You're too far gone. It's gotten to the point where you want me to write a damn book on stuff you learn in basic history books or an introductory university course. I'm done.
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You mean this: "If a tree happens it happens, key is that priority comes in the global scale and countries that influenced on a global scale. The Great Powers were the ones pulling the weight and deciding WW2." ? The Great Powers already have their won focus trees, it seems the devs now work half on the great powers and half on the minor powers in each DLC.Within it is the less "personal" answer, sorry for the ramble
Topics like these are welcomed because Hearts of Iron 4' Dev isn't exactly synonyms with historical accuracies. I don't think they have a historian or something similar, they probably do their own doccumentation, as there are cases where history is simplified for the sake of a smoother gameplay, but this is way beyond that, many things in the game from a historical point of view are just wrong. So a topic like this that regards the history of a minor nation in WWII is more than welcomed, in this case Finland.
The subject of our discussion is whether it's worth making topics like these isn't it?
- You complained about OP making this topic - "my country needs a focus tree, they did amazing things yaddayaddayadda"
- I told you that minors have interestind deeds as well, but they're less popular.
- You said you don't care about minor powers and majors get more attention.
- I told you that personal experience doesn't make for an argument.
- You said that in the middle of your comment there was an impersonal argument.
- I replied to the impersonal argument you made.
For anyone interested, I have made a similar topic but about Romania: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/world-war-ii-viewed-from-romanias-perspective.1243453
Well, I think that Paradox's development teams should spend 100% of their time on EACH major and minor country in the world, just to guarantee fairness. After all, every country is a special case, and did amazing things; the only small difference is that the amount of amazing things varies "a bit" from one to the next.
Seeing what the developers did for a Hungarian DLC in HOI4, I've got no illusions that there's a historian in any way involved. It's comically bad, and completely contrary to the majority of Hungarian aspirations and objectives at the time, practically akin to allowing Israel a focus tree branch to reconstitute the Third Reich (I hope I didn't give them any ideas for a "Star of David" DLC).
In their very early days, I think Pdox used to do their own research, and also heavily relied on beta testers and forum contributors with backgrounds in history.
These days they see to largely make up stuff that sounds cool to Wehraboos because let's be honest, the games sell well regardless of their supposed historical accuracy.
These days they see to largely make up stuff that sounds cool to Wehraboos because let's be honest, the games sell well regardless of their supposed historical accuracy.
It's not just wehraboos. The HOI4 dev team keeps inventing ways for Leon Trotsky to be relevant.
I expressed the official Russian version.
The analogy with the current political situation suggests itself.
Violation of international rights by the West. For example, the invasion of Yugoslavia. And in those days, Hitler's pacification policy was the surrender of Alsace-Lorraine, the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia.
In response, Russia is taking defensive measures already without looking at international charters. Because the guarantee of our own safety is higher than international standards.
The analogy with the current political situation suggests itself.
Violation of international rights by the West. For example, the invasion of Yugoslavia. And in those days, Hitler's pacification policy was the surrender of Alsace-Lorraine, the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia.
In response, Russia is taking defensive measures already without looking at international charters. Because the guarantee of our own safety is higher than international standards.
It seems the answer is "no." See above. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. To think that he/she actually thinks that stopping ethnic cleansing is a violation of international law is ridiculous.
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So it is possible to fight with Russia/USSR. Especially in the 1920s/30s?
Do you believe words of comrade Stalin?
"We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must run this distance ten years. Either we will do this or they will crush us," Joseph Stalin said at the first All-Union Conference of Workers of Socialist Industry on February 4, 1931.
No.
Doesn't mean it's true. Stalin justified all kinds of evil crap with complete bullshit. But go ahead and believe him. Those Estonians are sure out to get the Soviets! Everyone just wants to destroy the Soviets! Pay no attention to the gulags comrade! Sacrifice your rights to the glory of the Union!
No, why? Do you think Stalin is a trustworthy person? I would love to hear why you think something so silly.
So I suppose you will agree wuth my statement that it is very difficult to understand what happens in reality in the sky? At least having some problem with it.
I posted reports where pilots and staff were sure about results. I suppose Novikov used reports and own memory about it too. Modern Russian historians started to compare papers from both sides and they mostly agree with Finish statements about results. Due propaganda Finish ones do not ready to analyze Soviet intentions (Ordes/reports an so on). It is more easy for nation to think that USSR bombed civilian cities instead of millitary airfields.
Partly yor right, but also we were very closed country. Only recent 20-30 years our historians started to use comparing of USSR's and foreighn reports about events. Help to forums like it we are hearing foreighn point of view.
Bair Irincheev wrote that Mannerheim did "Miekantuppipäiväkäsky" in 1918 and 1941:
I just wanted to note that it was possible for Finland to resist more huge in territory Russia/USSR. And Finland proved it, isn't it?
P.S. What about names of divisions of 7 Army corps? I want to find it on your map before war...
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So you know much more about Soviet industry than I and comrade Stalin.
Let you teach us about it. Can you start from type of Soviet tanks and their quantity in the 1931 (To see how USSR's industry could provide Soviet Army...)
I myself do not really adore Stalin. The reason for my antipathy is the transfer by Stalin of Xinjiang to China and the assassination of their leaders.
Stalins popularity is very high among the Russians (this is a paradox - when Yeltsin came to power - Stalin was considered a villain, now he is the actual founder of modern Russia, a symbol of victory in the Great War). The popularity of Stalin is mush higher than Putin, the rule of Stalin is considered the golden age of Russia.
The fact is that every country has national problems. The Russians believe that because of the war in Chechnya, the West may declare war on them. The war in Chechnya can also be characterized as ethnic cleasing.
Or the war in Iraq, with which the USSR had long-term projects. Bush declared war on them over allegedly available nuclear weapons, but in the end, the Americans did not provide evidence of the existence of atomic weapons in Iraq.
About Yugoslavia - Russians lose their reason, logical thinking when they hear about the bombing of Serbia. Because of Serbia, Russia entered the First World War. They considet them brothers. Until 1999, Russians liberals enthusiastically talked about democracy and international standarts. But after this war, i remember the expression on their faces on the screen, they stopped talking about the norms of international law.
Russia felt a particular threat: 1) US withdrawal from the missile defense treaty, 2) NATO expansion to the East. When the Warsaw Pact terminated, it was specifically agreed that NATO should not expand to the East. But the West has broken this promise
Stalins popularity is very high among the Russians (this is a paradox - when Yeltsin came to power - Stalin was considered a villain, now he is the actual founder of modern Russia, a symbol of victory in the Great War). The popularity of Stalin is mush higher than Putin, the rule of Stalin is considered the golden age of Russia.
The fact is that every country has national problems. The Russians believe that because of the war in Chechnya, the West may declare war on them. The war in Chechnya can also be characterized as ethnic cleasing.
Or the war in Iraq, with which the USSR had long-term projects. Bush declared war on them over allegedly available nuclear weapons, but in the end, the Americans did not provide evidence of the existence of atomic weapons in Iraq.
About Yugoslavia - Russians lose their reason, logical thinking when they hear about the bombing of Serbia. Because of Serbia, Russia entered the First World War. They considet them brothers. Until 1999, Russians liberals enthusiastically talked about democracy and international standarts. But after this war, i remember the expression on their faces on the screen, they stopped talking about the norms of international law.
Russia felt a particular threat: 1) US withdrawal from the missile defense treaty, 2) NATO expansion to the East. When the Warsaw Pact terminated, it was specifically agreed that NATO should not expand to the East. But the West has broken this promise
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Yes.
Here are the proposed plans for the destruction of the USSR, developed by the Western Allies:
1) Operation Unthinkable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable, 1945,
2) "Dropshot" Plan https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/План_«Dropshot» 1947,
3) Operation Pike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pike 1940/
Axis countries - of course, the first thing they did was prepare for war against the USSR.
The history of a betrayal / On the 80th anniversary of the armed conflict at about. Hasan
Before the war, the Japanese sent a commando group to Sochi to kill Stalin https://mamlas.livejournal.com/6705769.html
In July - August marks 80 years since the events on Lake Hassan that could change the course of history, draw our country into the Second World War even earlier than the Western powers. In the summer of 1938, the allied Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, militaristic Japan used the clash on the Soviet-Manchu border, which there were many in the 30s, to conduct large-scale "reconnaissance" by forces of the division.
Fighters set the banner of victory on the hill Zaozernaya. 1938
It was important for the Japanese command to find out the degree of defense capability of the Soviet troops in the Far East, and whether the Soviet leadership was going to respond to the expansion of the war in China by Japan not only by political and material support of the Chinese people fighting the aggressors, but also by direct military operations of the regular troops of the Soviet Union.
The author of these lines already told readers of REGNUM news agency about how the armed provocation was conceived and passed. However, there is a plot in this story that was not customary to mention in Soviet times.
This story is about the escape to the Japanese before the Japanese provocation, by the head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far East, the third-level state security commissioner (corresponded in the army with the rank of commander, then lieutenant general) Heinrich Samoilovich Lyushkov. I remember, being a young associate of the Institute of Military History of the USSR Ministry of Defense, I found information about this escape in Japanese literature and invited the editors of the forthcoming edition of the 12-volume History of World War II to somehow illuminate this fact and its consequences. But he was refused and advice not to mention the fact of betrayal of such a high-ranking security officer in the forthcoming dissertation and publications.
In Japan, there were many publications and articles about the circumstances of the escape and the further fate of the traitor Lyushkov in the postwar period. And in 1978, a Japanese researcher and columnist Yoshiaki Hiyama published a book entitled "Plan of assassination of Stalin. An empirical analysis of the secret design of the Japanese army. ” It tells about the plan to use Lyushkov for the attempted assassination of Japanese agents on the life of the Soviet leader - Joseph Stalin.
Heinrich Lyushkov
Heinrich Lyushkov was born in 1900 in Odessa in the family of a Jewish tailor. After studying at the government primary school, and then at evening general education courses, he worked in the office of automobile supplies.
Under the influence of his older brother, he took part in revolutionary activities. In July 1917 he became a member of the RSDLP (b). In the same year, he joined the Red Guard in Odessa as an ordinary. Since 1918 - in the organs of the Cheka. He was the political instructor of the Shock Separate Brigade of the 14th Army.
After the Civil War, having passed a number of posts, in 1931 he was appointed head of the secret political department of the GPU (State Political Administration) in Ukraine. Then he was sent to Moscow to serve in the central apparatus of the OGPU (United State Political Administration). Lyushkov used the location of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1934-1936, Heinrich Yagoda. He actively participated in high-profile investigations - the “Kremlin case”, the case of the “Trotskyist-Zinoviev center”. After which he was appointed head of the NKVD in the Azov-Black Sea Territory, which subsequently played a significant role in the Japanese operation to physically eliminate the Soviet leader. In early June 1937, for the zeal shown in the “purges”, he was awarded the Order of V. I. Lenin.
In 1937-1938 - Head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far East. Japan’s full-scale war in China has already begun, the selected Kwantung Army (Army Group), standing on the far eastern border of the USSR, was preparing for a future war against the Soviet Union, provoking border conflicts. In those years, the danger of the USSR becoming involved in a big war came primarily from Japan. Stalin showed increased attention to the situation on the Far Eastern borders of the country. According to some reports, the leader, before sending Lyushkov to the Far East, considered it necessary to briefly instruct him personally by inviting him to a 15-minute audience.
Soldiers of the Kwantung Army, 1938
Arriving in Khabarovsk, the new head of the NKVD began vigorously “eradicating the enemies” and purging the local UNKVD. He was charged with the creation of a right-wing Trotskyist organization in the internal affairs bodies of the Far East. Lyushkov was the main organizer of the deportation of Koreans from the Far East as potential Japanese spies.
Being an approximate and nominee of Yagoda, Lyushkov was suspected of belonging to a counter-revolutionary organization. Stalin was not informed of suspicions, having decided to interrogate Lyushkov and make sure that he was not involved in the conspiracy. But the question of political distrust of the State Security Commissioner was raised by the commander of the Far Eastern Army, Marshal of the Soviet Union V.K. Blucher.
May 26, 1938 Lyushkov was relieved of the duties of the head of the Far Eastern UNKVD allegedly in connection with the reorganization of the GUGB NKVD and the appointment to the central office. The People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N. I. Yezhov informed him about this in a telegram, where he asked for his attitude to the transfer to Moscow. Lyushkov realized that he would be arrested in Moscow. It was decided to escape and surrender to the Japanese, offering important information and other services for them.
However, according to published archival data, the decision was not spontaneous, but carefully thought out. Lyushkov prepared his escape in advance, two weeks before calling to Moscow, ordering his wife and her daughter to go to one of the European countries, ostensibly for her treatment. The necessary documents for leaving the USSR were prepared by Lyushkov in advance.
Sergey Igumnov. Eradicate spies and saboteurs! (fragment) 1937
Here is how the circumstances of the flight of the commissar of the NKVD are described:
“On June 9, 1938, Lyushkov notified his deputy of his departure to the border Posyet for a meeting with a particularly important agent. On the night of June 13, he arrived at the location of the 59th border detachment, ostensibly to inspect the posts and the border strip. Lyushkov was dressed in a field uniform at the awards. Having ordered the chief of the outpost to accompany him, he walked on foot to one of the sections of the border. Upon arrival, Lyushkov announced to the attendant that he had a meeting on the “other side” with a particularly important illegal Manchu agent, and since no one should know in person, he would go on alone and the head of the outpost should go half a kilometer towards Soviet territory and wait for the conditional signal. Lyushkov left, and the head of the outpost did as ordered, but, after waiting for him for more than two hours, he raised the alarm. The outpost was shotgun, and more than 100 border guards combed the area until the morning. More than a week, before news came from Japan, Lyushkov was considered missing, namely, that he was kidnapped (killed) by the Japanese. By that time, Lyushkov had crossed the border, and on June 14, 1938, at about 5:30 am near the city of Hunchun, he surrendered to the Manchu border guards and asked for political asylum. After he was transported to Japan and collaborated with the Japanese military. ”
Like many other traitors, Lyushkov tried to explain his betrayal not by selfish, but by political motives. In an interview with the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun dated July 13, 1938, he convinced: “Until recently, I committed great crimes against the people, since I actively collaborated with Stalin in pursuing his policy of deception and terrorism. I really am a traitor. But I am a traitor only in relation to Stalin ... These are the immediate reasons for my escape from the USSR, but this is not the end of the matter. There are more important and fundamental reasons that made me act this way.
This is what I am convinced that Leninist principles have ceased to be the basis of party politics. I first felt hesitation since the assassination of Kirov by Nikolaev in late 1934. This case was fatal for the country as well as for the party. I was then in Leningrad. I was not only directly involved in the investigation of Kirov’s murder, but I also took an active part in public trials and executions after the Kirov case ... ”
Joseph Stalin
In reality, Lyushkov was an ordinary careerist and traitor, who did great harm to the Soviet state and people, transmitting to the Japanese special services extremely important information about the Soviet armed forces, especially in the Far East, about the deployment of troops, the construction of defensive structures, fortresses and fortifications. The Japanese received detailed, top secret information about the plans for the deployment of Soviet troops not only in the Far East, but also in Siberia, Ukraine, and military radio codes were revealed to them. The defector significantly weakened the USSR intelligence network in neighboring countries, betraying important Soviet agents.
In Japanese sources, the consequences and impact of the information transmitted by Lyushkov on Japanese military plans for the Soviet Union are assessed differently. On the one hand, it is believed that Tokyo decided to check the information transmitted to them about the shortcomings in the defense capabilities of the Soviet troops, which encouraged the Japanese command to expand the incident near Lake Hassan.
On the other hand, there is an opinion that, having learned the true alignment of forces and means of the opposing Japanese and Soviet groups in the Far East, the Japanese command was already planning much greater war with the USSR. It was unexpected for them that, according to Lyushkov, the USSR has a rather significant military superiority over the Japanese in the Far East.
Here's how the former officer of the 5th (Russian) intelligence department of the Japanese General Staff, Koichiro Koizumi, evaluated the information received from Lyushkov:
“The information that Lyushkov reported was extremely valuable for us ... In the information received from Lyushkov, it struck us that the troops that the Soviet Union could concentrate against Japan possessed, as it turned out, overwhelming superiority. At that time, that is, at the end of June 1938, our forces in Korea and Manchuria, which we could use against the Soviet Union, consisted of only 9 divisions ... Based on the information received from Lyushkov, the fifth section of the General Staff concluded that The Soviet Union can use up to 28 infantry divisions against Japan under normal conditions, and if necessary concentrate from 31 to 58 divisions ... The ratio in tanks and aircraft also looked alarming. Against 2000 Soviet aircraft, Japan could only deploy 340 and against 1900 Soviet tanks only 170 ... Before that, we believed that the Soviet and Japanese armed forces in the Far East were related to each other as three to one. However, the actual ratio turned out to be about five or even more to one. This made it virtually impossible to implement the previously drawn up plan of military operations against the USSR ... "
Disguised Soviet T-26 tanks
Such assessments even gave rise to thoughts whether Lyushkov was specifically sent as a defector to the Japanese in order to intimidate them with the might of the Soviet army and force them to abandon plans for an attack on the USSR. Which, of course, is unlikely. Moreover, Lyushkov proposed a plan for the assassination of Stalin and expressed his readiness to take part in the operation to destroy the Soviet leader himself.
In his book, Y. Hiyama reports that Lyushkov offered the Japanese a plan to kill Stalin. They grabbed him willingly. On duty, as head of the NKVD branch in the Azov-Black Sea Territory, Lyushkov was personally responsible for protecting the leader in Sochi. He knew that Stalin was being treated in Matsesta. The location of the building where Stalin took baths, Lyushkov well remembered the order and security system, since he himself developed them. Lyushkov led a sabotage group of Russian emigrants, which the Japanese transferred to the Soviet-Turkish border in 1939. However, a Soviet agent was introduced into the sabotage group and the crossing across the border failed.
Koichiro Koizumi denied Lyushkov’s participation in the operation, saying that "Tokyo refused his candidacy as an executor of a terrorist act against Stalin." Obviously, because he was a fairly well-known figure and would certainly have been recognized. Nevertheless, there is evidence that an attempt was made to transfer the Japanese subversive group across the Soviet-Turkish border.
Red army soldiers go on the attack. Surroundings of lake Hasan. One thousand nine hundred thirty eight
In one of the publications, the British newspaper The News Cronicle wrote about the failure of the terrorist attack on January 29, 1939: “As reported by TASS, on January 25, the Georgian SSR border guard killed three people trying to cross the border from Turkey. These three are Trotskyists, supported by the Nazis. The dead found pistols, hand grenades and detailed maps of the area.
The purpose of the criminal group was the killing of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who was in Sochi. However, the border guards learned in advance about the criminal plan and exterminated the attackers. The People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs Litvinov strongly protested that Turkey had become the base of anti-Soviet provocations. ”
It was such a statement by TASS, and whether it was about a sabotage operation prepared by Japanese intelligence using Lyushkov’s help, it’s hard to say now. But there is a lot of evidence that a plan for the physical destruction of Stalin on the eve of the war existed in Japanese literature and periodicals.
The Japanese did not hide the fact that shortly before the defeat of Japan, in July 1945, Lyushkov was transferred from Tokyo to the location of the Japanese military mission in Dairen (China) to work in the interests of the Kwantung Army. Japanese sources claim that after the Soviet Union entered the war and Hirohito announced that he would surrender, on August 19, 1945, Lyushkov was summoned to the head of the Dairen military mission, Yutaka Takeoka, who suggested he commit suicide in order to exclude disclosure if he was captured if he knew about Japanese intelligence. Since Lyushkov refused to shoot, Takeoka himself shot him and his body was secretly cremated.
The ceremony of signing the Act of Surrender of Japan. Representative of the USSR General K.N. Derevyanko signs the act. September 2, 1945
There is another version that Lyushkov was allegedly brought to Dairen to extradite the USSR in exchange for the captured son of the former Prime Minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoe. Upon learning of the impending extradition, he made an attempt to escape, but was strangled by Japanese officers.
Be that as it may, a fair punishment would have overtaken the traitor in any case, since back in 1939 Lyushkov was sentenced in absentia by the Soviet court to death.
Fighters set the banner of victory on the hill Zaozernaya. 1938
It was important for the Japanese command to find out the degree of defense capability of the Soviet troops in the Far East, and whether the Soviet leadership was going to respond to the expansion of the war in China by Japan not only by political and material support of the Chinese people fighting the aggressors, but also by direct military operations of the regular troops of the Soviet Union.
The author of these lines already told readers of REGNUM news agency about how the armed provocation was conceived and passed. However, there is a plot in this story that was not customary to mention in Soviet times.
This story is about the escape to the Japanese before the Japanese provocation, by the head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far East, the third-level state security commissioner (corresponded in the army with the rank of commander, then lieutenant general) Heinrich Samoilovich Lyushkov. I remember, being a young associate of the Institute of Military History of the USSR Ministry of Defense, I found information about this escape in Japanese literature and invited the editors of the forthcoming edition of the 12-volume History of World War II to somehow illuminate this fact and its consequences. But he was refused and advice not to mention the fact of betrayal of such a high-ranking security officer in the forthcoming dissertation and publications.
In Japan, there were many publications and articles about the circumstances of the escape and the further fate of the traitor Lyushkov in the postwar period. And in 1978, a Japanese researcher and columnist Yoshiaki Hiyama published a book entitled "Plan of assassination of Stalin. An empirical analysis of the secret design of the Japanese army. ” It tells about the plan to use Lyushkov for the attempted assassination of Japanese agents on the life of the Soviet leader - Joseph Stalin.
Heinrich Lyushkov
Heinrich Lyushkov was born in 1900 in Odessa in the family of a Jewish tailor. After studying at the government primary school, and then at evening general education courses, he worked in the office of automobile supplies.
Under the influence of his older brother, he took part in revolutionary activities. In July 1917 he became a member of the RSDLP (b). In the same year, he joined the Red Guard in Odessa as an ordinary. Since 1918 - in the organs of the Cheka. He was the political instructor of the Shock Separate Brigade of the 14th Army.
After the Civil War, having passed a number of posts, in 1931 he was appointed head of the secret political department of the GPU (State Political Administration) in Ukraine. Then he was sent to Moscow to serve in the central apparatus of the OGPU (United State Political Administration). Lyushkov used the location of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR in 1934-1936, Heinrich Yagoda. He actively participated in high-profile investigations - the “Kremlin case”, the case of the “Trotskyist-Zinoviev center”. After which he was appointed head of the NKVD in the Azov-Black Sea Territory, which subsequently played a significant role in the Japanese operation to physically eliminate the Soviet leader. In early June 1937, for the zeal shown in the “purges”, he was awarded the Order of V. I. Lenin.
In 1937-1938 - Head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far East. Japan’s full-scale war in China has already begun, the selected Kwantung Army (Army Group), standing on the far eastern border of the USSR, was preparing for a future war against the Soviet Union, provoking border conflicts. In those years, the danger of the USSR becoming involved in a big war came primarily from Japan. Stalin showed increased attention to the situation on the Far Eastern borders of the country. According to some reports, the leader, before sending Lyushkov to the Far East, considered it necessary to briefly instruct him personally by inviting him to a 15-minute audience.
Soldiers of the Kwantung Army, 1938
Arriving in Khabarovsk, the new head of the NKVD began vigorously “eradicating the enemies” and purging the local UNKVD. He was charged with the creation of a right-wing Trotskyist organization in the internal affairs bodies of the Far East. Lyushkov was the main organizer of the deportation of Koreans from the Far East as potential Japanese spies.
Being an approximate and nominee of Yagoda, Lyushkov was suspected of belonging to a counter-revolutionary organization. Stalin was not informed of suspicions, having decided to interrogate Lyushkov and make sure that he was not involved in the conspiracy. But the question of political distrust of the State Security Commissioner was raised by the commander of the Far Eastern Army, Marshal of the Soviet Union V.K. Blucher.
May 26, 1938 Lyushkov was relieved of the duties of the head of the Far Eastern UNKVD allegedly in connection with the reorganization of the GUGB NKVD and the appointment to the central office. The People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N. I. Yezhov informed him about this in a telegram, where he asked for his attitude to the transfer to Moscow. Lyushkov realized that he would be arrested in Moscow. It was decided to escape and surrender to the Japanese, offering important information and other services for them.
However, according to published archival data, the decision was not spontaneous, but carefully thought out. Lyushkov prepared his escape in advance, two weeks before calling to Moscow, ordering his wife and her daughter to go to one of the European countries, ostensibly for her treatment. The necessary documents for leaving the USSR were prepared by Lyushkov in advance.
Sergey Igumnov. Eradicate spies and saboteurs! (fragment) 1937
Here is how the circumstances of the flight of the commissar of the NKVD are described:
“On June 9, 1938, Lyushkov notified his deputy of his departure to the border Posyet for a meeting with a particularly important agent. On the night of June 13, he arrived at the location of the 59th border detachment, ostensibly to inspect the posts and the border strip. Lyushkov was dressed in a field uniform at the awards. Having ordered the chief of the outpost to accompany him, he walked on foot to one of the sections of the border. Upon arrival, Lyushkov announced to the attendant that he had a meeting on the “other side” with a particularly important illegal Manchu agent, and since no one should know in person, he would go on alone and the head of the outpost should go half a kilometer towards Soviet territory and wait for the conditional signal. Lyushkov left, and the head of the outpost did as ordered, but, after waiting for him for more than two hours, he raised the alarm. The outpost was shotgun, and more than 100 border guards combed the area until the morning. More than a week, before news came from Japan, Lyushkov was considered missing, namely, that he was kidnapped (killed) by the Japanese. By that time, Lyushkov had crossed the border, and on June 14, 1938, at about 5:30 am near the city of Hunchun, he surrendered to the Manchu border guards and asked for political asylum. After he was transported to Japan and collaborated with the Japanese military. ”
Like many other traitors, Lyushkov tried to explain his betrayal not by selfish, but by political motives. In an interview with the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun dated July 13, 1938, he convinced: “Until recently, I committed great crimes against the people, since I actively collaborated with Stalin in pursuing his policy of deception and terrorism. I really am a traitor. But I am a traitor only in relation to Stalin ... These are the immediate reasons for my escape from the USSR, but this is not the end of the matter. There are more important and fundamental reasons that made me act this way.
This is what I am convinced that Leninist principles have ceased to be the basis of party politics. I first felt hesitation since the assassination of Kirov by Nikolaev in late 1934. This case was fatal for the country as well as for the party. I was then in Leningrad. I was not only directly involved in the investigation of Kirov’s murder, but I also took an active part in public trials and executions after the Kirov case ... ”
Joseph Stalin
In reality, Lyushkov was an ordinary careerist and traitor, who did great harm to the Soviet state and people, transmitting to the Japanese special services extremely important information about the Soviet armed forces, especially in the Far East, about the deployment of troops, the construction of defensive structures, fortresses and fortifications. The Japanese received detailed, top secret information about the plans for the deployment of Soviet troops not only in the Far East, but also in Siberia, Ukraine, and military radio codes were revealed to them. The defector significantly weakened the USSR intelligence network in neighboring countries, betraying important Soviet agents.
In Japanese sources, the consequences and impact of the information transmitted by Lyushkov on Japanese military plans for the Soviet Union are assessed differently. On the one hand, it is believed that Tokyo decided to check the information transmitted to them about the shortcomings in the defense capabilities of the Soviet troops, which encouraged the Japanese command to expand the incident near Lake Hassan.
On the other hand, there is an opinion that, having learned the true alignment of forces and means of the opposing Japanese and Soviet groups in the Far East, the Japanese command was already planning much greater war with the USSR. It was unexpected for them that, according to Lyushkov, the USSR has a rather significant military superiority over the Japanese in the Far East.
Here's how the former officer of the 5th (Russian) intelligence department of the Japanese General Staff, Koichiro Koizumi, evaluated the information received from Lyushkov:
“The information that Lyushkov reported was extremely valuable for us ... In the information received from Lyushkov, it struck us that the troops that the Soviet Union could concentrate against Japan possessed, as it turned out, overwhelming superiority. At that time, that is, at the end of June 1938, our forces in Korea and Manchuria, which we could use against the Soviet Union, consisted of only 9 divisions ... Based on the information received from Lyushkov, the fifth section of the General Staff concluded that The Soviet Union can use up to 28 infantry divisions against Japan under normal conditions, and if necessary concentrate from 31 to 58 divisions ... The ratio in tanks and aircraft also looked alarming. Against 2000 Soviet aircraft, Japan could only deploy 340 and against 1900 Soviet tanks only 170 ... Before that, we believed that the Soviet and Japanese armed forces in the Far East were related to each other as three to one. However, the actual ratio turned out to be about five or even more to one. This made it virtually impossible to implement the previously drawn up plan of military operations against the USSR ... "
Disguised Soviet T-26 tanks
Such assessments even gave rise to thoughts whether Lyushkov was specifically sent as a defector to the Japanese in order to intimidate them with the might of the Soviet army and force them to abandon plans for an attack on the USSR. Which, of course, is unlikely. Moreover, Lyushkov proposed a plan for the assassination of Stalin and expressed his readiness to take part in the operation to destroy the Soviet leader himself.
In his book, Y. Hiyama reports that Lyushkov offered the Japanese a plan to kill Stalin. They grabbed him willingly. On duty, as head of the NKVD branch in the Azov-Black Sea Territory, Lyushkov was personally responsible for protecting the leader in Sochi. He knew that Stalin was being treated in Matsesta. The location of the building where Stalin took baths, Lyushkov well remembered the order and security system, since he himself developed them. Lyushkov led a sabotage group of Russian emigrants, which the Japanese transferred to the Soviet-Turkish border in 1939. However, a Soviet agent was introduced into the sabotage group and the crossing across the border failed.
Koichiro Koizumi denied Lyushkov’s participation in the operation, saying that "Tokyo refused his candidacy as an executor of a terrorist act against Stalin." Obviously, because he was a fairly well-known figure and would certainly have been recognized. Nevertheless, there is evidence that an attempt was made to transfer the Japanese subversive group across the Soviet-Turkish border.
Red army soldiers go on the attack. Surroundings of lake Hasan. One thousand nine hundred thirty eight
In one of the publications, the British newspaper The News Cronicle wrote about the failure of the terrorist attack on January 29, 1939: “As reported by TASS, on January 25, the Georgian SSR border guard killed three people trying to cross the border from Turkey. These three are Trotskyists, supported by the Nazis. The dead found pistols, hand grenades and detailed maps of the area.
The purpose of the criminal group was the killing of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who was in Sochi. However, the border guards learned in advance about the criminal plan and exterminated the attackers. The People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs Litvinov strongly protested that Turkey had become the base of anti-Soviet provocations. ”
It was such a statement by TASS, and whether it was about a sabotage operation prepared by Japanese intelligence using Lyushkov’s help, it’s hard to say now. But there is a lot of evidence that a plan for the physical destruction of Stalin on the eve of the war existed in Japanese literature and periodicals.
The Japanese did not hide the fact that shortly before the defeat of Japan, in July 1945, Lyushkov was transferred from Tokyo to the location of the Japanese military mission in Dairen (China) to work in the interests of the Kwantung Army. Japanese sources claim that after the Soviet Union entered the war and Hirohito announced that he would surrender, on August 19, 1945, Lyushkov was summoned to the head of the Dairen military mission, Yutaka Takeoka, who suggested he commit suicide in order to exclude disclosure if he was captured if he knew about Japanese intelligence. Since Lyushkov refused to shoot, Takeoka himself shot him and his body was secretly cremated.
The ceremony of signing the Act of Surrender of Japan. Representative of the USSR General K.N. Derevyanko signs the act. September 2, 1945
There is another version that Lyushkov was allegedly brought to Dairen to extradite the USSR in exchange for the captured son of the former Prime Minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoe. Upon learning of the impending extradition, he made an attempt to escape, but was strangled by Japanese officers.
Be that as it may, a fair punishment would have overtaken the traitor in any case, since back in 1939 Lyushkov was sentenced in absentia by the Soviet court to death.
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Btw, I just listened lecture of russian historian about M-R- Pact.
Also he noted that during negotations between USSR-UK- France about alliance against Germany in 1939 (before M-R Pact) Franz Halder arrived in Finland (Vyborg on the border with USSR) to participate in millitare training of artillery. USSR considered it asthreat to Leningrad
Intelligence fight: NKVD against ROVS (Russian All-Military Union) https://mywebs.su/tag/белоэмиграция/
White extremism in 1935-45
During the 1920s and 1930s, a fierce “twilight fight” - a secret intelligence war — was unfolding between the counter-intelligence of the ROVS (as well as a number of extremist organizations accompanying it) and the Soviet special services (OGPU - NKVD and the Red Army intelligence service). It covered almost all regions of the world and was conducted with a high degree of intensity: each of the parties showed intransigence and hatred for its opponent, the goals of the struggle were mutually opposite.
The task of the Soviet special services was the destruction of the foreign white movement in all its forms, primarily the extremist trend; the goal of the white-emigrant counterintelligence was to oppose the actions of Soviet agents and the Comintern, as well as to prepare an anti-Bolshevik uprising in the USSR.
It should be noted that the Soviet intelligence (INO OGPU - NKVD and the 4th Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army) considered the fight against white military emigration to be "target number 1", which was repeatedly stated by the heads of the Soviet special services - Berzin, Menzhinsky, Trilisser and other plans of white the emigration to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in the USSR to a certain extent worried the Soviet government even more than the actions of the Trotskyists and supporters of the “right deviation” in the CPSU (B.), since in the case of the coming of White Guard extremists to the USSR, the Soviet chances the ruling elite didn’t even survive, and the White Terror would destroy the entire existing system to the ground. An insurmountable gap lay between the Soviet leadership and the white emigration, unlike Trotskyism, with representatives of which many figures of the Soviet special services and the state maintained secret contacts (for example, Blumkin, Tomsky, Preobrazhensky). Therefore, the Soviet intelligence acted most actively against the ROVS and the leaders of military emigration, using a large arsenal of means: bribery of extremism leaders, threats, kidnapping of activists, murders, incursions, compromising, etc. The White-emigre counterintelligence of the ROVS had immeasurably less opportunities, but it compensated for the shortage of money and weapons by fanaticism, ideological intransigence, and propaganda activity.
The OGPU, fighting against white terrorism, accumulated an increasing amount of information about the situation within the activist forces of emigration, introduced new agents to its environment. It knew that the leader of extremist combat groups was General A.P. Kutepov, supporter of white terror against the USSR. The OGPU had a plan for the abduction of A. Kutepov and his delivery to the USSR for an indicative trial of him. If this operation was successful, the OGPU could count on the growth of its authority within the country and the compromise of the idea of white terror both in the USSR and abroad, since it had the means to force any person to give the evidence that the OGPU needed. Had one of the ideologists and organizers of the White Terror policy made such testimonies, this would have dealt a serious blow to this theory in the eyes of emigration.
The emigrant press wrote that the OGPU had abducted Kutepov in order to arrange a show trial, then publish false repentance, bribe A. Kutepov and thereby decompose the Russian All-Military Union.
Foreign intelligence and the police of the countries of residence, in turn, closely monitored the activities of white emigre extremist organizations. The French secret police Sürte Generale, the Gestapo, and Polish counterintelligence kept the Russian emigrant extremist organizations in a latent state, allowing the possibility of their use for their own purposes in the event of a military conflict with the USSR.
The white-emigrant military-political extremism in the 1920s and 40s sought support from the Western special services, first of all, trying to get financial assistance and legal cover for their activities. In the 1920s, Russian emigre extremist organizations were actively looking for their place in the existing system of special services of Eastern and Western Europe, which would allow them to launch a large-scale anti-Bolshevik struggle and, accordingly, try to take revenge for the defeat in the Civil War of 1917-1920. The revanchist organizations of foreign Russia were of interest to foreign intelligence, primarily because of their contacts behind the Iron Curtain on the territory of the USSR. Western intelligence agencies heavily used white-emigrant organizations that had clandestine structures on Soviet territory. So, for example, the Polish U-6 residency, operating in the territory of the Belarusian Military District, used the help of the extremist organization of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, which also had its underground cells in the region.
The coincidence at this stage of the interests of Russian extremism and foreign intelligence services conducting intelligence operations on the territory of the USSR allowed the emigrant revanchist unions to receive certain, financial and organizational support from the 2nd Bureau of the General Staff of Poland, Sürte Generale, German intelligence and a number of similar structures that pursued however, their own goals, very different from the ideas of the white movement.
Western intelligence, starting in 1920, began to use the counterintelligence structures of the white armies to organize intelligence and sabotage activities in Soviet Russia. So, in September 1920, the Estonian General Staff invited a number of Russian military leaders of the former North-West Volunteer Army to supply it with intelligence information. The proposal was accepted, and soon the White Guard counter-intelligence in the north-west direction actually turned into a branch of Estonian intelligence. One of the white emigre extremists who provided informational assistance to Estonian intelligence wrote:
“Our work could affect:
In the delivery of intelligence information about the fleet, the 7th Army, the Petrograd Military District and the political information of the Petrograd Commune. Moscow could have been weaker. Distribution of proclamations throughout the Petrograd, Pskov, and Yamburg districts.
