One hundred years of solitude. Part One
"Ten Days that shook the world" - this is the title of the book by the American John Reed, perhaps best reflects the significance of the events that took place in Russia in October 1917. Some consider it an armed coup, others - the great socialist revolution. But something else is obvious - the Aurora shot caused tectonic shifts in world history. For the first time on earth, two opposing ideological systems appeared, whose peaceful coexistence, at least at that stage, seemed absolutely impossible.
Therefore, it was hardly possible to expect that the "old world” would calmly accept the appearance on the world stage of a state that made no secret of the fact that its goal was a "world revolution” and the destruction of the "exploitative capitalist system of relations". This is exactly what happened.
Since 1917, the West has looked at Russia exclusively as an enemy, without relaxing for almost a single year the military, sanctions and psychological pressure that turned into an aggressive large-scale "cold war” in the middle of the last century. And unlike the so-called "collective West", Russia has had to fight for survival alone for more than a 100 years.
Just a few months after the October events, when civil war was raging in the country, Russia found itself in the ring of an enemy military blockade. At once, 14 (!) major states of Europe and the world, including the former Russian partners in the union during the First World War - the Entente, once again tried to destroy Russia as an independent state as much as possible, and at least tear off fatter pieces from its territory.
For the sake of historical justice - the opponents of past years must be remembered in order to understand their current policies - I will list all these countries:1) Germany, 2) Austria-Hungary, 3) Turkey, 4) Romania, 5) Czechoslovakia, 6) Poland, 7) Finland, 8) Great Britain, 9) France, 10) USA, 11) Japan, 12) Italy, 13) Greece, 14) Serbia.
The Russian Empire has been accustomed to external aggression in previous centuries, but the country has never experienced such a large-scale offensive on all fronts from all sides in its entire history. Although Europe has not yet recovered from the devastating First World War, the West seems to have decided to nip in the bud the "communist evil" on the continent once and for all, using, among other things, the territorial gains that its countries managed to gain in the previous four war years.
The then British Minister of War, Winston Churchill, openly stated that "Bolshevism must be strangled in its cradle”.
The immediate reason for the invasion of the troops of Germany and its allies was the reluctance of the Bolsheviks to sign the capitulatory "Brest Peace". By this time, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians occupied the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, Crimea, and Donbass. The Turks occupied Transcaucasia and Dagestan. The Japanese, and then the Americans, gained a foothold in the Far East, and they managed to actually control all traffic flows along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The British, French, Americans and Italians landed in Arkhangelsk. In turn, British, French, Italian, Greek and Serbian troops managed to capture the Black Sea ports. Romanian troops occupied Bessarabia.
The capitulation of Germany in November 1918 and, consequently, the end of the First World War deprived the West of logical explanations for their continued presence on Russian territory. It is hardly necessary to explain that the peoples of these countries, and indeed of the whole world, to put it mildly, were tired of the war, which at that time was the most destructive in the history of mankind.
In four years and three months, it claimed the lives of almost 10 million people, and about 20 million were injured. The economies of the participating countries were almost destroyed, and hundreds of cities and towns in Europe were completely or partially destroyed.
In addition, the Red Army was able to put up a decent resistance to the occupation forces. As a result, the governments of Great Britain, France and the United States in July 1919 had to agree on the withdrawal of their armies from Russia. The last of their troops left Russia in February 1920. As for the Japanese, they held out in Vladivostok until 1922, and in the north of Sakhalin - right up to 1925.
I cannot but mention the extremely unsightly role that the so-called Czechoslovak Volunteer Corps played in those years. It was created by the tsarist government for the war against Austria-Hungary. After the overthrow of the tsarist government, by definition, it was supposed to be on the side of the tsarist army.
But the "White Czechs" like prostitutes were rushing between the parties to the internal Russian conflict, not deciding which shore to wash up on. At first, they betrayed the tsarist troops by defecting to the Bolsheviks, concluding something like a "peace treaty" with them, but then they also betrayed them by organising an anti-Bolshevik coup in Siberia, which provoked a sharp aggravation of the Russian civil war.
According to many historians, it was their fault that the battles of the White Guards with the Reds on the Volga and Kama were lost, because the Czech troops numbering about 40,000 people suddenly left their positions, exposing the flanks, which allowed the Bolsheviks to strike at the rear of the units loyal to the Tsar and the oath. I understand that history does not tolerate subjunctive moods, but if there were no betrayal on the part of the "White Czechs", it is quite possible that the history of Russia would have gone a completely different way.
