When Kolchak was shot. Why was Admiral Kolchak shot?

03.06.2024

The former house of the merchant Batyushkin - an elegant beige-yellow building with light columns, huge windows and an elegant terrace overlooking the gentle bank of the Irtysh - is one of the main historical attractions of Omsk. Today it houses the Center for the Study of the Civil War in Siberia - the only institution of its kind in Russia that combines the functions of an archive, library, discussion club and museum dedicated to this painful and hot topic.

The place was not chosen by chance: this mansion is a “witness and participant” of fatal events in Russian history - here in 1918-1919. the residence of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak, was located, and then the Siberian Directorate of Educational Institutions and the Omsk Cheka. A small but capacious exhibition tells about the Civil War in Siberia objectively - without “flirting” with supporters of the Reds or apologists of the Whites. The interiors of Kolchak’s office, his reception room and other rooms were recreated after restoration. Electronic resources and original documents and the latest scientific and journalistic publications make it possible to experience the era, and unique newsreel footage allows you to see Kolchak, Janin and other heroes and anti-heroes of this historical and political drama.

On November 18, 1918, residents of Omsk saw leaflets posted throughout the city - “An Appeal to the Population of Russia,” which announced the overthrow of the All-Russian Provisional Government (Directory) and that Alexander Kolchak had become the Supreme Ruler with “dictatorial powers.” “Having accepted the cross of this power in the extremely difficult conditions of the Civil War and the complete breakdown of state life, I declare: I will not follow either the path of reaction or the disastrous path of partisanship. My main goal is the creation of a combat-ready army, victory over Bolshevism, the establishment of law and order, so that the people could freely choose for themselves the form of government they wish and implement the great ideas of freedom now proclaimed throughout the world,” with this oath Kolchak entered political history.

"An impenetrable wall that blocks out light and truth"

During the Civil War, several “white” governments operated in Siberia. The largest of them - Omsk - negotiated for a long time with the Samara Komuch (Committee of the Constituent Assembly). Their goal is unification. As a result, in September 1918, the Provisional All-Russian Government - the Directory - was formed in Ufa. Due to the advance of the Red Army a month later, the Directory moved to Omsk. However, as a result of the coup on November 17-18, 1918, organized by politicians and military men dissatisfied with the “revelry of liberalism,” the Directory was overthrown, and Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia with unlimited dictatorial powers. It seemed to those who won the coup against the “soft liberal provocateurs” that they were able to direct history in the direction they wanted. They remained in these illusions for about a year - until they themselves were overthrown by even tougher and more convinced supporters of “dictatorial measures” - the Bolsheviks.

Kolchak headed a government that functioned for more than a year across a vast territory of Russia, seized half of the country's gold reserves and created a real threat to the power of the Bolsheviks. Other white forces swore allegiance to the Supreme Ruler of Russia (although not all of them fulfilled this oath - the movement remained fragmented). Having dispersed the remnants of the Constituent Assembly and the pro-Socialist Revolutionary Directory - the Provisional All-Russian Government, Kolchak deprived the white movement of “democratic weights”, thereby destroying the anti-Bolshevik coalition. In response, the Socialist Revolutionaries turned their weapons against him, preferring to get closer to the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. By relying on a military dictatorship, Kolchak and the entire white movement doomed themselves to defeat.

The Bolsheviks were considered the lesser evil. They chose the “reds” because they already knew the “whites” well. And then it was too late to resist

The program of the Supreme Ruler included: the destruction of Bolshevism, “the restoration of law and order”; reconstruction of the Russian army; convening a new Constituent Assembly to resolve the issue of the political system of Russia; continuation of the Stolypin agrarian reform without preserving landownership, denationalization of industry, banks and transport, preservation of democratic labor legislation, comprehensive development of the productive forces of Russia; preservation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Russia. However, in the conditions of the Civil War, this program remained only a good wish.

Kolchak made a strategic miscalculation by relying on Western help. The Allies were not at all interested in Russia's independence, much less in its unity and indivisibility. The most difficult issue for the Supreme Ruler turned out to be the national issue: defending the idea of a united and indivisible Russia, Kolchak alienated all the leaders of the states formed after the collapse of the empire. The Western allies supported this “parade of sovereignties.”

Baron Budberg described the admiral this way: “It’s hard to look at his spinelessness and lack of his own opinion... In his inner essence, in his ignorance of reality and in his weakness of character, he is very reminiscent of the late Emperor... One becomes afraid for the future, for the outcome of the struggle in which the stake is saving the homeland and leading it onto a new path... It’s amazing how Tsarskoe Selo is repeated in miniature in Omsk (the imperial family stayed in Tsarskoe Selo from 1915 to 1917 - Yu.K.): the same blindness at the top, the same impenetrable There’s a wall all around, obscuring light and truth, people going about their business.”

By declaring the Bolsheviks “enemies of the people” (and, by the way, giving them this very term) who needed to be destroyed, Kolchak and his associates did not realize that Lenin, alas, became the charismatic leader of a movement that captivated millions of people with promises to eliminate poverty, social inequality and build a new, fair society.

The admiral formulated his political convictions clearly: “We will call a spade a spade, no matter how difficult it may be for our fatherland: after all, the basis of humanity, pacifism, brotherhood of races lies in the simplest animal cowardice...”. Another assessment: “What is democracy? - It is a corrupted mass of people who desire power. Power cannot belong to the masses due to the law of stupidity of numbers: every practical politician, unless he is a charlatan, knows that the decision of two people is always worse than one.. "This was said in 1919.

Anna Timireva came to Omsk to see Kolchak, disdaining the conventions of the foundations. Four years have passed since their acquaintance, which developed into a romance in letters. Each has a family, both have sons. She was the first to confess her love to him - with the frankness of Pushkin's Tatyana and the determination of her namesake Karenina. "I told him I loved him." And he, who had been hopelessly in love for a long time and, as it seemed to him, answered: “I didn’t tell you that I love you.” - “No, I’m saying this: I always want to see you, I always think about you, it’s such a joy for me to see you.” And he, embarrassed to the point of a spasm in his throat: “I love you more than anything.” She was 21 years old, he was 40. And everyone knew about this love, their correspondence was “studied” by military censorship... Sofia Kolchak, the admiral’s wife, once confessed to a friend: “You’ll see, he will divorce me and marry Anna Vasilyevna.” . And Sergei Timirev, Anna’s husband and Kolchak’s colleague, also knowing about the affair, did not break off his friendship with the admiral. There was no dirt in this “love square”, because there was no deception. Timireva divorced her husband in 1918 and came to Omsk. The Kolchak family has been in France for a long time. He never decided to divorce...

Mikhail Tukhachevsky, 1920. Photo: CA FSB of Russia

Between two hardnesses

“Who is more cruel - the Reds or the Whites? Probably the same. In Russia they love to beat - no matter who,” - this is how Maxim Gorky in “Untimely Thoughts” diagnosed the Civil War and its ideologists on both sides. So the Siberian peasantry found itself between two fires, between two harshnesses. Kolchak began mobilizing the peasants. Many of them had just taken off the greatcoats of World War I soldiers, they were tired of fighting and, by and large, were generally indifferent to any power. Serfdom was not known here. Who was Kolchak's entourage? The officers, most of them treated the peasants as serfs - the age-old mental “inertia” was at work. A significant part of the Siberian population hated Kolchak more than the Bolsheviks. The partisan movement arose spontaneously - as a reaction to the cane discipline of the whites, insane repressions and requisitions. “The boys think that because they killed and tortured several hundreds and thousands of Bolsheviks and put to death a number of commissars, they did a great deed, dealt a decisive blow to Bolshevism and brought closer the restoration of the old order of things... the boys do not understand that if they indiscriminately and indiscriminately rape, flog, rob, torture and kill, then by this they instill such hatred towards the authorities they represent that the Moscow boor holders can only rejoice at the presence of such diligent, valuable and beneficial employees for them,” the Minister of War of the Kolchak government bitterly stated Baron Alexey Budberg. The Bolsheviks were then considered the lesser evil. They chose the "reds" because they already knew the "whites" well. And then it was too late to resist.

The Reds advanced quickly and inevitably. Their Fifth Army, under the command of one of the most successful commanders of the Civil War, 26-year-old Mikhail Tukhachevsky, was fighting towards Omsk. “Lieutenant Commander” was not only one of several thousand tsarist officers who voluntarily went over to serve the Bolsheviks, he was among its creators, in the summer of 1918, by personal order of Lenin, he was sent to create detachments of the First Soviet Army. By the time of the Omsk offensive, he already had indestructible success behind him. “The Russian Revolution gave its Red Marshals - Voroshilov, Kamenev, Egorov, Blucher, Budyonny, Kotovsky, Gai, but the most talented Red commander who did not know defeat in the civil war... turned out to be Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky. Tukhachevsky defeated the Whites near Simbirsk, saving the Soviets at the moment of the deadly catastrophe, when Lenin lay seriously wounded in the chambers of the ancient Kremlin. In the Urals, he won the “Soviet Marne” and, having desperately crossed the Ural ridge, defeated the white armies of Admiral Kolchak and the Czechs on the plains of Siberia,” this assessment of Tukhachevsky was not given by a friend - convinced anti-Bolshevik, emigre historian of the white movement Roman Gul.

On November 12, 1919, the Supreme Ruler and his ministers left Omsk and moved to Irkutsk, which became - very briefly - the next "capital of White Russia." Two days later, the Fifth Army occupied Omsk. Tukhachevsky, prone to external effects, rode into the city on a white horse. The street along which the Red Army soldiers walked through the frozen city has been called the “Red Path” ever since. (The army commander, who later became a marshal, would be shot as an “enemy of the people” in 1937.)

In December 1919, the so-called democratic opposition (including almost the entire range of political forces that opposed both Kolchak and the Bolsheviks) created a Political Center in Irkutsk. His task was to overthrow the Kolchak regime and negotiate with the Bolsheviks to end the Civil War and create a “buffer” democratic state in Eastern Siberia. The political center prepared an uprising in Irkutsk, which lasted from December 24, 1919 to January 5, 1920. On January 19, an agreement was reached between the Bolshevik Sibrevkom and the Political Center on the creation of a “buffer” state. One of the conditions of the agreement was the transfer of the former Supreme Ruler along with the headquarters to representatives of the Soviet government. At the same time, the Czechoslovak National Committee of Siberia (the governing body of the Czechoslovak formations - former prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who remained here from the First World War) issued a memorandum addressed to all allied governments, in which it stated that the Czechoslovak army was ceasing to support it. The Czechoslovakians “left the game”, intending to go home.

Kolchak's position became hopeless: he was essentially a hostage. On January 5, 1920, representatives of the Entente issued written instructions to the commander of the Allied forces, General Maurice Janin, to transport Kolchak, under the protection of Czech troops, to the Far East, to the place where he himself indicated.

Kolchak was traveling in a carriage attached to the train of the 8th Czechoslovak Regiment. The English, French, American, Japanese and Czech flags were raised on the carriage, symbolizing that the admiral was under the protection of these states. On January 15, the train arrived at Innokentyevskaya station. They stood there for a long time: Janin communicated with the leadership of the Political Center, which agreed to let through a Czechoslovak train full of “expropriated” property and weapons, and the trains following it loaded with “war trophies” in exchange for Kolchak. The negotiations ended with the assistant of the Czech commandant of the train entering the carriage and announcing that the Supreme Ruler was “being handed over to the Irkutsk authorities.” It seemed that Kolchak was not even surprised, nodding: “So, my allies are betraying me.” The admiral was taken to the station commandant's office, where he was "offered" to surrender his weapons. The transfer of the Supreme Ruler to the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Political Center meant arrest.

Like this. No trial.

Back on January 7, 1920, the Political Center established the Extraordinary Investigative Commission (ESC) to collect incriminating data against the arrested members of the Kolchak government. And after the Czechoslovaks handed over Kolchak and his Prime Minister Viktor Pepelyaev to the Political Center, he instructed the ChSK, which included the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, to conduct a judicial investigation within a week. The interrogations were carried out with extreme correctness, unexpected for the Reds: the investigation was conducted by lawyers certified back in tsarist times. But by the end of January the tone of the interrogations became harsher. Not knowing the true reason for the change, the admiral associated it with the transfer of chairmanship from the Menshevik Popov to the Bolshevik Chudnovsky. However, the interrogations became more harsh not only due to the arrival of the new chairman of the ChSK: the military-political situation in Irkutsk and around it changed. The change of the chairman of the commission was only a consequence. Several red partisan detachments with a total number of 6 thousand bayonets and 800 sabers were approaching Irkutsk. They were supposed to multiply the revolutionary forces of the Irkutsk residents at the head of the Military Revolutionary Committee created on January 19. On January 21, the coalition Political Center ceased to exist. Tukhachevsky's Fifth Army entered the city, and on January 25, Irkutsk became Soviet. (The name of the Fifth Army has since been borne by one of the central streets of the city.)

Kolchak was not tried, there was no sentence for him: the long, stalled investigation was cut short by a note to the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army: “Do not spread any news about Kolchak, do not print absolutely anything, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that The local authorities, before our arrival, acted this way under the influence ... of the danger of White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk Lenin."

