The uprising of the Czechoslovak corps. The revolt of the White Czechs What is the reason for the action of the Czechoslovak corps
CZECHOSLOVAK CORPS AND KOMUCH
There was a consolidation of anti-Bolshevik forces in the east of the country. The uprising played a major role in their activation. Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918.
This corps was formed in Russia during the World War from prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian army to participate in the war against Germany. In 1918, the corps located on Russian territory was preparing to be sent to Western Europe through Far East. In May 1918, the Entente prepared an anti-Bolshevik uprising of the corps, the echelons of which stretched along the railway from Penza to Vladivostok. The uprising activated the anti-Bolshevik forces everywhere, inciting them to armed struggle, and created local governments.
One of them was the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) in Samara, created by the Social Revolutionaries. He declared himself a temporary revolutionary power, which, according to the plan of its creators, was supposed to cover all of Russia and become part of the Constituent Assembly, designed to become a legitimate power. The chairman of Komuch, Socialist-Revolutionary V.K. Volsky, proclaimed the goal - to prepare the conditions for the real unity of Russia with a socialist Constituent Assembly at its head. This idea of Volsky was not supported by a part of the top of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. The Right Socialist-Revolutionaries also ignored Komuch and went to Omsk to prepare there for the creation of an all-Russian government in coalition with the Cadets instead of the Samara Komuch. In general, anti-Bolshevik forces were hostile to the idea of a Constituent Assembly. Komuch, on the other hand, demonstrated a commitment to democracy, while not having a specific socio-economic program. According to its member V.M. Zenzinov, the Committee tried to follow a program equally removed from socialist experiments Soviet power, and from the restoration of the past. But equidistance did not work. The property nationalized by the Bolsheviks was returned to the old owners. On the territory subject to Komuch, all banks were denationalized in July, denationalization of industrial enterprises was announced. Komuch created his own armed forces - the People's Army. It was based on the Czechs, who recognized his authority.
The political leaders of the Czechoslovaks began to seek from Komuch unification with other anti-Bolshevik governments, but its members, considering themselves the only heirs of the legitimate power of the Constituent Assembly, resisted for some time. At the same time, the confrontation between Komuch and the coalition Provisional Government that had arisen in Omsk from representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cadets grew. Things went as far as declaring a customs war on Komuch. Ultimately, the members of Komuch, in order to strengthen the front of the anti-Bolshevik forces, capitulated, agreeing to the creation of a united government. An act was signed on the formation of the Provisional All-Russian Government - the Directory, signed by Komuch by its chairman Volsky.
In early October, Komuch, not having the support of the population, adopted a resolution on his liquidation. Soon the capital Komuch Samara was occupied by the Red Army.
Encyclopedia "Round the World"
ORDER OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSIONER FOR MILITARY AFFAIRS ON THE DISARMAMENT OF THE CZECHOSLOVAKIANS
All Soviets, on pain of liability, are obliged to immediately disarm the Czechoslovaks. Every Czechoslovak to be found armed on the line railway, must be shot on the spot; each echelon in which there is at least one armed person must be unloaded from the wagons and imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp. Local military commissars undertake to immediately carry out this order, any delay will be tantamount to dishonorable treason and will bring down severe punishment on the guilty. At the same time, reliable forces are sent to the rear of the Czechoslovaks, who are instructed to teach the disobedient a lesson. Honest Czechoslovaks, who surrender their weapons and submit to Soviet power, should be treated like brothers and given them all possible support. To inform all railroad workers that not a single armed car of the Czechoslovaks should advance to the east. Whoever succumbs to violence and assists the Czechoslovaks in their advance to the east will be severely punished.
Read this order to all Czechoslovak echelons and inform all railway workers at the location of the Czechoslovaks. Each military commissar must report on the execution. No. 377.
People's Commissar for Military Affairs L. Trotsky.
Quoted from the book: Parfenov P.S. Civil War in Siberia. M., 1924.
NOTE BY THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS CHICHERIN ON THE CZECHOSLOVAKIANS
The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs handed over to the head of the British mission, the French Consul General, the American Consul General and the Italian Consul General a note reading as follows:
“The disarmament of the Czechoslovaks cannot in any case be regarded as an act of hostility towards the powers of the Entente. It is caused primarily by the fact that Russia, as a neutral state, cannot tolerate armed detachments on its territory that do not belong to the army of the Soviet Republic.
The immediate reason for taking decisive and strict measures to disarm the Czechoslovaks was their own actions. The Czechoslovak rebellion began in Chelyabinsk on May 26, where the Czechoslovaks, having captured the city, stole weapons, arrested and deposed the local authorities, and in response to the demand to stop the atrocities and disarm, they met military units with fire. The further development of the rebellion led to the occupation of Penza, Samara, Novo-Nikolaevsk, Omsk and other cities by the Czechoslovaks. The Czechoslovaks everywhere acted in alliance with the White Guards and the counter-revolutionary Russian officers. In some places there are French officers among them.
In all points of the counter-revolutionary Czechoslovak revolt, the institutions abolished by the Workers' and Peasants' Soviet Republic are being restored. The Soviet government took the most resolute measures to suppress the Czechoslovak revolt with armed force and to disarm them unconditionally. No other outcome is acceptable for the Soviet Government.
