General Slashchev: master of "blitzkrieg"
Let's go back to December 1919. After the defeat in the Orlovo-Kromskaya operation, the whites hastily rolled back south in two main streams - to the Caucasus and Odessa. Between them was the 3rd Army Corps with the Don Cossack Cavalry Brigade and three regiments that joined them. Another name is "Olviopol group of troops". It was created specifically to fight Makhno. All this was commanded by the little-known General Slashchev, whose task was to defend Taurida and the Crimea.
But just let the reader not be misled by all these "brigades" and "regiments". As is known, in civil war number of combat units and better times often strongly did not correspond to the name (a regiment of 500 bayonets was a completely ordinary phenomenon). And after the defeat, all these parts actually left horns and legs.
General Slashchev gives the following number of troops entrusted to him:
“To complete the task, I had at my disposal: the 13th Infantry Division - about 800 bayonets, the 34th Infantry Division - about 1200 bayonets, the 1st Caucasian Rifle Regiment - about 100 bayonets, the Slavic Regiment - about 100 bayonets, the Chechens - about 200 sabers, Colonel Morozov's Don cavalry brigade - about 1000 sabers and Shtakor's convoy - about 100 sabers. The artillery had only 24 light and 8 horse guns per division; total about 2,200 bayonets, 12,000 checkers and 32 guns.
Agree, “regiments” smaller than a company are strong ... So the white command did not have much hope for this whole hodgepodge of the remnants of military units. They will be able to hold out for a while - and that's good. But then the human factor intervened in the person of the commander of all this rabble - General Slashchev.
Yakov Alexandrovich Slashchev was known as an extremely obstinate person, always having his own opinion and preferring to do his own thing, spitting on his superiors. Slashchev's military biography during the Civil War was somewhat peculiar. He served as chief of staff for the “white partisan” A. G. Shkuro, and besides, he fought with Makhno, and he was the only one of the white generals who managed to inflict a serious defeat on the father. In a word, Slashchev was completely imbued with the spirit of the Civil War. This is the main secret of his success.
Unlike many, Slashchev understood that the Civil Code had its own laws - and the experience of the First World War must be applied with caution here. But both the Whites and the Reds (whose headquarters were all the same "military experts", that is, officers and generals of the old army) tried to the best of their ability to fight "according to the rules." That is why this war often looks like a theater of the absurd.
Slashchev, on the other hand, did not give a damn about these rules and acted in accordance with the peculiarities of the war in which he was. Hence, for example, his persistent dislike of defense. The fact is that somehow formed military units were like a bicycle - they remained stable only in motion. Stopping led to a fall. That is why Slashchev turned out to be a unique phenomenon.
As for political views, one gets the impression that he didn't care who he fought for. A card fell out for the whites - he fought for the whites. Perhaps this explains the huge popularity of Slashchev among young officers - in this environment, such sentiments were more the rule than the exception. Lieutenants and staff captains Political Views rarely went beyond the thesis that all Bolsheviks should be hanged. What's next? What's the difference!
In addition, Slashchev openly despised the game of democracy. More precisely, the stubborn desire of white leaders to pretend that they have a normal state.
... He showed his character as soon as he began to play an independent role. Denikin demanded that Yakov Alexandrovich, under the command of General Schilling, defend Northern Tauris. To which Slashchev simply replied that he would never do this, because he did not have any opportunities for this, and he did not plan to die for anything in the middle of the steppes. And so he sent everyone away and began to withdraw to the Crimea.
On the way, a very characteristic episode happened to him.
... In addition to the monstrous pack of commissaries, about which much has already been said, the AFSR had an equally monstrous and thieving accounting system. Soldiers and officers sometimes did not receive salaries for 3-5 months. Not because there was no money. Denikin's money is unsecured pieces of paper, which can be printed as much as necessary. But here is the order. Bureaucracy-s.
So, retreating to the Crimea along the railway lines, the general learned that military financiers were also scurrying somewhere nearby. Slashchev paid a visit there to get money for his fighters, and received an answer that there was no money. Then he began to act quite in the spirit of his opponents, the Reds or the Makhnovist commanders. He took a revolver out of its holster and, tapping its handle on the table, politely explained that, they say, it’s not good, guys, to delay wages. Of course, the money was immediately issued, and Slashchev received another scolding from Denikin.
By the way, about money. They were printed during the Civil War by all and sundry. Each of the many governments slapped their own papers. Even Makhno got involved in this exciting game. The famous episode from the film "Wedding in Malinovka" ("Take it, take it, I'll draw it for myself") is not such an exaggeration. Let's take Taurida as an example. In 1920, the following banknotes were in circulation here:
1. Royal money.
2. Kerenki.
3. German marks.
4. Karbovantsy Skoropadsky.
5. Karbovantsy Petliura.
6. Soviet money.
7. Denikin's "bells".
8. Makhnovist money.
9. Wrangel banknotes.
10. French francs, British pounds and Turkish liras.
And it all went simultaneously. More precisely, the peasants no longer took any money. Huts covered with banknotes are by no means an exaggeration. It was. In the outback, cartridges and salt were the most popular currency.
So when it is said that whites (sometimes) paid for requisitioned food, this should not be taken seriously. So it is possible now - to go to the village in the company of strong guys with machine guns, at the threat of trunks to take away food and "pay off" with banknotes of their own manufacture, printed on a home printer. Agree, in this case, you will all be considered robbers.
However, money still circulated on the black market, and they were also accepted in taverns. The rate of all these pieces of paper did not depend on economic factors (especially since there was simply no economy at that time in Russia), but on the success of one army or another. The Reds approached - they began to take Soviet rubles. They retreated - Soviet signs fell sharply in price. The only serious currency was the tsarist imperials - gold ten-ruble coins. Gold is always gold.
... But let's get back to the Crimean epic. The situation on the peninsula has developed lousy.
“Crimea was flooded with gangs of hungry people who lived on the means of the population and robbed it. There was no accounting, the panic was complete. Everyone only dreamed of looting more and boarding a ship or disappearing among an unfamiliar population.
At the head of the garrison were the faces of the old regime. It all came down to unsubscribing: they could not cope with the ensuing devastation. At the head of the defense of the Crimea was the engineer general Subbotin, a very good man, but not a military one.”
(Y. Slashchev)
And more and more refugees arrived from the north. Echelons followed one after another, along the tracks stretched some carts and scattered military units, which had not been subordinate to anyone for a long time.
And the white command, in fact, waved its hand at the Crimea. It was more important for the VSYUR to stay in the Kuban in every respect. There they had both a food and a social base. So Denikin's position was this: hold on as long as you can, and we'll see. It only remained to understand - how and by what means to hold on? Nevertheless, Slashchev said in his order:
“I took command of the troops defending the Crimea. I declare to everyone that as long as I command the troops, I will not leave Crimea and I make the defense of Crimea a matter not only of duty, but also of honor.”
... It is worth recalling what the future theater of military operations was like. As you know, there are two ways to get to the Crimea by land. The first way is along a narrow dam stretching from the Chongar Peninsula. Today, this is how everyone who travels there by train gets to Crimea. Another way is the ancient road through the famous Perekop Isthmus, which at its narrowest point is about eight kilometers wide. Perekop crossed the Turkish Wall - an old fortification built by the Turks, which was actually a shaft about ten meters high, towering among the flat, like a table, steppe. There were four large-caliber obsolete cannons on it, there were some kind of trenches and barbed wire in several rows.
It is also worth adding that in those days the Northern Crimea was an arid and sparsely populated steppe (it acquired its modern look only in the sixties of the XX century, after the construction of the North Crimean Canal). Through these expanses ran the only Railway to Simferopol. There were no more transport arteries. Generally.
As for the population, for the time being, the white power suited him. The peasants here lived prosperous, and “humanitarian aid” went to the whites from behind the cordon. It was possible to live.
General Subbotin was going to defend the peninsula, based on seemingly obvious things. He planned to create a line of defense near the dam and on the Crimean shaft. Slashchev commented on this plan with his usual healthy cynicism:
You will go far on your fortifications, probably further than the Black Sea.
And he explained his position:
“I absolutely do not recognize sitting in the trenches - only very well-trained troops are capable of this, we are not trained, we are weak and therefore we can only act on the offensive, and for this we need to create a favorable environment.”
In fact, the defending troops would have to wait for the Reds to advance in the trenches in the middle of the windswept steppe (and the winter in the Northern Crimea is very cold). At the same time, experiencing the inevitable difficulties with the supply - otherwise than by carts, it is impossible to deliver food to Perekop. But the morale of the army was already lousy. Slashchev understood that such a defense would collapse as soon as the Reds put serious pressure on it. (Looking ahead, I note that this happened a year later.)
