A quarter of you will die from famine, pestilence and sword.
V. Bryusov. Pale Horse (1903).

APPEAL TO READERS.
First of all, it must be clarified that from the end of 1917 to the autumn of 1922, two leaders ruled the country: Lenin, and then immediately Stalin. The fairy tales composed during the Brezhnev years about a certain period of rule by a friendly or not too Politburo, which dragged on almost until the congress of the winners, have nothing in common with history.
“Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power with sufficient caution,” Lenin writes with horror on December 24, 1922. PSS, vol. 45, p. 345. Stalin held this post for only 8 months, but this time was enough for Ilyich, experienced in politics, to understand what happened ...
In the preface to the Trotsky Archive (in 4 volumes) there is a significant remark: "In 1924-1925, Trotsky was in fact in complete solitude, finding himself without like-minded people."
I thank all readers who wished to help me by criticizing or providing information that supplements the facts presented. Please indicate the exact sources from which the data was obtained, indicating the author, title of the work, year and place of publication, pages on which the specific quotation is located. Sincerely, the author.

"Accounting and control is the main thing that is required for the correct functioning of a communist society." Lenin V. I. PSS, vol. 36, p. 266.

As a result of 4 years of the First World War and 3 years of civil wars, Russia's losses amounted to more than 40 billion gold rubles, which exceeded 25% of the country's total pre-war wealth. More than 20 million people died or became disabled. Industrial production in 1920 decreased, in comparison with 1913, by 7 times. Agricultural production amounted to only two-thirds of the pre-war. The crop failure that engulfed many grain regions in the summer of 1920 further exacerbated the food crisis in the country. The difficult situation in industry and agriculture was deepened by the collapse of transport. Thousands of kilometers of railway track were destroyed. More than half of the locomotives and about a quarter of the wagons were out of order. Kovkel I.I., Yarmusik E.S. History of Belarus from ancient times to our time. - Minsk, 2000, p.340.

Researchers of Soviet history know that there is not a single national statistics in the world that is as false as the official statistics of the population of the USSR.
History teaches that Civil War more destructive and deadly than war with any enemy. It leaves behind widespread poverty, hunger and devastation.
But the last reliable censuses and records of the population of Russia end in 1913-1917.
After these years, complete falsification begins. Neither the count of the population in 1920, nor its census in 1926, nor even the "rejected" census of 1937 and then the "accepted" census of 1939, are reliable.

We know that on January 1, 1911, the population of Russia was 163.9 million souls (together with Finland 167 million).
As the historian L. Semennikova believes, “according to statistical data, in 1913 the population of the country was about 174,100 thousand people (it included 165 peoples).” Science and Life, 1996, No. 12, p.8.

TSB (3rd ed.) determines the total population of the Russian Empire before the First World War at 180.6 million people.
In 1914 it increased to 182 million souls. According to the statistics of the end of 1916, 186 million lived in Russia, that is, the increase over 16 years of the 20th century amounted to 60 million. Kovalevsky P. Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. - Moscow, 1990, No. 11, p.164.

At the beginning of 1917, a number of researchers raise the final figure of the country's population to 190 million. But after 1917 and until the 1959 census, no one knew for sure, except for the elected "rulers", how many inhabitants there were on the territory of the state.

The extent of violence, lacerations and murders, the losses of its inhabitants are also hidden. Demographers only guess about them and estimate them approximately. And the Russians are silent! And how else: printed works and evidence that reveal this slaughter, they are not aware of. What is known from school textbooks, for the most part, is not facts, but propaganda fabrications.

One of the most confusing is the question of the number of people who left the country during the years of revolution and civil war. The exact number of fugitives is unknown.
Ivan Bunin: “I was not one of those who were taken by surprise by it, for whom its size and atrocities were a surprise, but nevertheless reality surpassed all my expectations: what the Russian revolution soon turned into, no one who did not see it will understand. This spectacle was sheer horror for anyone who had not lost the image and likeness of God, and hundreds of thousands of people fled from Russia after the seizure of power by Lenin, who had the slightest opportunity to escape ”(I. Bunin. “Cursed Days”).