The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs expresses confidence that, after all of the above, the representatives of the four powers of Entente will not regard the disarmament of the Czechoslovak detachments under their protection as an act of hostility, but, on the contrary, recognize the necessity and expediency of the measures taken by the Soviet Government against the rebels.
The People's Commissariat also expresses the hope that the representatives of the four powers of the Entente will not hesitate to condemn the Czechoslovak detachments for their counter-revolutionary armed rebellion, which is the most frank and decisive interference in the internal affairs of Russia.
People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin.
OVERTHROW OF SOVIET POWER IN SIBERIA
From Novonikolaevsk - Mariinsk. In all cities, villages - citizens of Siberia. The hour of saving the motherland has struck! Provisional Government of Siberia. The Regional Duma overthrew the Bolshevik government and took control into its own hands. Most of Siberia is occupied, citizens are joining the ranks of the people's army. The Red Guard is being disarmed. The Bolshevik government has been arrested. In Novonikolaevsk, the coup ended in 40 minutes. Authorities in the city were taken over by representatives of the Provisional Siberian Government, who proposed that city and zemstvo councils begin work.
There were no victims. The revolution was met with sympathy. The coup was carried out by a local detachment of the Siberian Government with the assistance of the Czechoslovak units. Our tasks: the defense of the motherland and the salvation of the revolution through the All-Siberian Constituent Assembly. Citizens! immediately overthrow the power of the rapists. Restore the work of zemstvo and city self-governments dispersed by the Bolsheviks. Provide assistance to government troops and helping Czechoslovak detachments.
Representatives of the Provisional Siberian Government.
Mariinsky Committee of Public Safety.
Telegram of representatives of the Siberian Government about the overthrow of Soviet power
DENIKIN'S OPINION
As for y.g. Massaryk and Max, wholly devoted to the idea of the national revival of their people and their struggle against Germanism, in the confused conditions of Russian reality, failed to find the right path and, being under the influence of Russian revolutionary democracy, shared its waverings, delusions and suspicion.
Life severely avenged these mistakes. It soon forced both national forces, which so stubbornly avoided interfering "in the internal Russian affairs", to take part in our internecine strife, placing them in a hopeless situation between the German army and Bolshevism.
Already in February, during German offensive to Ukraine, the Czechoslovaks, amid the general shameful flight of the Russian troops, will wage fierce battles against the Germans and their former allies - the Ukrainians on the side of the Bolsheviks. Then they will move to the endless Siberian route, fulfilling the fantastic plan of the French command - the transfer of the 50,000th corps to the Western European theater, separated from the eastern one by nine thousand miles of railway track and oceans. In the spring they will take up arms against their recent allies, the Bolsheviks, who are betraying them to the Germans. Allied policy will turn them back in the summer to form a front on the Volga. And for a long time yet they will actively participate in the Russian tragedy, evoking among the Russian people an intermittent feeling of anger and gratitude ...
A.I. Denikin. Essays on Russian Troubles
JAROSLAV GASHEK AND THE CZECHOSLOVAK CORPS
During the Civil War in 1918, Gashek was on the side of the Reds and was in Samara, participated in its defense from the White Army and the suppression of an anarchist rebellion.
And it all started with future writer did not want to take part in the First World War. He tried his best to avoid military service, but in the end, in 1915, he was recorded in Austrian army and brought to the front in a prison wagon. However, Hasek soon voluntarily surrendered to Russian captivity.
He ended up in the Darnitsky POW camp near Kyiv, then he was redirected to Totsky near Buzuluk. Inspired by the ideas of communism, at the beginning of 1918 he joined the RCP (b) and stood under the banner of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War flaring up in Russia.
At the end of March 1918, the Czechoslovak section of the RCP (b) in Moscow sent Yaroslav Hasek to Samara at the head of a group of comrades to form an international detachment of the Red Army and explanatory work among the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps.
Arriving in Samara, Hasek launched an agitation among the soldiers of the corps and other Czechs and Slovaks who were in prisoner-of-war camps or worked in factories. The members of the Hasek group, meeting the echelons with the legionnaires at the station, explained to them the policy of the Soviet government, exposed the counter-revolutionary plans of the corps command, urged the soldiers not to leave for France, but to help the Russian proletariat in the struggle against the bourgeoisie.
To work to attract soldiers to the Red Army, a "Czech military department was created to form Czech-Slovak detachments under the Red Army." It was located on the second floor of the San Remo Hotel (now Kuibysheva St., 98). There was also a section of the RCP(b) and the apartment of Yaroslav Hasek.
During April and May, a detachment of 120 fighters from Czechs and Slovaks was formed. Yaroslav Hasek became its political commissar. It was assumed that over the next two months the detachment would increase to a battalion, and possibly a regiment. But this was not possible: at the end of May, a rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps began. During the days of the White Czechs' offensive against Samara, Yaroslav Gashek was on the outskirts of the Samara railway station.
Early in the morning of June 8, 1918, under the onslaught of the superior forces of the White Czechs, the detachments of the defenders of Samara, including the detachment of Czechoslovak internationalists, were forced to leave the city. At the very last moment, Gashei went to the San Remo Hotel to take or destroy the lists of volunteers and other documents of the military department and section of the RSC (b) so that they would not fall into the hands of enemies. He managed to destroy the materials, but it was no longer possible to return to the station to the detachment - the station was occupied by the White Czechs, and the detachment surrounded by rail.
