Dina AMANZHOLOVA

Two chieftains:
Alexander Dutov and Boris Annenkov

The fates of Alexander Ilyich Dutov and Boris Vladimirovich Annenkov are in many ways similar. Both were professional military men, possessing both combat experience and outstanding personal merits, which made them prominent figures in the White movement in the east of the country. Their actions, accomplishments, and words reflected many significant features of a turning point. The biographical sketches offered to the attention of readers will hopefully help to better understand some of the features of human behavior in the extreme conditions of the civil war.

“Love for Russia is my platform”

“This is an interesting physiognomy: average height, shaved, round figure, hair cut into a comb, cunning lively eyes, knows how to hold himself, insightful mind.” This portrait of Alexander Ilyich Dutov was left by a contemporary in the spring of 1918. Then the military chieftain was 39 years old. He graduated from the Academy of the General Staff, was a member of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly from the Orenburg Cossacks, in 1917 he was elected chairman of the Council of the Union of Cossack Troops of Russia, and in October 1917, at the emergency military circle, he was appointed head of the Orenburg military government.
Dutov defined his political views as follows: “Love for Russia is my platform. I do not recognize party struggle, I have a completely positive attitude towards regional autonomy, I am a supporter of strict discipline, firm power, and a ruthless enemy of anarchy. The government must be businesslike and personal; a military dictatorship is inappropriate and undesirable.”
He was born on August 6, 1879 in the city of Kazalinsk, Syr-Darya region, where his father, who had retired with the rank of major general, was then on his way from Orenburg to Fergana. Dutov’s grandfather was a military foreman of the Orenburg Cossack army.
A hereditary Cossack, A.I. Dutov, immediately after studying at the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps, entered the Cossack hundred of the Nikolaev Cavalry School and graduated as a cadet harness “in the top ten.” Service began in the first Orenburg Cossack regiment in Kharkov. Here Dutov was in charge of the cavalry sapper team and managed not only to establish exemplary order in it, but also performed the duties of a regimental librarian, a member of the officers' society of borrowed capital, graduated from the sapper officer school with "outstanding" marks, attended a course of lectures on electrical engineering at the Technological Institute and studied telegraph business.
Continuing to serve, Dutov, after four months of training, passed exams for the entire course of the Nikolaev Engineering School and entered the 5th sapper battalion in Kyiv, where he was in charge of sapper and telegraph classes. In 1904, Dutov became a student at the General Staff Academy, but graduated only upon his return from the Russian-Japanese War. After serving for 5 months at the headquarters of the 10th Corps in Kharkov, he transferred to Orenburg.
From 1908 to 1914, Dutov was a teacher and inspector at the Cossack school. As a zealous owner, he himself ground, washed, fixed and glued educational property, compiled its catalogs and inventories, and was an example of discipline and organization, never being late or leaving work early.
“His lectures and messages were always interesting, and his fair, always even attitude earned him great love from the cadets,” eyewitnesses recalled. In 1912, at the age of 33, Dutov was promoted to military sergeant major, “which at that time was considered supernatural.”
Excellent memory, observation, caring attitude towards subordinates, initiative in arranging performances and concerts - such qualities were remembered by A.I. Dutov as the commander of the 5th hundred of the 1st Orenburg Cossack regiment in 1912-1913. In addition, he was an excellent family man, the father of four daughters and a son.

Senior constable
Achinsk cavalry detachment
Siberian Cossack army.
1918–1919

With the outbreak of World War I, Dutov achieved an appointment to the Southwestern Front. The rifle division he formed as part of the 9th Army distinguished itself in the battles near the Prut. Near the village of Panichi in Romania, a Cossack officer temporarily lost his sight and hearing, having received a head injury, but two months later he commanded the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment, which, covering the retreat of the Romanian army, lost almost half of its strength in a three-month winter campaign.
After the fall of the monarchy, on March 17, 1917, Dutov, as a delegate of his regiment, arrived in the capital for the First All-Cossack Congress. Inspired by what seemed to be new opportunities that had opened up, in a speech at the congress he defended the originality of his class and predicted a huge role for it in the revolution.
A.I. Dutov was elected deputy chairman of the Provisional Council of the Union of Cossack Troops, campaigned for front-line Cossack units to continue the war, and established connections with the government. He achieved, in particular, that the government decided to pay each Cossack 450 rubles per horse.
In June 1917, at the Second All-Cossack Congress, Dutov acted as chairman of the meeting and was elected head of the Council of the All-Russian Union of Cossack Troops, and then took part in the organization of the Orenburg Council of Cossack Deputies and in the Moscow State Conference - as deputy chairman of the Cossack faction.
The ataman's organizational and economic abilities were clearly demonstrated in his post as head of the All-Russian Cossacks. He quickly organized the staff and office of the Council of the Union, established the publication of a newspaper (“Bulletin of the Union of Cossack Troops”, then “Liberty”), created a canteen, a hostel, a library at the Council, and achieved the allocation of cars, warehouses and other premises for the needs of the Union. At the same time, according to Dutov himself, the Union did not receive any support from the Provisional Government in its desire to participate in public life.
During the days of Kornilov’s speech at the end of August 1917, Dutov’s relations with the government worsened. A.F. Kerensky, who called the ataman to his place, demanded to sign a document accusing generals L.G. Kornilov and A.M. Kaledin of treason, to which Dutov said: “You can send me to the gallows, but I will not sign such a paper,” and stressed that, if necessary, he is ready to die for Kaledin. Dutov’s regiment defended the headquarters of General A.I. Denikin, “fought the Bolsheviks in Smolensk” and guarded the headquarters of General N.N. Dukhonin.
After the suppression of the Kornilov uprising, the regiment went to the Orenburg army, where on October 1, 1917, at the Extraordinary Military Circle, A.I. Dutov was elected chairman of the military government and military ataman. “I swear on my honor that I will sacrifice everything I have: health and strength, to defend our Cossack will and not let our Cossack glory fade,” he promised. It was in the Cossack movement, in the organization of self-government and in the Cossack units that Dutov saw the support of statehood and its future. To the accusation of wanting to “indoctrinate” Russia, he replied that this would be the best way out, and only firm Cossack power could unite the “diverse population” of the country.
A week after his election, the ataman went to Petrograd to transfer his powers as head of the All-Russian Union of Cossack Troops, and at a special meeting he was elected to the Pre-Parliament Commission on the Defense of the Republic, and was also appointed as a representative of the Union of Cossack Troops at the Paris Conference of the Entente Heads of Government. On the eve of the October Revolution, Dutov was promoted to the rank of colonel and appointed chief commissioner of the Provisional Government for food affairs in the Orenburg province and Turgai region with the rights of a minister.