On February 6, 1920 - in pursuance of Lenin's telegram - a resolution was adopted by the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee to shoot Kolchak and Pepelyaev.

That's the whole verdict. In essence, the scenario of the execution of the royal family in Yekaterinburg in 1918 was repeated: then, too, the investigation, trial and verdict were replaced by Ilyich’s secret execution telegram. (See "RG" for 07/17/2013). Bolshevik “legality” triumphed again.

When they came for the admiral and announced that he would be shot, he asked, seemingly not at all surprised: “Is that so? Without trial?” Before the execution, he refused to pray and stood calmly with his arms crossed over his chest. He tried to calm down his Prime Minister, Viktor Pepelyaev, who had lost his composure. He asked to convey the blessing to his legal wife, Sofya Fedorovna, and son Rostislav, who emigrated to France two years before. Not a word about Anna Timireva, who voluntarily went under arrest so as not to part with him until the end. A few hours before the execution, Kolchak wrote a note to Anna Vasilyevna, which never reached her. For dozens of years, the sheet wandered through the folders of investigative cases.

“My dear dove, I received your note, thank you for your affection and concern for me... Don’t worry about me. I feel better, my colds are going away. I think that transfer to another cell is impossible. I think only about you and your fate... I don’t worry about myself - everything is known in advance. My every step is being watched, and it’s very difficult for me to write... Write to me Your notes are the only joy I can have. I pray for you and bow to yours. self-sacrifice. My dear, my beloved, don’t worry about me and save yourself... Goodbye, I kiss your hands.” There was no date. They didn't allow it.

After the execution, the bodies of Kolchak and Pepelyaev were loaded onto a sleigh, taken to the Ushakovka River and thrown into an ice hole. The official message about the execution of Kolchak was transmitted by urgent telegram to Moscow.

“I ask the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry to tell me where and by virtue of what sentence Admiral Kolchak was shot and whether his body will be given to me, as the person closest to him, to be buried according to the rites of the Orthodox Church. Anna Timireva.” Resolution on the letter: “Reply that Kolchak’s body is buried and will not be handed over to anyone.”

Timireva was released after the execution of Kolchak - not for long. Already in June 1920, she was sent “for a period of two years without the right to apply an amnesty to her to the Omsk concentration camp for forced labor.”

They released me again, and again not for long. “For counter-revolutionary activities, expressed in the manifestation of malicious and hostile attacks against Soviet power among her entourage... a former courtesan, Kolchak’s wife, was arrested... Anna Vasilievna Timireva... Accused of being hostile to Soviet power, in the past she was Kolchak’s wife , was during the entire period of Kolchak’s active struggle against Soviet power at the last... until his execution... Without sharing the policies of the Soviet government on certain issues, she showed her hostility and bitterness towards the existing system, i.e. in the crime provided for in Art. 58, paragraph 10 of the Criminal Code." The term is five years. Then - arrests and exiles in 1925, 1935, 1938 and 1949. Her son from her first marriage, Volodya Timirev, was shot in 1938 for corresponding with his father who was abroad...

Kolchak was no longer there, but the Soviet government still had to deal spectacularly with the “Kolchakism.” From May 20 to May 30, 1920, in the working-class suburb of Omsk - Atamansky Farm - meetings of the Extraordinary Revolutionary Tribunal "in the case of the self-proclaimed and rebellious government of Kolchak and his inspirer" were held. The tribunal tried “members of the Kolchak government,” among whom there were only three ministers, the rest were functionaries of the second or third rank. The main figures managed to leave for the “white” part of Russia or emigrate. Nevertheless, the sentences were as cruel as possible: the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced four defendants to death, six to lifelong forced labor, three to forced labor for the entire duration of the Civil War, seven to labor for ten years, two to suspended imprisonment for a term for five years, one was declared insane by the court and placed in a psychiatric hospital. The convicts appealed to Lenin for clemency. Of course, to no avail. The Bolshevik leadership understood perfectly well that the sentenced “small fry” did not pose a serious danger. The verdict was a lesson. Society should have understood that the authorities would punish mercilessly all those who joined the opposition. As further practice showed, the edification was learned.

With the sanction of the French general Janin, he was handed over by the Czechoslovaks to representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik “Political Center” and placed in a provincial prison.

The admiral behaved calmly and with great dignity during interrogations, thereby evoking involuntary respect from the investigators, talking in detail about his life and willingly answering questions. Kolchak was quite frank and open, he tried to leave for history both his own biographical data and information about important historical events in which he happened to be a participant.

Reasons for the execution

The issue of Kolchak’s execution has been repeatedly covered in memoirs and research literature. Until the 1990s, it was believed that all the circumstances and reasons for this event were thoroughly clarified. Some discrepancies in the literature existed only on the question of who gave the order to execute Kolchak. Some memoirists and researchers argued, following Soviet historians, that such a decision was made by the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee on its own initiative and due to objectively prevailing military-political circumstances (the threat of an attack on Irkutsk by the remnants of Kolchak’s army, which came from the west under the command of General Voitsekhovsky), while others cited information about the presence of a directive emanating from the chairman of the Sibrevkom and member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army I. N. Smirnov. About the reason for the execution without trial, G. Z. Ioffe wrote in a monograph in 1983: “Kolchak’s fate was actually decided by the Kappelites who were rushing to Irkutsk, and by the counter-revolutionary elements who were preparing an uprising in the city.” The historian cited almost the entire text of “Resolution No. 27,” adopted by the Military Revolutionary Committee on February 6:

During searches in the city, warehouses of weapons, bombs, machine gun belts, etc. were discovered in many places; the mysterious movement of these items of military equipment around the city has been established; portraits of Kolchak, etc. are scattered around the city.
On the other hand, General Voitsekhovsky, responding to the proposal to surrender weapons, in one of the points of his answer mentions the extradition of Kolchak and his headquarters.
All this data forces us to admit that there is a secret organization in the city whose goal is the release of one of the worst criminals against the working people - Kolchak and his associates. This uprising is certainly doomed to complete failure, nevertheless it may entail a number of more innocent victims and cause a spontaneous outburst of revenge on the part of the indignant masses who do not want to allow such an attempt to be repeated.
Obliged to warn these aimless victims and not allow the city to experience the horrors of civil war, and also based on investigative material and decisions of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which declared Kolchak and his government outlawed, the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee decided:
1) the former Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak and
2) former Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev
r a s t r e l i t .
It is better to execute two criminals who have long deserved death than hundreds of innocent victims.

The resolution was signed by members of the Military Revolutionary Committee A. Shiryamov, A. Snoskarev, M. Levenson and Oborin.

The text of the resolution on their execution was first published in an article by the former chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee A. Shiryamov. In 1991, L. G. Kolotilo made the assumption that the resolution was drawn up after the execution, as an exculpatory document, since it was dated February 7, and S. Chudnovsky and I. N. Bursak arrived at the pre-Gubchek prison at two o’clock in the morning on February 7, allegedly already with the text of the resolution, and before that they made up a firing squad of communists.

Only in the early 1990s was a note from Lenin published in the USSR to Trotsky’s deputy E. Sklyansky for transmission by telegraph to a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, Chairman of the Sibrevkom I. Smirnov, which by that time had been known abroad for 20 years - from the moment of publication in Paris publications of Trotsky's Papers:

Cipher. Sklyansky: Send Smirnov (RVS 5) an encrypted message: Do not spread any news about Kolchak, do not print absolutely anything, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival acted this way and that under the influence of Kappel’s threat and danger White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin. The signature is also a code.
1. Are you going to do it extremely reliably?
2. Where is Tukhachevsky?
3. How are things in Cav. front?
4. In Crimea?

According to a number of modern Russian historians, this note should be regarded as a direct order from Lenin for the extrajudicial and secret murder of Kolchak.

Chairman of the Sibrevkom I.N. Smirnov stated in his memoirs that even during his stay in Krasnoyarsk (from mid-January 1920) he received an encrypted order from Lenin, “in which he decisively ordered Kolchak not to be shot,” because he was subject to trial. However, after receiving this order, the headquarters of the vanguard 30th division sent a telegram to Irkutsk, which reported the order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, according to which the execution of Kolchak was allowed: “ ... to keep Admiral Kolchak under arrest with the adoption of exceptional measures of guard and preservation of his life ... using execution only if it is impossible to keep Kolchak in his hands", and Smirnov telegraphed Lenin and Trotsky on January 26: " Today... an order... was given... for Kolchak, in case of danger, to be taken north of Irkutsk, and if it is not possible to save him from the Czechs, then to be shot in prison" “It is hardly possible,” writes Kolchak’s biographer Plotnikov, that Smirnov could give such an order “without the sanction of not only the party center, but also Lenin personally.” Plotnikov believes in this regard and on the basis of indirect data (circumstances mentioned in the note that are not related to the main content) that Lenin’s note was a response to Smirnov’s telegram, and dates it to the end of the twentieth of January 1920. Thus, the historian considers it obvious that Smirnov had instructions to shoot Kolchak directly from Lenin, on the basis of which he chose the right moment - the exit of the White Guards to Irkutsk - and on February 6 sent a telegram to the executive committee of the Irkutsk Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies: “ In view of the renewed hostilities with the Czechoslovak troops, the movement of Kappel's detachments to Irkutsk and the unstable position of Soviet power in Irkutsk, I hereby order you: Admiral Kolchak, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev, all those who participated in the punitive expeditions, all agents who are in your custody counterintelligence and security department of Kolchak, upon receipt of this, immediately shoot. Report on execution» .

G. Z. Ioffe drew attention to the fact that although both A. V. Kolchak and “all Kolchak’s henchmen and agents” were outlawed back in August 1919 by a resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, only A. V. was extrajudicially executed. Kolchak and V.N. Pepelyaev. The tribunal held in May 1920, based on the fact that “the acute moment of the civil war had passed,” found it possible to bring the rest of those arrested to trial.

Some modern historians believe that the meaning of Lenin’s actions here, as in the case of the murder of the Royal Family, was an attempt to absolve himself of responsibility for the extrajudicial execution, presenting the case as a popular initiative and an “act of retribution.” Close to this opinion is the point of view of the historian A.G. Latyshev, according to which Lenin could have done exactly this in relation to the royal family, but considered it inappropriate. V.I. Shishkin, without denying the existence of Lenin’s directive on the need to shoot Kolchak, does not consider Lenin to be the only culprit of the extrajudicial murder, pointing out that in Soviet Russia at that time there was no other point of view on this issue. In his opinion, the release of A.V. Kolchak was unrealistic, and his execution was initiated by the top of the Bolshevik leadership as an act of political reprisal and intimidation.

G. Z. Ioffe left open the question of the correct dating of Lenin’s note to Sklyansky, but drew attention to the ambiguities in the text of the note, if we assume that it was written after the execution.

Kappelites near Irkutsk

General V.O. Kappel, who remained loyal to him to the end, hurried to the rescue of the admiral who was in trouble, at the head of the remnants of the units of the Eastern Front of the Russian Army that still retained their combat capability, despite the severe cold and deep snow, sparing neither themselves nor people. As a result, while crossing the Kan River, Kappel fell through the ice with his horse, got frostbite on his legs, and died of pneumonia on January 26th.

The White troops under the command of General S.N. Voitsekhovsky continued to move forward. There were only 4-5 thousand fighters left. Voitsekhovsky planned to take Irkutsk by storm and save the Supreme Ruler and all the officers languishing in the city’s prisons. Sick and frostbitten, on January 30 they went to the railway line and at the Zima station they defeated the Soviet troops sent against them. After a short rest, on February 3, Kappel’s men moved to Irkutsk. They immediately took Cheremkhovo, 140 km from Irkutsk, dispersing the miners' squads and shooting the local revolutionary committee.

In response to the ultimatum of the commander of the Soviet troops, Zverev, to surrender, Woitsekhovsky sent a counter ultimatum to the Reds demanding the release of Admiral Kolchak and those arrested with him, the provision of fodder and the payment of an indemnity in the amount of 200 million rubles, promising to bypass Irkutsk in this case.

The Bolsheviks did not comply with the demands of the Whites, and Voitsekhovsky went on the attack: the Kappelites broke through to Innokentyevskaya, 7 km from Irkutsk. The Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee declared the city in a state of siege, and the approaches to it were turned into continuous lines of defense. The battle for Irkutsk began - according to a number of estimates, it had no equal during the entire civil war in terms of the ferocity and fury of attacks. No prisoners were taken.

The Kappelites took Innokentyevskaya and were able to break through the Red city defense lines. The assault on the city was scheduled for 12 noon. At this moment, the Czechs intervened in the events, concluding an agreement with the Reds, which was intended to ensure their own unhindered evacuation. Signed by the head of the 2nd Czechoslovak division, Kreichev, the Whites were sent a demand not to occupy the Glazkovsky Suburb under the threat of the Czechs coming out on the side of the Reds. Wojciechowski would no longer have enough strength to fight the fresh, well-armed Czech contingent. At the same time, news arrived about the death of Admiral Kolchak. Under the circumstances, General Wojciechowski ordered the offensive to be called off. The Kappelites began their fighting retreat to Transbaikalia.

