On January 7, 1920, an Extraordinary Investigative Commission was established to collect accusatory data against the arrested members of the Kolchak government ...

Kolchak was not tried, there was no sentence for him either: 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 exactly anything, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that local authorities, before our arrival, acted in 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 on the execution of Kolchak and Pepelyaev. That's the whole verdict. In fact, the scenario of the execution of the Royal Family in Yekaterinburg in 1918 was repeated: then, too, the investigation, trial and sentence were replaced by Ilyich's secret execution telegram.

The former house of the merchant Batyushkin, an elegant beige and yellow building with light columns, huge windows and an elegant terrace overlooking the gentle bank of the Irtysh, is one of the main historical sights 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 .

The place was not chosen by chance: this mansion is a "witness and participant" of the fatal events of national history - here in 1918-1919. the residence of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak, was located, and then - the Siberian Department 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 premises were recreated after restoration. Electronic resources and original documents and the latest scientific and journalistic publications make it possible to feel the era, and unique newsreels allow you to see Kolchak, Zhanen and other heroes and anti-heroes of this historical and political drama.

On November 18, 1918, the inhabitants of Omsk saw leaflets pasted all over the city - “Appeal to the population of Russia”, which announced the overthrow of the All-Russian Provisional Government (Directory) and that Alexander Kolchak became the Supreme Ruler with “dictatorial powers”. “Having accepted the cross of this power in the exceptionally 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 party spirit. My main goal is the creation of a combat-ready army, victory over Bolshevism, the establishment of law and order, so that the people can freely choose the form of government they wish and implement the great ideas of freedom now proclaimed all over the world, ”Kolchak entered the political history.

“An impenetrable wall covering light and truth”

During the Civil War, several "white" governments operated in Siberia. The largest of them - Omsk - for a long time negotiated with the Samara Komuch (Committee of the Constituent Assembly). Their goal is to unite. As a result, in September 1918, the Provisional All-Russian Government, the Directory, was formed in Ufa. In connection with the offensive of the Red Army, a month later the Directory moved to Omsk. However, as a result of a coup on November 17-18, 1918, organized by politicians and the military dissatisfied with the "rampant liberalism", the Directory was overthrown, and Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia with unlimited - dictatorial - powers. The fighters who won the coup against the “soft-bodied liberal provocateurs” seemed to be able to direct history in the direction they needed. They lived 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 the government, which functioned for more than a year in the 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-SR Directory - the Provisional All-Russian Government, Kolchak deprived the white movement of "democratic weights", which destroyed the anti-Bolshevik coalition. In response, the Social Revolutionaries turned their weapons against him, preferring to get closer to the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Having staked on a military dictatorship, Kolchak and the entire white movement doomed themselves to defeat.

Supreme ruler A. V. Kolchak among members of the public at a banquet in Yekaterinburg, February 1919

The program of the Supreme Ruler provided for: 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 state system of Russia; the continuation of the Stolypin agrarian reform without the preservation of landownership, the denationalization of industry, banks and transport, the preservation of democratic workers' legislation, the all-round 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 aid. The allies were not at all interested in the independence of Russia, and even more so in its unity and indivisibility. The national question turned out to be the most difficult for the Supreme Ruler: defending the idea of ​​a united and indivisible Russia, Kolchak pushed away 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 as follows: “It is hard to look at his spinelessness and his 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 ... It becomes terrible for the future, for the outcome of that struggle, the stake in which he is saving the motherland and leading it to a new road ... It is amazing how Tsarskoye Selo is repeated in miniature in Omsk (the imperial family stayed in Tsarskoye Selo from 1915 to 1917 - Yu.K.): the same blindness at the top, the same impenetrable all around is a wall covering the light and the truth, people doing their deeds.

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

The admiral clearly formulated his political convictions: “Let us call a spade a spade, no matter how hard it is for our fatherland: after all, humanity, pacifism, and brotherhood of races are based on the simplest animal cowardice…”. Another assessment: “What is democracy? “This is a corrupt mass of the people who want power. Power cannot belong to the masses by virtue of the law of the stupidity of numbers: every practical politician, if he is not a charlatan, knows that the decision of two people is always worse than one ... ”This was said in 1919.

Anna Timireva came to Kolchak in Omsk, despising the conventions of the foundations. Four years have passed since their acquaintance, which grew into a novel 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 love him." And he, who had long been and, as it seemed to him, hopelessly in love, replied: "I did not 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 a spasm in his throat: “I love you more than.” She is 21 years old, he is 40. And everyone knew about this love, military censorship “studied” their correspondence ... Sofya Kolchak, the wife of the admiral, once admitted to her friend: “You'll see, he will divorce me and marry Anna Vasilievna” . And Sergei Timirev, Anna's husband and Kolchak's colleague, also knowing about the affair, did not break his friendship with the admiral. There was no dirt in this “love square”, because there was no deceit. Timireva divorced her husband in 1918 and moved to Omsk. Kolchak's family has long been in France. He didn't want to get divorced...

A.V. Kolchak and A.V. Timireva (sitting), General Alfred Knox (standing behind Kolchak) with a group of British officers in the Omsk region.

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Between two rigidities

“Who is tougher, 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 the mobilization of the peasants. Many of them had just taken off the greatcoats of the soldiers of the First World War, they were tired of fighting and, by and large, were generally indifferent to any authority. Here they did not know serfdom. Who was surrounded by Kolchak? The officers, for the most part, treated the peasants as if they were serfs - the age-old mental “inertia” worked. A significant part of the population of Siberia came to hate Kolchak more than the Bolsheviks. The partisan movement arose spontaneously - as a reaction to the cane discipline of whites, insane repressions and requisitions. “The boys think that because they killed and tortured several hundred and thousands of Bolsheviks and muzzled a number of commissars, they did a great job, 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 with restraint rape, flog, rob, torture and kill, then by doing this they instill such hatred for the authorities they represent that the Moscow khamodarists can only rejoice at the presence of such diligent, valuable and beneficent employees for them, ”the Minister of War of the Kolchak government bitterly stated Baron Alexei 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 swiftly 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 approaching Omsk with battles. The “lieutenant-commander” was not only one of several thousand tsarist officers who voluntarily transferred to the service of the Bolsheviks, he was among its founders, in the summer of 1918, by personal order of Lenin, he was sent to create detachments of the First Army of Soviets. By the time the Omsk offensive was behind him, there was already invincible success. “The Russian revolution gave its red marshals - Voroshilov, Kamenev, Yegorov, Blucher, Budyonny, Kotovsky, Guy, 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 a deadly catastrophe, when a seriously wounded Lenin lay in the chambers of the ancient Kremlin. In the Urals, he won the “Soviet Marne” and, desperately crossing the Ural Range, defeated the white armies of Admiral Kolchak and the Czechs on the plains of Siberia, ”not a friend gave such an assessment to Tukhachevsky - a convinced anti-Bolshevik, emigrant historian of the white movement Roman Gul.

