Russian under the banner of the Rising Sun
History This started from October 25 1922, when the Red forces occupied Vladivostok, and the White Primorye ceased to exist. Thousands of refugees poured across the border. Most of them, as well as the remnants of military units of generals Semenov, Diterikhs, Verzhbitsky, Molchanov, Sakharov left for Manchuria, which belonged to China at that time. Harbin has rightfully become the capital of Russian emigration. a major city on the Chinese Eastern Railway, later sung in a pseudo-émigré song. Even before the civil war, this city was a major trading, transport and cultural center of Asia. Most of the refugees from Russia settled in it, breathing a second wind into the city. A significant number of emigrants also settled at the station-settlements scattered along the entire CER line.
Entry of the People's Revolutionary Army of the FER in Vladivostok. 1922 year
The composition of this emigre wave was very mixed: Cossacks and soldiers, officers and railway workers, criminal elements and merchants.
Many of the white parts, crossing the border, retained their personal weapons. Constant fighting in China, the presence of a large number of Hunghuz gangs in Manchuria and, consequently, continuous violence, led to a large degree of criminalization of society. The presence of experienced White-Immigrant cadres allowed the Japanese military authorities to create and constantly maintain a warlike spirit in Russian White emigres, preparing a well-prepared “fifth column” for their aggressive objectives.
In 1925, the "Russian Fascist Organization" was formed, by 1931, it grew into a party. The party was led by a former Soviet student from Blagoveshchensk Konstantin Rodzaevsky. By the end of the 1930s, it had up to 23 thousands of members united in the 48 departments in the territory of 18 countries.
Russian Fascist Organization, Harbin
Under the party’s Supreme Council, there was a “Training Unit (team) of the WFTU” of 40 members. The squad had 67 rifles, 18 Mauser pistols, 4 machine guns and 6 light machine guns, 25 hand grenade crates. In 1938 year weapon It was seized by the Japanese, but then it was returned. The commander of the detachment, Colonel N.A. Martynov.
General Lieutenant G.M. Semenov.
The leader of the Far Eastern emigration was Ataman General Lieutenant G.M. Semenov. From the time of the Civil War, he had close contacts with Japanese military representatives, nurturing plans to create various buffer states on the territory of the Soviet Far East, Siberia and Transbaikalia. Some leaders of the Japanese command saw in Semenov a potential ruler of the state of Siberia-Go. puppet-like Manchukuo.
The ataman had at his disposal a permanent agent network on Soviet territory and his own military units from the Cossacks.
By the end of the thirties, the Ataman subordinated the following forces:
1. Mongol-Buryat brigade of three regiments under the command of Lieutenant-General Urzhin;
2. Two brigades of Transbaikalian Cossacks;
3. The personnel of the two military schools and the Cossacks in Harbin;
4. Border and police units, with a total of up to 2500 bayonets;
5. Security detachments on concessions;
6. The Tientsin Russian Volunteer Corps of General Glebov and military courses;
7. Personnel infantry and cavalry regiments and artillery batteries.
In January 1945, Semenov announced the subordination of his 60-thousandth army to General Vlasov and the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the KONR, Major General F.I. Trukhin claimed in his diary that he had sent several officers to Semenov in the Far East on a secret mission.
Lt. Col. Isimura. Chief of 2 (intelligence) department of the headquarters of the Kwantung Army. suggested gm Semenov begin training White emigre detachments.
At the trial, Semenov was blamed for writing letters to Hitler, but the mere fact of writing these messages cannot be regarded as a statement of loyal feelings. Semenov hated Hitler as well as Stalin and argued that the victory of Hitler would not be a defeat of the people, but the defeat of Stalin. Ataman perfectly understood that the brown ideology does not suit Russia for a number of reasons, and the first one. it is a multinational state.
After the occupation of Manchuria by Japan and the creation of the puppet state of Manzhou-Guo, contacts of the Russian military emigration with the Japanese command intensified. Small detachments were reduced to larger units. Thus, in the summer of 1932, General Kosmin created two formations of several hundred people each. The Japanese command promised to create on their base the White Army of Manzhou-Guo, but subsequently introduced them into the Kwantung Army.
In 1934, at the initiative of the Japanese military mission (JWM), a new governing body for the affairs of the Russian emigration appeared in Harbin, called the “Bureau of the Affairs of the Russian Emigrants” (BREM). The bureau consisted of five divisions:
1. Cultural and educational (led. S. Rodzaevsky);
2. Military educational. was in charge of military training of emigrants;
3. Registration. he was the one who was engaged in the selection of future cadres of intelligence and sabotage subunits from emigrants, the same department carried out the “coverage” of emigration for Japanese intelligence;
4. Economic and financial.
From the structure and tasks of the Bureau, it becomes clear that, creating it, the Japanese sought to establish full control over emigration. The leadership of the Bureau consisted of Rodzaevsky, whom we mentioned earlier, his right hand in the fascist organization MA. Matkovsky, generals A.P. Baksheev, V.A. Kislitsyn and others.
In 1931, after the Japanese occupation, the Keovakai Society was created to establish total police control over the local population. This “state” militant body set as its main goal the struggle against any manifestation of red propaganda and communism. The Russian department of this society collaborated with BREM. In 1940, Russian emigrants were admitted to the volunteer squad. These squads were in fact the prototype of the “Police of the Order”, created on the territory of Russia by the German occupiers. In addition to the squads, courses were opened for the preparation of the command personnel for Russian detachments and squads.
Control over the white immigrants was also established by the military gendarmerie of the Kwantung Army. Kempei. Kostya Nakamura, a gangster in the past, was assigned to the Nazis.