Execution

On the night of January 25 (February 7), 1920, a detachment of Red Army soldiers with chief I. Bursak arrived at the prison where A.V. Kolchak and former Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Government V.N. Pepelyaev were kept. First, Pepelyaev was taken out from the second floor, then A.V. Kolchak. The admiral walked among the ring of soldiers, completely pale, but calm. Throughout his arrest and until his death, A.V. Kolchak behaved courageously and completely calmly, although he had no illusions about his fate. Internally, the admiral was inhumanly tired during these days; by the day of his death, at the age of 46, he was already completely gray.

Before the execution, A.V. Kolchak was denied the last time to see his beloved - A.V. Timireva, who voluntarily went under arrest with Alexander Vasilyevich, not wanting to leave him. The admiral rejected the executioners’ offer to blindfold him and gave Chudnovsky a capsule with potassium cyanide that someone had previously given to him, since he considered suicide unacceptable for an Orthodox Christian, and asked him to convey his blessing to his wife and son.

The general management of the execution was carried out by the chairman of the gubchek Samuil Chudnovsky, the execution team was led by the head of the garrison and at the same time the commandant of Irkutsk Ivan Bursak.

Full moon, bright, frosty night. Kolchak and Pepelyaev stand on the hillock. Kolchak refuses my offer to blindfold him. The platoon is formed, rifles at the ready. Chudnovsky whispers to me:
- It's time.
I give the command
- Platoon, attack the enemies of the revolution!
Both fall. We put the corpses on the sleigh, bring them to the river and lower them into the hole. So the “supreme ruler of all Rus'” Admiral Kolchak leaves for his last voyage.

From the memoirs of I. Bursak

As the historian Khandorin notes, in his “unofficial” memoirs, Bursak explained: “They didn’t bury them, because the Socialist Revolutionaries could talk, and the people would rush to the grave. And so - the ends are in the water."

Even the executioners themselves, the enemies, later noted that the admiral met death with soldierly courage and retained his dignity in the face of death.

Admiral Kolchak's grave

Historian Yu. V. Tchaikovsky considers convincing the assumptions of archivist S. V. Drokov that the official version of the execution of Kolchak on the banks of the Angara was invented and Alexander Vasilyevich’s grave should be sought within the walls of the Irkutsk prison. Pointing out many inconsistencies in the official version (for example, Kolchak’s fur coat remaining in prison and later included in the list of personal belongings), Tchaikovsky agrees with Drokov that the Bolsheviks were afraid to take Kolchak outside the prison walls, while Army Commander Smirnov had already telegraphed to Moscow that he had ordered Irkutsk authorities take Kolchak north of the city, and if this fails, then “shoot him in prison.” The perpetrators could noisily and publicly remove the condemned men in fur coats from their cells, and kill them secretly in the basement. The official version, writes Tchaikovsky, could only serve to hide the burial place of Kolchak’s remains.

The symbolic grave of A.V. Kolchak is located at his “resting place in the waters of the Angara” not far from the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery, where an Orthodox cross is installed.

Execution estimates

Memory

Notes

Sources

Plotnikov I. F. Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak.
Life and activity. ISBN 5-222-00228-4, page 262
Kruchinin A. S.
ISBN 978-5-17-063753-9 (AST), ISBN 978-5-271-26057-5 (Astrel), ISBN 978-5-421-50191-6 (Poligraphizdat), p. 514
Smirnov I.N. The end of the fight against Kolchakism // Proletarian Revolution. - M.-L., 1926. - No. 1 (48); Ioffe G.Z. Kolchak’s adventure and its collapse. - M., 1983. - P.260; and etc.
V. I. Shishkin Execution of Admiral Kolchak
Heinrich Ioffe.
Kolchak’s adventure and its collapse.
Chapter 9. Crash.
Plotnikov I. F. Shiryamov A. Irkutsk uprising and execution of Kolchak // Siberian Lights. 1924. No. 4. P. 122-140.
See the article by Yu. Felshtinsky “Lenin and the execution of Kolchak” with notes by L. G. Kolotilo, published in the book: Interrogation of A. V. Kolchak. 2nd ed., additional - L.: Politeks, 1991. (Responsible for the release: V. D. Dotsenko and L. G. Kolotilo) Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak.
Life and activity. Life and activity.
14. Who, when and how decided the issue of the murder of A.V. Kolchak? Rostov n/d.: Phoenix publishing house, 1998. - 320 p. ISBN 5-222-00228-4 . V. G. Khandorin.
Admiral Kolchak: truth and myths Admiral Kolchak: life, feat, memory. - M.: AST: Astrel: Poligrafizdat, 2010. - 538 p. - ISBN 978-5-17-063753-9.
Ioffe G.Z. Supreme ruler of Russia: documents of the case of Kolchak (Russian) // New magazine: Literary and artistic magazine of Russian Abroad. - 2004. - T. 235.
Life and activity. Khrustalev V. M.
Romanovs. The last days of the great dynasty. - 1st. - M.: AST, 2013. - pp. 17-18. - 864 p. - (Romanovs. The Fall of the Dynasty). - 2500 copies.
- ISBN 978-5-17-079109-5. A. G. Latyshev

Declassified Lenin. - 1st. - Moscow: March, 1996. - P. 118-138. - 336 p. - 15,000 copies. - ISBN 5-88505-011-2

Reasons for the execution

During searches in the city, warehouses of weapons, bombs, machine gun belts, etc. were discovered in many places; the mysterious movement of these items of military equipment around the city has been established; portraits of Kolchak, etc. are scattered around the city.
On the other hand, General Voitsekhovsky, responding to the proposal to surrender weapons, in one of the points of his answer mentions the extradition of Kolchak and his headquarters.
All this data forces us to admit that there is a secret organization in the city whose goal is the release of one of the worst criminals against the working people - Kolchak and his associates. This uprising is certainly doomed to complete failure, nevertheless it may entail a number of more innocent victims and cause a spontaneous outburst of revenge on the part of the indignant masses who do not want to allow such an attempt to be repeated.
Obliged to warn these aimless victims and not allow the city to experience the horrors of civil war, and also based on investigative material and decisions of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which declared Kolchak and his government outlawed, the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee decided:
1) the former Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak and
2) former Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev
r a s t r e l i t .
It is better to execute two criminals who have long deserved death than hundreds of innocent victims.

The resolution was signed by members of the Military Revolutionary Committee A. Shiryamov, A. Snoskarev, M. Levenson and Oborin.

Only in the early 1990s in the USSR was Lenin’s note published to Trotsky’s deputy E. Sklyansky for transmission by telegraph to a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, Chairman of the Sibrevkom I. Smirnov, which by this time had been known abroad for 20 years - from the moment of publication in Paris publications of Trotsky's Papers:

Cipher. Sklyansky: Send Smirnov (RVS 5) an encrypted message: Do not spread any news about Kolchak, do not print absolutely anything, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival acted this way and that under the influence of Kappel’s threat and danger White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin. The signature is also a code.
1. Are you going to do it extremely reliably?
2. Where is Tukhachevsky?
3. How are things in Cav. front?
4. In Crimea?

According to a number of modern Russian historians, this note should be regarded as a direct order from Lenin for the extrajudicial and secret murder of Kolchak.

D. and. n. G. Z. Ioffe drew attention to the fact that although both A. V. Kolchak and “all Kolchak’s henchmen and agents” were outlawed back in August 1919 by a resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, only A. V. was extrajudicially executed. Kolchak and V.N. Pepelyaev. The tribunal held in May 1920, based on the fact that “the acute moment of the civil war had passed,” found it possible to bring the rest of those arrested to trial.

Some modern historians believe that the meaning of Lenin's actions here, as in the case of the murder of the Royal Family, was an attempt to absolve himself of responsibility for the extrajudicial execution, presenting the case as a popular initiative and an “act of retribution.” Close to this opinion is the point of view of the historian A.G. Latyshev, according to which Lenin could have done exactly this in relation to the royal family, but considered it inappropriate. V.I. Shishkin, without denying the existence of Lenin’s directive on the need to shoot Kolchak, does not consider Lenin to be the only culprit of the extrajudicial murder, pointing out that in Soviet Russia at that time there was no other point of view on this issue. In his opinion, the release of A.V. Kolchak was unrealistic, and his execution was initiated by the top of the Bolshevik leadership as an act of political reprisal and intimidation.

Kappelites near Irkutsk

General V.O. Kappel, who remained loyal to him to the end, hurried to the rescue of the admiral who was in trouble, at the head of the remnants of the units of the Eastern Front of the Russian Army, which still retained their combat capability, despite the severe cold and deep snow, sparing neither themselves nor people. As a result, while crossing the Kan River, Kappel fell through the ice with his horse, got frostbite on his legs, and died of pneumonia on January 26th.

The White troops under the command of General S.N. Voitsekhovsky continued to move forward. There were only 4-5 thousand fighters left. Voitsekhovsky planned to take Irkutsk by storm and save the Supreme Ruler and all the officers languishing in the city’s prisons. Sick and frostbitten, on January 30 they reached the railway line and defeated the Soviet troops sent against them at the Zima station. After a short rest, on February 3, the Kappelites moved to Irkutsk. They immediately took Cheremkhovo, 140 km from Irkutsk, dispersing the miners' squads and shooting the local revolutionary committee.

According to General Puchkov, General Voitsekhovsky could count on no more than 5 thousand soldiers when implementing his plan to save Kolchak, who were stretched along the road so that it would take at least a day to gather them to the battlefield. The army had 4 operational and 7 dismantled guns with limited ammunition. Most divisions had no more than 2-3 machine guns with a meager amount of ammunition. Things were even worse with the riflemen's cartridges. Nevertheless, according to the general, “...if there was the slightest hope of finding the Supreme Ruler in the city, the army would attack Irkutsk immediately and approach it.”

The Kappelites took Innokentyevskaya and were able to break through the Red city defense lines. The assault on the city was scheduled for 12 noon. At this moment, the Czechs intervened in the events, concluding an agreement with the Reds, which was intended to ensure their own unhindered evacuation. Signed by the head of the 2nd Czechoslovak division, Kreichev, the Whites were sent a demand not to occupy the Glazkovsky Suburb under the threat of the Czechs coming out on the side of the Reds. Wojciechowski would no longer have enough strength to fight the fresh, well-armed Czech contingent. At the same time, news came of the death of Admiral Kolchak. Under the circumstances, General Wojciechowski ordered the offensive to be called off. The Kappelites began their fighting retreat to Transbaikalia.

Execution

Before the execution, A.V. Kolchak was denied the last time to see his beloved - A.V. Timireva, who was voluntarily arrested along with Alexander Vasilyevich, not wanting to leave him. The admiral rejected the executioners’ offer to blindfold him and gave Chudnovsky a capsule with potassium cyanide that someone had previously given to him, since he considered suicide unacceptable for an Orthodox Christian, and asked him to convey his blessing to his wife and son.

The general management of the execution was carried out by the chairman of the gubchek Samuil Chudnovsky, the firing squad was led by the head of the garrison and at the same time the commandant of Irkutsk Ivan Bursak.

Full moon, bright, frosty night. Kolchak and Pepelyaev stand on the hillock. Kolchak refuses my offer to blindfold him. The platoon is formed, rifles at the ready. Chudnovsky whispers to me:
- It's time. I give the command
- Platoon, attack the enemies of the revolution!
Both fall. We put the corpses on the sleigh, bring them to the river and lower them into the hole. So the “supreme ruler of all Rus'” Admiral Kolchak leaves for his last voyage.”

From the memoirs of I. Bursak

Even the executioners themselves, the enemies, later noted that the admiral met death with soldierly courage, which could not be said about Pepelyaev, who cowardly lay at the feet of the executioners and begged for mercy. Admiral A.V. Kolchak retained his dignity in the face of death.

After the execution

She received a refusal to her request - she was informed that the body of A.V. Kolchak had allegedly already been buried.

Legal assessments of the execution

K. and. n. N. E. Rudensky believed that Kolchak’s execution was akin to lynching, since it was carried out by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee, which carried out the instructions of the central Bolshevik leadership. There was no trial of Kolchak.

