On May 17, 1918, exactly 100 years ago, the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps began in Russia, from which many historians count the beginning of the Civil War. Thanks to the revolt of the Czechoslovak Corps, which engulfed a significant part of the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, Soviet authorities were liquidated in vast territories and anti-Soviet governments were created. It was the performance of the Czechoslovakians that became the starting point for the start of large-scale military operations by the "whites" against the Soviet regime.
The history of the Czechoslovak Corps is inextricably linked with the First World War. In the fall of 1917, the command of the Russian army decided to create a special corps of Czechs and Slovaks prisoners of war, who had previously served in the Austro-Hungarian army, were captured by Russia, and now, given their Slavic affiliation, they expressed a desire to fight against Germany and Austria-Hungary as part of the Russian troops.
By the way, Czech and Slovak volunteer formations, which were recruited from among the Czechs and Slovaks who lived in the territory of the Russian Empire, appeared in 1914, when the Czech squad was created in Kiev, but they operated under the command of Russian officers. In March 1915, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, allowed Czechs and Slovaks to be admitted to the ranks of the Czechoslovak formations from among the prisoners of war and deserters of the Austro-Hungarian army. At the end of 1915, the First Czechoslovakian Rifle Regiment named after Jan Hus, with 2,100 troops, was created, and by the end of 1916, the regiment was transformed into a brigade of 3,500 troops. Colonel Vyacheslav Platonovich Troyanov was appointed the brigade commander, who was promoted to major general in June 1917.
After the February Revolution of 1917, a branch of the Czechoslovak National Council, founded in Paris in 1916, appeared in Russia. The Czechoslovak National Council assumed the authority to lead all Czechoslovak military formations on both the Eastern and Western fronts. The Provisional Government treated the Czechoslovak movement favorably, recognizing the Czechoslovak National Council as the only legitimate representative of Czechs and Slovaks in Russia. Meanwhile, the CNS was entirely under the control of Great Britain and France, the influence of Russia on it was minimal, since the leadership of the CNS was in Paris. The Czechoslovak brigade, which fought on the Eastern Front, was transformed into the 1st Hussite Division,and on July 4, 1917, with the permission of the new Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Lavr Kornilov, the formation of the 2nd Czechoslovak division began.
On September 26, 1917, the Chief of Staff of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Nikolai Dukhonin, signed an order on the formation of a separate Czechoslovak corps, which included both Czechoslovak divisions with a total of 39 thousand soldiers and officers. Although the bulk of the corps's military personnel were Czechs and Slovaks, as well as Yugoslavs, Russian became the command language of the corps. Major General Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Shokorov was appointed commander of the Czechoslovak corps, and Major General Mikhail Konstantinovich Dieterichs was appointed chief of staff.
By the time of the October Revolution in Russia, units and subdivisions of the Czechoslovak corps were located in the Volyn and Poltava provinces. When the corps command received news of the victory of the Bolsheviks and the overthrow of the Provisional Government, it expressed support for the Provisional Government and advocated the further continuation of hostilities against Germany and Austria-Hungary. This position was in the interests of the Entente, which controlled the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris. From the very first days of the October Revolution, the Czechoslovak Corps adopted an unequivocal position against the Bolsheviks. Already on October 28 (November 10), units of the Czechoslovak corps took part in street battles in Kiev, where the cadets of military schools opposed the local units of the Red Guard.
After the October Revolution, the leaders of the Czechoslovak National Council began to seek recognition of the Czechoslovak military formations stationed in Russia as a foreign allied army subordinate to the French military mission. Professor Tomasz Masaryk, representing the Czechoslovak National Council, insisted on the inclusion of Czechoslovak troops in the French army. On December 19, 1917, the French government decided to subordinate the Czechoslovak corps in Russia to the command of the French army, after which the corps received an order to be sent to France. Since the Czechoslovakians were to follow to France through the territory of Soviet Russia, the leadership of the Czechoslovak National Council was not going to spoil relations with the Soviet government.