The compilation and printing of the proclamations could take place here, and instructions from you are required to compile. In the creation of separate groups in the aforementioned region, which, with the successes and approach of the front, can destroy the rear of the Bolshevik troops.
In preparing people for creating detachments of 100-120 people for operations behind the Bolsheviks as the front approaches. ”
The counterrevolutionary structures of Western states secretly maintained fairly active contacts with White-emigre secret military-political organizations, mainly consisting of former Russian military. So, Soviet intelligence noted in 1923: “The Polish General Staff maintains close ties with White Guard organizations; according to February information, the Savinkov Information Bureau, headed by Colonel Pavlovsky, is, as it were, a branch of the 2nd department of the Polish headquarters, which through it carries out its intelligence work in Russia. General Dyakov, seconded by Wrangel to Poland, with the aim of uniting and attracting the interned Balakhovites and Peremykintsy (Savinkovites) to Wrangel’s side, enjoys the full support of the 2nd Division of the Polish headquarters.
The White-emigre counterintelligence in many cases carried out joint operations with Western intelligence agencies, which, however, was carefully hidden by the latter. For example, in 1936 in Istanbul, French counterintelligence, with the participation of Russian extremists, organized a special observation post, with the help of which Soviet diplomats and trade representatives, as well as employees of the Third Communist International were monitored. In November 1936, members of the Spanish delegation were sent to the USSR for the celebration of the 19th anniversary of the October Revolution, and a list of its members was received.
Thus, white-emigrant intelligence agencies gradually turned into informal branches of Western intelligence, helping them work in the “Russian direction”, providing military-strategic information, and in some cases participating in joint actions. Emigrant intelligence in many cases carried out purely intelligence tasks of the Western intelligence services, without any “ideological color”. For example, in 1921, information about the deployment of Soviet divisions on the Soviet-Romanian and Polish borders was obtained through the White Guard channels. ROVS ideologists easily explained such actions by the need to collect information for preparing a new military campaign against the USSR, in which case the white interventionist armies should have the necessary completeness of military information about the number and deployment of the Red Army, Soviet military doctrine, the direction of probable counterattacks of the Red Army, etc. . In addition, it should be borne in mind that Russian emigrant officers knew better the features, traditions and mentality of the Red Army commanders than foreign “Russian specialists” who eagerly consulted these Russian emigre colleagues.
In the first half of the 1920s, the remains of the Russian army of General P.N. Wrangel became actually a toy in the hands of England, France and the United States. Each of these countries has developed its own version of the use of white armed forces, in accordance with their own capabilities and geopolitical interests.
The Red Army Intelligence Agency was aware of the plans of Western governments regarding the White emigre armed forces: "Allied plans for the army: ... the British would like to use the army for their own purposes, namely: landing somewhere in the Caucasus, seizing the oil region and breaking off communications between Russia and East. There are also rumors about the desire of the British to use the army to block the movement of Russians in India. The French allegedly wanted to send an army to Romania in order to support the Romanians and attack the Ukraine. The Greeks allegedly wanted to use as a landing in the Caucasus in order to interrupt the communication with Mustafa Kemal Pasha. " This state of affairs did not leave an opportunity for leaders of Russian emigrant extremist organizations to pursue an independent policy, turning them into executors of someone else's will.
In 1920-21, the Cheka authorities, knowing that the leadership of the former white armies had set the officers remaining on Soviet territory to penetrate the Soviet apparatus and the Red Army, actively opposed these enemy plans, trying to prevent potential agents of influence in their structures. In a special instruction of the Cheka, it was said: “A lot of white officers, who occupy prominent responsible posts, arrived at all military institutions. For example, the senior adjutant of the head of the garrison is a former lieutenant of the commandant battalion of Sevastopol.
It is necessary to make an accurate check in all military units and institutions, in hospitals and with private employers. ”
After the occupation of the territory of the Crimea, Ukraine, and the Far East by the Red Army troops in 1920-22, special bodies of the Cheka-GPU conducted mass inspections of the male population of draft age in order to identify former participants in the white movement. In the context of the emerging totalitarian regime, the “social filter”, through which everyone was forced to go to the Soviet service and become citizens of the RSFSR, also performed the function of countering emigrant extremism, limiting its social base.
In 1920-21, the Cheka and the Red Army conducted “merciless red terror” in Crimea with the goal of destroying all underground structures of the White Guards, eliminating their agents, and defeating the counter-intelligence network. In this case, they used both “special methods” (organizing their own intelligence in the enemy camp, identifying scouts, etc.), as well as open large-scale terror against all persons “socially close to the white movement”. For example, the Special Division of the 9th Red Army Division “had to register in the two cities of Kerch and Feodosia all the remaining White Guard officers and officials. At the time of registration, Comrade Shock Group Commissioner Comrade Arrived. Danishevsky with instructions given to him about the White Guards. Having started, the Troika, consisting of Danishevsky, Dobroditsky and Zotov, performed the following work: Of the White Guards registered and detained in Feodosia in an approximate count of 1,100, 1,006 people were shot. 15 were released and 79 people were sent north.
The officers and officials detained in Kerch were approximately 800 people, of whom about 700 were shot, and the rest were sent north or released. Moreover, no more than 2% of those released were released - those who were accidentally detained, never served, but who appeared either at the request of the party committees, or because they belonged to the underground, although they were officers. ”
Such measures were effective primarily in relation to such forms of white-emigre extremism as guerrilla-insurgent war, sabotage actions against workers of the local Soviet party and state apparatus, certain sorties and landing on the territory of the RSFSR. They did not affect the organizational and ideological core of the white emigre revanchism abroad (Paris, Berlin, Belgrade), opposing only certain forms of its manifestation.
Wrangel intelligence in 1920-22 was forced to actively solve the problem of the prompt delivery of its agents to Soviet territory. At the same time, auxiliary means were used - artisans of fishermen, smugglers, etc., as well as an agent network left in Soviet Russia after the evacuation of the Russian army gene. P.N. Wrangel. According to the intelligence information received by the Soviet intelligence, the operation to send White Guard agents to the territory of the RSFSR looked something like this: “All the work of the head of the point is that he collects groups of agents, then sends him to the headquarters of captain 1st rank Mashukanov, who drops them in right place. But in addition, an artel of fishermen was hired in Yenikal, which landed agents on boats north of the village of Chushka (Taman). ” However, in such an active regime, White Guard intelligence could operate for a rather short period of time: the strengthening of the Soviet system and the closure of borders already in the mid-1920s made it extremely difficult for white agents to penetrate behind the Iron Curtain.
The leaders of the ROVS and a number of other extremist emigrant organizations in the 1920s and 1930s tried to create “windows” on the borders of the USSR for the transfer of saboteurs, scouts, and white propagandists to Soviet territory. However, most of these attempts ended in failure: the special bodies of the NKVD and the 4th Directorate of the Red Army, who controlled most of the white emigrant political structures under their information, immediately learned about white propaganda attempts to cross the border and arrested them. White militants and agitators failed to establish a systematic crossing of the Soviet border, and the information field of the USSR remained closed to white propaganda.
The main areas of activity of intelligence of the Russian army gene. P.N. Wrangel formed back in 1920 while it was on Russian territory. Subsequently, the intelligence of the ROVS collected information of approximately the same nature. In special documents of the Cheka, devoted to the organization and work of Wrangel intelligence and counterintelligence, it was noted that “intelligence, dividing work into resident, deep rear, front-line and walkers, entrusts:
At first:
1. Information on working, national, economic, transport, religious status and instruction of the Soviet government.
2. Lighting on the ground and in general. Operational work.
On 2:
1. Reconnaissance of the rear militarily.
2. Politically.
3. The mood.
On 3:
1. An explanation of the mood of the immediate rear (population).
2. An explanation of the morale of the troops.
3. The number of them.
Quality condition.
Command staff (are there former officers of the General Staff and their last names).
Armament (the number of machine guns, guns, armored trains and armored vehicles).
Air fleet (number of vehicles, system, power, weapons and lift), as well as personnel, surnames and its base.
The location of the headquarters of the divisions and military bases that feed the front.
The power of artillery.
On 4: 1. Communication with residents.
Deep rear tasks fall more to the share of intelligence of the headquarters of the commander in chief and corps, as well as resident tasks. Front-line intelligence is conducted by the headquarters of the corps and divisions. The latter have more lightweight agents - “walkers,” who are sent by the headquarters of the commander in chief and corps. Particularly special tasks come only from the headquarters of the commander in chief (expelling agents with the specified tasks). "
By the mid-1920s, most of the Wrangel intelligence system ceased to exist, only a few continued to maintain contact with the ROVS and foreign extremist organizations, mainly former police officers or “coastal counterintelligence”, smugglers who adapted in the criminal world of the NEP period.
The ROVS leadership in the 1920s and 1930s made repeated attempts to create a White Guard underground on the territory of the USSR so that the interventionist army that appeared on the Soviet borders would receive support from the "fifth column", and the Red Army, accordingly, would be stabbed in the back. The military leaders of the Russian foreign countries are Generals P.N. Wrangel, P. Shatilov, A. Arkhangelsky - sought to find supporters among the command staff of the Red Army. With the help of their former comrades-in-arms of the period of the First World War of 1914-18, the leaders of the ROVS dreamed of organizing an anti-Stalinist plot and carrying out a military coup that would result in the overthrow of the Soviet regime and the establishment of a white dictatorship in the country.
It was through such fellow soldiers in the early 1920s that the white counterintelligence tried to establish communications and attract them to secret work against the Soviet government. In turn, the Soviet special services of the Cheka and the GPU, knowing this, took countermeasures, identifying the addresses and surnames of such persons, establishing surveillance over them. For example, in 1920, assuming that one of the significant leaders of military emigration was General P.S. Makhrov illegally crossed the Soviet border and came to Petrograd to organize clandestine work, the Cheka gave the order to organize surveillance of the apartment of his friend Colonel General Staff of the Red Army: “If Makhrov really went, then without doubt he will use his great friend Colonel General Staff Boris Nikolayevich Kondratiev in Petrograd living on Vasilievsky island. "
Extremist military organizations of the Russian foreign countries, primarily the EMRO, developed numerous plans for spreading their influence in the USSR, projects for the destruction of the Soviet party and state apparatus from the inside, tried to launch a propaganda war to discredit the regime. The author of the note for the leadership of the ROVS summarized its contents with the following statement:
“Preparatory work should be carried out in three directions:
Penetration into the apparatus of power, mainly into the Red Army.
The incitement of internal party strife and the splintering of the Communist Party.
Supply of the population with anti-communist propaganda literature. ”
The leaders of the foreign extremist movement were most interested in Soviet responsible workers, whom the leaders of the ROVS tried to entice over with the promise of amnesty in the future and attracting them to military and public service "after the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime and the revival of Russia." The ROVS secret instructions prescribed to their secret agents "a cautious approach and networking with those in senior positions in the Red Army and in civilian administration, both non-partisans and communists." In case of refusal to cooperate, emigrant extremists threatened them with white terror. However, the efforts of the white counterintelligence did not yield results: under the conditions of a totalitarian regime, control and surveillance, even the slightest suspicion of having ties to emigration quickly led such adventurers to the Gulag. The creation of a white-emigre “fifth column” in the USSR, thus, proved to be an axis impossible.
The idea of a “silent counter-revolution” remained popular among the emigrant community until the mid-1930s, when the obvious victory of Stalin and his policies (industrialization, collectivization, liquidation of the opposition) left military extremism no chance of success in the USSR.
Although the Soviet secret services noted that the "counter-revolutionary elements" in the USSR "with the intensification of the class struggle in the country will try to take advantage of certain parts of the Soviet apparatus," the OGPU-NKVD managed to isolate emigration "from sources of influence, from mass social forces ...", and the absence in the USSR of its lobby and influence groups turned Russian emigrants into extraneous spectators of tectonic processes that took place in the Soviet political system.
The fantastic plans of the leaders of the military emotion sometimes provoked ironic smiles of former Russian diplomats, who were well versed in the alignment of political forces in Europe and the Far East. So, for example, the former imperial ambassador to Great Britain E.V. Sablin wrote in March 1937 to V. Maklakov: “Of course, General Denikin is right in theory, who never tires of repeating that the main task is to“ overthrow the Bolshevik power and keep the army intact ”, but the question is: vi makht man das (how is this done "- German) in practice and how can relatively few and scattered emigrants do this."
A special place in the system of extremist organizations of the Russian foreign countries was occupied by counterintelligence structures of the ROVS and BRP. General P.N. Wrangel already in 1920-21 began to create a conspiracy information network, which was supposed to serve the counterintelligence and sabotage structures of the "Russian army in exile." So, in 1921, at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the former Russian army, an "Information Bureau under the name" D. "and" L. "was created (based on the initial letters of its leaders: Prince P. D. Dolgoruky and N. N. Lvov). The bureau issued ballot papers printed on a rotator and sent them to military units, to Russian emigrant newspapers, oriented to the right-conservative part of the Russian foreign countries.
White-emigrant intelligence in the 1920s and 1930s identified political intelligence as one of its priority areas of activity, in particular, opposing the “plans of the Comintern for preparing the world revolution”, monitoring the leaders of European Communist and Social Democratic parties, identifying agents of the OGPU-NKVD in the emigrant environment, etc. So, the counter-intelligence of the ROVS collected "information about the Bolshevik plans for the creation of a revolutionary army in Europe." Under the ROVS divisions, special counterintelligence divisions were created, the task of which was to counter the operations of the Soviet special services in the territory of recipient countries.
A feature of military emigration as part of Foreign Russia was the presence in its composition of a large number of military intelligence officers, high-level professionals who in the 1920s and 1930s were in demand by foreign intelligence services. Many heads of the counterintelligence departments of the white armies, primarily the Russian Army gene. P.N. Wrangel, in 1920-22 they switched to the regular service of Western intelligence. So, in the report of the French counterintelligence, “German Activities in Constantinople and the Middle East,” there is information about German intelligence agents from former officers of the tsarist army ... ”
Russian military emigrants in the early 1920s easily found a common language with representatives of European intelligence, primarily German and French, while actively using contacts and contacts that were established during the First World War of 1914-18, which, after the formation of the Russian emigrant diaspora received a different projection. So, as regards the relations between the counterintelligence of the ROVS and the German special services, from the irreconcilable opponents by the mid-1920s they turned into temporary allies. Western intelligence agencies used information received from deserters from the Red Army, many of which were so-called. "Military experts", i.e. received a military education until 1917, or even served for some time in the white armies. So, for example, in 1931, the French counterintelligence compiled a "Certificate of the internal political situation in the USSR" on the basis of the testimony of "a former white officer who entered the Red Army and deserted from it ..."
In 1922-23, the Bulgarian special services launched an active struggle against the white emigrant counterintelligence, which created an extensive network in Bulgaria that included all the intelligence structures necessary for conducting large-scale diversion work: safe houses, secret warehouses, weapons, “windows” on the border, observation posts, etc. .P. In 1922, an article was published in the Polish newspaper "Worker" about the disclosure of the "reconnaissance Wrangel network in Bulgaria." Counterintelligence P.N. Wrangel in Bulgaria had two main tasks: collecting information about Soviet Russia and preparing the intervention, as well as the struggle against the revolutionary democratic movement in the country, in particular against the Istanbul government. The counterintelligence structures of the ROVS and other white-emigre revanchist organizations collected information about the situation in the Red Army, the state of the material and technical base of the Soviet troops, the maneuvers conducted in the USSR, trying to identify at least some traces of the activities of the anti-Soviet underground organizations in the Red Army. At the same time, what was desired was presented as real, and quite ordinary “everyday” incidents were given a political character, an epoch-making significance.
“In the Red Army,” the ROVS observer wrote, “in early December [1936] during the maneuvers of mechanized Soviet units (about 100 tanks and armored vehicles) near the village of Pokrovka (the confluence of Halki and Argun in the Amur Region), one of the tank detachments (6 tanks) was blown up, as it turned out by the investigation, infernal vehicles. "The Soviet authorities suggest that this is the work of the" White Guards "who have their own organization in parts of the Far Eastern Red Army."
Riot, uprising in the Red Army - a favorite topic of most publications in emigrant military newspapers and magazines in the 1920s and 30s. The White-emigrant military-political extremism primarily set out to fight for the “minds and hearts” of the Red Army soldiers, who, according to the ideology of the ROVS, were to become a building material during the creation of the new Russian army, which “grew up in many ways from the Red Army”.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Western intelligence agencies supplied Russian extremist organizations with information about the internal situation in the USSR, information about Stalin’s struggle against opposition trends in the CPSU (b), the prospects for a social explosion in the USSR, etc., which were received through their own channels, in many cases - undercover. For example, in 1923, French intelligence received the secret GPU newsletter about unrest among workers and employees of various enterprises of the USSR that demanded higher wages, with which the leaders of the Russian military emigration were privately acquainted.
It should be noted that the counter-intelligence of the ROVS carried out an extremely biased assessment of the information received by it, acting on the principle “the worse for the fact” if it did not correspond to the artificial and far-fetched schemes developed in the bowels of the ideological laboratory of the ROVS.
With the EMRO in the 1920-30s. There was an information and analytical department in which information was carefully collected on the internal situation in the USSR, the state of the Red Army, the mood of the masses of the population, and political trials in Moscow in 1929-1939. etc.
Sources of information of white emigration were:
1) Soviet mass print media: books, brochures, newspapers. "The factual material relating to the Bolshevik era is gleaned ... mainly from Soviet publications and, above all, from data from Soviet statistics." At the same time, it was noted that information about the Soviet economy reached emigration “in a random and often erratic form”;
2) program documents of the CPSU (b) and texts of speeches by the leaders of the party and the Soviet government - I.V. Stalin, M.I. Kalinin, etc. At the same time, it should be noted that the reliability of the information received by the White Emigrant counterintelligence was very low.
This is due to the following reasons.
Intelligence ROVS did not have access to operational secret information of the Soviet special services and government agencies. ROVS analysts poorly imagined Soviet reality and, therefore, often were unable to draw the right conclusions from the information received. Information about the situation in the USSR was obtained selectively, haphazardly and did not create a holistic picture of life in the Soviet Union. In many cases, the wish was presented as valid when, on the basis of insignificant facts, "epoch-making" conclusions were drawn about the proximity of the fall of the Bolshevik regime.
Activists of Russian emigrant military-political organizations felt close attention from the Soviet special services, constantly urging participants in the anti-Bolshevik movement to be vigilant to carefully implement all necessary conspiracy measures. “The Bolsheviks vigilantly follow us,” wrote the ROVS instructor in 1936, “their agents and observers got into all of our organizations. Subtle and well thought out work on the decomposition of emigrant masses is being imperceptibly conducted. ”
Indeed, Soviet intelligence made considerable efforts to disintegrate Russian military emigration, systematically organized a leak of information compromising the leaders of emigrant military unions and societies, and sought to disorient the emigrant youth, craving information about the internal situation in the USSR.
Soviet intelligence considered work against military emigration in the 1920s the main focus of its activities. In 1927, at an enlarged meeting of the Soviet special services of the INO OGPU and the Intelligence Service of the Red Army, it was decided to intensify operations to neutralize military emigration.
The largest operation successfully carried out by the OGPU in the direction of “white emigration” was the creation of a fictitious organization under the code name “Trust”. She was given the task of uniting all the white emigrant politically active forces around herself, mass introducing provocateurs into their composition and thus gaining the ability to direct the activities of such organizations in accordance with the directives of the OGPU.
The history of the “Trust” is as follows. In 1922, an OGPU was arrested by a certain P. Selyaninov-Opperput, associated with the NSZRiS B. Savinkov. Saving his life, he agreed to take part in the large-scale operation developed by the organs of the OGPU, aimed at identifying and destroying the white emigre underground in the USSR and abroad. A.A. was also connected to the case. Yakushev, a major engineer who worked in the USSR as a specialist. He was arrested on charges of organizing a counter-revolutionary conspiracy and espionage in favor of the Supreme Monarchical Council. Being in 1922 abroad, A.A. Yakushev had meetings with prominent figures of the white movement and advised them on the internal situation in the USSR. According to him, the power in the country after the fall of the Bolsheviks had to go to those circles of the white movement that did not emigrate abroad, but remained underground in the USSR. As such an organization, he called the ICRC - the Monarchist Organization of Central Russia.
However, upon returning to the USSR A.A. Yakushev was arrested. The reason for his failure was the negligence of the White Guard officer Yu.A. Artamonov, who spoke about the meetings of A.A. Yakushev with the leaders of the white movement and his opinion about the Soviet regime in a letter to Prince K.A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov. The letter was intercepted by the OGPU, from which it learned about the true role of A.A. Yakushev and the planned establishment of close ties between the ICRC and the Navy.
The leadership of the OGPU decided to use the ICRC as a screen when creating its own organization, which was tasked with the following:
1. the penetration of OGPU agents into the higher white emigrant circles;
2. The identification and liquidation of the white underground in the USSR; 3. influencing the entire white movement in the sense of its renunciation of terrorist methods of struggle.
ROVS was also drawn into the game. Through the “window”, which was prepared by the ICRC (ie the OGPU), border crossings by the EMRO people begin to take place. The OGPU, of course, knew about everything, but until a certain point it did not touch anyone so as not to arouse suspicion. In 1923, M.V. Zakharchenko-Schulz, a member of the military organization of General Kutepov. The “window” is also operating in the opposite direction - representatives of the ICRC travel abroad to meet with representatives of white emigrant organizations, including the Navy and the EMRO. Through this "window" came to Soviet Russia and V.V. Shulgin in 1925. It was decided to carry out the first arrest of the OGPU only when the English intelligence officer Sydney Reilly arrived in Soviet Russia. He was detained and subsequently shot. This fact somewhat alarmed the militant emigre organizations, but border crossings along this line continued anyway.
Fearing the failure of the line in connection with the arrest of Sydney Reilly, the OGPU decided to stage his "accidental" death when crossing the border. In the memoirs of I.M. Petrova (Toivo Vyakhya) “From the border to the reception to Menzhinsky” contains a description of how this happened:
"Murder" Reilly played as if on sheet music. In a designated place, a group of Chekists led by Sharov met me and a double of Reilly. We shouted here, had a fight in three languages - in Russian, Finnish and English. Shoot over each other's heads. Then the Railay fell on the sidelines. The ground near his head was sprayed with blood stored by Sharov, and his hands were tied to me. Immediately, the chairman of the local village council, a young guy, a communist, an intelligent man and a good comrade, came running for shots: “Does the asset need help?”
They gave Sharov’s car. Roomy old ruin "Buick"; whirling around, she lit with headlights both me and the "dead" on the sidelines. "
In this way, the OGPU protected itself from the possibility of a “window” failure and claims from the British embassy, since Sydney George Reilly was the head of the East European intelligence department of Great Britain.
The activities of the Trust dealt a heavy blow to the military organizations of the white emigration. Many militants died, appearances and safe houses of the white underground in the USSR were uncovered, the OGPU managed to introduce provocateurs into the emigration environment.
On January 26, 1930, General Kutepov, chairman of the ROVS, was abducted in Paris by agents of the OGPU. The circumstances of this case are as follows: on that day A.P. Kutepov left at 10.30 a.m. from his apartment in house No. 26 on Ryu Roussel. He told his wife that he would be at the funeral service for General Kaulbars in the church of the Union of Gallipolis, which was located in the house number 81 on the rue Mademoiselle. Until the beginning of the requiem, Kutepov had about an hour of free time, which he planned to use to meet with a well-known person. The requiem after the liturgy began at 11.30 a.m. Kutepov was expected at the entrance to the temple, but he did not come. He did not return home either. At 3 p.m., a troubled family raised the alarm. Neither in the meeting of the Gallipolians, nor from any of Kutepov's acquaintances was there. Reported to the police. Police prefecture began a search. By evening, the police became convinced of the disappearance of the general. Possibility of abduction and abduction A.P. Kutepova was immediately taken into account by the French police, which is why the authorities notified the border posts, ports and airports by telegraph. Photos of the general were sent to the border and police authorities.
Subsequently, the picture of the abduction of General Kutepov was restored in sufficient detail. Kutepov usually walked from his apartment to the church of the Union of Gallipoliites on foot. This Sunday he also walked the usual way, but, turning on the rue de Sevres, went out onto the Boulevard of the Invalids. In Ryu Roussel, he was seen by a familiar painter. Passing the cinema "Sevres Palace", Kutepov greeted his master. A few minutes before 11 hours A.P. Kutepov was seen on the corner of the rue de Sevres and the Boulevard of the Disabled. A witness who accidentally saw the abduction of General Kutepov gave the following description of this fact: “He saw a large gray-green car standing on the rue Roussel, turned towards the rue Udino, parallel to the rue de Sevres. Nearby on Ryu Udino, opposite Ryu Roussel, there was a red taxi car turned towards the Disabled Boulevard. A policeman stood right on the corner. Near the gray-green car stood two dozen people in yellow coats. At this time, from the side of the Disabled Boulevard, a medium-sized gentleman with a small black beard, dressed in a black coat, was walking in the udino rue. Turning from Ryu Udino to Ryu Russel, the gentleman walked over to the gray-green car. Both people standing nearby grabbed the gentleman and pushed him into the car. "The policeman, calmly observing what was happening, sat down next to the driver, and the car, having left on the rue Udino, rushed off to the Disabled Boulevard." The fact of the abduction of General A.P. Kutepova in the center of Paris in broad daylight by agents of the OGPU caused a sensation. The attention of emigration was drawn to this event for a long time. The newspapers Vozrozhdenie and Breaking News were full of messages on this subject. There were demands to immediately search the Soviet embassy in the rue de Trenell. The officers of the ROVS were ready to defeat him; groups of White Guard militants gathered near the building of the Soviet embassy.
French newspapers also demanded that the government take extreme measures. In the Chamber of Deputies, representatives of right and moderate parties, outraged by the actions of the OGPU, demanded a break in relations with the USSR. However, the French authorities were interested in maintaining and strengthening relations with the Soviet Union. Measures to search for the perpetrators of the abduction were taken only to visibility and reassure the excited public.
The abduction of A.P. Kutepova was excited about Russian emigration. Newspapers presented readers with various hypotheses, sensational rumors. The emigre periodicals of the 1920s and 30s vividly responded to the scandals that arose from time to time in foreign Russia and the exposure of Bolshevik agents operating in its midst. Such situations created favorable conditions for the publication of articles by leaders of the military abroad with calls for increased vigilance and recriminations, etc. The degree of reflection of such events on the pages of the emigrant press was high; usually the publication of materials about any scandal associated with the exposure of the Bolshevik provocateur had a “serial” character, that is, as the investigation progressed and the trial continued, the publication of materials continued in the next issues of the magazine, attracting the attention of the readership.
At the same time, emigrant magazines published in detail all the circumstances of the case, delved into the smallest details of what happened. Therefore, collections of articles and documents published in Russian émigré publications on the topic of a political incident can serve as a valuable historical source, which also contains a lot of factual material. “On the night of December 4–5 [1936], Dr. Linitsky (a former volunteer of the Drozdov Rifle Regiment, a member of the Belgrade branch of the Gallipoli Society), captain Shklyarov, a military official Drakin (both also Gallipoli), Mr. Daragan and the Secretary of the Department were arrested in Belgrade Head of the 4th department of the ROVS, captain Komarovsky. The Yugoslav authorities charged all those arrested with collecting materials for the Bolsheviks about the work of Russian emigrant organizations. According to reports, all those arrested, except Captain Komorowski, very soon confessed to that ... ". Public scandals that flashed periodically in the Russian emigration environment related to the provocative activities of military emigrants in favor of Soviet intelligence were strongly reflected in the pages of military periodicals. At the same time, the émigré readership often set the tone, demanding ever new details and new revelations. Emigrants sent letters to publishers asking them to cover the processes in more detail, to publish additional materials. In most cases, the editorial offices met the wishes of their readers: “The editorial office of the Hourly magazine receives requests from different countries about the reasons for not posting information about the course of the Belgrade process, which is sad for the whole emigration. The editors did not consider themselves entitled to speak out on this issue until the end of the investigation. Unfortunately, a number of speeches by various individuals and the press have taken on the character of political accounts. The editors considered intervening in this campaign below the dignity of the magazine she led. However, in the next issue of the magazine, the editors, having some data, will share them with their readers and try to give them an explanation on a number of issues raised by readers. ”
The Russian military emigration of the 1920s and 1930s and its organizational structures - the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and the system of military extremist societies - were a priority area in the activities of the Soviet special services (Intelligence Agency of the Red Army and the NKVD) aimed at undermining and destroying the emigrant anti-Bolshevik movement . In 1927, the Politburo of the CPSU (B.) And the leadership of Soviet intelligence decided to initiate "active operations against the white underground both in the USSR and abroad." One of the serious and generally successful operations carried out by the Soviet intelligence services in the context of the implementation of this decision was the case of the son of the head of the 3rd department of the ROVS, one of the leaders of white emigre extremism, General F.F. Abramov - Nikolai Abramov, who managed to penetrate the secrets of the "internal line" of the secret direction of terrorist and sabotage work against the USSR, carried out by General A.P. Kutepov and a group of his supporters. Having studied the activities of N. Abramov and his personality, the Commission of the ROVS concluded that it could be assumed that prior to his introduction to the military abroad, he had undergone special training in Soviet intelligence - I would divorce either the Red Army or the INO NKVD. The materials of the Commission said that "... he underwent rather versatile practical training ... in Osoaviahima; he turned out to be a good chauffeur-mechanic, drew well, knew English, was well acquainted with photography, wrote on a typewriter, was well-trained and generally showed remarkable abilities. "
The circumstances of the “case of N. Abramov” were as follows. Nikolai Abramov, son of Lieutenant General F.F. Abramova, who remained in Soviet Russia after the evacuation of the white armies abroad in 1920-21, raised in a Soviet school, a member of the Komsomol, fled in 1931 from the Soviet ship in Hamburg (N. Abramov’s “flight” was staged by the OGPU), arrived in Berlin and with the help of Major General A.A. von Lampe, to whom he was sent by the German police, was sent to his father in Sofia. Outwardly, the situation looked quite natural and the ROVS counterintelligence initially did not arouse much suspicion. The personal relationship between Nikolai Abramov and his father was pretty cool. The first three years, Nikolai Abramov used his father’s room and table, later - switched to his own earnings and did not receive any financial support from his father. Once abroad, N. Abramov begins the operation of his own implementation in the EMRO. However, it was not difficult for him. Nikolai Abramov immediately found himself in the zone of increased attention of the counter-intelligence of the ROVS: "... measures were taken to inculcate new ideas for the white struggle, for which he was placed in an atmosphere of constant communication and influence of the participants in the white movement. After a very short time, N. Abramov ardently responded to this re-education ... "However, in order not to arouse suspicions of his own interest in such a course of events, N. Abramov imitated" sincere disappointment in the ideas of the Komsomol, condemned many negative aspects of emigration ... ", n o eventually expressed a desire to work in the secret structures of the ROVS, the so-called "Internal line" of the USSR, the object of special interest OGPU-NKVD.
N. Abramova is attracted to the "counterintelligence work" by Captain Foss, chief officer of the 3rd Department of the ROVS, at the same time N. Abramov enters the National Union of the New Generation (NSNP) and a number of radical white-emigrant organizations, striving to advance to leadership in them. However, in these organizations N. Abramov’s career does not work out, and he focuses his main efforts on the EMRO and its structures. Entering confidence in the leadership of the 3rd department of the ROVS, N. Abramov goes to classes to teach him how to sabotage. "His special training continued ... Soon he was admitted to the shooting training manual at one of the secret organizations." By order of the counter-intelligence department of the ROVS, N. Abramov initially carries out “various simple orders for the counterintelligence and surveillance service” (the special department of the ROVS monitored Soviet diplomats and sales representatives abroad). Naturally, already having the experience of special training of the NKVD, N. Abramov quickly achieves good performance in the special training of the “white terrorist”. Gradually N. Abramov “more and more became his man in the management of the 3rd department, where he was constantly, sometimes helping in clerical work”. Its purpose is access to secret operational information of the ROVS.
By 1935, N. Abramov was able to solve the problem before him: he was admitted to the secret documentation of the 3rd department of the ROVS and was able to transmit valuable information to the Soviet intelligence. At the end of 1936, Captain Foss had his first serious suspicions against N. Abramov. One of the reasons that attracted attention to him was "N. Abramov’s wide lifestyle and the uncertainty of his income sources."
Immediately after serious concerns arose, Captain Foss informed the relevant authorities in Sofia (the Bulgarian police and the counter-intelligence department of the ROVS) about this in order to conduct a thorough check of N. Abramov with them. From this moment N. Abramov “gradually wipes himself from the current work, assignments are given with the goal of checking it.” The leaders of the white emigration, realizing the “delicacy” of the situation in which they have fallen, strive not to publicize the case of N. Abramov.
The leadership of the ROVS makes a decision about its suspicions and the inspection that began to General F.F. Abramov did not report, "sparing the feelings of his father, to whom, however, she could not give any accurate data on the guilt of his son." To a certain extent, a similar development of events was facilitated by the fact that N. Abramov worked skillfully and did not leave direct evidence. The ROVS certificate stated: "... The extreme caution shown by N. Abramov does not give direct evidence regarding his double work, but indirect evidence gradually accumulates throughout 1937. In this regard, measures are being taken to restrict the activities of N. Abramov, and his isolation is enhanced. "
On September 22, 1937, the abduction of General E.K. Miller and the flight of General N.V. Skoblin, who turned out to be a Soviet agent, whose activities on the "internal line" is under investigation in the Commission of General I.G. Airedale Soon, the Commission expanded its task by starting an audit of the 3rd department of the ROVS and the activities of N. Abramov. This check was undertaken as a result of Captain Foss’s statement about a leak of secret information established by him (and, as it turned out during the investigation, a leak did not mean the loss of documents - “there has never been such a loss or even a short disappearance of documents”).
N. Abramov, apparently, either made extracts from secret documents or photographed them.
In March 1938, the Commission arrived in Belgrade under the general leadership of the chairman of the ROVS, General Arkhangelsky, which also included Major General Artamonov and Colonel Drailing, who had the task of investigating the case of Nikolai Abramov.
Materials for the investigation were detailed protocols and reports of the “Special Commission” Colonel Petrichenko, appointed in the fall of 1937 as General F.F. Abramov to study the activities of the "internal line", surveys of a large number of members of the ROVS and military emigrants who did not belong to the Union, but who had one or another relation to the "case of N. Abramov." Particular attention of the Commission was drawn to the verification of the work of the 3rd department of the EMRO.
On October 13-20, 1938, the board of the ROVS heard reports from those who led the white counterintelligence, who expressed firm confidence in the guilt of N. Abramov. The high-security investigation continued. In particular, measures were taken to examine the sources of material support of N. Abramov. ROVS, being a public organization, was not able to apply repressive measures against N. Abramov. The Bulgarian police also had no reason to detain him, as N. Abramov did not violate Bulgarian laws, and his activities were directed exclusively against the EMRO and the Russian military emigration.
In the summer of 1938, the Bulgarian authorities N. Abramov was “strongly recommended” to leave the borders of Bulgaria. November 13, 1938 N. Abramov went with his wife to France.
The leaders of the white emigration - the gene. A.P. Arkhangelsk, gene. A.A. von Lampe, gene. P.A. Kusonsky - no claims were made and his father - the gene. F.F. Abramov, since the investigation established that he really did not know anything about the activities of his son, however, his political image was compromised, and the gene. F.F. Abramov was not appointed as chairman of the EMRO.
The leadership of the ROVS makes a decision not to publicize the “H. Abramov’s case” because "... the open disclosure of N. Abramov would inflict an unnecessary moral blow on the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and General F.F. Abramov himself." However, they failed to hush up the case of N. Abramov. The circumstances of the intelligence activities of N. Abramov and the conclusion of the work of the ROVS Commission became the property of emigrant newspapers and magazines. So, the magazine “Chasovoy” (No. 231) wrote in an editorial: “... the editors of“ Chasovoy ”already see one obvious mistake made in Sofia and that the Russian Abroad was not informed in a timely manner of the charge against N. Abramov of service to the Bolsheviks ... It is hoped that the head of the ROVS will establish the causes of this painful mistake. "
The “N. Abramov’s Case” is of scientific interest primarily from the point of view of its “typicality”, because it clearly shows the methods of work of the NKVD and Razvedupra against extremist organizations of white emigration. The most characteristic methods of activity of the Soviet special services were either the recruitment of the most prominent figures of the Russian emigration - for example, the gene. N. Skoblin, singer N. Plevitskaya, S. Tretyakov, who had a “heroic white past” and, therefore, were beyond suspicion, or the introduction of energetic young people into activist organizations of the EMRO with the goal of creating long-term sources of information in the structures of the military abroad (they could be used and as provocateurs and, if necessary, to discredit one of the figures of military emigration).