On November 12, 1919, the Supreme Ruler and his ministers left Omsk, moved to Irkutsk, which became - for a very short time - another "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 Way” ever since then. (The commander, who later became a marshal, would be shot as an “enemy of the people” in 1937.)

A.V. Kolchak at the parade in Omsk. 1919 (On the left are in caps - Czechs? Yugoslavs?)

In December 1919, the so-called democratic opposition (including almost the entire spectrum of political forces that opposed both Kolchak and the Bolsheviks) created the 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 terms of the agreement was the transfer of the former Supreme Ruler, together 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 ceases to support it. The Czechoslovaks "left the game", intending to go home.

Kolchak's position became hopeless: he was in fact a hostage. On January 5, 1920, representatives of the Entente issued a written instruction to the commander of the allied forces, General Maurice Janin, to escort Kolchak under the protection of Czech troops to the Far East, to the place where he himself points.

Kolchak rode in a carriage attached to the train of the 8th Czechoslovak Regiment. 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 the Innokentievskaya station. They stood for a long time: Zhanen talked with the leadership of the Political Center, which agreed to let the Czechoslovak train full of “expropriated” property and weapons, and the trains loaded with “war trophies” following him, in exchange for Kolchak. The negotiations ended with the fact that an assistant to the Czech train commandant entered the car and announced that the Supreme Ruler was "handed over to the Irkutsk authorities." It seemed that Kolchak was not even surprised, nodding: "So the allies are betraying me." The admiral was taken to the station commandant's office, where he was "offered" to hand over his weapons. The transfer of the Supreme Ruler to the SR-Menshevik Political Center meant arrest.

Like this. No trial

As early as January 7, 1920, the Political Center established the Extraordinary Investigative Commission (ChSK) to collect accusatory 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 extraordinary correctness, unexpected for the Reds: the investigation was carried out by lawyers certified back in tsarist times. But by the end of January, the tone of the interrogations had intensified. 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 tougher not only in connection with the arrival of a new chairman of the ChSK: the military-political situation in Irkutsk and around it has changed. The change of the chairman of the commission was only a consequence. Several red partisan detachments approached Irkutsk with a total number of 6 thousand bayonets and 800 cavalry. They were supposed to multiply the revolutionary forces of the Irkutsk people at the head of the Military Revolutionary Committee created on January 19. On January 21, the coalition Political Center ceased to exist. The Fifth Army of Tukhachevsky 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 either: a 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 exactly anything, and after we have occupied Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that local authorities, before our arrival, acted in 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 on the execution of Kolchak and Pepelyaev.

That's the whole verdict. In fact, the scenario of the execution of the royal family in Yekaterinburg in 1918 was repeated: then, too, the investigation, trial and sentence 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, it seemed, not at all surprised: “Like that? Without trial? He refused to pray before being shot, and stood calmly, arms crossed over his chest. He tried to calm down his prime minister, Viktor Pepelyaev, who had lost his temper. He asked to convey the blessing to his legal wife, Sofya Fedorovna, and son Rostislav, who had 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 Vasilievna, which never reached her. For decades, the leaflet wandered through the folders of investigative cases.

“My dear dove, I received your note, thank you for your kindness and concern for me ... Do not worry about me. I feel better, my colds are gone. I think that transfer to another cell is impossible. I only think about you and your fate... I don't worry about myself - everything is known in advance. My every step is being watched, and it is very difficult for me to write... Write to me. Your notes are the only joy I can have. I pray for you and bow before your self-sacrifice. My dear, my adored, do not worry about me and save yourself ... Goodbye, I kiss your hands. There was no meeting. Not allowed.

After the execution, the bodies of Kolchak and Pepelyaev were loaded onto a sled, taken to the Ushakovka River and thrown into an ice hole. The official message about the execution of Kolchak by an urgent telegram was sent 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 I, as his closest person, will be given his body to be buried according to the rites of the Orthodox Church. Anna Timireva. Resolution on the letter: "Answer that Kolchak's body is buried and will not be given to anyone."

Timireva after the execution of Kolchak was released - 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 in the Omsk concentration camp for forced labor."

Released again - and again not for long. “For counter-revolutionary activity, expressed in the manifestation among her entourage of malicious and hostile attacks against the Soviet government ... a former courtesan was arrested - Kolchak's wife ... Timireva Anna Vasilievna ... She is accused of being hostile to Soviet power, in the past she was Kolchak's wife, was the entire period of Kolchak's active struggle against the Soviet regime during the last ... until his execution ... Not sharing the policy of the Soviet power on certain issues, she showed her hostility and anger towards the existing system, i. in a crime under Art. 58, paragraph 10 of the Criminal Code.”. The term is five years. Then - arrests and exile in 1925, 1935, 1938 and 1949. Her son from his first marriage, Volodya Timirev, was shot in 1938 for corresponding with his father, who was abroad...

The last photograph of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, late 1919

Kolchak was no longer there, but the Soviet government still had to deal with the "Kolchakism" in a revealing way. From May 20 to May 30, 1920, in the working-class suburb of Omsk - Atamansky Khutor - meetings of the Extraordinary Revolutionary Tribunal "on the case of the self-proclaimed and rebellious government of Kolchak and his inspirer" were held. The tribunal judged "members of the Kolchak government", among whom 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 life-long forced labor, three to forced labor for the entire duration of the Civil War, seven to work for ten years, two to conditional imprisonment for a period of for five years, one - the court declared insane and placed in a psychiatric hospital. The convicts appealed to Lenin for pardon. Of course, to no avail. The Bolshevik leadership was well aware that the condemned "small fry" did not pose a serious danger. The verdict was an edification. Society should have understood that the authorities would punish all those who joined the opposition mercilessly. As further practice showed, the edification was assimilated.