The role of the Japanese Abwehr and the SD in one person was carried out by the Tokumu Kikan special purpose body. It was a top secret unit at the 2 department of the General Staff of the Imperial Army. He was headed by Colonel Doihara Kenji, who had the title of "Manchu Lawrence."
For their purposes, the Japanese actively developed the Cossacks. Thus, during interrogation in 1945, the former head of the Union of Cossacks in the Far East, General Baksheev, captured by SMERSH, showed that: “For the purpose of military training of the White Cossacks for the upcoming armed struggle against the Soviet Union, I issued an order according to which all members of the Union Cossacks in the Far East "capable of carrying weapons, were enrolled in the regimental regiments ...
The Japanese Military Mission has always supported events related to the military training of white émigrés, and participated in the creation of white-guard units. ”
As mentioned above, in the summer of 1932, at the suggestion of Major General Komatsubara, General Kosmin began to create armed Russian formations, regarded as the future core of the Russian army in the upcoming Soviet-Japanese war. These two units of several hundred people each carried the guard of the Mukden railway lines. Shanhaiguan and Jilin. Lafachan. After some time, Komatsubara asked Kosmin to create additional units, and they were created by active Ketsmin and thrown into battle against Korean and Chinese partisans in the area of Hailin and Mulin, along with detachments of Cossacks and monarchist-minded white emigrants.
Gradually, the Russian units began to decompose.
The reason for this was the work of Soviet agents and the growth of patriotic sentiment in the emigrant community. Not wanting to lose such valuable personnel, the Japanese adopted a law on military service for immigrants, as one of the indigenous peoples of Manzhou-Guo. The plan for this event was developed by Colonel of the Kwantung Army Makoto Asano.
At the end of 1936, at the suggestion of Colonel K. Torasiro, it was decided to take organizational measures to merge all the White Immigration units into one Russian part. By the beginning of 1938, such a formation began to be created in the village of Erchan, on the shores of Sungari, a hundred kilometers from Harbin. The Russians called this place “Sungari-2”. The unit was named after the Japanese adviser, Colonel Asano. During the formation, the stake was placed on the recruitment of local Russian (mostly fascist) and Cossack youth, whose commanders would be Japanese officers. Specialized schools for the squad were engaged in special schools at Henhaohezzi and at the Sungari 2 station. In May, 1938, another Asano-Boutai school was established in Harbin itself. The term of learning the tricks of military and subversive art was first set at three years, but then was reduced to one and a half years. With the release of the cadets received the rank of non-commissioned officers.
The schools studied Soviet regulations, weapons and tactics.
Lectures on Russian history were given once a week, and night classes were held twice a week. Much time was devoted to learning methods of guerrilla warfare. All these classes were conducted in conditions as close as possible to the real ones. Until September, 1939, the Asano detachment was called infantry, and was then renamed cavalry.
The armament of the detachment consisted of Japanese rifles "Arisaka" and Russian three-line, light and heavy machine guns, howitzers.
Initially, the detachment had 200 people, soon five companies were deployed at its base, and the total number of servicemen was 700 people. Colonel Asano Takashi directly submitted to the headquarters of the Kwantung Army, and the brigade was part of the Manzhou-Guo Army. This fact was strongly emphasized by propaganda as confirmation of the independence of the military ministry of puppet education. The financial support really came from the Manchu military ministry, and the Asanov soldiers wore Manchu military uniforms. At the same time in the warehouses lay sets of "native" Soviet military uniforms and weapons of the Red Army. in the case of special tasks. According to other information, the Asanovites wore a Japanese military uniform; their Russian officers also had Japanese katana swords, which indicates that the brigade belonged to the Kwantung Army.
The brigade commander of the Japanese put Gurgen Nagolyan (in some sources Nagolen), who had consistently served in the railway railway police, the Manzhou-Guo army, where he received the rank of major. Brigade Nagolyan commanded the rank of colonel. This appointment displeased the leader of all Russian fascists, Rodzaevsky, but the Japanese convinced him that everything was done for the good of the Russians and that stubbornness should not be exercised in this matter. According to other information, Nagolyan was only a brigade staff officer.
Responsible for recruiting volunteers at Asano, Rodzaevsky appointed his associate Lev Okhotin.
The commander of the cavalry unit of the brigade was Colonel Yakov Yakovlevich Smirnov, a careerist like Nagolyan. Major of the Manchu army N.A. commanded the infantry unit of the brigade. Gukaev.
According to the information of the English writer of the life of the Russian fascists D. Stefan, the command of the Kwantung Army entrusted the dangerous assignments to the Asanovites, the secret nature of which did not promise their participants posthumous glory. In the Red Army uniform, the fighters of the brigade made their way onto Soviet territory and studied the disposition of the Soviet troops.
Asanovtsy, dressed in the form of the Red Army, also organized provocative shelling of Manchu territory.
The main combat action of the brigade was participation in the Nomonkhan battle (in the USSR and in Russia this battle is better known by the name of the Khalkhin-Gol River) in 1939. The main role in this operation was played by the Japanese 23rd Infantry Division under the command of General Komatsubara. Many Asanovites served as scouts and translators in it. The Soviet command sent flamethrowers to this Japanese division and brigade. Tanks. The infantry entrenched in the flat steppe became easy prey for them. In ten days of hostilities, out of 15 people, 140 11 were killed.
Fighting on the Khalkhin-Gol River
An example of the successful use of Russian in the battles of Khalkhin Gol is given by A. Kaygorodov. The 5 squadron of Captain Tyrsin, who served in the Japanese gendarmerie before Asano, was on reconnaissance patrol when in the bare steppe he encountered the same number of troops of the Mongolian People's Republic.
