White terror in Kazan: “There were captured Red Army soldiers, workers, women - and against them - Czechs with rifles. Extraordinary Commissions in the Red Army Evacuation of the Kazan Cheka in 1918

The history of Kazan in 1918 is full of dramatic collisions and incidents. This is due to the consequences of two revolutions, the beginning of a civil war, the flames of which first smoldered, and then began to flare up with increasing force.

It can be said that this situation was typical for many Russian cities that time. However, there was something unique and special in the history of our city at that time, which should be mentioned.

Since ancient times, Kazan has been at the crossroads of trade routes and thus connected East and West. In 1918, our city also became a kind of crossroads. It was here that in August-September of that year the fate of the revolution was decided, which means that the future route that our country would follow was determined. In addition, in Kazan there were issues of “local” significance, no less, and in some ways even more important than events of a republican scale.

A characteristic feature of any revolution is a burst of activity in the creation of funds. mass media. In late 1917 - early 1918, up to 50 titles of various newspapers were published in Kazan and the county centers of the province, of which only 10 were party-Soviet, the rest were bourgeois and petty-bourgeois publications. Thus, the organ of the provincial executive committee Znamya Revolyutsii, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary For Land and Freedom, and the Menshevik Rabocheye Dyelo (the last two newspapers were published before May 1918) were published in Kazan.

A serious alternative to the Bolshevik party organization, numbering no more than a thousand people, was represented by the party organization of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, which numbered three thousand people. The Bolshevik Ya.S.Sheinkman was at the head of the Kazan provincial executive committee, but left SRs had many representatives in the executive committee. They also held other responsible positions. Thus, the Left Social Revolutionaries headed the Kazan garrison committee, had a majority in the provincial food committee. In addition, the first commander of the Eastern Front (the first front that arose in the civil war) was also the Left Social Revolutionary M.A. Ants.

Not so numerous (only a few hundred members), but also very influential was the organization of the Kadet party. It relied on the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and the clergy. In addition, by the summer of 1918, about 5 thousand officers of the former tsarist army who had a strong underground organization.

Thus, almost the entire spectrum of political forces was represented in Kazan. Given the choice and search for a compromise path, such political pluralism could have a positive meaning. However, another trend prevailed. The tendency is not to agree, but to confront. The situation was aggravated by the fact that each of these parties had either significant political weight and influence among the masses, or real armed force, which in the context of a civil war was a very significant argument in the fight against political opponents. It is no coincidence that Kazan became the arena of conspiracies, most of them unfulfilled and unfulfilled. Here, the actions of the organization of officers and the “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” under the leadership of B.V. were uncovered and prevented. Savinkov.

Facts of terror took place on both sides. If on the part of the counter-revolutionary forces they consisted mainly in the murder of prominent Soviet officials, then on the part of the Soviet authorities these were arrests and preemptive strikes. The Bolsheviks had a special body for carrying out such a policy - the Provincial Department of the Cheka, created in January 1918 and headed by G.Sh. Olkenitsky. Later, he himself became a victim of terror by the forces of counterrevolution. It was in Kazan that the first front-line Cheka was located from July to September.

The population of the city in June 1918 was 146 thousand people. Kazan was the center of a multinational province. In this regard, the national question was acutely on the agenda. Attempts to solve it were made both “from above” and “from below”. There was no shortage of projects. So, there was an idea of ​​creating the Ural-Volga state as part of the RSFSR. This project was developed by G. Sharaf. This state was to include the territory of Kazan, Ufa, part of the Vyatka, Orenburg, Perm, Samara and Simbirsk provinces. For the practical implementation of the project, a special Board headed by G. Sharaf was created. Moreover, during the work of the second All-Russian Muslim military congress (8 (21). I - 20. II (3. III) 1918), the day of the proclamation of the State of "Idel-Ural" - March 1, was appointed. In response to this, the Kazan Soviet created a revolutionary headquarters, the congress delegates were arrested. The rest of the delegates continued their meetings in the Zabulachnaya part of the city, proclaiming the republic of the same name there. At the congress, the Muslim People's Commissariat was formed, the Muslim Revolutionary Headquarters headed by G. Munasypov was created, and the formation of Tatar national detachments began.

Troops were sent to disperse the Zabulachnaya Republic. The Tatar detachments were disarmed. Then all the arrested delegates to the congress were released, but with the obligation not to take any action to organize the Ural-Volga state. Later, in March 1918, the activities of the All-Russian Muslim Military Council (Harbi Shuro) were banned, and in March-May all national governing bodies elected at All-Russian Muslim congresses were dissolved.

The People's Commissariat for National Affairs of the RSFSR developed an alternative project for the proposed form of national statehood of the Tatars and Bashkirs - the Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Socialist Republic. The corresponding decree was signed on March 22, 1918. The Central Muslim Commissariat headed by M.M. took part in its development. Vakhitov. However, this project was not destined to come to life.

The drama of the situation, according to Professor A.L. Litvin, was that “both sides were in favor of recognizing the power of the Soviets. But some proceeded from the understanding of the Soviets as a democratic institution of power, others saw them as an organ for putting into practice the ideas of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the forcible assertion of power, and, advocating the initiative from the localities, supported only that which coincided with the opinion of the center.

Later, historians will write: “The events associated with the attempt to declare the Volga-Ural state, the murder of Vaisov, the arrests and the military defeat of the Zabulachnaya Republic are the beginning of a civil war in the region.” However, this realization will come only with time.

In the meantime, Kazan is a rear city. It is with the expectation of this that a part of the gold reserves of the Soviet Republic is brought here. A significant part of it was brought here from Petrograd back in 1915, when the Germans captured the Baltic states. Jewels from Moscow, Tambov and Samara were delivered in early May 1918. As of June 1, 600 million rubles worth of valuables in gold, as well as about 200 million rubles of silver, turned out to be concentrated in Kazan. After the Komuchevtsy and Czechoslovaks left the city, gold, silver and platinum were taken out for a total of 651,532,117 rubles 86 kopecks. The gold reserve was returned to Kazan only on May 3, 1920. At the same time, in the certificate of the presence of gold in Russian Federation the returned valuables amounted to 395,222,772 rubles 81 kopecks.

Despite the fact that the city was considered a rear area, as early as April 1918, armed detachments were being trained in Kazan. A volunteer artillery brigade, a Muslim socialist regiment, a socialist detachment of sailors and other units were formed here. Shortly before this, the 1st Soviet Kazan infantry courses were opened. Military formations formed in Kazan fought against A.I. Dutov. Near Kazan, international units were also formed (the battalion named after Karl Marx). In June 1918, the Academy of the General Staff was evacuated here from Yekaterinburg. Later, the military formations fighting in this direction will be regrouped and consolidated into the Fifth Army of the Eastern Front.

The rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps radically changed the situation in the region. The city has turned from the rear to the front. On May 31, the Kazan provincial committee decided to declare the province under martial law. I.I. was appointed provincial military commissar. Mezhlauk. The situation became even more aggravated in the second half of July, when a real threat of Komuch's capture by the People's Army loomed over Kazan. Commander of the Eastern Front I.I. On July 20, Vatsetis declared not only the province, but also the city under martial law.

According to V.I. Lebedev, one of the political leaders of Komuch, it was decided to take Kazan for the following reasons: “here was all the gold Russian state... There was also a colossal amount of all kinds of quartermaster and artillery equipment and weapons ... In Kazan there were a lot of officers, among whom a significant number were organized to oppose the Bolsheviks and whom the Bolsheviks had already begun to mercilessly shoot. In addition, Kazan was a large political center of Russia and the main center of the Volga region.”

An attempt to take the city on the move on August 5 failed. I had to land troops in the area of ​​the village of Bolshiye Otary, and later in the area of ​​the marinas. Only after long and stubborn fighting, the city fell on August 7. The battles for the liberation of Kazan lasted for a month until September 10th.

Without exaggeration, we can say that it was near Kazan that the birth of the forces of the warring parties took place. To a much greater extent, this applies to the Red Army, since its five armies, which were in their infancy, were opposed by well-trained and organized units of the Czechoslovak Corps, as well as officer units, headed by one of the most talented commanders of the White Army - V. ABOUT. Kappel. As for volunteerism, it did not play a significant role in the People's Army.