A.I. Dutov’s attitude towards the Bolsheviks and the October Revolution is eloquently evidenced by the order he issued to the army on October 27, 1917, the day after returning to Orenburg: “The Bolsheviks have acted in Petrograd and are trying to seize power, the same actions are taking place in other cities. Pending the restoration of the power of the Provisional Government and telegraph communications, from 20:00 on October 26th, the military government assumed full executive state power in the army.”
The city and province were declared under martial law. The Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution, created on November 8, which included representatives of all parties with the exception of the Bolsheviks and Cadets, appointed Dutov as head of the region’s armed forces. Exercising his powers, he initiated the arrest on November 15 of some of the members of the Orenburg Council of Workers' Deputies who were preparing the uprising. In November, the ataman was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly from the Orenburg Cossack army.
Independence, directness, a sober lifestyle, constant concern for the rank and file, suppression of rude treatment of lower ranks, consistency (“I don’t play with my views and opinions like gloves,” Dutov said at a military circle on December 16, 1917) - everything this provided lasting authority. As a result, despite opposition from the Bolsheviks who had been withdrawn from the military government, he was re-appointed as military ataman.
Dutov responded to accusations of trying to usurp power in the spring of 1918: “What kind of power is this if you always have to be under the threat of the Bolsheviks, receive death sentences from them, live all the time at headquarters, without seeing your family for weeks? Good power!
Previous wounds also made themselves felt. “My neck is broken, my skull is cracked, and my shoulder and arm are no good,” Dutov once complained.
On January 18, 1918, under the pressure of the 8,000-strong Red Guard detachments of A. Kashirin and V. Blucher, the Dutovites left Orenburg - with the image of St. Alexander Nevsky, who was with the ataman in all battles, with military banners and regalia. Some of the detachments held village meetings along the route and, leaving the encirclement, went to Verkhneuralsk. Here, at the Second Emergency Military Circle, A.I. Dutov refused his post three times, citing the fact that his election would cause embitterment among the Bolsheviks. But the circle did not accept the resignation and instructed the ataman to form partisan detachments to continue the armed struggle.
“Life is not dear to me, and I will not spare it as long as there are Bolsheviks in Russia,” said the ataman, emphasizing the non-partisanship of his position and the undesirability of involving the army in politics.
“I don’t know who we are: revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries, where we are going - left or right. One thing I know is that we are following an honest path to save the Motherland. The whole evil lay in the fact that we did not have a nationwide firm power, and this led us to ruin.”
Analyzing the internal political situation, Dutov later wrote and spoke more than once about the need for a firm government that would lead the country out of the crisis. He called for rallying around the party that would save the homeland and which all other parties would follow.
Meanwhile, the position of Soviet forces in the Orenburg region was deteriorating. On July 1, 1918, they began to retreat, and on July 3, Dutov occupied the city. “After the merciless terror that prevailed in the cities and villages of the Orenburg-Turgai region during Soviet rule, the Cossack units that entered the city of Orenburg after the expulsion of the Bolsheviks were greeted by the city population with delight and inspiration almost unprecedented in the life of the city. The day of the meeting of the units was a great holiday of the population - a triumph of the Cossacks,” wrote the military district controller of the separate Orenburg army Zhikharev. On July 12, with a special declaration, Dutov declared the territory of the Orenburg army a “Special region of the Russian state,” i.e. Cossack autonomy.
Soon he headed to Samara, the capital of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), where he became a member of it and was appointed chief representative in the territory of the Orenburg Cossack Army, the Orenburg province and the Turgai region. Thus, the Socialist Revolutionary government, which advocated a federal structure of the country, confirmed the former powers of the ataman and recognized the legitimacy of Cossack autonomy.
In his new position, Dutov had to establish interaction not only with the “central” governments - Komuch and the Provisional Siberian Government in Omsk, but also with the autonomous entities of Bashkiria and Kazakhstan (Dutov knew the customs, traditions and languages of these peoples well from childhood), as well as with representatives Entente and Czechoslovak Corps.
On September 25, 1918, Komuch approved the ataman to the rank of major general, although the actions of the military government displeased the Samara authorities. One of their representatives wrote that Dutov’s military power does not take into account “any resolutions of the Committee. In fact, a military dictatorship is being implemented here, the Cossacks make up those detachments that, through punitive executions, restoration of landownership, arrests of agents of land committees, are restoring the peasantry against the Constituent Assembly, discrediting the very foundations of democracy and pushing the peasantry into the arms of the Bolsheviks... There is apathy and despondency among the peasantry, they are tired of war and awaits reconciliation."
As a contemporary recalled, the ataman had security from units of the Kazakh autonomists - Alashorda, whose western branch he supported for a joint fight against the Reds. Dutov was not sure that Komuch would not remove him from command and said “that it doesn’t matter to him, but it is important that his Cossacks stay together and reach Moscow as a separate corps.” However, the end of the civil war was still far away.

The last attempt by the heterogeneous political forces of the White camp in the east of the country to unite on the platform of the fight against Bolshevism was the formation of the Ufa Directory at a meeting held on September 8-23, 1918. All autonomous and regional governments were supposed to dissolve themselves.
The compromise turned out to be short-lived. The logic of the war required the centralization of forces and control, and this was expressed in the coup on November 18 of the same year, when A.V. Kolchak came to power. In this regard, the behavior of A.I. Dutov is noteworthy. In July, when not only Komuch, but also other regional governments were still quite active and independent, he not only emphasized the commitment to strict discipline and firm power, but also supported regionalism, noting the inexpediency of a military dictatorship. However, in Ufa, political pragmatism dictated a change in the ataman’s position.
One of the ministers of Komuch, who headed the labor department, Menshevik I. Maisky, recalled that at the State Meeting in Ufa, where Dutov was elected a member of the Council of Elders and chairman of the Cossack faction, most of the hall was full of red carnations. Ataman “got up and left the hall before the end of the meeting, defiantly loudly saying to his neighbor: “The red carnation gave me a headache!”” Refusing to participate in the Directory, he quite definitely expressed his opinion about the decisions of the meeting: “Just let the Volunteer Army come , and for me Ufa will not exist."
After the Reds captured Kazan, Dutov left the meeting and began organizing military assistance to Samara, reorganizing the military administration of the district, and coordinating the actions of the disparate military forces of the Whites in the Aktobe and Buzuluk-Ural directions. Soon, for the capture of Orsk, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and after the coup, he unconditionally recognized the dictatorship of A.V. Kolchak, subordinating his units to the Supreme Ruler.
A.I. Dutov exercised command of the South-Western, from December 1918, Separate Orenburg Army, which was directly subordinate to Kolchak, and in April 1919 he was appointed marching ataman of all Cossack troops in Russia.
Meanwhile, the general failures of the Whites at the end of 1918 immediately affected the position of the Orenburg and Ural Cossacks. As a result of the offensive of the Red Army units of the Eastern Front, the evacuation of Dutovites from Orenburg from January 20-21, 1919 “turned into a stampede”; the decomposition of parts began.
On January 23, Orenburg was occupied by the Reds. But the white forces were still very significant, and they continued stubborn resistance. In March, the Separate Orenburg Army of General Dutov, centered in Troitsk, numbered 156 hundreds; there were also ataman units - 1st and
4th Orenburg, 23rd and 20th Orenburg Cossack regiments, two Cossack Ataman divisions and an Ataman hundred.
During the spring offensive of Kolchak's armies on April 16, Dutov occupied Aktyubinsk. Orenburg was almost completely surrounded by white forces. With great difficulty, units of the Red Army repelled their attempt to capture the city and gradually moved forward. At the beginning of May, Dutov’s army captured the Iletsk town and somewhat pushed the Reds back, but was unable to retake Orenburg.
Bitterness gripped the entire country and could not but affect the actions of the ataman. According to a contemporary, Dutov spoke about his reprisals against railway workers who more or less sympathized with the Bolsheviks: “He does not hesitate in such cases.” When the saboteur-stoker slowed down the locomotive, Dutov ordered the fireman to be tied to him, and he immediately froze. For a similar offense, the driver was hanged from the chimney of a locomotive.
The ataman himself explained the cruelty and terror in the war: “When the existence of an entire huge state is at stake, I will not stop at executions. These executions are not revenge, but only a last resort, and here for me everyone is equal, Bolsheviks and non-Bolsheviks, soldiers and officers, friends and foes.”
Meanwhile, Kolchak’s government was developing in detail plans for organizing the system of government in the country after the victory over the Bolsheviks. In particular, there was a special commission for the preparation of the All-Russian representative assembly of a constituent nature. Already during the war, various models of administrative-territorial structure and relationships with Kazakh and Bashkir autonomists were tested in the subject territory. Dutov also took part in the discussion of the problem in April 1919.
It was supposed to divide the country into districts. The ataman was to lead the South Ural region, which, in addition to the Orenburg region, included Bashkiria, as well as the western and northern parts of modern Kazakhstan. A.I. Dutov sent a note to the Supreme Ruler with his proposals on the order of relations with the national outskirts, which testifies to the ataman’s deep knowledge of the history of the region, the characteristics of the national culture and how to use them in the politics of the central government.
However, during the offensive of the armies of the Bolshevik Eastern Front, by September 12, 1919, Kolchak’s Southern Army was defeated, General Belov’s group retreated to Turgai, and Dutov’s units retreated to the steppes of Kazakhstan and then advanced to Siberia. They were included in the newly formed units
The 2nd Steppe Siberian Corps, as well as scattered detachments, retreated further and further to the east.
In 1920, Dutov ended up in China along with other representatives of the defeated White movement. On February 7, 1921, during an unsuccessful operation by security officers to kidnap him, the chieftain was mortally wounded. “I love Russia, in particular my Orenburg region, this is my whole platform,” he said about his views in 1918. “If the Bolsheviks and anarchists found a real way to save and revive Russia, I would be in their ranks; Russia is dear to me, and patriots, no matter what party they belong to, will understand me, just as I do them.”