Therefore, Slashchev proposed a completely different plan:
“Ahead, on Salkovo and Perekopsky Val, you need to leave only an insignificant guard, by the flight of which we learn that the Reds are coming. The Reds walk along the isthmus all day long, there is nowhere to spend the night, they will freeze and will debounce to the Crimea in a bad mood - this is where we attack them.
No sooner said than done. The troops were located in villages located twenty kilometers behind the Crimean shaft.
The Reds approached Perekop in the 20th of January. On the 23rd they launched an assault. The Turkish rampart was guarded only by fortress cannons, which simply could not be dragged anywhere, and the Slavic regiment in the amount of as many as 100 people. As Slashchev noted, "everything happened as I expected and as it usually happens during the defense during a civil war." In the sense that the whites soon ran. The Reds occupied Armyansk without a fight - the first city on their way to the Crimea, and moved on.
Panic reigned in the rear. Everyone was frantically packing their things. Still would! Perekop something was taken! The Reds, too, apparently decided that victory was in their pocket. By the way, Slashchev took this into account. He reasoned that the Bolsheviks had been advancing for a long time and successfully, meeting practically no resistance. And this inevitably leads to some carelessness.
And so it happened. The Reds rushed to Dzhankoy, trying to get to the railroad. They roamed across the steppe all night, at a temperature of minus 16 degrees - and, of course, by morning they were not very combat-ready. And then they received powerful blows to the flanks and to the rear. Slashchev acted very competently, observers from aircraft monitored the movement of the Reds, so the general knew perfectly well where to direct his forces ... In general, everything was over by the middle of the day. The Reds rushed back, throwing heavy weapons along the way. Slashchev strictly ordered not to get carried away and pursue the enemy only as far as the Crimean Wall, so that the troops, in turn, would not get into any trouble. Having fulfilled the order, they returned to their warm apartments.
So, thanks to General Slashchev, the Reds failed to take the Crimea on the move. But Yakov Alexandrovich would not be himself if he had not marked his victory with some kind of joke. Although in this case, he, in general, was not too guilty ...
And it was like that. For two days the general did not get out of the headquarters, "conducting" the actions of his troops. I must say that such dashing flank strikes are the most difficult operation, where the commander must constantly keep his finger on the pulse, otherwise success very easily turns into defeat. You can imagine his condition. And Governor Tatishchev called the headquarters almost every five minutes. Moreover, he had already been informed that the Reds had been repulsed, but he wanted to hear it personally from Slashchev. Which, in general, is understandable - we have already encountered the fact that “reliable information” in the Civil War was often very far from reliability ... In general, already at night, looking at Slashchev’s adjutant, centurion Frost appeared again: the governor asks to be informed what is happening at the front? To which Slashchev, who, perhaps, had already begun to celebrate the victory (and he liked to drink), replied: “What couldn’t you tell him yourself? So tell that all the rear bastards can get off the suitcases.
Frost was a very executive officer, but at the same time completely devoid of brains. He gave everything verbatim. The panic slowly subsided, but a scandal began. Many heroes of the home front were very offended - especially since these words got into the newspapers ...
Here you need to know that in the rear of Denikin there was a certain freedom of the press. Newspapers of various directions were published - from the Mensheviks to the Black Hundreds. All this democracy, so dear to the liberals, cost the whites very dearly. Not only did all the endless showdowns in the white tops be brought to the pages of the press in the form of slinging mud at competitors, but the newspapers, moreover, with the persistence of idiots, spread all sorts of rumors and other unverified information. The same panic on January 24 was caused, among other things, by the fact that in the morning the press reported on the capture of Perekop by the Reds, providing the material with appropriate comments. The obvious fact that during the war there should be no free press, by definition, neither Denikin nor Wrangel understood. The latter tried to restore some order in this matter only in September 1920. Principles are more valuable common sense…
... Be that as it may, the Reds were repulsed. By and large, this victory extended the Civil War in the South of Russia for another year. Subsequently, General Slashchev commented on this fact at lectures already given to red cadets, in the following vein: they say, yes, I didn’t do well. But since it happened, let's study how I did it ...
Of course, Slashchev understood that he had achieved only a respite, and the Reds would not leave Crimea alone. So he began to strengthen the defense. But by no means by creating defensive structures - he continued to reject a deaf defense. But what had to be solved was the issue of supply.
As I said, there were no decent roads leading to this part of the Crimea. The impending spring thaw threatened to turn the delivery of goods into a complete nightmare. In addition, local residents were forced to carry goods on their own vehicles, which, of course, did not add to the popularity of the Whites.
And then Slashchev found out that even before the war, survey work had been carried out in these places to build a railway to Perekop. And the general decided to build a road. He drove the engineers to shock, who said that such a task was impossible. To which Slashchev reacted with his characteristic spontaneity: do you want to build a road? Well, then take the rifles and go to Perekop to defend the Crimea from the Reds ...
Such a prospect made me strain my brain. Everything turned out to be possible. The fact is that the engineers were not military, but civilian railway workers. They are used to building normal highways. But Slaschev needed only a temporary house! Let the trains trudge along it at a speed of 10 kilometers per hour - it's still better than carts.
By February, the railway was built. It is interesting that during its construction they used a technology that for some reason no one had thought of before (but now they are building it just like that) - “from wheels”. Everything needed - rails, sleepers, etc. - was brought along the already laid track.
But at the same time, another problem arose. Due to the extremely cold winter, Sivash froze, which usually does not freeze due to the increased salinity of the water. But this time, such a bastard, he froze. That is, now there were much more ways on the peninsula by which the Reds could penetrate there.
The main question for Slashchev was: will the Bolsheviks be able not only to walk on the ice, but to drag heavy weapons through? First of all, guns. As you know, attacking with or without artillery is a very big difference. Therefore, at night, the general went to the Sivash ice on a coupled pair of sledges loaded with stones, with a total weight of 45 pounds (738 kilograms) - about the weight of an artillery team. So he tested the ice. Enemies in the rear reacted promptly.
“This action of mine was covered by my “friends” of all degrees as follows: “After an accidental victory, Slashchev drinks himself in his headquarters to the point that he forces himself to be rolled along the Sivash in carts at night, preventing the soldiers from sleeping.” When supporters of the Bolsheviks spread it, I understood it, they knew very well why I was doing this, we were then enemies. But when our "lightless" said this (the generals do not have a gap on their shoulder straps. - A. Shch.), not realizing that there was a big difference: whether the Reds invaded the Crimea through the ice immediately with artillery or without it - this was already a sign of either too much anger or stupidity.
(Y. Slashchev)
By the way, it is worth noting that Slashchev was indeed a big drinker. According to some reports, he also dabbled in cocaine. But unlike, say, General Mai-Maevsky, these bad habits did not interfere with his duties. He did not fall into hopeless binges.
... In general, Slashchev noted the preparation of the Crimea for defense with blatant "voluntarism." For example, he "dispossessed" clothing warehouses in order to dress his fighters in winter uniforms. Here he encroached on the sacred! The fact is that, according to Yakov Aleksandrovich, “the principle of the Volunteer Army was to keep warehouses to justify the presence of a large number of quartermasters, and let people freeze. This system led to the surrender of Denikin's huge warehouses to the Reds. In fact, the VSYUR had an absolutely monstrous commissary service, from which it was impossible to achieve anything. But Slashchev's methods were simple. He did not write papers, he just took what he needed. And he received another reprimand, which he spat on.
... The Reds made a second attempt to seize the Crimea only in March - before that they had enough business in the North Caucasus. This time it was much more serious. The Reds were well prepared for the operation - but Slashchev did not sit idly by. To begin with, he put things in order in his units with harsh methods, and also almost doubled their numbers, catching a huge number of those who penetrated the Crimea during the retreat, but preferred to be buried in the rear. By this time he had about 6,000 men, horse artillery and howitzer battalions, plus three armored trains (one with long-range naval guns) and six tanks.
But most importantly, he established a very clear surveillance system. For this, Slashchev used aircraft and Balloons. Actually, there was nothing new in this: aerial reconnaissance was actively used in the First world war, and balloons were successfully used in the American Civil War. But it was precisely in the system - thanks to which the movements of the Reds in the steppe area were known to him in advance. It is also worth noting the equipment on the banks of the Sivash of dead-end railway lines, thanks to which armored trains could maneuver, and not stand one behind the other, as was usually the case in the Civil War.
Knight of St. George, awarded - the Order of St. George 4th degree - (order for the Guards detachment No. 67 dated 03/04/1916 - VP dated 07/18/1916) and St. George weapons - (order for the 1st Army No. 1237 dated 10/19/1915 of the year - VP dated 09/25/1916)
- Life dates: 29.12.1885 - 11.01.1929
- Biography:
- Ranks:
- Awards:
"for the fact that on 07/22/1915 in the battle near the village of Vereshchin, commanding a battalion and personally being in position under the strongest enemy fire, seeing the retreat of the neighboring unit, on his own initiative rushed at the head of his battalion to attack and put the enemy to flight, which restored position and prevented the possibility of losing position.
