Ataman Dutov - biography. Ataman Dutov - biography Unaccepted by defeat

from the nobles of the Orenburg village of the 1st military department of the Orenburg Cossack army, born into the family of a Cossack officer in the city of Kazalinsk, Syrdarya region. He graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps (1889-1897), the Nikolaev Cavalry School in the 1st category (1897-1899), a course of science in the 3rd Sapper Brigade in the category “outstanding” (1901), passed the exam at the Nikolaev Engineering School (1902 ), graduated from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff in the 1st category, but without the right to be assigned to the General Staff (1904-1908). In service since 08/31/1897. Khorunzhiy (from 08/09/1899, from 08/08/1898). Second lieutenant (from 02/12/1903). Lieutenant (from 01.10.1903 from seniority from 08.08.1902). Staff captain (from 10/01/1906, with seniority from 08/10/1906). Esaul (from 12/06/1909 from the same date). Military foreman (from 12/06/1912). Colonel (Order to the army and navy 10/16/1917 from 09/25/1917). Major General (from 07/25/1918). Lieutenant General (from 10/04/1918). Service: in the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment (from 08/15/1899-1902), junior officer of the 6th hundred. Seconded to the engineering troops (1902). In the 5th Engineer Battalion (1902-1909). Participant in the Russian-Japanese War (11.03-01.10.1905). On a temporary assignment at the Orenburg Cossack Junker School (from 01/13/1909). Transferred to school (09/24/1909). In service at the school (1909-1916), assistant class inspector, class inspector. Annual qualification command of the 5th hundred of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment (10/16/1912-10/16/1913). Full member of the Orenburg Scientific Archival Commission (1914-1915). Went to the front (03/20/1916). Commander of the rifle division of the 10th Cavalry Division (from 04/03/1916), participated in the battles in the Carpathians and Romania. Wounded and shell-shocked near the village of Panici in Romania, temporarily lost his sight and hearing, and received a fractured skull (10/01/1916). Appointed commander of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment (10/16/1916, took command 11/18/1916). Arrived in Petrograd as a regiment delegate to the All-Cossack Congress (03/16/1917). Took part in the 1st General Cossack Congress (03/23-29/1917). Member of the Provisional Council of the Union of Cossack Troops (since 04/05/1917). In the reserve of ranks at the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District (1917). He took part in the 2nd All-Cossack Congress (06/01-13/1917), and was unanimously elected chairman of the congress. Elected member (then chairman) of the Council of the Union of Cossack Troops (06/13/1917). Trip to Orenburg (07.1917). Took part in the Moscow State Conference (12-15.08.1917). Elected Troop Ataman by the Extraordinary Military Circle of the Orenburg Cossack Army (01. 10.1917). Appointed chief commissioner of the Provisional Government for food for the Orenburg Cossack army, Orenburg province and Turgai region (10/15/1917). Issued an order not to recognize the Bolshevik coup (10/26/1917). Member of the Orenburg Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution (since 11/08/1917). Elected as a deputy of the Constituent Assembly from the army (11.1917). Commander of the Orenburg Military District (since 12.1917). Participant of the Turgai campaign (04/17-07/07/1918). Chief Commissioner of the Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack Army, Orenburg Province and Turgai Region (07/10-08/05/1918). Chief of Defense of the Orenburg Cossack Army (1918). Trip to Samara (07/13-19/1918). Trip to Omsk (07/22-08/03/1918). Komuch was deprived of all powers (08/13/1918). Member of the Ufa State Conference, member of the Council of Elders of the meeting and chairman of the Cossack faction (09.1918). White troops under the leadership of Dutov captured the city of Orsk (09/28/1918). Commander of the Southwestern Army (10.17-12.28.1918). Commander of the Separate Orenburg Army (12/28/1918-05/23/1919). Chief commander of the Orenburg region (from 02/13/1919). Trip to Omsk (04/07-18/1919). Assigned to the General Staff (04/11/1919). Marching ataman of all Cossack troops and inspector general of the cavalry of the Russian army (since 05/23/1919). Trip to Perm (05.29-06.04.1919). Trip to the Far East (06/08-08/12/1919). Commander of all Russian troops located in the cities of Khabarovsk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Grodekovo and in the railway zone between them (from 07/07/1919). Commander of the Orenburg Army with dismissal from the post of Inspector General of Cavalry (09/18/1919). Commander of the Separate Orenburg Army (since 11.1919). Participant of the Hunger March (11/22–12/31/1919). Chief Head of the Semirechensk Territory (from 01/06/1920). Crossed the Chinese border (04/02/1920). Prepared a campaign against Soviet Russia (1920-1921). Mortally wounded by Soviet agent M. Khojamiarov during an assassination attempt (02/06/1921 at about 6 p.m.) and died the next morning (at about 7 a.m.). Buried in Suiding (Western China). By order of the naval department of the Amur Provisional Government (12/10/1921), the school of sub-sorrels of the separate Orenburg Cossack brigade was named after Ataman Dutov. Awards: St. Stanislaus 3rd class. (01/23/1906, approved by the Highest order 01/17/1907), St. Anna 3rd Art. (06.12.1910), St. Anna 2nd Art. (1915), swords and bow for the Order of St. Anna 3rd Art. (1916-1917), dark bronze medal in memory of the Russian-Japanese War, “Ribbon of Distinction” of the Orenburg Cossack Army (1918). Honorary old man of the village of Grodekovskaya of the Ussuri Cossack army (from June 24, 1919), the village of Travnikovskaya of the Orenburg Cossack army. Listed among the villages of Krasnogorskaya (since 07.1918) and Berdskaya. Wife Olga Viktorovna Petrovskaya, from the hereditary nobles of the St. Petersburg province. Children: Olga (05/31/1907), Nadezhda (09/12/1909), Maria (05/22/1912), Elizaveta (08/31/1914), Oleg (ca. 1917-1918?). Common-law wife of Alexandra Afanasyevna Vasilyeva, Ostrolenskaya village of the 2nd military department of the Orenburg Cossack army. Daughter Vera.