The NKVD consciously promoted its agents to the leadership of the ROVS and the system of military societies and unions, creating favorable conditions for their careers (they did not need to earn a living by hard daily labor, like most ordinary emigrants - they were financed from the NKVD, they created favorable "legends" , the necessary special training was taught, which included the study of foreign languages, psychology, hand-to-hand combat techniques, the ability to use codes, etc.). All this is clearly seen on the example of the activities of Nikolai Abramov, who managed to infiltrate the 3rd department of the ROVS, gain access to secret information of the “internal line” and transmit information of special importance to the USSR about the plans and activities of Russian military emigration in the first half of the 1930s.
After the abduction of A. Kutepov, General E. Miller, his successor as chairman of the ROVS, made great efforts to continue the activities of the ROVS and preserve the military core of this organization. However, General Miller himself, after several years in 1937, was the victim of a similar abduction organized by the NKVD.
In the spring and summer of 1934, the situation in the EMRO became more complicated. The financial base of the organization was undermined, which caused a reduction in its costs. The work was hindered by the intrigues of the Inner Line, which sought to seize the top post in the EMRO. In Paris, rumors began to spread about the upcoming resignation of General E. Miller from the post of chairman of the EMRO. Miller’s opponents were also supported by V.V. Nuts. But Miller decided to stay on his post.
The abduction and death of General Miller was preceded by a series of mysterious cases. So, for example, on July 2, 1934, when E. Miller and his wife were away, captain A.M. Izyumov, who remained in the apartment, was called by phone on behalf of General O. for a meeting in the church. Arriving at the church, he did not find General O. there. At a time when General E. Miller’s apartment was not guarded by anyone, her door was hacked and part of E. Miller’s papers was stolen. Another case - on September 30 in the evening, a bomb exploded on the second floor of the house at No. 29 on Kolise Street. The explosion broke the front door of the ROVS office. Two letters were found on the floor after this, containing threats to General E. Miller and his employees - General I. Erdeli, Admiral M. Kedrov and others. The authors of the letter threatened further terrorist actions if General E. Miller and other persons who harbored, according to anonymous authors, the crimes of the “internal line” supporter General P. Shatilov, did not depart from the head of the ROVS.
Secret activity around E. Miller was launched by General N. Skoblin, who was an agent of the NKVD. E. Miller, who trusted N. Skoblin, appointed him the head of the group of ranks of the 1st Army Corps in Paris.
On May 10, 1933, Generals N. Skoblin, A. Turkul, M. Peshnia, A. Fock, and Colonel Sokolsky submitted a memorandum to E. Miller, demanding that he resume “active work” in the USSR. However, their reproaches were not fair. E. Miller was not inactive. In 1934, he formed the organization "White Idea", which quickly carried out active actions against the Soviet special services.
E. Miller intended to send to the USSR "a dozen two officers with the task of raising a peasant uprising in the south." But nothing came of this project. E. Miller also decided to start organizing secret strongholds and cells in the USSR. Such activities of General E. Miller became alarming to the NKVD, which decided to repeat the operation to abduct the chairman of the ROVS. In July 1937, the deputy head of the INO NKVD S. Shpigelglass arrived in Paris. He had a meeting with V. Krivitsky, a resident of the Intelligence Headquarters of the Red Army. S. Shpigelglass informed V. Krivitsky of the impending abduction of E. Miller. V. Krivitsky handed S. Spigelglass two of his agents, who were supposed to act as German officers.
September 22, 1937 E. Miller was abducted. At about 9 a.m. he left his apartment in Boulogne-sur-Seine. He did not return back.
At about 11 o’clock E. Miller entered the ROVS department, where he left a note to General P. Kusonsky asking him to open it in case something happened to him. The text of the note was as follows: “I have it today at 12.30. a day of rendezvous with General N. Skoblin on the corner of Ryu Jasman and Ryu Raffe, and he should take me on a date with a German officer, military agent in the Baltic countries - Colonel Shtroman, and with Mr. Werner, who is here at the embassy. Both spoke good Russian. The meeting was arranged at the initiative of N. Skoblin. Maybe this is a trap, just in case I leave this note. General E. Miller. September 22, 1937 ”It was this note that served as evidence on the basis of which N. Skoblin was exposed as an agent of the NKVD. When trying to arrest N. Skoblin managed to escape, but his wife N. Plevitskaya was detained by the French police and subsequently sentenced to 20 years of hard labor.
White emigre extremist organizations tried to oppose the Soviet special services, which more and more actively interfered in the life of the Russian foreign countries in the 1930s, introducing their agents into revanchist organizations, frustrating plans for various sabotage operations, compromising the leadership of the EMRO and invisibly expanding their financial influence on military alliances and society. In 1930, a well-known figure in Russian emigration, Burtsev made an attempt to create an Anti-GPU organization, whose task would be to counter the “active operations” of the Soviet special services in European countries. However, nothing came of this project: the financial and organizational capabilities of the Russian military emigration were incommensurably less than the capabilities of Soviet intelligence. In addition, emigrant revanchist organizations were largely fragmented, did not have a single leadership and were afraid to create a centralized information system, rightly fearing information leakage in OPTU.
The White-emigre counterintelligence of the ROVS was not able to solve the task it was facing: it was not possible to carry out large-scale white terror in the USSR against the leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet special services, white extremists also failed to break the diplomatic relations of the USSR with Western states and the beginning of a new European war could. The White Terror in the 1930s degenerated into unsystematic actions by single fanatics. The political resonance caused by the implementation of sabotage actions on the territory of the USSR received a completely different projection than that which the white militants had hoped for - instead of the heroic struggle of white emigrants for freedom, the whole world saw the brutal actions of white terrorists and saboteurs.
Thus, in the 1920s and 1930s, an intense struggle took place between the Soviet special services (INO OGPU - NKVD and RKVD Reconnaissance) with extremist white emigrant organizations - the ROVS, the BRP and their counterintelligence structures. The struggle between intelligence was accompanied by "active actions" on both sides: the OGPU organized the abduction of the leaders of the ROVS, compromised the leaders of the emigration, introduced its agents into revanchist societies, and the ROVS and the Navy sent saboteurs, white fighters to Soviet territory, committed murders of Soviet diplomats, terrorist attacks in embassies etc. Soviet intelligence set as its primary goal the destruction of the anti-Bolshevik underground on the territory of the USSR and extremist military-political organizations, and countering terrorist acts abroad and in the Soviet Union.
Stalin and the leadership of the OGPU-NKVD set specific tasks for Soviet intelligence: to destroy white-emigre extremism as a political phenomenon in Russian foreign countries. To this end, in the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet special services inflicted a number of powerful blows at the organizational centers of white activism abroad - in Berlin, Paris and Belgrade, and also eliminated the elements of the white underground in the USSR.
Counterintelligence of the ROVS and other emigre extremist structures collected information about the internal situation in the USSR, predicted the likelihood of a split in the CPSU (b), tried to create a white underground in the Soviet Union, supplied Western intelligence with espionage information, and developed projects for organizing anti-Soviet intervention. Attempts by white extremist organizations to oppose the activities of the Comintern ended in most cases with failure due to the fact that the Third International had a wide social base in the world - among the working class of Western countries and the left intelligentsia, and the social base of the EMRO was limited by the emigration itself, in some cases white extremists received support from the right-conservative circles of Yugoslavia, Germany, Poland, i.e. was very narrow. Understanding this, the ideologists of white terror assigned the main role to the actions of small groups of counter-revolutionaries - the “chosen” and determined people. The ranks of white terrorists in the 1920s and 30s were primarily recruited by socially disadvantaged people, losers, or adventurers or fanatical youths.
White emigre extremism of the 1920s and 1930s also tried to create its own organizational structures on the territory of the USSR in the form of a "white underground", a kind of fifth column, which in the event of an anti-Soviet uprising was supposed to strike in the back of the Bolshevik regime. However, the Soviet counterintelligence did not allow the penetration of the structures of white extremism into the USSR - secret monarchist organizations were defeated, white emigrants were detained at the border, the total control system paralyzed the actions of white agents. Soviet intelligence, logically considering white emigre extremism to be its enemy No. 1, purposefully implemented its agents in the organizational structures of the white foreign countries, destroyed their ties, and conducted “active operations” against the leaders of the EMRO.
In 1930-37, the Soviet special services inflicted a number of heavy blows on the white emigrant extremist organizations, after which they could not recover; in 1938-39, the activity of counterintelligence of the ROVS ceased. The outbreak of World War II dramatically changes the situation: white-emigre extremism seeks to enter the arena of open military-political struggle against the Soviet system, paying less attention to “special operations”, and the counterintelligence system of Poland and France was destroyed as a result of German aggression, which also limited the possibilities white extremism.
The task of the Soviet special services was the destruction of the foreign white movement in all its forms, primarily the extremist trend; the goal of the white-emigrant counterintelligence was to oppose the actions of Soviet agents and the Comintern, as well as to prepare an anti-Bolshevik uprising in the USSR.
It should be noted that the Soviet intelligence (INO OGPU - NKVD and the 4th Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army) considered the fight against white military emigration to be "target number 1", which was repeatedly stated by the heads of the Soviet special services - Berzin, Menzhinsky, Trilisser and other plans of white the emigration to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in the USSR to a certain extent worried the Soviet government even more than the actions of the Trotskyists and supporters of the “right deviation” in the CPSU (B.), since in the case of the coming of White Guard extremists to the USSR, the Soviet chances the ruling elite didn’t even survive, and the White Terror would destroy the entire existing system to the ground. An insurmountable gap lay between the Soviet leadership and the white emigration, unlike Trotskyism, with representatives of which many figures of the Soviet special services and the state maintained secret contacts (for example, Blumkin, Tomsky, Preobrazhensky). Therefore, the Soviet intelligence acted most actively against the ROVS and the leaders of military emigration, using a large arsenal of means: bribery of extremism leaders, threats, kidnapping of activists, murders, incursions, compromising, etc. The White-emigre counterintelligence of the ROVS had immeasurably less opportunities, but it compensated for the shortage of money and weapons by fanaticism, ideological intransigence, and propaganda activity.
The OGPU, fighting against white terrorism, accumulated an increasing amount of information about the situation within the activist forces of emigration, introduced new agents to its environment. It knew that the leader of extremist combat groups was General A.P. Kutepov, supporter of white terror against the USSR. The OGPU had a plan for the abduction of A. Kutepov and his delivery to the USSR for an indicative trial of him. If this operation was successful, the OGPU could count on the growth of its authority within the country and the compromise of the idea of white terror both in the USSR and abroad, since it had the means to force any person to give the evidence that the OGPU needed. Had one of the ideologists and organizers of the White Terror policy made such testimonies, this would have dealt a serious blow to this theory in the eyes of emigration.
The emigrant press wrote that the OGPU had abducted Kutepov in order to arrange a show trial, then publish false repentance, bribe A. Kutepov and thereby decompose the Russian All-Military Union.
Foreign intelligence and the police of the countries of residence, in turn, closely monitored the activities of white emigre extremist organizations. The French secret police Sürte Generale, the Gestapo, and Polish counterintelligence kept the Russian emigrant extremist organizations in a latent state, allowing the possibility of their use for their own purposes in the event of a military conflict with the USSR.
The white-emigrant military-political extremism in the 1920s and 40s sought support from the Western special services, first of all, trying to get financial assistance and legal cover for their activities. In the 1920s, Russian emigre extremist organizations were actively looking for their place in the existing system of special services of Eastern and Western Europe, which would allow them to launch a large-scale anti-Bolshevik struggle and, accordingly, try to take revenge for the defeat in the Civil War of 1917-1920. The revanchist organizations of foreign Russia were of interest to foreign intelligence, primarily because of their contacts behind the Iron Curtain on the territory of the USSR. Western intelligence agencies heavily used white-emigrant organizations that had clandestine structures on Soviet territory. So, for example, the Polish U-6 residency, operating in the territory of the Belarusian Military District, used the help of the extremist organization of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, which also had its underground cells in the region.
The coincidence at this stage of the interests of Russian extremism and foreign intelligence services conducting intelligence operations on the territory of the USSR allowed the emigrant revanchist unions to receive certain, financial and organizational support from the 2nd Bureau of the General Staff of Poland, Sürte Generale, German intelligence and a number of similar structures that pursued however, their own goals, very different from the ideas of the white movement.
Western intelligence, starting in 1920, began to use the counterintelligence structures of the white armies to organize intelligence and sabotage activities in Soviet Russia. So, in September 1920, the Estonian General Staff invited a number of Russian military leaders of the former North-West Volunteer Army to supply it with intelligence information. The proposal was accepted, and soon the White Guard counter-intelligence in the north-west direction actually turned into a branch of Estonian intelligence. One of the white emigre extremists who provided informational assistance to Estonian intelligence wrote:
“Our work could affect:
In the delivery of intelligence information about the fleet, the 7th Army, the Petrograd Military District and the political information of the Petrograd Commune. Moscow could have been weaker. Distribution of proclamations throughout the Petrograd, Pskov, and Yamburg districts.
The compilation and printing of the proclamations could take place here, and instructions from you are required to compile. In the creation of separate groups in the aforementioned region, which, with the successes and approach of the front, can destroy the rear of the Bolshevik troops.
In preparing people for creating detachments of 100-120 people for operations behind the Bolsheviks as the front approaches. ”
The counterrevolutionary structures of Western states secretly maintained fairly active contacts with White-emigre secret military-political organizations, mainly consisting of former Russian military. So, Soviet intelligence noted in 1923: “The Polish General Staff maintains close ties with White Guard organizations; according to February information, the Savinkov Information Bureau, headed by Colonel Pavlovsky, is, as it were, a branch of the 2nd department of the Polish headquarters, which through it carries out its intelligence work in Russia. General Dyakov, seconded by Wrangel to Poland, with the aim of uniting and attracting the interned Balakhovites and Peremykintsy (Savinkovites) to Wrangel’s side, enjoys the full support of the 2nd Division of the Polish headquarters.
The White-emigre counterintelligence in many cases carried out joint operations with Western intelligence agencies, which, however, was carefully hidden by the latter. For example, in 1936 in Istanbul, French counterintelligence, with the participation of Russian extremists, organized a special observation post, with the help of which Soviet diplomats and trade representatives, as well as employees of the Third Communist International were monitored. In November 1936, members of the Spanish delegation were sent to the USSR for the celebration of the 19th anniversary of the October Revolution, and a list of its members was received.
Thus, white-emigrant intelligence agencies gradually turned into informal branches of Western intelligence, helping them work in the “Russian direction”, providing military-strategic information, and in some cases participating in joint actions. Emigrant intelligence in many cases carried out purely intelligence tasks of the Western intelligence services, without any “ideological color”. For example, in 1921, information about the deployment of Soviet divisions on the Soviet-Romanian and Polish borders was obtained through the White Guard channels. ROVS ideologists easily explained such actions by the need to collect information for preparing a new military campaign against the USSR, in which case the white interventionist armies should have the necessary completeness of military information about the number and deployment of the Red Army, Soviet military doctrine, the direction of probable counterattacks of the Red Army, etc. . In addition, it should be borne in mind that Russian emigrant officers knew better the features, traditions and mentality of the Red Army commanders than foreign “Russian specialists” who eagerly consulted these Russian emigre colleagues.
In the first half of the 1920s, the remains of the Russian army of General P.N. Wrangel became actually a toy in the hands of England, France and the United States. Each of these countries has developed its own version of the use of white armed forces, in accordance with their own capabilities and geopolitical interests.
The Red Army Intelligence Agency was aware of the plans of Western governments regarding the White emigre armed forces: "Allied plans for the army: ... the British would like to use the army for their own purposes, namely: landing somewhere in the Caucasus, seizing the oil region and breaking off communications between Russia and East. There are also rumors about the desire of the British to use the army to block the movement of Russians in India. The French allegedly wanted to send an army to Romania in order to support the Romanians and attack the Ukraine. The Greeks allegedly wanted to use as a landing in the Caucasus in order to interrupt the communication with Mustafa Kemal Pasha. " This state of affairs did not leave an opportunity for leaders of Russian emigrant extremist organizations to pursue an independent policy, turning them into executors of someone else's will.
In 1920-21, the Cheka authorities, knowing that the leadership of the former white armies had set the officers remaining on Soviet territory to penetrate the Soviet apparatus and the Red Army, actively opposed these enemy plans, trying to prevent potential agents of influence in their structures. In a special instruction of the Cheka, it was said: “A lot of white officers, who occupy prominent responsible posts, arrived at all military institutions. For example, the senior adjutant of the head of the garrison is a former lieutenant of the commandant battalion of Sevastopol.
It is necessary to make an accurate check in all military units and institutions, in hospitals and with private employers. ”
After the occupation of the territory of the Crimea, Ukraine, and the Far East by the Red Army troops in 1920-22, special bodies of the Cheka-GPU conducted mass inspections of the male population of draft age in order to identify former participants in the white movement. In the context of the emerging totalitarian regime, the “social filter”, through which everyone was forced to go to the Soviet service and become citizens of the RSFSR, also performed the function of countering emigrant extremism, limiting its social base.
In 1920-21, the Cheka and the Red Army conducted “merciless red terror” in Crimea with the goal of destroying all underground structures of the White Guards, eliminating their agents, and defeating the counter-intelligence network. In this case, they used both “special methods” (organizing their own intelligence in the enemy camp, identifying scouts, etc.), as well as open large-scale terror against all persons “socially close to the white movement”. For example, the Special Division of the 9th Red Army Division “had to register in the two cities of Kerch and Feodosia all the remaining White Guard officers and officials. At the time of registration, Comrade Shock Group Commissioner Comrade Arrived. Danishevsky with instructions given to him about the White Guards. Having started, the Troika, consisting of Danishevsky, Dobroditsky and Zotov, performed the following work: Of the White Guards registered and detained in Feodosia in an approximate count of 1,100, 1,006 people were shot. 15 were released and 79 people were sent north.
The officers and officials detained in Kerch were approximately 800 people, of whom about 700 were shot, and the rest were sent north or released. Moreover, no more than 2% of those released were released - those who were accidentally detained, never served, but who appeared either at the request of the party committees, or because they belonged to the underground, although they were officers. ”
Such measures were effective primarily in relation to such forms of white-emigre extremism as guerrilla-insurgent war, sabotage actions against workers of the local Soviet party and state apparatus, certain sorties and landing on the territory of the RSFSR. They did not affect the organizational and ideological core of the white emigre revanchism abroad (Paris, Berlin, Belgrade), opposing only certain forms of its manifestation.
Wrangel intelligence in 1920-22 was forced to actively solve the problem of the prompt delivery of its agents to Soviet territory. At the same time, auxiliary means were used - artisans of fishermen, smugglers, etc., as well as an agent network left in Soviet Russia after the evacuation of the Russian army gene. P.N. Wrangel. According to the intelligence information received by the Soviet intelligence, the operation to send White Guard agents to the territory of the RSFSR looked something like this: “All the work of the head of the point is that he collects groups of agents, then sends him to the headquarters of captain 1st rank Mashukanov, who drops them in right place. But in addition, an artel of fishermen was hired in Yenikal, which landed agents on boats north of the village of Chushka (Taman). ” However, in such an active regime, White Guard intelligence could operate for a rather short period of time: the strengthening of the Soviet system and the closure of borders already in the mid-1920s made it extremely difficult for white agents to penetrate behind the Iron Curtain.
The leaders of the ROVS and a number of other extremist emigrant organizations in the 1920s and 1930s tried to create “windows” on the borders of the USSR for the transfer of saboteurs, scouts, and white propagandists to Soviet territory. However, most of these attempts ended in failure: the special bodies of the NKVD and the 4th Directorate of the Red Army, who controlled most of the white emigrant political structures under their information, immediately learned about white propaganda attempts to cross the border and arrested them. White militants and agitators failed to establish a systematic crossing of the Soviet border, and the information field of the USSR remained closed to white propaganda.
The main areas of activity of intelligence of the Russian army gene. P.N. Wrangel formed back in 1920 while it was on Russian territory. Subsequently, the intelligence of the ROVS collected information of approximately the same nature. In special documents of the Cheka, devoted to the organization and work of Wrangel intelligence and counterintelligence, it was noted that “intelligence, dividing work into resident, deep rear, front-line and walkers, entrusts:
At first:
1. Information on working, national, economic, transport, religious status and instruction of the Soviet government.
2. Lighting on the ground and in general. Operational work.
On 2:
1. Reconnaissance of the rear militarily.
2. Politically.
3. The mood.
On 3:
1. An explanation of the mood of the immediate rear (population).
2. An explanation of the morale of the troops.
3. The number of them.
Quality condition.
Command staff (are there former officers of the General Staff and their last names).
Armament (the number of machine guns, guns, armored trains and armored vehicles).
Air fleet (number of vehicles, system, power, weapons and lift), as well as personnel, surnames and its base.
The location of the headquarters of the divisions and military bases that feed the front.
The power of artillery.
On 4: 1. Communication with residents.
Deep rear tasks fall more to the share of intelligence of the headquarters of the commander in chief and corps, as well as resident tasks. Front-line intelligence is conducted by the headquarters of the corps and divisions. The latter have more lightweight agents - “walkers,” who are sent by the headquarters of the commander in chief and corps. Particularly special tasks come only from the headquarters of the commander in chief (expelling agents with the specified tasks). "
By the mid-1920s, most of the Wrangel intelligence system ceased to exist, only a few continued to maintain contact with the ROVS and foreign extremist organizations, mainly former police officers or “coastal counterintelligence”, smugglers who adapted in the criminal world of the NEP period.
The ROVS leadership in the 1920s and 1930s made repeated attempts to create a White Guard underground on the territory of the USSR so that the interventionist army that appeared on the Soviet borders would receive support from the "fifth column", and the Red Army, accordingly, would be stabbed in the back. The military leaders of the Russian foreign countries are Generals P.N. Wrangel, P. Shatilov, A. Arkhangelsky - sought to find supporters among the command staff of the Red Army. With the help of their former comrades-in-arms of the period of the First World War of 1914-18, the leaders of the ROVS dreamed of organizing an anti-Stalinist plot and carrying out a military coup that would result in the overthrow of the Soviet regime and the establishment of a white dictatorship in the country.
It was through such fellow soldiers in the early 1920s that the white counterintelligence tried to establish communications and attract them to secret work against the Soviet government. In turn, the Soviet special services of the Cheka and the GPU, knowing this, took countermeasures, identifying the addresses and surnames of such persons, establishing surveillance over them. For example, in 1920, assuming that one of the significant leaders of military emigration was General P.S. Makhrov illegally crossed the Soviet border and came to Petrograd to organize clandestine work, the Cheka gave the order to organize surveillance of the apartment of his friend Colonel General Staff of the Red Army: “If Makhrov really went, then without doubt he will use his great friend Colonel General Staff Boris Nikolayevich Kondratiev in Petrograd living on Vasilievsky island. "
Extremist military organizations of the Russian foreign countries, primarily the EMRO, developed numerous plans for spreading their influence in the USSR, projects for the destruction of the Soviet party and state apparatus from the inside, tried to launch a propaganda war to discredit the regime. The author of the note for the leadership of the ROVS summarized its contents with the following statement:
“Preparatory work should be carried out in three directions:
Penetration into the apparatus of power, mainly into the Red Army.
The incitement of internal party strife and the splintering of the Communist Party.
Supply of the population with anti-communist propaganda literature. ”
The leaders of the foreign extremist movement were most interested in Soviet responsible workers, whom the leaders of the ROVS tried to entice over with the promise of amnesty in the future and attracting them to military and public service "after the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime and the revival of Russia." The ROVS secret instructions prescribed to their secret agents "a cautious approach and networking with those in senior positions in the Red Army and in civilian administration, both non-partisans and communists." In case of refusal to cooperate, emigrant extremists threatened them with white terror. However, the efforts of the white counterintelligence did not yield results: under the conditions of a totalitarian regime, control and surveillance, even the slightest suspicion of having ties to emigration quickly led such adventurers to the Gulag. The creation of a white-emigre “fifth column” in the USSR, thus, proved to be an axis impossible.
The idea of a “silent counter-revolution” remained popular among the emigrant community until the mid-1930s, when the obvious victory of Stalin and his policies (industrialization, collectivization, liquidation of the opposition) left military extremism no chance of success in the USSR.
Although the Soviet secret services noted that the "counter-revolutionary elements" in the USSR "with the intensification of the class struggle in the country will try to take advantage of certain parts of the Soviet apparatus," the OGPU-NKVD managed to isolate emigration "from sources of influence, from mass social forces ...", and the absence in the USSR of its lobby and influence groups turned Russian emigrants into extraneous spectators of tectonic processes that took place in the Soviet political system.
The fantastic plans of the leaders of the military emotion sometimes provoked ironic smiles of former Russian diplomats, who were well versed in the alignment of political forces in Europe and the Far East. So, for example, the former imperial ambassador to Great Britain E.V. Sablin wrote in March 1937 to V. Maklakov: “Of course, General Denikin is right in theory, who never tires of repeating that the main task is to“ overthrow the Bolshevik power and keep the army intact ”, but the question is: vi makht man das (how is this done "- German) in practice and how can relatively few and scattered emigrants do this."
A special place in the system of extremist organizations of the Russian foreign countries was occupied by counterintelligence structures of the ROVS and BRP. General P.N. Wrangel already in 1920-21 began to create a conspiracy information network, which was supposed to serve the counterintelligence and sabotage structures of the "Russian army in exile." So, in 1921, at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief of the former Russian army, an "Information Bureau under the name" D. "and" L. "was created (based on the initial letters of its leaders: Prince P. D. Dolgoruky and N. N. Lvov). The bureau issued ballot papers printed on a rotator and sent them to military units, to Russian emigrant newspapers, oriented to the right-conservative part of the Russian foreign countries.
White-emigrant intelligence in the 1920s and 1930s identified political intelligence as one of its priority areas of activity, in particular, opposing the “plans of the Comintern for preparing the world revolution”, monitoring the leaders of European Communist and Social Democratic parties, identifying agents of the OGPU-NKVD in the emigrant environment, etc. So, the counter-intelligence of the ROVS collected "information about the Bolshevik plans for the creation of a revolutionary army in Europe." Under the ROVS divisions, special counterintelligence divisions were created, the task of which was to counter the operations of the Soviet special services in the territory of recipient countries.
A feature of military emigration as part of Foreign Russia was the presence in its composition of a large number of military intelligence officers, high-level professionals who in the 1920s and 1930s were in demand by foreign intelligence services. Many heads of the counterintelligence departments of the white armies, primarily the Russian Army gene. P.N. Wrangel, in 1920-22 they switched to the regular service of Western intelligence. So, in the report of the French counterintelligence, “German Activities in Constantinople and the Middle East,” there is information about German intelligence agents from former officers of the tsarist army ... ”
Russian military emigrants in the early 1920s easily found a common language with representatives of European intelligence, primarily German and French, while actively using contacts and contacts that were established during the First World War of 1914-18, which, after the formation of the Russian emigrant diaspora received a different projection. So, as regards the relations between the counterintelligence of the ROVS and the German special services, from the irreconcilable opponents by the mid-1920s they turned into temporary allies. Western intelligence agencies used information received from deserters from the Red Army, many of which were so-called. "Military experts", i.e. received a military education until 1917, or even served for some time in the white armies. So, for example, in 1931, the French counterintelligence compiled a "Certificate of the internal political situation in the USSR" on the basis of the testimony of "a former white officer who entered the Red Army and deserted from it ..."
In 1922-23, the Bulgarian special services launched an active struggle against the white emigrant counterintelligence, which created an extensive network in Bulgaria that included all the intelligence structures necessary for conducting large-scale diversion work: safe houses, secret warehouses, weapons, “windows” on the border, observation posts, etc. .P. In 1922, an article was published in the Polish newspaper "Worker" about the disclosure of the "reconnaissance Wrangel network in Bulgaria." Counterintelligence P.N. Wrangel in Bulgaria had two main tasks: collecting information about Soviet Russia and preparing the intervention, as well as the struggle against the revolutionary democratic movement in the country, in particular against the Istanbul government. The counterintelligence structures of the ROVS and other white-emigre revanchist organizations collected information about the situation in the Red Army, the state of the material and technical base of the Soviet troops, the maneuvers conducted in the USSR, trying to identify at least some traces of the activities of the anti-Soviet underground organizations in the Red Army. At the same time, what was desired was presented as real, and quite ordinary “everyday” incidents were given a political character, an epoch-making significance.
“In the Red Army,” the ROVS observer wrote, “in early December [1936] during the maneuvers of mechanized Soviet units (about 100 tanks and armored vehicles) near the village of Pokrovka (the confluence of Halki and Argun in the Amur Region), one of the tank detachments (6 tanks) was blown up, as it turned out by the investigation, infernal vehicles. "The Soviet authorities suggest that this is the work of the" White Guards "who have their own organization in parts of the Far Eastern Red Army."
Riot, uprising in the Red Army - a favorite topic of most publications in emigrant military newspapers and magazines in the 1920s and 30s. The White-emigrant military-political extremism primarily set out to fight for the “minds and hearts” of the Red Army soldiers, who, according to the ideology of the ROVS, were to become a building material during the creation of the new Russian army, which “grew up in many ways from the Red Army”.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Western intelligence agencies supplied Russian extremist organizations with information about the internal situation in the USSR, information about Stalin’s struggle against opposition trends in the CPSU (b), the prospects for a social explosion in the USSR, etc., which were received through their own channels, in many cases - undercover. For example, in 1923, French intelligence received the secret GPU newsletter about unrest among workers and employees of various enterprises of the USSR that demanded higher wages, with which the leaders of the Russian military emigration were privately acquainted.
It should be noted that the counter-intelligence of the ROVS carried out an extremely biased assessment of the information received by it, acting on the principle “the worse for the fact” if it did not correspond to the artificial and far-fetched schemes developed in the bowels of the ideological laboratory of the ROVS.
With the EMRO in the 1920-30s. There was an information and analytical department in which information was carefully collected on the internal situation in the USSR, the state of the Red Army, the mood of the masses of the population, and political trials in Moscow in 1929-1939. etc.
Sources of information of white emigration were:
1) Soviet mass print media: books, brochures, newspapers. "The factual material relating to the Bolshevik era is gleaned ... mainly from Soviet publications and, above all, from data from Soviet statistics." At the same time, it was noted that information about the Soviet economy reached emigration “in a random and often erratic form”;
2) program documents of the CPSU (b) and texts of speeches by the leaders of the party and the Soviet government - I.V. Stalin, M.I. Kalinin, etc. At the same time, it should be noted that the reliability of the information received by the White Emigrant counterintelligence was very low.
This is due to the following reasons.
Intelligence ROVS did not have access to operational secret information of the Soviet special services and government agencies. ROVS analysts poorly imagined Soviet reality and, therefore, often were unable to draw the right conclusions from the information received. Information about the situation in the USSR was obtained selectively, haphazardly and did not create a holistic picture of life in the Soviet Union. In many cases, the wish was presented as valid when, on the basis of insignificant facts, "epoch-making" conclusions were drawn about the proximity of the fall of the Bolshevik regime.
Activists of Russian emigrant military-political organizations felt close attention from the Soviet special services, constantly urging participants in the anti-Bolshevik movement to be vigilant to carefully implement all necessary conspiracy measures. “The Bolsheviks vigilantly follow us,” wrote the ROVS instructor in 1936, “their agents and observers got into all of our organizations. Subtle and well thought out work on the decomposition of emigrant masses is being imperceptibly conducted. ”
Indeed, Soviet intelligence made considerable efforts to disintegrate Russian military emigration, systematically organized a leak of information compromising the leaders of emigrant military unions and societies, and sought to disorient the emigrant youth, craving information about the internal situation in the USSR.
Soviet intelligence considered work against military emigration in the 1920s the main focus of its activities. In 1927, at an enlarged meeting of the Soviet special services of the INO OGPU and the Intelligence Service of the Red Army, it was decided to intensify operations to neutralize military emigration.
The largest operation successfully carried out by the OGPU in the direction of “white emigration” was the creation of a fictitious organization under the code name “Trust”. She was given the task of uniting all the white emigrant politically active forces around herself, mass introducing provocateurs into their composition and thus gaining the ability to direct the activities of such organizations in accordance with the directives of the OGPU.
The history of the “Trust” is as follows. In 1922, an OGPU was arrested by a certain P. Selyaninov-Opperput, associated with the NSZRiS B. Savinkov. Saving his life, he agreed to take part in the large-scale operation developed by the organs of the OGPU, aimed at identifying and destroying the white emigre underground in the USSR and abroad. A.A. was also connected to the case. Yakushev, a major engineer who worked in the USSR as a specialist. He was arrested on charges of organizing a counter-revolutionary conspiracy and espionage in favor of the Supreme Monarchical Council. Being in 1922 abroad, A.A. Yakushev had meetings with prominent figures of the white movement and advised them on the internal situation in the USSR. According to him, the power in the country after the fall of the Bolsheviks had to go to those circles of the white movement that did not emigrate abroad, but remained underground in the USSR. As such an organization, he called the ICRC - the Monarchist Organization of Central Russia.
However, upon returning to the USSR A.A. Yakushev was arrested. The reason for his failure was the negligence of the White Guard officer Yu.A. Artamonov, who spoke about the meetings of A.A. Yakushev with the leaders of the white movement and his opinion about the Soviet regime in a letter to Prince K.A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov. The letter was intercepted by the OGPU, from which it learned about the true role of A.A. Yakushev and the planned establishment of close ties between the ICRC and the Navy.
The leadership of the OGPU decided to use the ICRC as a screen when creating its own organization, which was tasked with the following:
1. the penetration of OGPU agents into the higher white emigrant circles;
2. The identification and liquidation of the white underground in the USSR; 3. influencing the entire white movement in the sense of its renunciation of terrorist methods of struggle.
ROVS was also drawn into the game. Through the “window”, which was prepared by the ICRC (ie the OGPU), border crossings by the EMRO people begin to take place. The OGPU, of course, knew about everything, but until a certain point it did not touch anyone so as not to arouse suspicion. In 1923, M.V. Zakharchenko-Schulz, a member of the military organization of General Kutepov. The “window” is also operating in the opposite direction - representatives of the ICRC travel abroad to meet with representatives of white emigrant organizations, including the Navy and the EMRO. Through this "window" came to Soviet Russia and V.V. Shulgin in 1925. It was decided to carry out the first arrest of the OGPU only when the English intelligence officer Sydney Reilly arrived in Soviet Russia. He was detained and subsequently shot. This fact somewhat alarmed the militant emigre organizations, but border crossings along this line continued anyway.
Fearing the failure of the line in connection with the arrest of Sydney Reilly, the OGPU decided to stage his "accidental" death when crossing the border. In the memoirs of I.M. Petrova (Toivo Vyakhya) “From the border to the reception to Menzhinsky” contains a description of how this happened:
"Murder" Reilly played as if on sheet music. In a designated place, a group of Chekists led by Sharov met me and a double of Reilly. We shouted here, had a fight in three languages - in Russian, Finnish and English. Shoot over each other's heads. Then the Railay fell on the sidelines. The ground near his head was sprayed with blood stored by Sharov, and his hands were tied to me. Immediately, the chairman of the local village council, a young guy, a communist, an intelligent man and a good comrade, came running for shots: “Does the asset need help?”
They gave Sharov’s car. Roomy old ruin "Buick"; whirling around, she lit with headlights both me and the "dead" on the sidelines. "
In this way, the OGPU protected itself from the possibility of a “window” failure and claims from the British embassy, since Sydney George Reilly was the head of the East European intelligence department of Great Britain.
The activities of the Trust dealt a heavy blow to the military organizations of the white emigration. Many militants died, appearances and safe houses of the white underground in the USSR were uncovered, the OGPU managed to introduce provocateurs into the emigration environment.
On January 26, 1930, General Kutepov, chairman of the ROVS, was abducted in Paris by agents of the OGPU. The circumstances of this case are as follows: on that day A.P. Kutepov left at 10.30 a.m. from his apartment in house No. 26 on Ryu Roussel. He told his wife that he would be at the funeral service for General Kaulbars in the church of the Union of Gallipolis, which was located in the house number 81 on the rue Mademoiselle. Until the beginning of the requiem, Kutepov had about an hour of free time, which he planned to use to meet with a well-known person. The requiem after the liturgy began at 11.30 a.m. Kutepov was expected at the entrance to the temple, but he did not come. He did not return home either. At 3 p.m., a troubled family raised the alarm. Neither in the meeting of the Gallipolians, nor from any of Kutepov's acquaintances was there. Reported to the police. Police prefecture began a search. By evening, the police became convinced of the disappearance of the general. Possibility of abduction and abduction A.P. Kutepova was immediately taken into account by the French police, which is why the authorities notified the border posts, ports and airports by telegraph. Photos of the general were sent to the border and police authorities.
