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Petr Nikolaevich Paliy
Captive officer's notes
Part one.
The beginning of the war
In my notes about the years spent in German captivity, dozens of people appear, with some I in one way or another came into contact during this time. All those whose death I reliably know, as well as those who, due to their age, could not live up to the present, are called by their real names. I also give the real names of those who, in their activities in the conditions of prisoner camps, deserve severe censure and condemnation, with the hope that one of them is still alive and will read these notes, he, remembering the years of captivity, will blush with shame for his behavior. All those who, in all likelihood, have survived to our age, "here" or "there", I hide under the masks of fictitious names, for obvious reasons.
Anyone who will read these notes about the events of 1941-1945, now, in the second half of the 80s, of course, will be able to find both inaccuracies and a large dose of naivety, both in assessing what is happening and in anticipating the future. Then we, the mass of prisoners of war in the camps of Poland, and then Germany, were completely isolated from the whole world by rows of barbed wire and bayonets of German guards. Information about the events taking place in the world was extremely limited, and what leaked to us was usually distorted, filtered, or had a deliberate propaganda character. But it would be simply dishonest to write about how we thought, how we lived, experienced events, what hopes we had for the future, making adjustments to the knowledge and understanding of history accumulated over the next 40 years. Therefore, collecting all old notes, documents, drafts and other materials into one whole, I tried to remain what I was then, 40 years ago.
1. Before the war itself
My military career began suddenly, without warning, preparation and without the slightest desire on my part for such a radical change in my whole life. A few days after the new year, in January 1941, I was informed from the military registration and enlistment office that I had been drafted into the Red Army and enlisted in its cadres with the title of military engineer of the 3rd rank. The order, which I received in my hands, on the letterhead of the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, indicated that I had to hand over my official affairs and, on January 15, appear at the military registration and enlistment office to obtain documents and leave for my destination.
The management of the trust in which I worked made an attempt to keep me at work and to get the order of the People's Commissariat to be canceled. The director of the Muzyka trust traveled to various institutions, made telephone calls to Moscow, to the Main Directorate of the Energy Industry, to the People's Commissariat of Defense, but to no avail. Also, the efforts of the chairman of the Kiev City Council, a man with the piquant surname Ubiybatko, who acted along the party and public line, did not help either. The order remained in effect. I don’t know how much sincere desire was on the part of the management of the trust to keep me in the service. Probably it was. In the system of our trust, I was considered one of the best installation engineers, and when, after several well-done work by me, I was appointed to the position of the chief engineer for the installation of a new power plant in Kiev, it was not accidental. The construction of the station was shock, and it was supposed to be carried out by high-speed methods, and I was the author of several articles in the technical journal "Heat and Power", devoted to this very issue. In addition, I was a senior consultant on the project management team for this new station. So my candidacy for the post of editorial director was logical.
But there was another side to this medal. My past was stained. When, almost immediately after graduation, I was called up to serve my military service, I already had the title of military engineer of the 3rd rank. At the institute, we all underwent pre-conscription training, drill training, participated in army maneuvers, and also attended a number of courses of a purely military nature and should have received at least a "satisfactory" credit for them. The titles were awarded by a special commission, those who were better received "military engineer of the 3rd rank", and those who were worse received "military technician of the 1st rank". I turned out to be "better". Such newly minted military engineers were sent for a mandatory period of service not to combat units of the army, but to enterprises of the military industry, subordinate to the People's Commissariat of Defense. We had to work in this system for two years, and after that period we retired and returned to civilian life. I honestly served my two years on the construction of a defense plant in the Kazan region, but when the time came to an end, we were all asked to sign a statement that we, "military production workers", express our desire to remain in the system of the People's Commissariat of Defense forever. Out of 14 engineers who served two years of military production at our plant, 5 people signed these statements, and the rest refused, including me. They did not let us go, they persuaded us, they frightened us, insisted, we desperately resisted and demanded that we be released "free." I turned into the leader of the resistance movement, but instead of being released, I was arrested and spent almost 9 months in the internal prison of the GPU headquarters on Chernyshevskaya Street in Kazan.
I was immediately accused of all mortal sins. In bourgeois nationalism, chauvinism and separatism, obviously because I received from Kiev the Ukrainian newspaper "Proletarska Pravda" and various books in Ukrainian. I was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation directed against the government, this was, of course, a consequence of my "leaderism" in a group that did not want to stay at the factory. I was also accused of economic counter-revolution - why, I still could not understand ... During my time in jail, I was summoned for interrogations 30-35 times, then during the day and at night, I received my share of the massacre, however, without injuries, and then, so Suddenly, just as they were arrested, they were released without trial, without a formal investigation, but only with a ban on living in the capitals of the republics.
I was young, just starting my job as an engineer, my social background was quite decent and there were no suspicious activities in my still very short life. One way or another, I ended up in Kiev again, in the same trust where I worked in the last two years of my student life and immediately after receiving my diploma. But with a speck. The head of the Special Department, who had known me from the moment I joined the trust, showed me a note in my file: "A capable, knowledgeable engineer, a good administrator, can be used in responsible managerial work, but under special supervision, is politically unstable." When in 1935 the capital of Ukraine was transferred from Kharkov to Kiev, no one ordered me to get out of Kiev, and I continued to work in the capital. The party circles in the trust were not particularly pleased that the place of the chief engineer of the "shock construction in the capital of the republic" was taken by a non-party, and even "politically unstable" one, but so far they tolerated it. However, I felt that the time was approaching when I would be transferred somewhere. I even knew for sure who would take my place: Boris Kogan, my colleague, a good engineer and with a party membership card, was sent to the specially newly created position of “deputy chief engineer”. It was very disappointing, because I loved my work very much, gave it a lot of time, enthusiastically introducing theoretical methods of high-speed block editing into life, achieving positive results and recognizing their cost-effectiveness and efficiency. I especially felt this "reverse side of the coin" when one day I had to replace the director of our construction Miron Tovkach in his weekly report on the progress of work to the "owner" himself. Nikita Khrushchev was very interested in the construction of the station. After listening to my report, Khrushchev made a couple of comments, asked a few questions and gave "operational instructions", and then looked at me with unpleasant, hard, slightly swollen eyes and said: "What are you? Not a party member or even a candidate! Why is this? And what are you doing there in Kazan? Put your brains in place? You occupy a responsible place, you are entrusted with a lot! Look, buddy, don't screw it up! Well, come on, I don't have time to talk now ... but we will meet with you. Go to the construction site! "
My wife took the news of my enlistment in the army very calmly. (This was my second marriage. The first, student marriage, ended in divorce. I was not yet twenty years old when, during my summer internship at a plant in Donbass, I met a student from another city. While we lived and studied in different cities, everything went well. But when they moved in and began to live together, they both decided that we should not have done what we did, and we parted.) We lived for almost ten years, but since she became an artist of the drama theater, our paths began to diverge. I wanted a family, and she was more and more fond of theatrical life, her career, by the way, was quite successful. “It's very sad, but of course I can't go with you somewhere in the wilderness. It would mean putting an end to my future, at the theater. And losing an apartment in Kiev is also stupid. We'll have to live apart for a while. I am sure that Uncle Tolya will be able to help you to be transferred after a while to the center, to the district. He has great connections in Moscow ... "
Her uncle was a general in the technical troops, worked in the People's Commissariat and lectured at the Military Academy. Frunze.
Of course, my wife was right ... And I left to "live separately" to unknown places, in a completely new situation, insulted, offended, indignant, lonely and completely helpless to change anything. After spending a day in Minsk, at the headquarters of the Belarusian Military District, on January 17, I ended up in the town of Vysokoe, 25 kilometers from Brest-Litovsk, where the UNS-84 was located, or the Office of the Chief of Construction No. 84, where I was appointed to the position of chief of the equipment group in planning and production department. I felt neither joy nor satisfaction from the "high" position.
First they settled in a house of visitors. This hostel was set up in a house previously owned by a wealthy Jewish merchant. They said that the first residents of this house, after the capture of this part of Poland by Soviet troops, found a treasure in the wall of a room. Since then, all the temporary residents have tried their luck ... all the walls in all the rooms were with holes, the floors were raised, now and then there were no floorboards.