Works: About the lecture by T.I. Sedelnikova // Orenburg Cossack Herald (Orenburg). 1917. No. 8. 16.07. S. 4; All-Russian Cossack circle // Orenburg Cossack Bulletin. 1917. No. 10. 21.07. pp. 1-2; German espionage // Orenburg Cossack Herald. 1917. No. 67. 01.11. pp. 1-2; Alarm // People's Affairs. 1918. No. 116. 30.11. S. 1; Essays on the history of the Cossacks // Orenburg Cossack Bulletin. 1919. No. 62. 09.04; My observations about the Japanese // Vladivostok News. 1919. 26.07; My observations about a Russian woman // Vladivostok News (Vladivostok). 1919. No. 23. 28.07; “The people themselves are dark and easy to agitate.” Note from Ataman A.I. Dutov about the internal political situation in Bashkiria and north-west Kazakhstan. Publ. YES. Amanzholova // Source. 2001. No. 3. P. 46-51.

The ancestors of Alexander Ilyich on the male line came from the Samara Cossack army, which was later abolished. 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. Alexander Ilyich himself was born during one of the campaigns in the city of Kazalinsk, Syrdarya region. His childhood years were spent in Fergana, Orenburg, St. Petersburg and again in Orenburg...

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, thus becoming the first military chieftain to declare war on Bolshevism.

Ataman Dutov took control of a strategically important region that blocked the communication between the center of the country and 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).

“Now we are living through the Bolshevik days. We see in the darkness the outlines of tsarism, Wilhelm and his supporters, and the provocateur figure of Vladimir Lenin and his supporters clearly and definitely stands before us: 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 young people who had not been fired upon. 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, many times superior to the Dutovites, under the command of V.K. Blucher, 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 alone 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 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. Tswilling, and on the night of April 4, a detachment of Cossacks of military foreman N.V. Lukin and the detachment of S.V. Bartenev carried out 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.

Excerpt characterizing Dutov, Alexander Ilyich

Alexander Ilyich Dutov was born on August 5, 1879 in the family of a Cossack officer. He graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps, the Nikolaev Cavalry School and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. Participated in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. At the front he was shell-shocked and wounded. He met the February Revolution of 1917 as a military foreman and commander of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment.

Cossack politician

In March 1917, the Prime Minister of the Provisional Government, Prince G. E. Lvov, gave permission to hold the first All-Cossack Congress in Petrograd “to clarify the needs of the Cossacks.” Alexander Dutov arrived in the capital as a delegate from the regiment. This is where his political career began. An unknown military foreman became one of the comrades (assistants) of the chairman of the Provisional Council of the Union of Cossack Troops A.P. Savateev. The Cossack delegates who remained in the capital after the congress prepared the opening of the second, more representative congress. There were no popular Cossack politicians in the country at that time, so Dutov, who was preparing its convocation, was unanimously elected chairman of the second congress. Soon he became chairman of the Council of the Union of Cossack Troops.