Taking advantage of the general anarchy that prevailed in the country, they acted as the most notorious looters. They plundered towns, villages and villages, leaving behind thousands of corpses and scorched earth. And they grabbed everything that came to hand and had at least some value. And then all this stolen goods were taken out in trains along the Trans-Siberian Railway. That's what they are – Slavic brothers. I don't think we should forget that!
Concluding the topic of military intervention against Russia, we have to admit that as a result of it, it lost part of its territories. Finland and the Baltic states gained independence. Poland and Romania seized part of our land. But, surprisingly, given the state of anarchy in which the country was after the revolution, it still managed to survive and avoid more severe consequences.
Exhausted by the war, Germany and Austria-Hungary, for example, dreamed of annexing Ukraine, which should have become their breadbasket and feeder. And France and Britain made no secret of the fact that they would like to gain a permanent foothold on the Black Sea coast, so after the Germans left, they hurried to capture Odessa and Sevastopol, turning the latter into their main naval base in the region.
As for Japan, it was not by chance that it sent an expeditionary force of more than 70,000 people to the Far East. The Land of the Rising Sun planned to create a buffer state in the Far Eastern territories, which was even hastily proposed to Ataman Semyonov to lead.
Before this Western military intervention was over, Russia found itself in yet another war with Poland, which lasted for two years from 1919 to 1920. It is interesting from several points of view. Firstly, this war was a clear illustration of how the West once again tried to destroy Russia by someone else's hands.
Secondly, it once again demonstrated the age-old Russophobic and revanchist nature of Poland's ruling circles. It was, is today, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. And, thirdly, it showed the unbreakable power of the Russian people, who have always rallied in the face of external aggression.
As a result of several partitions of Poland by the "great powers", it lost its independence for almost a century and a half. At the same time, before the First World War, most of Poland was Russian territory, while other parts of it belonged to Germany and Austria. But in November 1918, after the capitulation of Germany, the famous nationalist Piłsudski comes to power in Poland, who receives the title of "Head of State", and in fact dictator.
France and the United States enthusiastically supported it, hoping to turn the new Poland into a counterweight to both Germany and Russia. The United States, in turn, saw it as a convenient springboard for spreading its influence in Europe. Polish military power was reinforced by 70,000 soldiers who arrived from France, equipped with the most modern weapons. The French formed this army in 1917 from Polish emigrants and prisoners of war to fight the Germans.
After gaining their freedom, the Poles, who for centuries were the main "bully" of Europe, immediately took up their old ways and came into conflict with all their neighbours over borders and territories. In the west, the Poles began armed conflicts with the Germans and Czechs, and in the east - with the Lithuanians, the Ukrainian population of Galicia (Western Ukraine) and Belarus.
The extremely nationalistic Warsaw authorities hoped to use the next "time of troubles" in Europe to restore the borders of the ancient Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which stretched "Poland from sea to sea", that is, from the Baltic to the Black Sea coast.
Poland did not officially declare war on Russia. It began, so to speak, without a clear order. By the summer of 1919, when the main forces of the Red Army were diverted to war with Denikin's white armies, the Poles managed to capture Vilnius, the western half of Belarus, and all of western Ukraine. And in August 1919, Polish troops entered Minsk. But then they slowed down the offensive.
Showing, apparently, not the best features of their national character, but rather, let's put it mildly, cunningness, the Polish authorities could not decide what was more profitable for them: whether to support the White Guard resistance and defeat the Red Army together, or first together with the Bolsheviks to get rid of the opponents in the face of the tsarist troops. To resolve this issue, they entered into secret negotiations with both the Bolshevik government and representatives of the "White Army".
But the negotiations with Denikin did not lead to success, since the parties did not agree on the definition of future borders between the countries. It’s possible to relate to the "White Army" differently, but its leaders did not want to abandon the principle of a "United and indivisible Russia". But the Bolsheviks, by the way, were ready to make some territorial concessions to Poland.
All this time, Pilsudski was again under pressure behind the scenes from the Entente (the alliance of France, Britain and the United States), which supplied weapons to both him and Denikin. The West had already decided ahead of time the fate of the future Poland and in the event of the defeat of the Bolsheviks wanted to draw the border between Russia and Poland along the so-called "Curzon Line". (It was so named after the then British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon). According to these plans, Pilsudski would have to cede part of the occupied lands in Belarus and Ukraine to Russia. And thus bury the dream of the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
By this time, the Entente considered Pilsudski's troops as the only force capable of resisting the spread of the "red plague" in Europe. In the spring of 1920, France alone supplied Poland with 1,494 guns, 2,800 machine guns, 385,000 rifles, about 700 aircraft, 200 armoured vehicles, 576 million rounds of ammunition and 10 million rounds of ammunition. shells.