St. Vladimir 4th Art. with swords and a bow (01/15/1916 pr. according to the South-Western Front No. 71 approved by the VP on 11/27/1916) St. Anna 2nd Art. with swords (01/10/1916 project for the 1st Army No. 1534 approved by the VP on 12/04/1916) St. George 4th Art. (03/04/1916 pr. according to Guards Detachment No. 67 VP 07/18/1916)
"for the fact that on 07/20/1915, commanding a company in the battle near the village of Kulik, assessing the situation quickly and correctly, on his own initiative rushed forward at the head of the company, despite the murderous fire of the enemy, put parts of the German guard to flight and captured the height, which had so important that without mastering it, it would be impossible to hold the whole position.
St. Stanislaus 2nd class with swords (1915 Ave. of the Commander-in-Chief of the NWF No. 39 approved by the VP on 05/11/1916) St. Vladimir 3rd Art. with swords (PAF 10/03/1917).
- Additional Information:
- Sources:
- Rutych N.N. Biographical guide higher ranks Volunteer Army and Armed Forces of the South of Russia: Materials for the history of the White movement. M., 2002.
- Second Kuban campaign and liberation North Caucasus. M., 2002
- Volkov S.V. officers Russian guard. M. 2002
- List of persons with higher general military education serving in the Red Army as of 03/01/1923. M., 1923.
- "Military Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George. Bio-Bibliographic Reference" RGVIA, M., 2004.
- Kapchinsky O. Our secretary Slashchev reported / / Independent Military Review, 12/15/2000
- Slashchev-Krymsky A.Ya. White Crimea. Memoirs and documents. M. 1990
- Russian Disabled. No. 288, 1916/
- VP 1914 and 1916, PAF 1917. Information provided by Vokhmyanin Valery Konstantinovich (Kharkov)
- Russian Disabled. No. 173, 1915
- Ganin A.V. "Smolensk will dictate its role to Moscow." The military elite and the preparation of the Bonapartist coup in the USSR // Motherland. 2013. No. 4. S. 88-90.
85 years ago, on January 11, 1929, Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchev, a former lieutenant general of the White Army, who was distinguished by incredible cruelty in southern Ukraine and Crimea, was shot dead in his apartment. Amnestied, in November 1921 he returned to Russia and served in the Red Army, being a teacher of the "Shot" courses. Slashchev signed an appeal to the officers of the Wrangel army, urging them to return to Soviet Russia. He became the prototype of General Khludov in Mikhail Bulgakov's play "Running".
He was fearless, constantly leading troops to attack by personal example. He had nine wounds, the last of which - a concussion in the head - received at the Kakhovka bridgehead in early August 1920. He endured many wounds practically on his feet. In order to reduce the unbearable pain from a wound in the stomach in 1919, which did not heal for more than six months, he began to inject himself with an anesthetic - morphine, then he became addicted to cocaine, which is why the “glory” of a drug addict stuck to him. Slashchev is credited with the theory and practice of using Browning shotgun carbines in trench battles.
“General Slashchev, the former sovereign of the Crimea, with the transfer of headquarters to Feodosia, remained at the head of his corps. General Schilling was expelled at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief. A good combat officer, General Slashchev, having assembled random troops, did an excellent job with his task. With a handful of people, among the general collapse, he defended the Crimea. However, complete, beyond any control, independence, the consciousness of impunity finally turned his head. Unbalanced by nature, weak-willed, easily succumbing to the most base flattery, poorly versed in people, moreover, subject to a painful addiction to drugs and wine, he was completely confused in an atmosphere of general collapse. Not content with the role of a combatant commander, he sought to influence the general political work, bombarded the headquarters with all sorts of projects and assumptions, one more chaotic than the other, insisted on replacing a number of other commanders, demanded that prominent persons who seemed to him be involved in the work.
Wrangel P.N. "Notes"
Slashchev was killed by a certain Lazar Kolenberg, who was avenging his brother, who was hanged on the orders of Slashchev in Nikolaev. The killer was declared insane. The obituary published in Izvestia on January 15, 1929, in particular, said: “During his stay in the Crimea, Slashchev brutally dealt with the working peasants. Having disagreed with Wrangel for official and personal reasons, he was recalled and left for Constantinople. In Constantinople, Wrangel demoted Slashchev to the rank and file. In 1922, Slashchev voluntarily returned from exile to Russia, repented of his crimes against the working class and was amnestied by the Soviet government. Since 1922, he has been conscientiously working as a teacher at Shot and contributing to the military press.
Before his assassination, the OGPU tried to incriminate Slashchev with anti-Soviet agitation among the cadets, whom he liked to call after lectures to his apartment for gatherings. However, it turned out that at the feast, Yakov Aleksandrovich, after fifteen minutes, got drunk to an insane state. The accusation of him in the deliberate soldering of the cadets was considered undignified.
SLASHCHEV
(Slashchev-Krymsky, another spelling of the surname: Slashchov), Yakov Alexandrovich (1885 / 1886-1929), lieutenant general of the White Army, prototype of Khludov and some other characters in Bulgakov's play "Running". Born December 29, 1885 / January 10, 1886 in St. Petersburg in the family of a retired colonel, from hereditary nobles. Graduated in 1905 from Pavlovsk military school and began service in the Finnish Life Guards Regiment. In 1911 he graduated from the Imperial Nikolaev military academy(former Nikolaev Academy General Staff), but without the right to be assigned to the General Staff. Bulgakov, judging by the words of Charnota addressed to Khludov: “Roma, you are the General Staff! What are you doing?! Roma, stop!”, (we are talking about extrajudicial executions), allows the character to achieve greater success in the Academy than his prototype (S. graduated from the Academy in the 2nd category with an average score of less than 10, and those who graduated from 1 th category, with an average score of 10 and above). Since 1912, Mr.. S. taught tactics in the Corps of Pages. By his first marriage, S. was married to the daughter of the commander of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment, Lieutenant General Vladimir Apollonovich Kozlov (1856-1931), Sofya. On January 18, 1915, the couple had a daughter, Vera. Father-in-law's patronage may have contributed to S.'s career. From January 1915, S. was in the army, where he rose from a company commander to a battalion commander of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment. On November 12, 1916 he was promoted to colonel, and on July 14, 1917 he was appointed commander of the Moscow Guards Regiment. S. was a brave officer, during the First World War he had five wounds, was awarded many orders, including the St. George's weapon and the Order of St. George 4th degree. On December 8, 1917, he retired from the regiment due to a wound, not wanting to continue serving under the Bolsheviks, and on January 5, 1918, he arrived in Novocherkassk, where the Volunteer Army of Generals M. V. Alekseev (1857-1918) and L. G. Kornilov was formed ( 1870-1918). Commanded by M. V. Alekseev to the region of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, where he became the chief of staff in the detachment of A. G. Shkuro (Skins) (1887-1947), then commanded the 1st Kuban plastun brigade and was chief of staff of the 2nd Kuban Cossack division . In April 1919, S. was promoted to Major General by Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General A. I. Denikin (1872-1947) and appointed commander of the 5th Infantry Division, then the 4th Infantry Division and the 3rd Army Corps, which operated in the fall 1919 against the Ukrainian army of S. V. Petliura and the rebel peasant detachments of N. I. Makhno (1889-1934). S. successfully fought against the Makhnovist detachments, but the figure of Makhno possessed a certain attraction for him, he felt in him a kindred adventurous streak. According to a contemporary, S. more than once told his subordinates: "My dream is to become the second Makhno." In the last days of the defense of the Crimea, he even tried to materialize this dream, standing at the head of a partisan detachment in the rear of the Reds after the capture Soviet troops Perekop, but did not receive the support of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Lieutenant General Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel (1878-1928). In January - March 1920, the S. corps successfully repelled the attempts of the Red Army to seize the Crimea, for which in April S. was promoted to lieutenant general by P.N. Wrangel, and in June he carried out a successful landing in Northern Tavria. In August 1920, Mr.. S. after unsuccessful battles near Kakhovka filed a letter of resignation. P. N. Wrangel awarded him the title of Slashchev-Krymsky. S. was left at the disposal of the commander-in-chief and sent to Yalta for treatment. In October 1920, in connection with the breakthrough of the Reds into the Crimea, S. went to the front in Dzhankoy, but did not receive any position in the troops. Wrangel did not support the idea of landing an amphibious assault force from volunteers behind enemy lines to develop partisan operations in Northern Tavria following the example of Makhno, suggesting that S., if he wishes, remain independently behind enemy lines in the Crimea. S., not accepting this offer, left for Sevastopol, from where, on the icebreaker "Ilya Muromets", together with the remnants of his native Finnish Life Guards Regiment and the regimental St. George's banner, he left for Constantinople. In connection with S.'s letter to the committee of public figures on December 14, 1920, with sharp criticism of Wrangel's actions in the defense of the Crimea, the court of honor created by the latter dismissed S. from service without the right to wear a uniform. In response, in January 1921, S. published the book “I demand the court of society and publicity”, where he spoke about his activities at the front and accused Wrangel of the loss of the Crimea. After his dismissal from the Russian army, the Zemsky Union provided S. with a farm near Constantinople, where he raised turkeys and other animals, but to agriculture, unlike military affairs, the former general had no talent, he had almost no income and was very poor with his second wife, Nina Nikolaevna, who was previously listed under him as “orderly Nechvolodov”, and his daughter. In February 1921, contacts with S. were established by J. Tenenbaum, authorized by the Cheka, who lived in Constantinople under the surname Yelsky. In May 1921, the Chekists intercepted a letter from the famous journalist and public figure F. Batkin from Constantinople to Simferopol to the artist M. Bogdanov, where it was reported that S. was in such a beggarly state that he was inclined to return to his homeland. Batkin and Bogdanov were recruited by the Cheka, and the latter was sent to Constantinople, but, having come to the attention of the Wrangel counterintelligence, he returned back. Bogdanov was even put on trial for negligence. S. tried to get himself a safe-conduct guaranteeing personal immunity and the allocation of currency to his family, who remained in exile. The former general was refused, and S. himself admitted that no letter would save him from the avenger, if one appeared (he accurately predicted his fate). S. was promised forgiveness and a job in his specialty - a teacher of tactics. F. Batkin managed to secretly put S. with his family and a group of officers who sympathized with him on the Italian ship Jean, which arrived in Sevastopol on November 11, 1921. Here S. was met by the head of the Cheka, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, and taken to Moscow in his personal train. A characteristic note by L.D. Trotsky to V.I. Lenin on November 16, 1921 in connection with the return of S.:
“The Commander-in-Chief (S. S. Kamenev (1881-1936). - B. S.) considers Slashchev a nonentity. I'm not sure if this review is correct. But it is indisputable that with us Slashchev will be only "restless uselessness." He won't be able to adapt. Already on Dzerzhinsky's train, he wanted to give someone "25 ramrods."