With great difficulty and risk Hasek got out of the city. For about two months he hid with the peasants in the villages, then he managed to cross the front. Hasek's activity as an agitator of the Red Army in the Czech environment was short-lived, but did not go unnoticed. In July, that is, only three months after arriving in Samara, in Omsk, the field court of the Czechoslovak Legion issued a warrant for the arrest of Hasek as a traitor to the Czech people. For several months, he was forced, hiding behind a certificate that he was "the crazy son of a German colonist from Turkestan", to hide from patrols.
Samara local historian Alexander Zavalny gives the following story about this stage of the writer's life: “Once, when he was hiding with his friends in one of the Samara dachas, a Czech patrol appeared. The officer decided to interrogate the unknown, to which Hasek, playing an idiot, told how he saved the Czech officer at the Batraki station: “I sit and think. Suddenly an officer Just like you, so delicate and frail. He purrs a German song and seems to be dancing like an old maid on an Easter holiday. Thanks to the tested sense of smell, I immediately see - an officer under the fly. I look, heading straight for the restroom, from which I just came out. I sat close. I sit for ten, twenty, thirty minutes. The officer doesn’t come out ... ”Further, Gashek depicted how he went into the toilet and, pushing the rotten boards apart, pulled the drunken loser out of the outhouse:“ By the way, do you know what award I will be awarded for saving the life of a Czech officer?
Only by September, Gashek crossed the front line, and in Simbirsk again joined the Red Army. Together with the soldiers of the 5th Army, he marched from the banks of the Volga to the Irtysh. At the end of 1920, Yaroslav Gashek returned to his homeland, where he died on January 3, 1923, still very young, about 4 months before the age of 40.
The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918 occupies a period in the history of Russia, which, in the general catastrophe of fratricide, seems insignificant and hardly noticeable. However, it started a civil war. The beginning of the creation of the corps was of a patriotic nature, and the end of the stay on the territory of Russia is painted in black tones of punitive operations against the civilian population, murders, open robbery, looting.
The situation of Czechs and Slovaks in 1914
At the beginning of the First World War, the Czechoslovaks did not have their own state, its original territory was part of Austria-Hungary, where the local population was treated extremely unfriendly. A large number of Czechoslovaks lived on the territory of Russia, who wished to fight for the independence of their native country with the outbreak of the war.
After the outbreak of hostilities, Czechoslovak patriots sought to join the struggle against Austria-Hungary, which, together with Germany, was part of the Triple Alliance. The Czechs living in Russia formed the "Czech National Committee".
He turned to Emperor Nicholas II with a request for assistance in the formation of the Czech squad, which, fighting as part of the Russian army, would fight for the freedom of the motherland. The appeal received approval for the creation of a military unit. It was this event that subsequently led to the creation of the Czechoslovak Corps and its uprising on the territory of Russia. 
Creation of the Czech squad as part of the Russian army
On the last day of July 1914, the Council of Ministers Russian Empire decided to create the Czech squad. Two months later, the banner was consecrated. In October 1914, she went to the front as part of the 3rd Army, under the command of a Bulgarian by birth, General Radko Dmitrieva. The squad took part in the battles for Galicia, where it proved itself from the best side.
Czechs and Slovaks participating in the war on the side of Austria-Hungary surrendered en masse to the countries participating in the war on the side of the Entente. A huge number of prisoners of war accumulated in Russia. Most of them expressed their desire to join the Czech squad.
By popular demand, Grand Duke Nikolai, the uncle of the emperor, being at that time the Supreme Commander, in May 1915 issues a decree in which he allows the formation of military units in the Russian army from among the captured Czechs, Slovaks and Poles.
At the end of 1915, the Czechoslovak regiment was formed, bearing the name of Jan Hus, which by the beginning of 1916 had turned into a brigade. It included three regiments, with a total number of 3.5 thousand military personnel. The brigade, as before, was part of the Russian army and its commanders were Russian officers. The presence of a large number of foreign military in Russia, subsequent events in the country led to the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918.
The idea of creating a Czechoslovak state was voiced not only in Russia, but also in Europe. The liberal intelligentsia, who settled in Paris, created the CSNS headed by E. Beneš, T. Mosarik, M. Stefanik. His goal was to revive the independent state of Czechoslovakia. They made efforts to obtain permission from the Entente countries to create national army, which would help them fight Austria-Hungary.
The fact is that similar Czechoslovak military formations operated both on the western front and on the eastern one. The ChSNS achieved official recognition by them and became the official center to which all military formations on the territory of the Entente countries, including Russia, were subordinate. 
yly to the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. In turn, the Bolshevik government perceived the Czechoslovaks as interventionists.
Two ways to return home
After October revolution the position of the Czechoslovak Corps was unenviable. Legionnaires sincerely wanted to leave Russia, as they had their own goals. They could do this in two ways: through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk or the Far East. The first option is the shortest, they immediately rejected, justifying this by the dominance of German submarines in the Baltic and North Seas.