The Mongols took the Cossacks for their own, for which they paid dearly. Cossacks hacked down all the red cavalrymen, two or three fled, and one officer was captured.
Had a team and his hero. It was Mikhail Natarov, an Asanovist radio operator, who was killed under the Soviet bombing. In Harbin, the 50 meter obelisk was erected on Cathedral Square with the urn walled in it.
After the German attack on the USSR, the Asanovists were ordered to take the side of Sakhalin. Separate groups in civilian clothes, 80 people each, traveled by train to the area of the village Kumaer. Several three inches, light machine guns and 100 thousand rounds of ammunition were transferred there. However, something prevented the deployment of hostilities.
Subsequently, it turned out that the brigade commander, Colonel Gurgen Nagolyan, had been an agent of Soviet intelligence all this time. After the Soviet troops entered Harbin in 1945, the four-thousand brigade disbanded without firing a shot.
Another unit of the brigade was located in the village of Henkhohetstsi and was called "Russian military detachment." It was formed in January 1944 of the year on the basis of the Asaeko 1 company of the Asano Brigade. Personnel were recruited throughout Manzhou-Guo, and preference was given to the police.
Subsequently, young people between the ages of 16 and 35 years from the eastern districts of Manchuria and from Old Believer villages were recruited into the squadron.
The formation was shrouded in secrecy. The training was similar to asanovsky. sabotage and military training. The whole detachment, headed by the captain Gukayev, mentioned earlier, consisted of two companies: the 1-th company was commanded by Lieutenant Pleshko, 2-th. Lieutenant Lognenko. When the detachment was constantly Japanese military inspector. In January 1941, the squad was merged with the training team of the mountain forest police.
Classes in the detachment were held according to the old regulations of the Russian army, great attention was paid to the training of hand-to-hand combat. In addition, they studied the history of Russia, geography.
The detachment had its own radio station from 26 signalers. Conducted workshops on the radio business.
In the period from 1941 to 1944, the year “Asaeko” prepared and conducted three issues of agent saboteurs (over 150 people), the training team of the squad prepared 130 graduates.
When Mudanzyanskoy Japanese military mission also existed its units:
1. Diversionary detachment of the mountain forest police. in 22 km from the station Hehnhohehetszy, commander. Lieutenant Ilinsky.
2. Subversive and police squad. in the village of Erdaohetszy, commander. captain Trofimov.
3. Subversive and police detachment on the Mulinsky mines. formed at the end of 1944, the commander. Pavlov.
4. Subversive squad of reservists. formed at the end of 1944 at the station of Lishuchen, commander. Lieutenant Lozhenkov.
All of these units consisted of approximately 40 people each.
With the direct participation of the Russian fascists and the Sakhalyan Japanese military mission, another squad was formed in April 1939. It includes Russian youth from 14 to 24 years, the total number did not exceed 20 people. The leader of the detachment and the teacher of military training was GS Naumov, who had the rank of Feldwebel in the WWF. From 1940 to 1941, the squad was engaged in military training and camp camps. At the same time, the Sakhalyan Nuclear Weapons Division attracted the entire Russian male population of Sakhalin from 18 to 40 to the squadron’s participation, with the result that the number of the squad doubled. With the beginning of the war between the USSR and Germany, the charges became more frequent and the detachment fell under the care of Japanese instructors. In 1943, the squad was reduced to 22 people. The second deputy assistant to the head of the JWM, Captain Nagai (Mori), became his actual leader.
Detachment officers were trained in intelligence, propaganda, communications, and sabotage techniques. Instructors-cavalrymen came to the detachment from Harbin.
At the end of 1943 of the year and at the beginning of 1944, the entire composition of the detachment was transported along the Amur River and in its upper reaches it was transferred to the territory of the USSR in groups of 3.5 people. Scouts photographed military and civilian objects, tapped phone conversations. After this work and until the autumn of 1944, the detachment worked in agricultural work under the Sakhalyan nuclear weapons. After this, the detachment was engaged in hunting and preparing for guerrilla warfare.
From 1 in March 1945, the detachment was staffed by Russian reservists at Henhaohezzi station. At the beginning of the summer of the same year, the Japanese command planned to transfer the detachment to the Soviet territory, along with several Russian employees from the propaganda department of the Sakhalyan YaVM, but it was never implemented.
Another formation similar to the Asano brigade in terms of combat training was the Cossack cavalry detachments under the command of Colonel Ivan Aleksandrovich Peshkov, united in the Peshkovsky Detachment subunit. It was formed in Hailar in 1939.1940.
The basis of the personnel was the Transbaikalian Cossacks and the Russian youth. Cossack uniform was kept. harem pants with stripes, checkers and carbines. The system of military ranks was also old. At first, the detachment lacked Cossack saddles and bridles, but everyone was rescued by the Hailar saddler Mylnikov, who started manufacturing them.
The appeals to the Peshkov detachment took place annually, and besides, the Peszkivtsi exchanged personnel with the Asanovites, so an accurate record of the number of servicemen in these two formations is difficult.
The end of this formation is tragic. In August 1945, the Japanese loaded the Cossacks into wagons with Japanese and Manchurian soldiers. During breakfast at the station Buchad squad made weapons in the pyramid. On both sides, the Japanese and the Manchus entered the village. Deputy Peshkov Boris Zimin advised to urgently disassemble the weapon, but the commander only laughed, saying that there was nothing to fear from his allies. Time has been lost. The cossacks were knitted by several people, pinned up with bayonets and shot. Already dead Peshkovu Japanese officer chopped off his head. Only five Cossacks survived, who left before the massacre of the Japanese train.