Much has been said and written about the significance of the battles for Kazan. The number of works in which one way or another reflects this question, has exceeded one hundred by now. The history of battles for the city is devoted to the monographs of M.K. Mukharyamov, A.L. Litvin. However, it is difficult to say better than eyewitnesses and participants in those events. Let's give the floor to Larisa Reisner, the intelligence commissar of the Fifth Army headquarters, a participant in the battles for the city: “... Everyone understood the situation as follows: one step back would open the Volga to the Lower Volga and the way to Moscow, further retreat is the beginning of the end, a death sentence for the Republic of Soviets. And since the retreat from the Volga then meant a complete collapse - to the extent that the ability to hold on, to resist, leaning back against the bridge and fighting back on all sides, gave the right to real hope ... Retreat means the Czechs in Nizhny and Moscow, Sviyazhsk and the bridge do not give up - this means the recapture of Kazan by the Red Army.

The victory near Kazan was called in the newspaper Izvestia Narkomvoen "Valmy of the Russian Revolution" (Valmy is a city in France, under which the first defeat of the counter-revolutionary coalition was inflicted during the revolution).

It is not surprising that it was near Kazan that many things happened for the first time: for the first time aviation was used here on such a scale; first military unit was awarded the Red Banner (we are talking about the 5th Zemgale regiment, which received this banner for the defense of the city); for the first time, it was near Kazan that decimations were applied - on the orders of Trotsky, every tenth soldier of one of the military formations was shot.

Thus, in Kazan in 1918, issues were resolved not only of “local” significance: (to be or not to be the statehood of the Tatars, and if so, in what form?), the importance and significance of which can hardly be overestimated. Near Kazan, the fate of the revolution was decided, the choice was made of the path that Russia was to take. The condition for this choice was political pluralism. However, the flaring civil war turned political opponents into class and implacable enemies; strength was the main argument.

The history of Kazan in 1918 is full of many dramatic pages. However, in the conditions of the civil war, such a fate of the city and its inhabitants was not an exception, but rather the rule. To know, remember and learn the necessary lessons from such events, which our history is so rich in, is the task of posterity.

Albert VALIAKHMETOV,

postgraduate student of the Department of Historiography and Source Studies, KSU

"Kazan stories", №12, 2003

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At 11:50 p.m. on December 12, 2006, Channel 1 aired the Seekers program, which claimed that the troops of the Constituent Assembly Committee in August-September 1918 evacuated part of the tsar's gold reserves from Kazan in the context of the beginning of the Reds counteroffensive - under shelling . There was turmoil. And when the “whites” counted the evacuated gold in Samara, they discovered that about 200 boxes of gold were missing.
Later, the well-known local historian and deputy director of the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan Georgy Milashevsky told me that in 2006 the Kazan press had already trampled on this topic. Only last week I read a local history article on this topic on the website of the Youth of Tatarstan newspaper (I did not find the publication date of the material on the website, which is very sad). And there are the details:
“At the end of the 1920s, a former White Pole showed up in France, accompanying a horse-drawn cart with gold in ingots and coins in August 18, which was secretly taken out and buried in the vicinity of Kazan by officers participating in the evacuation of gold reserves. Of all those who knew the secret of that treasure, he was the only one left alive.
On the basis of the plan of the area drawn up by him, in 1929 in Paris between the French bank "R. de Luberzac and Co" and a certain citizen Nikolaev, acting by proxy of the State Bank of the USSR, a secret agreement was concluded, allowing the French to start searching for a gold treasure near Kazan, valued them in 18 million US dollars. It was stipulated that in case of success, the State Bank of the USSR would receive a "reward" in the amount of 20 percent of this amount.
The gold rush literally seized the newly-minted conquistadors: only in September-October they organized 16 (!) Search expeditions, but none of them gave the desired result. After many years, already in 1963, our police also made an attempt to find the treasure. Three battalions of internal troops diligently shoveled the ground in several places, but in vain!
P.S: As it turned out, the six-volume case on the Kazan Golden Fleece remains one of the most secret files in the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and all attempts to gain access to it are resolutely suppressed at the highest level.”
$18 million in gold at the 1929 exchange rate, ten times the weight of today's dollar, given that the United States abandoned the gold backing of the dollar in October 1929. I won’t say exactly how much (maybe the readers of this post will clarify?), But this is very good money.
Competing with a police regiment in finding treasures while sitting at a computer monitor is unlikely to be possible for community readers. But hardly anyone will run for a shovel.
But the adventurous theme of buried treasures will certainly arouse interest in the history of Kazan in 1918. That's why I want to encourage community members to start a discussion about 1918 and the Eastern Front. And merge the discussions with a common label "1918".
I'll start with myself - I'll give preliminary information on this period. But to begin with, I offer numerous references to previous events. Because I want to concretely imagine the general background that put pressure on the employees of the Kazan branch of the State Bank of Russia at the time they made a decision in the summer of 1918 - into whose hands to transfer banking assets (white, red, themselves?) And whom to serve.
So, here are the links to my posts, which I thematically prepared on my blog last week specifically for participation in the discussion:
Background: German front 1917-1918
Background: negotiations with Germany for peace
Background: the attitude of the Entente towards Soviet Russia
Background: 1918, performance of the Czechoslovak corps
Background: military devastation
Background: The Decay of the Army
Background: civil war before it was declared
Background: a ghostly hope for a Constituent Assembly
Background: open civil war (January 24 - June 20, 1918)
Background: Kazan in 1917
Background: Kazan in 1918 (January 28 - May)
Background: Kazan in 1918 (May 29 - June 19)

structured information you can use to your advantage, replenish, point out inaccuracies. I will only be grateful.

If it is true that such a “six-volume case” is hidden in the archives of the special services, then the declassification by the FSB Directorate for Tatarstan of the memoirs of the former manager of the Kazan branch of the People’s Bank of the RSFSR (State Bank of Russia) Pyotr Alekseevich MARYIN, which he shared with me rdp4v (thanks to him!), can say that such a six-volume case either does not exist, or the memoirs have long been illuminated by operatives who are convinced that the notes are unlikely to dispel the fog. And let someone steal money from under their noses.
But it's so interesting to delve into the mysterious information and compare it with other facts.
Which is what I will try to do... I must say right away that I am very cautious about the text from the cellars of the Cheka. But, in any case, with gratitude that this text has ever seen the light of day. The information of the former manager of the Kazan branch of the People's Bank of the RSFSR (State Bank of Russia) Petr Maryin is already good because it gives very understandable details -
... “Approximately on the 3rd day after the Czechs occupied Kazan, a special military detachment who was instructed to load the valuables. As physical force, loaders were taken, mostly Tatars from the piers, and junior bank employees (watchmen, counters, security guards). ... To facilitate unloading, the Czechs broke through the wall of the pantry, adjacent to the lower hall of the bank and having access to the upper pantry. The inspectors Gusev and Dobrokhotov supervised the vacation from the pantries. Employees were posted along the way to the tram cars, whose duty it was to follow the loaders and keep count of the boxes. Accompanying wagons were supplied with an appropriate voucher, indicating the number. They were required to bring the receiver's receipt on the ship. When the loading of the ship was completed, the eldest of the businessmen was given an accompanying paper. The accompanying papers were addressed to the Samara office of the State Bank. In addition, acts were drawn up for each shipment.
There are some more details in the text. It's great that they clarified the gold loading mechanism.
However, here are some circumstances to keep in mind when working with this text. In fact, “memories stored in the FSB archive” can only be an interrogation protocol. This leaves its mark on the text submitted for publication.
Carefully read the first sentence of these "memories in the corridors of the Cheka":
"In May 1918, during the advance of the Germans in the direction of Moscow from the eastern provinces, Kazan began to receive the valuables of the State Bank brought in the order of evacuation from Moscow, Tambov, Orel."
Where is the logic in this proposal? Where did the valuables come from - from the eastern provinces to Kazan or from those located west of Moscow, Tambov, Orel?
Look at the information I prepared in advance on the advance of the Germans deep into the territory of the Russian Empire and on the course of the Civil War.
What kind of offensive “toward Moscow” in May 1918 are we talking about? Obviously, the text was edited, and at a later time, by a person who does not know the circumstances that prevailed in the spring of 1918. That is, not Maryin.
In addition, surprisingly, in the proposed publicity of the text of "memories within the walls of the Cheka" there are no dates of events.
There is one more passage there, which differs in style from the rest of the text:
“On the way from Samara to Kazan, there was a case when a sentry, who turned out to be a white officer, opened one bag with a bayonet (some of the gold was in bags behind a seal and a seal) and began to fish out coins from there, but he was immediately caught and handed over to the authorities.”
The style of "one woman said" is different from the rest of the style of presentation - a report on one's actions. In this phrase, the desire to please the victorious Reds is more noticeable, casting a shadow on the crooks - white officers. The point is not whether it was or not, but in the obvious subjectivity of information about an event that was not a witness. It is also strange that there is a word about the opened bag (which I did not see), but there is not a word about the missing 200 boxes of gold (for which I was responsible) .... Or were they not submitted for publication?
The following passage is also skeptical: “Loading into cars took place already when machine-gun and rifle fire was heard from the side of the piers and from Kazan, and cannon shots were heard from time to time. It was around 4-5 o'clock in the morning. The commissars all left, the military guards given to us almost all fled. Only bank guards remained at their posts. It was already starting to get light. I dozed off sitting on a chair. They woke me up, saying that a Serbian officer was demanding me to see him. Looking out the window, I saw a detachment lined up on the street, led by an officer.
I doubt that you can fall asleep on a chair while you are sitting in the treasury and waiting for the appearance of armed people who can bring charges of complicity in the removal of part of the jewelry and shoot you right there ...
In a word, it is good that such a document exists. But the information contained in it must be treated with extreme caution ...