I spent almost a week in this hostel among strangers, noisy, sloppy and mostly unpleasant people. Dirt in the rooms, filthy toilets, inability to wash, rest. All the time, night and day, someone came and went, collected things or unpacked, all this was done with noise, often with arguments and abuse. In the middle of the night, suddenly there was drinking, talking, obscene anecdotes and then drunken laughter. If you finally calmed down and went to bed, then snoring and puffing did not contribute to rest.
UNS-84 here, in Vysokoe, was transferred from Slutsk immediately after the occupation of western Belarus by the Red Army in 1939. The task of all this construction was the construction of defenses along the new border between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. UNS-84 was in charge of works from Brest-Litovsk to Lomzha, basically all objects were built along the Bug River. Over a section of more than two hundred kilometers, more than a thousand pillboxes were built, as long-term firing points were called for short. Some of the types were quite substantial, several stories high, with heavy artillery. Groups of pillboxes in a given area were located in such a way that, if possible, the entire area was well covered and there were no dead zones for either machine-gun or artillery fire. Each group consisted of a combination of different types of pillboxes, depending on the conditions and terrain, ranging from the simplest machine-gun nests to command posts with a central power station, their own water supply, telephone and radio stations, staff quarters, a kitchen, ammunition and food warehouses.
It was supposed to create a completely impenetrable barrier. Construction was carried out in a hurry, with the involvement of a large number of the local population to mobilize. From the point of view of the art of fortification, the whole project was designed very well and, when executed, promised to be very effective in the sense of defending the border from the advance of enemy ground forces. It was taken into account that if parachute units were transferred through the line of defense and certain areas were in the rear of the enemy, then the system should function normally for several weeks.
Most of the equipment came from manufacturers in a finished, assembled form. On the spot, in the central workshops, which were located 15 kilometers from the headquarters, nor the Cheremkha station, only some details and simple parts were manufactured, such as ventilation ducts, parts of the water supply system, various supports, frames, etc. But - workshops were loaded with work not planned, but emergency. The fact is that in the main project, according to which equipment was manufactured at factories far in the country, very often changes were made at headquarters and here at construction, after receiving the equipment. Changing the position of the bunker on the map, changing the angle of fire, errors during concreting entailed many minor alterations in the details connecting the individual elements of the equipment. There was a rush, a race, telephone conversations, hysterics of the authorities, a rush to rush.
The chief engineer of the UNS-84 was a military engineer of the 1st rank Lyashkevich, an undoubtedly smart man who knew the business of fortification, but a terrible coward and careerist. The main department of construction management was the so-called. planning and production, whose chief was Colonel Sokolov, narrow-minded, sluggish and with limited education personnel engineer-sapper. I was appointed to the position of the head of the equipment group. Then I immediately got into a very unpleasant atmosphere. The point was that the main staff of the entire management, and, of course, the planning and production department, was staffed from workers transferred from Slutsk, it was a close group with its own methods of work, internal cohesion, long-term cohesion and its own group interests. They were unfriendly, suspicious and clearly prejudiced towards the newcomers sent from "civilian life". Each order, especially one given by some kind of innovation, was met with disputes, objections, references to the fact that "we did not do that ..." All this was aggravated by the fact that my deputy in the group was a military technician of the 1st rank Krasilnikov, who considered himself offended , bypassed in promotion and offended, because he himself was aiming at my place. For him it was very important in terms of his career and in terms of personal prestige and position in this small "elite" group of "Slutsk old-timers". This Krasilnikov, among other things, would be the party organizer of the planning and production department, of course, a sex worker of the NKVD, a great intriguer by vocation and generally an extremely unpleasant person.
The town of Vysokoe, or Vysoko-Litovsk, was located 20 kilometers northwest of Brest-Litovsk, where the center of the entire Stronghold - UR was located. UNS-84 in relation to the UR "was a contractor fulfilling the orders of the latter. I went to Brest-Litovsk, mainly in order to see the city, famous for the fact that here in 1918 an agreement would be signed," a world without annexations and indemnities ", Between Germany and the Bolsheviks. Officially, I went to get acquainted with the construction of fortifications. It was here, in the fortress of Brest-Litovsk, that extensive work was launched to modernize the fortress and several different fortifications and pillboxes were built. The head of the construction site on the territory of the fortress was an engineer I know. builder, military engineer of the 2nd rank Yasha Horowitz. I met him in the Scientific and Technical Society in Kiev. It turned out that Horowitz was also mobilized, even before me, and had already managed to get a good job here and even moved his family from Kiev.
After inspecting the construction and business conversations, Horowitz invited me to his apartment for lunch. He occupied a whole house on the outskirts of the city, had a servant, a Polish girl, and his own car with a chauffeur. The whole house was very well furnished and rich. And Yasha himself, and especially his wife, Sonya, was fond of buying expensive and rare things. “You can get a lot here just for a song in comparison with Kiev. Look: I bought these three paintings by Mayevsky literally for a pittance, but in Kiev or Moscow you can easily sell them for two thousand, because these are museum exhibits! " - Yasha showed me his acquisitions with enthusiasm.
The dinner was wonderful, there was also a "museum" service on the table, and a servant served to the table ... Yasha Horowitz lived well here! He told me either an anecdote or a real case: in 1939, when the demarcation line between the USSR and Germany was established, in this area it passed along the main channel of the Western Bug River, and the main channel went between the city of Brest-Litovsk and the fortress on island, and thus the fortress should have fallen into the hands of the Germans. As if, taking this into account, the Soviet command, 24 hours before the approach of the Germans, deployed a whole division here, and by the time the Germans arrived, it turned out that the main channel had changed the current, went on the other side of the island, and the fortress remained in the hands of the USSR. “They say that ten thousand people worked almost only with shovels all 24 hours, but they did it. The Germans were very surprised at such a 'geographically phenomenal event', but they swallowed it, ”Yasha laughed.
After a week of agony in an out-of-town dormitory, I got a room at the home of a local school teacher. The teacher himself spoke Russian completely fluently, but his wife, Mrs. Mogulska, and his daughter Rysya, a pretty seventeen-year-old girl, and his son Kazik, a dexterous and very sociable lad, lay down at 14, spoke with difficulty, despite the fact that it had already passed a year and a half since these places were transferred to the USSR. Kazimir Stepanovich Mogulsky was, apparently, well educated, well-read, but extremely careful in his conversations. Only once did he say a word, saying that earlier, under the Poles, children in schools in Poland received more knowledge, because less time was spent on "propaganda" sciences. He said and was terribly scared. For a long time and confusingly, I began to explain my thought and ended with a rather propaganda statement: "But this is completely justified and absolutely necessary, you need to restructure the thinking of young people who grew up under capitalism so that they could be loyal and conscientious citizens of their socialist country."
Therefore, it was not particularly interesting to talk to Mogulsky. The Mogulskys' house, in which I received a room, adjoined a large park that surrounded the Potocki palace, or rather, one of the many palaces of this famous family. There was a lake in the park, in the middle of the lake there was an island connected to the shore by an old stone bridge, and on the island there were the ruins of an ancient castle of centuries ago. Mogulsky said that the first castle was built here in the middle of the fourteenth century, then it was rebuilt and altered many times, and from the end of the seventeenth century it was completely abandoned. The ruins were now covered with hundred-year-old trees, the remains of the walls were covered with moss and bushes. In my free time I loved to come here and sit on the stones, imagining scenes from the long-gone life of Polish knights. Zbyshko, Pan Volodievsky, Zagloba, Kmitits from Senkevich's "Fire and Sword" were the heroes of these scenes.
The new palace was a long, partly two-story, but mostly one-story building, of very simple architecture, without pretensions and luxury. The entire building, annexes and services were occupied by the headquarters of the 145th rifle division, parts of which were quartered in the surrounding villages and hamlets. And in the park, and on the streets, and in all the shops of the town, there was always a mass of military men, so that it seemed that this was not a city, but a military camp. Even in the Mogulsky family, a young lieutenant Yura Davydov, a persistent suitor of the Lynx, was a regular.