The materials in the registry about Slashchev are large (we are talking about documentary evidence of S.'s crimes, collected in the registration department of the Revolutionary Military Council - that was the name of military intelligence then. - B.S.). Our polite response (we welcome future employees) is still diplomatic in nature (Slashchev is still going to drag the generals along with him).
The book of Rakovsky (meaning the memoirs of G. N. Rakovsky “The End of the Whites. From the Dnieper to the Bosporus (Degeneration, Agony and Liquidation)”, published in Prague in 1921 and well known to Bulgakov; there, in particular, a characteristic ditty is given “ smoke comes from the executions, then Slashchev saves the Crimea. ”- B.S.) send it, please: I didn’t read it.”
Thus, it was not repentance and a spiritual upheaval, but the calculation to adapt and get a livelihood, as well as the desire to be able to do his beloved military business (he did not know how to do anything else) brought S. to Moscow. In his eyes, Wrangel was to blame for the fact that he had lost the Crimea and deprived S. of the opportunity to fight at the head of the troops against the Bolsheviks, and only secondarily - by the fact that he expelled S. from the army. This was fully reflected in the book “I demand the court of society and publicity”, where P. N. Wrangel, A. P. Kutepov (1882-1930), P. N. Shatilov (1881-1962) and other generals were accused not as carriers of vicious white idea and accomplices of France and other foreign powers (as it was in the second book of S.), but for allowing a catastrophe in the Crimea and finally ruining the white cause. S. Bulgakov was well acquainted with the book published in Constantinople. It cited the Constantinople (Istanbul) address of S.: “Veznedzhiler quarter, De-Runi street, Mustafa-Effendi house, No. 15-17.” One of the notable actors, secretary of the Soviet chief Comrade Chekushin Lidochka de Rooney, bears such a surname, no doubt in connection with the book by S.
Contrary to Trotsky's fears, S. in the USSR managed to adapt and even make a career. Upon arrival at home, he declared, as reported in the Helsingfors newspaper Put on November 26, 1921: “Not being myself not only a communist, but even a socialist, I regard the Soviet government as a government representing my homeland and the interests of my people. It defeats all the movements that spring up against it, and therefore satisfies the demands of the majority. As a military man, I am not a member of any party, but I want to serve my people, with a pure heart I submit to the government put forward by them. On November 20, 1921, Izvestia published S.'s appeal to the officers and soldiers of Wrangel's army: “Since 1918, Russian blood has been shed in an internecine war. All called themselves fighters for the people. The white government turned out to be insolvent and not supported by the people - the whites were defeated and fled to Constantinople. Soviet power is the only power representing Russia and her people. I, Slashchev-Krymsky, call you, officers and soldiers, to submit to Soviet power and return to your homeland. S. was popular, many believed him and the amnesty of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee announced on November 3, 1921, arguing that if S.'s crimes were forgiven, then smaller ones would not be put on the line at all. In fact, unlike S., many of those who returned, especially if they were not very well-known persons, were repressed. S. from June 1922 became a teacher of tactics, and in 1924 he became the chief head of teaching tactics at the Higher Tactical Rifle School for Command Staff "Shot". According to some reports, S. taught in high school OGPU. In 1924, S.'s book "Crimea in 1920: Fragments from Memoirs" was published, which became Bulgakov's main source when creating the image of Khludov in the play "Running". On January 11, 1929, S. was shot dead in his apartment by a cadet of the "Shot" B. Kolenberg, who was avenging his brother, who was executed on the orders of S. S.'s murder was covered in newspaper reports. It is possible that the death of the prototype influenced the appearance of the variants of the finale of "Running", where Khludov committed suicide. According to some reports, Kolenberg received a prison sentence for the murder, according to others, he was declared mentally insane. It is possible that the OGPU helped the avenger find his victim, because a year later, in 1930, under the personal leadership of the then head of this department, V.R. about 5,000 former tsarist and white officers who served in the Red Army were arrested, and from the mid-1920s, their accelerated transfer to the reserve began. S., in connection with the noise raised around his name, it would be inconvenient to arrest or dismiss him from service. It is possible that the OGPU decided to get rid of him in another way - by the hands of Kolenberg. Posthumously, in 1929, S.'s book “Thoughts on General Tactics: From personal experience and observations." In addition, S. published a number of articles in Soviet military periodicals and collections. In "Thoughts on Questions of General Tactics," the final phrase very accurately expressed the military, and indeed vital, credo of S.: "In battle, hold firmly to your decision- let it be worse than the other, but, persistently put into practice, it will give victory, while hesitation will lead to defeat.
Probably already in Bulgakov's story "The Red Crown" (1922) S. served as one of the prototypes of the hanging general. Obviously, Slashchev's orders cited in the book "I demand the judgment of society and publicity" also influenced the image of Khludov in "Running" (1928). In this book, unlike the memoirs of 1924, it was not yet necessary to retouch executions at the front and in the rear, repressions against the Bolsheviks and those suspected of sympathizing with them, so the lines of orders sounded menacing: “... I demand that every criminal who propagandizes Bolshevism be extradited ... "" How to protect and punish I will be able to. Introduce the strictest discipline ... Disobedient, beware! According to L. E. Belozerskaya, he was not personally acquainted with S. Bulgakov, but the book “Crimea in 1920” was a desktop when writing "Run". It is curious that L. E. Belozerskaya herself, while still in Petrograd, met S.'s mother, Vera Aleksandrovna Slasheva, and remembered "Madame Slasheva" as a powerful and decisive woman. In the preface to the memoirs of S. famous writer and political worker Dmitry Furmanov (1891-1926) cited the following words of the general: “A lot of blood has been shed ... many grave mistakes have been committed. Immeasurably great is my historical guilt before workers' and peasants' Russia. I know it, I know it very much. I understand and see clearly. But if, in a time of grave trials, the workers' state again has to draw its sword, I swear that I will go in the forefront and prove with my blood that my new thoughts and views and faith in the victory of the working class are not a toy, but a firm, deep conviction. At the same time, Furmanov himself admitted: “Slashchov the hangman, Slashchov the executioner: history has imprinted his name with these black stamps ... Before his “exploits”, apparently, the atrocities of Kutepov, Shatilov, and even Wrangel himself - all of Slashchov’s associates in Crimean wrestling. S. himself seeks to create in his memoirs the image of a painfully bifurcated person, trying to regain his lost faith and experiencing pangs of conscience for serving a cause, the correctness of which he doubts: people are on the side of the Bolsheviks, because it is impossible that they are now triumphing thanks only to the Germans, Chinese, etc., and have we not betrayed our homeland to the allies ... It was a terrible time when I could not firmly and directly tell my subordinates, what I'm fighting for." Tormented by doubts, S. resigns, is refused and is forced to "stay and continue morally rushing about, not having the right to express his doubts and not knowing where to stop." But for him “there was no longer any doubt that the unprincipled struggle continued under the command of persons who did not deserve any trust, and, most importantly, under the dictation of foreigners, i.e. the French, who now instead of the Germans want to take possession of the fatherland ... Who are we then? I did not want to answer this question even to myself.