I also noticed that the history of Kazan in 1918 is poorly detailed in the available sources. Perhaps this is due to the propaganda approach to the Soviet period in history.
Or maybe the watchful eye of the “authorities” kept the secret of the 200 boxes of gold hidden by the White Guards and disappeared in the vicinity of Kazan. Don't know.
It is even more important to understand this.
I would like interested readers to help me with answers to questions that have already arisen from references to the background of the "golden story" (see above).
The questions are like this.
How did military devastation manifest itself for Kazan citizens by August 1918?
What specific facts about Savinkov's "Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom" in Kazan do you know: the composition of the participants, real activities? See what I mean. Who are General Ivan Popov and Yakobson? What kind of attempted rebellion on June 17 in Kazan, undertaken by the Savinkovites, which was reported by the editor of the Republic of Tatarstan in his “ historical calendar» on the pages of the newspaper?
With your permission, I will ask the rest of the questions later - in the course of the analysis of the evidence that I managed to get acquainted with ...

And also thanks to the information analyzed over the past two weeks, such a compilation has become possible. Which I hope will be of interest to many. Since I have a lot of different information, I post it in parts.
The purpose of my placement is simple - to acquaint with what is known. So that readers who want to take part in the virtual search for Kazan gold can double-check the facts and know that it is NOT necessary to search already.
On April 19, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars instructed the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to take valuables from cities that could be captured by the Whites to safe places. By June, Moscow, Kazan, and Nizhny Novgorod had become the main destinations for exporting banking assets. On the part of the financial authorities, this operation was handled by T. Popov, Commissioner-Managing Director of the Moscow Office of the People's (State) Bank.
Kazan accepted gold coins and ingots from the Tambov branch of the People's Bank, as well as from the Voronezh, Yelets, Kursk, Mogilev, Syzran and Penza branches. In June, a passenger steamer from Samara brought 1,917 sacks of gold coins worth about 60 million rubles and credit notes worth 30 million to the same place. Later, another 300 pounds of silver were delivered in a special wagon from the Kozlovsky branch of the People's Bank of the RSFSR.
Together with the valuables that were kept in Kazan even before the revolution, the city concentrated gold worth 600 million rubles and almost 200 million rubles worth of silver. In the vaults of Nizhny Novgorod, 440 million rubles worth of gold was collected (not counting silver and small change).
However, on May 25, 1918, the situation became seriously complicated. The Czechoslovak Corps revolted. And Kazan was in close proximity to the theater of operations. The leadership of the People's Commissariat of Finance became concerned about the threat.
At the same time, in the spring of 1918, the Bolsheviks were looking for former officers of the General Staff to organize a new army. Colonel P. Petrov recalled: “At that time, the headquarters of the 1st Army had just arrived in Samara from the former Northern Front, which was reorganized into the headquarters of the Volga Military District and began work according to the plan for creating an army worked out in Moscow. The headquarters arrived almost in the composition that was at the war, agreed to start work on the condition that it would be in charge only of the units created for the external struggle (against the German units - V.K.). IN. Kappel found at the headquarters, besides me, several of his comrades from the academy and decided to join us. At that time, all of us knew little or turned a blind eye to what was happening in the south, and believed that in the interests of the Russian cause it was necessary to keep the military apparatus in our hands, even in straitened conditions. The outbreaks of the civil war did not concern us directly.”
However, soon the Bolsheviks began to demand that the "military experts" participate in the Civil War on the side of the Red Army. Petrov recalled: “We refused; even one of the district commissioners defended our right to refuse. We were threatened with violence; we decided to take advantage of the first opportunity to hide. ... The arrival of the Czechs helped us.”
On June 8, the rebellious Czechoslovak corps captured Samara. Created on that day in Samara, the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) declared itself the supreme power in Russia. 35-year-old Colonel Kappel, at a meeting of officers who refused to stand at the head of the Komuch armed forces, temporarily assumed responsibility and led the fighting forces.
On June 20, 38-year-old lieutenant colonel of the old army Mikhail Muravyov, the former commander of the troops of the Petrograd Military District during the campaign of Kerensky-Krasnov against Petrograd, arrived in Kazan to command the troops of the Eastern Front of the Reds; then - the commander of a group of troops in Ukraine against the Romanians and the Gaidamaks. On the same day, the Revolutionary Military Council and the headquarters of the Eastern Front settled in Shchetinkin's rooms (now the Kazan Hotel). For the purpose of operational management of hostilities over a vast territory, the troops were consolidated into the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th armies of the Eastern Front.
Lieutenant-General Alexander Lukomsky, who in 1917 was the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Russia, recalled that in the summer of 1917 he was approached by the then staff captain Muravyov. However, “... the obviously convict appearance of this Muravyov did not inspire any confidence” ...
On June 21 in Kazan, the Bolsheviks closed the newspaper Yoldyz (Star), on June 23 the newspaper Koyash (Sun) was closed. On June 22, unemployed printing workers went on strike demanding that newspapers in Kazan not be closed.
On June 23, in the evening, at the Zaimishche station, the 24-year-old chairman of the Kazan provincial Cheka, Girsh Olkenitsky, was killed.
On June 24, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Front, Mikhail Muravyov, the head of the Kazan Provincial Military Commissariat, Dmitry Avrov, began the formation of the Kazan Red Army Brigade.
When the power of Komuch, together with the Czech troops, began to move up the Volga, the manager of the Kazan branch of the People's Bank of the RSFSR (State Bank of Russia), Pyotr Maryin, was instructed to contact the commander of the Eastern Front of the Red Army and report to the commissar-manager of the Moscow office of the People's (State) Bank Popov daily information about front movement.
On June 27, Maryin came to the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front Muravyov, inquiring about the stability of the situation in connection with a potential threat to the bank's values. The military man said to a bank employee: "Let them not worry, because I am in Kazan!" Marin conveyed these words to Moscow. According to other testimonies, Muravyov allegedly said: "The political situation is excellent, since I am in Kazan."
On July 3, the workers' section of the Kazan Provincial Council decided to arm the workers and introduce military training in factories and plants. The central and regional headquarters of the workers' militia were created.
On July 5, Kazan received an order from the Volga Military District to deploy the Kazan Red Army Brigade into a division consisting of: 1st Socialist Regiment. Karl Marx, including the International Battalion. K. Marx and the 1st Tatar-Bashkir battalion (from Moscow); 2nd International Regiment. F. Engels (subject to formation); 1st Muslim Socialist Regiment; 2nd artillery division of the 1st artillery brigade; 1st mortar artillery division; engineering and technical battalion; 1st Cavalry Regiment under the command of I. N. Litvinov (to be formed). The personnel of the division was to be replenished by mobilization in the province.
On July 6, in Moscow, an employee of the Cheka, the "Left Socialist-Revolutionary" Yakov Blyumkin killed the German ambassador, Count Mirbach. After that, his party members seized the building of the Cheka and the Central Telegraph in the capital. The Left SRs opposed the harsh terms of the Brest-Litovsk peace agreement. Then the rebellion was suppressed by the soldiers of the Latvian rifle division under the command of 35-year-old Colonel Joachim Vatsetis.
On the eve of the uprising in Moscow, at one of the meetings of the Kazan Soviet, addressing the Left SRs, Muravyov declared: "My army will be with you." The “History of Kazan”, published in the Soviet period (1991), says: “Apparently, with his consent and assistance, shortly before the uprising in Moscow, the Left SR leaders in Kazan A. Kolegaev, I. Mayorov and Efremov tried to send a wagon of dynamite to Moscow. Only decisive measures taken by I. Mezhlauk and L. Milhom thwarted this plan.
In early July, a detachment of Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists was operating in the city, on the orders of Muravyov, the armored train “Free Russia” approached from the Observatory station, the Serbian battalion of Major Blagotich, who later went over to the side of the White Czechs, was arming. In this situation, the Kazan Committee of the RCP (b), together with the Revolutionary Military Council of the Front, urgently put the loyal troops on alert. Muravyov was invited to a meeting of the Revolutionary Military Council, where he was required to order the withdrawal of an armored train and a detachment of maximalists from Kazan, which he did, and to go to the front himself along with a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the front, G. I. Blagonravov.
The departure was scheduled for the morning of July 10, but at night Muravyov and his associates, having taken the money intended for paying salaries to the troops, fled to Simbirsk on the Mezhen yacht.
In Simbirsk, Muravyov arrested the commander of the 1st Army, 25-year-old lieutenant of the old army Mikhail Tukhachevsky, sent telegrams to the troops of the Eastern Front with an order to stop hostilities against the White Czechs and Komuchevtsy, declared himself commander-in-chief of the army operating against Germany, telegraphed to the Council of People's Commissars and the German embassy about the announcement war in Germany and ordered his troops to advance together with the Czechoslovak corps to the Volga and further to the West to repulse the Germans. The command of the White Czech corps was also notified of his actions.
On July 10, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Vladimir Lenin, summoned Vatsetis, head of the Latvian Rifle Division, for a talk about the situation on the Eastern Front.
On July 11, by its decree, the Council of People's Commissars declared Muravyov a counter-revolutionary who was outside the law; Vatsetis was appointed commander of the Eastern Front.
