"Popovtsy." How the Cheka Detachment of the Cheka became the main force of the uprising of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and who was its commander Dmitry Popov
Finally, the Left Social Revolutionaries were very unhappy with the “betrayal of the revolution” by the Bolsheviks. They accused the Bolsheviks of departing from revolutionary positions, replacing class interests with the tasks of building a new state. At the same time, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary leadership tried to influence with its propaganda the strata and groups that brought the Bolsheviks to power. First of all, they were revolutionary sailors and soldiers who played the main role in the October Revolution. Taking advantage of the considerable influence among the revolutionary sailors and soldiers, the Left Social Revolutionaries at the time of the armed uprising maintained a presence and strong influence in the Cheka, and under their control were numerous armed groups.
24 June 1918 was decided at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries to switch to an armed struggle against the Bolshevik government. 5 July 1918. At the V All-Russian Congress of Councils, the Left Social Revolutionaries openly opposed the conclusion of peace with Germany and the policy of the Bolsheviks in the countryside. 6 July 1918, the day after the congress, two VChK officers entered the building of the German embassy in Moscow — Left Social Revolutionaries Yakov Blumkin and Nikolai Andreev. They had a meeting with the ambassador, Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, and the embassy counselor Kurt Ritzler and translator Muller also attended the audience. During the conversation, Ambassador Earl Mirbach was shot dead. Shot at it, according to most sources, Nikolai Andreev - 28-year-old left SR, who served as a photographer in the department to combat international espionage Cheka. Having done their work, Nikolai Andreev and Jacob Blumkin jumped out of the embassy and, jumping into the car waiting for them, drove away. They disappeared in the location of the "Popov detachment" - the Combat Command of the Cheka, which was located in the Pokrovsky barracks.
The VChK detachment was an operational unit, well-armed and staffed mainly by the Left Social Revolutionaries. Shortly before the events described, a group of anarchists joined the detachment - former militants of the anarchist Black Guard defeated in Moscow. The detachment size was 600 people, although the command, again in early July, requested food and ammunition for 1000 people - obviously, waiting for replenishment. The detachment was commanded by Dmitry Ivanovich Popov (1892-1921) - 26-year-old sailor, a very remarkable person in the history of revolutionary events and the Civil War.
The biography of Dmitry Popov is typical for a revolutionary sailor of that time. A peasant son, a native of the Kononovo village of the Troitskaya volost of the Klin district of the Moscow province, Dmitry Popov, already in 14 years, barely finished school, went to work in Moscow factories. In 1914, after the start of World War I, an 22-year-old worker was called up for active military service. Workers, as more technically literate, were often sent to the fleet, and peasants to the army. Dmitry Popov was distributed to the Baltic Fleet. By 1917, many sailors of the Baltic Fleet were influenced by revolutionary ideas, and not even the Bolsheviks, but the more radical left-wing Social Revolutionaries and anarchists enjoyed greater popularity among the sailors. Dmitry Popov was no exception - in 1917, he joined the Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries, participated in the October armed uprising. At the same time, Dmitry Popov was delegated to the Central Executive Committee. At the end of 1917, in Helsingfors, under the command of Popov, the Red-Soviet Finnish detachment was formed, which included not only the revolutionary sailors of the Baltic Fleet, but the Red Army soldiers - Finns by nationality. In March, 1918, by order of the superior leadership, Popov's detachment was redeployed to Moscow and transferred to the Moscow Council. 8 April 1918, as a combat-ready and well-trained unit, the Popov detachment was transferred to the command of the Cheka and was called the Combat Command of the Cheka. In April, 1918 Dmitry Popov was approved by the Chief of Staff of the Combat Detachment at the Cheka, at the same time he was included on the Cheka panel.
