The moment of truth of the Red Army

The October Revolution led to a split in the armed forces. The officers who faithfully served the tsar took at least three positions in relation to the Bolsheviks: a position of non-reconciliation in relation to Soviet power, a wait-and-see and more or less loyal. The group of officers, which took the third position, eventually moved to the side of the Soviets.

Немного stories about how former personnel generals, military leaders and officers of the tsarist army ended up in the Red Army.

For the newly created Soviet government at the beginning of 1918, a turning point comes: Lenin understands that the guerrilla, and that is how Lenin calls the Red Guard, will not be able to protect the newly created young state. And Lenin decides to bring into the ranks of the Red Army former royal officers - military experts, as they were later called. And he brought them to the service of the Bolsheviks on the orders of the People's Commissar Trotsky Efraim Sklyansky, his deputy, It was Sklyansky who was engaged in propaganda among former officers. By the summer of 1918, almost seven thousand officers had voluntarily enlisted in the regular Red Army. Mikhail Bonch-Bruyevich, the newly appointed Air Force Commander, headed the military experts.

Almost until the end of the twentieth century, it was assumed that it was the workers 'and peasants' Red Army that the Bolsheviks defeated the army of Denikin and Wrangel, which was heavily armed, but, according to historians today, 500 officers of the highest echelon, brilliant graduates of the General Staff Academy fought in the ranks of the Reds Tsarist Russia. They are B.Shaposhnikov, D.Karbyshev, M. Bonch-Bruevich, S.Kamenev, A.Egorov and others. According to the historian Kavtaradze, almost thirty percent of the officers of the tsarist corps served in the ranks of the Bolsheviks. As Trotsky joked about this: “The Red Army is very much like a radish: it is red only on the outside.”

Fate brought them a sad surprise: the military experts had to fight against their own fellow students on the side of the Bolsheviks. However, military experts, many of whom joined the Bolshevik army out of a sense of patriotism, believed that they should protect their homeland, the Russian people, and members of their families.
When in the fall of 1920, the regular Red Army finally completed the defeat of the Russian army, Wrangel confessed before his escape that he was not afraid of Russia, because she now has an army that is so prepared that it will repel any external enemy. “It was we who sharpened the blades to them,” said Wrangel at last. Of course, he meant it was them - military experts, thanks to whom the Bolshevik army turned from guerrillas from guerrillas into a defending army in the Civil War.

However, the Bolsheviks have always believed that the military experts were alien elements for the revolution, they never trusted them.

And what did the Soviet state thank military men for? In the 1922 year, military experts begin to be dismissed from command positions, and the registration of all military experts begins: they are prohibited from moving around the country without the permission of state security agencies. A lot of officers were shot in the dungeons of the Cheka: they were charged with participation in counter-revolutionary conspiracies. Lenin even had to create a new position in the General Staff, which controlled the arrests of military experts, which his associates did not like very much. After the death of Lenin, the military experts had no one to defend. Trotsky was expelled from the USSR. Sklyansky, whom Stalin strongly hated, was sent to America, with which then there was no diplomatic relations. From the curator of the military experts, he turns into a representative of commerce. In America, Sklyansky is the chairman of Amtorg. However, he soon perishes under very mysterious circumstances.

When at the beginning of the 1930s the threat of war hangs over the USSR, and in the country itself, peasant uprisings break out here and there, the Soviet government decides to neutralize the military experts. Criminal cases are instituted on them, the only accusation in which was a conspiracy. The largest and loudest was a criminal case called "Spring", or "Guards Case". Only in Leningrad more than a thousand former military experts were shot. Among them: the division commander A.Svechin, P.Sytin - the former commander of the Southern Front, Y. Gravitsky, A. Verkhovsky, A. Snesarev and others.

In 1937, Marshal Tukhachevsky, Uborevich — the commander of the Belarusian Military District, Cork — the commissioner of the Military Academy, the commander of the Leningrad Military District, Iona Yakir, and the chairman of the Sovaviakhim Eideman and others were shot in the notorious case of the “military”.