Subsequently, the picture of the abduction of General Kutepov was restored in sufficient detail. Kutepov usually walked from his apartment to the church of the Union of Gallipoliites on foot. This Sunday he also walked the usual way, but, turning on the rue de Sevres, went out onto the Boulevard of the Invalids. In Ryu Roussel, he was seen by a familiar painter. Passing the cinema "Sevres Palace", Kutepov greeted his master. A few minutes before 11 hours A.P. Kutepov was seen on the corner of the rue de Sevres and the Boulevard of the Disabled. A witness who accidentally saw the abduction of General Kutepov gave the following description of this fact: “He saw a large gray-green car standing on the rue Roussel, turned towards the rue Udino, parallel to the rue de Sevres. Nearby on Ryu Udino, opposite Ryu Roussel, there was a red taxi car turned towards the Disabled Boulevard. A policeman stood right on the corner. Near the gray-green car stood two dozen people in yellow coats. At this time, from the side of the Disabled Boulevard, a medium-sized gentleman with a small black beard, dressed in a black coat, was walking in the udino rue. Turning from Ryu Udino to Ryu Russel, the gentleman walked over to the gray-green car. Both people standing nearby grabbed the gentleman and pushed him into the car. "The policeman, calmly observing what was happening, sat down next to the driver, and the car, having left on the rue Udino, rushed off to the Disabled Boulevard." The fact of the abduction of General A.P. Kutepova in the center of Paris in broad daylight by agents of the OGPU caused a sensation. The attention of emigration was drawn to this event for a long time. The newspapers Vozrozhdenie and Breaking News were full of messages on this subject. There were demands to immediately search the Soviet embassy in the rue de Trenell. The officers of the ROVS were ready to defeat him; groups of White Guard militants gathered near the building of the Soviet embassy.
French newspapers also demanded that the government take extreme measures. In the Chamber of Deputies, representatives of right and moderate parties, outraged by the actions of the OGPU, demanded a break in relations with the USSR. However, the French authorities were interested in maintaining and strengthening relations with the Soviet Union. Measures to search for the perpetrators of the abduction were taken only to visibility and reassure the excited public.
The abduction of A.P. Kutepova was excited about Russian emigration. Newspapers presented readers with various hypotheses, sensational rumors. The emigre periodicals of the 1920s and 30s vividly responded to the scandals that arose from time to time in foreign Russia and the exposure of Bolshevik agents operating in its midst. Such situations created favorable conditions for the publication of articles by leaders of the military abroad with calls for increased vigilance and recriminations, etc. The degree of reflection of such events on the pages of the emigrant press was high; usually the publication of materials about any scandal associated with the exposure of the Bolshevik provocateur had a “serial” character, that is, as the investigation progressed and the trial continued, the publication of materials continued in the next issues of the magazine, attracting the attention of the readership.
At the same time, emigrant magazines published in detail all the circumstances of the case, delved into the smallest details of what happened. Therefore, collections of articles and documents published in Russian émigré publications on the topic of a political incident can serve as a valuable historical source, which also contains a lot of factual material. “On the night of December 4–5 [1936], Dr. Linitsky (a former volunteer of the Drozdov Rifle Regiment, a member of the Belgrade branch of the Gallipoli Society), captain Shklyarov, a military official Drakin (both also Gallipoli), Mr. Daragan and the Secretary of the Department were arrested in Belgrade Head of the 4th department of the ROVS, captain Komarovsky. The Yugoslav authorities charged all those arrested with collecting materials for the Bolsheviks about the work of Russian emigrant organizations. According to reports, all those arrested, except Captain Komorowski, very soon confessed to that ... ". Public scandals that flashed periodically in the Russian emigration environment related to the provocative activities of military emigrants in favor of Soviet intelligence were strongly reflected in the pages of military periodicals. At the same time, the émigré readership often set the tone, demanding ever new details and new revelations. Emigrants sent letters to publishers asking them to cover the processes in more detail, to publish additional materials. In most cases, the editorial offices met the wishes of their readers: “The editorial office of the Hourly magazine receives requests from different countries about the reasons for not posting information about the course of the Belgrade process, which is sad for the whole emigration. The editors did not consider themselves entitled to speak out on this issue until the end of the investigation. Unfortunately, a number of speeches by various individuals and the press have taken on the character of political accounts. The editors considered intervening in this campaign below the dignity of the magazine she led. However, in the next issue of the magazine, the editors, having some data, will share them with their readers and try to give them an explanation on a number of issues raised by readers. ”
The Russian military emigration of the 1920s and 1930s and its organizational structures - the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and the system of military extremist societies - were a priority area in the activities of the Soviet special services (Intelligence Agency of the Red Army and the NKVD) aimed at undermining and destroying the emigrant anti-Bolshevik movement . In 1927, the Politburo of the CPSU (B.) And the leadership of Soviet intelligence decided to initiate "active operations against the white underground both in the USSR and abroad." One of the serious and generally successful operations carried out by the Soviet intelligence services in the context of the implementation of this decision was the case of the son of the head of the 3rd department of the ROVS, one of the leaders of white emigre extremism, General F.F. Abramov - Nikolai Abramov, who managed to penetrate the secrets of the "internal line" of the secret direction of terrorist and sabotage work against the USSR, carried out by General A.P. Kutepov and a group of his supporters. Having studied the activities of N. Abramov and his personality, the Commission of the ROVS concluded that it could be assumed that prior to his introduction to the military abroad, he had undergone special training in Soviet intelligence - I would divorce either the Red Army or the INO NKVD. The materials of the Commission said that "... he underwent rather versatile practical training ... in Osoaviahima; he turned out to be a good chauffeur-mechanic, drew well, knew English, was well acquainted with photography, wrote on a typewriter, was well-trained and generally showed remarkable abilities. "
The circumstances of the “case of N. Abramov” were as follows. Nikolai Abramov, son of Lieutenant General F.F. Abramova, who remained in Soviet Russia after the evacuation of the white armies abroad in 1920-21, raised in a Soviet school, a member of the Komsomol, fled in 1931 from the Soviet ship in Hamburg (N. Abramov’s “flight” was staged by the OGPU), arrived in Berlin and with the help of Major General A.A. von Lampe, to whom he was sent by the German police, was sent to his father in Sofia. Outwardly, the situation looked quite natural and the ROVS counterintelligence initially did not arouse much suspicion. The personal relationship between Nikolai Abramov and his father was pretty cool. The first three years, Nikolai Abramov used his father’s room and table, later - switched to his own earnings and did not receive any financial support from his father. Once abroad, N. Abramov begins the operation of his own implementation in the EMRO. However, it was not difficult for him. Nikolai Abramov immediately found himself in the zone of increased attention of the counter-intelligence of the ROVS: "... measures were taken to inculcate new ideas for the white struggle, for which he was placed in an atmosphere of constant communication and influence of the participants in the white movement. After a very short time, N. Abramov ardently responded to this re-education ... "However, in order not to arouse suspicions of his own interest in such a course of events, N. Abramov imitated" sincere disappointment in the ideas of the Komsomol, condemned many negative aspects of emigration ... ", n o eventually expressed a desire to work in the secret structures of the ROVS, the so-called "Internal line" of the USSR, the object of special interest OGPU-NKVD.
N. Abramova is attracted to the "counterintelligence work" by Captain Foss, chief officer of the 3rd Department of the ROVS, at the same time N. Abramov enters the National Union of the New Generation (NSNP) and a number of radical white-emigrant organizations, striving to advance to leadership in them. However, in these organizations N. Abramov’s career does not work out, and he focuses his main efforts on the EMRO and its structures. Entering confidence in the leadership of the 3rd department of the ROVS, N. Abramov goes to classes to teach him how to sabotage. "His special training continued ... Soon he was admitted to the shooting training manual at one of the secret organizations." By order of the counter-intelligence department of the ROVS, N. Abramov initially carries out “various simple orders for the counterintelligence and surveillance service” (the special department of the ROVS monitored Soviet diplomats and sales representatives abroad). Naturally, already having the experience of special training of the NKVD, N. Abramov quickly achieves good performance in the special training of the “white terrorist”. Gradually N. Abramov “more and more became his man in the management of the 3rd department, where he was constantly, sometimes helping in clerical work”. Its purpose is access to secret operational information of the ROVS.
By 1935, N. Abramov was able to solve the problem before him: he was admitted to the secret documentation of the 3rd department of the ROVS and was able to transmit valuable information to the Soviet intelligence. At the end of 1936, Captain Foss had his first serious suspicions against N. Abramov. One of the reasons that attracted attention to him was "N. Abramov’s wide lifestyle and the uncertainty of his income sources."
Immediately after serious concerns arose, Captain Foss informed the relevant authorities in Sofia (the Bulgarian police and the counter-intelligence department of the ROVS) about this in order to conduct a thorough check of N. Abramov with them. From this moment N. Abramov “gradually wipes himself from the current work, assignments are given with the goal of checking it.” The leaders of the white emigration, realizing the “delicacy” of the situation in which they have fallen, strive not to publicize the case of N. Abramov.
The leadership of the ROVS makes a decision about its suspicions and the inspection that began to General F.F. Abramov did not report, "sparing the feelings of his father, to whom, however, she could not give any accurate data on the guilt of his son." To a certain extent, a similar development of events was facilitated by the fact that N. Abramov worked skillfully and did not leave direct evidence. The ROVS certificate stated: "... The extreme caution shown by N. Abramov does not give direct evidence regarding his double work, but indirect evidence gradually accumulates throughout 1937. In this regard, measures are being taken to restrict the activities of N. Abramov, and his isolation is enhanced. "
On September 22, 1937, the abduction of General E.K. Miller and the flight of General N.V. Skoblin, who turned out to be a Soviet agent, whose activities on the "internal line" is under investigation in the Commission of General I.G. Airedale Soon, the Commission expanded its task by starting an audit of the 3rd department of the ROVS and the activities of N. Abramov. This check was undertaken as a result of Captain Foss’s statement about a leak of secret information established by him (and, as it turned out during the investigation, a leak did not mean the loss of documents - “there has never been such a loss or even a short disappearance of documents”).
N. Abramov, apparently, either made extracts from secret documents or photographed them.
In March 1938, the Commission arrived in Belgrade under the general leadership of the chairman of the ROVS, General Arkhangelsky, which also included Major General Artamonov and Colonel Drailing, who had the task of investigating the case of Nikolai Abramov.
Materials for the investigation were detailed protocols and reports of the “Special Commission” Colonel Petrichenko, appointed in the fall of 1937 as General F.F. Abramov to study the activities of the "internal line", surveys of a large number of members of the ROVS and military emigrants who did not belong to the Union, but who had one or another relation to the "case of N. Abramov." Particular attention of the Commission was drawn to the verification of the work of the 3rd department of the EMRO.
On October 13-20, 1938, the board of the ROVS heard reports from those who led the white counterintelligence, who expressed firm confidence in the guilt of N. Abramov. The high-security investigation continued. In particular, measures were taken to examine the sources of material support of N. Abramov. ROVS, being a public organization, was not able to apply repressive measures against N. Abramov. The Bulgarian police also had no reason to detain him, as N. Abramov did not violate Bulgarian laws, and his activities were directed exclusively against the EMRO and the Russian military emigration.
In the summer of 1938, the Bulgarian authorities N. Abramov was “strongly recommended” to leave the borders of Bulgaria. November 13, 1938 N. Abramov went with his wife to France.
The leaders of the white emigration - the gene. A.P. Arkhangelsk, gene. A.A. von Lampe, gene. P.A. Kusonsky - no claims were made and his father - the gene. F.F. Abramov, since the investigation established that he really did not know anything about the activities of his son, however, his political image was compromised, and the gene. F.F. Abramov was not appointed as chairman of the EMRO.
The leadership of the ROVS makes a decision not to publicize the “H. Abramov’s case” because "... the open disclosure of N. Abramov would inflict an unnecessary moral blow on the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) and General F.F. Abramov himself." However, they failed to hush up the case of N. Abramov. The circumstances of the intelligence activities of N. Abramov and the conclusion of the work of the ROVS Commission became the property of emigrant newspapers and magazines. So, the magazine “Chasovoy” (No. 231) wrote in an editorial: “... the editors of“ Chasovoy ”already see one obvious mistake made in Sofia and that the Russian Abroad was not informed in a timely manner of the charge against N. Abramov of service to the Bolsheviks ... It is hoped that the head of the ROVS will establish the causes of this painful mistake. "
The “N. Abramov’s Case” is of scientific interest primarily from the point of view of its “typicality”, because it clearly shows the methods of work of the NKVD and Razvedupra against extremist organizations of white emigration. The most characteristic methods of activity of the Soviet special services were either the recruitment of the most prominent figures of the Russian emigration - for example, the gene. N. Skoblin, singer N. Plevitskaya, S. Tretyakov, who had a “heroic white past” and, therefore, were beyond suspicion, or the introduction of energetic young people into activist organizations of the EMRO with the goal of creating long-term sources of information in the structures of the military abroad (they could be used and as provocateurs and, if necessary, to discredit one of the figures of military emigration).
The NKVD consciously promoted its agents to the leadership of the ROVS and the system of military societies and unions, creating favorable conditions for their careers (they did not need to earn a living by hard daily labor, like most ordinary emigrants - they were financed from the NKVD, they created favorable "legends" , the necessary special training was taught, which included the study of foreign languages, psychology, hand-to-hand combat techniques, the ability to use codes, etc.). All this is clearly seen on the example of the activities of Nikolai Abramov, who managed to infiltrate the 3rd department of the ROVS, gain access to secret information of the “internal line” and transmit information of special importance to the USSR about the plans and activities of Russian military emigration in the first half of the 1930s.
After the abduction of A. Kutepov, General E. Miller, his successor as chairman of the ROVS, made great efforts to continue the activities of the ROVS and preserve the military core of this organization. However, General Miller himself, after several years in 1937, was the victim of a similar abduction organized by the NKVD.
In the spring and summer of 1934, the situation in the EMRO became more complicated. The financial base of the organization was undermined, which caused a reduction in its costs. The work was hindered by the intrigues of the Inner Line, which sought to seize the top post in the EMRO. In Paris, rumors began to spread about the upcoming resignation of General E. Miller from the post of chairman of the EMRO. Miller’s opponents were also supported by V.V. Nuts. But Miller decided to stay on his post.
The abduction and death of General Miller was preceded by a series of mysterious cases. So, for example, on July 2, 1934, when E. Miller and his wife were away, captain A.M. Izyumov, who remained in the apartment, was called by phone on behalf of General O. for a meeting in the church. Arriving at the church, he did not find General O. there. At a time when General E. Miller’s apartment was not guarded by anyone, her door was hacked and part of E. Miller’s papers was stolen. Another case - on September 30 in the evening, a bomb exploded on the second floor of the house at No. 29 on Kolise Street. The explosion broke the front door of the ROVS office. Two letters were found on the floor after this, containing threats to General E. Miller and his employees - General I. Erdeli, Admiral M. Kedrov and others. The authors of the letter threatened further terrorist actions if General E. Miller and other persons who harbored, according to anonymous authors, the crimes of the “internal line” supporter General P. Shatilov, did not depart from the head of the ROVS.
Secret activity around E. Miller was launched by General N. Skoblin, who was an agent of the NKVD. E. Miller, who trusted N. Skoblin, appointed him the head of the group of ranks of the 1st Army Corps in Paris.
On May 10, 1933, Generals N. Skoblin, A. Turkul, M. Peshnia, A. Fock, and Colonel Sokolsky submitted a memorandum to E. Miller, demanding that he resume “active work” in the USSR. However, their reproaches were not fair. E. Miller was not inactive. In 1934, he formed the organization "White Idea", which quickly carried out active actions against the Soviet special services.
E. Miller intended to send to the USSR "a dozen two officers with the task of raising a peasant uprising in the south." But nothing came of this project. E. Miller also decided to start organizing secret strongholds and cells in the USSR. Such activities of General E. Miller became alarming to the NKVD, which decided to repeat the operation to abduct the chairman of the ROVS. In July 1937, the deputy head of the INO NKVD S. Shpigelglass arrived in Paris. He had a meeting with V. Krivitsky, a resident of the Intelligence Headquarters of the Red Army. S. Shpigelglass informed V. Krivitsky of the impending abduction of E. Miller. V. Krivitsky handed S. Spigelglass two of his agents, who were supposed to act as German officers.
September 22, 1937 E. Miller was abducted. At about 9 a.m. he left his apartment in Boulogne-sur-Seine. He did not return back.
At about 11 o’clock E. Miller entered the ROVS department, where he left a note to General P. Kusonsky asking him to open it in case something happened to him. The text of the note was as follows: “I have it today at 12.30. a day of rendezvous with General N. Skoblin on the corner of Ryu Jasman and Ryu Raffe, and he should take me on a date with a German officer, military agent in the Baltic countries - Colonel Shtroman, and with Mr. Werner, who is here at the embassy. Both spoke good Russian. The meeting was arranged at the initiative of N. Skoblin. Maybe this is a trap, just in case I leave this note. General E. Miller. September 22, 1937 ”It was this note that served as evidence on the basis of which N. Skoblin was exposed as an agent of the NKVD. When trying to arrest N. Skoblin managed to escape, but his wife N. Plevitskaya was detained by the French police and subsequently sentenced to 20 years of hard labor.
White emigre extremist organizations tried to oppose the Soviet special services, which more and more actively interfered in the life of the Russian foreign countries in the 1930s, introducing their agents into revanchist organizations, frustrating plans for various sabotage operations, compromising the leadership of the EMRO and invisibly expanding their financial influence on military alliances and society. In 1930, a well-known figure in Russian emigration, Burtsev made an attempt to create an Anti-GPU organization, whose task would be to counter the “active operations” of the Soviet special services in European countries. However, nothing came of this project: the financial and organizational capabilities of the Russian military emigration were incommensurably less than the capabilities of Soviet intelligence. In addition, emigrant revanchist organizations were largely fragmented, did not have a single leadership and were afraid to create a centralized information system, rightly fearing information leakage in OPTU.
The White-emigre counterintelligence of the ROVS was not able to solve the task it was facing: it was not possible to carry out large-scale white terror in the USSR against the leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet special services, white extremists also failed to break the diplomatic relations of the USSR with Western states and the beginning of a new European war could. The White Terror in the 1930s degenerated into unsystematic actions by single fanatics. The political resonance caused by the implementation of sabotage actions on the territory of the USSR received a completely different projection than that which the white militants had hoped for - instead of the heroic struggle of white emigrants for freedom, the whole world saw the brutal actions of white terrorists and saboteurs.
Thus, in the 1920s and 1930s, an intense struggle took place between the Soviet special services (INO OGPU - NKVD and RKVD Reconnaissance) with extremist white emigrant organizations - the ROVS, the BRP and their counterintelligence structures. The struggle between intelligence was accompanied by "active actions" on both sides: the OGPU organized the abduction of the leaders of the ROVS, compromised the leaders of the emigration, introduced its agents into revanchist societies, and the ROVS and the Navy sent saboteurs, white fighters to Soviet territory, committed murders of Soviet diplomats, terrorist attacks in embassies etc. Soviet intelligence set as its primary goal the destruction of the anti-Bolshevik underground on the territory of the USSR and extremist military-political organizations, and countering terrorist acts abroad and in the Soviet Union.
Stalin and the leadership of the OGPU-NKVD set specific tasks for Soviet intelligence: to destroy white-emigre extremism as a political phenomenon in Russian foreign countries. To this end, in the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet special services inflicted a number of powerful blows at the organizational centers of white activism abroad - in Berlin, Paris and Belgrade, and also eliminated the elements of the white underground in the USSR.
Counterintelligence of the ROVS and other emigre extremist structures collected information about the internal situation in the USSR, predicted the likelihood of a split in the CPSU (b), tried to create a white underground in the Soviet Union, supplied Western intelligence with espionage information, and developed projects for organizing anti-Soviet intervention. Attempts by white extremist organizations to oppose the activities of the Comintern ended in most cases with failure due to the fact that the Third International had a wide social base in the world - among the working class of Western countries and the left intelligentsia, and the social base of the EMRO was limited by the emigration itself, in some cases white extremists received support from the right-conservative circles of Yugoslavia, Germany, Poland, i.e. was very narrow. Understanding this, the ideologists of white terror assigned the main role to the actions of small groups of counter-revolutionaries - the “chosen” and determined people. The ranks of white terrorists in the 1920s and 30s were primarily recruited by socially disadvantaged people, losers, or adventurers or fanatical youths.
White emigre extremism of the 1920s and 1930s also tried to create its own organizational structures on the territory of the USSR in the form of a "white underground", a kind of fifth column, which in the event of an anti-Soviet uprising was supposed to strike in the back of the Bolshevik regime. However, the Soviet counterintelligence did not allow the penetration of the structures of white extremism into the USSR - secret monarchist organizations were defeated, white emigrants were detained at the border, the total control system paralyzed the actions of white agents. Soviet intelligence, logically considering white emigre extremism to be its enemy No. 1, purposefully implemented its agents in the organizational structures of the white foreign countries, destroyed their ties, and conducted “active operations” against the leaders of the EMRO.
In 1930-37, the Soviet special services inflicted a number of heavy blows on the white emigrant extremist organizations, after which they could not recover; in 1938-39, the activity of counterintelligence of the ROVS ceased. The outbreak of World War II dramatically changes the situation: white-emigre extremism seeks to enter the arena of open military-political struggle against the Soviet system, paying less attention to “special operations”, and the counterintelligence system of Poland and France was destroyed as a result of German aggression, which also limited the possibilities white extremism.
White extremism in 1935-45
The onset of major military-political conflicts in Europe, and then World War II, gave White Emigrant extremism a new chance. In domestic and foreign historiography, the problem of anti-Soviet extremism usually came down to the Vlasov movement, about which many books and studies have been written. However, it seems to us that this problem is much wider and requires a more thoughtful and deep approach. The theme of white extremism cannot be limited to the participation of emigrants in the army of General A. Vlasov; White-emigre revanchism manifested itself much earlier - already in Spain and Finland, and took on more diverse forms: the creation of “white volunteer” units, the preparation of sabotage acts in the front-line zone, ideological warfare (dropping leaflets, white agitators penetrating Soviet territory, etc.) . Historical material previously available to researchers that has recently become available to researchers makes us take a fresh look at this problem.
Despite the heavy military defeats suffered by white extremism on Soviet territory in the 1920s and 30s (failure to intervene, arresting militants, etc.), a significant portion of the emigrant youth in the late 1930s retained revanchist sentiments and a willingness to accept participation in the armed struggle against Soviet power. It is youth who will constitute the social base of white extremism in 1939-45. With the outbreak of World War II, extremist immigrants are trying to find new forms for their movement. In particular, the idea arises of creating an independent white emigrant army abroad in order to send it to the USSR, emigrant armed groups are being created as part of the Spanish and Finnish troops, and projects are being developed for manning individual "Russian divisions" in the armies of Poland and Estonia.
White-emigrant extremism sharply intensified in the second half of the 1930s: militants of the ROVS and related revanchist organizations are trying to take part in the escalating socio-political conflicts in Europe and the Far East, are creating new terrorist groups, at the same time striving to give themselves a more “respectable” image, in particular, to connect to major foreign extremist movements - German Nazis, Spanish and Italian fascists.
Russian White Emigrant Extremism in the 1920s and 30s tried to find the ground in the ideological doctrine of German fascism. "... Since anti-communism was an integral part of the National Socialist doctrine, it is quite natural that the" new order "attracted the sympathy and sympathy of part of the Russian emigration," wrote one of the Russian emigrants. At the same time, from a single starting point - anti-communism - German Nazism and white emigre revanchism built different projections, which made it possible to talk only about a certain tactical coincidence of interests, with a fundamental difference in goals: the NSDAP ideologists dreamed of conquering Russia with its subsequent colonization and destruction of all forms statehood, and the leaders of foreign military emigration, on the contrary, created projects “to revive the Russian state and restore a united and indivisible Russia within 191 7 years ”, which inevitably gave rise to a mutual antagonistic conflict. The temporary successes of German National Socialism and Italian fascism in the early 1930s caused the effect of copying among the Russian emigration: the fascination with fascist ideology begins, borrowing symbols, rituals, etc.
In 1933, in Berlin, a Russian emigrant A.P. Svetozarov founded the “Russian National Socialist Movement” (ROND) (in the original version - RNSD or RNSB - in German transcription). However, A. Svetozarova was soon replaced by Prince P.M. Bermond-Avalov, a Baltic German, a former Russian officer, a participant in the Civil War in Latvia in 1919-20, who tried to become the leader of Russian foreign fascists.
Members of the ROND in the 1930s, together with the Nazi attack aircraft, took part in street demonstrations, torchlight processions, and rallies. RONDovtsy have developed their own version of the Nazi uniform - a white shirt, black pants and high boots. On their left hand they had red armbands with a white swastika in a blue square (the colors of the flag of Tsarist Russia).
ROND opened its sections in Paris, Prague, Belgrade and London, trying to create a united anti-Soviet front and to attract the participation of a large number of Russian emigrants living in these cities. In this part, the ROND enterprise ended in complete failure. Initially, the German fascists were ready to accept the support of Russian emigrants. During this period (1929–33), any forces that were only planning a struggle against the Comintern and the Popular Front in Europe were easily accepted into the ranks of the German Nazi movement. However, when after the events of 1933 the Nazis established themselves in power, they acquired a tendency to look down on "sow the Slavic caricature written off from them themselves." And the repeated statements of the main ideologist of German Nazism A. Rosenberg that the Slavs belong to the breed of subhuman (untermensch) and should be subjected to colonization, put the Russian fascists, members of the ROND, simply in a silly and ridiculous position.
Relations between the ROND and the German Nazis on various minor issues continued until the conclusion of the Soviet-German pact in August 1939, which, in particular, provided for the immediate termination of all anti-Soviet activities within the Nazi Reich, at least in the form of public demonstrations. Thus, the activities of ROND were suspended. It should be noted that it was the Russian military emigrants, the ideological heirs of the white movement, who tried in such a way to revive the ideas of white emigrant extremism, showed the greatest activity in attempts to create a Russian fascist foreign movement.
The most active Russian emigrants were the Zhstremists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936–39. The leadership of the ROVS was inclined to consider the events in Spain as a prologue to the start of large-scale anti-Bolshevik actions in Europe, and in the future as the first step towards intervention in the USSR in order to overthrow the Soviet regime.
In September 1936, a number of leaders of white-emigrant organizations in Germany and Manchuria issued calls for Russian military emigration to help the Spanish fascists in their struggle against the republican army.
In 1936-39, the counter-intelligence of the ROVS focused on the events of the Spanish Civil War, in particular, it monitored the organization of Soviet assistance to the republican government. So, in October 1936, the 1st department of the ROVS received a copy of the Report of the naval attache in Spain to the naval minister of France “on the transport of goods by Spain and Soviet vessels for Republican Spain” and on their passage through the Dardanelles. 3 Russian emigrant extremist organizations - ROVS, BRP - advised Western intelligence, took an active part in collecting and processing information about the activities of the Comintern, and carried out the translation of intelligence materials from Russian into French, German, English, etc.
In the mid 1930s Spain, due to the specifics of its geographical location and domestic political situation, is becoming a geopolitical field. the confrontation of two powerful totalitarian regimes: Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, each of which sought to strengthen its influence in Europe. Spain has become a kind of training ground where Moscow and Berlin tested their operational and military tactical concepts, tested new models of military equipment, and trained the personnel of their armed forces. Russian military emigration was drawn into a whirlwind of political events on Spanish soil: already in 1936, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities between the forces of General Franco and the republican forces, Russian volunteer emigrants began to send to Spain expressing sympathy for the armed intervention of the Spanish military against the left republican government . Russian emigrant officers, in many cases, went to Spain with their scarce money to join the forces of General Franco, to support the forces of the putschists in the fight against the revolution. At the same time, the Russian military translated the events taking place in Spain onto their own scale of coordinates: in the Spanish Republicans, fighters of the inter-brigades, they primarily saw the revolutionaries, the “Reds,” that is, their traditional opponents, and in General Franco - "the successor of the cause of the white general Kornilov."
Already in July 1936, Russian military émigré organizations — the Russian National Union of Participants in the War and the ROVS — called for the formation of a “Russian volunteer detachment” to be sent to Spain to help the French troops. The problem of creating Russian emigrant detachments was hindered by the inaccessibility of Spain: the ROVS and emigrants did not have large funds for organized transfer of volunteers, and the Franco-Spanish border was closed immediately after the rebellion of General Franco. Therefore, Russian extremists were forced to make their way across the border individually, illegally, at the risk of being detained or even killed by French border guards.
Organizational structures of military emigration - the EMRO, the Navy, and the BRP provided administrative assistance in the formation of officer volunteer groups heading for Spain. Secret police volunteer recruitment points are being opened in the EMRO branches, military unions and societies for sending them to the Spanish front.
Particularly active in organizing the recording of white extremists in the army of General Franco was the senior leader of the Kornilov’s Paris Group, Colonel G.Z. Troshin. At the beginning of March 1937, the first group of officers of 7 people (mainly Markov artillerymen) left Paris for Saint-Jean-de-Luce, located on the border with Spain, near the town of Ira. The crossing of the White Guard volunteers across the border was ensured by the lieutenant of engineering troops Savin. On March 16, 1937, a second group of officers left. The largest number of Russian military emigrants who came to Spain to participate in the hostilities on the side of the Francoists were members of the EMRO department in France, but some came from distant, even exotic places - from Madagascar, Ethiopia, Tunisia.
The first Russian volunteers to join the Spanish National Army were generals A.V. Fock and N.V. Shinkarenko, captain N.Ya. Wryneck and the captain Y.T. Polukhin, who came to Spain from Africa, illegally crossing the border of Spanish Morocco. Russian military émigrés were able to quickly reverse some prejudice of the Spanish military against the Russians, as they were associated with the Soviet Union, supporting their opponents of the Republicans and gaining military authority and trust. Russian emigrants who joined the National Spanish Army soon began to be called "Russo Blanco" - "White Russians".
It should be noted that the age of some Russian volunteers was in doubt among the Spanish military: for example, to General A.V. Fock was 70 years old and with great difficulty managed to secure admission to the officer reserve company, where he was appointed to the “tersia” (third-battalion) army of General Franco. Subsequently, General A. Fock, for the difference in battles, was made in the shadows (warrants) of the Spanish army and transferred to the Aragonese front. Russian officers described the military events in Spain with pathos and portrayed themselves as defenders of world civilization: "... in Spanish white "I felt myself, like my comrades, finally fulfilling my duty ... protecting the faith, culture and all of Europe from the new onslaught of Bolshevism." In total, in the Spanish army during the years of the civil war of 1936-1939. consisted of 72 Russian emigrant officers.
The world first learned about Russian volunteers in Spain in early 1937, when the first foreign journalists managed to infiltrate the territory controlled by the troops of General Franco. In the governor's house in Salamanca, where the headquarters of the national forces were transferred from Burgos, eleven journalists (5 Italians, 5 Germans and 1 Russian) were represented by Franco. When the turn came to the Russian journalist captain VV Orekhov, they explained to the surprised general that it was "Russo blank-white Russian." In response, Franco noted that he was familiar with the white anti-Bolshevik movement and appreciated his merits in the fight against Bolshevism.
Most of the white volunteers were sent to the town of Molina de Aragon, located 10 kilometers from the Tagus River in the province of Guadalajara. There formed the tersio "rekete" - a battalion of Karlist monarchists. The battalion included four companies, each of which had its own name: 1st company - Donna Maria de Molina, 2nd and 3rd companies - Marco de Bello; 4th company - Numansiya. The battalion itself was named at the location of its headquarters - Tersio Donna Maria de Molina. Since March 1937, the Tercio Requet Donna Maria de Molina has been on the Aragonese Front, where he held two positions on the Tagus River, 20 and 14 kilometers from the Molina de Aragon, where the battalion headquarters were located. On the other side of the Tahoe River were inter-brigades of the Republican Army. During the entire period of hostilities, the battalion was commanded by a captain, later a major, L. Ruiz-Fernandez, whom white volunteers unofficially called "papa." At this stage of the armed struggle, Russian extremists were under the strict control of the Spanish command. But in April 1937, the headquarters of General Franco decided to give the Russian emigrants greater independence: it was allowed to form a separate Russian volunteer unit with the Russian command and its military charter. White emigre extremists got a chance to create their own military units. However, due to the small number of Russian volunteers, it was possible to create only one “National Russian Detachment” as part of the Donna Maria de Molina detachment.
Russian emigrant volunteers showed great stamina in battles in Spain. White extremism tried to gain credibility in the eyes of conservative forces, to show that it can be counted on. At the end of August 1937, Donna Maria de Molina's squad was thrown into the Quinto de Ebro area against the red international brigade breaking through in the direction of Zaragoza, and he was ordered to detain the enemy until reinforcements arrived. The 2nd company of Tersio was commanded by tenten, staff captain J.T. Polukhin.
Russian extremists showed fanaticism and a willingness to fight to the end during the “Spanish War”, even in hopeless situations. For example, Major General A.V. Fock, who was at the head of the tersio at that time, volunteered to go into the 2nd company himself. For 2 days, the 2nd and 3rd companies fought a defensive battle in complete encirclement. Killed more than half of the personnel. General Fock, Staff Captain Polukhin and Spanish sergeant major Pastor moved the wounded to a small village chapel and organized a circular defense in it.
Cut off from their own, they stayed in the chapel for 12 days, until it was swept away by artillery of the Reds. Being surrounded by Republicans, A.V. Fock shot himself. And captain J.T. Polukhin was wounded, and then died under the ruins of a chapel. Both of them were awarded the posthumous collective lauread (the highest Spanish military award). Severely wounded explosive bullet captain G.M. Zelim-Bek, who was declared unfit for service, refused to be demobilized, secured the transfer to Tercio Doña Maria de Molina, and “was in the ranks of his own until the end of the war.
Russian military volunteers conducted combat training in Spanish military units, while Spanish officers noted the high professional training of Russian emigrant officers and their teaching skills. “Keep up with the Russians, these are old soldiers,” said one of the Spanish officers to his subordinates. Russian extremists managed to achieve high enough authority among the Spanish military, which was also explained by the fact that the Spanish Civil War had accumulated the most active part of the white revenge-seekers.
The whole of 1938 and the beginning of 1939. Russian volunteers, as part of their battalion, conducted active defensive and reconnaissance operations on their front section on the Tagus River. The lack of forces did not allow the battalion to have a solid line of defense, therefore the battalion companies, stretching for 50 kilometers, occupied only separate commanding heights, spaced 5 km or more from each other. The connection between them was maintained with the help of a heliograph and military patrols. In September 1938, after the defeat of the republican units in the area of the San Juan ridge, white volunteers occupied the dominant height of El Contandero (elevation 1,639 meters) in the Mahon Blanco area and equipped an exemplary strong point there. In February 1939, a battalion with a Russian detachment was redeployed through Teruel to the village of El Toro, where the Russians held the “Peña Kemada” and “Peña del Diablo” combat positions until the end of hostilities.
By March 1939, the Russian squad in Tersio Doña Maria de Molina consisted of 26 people under the command of the tenient N.E. Wryneck and under Sergeant P.V. Beline. 2 Russians served in the Tercio Rocket Navarre, 1 in the Tercio Areamendi, 2 people in the Tercio Montechura, and 3 in the Legion 3. There was one Russian in the squadron of the Bourgogne River. Among the Russian volunteers there was one St. George cavalier (captain G.M. Zelim-Bek), three had St. George weapons and ten had soldier St. George crosses.
In April 1939, the civil war in Spain ended with the victory of the forces of General Franco, the revolutionary republican army ceased to exist. On May 3, 1939, a military parade was held in Valencia, in which Russian volunteers took part as part of the “first-line troops” (ie front-line units), which was especially honorable, while the “Russian battalion” showed up at the parade such excellent combat training that his commander was invited to dinner with General Franco, on June 30, 1939, Russian volunteers were officially dismissed from the ranks of the Spanish national army. Franco did not forget his Russian associates. All of them were conferred the ranks of sergeants (with the exception of those who had already received officer rank in the course of hostilities), they received two months of leave without loss of money and the Spanish military awards “Military Cross” and “Cross for Military Valor”. In addition, all Russian emigrant volunteers were given the opportunity to obtain Spanish citizenship, which many took advantage of.
October 20, 1939 a group of Russian military emigrants led by Colonel N.N. Boltin was received by General Franco at his residence in the palace of Pardo near Madrid. In parting, Franco asked what else could he do for the Russians? Boltin answered him: "We do not ask for anything personally, we only ask that you arrange officers who wish to join the Spanish African Legion." This request was also granted, and Russian emigrants received the right to continue their service in units of the Spanish army.
Russian extremists suffered serious losses during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-39. Major General A.V. Fock, sergeant-general N. Ivanov, staff captain Ya.T. Polukhin, military pilot captain V.M. Marchenko, Prince Laursov-Magalov, volunteer Kuchenko, ensign Z.K. Kompalsky, S. Chizh, captain A.A. Bonch-Bruevich, a total of 34 people. Of the survivors, 9 were injured, while the legionary N.P. Zotov - 5 times, and Lieutenant K.A. Konstantino (Gognidzhanoshvili) and S.K. Gursky (Ali) - 3 times. Major General N.V. was seriously wounded in the head. Shinkarenko. Of the first four volunteers (generals A.V. Fok and N.V. Shinkarenko, captain N.Ya. Krivosheya and staff captain Y.T. Polukhin), only the captain of the Markov artillery division Nikolay Evgenievich Krivoshei, who actually commanded the Russian detachment, remained unharmed in tersio doña maria de molina. While in exile, he constantly monitored the development of military art (in Paris he graduated from the courses of General Golovin), enjoyed an exceptional fighting reputation not only among his compatriots, but also among the Spanish command. He successfully fought in various sectors of the front, however, according to Spanish laws, as a foreigner, he did not have the right to occupy senior command posts. It should be noted that the participation of Russian military emigrants in the Franco army and the events of the Spanish Civil War is a military-political experience, which brought it to the greatest degree closer to the futurological model of the resumption of the civil war with Bolshevism. In other military formations (in the Far East, Finland, etc.), Russian white extremists played a more subordinate role, not being able to declare their own political slogans, all the more so to take on their own responsibility certain sections of the front.