After the atrocities, the corpses and the seriously wounded were left to lie, and the local Manchus began to engage in looting. The surviving Cossacks, together with the Japanese, were captured by the advanced units of the Red Army, and were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
The Japanese command also created anti-partisan detachments of Nanai and Orochen. From the materials of the State Unitary Administration of the NKVD of the USSR and the NKVD across the Khabarovsk Territory it is clear that Japanese intelligence in the Xinjiang province formed four “Taiga detachments”, four more groups were created in Heihe province, in each of the detachments there were 100-200 people. In addition to fighting the guerrillas, they were given the task of conducting subversive activities against the USSR. These units consisted of congenital hunters, hunters, leading a nomadic way of life. Until that time, they were forbidden to have firearms, since many of them had previously lived on the territory of the USSR. Being in charge of special police departments, they were supplied with weapons, ammunition and food. The police held military training camps with them. During the 1941 year, charges were held repeatedly in the provinces of Xinjiang and Heihe. During the month, training sessions on fire, drill and tactical training were held at the training camp. In addition to the hunting weapons, the personnel of the detachments were armed with Japanese rifles and partly with Mauser pistols with a sufficient amount of ammunition. Each detachment, in addition, was equipped with a light machine gun and riding horses. The order of notification and urgent collection of units, if necessary, was developed and defined.
On the part of Japanese intelligence, there was a promise to resettle families in the frontier zone at the points of deployment of detachments, to provide land for processing at the construction site.
In order to conceal the true purpose of the detachments, the Japanese spread information that the detachments were created to hunt fur animals and assist in guarding the border.
In February, 1942, a large detachment of Nanais participated in a punitive expedition against a Chinese partisan detachment, Wang Mingui, with a number of 110 people who operated on the territory of Manchuria in Heihe Province.
In response to the creation by the Japanese of national combat units, the USSR State Security agencies began to create on the Soviet contiguous territory their "volunteer" detachments from local residents, hunters, fishermen, forest guard workers, beekeepers, fishermen, and a similar contingent with firearms. The creation of our detachments was also intended to use them as partisans in the event of the outbreak of hostilities by Japan.
In the service of the Japanese military authorities consisted of many immigrants. Ukrainians, Tatars, Armenians, Georgians, Jews, Buryats, Nanai and Yakuts.
In addition to fighting groups and detachments, the Japanese conducted training for servicemen-defectors of the Buryats and the Mongols. For this purpose, Kogain, Kooan, and Hoanokio camps have been established. All of these camps were highly classified, and even the employees of the Harbin NRA were forbidden to appear in them without special passes.
The reconnaissance and sabotage special squad number 377 or Cloud-900 was created in 1944 on the basis of the training structures of the Harbin NRA. The detachment consisted of three companies and seven battle groups. Two companies were Japanese kamikazes who had undergone airborne training and were preparing to commit sabotage acts in the Soviet rear. Combat groups were mixed. Japanese-Russian and Japanese-Chinese. Each of them included from 12 to 20 people of saboteurs, radio operators, medics and translators. In 1944, the Cloud was merged with the Harbin Intelligence School.
The Harbin Intelligence School itself, established in 1937, recruited its listeners from the Russian emigration. The most capable cadres were included in the composition of Japanese intelligence, the rest of the students after individual training were cast into the USSR. The school curriculum was 1 year, the total number of cadets was approximately 70 people.
The end of the cooperation of immigrants with the Japanese military authorities put the victory of the Red Army. Most of the Russian colony of Harbin and other cities welcomed her every military success. Pro-Soviet public and youth organizations gained more and more authority.
Allied hostilities also undermined the authority of the Japanese authorities. It was gradually becoming obvious to everyone that Japan had lost the war. Decomposition has affected all, without exception, Russian parts and divisions. Soviet propaganda and Soviet intelligence activities played a big role in this. The Soviet state security organs knew all the details of the military life of one or another formation and its potential capabilities.
The Second World War ended differently for the individuals mentioned in this chapter. Ataman G.M. Semenov was captured by the SMERSH group of 19 on August 1945 of the year at his dacha in Kahakashi. There is information that during this arrest, the Chekists discredited his daughter. According to another version, the ataman himself, with full dress uniform, invited the Smerzens to the laid table and proclaimed a toast to the victory of the Russian weapon. Anyway, the ataman Semenov ended his life on the gallows by the verdict of the military tribunal. A similar story happened with the head of the Russian fascists K. Rodzaevsky, despite the fact that he declared himself in front of his tragic end to be an adherent of the teachings of I.V. Stalin. A talented Russian poet, a member of the WFTU, Arseny Nesmelov (Mitropolsky), died in a transfer prison.
In general, the actions of the Soviet authorities did not differ in diversity, and the Far Eastern collaborators expected the same fate as the Russians who served in the ROA or in the XV Cavalry Cossack Corps of General von Pannwitz. All the surviving ranks of the Asano brigade, the Cossacks — the Peshkivtsi, the policemen, the working peasants, and the CER employees joined the ranks of the GULAG prisoners. Many were shot.
The apocryphal story that Colonel Asano made himself hara-kiri at the Sungari-2 station came to us, having learned about the fate of his soldiers and officers. Allegedly, in the suicide note was the phrase "I will redeem my guilt before death."
There were also people who met the Soviet government with open arms, although they had previously held significant posts in the leadership of anti-Soviet organizations. Thus, the right hand of the head of the fascist party, M. Matkovsky, the son of a Kolchak general, brought lists of all BREM employees to the Soviet authorities. One of the founders of the Russian fascist organization B. Rumyantsev became the head of the Association of Soviet Citizens.
