Folk hero Vasily Chapaev
130 years ago, on February 9, 1887, the future hero of the Civil War was born, people's commander Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. Vasily Chapaev fought heroically during the First World War, and during the Civil War he became a legendary figure, a self-taught person who advanced to high command posts due to his own abilities in the absence of a special military education. He became a true legend when not only official myths, but also fiction firmly obscured the real historical figure.Chapaev was born on January 28 (February 9) 1887 of the year in the village of Budaika in Chuvashia. Chapaev's ancestors lived here for a long time. He was the sixth child in a poor Russian peasant family. The child was weak, premature, but his grandmother was leaving. His father, Ivan Stepanovich, was a carpenter by profession, had a small plot of land, but never had enough of his own bread, and therefore he worked as a cab driver in Cheboksary. The grandfather, Stepan Gavrilovich, was written in documents by Gavrilov. And the surname Chapaev went from the nickname - “chapay, chepai, cling” (“take it”).
In search of a better life, the Chapaev family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaevsky district, Samara province. Since childhood, Vasily worked hard, worked sexually in a tea room, as an assistant to an organ-grinder, a merchant, and helped his father in carpentry. Ivan Stepanovich identified his son in the local parish school, the patron saint of which was his wealthy cousin. Chapaevs already had priests in the family, and their parents wanted Vasily to become a priest, but life decided otherwise. In the church school, Basil learned to write and read by syllables. Once he was punished for his offense - Basil was put in a cold winter cell in one of his underwear. Realizing in an hour that he was freezing, the child knocked out the window and jumped off from the height of the third floor, breaking his arms and legs. So ended the study of Chapaev.
In the fall of 1908, Vasily was called up for military service and sent to Kiev. But already in the spring of next year, apparently due to illness, Chapaev was fired from the army to the reserve and the militias of the first category were transferred to the warriors. Before World War I worked as a carpenter. In 1909, Vasily Ivanovich married Pelagia Nikanorovna Metlina, the daughter of a priest. Together they lived 6 for years, they had three children. From 1912 to 1914, Chapaev and his family lived in the city of Melekess (now Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk Region).
It is worth noting that Vasily Ivanovich's family life did not work out. Pelageya, when Vasily went to the front, went with the children to the neighbor. At the beginning of 1917, Chapaev drove to his native place and intended to divorce Pelageya, but was satisfied that he took the children from her and brought them back to their parents' house. Soon after, he met Pelagia Kamishkertseva, the widow of Peter Kamishkertsev, a friend of Chapaev, who died from a wound during the fighting in the Carpathians (Chapaev and Kamishkertsev promised each other that if one of the two was killed, the survivor would take care of his friend's family). However, Kamishkertseva changed Chapaev. This circumstance was revealed shortly before the death of Chapaev and dealt him a strong moral strike. In the last year of his life, Chapaev also had an affair with the wife of Commissioner Furmanov, Anna (it is believed that she became the prototype of Anki the machine gunner), which led to a sharp conflict with Furmanov. Furmanov scribbled denunciations of Chapaev, but later admitted in his diaries that he simply envied the legendary divisional divisional.
With the beginning of the war, 20 of September of 1914, Chapaev was called up for military service and sent to the 159 th reserve infantry regiment in the city of Atkarsk. In January, 1915 came to the front as part of the 326-th Belgorai Infantry Regiment of the 82-th Infantry Division from the 9-th Army of the South-Western Front. Was injured. In July, 1915 graduated from the training team, was promoted to junior non-commissioned officer, and in October - senior. Participated in the Brusilov breakthrough. The war ended in the rank of sergeant. He fought well, was wounded and contused several times, was awarded the St. George Medal and three-degree St. George soldier crosses for his bravery. Thus, Chapaev was one of those soldiers and noncoms of the tsarist imperial army, who went through the most severe school of the First World War and soon became the core of the Red Army.
Feldwebel Chapaev with his wife Pelageya Nikanorovna, 1916
Civil war
I met the February revolution in a hospital in Saratov. 28 September 1917 of the year joined the RSDLP (b). He was elected commander of the 138 Infantry Reserve Regiment, stationed in Nikolaevsk. On December 18, the county congress of Soviets was elected military commissar of the Nicholas district. He organized the county Red Guard from the 14 squads. He participated in a campaign against General Kaledin (near Tsaritsyn), then in the spring of 1918 of the year in a campaign of the Special Army in Uralsk. On his initiative, 25 May decided to reorganize the Red Guard detachments into two regiments of the Red Army: named after Stepan Razin and named after Pugachev, united in the Pugachev brigade under the command of Vasily Chapaev. Later, he participated in battles with the Czechoslovakians and the Peoples Army, in whom Nikolayevsk had beaten off, renamed Pugachev.
