bay on the ice, fell into a crack and went under water. The commander was pulled out and warmed up. In these latitudes, Alexander Vasilyevich continued to earn his future numerous health disorders.

Having found the documents left on the island from Toll, they found out that the baron and his companions left here at the beginning of last winter. They carefully collected the scientific materials of the disappeared polar explorers: a map drawn up by the baron, geological collections. Kolchak's men left Bennett on 7 August.

Only on August 27 Kolchak returned to the starting point of the voyage to Bennett Island. On the way back they had even saltier - they got into a storm. They began to search on the shores of the New Siberian Islands for signs of the group of Baron Toll, together with an auxiliary party. The food warehouses for Toll, laid here a year ago, were untouched. There was no doubt left: E. V. Toll and his comrades died.

When Kolchak, selflessly fulfilling his duty, returned to the village of Cossack on the Yana, he unexpectedly met his bride Sophia here! She got here from radiant Italy, from the island of Capri, where on vacation she heard hopeless forecasts about her fiancé.

After the departure of the Kolchak expedition in St. Petersburg, they inclined to return the rescuers from the disastrous route, but there was no longer any connection with them. Upon learning of this, Sophia persuaded the father of the groom Vasily Ivanovich to go to the Arctic Ocean. They undertook to deliver the provisions of the expedition, rushed to the polar Siberia on a long road on ships, trains, horses, deer. With her breed, militancy, the girl was a match for the groom.

Sofia Fedorovna Omirova was born in Kamenetz-Podolsk, not far from the regions where the Russians captured Kolchak Pasha. And the brother of Sophia's ancestor on the maternal side, Catherine's nobleman Field Marshal Minich, directly took him prisoner. On the part of the mother of Sophia Darya Fedorovna Kamenskaya, there was another famous Russian warrior - general-in-chief Berg, who defeated Frederick the Great in the Seven Years' War.

Sophia's father, the head of the Treasury Chamber of Kamenetz-Podolsk, Fedor Vasilyevich Omirov, came from the clergy, but left the bursa for the law faculty of Moscow University. He was a student and friend of the famous publicist M. N. Katkov, an excellent lawyer, in the era of reforms of Alexander II, Omirov was called "little Speransky." Sophia, having graduated from the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in St. Petersburg, knew seven languages, of which she was fluent in English, French, and German.

In the days of Sophia's circumpolar meeting with 29-year-old Alexander Kolchak, who was two years older than her, the Russo-Japanese war broke out. They decided not to postpone their wedding. They set off from the Siberian hinterland to Irkutsk, where on March 5, 1904 they got married. In the church, the groom was represented by his father, Major General V. I. Kolchak, and another guarantor - the boatswain of the Russian polar expedition from the schooner "Zarya" Nikifor Alekseevich Begichev. The young people stayed together for only a few days, Alexander Vasilyevich had already filed a report to be sent to the combat area.

Then all of them scattered from Irkutsk. The elder Kolchak and his daughter-in-law went to Petersburg to wait for Alexander from the war, he - to Port Arthur. None of them could even imagine that it was in this “wedding” Irkutsk that Alexander Vasilyevich would be exalted by execution and under the crown of thorns.

The fate of the wife of the admiral will also be severe. Sofya Fedorovna will live with her husband, bearing children to him, during his future service in the Baltic, then in Sevastopol. After the February Revolution, the departure of her husband on business to Petrograd, the British allies who occupied Sevastopol, fearing that the wife of the famous Russian admiral might fall into the hands of the Germans or the Bolsheviks, would transport her abroad. Until her death in 1956, very poor at first, Sofya Fedorovna will live in France. The only survivor of the Kolchak children, the son Rostislav, will die in 1965. His son, the grandson of Admiral Kolchak Alexander Rostislavovich, still lives in Paris.

Arriving in Port Arthur in the second half of March 1904, Kolchak appeared to the commander of the fleet, Vice Admiral Makarov. The lieutenant asked for a destroyer, but the admiral took pity on the officer, exhausted by two Arctic expeditions, and assigned him to the 1st-rank cruiser Askold.

Kolchak considered Admiral Makarov his teacher. A blow to the very heart was for him the death of Makarov right in front of the entire squadron on March 31. The flagship squadron battleship "Petropavlovsk" hit a mine and sank instantly.

On April 17, Kolchak achieved a transfer to the Amur mine layer. The ship was unenviable, but nimble. Its commander, Lieutenant Kolchak, took his ship out of the port at night to the open sea. Four Japanese transports with cargo and troops sank from the sorties of the Amur. His team fought along with the new captain mercilessly.

At the end of April, Kolchak commanded the destroyer "Angry". However, I had to go ashore to the hospital due to severe pneumonia. Since July, Alexander Vasilyevich again stood on the captain's bridge of the Angry, although by autumn he began to finish off the lieutenant with acute articular rheumatism. He earned it in the Arctic along with weakened gums, from which teeth fell out. But the commander managed to annoy the enemy here too: the Japanese cruiser Takasago flew into the air on the mine bank of the Angry. For "guard service and guarding the passage to Port Arthur, shelling enemy positions," Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Anna, IV degree, with the inscription "For Courage."

In September, the main battles unfolded on land. The battery commander of naval guns Kolchak defends Port Arthur in its northeastern section. Since November he has commanded a twin battery off the Rocky Mountains. All the subsequent time until the fall of the fortress, Kolchak fights in pitch artillery fire, repulsing the Japanese infantrymen. Here he was wounded again, and rheumatism fell from his feet.

“The shelling of the Eagle's Nest began in the morning. Suitable reserves suffered huge losses. In the afternoon, heavy artillery fire on the newly occupied positions. On the Zaredutnaya Battery, on the Rocky Ridge, the Japanese ... set up machine guns ... I smashed the parapet on the Zaredutnaya Battery with 120-mm segment shells and forced the Japanese to clear the ridge - at that time the Japanese had already knocked us out of the trenches of the Eagle's Nest and began to climb to the top ...

Early in the morning, even when it was completely dark, we received a notice to be the first not to open fire and shoot only when the Japanese attacked ... When it dawned, a mass of Japanese could be seen on the peaks: they did not hide and simply sat in groups on the peaks and slopes (facing) towards us ...