Bulgakov's General Khludov is experiencing the same torment. He still shoots and hangs, but out of inertia, because he thinks more and more that people's love is not with the whites, but without it, victory in the civil war cannot be won. Khludov vents his hatred for his allies by burning “exported fur goods” so that “foreign whores cannot see sable cuffs.” The commander-in-chief, in which the prototype is easily visible - Wrangel, the hangman-general hates, because he involved him in a deliberately doomed, lost struggle. Khludov throws a terrible face into the commander-in-chief's face: "Who would hang, who would hang, Your Excellency?" But, unlike S., who in his memoirs never repented for any of his specific victims, Bulgakov forced his hero to commit the last crime - to hang the “eloquent” messenger Krapilin, who then overtakes the executioner like a ghost and awakens his conscience. All attempts by S. in his memoirs to justify and reduce his executions do not achieve an effect (he claimed that he signed the death warrants of only 105 convicts guilty of various crimes, but Bulgakov still in the Red Crown forced the main character to remind the general how many he sent to death “by verbal order without a number” - the author of the story remembered from his service in the White Army how common such orders were). Of course, Bulgakov could not have known the episode with 25 ramrods from Trotsky’s letter quoted above, although he showed in The White Guard with amazing accuracy that both the Reds, the Whites, and the Petliurists used the ramrod as a universal means of communicating with the population. However, the author of "Running" did not believe in S.'s repentance, and his Khludov fails to refute Krapilin's accusations: "... You won't win the war with strangleholds alone!.. Do you feed on vultures?.. You only hang women and locksmiths!". Khludov’s excuses that he “went to Chongarskaya Gat with music” and was twice wounded (like S., twice wounded in the civil war) evoke only Krapilin’s “Yes, all the provinces spit on your music and your wounds.” Here, the idea, often repeated by Wrangel and his entourage, that one province (Crimea) and forty-nine provinces (the rest of Russia) cannot win is reinterpreted in folk form. After this passionate denunciation, the messenger Khludov hangs the messenger, who was faint-hearted, but then Bulgakov grants him, unlike S., painful and difficult, painful and nervous, but - repentance.
The author of "Running" read not only the books of S., but also other memoirs, which told about the famous general. In 1924, in Berlin, the memoirs of the former head of the Crimean Zemstvo, Prince V. A. Obolensky, “Crimea under Wrangel. Memoirs of a White Guard (they were also published in the magazine Voice of the Past on a Foreign Side). S. Obolensky suspected of socialist views and sincerely hated, the head of the Zemstvo, in turn, looked at the "savior of the Crimea" as an adventurer and a sick person. Obolensky left the following portrait of S.:
“He was a tall young man with a shaved, sickly face, thinning blond hair and a nervous smile that revealed a row of not quite clean teeth. He was twitching all the time in a strange way, sitting, constantly changing positions, and, standing, somehow unscrewed wobbled on his lean legs. I don't know if it was a consequence of the injuries or the cocaine use. His suit was amazing - military, but as if of his own invention: red trousers, a light blue jacket of a hussar cut. Everything is bright and flashy. In his gestures and in the intonations of his speech, one could feel the artificiality and posturing. This description served as the basis for a remark depicting Khludov's appearance: “... Roman Valeryanovich Khludov sits huddled on a high stool. This man's face is as white as a bone, his hair is black, combed in an eternal indestructible officer's parting. Khludov's snub nose, like Pavel, is shaved like an actor, seems younger than everyone around him, but his eyes are old. He is wearing a soldier's overcoat, he is belted with a belt around it, not like a woman's, not like the landowners belted their dressing gown. Shoulder straps are cloth, and a black general's zigzag is casually sewn on them. The protective cap is dirty, with a dull cockade, mittens on the hands. There are no weapons on Khludov. He is sick with something, this man is sick all over, from head to toe. He frowns, twitches, likes to change intonations. He asks himself questions and likes to answer them himself. When he wants to portray a smile, he grins. He arouses fear. He is sick - Roman Valeryanovich.
All the differences in Bulgakov's remark from the portrait of S. given by Obolensky are easily explained, despite the fact that the similarity is striking. The actor N.P. Khmelev (1901-1945) was intended for the role of Khludov in the Moscow Art Theater, who really had a snub nose and had black hair with an indestructible officer's parting, so remembered by the audience for his performance of Alexei Turbin in Turbin Days. The fact that Khludov’s snub was “like Pavel” should have evoked associations with Emperor Paul I (1754-1801), who was strangled by the conspirators, and, accordingly, with Khludov’s desire to win the war with nooses. The soldier's overcoat, which replaced S.'s flowery suit, on the one hand, immediately dressed Khludov the way he was supposed to appear in Constantinople after his dismissal from the army without the right to wear a uniform (although in Constantinople the general, at the behest of the playwright, changes into civilian clothes). On the other hand, the fact that the overcoat was not belted in a military way and there was negligence in all Khludov's clothes gave this costume a kind of extravagance, although not as bright as in the prototype costume. S. Obolensky, like other memoirists, explained the morbid condition by the abuse of cocaine and alcohol - the general was a rare combination of an alcoholic and a drug addict in one person. S. himself did not deny these accusations. In the book "Crimea in 1920" he cited his report to Wrangel on April 5, 1920, where, in particular, he sharply criticized Obolensky and noted that “the struggle is going on with the indigenous defenders of the front up to and including me, invading even my private life (alcohol, cocaine)”, i.e. ., recognizing the presence of these vices, protested only against the fact that they became the property of the general public. Bulgakov reduced the illness of his Khludov, first of all, to the pangs of conscience for the crimes committed and participation in the movement, on the side of which there is no truth.
Obolensky explained S.'s return to Soviet Russia as follows: “Slashchev is a victim of the civil war. From this naturally intelligent, capable, albeit uncultured person, she made a shameless adventurer. Imitating either Suvorov or Napoleon, he dreamed of fame and glory. The cocaine he drugged himself with kept his wild dreams alive. And suddenly, General Slashchev-Krymsky breeds turkeys in Constantinople on a loan received from the Zemsky Union! And then? .. Here ... abroad, his adventurism and insatiable ambition had nowhere to play out. A long working life was ahead until it would be possible to return home modestly and forgotten ... And there, the Bolsheviks, after all, have a chance to advance, if not to the Napoleons, then to the Suvorovs. And Slashchev went to Moscow, ready in case of need to shed "white" blood in the same amount in which he shed "red".
The memoirist experienced mixed feelings of pity, sympathy, contempt and condemnation for the former persecutor for the transition to the Bolsheviks (it was Obolensky who assisted S. in acquiring a farm on which the former general's working life did not work out). Further, the author of "Crimea under Wrangel" cited a comic story, how in Moscow one former Crimean Menshevik, whom S. almost hanged, having already joined the Bolshevik Party and working in a Soviet institution, met the red commander of "comrade" S., and how they peacefully remembered the past. Perhaps this is where Charnota's humorous remark was born in Bega, that he would have signed up with the Bolsheviks for a day, just to deal with Korzukhin, and then he would have immediately "discharged". Bulgakov certainly remembered S.'s words cited by Furmanov about his readiness to fight in the ranks of the Red Army, confirming Obolensky's thought, and he hardly doubted career and worldly, rather than spiritual and ideological reasons for the return of the former general. Therefore, Khludov had to endow the pangs of conscience of the autobiographical hero of the Red Crown, in whose insane mind the image of his dead brother is constantly present.
In addition to Obolensky's memoirs, the playwright took into account other testimonies about S. He was familiar with the book of the former head of the press department in the Crimean government, G. V. Nemirovich-Danchenko, “In the Crimea under Wrangel. Facts and Results”, published in Berlin in 1922. It, in particular, noted: “The front held on thanks to the courage of a handful of junkers and the personal courage of such a gambler as the gene was. Slashchev. And G. N. Rakovsky wrote the following about S.: “Slashchev, in essence, was the self-made dictator of the Crimea and autocratically disposed of both at the front and in the rear ... The local community was driven underground by him, the workers shrank, only "Circles (i.e., the press of Osvag (Information Agency), the press department of the Denikin government. - B.S.) composed enthusiastic praises for the general, popular among the troops. Slashchev fought very vigorously against the Bolsheviks, not only at the front, but also in the rear. Court-martial and execution - that is the punishment that was most often applied to the Bolsheviks and their sympathizers.