At the same time, several thousand machine guns, over 200 armoured vehicles and tanks, more than 300 aircraft, 3 million sets of uniforms and other military equipment were delivered to Poland from the United States. As a result, by April 1920, Poland had the most powerful army in Europe – 740,000 soldiers and officers were under its arms.
While all this backstage activity was going on, the Red Army managed to transfer all its forces and reserves to the fight against Denikin. As a result, by December 1919, the white armies were defeated, and the Soviet government focused on the fight against the Polish invaders. Pushed by the West, which, as it still does today in Ukraine, is determined to wage war against Russia "to the last Pole", Pilsudski's troops launched a general offensive on April 25, 1920, with the goal of first capturing the capital of ancient Russia - Kiev.
They managed to do it in less than a month. The fighting was conducted on a huge front from the Baltic states to Romania. But despite the superiority of the enemy in military strength and equipment, the Red Army liberated Kiev in June 1920, and Minsk and Vilnius in July.
The success of the counteroffensive made the Bolshevik leaders "giddy with success" and, as the notorious Lev Trotsky put it, they decided to "probe the revolutionary situation in Europe with the Red Army bayonet." And to do this, they continued the offensive, trying to take Lvov and Warsaw. But the Bolsheviks overestimated their capabilities.
As a result, the Russian troops who made their way to Warsaw and Lvov actually found themselves in a cauldron. They are hundreds of kilometres away from the supply bases. And as a result, in the second half of August 1920, the Poles managed to conduct a successful counteroffensive, which they themselves pathetically call the "Miracle on the Vistula".
In truth, it was Poland's only major military victory in 300 years. More than 100,000 Russian servicemen were captured. It is significant that only about 30,000 people left the Polish concentration camps alive a year later. The rest died of wounds, torture, beatings, and starvation. Here is such a bright line to the Polish character and attitude towards Russians.
The Poles largely owe their victory to the West again.
The actual commander of the Polish army at that time was the French General Weygand, head of the Anglo-French military mission in Warsaw. Several hundred French officers with extensive World War II experience served as advisers in the Polish army. On the side of the Poles, an American aviation squadron fought, which was used to destroy the advancing Russian units from the air.
As a result, negotiations began in Riga, which ended with the signing of a peace treaty on March 19, 1921. Initially, the Poles demanded monetary compensation of 300 million tsarist gold rubles from Soviet Russia, but during the negotiations this amount was cut exactly 10 times.
If we consider the results of this war from a historical point of view, then, so to speak, it ended in a draw. Neither Moscow nor Warsaw were able to implement their plans. The Bolsheviks failed to create a Soviet Poland, and the Polish revanchists failed to recreate the ancient borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which included all the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands. The Poles only briefly regained control of the western lands of Ukraine and Belarus, and as a result, until 1939, the Soviet-Polish border was only 30 km west of Minsk.
I can't help but remind you of one more point: Pilsudski, in preparation for the offensive, concluded a military alliance against the Bolsheviks with the Ukrainian ataman Petliura. At the same time, the Ukrainian national traitor, who is now honoured in Ukraine as a hero, "ceded" a significant part of the country's territory to the Poles. I involuntarily recalled this moment at the end of last month, when it became known that the current comedian/President of Ukraine Zelensky signed an agreement with Polish President Duda that actually opens the way for another Polish occupation of Ukrainian lands.
All these tragic events - both the military intervention of the Entente and the Polish aggression - took place at the very time when a bloody and destructive civil war was going on in Russia. If to stop ten random people on the street today, I'm afraid none of them will be able to tell how many years it lasted.
Meanwhile, this war went on for more than five years and ended only in 1922, after the remnants of the last troops loyal to the Russian Tsar left the territory of Russia. Moreover, it was really a war, and not separate skirmishes of "red" and "white", and on both sides regular troops numbering hundreds of thousands of bayonets participated in it.
One of its, in my opinion, most dramatic "episodes" was, as it was called in the White emigre press, the "Great Ice Campaign", when after the defeat in the central part of Russia, tsarist troops retreated to Siberia. According to available documentary data, more than a million people - both military and civilian refugees who joined them - started this sorrowful journey.
It is impossible even to imagine the size of this gigantic column stretching for many kilometres along the railway. Only a few units reached the final destination alive - to Vladivostok, having overcome 10,000 versts of what eventually became the “Great Ice Exodus” in a few years. If anyone is interested, it’s possible to read about how all this happened in my novel "Deferred Life” on litres.ru.
So dramatic was the beginning of a new stage in the life of Russia 100 years ago.
To be continued...