During the night we destroyed something, but we didn’t blow up the guns and didn’t make any explosions at all ... At about 11 o’clock it was ordered to hand over all the guns and rifle cartridges to the crew, which I did ... After dinner I received an order to clear ... and ordered the troops to in the area of ​​our sector, go to the barracks, leaving only posts ... By evening, I removed the posts and left only orderlies on batteries and took the team ... to the city. The night is quiet, and this dead silence somehow seems to be something special, unnatural.

At this point, the records break off. Seriously ill Kolchak is in the hospital. Upon the subsequent surrender of Port Arthur, officers in this state will not be evacuated. Alexander Vasilyevich is captured.

Until April 1905, Kolchak stayed in a hospital bed, then he was taken to Japan. Sick and wounded officers were allowed to return home. Among the Russian prisoners, Kolchak went through America to St. Petersburg.

For the heroism shown in the battles of Port Arthur, A. V. Kolchak was awarded the Golden Weapon - a saber with the inscription "For Courage". He was also awarded the Order of St. Stanislav II degree with swords, swords were also granted to his St. Vladimir for the first polar expedition. In 1906, Kolchak was promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander.

At the beginning of that year, Kolchak, at a joint meeting of the two branches of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, made a report on his expedition to Bennett Island. The council of this most authoritative institution awarded Alexander Vasilyevich its highest award - the Big Gold Konstantinovsky Medal "for an extraordinary and important geographical feat, the accomplishment of which is associated with labor and danger."

The main scientific work based on the results of the polar expeditions in which Kolchak participated will be his monograph "The Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas", it will be published in 1909 in the Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Alexander Vasilievich began to write her wintering in Taimyr and the New Siberian Islands.

The revolution of 1905 that swept through the empire did not touch Kolchak, not only because he was then beyond the distant borders of the country. In 1920, Alexander Vasilievich explained that situation to his Irkutsk investigators:

“I did not attach much importance to this matter. I believed that this was an expression of the indignation of the people for the lost war, and I believed that the main task, the military one, was to recreate the armed forces of the state. I considered it my duty and duty to work on correcting what led us to such shameful consequences ... We paid so little attention to live training in the fleet that this was the main reason for our defeat ... I believed that the fault was not from above, and the fault was ours - we did nothing.

Kolchak entered a narrow circle of naval officers who wanted to recreate and scientifically reorganize the Russian navy, defeated in the last war by the Japanese. In January 1906, he became one of the four founders and chairman of the “semi-official”, as little-informed historians still call it, officer St. Petersburg Naval Circle. Together with other members of this circle of "Young Turks", as the reformers of such a mix were called in the military environment, Kolchak developed a note on the creation of the Naval General Staff - a body in charge of the special preparation of the fleet for war.

The Naval General Staff was organized in April 1906. Among the first twelve officers selected from the entire Russian fleet, Lieutenant Commander Kolchak was appointed there, who became head of the Department of Russian Statistics. N. V. Savich, a member of the Duma State Defense Commission, recalled about Kolchak’s “Young Turks” circle members, who became the backbone of the Naval General Staff:

“All the best of the youth gathered that the surviving remnants of the battle fleet could distinguish ... And among this educated, knowledgeable youth, a young, short officer stood out especially brightly. His dry, sharp-featured face breathed energy, his loud, courageous voice, manner of speaking, holding on, his whole appearance revealed the distinctive features of his spiritual make-up, will, perseverance in achieving, the ability to dispose, order, lead others, take responsibility. His staff comrades surrounded him with exceptional respect, I would even say admiration; his superiors treated him with special confidence ... Kolchak was a passionate advocate of the speedy revival of the fleet, he literally burned with impatience to see the beginning of this process, he put all his soul, all of himself into the creation of sea power, he was a fanatic in this matter.

About the “Young Turks”, who were freemasonry among the officers of that time, has already been described in the previous essay about General Alekseev, who was a member of the “Military Lodge” and, with his example from the military Olympus, as if blessed that “all the best of the youth” in uniform should be given to the “semi-official » in Russia to the Masonic movement. In addition to what has been said, it is worth quoting the researcher of the Russian Abroad, General N. A. Stepanov, who wrote in his work “The Work of the Military Lodge”:

“The work of the “Military Lodge” must be compared with the resumption of Masonic lodges in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Based on the article by M. Margulies “Freemasonry in Russia over the past 25 years”, published in No. 16 of the official organ of French Freemasonry “Acacia”, we can say that ... three lodges were organized in St. Petersburg: “Polar Star”, “Phoenix” and “ Military Lodge "...

N. D. Talberg, in an article about Guchkov, based on an article by Margulies in Latest News, describes Guchkov's meeting with three Russians in Constantinople who went there to get acquainted with the technique of the Young Turk coup. The purpose of the trip is not entirely clear, if you do not take into account that both Guchkov and the three "Russians" about whom Margulies speaks, traveled to Istanbul as delegates from Russian Freemasonry to Turkish. Margulies, on the pages of the Akatsia magazine we have mentioned, frankly says that after the establishment of the Supreme Council in Russia, a mission was organized, which was sent abroad and which visited Zurich, Berlin, Budapest, Rome, Venice, Constantinople, where she "fraternized with the Young Turks." “Returning to Russia,” says Margulies, “we established two new lodges: one in Odessa and the other in Kyiv…”

The meetings of the "Military Lodge" were taken under the supervision of the police, in the military circles of Petrograd there was talk "of our Young Turks" ... As a result, the work of the nascent Masonic lodges, including the military one, froze - the lodges "fell asleep". But this did not prevent the existence of the Young Turks among the officers, mainly the General Staff.

As Savich noted, the "Young Turk" officers really "knew their trade" well and were excellently educated. But Freemasonry initially defines a cosmopolitan worldview, relies on the world "freedom, equality, brotherhood", and not on the national, patriotic interests of their homeland. Talented naval officers like Kolchak, the intellectual level army men of General Alekseev, of course, were more attracted to Freemasonry not by its mystical side, but by political doctrine.

People of such manufacture almost entirely led Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. They also stood in the initial ranks of the White movement. We are studying the sad results of those and other events, starting from their origins, in this case, from the completely disinterested efforts of enterprising naval minds to revive the armed forces of imperial Russia. And it turns out that craftsmanship, which was especially valued at the suggestion of Peter the Great, professionalism, as it is believed in our times, is excluded by their rationalism, they “eat up” the irrational Holy Russian, when the heart is above the head And then a bloody long turmoil stretches in Russia. They forget Christ, they destroy God's anointed ones.