The figure of S. turned out to be so bright, contradictory, rich in a variety of colors that in “Running” she served as a prototype not only for General Khludov, but also for two other characters representing the white camp, the Kuban Cossack general Grigory Lukyanovich Charnota (“descendant of the Cossacks”) and Hussar Colonel Marquis de Brizar. The latter probably owes his surname and title to two more historical figures. The actor playing de Brizar, according to Bulgakov, "should not be afraid to give Brizar the epithets: hangman and murderer." This hero shows sadistic inclinations, and as a result of a wound in the head, he was somewhat damaged in his mind. The Marquis de Brizard brings to mind the famous writer Marquis (Count) Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade (1740-1814), from whose name the very word "sadism" comes. Another prototype of de Brizar was the editor of the Donskoy Vestnik newspaper, the centurion Count Du-Chail, whom Wrangel accused, along with generals V. I. Sidorin (1882-1943) and A. K. Kelchevsky (1869-1923), who commanded the Don Corps , in the Don separatism and betrayed to a court-martial. (During his arrest, Du-Chail tried to shoot himself and was seriously wounded in the head. Subsequently, the court acquitted him, and Du-Chail emigrated.) This case was described by G. V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and other memoirists. From Du-Chail, de Brizard has a French surname, a high-profile title and a severe wound in the head. From S., this character has a luxurious hussar costume and executionerism, as well as clouding of reason, which Khludov also has, but for the Marquis it is a consequence of a wound, and not a split personality and pangs of conscience.
Charnota from S. has a Kuban past (Bulgakov took into account that S. first commanded the Kuban units) and camping wife Lyuska, whose prototype was the second wife of S. - “Cossack Varinka”, “orderly Nechvolodov”, who accompanied him in all battles and campaigns, was wounded twice and saved her husband’s life more than once. Some memoirists call her Lidka, although in fact S.'s second wife was called Nina Nikolaevna. From S., Charnota also has the qualities of a gambler, combined with military abilities and a penchant for drunkenness. The fate of Grigory Lukyanovich is a variant of the fate of S., told by Obolensky, the variant that would have been realized if the general had remained a simple farmer in exile. Then S. could only hope for random luck in the game, but for returning to Russia after many years, if they forget about him there. Charnota, in the course of action, reveals in Khludov's fate some moments inherent in the fate of S. According to Obolensky, people who knew S. before the revolution as a quiet, thoughtful officer were amazed at the change brought about by the civil war, which turned him into a cruel executioner. At the first meeting with Khludov, Charnot, who previously knew Roman Valeryanovich, is amazed at the cruelty manifested in him. And in the finale, commenting on the upcoming return of Khludov, the “descendant of the Cossacks” suggests: “You, the general staff of Lieutenant General, maybe a new cunning plan has matured?” It fully coincides with the real actions of S., who carefully planned his return to Russia, having held lengthy negotiations with Soviet representatives and negotiated for himself forgiveness and work in his specialty. These words of Charnota leave the impression that Khludov in Soviet Russia would not necessarily be executed. However, Bulgakov, in the image of Khludov, is more inclined to the motif of a redemptive sacrifice, so other words of Charnota about what awaits the repentant in his homeland are more memorable:
“You will live, Roma, exactly as long as you need to be removed from the train and brought to the nearest wall, and even then under the strictest guard!”
At the time of the capture of Perekop by the Reds, S. was out of work. Bulgakov's hero commands the front and actually performs a number of functions of generals A.P. Kutepov and P.N. Wrangel. For example, it is Khludov who orders which formations to go to which ports for evacuation. In the books of S. there is no such order given by Wrangel, but it is in other sources, in particular, in the collection “ Last days Crimea". At the same time, Bulgakov makes Khludov criticize the Commander-in-Chief with almost the same words as S. in the book “Crimea in 1920.” criticized Wrangel. So, Khludov’s words: “... But Frunze did not want to portray the designated enemy during the maneuvers ... This is not chess and not the unforgettable Tsarskoye Selo ...” go back to S.’s statement about the fallacy of Wrangel’s decision to start transferring units between Chongar and Perekop the day before Soviet offensive: “... Castling has begun (it works well only in chess). The Reds did not want to portray the designated enemy and attacked the isthmus. The phrase thrown by Khludov to the Commander-in-Chief about the latter’s intention to move to the Kist hotel, and from there to the ship: “Closer to the water?” Is an evil allusion to the cowardice of the commander-in-chief mentioned in the book “Crimea in 1920”: “The evacuation proceeded in a nightmarish environment of confusion and panic. Wrangel was the first to set an example of this, he moved from his home to the Kist Hotel near the Grafskaya Wharf, in order to be able to quickly board the ship, which he soon did, starting cruising through the ports under the guise of checking evacuation. Of course, he could not do any verification from the ship, but he was in complete safety, and this was the only thing he aspired to.
In later editions of The Run, where Khludov committed suicide, he spoke ironically and allegorically about his intention to return to Russia as about an upcoming trip to a German sanatorium for treatment. This meant the story told by S. in his memoirs, how he refused Wrangel's offer to go to a sanatorium in Germany for treatment, not wanting to spend people's money on his person - a scarce currency.
As an antipode to Khludov (S.), Bulgakov gave a reduced caricature image of the white Commander-in-Chief (Wrangel). The words of Archbishop Afrikan, whose prototype was the head of the clergy of the Russian army, Bishop of Sevastopol Veniamin (Ivan Fedchenko) (1881-1961), addressed to the Commander-in-Chief: “Dare, glorious general, light and power are with you, victory and affirmation, dare, for you are Peter, what does a stone mean”, have as their source the memories of G. N. Rakovsky, who noted that “representatives of the militant Black Hundred clergy with Bishop Veniamin, who actively supported Wrangel even when he was fighting Denikin”, from church pulpits “glorified Peter Wrangel , comparing him not only with Peter the Great, but even with the Apostle Peter. He will be, they say, the stone on which the foundation of the new Russia will be built. The comical appeal to Afrikan by the Commander-in-Chief himself: “Your Eminence, abandoned by the Western European powers, deceived by the treacherous Poles, in the most terrible hour we trust in God’s mercy,” parodies Wrangel’s last order when leaving the Crimea:
“Abandoned by the whole world, a bloodless army that fought not only for our Russian cause, but also for the cause of the whole world,” leaves native land. We go to a foreign land, we go not like beggars with an outstretched hand, but with our heads held high, in the consciousness of a fulfilled duty. The poverty that befell Khludov, Charnot, Lyuska, Seraphim, Golubkov and other emigrants in "Running" in Constantinople shows the falsity of Wrangel's grandiloquent words.
For many years his fate was surrounded in the USSR by a veil of secrecy.
Among the works of cinema about the Civil War, there are few films as popular as the film "Running", based on the play of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov. General Khludov is especially remembered - the image is contradictory and tragic. Meanwhile, few people realize that the writer created it, having a very real prototype before his eyes.
Long before the end of the play "Running", in 1925, this man starred in the Crimea in the film "Wrangel" (unfortunately, never seen the light of day), which was staged joint-stock company"Proletarian cinema", in the role of ... himself! Namely, Yakov Alexandrovich Slashchov-Krymsky, lieutenant general, commander of the 3rd Army Corps, who stubbornly defended the last stronghold of the white movement in southern Russia and inflicted a number of sensitive defeats on the Red Army ...
“Who would hang, Your Excellency?”
The meeting at the railway station of Khludov, Commander of the Crimean Front, with the White Commander-in-Chief (he immediately guesses Lieutenant-General Baron P.N. Wrangel, who led the Russian Army in 1920) is one of the key in Bulgakov's drama. Remember how in response to the good-natured lamentations of the top boss that, they say, Khludov is unwell, and it is a pity that he did not heed the advice to go abroad for treatment, he bursts into an angry tirade: “Ah, that’s how it is! And who, Your Excellency, would have your barefoot soldiers on Perekop without dugouts, without visors, without concrete, hold the rampart? And who would have Charnot that night with music from Chongar to Karpova Balka? Who would hang? Who would hang, Your Excellency?
It should be noted right away that, in reality, such a conversation on the eve of the collapse of the White Crimea in November 1920 could not be, by definition, because on August 19, Yakov Aleksandrovich was removed from command of the corps by special order No. 3505. The formal reason was the failure of his troops in the battles near Kakhovka, after which the commander himself wrote a resignation report. According to the famous historian A.G. Kavtaradze, P.N. Wrangel satisfied this request so willingly because he saw Slashchov as a dangerous rival and envied his military glory.
But in order to calm the public circles, dissatisfied with the removal of the popular general, Pyotr Nikolaevich did not stint on doxology.
The same order stated that the name of General Slashchov "will take an honorable place in the history of Russia's liberation from the red yoke."
In view of the “terrible overwork,” Wrangel wrote, Yakov Aleksandrovich was forced “to retire for a while,” but the commander-in-chief orders “the dear heart of Russian soldiers, General Slashchov, to continue to be called Slashchov-Krymsky.” By another order issued on the same day, Wrangel "withdrawal from general rules"enrolls the retired hero of the Crimean defense at his disposal" with the maintenance of the content of the post of corps commander.