conditions of poor organization and supply, some of the atamans, according to the recollections of the former commander-in-chief of the army of the Ufa Directory V.G. Boldyrev, “simply and decisively switched to the method of requisition... They were well-fed, well dressed and were not bored.
The system of subordination was extremely simple: in heaven - God, on earth - ataman. And if the detachment of Ataman Krasilnikov, corrupted by the disastrous situation in Omsk, bore all the signs of moral ugliness and anarchy, then in the units of Annenkov, who seemed to be a man of exceptional energy and will, there was a kind of ideological service to the country.
The severe discipline of the detachment was based, on the one hand, on the character of the leader, on the other, on the international, so to speak, composition of it.
There was a battalion of Chinese and Afghans and Serbs. This strengthened the position of the ataman: if necessary, the Chinese shoot the Russians without much embarrassment, the Afghans shoot the Chinese, and vice versa.”
B.V. Annenkov maintained discipline, relying on a military court, consisting of officers, and a special commission, operating on the basis of pre-revolutionary laws and orders of the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. At the same time, extrajudicial decisions were also applied, which were approved by the ataman himself and carried out by the unit that received the next order.
The consumption of alcohol was prohibited in the partisan division, and drunkards were expelled. “The ataman has no headquarters or retinue,” reported one of the newspapers of that time, “only a typewriter and messengers. For foul language they were expelled for the third time. Exemplary discipline, good equipment, three types of weapons, intelligent youth, Cossacks and Kyrgyz predominate.”
The desire for autonomy, the reluctance to completely obey Kolchak, whom Annenkov considered a “blind executor of the will of the allies,” was expressed, in particular, in the ataman’s refusal to accept the rank of major general assigned to him on November 25, 1918 by the Supreme Ruler, although later this decision was still made approved.

The further military career and personal fate of Boris Annenkov turned out to be connected with the events on the Semirechensk Front.
At the beginning of December 1918, he was entrusted, as part of the 2nd Steppe Siberian Corps, with the liberation of the southeastern part of modern Kazakhstan, which, by order of Kolchak on January 6, 1919, was declared a theater of military operations. The position of the whites here was characterized by an acute shortage of food, uniforms, and weapons. Due to the multidirectional goals of the forces united in the army of the Supreme Ruler: the Cossacks, partisan detachments, national Kazakh units, as well as the weakness of the Red Army detachments, the situation in Semirechye was unstable. The main problem for the whites was the liquidation of the Cherkasy defense - the resistance of 13 villages of Lepsinsky and Kopalsky districts held by the Reds. The attack on the surrounded villages undertaken by Annenkov’s detachment on January 20, 1919 was unsuccessful. In occupied settlements, Annenkov acted both by persuasion and coercion. On January 10, 1919, he issued an order to the population of the occupied Urjar region. It said: “§ 1. The detachment entrusted to me arrived in Semirechye to fight the Bolsheviks, to establish law and order, peace and quiet.
In relation to the population, we will behave absolutely equally impartially, be it a Cossack, a peasant or a Kyrgyz.
I have given up on the old, since many of us were, thanks to our darkness, in error. Only those who deliberately led you to this destruction will be punished. But in the future, I warn you, anyone who is again found committing crimes against the existing state order, violence, robbery and other crimes will be severely punished.”
In § 2, the entire population was obliged to unquestioningly carry out the orders of the regional and rural administration and bear state duties.
In addition, it was forbidden to hand over land to the Chinese for sowing opium, and all crops, the order said, would be destroyed through a figurehead. Crops were allowed only to Russians with the knowledge of the regional manager. The order also prohibited the sale of thoroughbred horses. Such transactions could only be concluded with the knowledge of the military authorities and only in exceptional cases.
It is interesting that whites sought to influence the population not only with the threat of punishment and the force of order. On February 28 of the same year, for example, the general presence of the Semirechensky regional government decided to rename the village of Ivanovka, Lepsinsky district, to the village of Annenkovo.
Meanwhile, the chieftain tried his best to keep the situation under control. Thus, the order for the Uch-Aral and Urjar regions, which were under martial law in February 1919, prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages. Those guilty of their production and sale were brought before a military court. Chinese citizens who brought alcohol were expelled and the goods were confiscated.
Annenkov also ordered that drunks be arrested for 14 days and fined them in the amount of 1 thousand rubles. These funds were to be distributed as follows: 500 rubles - to the infirmary, 300 - “to the society”, 200 - in favor of the catcher. Similar measures were applied for found alcoholic beverages.
The ataman also had a peculiar attitude towards the vanquished. A telegram from the authorized corps commander, General Efremov, from Sergiopol (the center of the Urdzhar region) to Omsk dated January 10, 1919, in particular, said: “17 Red Army soldiers were escorted to the investigative commission in Sergiopol, on the way they were freed by Ataman Annenkov and accepted by the soldiers to the partisan division. In response to my demand to hand them over again to the chief of the district police, Annenkov replied that the Red Army soldiers were accepted in order to atone for their guilt, which I am reporting.”
On January 17, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, A.N. Gattenberger, informed the head of the Kolchak government about this fact, proposing to report personally to the Supreme Ruler in order to “cancel the said order of Ataman Annenkov.” In the ataman’s personal convoy, which consisted of 30 Cossacks, almost half were captured Red Army soldiers who distinguished themselves by their courage in battle. One of them, Ivan Duplyakov, enjoyed the special trust of the commander: being constantly next to him, Duplyakov later, after retreating to China, according to the will drawn up by Annenkov in a Chinese prison, was supposed to receive 4 gold bars kept by him.

Only by June 1919 were the Whites able to organize a comprehensive offensive, achieving by August the reduction of the territory of the Cherkassy defense to three villages. After 16 months of resistance under the pressure of Kolchak’s Semirechensk group of troops, which included Annenkov’s division and four Cossack brigades, the defense fell. Three companies of Red Army soldiers, led by commanders, surrendered voluntarily; some of them then took part in the battles as part of the Annenkov division.
However, the turning point in favor of the Red Army, which occurred in the summer of 1919 along the entire Eastern Front, also affected the situation in Semirechye. The main stronghold of the Whites - the city of Semipalatinsk - was occupied by Soviet units on December 10. The remnants of the 2nd Steppe Siberian Corps, which included the ataman’s units, were replenished by retreating detachments of A.I. Dutov’s army. Red Army intelligence reported, however, that in Annenkov’s hundreds there were no guns and machine guns, “cartridges on people from 20 to 60... The headquarters has a green flag with a white skull and crossbones and the inscription “God is with us.”
Trying to delay the collapse, the White command concentrated the decaying units into consolidated formations, carried out additional mobilizations, and organized raids by poorly armed detachments on settlements occupied by the Reds, but they were no longer able to change the situation in their favor.
On February 29, 1920, Annenkov was asked to voluntarily surrender his weapons, but he intended to continue resistance. The Annenkovites refused to respond to the ultimatum of the Soviet delegation, presented on March 2, within 18 hours, insisting on a 24-hour break.
As a result of the offensive of units of the Bolshevik Turkestan Front, by the end of March the main settlements of Semirechye were occupied. On the night of March 25, 1920, B.V. Annenkov, accompanied by 4 thousand soldiers and the retreating population, went abroad, declaring with a special order the cessation of armed struggle and the right of every soldier and officer to independently determine their future fate.
Colonel Asanov, who took command from him, ordered the remaining forces of the Semirechensk Army to “consider themselves troops of the RSFSR” and await orders from the command of the Red Army.