During the period of confrontation between the head of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky and General L.G. Kornilov in August - September 1917, Dutov took a neutral position, but was inclined to support the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Even then, Dutov formulated his political program: he firmly stood on republican and democratic positions. The Orenburg officer, who acquired political capital in the capital and by chance headed the representative body of the entire Cossacks, became famous among his fellow countrymen in the Urals. On October 1, 1917, the military circle in Orenburg elected him military chieftain. In Petrograd, Dutov was appointed chief commissioner of the Provisional Government for Food for the Orenburg Cossack Army, Orenburg Province and Turgai Region with the powers of a minister, as well as the rank of colonel.

Dutov came up with the idea of ​​holding in the capital on October 22, 1917, the day of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, a general demonstration of all Cossack units of the Petrograd garrison. The Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin (Ulyanov) feared that this demonstration would disrupt his plans to seize power, but did not allow the procession to take place. Lenin wrote about this on October 22-23, 1917 to Ya. M. Sverdlov: “The cancellation of the Cossack demonstration is a gigantic victory. Hooray! Advance with all our might, and we will win in a few days!”

“For the good of the Motherland and maintaining order...”

On October 26, 1917, Dutov returned to Orenburg and on the same day signed order No. 816 for the army on non-recognition of the violent seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd. It said: “The military government considers... the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks to be criminal and completely unacceptable.<…>Due to the cessation of communications and communications with the central government and taking into account emergency circumstances, the Military Government, for the good of the Motherland and maintaining order, temporarily, until the restoration of the power of the Provisional Government and telegraph communications, took over from 20:00 on October 26th the full extent of executive state power in the army. Military Ataman, Colonel Dutov."

The decisive actions of the ataman were approved by the commissioner of the Provisional Government, representatives of local organizations and even the Council of Workers, Soldiers and Cossack Deputies. By order of Dutov, the Cossacks and cadets occupied the station, post office, and telegraph office in Orenburg; rallies, meetings and demonstrations were prohibited. Martial law was introduced, the Orenburg Bolshevik Club was closed, the literature stored there was confiscated, and the publication of the Proletary newspaper was banned.

A.I. Dutov took control of a strategically significant region that blocked communications with Turkestan and Siberia, which was important not only militarily, but also in the issue of food supply to central Russia. Dutov's performance overnight made his name known throughout the country. The Ataman had to organize elections to the Constituent Assembly and maintain order in the province and army until the convening of this body.

On the night of November 7, 1917, the leaders of the Orenburg Bolsheviks were arrested. Among the reasons for the detention: calls for an uprising against the Provisional Government, agitation among soldiers of the Orenburg garrison and workers, as well as the discovery of a carriage with hand grenades at the Orenburg station. In response to the arrests, a strike began in railway workshops and depots.

Ataman of the Orenburg Cossacks A.I. Dutov. Samara, 1918. Photo by E. T. Vladimirov

Meanwhile, groups of officers began to arrive in Orenburg, including those who had already taken part in the battles with the Bolsheviks in Moscow: this strengthened the position of supporters of armed resistance to the Reds. So, on November 7, 120 officers and cadets managed to get out of Moscow at once. For “self-defense and the fight against violence and pogroms, from whatever side they may come,” on November 8, 1917, the Orenburg City Duma created a special body - the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution, chaired by the mayor V.F. Baranovsky. It included 34 people: representatives of the Cossacks, city and zemstvo self-government, political parties (except for the Bolsheviks and Cadets), public and national organizations. Socialists played the leading role in the committee.

The Bolsheviks' attempts to seize power in the city did not stop. On the night of November 15, having gained control of the Orenburg Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Cossacks' Deputies, the Bolsheviks announced the creation of a military revolutionary committee and the transfer of full power to it. Dutov’s supporters reacted immediately: the venue for the meeting was cordoned off by Cossacks, cadets and police, after which all those gathered were detained. The threat of the Bolsheviks seizing power in the city was temporarily eliminated.