The newspaper of the right SRs "Will of Russia", which had a good information network, cited such data. On November 1, 1920, there were about 2 million emigrants from the territory of the former Russian Empire in Europe. In Poland - one million, in Germany - 560 thousand, in France - 175 thousand, in Austria and Constantinople - 50 thousand each, in Italy and Serbia - 20 thousand each. In November, another 150,000 people moved in from Crimea. Subsequently, emigrants from Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe were drawn to France, and many - to both Americas.

The question of the number of emigrants from Russia cannot be resolved on the basis of sources located only in the USSR. At the same time, in the 20-30s, the issue was considered in a number of foreign works based on foreign data.

At the same time, we note that in the 1920s, extremely contradictory data on the number of emigrants, compiled by charitable organizations and institutions, appeared in foreign emigrant publications. This information is sometimes mentioned in contemporary literature.

In the book of Hans von Rimschi, the number of emigrants is determined (based on data from the American Red Cross) at 2,935 thousand people. This figure included several hundred thousand Poles who repatriated to Poland and registered as refugees with the American Red Cross, a significant number of Russian prisoners of war who were still in 1920-1921. in Germany (Rimscha Hans Von. Der russische Biirgerkrieg und die russische Emigration 1917-1921. Jena, Fromann, 1924, s.50-51).

The data of the League of Nations for August 1921 determine the number of emigrants at 1444 thousand (including 650 thousand in Poland, 300 thousand in Germany, 250 thousand in France, 50 thousand in Yugoslavia, 31 thousand in Greece, 30 thousand in Bulgaria). It is believed that the number of Russians in Germany has reached highest point in 1922-1923 - 600 thousand throughout the country, of which 360 thousand in Berlin.

F. Lorimer, considering the data on emigrants, joins E. Kulischer's estimates reported to him in writing, which determined the number of emigrants from Russia at about 1.5 million, and together with repatriates and other migrants - about 2 million (Kulischer E. Europe on the Move: War and popular changes, 1917-1947, N.Y., 1948, p.54).

By December 1924, there were about 600,000 Russian emigrants in Germany alone, up to 40,000 in Bulgaria, about 400,000 in France, and more than 100,000 in Manchuria. True, not all of them were emigrants in the exact sense of the word: many served on the CER before the revolution.

Russian emigrants also settled in Great Britain, Turkey, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Egypt, Kenya, Afghanistan, Australia, and in total in 25 states, not counting the countries of America, primarily the USA, Argentina and Canada.

But if we turn to Russian literature, we will find that estimates of the number of total emigrants sometimes differ by two or three times.

IN AND. Lenin wrote in 1921 that there were from 1.5 to 2 million Russian emigrants abroad then (Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 43, p. 49, 126; vol. 44, p. 5, 39, although in one case he gave the figure of 700 thousand people - v.43, p.138).

V.V. Komin, claiming that there were 1.5-2 million people in white emigration, relied on information from the Geneva mission of the Russian Red Cross Society and the Russian Literary Society in Damascus. Komin V.V. The political and ideological collapse of the Russian petty-bourgeois counter-revolution abroad. Kalinin, 1977, part 1, pp. 30, 32.

L.M. Spirin, stating that the number of Russian emigrants was 1.5 million, used data from the refugee section of the International Labor Office (late 1920s). According to these data, the number of registered emigrants was 919 thousand. Spirin L.M. Classes and parties in the Russian Civil War 1917-1920. - M., 1968, p. 382-383.

S.N. Semanov gives the figure of 1 million 875 thousand emigrants in Europe alone on November 1, 1920 - Semanov S.N. Liquidation of the anti-Soviet Kronstadt rebellion in 1921. M., 1973, p.123.

Data on eastern emigration - to Harbin, Shanghai - are not taken into account by these historians. Southern emigration is also not taken into account - to Persia, Afghanistan, India, although there were quite numerous Russian colonies in these countries

On the other hand, J. Simpson (Simpson Sir John Hope. The Refugee Problem: Report of a Survey. L., Oxford University Press, 1939) cited clearly underestimated information, determining the number of emigrants from Russia as of January 1, 1922 at 718 thousand in Europe and the Middle East and 145 thousand in Far East. These data include only officially registered (received the so-called Nansen passports) emigrants.