On July 11, in Simbirsk, during a meeting of the local Soviet, the Bolsheviks tried to arrest Muravyov, he resisted and was killed in a shootout, Muravyov's detachment was disarmed. The Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front ordered all armies to continue the fight against the Czechoslovaks, carry out their assigned tasks and not retreat, despite the betrayal of the commander.
On July 14, the new commander of the Eastern Front, Vatsetis, left Moscow for Kazan.
On July 14, the Commissar of Agriculture of the Kazan Province, K. Shnurovsky, published a letter in the local newspaper For Land and Freedom, in which he expressed hope for cooperation between the Left SRs who did not participate in the rebellion and the Bolsheviks.
On July 16, the front commander Vatsetis arrived from Moscow to Kazan with a group of Latvian riflemen. From July 16 to August 5, over 11.5 thousand people, 19 guns, 136 machine guns, 16 aircraft, 6 armored trains and 3 armored cars were sent to the Eastern Front. However, due to the inconsistency of actions between the high military command and the front, this replenishment was not received by Vatsetis, as it was detained in Sviyazhsk.
On July 16, Martin Latsis was appointed chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution on the Eastern Front, Fedor Raskolnikov (Ilyin) was appointed a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eastern Front.
According to the former manager of the Kazan branch of the People's Bank of the RSFSR (State Bank of Russia) Pyotr Maryin, Vatsetis “sent me to his operational headquarters, where I received daily reports on the movement of the front. In reporting this information to Popov, I drew attention to the fact that the reports were apparently late, because the information I received coincided with the data published in the local press, and the rumors were ahead of them by a day.
I visited Vatsetis and the Kazan Commissar of Finance Skachkov. He was on that day in the Klyachkin hospital, next to the headquarters. Vatsetis assured me that Kazan was not in danger, since there was a fairly strong garrison - 12,000 people. In the event of an offensive at the railway station, a train is always ready to take out the valuables in the bank, since, in his opinion, the danger could threaten from the Volga. During one of my visits to Vatsetis, I saw one of his assistants at headquarters, to whom I turned on the issue of bank protection. Subsequently, already in the presence of whites, I was surprised to see him in my office appearing to receive money as a boss partisan detachment whites. The surname, as far as I remember, was Likhachev.
On the night of July 17, Tsar Nicholas II and his family were shot in Alapaevsk (in the Urals).
On July 17, 50 people from the Savinkov organization "Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom" under the command of Colonel Perkhurov escaped on a steamer from Yaroslavl, besieged by the Reds, with the intention of breaking through to Kazan to continue the fight.
On July 20, the Civil War newspaper, published in Kazan, noted the arrival of 23-year-old Commissar Larisa Reisner in the city. And in the following issues appeared her " Travel notes”, feuilletons, poems. Near Kazan, Reisner became a member of the RCP (b), the intelligence commissar of the headquarters of the Volga military flotilla. Her essays are devoted to the struggle for Kazan: "Kazan", "Sviyazhsk", "Markin", "Kazan - Sarapul", etc. Revolutionism and commercialism easily coexisted in it. "We are building a new state. People need us," she frankly declared. "Our activity is constructive, and therefore it would be hypocrisy to deny ourselves what is always given to people in power." She gave orders to sailors like a queen to pages.
July 21 Kazanskaya city ​​conference The RCP(b) decided to create a workers' militia "through the compulsory conscription of a class army of workers and the poorest peasants and through the general arming of the workers."
On July 22, Komuch's troops occupied Simbirsk. The enemy decided to strike the main blow in the direction of Kazan, since the city had large stocks of weapons, ammunition, uniforms and equipment, and almost half of the country's gold reserves were stored here. The capture of Kazan allowed the enemy to defeat the headquarters of the Eastern Front, disorganize command and control, and seize the operational initiative.
“In my next telegram to Popov, I expressed my concerns about the stability of Kazan and the opinion that it would be timely to start evacuating valuables to a safer place. This was, as far as I remember, immediately after the fall of Simbirsk. flotilla consisting of 2 steamships and several barges, headed by several commissars, equipped with powers signed by Popov and V. I. Lenin.
A task force is being formed, Required documents, orders are given on the preparation of tugboats and barges, the relevant information is received by the People's Commissar of Railways, the commander of the Eastern Front, to the Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod Soviets.
In Kazan, a partial recalculation of gold is being started, containers are being prepared for its export to Moscow or Kolomna.
On July 25, the newspaper Civil War, published in Kazan, came out with the slogan that the socialist revolution was in danger, since Simbirsk had been taken and all available Red detachments had to be sent towards the White Guards.
On July 25, the Reds left Yekaterinburg.
On July 29, the question of the situation on the Eastern Front was discussed in the Central Committee of the RCP (b). In the resolution adopted, it was emphasized that the fate of the proletarian revolution and Soviet power was decided on the Volga and the Urals, where the most extensive front of the civil war was formed. Moscow sets a date for the evacuation of Kazan valuables - August 5.
On August 1, the Znamya Revolyutsii newspaper announced the start of training for the workers' militia in Kazan. “On the third day at the Pobeda factory (the former factory of Shabanov - compiled by V.K.) in the Sukonnaya Sloboda, the first training of the worker militia took place in the presence of members of the Soviet of Deputies ... Currently, there are up to 200 people of different ages in the detachment,” it was reported in newspaper. Alexander Pavlyukhin, a 23-year-old factory worker, played an active role in organizing and training the work team of the Pobeda factory.
On August 2, with the help of a squadron of 17 warships, a 9,000-strong Entente detachment landed in Arkhangelsk.
The command of the Eastern Front developed a plan for the transition from defense to offensive and at the end of July submitted it for approval to the Supreme Military Council of the Republic. However, the offensive of the Volga group of White Czechs and White Guards against Kazan, which unfolded on August 1-3, forced the commander-in-chief Vatsetis, without waiting for the approval of the plan, to launch a counteroffensive on August 3 with all four armies. The most dangerous Kazan direction was covered by two operational groups hastily knocked together from various detachments. During the offensive, they were supposed to hit Buinsk and Tetyushi. However, the commander of one of the groups covering the area of ​​the mouth of the Kama, the Maximalist Social Revolutionary Trofimovsky, at the very first shots of the ships of the enemy flotilla, gave the order to retreat, which opened the way for the enemy to Kazan.
The former manager of the Kazan branch of the People's Bank of the RSFSR (State Bank of Russia) Petr Maryin testified:
“On the eve or two days before, I received a telegraphic request signed by Lenin and Popov - to speak out whether it would not be advisable to close up the basements in which the valuables were stored with brick and cement, or to bury them in the bank yard, leveling them to the ground. I answered this request that this measure is unlikely to help save valuables in the event of the capture of Kazan by the enemy, since the presence of valuables in the bank in large quantities and their transportation during the summer, which took place mostly at night, was still not a secret for the population of the city.
The flotilla from Nizhny arrived in Kazan about 5-6 days before the fall of the latter. On the day of arrival, we, i.e. the emergency commission and I began to discuss the question of unloading valuables from the storerooms and loading onto ships and barges. The piers were 5-6 versts from the bank building. It was necessary to negotiate with the front commander and the authorities of the tram administration, since it was decided to carry out transportation in tram cars, to get required amount wheelbarrows and materials for the construction of bridges in the bank yard and on the wharfs, as well as to obtain the necessary labor force. These preparations took several days.
On August 4, Mullanur Vakhitov, authorized by the Council of People's Commissars for food in the Volga region, arrived in Kazan to requisition grain.
On August 4, British troops occupied Baku.
On August 5, at about noon, a distant artillery rumble was heard in Kazan. And by four o'clock in the evening on the Volga, from the side of Bogorodsk, five steamers appeared with white, armed guns and machine guns. The steamboats approached the Kazan pier, fired at it and landed troops. The defense of the pier was led by the military commissar of Kazan Dmitry Avrov. Under his command, two companies of the 5th Zemgalsky Latvian regiment (which arrived in Kazan at the end of July), the 1st Tatar-Bashkir battalion and the working detachments of the militias with a bayonet attack forced the landing force to retreat. One enemy ship was sunk by artillery fire. The remaining ships retreated to Nizhny Uslon. The military commissar of Kazan, Dmitry Avrov, received a shell shock in this battle. He was picked up and sheltered by the workers of the Cloth Settlement.
Simultaneously with the landing on the pier at the height of the Upper Uslon, the Komuch detachment surrounded the artillerymen under the command of the former head of the financial department of the Kazan Provincial Executive Committee V. N. Skachkov. After the battle, the gunners died.
On August 5, (according to some instructions - at 8 pm (?)), tram cars were brought to the bank building, workers came to load and transport valuables to the pier. At this time, the first thundered from there cannon shot- the White Guard and Czechoslovak troops advanced. The evacuation of the Kazan part of the gold reserves was disrupted at the scheduled time.
The former manager of the Kazan branch of the People's Bank of the RSFSR (State Bank of Russia) Petr Maryin testified:
"Our commissars rushed again to the commander (Joachim Vatsetis - V.K.) in order to get other vehicles. And, despite promises, there were no trains at the station, and there was not even a steam locomotive. Trucks managed to get only 4 and one oilman. We loaded about 200 boxes of gold in coins on these cars in the amount of 12 million rubles.”
According to diverging data from other authors, the Bolsheviks managed to take out 100 boxes of gold worth 6,123,796 rubles (candidate historical sciences A. GAK, Natanya (Israel)). According to Kazan local historians, “before the capture of the city, the authorities managed to take to Nizhny Novgorod part of the gold reserves in the amount of 1,200,000 rubles” (Kazan. Times connecting thread. - Kazan: Title, 2000, p. 137)
According to some reports, coin gold was loaded in boxes and leather bags.