The Naval General Staff, together with the Land General Staff, studied the general military-political situation and almost accurately predicted that Germany would start a war in 1915, and Russia would have to oppose it. Based on this, the Naval General Staff developed a military shipbuilding program. One of its main drafters was Kolchak, who, as an expert, tried to break through this brainchild in the State Duma.

Kolchak's efforts were unsuccessful, the Duma preferred to allocate defense funds to the army. Most of the higher ranks did not trust the "Young Turks", and they simply feared: would the appropriations be used to feed the coastal and rear bureaucratic structures of the maritime department? Savic summarized in his memoirs.

“In the spring of 1908, Kolchak lost battles in the State Duma. But he did his job. He brought a hot fresh stream to the department, his thoughts became the property of many, his knowledge enlightened the environment of his colleagues and brought certainty and clarity to the issue of reorganizing the fleet.

After it was not possible to implement the program of the Naval General Staff, Kolchak asked to be expelled from there. In May 1908, Alexander Vasilyevich, with the rank of captain of the 2nd rank, becomes the commander of the Vaigach large-range icebreaking transport launched into the water. This warship with cannon and machine-gun armament was specially equipped for cartographic work.

In October 1909, the Vaigach, together with the same Taimyr transport, left St. Petersburg, and in July 1910 they arrived in Vladivostok, the main base of the Hydrographic Expedition of the Arctic Ocean. Its task was to study the northern and northeastern seas for the development of the North mor-God sails Alexander Vasilyevich on the Vaigach along the Bering and Chukchi seas. Since then, the nickname Kolchak-Polyarny has firmly stuck to him. At the next call of the Vaigach in Vladivostok, its commander is found by a telegram from the Minister of the Navy S. A. Voevodsky and the Chief of the Naval General Staff, Prince A. A. Liven, with a request to return to the Naval General Staff. The second period of Kolchak's work in the Naval General Staff took almost a year and a half. At the same time, at the additional course of the department of the Nikolaev Naval Academy, he read a series of lectures on the organization of the naval command, which resulted in the book "Service of the General Staff", published in 1912.

In the Naval General Staff, Kolchak was now head of the operations department, or, in other words, in charge of the Baltic Fleet, whose theater was the main one in the impending war. Participating in naval maneuvers, Kolchak quickly became a specialist in the field of live firing, minecraft, and the use of torpedoes. Being engaged in military shipbuilding, Kolchak developed details of a new type of Kinburn class cruisers. There has been a turning point in the combat training of the fleet and its morale.

Kolchak recalled those times during interrogations in Irkutsk: “I completed the main task ... now it remains only to follow technically so that the well-established business goes on.”

From the spring of 1912, Kolchak went to the crew of the Baltic Fleet, which was also commanded by the clever N. O. von Essen. Here, Alexander Vasilyevich serves in the mine division as the captain of the Ussuriets destroyer, then at the divisional base in Libau, where his family lives, in which son Rostislav and daughter Rita have already appeared. In December 1913, Kolchak was awarded the rank of captain of the 1st rank, the commander of Essen appointed him flag-captain for the operational part at his headquarters on the battleship Rurik. At the same time, Alexander Vasilyevich is in command of one of the best destroyers "Pogranichnik" and is the commander's messenger for a year.

Since the spring of 1914, Kolchak has focused on the accelerated preparation of the fleet for combat operations. He clarifies and develops the strategic ideas for the defense of the Baltic Sea, developed under him in the Naval General Staff. On the eve of the war, Kolchak manages to serve in the Baltic Fleet scuba diving detachment. Alexander Vasilyevich gave the first combat mission to the fleet - to close the entrance to the Gulf of Finland with a strong minefield.

In the very last hours before the start of the First World War, the flag-captain Kolchak manages to convince Essen to begin this task. In Irkutsk, before his death, he happily recalled:

“We decided to set up the field, still not waiting for orders from Petrograd. But just at the moment when the signal was raised: “Start setting up barriers”, - when the smoke of the barriers appeared and the fleet took off and went to sea to cover them - at that moment we received a conditional telegram from the naval headquarters on the radio: “Lightning” - “ Place minefields." So it worked out extremely well. A few hours later, a telegram was received with a declaration of war ... On the Rurik, at the headquarters of our fleet, there was a huge upsurge, and the news of the war was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm and joy. The officers and teams all worked with enthusiasm, and in general the beginning of the war was one of the happiest and best days of my service ... I not only foresaw this war, but also wished it as the only means of solving the German-Slavic question, which became more acute during this period thanks to the Balkan events."

From the beginning of the war, Kolchak fought as a flag captain. In addition to the development of operational tasks, plans, he was constantly eager for direct battle.

The operations that Kolchak led as an unsurpassed master of mine warfare are famous. On the eve of the new year 1915, a detachment of cruisers under his command climbed into the German position and managed to set up barriers behind the island of Bronholm near Karkoli. In February 1915, commanding four destroyers, Kolchak went to Danzig Bay by sea with a mass of ice floes. He led ships with weak sides between them, making excellent use of his polar experience. They put up 200 mines, 4 German cruisers, 8 destroyers, 11 transports were blown up on them.

Then the commander of the German Baltic Fleet, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, ordered his ships not to go to sea until the means of combating Russian mines were found.

In May 1915, the commander of the Baltic Fleet Essen died, his place was taken by Vice Admiral V. A. Kanin, a man of little initiative, not very decisive. Under him, the importance of Kolchak increased even more, sometimes he acted as the head of the combat formations of the fleet. And by this, in the highest naval environment, the efficient, tirelessly hardworking Alexander Vasilyevich, as it were, anticipated the role of General Alekseev under the nominal Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Emperor Nicholas II.

From the autumn of 1915, Kolchak commanded a mine division and became commander of the naval forces of the Gulf of Riga. Then the Germans landed a large landing on its southern coast, began to advance overland and even further south. Thanks to the oncoming landings of Kolchak, the fire of his coastal batteries, the German campaign against Riga bogged down. For this, the sovereign emperor in a telegram noted Alexander Vasilyevich for "the brilliant support provided to the army by ships", mentioned that "he had long been aware of the valiant service and many exploits" of Kolchak, and awarded him the highest award - the Order of St. George 4th degree.