The second option, the longest, suited both sides. The Bolsheviks did not want to have a large combat-ready alien military formation on their territory, and agreed to any conditions. In addition, the situation in the country was heating up every day. On the Don, which did not recognize the Bolsheviks, its own government was created and the formation of white movement. France demanded that Russia send legionnaires home. Therefore, the port of Vladivostok and the Trans-Siberian were chosen. 
Home dispatch agreement
The primary deployment of the Czechoslovak Corps was near Zhytomyr. The events in Ukraine, the signing by the Rada of a peace treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary, required the urgent movement of the Czechs inland. The place of their new deployment was Poltava. Near Bakhmach, the Czechs, together with the Russians, held back the German offensive.
In Penza, on March 26, 1918, an agreement was signed between the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, representatives of the ChSNS in Russia and the Czechoslovak Corps. The agreement stipulated that the shipment would take place from Penza to Vladivostok. Movement across the territory of the country will be carried out not as a military unit, but as a trip of free citizens. The Bolsheviks made concessions and agreed that a small amount of weapons for the purpose of self-defense should remain with the legionnaires.
The number of weapons was stipulated in the contract, one company should remain for each echelon, consisting of 168 people with rifles and cartridges for each in the amount of 300 pieces, one machine gun with 1200 cartridges. It was decided that the evacuation would take place in 63 trains of 40 cars each. The first train was sent on March 26, 1918, and a month later it safely reached Vladivostok. Trains with Czechoslovaks stretched along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Vladivostok. In total, it was necessary to transfer about 60 thousand people.
Reasons for the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps
The reasons are considered to be a domestic conflict between Hungarian prisoners of war and legionnaires. It consisted in the fact that a piece of iron was thrown out of a passing car, with which a legionnaire was wounded. After that, stopping the train, the Czechs committed lynching of the culprit. The Red Army intervened in the matter, who tried to disarm the Czechs and understand the causes of the incident. But the Czechs took this as a desire to disarm them and hand over to Austria-Hungary for reprisal.
At the same time, the situation in the Far East sharply worsened. The Bolshevik government found out about the secret negotiations of the allies about the beginning of the Japanese intervention. The double game of the countries, members of the Entente, was obvious. The Japanese, taking advantage of the current situation in the country, landed troops in Vladivostok.
In these difficult conditions, the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps turned out to be a well-planned action. In Chelyabinsk, a congress of Czechoslovak legionnaires was held, at which it was decided not to hand over their weapons. In Moscow, representatives of the ChSNS were arrested, who issued an order to surrender their weapons, but it was already too late. The uprising covered almost the entire territory through which the Trans-Siberian Railway passed. The rebels captured entire cities, the Bolshevik Soviets did not have sufficient forces to resist the Czechoslovaks. 
Who benefited from the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps
At the time of the uprising, the creation of the White Army was intensively going on. The Red Army was at the stage of formation. In Russia, there was no large organized force capable of resisting the Czechoslovaks at that time. Relations with the Bolsheviks became simply hostile, for them they were interventionists.
The command of the corps was carried out by a French general. The members of the Entente could not forgive the Bolsheviks for withdrawing from the war. The Czechs' control of the Trans-Siberian Railway served as a lever of influence on the Bolsheviks, which made it possible to manipulate and control the situation. The Entente put forward an ultimatum in which it stated that the disarmament of the corps would be regarded as an unfriendly act towards the allies.
The German side is extremely uninterested in the evacuation of the Czechoslovak corps, which demanded that the Bolsheviks return them and hand them over as traitors. The Bolsheviks found themselves in a difficult position. The Czechoslovaks liquidated the Soviets in large cities located along the Trans-Siberian.
Governments hostile to the Bolsheviks with their armies began to form in them. On June 8, 1918, a government was formed in Samara - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), on June 23, 1918, the Provisional Siberian Government was created in Omsk. The leadership of the corps issues an order in which they take the side of the White armies and undertake to build an anti-German front in Russia. In other words, they declared war on the Bolsheviks and took the side of the White governments.
The situation on the Transsib
The White Czechs occupied the cities: Syzran, Samara, Stavropol (Togliatti), Kazan, Kuznetsk, Bugulma, Simbirsk, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, Omsk, Chita, Irkutsk. The situation for the Bolsheviks was becoming threatening. The uprising of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps is considered to be the beginning of the Civil War in Russia, which claimed the lives of millions of its citizens. The newly formed was thrown into the fight against the White armies and detachments of the White Czechs.
In September, Kazan, Syzran, Simbirsk and Samara were recaptured. The Belochekhovs were not satisfied with fighting in the Urals and the Volga region. They began to retreat to the east, trying not to take part in the battles with the Red Army and performing the role of guarding the railway, as well as participating in punitive operations carried out by Kolchak's detachments.
The formation of an independent Czechoslovakia on 10/28/1918 aroused in them a desire to return home as soon as possible. At the beginning of 1919, they concentrated directly along the entire railway, blocking any movement along it. This played a cruel joke on the retreating army of Admiral Kolchak, wagons, the fuel of which was taken away to transport the numerous goods looted during punitive operations. Wagons and fuel were also taken away from the civilian population, forcing them to march in the snowy and frosty winter of 1919-1920 along with the retreating army of Kolchak along the railway, leaving frozen corpses and thousands of graves. 