Julia Kantor, Doctor of Historical Sciences

On the announcement: Philip Moskvitin. "Admiral Kolchak", 2010

More versions of the execution of Kolchak

HOW ADMIRAL KOLCHAK WAS SHOT
Anyone who more or less carefully studied the biography of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, knows this version. When in the early morning of February 7, 1920, on the outskirts of Irkutsk, on the banks of the Ushakovka and Angara rivers, a volley was heard at their confluence, the Admiral and the Prime Minister in his government, Viktor Nikolayevich Pepelyaev, fell dead and, having put their bodies on a sled, were taken to the ice hole, lowered into the Angara : "Sail, they say, Admiral, on your last voyage," the bodies did not sail far from the place of execution. The clothes of the executed were caught under the water on the ice, stuck to the ice, and the bodies remained under the ice, froze to it. A little over two months later, in the spring, when the snow began to melt, local boys, running on the melted ice of the Angara, noticed bodies under the ice and told their parents about it. Adults came, like they were Cossacks, or wealthy peasants, in any case, not fans of the new government. The bodies were recovered from under the ice. By the clothes, by the faces, they recognized the Admiral and the presovmin in the dead (the admiral was certainly identified in the first place). The adults told the boys to strictly keep their tongues shut. Under the cover of night, Kolchak and Pepelyaev were buried near the church on the territory of the Znamensky Monastery ... And Admiral's admirers secretly came to the grave for many years later ... What else is unknown. Either those who visited the grave of the leaders of the White movement in Siberia were tracked down and taken, or ... In a word, there was a burial and was lost ... Such is the legend. She lived for a long time. This was written about in the first years of Soviet power. They wrote both in Russia and abroad. I read about it in Irkutsk periodicals, in emigrant publications by R. Gul, S. Melgunov…

Most likely, nothing of the kind still happened. If the grave really existed, many of the Irkutsk people, and, of course, the Chekists, would have learned about it. And if the grave had been liquidated, it would have remained in the memory as liquidated, its exact location would now be known.

But what really happened? What is the truth?

I heard this legend about ten or twelve years ago in the retelling of a simple hunter-fisherman in a taiga village near Irkutsk. Somehow I didn’t really think about its meaning and essence, because I didn’t believe it. He also knew the legend about the gold (silver) cigarette case, which Admiral Kolchak allegedly had. The admiral, allegedly taking a cigarette from a cigarette case to smoke before his death, presented the cigarette case to one of the members of the firing squad. And one of the leaders of the execution, the chairman of the emergency investigative commission Samuil Chudnovsky, seemed to have handed over his handkerchief, in which the poison was hidden. The admiral preferred to die like a warrior, from a bullet, and not from a reserved poison. I also knew that along with Kolchak and Pepelyaev, on the night of February 7, they shot some Chinese executioner who served with the Whites. I heard and read that Kolchak behaved well before the execution, with dignity, but his associate, Prime Minister Viktor Pepelyaev, was completely limp, was frightened, begged for mercy, wallowing at the feet of the commandant of Irkutsk Ivan Bursak (real name - Blatinder. - V.P.). And after that, all the way from prison to the place of execution, he trembled, fell into prostration, muttered the words of prayers ... I did not believe in the cowardly behavior of Viktor Pepelyaev, a hereditary nobleman, the general's son, in his pleas for indulgence. First of all, there were no cowards in the Pepelyaev family. On the contrary, all male Pepelyaevs had bouquets of orders on their chests for bravery and courage. Viktor Pepelyaev himself, heading the police department for almost a year in the Kolchak government, then the Ministry of the Interior, understood that it was unthinkable for him to count on any slightest indulgence of the executors of orders. There is no need to be humiliated. I understood, I knew from my work that orders are signed from above, and the performers act impeccably clearly, you can’t pity them in any way. Then, if he were a coward, afraid of death, he would have the opportunity to take care of himself and his family in advance, to hide abroad.

So what's the deal? Why was Kolchak declared a brave man, who listened to the verdict calmly and with dignity, who also met death with dignity, and Viktor Pepelyaev was called a miserable coward?

For some reason, someone really needed it, it was important. As well as dragging a nameless Chinese executioner to the high-ranking two being shot. There was no coincidence in this! Like there was absolutely no truth. And if the stories about a gold (silver - according to the commander-in-chief of the Supreme Ruler General K.V. Sakharov) cigarette case, about poison in a handkerchief, and that after the first volley Kolchak did not fall dead, they did not want to aim at him, he he himself ordered to shoot accurately in a military way. If all this can be considered legends composed by people who did not want to believe in his ordinary instant death, then the stories about the Chinese executioner and Viktor Pepelyaev, who trembled from the moment the sentence was read in prison to the volley, came from the direct leaders of the execution.

Trying to get to the bottom of the truth, what lies behind all this, I drew attention to one, it seems, an insignificant detail. During the execution at Ushakovka/Angara on February 7, the Bolshevik doctor Fyodor Gusarov was present. His role was to witness the death of Kolchak and Pepelyaev after a rifle salvo. A 45-year-old Bolshevik doctor, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy, an ally of Lenin, at the beginning of 1920 worked as a doctor in the Znamensky military hospital. In the book of the Irkutsk journalist G.T. Kilesso "Street named after ..." (Irkutsk, Vost. - Sib. book ed., ed. 3rd, 1989) on page 268 I read: "As a doctor F.V. Gusarov witnessed Kolchak's death after being shot. Fedor Gusarov's life was interrupted a few months after that. No, no one attempted on Gusarov, he was already incurably hopelessly ill in February. He was transferred from Irkutsk to Omsk, appointed head of the Siberian Health Department, and on August 27, 1920, he died of tuberculosis and was buried in Omsk on Red Heroes Square ... There is not a word in other memoirs about the fact that the execution at Ushakovka was attended by doctor Fyodor Gusarov. About this to the Irkutsk journalist G.T. Kilesso was told in 1954 by the former chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee A.A. Shiryamov. A quarter of a century has passed since the night execution, I.V. Stalin and the Khrushchev “thaw” came, Alexander Shiryamov was at an age, a year before his death he could afford to be more frank. It seems, well, what is special that a doctor was present? On the other hand, the question is: why was the doctor present, was he really needed there, on Ushakovka on the February night of 1920? Moreover, there were only 47 doctors for the entire hundred thousandth city, typhus and other infectious deadly diseases were rampant, there were a lot of frostbitten, wounded. What to take away from the affairs of a busy person? True, what a need and a good impulse to comply with some formalities? When it is enough to approach the fallen after a volley and, in modern terms, make a control shot. And - all here is the fixation of death for you ...

I will return to the doctor Fyodor Vasilyevich Gusarov, but first I will try to determine how many were among the participants in the execution, in addition to the squad of seven or eight people who carried out the sentence, those who led them?

Indeed, how many were there?

According to the memoirs of the commandant of the city of Irkutsk, Ivan Bursak, two people “conducted” the execution. He personally and the chairman of the emergency commission of inquiry Samuil Chudnovsky. Bursak, in his official memoirs (there are also unofficial ones), also names a third one. Commandant of the local prison. Bursak does not name his last name, but the prison commandant was second lieutenant (or lieutenant?) V.I. Ishaev.