Kolchak's military talents unfolded in full force in the war. Their striking fruits were the installation, according to his plan, of minefields near the port of Vindava (Ventspils), because of which the Germans lost a cruiser and several destroyers. Kolchak personally sank a cruiser guarding a German caravan of ships from Stockholm on a destroyer. The contribution of Alexander Vasilyevich to the fact that by the end of 1915 the German losses of warships in the Baltic exceeded the Russians by 3.4 times, and by merchant ships by 5.2 times, turned out to be weighty.

In April 1916, A. V. Kolchak was awarded the rank of rear admiral and in June - vice admiral. Following this, at the age of 42 he was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Kolchak is the youngest of the admirals in this post.

At that time, no less legendary than Kolchak's military accomplishments, his romance with Anna Timireva flared up, who was the wife of Kolchak's classmate in the Naval Cadet Corps, a hero of the Russian-Japanese war, a Baltic naval officer, later Rear Admiral S. N. Timirev. Anna, nee Safonova, was 19 years younger than Kolchak. She was born in Kislovodsk;

They will be able to connect their destinies only in the summer of 1918, Anna Vasilyevna will follow the arrested Supreme Ruler Kolchak to the Irkutsk prison. All this is beautiful for novelists, but when two famous people from the best Russian society, married to others in the church, who consider themselves Orthodox, indulge in their impulses in front of everyone, it looks, to put it mildly, strange. However, the Kolchak family did not shine with holy Russian tradition, a descendant of a Turkish pasha and son of a Francophile, Alexander Vasilyevich, obviously believed that he could afford a lot.

From this point of view, the above statements of the admiral's son that his father "was a very religious, Orthodox person" and possessed "even an ascetic-monastic worldview" are extremely doubtful. In order to make sure that in reality this is not entirely true, let us quote an excerpt from a letter from Kolchak from the Black Sea Fleet to Anna Timireva, where the admiral practices snarling and heresy:

author Shambarov Valery Evgenievich

48. Frunze and Kolchak Several categories can be clearly distinguished among the generals of the civil war. There were commanders of the "old school", like Denikin and Samoilo, there were commanders of the "new generation", like Tukhachevsky and Kappel, there were leaders of the people, like Chapaev or Shkuro, there were

From the book of 100 great aristocrats author Lubchenkov Yury Nikolaevich

ALEXANDER VASILIEVICH KOLCHAK (1874-1920) Russian military leader, admiral. History knows many examples of sons choosing the profession of their fathers. From generation to generation, hereditary dynasties of doctors, jewelers, actors were created, and many representatives

From the book The Besieged Fortress. The untold story of the first Cold War author Mlechin Leonid Mikhailovich

Admiral Kolchak, or Evil Fate In early October 1919, a fire broke out in the house of the supreme ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak, in Omsk. And he lived in a merchant's mansion on the Irtysh embankment, which was guarded by British soldiers. It's hard to imagine a worse day, remember

From Frunze's book. Secrets of life and death author

Admiral A.V. Kolchak On November 18, 1918, the All-Russian Provisional Government collapsed. The Council of Ministers accepted full power and handed it over to me, Admiral of the Russian Navy Alexander Kolchak. Having accepted the cross of this power in the exceptionally difficult conditions of the civil war

From the book Commanders of the First World War [Russian army in faces] author Runov Valentin Alexandrovich

Admiral Alexander Kolchak Recently, in the wake of the complete denunciation of the Soviet system and everything connected with it, it has become fashionable to sing of the people who fought against this system, and especially those who fell victim to this struggle. One of these people was Admiral A. V. Kolchak, oh

From the book National Bolshevism author Ustryalov Nikolay Vasilievich

Admiral Kolchak Small Harbin Cathedral. Closely, many people pray. Familiar Omsk faces are all around, random leaves of a tree that has flown around, crumbled ... Solemn melodies of a memorial service. Incense, candles ... - On the repose of the soul of the servant of God, the newly deceased warrior

From the book Chronology of Russian History. Russia and the world author Anisimov Evgeny Viktorovich

1918, November Admiral Kolchak - supreme ruler In the autumn of 1918, the Reds managed to recapture Kazan, Simbirsk, Samara, and defend Tsaritsyn from the Whites. But soon their situation worsened: Germany capitulated to the Entente, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk no longer “covered” Soviet Russia from the west,

author Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b)

From the book A Brief History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks author Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b)

4. Elimination of the remnants of the Bukharin-Trotskyite spies, pests, traitors to the motherland. Preparations for the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The party's course towards full-scale inner-party democracy. Elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The year 1937 revealed new data about monsters from

From the book In the power of chaos [Contemporaries on wars and revolutions 1914–1920] author Arinstein Leonid Matveevich

Admiral Kolchak in the Black Sea Fleet. From the memoirs of M. I. Smirnov My service in the Russian Navy for many years proceeded in joint work with Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. For the first time I remember him when I was in the junior company of the Naval Cadet Corps,

From the book Behind the Scenes of History author Sokolsky Yuri Mironovich

Admiral Kolchak Navy officers were a caste before the revolution. They, "pure", I could not mix with other people, "impure". On Nevsky Prospekt of the capital, naval officers could only move in a carriage, car or on horseback - walk

Authors: Member of the Union of Journalists of Russia, participant and invalid of the 2nd group of the Second World War, participant in the defense of Moscow, retired lieutenant colonel of the guard Ulyanin Yuri Alekseevich;
Chairman of the Public Council for the Protection and Preservation of the Memorial and Monuments near the Church of All Saints on the Sokol, participant and disabled person of the 2nd group of the Second World War, participant in the defense of Moscow Gitsevich Lev Aleksandrovich;
General Director of the Orthodox Funeral Center of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, participant in the Second World War, former partisan Kuznetsov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich;
Chairman of the Board of REVISTOO "Volunteer Corps", grandson of Staff Captain Vinogradov Dmitry Sergeevich - participant of the 1st Kuban "Ice" campaign of the Volunteer Army in 1918. Lamm Leonid Leonidovich.

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was born on November 4 (16), 1874. His father, Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak, became a hero of the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. Having retired with the rank of Major General of Artillery, he wrote the famous book "On the Malakhov Kurgan".