G. Barikhnovsky believed that there were less than 1 million emigrants. Barikhnovsky G.F. The ideological and political collapse of the white emigration and the defeat of the internal counter-revolution. L., 1978, pp. 15-16.

According to I. Trifonov, the number of repatriated for 1921-1931. exceeded 180 thousand Trifonov I.Ya. Liquidation of the exploiting classes in the USSR. M., 1975, p.178. Moreover, the author, citing Lenin's data on 1.5-2 million emigrants, in relation to 20-30 years old, calls the figure 860 thousand. Ibid., pp. 168-169.

Probably, about 2.5% of the population left the country, that is, about 3.5 million people.

On January 6, 1922, the Vossische Zeitung newspaper, respected in the circles of the intelligentsia, published in Berlin, brought the problem of refugees to the discussion of the German public.
The article “The New Great Migration of Peoples” said: “The Great War caused a movement among the peoples of Europe and Asia, which may be the beginning of a large historical process of the model of the great migration of peoples. A special role is played by Russian emigration, of which there are no similar examples in recent history. Moreover, in this emigration we are talking about a whole range of political, economic, social and cultural problems and it is impossible to solve them either with general phrases or momentary measures ... For Europe, there is a need to consider Russian emigration not as a temporary incident ... But it is precisely the community of destinies that has been created by this war is for the vanquished, it encourages us to think, apart from momentary burdens, about future opportunities for cooperation.”

Looking at what is happening in Russia, the emigration saw that any opposition is being destroyed in the country. Immediately (in 1918) the Bolsheviks closed down all opposition (including socialist) newspapers. Censorship is introduced.
In April 1918, the Anarchist Party was crushed, and in July 1918 the Bolsheviks broke off relations with their only allies in the revolution - the Left Social Revolutionaries, the Peasant Party. In February 1921, arrests of the Mensheviks began, and in 1922, the trial of the leaders of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party took place.
This is how a regime of military dictatorship of one party emerged, turned against 90% of the country's population. Dictatorship was understood, of course, as "violence not limited by law." Stalin I.V. Speech at Sverdlovsk University on June 9, 1925

The emigration was dumbfounded at making conclusions that only yesterday seemed impossible to it.

However paradoxical it may sound, Bolshevism is the third manifestation of Russian great power, Russian imperialism; the first was the Moscow kingdom, the second was the empire of Peter. Bolshevism is for a strong centralized state. There was a combination of the will for social truth with the will for state power, and the second will turned out to be stronger. Bolshevism entered Russian life, as in the highest degree militarized force. But the old Russian state was always militarized. The problem of power was fundamental to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. And they created a police state, in terms of methods of government very similar to the old Russian state ... The Soviet state has become the same as any despotic state, it operates with the same means, violence and lies. Berdyaev N. A. Origins and meaning of Russian communism.
Even the old Slavophile dream of moving the capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow, to the Kremlin, has been realized by red communism. A communist revolution in one country inevitably leads to nationalism and nationalist politics. Berdyaev N. A.

Therefore, when assessing the size of emigration, it is necessary to take into account: a considerable part of the White Guards who left their homeland later returned to Soviet Russia.

In The State and Revolution, Ilyich promised: “... the suppression of a minority of exploiters by the majority of yesterday’s wage slaves is so comparatively easy, simple and natural than the suppression of uprisings of slaves, serfs, wage workers, that it will cost mankind much cheaper” (Lenin V.I. PSS, v.33, p.90).

The leader even ventured to estimate the total "cost" of the world revolution - half a million, a million people (PSS, vol. 37, p. 60).

Fragmentary information about the loss of population in certain specific regions can be found here and there. It is known, for example, that Moscow, in which 1580 thousand people lived by the beginning of 1917, in 1917-1920. lost almost half of the inhabitants (49.1%) - this is stated in the article about the capital in 5 volumes of ITU, 1st ed. (M., 1927, column 389).