Memory

Notes

Sources

Plotnikov I. F. Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak. Life and activity.
Life and activity. ISBN 5-222-00228-4, page 262
Shiryamov A. The fight against Kolchakism // Last days of Kolchakism. - M.-L., 1926; It's him. Irkutsk uprising and execution of Kolchak. // The struggle for the Urals and Siberia. - M.-L., 1926; Parfenov (Altaisky) P. S. The struggle for the Far East (1920-1922). - M.-L., 1928; Bursak I. N. The end of the white admiral // The defeat of Kolchak. Memories. - M., 1969; and etc.
Smirnov I.N. The end of the fight against Kolchakism // Proletarian Revolution. - M.-L., 1926. - No. 1 (48); Ioffe G.Z. Kolchak’s adventure and its collapse. - M., 1983. - P.260; and etc.
V. I. Shishkin Execution of Admiral Kolchak
Heinrich Ioffe. The Kolchak adventure and its collapse. Chapter 9. Crash.
Plotnikov I. F. Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak. Life and activity. 14. Who, when and how decided the issue of the murder of A.V. Kolchak? Rostov n/d.: Phoenix publishing house, 1998. - 320 p. ISBN 5-222-00228-4.
See the article by Yu. Felshtinsky “Lenin and the execution of Kolchak” with notes by L. G. Kolotilo, published in the book: Interrogation of A. V. Kolchak. 2nd ed., additional - L.: Politeks, 1991. (Responsible for the release: V. D. Dotsenko and L. G. Kolotilo) Admiral Kolchak: truth and myths
Life and activity. Admiral Kolchak: life, feat, memory / Andrey Kruchinin. - M.: AST: Astrel: Poligrafizdat, 2010. - 538, p.: ill. ISBN 978-5-17-063753-9 (AST), ISBN 978-5-271-26057-5 (Astrel), ISBN 978-5-4215-0191-6 (Poligraphizdat), p. 522
14. Who, when and how decided the issue of the murder of A.V. Kolchak? Rostov n/d.: Phoenix publishing house, 1998. - 320 p. ISBN 5-222-00228-4 . Supreme Ruler of Russia: documents from the Kolchak case (Russian) // New magazine: Literary and artistic magazine of the Russian Abroad. - 2004. - T. 235.

01.08.2012

Red Army soldier Vaganov: “I shot Admiral Kolchak”

I never felt sympathy for Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. I don’t like him even now, when they write a lot and enthusiastically about him. But it so happened that circumstances, despite my every desire, twice brought me close to the fate of the admiral, and I had the rare opportunity to record a conversation with a participant in his execution - the Bolshevik K.D. Vaganov, and discovered unique documents in the archives. This is what I want to talk about.

Confession at gunpoint
In the summer of 1966, I was getting ready to go on a business trip. Just before leaving, I was given the book “The Interrogation of Kolchak” for three days. It was released in 1925 in Leningrad. The story of this book is this.
On January 15, 1920, Admiral A.V. Kolchak was arrested on his train and became a prisoner of the Socialist Revolutionary Political Center, then was handed over to Soviet power. As after the arrest of Nicholas II, it was assumed that a nationwide trial would take place over Kolchak. In Irkutsk, where the admiral was imprisoned, an Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry was hastily created. She was assigned to conduct preliminary interrogations, and then Admiral Kolchak was supposed to be taken to Moscow.
The commission was headed by the future professor of history K. Popov, and then by the chairman of the Irkutsk Cheka S. Chudnovsky. The future professor led most of the meetings, which were recorded in shorthand. It was the verbatim reports that formed the basis for the future book.
“The Interrogation of Kolchak” is interesting primarily as a self-portrait of the admiral. The former Supreme Ruler of Russia accomplished a lot in his forty-six years.
The revolution found Kolchak with the rank of vice admiral and in the position of commander of the Black Sea Fleet. Kolchak was concerned about the collapse of the Russian armed forces, the decline in discipline, rallies instead of serving, thefts and the sale of military weapons. Kolchak did not join any party. When the Sevastopol Council of Sailors' and Soldiers' Deputies demanded that the admiral surrender his personal weapons (there was a senseless campaign to disarm officers who continued to serve on ships), Kolchak, as a sign of protest, in front of hundreds of people, threw his golden St. George saber from the ramp into the sea...
Kolchak believed that in revolutionary Russia there was no use for his knowledge and experience. He enlisted in the American Navy. It turned out that few people need it abroad either. The admiral returned to his homeland through Primorye.
To unite the forces that could resist the Bolshevik government, a prominent neutral figure was needed. Kolchak was offered to become the Supreme Ruler of Russia. He agreed to accept it.
From many surviving documents it is known that the regime that Kolchak established, upon coming to power, was distinguished by cruelty. Not only those who fought on the side of the Bolsheviks were executed. They were put to death “for resisting the orders of the [Kolchak] government, for failure to show up for duty on time, for self-mutilation.”
The role of military courts was performed by officer “troikas”. Those arrested were shot in batches of 40-50 people, after which “trial records” were drawn up and “sentences” were passed. In fact, the “troikas” “judged” already frozen corpses.
Villages were wiped off the face of the earth if it became known that the residents were dissatisfied with Kolchak’s policies. The unfortunates were hanged, shot, beaten with sticks, and buried alive in the ground. The rack awaited the silent ones during interrogations. The number of victims numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
Did Kolchak know about this? Not only knew, but also encouraged. A telegram has been preserved, where the admiral demanded that the disobedient population be dealt with “the Japanese way.” This meant the cruelty of the Japanese expeditionary force in Primorye. It is known that the Japanese, among other things, came up with the idea of throwing living people into a locomotive firebox.
I don’t know how quickly economic prosperity would have come if Kolchak had won, but I am convinced that “1937” for Russia would have come already in 1920 if the admiral had won. From Primorye to the western border, everyone who fought against the whites would have been captured, convicted and shot. The Supreme Ruler had no pity for man. Although there were still “misfires” in this total terror.
In 1919, the Bolshevik Konstantin Popov was captured by Kolchak’s men and thrown into Omsk prison. When, by decision of the “troika,” they came for him to shoot him, Popov rushed about with typhus. The executors did not touch the patient so as not to become infected. Popov accidentally remained alive, and he was made an investigator in the Kolchak case.
...The book “Interrogation of Kolchak” stopped mid-sentence. In the preface, as well as in the comments, I was looking for at least a hint of how the admiral lived his last hours, how he behaved before his execution. And I came across short information about V.N. Pepelyaev (Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the government of A.V. Kolchak). “Together with Kolchak,” I read, “he was arrested and imprisoned. By decision of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee, Pepelyaev was shot at the same time as Kolchak. Pepelyaev died like a pathetic coward, begging for mercy.”
How Kolchak met his death - not a word was said about it.

Executor of the sentence
I came to Perm to record a conversation with Nikolai Dementievich Vaganov. In 1905, he was a militant and was a member of Alexander Lbov’s squad. A Perm worker, Lbov set out almost single-handedly to fight the autocracy. The struggle resulted in fearless fights with the gendarmes, and daring seizures of cash registers where large sums were kept.
In 1966, Nikolai Dementievich Vaganov remained the last living Lbovtsev. He was nearly eighty. His thoughts and memory often failed. At the same time, I noticed: he does not tell everything that he remembers. The fearless worker-terrorist lived with fear of the workers' and peasants' power, for which he fought 60 years ago, when there was no trace of it.
When I realized that I would not hear anything significant anymore, I began to get ready. Vaganov saw that I was upset.
Already in the hallway, he said with a guilty smile: “You know, I have a big event: my brother has returned to Perm. He lived in other cities for a long time.”
I muttered, “Very happy for you.”
I wanted to leave quickly. But now that I no longer asked about Lbov, Nikolai Dementievich had a desire to talk to me in detail. He must have been very lonely.
“My brother recently received the Order of Lenin,” Nikolai Dementievich said casually. - For revolutionary services. It would probably be interesting for you to meet him yourself.
But I didn’t want anything from this family anymore. It was hot outside, and all the windows in the apartment were battened down, like the hatches on a submarine. It was unbearably stuffy. I couldn't wait to run out onto the stairs.
Probably Nikolai Dementievich read impatience on my face. As if he wanted to convince me that I was making a mistake by leaving him so quickly, he added, laughing slightly into his pointed “Williamian” mustache:
- You know, but my brother shot Kolchak himself...
Goosebumps ran down my spine. Just a few days ago I was lamenting the fact that there was no end to The Interrogation of Kolchak. And now I had a stunning opportunity to learn from a participant in the events the details of the admiral’s execution. It is probably not by chance that the compilers and editors of the verbatim report tried to hide these details.
- Does your brother live far away? - I couldn’t resist and still asked.
“Close,” Nikolai Dementievich answered good-naturedly. - Now I’ll call him and ask about your visit.
Konstantin Dementievich Vaganov turned out to be a smiling, strong man with dark, untouched gray hair. He was much younger than his brother and undoubtedly stronger than him. On the lapel of his light gray suit a brand new Order of Lenin glittered on a fresh moire ribbon. One got the impression that everything in this house was new and that some completely new life had begun for the owner of the apartment.
- How can I help you? - Konstantin Dementievich asked me. He was glad to see me, and it seemed to me that, unlike his older brother, he was ready to talk for a very long time.
- Is it true that you took part in the execution of Kolchak?
“It happened,” he answered. - Was.
His face became less animated. You have to think, it’s not easy at the end of your life to remember that you took part in a murder. And the reprisal of the armed against the unarmed has always been considered murder.
When Kolchak captured Perm, Konstantin Dementievich went underground. He was well known in his homeland. Vaganov moved to Irkutsk. He worked under the nickname Brave. Before the arrival of Soviet power, he participated in the capture of the Irkutsk prison.
On the night of February 6-7, 1920, fellow Red Army soldiers invited him with them. They didn’t immediately say why. Only in the back of the truck they said in a whisper: “We are going to shoot Admiral Kolchak. The Kappelites will probably want to recapture the admiral on the way or try to seize the prison...”
Vaganov realized that he was not invited by chance. He had experience in capturing the Irkutsk prison. Now the experience could be useful for its defense. The truck, which slowly rolled along the snowy streets towards the prison, was the penultimate link in a very long chain of events. They began several thousand kilometers from Irkutsk - in Moscow.

Secret war for the throne?
The Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry did not have time to complete its work by the night of February 7, 1920. From a formal point of view, on the 15th day after the start of Kolchak’s interrogations, there were still no grounds for passing a sentence. They were never collected. However, this did not matter to the commission, since the verdict had to be passed by the Military Revolutionary Committee of the city of Irkutsk.
Under the pretext that secret weapons depots had been discovered in Irkutsk (which was true), and that leaflets with a portrait of Kolchak were allegedly being scattered on the streets (which did not look very plausible), the Revolutionary Committee adopted resolution No. 27 of February 6 on the execution of the Supreme Ruler of Russia and the Prime Minister -a minister of his government. Late in the evening, the chairman of the revolutionary committee handed the document to the city commandant for immediate execution. But neither the commandant nor the Revolutionary Committee knew that in fact they were carrying out a secret sentence, which was autocratically handed down to the Supreme Ruler of Russia by one completely civilian person. The person was 49 years old. It had a legal education, spoke fluently in several languages, and reported that it earned its living from journalism.
The face wore a three-piece suit and had a habit of tucking his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat in the manner of provincial tailors.
Having received a message that Admiral Kolchak had been arrested, as well as information that the Red Army would enter Irkutsk any day now, the “journalist” in a three-piece suit sent a telegram to the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army: “Do not spread any news about Kolchak, do not print absolutely anything.” , send a special telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival did this [that is, they executed the admiral] under the influence of Kappel’s threat and the danger of White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin. (The signature is also in code. - B.K.) Are you going to do it extremely reliably?”
It was not only an order, but also a rather carefully thought out scenario. The telegram revealed the mechanism of Lenin's secret terrorist operations.
It was long believed, for example, that the royal family was shot on the initiative and thoughtlessness of the leaders of Yekaterinburg; If Lenin’s telegram to Irkutsk had not been preserved, one would have thought the same about the leaders of Irkutsk. In fact, an already tested “plot device” was used here: the order is given by Moscow, and moral responsibility for its illegality is assigned to “local authorities.”
In both cases the handwriting is the same. The same cunning plan. The same fear of moral responsibility.
Lenin's telegram testified that from the first minute of his arrest the admiral was doomed to a quick and probably even secret death. Lenin did not need the long trial of Kolchak.
Why was the leader of the proletariat so impatient? How did the arrested admiral hinder him? Unlike Kolchak, Lenin spent many years preparing for the role of head of the Russian state. The October revolution did not mean final victory.
Kolchak had a real chance to take the place of the Tsar. The fact that Kolchak captured the royal gold also played a significant role. He paid the allies generously for weapons and other assistance. Demanding the quick - and secret - execution of the Supreme Ruler, Vladimir Ilyich was going to eliminate the last serious contender for the Russian throne, for the highest power in the country. Nine days after Kolchak’s capture, on January 24, 1920, “Izvestia of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee” began to be published in Irkutsk. It was a completely faceless publication, but if, holding the binder in your hands, you remember that Kolchak was in the city at that time, then the reader will see an abyss of encrypted information.
The order of the Revolutionary Committee No. 1 stated that the acting Nesterov is appointed commander of the troops of Irkutsk. Just Nesterov. Without initials or previous position. The appointment didn’t say much unless you knew that 23-year-old staff captain A.G. Nesterov commanded two battalions that captured the former ruler of Russia.
A certain S. Chudnovsky became Commissioner of Justice and Chairman of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission. It was hidden from readers that the full name of the commission was “... in the case of Admiral A.V. Kolchak.” Another detail that was not included in the newspaper was that the Commissioner of Justice, that is, law and order, also serves as the head of the Irkutsk Cheka and is a member of the provincial committee of the Bolshevik Party.
The position of city commandant was awarded to Ivan Bursak, a former prisoner of the Irkutsk prison. He participated in the arrest of Kolchak and was involved in the search for his ministers.
If you remember about the high-ranking prisoner, it becomes clear why three resolutions were published in Izvestia within a few days that related to the activities of the local... prison.
The first said: “Release to the disposal of the Commissioner of Justice [that is, S. Chudnovsky] for the costs of maintaining the Irkutsk prison in advance (?) 500,000 rubles.” The second resolution of the Revolutionary Committee concerned personnel policy: “The Irkutsk provincial prison requires employees for the position of guards at a fixed salary with a ready-made apartment. To apply, it is necessary to have a recommendation from socialist organizations.” The third resolution tightened the prison regime.
Izvestia did not report that Kolchak was placed in an Irkutsk prison. The news was probably outdated by January 24, but the newspaper returned to the admiral’s person quite often.
The note “Kolchak in Prison” said: “Members of the Revolutionary Committee visited Kolchak and Pepelyaev in the Irkutsk prison. Kolchak has noticeably lost weight. He looks far from cheerful...” (further the newspaper page is torn. - B.K.)
The information that members of the same revolutionary committee, as representatives of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, talk with Kolchak every day for several hours a day, was not included in the newspaper.
The authorities of Irkutsk, not knowing about Lenin’s directive, were in no hurry to execute Kolchak. The Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army also waited. Everything came into motion after the ridiculous ultimatum of the commander of the 2nd White Army, General Voitsekhovsky. Smirnov, chairman of the RVS of the 5th Red Army, immediately informed Lenin: “Tonight I gave an order on the radio to the Irkutsk headquarters of the Communists... so that in case of danger Kolchak would be taken north of Irkutsk; If you can’t save him from the Czechs, then shoot him in prison.”
Lenin's secret telegram and Smirnov's reply dispatch were criminal - not even from the point of view of abstract humanism, but from the point of view of the legislation of Soviet Russia. The first issue of Irkutsk Izvestia reported: “The Revolutionary Committee announces... the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Republic on the abolition of capital punishment for enemies of the people - execution...” (Resolution dated January 17, 1920 - Ed.)
A mind-boggling situation developed when the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, bypassing the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, which he signed, demanded the use of the death penalty, which he himself prohibited.
That Kolchak’s fate was decided and there would be no trial was eventually understood in Irkutsk. Preparation of public opinion began immediately. “In Kolchak’s carriage,” wrote the local newspaper Izvestia, “many orders, gold and silver medals and badges, as well as valuable weapons were found. Among the latter is a precious weapon received by Kolchak from Japan.”
Apparently, the newspaper was instructed to write about the wealth that Kolchak plundered, but the journalist did not find such material. Boxes with orders (the admiral generously donated them to his supporters) did not fit under the “loot” heading.
Meanwhile, the city was feverishly preparing for a possible White offensive.
“The Revolutionary Committee decided to create a military revolutionary tribunal at the army headquarters of three persons.” “Troikas” were also created here. The names of the tribunal members were not publicly released.
No later than February 5, the Revolutionary Committee received an order from Smirnov, transmitted by radio: “In view of the movement of Kappel’s detachments to Irkutsk and the unstable position of Soviet power in Irkutsk, I hereby order... those in custody... Admiral Kolchak, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev, upon receipt of this, to immediately shoot. Report on execution."
So the sentence passed personally by Vladimir Ilyich in the Kremlin office, through the headquarters of the 5th Army, its Revolutionary Military Council, the Revolutionary Committee of Irkutsk and the headquarters of the local garrison, reached Vaganov’s friends, and then became known to Vaganov himself.
Neither those who prepared the execution, nor those who were instructed to carry out the execution knew that Lenin had previously laid the blame on them for... carrying out his sentence.

