The city in which the committee of the constituent assembly operated. Creation of komuch

Created in Samara on June 8, 1918, it initially included five members of the Constituent Assembly: I. M. Brushvit, V. K. Volsky, P. D. Klimushkin, I. P. Nesterov, B. K. Fortunatov. Later, he united about a hundred members of the Constituent Assembly who came to Samara together with its chairman V. M. Chernov. The political leadership of Komuch was carried out by the right SRs. Then the Menshevik IM Maisky headed the department of labor. The Komuch People's Army was also commanded by Colonel V. O. Kappel. The main military force was the legionnaires of the Czechoslovak corps. B. V. Savinkov fought for Komuch near Kazan with members of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom. The first orders of the Samara Komuch announced the overthrow of the Bolshevik government and the restoration of city dumas and zemstvos. In this regard, by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 14, 1918, the Right Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were expelled from the Soviets of all ranks. On July 12, 1918, Komuch declared it unacceptable for the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries to join the Komuch as parties that had rejected the Constituent Assembly. Komuch considered himself a successor to the policy of the Provisional Government and considered resigning his powers before the Constituent Assembly, which would elect an "all-Russian government." In the appeal of Komuch on June 8, 1918, it was said that the coup "was carried out in the name of the great principle of democracy and the independence of Russia."

There was much demagogic in Komuch's declarative appeals and orders. A. S. Soloveichik, a member of the Komuchevsk movement, wrote a little later, justifying his actions: in Samara, the Bolsheviks were fought in words, but in reality “the new Ministry for the Protection of State Order and Security conducted increased surveillance of volunteer officers, cadets and looked behind the bourgeoisie and turned a blind eye to the Bolsheviks. He was echoed by K. V. Sakharov, a Kolchakist, a future Russian fascist abroad: “As during the existence of the Samara government, and during the times of the Directory, all his efforts were directed not to the fight against the Bolsheviks, but just to the opposite goal: to recreate a single the socialist front, in other words - to reconciliation with the Bolsheviks through a compromise solution. One of the first concerns of the new government was the establishment of a special Okhrana to fight the counter-revolution from the right.

But in fact ... Samara, June 8, 1918, the day the city was captured by legionnaires and Komuchevites. On this very first day, the chairman of the revolutionary tribunal F. I. Ventsek, the head of the housing department of the city executive committee I. I. Shtyrkin, the popular proletarian poet and playwright, locksmith A. S. Konikhin, communist workers Abas Aleev, Ye I. Bakhmutov, I. G. Tezikov, a member of the propaganda youth group Ya. Worker P. D. Romanov paid with his life for trying to help a wounded Red Army soldier. On the same day, more than 100 captured Red Army and Red Guard soldiers were shot. Armed patrols, on instructions from the crowd, shot people suspected of Bolshevism right on the street. In order No. 3, Komuch proposed that all persons suspected of participating in the Bolshevik uprising be delivered to the headquarters of the city's security, and 66 people were immediately arrested "on suspicion of Bolshevism."

Simbirsk, July 26, 1918, suicide letter from I. V. Krylov, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, from prison to his wife about children: “I love them madly, but life turned out differently.” He was also a Bolshevik, and he was not the only one who was shot in Simbirsk for his position and party affiliation.

Kazan was captured by the Komuchevites and legionnaires on August 6, 1918. Terror immediately swept the city. P. G. Smidovich shared his impressions: “It was a truly unrestrained revelry of the winners. Mass executions not only of responsible Soviet workers, but also of everyone who was suspected of recognizing Soviet power, were carried out without trial - and the corpses lay around for days on end in the street. A. Kuznetsov, an eyewitness: “On Rybnoryadskaya Street,” he recalled, “I also saw the first victims of the battle - the gloriously dead defenders of these barricades. The first - a sailor, strong, strong, with his arms spread wide, was lying on the sidewalk. He was all mutilated. In addition to gunshot wounds (the White Guards fired explosive bullets), there were bayonet wounds and marks from blows to the head with a butt. Part of the face was pressed in, imprinting the stock. It was clear that the wounded were brutally finished off ... It was like a feast of savages who celebrated feast on the corpses of the vanquished.

Colonel Rouanet, who went over to the side of the Bolsheviks with the soldiers, the chairman of the provincial Council and committee of the RCP (b) Ya. the leader of the Bondyuzh Bolsheviks and the first chairman of the Elabuga District Council of Deputies S. N. Gassar, the Commissar of Justice of Kazan M. I. Mezhlauk, the representative of the Samara party organization Khaya Khataevich, the organizers of the workers’ detachments, the brothers Egor and Konstantin Petryaev, the trade union worker A. P. Komlev and many other.

One can reproach Soviet historiography for the fact that its conclusions are illustrated by the facts of terror against the Bolsheviks, first of all, and not by the numerous victims of the non-party population of the country. But after all, the fact remains: the representatives of democracy, the socialist parties, killed first of all those with whom they had recently been together in tsarist exiles and prisons. They declared themselves as a "third" force acting between the "two Bolshevisms" (dictatorships of Bolsheviks and generals), but this did not exclude their punitive actions against everyone who, from their point of view, violated their right to build their "people's power" state. Therefore, Kolchak in June 1918 in an interview declared his support for the Constituent Assembly, as this would help save Russia from the Bolsheviks. And in August 1918, Kolchak continued: “A civil war, of necessity, must be merciless. I order commanders to shoot all captured communists. Now we are betting on bayonets. Military dictatorship is the only effective system of power."

This is probably why, before other departments, after the seizure of power in Samara, the Komuchevites created a department of state protection (counterintelligence), which became part of the department of internal affairs (headed by the deputy chairman of Komuch, P. N. Klimushkin). Volunteer officers, deserters of the Red Army, were invited to work in this department, on the recommendation of former employees of the secret police or zemstvos. The number of employees in different cities ranged from 60 to 100, including paid agents. All institutions pledged to provide counterintelligence with "unquestioning and full cooperation."