The whites who retreated to China found themselves in a difficult situation. At the insistence of the authorities, they surrendered their weapons, some of the Cossacks left the detachment, and Annenkov himself, having failed to comply with the demands of the Chinese authorities to disarm the detachment, was arrested in March 1921 and imprisoned in the city of Urumqi. The Chinese sought from him the transfer of valuables taken from Russia.
Only as a result of repeated appeals by the former chief of staff of his division, Colonel N.A. Denisov, to the authorities, as well as to the envoys of the Entente countries in China, Annenkov was released in February 1924. He decided to completely withdraw from participation in the emigrant movement and go to Canada, but could not find funds to obtain a visa.
Almost immediately after his release, the young general began to receive numerous persistent offers to join the activities of anti-Soviet organizations, to unite and lead monarchist groups and detachments.
Realistically assessing the political situation and the balance of forces, B.V. Annenkov avoided active work in every possible way, but in the end accepted the proposal to form a detachment of Chinese troops under the command of Marshal Feng Yuxiang, who was considered a supporter of the Bolsheviks among the White emigrants.
On April 10, 1926, unexpectedly for everyone, Annenkov and his closest associates were sent through Mongolia to Soviet Russia. It is known that the Soviet authorities at this time sought to transfer to them a number of leaders of the white movement, including Annenkov. There is no information about his position and the nature of the relationship with the Chinese marshal, however, on April 20, 1926, the newspaper “New Shanghai Life” published the ataman’s appeal to the Central Executive Committee of the USSR “with a sincere and sincere request for forgiveness” and pardon, if not for himself, then for those less guilty his former colleagues. In addition, he made an appeal to his supporters to stop the fight against the Bolshevik government.
Annenkov's decision caused a storm of indignation and indignation in the White émigré press. The circumstances due to which the ataman was sent to the USSR remain unclear. "Shanghai Dawn" wrote on April 25, 1926 that he was arrested by the Chinese command by order of the Soviet military leadership, as he refused to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks. According to another version, he and Denisov were captured at the Kalgan Hotel by a group led by Feng Yuxiang’s senior adviser, Mr. Lin, the famous Soviet military leader V.M. Primakov. Obviously, this was an OGPU operation.
After an open trial that took place over Annenkov and Denisov in July 1927 in Semipalatinsk, according to the verdict of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on August 25, 1927, the ataman was shot. See: Semipalatinsk Regional Gazette. 1919. January 19; Foreign military intervention and civil war in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. T. 1. Alma-Ata, 1964. pp. 542-543.
Semirechensk Regional Gazette. 1919. March 9, March 23, February 23.
10 GA RF. F. 1700. Op. 1. D. 74. L. 1-2.
11 Government Gazette. 1919. 18, 19 Oct.; Our newspaper. 1919. 18 Oct; RGVA. F. 110. Op. 3. D. 951. L. 22; D. 927. L. 28.
12 See: RGVA. F. 110. Op. 3. D. 281. L. 10-12, 23, 121-123; D. 936. L. 78; Civil war in Kazakhstan: Chronicle of events. Alma-Ata, 1974. P. 286, 295, 297-298.

The father of the future Cossack leader, Ilya Petrovich, a military officer from the era of the Turkestan campaigns, was promoted to the rank of major general in September upon his dismissal from service. Mother - Elizaveta Nikolaevna Uskova - the daughter of a police officer, a native of the Orenburg province.

A.I. Dutov graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps, and then the Nikolaev Cavalry School in the city, was promoted to cornet and sent to the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment, stationed in Kharkov.

Then he completed courses at the Nikolaev Engineering School on October 1, and the General Staff Academy in Dutov volunteered for the Russo-Japanese War, where he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 3 for “excellent, diligent service and special work” during hostilities. th degree.

World War I

On October 26 (November 8), Dutov returned to Orenburg and began work at his posts. On the same day, he signed an order for army No. 816 on the non-recognition of the power of the Bolsheviks on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, who carried out a coup in Petrograd.

Dutov took control of a strategically important region that blocked communications with Turkestan and Siberia. The ataman was faced with the task of holding elections to the Constituent Assembly and maintaining stability in the province and army until its convocation. Dutov generally coped with this task. The Bolsheviks who arrived from the center were captured and put behind bars, and the Orenburg garrison, which had become disorganized and pro-Bolshevik (due to the anti-war position of the Bolsheviks), was disarmed and sent home.

In November, Dutov was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly (from the Orenburg Cossack army). Opening the 2nd regular Military Circle of the Orenburg Cossack Army on December 7, he said:

“Now we are living through the Bolshevik days. We see in the darkness the outlines of tsarism, Wilhelm and his supporters, and clearly and definitely standing before us is the provocateur figure of Vladimir Lenin and his supporters: Trotsky-Bronstein, Ryazanov-Goldenbach, Kamenev-Rosenfeld, Sukhanov-Himmer and Zinoviev-Apfelbaum. Russia is dying. We are present at her last breath. There was Great Rus' from the Baltic Sea to the ocean, from the White Sea to Persia, there was a whole, great, formidable, powerful, agricultural, laboring Russia - it no longer exists.”

On December 16, the ataman sent out a call to the commanders of the Cossack units to send Cossacks with weapons to the army. To fight the Bolsheviks, people and weapons were needed; he could still count on weapons, but the bulk of the Cossacks returning from the front did not want to fight, only in some places village squads were formed. Due to the failure of the Cossack mobilization, Dutov could only count on volunteers from officers and students, no more than 2 thousand people in total, including old people and youth. Therefore, at the first stage of the struggle, the Orenburg ataman, like other leaders of the anti-Bolshevik resistance, was unable to rouse and lead any significant number of supporters to fight.

Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks launched an attack on Orenburg. After heavy fighting, the Red Army detachments under the command of Blucher, many times superior to the Dutovites, approached Orenburg and on January 31, 1918, as a result of joint actions with the Bolsheviks entrenched in the city, captured it. Dutov decided not to leave the territory of the Orenburg army and went to the center of the 2nd Military District - Verkhneuralsk, located far from major roads, hoping to continue the fight there and form new forces against the Bolsheviks.

But in the meantime, the Bolsheviks with their policies embittered the main part of the Orenburg Cossacks, who were previously neutral to the new government, and in the spring of 1918, without connection with Dutov, a powerful insurrectionary movement began on the territory of the 1st Military District, led by a congress of delegates from 25 villages and a headquarters led by military foreman D. M. Krasnoyartsev. On March 28, in the village of Vetlyanskaya, the Cossacks destroyed the detachment of the chairman of the council of Iletsk Defense P.A. Persiyanov, on April 2 in the village of Izobilnaya - the punitive detachment of the chairman of the Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee S.M. Tsviling, and on the night of April 4, a detachment of Cossacks of military foreman N.V. Lukin made a daring raid on Orenburg, occupying the city for some time and inflicting significant losses on the Reds. The Reds responded with brutal measures: they shot, burned the villages that resisted (in the spring of 1918, 11 villages were burned), and imposed indemnities.

Awards

Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree.
Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree
swords and bow to the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree
Order of St. Anne, 2nd class

Literature

Ganin A.V. Ataman A. I. Dutov.(Forgotten and unknown Russia. At a great turning point) M. "Tsentrpoligraf" 623 from 2006 ISBN 5-9524-2447-3
* Kolpakidi A. I. Liquidators of the KGB. - M.: Yauza Eksmo, 2009. - P. 264-270. - 768 p. - (Encyclopedia of Special Services). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-699-33667-8

Links

A. V. Ganin. Alexander Ilyich Dutov "Questions of History" No. 9 P. 56-84
Andrey Ganin Alexander Ilyich Dutov. Biography

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “Dutov Alexander Ilyich” is in other dictionaries:

Alexander Ilyich Dutov in 1919 Date of birth August 5 (17), 1879 (1879 08 17) Place of birth Russian Empire, Syrdarya province ... Wikipedia

- (1879 1921) Russian lieutenant general (1919). Since September 1917, the ataman of the Orenburg Cossacks, in November 1917 he led an armed uprising against Soviet power in Orenburg, which was liquidated by revolutionary troops. In 1918 19 he commanded... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

One of the leaders of the Cossack counter-revolution in the Urals, lieutenant general (1919). From the nobles of the Orenburg Cossack army. Graduated from the Nikolaev Cavalry... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Dutov, Alexander Ilyich- DUTOV Alexander Ilyich (1879 1921), lieutenant general (1919), military chieftain of the Orenburg Cossack army (from October 1917). On October 27, he led an armed uprising in Orenburg, suppressed by revolutionary troops. In 1918 19 commander... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

The father of the future Cossack leader, Ilya Petrovich, a military officer from the era of the Turkestan campaigns, was promoted to the rank of major general in September 1907 upon his dismissal from service. Mother - Elizaveta Nikolaevna Uskova - the daughter of a police officer, a native of the Orenburg province. Alexander Ilyich himself was born during one of the campaigns in the city of Kazalinsk, Syrdarya region.