On October 10, 1917, a meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, at the suggestion of Lenin, adopted a historic decision on an armed uprising, which was successfully implemented.

In the Kazan province, preparations for an armed uprising were led by the Kazan Committee of the Bolshevik Party, headed by Ya.S. Sheinkman, N. Ershov, G.Sh. Olkenitsky, I. Volkov, A.I. Bochkov and others. Kazan became one of the cities in which the counter-revolution offered stubborn resistance to the rebels.

By the evening of October 25, the cadets and other anti-Bolshevik forces, under pressure from the rebels, retreated to the Kazan Kremlin, which was completely surrounded. After the news of the victory of the revolution in Petrograd, power passed into the hands of the Revolutionary Committee of the city.

On October 26, 1917, Soviet power was established in Kazan, and in Bugulma district only on February 22, 1918. The main struggle against the counter-revolution unfolded at first in Kazan. The measures taken in connection with this (punitive operations) can be called the first cases of the Kazan Chekists.

There are few documents about the initial period of activity of the Chekists of Tataria, since they were probably destroyed by the Chekists themselves before the temporary capture of Kazan by the Komuchevites in August 1918. The surviving documents allow us to state that the functions of the Cheka in Kazan and the province were performed by: the investigation commission of the Revolutionary Headquarters from October 26, 1917, the investigation commission of the Kazan Provincial Council from November 19, 1917, the department for combating counter-revolution of the investigation commission of the provincial tribunal from November 27, 1917, judicial - commission of inquiry from December 8, 1917, revolutionary investigation commission from February 27, 1918, emergency commission of inquiry for combating counter-revolution, profiteering and sabotage from July 1, 1918. These names are contained in the minutes of the Kazan Council. Without their analysis, an erroneous impression may arise that the emergency commission was created only on July 1.

The Kazan Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution was established in January 1918. V.P. wrote about this in her memoirs. Braude, one of its first participants, emphasizing that it was formed on the basis of the department for combating counter-revolution of the revolutionary investigative commission of the provincial tribunal, this is also evidenced by the preserved cover letter of the chairman of the Kazan provincial Chek G.Sh. Olkenitsky, with such a signature on the document on February 4, 1918, sent the cadets arrested in Kazan to Moscow, to the Cheka. As for the decision of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Soviet on July 1, 1918, that the commission should henceforth be called the Extraordinary Investigative Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Sabotage, this is apparently connected with the March 1918 call of the Cheka to local Soviets to organize commissions with the same name.

At the beginning of work, the Kazan Cheka did not have any apparatus and was placed in one room. Individual members of the party or sympathizers of the Bolsheviks from factories, also from military units, were sent to carry out arrests.

Girsh Shmulevich Olkenitsky (1893-1918) was appointed chairman of the Cheka, Vera Petrovna Braude (1890-1961) was appointed his deputy, and Isidor Davydovich Frolov (1896-1918) was appointed secretary. Note that only Vera Petrovna could devote herself entirely to work in the Cheka, since Olkenitsky simultaneously remained the secretary of the Kazan Committee of the RSDLP (b), and Frolov was a member of the Presidium of the Provincial Council, a member of the management board of the Kazan Military District, and from March 1918 and First Commissar of the Kazan Province.

At first, the Chekists were engaged not only in the fight against counter-revolution, speculation and sabotage, they were also subordinate to the criminal police and the department for combating banditry. The soul of the first composition of the Kazan GubChK was Olkenitsky. He was only 25 years old when the hitman's bullet struck him. His colleague Frolov, an active participant in the battles against the anti-Bolshevik forces, was also killed. On August 6, 1918, he was wounded and sent to the hospital, but on the way the car was intercepted by the White Guard patrol.

Along with the gubChK, before the creation of the county Cheka (autumn 1918), the Chistopol judicial-investigative (from December 20, 1917) and Kozmodemyanskaya (from February 24, 1918) commissions functioned. Revolutionary committees and military revolutionary headquarters were often created in the districts, which assumed leadership in the fight against anti-Bolshevik forces. Thus, on March 8, 1918, the military revolutionary headquarters of the Chistopol Soviet considered the question of taking measures against the actions of counter-revolutionaries. A protocol has been preserved, according to which it is clear how such issues were resolved then. The military commissar of Chistopol, the Bolshevik Miksin, said that in the evening all representatives of the White Idea were gathering at the Theological School. Proposals were immediately made to conduct reconnaissance, search the house and arrest all those who had gathered there. There are many similar documents, and all of them testify to the nationwide character of the struggle against counter-revolution. It was on the help and assistance of the broad masses of workers that the Kazan Gubernia Cheka began to rely in its activities.

In connection with the activation of anti-Bolshevik forces in Kazan at the end of February - March 1918, the Bolshevik organization of the city, the Council, decided to create the Revolutionary Headquarters of the Kazan Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies to protect the city and province and preserve the revolutionary order in them. The revolutionary headquarters received from the Council unlimited powers to carry out its functions. The Bolsheviks Ya.S. Sheinkman, K. Yakubov, S. Said-Galiev. K. Grasis was appointed its chairman, I. Frolov represented the Cheka and the military commissariat in it.

Significant assistance in suppressing the rebellion to the Revolutionary Headquarters and the Chekists was provided by national Soviet organizations. January 17, 1918 was established by decree signed by V.I. Lenin Commissariat for Muslim Affairs of Inner Russia. The remarkable Tatar revolutionary M. Vakhitov was appointed its commissar, and G. Ibragimov and Sh. Manatov were appointed deputy commissars.

On February 18-21, 1918, the Muslim Commissariat was organized under the Kazan Soviet with departments of labor, military, communications, public education, struggle, counter-revolution, finance, social security, publishing houses. Bolsheviks S. Said-Galiev, G. Kasimov, K. Yakubov, Kh. Urmanov, B. Ziganshin became its active workers, heads of departments. At that time, Adi Karimovich Malikov, a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1917, one of the first Tatar Chekists, who during the Civil War headed the headquarters of the 2nd Tatar brigade, and then the Special Department of the Red Banner Caucasian Army, worked in the department for combating counter-revolution of the Muslim Commissariat.