A.V. Kolchak graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps with the Admiral Rikord Prize. In 1894 he was promoted to midshipman. In 1895 - to the lieutenant.

KOLCHAK - POLAR EXPLORER (early career)

From 1895 to 1899 Kolchak was three times in circumnavigation. In 1900, Kolchak took part in an expedition to the Arctic Ocean with the famous polar explorer Baron Eduard Toll, who was trying to find the legendary lost Sannikov Land. In 1902 A.V. Kolchak is seeking permission from the Academy of Sciences and funding for an expedition to search for Baron Toll and his companions who remained to winter in the North. Having prepared and led this expedition, Kolchak, with six associates on a wooden whaler "Zarya", explored the New Siberian Islands, found Toll's last stop and established that the expedition had died. During this expedition, Kolchak fell seriously ill and almost died from pneumonia and scurvy.

KOLCHAK DURING THE RUSSIAN-JAPANESE WAR

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, as soon as the Russo-Japanese War began (not fully cured) - in March 1904 he went to Port Arthur to serve under the command of Admiral Makarov. After the tragic death of Makarov, Kolchak commands the destroyer "Angry", which made a series of bold attacks on the enemy's strongest squadron. During these combat operations, several Japanese ships were damaged and the Japanese cruiser Takosago was sunk. For this, he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree. In the last 2.5 months of the siege of Port Arthur, Kolchak successfully commanded a battery of naval guns that inflicted the greatest losses on the Japanese. For the defense of Port Arthur, Kolchak was awarded the Golden Weapon with the inscription "For Courage". Respecting his courage and talent, the Japanese command was one of the few who left Kolchak in captivity weapons, and then, without waiting for the end of the war, gave him freedom. April 29, 1905 Kolchak returned to St. Petersburg.

MILITARY AND SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES OF KOLCHAK From 1906 to 1914

In 1906, with the formation of the Naval General Staff, Kolchak became the head of its Statistical Department. And then he headed the unit for the development of operational-strategic plans in the event of a war in the Baltic. Appointed as a naval expert in the 3rd State Duma, Kolchak, together with his colleagues, developed the Large and Small shipbuilding programs for the reconstruction of the Navy after the Russo-Japanese War. All calculations and provisions of the Program were so flawlessly verified that the authorities allocated the necessary funds without delay. As part of this project, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak in 1906-1908. personally oversaw the construction of four battleships.

In 1908, at the suggestion of the famous polar explorer Vilkitsky, Kolchak organized a sea expedition along the coast of Siberia. This expedition marked the beginning of the development of the Northern Sea Route. To do this, with the active participation of Kolchak in 1908-1909. a project is being developed and the construction of the famous icebreakers "Vaigach" and "Taimyr" is being organized. In 1909-1911. Kolchak is again on a polar expedition. As a result, he obtained the most unique (not outdated so far) scientific data.

In 1906, for the exploration of the Russian North, Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir and the "Great Constantine Medal", which was awarded to only three polar explorers, including Fridtjof Nansen. His name was given to one of the islands in the area of ​​Novaya Zemlya (now Rastorguev Island). Kolchak became a full member of the Imperial Geographical Society. From that moment on, it began to be called "Kolchak-polar". The maps of the Russian North compiled by Kolchak were used by Soviet polar explorers (including military sailors) until the end of the 50s.

In 1912, Kolchak was invited by Rear Admiral von Essen to serve in the Headquarters of the Baltic Fleet. Von Essen appoints Kolchak to the post of flag-captain of the operational part of the Headquarters. Together with von Essen, Kolchak is developing plans to prepare for a possible war with Germany at sea.

KOLCHAK IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Blitzkrieg on land against France, the Kaiser's high command expected to start with a sudden treacherous and crushing blow on the Russian Capital - St. Petersburg from the sea. The huge German fleet in the Baltic under the command of Henry of Prussia was preparing in the first days of the war (as in a parade) to enter the Gulf of Finland. German ships, unexpectedly coming close to St. Petersburg, were supposed to bring down heavy fire from 12-inch Krupp heavy-duty guns on government and military institutions, land troops and, within a few hours, capture all the most important objects of the Capital and withdraw Russia from the war.

These Napoleonic plans of Kaiser Wilhelm were not destined to come true. In the first hours of the First World War, on the orders of Admiral von Essen and under the direct supervision of Kolchak, a mine battalion set up 6,000 mines in the Gulf of Finland, which completely paralyzed the actions of the German fleet on the outskirts of the Capital. This disrupted the enemy blitzkrieg at sea, saved Russia and France.

In 1941, at the initiative of the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov (who studied the actions of the Baltic Fleet during World War I), this plan was repeated in the early days of World War II to organize the defense of the Gulf of Finland and Leningrad.

In the autumn of 1914, with the personal participation of Kolchak, a unique (unparalleled in the world) mine blockade of German naval bases was developed. Several Russian destroyers made their way to Kiel and Danzig and set up several minefields on the approaches to them (under the noses of the Germans).

In February 1915, the captain of the 1st rank Kolchak, as the commander of a special purpose semi-division, personally undertook a second daring raid. Four destroyers again approached Danzig and put up 180 mines. As a result of this, 4 German cruisers, 8 destroyers and 11 transports were blown up in the minefields (exposed by Kolchak). Later, historians will call this operation of the Russian fleet the most successful in the entire First World War.

Largely due to the talent of Kolchak, the losses of the German fleet in the Baltic exceeded our losses in warships by 3.5 times, and by the number of transports by 5.2 times.

April 10, 1916 Kolchak was awarded the rank of Rear Admiral. After that, his mine division defeated a caravan of German ore carriers, marching under a powerful escort from Stockholm. For this success, the Sovereign promoted Kolchak to vice admiral. He became the youngest admiral and naval commander in Russia.

June 26, 1916 Kolchak is appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet. At the beginning of July 1916, a squadron of Russian ships (during an operation developed by Kolchak) overtakes and during the battle severely damages the German cruiser Breslau, which had previously shelled Russian ports with impunity and sank transports on the Black Sea. Kolchak successfully organizes combat operations to blockade the Eregli-Zongulak coal region, Varna, and other Turkish enemy ports. By the end of 1916, Turkish and German ships were completely locked up in their ports. Kolchak records in his asset even six enemy submarines that were blown up near the Ottoman coast. This allowed the Russian ships to make all the necessary transportation in the Black Sea, as in peacetime. For 11 months of his command of the Black Sea Fleet, Kolchak achieved the absolute combat dominance of the Russian fleet over the enemy.