My work was not going well. Krasilnikov behaved defiantly, obviously trying to provoke me into some rash act. I restrained myself and tried to behave exactly within the framework of the official regulations, several times talked with Colonel Sokolov about the need to normalize work in the group, but Sokolov, apparently, was afraid of Krasilnikov himself and did nothing. The matter ended with the fact that after one of Krasilnikov's antics, I, angry, went to Sokolov and demanded his permission to meet with the chief engineer Lyashkevich and the head of the department, Colonel Safronov. He, recognizing his own helplessness, reluctantly agreed. As a result of this meeting, Krasilnikov was the winner. I wanted Krasilnikov to be transferred from my group to somewhere else, but instead, the authorities decided to appoint me the head of the central workshops and the base at the Cheremkha station. They assured that there was a more suitable job for me as an administrator and production engineer, and that it was impossible to transfer Krasilnikov to another job because of his party position in the department. In fact, for me it was, of course, a promotion, since in the workshops and on the base there were a total of more than 600 people, and the authorities were tactful enough, emphasizing this circumstance in the construction order. The next day everyone read that, "due to the administrative unification of the central workshops and the main material base of construction," the head of this new organization, the "central engineering and material base", was appointed a military engineer of the 3rd rank P. N. Paliy, in the same the order indicated that at the time the acting chief of the equipment group of the planning and production department was appointed military technician of the 1st rank P. S. Krasilnikov. In the end, I was even glad. Farther from this kubl of bureaucrats and party intriguers, there will be cleaner air. Two days later, I said goodbye to the Mogulsky family and moved to Cheremkha. An apartment was already prepared for me in the house of a Belarusian railway worker, in a village near the station. They greeted me very well and friendly.
Until now, there have been two independent organizations: "Material base" and "central workshops", subordinate in parallel to different departments in management, now they were united and subordinated to the department of the chief engineer. Both the head of the workshops, Dudin, a civilian technician, and the head of the warehouses, quartermaster Lieutenant Lifshits, were glad that the time for bureaucratic strife was over and all controversial issues could now be resolved on the spot, immediately, promptly, in the office of the general chief.
From the very first days I was carried away by work. In addition to the technical side, which was carried out the old fashioned way, ineffective, with very low labor productivity, and where much could be improved, the administrative and organizational side of the work required immediate close attention. Both in workshops and in warehouses they worked different groups: military personnel officers, half-lishens from construction battalions, civilians from the Soviet Union and civilians or mobilized from the local population. These groups, by their position, were antagonistic to each other, and this caused an endless chain of incidents, troubles and sometimes even fights and scandals. I, by my nature, was fond of work, if I liked it, and here, in Cheremkha, I went into business. He was one of the first to come to work and often returned long after midnight. My assistants Dudin and Lifshits were also inspired and did their best to help me in my efforts to establish a common work.
The most difficult part of the work was household issues. All the workers sent, especially the construction battalions, lived in cramped, dirty, completely unsanitary barracks, the food was just prison food, half-starved. There was a canteen at the base where all the workers could get lunch, very low quality and limited in quantity, and that was all. They all had to organize breakfasts and dinners for themselves. In the barracks one could only get hot water, and then at certain hours of the day. Stroybatovtsy, who are in the position of almost prisoners, because in these military units, at the call, were those who, in their own way social background or because of some "sins before the authorities", he was not worthy "to join the ranks of the workers 'and peasants' Red Army." They lived in separate barracks on an almost prison regime and received food three times a day ... but what! It was difficult to demand something from these hungry, angry and persecuted by the authorities "disenfranchised".
The medical care was outrageously poor. For 600 people working at the base there was a first-aid post headed by a young doctor mobilized right after the institute, with almost no practice. Under his command were three orderlies and four nurses, working in two shifts. The first-aid post had a room with six beds. The sick lay in the barracks, if they had nothing contagious, and the seriously ill were taken to the city hospitals of Vysoko-Litovsk or to the railway hospital in Cheremkha. Medicines and any other hospital supplies were far from sufficient even for half of the workers. For three months of work, with the help of Boris Lifshits, who turned out to be a remarkably efficient, businesslike and intelligent person who sincerely wanted to improve the general situation at the base, and a rather influential member of the party, I managed to fix and improve a lot.
There was a lot of work, but the main thing was that my and my assistants' efforts clearly yielded positive results. There was a noticeable improvement in relations among the mass of workers, labor productivity increased, it was possible to get a second doctor at the first-aid post and, finally, to put the "food shop" in relative order and even open a permanent food stall on the territory of the base.
I made myself a small bedroom behind my study and often stayed overnight at the base if I stayed long at work.
On May Day, I got a four-day vacation and went home to Kiev. On the way, I decided to stop for a few hours in the city of Kovel. This is where I was born. My father was then an inspector and teacher of mathematics at a railway school, and my mother was in charge of an elementary two-year city school on the outskirts of the city. Mother was supposed to have a very decent apartment at school, and there, on Kolodenskaya Street, I was born and lived until the day when the approaching Germans called for a complete evacuation in mid-1915. I was then five and a half years old. I wanted to look at the place where I was born, and for some reason I was sure that I would easily find it from my childhood memory. And so it happened. After passing half a kilometer along railroad, I saw a tunnel through which a passing road passed, and then it turned into Kolodenskaya street. Then I immediately remembered one incident. It was late autumn 1914; Father, returning home, said that tomorrow Tsar Nicholas II would pass through Kovel to the front and that the railway school, like the men's and women's gymnasiums, would meet the Tsar on the platform of the station. He promised to take my sister and me to this meeting. Towards evening, my mother and I were returning from the city in a cab, it was raining, it was damp and cold. In this tunnel, the mother saw a small child's figure pressed against the wall. Having stopped the cab, the mother recognized one of her students, Cesik Poplavsky, the smallest, shy and quiet boy in the school. During breaks I sometimes played with him, he was probably no more than eight years old. This was his first year at school and he still had difficulty speaking Russian. To the mother's question: "What are you doing here, Chezik?" - he quietly replied: "Krulya checks." He found out from somewhere that the "Krul" would pass and decided to provide himself with a place of observation in advance. His mother took him into a cab and took him to his parents. And the next day my sister and I, dressed in the most ceremonial costumes, stood beside our father, also in ceremonial uniform, with medals on our uniform and a "frog" on our side, in the ranks of the railway school. The entire platform was occupied by a line of educational institutions of the city and all local authorities. The train approached to the sound of the hymn "God Save the Tsar," performed by a brass band and a large cathedral choir with the participation of the best choirists from schools and grammar schools. To the sound of music and singing, the train stopped, and the emperor stepped out of the carriage door, directly opposite where we were standing. Obviously, the first thing that caught his attention was my sister and I. He took a few steps, lifted my sister's face by the chin and, bending down, kissed her on the cheek, and then gently ran his hand over my head and continued walking along the line, accompanied by a large retinue. I remember well his face and his gentle, soft smile. Many times later, the mother told about this incident and, perhaps, was even proud of this "highest" attention to her children.
Now I easily found the house where the school and our apartment used to be. There have been few changes over the past quarter century. True, the street was paved and sidewalks appeared, in some places there were new brick houses; behind the school, which once had been an orchard, and behind it were grain fields, there was now a row of four-story gray buildings. The half of the house where the school used to be was converted into residential apartments. I stood in front of the house and then entered the courtyard. The appearance of the Soviet commander created a sensation: curious faces of women and children peeped out of all the windows, and several passers-by stopped in the street. I wanted to leave feeling rather uncomfortable, but an old Jewish man came up to me and asked what I wanted. I replied that I just came to see the house where I was born. After a short conversation, the terribly agitated old man remembered “Madam teacher” and “Pan himself”, and even us children, “a pretty little girl” and “such a little man”, he put his hand half a meter above the ground, myself. He told me his name and said that all these years he lived in the same house as before. The old man fussed, even shed a tear when he learned that my parents were no longer alive. Grabbing my hand, he kept repeating: "Ah, ah, ah ... such a manly ... gentleman officer, a very important gentleman ..." I hurriedly retreated, fearing that such an unusual street meeting of the residents of Kolodenskaya Street might pay attention, and then I would have to explain and prove something ... I returned to the station and sat in the waiting room until the train arrived.