Editor of the magazine “Sentry” captain V.V. Orekhov wrote in the article “Spain and We”: “It is unlikely that such a ... full of mutual understanding of the relationship between the masters of the country and impoverished foreigners could be established in another country. They understand us in Spain, they value our struggle ... ” For Russian immigrant extremism, it was vital to gain recognition and support from European conservative circles. The further fate of the “Spanish Russians” has developed in different ways. Many of them remained in Spain and chose purely peaceful professions, while others continued military service. A number of Russian white volunteers who fought in Spain during the Second World War took part in the hostilities on the Eastern (Soviet-German) front as part of the Spanish Blue Division. Among them N.S. Artyukhov, K.A. Goncharenko, S.K. Gursky, V.A. Klimenko, V.E. Krivosheya, L.G. Thin, A.A. Thringam.
Thus, during the civil war in Spain in 1936-39. For the first time in Europe, white military émigré formations make themselves known, trying to continue the armed struggle with the Bolshevik regime and realize the ones developed in the 1930s. military-political doctrines. In Spain, there is a clash of the ideology of the white movement and the ideas of the world revolution and the Third International. As a result, the participation of Russo Blanco in the Spanish Civil War for some time revived the complex of military-political doctrines of white extremism.
Russian military emigrants, who for two decades dreamed of resuming the struggle against the Red Army, (and Soviet volunteer officers were part of the inter-brigades) finally got this opportunity: as a result, the accumulated potential of hatred was expressed in cruel forms of struggle, refusal to surrender and suicides, stamina in battles, executions of prisoners, etc.
The successful end of the civil war in Spain for White extremists (the victory of the forces of General Franco) instilled hope in Russian emigrants for future success in the expected new civil war in the USSR and ultimately led to a significant reassessment of their capabilities: the white revanchists seriously hoped that they would succeed in 1939-40, form their own White Guard armies and transfer the armed struggle to the territory of the USSR. A certain role in the Spanish’s assimilation of the ideas of the white movement was played by the Hispanidad mentality, which was largely similar to Russian conservatism. At the same time, it should be noted that there was no complete unity among the Russian military emigration on the issue of supporting the Franco regime: a significant part of the military emigrants supported the Republicans by joining the inter-brigades and fighting on the side of the left government against the Franco, hoping to earn forgiveness and opportunity return to the USSR. Thus, the “Spanish prologue” opened the page for the direct participation of Russian military emigration in world military-political conflicts of the late 1930s – mid 1940s.
Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40 became another breakdown of the forces of Russian military emigration.
In the perception of ordinary emigrants and the leadership of the EMRO, the events of the “winter war” were similar to the understanding of the Spanish civil war: they proceeded from the fact that they were fighting the former enemy - the Bolshevik regime “with the prospect of the liberation of historical Russia”. The Russian extremists were especially hopeful for the fact that in this case events unfolded on the territory that had previously been part of the Russian Empire, and in 1939–40. - on the borders of the USSR. Therefore, the EMRO and the military extremist organizations set as their task the maximum participation in these events. Thus, N. Tsurikov, one of the military theoreticians of the Russian foreign countries, stated in an analytical note prepared for members of the Southeastern Department of the Revolutionary Military Revolutionary Council in connection with the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish war: “All events, wherever and between whoever they occur, interest us before from only one point of view: are they bringing closer or delaying the fall of the Bolshevik regime. " At the same time, regretting the losses suffered by the Red Army during the unsuccessful “winter war” for her, N. Tsurikov wrote that “in Finland they were killed under machine guns ... they exploded on mines and hundreds didn’t freeze CHON or parts of the GPU, but all the same as during dispossession, at logging, at the Belomorsky Canal, at special camps - Russian peasants. These 300 thousand dead are not losses of the USSR, but of Russia. ”
During the Soviet-Finnish “winter war” of 1939-1940, Russian military emigrants actively informed the German intelligence “SD” and the French counterintelligence bureau about the situation in the Baltic states, about the prospects for the development of foreign trade of the USSR and about the structure of the Red Army. ”In 1940, the white emigrant P Matveev turned to the representative of France in Sofia with a proposal to create "white-emigre detachments to fight the Red Army on the Soviet-Finnish front."
Emigrant military-political extremism has been vividly manifesting itself since the second half of the 1930s, after the start of a new stage in world socio-political and military conflicts. In various parts of the globe - in Northern and Western Europe, in the Far East - Russian emigrants became involved in armed events: they took part in the Spanish Civil War in 1936-39, in the struggle against the Communists Mao Zedong, in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939- 40 years etc. At the same time, Russian extremists tried to realize their own military-political tasks - first of all, to destabilize the internal situation in the USSR and to rekindle a new stage of the anti-Bolshevik civil war on its territory.
In Finland, representatives of the white emigration sought confirmation of their conclusions that there was serious opposition to the regime in the USSR, and they also tried to try out various options for open armed struggle in practice. In the latter case, the point was that foreign Russian extremist organizations should have become the initiators and inspirers of the rise of the peoples of Russia in an open struggle against Bolshevism, with a leading role in this process. We managed to do something at the practical level in the framework of the implementation of these plans.
Russian emigrant extremists were interested in the mood of Soviet citizens. Prisoners of war were, of course, the most accessible for studying the mood of Soviet people. There is evidence that emigrants studied public opinion in the camps. In the future, all this affected the development of the actions of the Russian emigration. What sentiments prevailed among prisoners of war? So, the correspondent of the Italian newspaper Career della Sera Montanelli, after visiting the camp of Soviet prisoners of war in the city of Cuovola, wrote: “I thought and was completely sure to find a joyful mood among prisoners of war, at least. But these tens of thousands of prisoners met the world as a tragedy. And, really, you ask yourself what will happen to them when they return to Russia? No doubt. “Whoever surrenders will be considered a traitor and will be dealt with subsequently, as such.” So they told them in the USSR. " Indeed, from the Finnish camps, many of them proceeded to Soviet camps, but already as traitors who violated the oath.
According to the conclusions of the ROVS analysts, the main result of the “winter war” was the moral isolation of the USSR and the growth of opposition within the country. Moreover, the stake was placed on the participants in the battles and prisoners of war. “But still, some of these unfortunate prisoners may return home. In addition, those who survived the battles and were not captured, but saw, like the prisoners, everything that was happening at the front, would return to Russia. All of these people will equally be the most terrible propagandists - exposers of power, which brought the country to such a victory. It's not about increasing hatred of the authorities. Hatred for power in the USSR can hardly be increased. Returnees will do different. Firstly, prisoners will tell us that it’s not better, but a hundred times worse, that there are countries where people are not forced to live like animals. And everyone will talk about their actual defeat, that is, about the weakness of power, strong when meeting with an unarmed population and helpless with an armed and staunch opponent. And thus the most important thing can be done: they will dispel the hypnosis of omnipotence and invincibility of power, and, consequently, the hypnosis of the hopelessness of the struggle. ” There is probably no need to explain that in this case, theorists of the Russian foreign countries gave the wish for the reality: the behavior of captured Red Army soldiers who were afraid to return to their homeland, testified precisely to the strength of the repressive regime in the USSR, which could effectively suppress any dissent and control actions.
However, the conclusion drawn by white emigrants from the outcome of the war that “the task of fighting the USSR is being facilitated, because the obstacle to the fear of serious resistance has been removed, turned out to be superficial and incorrect. Reliance on the study of the sentiments of prisoners of war in the specific conditions of camp life, feeling their responsibility for breaking the oath, gave the wrong message about the spread of opposition views among Soviet people, the weakness of the Soviet government and the possibility of initiating a process of political struggle within the white emigre extremist organizations inside THE USSR.
In any case, this stimulated the growth of emigrant military-political activity: organized military units began to form in the Russian military abroad with the aim of their subsequent integration into the interventionist army to invade the territory of the USSR. At the Military Scientific Courses (VVNK) in Paris and Belgrade, training sessions were held following the results of the “winter war” of 1939–40, the course of hostilities was analyzed, various kinds of military-political forecasts were expressed, etc.
The Finnish command in February 1940 decided to use captured Red Army soldiers for sabotage in the rear of the Red Army. Initially, these formations were called "Russian folk detachments". According to a further plan, combat units of the Russian People’s Army were to be created from them. It was planned to create six Russian national groups, but in practice only one was formed and sent to the front.
During the period of the Soviet-Finnish war, a peculiar “bow” of representatives of the previously opposing camps took place: some of the leaders of the Soviet bureaucracy who had switched to the opposition to the Stalinist regime, and leaders of the white military emigration. An active participant in these events was the former technical secretary of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.), In fact, the secretary I.V. Stalin - B. Bazhanov. After fleeing the USSR in 1928 and several years of emigration, he arrived in Finland at the invitation of Field Marshal K. Mannerheim. On January 15, 1940, a conversation took place in the Marshal’s main apartment in Saint-Michel, which resulted in the authorization of the formation of an emigrant anti-Soviet army. Later, explaining the purpose of his actions, Bazhanov wrote: “I wanted to form the Russian People’s Army from captured Red Army soldiers, only volunteers, not so much to fight as to offer sub-Soviet soldiers to switch to our side and go to liberate Russia from communism. If my opinion about the mood of the population was correct (and since it was after the nightmares of collectivization and nightmare, then I thought it was right), then I wanted to roll a snowball to Moscow, start with a thousand people, take all my strength on that side and reach Moscow with fifty divisions. "
The Russian military emigration not only watched the course of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40, but also made active attempts to intervene in the development of events. The EMRO, the Navy, and a number of other white-emigrant organizations attempted to form and send detachments of volunteers from Russian military emigrants to Finland. In 1940, the EMRO officers who arrived in Finland in a hurry managed to create a detachment of prisoners of war of 200 people, having white emigrant officers. This model of building an anti-Bolshevik army was the basic in almost all military-political futurological concepts of the Russian foreign countries. The following fact is interesting: the captured Red Army men, from whom the units of the “people's army” were formed, preferred that their command posts be occupied not by former red commanders, but by white emigrant officers, because "... white officers are likely to be shot along with them and they certainly will not betray. "
The Russian military emigration closely monitored the sentiments of the captured Red Army soldiers, trying to assess the degree of possibility of using them in the anti-Bolshevik struggle. To conduct the experiment, the Finnish military provided one of the Red Army camps. There were about 500 people aged 20 to 40 years, representatives of various nationalities, the command staff was absent. In his memoirs, Bazhanov argued that when he arrived in this camp in January 1940, most of the prisoners of war expressed their readiness to fight the Soviet regime with arms in their hands, and all were policemanically anti-communist. True, it must be said that the analytical article in the Military Journal of 1940 described the mood of the Red Army in a slightly different tone, although it was most likely based on the results of studies conducted by Bazhenov. So, it wrote: “He found out that a quarter of the Red Army is afraid not only of the dangers of war, but of everything. The second quarter was an unreliable young man, who also did not sympathize with the Soviet regime or, rather, was dissatisfied with it, but did not imagine that it could be opposed. The senior Red Army men told them that the Bolsheviks had a better life, and this youth believed them, but was completely passive. Thus, half of the Red Army men were difficult to propagate, and it would take a long time to bring them into an appropriate state and create an appropriate mood. The third quarter agreed to unconditionally and immediately fight against the Communists. And finally, the last quarter was ready to go against the Soviets, subject to constant political influence. ”
The result of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40. showed the futility of applying the ideas of the white movement in the new reality that arose in the USSR during the two decades of the Bolshevik regime. The effect of the spread of the ideology of white work among Soviet citizens was practically zero.
At this time, Bazhanov worked closely with representatives of the ROVS in Finland. The leadership of the EMRO and the Finnish military, analyzing the actions of Russian emigrant officers, sought to assess the level of their professional training. Of the six emigrant officers, according to Bazhanov, five turned out to be brilliant specialists (two staff captains and 3 second lieutenants). Confidential relations were established between them and the partisans, who began to call themselves "People's Army". The appeal to the white officer was - "citizen commander."
Several units were prepared that took part in the battles. So, one of the 30 former Red Army men under the command of Staff Captain K. stayed at the front for 10 days. During this time, about 200 Red Army soldiers joined the detachment, whom the White Guards propagandized. Hence, observers of the ROVS concluded that the assessment of the sentiments of the Red Army as extremely unstable and even anti-Soviet was correct. A conclusion was also made about the rationality of the tactics employed by the "army soldiers", as well as the need to train technical military specialists in the conditions of emigration, since the "specialists" in the Red Army are loyal to the regime and do not want to join anti-Soviet military formations. At a meeting of general staff officers in the apartment of General Vitkovsky, head of the First Division of the ROVS in Paris, the particularly significant role of the Paris extremist group and B. Bazhanov in organizing anti-Soviet activities during the Soviet-Finnish war was noted. In the future, after the end of the military campaign, representatives of the Russian emigration took part in the events of the Soviet-Finnish war in the departments of the ROVS, in emigrant organizations, at meetings of officers of the general staff with a generalization of the experience of organizing anti-Soviet armed groups from prisoners of war.
Political extremism of the Russian foreign countries was manifested, in particular, in the fact that in 1934-40 military emigrants tried to either join the armies of the opposing European states or create their own armed forces in order to act as an independent military-political force. In February 1940, the head of the "Union of Cossacks, participants in the Great War" appealed to the French military attache in Belgrade to provide support in the formation of military units from white emigrants for use as part of the allied army operating against Nazi Germany.
At the same time, emigrant extremism showed an amazing willingness to take part in the struggle on the side of almost any army - both the fascist orientation and, conversely, their opponents - France, Belgium, the USA, etc. The French counterintelligence recorded in 1939 the fact of "the departure from Yugoslavia of 1700 thousand Russian white emigrants for recruitment into the German army."
In 1941-43, emigrant extremist organizations actively recruited volunteers into anti-Soviet armies: they created special posts in Belgrade, Paris, Berlin, sent campaign letters to emigrants, primarily young people, and checked the lists of members of military organizations for their possible use in the army. In 1941-42, the Cossacks Recruitment Center operated in Prague, forming anti-Bolshevik armed groups. The center was led by N. Kaledin and I. Vishlyants.
The strategic objective of emigrant extremism during the Second World War was the creation of its own interventionist army, with the aim of using it on the Eastern Front against Soviet troops. It was assumed that the emergence of a new white army in 1941-43 would produce a huge propaganda effect in the USSR and turn the domestic war against the fascist invaders into a civil war - against the Soviet system.
At the initial stage of the Second World War in 1939-40. France becomes a springboard on the territory of which anti-Soviet armed groups are formed. In Paris, there was the headquarters of the EMRO, a large number of military societies and unions that made up the organizational center of Russian emigrant extremism. In 1941, in France, an attempt was made to form the "Union of White Guards" armed unit "to fight Bolshevism" - the "Anti-Bolshevik Legion" under the chairmanship of Stork.
In Algeria, in 1941–42, the White Guards Recruitment Center for the “Anti-Bolshevik Legion” functioned to participate in hostilities on the Soviet-German front. The Algerian center was led by the Russian emigrant of the “first wave” P. Dolgushin. The "Anti-Bolshevik Legion" consisted mainly of former soldiers and officers of the Wrangel Army, who settled in North Africa in the 1920s and dreamed of resuming the armed struggle against the Soviet regime.
During the Second World War, white-emigrant fascist youth organizations intensified their efforts to imitate German national socialist organizations such as the Hitler Youth, etc. In France, there was a fascist youth organization “Young Volunteer”, which in 1942 officially joined the All-Russian Union of Fascists (WSF) in the Far East.
After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Russian emigration faced a difficult problem in many respects: which of the struggling parties to support, whom to consider as their ally - fascist Germany or the countries of Western democracy - England and France? In June 1941, the problem of choosing a military-political orientation for Russian emigrants was even more complicated, literally gaining tragedy: to support the USSR, its ideological adversary since the civil war of 1917-20. either stand on the side of Germany against its historical homeland. The position of the leadership of the ROVS was formulated on September 1, 1939 in the order of General A.P. Arkhangelsky, chairman of the ROVS: "The ranks of the ROVS must fulfill their obligation to the country in which they are located and establish themselves on the best side, as befits a Russian warrior." In the period 1939-1941. Russian emigration still takes a position of neutrality, trying not to get involved in the events of the “strange war” in Europe, evading conscription of recipient countries.
Despite the fact that the Russian military emigration in the late 1930s. it strongly corrected and Germanophilic tendencies also intensified in its midst; after the outbreak of World War II, most of the emigrant associations and unions declared their neutrality. The leaders of the white military emigration supported this position: for example, V. Orekhov urged his supporters not to intervene in the conflict until one of the parties announced that "the struggle is for the liberation of Russia from Bolshevism."
In general, emigration, especially located in Germany, took a wait-and-see attitude, which was precisely described by the head of the Directorate for Russian Emigration in Germany, General V.V. Pekey’s lawsuit during a personal meeting with General A.A. von Lampe. He suggested "... calmly, without any criticism, maintaining unity and friendly relations, patiently wait for a solution to the problem, doing his daily work, and thereby save both his own position and the position of the entire Russian emigration living in Germany." Indeed, the military structures of the Russian emigration to fascist Germany were limited in their actions: in the case of open statements about the support of the USSR, their participants would be immediately arrested, and too high political activity, even in support of Germany, also often led to arrests and repressions (like for example, in the case of General Skorodumov).
During the years 1939-1945. Russian military emigration was forced several times to determine their political position and line of conduct. The rapidly developing European and then the global military-political crisis did not allow Russian military emigrants to avoid the difficult choice for them: whom to support in a difficult and contradictory situation, when there was no specific polarization of interests and both warring parties were evil for Russian emigrants. ”
The situation in the late 1930s, when the possibility of a clash between European states and the USSR was clearly indicated, was understandable to military emigrants: it seemed to reproduce the situation during the Civil War of 1917-20. and opened before the Russian emigration the prospect of resuming armed struggle at a new stage of the civil war in the USSR, which was supposed, according to the leaders of the ROVS, to begin simultaneously with the intervention of Western countries against the Soviet Union. At the same time, military emigration saw its task in forming an interventionist white army (most likely in Poland or Romania) and opposing the Red Army, seizing the initiative from external invaders. The opinion of the vast majority of military emigrants in this case coincided, the differences were only in the choice of means to solve this problem and the definition of tactics.
However, in 1939, the first split in the environment of military emigration took place, the Second World War began when the European states themselves clashed with each other, while the USSR acted as an ally of fascist Germany, caused by the presence in the world of military emigration of both supporters of the German and those of Anglo-French orientation .
In 1939, the outbreak of a world military conflict, in spite of her will, dragged Russian emigration into a whirlwind of military events: many Russian emigrants were drafted into the French, Polish and Yugoslav armies. (The officer corps of the Yugoslav army included especially many Russian emigrants). During the hostilities in Europe, many Russian emigrants were captured, interned, and also hid in the territories occupied by fascist Germany. In 1939, the world of Russian military emigration in the Baltic countries and Poland was destroyed as a result of the offensive of the Red Army. The areas annexed to the USSR were subjected to thorough political and “class” purges: white emigrants and lolithic extremists who had no time to escape were arrested by the NKVD, military unions were closed, newspapers and magazines were banned. Military associations in Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn ceased to exist.
In 1939, the first wave of repression by the Nazi authorities in Germany swept through the world of Russian military emigration. The EMRO, military societies and press organs of the white emigration were persecuted by the German Nazis, since the military emigration called for a campaign against the Bolshevik regime, and Germany at that time was an ally of the USSR. In 1940, for this reason, the central press organ of the military abroad, the Chasovoy magazine, was closed, and many activists of the ROVS and the BRP were also arrested.
In 1941-42 military emigration goes through the second period of military-political orientation, determined by the choice of its goals: part of the military emigration believed that its main goal was the overthrow of the Stalinist regime, the path even by conquering the USSR by fascist Germany, while the other part of the military diaspora considered Hitler the worst enemy of their homeland, therefore, she was ready to support the Soviet Union in the fight against the fascist aggressor. On the whole, the process of determining their position by the Russian emigration was completed by the end of 1942: its politically active members either joined pro-German military formations or took part in the struggle of the anti-fascist Resistance movement. Russian military emigrants, defining their position in 1939-40, tried to be guided by the principle of least evil, which accordingly separated them: some considered the victory of fascist Germany over the Stalinist USSR as the least evil, and others considered the victory of the Soviet Union over Germany, even if this strengthened the Soviet system and, accordingly, postponed for an indefinite period its decline, which Russian extremists so stubbornly dreamed of.
The leadership of the ROVS was wary of the entry of Russian emigrants into military service in the German army. General A. Vitkovsky, the head of the 1st (French) department of the EMRO, said that "Russian blood can only be shed for the Russian cause."
After the outbreak of war, almost all emigration was divided into defenders and defeatists. The first advocated the victory of the Soviet Union; the latter believed that Hitler’s victory would help to destroy the Bolshevik power in the country. Almost the entire left and most of the centrist part of the political spectrum of emigration supported the Soviet Union and the anti-Hitler coalition. This is especially true for those who were able to leave occupied Europe. So, M.O. Tsetlin, the founder of the left-liberal New Journal (New York), the successor to Modern Notes, wrote in an introductory article to the first issue of the magazine: “Whoever leads the Russian army in its heroic struggle, we wholeheartedly wish Russia complete victory .. . ". As Hitler began to realize his colonialist plans, the number of defenders constantly increased.
The leader of the Russian military emigration, General A.I. Denikin took the position of “defenders” and considered it impossible to call on Russian emigrants for armed struggle in the ranks of the German army against the USSR. So, in a letter to the chairman of the EMRO, General A.P. He wrote to Arkhangelsky: "... to call to serve equally zealously for everyone - both friends and enemies of Russia - is to convert Russian emigrant soldiers to Landsknechts."
At the same time, a significant part of Russian military emigrants joined pro-German armed groups and took part in the “campaign to the East” (“Dranch nah Osten”) (especially in the early stages of the war, when the true goals of the fascists were not yet as obvious as it had happened) at the end of 1941 - 1942) Many of them were sincerely mistaken, not understanding the true intentions of the Nazis and militaristic Japan and believing that they were fighting only against Bolshevism, and thus explained their participation in the war by the desire to restore historical Russia sky state.
General A.I. Denikin publicly spoke out in support of the Red Army, believing that war could wake up the identity of the Soviet people, including the Red Army, which, having expelled the Germans outside the USSR, would turn its weapons against the Stalinist regime. A.I. Denikin maintained this view throughout the war. November 15, 1944 A.I. Denikin made an appeal to former soldiers of the white armies, which said: “We experienced pain in the days of the defeat of the army, although it is called“ Red ”and not Russian, and joy in the days of its victories. And now, when the world war is not over yet, we wholeheartedly wish it a victorious end that will ensure our country from impudent encroachments from without. " At the same time, white-emigre extremism did not lose hope of a military-political revenge.
A.I. Denikin formulated the two most important tasks of the white movement in relation to the current situation. The first task is to help expel the German army from the territory of the USSR; the second task is to “change the internal situation” in the Soviet Union, i.e. overthrow the Stalinist regime. Only after their solution, the goal of the white movement, in his opinion, can the mass return of Russian military emigrants to their homeland be possible.
Characterized by the behavior of one of the leaders of the ROVS General A.A. von Lampe, who, shortly before the start of the war of fascist Germany against the USSR, wrote a letter to the Wehrmacht commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Werner von Brauchitsch, in which, in the context of the impending war, he asked to keep in mind the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), ready to fight the communists. In July 1941, he wrote a similar letter to Hitler’s office and attached a copy of his letter to Brauchitsch. An answer was received from the Reich Chancellery that the letter was sent for consideration all the same to Field Marshal Brauchitsch. Finally, Brauchitsch nevertheless answered General von Lampe. In his reply, he pointed out that the participation of emigrants in the war with the Soviet Union is not provided. Von Lampe was forced on August 17, 1941 to give order No. 46 to the Second Division of the ROVS that the members of the ROVS are free to act independently, but must keep in touch with him. He refused to accept German citizenship and did not recommend military ranks to enlist in German units, for which he was arrested by the Gestapo and even spent some time in prison.
Initially, the German military command not only did not plan to use Russian emigrants in the war against the USSR, but, moreover, even carried out two waves of repressions against members of the EMRO and military organizations:
a) in 1939-41 - activists of the Russian foreign countries were arrested in Europe (in Paris, Berlin, Belgrade and other cities);
b) in 1941 - the second wave of repression took place in Germany and France, associated with the outbreak of the German war against the USSR.
In 1941-42 the organizational role of the EMRO as a single center of Russian emigration is declining, and its functions are transferred to a number of new emigrant extremist groups - the Russian People’s National Army (RNNA), the Russian National Army (RNA), the Russian Security Corps (ROC), etc. However, the ROVS is not less, he tried to maintain the visibility of the key structure of the Russian foreign countries, sometimes speaking on behalf of the entire military emigration. For example, on June 1, 1942, General von Lampe sent out a circular letter informing the ROVS officials about the possibilities of participating in the fight against Bolshevism. The options were different, and everywhere had their own characteristics. Among them: service in extremist military units, service as translators in German units and organizations, participation in special detachments to combat partisans, work in the transport organization Speer, service in the Russian Security Corps, entry into the detachment of S.N. Ivanova. In a letter, von Lampe expressed the hope that someday the German side will nevertheless have a need to use the forces of Russian emigrants and the Unification (ROVS) as a whole will come to grips with Bolshevism, and for this, every member of the ROVS, wherever he is must leave detailed information about the place of his service. The leadership of the EMRO and the leaders of the military emigration hoped that "they would be able to turn the external war of Germany against the USSR into a civil war against the Bolshevik regime."
The counter-intelligence structures of the ROVS, processing the information received from the Soviet territories occupied by Germany, came to the conclusion that in the USSR there was massive dissatisfaction with the Stalin regime and that “it was enough to start focused political work, as the population immediately turned its back on the Bolsheviks and would contribute in every way to the restoration of the Bolshevik Of Russia. ” Their conclusions were based on the following theses: “1) during the war the people received weapons on a millionth scale, which could never have been achieved at any other time, 2) during the war, the ranks of the Communist Party were badly damaged and the authority of the government was thoroughly discredited, 3) many Germans, holding senior positions in the military and civilian departments of Germany, they realized that Hitler led Germany to a standstill and a catastrophe was inevitable for her if the situation in the East was not changed by political means. ” These emigrants believed that the “sane” Germans were ready to conclude an honorable alliance with the representatives of Russia in exile in order to wage a further struggle against the Bolsheviks with them. And for this, in their opinion, an organizationally designed “Russian Liberation Movement” (ROD) was necessary. But the German authorities, who had conquered the campaign against the USSR and aimed at its complete destruction, did not take into account the desire of Russian military emigrants to create an ROD and act as an independent military-political force, moreover, they prohibited the activities of many Russian emigrant organizations on the Eastern Front, if their creation was not authorized by the leadership of the Wehrmacht.
Realizing that the “old” white military emigrants, by virtue of their political views already formed, are unlikely to ever become obedient puppets of Germany and will always claim an independent role, the Germans relied on emigrant youth: as part of their Eastern policy, the Germans contributed to the creation of Russians youth anti-Soviet organizations. So, in 1942, the National Organization of Russian Youth was created in Berlin. The coordinator of the training program for Russian youth for the future governance of Russia was George L. Lukin, the son of a white emigrant who lived in Yugoslavia. He, like many in the Russian diaspora, "counted on the revival of national Russia and was critical of the Nazi plans for it." But in those conditions, he "did not see another opportunity to fight Bolshevism and accepted the German proposal to conduct organizational work with Russian emigrant youth."
The German military command (OKW), trying to prevent Russian extremist military emigrants from entering the Eastern Front, at the same time effectively used emigrants in the system of occupational military command. By order of the commander-in-chief of German troops in France of April 21, 1942, the Committee for Mutual Assistance of Russian Emigrants in France was reorganized into the Office of Russian Emigration in France. Yu.S. Zherebkov, grandson of the tsarist general-adjutant A. Zherebkov. He held extremely pro-German positions. This is evidenced by his "Alert", published in May 1942, according to which the board selected volunteers from among emigrant extremists to the Soviet-German front and to areas occupied by German troops. Moreover, any anti-German activities of emigrants were prohibited. Since the beginning of the war against the USSR, Yu.S. Zherebkov and the head of the French department of the EMRO General, Professor N.N. Golovin was registered by more than one and a half thousand officers who expressed a desire to unconditionally participate in the fight against Bolshevism. The first batch of emigrants, who left for the front, consisted of 200 people and had a form specially designed for them. Russian emigrant extremism is increasingly acquiring the features of a large-scale organized movement.
At the end of 1941-42. in the Soviet occupied territories, the phenomenon of emigrant military administrative structures arises, which existed under fairly weak control of the German occupation authorities. For example, in the autumn of 1942, despite Berlin’s prohibitions, the Kaminsky brigade already existed in the Lokot district of the Oryol Region with its Russian command staff and the Russian administrative civil administration of the district; in Mogilev, the Cossack regiment of Major (then General) Kononov was also stationed with the Russian command staff (the Cossacks of the regiment were sometimes involved in the convoy of Field Marshal Kluge, commander of Army Group Center), there were small but numerous Russian volunteer military units in German units or separate military units auxiliary units (Hilfswillige) under the command of the Germans.
Russian emigrant political extremism saw in such structures the sprouts of the future Russian post-Bolshevik state power, which, in their opinion, should have arisen on the territory of the USSR after a revision of relations between Germany and the new Russian power in the direction of an equal partnership. General A.I. Denikin, whose authority in the world of the Russian military abroad remained high in the 1940s, believed that, of course, it would be necessary to continue the anti-Bolshevik struggle, but in a real military-political situation this would be tantamount to a blow to the back of his homeland: to help Hitler aggressors - means to oppose their homeland. Therefore, as the former head of the Volunteer Army has repeatedly noted, "the participation of emigrants in the foreign invasion of Russia is unacceptable." In his letter to the head of the ROVS, General A.P. Arkhangelsky A.I. Denikin condemned the actions of the EMRO for the recruitment of Russian emigrants to serve in the German army. General A.I. Denikin laid the foundation for the émigré defense émigré movement, i.e. those emigrants who during the Patriotic War of 1941-45. He spoke out in support of his homeland, against fascist aggression. During the war years, “defense” became a serious opponent of emigrant political extremism.
The basis of the political concept of A.I. Denikin had the idea that the Red Army, "having defeated the German armies, would turn bayonets against the Bolsheviks." Among the supporters of this point of view, military leaders who adhered to the "allied orientation" prevailed during the Civil War. Alliance with England, France and the USA.
The conclusion of the Soviet-German treaty in 1939 temporarily disoriented them, but the development of events in 1941 returned to them the familiar coordinate scale. The plan of a significant part of Russian military extremists in the initial period of the war between the USSR and Germany - in 1941-42. - consisted of forming their own military structures, joining the hostilities on the Eastern Front and, in the future, “serving as the nucleus around which the opponents of the Bolshevik regime in Russia will rally, after which it would be possible to talk with the Germans from a position of strength, since they can overcome the national Russia would have no chance at all. ” Therefore, when creating voluntary extremist émigré military units, the latter usually set the condition that they would not be used in the fight against Western opponents of Germany, but would be sent to Russia. However, the goals and aspirations of Russian extremists were quite obvious to the German leadership, which is why it prevented the sending of large formations entirely consisting of white emigrants to the Eastern Front. On the issue of the participation of emigrant extremist groups in the fight against the Soviet regime in German leadership circles, a fierce struggle of opinions was fought: the Wehrmacht military command was sympathetic to the project of creating extremist armed groups, but party circles and the Gestapo were extremely hostile.
Two main points of view have developed among Russian political extremism that equally considered it necessary to abolish the Stalinist regime, but diverged in assessing both the possibility of overthrowing it from the inside and the likelihood of the fall of the Soviet system due to foreign intervention, primarily from fascist Germany. “Oboroncheskaya” proceeded from absolute distrust of Germany (regardless of the regime existing in it), but on the other hand, hoped that the Soviet regime, forced to defend itself, would objectively defend the territory of historical Russia. The main hope was that after defeating the external enemy, the Bolshevik regime would be overthrown by the victorious army itself, led by the Soviet military leaders who had advanced during the war - G. Zhukov, K. Rokossovsky and others.
The possibility was not ruled out that, due to powerful external influence, the Stalinist regime would begin to evolve towards democracy and liberalism, the leading role of the CPSU (b) would weaken, political repressions would stop, etc. The mistake of such a forecast of Russian emigration is obvious: the Soviet system only strengthened during the years of the Patriotic War of 1941-45, leaving no chance for emigrant political extremism.
The right-wing camp of military emigration, including its monarchist wing, adhered to a German orientation. His point was to first of all use every opportunity to resume the armed struggle against the Bolshevik regime.
The military-monarchist emigration considered the Bolshevik regime in the USSR as the greatest evil and was guided by the covenant of General P.N. Wrangel: "against the Bolsheviks - with anyone." However, the true intentions of German National Socialism with respect to the USSR soon ceased to be a secret for Russian emigration, and the Rosenberg program, “more anti-Russian than anti-Bolshevik,” pushed the ROVS and extremist military emigres from direct assistance to fascist Germany during the campaign to the East and forced them to seek ways of more indirect participation in events. Proponents of this point of view believed that Germany could not defeat Russia, that the conquest and occupation of Russia was clearly an impossible task for the Germans, and that, being unable to control the vast Russian territories, Germany would inevitably be faced with a choice: either lose the war, or having concluded neutrality with the new Russian government, try to win the war in Europe. "
The defeat of the German troops near Moscow in the fall and winter of 1941 caused joy in the military-monarchical wing of the Russian emigration, because, in her opinion, this was to sober up the Germans and cause a change in their entire eastern policy, forcing them to take a course not towards the destruction of Russia, but towards an alliance with her in the fight against the West. The conflict between the "defenders" and supporters of the armed struggle against the Bolshevik regime in the midst of military emigration culminated in 1942, when the German armies had already been defeated near Moscow, but still continued to occupy a significant part of Soviet territory and were not completely destroyed.
It should be noted that both the “defenders” and the supporters of the alliance with Germany still saw their ultimate goal as the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime and a return to the ideals of historical Russia: the difference was in the methods for achieving this: the “defenders” considered the participation of white emigrants in the pro-German armed forces unacceptable, and participants of the ROD - quite acceptable, if only it would end with the victory of the white movement.
Extremist military circles, which constituted the core of Russian emigration, instinctively gravitated to their own kind and tended to overestimate the role of the army in the political life of totalitarian states, such as fascist Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Not fully understanding the nature of totalitarian dictatorships, they underestimated the ideological component of the regimes, believing that under certain conditions it is possible to abandon their basic provisions or to make significant adjustments to them, which would open up the possibility for the expansion of the ideology of the white cause into a vacant ideological space. It was on this that the calculations of Russian extremists, supporters of the alliance with Germany in the fight against the Bolshevik regime, were built. Supporters of the German orientation believed that the clash between Russia and Germany in the First World War was a historical mistake and, moreover, Russia should have supported Germany against the Entente. In addition, participants in the civil war of 1917-20. well remembered the benevolent attitude that was shown to them in 1918 by the German officers, even contrary to the position of the political circles of Germany. From this, the military-monarchist circles of the Russian emigration made the conclusion that the German policy towards the USSR would be determined not by the party and political leadership of the NSDAP, but by the army, which, guided by pragmatic considerations, would enter into an alliance with post-Bolshevik Russia.
In 1946, General A.I. Denikin in a letter to the chairman of the ROVS, General AL. Arkhangelsky condemned the leadership of the ROVS to attract Russian military emigrants to serve in the German army. The position occupied by A.I. Denikin can be expressed in the following thesis: "The fate of Russia is more important than the fate of emigration."
The fate of Russian military emigrants during the Second World War was influenced to a large extent by such factors as residence: for example, Russian emigrants who lived in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe, mainly joined the Russian Security Corps (ROC) and fought as part of this anti-Bolshevik military formation (after the Soviet army entered this region of Europe in 1944-45, the world of the Russian military abroad was destroyed, many emigrants were repressed). It should be noted that Russian military emigrants living in Eastern Europe and in the territories occupied by the Germans were not called up to the German army, i.e. their decision to join the ROD or the "eastern battalions" was completely voluntary.