In connection with the ebb of workers to the front and the countryside, with a typhoid epidemic and general economic ruin, Moscow in 1918-1921. lost almost half of its population: in February 1917 in Moscow there were 2.044 thousand, and in 1920 - 1.028 thousand inhabitants. In 1919, the death rate especially increased, but from 1922 the decline in the population in the capital began to decrease, and its numbers increased rapidly. TSB, 1st ed. v.40, M., 1938, p.355.

Here are the data on the dynamics of the city's population that the author of an article named in a review collection on Soviet Moscow, which was published in 1920.
“As of November 20, 1915, there were already 1,983,716 inhabitants in Moscow, and the next year the capital stepped over the second million. On February 1, 1917, just on the eve of the revolution, 2,017,173 people lived in Moscow, and on the modern territory of the capital (including some suburban areas annexed in May and June 1917), the number of Moscow residents reached 2,043,594.
According to the census in August 1920, 1,028,218 inhabitants were counted in Moscow. In other words, since the census on April 21, 1918, the decline in the population of Moscow amounted to 687,804 people, or 40.1%. This population decline is unprecedented in European history. Only St. Petersburg overtook Moscow in terms of its depopulation. Since February 1, 1917, when the population of Moscow reached its maximum, the number of inhabitants of the capital has fallen by 1,015,000 people, or by almost half (more precisely, by 49.6%).
Meanwhile, the population of St. Petersburg (within the boundaries of the city government) in 1917 reached, according to the calculation of the city statistical bureau, 2,440,000 people. According to the census of August 28, 1920, there were only 706,800 people in St. Petersburg, so that since the revolution the number of inhabitants of St. Petersburg has decreased by 1,733,200 people, or 71%. In other words, the population of St. Petersburg was declining almost twice as fast as Moscow.” Red Moscow, M., 1920.

But in the final figures there is no exact answer to the question: how much did the population of the country decrease from 1914 to 1922?
Yes, and why - too.

The country silently listened to how Alexander Vertinsky cursed her:
- I don't know why and who needs it,
Who sent them to death with an unshakable hand,
Only so mercilessly, so evil and unnecessary
They put them in eternal rest.

Immediately after the war, sociologist Pitirim Sorokin reflected on the mournful statistics in Prague:
- Russian state entered the war with 176 million subjects.
In 1920, the RSFSR, together with all the Union Soviet republics, including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, etc., had only 129 million people.
For six years, the Russian state has lost 47 million subjects. This is the first payment for the sins of war and revolution.
Whoever understands the significance of the population for the fate of the state and society, this figure says a lot...
This decrease of 47 million is explained by the separation from Russia of a number of regions that have become independent states.
Now the question is: what is the situation with the population of the territory that makes up the modern RSFSR and the republics allied with it?
Has it decreased or increased?
The following numbers give the answer.
According to the 1920 census, the population of 47 provinces of European Russia and Ukraine has decreased since 1914 by 11,504,473 people, or 13% (from 85,000,370 to 73,495,897).
The population of all Soviet republics has decreased by 21 million, which is 154 million, a loss of 13.6%.
War and revolution devoured not only all those who were born, for nevertheless a certain number continued to be born. It cannot be said that the appetite of these persons was moderate and their stomach was modest.
Even if they gave a number of real values, it is difficult to recognize the price of such "conquests" as cheap.
But they absorbed more than 21 million victims.
Of the 21 million, the direct victims of the world war fall:
killed and dead from wounds and diseases - 1,000,000 people,
missing and captured (most of whom returned) 3,911,000 people. (in official data, the missing and those taken prisoner are not separated from each other, so I quote total figure), plus 3,748,000 wounded, in total for the direct victims of the war - no more than 2-2.5 million. The number of direct victims of the civil war was hardly less.
As a result, we can take the number of direct victims of war and revolution close to 5 million. The remaining 16 million fall on the share of their indirect victims: the share of increased mortality and falling birth rates. Sorokin P.A. The current state of Russia. (Prague, 1922).