The former manager of Komuch’s affairs, Y. Dvorzhets, who later went over to the side of the Soviet government, admitted that “terror and work, which even the People’s Socialist Khrunin refused, were required, inspired and led by the Social Revolutionary, a member of the Constituent Assembly and Minister Klimushkin, who worked friendly and successfully with the relevant requirement of the headquarters (represented by General Galkin), chief of staff and security Kovalenko. Already in August, the territory under the jurisdiction of Komuch was covered with a network of courts-martial, and the punitive organs were separated into a special department of state protection, headed by E. F. Rogovsky. According to Komuch's order of June 20, 1918, citizens were subject to trial for espionage, for rebellion against the power of Komuch (by inciting an uprising), for deliberately destroying or damaging weapons, military equipment, food or fodder, for damaging communications or transport, for providing resistance to the police or any other authorities, for possession of weapons without proper permission. Citizens guilty of "spreading unfounded rumors" and "pogromist agitation" were also put on trial. In September 1918, suffering a defeat at the front, Komuch announced an order to take emergency measures to maintain public order. According to this order, an emergency military court was established, which passed only one sentence - the death penalty. At the same time, Czech counterintelligence operated in the cities, and Serbian counterintelligence in Kazan.

On June 8, 1918, when lynching of party and Soviet workers began in Samara and hundreds of people died during the day, Komuch called “on pain of responsibility, to immediately stop all voluntary executions. We suggest that all persons suspected of participating in the Bolshevik uprising be immediately arrested and taken to the guard headquarters. And they continued to shoot already on a "legal" basis. On June 11, Komuch instructed the head of the Samara prison: to prepare places for one and a half thousand people. On June 26, there were 1,600 people in the prison, of which 1,200 were captured Red Army soldiers, and soon the newspapers reported that the prison was overcrowded, the prisoners began to be transferred to the Buguruslan and Ufa prisons. And there they tried to “unload” them: at the bridge across the river, executions were carried out every night at one or two.

On July 10, 1918, the Komuchevites entered Syzran, and an order immediately followed: “Immediately extradite all supporters of the Soviet government and all suspected persons. Those guilty of harboring them will be brought to court-martial." P. G. Maslov, a member of Komuch, who returned from Syzran, reported: “The military field court in Syzran is in the hands of two or three people ... There is a certain tendency to subordinate the entire civilian region to the sphere of their influence ... They received six death sentences in one day. At night, the arrested are taken out and shot.”

The Komuch archival fund, kept in the State Archives of the Russian Federation, contains lists of those arrested and held in prisons in Samara, Simbirsk, Ufa and other cities. A lot of them. To free up space for new arrivals, the arrested, especially prisoners, were transferred to concentration camps. The transfer of 52 Red Army soldiers from the Ufa prison was reported at the end of August 1918. At the same time, Komuch’s representative for the Volsk and Khvalynsk districts reported: “Despite my efforts to limit arrests to only necessary cases, they were practiced on a large scale, and the places of detention in Khvalynsk were overcrowded all the time, although some of the most important prisoners were sent to Syzran, there was a need to arrange a floating prison, which, during the evacuation of Khvalynsk, was of great benefit. "" Arrested on suspicion and denunciations, agitation against the authorities, sympathy for the Red Army. The guards divided among themselves the belongings of the arrested, engaged in extortion. It was a real outrage.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries tried on behalf of Komuch to establish a semblance of legality. They began to create investigative-legal commissions to consider the grounds for arrest, arresting only with the permission of Komuch. The Samara City Duma asked Komuch about the reasons for the arrests, "randomly and chaotically carried out in the city." Komuch member Brushvit frankly replied to this: “The authorities will arrest for convictions, for those convictions that lead to crimes.”

In the Samara prison, 16 women were kept as hostages - the wives and sisters of senior Soviet workers. Among them were Tsyurupa, Bryukhanov, Kadomtseva, Yuryeva, Kabanova, Mukhina with her son and others. They were kept in poor conditions. At the suggestion of Ya. M. Sverdlov, they were exchanged for hostages indicated by Komuch and who had previously been held in a Soviet prison.

Maisky stated that, despite the broadcast statements of the Komuch leaders, there was no democracy in the territory subject to him. Socialist-Revolutionaries imprisoned overcrowded prisons, flogged peasants, killed workers, sent punitive detachments to volosts. “It is possible that the supporters of the Committee will object to me: in a situation of civil war, no state power is able to do without terror,” Maisky wrote. - I'm ready to agree with this statement, but then why are the Socialist-Revolutionaries so fond of talking about the "Bolshevik terror" that prevails in Soviet Russia? What right do they have to this? There was terror in Samara... And the Socialist-Revolutionary Party will not be able to wash its "snow-white" robes from this terror, no matter how hard it tries."

During the offensive of the Reds, the Komuchevites evacuated prisons in the so-called "echelons of death." In the first train sent to Irkutsk from Samara, there were 2700 people, in the second from Ufa - 1503 people in cold boxcars. On the way - hunger, cold, executions. From the Samara echelon, 725 people reached their final destination, the rest died.

P. D. Klimushkin in 1925 finished writing the book “The Volga movement and the formation of the Directory” in Prague. He had something to comprehend, to try to understand the reasons for Komuchev's defeat. He wrote about the practical isolation of the Social Revolutionaries: the peasants did not give soldiers to the army, the workers refused to obey, the army was uncontrollable, terror did not lead to a noticeable improvement in the situation. In the Buguruslan district, they refused to give recruits to seven volosts at once, headed by the large village of Bogorodskoye. To intimidate the rest, the village was surrounded and they began to shoot at it from cannons and machine guns, and killed a child and a woman. After that, the peasants agreed with the mobilization, but said that they were tired of the civil war and they no longer wanted to fight. Officers in the army put on epaulettes. A group of soldiers came to the Socialist-Revolutionary Committee and declared: "We would serve, but we are afraid that in one night we would not be led to arrest the very members of the Constituent Assembly." Hence the mass desertion. Klimushkin dwelled in detail on the brutal suppression of workers' uprisings in Kazan and Ivashchenkov, which, he believed, "must be admitted at least for the sake of history."