With the exception of this detail, all other details of those events are reproduced by Bulgakov very reliably. After all, as the main source in composing the play, Mikhail Afanasyevich used Slashchov's book, which denounced Wrangel, first published in the USSR in 1924 (and before that - in Constantinople in January 1921) and which became perhaps the main reason for the fantastic turn in his fate.
How did she develop?
Yakov Slashchov was born on December 29, 1885 (according to the new style on January 10, 1886) in St. Petersburg in the family of a retired lieutenant colonel of the guard (by the way, his grandfather, who died in 1875, also rose only to the rank of lieutenant colonel). After graduating from a real school, a representative of the officer dynasty entered the Pavlovsk Military School and was released in 1905 as a second lieutenant in the Finnish Life Guards Regiment. In 1911, Slashchov completed his education at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, after which he taught tactics in the elite Corps of Pages. In January 1915 he returned to the Finnish regiment that fought on the Austro-German front, commanded a company and a battalion. He deserved all military officer awards, including the most honorary Order of the Holy Great Martyr and Victorious George of the 4th degree. He was wounded five times ... Having started the front line as a captain of the guards, in November 1916 he was already promoted to colonel. In July 1917 he was appointed commander of the Moscow Guards Regiment.
As a representative of the career officers, brought up in a monarchical spirit, Slashchov, by his own admission, "was not interested in politics, did not understand anything about it, and was not even familiar with the programs of individual parties."
However, in 1917, with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, Yakov Aleksandrovich immediately joined the ranks of their irreconcilable opponents. Recognized in December by the medical commission unfit for military service, on January 18, 1918, he arrived in Novocherkassk, where about 2 thousand cadets and officers gathered. These people, as Slashchov writes, "partly for ideological reasons, partly because there was nowhere to go," signed up for the Volunteer Army, which was created by the former chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Infantry General Mikhail Alekseev.
The chief Russian strategist of the First World War, Alekseev, immediately singled out Yakov Alexandrovich, whom he knew from operations on the Austro-German front, among other associates. He became one of the emissaries sent to form new units of the anti-Bolshevik army. “The fate of these emissaries was no better than the fate of the Volunteer Army itself,” Slashchov later wrote, referring to the first half of 1918. - The masses did not follow them. The Cossacks were satisfied with the Soviet government, which took away the land from the landowners ... no matter how much I wandered through the mountains, nothing worked out: the organized uprisings failed. I had to hide and not enter any house.
But by June 1918, the situation had changed dramatically: the Bolshevik revolutionary committees closed the bazaars and began to withdraw "surplus" products, following the instructions of Moscow.
In addition, the so-called non-residents who returned from the front after demobilization, who had previously worked for the Cossacks or rented land from them, began to demand social justice and to carry out the redistribution of land without prior notice. As a result, the prosperous Cossacks, without any agitation, began to join the detachments created by volunteer emissaries in whole villages. One such detachment of five thousand people, formed from the Kuban Cossacks of the village of Batalpashinskaya and the surrounding area, was headed by the Yesaul from the local A.G. Shkuro, and Slashchov accepted the post of chief of staff of this formation. In July, the overgrown detachment was transformed into the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division, whose headquarters was still headed by Yakov Aleksandrovich.
Since April of the following year, 1919, he, promoted to major general, commanded infantry divisions, and in November became commander of the 3rd Army Corps, which acted on the left flank of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia (VSYuR) against the Makhnovists and Petliurists. And, probably, he would have remained in the history of the Civil War just one of the corps commanders of the White Army (of which there were several dozen in total), if it were not for the extremely difficult strategic situation created as a result of the counteroffensive of the Southern Front of the Red Army by the end of 1919 .
Slashchov's corps was hastily sent to defend Northern Tavria and the Crimea. The Commander-in-Chief of the All-Union Socialist Republic, Lieutenant-General Anton Denikin, believed that such weak forces that were at the disposal of Slashchov (2200 bayonets and 1300 sabers, 32 guns) could not hold the peninsula. However, skillfully maneuvering reserves and "saddling" the isthmuses Slashchov during the winter - spring of 1920 repulsed all attempts of the 13th Red Army to break into the Crimea. The successful actions of his corps, which received the name “Crimean” from Denikin for its steadfastness, made it possible to transport the main forces of the defeated White Guard troops from the North Caucasus to the peninsula and create from them the Russian army of Baron Wrangel (who replaced Denikin as commander-in-chief in April 1920).
Who is Lieutenant General Slashchov (this rank, equal to his own, was already assigned to him by Wrangel), and how he defends the White Cause, the Crimeans learned from his orders, which were not only published in newspapers, but also pasted on leaflets for general information. “At the front, the blood of fighters for Holy Russia is shed, and in the rear there is an orgy,” it was said, for example, in an order dated December 31, 1919. “I am obliged to keep the Crimea and for this I am vested with the appropriate authority ... I ask all citizens who have not lost their conscience and who have not forgotten their duty to help me ... I declare to the rest that I will not stop at extreme measures ... "
Slashchov envisaged the following measures: “Seal all wine warehouses and shops ... Mercilessly punish military personnel and civilians who appeared in a drunken state ... Immediately escort speculators and drunken brawls under escort to Dzhankoy station to analyze their cases by a court-martial located directly at me, whose sentences I will approve personally.
Of course, not only hucksters and brawlers were attacked by the general's punishing hand. Not without reason, the port workers in Sevastopol sang a ditty: “Smoke comes from the executions, then Slashchov saves the Crimea!”
It was just right to compose such slogans in Nikolaev, Kherson, Odessa, where Yakov Aleksandrovich also left a bloody trail, mercilessly destroying all those suspected of sabotage or Bolshevik agitation ...
The proletarian writer Dmitry Furmanov, who wrote a story about Chapaev and undertook to write a preface to Slashchov’s book, which he found “fresh, frank and instructive,” began his commentary with the words: “Slashchov the hangman, Slashchov the executioner: history has imprinted his name with these black stamps ... "
“I demand the court of society and publicity!”
From about the middle of Bulgakov's play, namely from the scene in Sevastopol before being loaded onto the ship (act two, dream four), Khludov is relentlessly haunted by a terrible vision: a soldier hanged on his orders in Dzhankoy, who dared to speak a word of truth about the atrocities he committed. He talks with the ghost as if he were alive, trying to explain his actions to him...
Did his prototype Slashchov experience such painful, on the verge of insanity remorse? Probably yes. Here is a portrait of Yakov Aleksandrovich after his resignation, Baron Wrangel left in his memoirs: “General Slashchov, due to his addiction to alcohol and drugs, became completely insane and was a terrible sight. His face was pale and twitching in a nervous tic, tears flowed from his eyes. He addressed me with a speech, which was eloquent proof that I was dealing with a person with a disturbed psyche ... ”The medical commission found an acute form of neurasthenia in Slaschov, which also testifies to his difficult experiences.
But, despite the mental disorder, his name was still surrounded by a halo of glory.
The Yalta City Duma awarded Slashchov the title of honorary citizen, placed his portrait in the building of the city government and transferred to his disposal a luxurious summer house in Livadia, which previously belonged to the Minister of the Imperial Court, Count V.B. Fredericks.
Yakov Alexandrovich lived there for about three months, working on a future book about the defense of the Crimea.
In November, when the Red cavalry was already entering the outskirts of Sevastopol, he was among the last to be evacuated to Constantinople, sailing on the icebreaker Ilya Muromets with the remnants of the Finland Regiment. Most of his luggage was occupied by ... the regimental banner of St. George, under the shadow of which he began his officer service and fought in the First World War.
Slashchov's emigre life was close to Bulgakov's recreated eerie existence of Khludov and his unfortunate comrades. Yakov Alexandrovich, according to the testimony of the politician A.N. Vertsinsky, also settled in “a small, dirty house somewhere in the middle of nowhere (Constantinople slum district of Galata. - A. P. ) ... with a small handful of people who remained with him to the end (we are talking, in particular, about the common-law wife of Slaschov, Nina Nikolaevna Nechvolodova, who accompanied him to the Civil War under the name of "Junker Nechvolodov", and then entered into a legal marriage with him. - A. P. )… He turned even whiter and haggard. His face was tired. The temperature has disappeared somewhere ... "
On December 14, 1920, mental fatigue did not prevent Slashchov from writing a sharp letter of protest to the chairman of the meeting of Russian public figures P.P. Yurenev about the resolution he passed, which called on all emigrants to support Wrangel in his further struggle against Soviet Russia.