We read from Bursak:

“By 4 o'clock in the morning we arrived at the bank of the Ushakovka River, a tributary of the Angara. Kolchak behaved calmly all the time, and Pepelyaev - this huge carcass - was in a fever.

Full moon, bright frosty night. Kolchak and Pepelyaev are standing on a hillock. Kolchak refuses my offer to blindfold. The platoon is lined up, rifles at the ready. Chudnovsky whispers to me:

I give the command:

- Platoon, on the enemies of the revolution - pli!

Both fall. We put the corpses on a sledge-sledge, 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. We return to the prison. On the back of the original decision of the Revolutionary Committee on the execution of Kolchak and Pepelyaev, I write by hand in ink (Bursak wrote in red ink. - V.P.):

“Decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee of February 6, 1920, No. 27, was carried out on February 7 at 5 o’clock in the morning 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, which is evidenced by the undersigned:

Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry S. Chudnovsky.

Commandant of the city of Irkutsk I. Bursak.

Only two signatures. Neither the commandant of the prison, nor the doctor Gusarov have autographs.

Now let's look at the publication of A.A. Shiryamova. Shiryamov, in his memoirs published in 1926 in Novosibirsk, claims that he shot Kolchak and Pepelyaev at the outfit of the Left Social Revolutionaries in the presence of the chairman of the investigative commission S. Chudnovsky and a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee Comrade. M. Levenson. There he also reports about the third person shot - a Chinese, Kolchak's executioner. Bursak is not mentioned at all.

Samuil Chudnovsky, recalling the execution, also names ... a priest. Well, it’s hard to believe in this at all - that the notorious atheists of the Bolsheviks would also be looking for a priest for their sworn enemies. But not one of the leaders of the execution had a word about the doctor Fyodor Gusarov. Not weird? How strange too. Fyodor Gusarov seemed to be diligently wanted to be removed from the circle of those present at the execution. All! And Shiryamov, and Bursak, and Chudnovsky.

Another significant oddity. Encryption of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V.I. Lenin from the Kremlin, with instructions to shoot Kolchak, goes through the deputy. Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic Ephraim Sklyansky to the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council - 5 (Fifth Army. - V.P.) Ivan Smirnov:

“Do not spread any news about Kolchak. Do not print anything. And after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities, before our arrival, acted in this way under the influence of Kappel's threat and the danger of White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin. Do you undertake to do archaic reliability?

Having received such an encryption from the Kremlin, Ivan Smirnov instructs Alexander Shiryamov:

“In view of the movement of the Kappel detachments to Irkutsk and the unstable position of Soviet power in Irkutsk, I hereby order you, who are imprisoned by you, Admiral Kolchak, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev, upon receipt of this, immediately shoot. Report performance."

Ivan Nikitich Smirnov was a super-significant figure in the Bolshevik hierarchy at that time. Lenin and Trotsky are on an equal footing, Smirnov is Trotsky's right hand. Having received Smirnov's order to destroy Kolchak, Shiryamov, it seems, would have to personally control the "archa-reliable" execution of the order. He knows what party discipline is. I'm not new to the party. He is responsible for this head. And, therefore, he must personally make sure, see with his own eyes that everything has been done as it should. Arch-reliable. Why didn't he personally bother to come to the shore of Ushakovka/Angara then? Irkutsk in the 1920s is not a very large city, it does not take long to get from the center to any outlying point, at least one car, at worst there is a horse cart for the trip of the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee to the scene. For S. Chudnovsky found. In I. Bursak's official memoirs we read: "After some time, Chudnovsky also drove up there (to the prison. - V.P.)." Or maybe, after all, Alexander Shiryamov bothered, arrived, was present at the execution? But if yes, if he was personally, then why later neither himself nor anyone else said a word about it? Or maybe because on the banks of the Ushakovka, when it flows into the Angara further, after a volley, something happened that the chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee later wanted only one thing for the rest of his life: to forget, not to remember about it? Not to mention it was a state secret...

It is noteworthy that after the establishment of Soviet power, A. Shiryamov, the most popular in Siberia along with N. Yakovlev, P. Postyshev, D. Zverev, held rather modest posts until his death in 1955. In 1921-1923 he was secretary of the Omsk Provincial Committee, since 1923 he worked at the People's Commissariat of Education, heading the bureau of Soviet local history there. For the 40-year-old honored, re-deserved militant revolutionary, who, on the instructions of the Kremlin, led the return of the golden echelon to the center of Russia, after all, undeservedly insignificant. Maybe the reason is not that he was not given higher posts because he fell out of favor, but simply could not be trusted with these high posts? Maybe the reason is the same as that of Fedor Lukoyanov? (Let me remind you that Lukoyanov was the chairman of the Perm Provincial Cheka in 1918. According to his rank, he was supposed to be present at the execution of the royal family in Yekaterinburg, but he was not present. Shortly before the bloody tragedy in the Ipatiev House, he drove off to Perm. And after the Yekaterinburg massacre with Lukoyanov, a nervous breakdown occurred, and then for the last thirty years he was also in the shadows, in an insignificant position.) Didn't the same thing happen with Shiryamov? And if so, why?

But still, however, how many people were present on the night of the execution of the sentence of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee at Ushakovka? Maybe the list is as follows: A. Shiryamov, M. Levenson, S. Chudnovsky - for sure. Bursak and the commandant of the prison, Ishaev, are questionable. (I. Bursak could write lines about the execution of the sentence later, without being present at the execution, under the dictation of A. Shiryamov. - V.P.). And the Bolshevik doctor Fyodor Gusarov was sure to be at the execution. Alexander Shiryamov let slip about his presence (or maybe he groaned for years and decades in his soul, wanted to speak out, was burdened by the fact that he would take the secret with him?) Alexander Shiryamov in 1954 to journalist G.T. Kilesso.

Why, after all, was doctor Fyodor Gusarov involved in the execution? What was his role in this? Patience. More on this a little later.

In the meantime, let's turn to the unofficial memoirs of Ivan Bursak. (In 1969, then, on the anniversary of the defeat of the White troops on the Eastern Front, the capture of Irkutsk and the execution of Kolchak, the collection “The Defeat of Kolchak” was being prepared. The 74-year-old Bursak remained, perhaps, the only living participant in the world-famous execution in the Irkutsk Znamensky Suburb on the Ushakovka River. Bursak, too, for some reason, after the Civil War, was not in big business, in some kind of economic work.)

“Before the execution, Kolchak calmly smoked a cigarette, buttoned up all the buttons and stood at attention. After the first volley, they fired two more on the recumbent - to be sure. Opposite the Znamensky Monastery there was a large ice-hole. There the nuns took water. It was into this hole that they first pushed Pepelyaev, and then Kolchak head first. They didn’t bury it, because the Socialist-Revolutionaries could talk, and the people would be thrown to the grave. And so the ends are in the water.