Klimushkin quoted a letter from a member of the Constituent Assembly, Tolstoy, who came to Ufa from Moscow: “... it is not good in the army. The detachments do not receive food and carry out requisitions from the peasants. Cases of reprisals against peasants are frequent. They take away the landlord's horses and cows, this is accompanied by flogging and terror. The officers again put on shoulder straps and cockades. All this brings the peasants and soldiers into such horror that they now sincerely want the return of the Bolsheviks ... When he asked why they were doing this, he was answered that the Bolsheviks were still their people's power, and there it smells like a king. The landowners and officers will come again and beat us again. It’s better if he beats - that’s your brother. ”

A. I. Denikin called Komuch an empty flower. In his opinion, "having come to power on the bayonets of the Czechoslovaks, the Committee of the Constituent Assembly - a branch of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party - was a reflection of the Soviet government, only more dull and petty, devoid of big names, Bolshevik scope and audacity" . In this sense, the punitive policy of Komuch had much in common with the Bolshevik one: punitive detachments and cruel lawlessness in the treatment of people. On June 12, 1918, the Samara newspaper "Volzhskoye Slovo" reported that the editors received letters protesting against the brutal reprisals against captured Red Army soldiers. Eyewitnesses left a large number of memories of the terror that took place. Komuchevets S. Nikolaev admitted: "the terror regime ... took on especially cruel forms in the Middle Volga region." The Komuchevites began with the arrests of the Bolsheviks and the Left Social Revolutionaries, the organization of courts-martial, which considered the cases of those arrested in their absence for no more than two days. They fairly quickly introduced extrajudicial executions, and only when these repressions began to cause general criticism after a few months, only after the start of their military defeats, did Komuch on September 10, 1918, issue a regulation on a temporary commission "to consider cases of persons arrested extrajudicially ". It was stipulated that the provision only applies to persons arrested in Samara. On September 16, 1918, the first meeting of this commission took place. She did not consider the fate of the captured Red Army soldiers. According to the report of V.P. Denik on the editor of the Volzhsky Den newspaper, where the members of Komuch were called “meeting businessmen who are chasing cheap success and encouragement from the crowd”, it was decided: no corpus delicti was found.

As the defeats at the front, members of Komuch intensified repression. On September 18, 1918, an "Extraordinary Court" was established in Samara, consisting of representatives of the Czechoslovaks, the People's Army, and justice. The court met by order of the commander of the Volga front. At that time it was Colonel V. O. Kappel (1883–1920). The regulation on the court stated that the guilty were sentenced to death for rebellion against the authorities, resisting their orders, attacking the military, damaging communications and roads, treason, espionage, forcibly liberating prisoners, calling for evasion from military service and disobeying the authorities, deliberate arson and robbery, "malicious" spreading of false rumors, speculation. The number of victims of this trial is unknown. The bulletin of the Samara security department gave very underestimated figures of those arrested in the city: in June - 27 people, in July - 148, in August - 67, in September - 26 people.

On September 3, 1918, the workers of the Kazan gunpowder factory rebelled, protesting against the Komuchevsk terror in the city, mobilization into the army and the deterioration of their situation. The commandant of the city, General V. Rynkov, shot the workers with guns and machine guns, including those arrested. On October 1, 1918, the workers of Ivashchenkov opposed the dismantling of enterprises and their evacuation to Siberia. Komuchevtsy arrived from Samara, crushed the workers' patrols and committed a brutal reprisal against the workers, sparing neither women nor children. In total, about a thousand people died at the hands of the Komuchevites.

Komuchevites later complained: “Democracy and the Constituent Assembly did not have strength. It was defeated by two dictatorships. Obviously, in the processes of revolution, the forces of dictatorships are born, but not a balanced democracy” (V. K. Volsky); “Komuch failed to become a strong democratic government. The then leaders of the Volga front made a number of major and fatal mistakes ”(V. Arkhangelsky). But the Komuchevites themselves, even with references to wartime conditions, carried out their punitive policy by no means by democratic methods, which they admitted. Convincingly criticizing the Bolsheviks for terror and the actions of the Chechens, they acted in no less harsh ways in order to assert their power.

COMMITTEE OF MEMBERS OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY (Komuch), the Socialist-Revolutionary government that operated in the Volga region in 1918, during the Civil War of 1917-22. Claimed for all-Russian power. Formed in Samara on 8/6/1918. The creation of the government was preceded by the occupation of the city by the troops of the Czechoslovak corps (see the article of the Czechoslovak corps speeches of 1918), which was timed to coincide with the anti-Bolshevik coup. It was carried out by a small organization of former officers of the Russian army and a combat squad of socialist revolutionaries of the party, led by former members of the Constituent Assembly (US) from the Samara province I. M. Brushvit, P. D. Klimushkin and B. K. Fortunatov.

Initially, Komuch consisted of 5 SRs - former members of the US (chairman - V.K. Volsky). Membership in the committee was open to all former delegates of the US, except for the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs. Komuch was replenished with former members of the CC who arrived in Samara (at the end of September, 96 people; in connection with the expansion of the Presidium, a Presidium was formed). However, the Social Revolutionaries retained an absolute majority in Komuch: in addition to them, it included only a few members of the US from Muslims and Cossacks. Komuch declared himself the supreme authority, acting temporarily on behalf of the dissolved US, until the resumption of its activities. He organized the Volga People's Army, which, with the support of the Czechoslovak Corps, in June - August 1918 occupied the Samara, Simbirsk, Kazan and Ufa provinces, as well as part of the Saratov province. After the capture of Kazan by the troops of the Volga People's Army and the Czechoslovak Corps (August 1918), Komuch had at his disposal the gold reserves of the Russian Empire (transferred first to Samara, then to Ufa, in October 1918 - to Omsk). At the end of August, under Komuch, an executive body was created - the Council of Department Managers, headed by E. F. Rogovsky. Powers between the Board of Governors and the Presidium of Komuch were not clearly divided, which led to chaos in governance.