Flight to the East
Demoralization and decay are the results of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. Four thousand Czechoslovaks found their resting place in Russia. In the 90s, when it came to the construction of monuments to the fallen legionnaires in Siberian cities, the population spoke out against it, remembering the atrocities and robberies perpetrated by Czechoslovak and especially Polish legionnaires, as well as Kolchak's punitive detachments.
Admiral Kolchak, who was given one wagon, along with the gold reserves of Russia, became a hostage to the White Czechs. His fate was a foregone conclusion, and at an opportunity he was handed over to the Bolsheviks in exchange for passage through the circum-Baikal railway tunnels.
December 1919 to December 1920 72,600 people were evacuated from the port of Vladivostok. The command of the Czechoslovak Corps, finding itself in a difficult political situation on the territory of a foreign country, failed to orient itself and resist outside influence.
In May 1918, an uprising of the 40,000-strong Czechoslovak Corps arose in Chelyabinsk. The rebellion had a tremendous impact on subsequent events in Russia. Many historians are sure that it was the rebellion of the legionnaires that marked the beginning of the Civil War in the country.
In Russian service
The first national part of the Russian imperial army- The Czech squad - arose back in 1914. It accepted both civilian volunteers and captured Czechoslovaks - former servicemen of Austria-Hungary.
A few months later, the squad grew into rifle regiment numbering about two thousand people. The future leaders of the rebellion served in it - Captain Radol Gaida, Lieutenant Jan Syrovy and others. By the beginning of the February Revolution, there were already four thousand fighters in the unit.
After the fall of the monarchy, the Czechoslovaks were able to find mutual language with the Provisional Government and remained on military service. The regiment took part in the June Offensive in Galicia and became one of the few units that achieved success in its sector of the front.
As a reward for this, the government of Alexander Kerensky lifted the restriction on the size of the regiment. The unit began to grow by leaps and bounds, it was replenished for the most part at the expense of captured Czechs and Slovaks who wanted to fight the Germans. In the autumn of 1917, the regiment turned into a corps, and its strength approached the mark of 40,000 legionnaires.
Fear of extradition
After the October Revolution, the corps was in limbo. The Czechoslovaks were emphatically neutral towards the Bolsheviks, although, according to the historian Oleg Airapetov, they were very worried about the peace negotiations that the new masters of the country were conducting with Kaiser's Germany. There were rumors among the legionnaires that the corps could be disbanded, and they themselves could be handed over to Austria-Hungary.
The Czechoslovaks decided to negotiate with the Entente. As a result, France agreed to the transfer of the corps to its territory to participate in the war on Western front. But the land route was closed, only the sea route remained - from Vladivostok. Soviet government gave consent. It was planned to deliver the Czechoslovaks to the Far East in 63 echelons, 40 wagons each.
Incident in Chelyabinsk
The fears of the Czechoslovaks only intensified after the conclusion in March 1918 Brest Peace. One of the points of the agreement was the exchange of prisoners of war. A situation developed in which Czechoslovaks moved to the East, and captured Germans and Hungarians moved to the West. There were occasional skirmishes between the two streams.
The most serious of them happened on May 14, 1918. A weighty cast-iron object flew from a wagon carrying Hungarians into a crowd of Czechs, seriously injuring one of the fighters. They found the hooligan and dealt with him according to the laws of war - with three bayonet strikes.
The situation was heating up. The Bolsheviks tried to solve the problem by arresting several Czechoslovaks, but this only provoked them to further opposition. On May 17, corps fighters captured the Chelyabinsk arsenal, freed fellow countrymen and called on the detachments located in other cities to resist.
Corps offensive
Divided into groups of several thousand people, the legionnaires began to capture vast territory from Penza to Vladivostok. Irkutsk and Zlatoust quickly fell. In mid-July, detachments of the corps approached Yekaterinburg, where at that moment there was royal family. Fearing that they will fall into the hands of white Czechs former king and his household, the Bolsheviks shot the latter.
The capital of the Urals was taken on July 25, followed by Kazan. As a result, by the end of the summer, the corps was under the control of a colossal territory from the Volga to the Pacific Ocean, they completely controlled the most important infrastructure facility - the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Together with the whites
Anti-Bolshevik forces intensified in these territories. Many local governments and armed detachments of the White Guard were formed.
In the fall of 1918, Admiral Alexander Kolchak, who had made an alliance with the Czechoslovaks, declared himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia. Around the same time, the intervention of the Entente troops began.
Czechs and Slovaks were less and less willing to fight. They brought their units to the rear. At the same time, control over the railway gave them huge advantages and a significant trump card in the negotiations.
Goodbye Russia
The situation changed dramatically in November 1918. The capitulation of Germany and the collapse of Austria-Hungary opened up new prospects: the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia was planned. The corps lost all desire to fight, the soldiers were going home.
The departure of the Czechs and Slovaks seriously complicated the already plight of Kolchak. In January 1920, in exchange for the opportunity to quietly leave for Vladivostok, the legionnaires captured the admiral and handed him over to the Irkutsk rebels. Further fate Everyone knows Kolchak.
The evacuation of Czechoslovaks from Russia started in early 1920. On 42 ships, 72 thousand people went to Europe - not only legionnaires, but also their wives and children, which some of them managed to acquire in Russia. The epic ended in November 1920, when the last ship left the port of Vladivostok.