If the military leadership of the Third Reich intended to use Russian anti-Bolshevik extremist groups on the Eastern Front with the goal of ideologically and politically destabilizing the Stalin regime and was ready to transfer to them a certain part of the management functions in the occupied territories, right up to the creation of the “national government” of Russia, then the Nazi party circles belonged to the ROD extremely unfriendly, trying to minimize its role. In July 1943, Hitler, speaking at a meeting of the OKW, said about Russian anti-Bolshevik extremist groups: "... in the future they see their own goals. All these emigrants and advisers only want to prepare their positions for the future."
Such a policy of the ROD came into irreconcilable contradiction with the goals of the Hitlerite leadership, which set itself the task of completely colonizing the Soviet space, destroying the vast masses of the population and destroying Russian statehood.
A significant part of the Russian military emigrants was in 1939-40. drafted into the French army, where she was forced to serve in the framework of the French military organization, without declaring any political and ideological slogans for her part (more than 300 Russian emigrants died in France during the period 1939-45). At the same time, Russian emigration to France was practically not subjected to repression in 1945-48. (except for sabotage by the NKVD in the Beauregard camp, near Paris). It should be noted that the call of Russian emigrants to the French army was carried out in a forced manner, i.e. It is hardly possible to speak of the voluntary participation of Russian emigrants in the war between France and Germany.
During the formation of extremist military units, a peculiar lobby of the Russian military emigration, which was active in the German army, manifested itself - the German military, immigrants from Russia: V.K. Shtrik-Shtrikfeld, N. von Grote, Baron E.K. von Dellingshausen and SB. Fröhlich, Kaulbars, who continued to consider themselves "Russian officers of German descent." This group of the German military tried to actively influence the "eastern policy" of the Third Reich in the direction of abandoning the plans for the colonization of the USSR, for the alliance of Germany with independent Russia. The influence of these individuals even extended to structures such as the German military intelligence Abwehr.
A number of Russian emigrants - gene. Biskupsky, Kaulbars - were involved in an attempted military coup in July 1944, when a group of German soldiers led by Colonel Staufenberg tried to eliminate Hitler. In case of success of this action, it was supposed to change the policy in the East and give a green street to Russian emigrant military units - ROA, RNA, ROCK.
There was a group among Russian military emigrants who believed that only a foreign army (in this case, the Wehrmacht) could defeat the Bolshevik regime in a direct military clash, and therefore the idea of a “third force” capable of fighting on two fronts - against Germany and against the USSR, - absurd and even harmful. Proponents of this view were generals Biskupsky and Wojciechowski, as well as chieftain P. Krasnov and, to a certain extent, Holmsten-Smyslovsky. As a result of such internal disagreements, even conflicts arose among the emigration: for example, Captain K. Foss, a member of the ROVS, went to serve in the Gestapo and, together with a group of NORR youths, impeded the activities of emigrant propaganda bodies in the occupied territory of the USSR.
In modern mass consciousness, the ROD is usually associated with a movement led by General A. Vlasov and parts of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). However, this concept is much broader: the ROD also included white emigre extremist military formations - ROC, RNA, and others; his ideological and political program included a set of military-political doctrines, including a number of provisions of the so-called The “white movement”, the ideas of the emigrant “political activism”, etc. At the same time, the Vlasov movement was only an integral part of the ROD, and it was also quite isolated. At the same time, the set of ideas of the ROD was very eclectic: it included the “Februaryist” views of the Vlasovites, the orthodox anti-Bolshevik ideas of white extremist immigrants, the ideology of the “new generation”, etc. At the same time, the synthesis of this complex of ideas did not happen, only in 1944 after the creation of KONP, a certain compromise was reached. Two main streams were the components of the RPM: the white émigré movement, in which revanchist-restoration moods prevailed, and the movement of Soviet prisoners of war who wished to continue the armed struggle with the Stalinist regime. The idea of combating the Stalinist regime for the restoration of historical Russia, as well as the desire to change German policy in the East, towards an equal union between Germany and Russia, became the unifying idea of the ROD.
At the same time, a third option has been planned in the Russian émigré community since June 1941: many emigrants began to turn to Soviet embassies and consulates with a request to grant them USSR citizenship and permission to join the Red Army in order to fight on the side of their homeland against the fascist aggressor . Unfortunately, this topic has not received sufficient coverage in Russian historiography. At the same time, this situation contained a probable model of the mass behavior of Russian emigrants in the conditions of the Patriotic War of 1941-42. If the former white emigrants really were open in the Red Army, there would undoubtedly be a significant number of people willing to return to their homeland and enlist in the military. However, the Stalinist totalitarian regime immediately blocked this option for ideological reasons, since it destroyed the one formed in the 1920s and 30s. a stable image of an enemy emigrant, beneficial to the Stalinist system for maintaining a state of constant tension in the country and society caused by an alleged external threat from emigrant extremism.
Russian military emigrants who wished to return to the USSR and continue the struggle against fascist Germany were ready to join the Red Army on a common basis, without presenting any conditions, the officers were ready to serve in soldiers' posts. At the same time, many Russian emigrants ceased to define the form of the state-political structure of the USSR as the "Stalinist regime" and returned to the concept of "Homeland" in relation to the Soviet Union. For example, on the morning of June 22, 1941, Prince Obolensky appeared at the Soviet embassy in Vichy (France) and asked Ambassador A. Bogomolov to enlist him in the Red Army and send him to the Soviet-German front.
Many Russian military émigrés, members of the EMRO, who lived in France, joined the Resistance movement (Resistance). In the ranks of the French army and units of the "Fighting France" entered 3 thousand Russian emigrants, in the partisan units of the "Resistance" - several hundred people. In Yugoslavia, the representative of Zemgor in Belgrade, General Makhin, joined the partisan army of Tito, becoming a military adviser.
In the mid 1930s in Czechoslovakia, on the basis of the organization of Cossack "independents" who advocated the creation of an independent state, "Cossacks", the "Cossack National Center" (KSC) was created under the leadership of V.G. Glazkova. KSC from the very moment of its formation began to focus on fascist Germany, guided by the slogan: “Though with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks!”
Among the Cossack emigration, there is a fascination with German National Socialism and there is a danger of the formation of Russian foreign "Cossack fascism." The Prague-based liberal magazine “Cossack Thought” openly warned its readers about the possibility of “organizing and formalizing Don Hitlerism” and about the negative consequences that this movement will cause among Russian Cossack emigrants, since it will create a danger of armed intervention by Cossack forces on the side of Russia's historical adversary - Germany, which also has at this stage the most reactionary form of state-political structure - the regime of the National Socialist fascist dictatorship.
In 1940, after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, General V.V., head of the Russian emigration department in Germany Bi stingy in agreement with the gene. P. Krasnov appointed General E.M. Balabin ataman of the All-Cossack Association in the protectorate of the Czech Republic and Moravia. This appointment was officially approved by the authorities of Nazi Germany, who put E.M. Balabin’s task is to unite the Cossacks “into one common non-political organization” in order to protect their interests; in reality, the Nazi authorities primarily pursued their own goal - to take control of Cossack organizations in the former Czechoslovakia, to liquidate independent and disloyal "defense" Cossack societies and unions, and to create a single center for managing the Cossack movement abroad - the KSC.
June 22, 1941, on the day of Nazi Germany’s attack on the USSR, the Cossack National Center in Prague sent a telegram to Hitler, Goering and Ribbentrop, which said: “The KSC at the historic moment of the decision of the German leader brings him the name of his Cossacks abroad ... an expression of joyful feeling fidelity and devotion ... We, the Cossacks, are putting ourselves and all our forces at the disposal of the Fuhrer to fight against our common enemy. We believe that the victorious German army will ensure the restoration of Cossack statehood ... "
At the same time, the KSC was transformed into the “Cossack National Liberation Movement” (KNOD). The Cossack organizations of the “independents” in Prague, Berlin and Paris supported the KNOD by adopting resolutions at their meetings endorsing fascist aggression against the USSR. So, in one resolution it was said: “We are going with that modern Germany, whose national-socialist beginnings of life are so close to the social beginnings of our Cossack life.”
At the end of 1941, when the German troops reached the Don, there was a sharp activation of Cossack political organizations and the press. However, the hopes of the Cossack "independents" for the reconstruction of the Cossack republics with the help of the forces of the German army did not materialize. In fact, the Nazi leadership did not even think about creating a “Cossack” state on the Don, Kuban and Terek, only for tactical purposes flirting with the Cossack elite, intending to use the Cossack military units in their own interests - to protect the railways, fight against partisans, and carry out punitive events.
Only on November 10, 1943, when the German troops had already been expelled from the occupied Cossack lands, the Nazi leadership issued a declaration on the Cossack issue, which recognized the right of the Cossacks to independence, inviolability of its lands, preservation of previous privileges, etc. But such a belated decision caused only the bitter irony of the Cossack chieftains: it could no longer have any tangible influence on the course of events and only showed the Cossacks the insincerity of their former allies. The military-political role of the Cossacks as a factor of war was rapidly declining, approaching zero.
Extremist Russian military emigres sought to emphasize the ideological military-political aspect of their anti-Soviet activities, to present themselves not as mercenaries of an army hostile to their homeland, but as “ideological fighters” against communism. So, in 1944, the command of volunteer formations on the Eastern Front prepared a draft of the “Plan of political and educational work among volunteers”, which outlined the main ideas of the Vlasov movement, with significant elements of the ideology of the white movement, adapted to the specific requirements of the circumstances of the moment (union with the “friendly Germany ”, etc.) and built on the principles of political extremism.
In reality, Russian revenge-emigrants turned out to be a toy in the hands of the German command, which used them for their own purposes. The German Foreign Ministry (in an internal directive) announced in 1944 about plans to use the movement of General A.A. Vlasov and white emigre extremist groups for propaganda purposes during the war with the USSR.
Representatives of the Russian military emigration of the first post-revolutionary wave took an active part in the Vlasov movement in 1942-45. and had a significant impact on the formation of the political position of General Vlasov himself (for example, the old white emigrants V. Shtrikfeldt, E. Dellingshausen and others entered the Vlasov’s inner circle). Much contributed to the convergence of the positions of the old emigration and A.A. Vlasova, head of the Office of the Russian Emigration in France, Yu. Zherebkov. On June 24, 1943, a meeting of Russian emigrants, representatives of German and French founders, employees of diplomatic missions in Paris and representatives of the international press was organized in Wagram Hall in Paris, where General Malyshkin in his speech outlined the main ideas of the Russian Liberation Movement (ROD) ) “Vlasov assigned an important role to the old emigrants in the upcoming struggle ... From his point of view, the old emigration should have been a link between the old historical Russia and the present.” In 1942-43 expatriate youth organizations - the “Youth Union” and the “Youth Combat Union”, on the basis of which the “Union for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” (SBONR) was created, began to join the ROD.
Many military emigrants entered the Vlasov army “directly”, without being a member of any emigrant organizations before. For example, an anti-tank detachment of 50 people of the first division of the ROA was led by Colonel I. Sakharov and Count Lamsdorf. Most of the Russian extremist military emigrants who actively participated in the events of the Second World War had close ties with German military circles back in the 1920s and 1930s.
In July 1941, at the headquarters of Army Group Sever, under the leadership of Abwehr, the "1st Russian foreign training battalion, also called" Sondershtab R ", was formed, in the amount of 1000 people. Through the Abwehr line," Sonderstab "P “” Was subordinate to the central branch of German military intelligence on the Eastern Front, the “Wally” headquarters. This was the first military unit consisting of Russian extremist emigrants.54 Abwehr used “Russian cadres” to conduct military sabotage and other special operations in the rear of the Red Army and on occupation Noah territory. At the head of the extremist armed groups was made captain of the emigrant Boris Regen-Smyslovskiy, active supporter of the fight against Bolshevism.
At the beginning of 1943, the German command reorganized the Regenau-Smyslovsky formations, which were now called the "Special Forces Division" Russia "(" Sonderdivision "R" ") and became part of the regular formations of the Wehrmacht. The personnel of the division wore the usual German army uniform, on the left there was a white-blue-red chevron up its sleeve, and in February 1945, Smyslovsky received an order to reorganize the “Russia” division into the Russian Army, code-named “Green Special Forces”, which later became known as “1st Russ national army ", and Smyslovsky himself was promoted to major general of the German army. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, in May 1945, parts of the RIA crossed the border of the Principality of Liechtenstein and surrendered to its authorities.
One of the largest armed units of the Russian emigration was the Russian People's National Army (RNNA). In March 1942, a white emigrant S.N. Ivanov met with the commander of the German Army Group Center, Field Marshal von Kluge in Smolensk, and received permission from him to recruit personnel for a special Russian unit in any of the prisoners of war camps on the site of Army Group Center.
In Berlin, at the High Command Headquarters (OKW - Obercommando der Wehrmacht), the intended program was approved. An organization group consisting of S.N. Ivanova, K.G. Gromiadi (former colonel, regiment commander), I.K. Sakharov (the son of a general of the tsarist army, a white volunteer during the Spanish Civil War), as well as I. Jung, V. Ressler, priest Fr. Germogen (Kivachuk), Count G. Lamsdorf, Count S. Palen, Count A. Vorontsov-Dashkov, V. Sobolevsky and representative of the OKW, Liaison Officer Oberleutenant Burkhardt. From the command of Army Group Center and Abwehr, the group was supervised by the head of the counterintelligence department No. 203 (Abwehrstelle 203), Colonel von Goetting-Seeburg.
The formed headquarters included: S.N. Ivanov (pseudonym Graukopf) - the initiator and leader of the action, carrying out political leadership and communication with the German command, I.K. Sakharov (pseudonym Levin), who was the assistant to Ivanov, and K.G. Kromiadi (pseudonym Sanin), who served as commandant of the central headquarters and responsible for personnel, combatant and economic units. The formation was called the “Russian People’s National Army” (the action taken was called Operation Graukopf, but there were other names for this formation: “Russian Special Forces Battalion,” “Abwehr 203 Unit,” Graukopf compound), which met the goals, which were set by its organizers. A communications team of 20 German soldiers was led to the main group, led by Lieutenant Burchardt. To finalize the detachment from the camp near Smolensk, 20 volunteers from prisoners of war were taken.
Since 1942, the German command attracted Russian emigrants and prisoners of war to the activities of reconnaissance units on the Eastern Front.
By decision of Field Marshal von Kluge, the Osintorf village was determined to be the place of deployment of the unit, 6 kilometers from Osinovka station at the Orsha-Smolensk railway station in Belarus. Before the war, there were large peat deposits on this site, and the central and workers' settlements, designed for 10,000 workers, were preserved. A platoon created from prisoners of war was soon deployed to the company, and then to the battalion.
By the end of the summer of 1942, the RNNA was sufficiently staffed with trained personnel and was able to turn into a division. Major Riel was identified as chief of staff, colonel Gorsky as chief of artillery; the battalion commanders are Colonel Kobzev, Major Grachev, Major Ivanov, Major Nikolaev, Colonel X, and intelligence chief Major Bocharov. The sanitary unit was headed by a doctor Vinogradov, who managed to recruit a staff of doctors and created an infirmary in the central village and an outpatient clinic for the local population. Count S. Palen and Count G. Lamsdorf came to Osintorf from the headquarters of General Schenkendorf, the commander of the rear guard forces of Army Group Center, where they served as translators.
Many of the RNNA officers then joined the Vlasov movement, including General G.N. Zhilenkov, who became a member of the Presidium of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) and head of the propaganda department of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), Colonel Boyarsky — assistant chief of staff of the ROA, Colonel Sakharov — operational adjutant, and then commander of the ROA regiment, Colonel Bocharov — the representative of General A. Vlasov in the Cossack units of General Domanov, Colonel Riel - operational adjutant of the ROA headquarters, captain Kashtanov - chief of Vlasov’s security, Lieutenant Ressler - staff officer and personal translator of Vlaso wah. Captain Count G. Lamsdorf commanded the company, K.G. Kromiadi served as commandant of the headquarters, and then head of the personal office of General Vlasov. In 1945, RNNA crumbled under the blows of the Soviet troops, and the military leadership - Zhilenkov, Ril, Boyarsky, Nikolaev - was issued by the Americans to the Soviet side. In 1946, they appeared before the Supreme Court of the USSR and suffered deserved punishment.
In 1941, in Yugoslavia, under the control of the German occupation authorities, the formation of the "Russian Security Corps" (ROC), a large military unit, almost entirely consisting of first-wave emigrants, began.
The order to begin the formation of the corps was signed by General M.F. On September 12, 1941, Skorodumov, the Department of the ROVS in Yugoslavia also actively joined the formation of the ROC, strengthening anti-Soviet work among emigrants and propagandizing the slogan “about soon returning to the homeland with arms in hand”. Learning about the formation of the corps and about the opportunity to take part in the fight against the Soviet regime directly in Russia, white volunteers, emigrants from Bulgaria, Greece, France and other countries, came to Yugoslavia. However, in 1941 to the occupying German authorities and the Wehrmacht command, such a prospect of combat use of the corps on the territory of the USSR seemed to be of little relevance and politically doubtful. In fact, the Germans needed Russian white units not just anywhere, namely in Yugoslavia, as a guard and police forces in the fight against local partisans. Therefore, General Skorodumov was removed from the formation of the corps, and White General B.A. was appointed his new commander. Matte, who completed all the work on the organizational design of the connection, and then headed it.
Under the command of General Steifon, there were 15 thousand people in the Russian Security Corps. Initially, it consisted exclusively of old extremist emigrants who volunteered to be sent to the Eastern Front. But the Germans allowed them to fight only against the Tito partisans in Serbia. True, one of the squadrons under the command of Shcheglovsky was nevertheless sent to participate in the hostilities on the Soviet-German front. Until the last days of its existence, the corps remained a military unit and with white officers as commanding personnel. At the same time, the German military were assigned to the headquarters of the corps and its units as liaison officers. In total, 3 regiments of emigrant volunteers were formed in the corps, then the formation of the 4th and 5th regiments, already from former Red Army soldiers, began.
Having lost almost three-quarters of its available staff, the corps on May 12, 1945 surrendered weapons to the British in Austria. The entire last period of hostilities, "Russian Security Corps" was commanded by Colonel A.I. Rogozhin, who then de facto supervised the personnel of the corps and in captivity. In the Kellerberg prisoner of war camp, where the corps was transferred, its personnel created their own organization - the White Russian Kellerberg Camp. In total, over 47 thousand people passed through the corps lists. During the fighting, the corps lost 1,132 people killed, 3,280 wounded and 2,297 missing. In 1945, the Russian Security Corps was evacuated by the British and many of its members lived in Brazil, Paraguay, and Colombia.
Cossack emigrants during the Second World War of 1939-45 take an active part in the armed struggle, mainly on the side of fascist Germany.
According to the “Register of ROA combat personnel” compiled by the chief of the operational department of the ROA headquarters, Colonel Aldan (A.G. Neryanin), in early May 1945, the KONR armed forces included the following Cossack units:
- Cossack Stan General T.N. Domanov, consisting of four regiments near Udino, numbering 8,000 people with an officer reserve of 400 people, as well as the 1st Cossack Cadet School under the command of Colonel Medynsky consisting of 300 people (the organizer and first Camp Ataman of the Cossack Camp was Colonel of the Tsarist Army SV Pavlov);
- The 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps of General von Panivits, numbering more than 40 thousand people;
- 1st Cossack General Zborovsky Regiment of the Russian Corps of 1075 people, including 32 officers, 2 officials, 137 non-commissioned officers and 930 Cossacks;
- Cossack training and reserve regiment under the command of General A.G. Skins numbering up to 10 thousand people;
- parts of General A.V. Turkula - a separate regiment under the command of Colonel Krzhizhanovsky in the Linz area, a separate regiment "Varyag" under the command of Colonel M.A. Semenov in the area of Ljubljana;
- Cossack regiment in the area of Villach - only 52,000 people.
By the end of the war, about 65 thousand Cossacks of all the Cossacks of Russia formally were subordinate to the command of the Russian Liberation Army, not counting the Cossack units of the 60-thousandth corps of General G.M. Semenov in the Far East and individual Cossack units in the Wehrmacht.
In late 1944 - early 1945, reconnaissance schools of the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) were created, in which saboteurs trained for rebel and terrorist activities on the territory of the USSR were trained. The first such school was opened 7 km from the town of Marienbaz in a wooded area, in the Yagdhaus hunting estate, the second in the Bratislava region, the third near the village of St. Johann am Walde and was under the auspices of the SS and under the auspices of Himmler and Skorzeny.
In May-June 1945, the Cossack units that were part of the KONR and deployed in Austria in Lienz were repatriated to the USSR according to the Yalta agreement between the Soviet Union and the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition on the extradition of “war criminals, traitors and defectors”.
It should be noted that the positions of Russian extremism in the Far East were traditionally strong, which was determined by the presence of a large Russian emigrant diaspora in Harbin and Shanghai, the proximity of the Soviet border, the permission of the Chinese authorities to create training camps for training saboteurs, and military-political instability in the region . In addition, the ideas of Japanese and Chinese militarism greatly influenced the formation of the mentality of emigrant youth in the 1920s and 40s.
In 1941, the “popular-imperial” movement intensified in China, which in fact developed on the platform of the fascist ideology of the “white cause”. Its organizational center was the Far Eastern Group in Shanghai.63 Figures of the Russian foreign fascist movement actively lured the emigrant youth into the ranks of their organizations. So, for example, in 1944 Taboritsky appealed to emigrant youth with an appeal to join the fascist union.
After the Nazi Germany attack on the USSR in June 1941, activity in the Far Eastern region of white military emigration intensified, which worked closely with the Japanese government and the Japanese military command. A zone of increased military-political tension arises on the borders of the USSR: Japan, as an ally of Germany and a potential adversary of the USSR, throughout the entire period of the war kept in tension the Soviet areas bordering Manchuria.
The Japanese leadership developed a special plan for a military attack on the USSR, which had the encrypted name "Kan-Tokuken" ("Special Maneuvers of the Kwantung Army"). A significant role in this regard was given to white emigres living in Manchuria, China, Korea and Japan. The leadership of the Far Eastern ROVS department and the leaders of the military emigration were enthusiastic about the news of the German attack on the USSR, believing that this made their dreams of resuming the armed struggle against Bolshevism real, and the dream of returning to their homeland "on a white horse" - close to realization.
One of the leaders of military emigration, Ataman Semenov wrote in the Voice of Emigrants newspaper in 1941: “We ... need to become aware of the responsibility of the moment and not turn a blind eye to the fact that we have no other right way to go honestly and openly the leading powers of the axis — Japan and Germany. ”
In the Cossack and White Guard settlements and villages concentrated along the border with the USSR, a tendency toward self-organization and a desire to take control of arms is beginning to be observed. The EMRO and the Far Eastern military organizations tried to subordinate this process to their control and give it organized forms and a white extremist ideological content.
The Soviet command of the NKVD border troops of the Kazakhstan and Transbaikal border districts constantly informed Moscow about the intensification of the activities of white anti-Soviet extremist groups. So, in the report of the deputy chief of the NKVD troops of the USSR, Major General Appolonov dated July 29, 1941, it was noted that "... Russian white emigrants are being mobilized in the Mudanjiang region, 800 mobilized are concentrated by handa-oheza." On January 31, 1942, the chief of the NKVD border troops of the Kazakhstan district, Major General Ukhov, the military commissar of the regimental commissar Nikolaev, and the chief of staff, Major General Achkasov reported: “The most characteristic manifestation of the anti-Soviet struggle was the uprising of the (White Guard) Cossacks in Altai. This uprising had a pronounced anti-Soviet character ... The White Guards of the Tarbagatai District are showing insurgent tendencies and have begun to create insurgent-gang units and put together cadres to carry out armed raids on our territory. ” The training of personnel of the Zachingan corps was discussed in a report dated January 16, 1943, of the Acting Chief of the NKVD of the Trans-Baikal District, Lt. Col. Paremsky and Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt. Col. Teplov.
The Far Eastern military emigration was particularly dangerous due to its proximity to the borders of the USSR, a high degree of organization, the presence of a significant number of officers and military specialists, as well as personal and family ties of white emigrants with Soviet citizens: most Cossacks and officers left their families and relatives on Soviet territory in 1920- 22 years., During the formation of the Far Eastern diaspora, and secretly maintained contact with them.
In the event that the Japanese military command decided to strike at the USSR in 1942-43, it would be quite capable of assembling a separate army from Russian extremist emigrants and, having advanced it to the front, to give its aggression the ideological character of a “liberation campaign against Bolshevism ".
The military-political events unfolding in 1941 in the Far East reanimated the hopes of the leaders of the Russian military abroad to resume their role in the anticipated new civil war in the USSR. G.M. Semenov, A.P. Baksheev, L.F. Vlasyevsky, K.V. Rodzaevsky and B.N. Shepunov united all the White Guard organizations operating in the Far East into the Bureau for Russian Emigrants (BREM), which was engaged in propaganda activities, as well as the training of armed detachments from emigrants.
An active organizer of sabotage and intelligence activities against the USSR was K.V. Rodzayevsky, who in 1937 in Harbin, at the suggestion of the Japanese intelligence officer Suzuki, created a secret "organizer school", which trained terrorists whose task was to conduct subversive work in the USSR. The most trained members of the “Russian Fascist Union” were selected into it. The school was organized as a military unit: the cadets wore Japanese military uniforms, the training period was 3 years, and the course of diversionary training was awarded the rank of non-commissioned officer. Initially, volunteers — members of the RFU — were recruited into the saboteur’s school, and later on, recruitment took place in the order of mobilizing people from the immigrants age from 18 to 36 years. Particular attention was paid to special training for operations in the rear of the Soviet army.
At the end of 1943, the Asano brigade, which had been created earlier from the White Guards, was deployed to the Russian military units of the Manzhou-Guo Army, which included cavalry, infantry, and separate Cossack units. By early August 1945, the brigade had grown to 4,000 people68. Colonel Gurgen Nagolyan was appointed commander of the unit.
In the same 1943 G.M. Semenov, L.F. Vlasyevsky and A.P. Baksheev from the former White Cossacks formed special Cossack units and subunits (five regiments, two separate divisions and one separate hundred), which were organizationally reduced to the Zachingan Cossack Corps under the command of General A.P. Baksheeva. The corps was directly subordinate to the head of the Japanese military mission in Tailar, Lt. Col. Taki.
Under the auspices of the BREM and with the active influence of the ROVS, the “Union of Reservists” was created with the aim of recruiting those who wish to join the emerging immigrant white army under the control of the Japanese military command. The "reservist detachments" were a kind of primary material, from which it was supposed to create a white army in the future.
However, the plan of Russian extremists to create a large independent military force in 1939-1945 in order to turn the course of events in their own direction failed, and they themselves found themselves in the position of "traitors and accomplices of the Nazis, traitors to the motherland" despised by the Soviet people. The ideas of white-emigre extremism resonated only with an insignificant part of the top command staff of anti-Soviet military units — ROA, ROK, RNNA, and others. The middle and junior composition dreamed, first of all, of returning to their homeland; ideas of military-political revanchism worried him to a much lesser extent. For example, despite the high-profile anti-Bolshevik rhetoric inherent in most anti-Soviet armed groups, many of them, once on the front line, went over to the side of the Red Army or Soviet partisans. Such cases became especially frequent after a radical change in the war and at its final stage, in 1943-1945. So, for example, in May 1943, the “East Company” (Ostkompanie), which was considered a completely reliable military unit in the German army, sided with the Soviet partisans.
A strong ideological blow to the Russian military emigration was dealt by Stalin in 1941-42: the introduction of officer epaulets and ranks in the Red Army; the return of the names of Russian commanders - A. Suvorov, M. Kutuzov, P. Nakhimov and others, an appeal to Russian military history, liberating patriotic slogans, etc. - in fact, their main trump cards were knocked out of the hands of the leaders of the white foreign countries and turned them into outsiders of the Stalinist regime.
The plans of the Russian military abroad to appear in the period of the 1930s - 1945 as a "third force", which was in "allied" relations with fascist Germany, also failed: almost all organized emigrant armed groups (ROA, ROK, RNNA, etc.) are real played the role of Nazi puppets, and the Soviet people perceived them not as “freedom fighters,” but as traitors and accomplices of the fascist occupiers, which was quite true. Thus, the white-emigre military-political extremism was never able to emerge as an independent force during the Second World War, being fragmented in demand, within the framework of armies and ideologies quite alien to them. White emigre revanchism was strictly limited by the world of Russian emigration and did not have access to any other categories of social groups of foreign countries, i.e. he was a purely Russian emigrant movement.
During the Second World War, Russian white emigre extremism tried to find new forms of self-realization - ROVS leaders created military units intended for activities in occupied Soviet territory, tried to form new authorities that acted in the spirit of the concepts of the foreign white movement, sought support and understanding from the local population of those captured areas, tried to wage an information war in the front line and even in the depths of Soviet territory. Almost all such undertakings failed completely: the "efficiency" from such events was negligible: the Soviet people did not want to listen to those who were unambiguously associated with their enemies of the motherland, accomplices of the German fascists. The same individual facts of the cooperation of the population with the military-political organizations of the white foreign countries were based not at all on the support of the program of white revenge, but on completely different factors - self-interest, nationalism, material gain and fear of repression. Thus, the ideology of white business during the years of the global military-political crisis of the second half of the 1930s - 1945. failed to acquire a wide social base and remained the stillborn offspring of white-emigrant theorists.
Despite the heavy military defeats suffered by white extremism on Soviet territory in the 1920s and 30s (failure to intervene, arresting militants, etc.), a significant portion of the emigrant youth in the late 1930s retained revanchist sentiments and a willingness to accept participation in the armed struggle against Soviet power. It is youth who will constitute the social base of white extremism in 1939-45. With the outbreak of World War II, extremist immigrants are trying to find new forms for their movement. In particular, the idea arises of creating an independent white emigrant army abroad in order to send it to the USSR, emigrant armed groups are being created as part of the Spanish and Finnish troops, and projects are being developed for manning individual "Russian divisions" in the armies of Poland and Estonia.
White-emigrant extremism sharply intensified in the second half of the 1930s: militants of the ROVS and related revanchist organizations are trying to take part in the escalating socio-political conflicts in Europe and the Far East, are creating new terrorist groups, at the same time striving to give themselves a more “respectable” image, in particular, to connect to major foreign extremist movements - German Nazis, Spanish and Italian fascists.
Russian White Emigrant Extremism in the 1920s and 30s tried to find the ground in the ideological doctrine of German fascism. "... Since anti-communism was an integral part of the National Socialist doctrine, it is quite natural that the" new order "attracted the sympathy and sympathy of part of the Russian emigration," wrote one of the Russian emigrants. At the same time, from a single starting point - anti-communism - German Nazism and white emigre revanchism built different projections, which made it possible to talk only about a certain tactical coincidence of interests, with a fundamental difference in goals: the NSDAP ideologists dreamed of conquering Russia with its subsequent colonization and destruction of all forms statehood, and the leaders of foreign military emigration, on the contrary, created projects “to revive the Russian state and restore a united and indivisible Russia within 191 7 years ”, which inevitably gave rise to a mutual antagonistic conflict. The temporary successes of German National Socialism and Italian fascism in the early 1930s caused the effect of copying among the Russian emigration: the fascination with fascist ideology begins, borrowing symbols, rituals, etc.
In 1933, in Berlin, a Russian emigrant A.P. Svetozarov founded the “Russian National Socialist Movement” (ROND) (in the original version - RNSD or RNSB - in German transcription). However, A. Svetozarova was soon replaced by Prince P.M. Bermond-Avalov, a Baltic German, a former Russian officer, a participant in the Civil War in Latvia in 1919-20, who tried to become the leader of Russian foreign fascists.
Members of the ROND in the 1930s, together with the Nazi attack aircraft, took part in street demonstrations, torchlight processions, and rallies. RONDovtsy have developed their own version of the Nazi uniform - a white shirt, black pants and high boots. On their left hand they had red armbands with a white swastika in a blue square (the colors of the flag of Tsarist Russia).
ROND opened its sections in Paris, Prague, Belgrade and London, trying to create a united anti-Soviet front and to attract the participation of a large number of Russian emigrants living in these cities. In this part, the ROND enterprise ended in complete failure. Initially, the German fascists were ready to accept the support of Russian emigrants. During this period (1929–33), any forces that were only planning a struggle against the Comintern and the Popular Front in Europe were easily accepted into the ranks of the German Nazi movement. However, when after the events of 1933 the Nazis established themselves in power, they acquired a tendency to look down on "sow the Slavic caricature written off from them themselves." And the repeated statements of the main ideologist of German Nazism A. Rosenberg that the Slavs belong to the breed of subhuman (untermensch) and should be subjected to colonization, put the Russian fascists, members of the ROND, simply in a silly and ridiculous position.
Relations between the ROND and the German Nazis on various minor issues continued until the conclusion of the Soviet-German pact in August 1939, which, in particular, provided for the immediate termination of all anti-Soviet activities within the Nazi Reich, at least in the form of public demonstrations. Thus, the activities of ROND were suspended. It should be noted that it was the Russian military emigrants, the ideological heirs of the white movement, who tried in such a way to revive the ideas of white emigrant extremism, showed the greatest activity in attempts to create a Russian fascist foreign movement.
The most active Russian emigrants were the Zhstremists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936–39. The leadership of the ROVS was inclined to consider the events in Spain as a prologue to the start of large-scale anti-Bolshevik actions in Europe, and in the future as the first step towards intervention in the USSR in order to overthrow the Soviet regime.
In September 1936, a number of leaders of white-emigrant organizations in Germany and Manchuria issued calls for Russian military emigration to help the Spanish fascists in their struggle against the republican army.
In 1936-39, the counter-intelligence of the ROVS focused on the events of the Spanish Civil War, in particular, it monitored the organization of Soviet assistance to the republican government. So, in October 1936, the 1st department of the ROVS received a copy of the Report of the naval attache in Spain to the naval minister of France “on the transport of goods by Spain and Soviet vessels for Republican Spain” and on their passage through the Dardanelles. 3 Russian emigrant extremist organizations - ROVS, BRP - advised Western intelligence, took an active part in collecting and processing information about the activities of the Comintern, and carried out the translation of intelligence materials from Russian into French, German, English, etc.
In the mid 1930s Spain, due to the specifics of its geographical location and domestic political situation, is becoming a geopolitical field. the confrontation of two powerful totalitarian regimes: Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, each of which sought to strengthen its influence in Europe. Spain has become a kind of training ground where Moscow and Berlin tested their operational and military tactical concepts, tested new models of military equipment, and trained the personnel of their armed forces. Russian military emigration was drawn into a whirlwind of political events on Spanish soil: already in 1936, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities between the forces of General Franco and the republican forces, Russian volunteer emigrants began to send to Spain expressing sympathy for the armed intervention of the Spanish military against the left republican government . Russian emigrant officers, in many cases, went to Spain with their scarce money to join the forces of General Franco, to support the forces of the putschists in the fight against the revolution. At the same time, the Russian military translated the events taking place in Spain onto their own scale of coordinates: in the Spanish Republicans, fighters of the inter-brigades, they primarily saw the revolutionaries, the “Reds,” that is, their traditional opponents, and in General Franco - "the successor of the cause of the white general Kornilov."
Already in July 1936, Russian military émigré organizations — the Russian National Union of Participants in the War and the ROVS — called for the formation of a “Russian volunteer detachment” to be sent to Spain to help the French troops. The problem of creating Russian emigrant detachments was hindered by the inaccessibility of Spain: the ROVS and emigrants did not have large funds for organized transfer of volunteers, and the Franco-Spanish border was closed immediately after the rebellion of General Franco. Therefore, Russian extremists were forced to make their way across the border individually, illegally, at the risk of being detained or even killed by French border guards.
Organizational structures of military emigration - the EMRO, the Navy, and the BRP provided administrative assistance in the formation of officer volunteer groups heading for Spain. Secret police volunteer recruitment points are being opened in the EMRO branches, military unions and societies for sending them to the Spanish front.
Particularly active in organizing the recording of white extremists in the army of General Franco was the senior leader of the Kornilov’s Paris Group, Colonel G.Z. Troshin. At the beginning of March 1937, the first group of officers of 7 people (mainly Markov artillerymen) left Paris for Saint-Jean-de-Luce, located on the border with Spain, near the town of Ira. The crossing of the White Guard volunteers across the border was ensured by the lieutenant of engineering troops Savin. On March 16, 1937, a second group of officers left. The largest number of Russian military emigrants who came to Spain to participate in the hostilities on the side of the Francoists were members of the EMRO department in France, but some came from distant, even exotic places - from Madagascar, Ethiopia, Tunisia.
The first Russian volunteers to join the Spanish National Army were generals A.V. Fock and N.V. Shinkarenko, captain N.Ya. Wryneck and the captain Y.T. Polukhin, who came to Spain from Africa, illegally crossing the border of Spanish Morocco. Russian military émigrés were able to quickly reverse some prejudice of the Spanish military against the Russians, as they were associated with the Soviet Union, supporting their opponents of the Republicans and gaining military authority and trust. Russian emigrants who joined the National Spanish Army soon began to be called "Russo Blanco" - "White Russians".