All monuments of Russian architecture and culture were destroyed and destroyed. They were destroyed by both Chinese and Soviet authorities.
A huge stream of Russian refugees poured from Manchuria and China, not waiting for the arrival of the "liberators". This emigration from emigration was continued when the refugees were able to be accommodated on the island of Tubabao in the Pacific ...
Entry of the People's Revolutionary Army of the FER in Vladivostok. 1922 year
The composition of this emigre wave was very mixed: Cossacks and soldiers, officers and railway workers, criminal elements and merchants.
Many of the white parts, crossing the border, retained their personal weapons. Constant fighting in China, the presence of a large number of Hunghuz gangs in Manchuria and, consequently, continuous violence, led to a large degree of criminalization of society. The presence of experienced White-Immigrant cadres allowed the Japanese military authorities to create and constantly maintain a warlike spirit in Russian White emigres, preparing a well-prepared “fifth column” for their aggressive objectives.
In 1925, the "Russian Fascist Organization" was formed, by 1931, it grew into a party. The party was led by a former Soviet student from Blagoveshchensk Konstantin Rodzaevsky. By the end of the 1930s, it had up to 23 thousands of members united in the 48 departments in the territory of 18 countries.
Russian Fascist Organization, Harbin
Under the party’s Supreme Council, there was a “Training Unit (team) of the WFTU” of 40 members. The squad had 67 rifles, 18 Mauser pistols, 4 machine guns and 6 light machine guns, 25 hand grenade crates. In 1938 year weapon It was seized by the Japanese, but then it was returned. The commander of the detachment, Colonel N.A. Martynov.
General Lieutenant G.M. Semenov.
The leader of the Far Eastern emigration was Ataman General Lieutenant G.M. Semenov. From the time of the Civil War, he had close contacts with Japanese military representatives, nurturing plans to create various buffer states on the territory of the Soviet Far East, Siberia and Transbaikalia. Some leaders of the Japanese command saw in Semenov a potential ruler of the state of Siberia-Go. puppet-like Manchukuo.
The ataman had at his disposal a permanent agent network on Soviet territory and his own military units from the Cossacks.
By the end of the thirties, the Ataman subordinated the following forces:
1. Mongol-Buryat brigade of three regiments under the command of Lieutenant-General Urzhin;
2. Two brigades of Transbaikalian Cossacks;
3. The personnel of the two military schools and the Cossacks in Harbin;
4. Border and police units, with a total of up to 2500 bayonets;
5. Security detachments on concessions;
6. The Tientsin Russian Volunteer Corps of General Glebov and military courses;
7. Personnel infantry and cavalry regiments and artillery batteries.
In January 1945, Semenov announced the subordination of his 60-thousandth army to General Vlasov and the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia. Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the KONR, Major General F.I. Trukhin claimed in his diary that he had sent several officers to Semenov in the Far East on a secret mission.
Lt. Col. Isimura. Chief of 2 (intelligence) department of the headquarters of the Kwantung Army. suggested gm Semenov begin training White emigre detachments.
At the trial, Semenov was blamed for writing letters to Hitler, but the mere fact of writing these messages cannot be regarded as a statement of loyal feelings. Semenov hated Hitler as well as Stalin and argued that the victory of Hitler would not be a defeat of the people, but the defeat of Stalin. Ataman perfectly understood that the brown ideology does not suit Russia for a number of reasons, and the first one. it is a multinational state.
After the occupation of Manchuria by Japan and the creation of the puppet state of Manzhou-Guo, contacts of the Russian military emigration with the Japanese command intensified. Small detachments were reduced to larger units. Thus, in the summer of 1932, General Kosmin created two formations of several hundred people each. The Japanese command promised to create on their base the White Army of Manzhou-Guo, but subsequently introduced them into the Kwantung Army.
In 1934, at the initiative of the Japanese military mission (JWM), a new governing body for the affairs of the Russian emigration appeared in Harbin, called the “Bureau of the Affairs of the Russian Emigrants” (BREM). The bureau consisted of five divisions:
1. Cultural and educational (led. S. Rodzaevsky);
2. Military educational. was in charge of military training of emigrants;
3. Registration. he was the one who was engaged in the selection of future cadres of intelligence and sabotage subunits from emigrants, the same department carried out the “coverage” of emigration for Japanese intelligence;
4. Economic and financial.
From the structure and tasks of the Bureau, it becomes clear that, creating it, the Japanese sought to establish full control over emigration. The leadership of the Bureau consisted of Rodzaevsky, whom we mentioned earlier, his right hand in the fascist organization MA. Matkovsky, generals A.P. Baksheev, V.A. Kislitsyn and others.
In 1931, after the Japanese occupation, the Keovakai Society was created to establish total police control over the local population. This “state” militant body set as its main goal the struggle against any manifestation of red propaganda and communism. The Russian department of this society collaborated with BREM. In 1940, Russian emigrants were admitted to the volunteer squad. These squads were in fact the prototype of the “Police of the Order”, created on the territory of Russia by the German occupiers. In addition to the squads, courses were opened for the preparation of the command personnel for Russian detachments and squads.
Control over the white immigrants was also established by the military gendarmerie of the Kwantung Army. Kempei. Kostya Nakamura, a gangster in the past, was assigned to the Nazis.
The role of the Japanese Abwehr and the SD in one person was carried out by the Tokumu Kikan special purpose body. It was a top secret unit at the 2 department of the General Staff of the Imperial Army. He was headed by Colonel Doihara Kenji, who had the title of "Manchu Lawrence."