After the leadership of the Left Social Revolutionaries decided to prepare for an armed uprising against the power of the Bolsheviks, measures began in the Popov detachment that even an ignorant person could recognize as preparation for hostilities. First, Popov requested food and ammunition not for the 600 fighters of the detachment, but for the 1000 people. Secondly, he demanded to supply the detachment with sanitary stretchers and medical supplies in large quantities, which indicated only one thing - the commander knows that in the near future there will be many wounded. In addition, all probolshevische-minded fighters and commanders, including the "Red Finns", were removed from the squad under various pretexts. But they took the former Black Guard fighters. Popov explained his obvious preparations for a military operation by the fact that, according to his information, the counter-revolutionaries were going to attack the detachment. On the eve of the armed intervention of the Left Social Revolutionaries, Popov's detachment was put on full alert. It should be noted here that in Moscow, the Popov detachment performed the most important tasks. Not only did he represent the operational division of the Cheka, but also guard the premises where the All-Russian Emergency Commission was located, also carried the fighters Popova.
When Andreev and Blumkin committed the assassination of the German ambassador, Mirbach, they rushed to hide in the location of the Popov detachment. Soon the head of the Cheka Cheka, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, arrived at the headquarters of the Military Detachment of the Cheka. According to the official version, he arrived in the detachment in order to demand from Popov the immediate extradition of Andreev and Blumkin as the perpetrators of the murder of Mirbach. Dzerzhinsky was accompanied by only three security officers, but, according to the official version, he behaved quite boldly at the detachment headquarters — he searched the premises, threatened the left SRs with arrest and execution. In the end, the priests arrested Dzerzhinsky himself and took him hostage. After that, the new acting chairman of the Cheka was appointed at the headquarters of the Cheka - Martin Latsis (his real name and surname is Jan Sudrabs), Deputy Dzerzhinsky. But since the guard in the premises of the Cheka also consisted of fighters of the Popov detachment, Latsis was also arrested.
- Left SRs
In the hands of the Left Social Revolutionaries, the chairman of the Moscow Soviet Smidovich along with 27 and other KGB and party workers found themselves. Sailors - priests captured the telegraph, mail and printing. Most of the armed detachments stationed in Moscow preferred either not to do anything, or went over to the side of the priests. The only effective armed force, on whose loyalty and effective support the Bolshevik leaders could count, remained units of Latvian riflemen. The organizers of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Uprising themselves knew very well about the loyalty of the Latvians to Lenin and Trotsky. It was not by chance that the uprising was scheduled for Yanov Day - the Latvian national holiday. The left SRs hoped that the Latvian arrows would drink, relax and not be able to prevent the insurrection.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself, in spite of the fact that the Latvian arrows were loyal to the Bolsheviks, was very afraid that they too would go over to the side of the Left Social Revolutionaries. He was particularly suspicious of the commander of the Latvian rifle division, Joachim Vatsetis, a former royal officer, a colonel who commanded the Zemgale 5 rifle regiment and almost reached the rank of general (the documents were sent to the headquarters, but the revolution prevented). But Lenin's fears were in vain — Vatsetis (in the photo) was engaged in organizing the suppression of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary uprising. He quickly gathered around 3300 Latvian riflemen and transferred them from Khodynsky field, where the celebration of Jan's Day was going, to Moscow. Here it should be noted that the Latvian commanders tried to bribe the agents of the Entente, who did not benefit from Russia's withdrawal from the war with Germany. But in vain - in the morning of July 7, the units of Vatsetis launched an offensive on the positions of the priests.
Meanwhile, the priests strengthened in the vast area between the Kursk railway station and Varvarskaya Square (now - Nogin Square). However, when the Latvian arrows went on the offensive, the Left SRs began to retreat to Trekhsvyatitelsky Lane. The Bolshevik command decided to bring the artillery and suppress the left Social Revolutionaries with guns. But before the guns started talking, the Bolsheviks once again demanded that the priests should surrender. But the Left SRs refused. After that, the 1-I Latvian battery of the First Instructor Soviet courses began shelling positions of the fighters. The house where the headquarters of the VChK Military Detachment was located was fired, as well as two neighboring houses where many fighters of the detachment lodged. It should be noted here that the Bolshevik functionaries captured by him were taken hostage by the Popov detachment, but this did not prevent the deputy chairman of the RSFSR Revolutionary Military Council, Efraim Sklyansky, from sanctioning shelling of the positions of the Popovites. The commander of the Latvian battery E.P. Berzin. Well-aimed shooting at the positions of the Bolsheviks gave their results - the headquarters was defeated, and the soldiers of the detachment began to retreat from their positions. The uprising of the Left SRs was crushed.