The courage of Admiral Kolchak
I did not find the beginning of the tape recording of my conversation with Vaganov - so many years have passed. It's good that at least the ending was preserved. I’ll retell the beginning of the conversation as I remember it.
The detachment arrived at the prison at two o'clock in the morning. Here the Red Army soldiers were divided. One group remained at the gate. Another went for Pepelyaev. The third is for Kolchak. Vaganov joined those who were assigned to escort the admiral.
The prison authorities were warned. The group was allowed into the building without any obstacles. Some official, perhaps the head of the prison himself, led the Red Army soldiers and security officers along long corridors. They stopped at the camera. A remarkable detail: a lot of people had gathered, but they moved along the corridors very quietly, as if they were timid and afraid of waking up the inhabitants of this building.
A warden stood at the door of the solitary cell occupied by Kolchak. At a sign from his boss, he inserted a large key into the well and turned it. The lock clicked dryly and loudly. Door opened.
Chudnovsky and Bursak entered the cell. Next is Vaganov. Kolchak sat dressed, in a fur coat and hat. Then it turned out that the head of the prison, who had been warned in advance, took care of this.
Chudnovsky read the resolution of the Revolutionary Committee to the admiral. Kolchak could not resist:
- How? Without trial?
Chudnovsky answered him with a florid phrase about proletarian revenge.
When Kolchak left the cell, the corridor was crowded. In addition to the guards, the prison servants came running. Kolchak was encircled, as if he could still escape. The guards and jailers moved along long corridors, from the admiral's courtyard they were led into a cramped guard room at the gate. Vaganov found himself alone with Kolchak. The rest of the accompanying people preferred to be outside.
The lodge was flooded. The admiral unbuttoned his fur coat. They were waiting for Pepelyaev.
Pepelyaev, unlike Kolchak, was not ready for death. Until the last hour he hoped that he would remain alive. After all, a trial was expected. Therefore, getting ready for Pepelyaev, when they came for him, took more time than the admiral.
From the excitement, which was already difficult to hide, and the hot stove, the admiral’s mouth was dry. He asked for water. She was not at the guardhouse. Vaganov conveyed Kolchak’s request to his friends who remained on the street.
Next, I present Vaganov’s memoirs as they were preserved on tape.
“...They brought a full bucket of water and a large iron mug. They put him [Kolchak] in front of him. He started smoking and drinking. Smoking and drinking...
He is sitting and I am standing. Then he turns to me again:
- I want to ask you…
- Please tell me what you need.
- I want to ask you: if you ever meet my wife and son somewhere, give them my blessing (as on the tape. - B.K.)
- I doubt that they will ever appear to me. This is one side. And the other side... - Actually, I thought that there was no need to tell him anything unpleasant (Vaganov explained to me. - B.K.), and I said: - If they meet, then I will be happy to convey your wish, but I doubt it.
And with that we ended the conversation.
Some time passed... And suddenly we heard a noise. They are leading Pepelyaev.
Pepelyaev is a man of a completely different cut: weak, short, very fat. He takes two or three steps and falls to his knees, grabs the leader’s feet, kisses his boots and shouts:
- Save my life! Save my life! I will do everything for the Soviet government (Vaganov laughed at this point. - B.K.) Just save me!
They pick him up and drag him further. That's how they did it. The distance was not that great, but it took a long time. In the end they led me to the exit [from the prison yard]. I (?) heard this noise and ordered the guys to take Kolchak out. They surrounded Kolchak and took him out.
At the same time, the guards with Pepelyaev and our escorts and security officers approached. They took [the convicts] out of the gates, united them and the guards...
Pepelyaev immediately approached Kolchak, they kissed, and they were led further.
- Did they say anything to each other? - I asked Vaganov.
- No, they didn’t. They just kissed and moved on.
We took them away from the prison along Ushakovskaya... about sazhens, maybe one and a half hundred - two hundred... There was a mountain there. There is a cemetery on the mountain... We placed them under this mountain. A workers' settlement began there. They brought them to this place, set them up and announced. Announced... I forgot my last name now. Tell you later.
The city commandant announced (Ivan Bursak - Ed.) And he announced the execution decision and warned them that they were allowed, if they wanted, to say something: “Speak, we will listen. If you want to pray, please pray. If you don’t want to, we won’t insist (?).”
Kolchak replied:
“I’m not a believer, I won’t pray,” and folded his hands on his chest.
(In fact, A.V. Kolchak was a religious man. In the last note to A.V. Timireva (about Timireva will be discussed later) there are the following words: “I pray for you and bow to your self-sacrifice.” Probably, before his execution, the admiral did not I wanted to pray in front of everyone.)
Pepelyaev, after this explanation, Bursaka fell to his knees, began to pray, lament, and say the following expressions: “Oh, mother, why did you give birth to me! This is my fate - I will be shot. Why did you give birth to me? Such a misfortune befell me!” So he read all sorts of prayers for about five to ten minutes, no more. And Kolchak stood about three or four fathoms away from him and was silent. Admiral Kolchak's hands were folded on his chest.
Pepelyaev read and read, then approached Kolchak. I stood just on the left side of the detachment - the platoon was a guard. And Bursak stood on the left side. I stood next to him. And Kasatkin and Chudnovsky stood at the right end.
Bursak commanded:
- Platoon!
Everyone raised their rifles. I had a rifle in my hands. I jumped up too.
(At this point in his story, Vaganov became slightly embarrassed. The tape carried his guilty laugh. - B.K.)
The command rang out: “Fire!” We fired. And they both fell.
- Kolchak stood there with his arms folded on his chest? - I asked Vaganov.
- It stood there like that.
Bursak decided to come up and see what condition they were in. Went. And I went with him, naturally.
We approached Kolchak. Kolchak turns his body and still breathes. But Pepelyaev does not toss and turn and does not breathe.
Bursak took out his Colt and shot Kolchak in the head. He stopped tossing and turning.
I looked at the platoon and what condition it was in. I see that my comrades who invited me are already getting into the car.
I also got into the car and we left.
- They weren’t even buried - Kolchak and Pepelyaev? - I asked Vaganov.
- No.
- They just threw it?
- No, they didn’t throw it! The next day they announced: due to the fact that the graves had not been prepared - it was winter, everything was frozen - they [Bursak and his subordinates] decided to throw the dead into the hole. And they wrote that they threw him into the hole in the Angara.
It is difficult to judge whether it was so or not. That's exactly how it was written.
“Now I’ll tell you two words about him, Kolchak, his wife and son,” Vaganov continued. - They were traveling with him on the train. During the arrest, not all those traveling were arrested, but these were not touched at all. They managed to get into China."
This ends the recording.

What did Vaganov’s memories give us?
Vaganov’s story broke the wall of secrecy that was deliberately erected around the circumstances of the execution of A.V. Kolchak. Those who killed him, and those who prepared the book “Interrogation of Kolchak” (the same people participated here and there!), did everything to hide from the public that Kolchak accepted death with dignity. If these details had become known at that time, they would have strengthened the attractiveness and sacrifice of Kolchak’s personality. And these feelings could become “material force” to continue the struggle.
Vaganov’s story contains a lot of other valuable information. Thus, it becomes completely obvious that one of Lenin’s main directives was clearly carried out - to blame the decision on execution on “local authorities”.
The main person during the execution was the commandant of Irkutsk Bursak, although the chairman of the Cheka and, probably, the chairman of the revolutionary committee and the head of the garrison were present at the execution ceremony, but they were completely in the shadows. That night, all power allegedly passed to the most insignificant person - the commandant of the city, and besides him, also to the head of the prison. One can assume that if it had been necessary to find the “culprits,” these two would have been punished for the “unauthorized” execution.
Did Bursak realize what role he was playing? He probably guessed, because he, too, tried to show maximum generosity within the limits that were within his control. He invited Kolchak and Pepelyaev to pray and waited patiently until Pepelyaev finished his complaints about his unfortunate fate. Bursak suggested listening to his dying speech. Since Bursak was responsible for everything that night under the stern gaze of his superiors, after the salvo he himself approached Kolchak and Pepelyaev who had fallen to the ground, and he himself stopped the torment of the admiral, who was “tossing and turning.”
Two more points are noteworthy. After the salvo, Vaganov went with Bursak. It took at most two minutes, but during this period the platoon was already loaded onto the vehicle. The authorities were in a hurry - they were in a hurry, first of all, to remove the platoon in order to quickly complete the second part of the operation - to secretly remove the bodies of the executed, making them inaccessible to relatives and their supporters.
It is curious that six years later, that is, after the release of “The Interrogation of Kolchak,” the memoirs of Ivan Bursak were published. What did he write?
He said that during the arrest of the admiral, it was he who was given Kolchak’s pistol (this evidence is disputed by one of the admiral’s biographers), and he describes in detail how the execution was prepared. And very little about the execution itself. He writes that he allegedly offered to blindfold Kolchak, but he refused.
Whether he offered the same thing to Pepelyaev, there is not a word about this in his memoirs. And he is silent about the fact that he allowed the condemned to pray and make a farewell speech.
Bursak does not mention that he shot the wounded admiral. There is also a detail in his memories that does not appear anywhere else.
“After the salvo,” writes Bursak, “both fall. We put the corpses on the sled-sledge, bring them to the river and lower them into the hole..."
Bursak does not say: “The soldiers put the corpses on the sleds.” He makes it clear that they, the leaders of the execution, members of the revolutionary committee, are doing this with their own hands, not trusting anyone else. Bursak also takes credit for the fact that it was he who wrote “by hand in ink” that the sentence was carried out “on February 7 at 5 a.m. in the presence of the chairman of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, the commandant of the city of Irkutsk and the commandant of the Irkutsk provincial prison.”
In Vaganov’s memoirs, two apparent inconsistencies are striking.
The first is that the admiral’s wife Sofya Fedorovna Omirova and their nine-year-old son Rostislav were not on the same train with him at the time of his arrest. Consequently, no one released them and they had no need to flee from Siberia to China. The admiral's family lived in France for a long time. Kolchak maintained correspondence with his wife and son through the French embassy.
However, this error in Vaganov’s memoirs is easily explained: not wanting to mislead, he innocently told me what he had heard himself.
In this regard, Kolchak’s request to convey the “blessing” to his wife and son looks like a serious inconsistency. After all, it was obvious to the admiral that Vaganov, one of many millions of privates in the Red Army, was unlikely to get to Paris any time soon. What was Kolchak counting on when delivering this message?
By word of mouth. He knew his death would attract attention. Participants in the execution will tell, at least in a half-whisper, how it all happened. The information will sooner or later become available to allied intelligence, diplomats and journalists. One way or another, the information will reach Paris.
Kolchak understood that he already belonged to Russian history. The members of the Extraordinary Commission also felt this conviction. K. Popov wrote that the admiral gave his testimony “not so much for the interrogating authorities, but for the bourgeois world...”.