At the end of November 1917, Dutov was elected as a deputy of the Constituent Assembly from the Orenburg army. Not counting on seizing power from within, the Bolsheviks began an external blockade of the city. Food was not allowed to pass through the railway to Orenburg, and the passage of passengers, including soldiers returning from the front, was also blocked, which led to their accumulation at stations and an increase in discontent. On November 25, an appeal from the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars to the population was published calling for a fight against the atamans A. M. Kaledin and A. I. Dutov. The Southern Urals were declared under a state of siege, and the white leaders were outlawed. All Cossacks who went over to the side of the Soviet regime were guaranteed support.

Dutov also took his own measures. In Orenburg, instead of demobilizing the decayed garrison, older Cossacks were called up. In addition, the ataman had at his disposal the Cossacks of the reserve regiments and the cadets of the Orenburg Cossack School. On December 11, 1917, by a resolution of the military circle, the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution, the Bashkir and Kyrgyz congresses, the Orenburg Military District was formed within the borders of the Orenburg province and the Turgai region. On December 16, the ataman wrote a letter to the commanders of the Cossack units and called on them to send Cossacks with weapons to the army.

Dutov needed people and weapons. And if he could still count on weapons, then the bulk of the Cossacks returning from the front did not want to fight. Therefore, at the first stage of the struggle, the Orenburg ataman, like other leaders of the anti-Bolshevik resistance, was unable to raise and lead any significant number of supporters. Dutov could field no more than two thousand people against the Reds. Volunteer detachments, organized at the end of 1917 in the Southern Urals, consisted mainly of officers and students; village squads were also formed. With the assistance of the merchants and townspeople, it was possible to raise funds to organize the struggle.

Fight for Orenburg

By the beginning of 1918, over 10 thousand people had already been recruited to fight A.I. Dutov. On December 20, 1917, the Extraordinary Commissioner of the Orenburg province and Turgai region P. A. Kobozev sent an ultimatum to the ataman demanding that he stop resistance. There was no answer. Then, on December 23, the Reds launched an attack on Orenburg along the railway.

White managed to repel the first blow. With the approval of the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution and the small military circle, Dutov ordered to stop the pursuit of the enemy on the border of the province. At the Novosergievka border station it was planned to set up a barrier of officers, cadets and volunteer Cossacks numbering 100-150 people with a machine gun and conduct close-in mounted and human intelligence, having a reserve of 200 Cossacks with a machine gun at the Platovka station. These parts had to be replaced periodically. The remaining forces were planned to be withdrawn to Orenburg.

However, already on January 7, 1918, the Reds attacked again. Serious battles broke out in the area of ​​Novosergievka and Syrt stations. On January 16, a decisive clash took place near the Kargala station, in which even 14-year-old Orenburg cadets took part, responding to Dutov’s call. However, the whites' position was hopeless.

On January 18, 1918, the Dutovites left their capital, the volunteer detachments were disbanded to their homes. Those who did not want to lay down their arms retreated to Uralsk and Verkhneuralsk or temporarily took refuge in the villages. Ataman had to quickly leave Orenburg, accompanied by only six officers, with whom he took out military regalia and some weapons.

Turgai campaign

Despite the demand to detain Dutov, the promise of a reward for his capture and the almost complete lack of security for him, the village did not hand over the ataman. He decided not to leave the territory of the army and went to the center of the 2nd Military District - the city of Verkhneuralsk, which lay far from major roads and made it possible to continue the fight without losing control.

In March 1918, the Cossacks had to leave Verkhneuralsk under attacks from the Reds. The military government led by Dutov moved to the village of Krasninskaya and there in mid-April it was surrounded. It was decided to break through and go along the Ural River into the Kyrgyz steppes. On April 17, 1918, a detachment of 240 people, led by an ataman, broke out of Krasninskaya. A 600-verst trek to the Turgai steppe began. In Turgai, Dutov's partisans received significant warehouses of food and ammunition left after the pacification of the Kazakh rebellion in 1916. During their stay in the city (until June 12), the Cossacks rested, updated their equipment and replenished their horsepower.