It is unknown what fate would have awaited the curator of the military experts Efraim Sklyansky, he did not drown in 1925 year. Until now, many people think that it was Sklyansky who was removed by order of Stalin.

Almost all the prominent military leaders who stood at the origins of the creation of the Red Army, disappeared one by one. Among them, Vatsetis, repressed in 30-ies, Egorov, who was shot on charges of espionage. During the period of Stalinist repression only very few former military experts will survive. One of them was Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, Boris Shaposhnikov. Leonid Govorov.

Comments

[Lech e-mine]

How much blood was shed - not a war but a slaughter.

[tronin.maxim]

And what is especially scary is that this is a civil war.

[LiRoy]

The merit of the Bolsheviks is that they ended the war completely and without tails, and as practice shows, civil wars go into the stage of smoldering conflict and harm the state incomparably greater.

[J_silver]

The topic is revealed more than superficially, if not to say that it is not at all revealed ...
Who, for example, was Govorov — a lieutenant or staff captain? And, for example, Vasilevsky - what did they forget about him?
In general, almost the majority of the officers ended up in the Red Army, and not at all thanks to Trotsky - it was he who largely repelled decent people ...

[Astartes]

Well, in the end, in the tradition of demshiza, wept over Tukhachevsky, Evil Stalin repressed all of uuuu))

[Evgan]

Tukhachevsky - from the tsarist officers? From the royal. High commander in the Red Army? Tall. Shot? Shot. Why not remember - this information fits into the outline of the article.

[serge]

They correctly shot the traitors. They betrayed some, they will betray others.

[Yndyrchi]

Marshal Tukhachevsky distinguished himself by spending money on empty projects: a three-turret tank (Stalin personally ordered to leave one turret and, due to the mass of the removed ones, strengthen his armor), a hybrid of howitzers and anti-aircraft guns, parachuting a cavalryman with a horse (the horse really went crazy - then you catch it in about two weeks) could not).

but most importantly, Tukhachevsky was in fact a monarchist, and he served the Bolsheviks in the hope that they would first restore order, and then they could be moved.
He did participate in a real conspiracy and was about to arrest Stalin and the government. I personally know a man whose father Tukhachevsky offered to participate in this, which he did not agree to.
Judging by this case, with the others, most likely, the situation was similar.

[Pancho]

In my opinion, those whose families were held hostage can be justified, but for those who served the Jewish Bolsheviks not for fear, but for conscience, there is no excuse. Their service led to the death of Russia and the destruction of a huge number of Russian people. that according to the estimates of pre-revolutionary statisticians, only Russians should have had 1950 million people by 300, and you yourself know how it was and how it is.

[Guns]

Well, for those who served the Jewish Bolsheviks not for fear, but for conscience, there is no excuse

hahaha of all the listed executed ALL Jews
and what kind of military experts are they? lieutenants is that Napoleon or Kutuzov?

On August 27, 1925, in mysterious circumstances, New York drowned Efraim Sklyansky, in the past - the right hand of the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the young Soviet Republic Leo Trotsky.

that's where the non-Russian spirit smells. thanks to the purge, the Russians survived otherwise they would have raped what we have now in the 20s

[Strabo]

Themselves were betrayed and betrayed by the Reds. History repeated itself. An officer must take the oath only once. They bowed down in front of the "cook's son" and got it back.

[Denis]

The evil Stalin ordered the execution of Tukhachevsky, who began to gain popularity, but the good oink Zhukov only squeezed out of retirement

[Volkh]

Quote: Strabo

Themselves were betrayed and betrayed by the Reds. History repeated itself. An officer must take the oath only once. They bowed down in front of the "cook's son" and got it back.

In tsarist Russia, officers gave the oath not to the state but to the sovereign, and if the sovereign abdicated earlier than the officers, then the question is, who violated the oath? And what to do?
You are talking nonsense.

[Snoop]

Indeed, they did not betray anyone. In the monarchy, the oath is personally given to the Tsar. If the king himself denied? What is the oath? She's losing strength.