For their purposes, the Japanese actively developed the Cossacks. Thus, during interrogation in 1945, the former head of the Union of Cossacks in the Far East, General Baksheev, captured by SMERSH, showed that: “For the purpose of military training of the White Cossacks for the upcoming armed struggle against the Soviet Union, I issued an order according to which all members of the Union Cossacks in the Far East "capable of carrying weapons, were enrolled in the regimental regiments ...
The Japanese Military Mission has always supported events related to the military training of white émigrés, and participated in the creation of white-guard units. ”
As mentioned above, in the summer of 1932, at the suggestion of Major General Komatsubara, General Kosmin began to create armed Russian formations, regarded as the future core of the Russian army in the upcoming Soviet-Japanese war. These two units of several hundred people each carried the guard of the Mukden railway lines. Shanhaiguan and Jilin. Lafachan. After some time, Komatsubara asked Kosmin to create additional units, and they were created by active Ketsmin and thrown into battle against Korean and Chinese partisans in the area of Hailin and Mulin, along with detachments of Cossacks and monarchist-minded white emigrants.
Gradually, the Russian units began to decompose.
The reason for this was the work of Soviet agents and the growth of patriotic sentiment in the emigrant community. Not wanting to lose such valuable personnel, the Japanese adopted a law on military service for immigrants, as one of the indigenous peoples of Manzhou-Guo. The plan for this event was developed by Colonel of the Kwantung Army Makoto Asano.
At the end of 1936, at the suggestion of Colonel K. Torasiro, it was decided to take organizational measures to merge all the White Immigration units into one Russian part. By the beginning of 1938, such a formation began to be created in the village of Erchan, on the shores of Sungari, a hundred kilometers from Harbin. The Russians called this place “Sungari-2”. The unit was named after the Japanese adviser, Colonel Asano. During the formation, the stake was placed on the recruitment of local Russian (mostly fascist) and Cossack youth, whose commanders would be Japanese officers. Specialized schools for the squad were engaged in special schools at Henhaohezzi and at the Sungari 2 station. In May, 1938, another Asano-Boutai school was established in Harbin itself. The term of learning the tricks of military and subversive art was first set at three years, but then was reduced to one and a half years. With the release of the cadets received the rank of non-commissioned officers.
The schools studied Soviet regulations, weapons and tactics.
Lectures on Russian history were given once a week, and night classes were held twice a week. Much time was devoted to learning methods of guerrilla warfare. All these classes were conducted in conditions as close as possible to the real ones. Until September, 1939, the Asano detachment was called infantry, and was then renamed cavalry.
The armament of the detachment consisted of Japanese rifles "Arisaka" and Russian three-line, light and heavy machine guns, howitzers.
Initially, the detachment had 200 people, soon five companies were deployed at its base, and the total number of servicemen was 700 people. Colonel Asano Takashi directly submitted to the headquarters of the Kwantung Army, and the brigade was part of the Manzhou-Guo Army. This fact was strongly emphasized by propaganda as confirmation of the independence of the military ministry of puppet education. The financial support really came from the Manchu military ministry, and the Asanov soldiers wore Manchu military uniforms. At the same time in the warehouses lay sets of "native" Soviet military uniforms and weapons of the Red Army. in the case of special tasks. According to other information, the Asanovites wore a Japanese military uniform; their Russian officers also had Japanese katana swords, which indicates that the brigade belonged to the Kwantung Army.
The brigade commander of the Japanese put Gurgen Nagolyan (in some sources Nagolen), who had consistently served in the railway railway police, the Manzhou-Guo army, where he received the rank of major. Brigade Nagolyan commanded the rank of colonel. This appointment displeased the leader of all Russian fascists, Rodzaevsky, but the Japanese convinced him that everything was done for the good of the Russians and that stubbornness should not be exercised in this matter. According to other information, Nagolyan was only a brigade staff officer.
Responsible for recruiting volunteers at Asano, Rodzaevsky appointed his associate Lev Okhotin.
The commander of the cavalry unit of the brigade was Colonel Yakov Yakovlevich Smirnov, a careerist like Nagolyan. Major of the Manchu army N.A. commanded the infantry unit of the brigade. Gukaev.
According to the information of the English writer of the life of the Russian fascists D. Stefan, the command of the Kwantung Army entrusted the dangerous assignments to the Asanovites, the secret nature of which did not promise their participants posthumous glory. In the Red Army uniform, the fighters of the brigade made their way onto Soviet territory and studied the disposition of the Soviet troops.
Asanovtsy, dressed in the form of the Red Army, also organized provocative shelling of Manchu territory.
The main combat action of the brigade was participation in the Nomonkhan battle (in the USSR and in Russia this battle is better known by the name of the Khalkhin-Gol River) in 1939. The main role in this operation was played by the Japanese 23rd Infantry Division under the command of General Komatsubara. Many Asanovites served as scouts and translators in it. The Soviet command sent flamethrowers to this Japanese division and brigade. Tanks. The infantry entrenched in the flat steppe became easy prey for them. In ten days of hostilities, out of 15 people, 140 11 were killed.
Fighting on the Khalkhin-Gol River
An example of the successful use of Russian in the battles of Khalkhin Gol is given by A. Kaygorodov. The 5 squadron of Captain Tyrsin, who served in the Japanese gendarmerie before Asano, was on reconnaissance patrol when in the bare steppe he encountered the same number of troops of the Mongolian People's Republic.
The Mongols took the Cossacks for their own, for which they paid dearly. Cossacks hacked down all the red cavalrymen, two or three fled, and one officer was captured.
Had a team and his hero. It was Mikhail Natarov, an Asanovist radio operator, who was killed under the Soviet bombing. In Harbin, the 50 meter obelisk was erected on Cathedral Square with the urn walled in it.