The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in the spring of 1918 is considered by a number of historians to be the beginning of the fratricidal Civil War. Finding themselves in the most difficult political situation on the territory of another state, the leaders of a huge military group were forced to make decisions under the influence of a number of influential political forces of that time.
Prerequisites for the formation of the Czechoslovak Corps
The history of the formation of the Czechoslovak Corps, whose uprising at the end of the spring of 1918 served as a signal for the beginning of the Civil War on the territory of the Russian state, still causes a lot of controversy among historians not only in Russia. Finding themselves in difficult political conditions and dreaming of continuing the struggle for the liberation of their homeland, they turned out to be a "bargaining chip" of political forces not only in Russia, but also in warring Europe.
What were the prerequisites for the creation of the corpus? First of all, the intensification of the liberation struggle against Austria-Hungary, in whose power were the lands of the Czechs and Slovaks, who dream of creating their own state. Its creation is attributed to the beginning of the First World War, when a large number of Czech and Slovak migrants lived on the territory of Russia, who dreamed of creating their own state in the ancestral territories belonging to these peoples and under the yoke of Austria-Hungary.
Formation of the Czech squad
Taking into account these patriotic sentiments of the Slav brothers, the Russian government, meeting the numerous appeals addressed to Emperor Nicholas II, in particular, the “Czech National Committee” created in Kyiv, on 07/30/1914 decides to create the Czech squad. She was the forerunner of the Czechoslovak Corps, whose uprising took place four years later.
This decision was enthusiastically accepted by the Czech colonists. Already on September 28, 1914, the banner was consecrated, and in October the squad as part of the 3rd Army under the command of General Radko-Dmitriev takes part in the battle for Eastern Galicia. The squad was part of the Russian troops and almost all command positions in it were occupied by Russian officers.
Replenishment of the Czech squad at the expense of prisoners of war
In May 1915 Supreme Commander Grand Duke Nicholas gave his consent to replenish the ranks of the Czech squad at the expense of prisoners of war and defectors from among the Czechs and Slovaks, who en masse surrendered to the Russian army. By the end of 1915, a regiment named after Jan Hus was formed. It consisted of over 2,100 military personnel. In 1916, a brigade was already formed, consisting of three regiments, numbering more than 3,500 people.
However, Russia's allies could not come to terms with the fact that its authority in the matter of the creation of the Czechoslovak state was growing. The liberal intelligentsia from among the Czechs and Slovaks in Paris creates the Czechoslovak National Council. It was headed by Tomas Masaryk, who later became the first president of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Benes, later the second president, Milan Stefanik, an astronomer, general of the French army, and Josef Dyurich.
The goal is to create the state of Czechoslovakia. To do this, they tried to obtain permission from the Entente to form their own army, formally subordinating to the Council all military formations operating against the powers that fought the Entente on all fronts. They formally included units that fought on the side of Russia.
The position of the Czechoslovaks after the October Revolution
After February Revolution The provisional government did not change its attitude towards the Czechoslovak military. After the October Uprising, the Czechoslovak corps found itself in a difficult position. The policy of the Bolsheviks, who sought to make peace with the powers tripartite alliance, did not suit the Czechoslovaks, who sought to continue the war in order to liberate the territory of their homeland. They come out with the support of the Provisional Government, advocating the war to a victorious end.
An agreement was concluded with the Soviets, which included clauses according to which the Czechoslovak units pledged not to interfere in the internal affairs of the country on the side of any party and to continue military operations against the Austro-Germans. A small part of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps supported the uprising in Petrograd and went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. The rest were transported from Poltava to Kyiv, where, together with the cadets of military schools, they took part in street battles against the soldiers and workers' councils of the city of Kyiv.
But in the future, the leadership of the Czechoslovak Corps did not want to spoil relations with the Soviet government, so the military tried not to enter into internal political conflicts. That is why they did not take part in the defense of the Central Council from the advancing detachments of the Soviets. But distrust grew day by day, which eventually led to the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918.
Recognition of the corps as part of the French army
Seeing the difficult situation of the Czechoslovak corps in Russia, the CSNS in Paris addressed the French government with a request to recognize it as a foreign allied military unit on Russian territory. French President Poincare in December 1917 recognizes the Czechoslovak Corps as part of the French army.
After Soviet power was established in Kyiv, the Czechoslovak Corps received assurances that the government Soviet Russia has no objection to sending him home. There were two ways to get there. The first - through Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, but the Czechoslovaks rejected it for fear of being attacked by German submarines.
The second is through the Far East. It was this way that it was decided to send foreign legionnaires. An agreement was signed on this between the government of the Soviets and representatives of the CSNS. The task was not an easy one - it was necessary to transport approximately 35 to 42 thousand people across the country.
Background of the conflict
The main prerequisite for the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps was the tense situation around this military unit. Finding a huge armed unit in the middle of Russia was beneficial to many. The royal army ceased to exist. On the Don, the formation of the White Army was in full swing. Attempts were made to create the Red Army. The only combat unit was the corps of legionnaires, and both the Reds and the Whites tried to pull it over to their side.
They did not particularly want the speedy withdrawal of the corps and the Entente country, trying to influence the course of events through the Czechoslovaks. They were not particularly interested in the rapid withdrawal of the corps of the countries of the Triple Alliance, since they understood that, having arrived in Europe, this military unit would oppose them. All this served as a kind of prerequisite for the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps.