The Admiral's Secret Love
Vaganov was partly right when he told me that Kolchak was not traveling alone in the carriage of his literary train. Among the forty people accompanying his retinue was Anna Vasilievna Timireva.
Kolchak was exactly twenty years older than Anna Vasilievna. At first it was a long-standing social acquaintance: Timireva’s husband also wore the shoulder straps of an admiral.
At the end of her life, Anna Vasilievna admitted that at the very first meeting she and Kolchak were overcome by “instantly flared up love,” but circumstances separated them for several years, until they met again in Civil. Timireva decisively broke with her past and began to follow the admiral everywhere.
For a long time, their romance remained a secret to others. Even those who knew Kolchak closely found it difficult to imagine that this ascetic with an ugly, tense and slightly contemptuous face, the Supreme Ruler of Russia, who daily develops plans for military operations, conducts complex diplomatic negotiations and signs ever new decrees on the use of the death penalty, could be caring, gentle and passionate with young Anna.
Only shortly before his arrest, when it became obvious to Kolchak that as a politician and commander he had suffered a complete collapse, he invited Timireva to move into his carriage. Kolchak and Timireva lived under the same roof for the first time for the short period of time remaining to them. Ironically, the roof turned out to be a carriage roof. Several dozen people milled about behind the thin walls of the compartment around the clock.
When the admiral’s train was stopped and Nesterov and his soldiers entered the carriage, Kolchak and Timiryova were in the same compartment.
“...She held Alexander Vasilyevich’s hands in hers, insisting that they would go to prison together. They walked under escort... along the ice of the Angara... sliding and supporting each other,” said Leonid Shinkarev, author of the book “Siberia: where it came from and where it is going,” according to Anna Vasilievna herself. He had the chance to meet and talk with her in the 70s.
Why didn’t Kolchak convey his blessing to Timireva? After all, Vaganov could have fulfilled this request quickly - through those of his friends who invited him to execution.
The answer is quite simple. “Kolchak,” K. Popov was surprised, “being very nervous, nevertheless showed great caution in his testimony, he was wary of the slightest opportunity to provide material for accusing individuals...” First of all, he was concerned about the fate of Timireva.
During interrogation by the Extraordinary Commission, the admiral stated that he was formally married and had a son. Popov asked him:
- Mrs. Timireva was voluntarily arrested here. Tell me, what does she have to do with you?
- She is my old good friend... When I was going here [to the Irkutsk prison], she wanted to share the fate with me.
- She is not your common-law wife? - Popov asked again.
“No,” Kolchak answered and again repeated that his legal wife is Sofya Fedorovna Omirova.
The renunciation looked naive. While imprisoned, Timireva wrote to the head of the prison: “I ask you to allow me a meeting with Admiral Kolchak. Anna Timireva. January 16, 1920."
They were allowed visits. Every day they walked together in the prison yard, but in the interrogation report - a legal document - Kolchak stated that Anna Vasilievna was just an old good friend for him.
In the last note, intercepted by the security officers, Kolchak said: “I only think about you and your fate - the only thing that worries me. I don’t worry about myself - because everything is known in advance... My dear, my adored one, don’t worry about me and take care of yourself.”
After officially renouncing Timireva during interrogation, Kolchak did not consider it possible to convey anything to her in open text through the delicate but unfamiliar Vaganov. A phrase that flashed in one of the books about Kolchak, allegedly uttered by the admiral when they came for him to lead him to execution: “Can I say goodbye to Mrs. Timireva?” - is not confirmed either by documents or by the logic of circumstances.
The admiral's precaution was in vain. Having learned about the execution of her loved one, Timireva, while continuing to be in prison, demanded that Kolchak’s body be given to her for burial, which caused confusion among the authorities. Out of fear, they lied to her that “Kolchak’s body was buried and would not be given to anyone.” The message was signed by the same K. Popov.
...If on the night of Kolchak’s execution there had been a choice (as at the time of his arrest), Anna Vasilyevna would not have hesitated to go with the admiral to be shot. Such was the character of this woman. Such was her love for her chosen one.
However, Anna Timireva remained alive that night. Later, security officers shot her only son.
And she herself spent thirty-seven years in the camps. This is an example of the superhuman endurance that unfading love gave this woman. Until the last moment of her life, she retained tenderness and gratitude to Kolchak for the short “wartime” happiness.
And Kolchak’s wife Sofya Fedorovna Omirova died in Paris in 1956; she outlived her husband by 36 years.

My fault before Anna Vasilievna
In those ancient times, I knew little about Kolchak and knew nothing at all about Timireva. After re-reading “Interrogation...” after returning from Perm, I again came across a mention of Anna Vasilievna, which left me indifferent.
This explains my ridiculous offense, which dates back to 1968. A meeting of the commission on adventure and science fiction was held at the Central House of Writers

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Reasons for the execution

During searches in the city, warehouses of weapons, bombs, machine gun belts, etc. were discovered in many places; the mysterious movement of these items of military equipment around the city has been established; portraits of Kolchak, etc. are scattered around the city.
On the other hand, General Voitsekhovsky, responding to the proposal to surrender weapons, in one of the points of his answer mentions the extradition of Kolchak and his headquarters.
All this data forces us to admit that there is a secret organization in the city whose goal is the release of one of the worst criminals against the working people - Kolchak and his associates. This uprising is certainly doomed to complete failure, nevertheless it may entail a number of more innocent victims and cause a spontaneous outburst of revenge on the part of the indignant masses who do not want to allow such an attempt to be repeated.
Obliged to warn these aimless victims and not allow the city to experience the horrors of civil war, and also based on investigative material and decisions of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which declared Kolchak and his government outlawed, the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee decided:
1) the former Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak and
2) former Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev
r a s t r e l i t .
It is better to execute two criminals who have long deserved death than hundreds of innocent victims.

The resolution was signed by members of the Military Revolutionary Committee A. Shiryamov, A. Snoskarev, M. Levenson and Oborin.

The text of the resolution on their execution was first published in an article by the former chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee A. Shiryamov. In 1991, L. G. Kolotilo made the assumption that the resolution was drawn up after the execution, as an exculpatory document, since it was dated the seventh of February, and S. Chudnovsky and I. N. Bursak arrived at the pre-Gubchek prison at two o’clock in the morning on the seventh of February, allegedly already with the text of the resolution, and before that they made up a firing squad of communists.

Only in the early 1990s was a note from Lenin published in the USSR to Trotsky’s deputy E. Sklyansky for transmission by telegraph to a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, Chairman of the Sibrevkom I. Smirnov, which by this time had been known abroad for 20 years - from the moment of publication in Paris publications of Trotsky's Papers:

Cipher. Sklyansky: Send Smirnov (RVS 5) an encrypted message: Do not spread any news about Kolchak, do not print absolutely anything, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities before our arrival acted this way and that under the influence of Kappel’s threat and danger White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin. The signature is also a code.
1. Are you going to do it extremely reliably?
2. Where is Tukhachevsky?
3. How are things in Cav. front?
4. In Crimea?

According to a number of modern Russian historians, this note should be regarded as a direct order from Lenin for the extrajudicial and secret murder of Kolchak.

Kappelites near Irkutsk

General V.O. Kappel, who remained loyal to him to the end, hurried to the rescue of the admiral who was in trouble, at the head of the remnants of the units of the Eastern Front of the Russian Army, which still retained their combat capability, despite the severe cold and deep snow, sparing neither themselves nor people. As a result, while crossing the Kan River, Kappel fell through the ice with his horse, got frostbite on his legs, and died of pneumonia on January 26th.

The White troops under the command of General S.N. Voitsekhovsky continued to move forward. There were only 4-5 thousand fighters left. Voitsekhovsky planned to take Irkutsk by storm and save the Supreme Ruler and all the officers languishing in the city’s prisons. Sick and frostbitten, on January 30 they reached the railway line and defeated the Soviet troops sent against them at the Zima station. After a short rest, on February 3, the Kappelites moved to Irkutsk. They immediately took Cheremkhovo, 140 km from Irkutsk, dispersing the miners' squads and shooting the local revolutionary committee.

As the historian S.P. Melgunov writes, in this assault on Irkutsk by the Kappelites there was much of a moral order, which should have been a spiritual relief for the Supreme Ruler going to his death. The admiral could face the firing squad with a clear conscience: his soldiers and officers at the most critical moment of the test did not betray the cause that A.V. Kolchak served, nor did they betray the admiral himself, remaining faithful to him to the end.

Execution

Full moon, bright, frosty night. Kolchak and Pepelyaev stand on the hillock. Kolchak refuses my offer to blindfold him. The platoon is formed, rifles at the ready. Chudnovsky whispers to me:
- It's time.
I give the command
- Platoon, attack the enemies of the revolution!
Both fall. We put the corpses on the sleigh, bring them to the river and lower them into the hole. So the “supreme ruler of all Rus'” Admiral Kolchak leaves for his last voyage.

From the memoirs of I. Bursak

Even the executioners themselves, the enemies, later noted that the admiral met death with soldierly courage and retained his dignity in the face of death.

Admiral Kolchak's grave

Symbolic grave of A.V. Kolchak is located at his “resting place in the waters of the Angara” not far from the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery, where an Orthodox cross is installed.

Legal assessments of the execution

Memory

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Notes

Sources

Soviet-Polish War: Battles for Dvinsk;
On January 4, Admiral Kolchak transferred the powers of the Supreme Ruler to General Denikin;
On January 15, the First Labor Army was formed;
On January 16, the Russian Eastern Outskirts was founded, led by the ataman of the Transbaikal Cossacks Semyonov;
On February 7, Kolchak was shot along with his Prime Minister V.N. Pepelyaev;
“Red Flood”: On February 20, the Red Army liquidated the Northern Region.

After:

"Red Flood": the final collapse of the Denikin front. On April 4, General Denikin left Russia, the remnants of the AFSR strengthened in the Crimea under the command of Baron Wrangel;
On April 6, the Far Eastern Republic was founded;
Soviet-Polish War: On May 7, the Poles occupied Kyiv;