FEBRUARY REVOLUTION

Admiral Kolchak began preparations for the Great Bosphorus landing operation, with the aim of capturing Constantinople and withdrawing Turkey from the war. These plans are interrupted by the February revolution. Order No. 1 of the Council of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies abolishes the disciplinary power of commanders. Kolchak is trying to actively fight against revolutionary defeatist agitation and propaganda conducted by left-wing extremist parties with the money of the German General Staff.

June 10, 1917 The Provisional Government (under pressure from the left-wing radical opposition) recalls the dangerous admiral to Petrograd in order to float away the enterprising and popular naval commander. Members of the Government listen to Kolchak's report on the catastrophic collapse of the army and navy, the possible future loss of statehood and the inevitability of the establishment in this case of a pro-German Bolshevik dictatorship. After that, Kolchak is sent to the United States as a world-famous mine expert (away from Russia). 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 for his pleasure in a cottage on the ocean. Kolchak said no. Around the world, he moved to Russia.

OCTOBER REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WAR In Yokohama, Kolchak learns about the October Revolution, the liquidation of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander and the negotiations begun by the Bolsheviks with the Germans. The admiral goes to Tokyo. There he hands over to the British ambassador a request for admission to the English active army, at least as a private. The ambassador consults with London and Kolchak is sent to the Mesopotamian front. On the way there, in Singapore, he is overtaken by a telegram from the Russian envoy to China, Kudashev. Kolchak goes to Beijing. In China, he creates the Russian armed forces to protect the CER. In November 1918 Kolchak arrives in Omsk. He is offered the post of Minister of War and Navy in the Government of the Directory.

Two weeks later, the White officers stage a coup and arrest the left-wing members of the Directory - the Socialist Revolutionaries (who after February 1917, in alliance with the Bolsheviks, Left Social Revolutionaries and anarchists, actively participated in organizing the collapse of the Imperial army and navy, atheistic anti-Orthodox agitation and propaganda). After that, the Council of Ministers of the Siberian Government was formed, which offered Kolchak the title of "Supreme Ruler of Russia".

KOLCHAK AND THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

In January 1919, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon blessed the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak to fight the godless Bolsheviks. At the same time, Patriarch Tikhon refused to bless the command of the Volunteer Army of the South of Russia, since among them were the main culprits of the abdication and subsequent arrest of Sovereign Nicholas 2 in February 1917, including Generals Alekseev and Kornilov. Admiral Kolchak was actually not involved in these tragic events. That is why at the beginning of January 1919 (crossing the front line) a priest sent by Patriarch Tikhon came to Admiral Kolchak. The priest brought the Admiral a personal letter from the Patriarch with a blessing and a photograph of the image of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from the Nikolsky Gates of the Moscow Kremlin, which were sewn into the lining of a peasant scroll.

TEXT OF PATRIARCH TIKHON'S MESSAGE TO ADMIRAL KOLCHAK

“As is well known to all Russians and, of course, to Your Excellency,” this letter said, “before this image revered by all of Russia, annually on December 6, on the day of winter St. on their knees. And on December 6, 1918, faithful to the Faith and tradition, the people of Moscow, at the end of the prayer service, knelt down and sang: "Save, Lord." The arriving troops dispersed the worshipers, firing at the Icon from rifles and guns. with a cross in his left hand and a sword in his right. Bullets of fanatics fell around the Saint, nowhere touching the Saint of God. the hand that held the cross.

On the same day, by order of the authorities of the Antichrist, this Holy Icon was hung with a large red flag with a satanic emblem. An inscription was made on the wall of the Kremlin: "Death to faith - the opium of the people." The next day, December 7, 1918, many people gathered for a prayer service, which, undisturbed by anyone, was coming to an end! But when the people, on their knees, began to sing "God save!" - the flag fell from the Image of the Wonderworker. the atmosphere of prayerful ecstasy is indescribable! It had to be seen, and who saw it, he remembers and feels today. Singing, sobbing, screaming and raising hands, shooting from rifles, many wounded, were killed. and.the place was cleared.

The next early morning, with my Blessing, the Image was photographed by a very good photographer. The Lord showed the Perfect Miracle through His Saint to the Russian people in Moscow. I am sending a photographic copy of this Miraculous Image, as Mine to you, Your Excellency, Alexander Vasilievich - Blessing - to fight against the atheistic temporary power over the suffering people of Russia. I beg you, consider, venerable Alexander Vasilyevich, that the Bolsheviks managed to beat off the left hand of the Ugodnik with a cross, which is, as it were, an indicator of the temporary trampling of the Orthodox Faith. But the punishing sword in the right hand of the Wonderworker remained to help and Bless Your Excellency, and Your Christian struggle to save the Orthodox Church and Russia.

Admiral Kolchak, after reading the Patriarch's letter, said: "I know that there is a sword of the state, a surgeon's lancet. I feel that the most powerful one is a spiritual sword, which will be an invincible force in a crusade against the monster of violence!"

At the insistence of the Siberian bishops, a Provisional Higher Church Administration was created in Ufa, headed by Archbishop Sylvester of Omsk. In April 1919, the Omsk Council of the Clergy of Siberia unanimously constituted Admiral Kolchak as the temporary head of the Orthodox Church in the Siberian territories liberated from the Bolsheviks - until the time of the liberation of Moscow, when His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon will be able (not hampered by the atheists) to fully begin his duties. At the same time, the Omsk Cathedral decided to mention the name of Kolchak during official church services. These decisions of the Council have not been repealed to this day!

On the personal instructions of Kolchak, the investigator for especially important cases, Sokolov, organized an investigation into the villainous murder of the Romanov Imperial family in Yekaterinburg.

Admiral Kolchak announced a crusade. He gathered more than 3.5 thousand Orthodox clergy, including 1.5 thousand military clergy. At the initiative of Kolchak, separate combat units were formed, consisting only of clergy and believers (including the Old Believers), which Kornilov, Denikin and Yudenich did not have. These are the Orthodox squad of the "Holy Cross", the "333rd Regiment named after Mary Magdalene", the "Holy Brigade", three regiments of "Jesus Christ", "Theotokos" and "Nicholas the Wonderworker".