September 19 1918 was appointed commander of the 2-th Nikolaev division. In battles with whites, Cossacks and Czech invaders, Chapaev showed himself to be a firm commander and an excellent tactician who skillfully assessed the situation and offered the best solution, as well as a personally brave man who enjoyed the authority and love of the fighters. During this period, Chapaev repeatedly personally led troops to the attack. According to the evaluation of the temporarily commander of 4 by the Soviet army of the former General Staff, Major-General A. A. Baltiysky, for Chapaev “the lack of a general military education affects the command and control technique and the lack of breadth to cover military affairs. Full of initiative, but uses it unbalanced, due to the lack of military education. However, in Comrade Chapaev, all data are clearly indicated, on the basis of which, with appropriate military education, both equipment and a reasonable military scale will undoubtedly appear. The desire to get a military education in order to get out of the state of "military darkness", and then again to join the ranks of the military front. One can be sure that the natural talents of Comrade Chapaev, in combination with military education, will give vivid results. ”
In November, for the purpose of raising education, 1918 was sent to the newly established Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army in Moscow. He stayed at the Academy until February 1919, then he arbitrarily quit his studies and returned to the front. “Studying at the academy is a good and very important thing, but it’s a shame and a pity that the White Guards are pounding without us,” said the red commander. Chapaev noted about his studies: “I haven’t read about Hannibal before, but I see that he was an experienced commander. But I largely disagree with his actions. He made many unnecessary rebuilds in front of the enemy and thus revealed his plan to him, he was slow in his actions and did not show perseverance for the final defeat of the enemy. I had a case similar to the situation during the battle of Cannes. It was in August, on the river N. We passed up to two regiments of whites and artillery across the bridge to our bank, gave them the opportunity to stretch along the road, and then opened hurricane artillery fire on the bridge and rushed to the attack from all sides. The stunned enemy did not have time to come to his senses, as he was surrounded and almost completely destroyed. His remains rushed to the destroyed bridge and were forced to rush into the river, where most of them sank. 6 guns, 40 machine guns and 600 prisoners fell into our hands. We have achieved these successes due to the swiftness and surprise of our attack. ”
Chapaev was appointed commissioner of the interior of Nicholas County. Since May, the 1919 of the year has been the brigade of the Special Alexandrovo-Gai brigade, since June - the 25 of the rifle division. The division acted against the main forces of the Whites, participated in repelling the spring offensive of the armies of Admiral A.V. Kolchak, participated in the Buguruslan, Belebey and Ufa operations. These operations predetermined the transfer by the red troops of the Ural range and the defeat of Kolchak's army. In these operations, Chapaev’s division acted on the adversary’s communications and carried out rounds. Agile tactics became a feature of Chapaev and his division. Even white commanders singled out Chapaev and noted his organizational skills. A major success was the crossing of the Belaya River, which led to the capture of Ufa’s 9 June 1919 and the further retreat of the White forces. Then Chapaev, who was on the front line, was wounded in the head, but remained in the ranks. For military distinctions he was awarded the highest award of Soviet Russia - the Order of the Red Banner, and his division was awarded the honorary revolutionary Red Banner.
Chapaev loved his fighters, and they paid him the same. His division was considered one of the best on the Eastern Front. In many respects, he was precisely the people's leader, who at the same time possessed a real military leadership, great energy and initiative that infected others. Vasily Ivanovich was a commander who was striving to constantly learn in practice, directly during the fighting, a simple man and sly at the same time (this was the quality of a real representative of the people). Chapaev knew the battlefield, located on the right flank of the Eastern Front, which was remote from the center.
After the Ufa operation, Chapaev’s division was again deployed to the front against the Ural Cossacks. We had to act in the steppe area, away from communications, with the superiority of the Cossacks in cavalry. The struggle here was accompanied by mutual bitterness, uncompromising confrontation. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was killed on 5 on September 1919 of the year as a result of a deep raid by a Cossack detachment of Colonel N. N. Borodin, crowned with an unexpected attack on the city of Lbishchensk, located in the rear of the rear, where the headquarters of the 25 division was located. Chapaev's division, which had broken away from the rear and suffered great losses, settled in the beginning of September to rest in the area of Lbishchensk. Moreover, the division headquarters, the supply department, the tribunal, the revolutionary committee and other divisional institutions were located in Lbishchensk itself. The main forces of the division were removed from the city. The command of the White Ural Army decided to undertake a raid on Lbishchensk. In the evening of August 31, a select squad commanded by Colonel Nikolai Borodin left the village of Kalyony. September 4 Borodin detachment secretly approached the city and hid in the reeds in the backwaters of the Urals. The air reconnaissance did not report this to Chapaev, although she could not detect the enemy. It is believed that because the pilots sympathized with the whites (after the defeat, they went over to the whites).