A. I. Dutov graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps in 1897, and then from the Nikolaev Cavalry School in 1899, was promoted to the rank of cornet and sent to the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment stationed in Kharkov.

Then, in St. Petersburg, he graduated from courses at the Nikolaev Engineering School on October 1, 1903, now the Military Engineering and Technical University and entered the Academy of the General Staff, but in 1905 Dutov volunteered for the Russo-Japanese War, fought as part of the 2nd oh Munchhur Army, where for “excellent, diligent service and special labors” during hostilities he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree. Upon returning from the front, Dutov A.I. continued his studies at the Academy of the General Staff, which he graduated in 1908 (without promotion to the next rank and assignment to the General Staff). After graduating from the Academy, Staff Captain Dutov was sent to become familiar with the service of the General Staff in the Kiev Military District at the headquarters of the 10th Army Corps. From 1909 to 1912 he taught at the Orenburg Cossack Junker School. With his activities at the school, Dutov earned the love and respect of the cadets, for whom he did a lot. In addition to the exemplary performance of his official duties, he organized performances, concerts and evenings at the school. In December 1910, Dutov was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree, and on December 6, 1912, at the age of 33, he was promoted to the rank of military foreman (the corresponding army rank is lieutenant colonel).

In October 1912, Dutov was sent for a one-year qualification command of the 5th hundred of the 1st Orenburg Cossack regiment to Kharkov. After the expiration of his command, Dutov passed the hundred in October 1913 and returned to school, where he served until 1916.

World War I

On March 20, 1916, Dutov volunteered to join the active army, to the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment, which was part of the 10th Cavalry Division of the IIIrd Cavalry Corps of the 9th Army of the Southwestern Front. He took part in the offensive of the Southwestern Front under the command of Brusilov, during which the 9th Russian Army, where Dutov served, defeated the 7th Austro-Hungarian Army between the Dniester and Prut rivers. During this offensive, Dutov was wounded twice, the second time seriously. However, after two months of treatment in Orenburg, he returned to the regiment. On October 16, Dutov was appointed commander of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment together with Prince Spiridon Vasilyevich Bartenev.

The certification of Dutov, given to him by Count F.A. Keller, states: “The last battles in Romania, in which the regiment took part under the command of military foreman Dutov, give the right to see in him a commander who is well versed in the situation and makes appropriate decisions energetically, by virtue of which makes me consider him an outstanding and excellent combat commander of the regiment.” By February 1917, for military distinctions, Dutov was awarded swords and a bow to the Order of St. Anne, 3rd class. and the Order of St. Anne, 2nd class.

After the oath to the provisional government

After the February Revolution of 1917, he was elected in March 1917 as chairman of the All-Russian Union of Cossack Troops, in April of the same year he headed the congress of Russian Cossacks in Petrograd, in September he was elected ataman of the Orenburg Cossacks and head (chairman) of the military government. In his political views, Dutov stood on republican and democratic positions.

Anti-Bolshevik uprising of A. I. Dutov

October 1917 is another milestone in Dutov’s rapid rise. By October, 38-year-old Dutov had transformed from an ordinary staff officer into a major figure, known throughout Russia and popular among the Cossacks.

On October 26 (November 8), Dutov returned to Orenburg and began work at his posts. On the same day, he signed an order for army No. 816 on the non-recognition of the Bolshevik power on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, who carried out a coup in Petrograd.

Dutov took control of a strategically important region that blocked communications with Turkestan and Siberia. The ataman was faced with the task of holding elections to the Constituent Assembly and maintaining stability in the province and army until its convocation. Dutov generally coped with this task. The Bolsheviks who arrived from the center were captured and put behind bars, and the decayed and pro-Bolshevik garrison (due to the anti-war position of the Bolsheviks) of Orenburg was disarmed and sent home.

In November, Dutov was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly (from the Orenburg Cossack army). Opening the 2nd regular Military Circle of the Orenburg Cossack Army on December 7, he said:

Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks began an attack on Orenburg. After heavy fighting, the Red Army detachments under the command of Blucher, many times superior to the Dutovites, approached Orenburg and on January 31, 1918, as a result of joint actions with the Bolsheviks settled in the city, captured it. Dutov decided not to leave the territory of the Orenburg army and went to the center of the 2nd military district - Verkhneuralsk, which was located far from major roads, hoping to continue the fight there and form new forces against the Bolsheviks.

But in March, the Cossacks also surrendered Verkhneuralsk. After this, Dutov’s government settled in the village of Krasninskaya, where by mid-April it was surrounded. On April 17, having broken through the encirclement with the forces of four partisan detachments and an officer platoon, Dutov broke out of Krasninskaya and went to the Turgai steppes.

But in the meantime, the Bolsheviks with their policies embittered the main part of the Orenburg Cossacks, who were previously neutral to the new government, and in the spring of 1918, without connection with Dutov, a powerful insurrectionary movement began on the territory of the 1st Military District, led by a congress of delegates from 25 villages and a headquarters led by military foreman D. M. Krasnoyartsev. On March 28, in the village of Vetlyanskaya, the Cossacks destroyed the detachment of the chairman of the council of Iletsk Defense P.A. Persiyanov, on April 2 in the village of Izobilnaya - the punitive detachment of the chairman of the Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee S.M. Tsviling, and on the night of April 4, a detachment of Cossacks of military foreman N.V. Lukin and the detachment of S.V. Bartenev made a daring raid on Orenburg, occupying the city for some time and inflicting significant losses on the Reds. The Reds responded with brutal measures: they shot, burned the villages that resisted (in the spring of 1918, 11 villages were burned), and imposed indemnities.

As a result, by June, more than 6 thousand Cossacks took part in the insurgent struggle in the territory of the 1st Military District alone. At the end of May, the Cossacks of the 3rd Military District, supported by the rebel Czechoslovaks, joined the movement. The Red Guard detachments on the territory of the Orenburg army were defeated everywhere, and Orenburg was taken by the Cossacks on July 3. A delegation was sent from the Cossacks to Dutov, as the legally elected military chieftain. On July 7, Dutov arrived in Orenburg and led the Orenburg Cossack army, declaring the territory of the army a special region of Russia. On September 28, the Cossacks took Orsk - the last of the cities on the territory of the army occupied by the Bolsheviks. Thus, the territory of the army was completely cleared of the Reds for some time. Dutov's units became part of the Russian army of Admiral Kolchak in November. The Orenburg Cossacks fought the Bolsheviks with varying success, but in September 1919, Dutov’s Orenburg army was defeated by the Red Army near Aktobe. The ataman with the remnants of the army retreated to Semirechye, where he joined the Semirechensk army of Ataman Annenkov. Due to the lack of food, the crossing of the steppes became known as the “Hunger March.” Upon arrival in Semirechye, Dutov was appointed by Ataman Annenkov as governor-general of the Semirechensk region. In May 1920 he moved to China along with the Semirechensk army of Ataman Annenkov.

Death

On February 7, 1921, Ataman Dutov was killed in Suidun by agents of the Cheka under the leadership of Kasymkhan Chanyshev. The group of security officers consisted of 9 people. Dutov was shot at point-blank range in his office by group member Makhmud Khadzhamirov (Khodzhamyarov) along with 2 sentries and a centurion. Dutov and the guards killed with him during the battle were buried with military honors in Ghulja. The security officers returned back to Dzharkent. On February 11, a telegram was sent from Tashkent about the execution of the task to the Chairman of the Turkestan Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front G. Ya. Sokolnikov, and a copy of the telegram was sent to the Central Committee of the RCP (b)..

Awards

Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree.
Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree
swords and bow for the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree
Order of St. Anne, 2nd class

Ataman Dutov, who loved to repeat: “I don’t play with my views and opinions like gloves”

Alexander Ilyich Dutov graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps in 1897, and then from the Nikolaev Cavalry School in 1899, was promoted to the rank of cornet and sent to the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment stationed in Kharkov.

The certification of Dutov, given to him by Count F.A. Keller, says: “The latest battles in Romania, in which the regiment took part under the command of Sergeant Major Dutov, give us the right to see in him a commander who is well versed in the situation and who makes the appropriate decisions energetically, which is why I consider him an outstanding and excellent combat commander of the regiment.”. By February 1917, for military distinctions, Dutov was awarded swords and a bow to the Order of St. Anne, 3rd class. and the Order of St. Anne, 2nd class.