On July 1, 1918, the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Kazan Gubernia Council of Deputies decided that henceforth the commission for combating anti-Bolshevik forces should be called the "Extraordinary Investigation Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Sabotage", its estimate was approved, it was decided to issue weapons only with the permission of the Cheka, it was allowed to issue warrants for searches and arrests.

In the middle of 1918, the Volga region became the main arena of the civil war that was flaring up. The importance of the Kazan province as the nearest rear base of the Eastern Front increased. As a result, the amount of work for the Chekists of the region has increased significantly. Now their task was also to clear the rear base of the front from scouts and spies, alarmists and provocateurs, especially from the side of former military specialists who held responsible positions in the headquarters of the Eastern Front and other military institutions. In this regard, the emergence of military counterintelligence agencies is connected.

In order to successfully combat the white movement on the Eastern Front and in connection with the Czechoslovak action, the Council of People's Commissars on July 16, 1918, decided to organize an Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution on the Czechoslovak Front. She reassigned all commissions to combat counter-revolution and sabotage of the front-line zone in the field. The commission was headed by Martin Yanovich Latsis. Thus, Latsis became the head of the Cheka in the Kazan province. Arrived in Kazan on July 27, 1918.

With great energy, Latsis set to work. A front-line Extraordinary Commission was formed. It consisted of 4 departments: organizational and instructor, administrative, investigative and secret.

All local emergency commissions of the given region were subordinated to the Extraordinary Front Commission, but it was created on the basis of the Kazan GubChK. “The first thing,” Latsis recalled, “was the transformation of the Kazan Extraordinary Commission into the Cheka of the Czechoslovak Front.” The Extraordinary Commission moved to Gogolevskaya Street and began to expand its apparatus. But this was progressing very slowly. From Moscow they gave me only two comrades from intelligence. In Kazan, there were about 10 employees of the old Commission. It was with this apparatus that I had to get to work.

Immediately, emergency commissions began to be created in the armies of the Eastern Front. They consisted of two departments: for the fight against counter-revolution and for the fight against malfeasance. The main task of the army Cheka was the prompt elimination of enemy spies and provocateurs.

The front-line Cheka was supposed to coordinate the actions of the Chekists of the army and the front-line provinces. Such tasks were solved as: strengthening the combat capability of the army, clearing the rear from anti-Bolshevik forces.

In July, due to the aggravated civil war and the beginning of the White Terror, the rights of the Cheka were expanded. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee allowed the execution on the spot.

After the fall of Kazan, Latsis moved to Sviyazhsk, where he took up organizational work: he created army and district emergency commissions. Then, by order of Latsis, district Chekas of the Kazan province were created: Cheboksary - on August 11, Sviyazhskaya - on August 15, Tsarevokokshayskaya - on September 1, Laishevskaya - on September 28, Spasskaya - on October 11, Arskaya - on October 20. District Chekas consisted of 3-11 Chekists and detachments of 20-40 people.

Kazan was liberated on September 10. In October, the Kazan GubChK resumed its work. Latsis reported this at a meeting of the Kazan Committee of the RCP(b) on October 8, 1918. At the beginning, Latsis also acted as chairman of the Kazan Governorate, but soon K.M. replaced him in this post. Carlson.

On October 2, 1919, at a meeting of the provincial committee of the RCP (b), a new collegium of the Kazan provincial Cheka was approved. In connection with the transfer of Carlson to KGB work in Ukraine, a party member since 1907, a delegate of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) Zh.F. Devingtal. M.E. Endakov, A.P. Shkele, Mikhailov and Meshcheryakov. By the end of the year, there were 3 battalions of the VOKhR in the Kazan province - 2126 fighters.

On June 25, 1920, the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was solemnly proclaimed in Kazan. The Chairman of the Cheka G.M. Ivanov. After the approval of the Tatar autonomy at the 1st Congress of Soviets of the TASSR at the end of September 1920, the Kazan Provincial Cheka was renamed the Tatar Cheka, and a little later the All-Tatar Extraordinary Commission.

Thus, for the period 1917 - 1920. The Kazan Extraordinary Commission has undergone a number of changes. Having begun its work with the investigative commission of the Revolutionary Headquarters, the counter-revolutionary struggle gradually took shape in the Extraordinary Commission, which was proclaimed in Kazan on July 1, 1918. Then, in connection with the opening of the Eastern Front, the Kazan Provincial Cheka was transformed into the Cheka of the Czechoslovak Front. In July 1918, the rights of the Cheka were expanded in connection with the fierce civil war and the beginning of the White Terror. It was allowed to apply capital punishment - execution. After the liberation of Kazan from the troops of the white interventionists on October 10, 1918. Kazan GubChK resumes its work to combat counter-revolution, speculation and sabotage. It should be noted that on October 2, 1919, a new collegium of the Kazan Provincial Cheka was approved. It should be especially noted that after the proclamation of Tatar autonomy at the end of September 1920, the Kazan Gubernia Cheka was renamed the Tatar Cheka, and a little later, the All-Tatar Extraordinary Commission.

(based on archive materials)

Foreword

It was one of those days of the 90s of the last century, when B. Yeltsin was shown on TV, resolutely signing the Decree banning the activities of the CPSU and the Komsomol.

I was walking along M. Jalil Street past the city committee of the Komsomol, when volumes of I. Stalin, V. Lenin, L. Brezhnev, which became unnecessary overnight, flew out of the window into the courtyard. Following the books - some brochures, documents... I asked: "What's going on?". From the window they answered: "It is ordered to clear the premises."

Perhaps for me it was the finger of fate, as my eyes fell on a thick notebook, on the cover of which it was written by hand: "Memoirs of Beloklokov Anatoly Grigorievich on the 50th anniversary of the Komsomol." And the date: 06/05/1969. I began to leaf through the notes, I saw several lines that returned the author and intended readers to the beginning of the twenties of the last century. It was about the work of the criminal-investigative police of the Bugulma district against a gang of serial murderers, robbers who were in the service of the Cheka of the city of Bugulma, headed by its chairman Zhukovich. The gang was exposed after robbing the house of the merchant Puzanov (the whole family was killed, including small children). According to the decision of the Revolutionary Committee, wrote A. Beloklokov, a gang of "Chekists" was shot in the spring of 1919.

I took the notebook, unable to part with the eyewitness's recollections, since I have long been writing the history of the local threat, in which I myself once worked. And two years ago I had to return to the events of those distant years, and the notebook helped shed light on some events.

In 2008, the book "Eternal Investigation" was published in Kazan on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the threat of the Republic of Tatarstan. It was also mentioned there that “in the spring of 1919 in Bugulma, by decision of the Revolutionary Committee, five members of the criminal investigation department were shot for banditry and communication with white counterintelligence.” Willingly or unwittingly, the author of the book “distorted” the facts: the detectives from that story became criminals. There is such an expression “the dead have no shame”, but I considered it my duty to stand up for honest detectives from the time of the dictatorship of the proletariat and began to collect documents. Some time later, in a conversation with a local historian V. Salnikov, the surname surfaced young man, a distant relative of the merchant Puzanov. It turned out that a legend was passed down in the family from generation to generation: “The Puzanovs were all killed, the property was taken away by robbers.” And no one knows who committed the crime and what punishment the bandits suffered. Now, from the large farm of the merchant’s house, several slabs of the foundation of warehouses for grain remain, and an ice palace was built on the site of the Puzanov house, where from 1918 to 1940 there was a general and mounted police.

Chapter 1

Searches and finds

In the museum of J. Hasek, where in 1918-1919. the commandant's office of the city was located, a photograph of the first chairman of the emergency commission, Bugulma L. Pevzner, a former employee of the political department of the Fifth Army, is stored in the storerooms. The museum found a book by the platoon commander of the battalion of the commandant's office R. Rimanov "Next to Hasek", published in Cheboksary in 1974. In it, the author mentions that Chekists Zhukovich, Gordon, Olenev, Kobalin, Raevsky, Padyshev were appointed to the commandant's office in the case of a conspiracy in the Nikolaevsky Cathedral. So, Zhukovich is really a real figure. But who is he - a Chekist or a murderer and a robber? This was to be found out.