The new Soviet government did not take into account the Cossack traditions and way of life, and spoke with the Cossacks mainly from a position of strength, which caused their acute discontent. Soon it grew into an armed confrontation and became their form of struggle for their rights and the possibility of free existence. In the spring of 1918, in the Orenburg region, without connection with Dutov, a powerful insurrectionary movement arose. It achieved significant success, and then the Czechoslovak Corps (a military unit of the Russian army, formed over the years from captured Czechs and Slovaks who wished to participate in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary) rebelled against the Reds. Soviet power in the Southern Urals fell. At the end of May, the rebels sent a delegation to Turgai to Dutov with a request to return to the army and lead the fight: a popular Cossack leader, Dutov could unite significant masses of Cossacks around himself. In addition, among the commanders of the rebel detachments and even the fronts, junior officers, unknown to the bulk of the Cossacks, predominated, while several staff officers (including those with academic education) and members of the Military Government went on the campaign with Dutov.

Between Samara and Omsk

News of the uprisings became the reason for the return of Dutov’s detachment to the army. Orenburg, which was occupied by rebels in early July 1918, solemnly honored the ataman. However, the difficulty at that time was that the territory of the army was administratively divided between two anti-Bolshevik governments: the Samara Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) and the Provisional Siberian Government in Omsk. The relationship between them was not easy, and Dutov was forced to maneuver.

At first, the ataman recognized Komuch and entered it as a deputy of the Constituent Assembly. On July 13, he left for Samara, from where he returned to the post of chief commissioner of Komuch in the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, Orenburg province and Turgai region, after which he went to negotiate in Omsk.

On July 25, 1918, Dutov was promoted to major general by Komuch. On August 4 he returned from Omsk and took up operations at the front. Meanwhile, he had to explain himself to Samara, since the leaders of Komuch regarded the ataman’s visit to Siberia as almost a betrayal. On August 12, against the backdrop of the developing conflict with Komuch, the ataman took an unprecedented step - the autonomy of the territory of the army, announcing the creation of the Orenburg Army Region.

In one of his speeches, Dutov stated his political course: “We are called reactionaries. 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.” Dutov himself was a supporter of the Cadet Party program. His power in the Southern Urals was distinguished by democracy and tolerance of various political movements, including the Menshevik.

The ataman's daily work schedule has been preserved. His working day began at 8 a.m. and lasted at least 12 hours with virtually no breaks. Anyone could come to the ataman with their questions or problems.

In September 1918, A.I. Dutov took part in the work of the State Conference in Ufa, the purpose of which was to create a unified state power in the territory not controlled by the Bolsheviks. Ataman was elected a member of the Council of Elders and chairman of the Cossack faction. In his speech, Dutov emphasized the need to create a unified command and central authority. And his actions confirmed his commitment to these principles. When on November 18, 1918, as a result of a coup in Omsk, Admiral A.V. Kolchak came to power and became the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Dutov was one of the first to recognize him. By this time, Alexander Ilyich already had the rank of lieutenant general and commanded the Southwestern Army, which was based on formations of Orenburg and Ural Cossacks.

Under Kolchak's rule

At the beginning of 1919, the Whites again left Orenburg, lost contact with the Urals, but continued to block the railway communication between the Soviet center and Turkestan. Despite the setbacks, in March Dutov’s army (now called the Separate Orenburg Army) was able to take part in the general offensive of Kolchak’s troops.

Dutov, who was appointed marching ataman of all Cossack troops and inspector general of the cavalry of the Russian Army, spent the late spring and summer of 1919 mainly in Omsk and the Far East. In the fall of 1919, he again led the Orenburg army. Its units at the end of November - December 1919 made the most difficult Hunger March and went to Semirechye (Cossack region, now its territory is in the eastern part of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), where the army was brought together into a detachment under the command of General A. S. Bakich. Dutov himself became the civil governor of the Semirechensky region. In March 1920, under pressure from the Red troops, A.I. Dutov and his supporters had to leave their homeland and retreat to China through the Kara-Saryk glacial pass. In China, Dutov’s detachment was interned in the city of Suiding (now Shuiding, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China) and located in the barracks of the Russian consulate. Dutov did not lose hope of resuming the fight against the Bolsheviks and was active in this direction, trying to organize an anti-Bolshevik underground in the Red Army.

On February 6, 1921, Alexander Ilyich Dutov was mortally wounded by Soviet agents during an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap and transport him to the territory of the RSFSR. The next morning he died. The chieftain and the Cossacks who died with him were buried in a small cemetery near Suydin. According to some reports, a few days later, Dutov’s grave was dug up at night, and his body was beheaded: the killers had to provide proof of the ataman’s death. Apparently, this cemetery, like many other Russian cemeteries in China, was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

Photo (header): All-Russian Congress of Cossack units. The Presidium of the Congress headed by Ataman A.I. Dutov. Petrograd, July 7, 1917

Text: Andrey Ganin, Doctor of Historical Sciences

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 in 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 Russo-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.