It should be noted that the age of some Russian volunteers was in doubt among the Spanish military: for example, to General A.V. Fock was 70 years old and with great difficulty managed to secure admission to the officer reserve company, where he was appointed to the “tersia” (third-battalion) army of General Franco. Subsequently, General A. Fock, for the difference in battles, was made in the shadows (warrants) of the Spanish army and transferred to the Aragonese front. Russian officers described the military events in Spain with pathos and portrayed themselves as defenders of world civilization: "... in Spanish white "I felt myself, like my comrades, finally fulfilling my duty ... protecting the faith, culture and all of Europe from the new onslaught of Bolshevism." In total, in the Spanish army during the years of the civil war of 1936-1939. consisted of 72 Russian emigrant officers.
The world first learned about Russian volunteers in Spain in early 1937, when the first foreign journalists managed to infiltrate the territory controlled by the troops of General Franco. In the governor's house in Salamanca, where the headquarters of the national forces were transferred from Burgos, eleven journalists (5 Italians, 5 Germans and 1 Russian) were represented by Franco. When the turn came to the Russian journalist captain VV Orekhov, they explained to the surprised general that it was "Russo blank-white Russian." In response, Franco noted that he was familiar with the white anti-Bolshevik movement and appreciated his merits in the fight against Bolshevism.
Most of the white volunteers were sent to the town of Molina de Aragon, located 10 kilometers from the Tagus River in the province of Guadalajara. There formed the tersio "rekete" - a battalion of Karlist monarchists. The battalion included four companies, each of which had its own name: 1st company - Donna Maria de Molina, 2nd and 3rd companies - Marco de Bello; 4th company - Numansiya. The battalion itself was named at the location of its headquarters - Tersio Donna Maria de Molina. Since March 1937, the Tercio Requet Donna Maria de Molina has been on the Aragonese Front, where he held two positions on the Tagus River, 20 and 14 kilometers from the Molina de Aragon, where the battalion headquarters were located. On the other side of the Tahoe River were inter-brigades of the Republican Army. During the entire period of hostilities, the battalion was commanded by a captain, later a major, L. Ruiz-Fernandez, whom white volunteers unofficially called "papa." At this stage of the armed struggle, Russian extremists were under the strict control of the Spanish command. But in April 1937, the headquarters of General Franco decided to give the Russian emigrants greater independence: it was allowed to form a separate Russian volunteer unit with the Russian command and its military charter. White emigre extremists got a chance to create their own military units. However, due to the small number of Russian volunteers, it was possible to create only one “National Russian Detachment” as part of the Donna Maria de Molina detachment.
Russian emigrant volunteers showed great stamina in battles in Spain. White extremism tried to gain credibility in the eyes of conservative forces, to show that it can be counted on. At the end of August 1937, Donna Maria de Molina's squad was thrown into the Quinto de Ebro area against the red international brigade breaking through in the direction of Zaragoza, and he was ordered to detain the enemy until reinforcements arrived. The 2nd company of Tersio was commanded by tenten, staff captain J.T. Polukhin.
Russian extremists showed fanaticism and a willingness to fight to the end during the “Spanish War”, even in hopeless situations. For example, Major General A.V. Fock, who was at the head of the tersio at that time, volunteered to go into the 2nd company himself. For 2 days, the 2nd and 3rd companies fought a defensive battle in complete encirclement. Killed more than half of the personnel. General Fock, Staff Captain Polukhin and Spanish sergeant major Pastor moved the wounded to a small village chapel and organized a circular defense in it.
Cut off from their own, they stayed in the chapel for 12 days, until it was swept away by artillery of the Reds. Being surrounded by Republicans, A.V. Fock shot himself. And captain J.T. Polukhin was wounded, and then died under the ruins of a chapel. Both of them were awarded the posthumous collective lauread (the highest Spanish military award). Severely wounded explosive bullet captain G.M. Zelim-Bek, who was declared unfit for service, refused to be demobilized, secured the transfer to Tercio Doña Maria de Molina, and “was in the ranks of his own until the end of the war.
Russian military volunteers conducted combat training in Spanish military units, while Spanish officers noted the high professional training of Russian emigrant officers and their teaching skills. “Keep up with the Russians, these are old soldiers,” said one of the Spanish officers to his subordinates. Russian extremists managed to achieve high enough authority among the Spanish military, which was also explained by the fact that the Spanish Civil War had accumulated the most active part of the white revenge-seekers.
The whole of 1938 and the beginning of 1939. Russian volunteers, as part of their battalion, conducted active defensive and reconnaissance operations on their front section on the Tagus River. The lack of forces did not allow the battalion to have a solid line of defense, therefore the battalion companies, stretching for 50 kilometers, occupied only separate commanding heights, spaced 5 km or more from each other. The connection between them was maintained with the help of a heliograph and military patrols. In September 1938, after the defeat of the republican units in the area of the San Juan ridge, white volunteers occupied the dominant height of El Contandero (elevation 1,639 meters) in the Mahon Blanco area and equipped an exemplary strong point there. In February 1939, a battalion with a Russian detachment was redeployed through Teruel to the village of El Toro, where the Russians held the “Peña Kemada” and “Peña del Diablo” combat positions until the end of hostilities.
By March 1939, the Russian squad in Tersio Doña Maria de Molina consisted of 26 people under the command of the tenient N.E. Wryneck and under Sergeant P.V. Beline. 2 Russians served in the Tercio Rocket Navarre, 1 in the Tercio Areamendi, 2 people in the Tercio Montechura, and 3 in the Legion 3. There was one Russian in the squadron of the Bourgogne River. Among the Russian volunteers there was one St. George cavalier (captain G.M. Zelim-Bek), three had St. George weapons and ten had soldier St. George crosses.
In April 1939, the civil war in Spain ended with the victory of the forces of General Franco, the revolutionary republican army ceased to exist. On May 3, 1939, a military parade was held in Valencia, in which Russian volunteers took part as part of the “first-line troops” (ie front-line units), which was especially honorable, while the “Russian battalion” showed up at the parade such excellent combat training that his commander was invited to dinner with General Franco, on June 30, 1939, Russian volunteers were officially dismissed from the ranks of the Spanish national army. Franco did not forget his Russian associates. All of them were conferred the ranks of sergeants (with the exception of those who had already received officer rank in the course of hostilities), they received two months of leave without loss of money and the Spanish military awards “Military Cross” and “Cross for Military Valor”. In addition, all Russian emigrant volunteers were given the opportunity to obtain Spanish citizenship, which many took advantage of.
October 20, 1939 a group of Russian military emigrants led by Colonel N.N. Boltin was received by General Franco at his residence in the palace of Pardo near Madrid. In parting, Franco asked what else could he do for the Russians? Boltin answered him: "We do not ask for anything personally, we only ask that you arrange officers who wish to join the Spanish African Legion." This request was also granted, and Russian emigrants received the right to continue their service in units of the Spanish army.
Russian extremists suffered serious losses during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-39. Major General A.V. Fock, sergeant-general N. Ivanov, staff captain Ya.T. Polukhin, military pilot captain V.M. Marchenko, Prince Laursov-Magalov, volunteer Kuchenko, ensign Z.K. Kompalsky, S. Chizh, captain A.A. Bonch-Bruevich, a total of 34 people. Of the survivors, 9 were injured, while the legionary N.P. Zotov - 5 times, and Lieutenant K.A. Konstantino (Gognidzhanoshvili) and S.K. Gursky (Ali) - 3 times. Major General N.V. was seriously wounded in the head. Shinkarenko. Of the first four volunteers (generals A.V. Fok and N.V. Shinkarenko, captain N.Ya. Krivosheya and staff captain Y.T. Polukhin), only the captain of the Markov artillery division Nikolay Evgenievich Krivoshei, who actually commanded the Russian detachment, remained unharmed in tersio doña maria de molina. While in exile, he constantly monitored the development of military art (in Paris he graduated from the courses of General Golovin), enjoyed an exceptional fighting reputation not only among his compatriots, but also among the Spanish command. He successfully fought in various sectors of the front, however, according to Spanish laws, as a foreigner, he did not have the right to occupy senior command posts. It should be noted that the participation of Russian military emigrants in the Franco army and the events of the Spanish Civil War is a military-political experience, which brought it to the greatest degree closer to the futurological model of the resumption of the civil war with Bolshevism. In other military formations (in the Far East, Finland, etc.), Russian white extremists played a more subordinate role, not being able to declare their own political slogans, all the more so to take on their own responsibility certain sections of the front.
Editor of the magazine “Sentry” captain V.V. Orekhov wrote in the article “Spain and We”: “It is unlikely that such a ... full of mutual understanding of the relationship between the masters of the country and impoverished foreigners could be established in another country. They understand us in Spain, they value our struggle ... ” For Russian immigrant extremism, it was vital to gain recognition and support from European conservative circles. The further fate of the “Spanish Russians” has developed in different ways. Many of them remained in Spain and chose purely peaceful professions, while others continued military service. A number of Russian white volunteers who fought in Spain during the Second World War took part in the hostilities on the Eastern (Soviet-German) front as part of the Spanish Blue Division. Among them N.S. Artyukhov, K.A. Goncharenko, S.K. Gursky, V.A. Klimenko, V.E. Krivosheya, L.G. Thin, A.A. Thringam.
Thus, during the civil war in Spain in 1936-39. For the first time in Europe, white military émigré formations make themselves known, trying to continue the armed struggle with the Bolshevik regime and realize the ones developed in the 1930s. military-political doctrines. In Spain, there is a clash of the ideology of the white movement and the ideas of the world revolution and the Third International. As a result, the participation of Russo Blanco in the Spanish Civil War for some time revived the complex of military-political doctrines of white extremism.
Russian military emigrants, who for two decades dreamed of resuming the struggle against the Red Army, (and Soviet volunteer officers were part of the inter-brigades) finally got this opportunity: as a result, the accumulated potential of hatred was expressed in cruel forms of struggle, refusal to surrender and suicides, stamina in battles, executions of prisoners, etc.
The successful end of the civil war in Spain for White extremists (the victory of the forces of General Franco) instilled hope in Russian emigrants for future success in the expected new civil war in the USSR and ultimately led to a significant reassessment of their capabilities: the white revanchists seriously hoped that they would succeed in 1939-40, form their own White Guard armies and transfer the armed struggle to the territory of the USSR. A certain role in the Spanish’s assimilation of the ideas of the white movement was played by the Hispanidad mentality, which was largely similar to Russian conservatism. At the same time, it should be noted that there was no complete unity among the Russian military emigration on the issue of supporting the Franco regime: a significant part of the military emigrants supported the Republicans by joining the inter-brigades and fighting on the side of the left government against the Franco, hoping to earn forgiveness and opportunity return to the USSR. Thus, the “Spanish prologue” opened the page for the direct participation of Russian military emigration in world military-political conflicts of the late 1930s – mid 1940s.
Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40 became another breakdown of the forces of Russian military emigration.
In the perception of ordinary emigrants and the leadership of the EMRO, the events of the “winter war” were similar to the understanding of the Spanish civil war: they proceeded from the fact that they were fighting the former enemy - the Bolshevik regime “with the prospect of the liberation of historical Russia”. The Russian extremists were especially hopeful for the fact that in this case events unfolded on the territory that had previously been part of the Russian Empire, and in 1939–40. - on the borders of the USSR. Therefore, the EMRO and the military extremist organizations set as their task the maximum participation in these events. Thus, N. Tsurikov, one of the military theoreticians of the Russian foreign countries, stated in an analytical note prepared for members of the Southeastern Department of the Revolutionary Military Revolutionary Council in connection with the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish war: “All events, wherever and between whoever they occur, interest us before from only one point of view: are they bringing closer or delaying the fall of the Bolshevik regime. " At the same time, regretting the losses suffered by the Red Army during the unsuccessful “winter war” for her, N. Tsurikov wrote that “in Finland they were killed under machine guns ... they exploded on mines and hundreds didn’t freeze CHON or parts of the GPU, but all the same as during dispossession, at logging, at the Belomorsky Canal, at special camps - Russian peasants. These 300 thousand dead are not losses of the USSR, but of Russia. ”
During the Soviet-Finnish “winter war” of 1939-1940, Russian military emigrants actively informed the German intelligence “SD” and the French counterintelligence bureau about the situation in the Baltic states, about the prospects for the development of foreign trade of the USSR and about the structure of the Red Army. ”In 1940, the white emigrant P Matveev turned to the representative of France in Sofia with a proposal to create "white-emigre detachments to fight the Red Army on the Soviet-Finnish front."
Emigrant military-political extremism has been vividly manifesting itself since the second half of the 1930s, after the start of a new stage in world socio-political and military conflicts. In various parts of the globe - in Northern and Western Europe, in the Far East - Russian emigrants became involved in armed events: they took part in the Spanish Civil War in 1936-39, in the struggle against the Communists Mao Zedong, in the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939- 40 years etc. At the same time, Russian extremists tried to realize their own military-political tasks - first of all, to destabilize the internal situation in the USSR and to rekindle a new stage of the anti-Bolshevik civil war on its territory.
In Finland, representatives of the white emigration sought confirmation of their conclusions that there was serious opposition to the regime in the USSR, and they also tried to try out various options for open armed struggle in practice. In the latter case, the point was that foreign Russian extremist organizations should have become the initiators and inspirers of the rise of the peoples of Russia in an open struggle against Bolshevism, with a leading role in this process. We managed to do something at the practical level in the framework of the implementation of these plans.
Russian emigrant extremists were interested in the mood of Soviet citizens. Prisoners of war were, of course, the most accessible for studying the mood of Soviet people. There is evidence that emigrants studied public opinion in the camps. In the future, all this affected the development of the actions of the Russian emigration. What sentiments prevailed among prisoners of war? So, the correspondent of the Italian newspaper Career della Sera Montanelli, after visiting the camp of Soviet prisoners of war in the city of Cuovola, wrote: “I thought and was completely sure to find a joyful mood among prisoners of war, at least. But these tens of thousands of prisoners met the world as a tragedy. And, really, you ask yourself what will happen to them when they return to Russia? No doubt. “Whoever surrenders will be considered a traitor and will be dealt with subsequently, as such.” So they told them in the USSR. " Indeed, from the Finnish camps, many of them proceeded to Soviet camps, but already as traitors who violated the oath.
According to the conclusions of the ROVS analysts, the main result of the “winter war” was the moral isolation of the USSR and the growth of opposition within the country. Moreover, the stake was placed on the participants in the battles and prisoners of war. “But still, some of these unfortunate prisoners may return home. In addition, those who survived the battles and were not captured, but saw, like the prisoners, everything that was happening at the front, would return to Russia. All of these people will equally be the most terrible propagandists - exposers of power, which brought the country to such a victory. It's not about increasing hatred of the authorities. Hatred for power in the USSR can hardly be increased. Returnees will do different. Firstly, prisoners will tell us that it’s not better, but a hundred times worse, that there are countries where people are not forced to live like animals. And everyone will talk about their actual defeat, that is, about the weakness of power, strong when meeting with an unarmed population and helpless with an armed and staunch opponent. And thus the most important thing can be done: they will dispel the hypnosis of omnipotence and invincibility of power, and, consequently, the hypnosis of the hopelessness of the struggle. ” There is probably no need to explain that in this case, theorists of the Russian foreign countries gave the wish for the reality: the behavior of captured Red Army soldiers who were afraid to return to their homeland, testified precisely to the strength of the repressive regime in the USSR, which could effectively suppress any dissent and control actions.
However, the conclusion drawn by white emigrants from the outcome of the war that “the task of fighting the USSR is being facilitated, because the obstacle to the fear of serious resistance has been removed, turned out to be superficial and incorrect. Reliance on the study of the sentiments of prisoners of war in the specific conditions of camp life, feeling their responsibility for breaking the oath, gave the wrong message about the spread of opposition views among Soviet people, the weakness of the Soviet government and the possibility of initiating a process of political struggle within the white emigre extremist organizations inside THE USSR.
In any case, this stimulated the growth of emigrant military-political activity: organized military units began to form in the Russian military abroad with the aim of their subsequent integration into the interventionist army to invade the territory of the USSR. At the Military Scientific Courses (VVNK) in Paris and Belgrade, training sessions were held following the results of the “winter war” of 1939–40, the course of hostilities was analyzed, various kinds of military-political forecasts were expressed, etc.
The Finnish command in February 1940 decided to use captured Red Army soldiers for sabotage in the rear of the Red Army. Initially, these formations were called "Russian folk detachments". According to a further plan, combat units of the Russian People’s Army were to be created from them. It was planned to create six Russian national groups, but in practice only one was formed and sent to the front.
During the period of the Soviet-Finnish war, a peculiar “bow” of representatives of the previously opposing camps took place: some of the leaders of the Soviet bureaucracy who had switched to the opposition to the Stalinist regime, and leaders of the white military emigration. An active participant in these events was the former technical secretary of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.), In fact, the secretary I.V. Stalin - B. Bazhanov. After fleeing the USSR in 1928 and several years of emigration, he arrived in Finland at the invitation of Field Marshal K. Mannerheim. On January 15, 1940, a conversation took place in the Marshal’s main apartment in Saint-Michel, which resulted in the authorization of the formation of an emigrant anti-Soviet army. Later, explaining the purpose of his actions, Bazhanov wrote: “I wanted to form the Russian People’s Army from captured Red Army soldiers, only volunteers, not so much to fight as to offer sub-Soviet soldiers to switch to our side and go to liberate Russia from communism. If my opinion about the mood of the population was correct (and since it was after the nightmares of collectivization and nightmare, then I thought it was right), then I wanted to roll a snowball to Moscow, start with a thousand people, take all my strength on that side and reach Moscow with fifty divisions. "
The Russian military emigration not only watched the course of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40, but also made active attempts to intervene in the development of events. The EMRO, the Navy, and a number of other white-emigrant organizations attempted to form and send detachments of volunteers from Russian military emigrants to Finland. In 1940, the EMRO officers who arrived in Finland in a hurry managed to create a detachment of prisoners of war of 200 people, having white emigrant officers. This model of building an anti-Bolshevik army was the basic in almost all military-political futurological concepts of the Russian foreign countries. The following fact is interesting: the captured Red Army men, from whom the units of the “people's army” were formed, preferred that their command posts be occupied not by former red commanders, but by white emigrant officers, because "... white officers are likely to be shot along with them and they certainly will not betray. "
The Russian military emigration closely monitored the sentiments of the captured Red Army soldiers, trying to assess the degree of possibility of using them in the anti-Bolshevik struggle. To conduct the experiment, the Finnish military provided one of the Red Army camps. There were about 500 people aged 20 to 40 years, representatives of various nationalities, the command staff was absent. In his memoirs, Bazhanov argued that when he arrived in this camp in January 1940, most of the prisoners of war expressed their readiness to fight the Soviet regime with arms in their hands, and all were policemanically anti-communist. True, it must be said that the analytical article in the Military Journal of 1940 described the mood of the Red Army in a slightly different tone, although it was most likely based on the results of studies conducted by Bazhenov. So, it wrote: “He found out that a quarter of the Red Army is afraid not only of the dangers of war, but of everything. The second quarter was an unreliable young man, who also did not sympathize with the Soviet regime or, rather, was dissatisfied with it, but did not imagine that it could be opposed. The senior Red Army men told them that the Bolsheviks had a better life, and this youth believed them, but was completely passive. Thus, half of the Red Army men were difficult to propagate, and it would take a long time to bring them into an appropriate state and create an appropriate mood. The third quarter agreed to unconditionally and immediately fight against the Communists. And finally, the last quarter was ready to go against the Soviets, subject to constant political influence. ”
The result of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40. showed the futility of applying the ideas of the white movement in the new reality that arose in the USSR during the two decades of the Bolshevik regime. The effect of the spread of the ideology of white work among Soviet citizens was practically zero.
At this time, Bazhanov worked closely with representatives of the ROVS in Finland. The leadership of the EMRO and the Finnish military, analyzing the actions of Russian emigrant officers, sought to assess the level of their professional training. Of the six emigrant officers, according to Bazhanov, five turned out to be brilliant specialists (two staff captains and 3 second lieutenants). Confidential relations were established between them and the partisans, who began to call themselves "People's Army". The appeal to the white officer was - "citizen commander."
Several units were prepared that took part in the battles. So, one of the 30 former Red Army men under the command of Staff Captain K. stayed at the front for 10 days. During this time, about 200 Red Army soldiers joined the detachment, whom the White Guards propagandized. Hence, observers of the ROVS concluded that the assessment of the sentiments of the Red Army as extremely unstable and even anti-Soviet was correct. A conclusion was also made about the rationality of the tactics employed by the "army soldiers", as well as the need to train technical military specialists in the conditions of emigration, since the "specialists" in the Red Army are loyal to the regime and do not want to join anti-Soviet military formations. At a meeting of general staff officers in the apartment of General Vitkovsky, head of the First Division of the ROVS in Paris, the particularly significant role of the Paris extremist group and B. Bazhanov in organizing anti-Soviet activities during the Soviet-Finnish war was noted. In the future, after the end of the military campaign, representatives of the Russian emigration took part in the events of the Soviet-Finnish war in the departments of the ROVS, in emigrant organizations, at meetings of officers of the general staff with a generalization of the experience of organizing anti-Soviet armed groups from prisoners of war.
Political extremism of the Russian foreign countries was manifested, in particular, in the fact that in 1934-40 military emigrants tried to either join the armies of the opposing European states or create their own armed forces in order to act as an independent military-political force. In February 1940, the head of the "Union of Cossacks, participants in the Great War" appealed to the French military attache in Belgrade to provide support in the formation of military units from white emigrants for use as part of the allied army operating against Nazi Germany.
At the same time, emigrant extremism showed an amazing willingness to take part in the struggle on the side of almost any army - both the fascist orientation and, conversely, their opponents - France, Belgium, the USA, etc. The French counterintelligence recorded in 1939 the fact of "the departure from Yugoslavia of 1700 thousand Russian white emigrants for recruitment into the German army."
In 1941-43, emigrant extremist organizations actively recruited volunteers into anti-Soviet armies: they created special posts in Belgrade, Paris, Berlin, sent campaign letters to emigrants, primarily young people, and checked the lists of members of military organizations for their possible use in the army. In 1941-42, the Cossacks Recruitment Center operated in Prague, forming anti-Bolshevik armed groups. The center was led by N. Kaledin and I. Vishlyants.
The strategic objective of emigrant extremism during the Second World War was the creation of its own interventionist army, with the aim of using it on the Eastern Front against Soviet troops. It was assumed that the emergence of a new white army in 1941-43 would produce a huge propaganda effect in the USSR and turn the domestic war against the fascist invaders into a civil war - against the Soviet system.
At the initial stage of the Second World War in 1939-40. France becomes a springboard on the territory of which anti-Soviet armed groups are formed. In Paris, there was the headquarters of the EMRO, a large number of military societies and unions that made up the organizational center of Russian emigrant extremism. In 1941, in France, an attempt was made to form the "Union of White Guards" armed unit "to fight Bolshevism" - the "Anti-Bolshevik Legion" under the chairmanship of Stork.
In Algeria, in 1941–42, the White Guards Recruitment Center for the “Anti-Bolshevik Legion” functioned to participate in hostilities on the Soviet-German front. The Algerian center was led by the Russian emigrant of the “first wave” P. Dolgushin. The "Anti-Bolshevik Legion" consisted mainly of former soldiers and officers of the Wrangel Army, who settled in North Africa in the 1920s and dreamed of resuming the armed struggle against the Soviet regime.
During the Second World War, white-emigrant fascist youth organizations intensified their efforts to imitate German national socialist organizations such as the Hitler Youth, etc. In France, there was a fascist youth organization “Young Volunteer”, which in 1942 officially joined the All-Russian Union of Fascists (WSF) in the Far East.
After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Russian emigration faced a difficult problem in many respects: which of the struggling parties to support, whom to consider as their ally - fascist Germany or the countries of Western democracy - England and France? In June 1941, the problem of choosing a military-political orientation for Russian emigrants was even more complicated, literally gaining tragedy: to support the USSR, its ideological adversary since the civil war of 1917-20. either stand on the side of Germany against its historical homeland. The position of the leadership of the ROVS was formulated on September 1, 1939 in the order of General A.P. Arkhangelsky, chairman of the ROVS: "The ranks of the ROVS must fulfill their obligation to the country in which they are located and establish themselves on the best side, as befits a Russian warrior." In the period 1939-1941. Russian emigration still takes a position of neutrality, trying not to get involved in the events of the “strange war” in Europe, evading conscription of recipient countries.
Despite the fact that the Russian military emigration in the late 1930s. it strongly corrected and Germanophilic tendencies also intensified in its midst; after the outbreak of World War II, most of the emigrant associations and unions declared their neutrality. The leaders of the white military emigration supported this position: for example, V. Orekhov urged his supporters not to intervene in the conflict until one of the parties announced that "the struggle is for the liberation of Russia from Bolshevism."
In general, emigration, especially located in Germany, took a wait-and-see attitude, which was precisely described by the head of the Directorate for Russian Emigration in Germany, General V.V. Pekey’s lawsuit during a personal meeting with General A.A. von Lampe. He suggested "... calmly, without any criticism, maintaining unity and friendly relations, patiently wait for a solution to the problem, doing his daily work, and thereby save both his own position and the position of the entire Russian emigration living in Germany." Indeed, the military structures of the Russian emigration to fascist Germany were limited in their actions: in the case of open statements about the support of the USSR, their participants would be immediately arrested, and too high political activity, even in support of Germany, also often led to arrests and repressions (like for example, in the case of General Skorodumov).
During the years 1939-1945. Russian military emigration was forced several times to determine their political position and line of conduct. The rapidly developing European and then the global military-political crisis did not allow Russian military emigrants to avoid the difficult choice for them: whom to support in a difficult and contradictory situation, when there was no specific polarization of interests and both warring parties were evil for Russian emigrants. ”
The situation in the late 1930s, when the possibility of a clash between European states and the USSR was clearly indicated, was understandable to military emigrants: it seemed to reproduce the situation during the Civil War of 1917-20. and opened before the Russian emigration the prospect of resuming armed struggle at a new stage of the civil war in the USSR, which was supposed, according to the leaders of the ROVS, to begin simultaneously with the intervention of Western countries against the Soviet Union. At the same time, military emigration saw its task in forming an interventionist white army (most likely in Poland or Romania) and opposing the Red Army, seizing the initiative from external invaders. The opinion of the vast majority of military emigrants in this case coincided, the differences were only in the choice of means to solve this problem and the definition of tactics.
However, in 1939, the first split in the environment of military emigration took place, the Second World War began when the European states themselves clashed with each other, while the USSR acted as an ally of fascist Germany, caused by the presence in the world of military emigration of both supporters of the German and those of Anglo-French orientation .
In 1939, the outbreak of a world military conflict, in spite of her will, dragged Russian emigration into a whirlwind of military events: many Russian emigrants were drafted into the French, Polish and Yugoslav armies. (The officer corps of the Yugoslav army included especially many Russian emigrants). During the hostilities in Europe, many Russian emigrants were captured, interned, and also hid in the territories occupied by fascist Germany. In 1939, the world of Russian military emigration in the Baltic countries and Poland was destroyed as a result of the offensive of the Red Army. The areas annexed to the USSR were subjected to thorough political and “class” purges: white emigrants and lolithic extremists who had no time to escape were arrested by the NKVD, military unions were closed, newspapers and magazines were banned. Military associations in Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn ceased to exist.
In 1939, the first wave of repression by the Nazi authorities in Germany swept through the world of Russian military emigration. The EMRO, military societies and press organs of the white emigration were persecuted by the German Nazis, since the military emigration called for a campaign against the Bolshevik regime, and Germany at that time was an ally of the USSR. In 1940, for this reason, the central press organ of the military abroad, the Chasovoy magazine, was closed, and many activists of the ROVS and the BRP were also arrested.
In 1941-42 military emigration goes through the second period of military-political orientation, determined by the choice of its goals: part of the military emigration believed that its main goal was the overthrow of the Stalinist regime, the path even by conquering the USSR by fascist Germany, while the other part of the military diaspora considered Hitler the worst enemy of their homeland, therefore, she was ready to support the Soviet Union in the fight against the fascist aggressor. On the whole, the process of determining their position by the Russian emigration was completed by the end of 1942: its politically active members either joined pro-German military formations or took part in the struggle of the anti-fascist Resistance movement. Russian military emigrants, defining their position in 1939-40, tried to be guided by the principle of least evil, which accordingly separated them: some considered the victory of fascist Germany over the Stalinist USSR as the least evil, and others considered the victory of the Soviet Union over Germany, even if this strengthened the Soviet system and, accordingly, postponed for an indefinite period its decline, which Russian extremists so stubbornly dreamed of.
The leadership of the ROVS was wary of the entry of Russian emigrants into military service in the German army. General A. Vitkovsky, the head of the 1st (French) department of the EMRO, said that "Russian blood can only be shed for the Russian cause."
After the outbreak of war, almost all emigration was divided into defenders and defeatists. The first advocated the victory of the Soviet Union; the latter believed that Hitler’s victory would help to destroy the Bolshevik power in the country. Almost the entire left and most of the centrist part of the political spectrum of emigration supported the Soviet Union and the anti-Hitler coalition. This is especially true for those who were able to leave occupied Europe. So, M.O. Tsetlin, the founder of the left-liberal New Journal (New York), the successor to Modern Notes, wrote in an introductory article to the first issue of the magazine: “Whoever leads the Russian army in its heroic struggle, we wholeheartedly wish Russia complete victory .. . ". As Hitler began to realize his colonialist plans, the number of defenders constantly increased.
The leader of the Russian military emigration, General A.I. Denikin took the position of “defenders” and considered it impossible to call on Russian emigrants for armed struggle in the ranks of the German army against the USSR. So, in a letter to the chairman of the EMRO, General A.P. He wrote to Arkhangelsky: "... to call to serve equally zealously for everyone - both friends and enemies of Russia - is to convert Russian emigrant soldiers to Landsknechts."
At the same time, a significant part of Russian military emigrants joined pro-German armed groups and took part in the “campaign to the East” (“Dranch nah Osten”) (especially in the early stages of the war, when the true goals of the fascists were not yet as obvious as it had happened) at the end of 1941 - 1942) Many of them were sincerely mistaken, not understanding the true intentions of the Nazis and militaristic Japan and believing that they were fighting only against Bolshevism, and thus explained their participation in the war by the desire to restore historical Russia sky state.
General A.I. Denikin publicly spoke out in support of the Red Army, believing that war could wake up the identity of the Soviet people, including the Red Army, which, having expelled the Germans outside the USSR, would turn its weapons against the Stalinist regime. A.I. Denikin maintained this view throughout the war. November 15, 1944 A.I. Denikin made an appeal to former soldiers of the white armies, which said: “We experienced pain in the days of the defeat of the army, although it is called“ Red ”and not Russian, and joy in the days of its victories. And now, when the world war is not over yet, we wholeheartedly wish it a victorious end that will ensure our country from impudent encroachments from without. " At the same time, white-emigre extremism did not lose hope of a military-political revenge.
A.I. Denikin formulated the two most important tasks of the white movement in relation to the current situation. The first task is to help expel the German army from the territory of the USSR; the second task is to “change the internal situation” in the Soviet Union, i.e. overthrow the Stalinist regime. Only after their solution, the goal of the white movement, in his opinion, can the mass return of Russian military emigrants to their homeland be possible.
Characterized by the behavior of one of the leaders of the ROVS General A.A. von Lampe, who, shortly before the start of the war of fascist Germany against the USSR, wrote a letter to the Wehrmacht commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Werner von Brauchitsch, in which, in the context of the impending war, he asked to keep in mind the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), ready to fight the communists. In July 1941, he wrote a similar letter to Hitler’s office and attached a copy of his letter to Brauchitsch. An answer was received from the Reich Chancellery that the letter was sent for consideration all the same to Field Marshal Brauchitsch. Finally, Brauchitsch nevertheless answered General von Lampe. In his reply, he pointed out that the participation of emigrants in the war with the Soviet Union is not provided. Von Lampe was forced on August 17, 1941 to give order No. 46 to the Second Division of the ROVS that the members of the ROVS are free to act independently, but must keep in touch with him. He refused to accept German citizenship and did not recommend military ranks to enlist in German units, for which he was arrested by the Gestapo and even spent some time in prison.
Initially, the German military command not only did not plan to use Russian emigrants in the war against the USSR, but, moreover, even carried out two waves of repressions against members of the EMRO and military organizations:
a) in 1939-41 - activists of the Russian foreign countries were arrested in Europe (in Paris, Berlin, Belgrade and other cities);
b) in 1941 - the second wave of repression took place in Germany and France, associated with the outbreak of the German war against the USSR.
In 1941-42 the organizational role of the EMRO as a single center of Russian emigration is declining, and its functions are transferred to a number of new emigrant extremist groups - the Russian People’s National Army (RNNA), the Russian National Army (RNA), the Russian Security Corps (ROC), etc. However, the ROVS is not less, he tried to maintain the visibility of the key structure of the Russian foreign countries, sometimes speaking on behalf of the entire military emigration. For example, on June 1, 1942, General von Lampe sent out a circular letter informing the ROVS officials about the possibilities of participating in the fight against Bolshevism. The options were different, and everywhere had their own characteristics. Among them: service in extremist military units, service as translators in German units and organizations, participation in special detachments to combat partisans, work in the transport organization Speer, service in the Russian Security Corps, entry into the detachment of S.N. Ivanova. In a letter, von Lampe expressed the hope that someday the German side will nevertheless have a need to use the forces of Russian emigrants and the Unification (ROVS) as a whole will come to grips with Bolshevism, and for this, every member of the ROVS, wherever he is must leave detailed information about the place of his service. The leadership of the EMRO and the leaders of the military emigration hoped that "they would be able to turn the external war of Germany against the USSR into a civil war against the Bolshevik regime."
The counter-intelligence structures of the ROVS, processing the information received from the Soviet territories occupied by Germany, came to the conclusion that in the USSR there was massive dissatisfaction with the Stalin regime and that “it was enough to start focused political work, as the population immediately turned its back on the Bolsheviks and would contribute in every way to the restoration of the Bolshevik Of Russia. ” Their conclusions were based on the following theses: “1) during the war the people received weapons on a millionth scale, which could never have been achieved at any other time, 2) during the war, the ranks of the Communist Party were badly damaged and the authority of the government was thoroughly discredited, 3) many Germans, holding senior positions in the military and civilian departments of Germany, they realized that Hitler led Germany to a standstill and a catastrophe was inevitable for her if the situation in the East was not changed by political means. ” These emigrants believed that the “sane” Germans were ready to conclude an honorable alliance with the representatives of Russia in exile in order to wage a further struggle against the Bolsheviks with them. And for this, in their opinion, an organizationally designed “Russian Liberation Movement” (ROD) was necessary. But the German authorities, who had conquered the campaign against the USSR and aimed at its complete destruction, did not take into account the desire of Russian military emigrants to create an ROD and act as an independent military-political force, moreover, they prohibited the activities of many Russian emigrant organizations on the Eastern Front, if their creation was not authorized by the leadership of the Wehrmacht.
Realizing that the “old” white military emigrants, by virtue of their political views already formed, are unlikely to ever become obedient puppets of Germany and will always claim an independent role, the Germans relied on emigrant youth: as part of their Eastern policy, the Germans contributed to the creation of Russians youth anti-Soviet organizations. So, in 1942, the National Organization of Russian Youth was created in Berlin. The coordinator of the training program for Russian youth for the future governance of Russia was George L. Lukin, the son of a white emigrant who lived in Yugoslavia. He, like many in the Russian diaspora, "counted on the revival of national Russia and was critical of the Nazi plans for it." But in those conditions, he "did not see another opportunity to fight Bolshevism and accepted the German proposal to conduct organizational work with Russian emigrant youth."
The German military command (OKW), trying to prevent Russian extremist military emigrants from entering the Eastern Front, at the same time effectively used emigrants in the system of occupational military command. By order of the commander-in-chief of German troops in France of April 21, 1942, the Committee for Mutual Assistance of Russian Emigrants in France was reorganized into the Office of Russian Emigration in France. Yu.S. Zherebkov, grandson of the tsarist general-adjutant A. Zherebkov. He held extremely pro-German positions. This is evidenced by his "Alert", published in May 1942, according to which the board selected volunteers from among emigrant extremists to the Soviet-German front and to areas occupied by German troops. Moreover, any anti-German activities of emigrants were prohibited. Since the beginning of the war against the USSR, Yu.S. Zherebkov and the head of the French department of the EMRO General, Professor N.N. Golovin was registered by more than one and a half thousand officers who expressed a desire to unconditionally participate in the fight against Bolshevism. The first batch of emigrants, who left for the front, consisted of 200 people and had a form specially designed for them. Russian emigrant extremism is increasingly acquiring the features of a large-scale organized movement.
At the end of 1941-42. in the Soviet occupied territories, the phenomenon of emigrant military administrative structures arises, which existed under fairly weak control of the German occupation authorities. For example, in the autumn of 1942, despite Berlin’s prohibitions, the Kaminsky brigade already existed in the Lokot district of the Oryol Region with its Russian command staff and the Russian administrative civil administration of the district; in Mogilev, the Cossack regiment of Major (then General) Kononov was also stationed with the Russian command staff (the Cossacks of the regiment were sometimes involved in the convoy of Field Marshal Kluge, commander of Army Group Center), there were small but numerous Russian volunteer military units in German units or separate military units auxiliary units (Hilfswillige) under the command of the Germans.
