The White Czech revolt
The revolt of the Czechoslovak corps - the performance of the Czechoslovak corps against Soviet power in May - August 1918 in the Volga region, Siberia and the Urals, which created an opportunity for the anti-Bolshevik Committee of the members of the Constituent Assembly.
Czechoslovak Corps
The Czechoslovak Corps is a national volunteer military unit that was formed as part of the Russian army in the fall of 1917, mainly from Czechs and Slovaks prisoners - former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army who wished to take part in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. In the spring and summer of 1918, he was involved in military operations against the Bolsheviks. As a result of the rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, a favorable environment was created for the elimination of the Bolshevik authorities.
History of events
Many historians call the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps the starting point of the Civil War in Russia. The insurgents in the period from May 1918 to February 1920 influenced the situation on the territory in half of Russia. In Kazan, the rebels seized the Russian gold reserve (more than 30 thousand poods of gold) and handed it over to Admiral Kolchak. With their help, anti-Bolshevik governments were created. As a result of the actions of the White Czechs, the Eastern Front became the main front of the Soviet Republic. Soviet historians called the provocations of white officers and representatives of the Entente the main reason for the uprising.
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So, for example, the encyclopedia "Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR" characterizes the mutiny as "… the armed uprising of the Separate Czechoslovak Corps provoked by the counter-revolutionary officers and representatives of the Entente." Apparently, this is a delusion. There are also other versions as to the reasons that made the whole corps rebel.
How the Czechoslovak Corps was created
First, we should consider the history of the emergence of such a powerful military force in Russia. In the very first month of the First World War, the formation of Czech units began in the tsarist army. 1914, September - a Czech squad was created, which consisted mainly of defectors and prisoners of the Austro-Hungarian army, numbering 955 soldiers, 34 of whom were officers. 1914, October - this squad fought on the Southwestern Front as part of the 3rd Russian army. 1915 - captive Slovaks and Czechs who had Russian citizenship began to be recruited into it. The Czech squad showed itself in battles, which was able to gain the authority of the command of the South-Western Front, by decision of which the squad's staff was increased to 2090 people, and at the end of 1915 the squad was renamed the I Czechoslovak Regiment.
In the summer of the following year, the Czechoslovak Rifle Brigade was already in the Russian army, which included two regiments, the number of which, together with the officers, was about 5 thousand people. For successes at the front, the rifle brigade was deployed to a division, and in the fall of 1917 the Czechoslovak corps was created, which consisted of 39 thousand soldiers and officers. It should be noted that during all this time, the Czechoslovak national formations operated exclusively under the command of Russian officers. The plans of the Russian command were to form a second corps, but after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, the Czechoslovak corps had to relocate to the Western Front.
Czechoslovak volunteers in the trenches near Zborov (1917).
Background to the mutiny
1918, March 26 - the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR signed an official agreement with the branch of the Czechoslovak National Council (CNS) in Russia. According to the agreement, the Bolsheviks undertook to transport the Czechoslovakians to Vladivostok as civilians for their further journey to Europe. Two necessary conditions were identified: loyal behavior and the surrender of the main part of the weapons at these points. But, “these conditions were not fulfilled by the Czechoslovak command: weapons were hidden from control inspections; along the way, incidents were provoked: the soldiers were convinced that the Soviet government was deliberately hindering the advance of the trains, was going to split the corps (with the intention of weakening its combat strength) and send part of it, which had not yet reached the Urals, instead of Vladivostok to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.
Further in the encyclopedia the official Soviet point of view continues to develop: “The initiative to change the movement of the echelons came from the representatives of the Entente. Preparing an intervention against the Bolsheviks, the Supreme Council of the Entente decided on May 2 to use the Czechoslovak units as the vanguard of its armed forces in the Soviet North and Siberia … The anti-Soviet part of the corps command and the leadership of the CNS branch used discontent among the troops as an excuse for an uprising under the slogan “advancing to Vladivostok by force . But for what reason did discontent begin to appear in the troops?
Orlik armored train. Penza grouping of the Czechoslovakians.
The beginning of the rebellion. Versions
According to one version, the discontent was caused by the following: 1918, May 14 - such an incident occurred in Chelyabinsk. At the station, near the echelon of the Czechoslovakians, there was a train with captured Hungarians who had joined the Red Army. Someone from the "Hungarian" carriage threw an iron object and killed the Czech. The Czechs responded by lynching the murderer. The Bolsheviks intervened in the incident and arrested several Czechoslovakians, without becoming to find out who was right and who was wrong. The latter became angry and not only freed their comrades by force, but also seized the city arsenal in order to properly arm themselves. The Bolsheviks gave orders to disarm the corps and shoot all the armed men. In addition, the entire train was subject to arrest if weapons were found on at least one soldier. In other words, the uprising was provoked by the actions of the Bolsheviks.
According to another version, a telegram - the head of the operational department of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs of the RSFSR Aralov, dated May 23, 1918 and sent to Penza: "Immediately take urgent measures to delay, disarm and disband all units and echelons of the Czechoslovak corps as a remnant of the old regular army." …
And such a version - Leon Trotsky himself sent telegrams to all Sovdeps from Penza to Omsk, in which it was reported that armed forces were sent to the rear of the Czechoslovak echelons, "which were ordered to teach the rebels a lesson." According to this version, the "rebellion" began as a result of the threat to the Czechoslovakians from the armed forces sent by Trotsky.
Legionnaires of the Czechoslovak Corps.
Revolt of the Czechoslovak Corps
1918, May 17 - after the seizure of the arsenal (2,800 rifles and an artillery battery), the Czechoslovakians defeated the forces of the Red Army thrown against them, occupied several more cities, overthrew Soviet power in them. The Czechs began to occupy cities on their way: Chelyabinsk, Petropavlovsk, Kurgan - and opened their way to Omsk. Other units entered Novonikolaevsk, Mariinsk, Nizhneudinsk and Kansk. In early June 1918 the Czechs entered Tomsk.
Not far from Samara, the legionnaires were able to defeat the Bolshevik units (June 4-5, 1918) and made a way for themselves to cross the Volga.
In the occupied territory, the Czechs liquidated the organs of Soviet power. In Samara, the first anti-Bolshevik government was organized - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch). This was the beginning of the formation of other anti-Bolshevik governments throughout Russia (in Yekaterinburg - the Cadet-Socialist-Revolutionary "Ural government", in Omsk - the "Provisional Siberian government").
Retreat
1918, July - Bolshevik troops in the Volga region were united into the Eastern Front. 1918, August - the movement of the Czechoslovak and Socialist-Revolutionary White Guard troops was suspended, and in September the Reds went on the offensive, were able to liberate Kazan, Simbirsk, in October - Samara and Syzran, in November - Ufa and Chelyabinsk.
Failures on the battlefield and the underground work of the Bolsheviks could cause the decomposition of the Czechoslovak army, which in November-December 1918 did not want to fight on the side of the Kolchakites and were withdrawn from the front (used by the White Guards to guard the railway). From the second half of 1919, in connection with the retreat of Kolchak's troops, the Czechoslovak units withdrew to the east.
1920, February 7 - at the Kuytun station, the command of the Bolsheviks and the Czechoslovak corps signed an armistice agreement, guaranteeing the corps units to retreat to the Far East and evacuate. 1920, spring - the Czechoslovak corps concentrated in Vladivostok, and then was gradually evacuated from Russia.