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 Urdzharsky 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.

Life brilliant Russian officer, who became a participant in the White Guard movement and ataman of the Cossack army, seems very unusual, and therefore attracts special attention.

Alexander Dutov was born August 5, 1879 in the city of Kazalinsk, located in what is now Kazakhstan. The ancestors of the boy, who later became a legendary figure, were Cossacks. His father was Ilya Petrovich Dutov, a Russian military officer who rose to the high rank of major general. His mother, named Elizaveta Nikolaevna, came from a noble family of a constable. Sasha became her first child.

The boy was born while his family was on a campaign with the army. And so it turned out that he was born in Kazalinsk, and spent his childhood in other large Russian cities where troops were stationed.

For two years he lived in the northern capital, where Sasha first crossed the threshold of school. Subsequently, he had to transfer to another educational institution in order to prepare for entry into a cadet institution.

In 1889, a cherished dream came true - ten-year-old Sasha became a cadet of the Orenburg Corps. Throughout his long years of study, he, as an excellent student, received a military scholarship. This was followed by training at the Nikolaev Cadet School, ending with graduation in 1899. At the age of twenty, Dutov became cornet and headed to Kharkov, where his Orenburg regiment was located at that time.

Three years later, the future ataman went on a business trip to Kyiv to pass preliminary exams for a new engineering specialty and subsequent transfer to St. Petersburg, to prepare for and pass serious tests that lasted 4 months.

Alexander was the first of the students to do an excellent job with the exams for the full course and after some time became a teacher, first at the sapper school, and, some time later, at the telegraph school.

In 1903, Dutov received another rank of lieutenant. In the autumn of the same year, his wedding took place with hereditary noblewoman Olga Petrovskaya. Despite continuing his studies at the General Staff Academy, Alexander considered it his duty to go to the Russian-Japanese War of 1905.

During the entire period of hostilities he proved himself to be an excellent officer and was noted Order of St. Stanislaus 3rd class.

After the end of the war and returning to his homeland, Dutov continued his interrupted studies and graduated from the Academy in 1908, receiving the rank of staff captain.

For three years, Alexander Ilyich held the position teacher at the Orenburg School of Junkers. The following fact seems interesting: he became the mentor of the future famous military chieftain G.M. Semenov. From 1912 to 1916, Dutov was the commander of the Orenburg Cossack regiment. All this time he was in Kharkov.

With the outbreak of World War I, Alexander Dutov voluntarily went to the front. He served bravely under the command of the legendary General A.A. Brusilova, was wounded twice. But even after receiving severe wounds and treatment, he returned to duty. For his demonstrated courage and bravery, Dutov was awarded the Order of St. Anne.

After the revolutions of 1917, the hero becomes a truly iconic figure and, truly, an unusually popular personality among the Cossacks.

He categorically does not accept the power of the Bolsheviks, and, therefore, upon returning to Orenburg, he was the first among other atamans of the Cossack troops to declare his refusal to recognize her in the army entrusted to him. For a long time he strictly controlled the most important region of the country and was able to close the communication between the central regions and Siberia.

At the beginning of 1918, the strengthened troops of the Red Army launch a large-scale attack on Orenburg and capture the city, after long resistance from Dutov troops. The commander goes alone to Verkhneuralsk to form new forces there and direct them against the Bolsheviks.

However, this city soon surrendered. Then Dutov decided to establish his government in a neighboring village, but he was also surrounded and had difficulty escaping the enemy.

As a result of dissatisfaction with the new policy and the outbreak of a powerful insurrectionary movement, in which more than six thousand Cossacks were involved, Orenburg was taken in July, and a little later the city of Orsk. Consequently, the entire territory of the Orenburg region was freed from the power of the Reds. One of the first A.I. Dutov recognized and fully supported the power of Admiral A.I. Kolchak.

A year later, his army suffered a crushing defeat and began to fight back to Semirechye. Due to the advance of a larger Bolshevik army and lack of food, in the spring of 1920 Dutov, along with a detachment, left the borders of Russia and went to neighboring China.