Military units were created from believers and clergy of other faiths. For example, the Muslim detachments of the Green Banner, the Battalion of the Defenders of the Jewish Faith, etc.

URAL WORKERS IN KOLCHAK'S ARMY

Kolchak's army numbered only 150 thousand people at the front. Its main striking force was the Izhevsk and Votkinsk divisions (under the command of General Kappel), formed entirely of craftsmen and workers who raised an uprising at the end of 1918 against the policy of war communism, expropriation and leveling. These were the best in Russia and in the world, highly skilled workers of military factories in the Ural cities of Izhevsk and Votkinsk. The workers went into battle against the Bolsheviks under a red banner on which was written "In the struggle you will find your right." They had almost no ammo. They were obtained from the enemy in psychic bayonet attacks. The Ural workers went into bayonet attacks to the dashing sounds of harmonicas and the music "Varshavyanka", the words to which they composed their own. Izhevtsy and Votkintsy literally terrified the Bolsheviks, sweeping away entire regiments and divisions.

ZINOVY SVERDLOV (PESHKOV) IN THE SERVICE OF KOLCHAK

Zinovy ​​Sverdlov (Peshkov), the brother of Yakov Sverdlov, who was the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee among the Bolsheviks and Lenin's right hand, participated in the struggle against the Bolsheviks at Kolchak. At the beginning of 1919, Zinovy ​​sent a telegram to his brother Yakov: "Yashka, when we take Moscow, we will hang Lenin first, and you second, for what you did to Russia!"

THE GENUINE RELATIONS OF KOLCHAK WITH THE INTERVENTORS

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was never a "puppet of the interventionists", as the Soviet agitprop claimed. His relations with the "intervening allies" were extremely strained. At the beginning of 1919, French General Janin arrived in Omsk. On behalf of Lloyd George and Clemenceau, he presented Kolchak with an ultimatum to subordinate to him (Zhanin) not only the allied, but also all Russian White troops in Siberia and to declare him (Zhanin) the Supreme Commander. Otherwise, Kolchak will not receive any help from France and England. Kolchak sharply replied that he would rather refuse outside support than agree to the subordination of all Russian troops to a foreign general and the Entente.

In September 1919, the allies of the Entente countries demanded the removal of all Russian units from Vladivostok. Kolchak replied with a telegram to the commander of the Russian garrison, General Rozanov: "I command you to leave all Russian troops in Vladivostok and not to withdraw them anywhere without my order. The demand of the allies is an encroachment on the sovereign rights of Russia.".

At the same time, General Mannerheim offered Kolchak the help of the 100,000-strong Finnish army in exchange for the transfer of part of the Karelian Isthmus to Finland and the deployment of occupying Finnish troops in Petrograd. Kolchak replied: "I do not trade in Russia!"

The admiral made only economic concessions to the Entente. His Government allowed the placement of foreign concessions in Siberia and the Far East (including the creation of free economic zones there) for 15-25 years, the creation of industrial enterprises and the development of natural resources, in order to use the capital of the Entente countries to restore the Russian economy after the Civil War. "When Russia gets stronger and the time comes, we will throw them out of here," said Kolchak.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC GOALS OF KOLCHAK

Admiral Kolchak restored the laws of the Russian Empire in Siberia. He himself and his Government have never set as their goal the destruction of entire social groups and strata of the population. Until now, not a single directive of A.V. Kolchak to the massive White terror against the workers and peasants. Lenin's Bolsheviks (as early as the beginning of the First World War) promised to "transfer the imperialist war into a civil one", and having seized power in October 1917, they openly proclaimed mass revolutionary terror and the complete destruction of all "counter-revolutionary classes" - the gene pool of the Russian nation - officers, cadets, clergymen, merchants, nobles, highly skilled craftsmen and wealthy peasants.

After the end of the Civil War, the Siberian government hoped to achieve class, civil, interethnic and interreligious reconciliation of various segments of the population and political parties (without extreme left and without extreme right). Therefore, in 1919, the Kolchak government banned the activities of both extreme left extremist parties (Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries) and extreme right Black Hundred organizations. A unique economic program for a state-regulated market economy was developed, including the creation of an industrial base in Central and Western Siberia, the development of arable land and natural resources, and an increase in the population of Siberia by 1950-70. up to 200-400 million people.

DEATH OF ADMIRAL KOLCHAK

In 1919 (realizing the catastrophe threatening Soviet power), the Bolsheviks were forced to refuse to export the world revolution. All combat-ready units of the Red Army, intended for the revolutionary conquest of Central and Western Europe, were thrown to the Eastern Siberian Front against Kolchak. By mid-1919, more than half a million Soviet troops, including 50,000 "red internationalists": Chinese, Latvians, Hungarians, and other mercenaries, were operating against the 150,000-strong Kolchak army. The Lenin government, through its secret emissaries in Paris, London, Tokyo, New York, began secret negotiations with the Entente. The Bolsheviks were forced to agree to a secret compromise agreement with the Entente on leasing and granting concessions to foreign capital after the Civil War, creating a Free Economic Zone in the form of the so-called. Far Eastern Republic. In addition, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were promised to create a government coalition with the Bolsheviks.

In the midst of hostilities, a terrible epidemic of typhus began in the troops of Admiral Kolchak. More than half of all troops were disabled. At the same time, the "allies" completely stopped the supply of weapons and medicines, tacitly canceling all previous agreements and military orders already paid for in gold abroad. With the consent of General Zhanen, the Czechoslovak Corps at the most desperate moment completely blocked the strategic railway line Nikolaevsk-Irkutsk. The only artery connecting the rear with the front. With the consent of the ANTANTA, on January 6, 1920, the command of the Czech Corps was transferred to the Irkutsk Bolshevik-Left SR Political Center of Admiral Kolchak (by this time he had resigned all powers and transferred them to Ataman Semenov and General Denikin). For this, General Zhanen (with the consent of the Leninist government) transferred part of Russia's gold reserves to the Czechs. The Izhevsk and Votkinsk divisions marching to Irkutsk to rescue Kolchak (under the command of General Kappel) approached the city suburbs too late.