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Tomas Masaryk even agreed to allow the Bolshevik agitation in the Czechoslovak units, as a result of which about 200 Czechoslovak soldiers and officers joined the Bolsheviks. At the same time, Masaryk refused to cooperate with Generals Lavr Kornilov and Mikhail Alekseev. Gradually, Russian officers were removed from the main command posts in the Czechoslovak corps, and their places were taken by Czechoslovak officers, including those who sympathized with leftist political ideas.
On March 26, 1918, in Penza, an agreement was signed between Soviet Russia, represented on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR by Joseph Stalin, and representatives of the Czechoslovak National Council and the Czechoslovak Corps on the unhindered movement of the Czechoslovak Corps units through Russian territory to Vladivostok. However, this alignment caused the dissatisfaction of the German military command, which put pressure on the Soviet leadership. People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR Georgy Chicherin demanded that the Krasnoyarsk Council of Workers' Deputies stop the further advance of the Czechoslovak units to the east. By this time in the area of Penza, Syzran and Samara there were about 8 thousand Czechoslovak military personnel, another 8.8 thousand military personnel were in the area of Chelyabinsk and Miass, 4,5 thousand servicemen - in Novonikolaevsk and the surrounding area, 14 thousand servicemen - in Vladivostok. Naturally, such a large number of armed and organized people with military training and combat experience represented a solid force, which the Bolshevik leadership did not think about. When the Czechoslovak servicemen learned that Chicherin had ordered not to let the Czechoslovak units to the east, they perceived this decision as a hidden attempt by the Soviet authorities to hand them over to Germany and Austria-Hungary as traitors.that Chicherin ordered not to let the Czechoslovak units to the east, they perceived this decision as a hidden attempt by the Soviet government to hand them over to Germany and Austria-Hungary as traitors.that Chicherin ordered not to let the Czechoslovak units to the east, they perceived this decision as a hidden attempt by the Soviet government to hand them over to Germany and Austria-Hungary as traitors.
On May 16, 1918, a congress of the Czechoslovak military personnel began in Chelyabinsk, which lasted four days. At the congress, it was decided to break with the Bolsheviks, stop handing over weapons to the Soviet authorities and follow their own order to Vladivostok. Meanwhile, on May 21, the Soviet government made a decision to completely disarm the Czechoslovak units, and on May 25, the corresponding order was issued by the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Leon Trotsky. However, in Maryanovka, Irkutsk and Zlatoust, where the Red Guards tried to disarm the Czechoslovak units, the latter put up decisive resistance. The Czechoslovak Corps took control of the entire Siberian road.
At the congress, the Provisional Executive Committee of the Congress of the Czechoslovak Army was formed. It included the chiefs of three echelons. Lieutenant Stanislav Chechek (1886-1930), an accountant by profession, by the time of the outbreak of the First World War worked at the Skoda office in Moscow. He volunteered for the Czech squad, took part in the war, commanding a company and then a battalion. On September 6, 1917, Chechek was appointed deputy commander of the 4th Prokop Gologo Rifle Regiment. In May 1918, he led the largest group of troops of the Czechoslovak corps - Penza.
Captain Radola Gaida (1892-1948), a pharmacist by profession, completed his military service in the mountain infantry regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army, then married an Albanian woman and settled in the city of Shkoder. When the First World War began, he was again drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army, but in 1915 Gaida surrendered and went to serve in the Montenegrin army, and in 1916 he arrived in Russia and served as a doctor in the Serbian regiment, then in the Czechoslovak brigade. On March 26, 1917, Gaida was appointed company commander of the 2nd Czechoslovak Rifle Regiment. In the spring of 1918, he led all the Czechoslovak troops stationed east of Omsk.
Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Voitsekhovsky, a native of the nobility of the Vitebsk province, served in the Russian army since 1902, graduated from the Constantine Artillery School and the Nikolaev Military Academy of the General Staff.