Let's pay attention to the number of volleys called Bursak: the first - to defeat, two more - for fidelity. Was it necessary to doubt something, to certify something (are you alive or dead?) After such a plentiful firing on the enemies of the revolution, doctor Fyodor Gusarov? Moreover, the corpses of the executed Kolchak and Pepelyaev were pushed into a large hole. Well, let's say, there is no need to push the executed into a large hole. According to Bursak, it turns out that in preparing the execution, they did not even bother to gouge their hole in the ice ahead of time. In order to "end in the water." They used the ice-hole of the nuns of the Znamensky Monastery for their work. Yes, no. Well, probably, if they were preparing for liquidation, and then for the "ends in the water", then they made a thorough fuss for such a case. Prepared your hole. And not quite next to the ice hole of the nuns should have been this special ice hole of its own. Let's just say, an emergency hole. After all, if the nuns came in the morning for water to the usual hole, what picture would they see at the place of execution? Snow is trampled down, blown up, blood, shell casings. And is it only? Some kind of sledge-sledge brought from no one knows where (who harnessed them - horses, people? - where did they disappear later ?!), on which the executed were brought to the ice-hole. True, but where did the sleigh go, on which the corpses were brought to the Angarsk hole? Silence about it.

In September 1993, September 9, I look at the inscription on the G.T. Kilesso at the meeting in Irkutsk book. Georgy Timofeevich recounted to me what he had heard from A.A. Shiryamova about the hole in the Angara so. This hole, of course, was prepared in advance. Wide enough. Not one square meter area. With the release from prison to the place of execution, they hesitated. It seems like because of the lack of a car. Of course, there were cars in Irkutsk. Not such a huge park as it is now, but they were all the same. But for some reason, the Bolsheviks, who became the owners of the city, could not find them. So, while they were looking for cars, then, not finding them, they set off from the prison along Ushakovka to the Angara on foot, the ice hole was covered in ice in the cold. Walking from the prison to the bank of the Angara is at most 20-25 minutes. It is not clear what was waiting for the car, what to look for her? Something or someone else, maybe they were waiting, looking for? When the shots rang out and it was possible and necessary to hide the “ends in the water”, the ice that had newly formed in the bitter cold had to be hollowed out. When the fresh crust of ice was opened, the bodies were thrown into the hole... Isn't it strange that the chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee, Alexander Alexandrovich Shiryamov, who was not present at the execution, had such detailed knowledge? Heard in the retelling of Bursak or Chudnovsky, such minute details are difficult to keep in memory for a third of a century. Here, perhaps, you need to be an eyewitness, participant, organizer.

Let's return now to two details. Moreover, together with the Supreme Ruler and the presiding minister V.N. Pepelyaev also shot the Chinese executioner, and to the fact that after reading the decree of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee V.N. Pepelyaev behaved unworthily.

Why is a detail about some nameless executioner so insistently, obtrusively given? Why is so much said about Pepelyaev, who is constantly trembling before his near death, muttering prayers, to whom they say: “Get up, be ashamed, you cannot die with dignity.” And why, against his background, is Admiral Kolchak very prominently presented as a model of worthy behavior in the face of death? After all, not a shadow, we note, is not cast on the reputation of the Admiral. Reputation, on the contrary, is carefully presented as impeccable.

And in this, I think, there is a deep thoughtfulness. These "insignificant" details (the story about a certain petty executioner, about the trembling Pepelyaev) are intended to distract. The rest, the rest of the details - for the bitter, but the satisfaction of all those who in Russia and abroad are admirers of the Admiral. The admiral lived with dignity and accepted death with dignity. As befits the leader of the White movement. This, as the main thing, also crashes into memory. And the details. They should be, of course, they are even remembered. They are also important for those who knew the Admiral. But they are significant insofar as they are. Although it is the details that are designed to highlight, set off the greatness of the Admiral, his contempt for the executioners in the face of his own death. One detail (Pepelyaev begged for mercy) is not enough, two (in addition - a Chinese executioner) is already something, it even seems to be enough for greater reliability of the events. After that, it seems quite natural that, following the execution of Kolchak and Pepelyaev, their bodies were lowered into the hole. "Sail, Admiral, on your last voyage!" What else seems to fit into this smooth, better to say natural, course of events?

And here, right after the shooting volley, it seems that it could and should have come and the time has come for the actions of the Bolshevik doctor Fyodor Gusarov, whom I have already mentioned more than once.

I began my story about the execution of Kolchak and Pepelyaev with the fact that after they were executed and their bodies were lowered into the hole, their bodies did not float far, they were soon seen by Irkutsk boys, the children told the adults, the adults secretly buried the bodies in the ground.

Siberians were instructed to kill Kolchak and Pepelyaev "archically reliably". They knew the local conditions very well, they knew that simply throwing the corpses of the executed into the water does not mean hiding the ends in the water. There are bodies floating around somewhere. The temperature of the water in the icy Angara is such that faces and clothes will be completely intact during the spring opening of the river. By their faces and clothes they will determine who they carried out, washed ashore the Angara. They will betray the bodies to the ground, people will be drawn to the graves. And before the execution, the Irkutsk Chekists and the Revolutionary Committee, presumably, thought hard so that absolutely no traces would remain. What do I need to do? And it is necessary to make sure that neither by their faces, nor by their clothes, corpses emerge somewhere, no one in them could in any way identify the Supreme Ruler and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Viktor Pepelyaev. How to do it? Just. Disfigure faces, bodies, clothes beyond recognition! That's why, rather - and not to witness the death of Kolchak, the presence of a doctor with a long pre-revolutionary experience of party work, Fyodor Gusarov, was required. As a doctor, he, of course, knew well which acid poisons were needed for this, which ones were most effective; as a doctor practicing in the hospital, had unlimited access to them. The Hippocratic oath is one thing, revolutionary expediency and iron party discipline is another ... It is also believed that there were several volleys. Only ... Just not to be sure that the victims did not survive, if some signs of life are still glimmering in the victims, they will choke in the water under the ice - but in order to shoot strictly in the face, rifle, or maybe in addition, with point-blank revolver bullets, grind, disfigure the faces of those shot beyond recognition, then, to be sure, treat them with acid-poisons. And then, so as not to be recognized by clothes, by bodies, douse with a combustible mixture and set fire to it. In the sledge-sledge. And only then, when neither faces, nor clothes, nor bodies can be recognized, then “Sail, Admiral, on your last voyage!”. By no means new. Yekaterinburg developments a year and a half ago with the royal family after the execution in the Ipatiev House were. Only then, out of stupidity, they almost openly collected bottles of acids from all the pharmacies of Yekaterinburg. In Irkutsk, they acted smarter, taught by experience. Or, perhaps, an order from the Center: “And no traces! Never and nowhere! That is why, I think, the icy Angara then never betrayed either Admiral Kolchak or his associate Pepelyaev ... That is why the freshly prepared hole in the cold was covered with a thick ice film and for so long, almost until dawn, almost until 5 in the morning, the night execution on Ushakovka dragged on ... Or cannibalistic coven, I don’t know what to call it.