Dutov became known throughout Russia in August 1917, during the Kornilov Rebellion. Kerensky then demanded that Dutov sign a government decree in which Lavr Georgievich was accused of treason. The chieftain of the Orenburg Cossack army left the office, contemptuously throwing: “You can send me to the gallows, but I won’t sign such a paper. If necessary, I am ready to die for them.". From words, Dutov immediately got down to business. It was his regiment that defended General Denikin’s headquarters, pacified Bolshevik agitators in Smolensk and guarded the last commander-in-chief of the Russian army, Dukhonin. Alexander Ilyich Dutov, a graduate of the General Staff Academy and Chairman of the Council of the Union of Cossack Troops of Russia, openly called the Bolsheviks German spies and demanded that they be tried according to wartime laws.

“Pending the restoration of the powers of the Provisional Government and telegraph communications, I assume full executive state power”. The city and province were declared under martial law. The created Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland, which included representatives of all parties with the exception of the Bolsheviks and Cadets, appointed Dutov as head of the region’s armed forces. Exercising his powers, he initiated the arrest of some members of the Orenburg Council of Workers' Deputies who were preparing an uprising. To accusations of wanting to usurp power, Dutov answered with grief: “You always have to be under the threat of the Bolsheviks, receive death sentences from them, live at headquarters without seeing your family for weeks. Good power!

Dutov took control of a strategically important region that blocked communications with Turkestan and Siberia. The ataman was faced with the task of holding elections to the Constituent Assembly and maintaining stability in the province and army until its convocation. Dutov generally coped with this task. The Bolsheviks who arrived from the center were captured and put behind bars, and the decayed and pro-Bolshevik garrison (due to the anti-war position of the Bolsheviks) of Orenburg was disarmed and sent home.

In November, Dutov was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly (from the Orenburg Cossack army). Opening the 2nd regular Military Circle of the Orenburg Cossack Army on December 7, he said:

“Now we are living through the Bolshevik days. We see in the darkness the outlines of tsarism, Wilhelm and his supporters, and clearly and definitely standing before us is the provocateur figure of Vladimir Lenin and his supporters: Trotsky-Bronstein, Ryazanov-Goldenbach, Kamenev-Rosenfeld, Sukhanov-Himmer and Zinoviev-Apfelbaum. Russia is dying. We are present at her last breath. There was Great Rus' from the Baltic Sea to the ocean, from the White Sea to Persia, there was a whole, great, formidable, powerful, agricultural, laboring Russia - there is no such thing.

Among the world fire, among the flames of hometowns,

Among the whistling of bullets and shrapnel,

So willingly released by soldiers inside the country against unarmed residents,

In the midst of complete calm at the front, where fraternization is taking place,

Among the horrific executions of women, the rape of students,

Among the mass, brutal murder of cadets and officers,

Among drunkenness, robbery and pogroms,

Our great Mother Russia,

In your red sundress,

She lay on her deathbed,

With dirty hands they pull off

You've got your last valuables,

German marks are ringing by your bedside,

You, my love, giving your last breath,

Open your heavy eyelids for a second,

Proud of my soul and my freedom,

Orenburg army...

Orenburg army, be strong,

The hour of the great holiday of All Rus' is not far off,

All the Kremlin bells will ring freely,

And they will proclaim to the world about the integrity of Orthodox Rus'!”

The Bolshevik leaders quickly realized the danger the Orenburg Cossacks posed to them. On November 25, the Council of People's Commissars addressed the population about the fight against Ataman Dutov. The Southern Urals found themselves in a state of siege. Alexander Ilyich was declared an outlaw.

An emergency Cossack circle was convened in Verkhneuralsk. Speaking at it, Alexander Ilyich refused his post three times, citing the fact that his re-election would cause embitterment among the Bolsheviks. Previous wounds also made themselves felt. “My neck is broken, my skull is cracked, and my shoulder and arm are no good,”- said Dutov. But the circle did not accept the resignation and instructed the ataman to form partisan detachments to continue the armed struggle. In his address to the Cossacks, Alexander Ilyich wrote:

“Great Rus', do you hear the alarm? Wake up, dear, and ring all the bells in your old Kremlin-Moscow, and your alarm bell will be heard everywhere. Throw off, great people, the foreign, German yoke. And the sounds of the veche Cossack bells will merge with your Kremlin chime, and Orthodox Russia will be whole and indivisible.”

But in the meantime, the Bolsheviks with their policies embittered the main part of the Orenburg Cossacks, who were previously neutral to the new government, and in the spring of 1918, without connection with Dutov, a powerful insurrectionary movement began on the territory of the 1st Military District, led by a congress of delegates from 25 villages and a headquarters led by military foreman D. M. Krasnoyartsev. On March 28, in the village of Vetlyanskaya, the Cossacks destroyed the detachment of the chairman of the council of Iletsk Defense P.A. Persiyanov, on April 2 in the village of Izobilnaya - the punitive detachment of the chairman of the Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee S.M. Tsviling, and on the night of April 4, a detachment of Cossacks of military foreman N.V. Lukin and the detachment of S.V. Bartenev made a daring raid on Orenburg, occupying the city for some time and inflicting significant losses on the Reds. The Reds responded with brutal measures: they shot, burned the villages that resisted (in the spring of 1918, 11 villages were burned), and imposed indemnities.

Analyzing the internal political situation, Dutov later wrote and spoke more than once about the need for a firm government that would lead the country out of the crisis. He called for rallying around the party that would save the homeland and which all other political forces would follow.

“I don’t know who we are: revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries, where we are going - left or right. One thing I know is that we are following an honest path to save the Motherland. Life is not dear to me, and I will not spare it as long as there are Bolsheviks in Russia. The whole evil lay in the fact that we did not have a nationwide firm power, and this led us to ruin.”

On September 28, Dutov’s Cossacks took Orsk - the last of the cities in the army’s territory occupied by the Bolsheviks. Thus, the territory of the army was completely cleared of the Reds for some time.

On November 18, 1918, as a result of a coup in Omsk, Kolchak came to power, becoming the Supreme Ruler and Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces of Russia. Ataman Dutov was one of the first to come under his command. He wanted to show by example what every honest officer should do. Dutov's units became part of the Russian army of Admiral Kolchak in November. Dutov played a positive role in resolving the conflict between Ataman Semyonov and Kolchak, calling on the former to submit to the latter, since the nominated candidates for the post of Supreme Ruler submitted to Kolchak, and called on the “Cossack brother” Semyonov to pass military cargo for the Orenburg Cossack army.

Ataman A.I.Dutov, A.V.Kolchak,General I.G. Akulingin and Archbishop Methodius (Gerasimov). The photograph was taken in the city of Troitsk in February 1919.

On May 20, 1919, Lieutenant General Dutov (promoted to this rank at the end of September 1918) was appointed to the post of Marching Ataman of all Cossack troops. D For many, it was General Dutov who was the symbol of the entire anti-Bolshevik resistance. It is no coincidence that the Cossacks of the Orenburg army wrote to their chieftain: “You are essential, your name is on everyone’s lips, your presence will inspire us even more to fight.”

The chieftain was accessible to ordinary people - anyone could come to him with their questions or problems. Independence, directness, a sober lifestyle, constant concern for the rank and file, suppression of rude treatment of lower ranks - all this ensured Dutov’s strong authority among the Cossacks.

The autumn of 1919 is considered the most terrible period in the history of the Civil War in Russia. Bitterness gripped the entire country and could not but affect the actions of the ataman. According to a contemporary, Dutov explained his own cruelty this way: “When the existence of an entire huge state is at stake, I will not stop at executions. This is not revenge, but only a last resort, and here everyone is equal for me.”

Kolchak and Dutov bypass the line of volunteers

The Orenburg Cossacks fought the Bolsheviks with varying success, but in September 1919, Dutov’s Orenburg army was defeated by the Red Army near Aktobe. The ataman with the remnants of the army retreated to Semirechye, where he joined the Semirechensk army of Ataman Annenkov. Due to the lack of food, the crossing of the steppes became known as the “Hunger March.”