The trip to Kiev brought only disappointment and left an unpleasant feeling that my life with my wife was drawing to a close. All three days she was "terribly busy", a parade performance, then participation in several concerts, then a "collective meeting" dedicated to the upcoming tour in Moscow, but for me, after four months of separation, "living apart", and there was no time left. At night, when she returned, I listened to her stories about the upcoming trip to the capital and her career hopes, but I did not feel much interest in my position in the present and in our joint future. So I left for Cheremkha, my wife could not even take me to the train, there was no time ...
The name of Vasya Kurka was well known not only by Soviet soldiers, but also by the enemy. During one of the interrogations, a captured Wehrmacht officer said that his command had heard about a super sniper from General Grechko's units. The German invaders considered Kurka to be an ace sniper who almost fused his body with a rifle.
This photo was taken during the Tuapse defensive operation. On it a group of snipers on vacation. Take a look at the boy on the right, he's barely taller than his rifle. It’s hard to believe, but at that time there were 30 destroyed enemies on the account of this child. And just for his short life he will shoot 179 German soldiers and officers. 
The beginning of the way
Vasya Kurka was born in 1926 in the village of Lyubomirka, Olgopolsky (since 1966 - Chechelnitsky) district of the Vinnitsa region of the Ukrainian SSR.
With the beginning of the war, he, like his other peers, was sent to a metallurgical plant to undergo training in turning and metalworking specialties.
August 1941. In the village of Lyubomirka, Vinnitsa region, after a bloody battle, the 2nd rifle battalion of Major Andreev was located. It was supposed to take up the defensive here. When the dead were buried and the wounded were sent to the rear, it turned out that there were 2 - 3 fighters left in the squads, the entire battalion was, at best, a company, and then an incomplete one. No replenishment has been received. Early in the morning, Major Andreev and the battalion commissar, senior political instructor Shurfinsky, were visited by 8 local residents... They asked to be enrolled as soldiers of the battalion. At the door the commissioner saw a thin, snub-nosed boy. "- And who are you?" - Shurfinsky asked him. "- Vasya Kurka," the boy replied. "- How old are you?" "- Why not take? I am 13 years old, already considerable. And I will fight like everyone else, you will see ..."
By nightfall, the battalion left Lyubomirka by order. Vasya Kurka went east with the soldiers. So his fighting soldier's life began. During his soldier's life, Vasya made many friends, he participated in many battles. 
Tutorial
When in April 1942 it was decided to organize sniper courses, Vasya persistently begged the command of his regiment to be allowed to become a sniper school cadet. Shooting was taught by Maxim S. Bryksin.
***
“One day, after thorough preparation, Maxim brought Vasya to the area of \u200b\u200bthe 1st company and showed him a sniper post. Vasya liked the place. He carefully cleared the approaches with a wooden shovel, straightened the viewing slots, loopholes, and a place for the rifle to rest. Maxim watched the work of his young friend. “Today your task,” he said, “is to study the defense and behavior of the enemy. All day you will act like a sniper - an observer. Do not open the fire, do not reveal yourself, beware of German snipers - they, too, do not slurp soup with bast shoes. "
The first lesson was unsuccessful. Vasya took the mock enemy's head for a living, shot at the target and declassified his post. The days of hard study dragged on again. And Vasya understood: only caution, careful camouflage and iron restraint would make him a real sniper.
Finally he was allowed to engage in single combat with an enemy sniper. Here he had to act independently, and his life largely depended only on himself. Vasya made a scarecrow, put on a camouflage coat and went to the front line. The scarecrow set up a few meters from the main post and began to pull it by the rope. And then a shot slammed over the trench, the scarecrow fell. And at that moment Vasya saw an enemy sniper who crawled out from behind cover to look at his "victim". Holding his breath, in one movement Vasya brought the front sight under the target and smoothly pulled the trigger. From excitement and tension, he did not even hear the shot, but he clearly saw how the head of his opponent jerked and immediately disappeared into the trench.
The regiment commander in front of the formation announced his gratitude to Vasya, but even after that the training did not stop. Every day his skill grew, and the number of exterminated enemies grew.
In the battle near Radomyshl, Kurka imperceptibly penetrated the outskirts of the farm and took a convenient position at the turn of the road. Under the onslaught of the Soviet units, the soldiers of the defending German company in groups and alone began to retreat. It was then that Vasya Kurka met them with fire from his ambush. He let enemy soldiers literally a few meters and shot them point-blank. Vasya ran out of cartridges. Then he picked up a captured machine gun, changed position and opened fire again. In this battle, a brave sniper killed up to two dozen enemy soldiers.
A few days later, a rifle company fought for a strong point. Vasya this time also proved to be a fearless sniper - scout. He crawled to the rear of the Germans, destroyed several firing points and helped the company to occupy an enemy stronghold. For this feat Vasya was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
***
After the course, closer to May 1942, Kurka passed the exams with excellent marks. He opened his combat account on May 9, destroying the first enemy. By September 1942, Vasily had eliminated 31 German invaders, including 19 opponents during the defense on the Mius River, where German troops created a defensive line.
In the summer of 1943, Kurka helped 59 snipers to "adjust the sights", who sent more than 600 enemies to their forefathers. Many of his students received orders and medals of the Soviet Union. At some point in the war, Vasya improved his score to 138 killed invaders. Due to the peculiarities of his character, the core of which was courage and endurance, Kurka became one of the most productive shooters among Soviet soldiers.
***
“It was in Donbass near Chistyakov. Vasya went on reconnaissance with Styopa, a young sergeant. Stepan was older, taller, he hardly smiled, rarely spoke. And so Vasya and Stepan were ordered to cross the front line and get information about the enemy. On the road to Chistyakov there is a small farm where the battalion used to stand. Stepan said: "- One grandmother lives here, let's go and drink some water." But this grandmother turned out to be a traitor. As soon as Stepan opened the door, the grandmother immediately recognized him. "- Bolshevik!" she shouted. There was nowhere to run. It was as if the Germans had grown out of the ground. They grabbed Vasya and Styopa and threw them into the cellar. "- I, Vasya, is unlikely to be able to get out. Grandma will tell everything about me. I gave Mahu, and when we were standing with the reconnaissance platoon, I was friendly ... I will not admit to them, but you say that you just stuck to me on the way. cry, ask ... "
Vasya wanted to answer, but Stepan interrupted him: "- I'm not asking you, but ordering. I can die alone, and you will bring the reconnaissance to the end. Find out for sure if there are tanks in Chistyakov."
The Germans sent Stepan to the city for interrogation, and they believed Vasya that he happened to be with Stepan and was released. Vasya did everything that Stepan had punished him. He walked, crawled, climbed across the river, entered the city and counted every single enemy tank. And by the end of the day he returned safely to the battalion, reported to the commander. An hour later, Soviet planes bombed a column of German tanks near Chistyakov. Vasya Kurka was awarded the first military award - the medal "For Courage".
***
Thunderstorm of the Germans
Once the company was ordered to occupy the eastern settlement of Dovbysh. The enemy shot through every meter of the ground. Then the commander summoned Vasya and said: "We need to get into the flank of the Fritzes, look out and silence their machine guns." Vasya waited until an artillery salvo struck, ran across the clearing, dug a trench and began work. Here the German machine gun fell silent, then the second one. Three submachine gunners, one after another, rolled down from the roof. It was frosty. You move, the enemy will notice, and then the end. But you can't leave. Vasya did not move - he waited, peered, destroyed enemies, pushed the way for the company. This single combat lasted for several hours. And then the company rose and seized the settlement by storm. When the battle was over, the commander approached. He wanted to evaluate the work of the young sniper with some very good words. But there was no time to think for a long time, and the commander only said: - "Sniper, brother, sometimes stronger than artillery. Thank you very much, Vasya. Thanks from me and from the soldiers. He helped us out." For this battle, Vasya was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
When the battalion fought on the lands of Poland and Czechoslovakia, Vasya became a threat to enemy officers. He conducted well-aimed fire at the shiny binoculars and the cockade on the officer's cap, and at night he could hit the enemy with a cigarette light. Moreover, he hit the target from the first shots. It was a great skill. Vasya fired into the embrasures of the bunkers - and the bunkers froze, beat the German snipers and spotters. Snipers from other units came to him to exchange experience.