"Tough time! As historians now testify, 14-18 million people died during the civil war, of which only 900 thousand were killed at the fronts. The rest fell victim to typhoid, Spanish influenza, other diseases, and then the white and red terror. "War Communism" was partly caused by the horrors of the civil war, partly by the delusions of a whole generation of revolutionaries. Direct seizures of food from the peasants without any compensation, rations for workers - from 250 grams to a pound of black bread, forced labor, executions and prison for market operations, a huge army of homeless children who lost their parents, hunger, savagery in many parts of the country - such was the harsh pay for the most radical revolution that has ever shaken the nations of the earth!” Burlatsky F. Leaders and advisers. M., 1990, p.70.

In 1929, the former Major General and Minister of War of the Provisional Government, and at that time a teacher of the Military Academy of the Headquarters of the Red Army A.I. Verkhovsky published a detailed article in Ogonyok on the threat of intervention.

special attention deserve his demographic calculations.

“The dry columns of figures given in statistical tables usually pass by ordinary attention,” he writes. - But if you look closely at them, then what sometimes terrible numbers are!
The Publishing House of the Communist Academy published B.A. Gukhman "Main Issues of the USSR Economy in Tables and Diagrams".
Table 1 shows the dynamics of the population of the USSR. It shows that on January 1, 1914, 139 million people lived in the territory now occupied by our Union. By January 1st, 1917, the table puts the population at 141 million. Meanwhile, the population growth before the war was about 1.5% per year, which gives an increase of 2 million people per year. Consequently, from 1914 to 1917, the population should have increased by 6 million and amounted not to 141, but to 145 million.
We see that 4 million is not enough. These are the victims of the world war. Of these, 1.5 million we consider killed and missing, and 2.5 million must be attributed to the decrease in the birth rate.
The next figure in the table refers to August 1, 1922, i.e. covers 5 years of the civil war and its immediate aftermath. If the development of the population had proceeded normally, then in 5 years its growth would have been about 10 million, and, consequently, the USSR in 1922 should have numbered 151 million.
Meanwhile, in 1922 the population was 131 million people, i.e., 10 million less than in 1917. The Civil War cost us another 20 million people, i.e. 5 times more than World War". Verkhovsky A. Intervention is not permissible. Ogonyok, 1929, No. 29, p.11.

The total human losses suffered by the country during the world and civil wars, interventions (1914-1920) exceeded 20 million people. - History of the USSR. The era of socialism. M., 1974, p.71.

The total population losses in the civil war on the fronts and in the rear from hunger, disease and terror of the White Guards amounted to 8 million people. TSB, 3rd ed. The losses of the Communist Party on the fronts amounted to over 50 thousand people. TSB, 3rd ed.

There were diseases, too.
At the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. In 10 months, the global flu pandemic (called the “Spanish flu”) affected about 300 million people and claimed up to 40 million lives. Then a second, although less strong, wave arose. The malignancy of this pandemic can be judged by the number of deaths. In India, about 5 million people died from it, in the United States for 2 months - about 450 thousand, in Italy - about 270 thousand people; in total, this epidemic claimed about 20 million victims, while the number of diseases also amounted to hundreds of millions.

Then came the third wave. Probably 0.75 billion people have been ill with the "Spanish flu" in 3 years. The world population at that time was 1.9 billion. Losses from the "Spaniard" exceeded the death rate of the 1st World War on all its fronts combined. In the world then died up to 100 million people. The "Spanish flu" supposedly existed in two forms: in elderly patients, it usually, in fact, was expressed in severe pneumonia, death occurred in 1.5-2 weeks. But there were few such patients. More often, for some unknown reason, young people from 20 to 40 years old died from the "Spanish flu" ... Most people under the age of 40 died from cardiac arrest, this happened two or three days after the onset of the disease.