Tense, if not hostile, relations developed between the CSNS, which was completely under the rule of the French, and the Bolsheviks, who did not trust the legionnaires, remembering their support for the interim government, thereby receiving a time bomb in their rear, in the form of armed legionnaires.
Tension and distrust delayed the disarmament process. The German government issued an ultimatum demanding the return of all prisoners of war from Siberia to western and central Russia. The Soviets stop the advance of the legionnaires, this was the reason for the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps.
The beginning of the uprising
The beginning of the rebellion was a domestic incident. The quarrel between the captured Hungarians and the Czechoslovaks, who staged lynching over former allies due to an injury to a legionnaire inflicted by negligence. The authorities of Chelyabinsk, where it happened, arrested several participants in the massacre. This was perceived as the desire of the authorities to stop the evacuation, as a result - the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. At the congress of the Czechoslovak Corps held in Chelyabinsk, a decision was made to break with the Bolsheviks and not to hand over their weapons.
In turn, the Bolsheviks demanded the complete surrender of weapons. In Moscow, representatives of the ChSNS are arrested, who appeal to their compatriots with an order for complete disarmament, but it was too late. When the Red Army tried to disarm the legionnaires at several stations, they put up open resistance.
Since the regular army of the Bolsheviks was just being created, there was practically no one to protect the Soviet power. Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Zlatoust were taken. Throughout the Trans-Siberian railway, units of the Red Army were put up with stiff resistance and the cities of Petropavlovsk, Kurgan, Omsk, Tomsk were captured, units of the Red Army were defeated near Samara, and a path was broken through the Volga.
Throughout the railway in the cities, provisional anti-Bolshevik governments were created, with their own armies. In Samara, the army of Komuch, in Omsk - the provisional Siberian government, under the banner of which stood up all those dissatisfied with the power of the Soviets. But having suffered a series of crushing defeats from the Red Army and under its pressure, the detachments of the White Army and the Czechoslovak Corps were forced to leave the occupied cities.
The results of the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps
Gradually loading trains with stolen goods, the Czechoslovak legionnaires felt a desire to stop hostilities and get out as soon as possible. By the autumn of 1918, they began to go further and further to the rear, not wanting to fight, participating in security and punitive operations. The atrocities of the legionnaires even surpassed the reprisals of the Kolchak detachments. This state was strengthened by the news of the formation of Czechoslovakia. More than 300 trains, stuffed with loot, slowly moved towards Vladivostok.
The retreating troops of Kolchak walked along the railway, through mud and snow, since all the echelons, including the echelon with the gold reserve, were captured by the White Czechs, and they defended them with weapons in their hands. Of the eight echelons of the Supreme Ruler, he was left with one carriage, which departed after passing all the trains and stood idle for weeks on sidings. In January 1920, Kolchak was handed over by the “brothers” to the Bolsheviks in exchange for an agreement on the departure of Czech legionnaires.
The dispatch lasted almost a year, from December 1918 to November 1919. For this, 42 ships were involved, on which 72,600 people were transported to Europe. More than 4 thousand Czechoslovaks found peace in the Russian land.
The rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps - the performance of the Czechoslovak corps against the Soviet government in May - August 1918 in the Volga region, Siberia and the Urals, which created an opportunity for the activities of the anti-Bolshevik Committee of the members of the Constituent Assembly.
Czechoslovak Corps
The Czechoslovak Corps is a national volunteer military unit that was formed as part of Russian army in the autumn of 1917, mainly from captured Czechs and Slovaks - former servicemen of the Austro-Hungarian army who wished to take part in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. In the spring and summer of 1918, he was involved in hostilities against the Bolsheviks. As a result of the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, a favorable situation was created for the liquidation of the Bolshevik authorities.
Event History
Many historians call the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps the starting point of the Civil War in Russia. The rebels in the period from May 1918 to February 1920 influenced the situation in the territory in half of Russia. In Kazan, the rebels seized the Russian gold reserves (more than 30 thousand pounds of gold) and handed it over. With their help, anti-Bolshevik governments were created. As a result of the actions of the White Czechs, the main front of the Soviet Republic became Eastern front. Soviet historians called the provocations of white officers and representatives of the Entente the main reason for the uprising.
So, for example, the encyclopedia "Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR" characterizes the rebellion as "... an armed uprising of the Separate Czechoslovak Corps provoked by counter-revolutionary officers and representatives of the Entente." Apparently, this is a delusion. There are other versions as to the reasons that made the whole corps rebel.
How the Czechoslovak Corps was created
To begin with, we should consider the history of the emergence of such a powerful military force in Russia. In the very first month of the First World War, the formation of Czech units began in the tsarist army. 1914, September - they created a Czech squad, which consisted mainly of defectors and prisoners of the Austro-Hungarian army, numbering 955 fighters, 34 of whom were officers. 1914, October - this squad fought on the Southwestern Front as part of the 3rd Russian Army. 1915 - they began to recruit captured Slovaks and Czechs who had Russian citizenship. The Czech squad showed itself in battles, which was able to gain the authority of the command of the Southwestern Front, by the decision of which the staff of the squad was increased to 2090 people, and at the end of 1915 the squad was renamed the I Czechoslovak Regiment.