At dawn 5 September Cossacks attacked Lbishchensk. A few hours later the battle was over. Most of the Red Army was not ready to attack, panicked, was surrounded and surrendered. It ended in a massacre, all the prisoners were killed - in batches of 100-200 people on the banks of the Urals. Only a small part was able to break through to the river. Among them was Vasily Chapaev, who gathered a small detachment and organized resistance. According to the testimony of the General Staff of Colonel M.I. Izergin: “Chapaev himself with the small detachment, with whom he took refuge in one of the houses on the banks of the Urals, from which he had to survive with artillery fire, lasted longer.
During the battle, Chapaev was seriously wounded in the stomach, he was transported to the other side of the raft. According to the story of Chapaev’s eldest son, Alexander, two Red Army-Hungarians put the wounded Chapaev on a raft made from half the gate and crossed the Ural River. But on the other side it turned out that Chapaev died from blood loss. Red Army men buried his body in the coastal sand with their hands and pelted them with reeds so that the whites would not find the grave. This story was later confirmed by one of the participants in the events, who in 1962 sent a letter from Hungary to Chapaev’s daughter with a detailed description of the death of the red division commander. The white investigation also confirms this data. From the words of the captured Red Army soldiers, “Chapaev, leading a group of Red Army soldiers to us, was wounded in the stomach. The injury turned out to be so severe that after that he couldn’t manage the battle and was transferred to the Urals on boards ... he [Chapayev] was already on the Asian side of the r. Ural died from a wound in the stomach. " In the course of this battle, the White commander also died - Colonel Nikolai Nikolayevich Borodin (he was posthumously promoted to the rank of major general).
There are other versions of the fate of Chapaev. Thanks to Dmitry Furmanov, who served as a commissar in Chapaev’s division and wrote the novel “Chapaev” about him, and especially to the film “Chapaev”, the version of the death of the wounded Chapaev in the waves of the Urals became popular. This version arose immediately after Chapaev’s death and was, in fact, the fruit of an assumption, assuming that they had seen Chapaev on the European coast, but he did not come to the Asian coast, and they did not find the corpse. There is also a version that Chapaev was killed in captivity.
According to one of the versions, Chapaev eliminated his as a disobedient national commander (in modern terms, a “field commander”). Chapaev was in conflict with L. Trotsky. According to this version, the pilots, who were to inform the divisional commander about the approaching whites, carried out the order of the high command of the Red Army. The independence of the “red field commander” annoyed Trotsky, he saw an anarchist in Chapayev, who could disobey the order. Thus, it is possible that Trotsky and "ordered" Chapaev. Whites acted as a tool, no more. During the battle, Chapaev was simply shot. According to a similar scheme, Trotsky and other red commanders, who did not understand international intrigues, fought for the common people, were eliminated. A week earlier, Chapaev was killed in Ukraine by legendary division commander Nikolai Shchors. A few years later, in the 1925 year, the famous Gregory Kotovsky was also shot dead under unclear circumstances. In the same year 1925, Mikhail Frunze was killed on a surgical table, also by order of Trotsky’s team.
During this period, there was a tough fight in Russia between internationalist revolutionaries led by Trotsky, who planned to use and burn down Russian civilization during the “world revolution” commissioned by their masters from the West. And real Russian communists, mostly people from ordinary people, such as Chapaev, Frunze and Stalin, who believed in a “bright future” and a life without social parasites. Trotsky and his team methodically destroyed all those national leaders who could revolt and turn the bayonets of the soldiers loyal to them against the traitors if the enemies of the people surrendered the country to the West.
Chapaev lived a short life (died in 32), but a bright life. As a result, the legend of the red division commander arose. The country needed a hero whose reputation was not tarnished. People watched this movie dozens of times, all Soviet boys dreamed to repeat Chapaev's feat. Later Chapaev entered folklore as the hero of many popular jokes. In this mythology, the image of Chapaev was distorted beyond recognition. In particular, according to anecdotes, he is such a cheerful, rollicking person, a drunkard. In fact, Vasily Ivanovich did not drink alcohol at all, tea was his favorite drink. An orderly everywhere drove him a samovar. Arriving at any location, Chapaev immediately began to drink tea and at the same time necessarily invited the locals. Thus, the glory of a very good-natured and hospitable person affirmed. One more thing. In the film, Chapaev is a dashing cavalryman racing to the enemy with a sword bald. In fact, Chapaev did not feel any special love for horses. Preferred car. The legend that Chapaev fought against the famous general V. O. Kappel also spread, is also not true.
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