Young Soviet Russia at first she was lucky: the first wave of the "Spanish disease" did not touch her. But at the end of the summer of 1918, epidemic influenza came from Galicia to Ukraine. Only in Kyiv alone, 700 thousand cases were recorded. Then the epidemic began to spread through the Oryol and Voronezh provinces to the east, to the Volga region, and to the northwest, to both capitals.
Doctor V. Glinchikov, who at that time worked in the Petropavlovsk hospital in Petrograd, noted that in the first days of the epidemic, out of 149 patients with the Spanish flu, 119 people died. In the city as a whole, the mortality rate from influenza complications reached 54%.

During the epidemic in Russia, more than 2.5 million cases of "Spanish flu" were registered. The clinical manifestations of the "Spanish flu" are well described and studied. There were completely atypical clinical manifestations for influenza, characteristic of brain lesions. In particular, “hiccupping” or “sneezing” encephalitis, sometimes occurring even without a typical influenza fever. These excruciating diseases are damage to certain areas of the brain, when a person continuously hiccups or sneezes for quite a long time, day and night. Some have died from it. There were other monosymptomatic forms of the disease. Their nature has not yet been determined.

In 1918, the country suddenly began simultaneous epidemics of plague and cholera.

In addition, in 1918-1922. in Russia, several epidemics of unprecedented forms of typhus are also rampant. During these years, more than 7.5 million cases of typhus alone were registered. Probably more than 700 thousand people died from it. But it was impossible to take into account all the sick people.

1919. "In connection with the extreme overcrowding of Moscow prisons and prison hospitals, typhus has assumed an epidemic character there." Anatoly Mariengof. My age.
A contemporary wrote: “Entire wagons are dying of typhus. Not a single doctor. No medicines. Whole families are delirious. Dead bodies along the road. At the stations there are piles of corpses.
It was typhus, and not the Red Army, that destroyed Kolchak's troops. “When our troops,” wrote N.A. Semashko, - we entered beyond the Urals and into Turkestan, a huge avalanche of epidemic diseases (typhus of all three varieties) moved against our army from Kolchak and Dutov troops. Suffice it to mention that out of the 60,000-strong enemy army that went over to our side in the very first days after the defeat of Kolchak and Dutov, 80% turned out to be infected with typhus. The typhus on the Eastern, relapsing, mainly on the South-Eastern Front, rushed at us in a stormy stream. And even typhoid fever, this sure sign of the lack of elementary sanitary measures - at least vaccinations, spread like a wide wave through the Dutov army and spread to us ""...
In the captured Omsk, the capital of Kolchak, the Red Army found 15,000 abandoned sick enemies. Calling the epidemic "the legacy of the whites," the victors fought on two fronts, the main one against typhus.
The situation was catastrophic. In Omsk every day 500 people fell ill and 150 died. The epidemic engulfed the refugee shelter, the post office, the orphanage, workers' hostels, the sick were lying side by side on plank beds, on rotten mattresses on the floor.
Kolchak's armies, retreating east under the onslaught of Tukhachevsky's troops, took everything with them, including prisoners, and among them there were many patients with typhus. At first they were driven in stages along railway, then put on trains and taken to Transbaikalia. People were dying in droves. The corpses were thrown out of the cars, drawing a dotted line of rotting bodies along the rails.
So by 1919, all of Siberia was infected. Tukhachevsky recalled that the road from Omsk to Krasnoyarsk was a realm of typhus.
In the winter of 1919–1920 an epidemic in Novonikolaevsk, the capital of typhus, led to the death of tens of thousands of people (they did not keep an exact record of the victims). The city's population has halved. At the Krivoshchekovo station there were 3 stacks of 500 corpses each. Another 20 wagons with the dead were nearby.
“All the houses were occupied by Chekatif, and Chekatrup was a dictator in the city, who built two crematoria and dug miles of deep trenches for burying corpses,” reads the ChKT report, see: GANO. F.R-1133. Op. 1. D. 431c. L. 150.).
In total, during the days of the epidemic, 28 military and 15 civilian medical institutions functioned in the city. Chaos reigned. Historian E. Kosyakova writes: “At the beginning of January 1920, in the overcrowded Eighth Novonikolaev Hospital, patients lay on their beds, in the aisles, and under the beds. In infirmaries, contrary to sanitary requirements, double bunk beds were arranged. Patients with typhus, medical patients and the wounded were placed in the same room, which in fact was not a place of treatment, but a source of typhoid infection.
It was strange that this disease affected not only Siberia, but also the North. In 1921-1922. out of 3 thousand population of Murmansk, 1560 people were ill with typhus. Cases of smallpox, Spanish flu and scurvy have been reported.