Russian emigrant political extremism saw in such structures the sprouts of the future Russian post-Bolshevik state power, which, in their opinion, should have arisen on the territory of the USSR after a revision of relations between Germany and the new Russian power in the direction of an equal partnership. General A.I. Denikin, whose authority in the world of the Russian military abroad remained high in the 1940s, believed that, of course, it would be necessary to continue the anti-Bolshevik struggle, but in a real military-political situation this would be tantamount to a blow to the back of his homeland: to help Hitler aggressors - means to oppose their homeland. Therefore, as the former head of the Volunteer Army has repeatedly noted, "the participation of emigrants in the foreign invasion of Russia is unacceptable." In his letter to the head of the ROVS, General A.P. Arkhangelsky A.I. Denikin condemned the actions of the EMRO for the recruitment of Russian emigrants to serve in the German army. General A.I. Denikin laid the foundation for the émigré defense émigré movement, i.e. those emigrants who during the Patriotic War of 1941-45. He spoke out in support of his homeland, against fascist aggression. During the war years, “defense” became a serious opponent of emigrant political extremism.
The basis of the political concept of A.I. Denikin had the idea that the Red Army, "having defeated the German armies, would turn bayonets against the Bolsheviks." Among the supporters of this point of view, military leaders who adhered to the "allied orientation" prevailed during the Civil War. Alliance with England, France and the USA.
The conclusion of the Soviet-German treaty in 1939 temporarily disoriented them, but the development of events in 1941 returned to them the familiar coordinate scale. The plan of a significant part of Russian military extremists in the initial period of the war between the USSR and Germany - in 1941-42. - consisted of forming their own military structures, joining the hostilities on the Eastern Front and, in the future, “serving as the nucleus around which the opponents of the Bolshevik regime in Russia will rally, after which it would be possible to talk with the Germans from a position of strength, since they can overcome the national Russia would have no chance at all. ” Therefore, when creating voluntary extremist émigré military units, the latter usually set the condition that they would not be used in the fight against Western opponents of Germany, but would be sent to Russia. However, the goals and aspirations of Russian extremists were quite obvious to the German leadership, which is why it prevented the sending of large formations entirely consisting of white emigrants to the Eastern Front. On the issue of the participation of emigrant extremist groups in the fight against the Soviet regime in German leadership circles, a fierce struggle of opinions was fought: the Wehrmacht military command was sympathetic to the project of creating extremist armed groups, but party circles and the Gestapo were extremely hostile.
Two main points of view have developed among Russian political extremism that equally considered it necessary to abolish the Stalinist regime, but diverged in assessing both the possibility of overthrowing it from the inside and the likelihood of the fall of the Soviet system due to foreign intervention, primarily from fascist Germany. “Oboroncheskaya” proceeded from absolute distrust of Germany (regardless of the regime existing in it), but on the other hand, hoped that the Soviet regime, forced to defend itself, would objectively defend the territory of historical Russia. The main hope was that after defeating the external enemy, the Bolshevik regime would be overthrown by the victorious army itself, led by the Soviet military leaders who had advanced during the war - G. Zhukov, K. Rokossovsky and others.
The possibility was not ruled out that, due to powerful external influence, the Stalinist regime would begin to evolve towards democracy and liberalism, the leading role of the CPSU (b) would weaken, political repressions would stop, etc. The mistake of such a forecast of Russian emigration is obvious: the Soviet system only strengthened during the years of the Patriotic War of 1941-45, leaving no chance for emigrant political extremism.
The right-wing camp of military emigration, including its monarchist wing, adhered to a German orientation. His point was to first of all use every opportunity to resume the armed struggle against the Bolshevik regime.
The military-monarchist emigration considered the Bolshevik regime in the USSR as the greatest evil and was guided by the covenant of General P.N. Wrangel: "against the Bolsheviks - with anyone." However, the true intentions of German National Socialism with respect to the USSR soon ceased to be a secret for Russian emigration, and the Rosenberg program, “more anti-Russian than anti-Bolshevik,” pushed the ROVS and extremist military emigres from direct assistance to fascist Germany during the campaign to the East and forced them to seek ways of more indirect participation in events. Proponents of this point of view believed that Germany could not defeat Russia, that the conquest and occupation of Russia was clearly an impossible task for the Germans, and that, being unable to control the vast Russian territories, Germany would inevitably be faced with a choice: either lose the war, or having concluded neutrality with the new Russian government, try to win the war in Europe. "
The defeat of the German troops near Moscow in the fall and winter of 1941 caused joy in the military-monarchical wing of the Russian emigration, because, in her opinion, this was to sober up the Germans and cause a change in their entire eastern policy, forcing them to take a course not towards the destruction of Russia, but towards an alliance with her in the fight against the West. The conflict between the "defenders" and supporters of the armed struggle against the Bolshevik regime in the midst of military emigration culminated in 1942, when the German armies had already been defeated near Moscow, but still continued to occupy a significant part of Soviet territory and were not completely destroyed.
It should be noted that both the “defenders” and the supporters of the alliance with Germany still saw their ultimate goal as the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime and a return to the ideals of historical Russia: the difference was in the methods for achieving this: the “defenders” considered the participation of white emigrants in the pro-German armed forces unacceptable, and participants of the ROD - quite acceptable, if only it would end with the victory of the white movement.
Extremist military circles, which constituted the core of Russian emigration, instinctively gravitated to their own kind and tended to overestimate the role of the army in the political life of totalitarian states, such as fascist Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Not fully understanding the nature of totalitarian dictatorships, they underestimated the ideological component of the regimes, believing that under certain conditions it is possible to abandon their basic provisions or to make significant adjustments to them, which would open up the possibility for the expansion of the ideology of the white cause into a vacant ideological space. It was on this that the calculations of Russian extremists, supporters of the alliance with Germany in the fight against the Bolshevik regime, were built. Supporters of the German orientation believed that the clash between Russia and Germany in the First World War was a historical mistake and, moreover, Russia should have supported Germany against the Entente. In addition, participants in the civil war of 1917-20. well remembered the benevolent attitude that was shown to them in 1918 by the German officers, even contrary to the position of the political circles of Germany. From this, the military-monarchist circles of the Russian emigration made the conclusion that the German policy towards the USSR would be determined not by the party and political leadership of the NSDAP, but by the army, which, guided by pragmatic considerations, would enter into an alliance with post-Bolshevik Russia.
In 1946, General A.I. Denikin in a letter to the chairman of the ROVS, General AL. Arkhangelsky condemned the leadership of the ROVS to attract Russian military emigrants to serve in the German army. The position occupied by A.I. Denikin can be expressed in the following thesis: "The fate of Russia is more important than the fate of emigration."
The fate of Russian military emigrants during the Second World War was influenced to a large extent by such factors as residence: for example, Russian emigrants who lived in the Balkans and in Eastern Europe, mainly joined the Russian Security Corps (ROC) and fought as part of this anti-Bolshevik military formation (after the Soviet army entered this region of Europe in 1944-45, the world of the Russian military abroad was destroyed, many emigrants were repressed). It should be noted that Russian military emigrants living in Eastern Europe and in the territories occupied by the Germans were not called up to the German army, i.e. their decision to join the ROD or the "eastern battalions" was completely voluntary.
If the military leadership of the Third Reich intended to use Russian anti-Bolshevik extremist groups on the Eastern Front with the goal of ideologically and politically destabilizing the Stalin regime and was ready to transfer to them a certain part of the management functions in the occupied territories, right up to the creation of the “national government” of Russia, then the Nazi party circles belonged to the ROD extremely unfriendly, trying to minimize its role. In July 1943, Hitler, speaking at a meeting of the OKW, said about Russian anti-Bolshevik extremist groups: "... in the future they see their own goals. All these emigrants and advisers only want to prepare their positions for the future."
Such a policy of the ROD came into irreconcilable contradiction with the goals of the Hitlerite leadership, which set itself the task of completely colonizing the Soviet space, destroying the vast masses of the population and destroying Russian statehood.
A significant part of the Russian military emigrants was in 1939-40. drafted into the French army, where she was forced to serve in the framework of the French military organization, without declaring any political and ideological slogans for her part (more than 300 Russian emigrants died in France during the period 1939-45). At the same time, Russian emigration to France was practically not subjected to repression in 1945-48. (except for sabotage by the NKVD in the Beauregard camp, near Paris). It should be noted that the call of Russian emigrants to the French army was carried out in a forced manner, i.e. It is hardly possible to speak of the voluntary participation of Russian emigrants in the war between France and Germany.
During the formation of extremist military units, a peculiar lobby of the Russian military emigration, which was active in the German army, manifested itself - the German military, immigrants from Russia: V.K. Shtrik-Shtrikfeld, N. von Grote, Baron E.K. von Dellingshausen and SB. Fröhlich, Kaulbars, who continued to consider themselves "Russian officers of German descent." This group of the German military tried to actively influence the "eastern policy" of the Third Reich in the direction of abandoning the plans for the colonization of the USSR, for the alliance of Germany with independent Russia. The influence of these individuals even extended to structures such as the German military intelligence Abwehr.
A number of Russian emigrants - gene. Biskupsky, Kaulbars - were involved in an attempted military coup in July 1944, when a group of German soldiers led by Colonel Staufenberg tried to eliminate Hitler. In case of success of this action, it was supposed to change the policy in the East and give a green street to Russian emigrant military units - ROA, RNA, ROCK.
There was a group among Russian military emigrants who believed that only a foreign army (in this case, the Wehrmacht) could defeat the Bolshevik regime in a direct military clash, and therefore the idea of a “third force” capable of fighting on two fronts - against Germany and against the USSR, - absurd and even harmful. Proponents of this view were generals Biskupsky and Wojciechowski, as well as chieftain P. Krasnov and, to a certain extent, Holmsten-Smyslovsky. As a result of such internal disagreements, even conflicts arose among the emigration: for example, Captain K. Foss, a member of the ROVS, went to serve in the Gestapo and, together with a group of NORR youths, impeded the activities of emigrant propaganda bodies in the occupied territory of the USSR.
In modern mass consciousness, the ROD is usually associated with a movement led by General A. Vlasov and parts of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). However, this concept is much broader: the ROD also included white emigre extremist military formations - ROC, RNA, and others; his ideological and political program included a set of military-political doctrines, including a number of provisions of the so-called The “white movement”, the ideas of the emigrant “political activism”, etc. At the same time, the Vlasov movement was only an integral part of the ROD, and it was also quite isolated. At the same time, the set of ideas of the ROD was very eclectic: it included the “Februaryist” views of the Vlasovites, the orthodox anti-Bolshevik ideas of white extremist immigrants, the ideology of the “new generation”, etc. At the same time, the synthesis of this complex of ideas did not happen, only in 1944 after the creation of KONP, a certain compromise was reached. Two main streams were the components of the RPM: the white émigré movement, in which revanchist-restoration moods prevailed, and the movement of Soviet prisoners of war who wished to continue the armed struggle with the Stalinist regime. The idea of combating the Stalinist regime for the restoration of historical Russia, as well as the desire to change German policy in the East, towards an equal union between Germany and Russia, became the unifying idea of the ROD.
At the same time, a third option has been planned in the Russian émigré community since June 1941: many emigrants began to turn to Soviet embassies and consulates with a request to grant them USSR citizenship and permission to join the Red Army in order to fight on the side of their homeland against the fascist aggressor . Unfortunately, this topic has not received sufficient coverage in Russian historiography. At the same time, this situation contained a probable model of the mass behavior of Russian emigrants in the conditions of the Patriotic War of 1941-42. If the former white emigrants really were open in the Red Army, there would undoubtedly be a significant number of people willing to return to their homeland and enlist in the military. However, the Stalinist totalitarian regime immediately blocked this option for ideological reasons, since it destroyed the one formed in the 1920s and 30s. a stable image of an enemy emigrant, beneficial to the Stalinist system for maintaining a state of constant tension in the country and society caused by an alleged external threat from emigrant extremism.
Russian military emigrants who wished to return to the USSR and continue the struggle against fascist Germany were ready to join the Red Army on a common basis, without presenting any conditions, the officers were ready to serve in soldiers' posts. At the same time, many Russian emigrants ceased to define the form of the state-political structure of the USSR as the "Stalinist regime" and returned to the concept of "Homeland" in relation to the Soviet Union. For example, on the morning of June 22, 1941, Prince Obolensky appeared at the Soviet embassy in Vichy (France) and asked Ambassador A. Bogomolov to enlist him in the Red Army and send him to the Soviet-German front.
Many Russian military émigrés, members of the EMRO, who lived in France, joined the Resistance movement (Resistance). In the ranks of the French army and units of the "Fighting France" entered 3 thousand Russian emigrants, in the partisan units of the "Resistance" - several hundred people. In Yugoslavia, the representative of Zemgor in Belgrade, General Makhin, joined the partisan army of Tito, becoming a military adviser.
In the mid 1930s in Czechoslovakia, on the basis of the organization of Cossack "independents" who advocated the creation of an independent state, "Cossacks", the "Cossack National Center" (KSC) was created under the leadership of V.G. Glazkova. KSC from the very moment of its formation began to focus on fascist Germany, guided by the slogan: “Though with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks!”
Among the Cossack emigration, there is a fascination with German National Socialism and there is a danger of the formation of Russian foreign "Cossack fascism." The Prague-based liberal magazine “Cossack Thought” openly warned its readers about the possibility of “organizing and formalizing Don Hitlerism” and about the negative consequences that this movement will cause among Russian Cossack emigrants, since it will create a danger of armed intervention by Cossack forces on the side of Russia's historical adversary - Germany, which also has at this stage the most reactionary form of state-political structure - the regime of the National Socialist fascist dictatorship.
In 1940, after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, General V.V., head of the Russian emigration department in Germany Bi stingy in agreement with the gene. P. Krasnov appointed General E.M. Balabin ataman of the All-Cossack Association in the protectorate of the Czech Republic and Moravia. This appointment was officially approved by the authorities of Nazi Germany, who put E.M. Balabin’s task is to unite the Cossacks “into one common non-political organization” in order to protect their interests; in reality, the Nazi authorities primarily pursued their own goal - to take control of Cossack organizations in the former Czechoslovakia, to liquidate independent and disloyal "defense" Cossack societies and unions, and to create a single center for managing the Cossack movement abroad - the KSC.
June 22, 1941, on the day of Nazi Germany’s attack on the USSR, the Cossack National Center in Prague sent a telegram to Hitler, Goering and Ribbentrop, which said: “The KSC at the historic moment of the decision of the German leader brings him the name of his Cossacks abroad ... an expression of joyful feeling fidelity and devotion ... We, the Cossacks, are putting ourselves and all our forces at the disposal of the Fuhrer to fight against our common enemy. We believe that the victorious German army will ensure the restoration of Cossack statehood ... "
At the same time, the KSC was transformed into the “Cossack National Liberation Movement” (KNOD). The Cossack organizations of the “independents” in Prague, Berlin and Paris supported the KNOD by adopting resolutions at their meetings endorsing fascist aggression against the USSR. So, in one resolution it was said: “We are going with that modern Germany, whose national-socialist beginnings of life are so close to the social beginnings of our Cossack life.”
At the end of 1941, when the German troops reached the Don, there was a sharp activation of Cossack political organizations and the press. However, the hopes of the Cossack "independents" for the reconstruction of the Cossack republics with the help of the forces of the German army did not materialize. In fact, the Nazi leadership did not even think about creating a “Cossack” state on the Don, Kuban and Terek, only for tactical purposes flirting with the Cossack elite, intending to use the Cossack military units in their own interests - to protect the railways, fight against partisans, and carry out punitive events.
Only on November 10, 1943, when the German troops had already been expelled from the occupied Cossack lands, the Nazi leadership issued a declaration on the Cossack issue, which recognized the right of the Cossacks to independence, inviolability of its lands, preservation of previous privileges, etc. But such a belated decision caused only the bitter irony of the Cossack chieftains: it could no longer have any tangible influence on the course of events and only showed the Cossacks the insincerity of their former allies. The military-political role of the Cossacks as a factor of war was rapidly declining, approaching zero.
Extremist Russian military emigres sought to emphasize the ideological military-political aspect of their anti-Soviet activities, to present themselves not as mercenaries of an army hostile to their homeland, but as “ideological fighters” against communism. So, in 1944, the command of volunteer formations on the Eastern Front prepared a draft of the “Plan of political and educational work among volunteers”, which outlined the main ideas of the Vlasov movement, with significant elements of the ideology of the white movement, adapted to the specific requirements of the circumstances of the moment (union with the “friendly Germany ”, etc.) and built on the principles of political extremism.
In reality, Russian revenge-emigrants turned out to be a toy in the hands of the German command, which used them for their own purposes. The German Foreign Ministry (in an internal directive) announced in 1944 about plans to use the movement of General A.A. Vlasov and white emigre extremist groups for propaganda purposes during the war with the USSR.
Representatives of the Russian military emigration of the first post-revolutionary wave took an active part in the Vlasov movement in 1942-45. and had a significant impact on the formation of the political position of General Vlasov himself (for example, the old white emigrants V. Shtrikfeldt, E. Dellingshausen and others entered the Vlasov’s inner circle). Much contributed to the convergence of the positions of the old emigration and A.A. Vlasova, head of the Office of the Russian Emigration in France, Yu. Zherebkov. On June 24, 1943, a meeting of Russian emigrants, representatives of German and French founders, employees of diplomatic missions in Paris and representatives of the international press was organized in Wagram Hall in Paris, where General Malyshkin in his speech outlined the main ideas of the Russian Liberation Movement (ROD) ) “Vlasov assigned an important role to the old emigrants in the upcoming struggle ... From his point of view, the old emigration should have been a link between the old historical Russia and the present.” In 1942-43 expatriate youth organizations - the “Youth Union” and the “Youth Combat Union”, on the basis of which the “Union for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” (SBONR) was created, began to join the ROD.
Many military emigrants entered the Vlasov army “directly”, without being a member of any emigrant organizations before. For example, an anti-tank detachment of 50 people of the first division of the ROA was led by Colonel I. Sakharov and Count Lamsdorf. Most of the Russian extremist military emigrants who actively participated in the events of the Second World War had close ties with German military circles back in the 1920s and 1930s.
In July 1941, at the headquarters of Army Group Sever, under the leadership of Abwehr, the "1st Russian foreign training battalion, also called" Sondershtab R ", was formed, in the amount of 1000 people. Through the Abwehr line," Sonderstab "P “” Was subordinate to the central branch of German military intelligence on the Eastern Front, the “Wally” headquarters. This was the first military unit consisting of Russian extremist emigrants.54 Abwehr used “Russian cadres” to conduct military sabotage and other special operations in the rear of the Red Army and on occupation Noah territory. At the head of the extremist armed groups was made captain of the emigrant Boris Regen-Smyslovskiy, active supporter of the fight against Bolshevism.
At the beginning of 1943, the German command reorganized the Regenau-Smyslovsky formations, which were now called the "Special Forces Division" Russia "(" Sonderdivision "R" ") and became part of the regular formations of the Wehrmacht. The personnel of the division wore the usual German army uniform, on the left there was a white-blue-red chevron up its sleeve, and in February 1945, Smyslovsky received an order to reorganize the “Russia” division into the Russian Army, code-named “Green Special Forces”, which later became known as “1st Russ national army ", and Smyslovsky himself was promoted to major general of the German army. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, in May 1945, parts of the RIA crossed the border of the Principality of Liechtenstein and surrendered to its authorities.
One of the largest armed units of the Russian emigration was the Russian People's National Army (RNNA). In March 1942, a white emigrant S.N. Ivanov met with the commander of the German Army Group Center, Field Marshal von Kluge in Smolensk, and received permission from him to recruit personnel for a special Russian unit in any of the prisoners of war camps on the site of Army Group Center.
In Berlin, at the High Command Headquarters (OKW - Obercommando der Wehrmacht), the intended program was approved. An organization group consisting of S.N. Ivanova, K.G. Gromiadi (former colonel, regiment commander), I.K. Sakharov (the son of a general of the tsarist army, a white volunteer during the Spanish Civil War), as well as I. Jung, V. Ressler, priest Fr. Germogen (Kivachuk), Count G. Lamsdorf, Count S. Palen, Count A. Vorontsov-Dashkov, V. Sobolevsky and representative of the OKW, Liaison Officer Oberleutenant Burkhardt. From the command of Army Group Center and Abwehr, the group was supervised by the head of the counterintelligence department No. 203 (Abwehrstelle 203), Colonel von Goetting-Seeburg.
The formed headquarters included: S.N. Ivanov (pseudonym Graukopf) - the initiator and leader of the action, carrying out political leadership and communication with the German command, I.K. Sakharov (pseudonym Levin), who was the assistant to Ivanov, and K.G. Kromiadi (pseudonym Sanin), who served as commandant of the central headquarters and responsible for personnel, combatant and economic units. The formation was called the “Russian People’s National Army” (the action taken was called Operation Graukopf, but there were other names for this formation: “Russian Special Forces Battalion,” “Abwehr 203 Unit,” Graukopf compound), which met the goals, which were set by its organizers. A communications team of 20 German soldiers was led to the main group, led by Lieutenant Burchardt. To finalize the detachment from the camp near Smolensk, 20 volunteers from prisoners of war were taken.
Since 1942, the German command attracted Russian emigrants and prisoners of war to the activities of reconnaissance units on the Eastern Front.
By decision of Field Marshal von Kluge, the Osintorf village was determined to be the place of deployment of the unit, 6 kilometers from Osinovka station at the Orsha-Smolensk railway station in Belarus. Before the war, there were large peat deposits on this site, and the central and workers' settlements, designed for 10,000 workers, were preserved. A platoon created from prisoners of war was soon deployed to the company, and then to the battalion.
By the end of the summer of 1942, the RNNA was sufficiently staffed with trained personnel and was able to turn into a division. Major Riel was identified as chief of staff, colonel Gorsky as chief of artillery; the battalion commanders are Colonel Kobzev, Major Grachev, Major Ivanov, Major Nikolaev, Colonel X, and intelligence chief Major Bocharov. The sanitary unit was headed by a doctor Vinogradov, who managed to recruit a staff of doctors and created an infirmary in the central village and an outpatient clinic for the local population. Count S. Palen and Count G. Lamsdorf came to Osintorf from the headquarters of General Schenkendorf, the commander of the rear guard forces of Army Group Center, where they served as translators.
Many of the RNNA officers then joined the Vlasov movement, including General G.N. Zhilenkov, who became a member of the Presidium of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) and head of the propaganda department of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), Colonel Boyarsky — assistant chief of staff of the ROA, Colonel Sakharov — operational adjutant, and then commander of the ROA regiment, Colonel Bocharov — the representative of General A. Vlasov in the Cossack units of General Domanov, Colonel Riel - operational adjutant of the ROA headquarters, captain Kashtanov - chief of Vlasov’s security, Lieutenant Ressler - staff officer and personal translator of Vlaso wah. Captain Count G. Lamsdorf commanded the company, K.G. Kromiadi served as commandant of the headquarters, and then head of the personal office of General Vlasov. In 1945, RNNA crumbled under the blows of the Soviet troops, and the military leadership - Zhilenkov, Ril, Boyarsky, Nikolaev - was issued by the Americans to the Soviet side. In 1946, they appeared before the Supreme Court of the USSR and suffered deserved punishment.
In 1941, in Yugoslavia, under the control of the German occupation authorities, the formation of the "Russian Security Corps" (ROC), a large military unit, almost entirely consisting of first-wave emigrants, began.
The order to begin the formation of the corps was signed by General M.F. On September 12, 1941, Skorodumov, the Department of the ROVS in Yugoslavia also actively joined the formation of the ROC, strengthening anti-Soviet work among emigrants and propagandizing the slogan “about soon returning to the homeland with arms in hand”. Learning about the formation of the corps and about the opportunity to take part in the fight against the Soviet regime directly in Russia, white volunteers, emigrants from Bulgaria, Greece, France and other countries, came to Yugoslavia. However, in 1941 to the occupying German authorities and the Wehrmacht command, such a prospect of combat use of the corps on the territory of the USSR seemed to be of little relevance and politically doubtful. In fact, the Germans needed Russian white units not just anywhere, namely in Yugoslavia, as a guard and police forces in the fight against local partisans. Therefore, General Skorodumov was removed from the formation of the corps, and White General B.A. was appointed his new commander. Matte, who completed all the work on the organizational design of the connection, and then headed it.
Under the command of General Steifon, there were 15 thousand people in the Russian Security Corps. Initially, it consisted exclusively of old extremist emigrants who volunteered to be sent to the Eastern Front. But the Germans allowed them to fight only against the Tito partisans in Serbia. True, one of the squadrons under the command of Shcheglovsky was nevertheless sent to participate in the hostilities on the Soviet-German front. Until the last days of its existence, the corps remained a military unit and with white officers as commanding personnel. At the same time, the German military were assigned to the headquarters of the corps and its units as liaison officers. In total, 3 regiments of emigrant volunteers were formed in the corps, then the formation of the 4th and 5th regiments, already from former Red Army soldiers, began.
Having lost almost three-quarters of its available staff, the corps on May 12, 1945 surrendered weapons to the British in Austria. The entire last period of hostilities, "Russian Security Corps" was commanded by Colonel A.I. Rogozhin, who then de facto supervised the personnel of the corps and in captivity. In the Kellerberg prisoner of war camp, where the corps was transferred, its personnel created their own organization - the White Russian Kellerberg Camp. In total, over 47 thousand people passed through the corps lists. During the fighting, the corps lost 1,132 people killed, 3,280 wounded and 2,297 missing. In 1945, the Russian Security Corps was evacuated by the British and many of its members lived in Brazil, Paraguay, and Colombia.
Cossack emigrants during the Second World War of 1939-45 take an active part in the armed struggle, mainly on the side of fascist Germany.
According to the “Register of ROA combat personnel” compiled by the chief of the operational department of the ROA headquarters, Colonel Aldan (A.G. Neryanin), in early May 1945, the KONR armed forces included the following Cossack units:
- Cossack Stan General T.N. Domanov, consisting of four regiments near Udino, numbering 8,000 people with an officer reserve of 400 people, as well as the 1st Cossack Cadet School under the command of Colonel Medynsky consisting of 300 people (the organizer and first Camp Ataman of the Cossack Camp was Colonel of the Tsarist Army SV Pavlov);
- The 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps of General von Panivits, numbering more than 40 thousand people;
- 1st Cossack General Zborovsky Regiment of the Russian Corps of 1075 people, including 32 officers, 2 officials, 137 non-commissioned officers and 930 Cossacks;
- Cossack training and reserve regiment under the command of General A.G. Skins numbering up to 10 thousand people;
- parts of General A.V. Turkula - a separate regiment under the command of Colonel Krzhizhanovsky in the Linz area, a separate regiment "Varyag" under the command of Colonel M.A. Semenov in the area of Ljubljana;
- Cossack regiment in the area of Villach - only 52,000 people.
By the end of the war, about 65 thousand Cossacks of all the Cossacks of Russia formally were subordinate to the command of the Russian Liberation Army, not counting the Cossack units of the 60-thousandth corps of General G.M. Semenov in the Far East and individual Cossack units in the Wehrmacht.
In late 1944 - early 1945, reconnaissance schools of the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR) were created, in which saboteurs trained for rebel and terrorist activities on the territory of the USSR were trained. The first such school was opened 7 km from the town of Marienbaz in a wooded area, in the Yagdhaus hunting estate, the second in the Bratislava region, the third near the village of St. Johann am Walde and was under the auspices of the SS and under the auspices of Himmler and Skorzeny.
In May-June 1945, the Cossack units that were part of the KONR and deployed in Austria in Lienz were repatriated to the USSR according to the Yalta agreement between the Soviet Union and the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition on the extradition of “war criminals, traitors and defectors”.
It should be noted that the positions of Russian extremism in the Far East were traditionally strong, which was determined by the presence of a large Russian emigrant diaspora in Harbin and Shanghai, the proximity of the Soviet border, the permission of the Chinese authorities to create training camps for training saboteurs, and military-political instability in the region . In addition, the ideas of Japanese and Chinese militarism greatly influenced the formation of the mentality of emigrant youth in the 1920s and 40s.
In 1941, the “popular-imperial” movement intensified in China, which in fact developed on the platform of the fascist ideology of the “white cause”. Its organizational center was the Far Eastern Group in Shanghai.63 Figures of the Russian foreign fascist movement actively lured the emigrant youth into the ranks of their organizations. So, for example, in 1944 Taboritsky appealed to emigrant youth with an appeal to join the fascist union.
After the Nazi Germany attack on the USSR in June 1941, activity in the Far Eastern region of white military emigration intensified, which worked closely with the Japanese government and the Japanese military command. A zone of increased military-political tension arises on the borders of the USSR: Japan, as an ally of Germany and a potential adversary of the USSR, throughout the entire period of the war kept in tension the Soviet areas bordering Manchuria.
The Japanese leadership developed a special plan for a military attack on the USSR, which had the encrypted name "Kan-Tokuken" ("Special Maneuvers of the Kwantung Army"). A significant role in this regard was given to white emigres living in Manchuria, China, Korea and Japan. The leadership of the Far Eastern ROVS department and the leaders of the military emigration were enthusiastic about the news of the German attack on the USSR, believing that this made their dreams of resuming the armed struggle against Bolshevism real, and the dream of returning to their homeland "on a white horse" - close to realization.
One of the leaders of military emigration, Ataman Semenov wrote in the Voice of Emigrants newspaper in 1941: “We ... need to become aware of the responsibility of the moment and not turn a blind eye to the fact that we have no other right way to go honestly and openly the leading powers of the axis — Japan and Germany. ”
In the Cossack and White Guard settlements and villages concentrated along the border with the USSR, a tendency toward self-organization and a desire to take control of arms is beginning to be observed. The EMRO and the Far Eastern military organizations tried to subordinate this process to their control and give it organized forms and a white extremist ideological content.
The Soviet command of the NKVD border troops of the Kazakhstan and Transbaikal border districts constantly informed Moscow about the intensification of the activities of white anti-Soviet extremist groups. So, in the report of the deputy chief of the NKVD troops of the USSR, Major General Appolonov dated July 29, 1941, it was noted that "... Russian white emigrants are being mobilized in the Mudanjiang region, 800 mobilized are concentrated by handa-oheza." On January 31, 1942, the chief of the NKVD border troops of the Kazakhstan district, Major General Ukhov, the military commissar of the regimental commissar Nikolaev, and the chief of staff, Major General Achkasov reported: “The most characteristic manifestation of the anti-Soviet struggle was the uprising of the (White Guard) Cossacks in Altai. This uprising had a pronounced anti-Soviet character ... The White Guards of the Tarbagatai District are showing insurgent tendencies and have begun to create insurgent-gang units and put together cadres to carry out armed raids on our territory. ” The training of personnel of the Zachingan corps was discussed in a report dated January 16, 1943, of the Acting Chief of the NKVD of the Trans-Baikal District, Lt. Col. Paremsky and Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt. Col. Teplov.
The Far Eastern military emigration was particularly dangerous due to its proximity to the borders of the USSR, a high degree of organization, the presence of a significant number of officers and military specialists, as well as personal and family ties of white emigrants with Soviet citizens: most Cossacks and officers left their families and relatives on Soviet territory in 1920- 22 years., During the formation of the Far Eastern diaspora, and secretly maintained contact with them.
In the event that the Japanese military command decided to strike at the USSR in 1942-43, it would be quite capable of assembling a separate army from Russian extremist emigrants and, having advanced it to the front, to give its aggression the ideological character of a “liberation campaign against Bolshevism ".
The military-political events unfolding in 1941 in the Far East reanimated the hopes of the leaders of the Russian military abroad to resume their role in the anticipated new civil war in the USSR. G.M. Semenov, A.P. Baksheev, L.F. Vlasyevsky, K.V. Rodzaevsky and B.N. Shepunov united all the White Guard organizations operating in the Far East into the Bureau for Russian Emigrants (BREM), which was engaged in propaganda activities, as well as the training of armed detachments from emigrants.
An active organizer of sabotage and intelligence activities against the USSR was K.V. Rodzayevsky, who in 1937 in Harbin, at the suggestion of the Japanese intelligence officer Suzuki, created a secret "organizer school", which trained terrorists whose task was to conduct subversive work in the USSR. The most trained members of the “Russian Fascist Union” were selected into it. The school was organized as a military unit: the cadets wore Japanese military uniforms, the training period was 3 years, and the course of diversionary training was awarded the rank of non-commissioned officer. Initially, volunteers — members of the RFU — were recruited into the saboteur’s school, and later on, recruitment took place in the order of mobilizing people from the immigrants age from 18 to 36 years. Particular attention was paid to special training for operations in the rear of the Soviet army.
At the end of 1943, the Asano brigade, which had been created earlier from the White Guards, was deployed to the Russian military units of the Manzhou-Guo Army, which included cavalry, infantry, and separate Cossack units. By early August 1945, the brigade had grown to 4,000 people68. Colonel Gurgen Nagolyan was appointed commander of the unit.
In the same 1943 G.M. Semenov, L.F. Vlasyevsky and A.P. Baksheev from the former White Cossacks formed special Cossack units and subunits (five regiments, two separate divisions and one separate hundred), which were organizationally reduced to the Zachingan Cossack Corps under the command of General A.P. Baksheeva. The corps was directly subordinate to the head of the Japanese military mission in Tailar, Lt. Col. Taki.
Under the auspices of the BREM and with the active influence of the ROVS, the “Union of Reservists” was created with the aim of recruiting those who wish to join the emerging immigrant white army under the control of the Japanese military command. The "reservist detachments" were a kind of primary material, from which it was supposed to create a white army in the future.
However, the plan of Russian extremists to create a large independent military force in 1939-1945 in order to turn the course of events in their own direction failed, and they themselves found themselves in the position of "traitors and accomplices of the Nazis, traitors to the motherland" despised by the Soviet people. The ideas of white-emigre extremism resonated only with an insignificant part of the top command staff of anti-Soviet military units — ROA, ROK, RNNA, and others. The middle and junior composition dreamed, first of all, of returning to their homeland; ideas of military-political revanchism worried him to a much lesser extent. For example, despite the high-profile anti-Bolshevik rhetoric inherent in most anti-Soviet armed groups, many of them, once on the front line, went over to the side of the Red Army or Soviet partisans. Such cases became especially frequent after a radical change in the war and at its final stage, in 1943-1945. So, for example, in May 1943, the “East Company” (Ostkompanie), which was considered a completely reliable military unit in the German army, sided with the Soviet partisans.
A strong ideological blow to the Russian military emigration was dealt by Stalin in 1941-42: the introduction of officer epaulets and ranks in the Red Army; the return of the names of Russian commanders - A. Suvorov, M. Kutuzov, P. Nakhimov and others, an appeal to Russian military history, liberating patriotic slogans, etc. - in fact, their main trump cards were knocked out of the hands of the leaders of the white foreign countries and turned them into outsiders of the Stalinist regime.
The plans of the Russian military abroad to appear in the period of the 1930s - 1945 as a "third force", which was in "allied" relations with fascist Germany, also failed: almost all organized emigrant armed groups (ROA, ROK, RNNA, etc.) are real played the role of Nazi puppets, and the Soviet people perceived them not as “freedom fighters,” but as traitors and accomplices of the fascist occupiers, which was quite true. Thus, the white-emigre military-political extremism was never able to emerge as an independent force during the Second World War, being fragmented in demand, within the framework of armies and ideologies quite alien to them. White emigre revanchism was strictly limited by the world of Russian emigration and did not have access to any other categories of social groups of foreign countries, i.e. he was a purely Russian emigrant movement.
During the Second World War, Russian white emigre extremism tried to find new forms of self-realization - ROVS leaders created military units intended for activities in occupied Soviet territory, tried to form new authorities that acted in the spirit of the concepts of the foreign white movement, sought support and understanding from the local population of those captured areas, tried to wage an information war in the front line and even in the depths of Soviet territory. Almost all such undertakings failed completely: the "efficiency" from such events was negligible: the Soviet people did not want to listen to those who were unambiguously associated with their enemies of the motherland, accomplices of the German fascists. The same individual facts of the cooperation of the population with the military-political organizations of the white foreign countries were based not at all on the support of the program of white revenge, but on completely different factors - self-interest, nationalism, material gain and fear of repression. Thus, the ideology of white business during the years of the global military-political crisis of the second half of the 1930s - 1945. failed to acquire a wide social base and remained the stillborn offspring of white-emigrant theorists.
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Trotsky is must, if he is there is a reason to get a whole melee/piercing weapon tech tree.
The VII Corps initially consisted of 7th and 19th divisions. After the corp's attack started on July 10th, the 11th division was added due to slow advance.
Not really. Mannerheim (other ex-Tsarists were retired or played insignificant roles in late 1930s) advocated cedeing some territory that couldn't be defended during the war, mostly islands on eastern Gulf of FInland. The largest reason was however to buy time: as the chairman of Finland's defence council Mannerheim knew how poorly armed the army was.