Komuch declared the restoration of democratic freedoms, proclaimed the creation of a federal democratic republic as his goal. He confirmed the socialization of the land carried out by the Soviet government, the legislation on labor protection introduced by the Bolsheviks, guaranteed the rights of trade unions. Local government from the soviets was transferred to the restored zemstvos, city dumas and city councils. Banks and industry were denationalised. A red flag was raised over government buildings. Factory committees were deprived of the right to interfere in the management of enterprises that had come under the control of former owners or state managers. Free trade was restored (but Komuch retained the right to set fixed prices for grain), which for some time provided Komuch with the support of the peasants and led to a decrease in food prices in the cities.

However, by the autumn of 1918, the policy of the committee began to cause growing discontent among various groups of the population, primarily peasants. His main reasons were the transition from the volunteer principle of manning the army to mobilizations (desertion was punishable by death), as well as Komuch's statements about his intention to restore the anti-German Eastern Front of the 1st World War. In addition, the sharp discontent of the peasants was caused by the granting of the right to the former landowners to remove the winter crop of 1917 from their formerly owned lands, and the dissatisfaction of the workers was caused by the return of the former factory administration and the tightening of labor discipline. Commercial and industrial circles, after initially helping the socialist Komuch, were then inclined to support the more moderate Provisional Siberian Government (VSP; Omsk) and the Ural Provisional Government (Yekaterinburg).

The power of Komuch was recognized only by the governments of the Orenburg and Ural Cossack troops, as well as the Provisional Government of the Northern Region, which, however, had no real consequences. The mutual attacks of Komuch and the VSP escalated into a customs war and led to the fact that the Siberian army of the VSP did not support the Volga People's Army (the Red Army occupied Kazan on September 10, 1918, and Samara on October 7, 1918). Komuch's relations were also tense with the Entente countries, which were guided by the GSP, and then by the Ufa directory.

Due to military failures, Komuch, after the creation of the Ufa directory (9/23/1918), resigned his powers and was transformed into the Congress of Members of the US, which initially worked in Ufa, and since October 19 - in Yekaterinburg. In mid-October 1918, the Council of Department Managers (chaired by the Social Revolutionary V. N. Filippovsky) was subordinate to the Ufa Directory. After the creation of the "Omsk government", the participants in the Congress of Members of the US were arrested, soon released at the request of a detachment of the Czechoslovak Corps, then returned to Ufa. There, on the night of December 3, 1918, together with members of the Council of Managers of Departments, they were again arrested by order of Admiral A.V. Kolchak and taken to Omsk, where lynching was organized by Cossacks and officers, some of those arrested were killed on the night of December 23, 1918.

Lit .: Maysky I. M. Democratic counter-revolution. M.; P., 1923; Klimushkin P.D. Struggle for Democracy on the Volga // Civil War on the Volga. Prague, 1930. Issue. 1; Garmiza V. V. The collapse of the Socialist-Revolutionary governments. M., 1970; Berk S. M. The democratic counter-revolution: Komuch and the civil war on the Volga // Canadian-American Slavic Studies. 1973. No. 4; Swain G. The origins of the Russian civil war. L., 1996; Pereverzev A. Ya. Komuch. Directory. Kolchak. Voronezh, 2003.

Committee of members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (abbreviated Komuch or KOMUCH) - the first anti-Bolshevik all-Russian government of Russia, organized on June 8, 1918 in Samara by members of the Constituent Assembly, who did not recognize the dispersal of the Assembly by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on January 6, 1918.

Komuch of the first composition

The Komuch of the first composition included five SRs, members of the Constituent Assembly: Vladimir Volsky - chairman, Ivan Brushvit, Prokopy Klimushkin, Boris Fortunatov and Ivan Nesterov.

The propaganda cultural and educational department of Komuch began to publish the official print organ of the new government - the newspaper "Bulletin of the Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly".

Consolidation of Komuch's power

On the territory where the Bolsheviks were overthrown with the help of the Czechs, Komuch temporarily proclaimed himself the supreme power in Russia on behalf of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly until the latter was reconvened. Subsequently, the Committee expanded significantly due to the entry into it of another group of former members of the Constituent Assembly (mainly SRs), who moved to Samara. At the end of September 1918, there were already 97 people in Komuch. By this time, the executive power of Komuch was concentrated in the hands of the “Council of Managing Departments” chaired by Yevgeny Rogovsky (at the same time head of the state protection department).

Thus, by August 1918, the "territory of the Constituent Assembly" stretched from west to east for 750 miles (from Syzran to Zlatoust, from north to south - for 500 miles (from Simbirsk to Volsk). The power of KOMUCH extended to Samara, part of Saratov, Simbirsk, Kazan and Ufa provinces, the power of KOMUCH was recognized by the Orenburg and Ural Cossacks.

Also in July, Komuch invited representatives of the Kazakh “Alash-Orda” to Samara, headed by Alikhan Bukeikhanov and Mustafa Shokai, and concluded a military-political alliance with them against the Reds.