Typhus was rampant in the army, which by mid-October had wiped out almost half of the personnel. According to the most approximate estimates, more than 10 thousand people died during the “hunger campaign.” In his last order for the army, Dutov wrote:

“All the difficulties, hardships and various hardships that the troops endured cannot be described. Only impartial history and grateful posterity will truly appreciate the military service, labor and hardships of truly Russian people, devoted sons of their Motherland, who selflessly face all kinds of torment and torment for the sake of saving their Fatherland.”

Upon arrival in Semirechye, Dutov was appointed by Ataman Annenkov as governor-general of the Semirechensk region. In March 1920, Dutov's units had to leave their homeland and retreat to China through a glacial pass located at an altitude of 5800 meters. Exhausted people and horses walked without a supply of food and fodder, following along the mountain cornices, it happened that they fell into the abyss. The ataman himself was lowered on a rope from a steep cliff before the border, almost unconscious. The detachment was interned in Suidin, and settled in the barracks of the Russian consulate. Dutov did not lose hope of resuming the fight against the Bolsheviks and tried to unite all the former white soldiers under his leadership. The general's activities were followed with alarm in Moscow. The leaders of the Third International were frightened by the presence of significant anti-Bolshevik forces, organized and hardened by years of struggle, near the borders of Soviet Russia. It was decided to eliminate Dutov. The implementation of this delicate mission was entrusted to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front.

On February 7, 1921, Ataman Dutov was killed in Suidun by agents of the Cheka under the leadership of Kasymkhan Chanyshev. The group of security officers consisted of 9 people. Dutov was shot at point-blank range in his office by group member Makhmud Khadzhamirov (Khodzhamyarov) along with 2 sentries and a centurion. Dutov and the guards killed with him during the battle were buried with military honors in Ghulja. The security officers returned back to Dzharkent. On February 11, a telegram was sent from Tashkent about the execution of the task to the chairman of the Turkestan Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front G. Ya. Sokolnikov, and a copy of the telegram was sent to the Central Committee of the RCP (b).

“If you are destined to be killed, then no guards will help”, - the chieftain liked to repeat. And so it happened... A few days later, the former white warrior Andrei Pridannikov published in one of the emigrant newspapers the poem “In a Foreign Land,” dedicated to the deceased ataman of the Orenburg Cossack army:

The days passed, the weeks crawled by as if reluctantly.

No, no, yes, a snowstorm came and raged.

Suddenly the news flew through the detachment like thunder, -

Dutov, the chieftain, was killed in Suydin.

Using trust, under the guise of an assignment

The villains came to Dutov. And smitten

Another leader of the White movement,

Died in a foreign country, not avenged by anyone...

Ataman Dutov was buried in a small cemetery. But a few days later, shocking news spread around the emigration: at night, the general’s grave was dug up and his body was beheaded. As the newspapers wrote, the killers had to provide evidence of the execution of the order.

So what was it? On the night of February 6-7, 1921, in China, in the town of Suidong, Ataman Alexander Dutov was shot at point-blank range in his office. Thus, in 1942, the life of the main enemy of the Bolsheviks ended after the October Revolution.

But the story with him did not end there. The life and struggle of Ataman Dutov still causes a lot of controversy. Some still consider him a bandit and an enemy of the Soviet regime, others - a hero of Russia who fought against the communists for a democratic Russia.

Kazakh modern historiography has not yet given any assessment of the personality of Alexander Dutov. But Kazakh historians clearly disagree with the interpretation that Dutov is a national hero of Russia. In the modern history of Kazakhstan, the personality of Alexander Dutov still bears a label formed by propaganda cliches of the Soviet era. Almost none of the Kazakh historians study Dutov’s activities on the territory of modern Kazakhstan.

– Our main focus is either on 1916, or the founding of autonomy, or then the 30s – the famine and so on. But the Civil War is almost not studied now. It is believed that it is not relevant, that these are all problems of Soviet Russia,” a doctor of historical sciences, a professor at one of the universities in Kazakhstan, who did not want his name mentioned, told our radio Azattyk.

“IN FRONT OF US IS THE PROVOCATORIAL FIGURE OF LENIN”

The military ataman of the Orenburg Cossack army, Alexander Dutov, was one of the first in Russia, already in October 1917, to speak out against the Bolsheviks. “This is an interesting physiognomy: average height, shaved, round figure, hair cut into a comb, cunning lively eyes, knows how to hold himself, insightful mind” - this is the portrait of Alexander Dutov left by his contemporary in the spring of 1918.

Then the military chieftain was 39 years old. In October 1917, at the emergency military circle, he was appointed head of the Orenburg military government.

Alexander Dutov was born on August 5, 1879 in the city of Kazalinsk, Syrdarya region, into the family of an esaul, a Cossack officer. The father of the future Cossack leader, Ilya Petrovich, a military officer from the era of the Turkestan campaigns, was promoted to the rank of major general in September 1907 upon his dismissal from service. Mother, Elizaveta Uskova, is the daughter of a constable, that is, an officer of the Cossack troops, a native of the Orenburg province.

Dutov was not an ideal person, he did not stand out for his abilities, he had numerous weaknesses characteristic of ordinary people, but at the same time he still showed qualities that allowed him, in troubled times, to stand at the head of one of the largest Cossack troops in Russia.

Dutov graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps in 1897, and two years later from the Nikolaev Cavalry School, was promoted to the rank of cornet and sent to the first Orenburg Cossack regiment stationed in Kharkov.

On March 20, 1916, Alexander Dutov volunteered to join the active army. A month after the February Revolution of 1917, he was elected chairman of the All-Russian Union of Cossack Army, and in April of the same year he headed the congress of Russian Cossacks in Petrograd. In his political views, Dutov stood on republican and democratic positions.

Since October of the same year, Alexander Dutov has been constantly in Orenburg. He signed an order for the army on non-recognition of the power of the Bolsheviks on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, who carried out a coup in Petrograd.

Alexander Dutov took control of a strategically important region that blocked communications with Turkestan and Siberia. The ataman was faced with the task of holding elections to the Constituent Assembly and maintaining stability in the province and army until its convocation. The Bolsheviks who arrived from the center were captured and put behind bars.

In November, Alexander Dutov was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly from the Orenburg Cossack Army. In his speech at this meeting he said:

Having escaped encirclement from a Red Army detachment to China in 1920, Alexander Dutov sets a goal - to unite all the anti-Bolshevik forces of Western China for a campaign against Soviet Russia. He issues an order to unite anti-Bolshevik forces in Western China into the Orenburg separate army.

"DIRECT RELATION WITH THE ENTENTE"

The presence of significant anti-Bolshevik forces, organized and hardened by years of struggle, near the borders of Soviet Russia could not but worry the power of the Soviets. The Soviet leadership was even more concerned about the indisputable growth of the authority of Ataman Dutov. The Semirechensk Bolsheviks and security officers could find themselves cut off from Moscow at any moment. In addition, the Cossack ataman established contact with representatives of the Entente.

“The French, British and Americans have direct contact with me and provide us with assistance,” wrote Dutov. – The day is coming when this help will be even more real. Having finished with the Bolsheviks, we will continue the war with Germany, and I, as a member of the Constituent Assembly, assure you that all treaties with the allies will be renewed. The Czechoslovak corps is fighting with us.”

Therefore, it was urgently necessary to stop the anti-Bolshevik activities of Ataman Dutov and the Cossacks under his leadership.

The Chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) Felix Dzerzhinsky wanted not only to kill the chieftain, but to publicly execute him. Therefore, a special operation was developed to kidnap him. However, having studied the deployment of the ataman’s detachment and the lifestyle of Alexander Dutov, the intelligence officers came to the conclusion that the abduction was technically impossible. Then a second plan arose to destroy it on the spot.

From the famous Soviet film “The End of the Ataman” we know that the Ataman was killed by the security officer Chadyarov. We must assume that screenwriter Andron Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky came up with such a collective surname for the main character of the film for a reason. From Soviet intelligence documents it is known that the shot was fired by a certain Mahmud Khojamyarov. The special group was led by Kasymkhan Chanyshev. In many Soviet sources he was called nothing less than an “agent of the Red special services.”

Smuggler and security officer in one person?