Just a version. Nothing to support it after 86 years is impossible. And I don’t want to think at all that the picture I painted was exactly the way it was in reality. But I think that the real picture was very, very similar to the one I painted ...

Valery PRIVALIKHIN

Execution of Kolchak
(grandfather told his father, several times and with meaning)
It took place in Irkutsk in the winter of 1920.
Grandfather saw adm. Kolchak was led to execution, from
windows of the gymnasium (my father remembers the name, I forgot).

The admiral walked with his hands behind his back and smoked a pipe.
Behind him, two people dragged his assistant (?),
who cried, clung to them, trying to kiss them
boots, and shouted: "By misunderstanding, brothers, by
misunderstanding!" The admiral took out the receiver once
mouth to say: "Before whom do you humiliate yourself, you bastard?" --
he walked on in silence, smoking his pipe, his hands folded back.

Grandfather (a Bolshevik from an early age; however, he was in the gymnasium
left SR - all fellow practitioners were divided into parties,
they wore a saber to the lessons, someone also had a gunshot)
told his father about Kolchak, that he seemed to curry favor
from the simplest family (but he is actually the son of an officer-
an artilleryman, and even a scientist; founded (seemingly, although
this is strange) Irkutsk University); that in 1905,
when the sailors tore off the insignia from the officers and
took away nominal weapons, proceeded with this to Kolchak,
he took out a saber and threw it into the sea with the words: "Do not
you gave it to me, it’s not for you to take it off. "The checker seems to
was personalized, a gift from the emperor. "You are
Do you know why Kolchak was shot? There was an order...
the Czechs were already on their way, they were afraid that they would release him." This
not very clear; the Czechs were holding adm. guarded
and issued to the Bolsheviks, it seems.
Julia Fridman

Minutes of the meetings of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission on the Kolchak case

Who and why wanted to release the Supreme Ruler of Russia

On the evening of January 15, 1919, at the railway station in Irkutsk, the Czechoslovaks handed over Admiral Kolchak to the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center. In the case of the former Supreme Ruler, an emergency investigation commission of three people was created. They tuned in to an unhurried rhythm, planned questions in advance. However, the measured work was soon crumpled: already on January 23, the Political Center bloodlessly ceded power to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. Now the Bolshevik Chudnovsky began to lead the interrogations of Kolchak.

Chekist and admiral: enemies

Little is known about this man. Samuil Gadlevich was born in 1889 in Berdichev, in a poor Jewish family. Like most of the subversives, he had neither education nor craft (in the column "Profession" they wrote "revolutionary"). He was an apprentice in a leather workshop. At an early age, he became involved in subversive activities. Arrested, served exile. He met the February Revolution of 1917 in Kyiv, where he joined the Bolshevik Party.

In May 1918 - at military supply work in the Volga region. From Moscow in 1918 he was sent to Transbaikalia (it can be assumed that he was abandoned behind the front line with a secret mission - he brought money and literature to the underground). In the region of Irkutsk he was taken prisoner. He was released from prison by the Political Center on December 27, 1919.

A lot has been written about the admiral these days. And yet it is useful to at least briefly recall what a high-ranking prisoner was kept in the Irkutsk provincial prison for 22 days.

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, Orthodox, 46 years old. From an old military family. Pupil of the Naval Cadet Corps. Member of two Arctic winterings and three expeditions (one was search and rescue). Author of several scientific papers. Member of the Russian Geographical Society. Member of the Russo-Japanese War. Was taken prisoner wounded. Initiator of the creation of the Naval General Staff.

Theorist and practitioner of mine-torpedo business. On the eve of the start of the World War, he prudently mined the Gulf of Finland and carried out successful raids on enemy ports. Passed the officer's path from midshipman to admiral. He commanded ships, a division, the Black Sea Fleet. Father of three children (two died in childhood). During the Civil War - the Supreme Ruler and Commander-in-Chief of the land and sea forces of Russia.

Awards: Large Gold (Konstantinovskaya) medal, St. George's weapon - a golden saber with the inscription "For courage", "Weapon of the brave" - ​​Golden dagger, two orders of St. Vladimir IV and II degrees, two orders of St. Anna with the inscription "For courage" and II degrees, the Order of St. Stanislaus II degree “with swords” (“swords” were also granted to the previously received Order of St. Vladimir), two orders of St. George IV and III degrees, a silver medal and a badge for the defense of Port Arthur.

In the first days of interrogations, the fate of the admiral had already been decided. Now historians have thoroughly established: the secret order came from Lenin. It is noteworthy: realizing the significance of Kolchak's personality, in the chain Lenin - Sklyansky - Lapinsh - Smirnov - Shiryamov - Chudnovsky, everyone directly or indirectly absolved himself of responsibility, this was also the case with the murder of the royal family.

Memoirs of an Executioner

The relationship between the victim and the executioner can be guessed. According to the deputy Chairman of the commission Popov, the admiral during interrogations "behaved like a prisoner-of-war commander who lost the army campaign, and from this point of view he behaved with full dignity." And Chudnovsky, I think, had complexes because of his small stature. Surely he was annoyed by the dignified behavior of a prisoner 15 years older than him, and the indecision of the Revolutionary Committee (Chudnovsky offered 18 people for execution, and Shiryamov left two - Kolchak and Pepelyaev). However, Chudnovsky’s memoirs published in 1961 will tell the attentive reader a lot (keeping the author’s spelling and grammar, we will only single out two phrases in a small fragment):

“... After making sure that my own people, the best combatants, were on duty, I went to the solitary building and opened Kolchak's cell. The "ruler" was standing near the door. Apparently, Kolchak was ready to get out of prison at any moment and start "ruling". I read him the order of the Revolutionary Committee. After that, he was handcuffed.

Will there be no judgment? Why no trial?

To tell the truth, I was a little puzzled by this question. Restraining my laughter, however, I said:

How long have you been a supporter of execution only in court? .. While orders were being made for the allocation of 15 people from the squad guarding the prison, it was reported that Kolchak wanted to turn to me with some kind of request.