Based on the accumulated military forces loyal to Komuch, the following measures were taken: an eight-hour working day was officially established, workers' meetings and peasant gatherings were allowed, factory committees and trade unions were preserved. Komuch canceled all Soviet decrees, returned plants, factories and banks to their former owners, proclaimed freedom of private enterprise, restored zemstvos, city dumas and other pre-Soviet institutions. Fluctuating between red and white ideology, Komuch either publicly announced his intention to nationalize the land, or gave the landowners the opportunity to return all the land plots confiscated from them in favor of the peasants, and even to harvest the 1917 harvest. Komuch sent paramilitary expeditions to rural areas to protect the property of landowners and wealthy peasants (kulaks in Soviet terminology), as well as to recruit and, later, mobilize men into the People's Army.

Fall of Komuch

In the subsequent failures of the People's Army, the main role was played by the complete absence of reserves, not trained by the Socialist-Revolutionary leadership of Komuch, despite the time that Kappel gave them with his first successes on the Volga, despite the opportunities that the huge territories under the control of Komuch gave in terms of mobilization .

The reform to introduce the corps system in the People's Army was a complete failure, due to the collapse of mobilization measures, which, in turn, failed due to the ongoing and irreversible fall in Komuch's authority and, as a result, the decomposition of the social support of power. The positions of the working class of the Volga region were especially irreconcilable. So, the decision of the general meeting of artisans and workers of the Samara workshops of the depot read:

On July 6, 1918, a major rally of protesting railroad workers took place in Samara, who were so hostile to Komuch that the city commandant was even forced to call in the troops.

Simultaneously with the announcement of mobilization, the Socialist-Revolutionary leadership of Komuch returned to its old idea of ​​relying on the peasantry. In order to consolidate the peasantry around Komuch and successfully carry out mobilization, the government organized the convening of rural assemblies, volost and district peasant congresses. The results were stunning for the Socialist-Revolutionaries: the peasantry spoke in the vein that they did not want to take part in the Civil War, the gatherings decide not to give recruits and not even pay taxes if they go to war! Being mobilized, the peasants and workers refused to fight against the Bolsheviks, at the first opportunity they scattered to their homes or surrendered to the Reds, bandaging their officers. Cases of open disobedience have become more frequent in the army. On September 8, two regiments located in Samara refused to go to the front. To pacify them, 3 armored cars, a machine-gun team and cavalry had to be called in - the soldiers were forced to lay down their arms only under the threat of execution. On September 18, despite the threat of execution, a whole echelon of troops refused to march. There were frequent reports of executions for desertion of the 14th Ufa regiment stationed in Samara, where cases of Bolshevik agitation were constantly noted. The performance of the 3rd Samara Regiment, which consisted mainly of workers, was especially harshly suppressed, the reason for which was an unsuccessful attempt in this regiment and in the 1st Georgievsky battalion to release colleagues arrested for desertion from the guardhouse. As General Lupov, who was in the city at that time, recalled, every third was called out of action and shot; later, another 900 recruits were shot here for refusing to go to the front.

see also

• List of members of the Constituent Assembly included in KOMUCH

Notes

1. Flags and banners of non-Bolshevik state formations in the East of Russia (1918-1925) according to memoirs and historiography.
2. K. M. Alexandrov. About the Civil War
3. All-Russian Constituent Assembly
4. ISBN 978-5-85824-174-4 - p. 41.
5. The 1st army of Tukhachevsky, consisting of 7 thousand bayonets and 30 guns, as well as the Volskaya division from the 4th army. In Kazan, under the personal leadership of the commander of the Eastern Front, Vatsetis, the 5th Soviet army was concentrated, consisting of 6 thousand soldiers, 30 guns, 2 armored trains, 2 airplanes and 6 armed ships.
6. Kappel and Kappelians. 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: NP "Posev", 2007. - ISBN 978-5-85824-174-4 - S. 641.

The formation of anti-Bolshevik resistance in the Volga region, as in other regions, took place on the basis of the activation of underground groups. Among them, the Socialist-Revolutionary combat structures and officer organizations of the former Kazan Military District were distinguished by the greatest organization.

From the end of April 1918, under the leadership of the Military Organization of the Social Revolutionary Party, underground structures were created in Samara, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Kazan and Simbirsk.

With Czechs and without them

The most powerful Samara center prepared an armed uprising simultaneously with the attack on the city by the Penza group of the Czechoslovak Legion under the command of Lieutenant S. Chechek. Two officer squads and one party squad, the Socialist-Revolutionary, were formed, with a total number of about 500 fighters. The leadership of the military headquarters of the underground was taken over by the 26-year-old lieutenant colonel artilleryman N. A. Galkin. At the same time, the participants of the Volga underground planned to act even if the Czechoslovaks of Chechek abandoned the idea of ​​an armed uprising. The historian S.P. Melgunov wrote: “In the Russian public environment, they were preparing in an organized manner for a speech against the Bolsheviks long before the arrival of the Czechoslovaks, and it was meant to linger on the Volga and the Urals ...” The Samara underground relied on active support from the peasantry.

At that moment, when the Czech legionnaires entered Samara (June 8, 1918), civil power was already operating in the city. The new government - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) - was made up of right SRs - members of the Constituent Assembly, the only legitimate all-Russian authority after the fall of the Provisional Government. The initial composition of the Committee included: members of the Samara provincial council of peasant deputies I. M. Brushvit and B. K. Fortunatov, member of the Samara council of military deputies P. D. Klimushkin, deputy of the Minsk provincial council I. P. Council of Peasant Deputies V. K. Volsky.

The soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps are considering the captured pennant of the red detachment. June 1918

According to Klimushkin’s memoirs, already on the eve of the speech, appeals to the population were prepared, which contained an assessment of the Bolsheviks as having given the country to the “German bayonet” and disgraced it “before all peoples with their treacherous separate world”, seized “power in the country against the will of the people” by force and encroached "to this will in the person of the Constituent Assembly." It was also said about the victory over this power, which had not yet taken place at that time: now it is “swept away by the same weapon. The coup accomplished by us thanks to the approach to Samara of the valiant Czechoslovak detachments was accomplished in the name of the great principle of democracy and independence of Russia. It was also explained in the appeals that “Komuch sets as his immediate task the strengthening of the power of the Constituent Assembly, the creation of the National Army to fight the external enemy. In the field of foreign policy ... remains loyal to the allies and rejects any idea of ​​a separate peace, and therefore does not recognize the force of the Brest peace treaty.