Who is he, Kasymkhan Chanyshev? In some sources he is listed as the head of the Dzharkent district police or Khorgos. Other witnesses of that era, even relatives, called him a smuggler, an opium dealer. He smuggled opium and deer antlers to China and brought gold from there. He had a large network of both suppliers and resellers on both sides of the border.

There is a version that the latter went to the murder of Ataman Dutov, an old friend of his uncle Kasymkhan Chanyshev, not of his own free will and not out of duty. The security officers forced him to do this by arresting his parents, wife and children. They threatened him that if he did not return from China or kill Dutov, then his family would simply be shot.

Judging by the stories of his relatives and descendants, Kasymkhan Chanyshev never served in the police or counterintelligence, much less was an officer in the Red Army. He had “business relations” with the security officers - for a certain bribe they turned a blind eye to his illegal business activities.

Alexander Dutov trusted Kasymkhan Chanyshev. He even had common affairs. We can say that the ataman and his Cossacks were in some way his clients. Coming from a wealthy Tatar family, Kasymkhan Chanyshev could not support the ideas of the Bolsheviks. His numerous relatives also suffered from their dispossession.

For decades, the Tatar merchants Chanyshevs successfully conducted trade in the Xinjiang province. Kasimkhan's uncle lived permanently in Ghulja, where he had trading houses and was considered the richest man in the region. Thanks to his uncle, Kasymkhan Chanyshev was allowed into Dutov’s house. He was well acquainted with many of Dutov's people. The ataman's personal translator, Colonel Ablaykhanov, was Kasimkhan's childhood friend.

Thinking through the special operation, the special services of the new government could not help but take advantage of this circumstance. Only Kasymkhan Chanyshev could get close to the ataman himself, and accordingly, only he had a real chance to kill him.

In Soviet and emigrant literature there are many versions of this operation, which was successful for the security officers. Let's look at a document from the Central Archives of the FSB of Russia. In particular, on the report of Mahmud Khojamyarov.

“At the entrance to Dutov,” he wrote, “I handed him a note, he began to read it, sitting on a chair at the table. While reading, I quietly grabbed a revolver and shot Dutov in the chest. Dutov fell from his chair. Dutov’s adjutant, who was here, rushed towards me, I shot him point-blank in the forehead. He fell, dropping the burning candle from the chair. In the darkness, I felt for Dutov with my foot and shot him again.”

MAUSER AND GOLD WATCH FOR AN ACT OF TERRORIST

Thus, the famous chieftain Dutov was killed by the Uyghur Mahmud Khojamyarov. What was often written about with pride in Soviet newspapers in the Uyghur language. M. Ruziev in the book “The Revived Uyghur People”, with reference to the newspaper “Stalin Zholy” dated November 7, 1935, writes that Khodzhamyarov received from the hands of Felix Dzerzhinsky a Mauser with an engraved inscription: “For personally carried out terrorist act against Ataman Dutov to Comrade Khodzhamyarov.”

In independent Kazakhstan, the attitude towards Dutov’s personality has not changed. He played a negative role in relation to the Kazakh people, and Dutov’s government supported colonial policy on our territory.

In addition to the Mauser, Mahmud Khojamyarov was awarded a gold watch. Kasymkhan Chanyshev was awarded only a gold watch. The order of Felix Dzerzhinsky says: “For direct management of the operation.” Kh. Vakhidov mentions this in his article in the magazine “Prostor” for 1966.

History does not tell us what Kasymkhan Chanyshev did after successfully carrying out an important special operation by the security officers. There is information that he was repressed in 1937 and shot the same year. In the 1960s he was rehabilitated.

EVIDENCE – HEAD OF ATAMAN

Kasymkhan Chanyshev's detachment, consisting of nine people, jumped on ready horses and galloped off under the cover of darkness. The pursuit of the Cossacks turned out to be unsuccessful, since, contrary to the expectations of the Dutovites, Chanyshev and Khojamyarov galloped not towards the Soviet border, but in the opposite direction - to Gulja. They hid in the spacious mansion of Uncle Chanyshev. They could not return home without providing the security officers with evidence of the murder they had committed.

Many Russians living in China came to the funeral of the ataman and the Cossacks Lopatin and Maslov who died with him. Elena Sofronova, an emigrant who lived there in those years, describes the ataman’s funeral in her book “Where are you, my Motherland?” , published in Moscow in 1999:

“... Dutov’s funeral took place with magnificent celebration and music: the coffin with the deceased was carried in front, and a large crowd followed him. Dutov was buried in the small Dorzhinki cemetery, located approximately four kilometers from Suidun. The three Basmachi who came to Dutov, i.e. Chanyshev, Khojamyarov and Baismakov, were envoys from the Soviet Union to carry out the task described above. Two or three days after the funeral, at night Dutov’s grave was dug up by someone, and the corpse was beheaded and not buried. The killers needed the stolen head to convince those who sent them that the task had been completed with precision.”

Re-emigrant from Xinjiang V. Mishchenko also wrote about this: “In the first week after the funeral, Ataman’s grave was opened and the corpse was beheaded. The killer needed the head as evidence to present to the Cheka about the completion of the task, so that the killer’s family, taken hostage by the security officers, would be freed.”

That is, the Russians living in China understood who desecrated the ataman’s grave. Moreover, they knew that Chanyshev’s family was being held hostage.

Five days later, after the participants in the operation returned home with the chieftain’s head, on February 11, a telegram was sent from Tashkent to Moscow, to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Its text was first published in 1999 in one of the central Russian newspapers:

“In addition to the telegram sent to you, we inform you about the details of the dvtchk sent through the Dzharkent group of communists. On February 6, General Dutov and his adjutant and two Cossacks of the ataman’s personal retinue were killed under the following circumstances, period, the person in charge of the operation went to Dutov’s apartment, gave him a letter and, taking advantage of the moment, killed Dutov with two shots, the third adjutant, period. the two remaining to cover the retreat killed two Cossacks from the ataman’s personal guard who rushed to shoot into the apartment, period, ours returned safely today, Dzharkent, period.”

“DUTOV WAS NOT AN IDEAL PERSON”

This is how the life of ataman General Alexander Dutov, who laid the foundation for the White movement in the East of Russia, was cut short. The elimination of such a major political and military figure as Dutov dealt a severe blow to the Orenburg Cossacks.

Researcher of the military history of Russia at the end of the 19th - first quarter of the 20th century, Andrei Ganin, writes in his book about the ataman:

“Of course, Dutov was not an ideal person, he did not stand out for his abilities, he had numerous weaknesses characteristic of ordinary people, but at the same time he still showed qualities that allowed him, in troubled times, to stand at the head of one of the largest Cossack troops in Russia, to create his own completely out of practically nothing. a combat-ready army and wage a merciless fight against the Bolsheviks; he became a spokesman for hope, and sometimes even an idol for hundreds of thousands of people who believed in him.”

Alexander Dutov expressed his political views in an interview with the Siberian Telegraph Agency:

“I love Russia, in particular my Orenburg, the region, this is my whole platform. I have a positive attitude towards regional autonomy, and I myself am a big regionalist. I did not and do not recognize party struggle. If the Bolsheviks and anarchists found a real path to salvation, the revival of Russia, I would be in their ranks, Russia is dear to me, and patriots, no matter what party they belong to, will understand me, just as I understand them. But I must say frankly: “I am a supporter of order, discipline, firm power, and at a time like now, when the existence of an entire huge state is at stake, I will not stop at executions. These executions are not revenge, but only a last resort, and here for me everyone is equal - Bolsheviks and non-Bolsheviks, soldiers and officers, friends and foes...”

According to candidate of historical sciences Erlan Medeubaev, if historians of the Russian Federation reconsidered the role of Alexander Dutov in the history of the white Cossacks, the counter-revolutionary movement, in the Civil War, presenting him as a patriot of monarchical Russia, then Kazakh modern historiography has not changed its attitude towards Dutov’s activities.

– In independent Kazakhstan, the attitude towards Dutov’s personality has not changed. He remains a class enemy, the organizer of the White Cossack movement, in the Turgai region, at the hands of which many of the local population died. He played a negative role in relation to the Kazakh people, and Dutov’s government supported colonial policy on our territory,” Erlan Medeubaev, candidate of historical sciences, head of the department of national history at Aktobe State University named after Kudaibergen Zhubanov, told our radio Azattyk.