And Vasya's fighting days continued. They wanted to transfer him to the intelligence department of the front headquarters, but he begged to stay in his native regiment. In short breaks between battles, Vasya could often be seen in the circle of rural children from local villages. I told them about my life as a soldier, I recalled my dear Lyubomirka. But he never boasted, did not boast of orders and medals. And the guys envied him, watched with admiration how well the tunic sat on him, lovingly sewn by the regimental tailor. 
Officially, the Soviet sniper had 179 killed invaders, of which about 80 were German officers. In addition, Kurka shot down a tactical reconnaissance aircraft Focke-Wulf Fw 189 Uhu.
***
In the fall of 1944, intense fighting took place at the Sandomierz bridgehead. Vasya Kurka acts as part of the assault group. The daredevils took possession of the stone structure, but found themselves surrounded. - “Vasya,” says the commander of the group, Sergeant Major Leskov, “do you see a new trench with a communication channel and a rifle cell? „-“ I see. There, it seems, the Germans are installing a machine gun on a tripod. " - "Correctly. I can clearly see it through binoculars. Point your rifle at them, destroy the machine gun - we will break through to our own. " And, as always, Vasya shot accurately, as if he had hit the enemy. - "I see the movement of a small group of people, - he reports, - sneaking along the bushes." - "Wait, Vasya, let them come closer." And when the Germans approached at a distance of 300 meters, Kurka opened aimed fire. Taking advantage of the enemy's confusion, the assault group emerged from the encirclement.
Approaches to the town of Cisna. On the pinkish morning sky, the silhouette of the enemy aircraft "Focke-Wulf-189" ("frame" - as our soldiers call it) is clearly visible. The enemy pilot passed low over the regiment headquarters. But then single shots of a sniper rifle sound, and a German reconnaissance plane, engulfed in smoke, falls into the lowland. The division commander called Vasya to the phone. “Well done, Kurka,” he said, “you are a real sniper, thank you. „
***
The last fight
... The village of Shparoivka in Czechoslovakia. Shells and mines are flying over the hills. An aerial battle begins in the sky. As soon as the rifle company captured the first line of enemy trenches outside the village, a group of machine gunners rushed into the breakthrough. Vasya was with them. He ran through the enemy trenches, holding a rifle and a grenade at the ready. In a narrow passage he came across a German non - commissioned officer. It is impossible to miss here, they came close. It is important to shoot first, and Vasya was the first to shoot. He did not even run 5 meters when an enemy grenade flew out and spun around him. Kurka grabbed her by the long handle and threw her back.
Even the enemies knew Vasya Kurka's name. A captured Wehrmacht officer at one of the interrogations showed: the German command is well aware that "among the Soviet units of General Grechko there is a super sniper, a sniper - an ace whose body almost fused with a rifle." No wonder the enemy started talking about the famous sniper. With his well-aimed fire, he, according to incomplete calculations, destroyed several hundred enemies, and among them at least 80 officers.
But here is the last battle, the last conversation with the commander: "- Tomorrow we start the battle, prepare a good observation post." - "I'll climb that pipe over there, you see how tall it is." - “The idea is correct, but it’s dangerous. And you are unlikely to get there. " - "I have already been there and have attached a hanging bench for myself."
It was dawning. More and more often gunfire flashed, deafening shots were heard, machine guns were nervously talking among themselves. The rattling of machine guns grew and subsided. The wind whistled over the brick chimney. The air was blowing from below and smelled of burning. The trumpet swayed slightly, and hummed dully. Vasya calmly watched the enemy, adjusted the fire of the artillery battery and, as always, calmly conducted aimed fire, destroying the officers and observers. There was a telephone on the pipe, and Vasya had contact with the artillerymen. If the gunners were shooting inaccurately. Kurka made corrections.
All morning there was shooting from both sides. Suddenly, at the very top of the chimney, where Vasya was sitting, a flame flared up, and the chimney was enveloped in smoke.
The artillery commander's heart sank. He ran to the phone. "- Kurka, Kurka, what's wrong with you?" But the telephone receiver was silent. The officer clung to the eyepieces of the binoculars. Almost at the very center of the pipe, he saw a ragged hole. An enemy shell hit the Vasin observation post. When, after a few minutes, the soldiers approached the pipe, they saw a bloody sheet of paper. Vasya wrote the coordinates of the enemy mortar battery on it.
And this piece of paper is all that remains of it. "
***
The name of Vasily Timofeevich Kurka is associated with the literary image of the legendary thirteen-year-old pioneer-hero Vasya Kurka, which arose, probably as a result of artistic generalization of the biographies of three young soldiers who fought in 1941-42 as part of the 395th rifle division - a pupil of the headquarters of the sniper division Zhenya Suvorov, The 467th separate motorcycle reconnaissance company of the reconnaissance officer Zhenya Zelinsky and the Red Army soldier of the 726th regiment of the sniper-fighter Vasya Kurka.
Vasya Kurka was buried in the town of Klimontuv (Poland) at the fraternal cemetery of Soviet servicemen.
Memory
In honor of Vasily Timofeevich Kurka, the young hero of the Great Patriotic War, the name "Vasya Kurka" was given to a Soviet sea cargo ship with a displacement of 3.9 thousand tons of brt, built in 1976 in Romania (port of registry - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky).
Streets in the village are named after Vasya Kurka. Lyubomirka and in the village Chechelnik, a school in the village. Lyubomirka.
Lieutenant Kurka Vasily Timofeevich was recognized by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland as the national hero of Poland.
The expositions of the museum of the memorial complex "Mius-front" (Krasny Luch) and the museum of the defense of the city of Tuapse exhibit photographs of V. T. Kurka and other materials about him.
In 1985, the Ukrainian Soviet publishing house "Mystetstvo" (Kiev) published a postcard "Vasya Kurka" from the series "Pioneer Heroes" (artist - Yukhim Kud) 
“It turned out that the reason for the attack on the ATC in Donetsk was the suspicion that the policemen who were under the control of Kiev were collecting information about the militia. In his Horlivka, Bezler, for example, did not at all deal with the local traffic police, which was under Kiev subordination. "They supposedly go about their business and don't get into politics. They were even armed with machine guns, since the time is restless, wartime. The ordinary militia swore oath to the DPR, although they still receive a salary from the Ukrainian government.
All enterprises, all banks work in Horlivka, here, unlike Donetsk, no one rob them. It is through them that Kiev pays pensions and salaries to state employees, this state of affairs here suits everyone.
The main composition of Bes' detachments is local miners.
The management of the mines was forced to agree to the stated condition: for the volunteers who changed the jackhammer to an automatic machine, jobs and the average salary were retained. "
“Igor Bezler gives the command to take us to the Ukrainian prisoners, whom he himself insistently calls“ my guests. ”Several rooms have been allocated for them, where Gorlov's operatives apparently once sat. Mattresses are thrown on the floor instead of beds, each room has a TV ...
The "guests" of Bes, and there are fourteen of them in total, are unconvoyed, that is, they can freely move around the building. They eat in the dining room on a common basis with the militia. We were also fed in the same dining room. On that day they were given meat stew, pilaf, salad, apples and sweets.
Everyone is allowed unlimited contact with relatives. Moreover, if one of the mothers of captured soldiers wants to visit their son in trouble, it is not forbidden. Mothers are put on allowance and placed in the same building, in return they help with the kitchen.
The same rule applies to the wives of captured officers. Zakombat of the 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Ukrainian Army, Captain Drought lives with his wife who came to him. She says that Bes personally contacted her and gave her security guarantees in case she came to her husband.