Democracy and the idea of ​​restoring the Constituent Assembly

Komuch was a collegiate governing body, which concentrated in its hands the highest military and civilian powers. The structure of the Committee was to include persons “elected from the Samara province on the basis of universal suffrage”, as well as “representatives from local governments” (Order No. 1 of June 8, 1918). Later it was assumed that as other members of the Constituent Assembly arrived in Samara, they would automatically enter this government. Two parties - the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs - which organized the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, were excluded from the restored structure. In August 1918, Komuch already consisted of 29 members of the Assembly who found themselves on the territory of the Samara province.

The Committee launched an active legislative work. Order No. 1 (all laws adopted by the Committee before the formation of the Board of Governors were dressed in the form of orders) proclaimed the program of the new government: “In the name of the Constituent Assembly, the Bolshevik government in the city of Samara and the Samara province is declared deposed. All commissioners are resigned from their positions. The bodies of local government, dissolved by the Soviet government, are being restored to the fullest extent of their rights: city dumas and zemstvo councils, which are invited to immediately begin work ... All restrictions and restrictions on freedoms introduced by the Bolshevik authorities are canceled and freedom of speech, press, meetings and rallies is restored ... Commissars and the heads of Soviet enterprises are obliged within three days to hand over all cases to the newly restored bodies according to their affiliation or to persons appointed by the Committee ... The revolutionary tribunal, as a body that does not meet the true people's democratic principles, is abolished and the district people's court is restored ... United, independent, free Russia. All power to the Constituent Assembly. These are the slogans and goals of the new revolutionary government…”

Along with the district court, world courts were restored in the judicial system (the district zemstvo supervised the resumption of their work), as well as the military district court (comrade of the chairman of the Samara district court V. N. Aristov became its chairman in combination) and military prosecutorial supervision.

Already in the middle of summer, there was a need to allocate a special “ordered” administrative apparatus, accountable to the Committee, but to a certain extent autonomous from it, and from the second half of August 1918, the Council of Department Managers began to work, which actually became the government in the territory of the Volga region occupied by Komuch. It consisted of 14 departments: state protection, agriculture, food, trade and industry, labor, finance, communications, post and telegraph, state property and state control, military, internal affairs, justice, education and foreign affairs. P. D. Klimushkin (department of internal affairs) and I. P. Nesterov (department of communications) remained among the leaders. M. A. Vedenyapin-Shtegeman, one of the leaders of the Samara party organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, was in charge of foreign affairs, mail and telegraph. The former head of the Irkutsk provincial militia, Social Revolutionary E.F. Rogovsky, became the chairman of the Council and the managing department of the state guard. With the approval of the Committee, the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party transferred its work to Samara: the chairman of the Central Committee, V.M. However, the Menshevik I. M. Maisky became the head of the department of labor, the cadet G. A. Krasnov held the post of head of the control department, and N. A. Galkin, who was promoted to major general by Komuch, headed the Military Department.

Socio-political program under the red flag

The basis of Komuch's political course was socialist slogans, which, as its members believed, expressed the interests of ordinary voters to the maximum. In their legislative activities, the Social Revolutionaries turned to the regulatory framework created by the Provisional Government and the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. In particular, the law on land, adopted by the Assembly on January 5, 1918, became the basis of Komuch's agrarian policy. This act was basically similar to the Bolshevik Decree on Land, as it abolished any form of private ownership of land and transferred its disposal to local communities or land committees. The right to harvest on the privately owned lands seized by the peasants belonged to the "sowers" (Order No. 124 of July 22).

As a sign of continuity with "February 1917", a red flag was raised over the government building in Samara, and in the organized People's Army, the wearing of epaulets and cockades as attributes of the "old regime" was banned. Red banners with the inscriptions “Power to the people - power to the Constituent Assembly” embroidered on them were sent to the front a week after the formation of a democratic government in Samara (order No. 19 of June 14).

The new government nationalized all vehicles, by a separate order (No. 28 of June 16) banning "private persons from driving cars." Fixed prices for bread were abolished, but the rationed distribution of products was maintained and a specially created "food board" was proclaimed "a state body in charge of the entire food business, controlling, directing it, issuing mandatory regulations and instructions that allow certain operations with bread." Private transactions with food were supposed to be controlled by the so-called Khlebny Council - a body consisting of eight people: three representatives of the Samara exchange, three members of the provincial council of cooperatives, as well as a representative of the department of granaries of the local branch of the State Bank and a representative of the food administration (order No. 53 of June 27) .

Relations with other anti-Bolshevik forces

A remarkable fact characterizing the all-Russian status of Komuch was his recognition by the Ural and Orenburg Cossack troops. The Orenburg ataman, a member of the Constituent Assembly, Colonel AI Dutov, became a member of the Committee (Komuch's resolution of July 15, 1918). And a special agreement was concluded with the Ural military government, which provided for the subordination of the Cossacks to Komuch not only during military operations, but also in civilian life. Colonel S. A. Shchepikhin became the representative of the troops in Samara.

Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly. Among those present: P. D. Klimushkin (4th from left), V. K. Volsky (7th from left), I. P. Nesterov (2nd from right). Samara, 1918

An attempt was also made to establish cooperation between the Volga Front and the Volunteer Army. Shchepikhin wrote to its Supreme Leader, General M. V. Alekseev, about his readiness to recognize his seniority based on both the military and the "political situation." The head of the military department, Komucha Galkin, who at first feared that the Volunteer Army would split, at the end of August 1918 recognized the need for Alekseev to come to Samara even “earlier than the Volunteer Army arrives, in order to destroy all the sharp difference between the armies from now on ... The Committee of the Constituent Assembly decided to go for all concessions, except for the land issue ... they themselves understood that it was necessary to pursue a firm policy. However, these plans did not materialize.