After the German attack on the USSR, the Asanovists were ordered to take the side of Sakhalin. Separate groups in civilian clothes, 80 people each, traveled by train to the area of the village Kumaer. Several three inches, light machine guns and 100 thousand rounds of ammunition were transferred there. However, something prevented the deployment of hostilities.
Subsequently, it turned out that the brigade commander, Colonel Gurgen Nagolyan, had been an agent of Soviet intelligence all this time. After the Soviet troops entered Harbin in 1945, the four-thousand brigade disbanded without firing a shot.
Another unit of the brigade was located in the village of Henkhohetstsi and was called "Russian military detachment." It was formed in January 1944 of the year on the basis of the Asaeko 1 company of the Asano Brigade. Personnel were recruited throughout Manzhou-Guo, and preference was given to the police.
Subsequently, young people between the ages of 16 and 35 years from the eastern districts of Manchuria and from Old Believer villages were recruited into the squadron.
The formation was shrouded in secrecy. The training was similar to asanovsky. sabotage and military training. The whole detachment, headed by the captain Gukayev, mentioned earlier, consisted of two companies: the 1-th company was commanded by Lieutenant Pleshko, 2-th. Lieutenant Lognenko. When the detachment was constantly Japanese military inspector. In January 1941, the squad was merged with the training team of the mountain forest police.
Classes in the detachment were held according to the old regulations of the Russian army, great attention was paid to the training of hand-to-hand combat. In addition, they studied the history of Russia, geography.
The detachment had its own radio station from 26 signalers. Conducted workshops on the radio business.
In the period from 1941 to 1944, the year “Asaeko” prepared and conducted three issues of agent saboteurs (over 150 people), the training team of the squad prepared 130 graduates.
When Mudanzyanskoy Japanese military mission also existed its units:
1. Diversionary detachment of the mountain forest police. in 22 km from the station Hehnhohehetszy, commander. Lieutenant Ilinsky.
2. Subversive and police squad. in the village of Erdaohetszy, commander. captain Trofimov.
3. Subversive and police detachment on the Mulinsky mines. formed at the end of 1944, the commander. Pavlov.
4. Subversive squad of reservists. formed at the end of 1944 at the station of Lishuchen, commander. Lieutenant Lozhenkov.
All of these units consisted of approximately 40 people each.
With the direct participation of the Russian fascists and the Sakhalyan Japanese military mission, another squad was formed in April 1939. It includes Russian youth from 14 to 24 years, the total number did not exceed 20 people. The leader of the detachment and the teacher of military training was GS Naumov, who had the rank of Feldwebel in the WWF. From 1940 to 1941, the squad was engaged in military training and camp camps. At the same time, the Sakhalyan Nuclear Weapons Division attracted the entire Russian male population of Sakhalin from 18 to 40 to the squadron’s participation, with the result that the number of the squad doubled. With the beginning of the war between the USSR and Germany, the charges became more frequent and the detachment fell under the care of Japanese instructors. In 1943, the squad was reduced to 22 people. The second deputy assistant to the head of the JWM, Captain Nagai (Mori), became his actual leader.
Detachment officers were trained in intelligence, propaganda, communications, and sabotage techniques. Instructors-cavalrymen came to the detachment from Harbin.
At the end of 1943 of the year and at the beginning of 1944, the entire composition of the detachment was transported along the Amur River and in its upper reaches it was transferred to the territory of the USSR in groups of 3.5 people. Scouts photographed military and civilian objects, tapped phone conversations. After this work and until the autumn of 1944, the detachment worked in agricultural work under the Sakhalyan nuclear weapons. After this, the detachment was engaged in hunting and preparing for guerrilla warfare.
From 1 in March 1945, the detachment was staffed by Russian reservists at Henhaohezzi station. At the beginning of the summer of the same year, the Japanese command planned to transfer the detachment to the Soviet territory, along with several Russian employees from the propaganda department of the Sakhalyan YaVM, but it was never implemented.
Another formation similar to the Asano brigade in terms of combat training was the Cossack cavalry detachments under the command of Colonel Ivan Aleksandrovich Peshkov, united in the Peshkovsky Detachment subunit. It was formed in Hailar in 1939.1940.
The basis of the personnel was the Transbaikalian Cossacks and the Russian youth. Cossack uniform was kept. harem pants with stripes, checkers and carbines. The system of military ranks was also old. At first, the detachment lacked Cossack saddles and bridles, but everyone was rescued by the Hailar saddler Mylnikov, who started manufacturing them.
The appeals to the Peshkov detachment took place annually, and besides, the Peszkivtsi exchanged personnel with the Asanovites, so an accurate record of the number of servicemen in these two formations is difficult.
The end of this formation is tragic. In August 1945, the Japanese loaded the Cossacks into wagons with Japanese and Manchurian soldiers. During breakfast at the station Buchad squad made weapons in the pyramid. On both sides, the Japanese and the Manchus entered the village. Deputy Peshkov Boris Zimin advised to urgently disassemble the weapon, but the commander only laughed, saying that there was nothing to fear from his allies. Time has been lost. The cossacks were knitted by several people, pinned up with bayonets and shot. Already dead Peshkovu Japanese officer chopped off his head. Only five Cossacks survived, who left before the massacre of the Japanese train.