Captain Drought himself claims that they are just waiting for the Imp to be exchanged for captured militias. He adds: and thank God they are waiting at the Bes', and not in some other squad. The captain has something to compare with; completely different people from the so-called Russian Orthodox army took him prisoner. "
"PS Lieutenant Colonel Igor Bezler, who allegedly hates journalists, allowed us to come to him, freely be among his entourage during staff work, in private conversations with us he was extremely frank, but he and his deputies refused to give interviews. In this regard, all information set forth in this article cannot be deemed to have been received from him personally. "
As promised, I'm posting Abinyakin's work. In short - the conditions of the prisoners cannot be called greenhouse, but they were treated quite normally, without unnecessary severity. Actually, everything, nothing especially in history. Meanwhile, I bet that if word for word the same article were about the Siberian camp, then Khandorin and anyone else could present this as an example of the democracy of the Kolchak regime in relation to their opponents.
And yes, along the way there Volkov's stupidity is debunked - and only yesterday I had one at the corporatelie ... an ignorant person sang his praises.
Former officers are prisoners of the Oryol concentration camp. 1920-1922
P.M. Abinyakin
The situation of former officers in Soviet Russia is still a poorly understood problem, despite the intensification of research in the late 1980s. This is especially true of participants in the White movement, for only a few of which there are separate biographical articles (1) ... Fundamental works by A.G. Kavtaradze and S.T. Minakova (2) dedicated to the highest command personnel of the Red Army. The historian of the White movement S.V. Volkov (3) reduced the question of the fate of former officers solely to repressions against them, almost without substantiating a number of a priori and ideologically biased statements by sources, which biasedly schematizes and even distorts many facts. Ya.Yu. Tinchenko (4) also emphasizes anti-officer repression, although he cites the most valuable documentary supplements that go far beyond the limits of his author's concept. Other authors, even based on solid factual material, give their works a pronounced journalistic character (for example, N.S. Cherushev) (5) ... Historically, the former whites who remained in their native land were much less fortunate than their fellow immigrants.
The only work devoted to forced labor camps in the Oryol province is a small review article by A.Yu. Saran, in which prisoners and deserters of the White armies are only mentioned along with other categories of prisoners. This publication contains a number of notable factual inaccuracies. (6) .
The completely chaotic and indiscriminate isolation of the officers determines the arbitrariness of the studied social material and thereby ensures the relative objectivity of this sample, and therefore its representativeness.
In 1920, there were three camps for prisoners of war in the White Army in the Oryol province. There is extremely scant information about the Mtsensk camp. It was organized for the urgent placement of 2000 Wrangel prisoners, functioned in November 1920 - May 1921, and the stay of prisoners in it combined labor activity and active propaganda. For example, the Red Barracks Day / 80 / was held, which looked more like propaganda exercises with pre-conscripts than strict isolation, and as a result there were repeated escapes. The Mtsensk POW camp can be safely called a soldier's camp, since even among 401 prisoners for a period of civil war there was not a single officer (7)
.
The Yelets camp was organized in October 1920 to unload the Oryol camp, the number of the contingent in which at that time was more than twice the regular one (844 people against 400 places). 120 prisoners from Orel were transferred to Yelets and "small parties of prisoners of war from the Wrangel Front" arrived, exclusively privates, and a few officers who accidentally got there were immediately transported to Oryol (8)
.
The Oryol concentration camp for forced labor (also called concentration camp No. 1, since there was also a camp No. 2 in the provincial center - especially for Polish prisoners) was the focus of officers and military officials, although most of the general contingent of prisoners were civilians. This is the logic of the entire system of isolation of former whites, when officers and officials were kept separately from soldiers.
However, the Oryol concentration camp was by no means a "death camp" like the Arkhangelsk and Kholmogorsk ones, since there were no executions at all. The main thing in his activity was not only the isolation of white officers and military officials, but also their repeated, more thorough filtration. For this, a detailed questionnaire was conducted and compared with previous information. Almost all prisoners successfully passed the initial, most stringent check in the filtration commissions of the army's Special Departments and, according to their decisions, were sent to Oryol until the end of the civil war. The second stage was the provincial commission for examining the cases of prisoners of war officers consisting of: from the Special Department of the Gubernia Cheka - A. Terekhov (chairman), from the district military commissariat - Meschevtsev and from the subdivision of forced labor of the executive committee - Zobkov (9) .
It is the questionnaires that are the main source in the study of the social and ideological characteristics of former officers who remained in Soviet Russia and ended up in a concentration camp. First of all, they contain extensive information about the estate, professional, and marital status of prisoners. But no less important is the availability of assessments of the Red and White armies, which were required when filling out the forms and which allow one to judge the psychological specifics and socio-political moods of this category of former officers. At the same time, there can be no question of the complete adequacy of the questionnaire, since its very violent nature provoked the concealment and distortion of a number of information. In terms of facts, this concerns, first of all, class affiliation, service in the old army and among whites, ways of getting into captivity and family ties. In terms of world outlook - quite understandable conformism, varnishing of assessments of the Bolshevik regime and political naivety.
However, an objective analysis of such subjective sources is quite possible thanks to a critical comparison of the questionnaire materials and information of the security officers, who almost always revealed false and - less often - hidden information and presented them in detail in the resolution. It should be emphasized that this often did not even require a complex check (interviewing colleagues, studying personal documents), since obvious contradictions were sometimes contained in the questionnaires themselves.
During a long search, 743 prisoners - former officers and 43 - former military officials were identified by name. Questionnaires and other / 81 / personal and biographical documents are available for 282 officers, and the remaining 461 are known only from lists, and with regard to 365 there is no indication of either the previous rank or the region of participation in the White movement. Therefore, even the most general analysis possible for only 378 officers. The number of officers in different thematic sections inevitably differs, which is due to the unevenness of information.
The overwhelming majority of the prisoners were taken prisoner in the spring of 1920, after the defeat of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia and the notorious Novorossiysk evacuation. At least 280 officers (96.3%) were named "Denikinites". There were only 14 Kolchak members (3.7%) (10) ... Only one wartime official, N.A. Lisovsky, was distinguished by a completely special service past - during the First World War he was a private, was captured, fled, served as treasurer of the rear management of the Russian troops in France (Rennes), and in 1919 he ended up in the Northern Army of General E.K. Miller and after the departure of the whites remained in Arkhangelsk (11) .
In the Oryol concentration camp, captured white officers began to arrive in June 1920. The simultaneous number did not exceed 287 people (as of October 1, 1920) (12) , and often did not reach a hundred. It is necessary to take into account the negligence of the camp documentation on the registration of prisoners, surprising for such an important case.
At the same time, the composition of the prisoners was not constant - some moved to other places of isolation. This rotation was due to three reasons. Firstly, the white officers were isolated strictly outside the places of their former residence - there are practically no local natives in the Oryol concentration camp, but there are many Cossacks. The only exception was second lieutenant E.A. Stuart, who, being born in Oryol, cleverly concealed this in his profile - indicating that he comes from the nobility of Riga (13) ... Secondly, there was a gradual disbandment of large officer camps in order to avoid an excessive and dangerous concentration of prisoners in the center of Russia - according to some information, it was in July that the partial unloading of the Kozhukhov camp near Moscow, which had not yet been noticed by researchers, began. (14) ... The third reason is interconnected with the second and consists in attracting some of the captured officers to the service.
Former white officers fell into enemy hands in different ways. Information about this is available only in the questionnaires, that is, in 249 officers, while the rest are absent. The lion's share - 58.2% - were voluntarily surrendered singly (101 people) and participants in mass surrenders (44 people). This was especially true of the Cossack regiments abandoned by the Volunteer Corps of Lieutenant General A.P. Kutepov in Novorossiysk without means of evacuation, as well as the troops of Major General N.A. who capitulated under the Sochi Treaty. Morozov, who at first retreated in marching order. Others simply deserted from the Whites during the fighting - 13 people, or 5.2% - and four of them first switched to the Greens. Still others were abandoned when retreating in hospitals - 25 people (10.1%). The fourth remained in their home area due to the impossibility of evacuation and did not consider themselves prisoners, since they did not surrender to the Red Army - 18 people (7.2%). Nine people (3.6%) were arrested only after appearing for officer registration, another four (1.6%) were previously dismissed by whites from the army, and five (2.0%) generally denied participation in the White movement. Only three officers (1.2%) were taken prisoner in battle. A large number did not indicate the method of captivity (27 people, or 10.9%).