Public involvement and defeat in local elections

A special place in the state building of Komuch was occupied by the structures of public self-government, “representative democracy”. In a speech at a session of the Samara City Duma, which resumed its work in June 1918, Klimushkin stated: “In the near future, extensive state work will be entrusted to self-government bodies. The time has passed when these bodies were in the fold, when they were opposed to the central government. Local self-government bodies should also be state authorities. New principles of "personnel policy" were declared, according to which "an element of the public" should have been given preference over "a numerous corporation of officials of the tsarist ministries."

In addition to the zemstvo-city self-government, numerous land, district and house committees, food administrations, quarter councils were also called to cooperate with the authorities (order No. 23 of June 15). The factory committees remained unchanged, moreover, their forced dissolution was punishable “according to the laws of wartime” (Order No. 4 of June 8). In principle, even the structures of Soviet power, namely the Soviets of Workers' Deputies, were not denied. Komuch's order No. 1 stated: "the existing Soviets are being dissolved", but at the same time it was stipulated that "the procedure for new elections will be determined by the working conference." Recognizing the validity of the restrictions on civil liberties under wartime conditions, Komuch nevertheless did not refuse to hold elections for city self-government bodies.

However, the narrow party policy of the Committee caused a reaction far from expected. The results of the elections to the dumas of the Volga cities, which took place in mid-August 1918, testified to the changed attitude towards the Social Revolutionaries and their program. From 17 to 30% of citizens who had the right to vote came to the polls. The defeat of the socialist bloc, united on the lists of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats (Mensheviks), became a sensation. The results were especially impressive in those areas where, as early as November 1917, the left parties received a majority (in the Middle Volga region, 57.2% of voters voted for the Socialist-Revolutionaries at that time). Only in Samara did the socialists manage to gain more than 50% of the seats, while in Ufa, Simbirsk and Orenburg, a little more than 35-40% of the voters voted for them. Observers noted a drop in interest in "socialist ideals."

People's Army

The commander-in-chief of the Komuch People's Army and the mobilized units of the Orenburg and Ural Cossack troops was the head of the 1st Czechoslovak Hussite Rifle Division S. Chechek. It was assumed that the People's Army would consist exclusively of volunteers, and not only staunch opponents of Soviet power, but also "staunch socialists." The Regulations on the People's Army, in particular, established the equality of all ranks of the army outside the service, the observance of subordination during service, as well as the need to take measures to bring officers and soldiers closer together in order to raise the cultural level and civil maturity of the soldier masses. The first unit of the army was the Samara 1st Volunteer Squad, formed under the leadership of Colonel V. O. Kappel, the future legendary hero of the White movement in the East of Russia (since July 1918, he became the commander of the People's Army). Taking command of the squad, Kappel stated "that he considers the first and sacred thing of every fighter against the Bolsheviks to be the desire for a common coordinated struggle ... regardless of political views and party affiliation."

The army was recruited according to the militia system: each city put up an infantry battalion and a squadron of cavalry, and each volost - a "retinue company". The command was taken over by both regular officers and "wartime officers" - former peasants and workers, authoritative in their environment. The names of the units were given, as a rule, according to the city or county where the formation took place. In addition to volunteer units in cities and townships, local self-defense combat squads were also created. But still, the main combat load in the Volga region was borne by parts of the Czechoslovak Corps.

fighting

The first stage of hostilities on the Volga (July - September 1918) was successful for the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Operations developed in two main directions: up and down the Volga, respectively, to Kazan - Sviyazhsk - Perm and to Saratov and Tsaritsyn. The Syzransky and Simbirsky railway bridges across the Volga captured by the Czechs made it possible to constantly receive reinforcements from the Urals and Siberia.

Units under the command of Colonel Kappel, after a 150 km march along the right bank of the Volga, took Simbirsk on July 21. The position of the Red Army was complicated by the rebellion of the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front of the Reds, the Left Social Revolutionary M. A. Muravyov. Intending at the same time with his party supporters in Moscow to overthrow the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars and resume the war with Germany, Muravyov tried to turn the troops entrusted to him to Moscow. However, parts of the "internationalists" (Chinese, Hungarians, etc.) and Latvian riflemen refused to obey the order, and on July 10, 1918, the commander-in-chief shot himself (according to another version, he died in a shootout). Also during this period, the Bolsheviks had to hastily gather forces to suppress the uprisings organized by the "Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom" B.V. Savinkov in Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk and Kostroma.

The next significant and very spectacular success of the People's Army was the liberation of Kappel Kazan by volunteers on August 7th. The city gave about 2 thousand more volunteers, as well as rich stores of ammunition and equipment. In addition, the most important result of the operation was the seizure of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire, evacuated to Kazan by order of the Provisional Government (651 million rubles in gold and 110 million rubles in bank notes). All the property of the fund was described and sealed, and when the approach of the Reds to the city became dangerous, it was sent to the rear.

On the same days, another volunteer detachment, Colonel F.E. Makhin, was moving south towards Saratov. He managed to take Khvalynsk and Volsk (September 6). 120 km remained to Saratov, but Makhin failed to develop the offensive. Now the Volga Front relied on the Kazan - Simbirsk line, holding Samara in the center. The September battles on the Volga front seriously worsened the position of Komuch. On August 27, Kappel's attempt to capture another railway bridge across the Volga was repulsed and, having occupied Sviyazhsk, to expand operations towards Nizhny Novgorod. Under the pressure of the outnumbered Reds, the Kappelites could not hold out in Kazan, and on September 8 the city fell. On September 12, Bolshevik troops captured Simbirsk and the bridge across the Volga. To avoid encirclement, the Makhin group left Volsk on September 13 and began to retreat to Samara. On September 14, the Northern and Southern groups united near the capital Komuch, hoping to hold the so-called Samarskaya Luka (the bend of the Volga) and the Syzran bridge. However, the People's Army and the Cossacks were unable to repulse the powerful frontal attack of the Red Eastern Front, and on October 7 Samara was abandoned by them.