On February 7, 1920, by the verdict of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee, Admiral A.V. Kolchak was shot without trial on the banks of the Ushakovka river, a tributary of the Angara. The murder of the Admiral was authorized (with the knowledge of the ANTANTA) by an arch-secret telegram personally by Ulyanov-Lenin to the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee. Before the execution, Kolchak refused to blindfold with a bandage and presented his silver cigarette case to the commander of the firing squad.

From n Kolchak's letter to his son Rostislav: "My dear dear Slavushok ... I would like you to go, when you grow up, along the path of serving the Motherland, which I have been following all my life. Read military history and the deeds of great people and learn from them how to act - this is the only way to become a useful servant of the Motherland. There is nothing higher than the Motherland and service to Her"

And the ice, and the fleet, and the scaffold. Who was, is and will be Admiral Kolchak for Russia?

The name of Admiral Kolchak is again in the center of political and cultural attention today. Why, after almost a century, they started talking about him again? On the one hand, his Arctic studies are of particular relevance due to the fact that an active struggle is now underway on the international arena for the redistribution of the territories of the Arctic Ocean. On the other hand, on October 9, a large-scale premiere of the film “ Admiral "(the picture comes out with a record number of copies - 1250), dedicated to life, career, love and death Kolchak. About about how great the role of Kolchak in Russian history, and about how interesting his fate can be today for a wide audience, " AiF ” asked the editor and one of the authors of the book to tell “ Admiral . Encyclopedia of Film” by Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuliya KANTOR.

Arctic Kolchak

- In my opinion, in Russian history, the beginning XX century it is difficult to find a figure more striking and ambiguous than Kolchak. If the historical and political mission of Kolchak can still be interpreted in different ways and needs a comprehensive study free from ideology, then his role as a scientist, researcher of the Arctic is unlikely to cause conflicting assessments. But, alas, until now it is still underestimated and little known.

The role of Kolchak as an outstanding military leader and naval commander during the First World War also deserves attention. He did a lot, firstly, to create the Russian military fleet as such. Secondly, Kolchak made a great contribution to the protection of the shores of the Baltic Sea. And the famous “mine nets” invented by him, placed from the enemy in the First World War, came in handy during the Great Patriotic War.

Path to Calvary

The figure of Kolchak caused and causes considerable controversy, primarily in connection with his activities as a politician. Yes, the admiral was absolutely not a politician. However, he assumed the position of Supreme Ruler with dictatorial powers. He did not have a political program as such, Kolchak did not know how to be a diplomat at all, he was a suggestible and gullible person, and this is disastrous even in simpler historical periods. In addition, the admiral was a man of duty and honor - "uncomfortable" qualities for a politician. But it would be naïve to assume that he is a democrat—his aspirations show a distinct authoritarianism. At the same time, the admiral was very vulnerable, reflective and insecure.

This becomes quite obvious when you read his personal correspondence. And at the same time, you understand what efforts it cost him, as he himself said, "to accept the cross of this power." Kolchak was well aware of what Golgotha ​​he was ascending to, and had a presentiment of how everything could end for him.

Today, a sufficient number of films about historical characters are being released, which filmmakers were forbidden to use in Soviet times. But the interest in Kolchak is special. Both cinema and literature will remember him more than once. He is a complex, multifaceted personality, it is interesting to understand his life. And then, which is important for works of art, a strikingly beautiful, uncomplicated love story passes through Kolchak's biography - to Anna Timiryova . This is a novel, amazing in depth and tragedy, unfolding against the backdrop of dramatic historical events and having a documentary basis. And love is a theme for all time.

http://amnesia.pavelbers.com

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was born on November 4, 1874 in St. Petersburg. His father, Vasily Ivanovich, was a hero of the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. Continuing family traditions, 16-year-old Alexander, after graduating from high school, entered the Naval Cadet Corps, where he successfully studied for six years. Upon leaving the corps, he was promoted to midshipman.

The first sailing took place in 1890. His first ship was the armored frigate Prince Pozharsky. Later, Rurik and Cruiser became his training ships. After studying, Kolchak served in the Pacific Ocean.

polar explorer

In January 1900, Baron E. Toll invited Alexander Vasilyevich to take part in the polar expedition. The expedition was faced with the task of exploring unknown areas of the Arctic Ocean and searching for the legendary Sannikov Land. Here Kolchak showed himself to be an energetic and active officer. He was even recognized as the best officer of the expedition.

As a result, several members of the expedition, along with Baron Toll, went missing. Kolchak filed a petition to continue the expedition in order to find the members of E. Toll's team. He managed to find traces of the missing expedition, but its surviving members were no longer there.

According to the results of his work, Kolchak was awarded an order and was elected a member of the Russian Geographical Society.

In military service

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Kolchak was transferred from the Academy of Sciences to the Naval War Department. In the Pacific, he served under the leadership of Admiral S. O. Makarov and commanded the destroyer "Angry". For heroism and courage, he was awarded a golden saber and a silver medal.

In the First World War, Alexander Vasilyevich commanded the Mine Division of the Baltic Fleet. Courage and resourcefulness were the hallmarks of the admiral. In 1916, Nicholas II appointed Kolchak commander of the Black Sea Fleet. The main task of the fleet was to clear the sea from enemy warships. This task has been successfully completed. The February Revolution prevented the fulfillment of other strategic tasks. In June 1917, Kolchak relinquished command of the Black Sea Fleet.

Civil War and Supreme Ruler of Russia

After his resignation, Kolchak returned to Petrograd. The Provisional Government sent him, as a leading expert in the fight against submarines, at the disposal of the Allies. First, Kolchak arrived in England, and then in America.

In September 1918, he again found himself on Russian soil, in Vladivostok, and already on October 13, 1918, in Omsk, he entered the general command of the volunteer armies in the east of the country. Kolchak led the 150,000th army, the purpose of which was to unite with the army of A.I. Denikin and march on Moscow. The numerical superiority of the Red Army did not allow these plans to be realized. January 15, 1920 Kolchak was arrested and ended up in the Irkutsk prison.

The investigation was conducted by the Extraordinary Commission. Eyewitness accounts and investigation documents show that during interrogations the admiral behaved courageously and with dignity. On February 7, 1920, the admiral was shot, and his body was thrown into the hole.

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 ... did not serve one form or another 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 original act for a Russian officer during interrogation by 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 this 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 case.

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 ... leaned back 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 uncertain 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 unimpeded 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.