Consequently, 132 officers (53.0%) voluntarily left the whites (individually surrendered, deserters, and those who remained at home), 48 (19.3%) for reasons beyond their control (participants in mass surrenders and dismissed), and / 82 / against of their own will (captured in a combat situation and abandoned by the wounded) - only 28 (11.3%). As a result, one can partly agree with the white memoirists and the researchers who followed them, who stated the elimination of the most unstable element in case of defeat. It is obvious that the negligible proportion of those taken prisoner in a combat situation is due not so much to persistence (refuted by the large number of defectors), as to the small chances of avoiding reprisals and getting into the camp. At the same time, the withdrawal from the doomed struggle testified not only to demoralization and self-preservation, but also to undoubted courage (given the complete uncertainty of the future), as well as to a worldview change.
The answers of the prisoners to the last question of the questionnaire: "What is your opinion about the Red and White armies?" It would seem that this is just an elementary test of the degree of hostility. But the officers of the commission for examining the cases of prisoners of war officers could not but take into account the subjectivity of the prisoners, who even purely psychologically tried to demonstrate loyalty. We must also remember that the question was addressed to the military, allowing them to indirectly assess their professionalism.
As a rule, most of the officers answered briefly, in a poster style, and it could not be otherwise - they simply could not have an objective opinion about the Reds, or it was shortsighted and dangerous to express it. Some limited themselves to general phrases, which would clearly have sounded out loud through their teeth: "About Red, positive, about White, negative." But many questionnaires are full of verbose, albeit monotonous, up to literal repetition of phrases, which are simply boring to quote because of their predictability. "The Red Army is the winner of the Whites and the liberator of the working people", "The Red Army relies on the idea of \u200b\u200bthe majority of the working people, and therefore it is stronger than the White Army, which relies on a minority of capitalists", "In its spirit and idea, the Red Army must definitely defeat the White Army", "Down with the White Army, long live the Red Army as an expression of the interests of the working people!", "The White Army is an army of villains" (15)
... As you can see, the answers are declarative and do not contain either an awareness of the "idea" or an understanding of the "spirit" of Bolshevism. Many openly went too far, arguing, for example, that "White strives only for monarchy", "The Red Army is waging a war for the liberation of the working people from tsarism, White - for bourgeois privilege" (16)
... Even taking into account the political inexperience of the officers, such answers are far-fetched and contradictory: the monarchy fell without the participation of the Bolsheviks, and the defense of the "bourgeoisie" attributed to the whites does not fit well with "tsarism." In an effort to ritually curse the White movement, the demoralized officers did not think about what their own participation in it looked like in this case. Therefore, such statements were not met with much confidence by the inspectors.
Some tried to answer as vaguely as possible, mainly proceeding from their version of non-involvement with whites: “I did not serve in either army and according to one definition I cannot express anything”, “I have a negative opinion about the White Army, why am I and did not take an active part in it. I have not yet formed an opinion about the Red Army, since I do not know it and did not have the opportunity to get to know it. The impression of her last arrival is the best ”, and some even limited themselves to a blank (17)
... The answer given in the second quote is not stupid enough - the reasons for evading service are indirectly motivated not only among whites, but also among red ones.
However, some of the officers spoke out much more frankly and more specifically. Evaluating the White Army also negatively, they clearly indicate its not political, but organizational shortcomings, and often contrast it with the Red Army in contrast / 83 /: “The White Army does not exist now due to its decay. The Red Army is completely organized and disciplined ”,“ In the Red Army I was amazed by order and discipline ”,“ The White Army, in which there was no discipline and was mainly robbery and violence, pushed away the entire working people and came to the conclusion that one part she began to defect or to settle in the rear, while the other began to move en masse to the side of the red troops, which is why it finally collapsed "," ... I saw among the commanding persons the former embezzlement, drunkenness, envy of other people's successes, brutal relations with the younger fraternity " (18) ... At the same time, personal dissatisfaction that is so characteristic of the masses of rank and file officers often creeps in: “White collapsed due to internal intrigues”, “There was chaos in the White Army, lack of discipline, speculation and bribery among the command staff”, the leaders cared little about her, and thus she died a natural death "," At this time, I respect the Red Army more. About Belaya [opinion] is the worst, because she robbed my house " (19) ... Let us remind that 25 of the interviewed officers were abandoned wounded and sick. And disillusionment with the White movement at times grew stronger than antipathy to Bolshevism.
Finally, three of them directly expressed their desire to serve in the Red Army, although they were guided not by “ideas”, but by subjective and career considerations: “I’m tired of being a worker, as I have been all my life ... to live the way we lived - it is better to die for the truth of labor ! " (20) ... This passionate desire of the former warrant officer from non-commissioned officers M.I. Bondareva to preserve her new social status in order to avoid returning to her former peasant state. The career officer, Colonel V.K. Bush, who joined the Red Army "voluntarily on the very first day of registration," subtly led to the idea of \u200b\u200bthe need to return him to the troops: "After the victories won over Kolchak, Denikin and the Don Army, the victory over the Polish army seems to me a task that the Red Army will solve in one blow " (21) ... However, as a quartermaster, he was clearly not eager to fight and meant a return to the recent "warm" place - to the supply department of the 21st Soviet rifle division.
It is significant that some officers spoke about the White movement without pejorativeness: “The White Army was strong in spirit when it was not an army, but a detachment at the very beginning of it, when it was led by Kornilov, and then its fighting qualities began to fall lower and lower, and the more it was in number, the worse it became as a fighting force "," The White Army was as long as volunteers prevailed in it "," The White Army, which at first proclaimed the slogans of popular rule and equality of classes, in connection with the successes on the fronts (July 1919) became a "pillar" of reaction "," Both armies strive for the good of the state and the people, but according to their views " (22) ... Such responses required not only courage, but also certain convictions, testifying to the presence of a moral core and a strong character. This demonstrates the independence of opinions, that is, a state far from intimidated conformism.
Of the 282 officers, six (2.1%) indicated membership or sympathy for the socialist parties. One belonged to the Bolshevik Party and two called themselves sympathizers, and with a mention of specific party organizations. Another turned out to be a Menshevik internationalist and two sympathized with the Left SRs. But, assuming to arouse sympathy with their leftist convictions, in the conditions of a one-party dictatorship, on the contrary, they could only worsen the impression of themselves. / 84 /
The results obtained on the basis of the systematization of personal and biographical data, which were identified in all the sources used, deserve close analysis.
The question of the ranks of former white officers goes beyond a simple statistical survey and can be analyzed in two ways.
On the one hand, these are general tendencies in rank-and-file production, which quite clearly distinguished between cadres and wartime officers. It is known that by 1917 the rank of staff captain was considered the "ceiling" for a wartime officer, while the surviving career officers, as a rule, rose to at least the rank of captain. Among the 378 prisoners of the Oryol concentration camp, there were two colonels (0.5%), four lieutenant colonels (1.1%), 16 captains (4.2%) and five more officers (1.3%) who did not indicate their rank, but were assigned to personnel. However, three more career officers with lower ranks should be added to them - Staff Captain A.A. Samokhin and lieutenants L.F. Kuznetsov and V.A. Karpitsky ( 23) ... It would seem that this increases their share among prisoners to 7.9%. It is symptomatic that both colonels expressed their assessments of the Red Army in their questionnaires that were close to admiration and, it seems, were quite sincere. They were fascinated by the discipline of the victorious troops and, despite their age (53 and 54), clearly would not mind continuing. military service; in addition, the colonels burdened with families and children were vitally interested in stability.