At the request of the storerooms of the Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan, a fax on seven sheets came to the city archive - the memoirs of V. Arzyutov, assistant head of the Bugulma criminal investigation immediately after the revolution. The document is dated 1970 and was written under the transcript in the city committee of the CPSU of the city of Khasavyurt, where Vasily Fedorovich, who had long retired, lived at that moment. The memoirs were written by Arzyutov because his pension is small (before going on a well-deserved rest he worked as a foreman of the cooper shop), and therefore he asks the city committee of the party to help him with the appointment of a republican pension of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. (I note that, taking into account the newly discovered circumstances in Arzyutov’s personal eventful and difficult biography, his pension was indeed revised: it became twenty rubles more - for a veteran of three wars, the founder and director of the Bugulma cooperative school, etc. etc. )

Arzyutov confirmed that he, together with the nachugro I. Ushakov, arrested Raevsky, an employee of the Cheka, for killing the servants and family of the merchant Puzanov. He also wrote that he was present at the execution of Raevsky (initials unknown) in March 1919, when the whites had already approached the city. What happened to the rest of the four sentenced to death (there were five people in the gang), he does not know, since Beloklokov sent him to the station to rescue an armored car surrounded by whites. For some reason, Arzyutov does not mention who carried out the sentence of the Revolutionary Committee. Despite the brevity of the texture, Arzyutov's memoirs are valuable in that they confirm Beloklokov's memories of the presence of a gang and the murder of the Puzanov family. And that meant to me that I had to look further.

I met with the reviewer (a retired KGB major) and told him about my problems with the archives. He thought and said: “But this year there is an opportunity to help you. The fact is that the FSB is opening its own museum in Kazan. Employees are young guys, they go to all the archives, and they have a permit. You sent a request from the city archive to the FSB museum.” And soon the answer came. The main thing in it was that the fund of the Bugulma Cheka (case No. P5853) for 1918 was preserved in the open National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan. In addition to the official request, the then director of the city archive N. Moiseeva, on her own initiative, called the employees of the National Archives she knew and asked them to find the right file and make a selection according to the names of the KGB bandits that interested me. The answer came - two sheets of computer text on both sides. They told about the formation, composition and liquidation of the Bugulma Cheka, and also cited the notes of the city commandant.

Chapter 2

Extracts from case No. Р5853

Emelyan Filippovich Zhukovich (29 years old, born in 1889) in a statement dated October 19, 1918, asks to be accepted into the ranks of the RCP (b). Two days later, Zhukovich and Padyshev were approved by members of the revolutionary committee for the position of employees of the Cheka, and already on November 12, Zhukovich was appointed chairman of the Cheka. In his submission are employees: Pavel Gordon (investigator), Andrey Olenev (secretary), Vasily Kabalin (investigator) and operatives Raevsky, Padyshev, Vaizberg, Kurochkin, Erokhin.

The appointment of Zhukovich was ambiguous. Nine people voted in favor, two voted against, and four abstained. The chairman of the Samara Gubernia Cheka, Johann Genrikhovich Byrne, was present during the voting, but it is not known whether he took part in the voting. Why such a divergence of opinions on the candidate? Beloklokov considered Zhukovich and Gordon to be agents of the Polish definitive (counterintelligence) and "two" - intelligence, since they are Poles and came to Bugulma from Grodno with a column of Polish refugees. Where Beloklokov took this data is also unknown.

When voting, Zhukovich was asked the question: "Where were you during the capture of Bugulma by the Czechoslovaks?" Zhukovich replied: "I was on a business trip in Ufa on the instructions of the Bugulma executive committee, and then I hid in my parents' house in the village of Spiridonovka, Bugulma district." This very vague answer of Zhukovich, apparently, did not satisfy all members of the commission, but they did not check what was said.

Having received this data, I asked G. Lytkov, an expert on the places mentioned by Zhukovich (former chairman of the trade union committee of the field parties of OAO Tatneftegeofizika), to make inquiries. Returning from Spiridonovka (now part of the Leninogorsk district), Gennady Grigorievich reported that the village council did not have any documents about the Zhukovich family; the old-timers of the village do not remember such a surname. But the old people suggest that, perhaps, if such a family lived in the village, and the traitor son was shot, then the Zhukovichi's parents were either also shot or sent out of the region. They themselves could go far away from human condemnation. It happened.

The commandant of the city kept records of the progress of cases: which of the arrested was assigned to which investigator. The cases were conducted by the commissars of the Samara Investigative Commission of the GubChK, as well as investigators appointed by the local party committee (party investigators). He writes that on April 14, 1919, the defendants Zhukovich, Gordon, Padyshev, Kabalin were transferred from the detention center at the district police to prison. And the main entry dated March 5 of that year: disband the Bugulma Cheka, and transfer unresolved cases to the police. That is, all the investigators came to a unanimous opinion about the guilt of the four Chekists. This is the end of my chain of investigations.

Cases for 19-20 years have not been found, there are no investigative materials. What happened to the fate of the remaining four bandits?

I recalled the conversation of the employees of the local history museum that Beloklokov, living in Leningrad since 1925, visited Bugulma from time to time. The last time, when he left, he said that he would supplement the memories from 1969 and give them to the museum, but he didn’t, perhaps he gave it to someone for safekeeping. But to whom?

Somehow went into central library in order to remove a copy of a photograph of the house of merchants Tarasovs from a book on architecture, where the investigative-revolutionary commission, the department of justice and the rooms of judges of the first and second sections were located. (Unfortunately, this house was demolished, although it belonged to the monuments of wooden architecture. Now this place is a wasteland, fenced. By the way, the house of the merchant Filonov, where the Cheka was located, was also demolished. How many such memorable places in Bugulma have disappeared! them - a separate story.) While they were making a copy, I shared with the librarians what I was doing, complained that I could not find the full text of A. Beloklokov's memoirs. And - about a miracle! - it turned out that a thick notebook with a volume of more than a hundred pages in a cardboard cover with a photograph of Beloklokov lies quietly in the archives of the reading room. The text of the memoirs is certified by his personal signature - the signature of a pensioner of allied significance Beloklokov, and some pages - by the seal of the regional committee of the CPSU. They were written in Leningrad in 1980. I asked to make copies of the pages that related to the case of the Zhukovich gang, combined them with my documents - and in the end this is what happened.

Chapter 3

"Your word, Comrade Mauser!"

In February 1918, at the first congress of the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies of the county, a people's militia was created. The county was divided into nine sections: one in the city and eight in the county. A.G. Beloklokov was appointed deputy chairman of the executive committee and coordinator of the work of the criminal-investigative and general police, the first nachugro - Ivan Alekseevich Ushakov, from the former sailors, and his deputy - already known to us Vasily Fedorovich Arzyutov, a demobilized soldier of the First World War. An employee of the political department of the Fifth Army, L. Pevzner, became the chairman of the Cheka.

A. Beloklokov wrote: “After the expulsion of the White Czechs and the White Guards from the Bugulma district, life began to improve. But provocateurs and even Polish spies made their way into the Cheka. So, E. Zhukovich, Padyshev, Raevsky and Gordon were sent from Samara. Zhukovich and Gordon turned out to be Poles. For the first three months, these five worked in favor of the Soviet government. When the period of emergency measures passed, it was necessary to act in accordance with the laws of Soviet power. Here lawlessness began to manifest itself, and they turned from Soviet Chekists into bandits, serial killers. They turned the people against the Soviet regime. Zhukovich and Gordon have reached such impudence that they will kill the merchant, take away his fur coat with a beaver collar and a beaver hat, put it on himself and in this form appear before the city masses.

Here I would like to make a digression and tell you about something. While the search was on archival documents, in Kazan in 2010 the book of Bugulma, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences A. Efremov "Columbus of the Orenburg Territory" was published. Some of its pages highlight the personalities of the Chekists in a different light - criminals the highest degree cynicism.

Here are the facts from the book. N.V. Skalon (a relative of P. Rychkov) was arrested on the night of November 7-8, 1918 as a participant in the case of the counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the Nicholas Cathedral of Bugulma. After the arrest of Nikolai Vasilyevich, the wife in a panic began to look for her husband. Contacted the Cheka. She was reassured there, saying that her husband was not arrested, but held hostage and would soon return home. In the meantime, "she must pay a ransom of 56,000 rubles for him." The younger son N.V. Skalona Nikolai later confirmed: “I remember how my mother and I went to deposit money. She did not say how much, but the Cheka took the money, assuring her that her father was doing earthworks somewhere near Samara and would soon be at home. In the spring of 1919, someone told Sofya Nikolaevna that the bodies of the dead were found behind Bugulma - those who were arrested along with N.V. Skalon. She went with her son Vasily and found her husband's body among the executed. That is, the Chekists, knowing that Skalon was shot, nevertheless took money for the corpse from his wife. The unfortunate man lay all winter under the snow a few hundred meters from the house, not interred.

The execution was carried out by a platoon of the city commandant's office on the outskirts of the city. Now it is the district of kirzavod (city bath).