The next day, on July 8, the Bolsheviks shot the deputy chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission of the Left SR, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich (Peter Dmitrievsky) and the 12 fighters from the Dmitry Popov squad. However, the immediate leaders of the detachment’s resistance were more fortunate. Twenty-year-old Yuri Sablin (1897-1937), a former commissar of the Moscow region of the Western Curtain, who took an active part in organizing the uprising, was sentenced to one year in prison, then was amnestied and broke with the Left Social Revolutionaries. He managed not only to survive the flames of the Civil War, but also to make a decent military career - in 1936 the division commander Sablin commanded the 97 rifle division. However, in the next 1937, the divisional commander, like many other former Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, was arrested and shot. However, the same fate befell the commander of Joachim Vatsetis - a man to whom the Bolsheviks were obliged to suppress the Left Socialist-Revolutionary uprising.
Dmitry Popov fled from Moscow. 27 November 1918 at an open court hearing of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on charges of "counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the Central Committee of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries against Soviet power and revolution" was announced that if captured, he, as the "enemy of the working people", was subject to death. But Popov was not caught. In December 1918, he appeared in Ukraine. In Kharkov, he became head of the Central Rebel Headquarters of the Left Social Revolutionaries and carried out preparations for a new uprising — this time against the Ukrainian Directory. Then he, under the name of Kormilitsyn, found himself in the disposition of the 11-th Ukrainian Soviet regiment, commanded by his long-time friend Yuri Sablin, who had been amnestied by that time. Popov served as assistant commander of the regiment, but was identified and, fearing the arrest of the KGB, he fled to Kharkov.
In August, 1919, he was in Yekaterinoslav province, where in the fall in Novomoskovsk district formed an armed detachment and joined the rebel army Nestor Makhno. As part of the rebel army, Popov commanded first 2-m Sulinsky, then 24-m Ternovsky and 3-m Ekaterinoslavsky rebel regiments, declared himself an anarcho-communist and became one of the prominent Makhnovists. At the end of May 1920, Popov was elected to the Council of the Revolutionary Insurgents of Ukraine (Makhnovists), and in June 1920, he became Secretary of the Council. It was Dmitry Popova that Makhno entrusted telegraph negotiations with the Soviet leaders on the cessation of hostilities and the conclusion of a military alliance to fight the forces of Baron Peter Wrangel. October 10 1920 d. Dmitry Popov signed on behalf of the Makhnovists a preliminary military-political agreement between the government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (Makhnovists). On the night of November 26, 1920, together with other representatives of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine (Makhnovists) in the Southern Front, was arrested in Kharkov by the KGB and transferred to Moscow by order of Felix Dzerzhinsky. In the spring of 1921, Dmitry Popov was shot.
Regarding the personality of the detachment commander who played the main role in the armed uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries, not very positive testimony remained. So, many contemporaries note the tendency of Dmitry Popov to drunkenness. This, in particular, was reported by the Military Control Commissioner, who was among the functionaries arrested by the priests, the mechanic Kaurov, who worked at the headquarters of the Combat Command of the Cheka. Of course, these accusations could have been attributed to the bias of the Bolsheviks to the Left Social Revolutionaries and personally to Popov, but two years later Nestor Makhno himself accused Popov of the same thing. Makhno's “Old Man”, who certainly cannot be suspected of “sobriety” and hypocrisy, was very dissatisfied with almost daily drunkenness at Popov’s headquarters and even sent him a letter in which he tried to call the commander to responsibility. “It is absolutely unacceptable to hear again about your negligent attitude to the business entrusted to you by the army. I hope that the following messages about your work will be different, more pleasant for all of us. Remember the rule - business time, fun hour, "- wrote in one of the letters to Dmitry Popov Nestor Makhno. Perhaps these personal qualities led Popov and his squad to a fiasco in July 1918, at one of the crucial moments for the country.
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