However, when identifying officers, both special departments and local commissions for examining cases of prisoners of war were guided, first of all, by an educational criterion, that is, the main attention was paid to the professional level and quality of training. The authorities were interested in military professionals, and not in the social stratum of former career officers in general. Among the aforementioned persons, one officer who graduated from the Cadet Corps and military schoolbut belonging to the age group of wartime officers (24 years old). Six holders of "personnel" ranks - A.M. Esauly Baranov, A.F. Ezhov, P.V. Peshikov, I.P. Svinarev and captains P.N. Korostelev and E.F. Mednis - were officers of the war (24) ... This is due to further advancement in ranks during the Civil War, in which there were cases of promotions to colonels and even major generals of former wartime officers, or even persons without military education. The only mistake of the investigation deserves mentioning when L.I., who was trying to pass himself off as a military official. Matushevsky was recognized as a career captain, despite the clearly inappropriate age of twenty-two (25) ... As a result, there were 23 career officers in the Oryol concentration camp. It should be borne in mind that the rank of lieutenant colonel in the AFSR was abolished, and its indication in the questionnaire either meant a deliberate understatement, or could mean sending a retired officer to the camp who did not serve for the whites.
On the other hand, the ranks in the Volunteer Army had an arbitrary-chaotic nature and at first it was mainly an individual-reward meaning. Then, in the Supreme Soviet of Yugoslavia, a practice arose that can be conventionally called "general production". In September 1919, by order of the Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin, all warrant officers were renamed second lieutenants, with the abolition of the rank of warrant officer; other officials did not affect production (26) ... In June 1920, Wrangel issued an order "on the production of all officers up to and including staff captain" in the next rank (27) .
It is quite clear that most of the prisoners are second lieutenants - 113 people (29.9%), then lieutenants - 80 people (21.2%) and staff captains - 35 people (9.3%). As for 72 people (19.0%), who / 85 / were listed as warrant officers, some doubts arise in the light of the cancellation of this rank by Denikin. True, 34 of them bore the Cossack rank of cornet, which was not abolished. Of the remaining 38 people, 32 (8.5%) simply indicated only the first officer rank and concealed the subsequent ones (with the exception of six warrant officers-Kolchak members, since in the East this rank was not canceled). Even graduates of accelerated courses of military schools and warrant officers' schools of 1915-1916 did this. (28) , which looked completely unlikely. Considering the huge losses (as MM Zoshchenko, who served as a warrant officer, wrote, the owner of this rank on the front of the First World War lived on average 12 days (29) ), the survivors by 1917 had already become lieutenants, and even staff captains. At the same time, the confusion was aggravated by the investigation itself, which initially operated with the concept of “the last rank of the old army,” and not with whites.
Let's make a reservation that when analyzing the understatement of ranks, there may be a slight error. It is associated with the possible presence among the arrested persons who did not serve with whites and therefore reported ranks as of 1917. But in fact, it seems scanty, since to evade mobilization former officer even for White it was extremely problematic. And even those who, living on white territory, could succeed, had no confidence in the eyes of the Bolsheviks. It is characteristic that this attitude persisted after seventeen years, which was very clearly expressed by the division commander I.R. Apanasenko (by the way, a former warrant officer): “What a captain can sit at home at this time! [...] At that time I was fighting, and then suddenly the captain was sitting at home. Let me be stabbed so that I can believe " (30) .
It is characteristic that the ranks of 14 officers (3.7%) were established during the investigation and indicated only in the resolutions of the questionnaires. Finally, 22 people (5.8%), being officers, did not indicate their ranks at all, and 29 (7.7%) limited themselves to indicating the position of a junior officer, and even the Chekists could not establish them. Together with the false ensigns, an impressive result is obtained - 25.7%. This partly explains the preventive motives behind the imprisonment of a number of officers in a concentration camp: resolutions often cited the following grounds for imprisonment in a concentration camp - "As someone who does not give accurate testimony about himself," "As an unreliable element," "A suspicious person," etc. (31) .
Even more than the ranks, the imprisoned officers tried to hide the details of their participation in the White movement. Among 282 officers, 14 people generally denied service with whites, or 5.0%. Others in every possible way emphasized its rear or non-combatant character - 28 and 26 people, respectively, which in total is 19.2%. Still others did not indicate the name of the military unit - 89 people (31.6%). Concealment of the duty station was the most effective way, since only 13 officers were able to find out about it during the investigation. But at the same time, this behavior caused the greatest distrust of the Bolsheviks.
At the same time, the personal data of the prisoners seriously correct - if not refute - the categorical statement of the same S.V. Volkov, as if all officers, military officials and soldiers of the "colored" regiments were subject to mass execution (32) ... So, in the Oryol concentration camp there were 27 officers of nominal units - 2 Kornilovites, 5 Markovites, 10 Drozdovites and 10 Alekseevites, which was 9.6% of the questioned prisoners. Moreover, five pioneer officers were identified - participants in the 1st Kuban (Ice) campaign - or, at least, who joined the Volunteer Army back in 1917. This is Lieutenant Markovets A.D. Luskino, Staff Captain of the 2nd Don Horse-Artillery Division S.N. Korablikov, drove up V.P. Budanov, centurion S. B. Melikhov and who identified himself as ensign E.A. Ca / 86 / mokhin (33) ... Along the way, we note that four of them, except for Luschino, were previously absent even in the most detailed lists of the first volunteers. Considering that these officers indicated the time of joining the Volunteer Army in the questionnaires with their own hands, and it was not in their interests to lengthen the White Guard experience, we can state that they were established by us for the first time.
In reality, there were more pioneers in the Oryol concentration camp, for some managed to hide it. Three - Colonel (who called himself Lieutenant Colonel) V.A. Velyashev, second lieutenants G.I. Kozlov and M.V. Malinovkin - no doubt (34) ... In addition, seven more officers can be quite confidently identified as pioneers - the driver was N. Bryzgalin, second lieutenant A.F. Mashchenko, lieutenants N.E. Petrov and F.A. Churbakov, staff captains V.V. Dolgov and I.A. Shurupov and who did not indicate the rank of captain A.V. Vladimirova (35) ... This increases their share among prisoners to 15 people, or 5.3%. One prisoner, cornet P.P. Pavlov, vaguely indicated that, being a cadet, he left "in October 1917 for the Don on vacation" (36) ... It is known that the Alekseevskaya organization used vacations as one of the ways to legend the transfer of its personnel to the South, so it can be assumed that he belonged to the first volunteers. Three more - Lieutenant V.D. Berezin, ensign A.F. Veremsky and second lieutenant N. D. Perepelkin - found sympathy and great awareness of the "strong spirit" of the "detachment" L.G. Kornilov, which could also be caused by personal impressions.
It is striking that some admitted blatant, immediately striking contradictions in the questionnaires. For example, second lieutenant V.M. Chizhsky said that he graduated from the military school on May 1, 1915 and was captured on May 31 (where he was until 1918), but that month he managed to arrive at the front and change two positions - the company commander and the head of the machine-gun command, although the newly minted ensign, and even in 1915, was usually appointed only as a junior officer. Personnel officer D.A. Sviridenko replied that in the old army "he did not hold any posts." The named khorunzhim S.I. Pismensky indicated that before the revolution he had the rank of centurion. One of the first volunteers in 1917, when there was still no talk of mobilization, Staff Captain AV Vladimirov wrote that "Pokrovsky was mobilized under the threat of execution." The allegedly mobilized lieutenant A.F. Sokhanev immediately reported that he served on the 1st civilian transport (37) ... In the presence of several colleagues in the camp, there was no hope at all to hide anything. For example, out of ten Drozdovites, four served in the 3rd Drozdovsky regiment, but only one indicated this in the questionnaire, and three were identified during the investigation - and it is not difficult to identify the source of information in the person of fellow soldiers, given the absence of soldiers in the concentration camp. All this can be regarded as a tremendous confusion, and as a complete alienation from each other, and as an organic inability to logical thinking, and how the lack of practical self-preservation.
The service of imprisoned officers to the Bolsheviks deserves a very special mention. According to the questionnaires, 24 of them (8.5%) served in the Red Army as early as 1918-1919, and the whites were taken prisoner as well as voluntarily. Another 28 (9.9%) worked in various power structures - revolutionary committees, Soviets, all kinds of committees, and there are even police officers, a commissar and a people's judge. One of the officers, M.N. Armyskov, in 1918 he served under F.G. Podtyolkovo. True, the truth of the questionnaires is somewhat doubtful, since only five were tried by whites for cooperation with the Bolsheviks, and another one for hiding an officer's rank during mobilization - 2.1%. / 87 /