In January 1919, Beloklokov was appointed chairman of the State Control Commission with emergency powers, which was supposed to remove and remove from work persons who did not inspire confidence, engaged in unseemly deeds, compromising Soviet power. After the check, the county executive committee released Zhukovich from the duties of chairman of the Cheka, instead of him a member of the county executive committee Bolshegolovy was appointed. The new chairman of the Cheka came to take matters in the evening. On the same night, Bolshegolovov and his wife disappeared forever. It was not possible to establish where he disappeared and under what circumstances. Although Beloklokov himself understood the motive, he did not have evidence of the murder of the Big Head family. Then A. Beloklokov and the chairman of the executive committee Yu. D. Bakulin went to the house of the missing, examined the chests and ordered all property to be handed over to the social security department. Some time later, when Anatoly Grigoryevich was on a business trip, Zhukovich falsified the case against him, upon returning to Bugulma he detained Beloklokov on the road, brought him to the Cheka and kept him as an arrested person. The coachman Beloklokova reported the incident to the chairman of the executive committee, and he demanded that they give a telegram addressed to M.I. Kalinin. On the third day, they receive his telegraphic order: "Immediately release and give an explanation." Beloklokov is released. At this time, Anatoly Grigorievich found out the fate of the confiscated property of the Bolshegolovy family: the Chekists chose everything of value that they found in the chest and divided it among themselves.

After Beloklokov was rescued, the bandits more than once made assassination attempts on him from around the corner, shooting at night. He instructed the head of the criminal department, Ushakov, to monitor Zhukovich's actions. It was soon established that his five went to rich houses at night and robbed and killed those who resisted. How many families have been killed so far is unknown. But on the last victim, when the gang planned to rob the house of Vasily Puzanov, the criminals got caught.

Here's how it happened. Having raided the house of the landowner and merchant who sold bread, V. Puzanov, the bandits killed the whole family, they did not even spare the children. When examining corpses in the morgue, the county doctor N.M. Zemlyanitsyn discovered that the servants were still alive. Waking up, the woman told the doctor the name of one of the killers - Chekist Raevsky. The doctor, fearing for her life, took her home, and instead ordered to bury an unknown refugee who died of typhus in a closed coffin. Then Zemlyanitsyn secretly met with the head of the criminal investigation department, Ushakov, whom he trusted, since the latter twice saved him from street robbers, and told about the robbery. Ushakov understood that he alone would not win in the confrontation with the werewolves, and therefore reported everything to the curator of the criminal investigation Beloklokov. They formed a group in which they took Arzyutov and several trusted comfrey soldiers.

Chekist Raevsky was taken quietly on the street and taken to the house where Dr. Zemlyanitsyn secretly treated the wounded servant of the merchant Puzanov. Raevsky, seeing the revived "deceased", fell into a stupor. And the servant pointed at him with her hand and said quietly: “It was he who shot at me, I know him, his name is Raevsky. There were four other men with him, all of them with bundles that they took out of Puzanov's house.

And Raevsky began to testify both in the Puzanov case and in other raids. After the testimony of the servants and Raevsky was drawn up on paper, Beloklokov went around the city and began to gather his comrades at the front, and only after that the detachment detained the Chekists - some at home, some in the building of the Cheka. Personal searches and searches were carried out at the place of residence and service. Everything confiscated from each was drawn up in a separate protocol, which allowed the investigators to “tie” each gang member to a specific crime through material evidence. But for this, Ushakov had to do a lot of work in the front-line city to search for people (witnesses) who had been in the houses of the dead and could identify things and values. Thanks to the district doctor Zemlyanitsyn, his professional and civic duty, the surviving woman became a key witness and gave a thread to the elimination of the gang.

The Criminal Investigation Department collected all the materials, and Beloklokov reported them to the Revolutionary Committee. The Revolutionary Committee issued a verdict: shoot all five, confiscate property. One of the members of the five - Raevsky - was shot immediately. There is even a version that one of the accomplices did it voluntarily at the suggestion of law enforcement agencies. It was necessary to carry out the sentence to the rest of the gang members, but at that time, the deputy chairman of the provincial Cheka, who arrived from Samara, delayed the execution of the sentence until the situation changed: in March 1919, the Kolchak army advanced so quickly, especially the skiers, that urgent evacuation began in Bugulma. It turned out that the deputy chairman of the Cheka saved the remaining four "chekists" from immediate execution in Bugulma.

From the memoirs of A. Beloklokov: “During the evacuation of the property of families, a car of state property and from the Cheka was attached to the echelon, in which there was all the property stolen by the bandits. As a member of the Revolutionary Committee, I demanded from the escorts that they unhook this car in Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk), and that those sentenced to capital punishment be shot on the spot. N.I. was appointed head of the echelon. Lorengal". Beloklokov was sure that Lorengal would do everything right in Simbirsk, and he himself went to Melekess with the detachment, and from there he went to Simbirsk, where he learned that the train had been sent to Saransk, in Mordovia. Arriving in Saransk, he began to look for the car, but at the station they told him that the car with the confiscated goods and the arrested had been sent further. He went to the station commandant and explained what was the matter. He gave a telegram on the roads about the detention of the car, but everything was useless. The car, and with it the valuables and bandits, disappeared. Later it became known: the car somehow reached the very Polish border.

And at the end of May 1920, Zhukovich and Gordon appeared in the Samara Provincial Cheka. Their arrival here was precisely timed, since on May 20, 1920, our city, Bugulma, went to the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Werewolves-chekists considered that in Samara they would not be interested in their previous work in Bugulma. Beloklokov did not report them to the Cheka either, deciding that from March 1919 to May 1920, the bandits most likely died near the Polish border. In addition, the latter was beneficial that the first chairman of the Samara Cheka, I. Byrne, no longer served there, since in 1919 he was transferred to party work and returned to the Cheka only in 1921.

But the head of the special department of the Cheka at that moment was the Bolshevik Belyaev - an experienced man, a professional. The story of Zhukovich, who appeared out of nowhere, that the wagon with confiscated goods was taken as a trophy by Polish soldiers, and that he and his comrades were released, because they called themselves simple cargo escorts - civilians, aroused serious doubts in him. Without thinking twice, Belyaev instructed to detain the newly arrived "chekists" for verification, and he himself sent employees of the department to Bugulma to verify their testimony. Colleagues upon returning told Belyaev that all the testimony of the newcomers was a lie. Around the same time, in Bugulma, Beloklokov was visited by his friend (a comfrey soldier), who had participated in the arrest of bandits in 1919, and said that he had seen Zhukovich and Gordon alive and unharmed in Samara. Beloklokov immediately telegraphed to the Cheka of Samara that Zhukovich and Gordon were traitors, bandits and serial killers and, in his opinion, were involved in the voluntary transfer of the confiscated wagon to the Polish side, and urgently sent the decision of the Revolutionary Committee of the spring of 1919 by courier.

So there was a whole "mosaic". The Collegium of the GubChK adopted a resolution - to carry out the decision of the Revolutionary Committee of Bugulma. And "Comrade Mauser" said his word twice. But how the fate of the werewolves Padyshev and Kobalko turned out is unknown.

But it is important that today's reader knows why the decision of the Revolutionary Committee on execution then, in the twenties, had legal force: it acted within the framework of the decree on court No. 1 of 11/21/1917. The Code of Criminal Procedure and the Criminal Code had not yet been written. There is no prosecutor. The courts and tribunals were guided only by the proletarian sense of justice. And there was also a decision of the Council people's commissars, signed by V. Ulyanov (Lenin), which stated that “in front-line and front-line cities and areas equated to them (and Bugulma in 1918-1919, as we all remember from the history of our native city, was just such a place. - Note. author) the revolutionary committees have the right, by their decision, to use the execution of conspirators, large speculators, murderers, bandits, agents of foreign intelligence and persons who have committed crimes in their official capacity. So the decision of the Revolutionary Committee was absolutely legal.

Instead of an epilogue

The search is completed, but it did not bring complete satisfaction, because there is no clear evidence answer to the question: “Zhukovich - who is he? A Polish intelligence agent, according to A. Beloklokov, or a “shifter”, who, using the mandate of the Cheka, put into practice the slogan “Rob the loot”? I think we will hear the answer over time - from the historians of military counterintelligence.

The secret of the Zhukovich gang ceased to exist. The reader and relatives of the victims learned a new, perhaps for some, unpleasant page in the history of Bugulma. But what was, was.

I am not ashamed of my veterans - the heroes of books about the district criminal investigation. Professionals in their field, seekers of truth, with a flair of romance in their souls, and just decent people served in it. But time ordered that they, alive and dead, fell under the arrest of Time, the System, the Rust of bureaucratic indifference, and their cases were closed in the archive, where they eventually became covered with a thick layer of dust. Manuscripts do not burn, so they say. People are burning. But their memory remains.