In the summer of the following year, the Czechoslovak Rifle Brigade was already in the Russian army, which included two regiments, the number of which, together with officers, was about 5 thousand people. For success at the front, the rifle brigade was deployed to a division, and in the fall of 1917 the Czechoslovak Corps was created, which consisted of 39 thousand soldiers and officers. It should be noted that during all this time the Czechoslovak national formations acted exclusively under the command of Russian officers. The plans of the Russian command included the formation of a second corps, however, after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Czechoslovak Corps was to be transferred to the Western Front.
Czechoslovak volunteers in the trenches near Zborov (1917)
Background of the rebellion
1918, March 26 - The Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR signed an official agreement with the branch of the Czechoslovak National Council (ChNS) in Russia. According to the agreement, the Bolsheviks undertook to transport the Czechoslovaks to Vladivostok as civilians for their further passage to Europe. Two necessary conditions: loyal behavior and surrender of the main part of the weapons at the indicated points. But, “these conditions were not met by the Czechoslovak command: the weapons were hidden from control examinations; incidents were provoked along the way: the soldiers were convinced that the Soviet government was deliberately hindering the advance of trains, was going to split the corps (with the intention of weakening its combat strength) and send part of it, which had not yet reached the Urals, instead of Vladivostok to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.
Further in the encyclopedia, the official Soviet point of view continues to develop: “The initiative to change the movement of echelons came from the representatives of the Entente. While preparing an intervention against the Bolsheviks, on May 2, the Supreme Council of the Entente decided to use the Czechoslovak units as the vanguard of its armed forces in the Soviet North and Siberia ... The anti-Soviet part of the corps command and the leadership of the ChNS branch used discontent among the troops as a pretext for an uprising under the slogan “ advancing to Vladivostok with the help of force. But for what reason did discontent begin to appear in the troops?
Armored train "Orlik". Penza group of Czechoslovaks
The beginning of the rebellion. Versions
According to one version, discontent was caused by the following: 1918, May 14 - such an incident occurred in Chelyabinsk. At the train station near the echelon of the Czechoslovaks, there was a train with captured Hungarians who had joined the Red Army. Someone from the "Hungarian" carriage threw an iron object and killed the Czech. The Czechs, in response, began to lynch the killer. The Bolsheviks intervened in the incident and arrested several Czechoslovaks, without beginning to find out who was right and who was wrong. The latter became angry and not only freed their comrades by force, but also seized the city arsenal in order to properly arm themselves. The Bolsheviks ordered the corps to be disarmed and all armed men to be shot. In addition, the entire echelon was subject to arrest if at least one soldier was found to have a weapon. In other words, the uprising was provoked by the actions of the Bolsheviks.
According to another version, a telegram from the head of the operational department of the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs of the RSFSR Aralov, dated May 23, 1918 and sent to Penza: “Immediately take urgent measures to delay, disarm and disband all units and echelons of the Czechoslovak corps as a remnant of the old regular army” .
And such a version - he himself sent telegrams to all Soviet deputies from Penza to Omsk, in which it was reported that armed forces were sent to the rear of the Czechoslovak echelons, "who were ordered to teach the rebels a lesson." According to this version, the "mutiny" began as a result of a threat to the Czechoslovaks from the armed forces sent by Trotsky.
Legionnaires of the Czechoslovak Corps
Mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps
1918, May 17 - after capturing the arsenal (2800 rifles and an artillery battery), the Czechoslovaks, having defeated the forces of the Red Army thrown against them, occupied several more cities, overthrew Soviet power in them. The Czechs began to occupy the cities that were on their way: Chelyabinsk, Petropavlovsk, Kurgan, and opened their way to Omsk. Other units entered Novonikolaevsk, Mariinsk, Nizhneudinsk and Kansk. At the beginning of June 1918, the Czechs entered Tomsk.
Not far from Samara, the legionnaires were able to defeat the Bolshevik units (06/04-05/1918) and made it possible for themselves to cross the Volga.
In the occupied territory, the Czechs liquidated the bodies of Soviet power. The first anti-Bolshevik government was organized in Samara - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch). This was the beginning of the formation of other anti-Bolshevik governments throughout Russia (in Yekaterinburg - the Kadet-Socialist-Revolutionary "Ural Government", in Omsk - the "Provisional Siberian Government").
Retreat
1918, July - the Bolshevik troops in the Volga region were united into the Eastern Front. 1918, August - the movement of Czechoslovak and SR-White Guard troops was suspended, and in September the Reds went on the offensive, they were able to liberate Kazan, Simbirsk, in October - Samara and Syzran, in November - Ufa and Chelyabinsk.
Failures on the battlefield and the underground work of the Bolsheviks were able to cause the decomposition of the Czechoslovak army, which in November - December 1918 did not want to fight on the side of Kolchak and were withdrawn from the front (used by the White Guards to guard the railway). From the second half of 1919, in connection with the retreat of the Kolchak troops, the Czechoslovak units retreated to the east.
1920, February 7 - at the Kuytun station, the command of the Bolsheviks and the Czechoslovak corps signed an armistice agreement, which guarantees the retreat of the corps to the Far East and evacuation. 1920, spring - the Czechoslovak corps concentrated in Vladivostok, and then was gradually evacuated from Russia.