Excerpt characterizing the Execution of Admiral Kolchak

“Even if it cost me a lot of work...”, answered Prince Andrei, as if guessing what was the matter.
- Think whatever you want! I know you are the same as mon pere. Think what you want, but do it for me. Do it please! My father’s father, our grandfather, wore it in all the wars...” She still didn’t take what she was holding out of the reticule. - So you promise me?
- Of course, what's the matter?
- Andre, I will bless you with the image, and you promise me that you will never take it off. Do you promise?
“If he doesn’t stretch his neck by two pounds... To please you...” said Prince Andrei, but at that very second, noticing the distressed expression that his sister’s face took on at this joke, he repented. “Very glad, really very glad, my friend,” he added.
“Against your will, He will save and have mercy on you and turn you to Himself, because in Him alone there is truth and peace,” she said in a voice trembling with emotion, with a solemn gesture holding in both hands in front of her brother an oval ancient icon of the Savior with a black face in silver chasuble on a silver chain of fine workmanship.
She crossed herself, kissed the icon and handed it to Andrey.
- Please, Andre, for me...
Rays of kind and timid light shone from her large eyes. These eyes illuminated the entire sickly, thin face and made it beautiful. The brother wanted to take the icon, but she stopped him. Andrei understood, crossed himself and kissed the icon. His face was at the same time tender (he was touched) and mocking.
- Merci, mon ami. [Thank you my friend.]
She kissed his forehead and sat down on the sofa again. They were silent.
“So I told you, Andre, be kind and generous, as you always have been.” Don’t judge Lise harshly,” she began. “She is so sweet, so kind, and her situation is very difficult now.”
“It seems that I didn’t tell you anything, Masha, that I should blame my wife for anything or be dissatisfied with her.” Why are you telling me all this?
Princess Marya blushed in spots and fell silent, as if she felt guilty.
“I didn’t tell you anything, but they already told you.” And it makes me sad.
Red spots appeared even more strongly on Princess Marya’s forehead, neck and cheeks. She wanted to say something and could not say it. The brother guessed right: the little princess cried after dinner, said that she foresaw an unhappy birth, was afraid of it, and complained about her fate, about her father-in-law and her husband. After crying, she fell asleep. Prince Andrei felt sorry for his sister.
“Know one thing, Masha, I cannot reproach myself for anything, I have not reproached and will never reproach my wife, and I myself cannot reproach myself for anything in relation to her; and it will always be so, no matter what my circumstances. But if you want to know the truth... do you want to know if I'm happy? No. Is she happy? No. Why is this? Don't know…
Saying this, he stood up, walked up to his sister and, bending down, kissed her on the forehead. His beautiful eyes shone with an intelligent and kind, unusual sparkle, but he looked not at his sister, but into the darkness of the open door, over her head.
- Let's go to her, we need to say goodbye. Or go alone, wake her up, and I’ll be right there. Parsley! - he shouted to the valet, - come here, clean it up. It's in the seat, it's on the right side.
Princess Marya stood up and headed towards the door. She stopped.
– Andre, si vous avez. la foi, vous vous seriez adresse a Dieu, pour qu"il vous donne l"amour, que vous ne sentez pas et votre priere aurait ete exaucee. [If you had faith, you would turn to God with a prayer, so that He would give you the love that you do not feel, and your prayer would be heard.]
- Yes, is that so! - said Prince Andrei. - Go, Masha, I’ll be right there.
On the way to his sister’s room, in the gallery connecting one house to another, Prince Andrei met the sweetly smiling Mlle Bourienne, who for the third time that day had come across him with an enthusiastic and naive smile in secluded passages.
- Ah! “je vous croyais chez vous, [Oh, I thought you were at home,” she said, for some reason blushing and lowering her eyes.
Prince Andrei looked at her sternly. Prince Andrei’s face suddenly expressed anger. He said nothing to her, but looked at her forehead and hair, without looking into her eyes, so contemptuously that the Frenchwoman blushed and left without saying anything.
When he approached his sister’s room, the princess had already woken up, and her cheerful voice, hurrying one word after another, was heard from the open door. She spoke as if, after a long period of abstinence, she wanted to make up for lost time.
– Non, mais figurez vous, la vieille comtesse Zouboff avec de fausses boucles et la bouche pleine de fausses dents, comme si elle voulait defier les annees... [No, imagine old Countess Zubova, with false curls, with false teeth, like as if mocking the years...] Xa, xa, xa, Marieie!
Prince Andrei had already heard exactly the same phrase about Countess Zubova and the same laugh five times in front of strangers from his wife.
He quietly entered the room. The princess, plump, rosy-cheeked, with work in her hands, sat on an armchair and talked incessantly, going over St. Petersburg memories and even phrases. Prince Andrei came up, stroked her head and asked if she had rested from the road. She answered and continued the same conversation.
Six of the strollers stood at the entrance. It was a dark autumn night outside. The coachman did not see the pole of the carriage. People with lanterns were bustling about on the porch. The huge house glowed with lights through its large windows. The hall was crowded with courtiers who wanted to say goodbye to the young prince; All the household were standing in the hall: Mikhail Ivanovich, m lle Bourienne, Princess Marya and the princess.
Prince Andrei was called into his father’s office, who wanted to say goodbye to him privately. Everyone was waiting for them to come out.
When Prince Andrei entered the office, the old prince, wearing old man's glasses and in his white robe, in which he did not receive anyone except his son, was sitting at the table and writing. He looked back.
-Are you going? - And he began to write again.
- I came to say goodbye.
“Kiss here,” he showed his cheek, “thank you, thank you!”
- What do you thank me for?
“You don’t hold on to a woman’s skirt for not being overdue.” Service comes first. Thank you, thank you! - And he continued to write, so that splashes flew from the crackling pen. - If you need to say something, say it. I can do these two things together,” he added.
- About my wife... I’m already ashamed that I’m leaving her in your arms...
- Why are you lying? Say what you need.
- When it’s time for your wife to give birth, send to Moscow for an obstetrician... So that he is here.
The old prince stopped and, as if not understanding, stared with stern eyes at his son.
“I know that no one can help unless nature helps,” said Prince Andrei, apparently embarrassed. – I agree that out of a million cases, one is unfortunate, but this is her and my imagination. They told her, she saw it in a dream, and she is afraid.
“Hm... hm...” the old prince said to himself, continuing to write. - I'll do it.
He drew out the signature, suddenly turned quickly to his son and laughed.
- It's bad, huh?
- What's bad, father?
- Wife! – the old prince said briefly and significantly.
“I don’t understand,” said Prince Andrei.
“There’s nothing to do, my friend,” said the prince, “they’re all like that, you won’t get married.” Do not be afraid; I won't tell anyone; and you know it yourself.
He grabbed his hand with his bony little hand, shook it, looked straight into his son’s face with his quick eyes, which seemed to see right through the man, and laughed again with his cold laugh.
The son sighed, admitting with this sigh that his father understood him. The old man, continuing to fold and print letters, with his usual speed, grabbed and threw sealing wax, seal and paper.
- What to do? Beautiful! I'll do everything. “Be at peace,” he said abruptly while typing.
Andrei was silent: he was both pleased and unpleasant that his father understood him. The old man stood up and handed the letter to his son.
“Listen,” he said, “don’t worry about your wife: what can be done will be done.” Now listen: give the letter to Mikhail Ilarionovich. I am writing to tell him to use you in good places and not keep you as an adjutant for a long time: it’s a bad position! Tell him that I remember him and love him. Yes, write how he will receive you. If you are good, serve. Nikolai Andreich Bolkonsky’s son will not serve anyone out of mercy. Well, now come here.
He spoke in such a rapid-fire manner that he did not finish half the words, but his son got used to understanding him. He led his son to the bureau, threw back the lid, pulled out the drawer and took out a notebook covered in his large, long and condensed handwriting.
“I must die before you.” Know that my notes are here, to be handed over to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a pawn ticket and a letter: this is a prize for the one who writes the history of Suvorov’s wars. Send to the academy. Here are my remarks, after me read for yourself, you will find benefit.
Andrei did not tell his father that he would probably live for a long time. He understood that there was no need to say this.
“I will do everything, father,” he said.
- Well, now goodbye! “He let his son kiss his hand and hugged him. “Remember one thing, Prince Andrei: if they kill you, it will hurt my old man...” He suddenly fell silent and suddenly continued in a loud voice: “and if I find out that you did not behave like the son of Nikolai Bolkonsky, I will be ... ashamed!” – he squealed.
“You don’t have to tell me this, father,” the son said, smiling.
The old man fell silent.
“I also wanted to ask you,” continued Prince Andrey, “if they kill me and if I have a son, do not let him go from you, as I told you yesterday, so that he can grow up with you... please.”
- Shouldn’t I give it to my wife? - said the old man and laughed.
They stood silently opposite each other. The old man's quick eyes were directly fixed on his son's eyes. Something trembled in the lower part of the old prince’s face.
- Goodbye... go! - he suddenly said. - Go! - he shouted in an angry and loud voice, opening the office door.
- What is it, what? - asked the princess and princess, seeing Prince Andrei and for a moment the figure of an old man in a white robe, without a wig and wearing old man’s glasses, leaning out for a moment, shouting in an angry voice.
Prince Andrei sighed and did not answer.
“Well,” he said, turning to his wife.
And this “well” sounded like a cold mockery, as if he was saying: “Now do your tricks.”
– Andre, deja! [Andrey, already!] - said the little princess, turning pale and looking at her husband with fear.
He hugged her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder.
He carefully moved away the shoulder on which she was lying, looked into her face and carefully sat her down on a chair.
“Adieu, Marieie, [Goodbye, Masha,”] he said quietly to his sister, kissed her hand in hand and quickly walked out of the room.
The princess was lying in a chair, M lle Burien was rubbing her temples. Princess Marya, supporting her daughter-in-law, with tear-stained beautiful eyes, still looked at the door through which Prince Andrei came out, and baptized him. From the office one could hear, like gunshots, the often repeated angry sounds of an old man blowing his nose. As soon as Prince Andrei left, the office door quickly opened and the stern figure of an old man in a white robe looked out.
- Left? Well, good! - he said, looking angrily at the emotionless little princess, shook his head reproachfully and slammed the door.

In October 1805, Russian troops occupied the villages and towns of the Archduchy of Austria, and more new regiments came from Russia and, burdening the residents with billeting, were stationed at the Braunau fortress. The main apartment of Commander-in-Chief Kutuzov was in Braunau.
On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just arrived at Braunau, awaiting inspection by the commander-in-chief, stood half a mile from the city. Despite the non-Russian terrain and situation (orchards, stone fences, tiled roofs, mountains visible in the distance), despite the non-Russian people looking at the soldiers with curiosity, the regiment had exactly the same appearance as any Russian regiment had when preparing for a review somewhere in the middle of Russia.
In the evening, on the last march, an order was received that the commander-in-chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Although the words of the order seemed unclear to the regimental commander, and the question arose how to understand the words of the order: in marching uniform or not? In the council of battalion commanders, it was decided to present the regiment in full dress uniform on the grounds that it is always better to bow than not to bow. And the soldiers, after a thirty-mile march, did not sleep a wink, they repaired and cleaned themselves all night; adjutants and company commanders counted and expelled; and by morning the regiment, instead of the sprawling, disorderly crowd that it had been the day before during the last march, represented an orderly mass of 2,000 people, each of whom knew his place, his job, and of whom, on each of them, every button and strap was in its place and sparkled with cleanliness . Not only was the outer part in good order, but if the commander-in-chief had wanted to look under the uniforms, he would have seen an equally clean shirt on each one and in each knapsack he would have found the legal number of things, “stuff and soap,” as the soldiers say. There was only one circumstance about which no one could be calm. It was shoes. More than half the people's boots were broken. But this deficiency was not due to the fault of the regimental commander, since, despite repeated demands, the goods were not released to him from the Austrian department, and the regiment traveled a thousand miles.
The regimental commander was an elderly, sanguine general with graying eyebrows and sideburns, thick-set and wider from chest to back than from one shoulder to the other. He was wearing a new, brand new uniform with wrinkled folds and thick golden epaulettes, which seemed to lift his fat shoulders upward rather than downwards. The regimental commander had the appearance of a man happily performing one of the most solemn affairs of life. He walked in front of the front and, as he walked, trembled at every step, slightly arching his back. It was clear that the regimental commander was admiring his regiment, happy with it, that all his mental strength was occupied only with the regiment; but, despite the fact that his trembling gait seemed to say that, in addition to military interests, the interests of social life and the female sex occupied a significant place in his soul.
“Well, Father Mikhailo Mitrich,” he turned to one battalion commander (the battalion commander leaned forward smiling; it was clear that they were happy), “it was a lot of trouble this night.” However, it seems that nothing is wrong, the regiment is not bad... Eh?
The battalion commander understood the funny irony and laughed.
- And in Tsaritsyn Meadow they wouldn’t have driven you away from the field.
- What? - said the commander.
At this time, along the road from the city, along which the makhalnye were placed, two horsemen appeared. These were the adjutant and the Cossack riding behind.
The adjutant was sent from the main headquarters to confirm to the regimental commander what was said unclearly in yesterday's order, namely, that the commander-in-chief wanted to see the regiment exactly in the position in which it was marching - in overcoats, in covers and without any preparations.
A member of the Gofkriegsrat from Vienna arrived to Kutuzov the day before, with proposals and demands to join the army of Archduke Ferdinand and Mack as soon as possible, and Kutuzov, not considering this connection beneficial, among other evidence in favor of his opinion, intended to show the Austrian general that sad situation , in which troops came from Russia. For this purpose, he wanted to go out to meet the regiment, so the worse the situation of the regiment, the more pleasant it would be for the commander-in-chief. Although the adjutant did not know these details, he conveyed to the regimental commander the commander-in-chief’s indispensable requirement that the people wear overcoats and covers, and that otherwise the commander-in-chief would be dissatisfied. Having heard these words, the regimental commander lowered his head, silently raised his shoulders and spread his hands with a sanguine gesture.
- We've done things! - he said. “I told you, Mikhailo Mitrich, that on a campaign, we wear greatcoats,” he turned reproachfully to the battalion commander. - Oh, my God! - he added and decisively stepped forward. - Gentlemen, company commanders! – he shouted in a voice familiar to the command. - Sergeant majors!... Will they be here soon? - he turned to the arriving adjutant with an expression of respectful courtesy, apparently referring to the person about whom he was speaking.
- In an hour, I think.
- Will we have time to change clothes?
- I don’t know, General...
The regimental commander himself approached the ranks and ordered that they change into their overcoats again. The company commanders scattered to their companies, the sergeants began to fuss (the overcoats were not entirely in good working order) and at the same moment the previously regular, silent quadrangles swayed, stretched out, and hummed with conversation. Soldiers ran and ran up from all sides, threw them from behind with their shoulders, dragged backpacks over their heads, took off their greatcoats and, raising their arms high, pulled them into their sleeves.
Half an hour later everything returned to its previous order, only the quadrangles turned gray from black. The regimental commander, again with a trembling gait, stepped forward of the regiment and looked at it from afar.
- What else is this? What's this! – he shouted, stopping. - Commander of the 3rd company!..
- Commander of the 3rd company to the general! commander to the general, 3rd company to the commander!... - voices were heard along the ranks, and the adjutant ran to look for the hesitant officer.
When the sounds of diligent voices, misinterpreting, shouting “general to the 3rd company”, reached their destination, the required officer appeared from behind the company and, although the man was already elderly and did not have the habit of running, awkwardly clinging to his toes, trotted towards the general. The captain's face expressed the anxiety of a schoolboy who is told to tell a lesson he has not learned. There were spots on his red (obviously from intemperance) nose, and his mouth could not find a position. The regimental commander examined the captain from head to toe as he approached breathlessly, slowing his pace as he approached.
– You’ll soon dress people up in sundresses! What's this? - shouted the regimental commander, extending his lower jaw and pointing in the ranks of the 3rd company to a soldier in an overcoat the color of factory cloth, different from other overcoats. – Where were you? The commander-in-chief is expected, and you are moving away from your place? Huh?... I'll teach you how to dress people in Cossacks for a parade!... Huh?...
The company commander, without taking his eyes off his superior, pressed his two fingers more and more to the visor, as if in this one pressing he now saw his salvation.
- Well, why are you silent? Who's dressed up as a Hungarian? – the regimental commander joked sternly.
- Your Excellency…
- Well, what about “Your Excellency”? Your Excellency! Your Excellency! And what about Your Excellency, no one knows.
“Your Excellency, this is Dolokhov, demoted...” the captain said quietly.
- Was he demoted to field marshal or something, or to soldier? And a soldier must be dressed like everyone else, in uniform.
“Your Excellency, you yourself allowed him to go.”
- Allowed? Allowed? “You’re always like this, young people,” said the regimental commander, cooling down somewhat. - Allowed? I’ll tell you something, and you and...” The regimental commander paused. - I’ll tell you something, and you and... - What? - he said, getting irritated again. - Please dress people decently...
And the regimental commander, looking back at the adjutant, walked towards the regiment with his trembling gait. It was clear that he himself liked his irritation, and that, having walked around the regiment, he wanted to find another pretext for his anger. Having cut off one officer for not cleaning his badge, another for being out of line, he approached the 3rd company.
- How are you standing? Where's the leg? Where's the leg? - the regimental commander shouted with an expression of suffering in his voice, still about five people short of Dolokhov, dressed in a bluish overcoat.
Dolokhov slowly straightened his bent leg and looked straight into the general’s face with his bright and insolent gaze.
- Why the blue overcoat? Down with... Sergeant Major! Changing his clothes... rubbish... - He didn’t have time to finish.
“General, I am obliged to carry out orders, but I am not obliged to endure...” Dolokhov hastily said.
– Don’t talk at the front!... Don’t talk, don’t talk!...
“You don’t have to endure insults,” Dolokhov finished loudly and resoundingly.
The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general fell silent, angrily pulling down his tight scarf.
“Please change your clothes, please,” he said, walking away.