After the atrocities, the corpses and the seriously wounded were left to lie, and the local Manchus began to engage in looting. The surviving Cossacks, together with the Japanese, were captured by the advanced units of the Red Army, and were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
The Japanese command also created anti-partisan detachments of Nanai and Orochen. From the materials of the State Unitary Administration of the NKVD of the USSR and the NKVD across the Khabarovsk Territory it is clear that Japanese intelligence in the Xinjiang province formed four “Taiga detachments”, four more groups were created in Heihe province, in each of the detachments there were 100-200 people. In addition to fighting the guerrillas, they were given the task of conducting subversive activities against the USSR. These units consisted of congenital hunters, hunters, leading a nomadic way of life. Until that time, they were forbidden to have firearms, since many of them had previously lived on the territory of the USSR. Being in charge of special police departments, they were supplied with weapons, ammunition and food. The police held military training camps with them. During the 1941 year, charges were held repeatedly in the provinces of Xinjiang and Heihe. During the month, training sessions on fire, drill and tactical training were held at the training camp. In addition to the hunting weapons, the personnel of the detachments were armed with Japanese rifles and partly with Mauser pistols with a sufficient amount of ammunition. Each detachment, in addition, was equipped with a light machine gun and riding horses. The order of notification and urgent collection of units, if necessary, was developed and defined.
On the part of Japanese intelligence, there was a promise to resettle families in the frontier zone at the points of deployment of detachments, to provide land for processing at the construction site.
In order to conceal the true purpose of the detachments, the Japanese spread information that the detachments were created to hunt fur animals and assist in guarding the border.
In February, 1942, a large detachment of Nanais participated in a punitive expedition against a Chinese partisan detachment, Wang Mingui, with a number of 110 people who operated on the territory of Manchuria in Heihe Province.
In response to the creation by the Japanese of national combat units, the USSR State Security agencies began to create on the Soviet contiguous territory their "volunteer" detachments from local residents, hunters, fishermen, forest guard workers, beekeepers, fishermen, and a similar contingent with firearms. The creation of our detachments was also intended to use them as partisans in the event of the outbreak of hostilities by Japan.
In the service of the Japanese military authorities consisted of many immigrants. Ukrainians, Tatars, Armenians, Georgians, Jews, Buryats, Nanai and Yakuts.
In addition to fighting groups and detachments, the Japanese conducted training for servicemen-defectors of the Buryats and the Mongols. For this purpose, Kogain, Kooan, and Hoanokio camps have been established. All of these camps were highly classified, and even the employees of the Harbin NRA were forbidden to appear in them without special passes.
The reconnaissance and sabotage special squad number 377 or Cloud-900 was created in 1944 on the basis of the training structures of the Harbin NRA. The detachment consisted of three companies and seven battle groups. Two companies were Japanese kamikazes who had undergone airborne training and were preparing to commit sabotage acts in the Soviet rear. Combat groups were mixed. Japanese-Russian and Japanese-Chinese. Each of them included from 12 to 20 people of saboteurs, radio operators, medics and translators. In 1944, the Cloud was merged with the Harbin Intelligence School.
The Harbin Intelligence School itself, established in 1937, recruited its listeners from the Russian emigration. The most capable cadres were included in the composition of Japanese intelligence, the rest of the students after individual training were cast into the USSR. The school curriculum was 1 year, the total number of cadets was approximately 70 people.
The end of the cooperation of immigrants with the Japanese military authorities put the victory of the Red Army. Most of the Russian colony of Harbin and other cities welcomed her every military success. Pro-Soviet public and youth organizations gained more and more authority.
Allied hostilities also undermined the authority of the Japanese authorities. It was gradually becoming obvious to everyone that Japan had lost the war. Decomposition has affected all, without exception, Russian parts and divisions. Soviet propaganda and Soviet intelligence activities played a big role in this. The Soviet state security organs knew all the details of the military life of one or another formation and its potential capabilities.
The Second World War ended differently for the individuals mentioned in this chapter. Ataman G.M. Semenov was captured by the SMERSH group of 19 on August 1945 of the year at his dacha in Kahakashi. There is information that during this arrest, the Chekists discredited his daughter. According to another version, the ataman himself, with full dress uniform, invited the Smerzens to the laid table and proclaimed a toast to the victory of the Russian weapon. Anyway, the ataman Semenov ended his life on the gallows by the verdict of the military tribunal. A similar story happened with the head of the Russian fascists K. Rodzaevsky, despite the fact that he declared himself in front of his tragic end to be an adherent of the teachings of I.V. Stalin. A talented Russian poet, a member of the WFTU, Arseny Nesmelov (Mitropolsky), died in a transfer prison.
In general, the actions of the Soviet authorities did not differ in diversity, and the Far Eastern collaborators expected the same fate as the Russians who served in the ROA or in the XV Cavalry Cossack Corps of General von Pannwitz. All the surviving ranks of the Asano brigade, the Cossacks — the Peshkivtsi, the policemen, the working peasants, and the CER employees joined the ranks of the GULAG prisoners. Many were shot.
The apocryphal story that Colonel Asano made himself hara-kiri at the Sungari-2 station came to us, having learned about the fate of his soldiers and officers. Allegedly, in the suicide note was the phrase "I will redeem my guilt before death."
There were also people who met the Soviet government with open arms, although they had previously held significant posts in the leadership of anti-Soviet organizations. Thus, the right hand of the head of the fascist party, M. Matkovsky, the son of a Kolchak general, brought lists of all BREM employees to the Soviet authorities. One of the founders of the Russian fascist organization B. Rumyantsev became the head of the Association of Soviet Citizens.
All monuments of Russian architecture and culture were destroyed and destroyed. They were destroyed by both Chinese and Soviet authorities.
A huge stream of Russian refugees poured from Manchuria and China, not waiting for the arrival of the "liberators". This emigration from emigration was continued when the refugees were able to be accommodated on the island of Tubabao in the Pacific ...
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