In January 1917, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the 176th Infantry Division, in February - Chief of the Operations Department of the Staff of the 3rd Caucasian Grenadier Division, then served as Chief of Staff of the 126th Infantry Division, and from August 1917, actually served as Chief of Staff 1st Czechoslovak division of the Russian army. In February 1918 he became the commander of the 3rd Czechoslovakian named Jan Zizka infantry regiment, and in May 1918 he was appointed senior military commander of the Czechoslovak troops in the Chelyabinsk region. Under his command, on the night of May 26-27, 1918, units of the 2nd and 3rd Czechoslovak rifle regiments established control over Chelyabinsk without loss. In June 1918, Voitsekhovsky was promoted to colonel and led the Western Group of Forces,which included the 2nd and 3rd Czechoslovak rifle regiments and the Kurgan march battalion. Czechoslovak troops under the command of Colonel Voitsekhovsky occupied Troitsk, Zlatoust, and then Yekaterinburg.
Since the beginning of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, its units and subunits no longer obey the Czechoslovak National Council in Moscow and did not fulfill the order of Tomas Masaryk to surrender their weapons. By this time, the Czechoslovakians already considered the Bolshevik government as potential allies of Germany and were going to continue the war with Germany and Austria-Hungary in alliance with the anti-Bolshevik Russian formations. It was under the control of the Czechoslovak troops that the formation of alternative authorities to the Soviets began in those cities that were controlled by the units of the Czechoslovak corps. So, in Samara on June 8, the Committee of the members of the constituent assembly (Komuch) was organized, and on June 23 in Omsk the Provisional Siberian Government was created. The Komuch People's Army was created, with Colonel Nikolai Galkin becoming the chief of the General Staff. The most reliable part of the Komuch People's Army was the Separate Rifle Brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Kappel.
In July 1918, Czechoslovak units, in alliance with the Kappelites, took Syzran, then Kuznetsk, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Chita were taken by Czechoslovak troops. However, the command of the Red Army managed to quickly mobilize impressive forces of the Red Army to suppress the uprising of the Czechoslovak corps. Soon the Czechoslovaks were driven out of Kazan, Simbirsk, Syzran, and Samara. By the fall of 1918, heavy losses of the Czechoslovak troops led the command of the Czechoslovak corps to a decision to withdraw the Czechoslovak units to the rear. Czechoslovak units were dispersed along the Trans-Siberian Railway and no longer took part in hostilities against the Red Army. Separate Czechoslovak units continued to serve for the protection of facilities and even for the elimination of partisans in Siberia,but the activity of the Czechoslovak Corps in 1919 became less and less. During the retreat of the Kolchak troops, the Czechoslovak corps in many ways obstructed the movement of the Kolchak troops to the east. Along the way, the Czechoslovakians took out part of the gold reserves of Russia, which turned out to be under their control during the retreat. They also issued a red admiral Kolchak.
In December 1919, the first parts of the Czechoslovak corps began to sail from Vladivostok to Europe. A total of 42 ships were evacuated from Russia 72 644 servicemen of the Czechoslovak corps. The losses of the corps in Russia amounted to about 4 thousand people killed and missing.
Many veterans of the Czechoslovak Corps subsequently made serious military and political careers in independent Czechoslovakia. For example, the former commander of the Czechoslovak corps, General Jan Syrovy, served as chief of the general staff, then as minister of national defense and prime minister. Sergei Voitsekhovsky rose to the rank of general of the army in Czechoslovakia, at the time of the capture of the country by the Nazis he commanded the 1st Czechoslovak army. Lieutenant General Radola Gaida served as deputy chief of staff of the Czechoslovak army, then was actively involved in political activities. Stanislav Chechek rose to the rank of general, commanded the 5th Infantry Division of the Czechoslovak Army.
Given the complexity of the situation at that time, it is not possible to assess the actions of the Czechoslovakians unequivocally. But it must be admitted that the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps played a very important role in the history of revolutionary Russia, becoming one of the key impetus to the beginning of the Civil War in the country.
Author: Ilya Polonsky