What's the matter?

I ask you to give me a meeting with my wife ... Actually, not with my wife, - he corrected himself, - but with Princess Temireva.

What do you have to do with Temireva?

She is a very good person, - Kolchak answers me. - She was in charge of my workshops for sewing soldier's underwear.

Although the environment around us did not favor jokes and laughter, but after Kolchak's words, none of the comrades could resist - everyone burst out laughing.

I can’t allow meetings, - I say to Kolchak. - Is there anything else you would like to ask?

I ask you to inform my wife, who lives in Paris, that I bless my son.

I'll let you know..."

(For all his cynicism, Chudnovsky could not help but know that the last wish of the condemned must be fulfilled. Nevertheless, Kolchak was refused.)

The execution became a legend

The execution of the admiral over the years has become a legend. It is sometimes impossible to distinguish truth from fiction (which is only worth the assertion of Komsomolskaya Pravda that the clothes and linen of the executed are kept in the Irkutsk Museum). The time and place of the execution differ (although if desired, it is possible to establish this with an accuracy of an hour and a meter). But one circumstance is still passed down from generation to generation - Nikita Mikhalkov also spoke about this in a television program, based on archival documents.

Before the execution, Kolchak asked Chudnovsky what rank he was. Chudnovsky replied irritably: commissar. Then Kolchak recalled that by rank he was the Russian fleet admiral. And according to the article, either a senior or an equal in rank can command an execution. And he suggested that he himself would command the execution.

So, in obedience to his order, on the night of February 6-7, 1920, the convoy fired a volley at the cemetery behind the prison (and then two more "for fidelity"). The admiral's body was lowered under the ice into the Angara. His belongings were brought to the prison: an overcoat, a hat, a jacket, a handkerchief, a comb, a gold wedding ring and the St. George officer's cross. As with the royal family, the massacre was carried out without investigation and trial - in secret.

On this score, the resolution of the Revolutionary Committee said that the Whites were demanding the extradition of Kolchak, and that an uprising was apparently being prepared in the city. Indeed, the threat of an assault on the White Guard units was so real that the Bolsheviks hastily began to evacuate. According to an eyewitness, “the requisition of horses and sledges was announced for the transport of luggage taken away from the city. Tonight and during the day along Bolshaya Street - endless convoys of luggage and supplies, everything is being transported along the Yakutsk highway. They took away hundreds of millions of American series, all the gold and silver, so that the Kappelites would not get anything. The big street is all strewn with hay, like an inn ... "

As for the conspiracy, it really was: there is information about two attempts to free the admiral (and this secret is still waiting for its researcher). And then the Czechs demanded that the whites be given a corridor: for three days, troops marched east past Irkutsk. Exhausted, sick, frostbitten - but it was still strength ...

Irkutsk Cheka number two

On February 11, the state of siege was lifted. And on February 17, Samuil Chudnovsky became chairman of the newly created (second in a row) Irkutsk provincial Cheka, which he led until September. And again there were arrests, raids, searches and, of course, executions. The 5th Army tribunal, which arrived in March, also had enough work, which first of all investigated the murder of 31 hostages on the Angara icebreaker.

The wanted participants in the atrocity appeared before the court: Semenov officers Godlevsky, Kolchin and Kurdaev, officers of the Irkutsk garrison Lyuba and Grant, counterintelligence officers Cherepanov, Filin, Polkanov, Tsygankov, Verbitsky. It was not possible to capture Skipetrov (no traces of him were found in the archival and investigative files). Later, Colonel Sipailo and the same Cossack Lukin, who personally killed people with a mallet, were arrested - they were also sentenced to capital punishment.

The Revolutionary Tribunal also accepted cases against members of the underground officer organization Ellerz-Usov. The betrayal of the former General Popov, a Central Siberian staff worker, but connected with the white underground and supplying him with secret information, was revealed.

Even through the tribunal, many criminals who committed murders, robberies, and robberies were punished. From the newspapers, the people of Irkutsk learned with satisfaction, for example, that punishment had overtaken the so-called "koshevniks." Until recently, these bandits inspired fear: they threw strangleholds on people walking along the sidewalk from a passing cat...

And the fate of the participants in the execution of the admiral was different. Chudnovsky served in the punitive system of Tomsk, Novonikolaevsk, Smolensk. Since 1928 - the chairman of the Ural, and later the Sverdlovsk regional courts. Since 1934 - the chairman of the Ob-Irtysh, and since 1935 - the Leningrad regional courts.

In 1938 he was arrested and shot in Moscow. The chairman of the Buryat section of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee, Mikhey Yerbanov, subsequently worked for 15 years as the first chairman of the government of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR. But during the repressions he was also shot by his own. Blutlinder made his way to Irkutsk on the instructions of the party. Here Yerbanov corrected the documents - henceforth and forever Boris Blatlinder became Ivan Bursak. After being released from prison, he began to command the garrison. In 1969 he published a memoir about the execution of Kolchak. He apparently died after 1970.

The commandant of the prison, V. Ishaev, also wrote his memoirs in 1926 (Uralskaya Nov, No. 3, Sverdlovsk) - and this is where his traces end.

November 16 marks the 135th anniversary of the birth of one of the leaders of the White movement, the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Alexander Kolchak. Contrary to the popular myth that the evil Bolsheviks arrested the admiral and shot him almost immediately, Kolchak's interrogations went on for 17 days - from January 21 to February 6, 1920.

Kolchak is perhaps one of the most controversial figures of the Civil War. One of the largest explorers of the Arctic, a traveler, an unsurpassed master of minecraft during the First World War, a staunch monarchist. This is one side of the coin.

But there is also a second one. The White movement had many leaders: Kornilov, Denikin, Yudenich, Wrangel, Mai-Maevsky, Shkuro, Semyonov, Kaledin, Slashchev, Alekseev, Krasnov ... But it was Kolchak's troops that were remembered for their particular cruelty.

When the admiral took power in Siberia, the majority of the population took it quite favorably. But Alexander Vasilyevich was not a very good politician, or he trusted his officers too much, who, fighting partisans and others who disagreed with the authority of the Supreme Ruler, did not stop at nothing. Then, during interrogations, Kolchak said that he knew nothing about the cruelties that some of his officers had committed. But the fact remains - even the Cossacks from the “Wolf Hundred” of Ataman Shkuro, who fought in the ranks of the Volunteer Army of Denikin, and then obeyed Wrangel, were lambs compared to the military foreman Krasilnikov and other punishers of Admiral Kolchak.