A week after this decisive step, on the orders of Wrangel, a court of general honor met, recognizing Slashchov's act as "unworthy of a Russian person, and even more so of a general" and sentenced Yakov Aleksandrovich "to be dismissed from service without the right to wear a uniform." In response, Slashchov in January 1921 published in Constantinople the book “I demand the court of society and publicity!”. It contained such unflattering assessments of Wrangel's activities in the Crimean period that if a copy of it was found in the Gallipoli camp, where the arrived units of the Russian army were kept, this fact was regarded by counterintelligence as treason, with all the ensuing consequences for the guilty person ...
“I, Slashchov-Krymsky, call you, officers and soldiers, to submit to Soviet power and return to your homeland!”
Bulgakov's Khludov in the final scene (which the playwright repeatedly remade under pressure from agitprop censors) is tormented by grave doubts about whether he should return to his homeland in order to face Soviet justice. Serafima Korzukhina, Privatdozent Golubkov and General Charnota unanimously dissuade him from this crazy, as it seems to them, undertaking. “As a friend, I say, come on! - Charnot dissuades. - Everything is over. You lost the Russian Empire, and you have lanterns in the rear!” In the end, left alone, Khludov puts a bullet in his head. This is the end of the drama...
In life, however, the "lanterns" (meaning the crimes of Slashchov - hanged and shot on his orders) turned out to be not such an insurmountable obstacle to returning to Soviet Russia. When an urgent need arose, the Bolshevik leaders became pragmatists and compromised principles without much hesitation ...
Agents of the Cheka in Constantinople immediately informed the Lubyanka and the Kremlin about the acute conflict between the popular general and the white émigré elite. At the direction of the Chairman of the Cheka F.E. Dzerzhinsky, a special representative of the Cheka and the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, Yakov Petrovich Elsky, was sent to Turkey, hiding under the name Tenenbaum. He had the task of finding out about Slashchov’s further intentions and making him understand that the Soviet government, in case of repentance and going over to its side, would forgive all sins, even the bloodiest ones ... The political gain if this, from the point of view of morality, is far from flawless combination, would be a political gain huge.
Slashchov's public break with the White movement and his return to Soviet Russia made it possible to use the authoritative general to decompose almost 100,000 military emigration.
But it was precisely in her that Moscow then saw the main threat to the Bolshevik regime. In addition, the very fact that such a major figure from the hostile camp went over to the side of Soviet power would have a great political resonance ...
The question of forgiving Slashchov was discussed in Moscow at the very high level- in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). The only one who abstained from voting was V.I. Lenin. The remaining members of the Bolshevik headquarters considered the idea put forward by Dzerzhinsky worthwhile and supported it. Through Tenenbaum, the general was told that the Soviet government allowed him to return to his homeland, where he would be amnestied and provided with work in his specialty - teaching at a military educational institution.
It should be noted that Yakov Alexandrovich had every reason to doubt the sincerity of this proposal. The fact is that on the eve of the assault on Perekop by the troops of M.V. Frunze in 1920, emissaries of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks E.M. Sklyansky and I.F. Medyntsev, on behalf of General A.A., glorified in the First World War and now serving in the Red Army. Brusilov, who was unaware of the double game, had already turned to the Wrangelites with a similar promise of amnesty. Many officers believed this appeal and remained on the Crimean coast. “They fell into the hands not of mine, but of the raging Bela Kun (a Hungarian internationalist who headed the Special Department of the Southern Front. - A. P. ) ... shooting them in masses, - Brusilov, who found himself in an absurd, treacherous role, bitterly recalled those terrible days. - Judge me God and Russia! According to the calculations of modern historians, at least 12 thousand officers, soldiers and Cossacks who laid down their arms were then shot, drowned in the Black Sea without trial or investigation ...
And yet, after some hesitation, Slashchov, accompanied by Tenenbaum-Yelsky, his associates who followed him: the wife of N.N. Nechvolodova, her brother Captain Prince Trubetskoy, Major General A.S. Milkovsky, Colonel E.P. Gilbikh and another White Guard officer A.I. Batkina, whose brother served in the Cheka, left Constantinople on the Italian ship Zhanen on November 20, 1921. By the way, Slashchov did not know then that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee had already adopted a decree on his amnesty, which was still kept secret ...
In Sevastopol, Yakov Alexandrovich was already waiting for F.E. Dzerzhinsky. On the eve of his departure from emigration, the military leader who left its ranks sent a letter to the largest foreign newspapers explaining his act.
“If they ask me how I, the defender of the Crimea from the Reds, now went over to them, I will answer: I did not defend the Crimea, but the honor of Russia ... - he wrote. “I am going to do my duty, believing that all Russians, the military in particular, should be in Russia at the moment.”
Immediately upon arrival in his native land, in Dzerzhinsky’s special car, Slashchov also wrote an appeal to the soldiers of the Wrangel army, which said: “The White government turned out to be insolvent and not supported by the people ... Soviet power is the only power representing Russia and its people. I, Slashchov-Krymsky, call you, officers and soldiers, to submit to Soviet power and return to your homeland! The general's companions joined his appeal, urging their compatriots "without any hesitation" to follow their example.
The effect of Slashchov's departure to Soviet Russia, which Lubyanka now lists in the gold fund of the special operations it carried out, turned out to be amazing. According to the writer A. Slobodsky, he "stirred, literally from top to bottom, the entire Russian emigration." It was followed by the return to their homeland of a number of figures of national culture, for example, Alexei Tolstoy (1923). But the military-political gain turned out to be even stronger. According to French intelligence, “Slaschov’s defection to the side of the Red Army dealt a heavy blow to the morale of Russian officers… This was an unexpected change on the part of a combat general… whose authority had great prestige… brought great confusion to the spirit of intransigence that had hitherto dominated among the officers and soldier of the white army.
Following Slashchov, Generals S. Dobrorolsky, A. Secretev, Yu. Gravitsky, I. Klochkov, E. Zelenin, and a large number of officers returned to Soviet Russia. Of course, they were unaware that the nightmarish era of the Great Terror was still waiting for them in their homeland, when the inquisitors with blue buttonholes would mercilessly remind them of the sins against the Soviet government, both committed and invented ...
As for Slashchov, he was not destined to live up to this test. Since 1922, he was a teacher (and since 1924 - the main leader) of tactics at the Higher Tactical-Rifle School for Command Staff of the Red Army (now the Higher Officer Courses "Shot"), proving himself to be a brilliant lecturer and talented scientist. Judging by the headlines and content of his articles in the periodical press (“Slogans of Russian patriotism in the service of France”, “Wrangelism”, etc.), he was completely disappointed in the White Idea and was eager to serve his newly found Motherland with all his heart. “A lot of blood has been shed... A lot of grave mistakes have been made. Immeasurably great is my historical guilt before workers' and peasants' Russia, - wrote Yakov Aleksandrovich. “But if in a time of difficult trials you again have to take out the sword, I swear that I will prove with my blood that my new thoughts and views are not a toy, but a firm, deep conviction.”
Unfortunately, Slashchov did not have such an opportunity.
On January 11, 1929, he was killed by a revolver shot in his room in an outbuilding of house number 3 on Krasnokazarmennaya Street in the Moscow district of Lefortovo, where the teachers of the Shot school lived.
The killer, detained at the scene of the crime, gave his last name - Kolenberg, and stated that the murder was committed by him in order to avenge the death of his brother, a worker, allegedly executed by order of Slashchov in 1920 in the Crimea. The Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper the next day published a message about the death of Yakov Alexandrovich, adding that his "unexpected murder is a completely aimless, useless and politically unjustified act of personal revenge." On January 15, the same publication reported on the cremation of the body of the former white general in the Donskoy Monastery.
Modern researchers question the version of "personal revenge". After all, it was from 1929 that a wave of mass repressions began in the Red Army against former generals and officers, who again began to be called "bourgeois specialists." At the same time, the moloch of total annihilation, spinning stronger year by year, fell upon those who returned from emigration, served in the Life Guards, fought for the Whites ... Even before 1937, about fourteen such professional military men were sacrificed on the altar of ideological dogmas and a half thousand.
In favor of the assumptions about the contract killing of General Slashchov is also evidenced by the fact that the investigative case against the killer - L. Kolenberg, has not yet been declassified and, moreover, even seems to have not been found in the Central Archive of the FSB! So it's been destroyed? This was done by Chekist archivists only in the most extreme cases, on special orders from the top leadership of the Lubyanka ...
But whatever the true reasons for the premature death of Yakov Slashchov, he is of interest to us regardless of them. It is no coincidence that Mikhail Bulgakov admitted that he wanted to show in the image of Khludov, who he portrayed, so to speak, according to the Slashchov "pattern", not an ordinary general, but "a sharply expressed human individuality." Both the literary hero and his prototype have the same best qualities: courage, courage, nobility, decency, love for Russia and the desire to defend its greatness ... And it’s not the fault of such people, but their misfortune that at a sharp turn in history to show their human they had to end up in a senseless, fratricidal war, where there are no winners.
Special for the Centenary
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