- He's coming! - the makhalny shouted at this time.
The regimental commander, blushing, ran up to the horse, with trembling hands took the stirrup, threw the body over, straightened himself, took out his sword and with a happy, decisive face, his mouth open to the side, prepared to shout. The regiment perked up like a recovering bird and froze.
- Smir r r r na! - the regimental commander shouted in a soul-shaking voice, joyful for himself, strict in relation to the regiment and friendly in relation to the approaching commander.
Along a wide, tree-lined, highwayless road, a tall blue Viennese carriage rode in a row at a brisk trot, its springs slightly rattling. Behind the carriage galloped a retinue and a convoy of Croats. Next to Kutuzov sat an Austrian general in a strange white uniform among the black Russians. The carriage stopped at the shelf. Kutuzov and the Austrian general were talking quietly about something, and Kutuzov smiled slightly, while, stepping heavily, he lowered his foot from the footrest, as if these 2,000 people were not there, who were looking at him and the regimental commander without breathing .
A shout of command was heard, and again the regiment trembled with a ringing sound, putting itself on guard. In the dead silence the weak voice of the commander-in-chief was heard. The regiment barked: “We wish you good health, yours!” And again everything froze. At first, Kutuzov stood in one place while the regiment moved; then Kutuzov, next to the white general, on foot, accompanied by his retinue, began to walk along the ranks.
By the way the regimental commander saluted the commander-in-chief, glaring at him with his eyes, stretching out and getting closer, how he leaned forward and followed the generals along the ranks, barely maintaining a trembling movement, how he jumped at every word and movement of the commander-in-chief, it was clear that he was fulfilling his duties subordinate with even greater pleasure than the duties of a superior. The regiment, thanks to the rigor and diligence of the regimental commander, was in excellent condition compared to others who came to Braunau at the same time. There were only 217 people who were retarded and sick. And everything was fine, except for the shoes.
Kutuzov walked through the ranks, occasionally stopping and speaking a few kind words to the officers whom he knew from the Turkish war, and sometimes to the soldiers. Looking at the shoes, he sadly shook his head several times and pointed them out to the Austrian general with such an expression that he didn’t seem to blame anyone for it, but he couldn’t help but see how bad it was. Each time the regimental commander ran ahead, afraid to miss the commander-in-chief's word regarding the regiment. Behind Kutuzov, at such a distance that any faintly spoken word could be heard, walked about 20 people in his retinue. The gentlemen of the retinue talked among themselves and sometimes laughed. The handsome adjutant walked closest to the commander-in-chief. It was Prince Bolkonsky. Next to him walked his comrade Nesvitsky, a tall staff officer, extremely fat, with a kind and smiling handsome face and moist eyes; Nesvitsky could hardly restrain himself from laughing, excited by the blackish hussar officer walking next to him. The hussar officer, without smiling, without changing the expression of his fixed eyes, looked with a serious face at the back of the regimental commander and imitated his every movement. Every time the regimental commander flinched and bent forward, in exactly the same way, in exactly the same way, the hussar officer flinched and bent forward. Nesvitsky laughed and pushed others to look at the funny man.
Kutuzov walked slowly and sluggishly past thousands of eyes that rolled out of their sockets, watching their boss. Having caught up with the 3rd company, he suddenly stopped. The retinue, not anticipating this stop, involuntarily moved towards him.
- Ah, Timokhin! - said the commander-in-chief, recognizing the captain with the red nose, who suffered for his blue overcoat.
It seemed that it was impossible to stretch out more than Timokhin stretched out, while the regimental commander reprimanded him. But at that moment the commander-in-chief addressed him, the captain stood up straight so that it seemed that if the commander-in-chief had looked at him for a little longer, the captain would not have been able to stand it; and therefore Kutuzov, apparently understanding his position and wishing, on the contrary, all the best for the captain, hastily turned away. A barely noticeable smile ran across Kutuzov’s plump, wound-disfigured face.
“Another Izmailovo comrade,” he said. - Brave officer! Are you happy with it? – Kutuzov asked the regimental commander.
And the regimental commander, reflected as in a mirror, invisible to himself, in a hussar officer, shuddered, came forward and answered:
- I am very pleased, Your Excellency.
“We are all not without weaknesses,” said Kutuzov, smiling and moving away from him. “He had a devotion to Bacchus.
The regimental commander was afraid that he was to blame for this, and did not answer anything. The officer at that moment noticed the captain’s face with a red nose and a tucked belly and imitated his face and pose so closely that Nesvitsky could not stop laughing.
Kutuzov turned around. It was clear that the officer could control his face as he wanted: the minute Kutuzov turned around, the officer managed to make a grimace, and after that take on the most serious, respectful and innocent expression.
The third company was the last, and Kutuzov became thoughtful, apparently remembering something. Prince Andrei stepped out from his retinue and said quietly in French:
– You ordered a reminder about Dolokhov, who was demoted, in this regiment.
-Where is Dolokhov? – asked Kutuzov.
Dolokhov, already dressed in a soldier’s gray overcoat, did not wait to be called. The slender figure of a blond soldier with clear blue eyes stepped out from the front. He approached the commander-in-chief and put him on guard.
- Claim? – Kutuzov asked, frowning slightly.
“This is Dolokhov,” said Prince Andrei.
- A! - said Kutuzov. “I hope this lesson will correct you, serve well.” The Lord is merciful. And I will not forget you if you deserve it.
Blue, clear eyes looked at the commander-in-chief as defiantly as at the regimental commander, as if with their expression they were tearing apart the veil of convention that so far separated the commander-in-chief from the soldier.
“I ask one thing, Your Excellency,” he said in his sonorous, firm, unhurried voice. “Please give me a chance to make amends for my guilt and prove my devotion to the Emperor and Russia.”
Kutuzov turned away. The same smile in his eyes flashed across his face as when he turned away from Captain Timokhin. He turned away and winced, as if he wanted to express that everything that Dolokhov told him, and everything that he could tell him, he had known for a long, long time, that all this had already bored him and that all this was not at all what he needed . He turned away and headed towards the stroller.
The regiment disbanded in companies and headed to assigned quarters not far from Braunau, where they hoped to put on shoes, dress and rest after difficult marches.
-You don’t lay claim to me, Prokhor Ignatyich? - said the regimental commander, driving around the 3rd company moving towards the place and approaching Captain Timokhin, who was walking in front of it. The regimental commander’s face expressed uncontrollable joy after a happily completed review. - The royal service... it’s impossible... another time you’ll end it at the front... I’ll apologize first, you know me... I thanked you very much! - And he extended his hand to the company commander.
- For mercy's sake, general, do I dare! - answered the captain, turning red with his nose, smiling and revealing with a smile the lack of two front teeth, knocked out by the butt under Ishmael.
- Yes, tell Mr. Dolokhov that I will not forget him, so that he can be calm. Yes, please tell me, I kept wanting to ask how he is, how he is behaving? And that's all...
“He’s very serviceable in his service, Your Excellency... but the charterer...” said Timokhin.
- What, what character? – asked the regimental commander.
“Your Excellency finds, for days,” said the captain, “that he is smart, learned, and kind.” It's a beast. He killed a Jew in Poland, if you please...
“Well, yes, well,” said the regimental commander, “we still need to feel sorry for the young man in misfortune.” After all, great connections... So you...
“I’m listening, Your Excellency,” Timokhin said, smiling, making it feel like he understood the boss’s wishes.
- Yes Yes.
The regimental commander found Dolokhov in the ranks and reined in his horse.
“Before the first task, epaulets,” he told him.
Dolokhov looked around, said nothing and did not change the expression of his mockingly smiling mouth.
“Well, that’s good,” continued the regimental commander. “The people each have a glass of vodka from me,” he added so that the soldiers could hear. – Thank you everyone! God bless! - And he, overtaking the company, drove up to another.
“Well, he’s really a good man; “You can serve with him,” said subaltern Timokhin to the officer walking next to him.
“One word, the king of hearts!... (the regimental commander was nicknamed the king of hearts),” the subaltern officer said, laughing.
The happy mood of the authorities after the review spread to the soldiers. The company walked cheerfully. Soldiers' voices were talking from all sides.
- What did they say, crooked Kutuzov, about one eye?
- Otherwise, no! Totally crooked.
- No... brother, he has bigger eyes than you. Boots and tucks - I looked at everything...
- How can he, my brother, look at my feet... well! Think…
- And the other Austrian, with him, was as if smeared with chalk. Like flour, white. I tea, how they clean ammunition!
- What, Fedeshow!... did he say that when the fighting began, you stood closer? They all said that Bunaparte himself stands in Brunovo.
- Bunaparte is worth it! he's lying, you fool! What he doesn’t know! Now the Prussian is rebelling. The Austrian, therefore, pacifies him. As soon as he makes peace, then war will open with Bunaparte. Otherwise, he says, Bunaparte is standing in Brunovo! That's what shows that he's a fool. Listen more.
- Look, damn the lodgers! The fifth company, look, is already turning into the village, they will cook porridge, and we still won’t reach the place.
- Give me a cracker, damn it.
- Did you give me tobacco yesterday? That's it, brother. Well, here you go, God be with you.
“At least they made a stop, otherwise we won’t eat for another five miles.”
“It was nice how the Germans gave us strollers.” When you go, know: it’s important!
“And here, brother, the people have gone completely rabid.” Everything there seemed to be a Pole, everything was from the Russian crown; and now, brother, he’s gone completely German.
– Songwriters forward! – the captain’s cry was heard.
And twenty people ran out from different rows in front of the company. The drummer began to sing and turned his face to the songwriters, and, waving his hand, began a drawn-out soldier’s song, which began: “Isn’t it dawn, the sun has broken...” and ended with the words: “So, brothers, there will be glory for us and Kamensky’s father...” This song was composed in Turkey and was now sung in Austria, only with the change that in place of “Kamensky’s father” the words were inserted: “Kutuzov’s father.”

When Kolchak was shot. Why was Admiral Kolchak shot?

"An impenetrable wall that blocks out light and truth"

Between two hardnesses

Like this. No trial.

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Kappelites near Irkutsk

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Admiral Kolchak's grave

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Kappelites near Irkutsk

Execution

After the execution

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Memory

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Kappelites near Irkutsk

Execution

Admiral Kolchak's grave

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