In a word, the collapse of Kolchak's army, in many ways, is a consequence of the short-sighted and not always smart policy of the straightforward, albeit loving Russia, admiral. Contrary to the myths according to which the evil Bolsheviks captured Kolchak and immediately put him to death, they planned to hold a trial over the admiral. Moreover, not in Omsk and not in Irkutsk, but in Moscow. But the situation is different.

Here are excerpts from the last interrogation of Admiral Kolchak.

Alekseevsky. To find out your attitude to the coup, it is required to establish some additional points. By the way, it would be interesting for the Commission to know: before the coup, during and after it, did you meet in Siberia, or in the east, with Prince Lvov, who then traveled through Siberia to America?

Kolchak. No, I did not see Prince Lvov, we parted ways. I only saw another Lvov, Vladimir Mikhailovich.

Alekseevsky. Did you have any letters or instructions from Prince Lvov?

Kolchak. It seems that there was some letter from Paris during my stay in Omsk, but that was later, approximately in the summer. This letter did not contain anything important and related mainly to the activities of the political organization that was in Paris and headed by Lvov. Prior to this, I had no personal relations with Lvov and did not receive any instructions transmitted through him from anyone. The letter of which I spoke was transmitted through the consular mission in Paris in the month of July...

... Alekseevsky. Tell me your attitude towards General Kappel, as one of the largest figures in the Volunteer Army.

Kolchak. I did not know Kappel before and did not meet him, but the orders that Kappel gave marked the beginning of my deep sympathy and respect for this figure. Then, when I met with Kappel in February or March, when his units were withdrawn to the reserve, and he came to me, I talked with him for a long time on these topics, and I became convinced that he was one of the most outstanding young commanders ...

... Popov. The Commission has at its disposal a copy of the telegram with the inscription: "Arrest the members of the Constituent Assembly through the Supreme Ruler."

Kolchak. As far as I remember, it was my decision when I received this telegram threatening to open a front against me. Perhaps Vologodsky, having simultaneously received a copy of the telegram, made a resolution, but in any case, Vologodsky did not take any part in this decision. About 20 members of the Constituent Assembly were arrested, and among them there were no persons who signed the telegram, with the exception, it seems, of Devyatov. After reviewing the lists, I called the officer who escorted them, Kruglovsky, and said that I did not know these persons at all; and that they, apparently, did not take any part in the telegram and did not even seem to be persons belonging to the composition of the committee of members of the Constituent Assembly, as, for example, Fomin. I asked why they were arrested; I was told that this was an order from the local command, in view of the fact that they acted against the command and against the Supreme Ruler, that the local command was ordered to arrest them and poison them in Omsk ...

... Popov. How did their fate develop and under whose pressure? But you know that most of them were shot.

Kolchak. They were shot 8 or 9 people. They were shot during the uprising in the twentieth of December ...

... Alekseevsky. Did you give him any special instructions about this?

Kolchak. No, everything was done automatically. In case of alarm, once and for all, a schedule of troops was drawn up - where to which units to be located. The city was divided into districts, everything was taken into account. There were no surprises, and I didn't have to give instructions. On the eve of the speech, in the evening Lebedev informed me by telephone, or rather, in the morning of the next day, that the headquarters of the Bolsheviks, including 20 people, had been arrested the day before - this was a day before the speech. Lebedev said: "I consider all this sufficient for everything to be exhausted and there will be no performance."

Popov. What did he report about the fate of the arrested headquarters?

Kolchak. He only said that they were arrested.

Popov. And he did not report that there were executions at the place of arrest?

Kolchak. They were shot on the second day after the trial...

... Popov. The executions in Kulomzin were carried out on whose initiative?

Kolchak. Field court, which was appointed after the occupation of Kulomzin.

Popov. You are familiar with the situation of this court. Do you know that in essence there was no trial?

Kolchak. I knew that this was a field court, which was appointed by the head of the suppression of the uprising.

Popov. So, like this: three officers gathered and shot. Was there any business going on?

Kolchak. There was a field court.

Popov. The field court also requires formal proceedings. Do you know that this production was carried out, or you yourself, as the Supreme Ruler, were not interested in this? You, as the Supreme Ruler, should have known that in fact there were no trials, that two or three officers were imprisoned, 50 people were brought in, and they were shot. Surely you didn't have that information?

Kolchak. I did not have such information. I believed that the field court operates in the same way as the field court generally operates during uprisings ...

... Popov. And how many people were shot in Kulomzin?

Kolchak. Man 70 or 80.

Denike. Didn't you know that mass flogging was practiced in Kulomzin?

Kolchak. I knew nothing about flogging, and in general I always forbade any kind of corporal punishment - therefore, I could not even imply that flogging could exist somewhere. And where it became known to me, I prosecuted, deposed, that is, acted in a punitive manner.

Popov. Do you know that the persons who were arrested in connection with the uprising in December were subsequently tortured by the counterintelligence, and what was the nature of these tortures? What was done by the military authorities and by you, the Supreme Ruler, against these tortures?

Kolchak. No one reported this to me, and I believe that there were none.

Popov. I myself saw people detached to the Alexander Prison, who were literally completely covered with wounds and tormented by ramrods - do you know that?

Kolchak. No, I was never reported. If such things were made known, the perpetrators were punished.

Popov. Do you know that this was done at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Kolchak, in counterintelligence at headquarters?

Kolchak. No, I couldn't know because the bet couldn't do it.

Popov. This was done during counterintelligence at headquarters.

Kolchak. Obviously, the people who did this could not report to me, because they knew that I was on legal grounds all the time. If such crimes were committed, I could not know about them. Are you saying that this was done at the rate?

Popov. I say: in counterintelligence at headquarters. I return to the question of the court-martial in Kulomzin.

Kolchak. I believe that the proceedings were the same as those required in a court-martial.

Popov. In Kulomzin, in fact, about 500 people were shot, they were shot in whole groups of 50-60 people. In addition, in fact, there was no battle in Kulomzin, because only the armed workers began to go out into the street - they were already seized and shot - that was the uprising in Kulomzin.

Kolchak. This point of view is new for me, because there were wounded and killed in my troops, and even Czechs were killed, whose families I gave out benefits. How can you say that there was no fight ...

The deputy chairman of the Irkutsk Gub.Ch.K. K. Popov

During interrogations, Kolchak, according to the memoirs of the Chekists, kept calm and confident. But the last interrogation took place in a more nervous atmosphere. Ataman Semenov demanded the extradition of Kolchak, Irkutsk could be captured by parts of General Kappel. Therefore, it was decided to shoot the admiral.

The sentence was carried out on the night of February 6-7, 1920. As Popov later wrote, Admiral Kolchak behaved extremely dignified and calm during the execution. As befits a Russian officer... But the Supreme Ruler did not turn out from a brilliant naval officer...