After the military defeat, the members of Komuch moved to Ufa, where they resigned their powers in favor of the local anti-Bolshevik government - the Ufa directory. The committee was transformed into the Congress of members of the Constituent Assembly, which worked until the end of 1918.

Main results

Anti-Bolshevik resistance on the Volga, holding back the advance of the Reds, made it possible to concentrate the forces of the White armies in Siberia and the Urals. The Volga front covered the east of Russia. According to Professor G.K. Gins, who became the Minister of the Provisional Siberian Government, “historical justice requires that the delay in the recruitment of the Siberian Army and the possibility of some preparation for mobilization were the result of the selfless struggle on the banks of the Volga of the so-called People's Army. Intelligent in composition, consciously hostile to communism, but ill-prepared and ill-equipped, she was forced to retreat to the Urals by autumn, but all summer she gave Siberia the opportunity to organize and train military force. The 180,000-strong Siberian army became the basis of the future Russian army of Admiral Kolchak.

Vasily Tsvetkov, Doctor of Historical Sciences

Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly

Komuch, "Samara Constituent Assembly", a counter-revolutionary "government" formed in Samara (now Kuibyshev) on June 8, 1918 after the capture of the city by the White Czechs. Declared himself the supreme authority, temporarily acting on behalf of the Constituent Assembly (See Constituent Assembly) on the territory occupied by the interventionists and the White Guards until its new composition was convened. Initially K. h. at. With. consisted of 5 Social Revolutionaries, members of the Constituent Assembly dissolved by the Soviet government (V.K. Volsky - chairman, I.M. Brushvit, P.D. Klimushkin, B.K. Fortunatov, I.P. Nesterov); subsequently, the committee was replenished with members of the Constituent Assembly who arrived in Samara, mainly Socialist-Revolutionaries, and at the end of September it included 96 people. The governing body was the Council of Department Managers, headed by E. F. Rogovsky. Having come to power with the help of the White Czechs, Komuch declared the "restoration" of democratic freedoms: an 8-hour working day was formally established, the convening of workers' conferences and peasant congresses was allowed, factory committees and trade unions were preserved. To cover the restoration of the bourgeois-landowner system, on August 30, the so-called Soviet of Workers' Deputies was created in Samara, composed of figureheads and devoid of any power. Komuch canceled the decrees of Soviet power, returned factories, plants and banks to their former owners, declared freedom of private trade, restored zemstvos, city dumas and other bourgeois institutions. Recognizing in words the socialization of the land, Komuch in fact gave the landlords the opportunity to take away from the peasants the land they had previously confiscated, as well as the right to harvest winter crops. punitive squads. Due to the armed support of the interventionists and the kulaks, as well as the lack of forces of the Red Army, Komuch's power in June - August 1918 extended to Samara, Simbirsk, Kazan, Ufa provinces and part of Saratov. But by the beginning of September, the peasants were convinced of the counter-revolutionary nature of Komuch and turned away from him, there were peasant and workers' uprisings. In September, the "people's army" suffered a series of defeats from the Red Army and left a significant part of the territory on which Komuch operated, who on September 23 ceded his power to the Ufa directory elected at the so-called State Conference in Ufa (See Ufa directory), on which the powerless The congress of members of the Constituent Assembly, and the Council of Governors of departments moved to the position of the regional Ufa "government". After the coup of Admiral A. V. Kolchak and these organs were dispersed at the end of November 1918 by General V. O. Kappel (See Kappel).

Lit.: Popov F. G., For the power of the Soviets. The defeat of the Samara Constituent Assembly, Kuibyshev, 1959; Garmiza V.V., The collapse of the Socialist-Revolutionary governments, M., 1970; his, Workers and Bolsheviks of the Middle Volga in the fight against the Samara Constituent Assembly, in the book: Historical Notes, vol. 53, M., 1955.

V. V. Garmiza.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .

See what the "Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly" is in other dictionaries:

Committee of members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly Komuch of the first composition I. M. Brushvit, P. D. Klimushkin, B. K. Fortunatov, V. K. Volsky (chairman) and I. P. Nesterov General information Country ... Wikipedia

- (Komuch) authority in the territory of Wed. Volga and Ural regions in June September 1918. Formed in Samara after the capture of the city by the White Czechs (see Czechoslovak corps rebellion). He ceded power to the Ufa directory, renamed the Congress of Members ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Komuch), an authority in the Middle Volga and Urals in June September 1918. Formed in Samara after the capture of the city by parts of the Czechoslovak Corps. He ceded power to the Ufa directory, renamed the Congress of members of the Constituent ... ... Russian history

- (Komuch), an authority in the Middle Volga and Urals in June September 1918. Formed in Samara after the capture of the city by parts of the Czechoslovak corps. He ceded power to the Ufa directory, renamed the Congress of members of the Constituent ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Komuch), Samara Constituent Assembly, counter-revolutionary. right, formed in Samara on June 8, 1918 after the capture of the city by the White Czechs. Functioned as a counter-revolutionary. authorities until 3 Dec. 1918. Viewed himself as the top. power temporarily acting from ... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia

The Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (abbreviated Komuch) is an alternative government of Russia, organized on June 8, 1918 in Samara by members of the Constituent Assembly who did not recognize the dispersal of the Assembly by the Bolsheviks on January 19, 1918 ... ... Wikipedia

Committee (from Latin comitatus accompanying, accompanying) council, meeting, congress, collegiate body formed to work in some special area, usually related to leadership or management, and ... ... Wikipedia