In 1921-1922. and in the Crimea epidemics of typhus and - in noticeable proportions - cholera raged, there were outbreaks of plague, smallpox, scarlet fever and dysentery. According to the People's Commissariat for Health, in the Yekaterinburg province at the beginning of January 1922, 2 thousand patients with typhus were recorded, mainly at railway stations. A typhoid epidemic was also observed in Moscow. There, as of January 12, 1922, there were 1,500 patients with relapsing fever and 600 patients with typhus. Pravda, No. 8, January 12, 1922, p.2.

In the same 1921, an epidemic of tropical malaria began, which also captured the northern regions. Mortality reached 80%!
The causes of these sudden severe epidemics are still unknown. At first they thought that malaria and typhus came to Russia from the Turkish front. But the malaria epidemic in its usual form cannot survive in those regions where it is colder than +16 degrees Celsius; how it penetrated the Arkhangelsk province, the Caucasus and Siberia, is not clear. Until now, it has not been clarified where the cholera bacilli came from in the Siberian rivers - in those regions that were almost not inhabited. However, hypotheses were expressed that in these years bacteriological weapons were used against Russia for the first time.

Indeed, after the landing of British and American troops in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, in the Crimea and Novorossiysk, in Primorye and the Caucasus, outbreaks of these unknown epidemics immediately began.
It turns out that during the years of the 1st World War, in the town of Porton Down near Salisbury (Wiltshire), a top-secret center, the Experimental Station of Royal Engineers, was created, where physiologists, pathologists and meteorologists from top universities Britain.
During the existence of this secret complex, more than 20 thousand people became participants in thousands of tests of plague and anthrax, other deadly diseases, as well as poisonous gases.
Initially, experiments were carried out on animals. But since in animal experiments it is difficult to find out exactly how the effect occurs chemical substances on human organs and tissues, then in 1917 a special laboratory appeared in Porton Down, designed for experiments on humans.
Later it was reorganized into the Microbiological Research Center. The CCU was located at Harvard Hospital in the western part of Salisbury. The test subjects (mostly soldiers) agreed to the experiments voluntarily, but almost no one knew what risk they were taking. The tragic story of the Porton veterans was told by British historian Ulf Schmidt in his book Secret Science: A Century of Poison Warfare and Human Experiments.
In addition to Porton Down, the author also reports on the activities of the Edgewood Arsenal organized in 1916, a special unit of the chemical forces of the US Armed Forces.

The black plague, as if returned from the Middle Ages, caused a special fright of physicians. Mikhel D.V. The fight against the plague in the South-East of Russia (1917-1925). - On Sat. History of science and technology. 2006, no. 5, p. 58–67.

In 1921, Novonikolaevsk experienced a wave of cholera epidemic, which came along with the flow of refugees from starving areas.

In 1922, despite the consequences of the famine, the outbreak of infectious epidemics in the country decreased. So, at the end of 1921, more than 5.5 million people were ill with typhus, typhoid and relapsing fever in Soviet Russia.
The main foci of typhus were the Volga region, Ukraine, the Tambov province and the Urals, where the fatal epidemic struck, first of all, the Ufa and Yekaterinburg provinces.

But already in the spring of 1922, the number of patients dropped to 100 thousand people, although the turning point in the fight against typhus came only a year later. Thus, in Ukraine, the number of cases of typhus and deaths from it in 1923 decreased by 7 times. In total, in the USSR, the number of diseases per year decreased by 30 times. The Volga region.

The fight against typhus, cholera and malaria continued until the mid-1920s. American Sovietologist Robert Gates believes that Russia during the reign of Lenin lost 10 million people from terror and civil war. (Washington Post, 30.4.1989).

Stalin's defenders zealously dispute these data, inventing fake statistics. Here, for example, is what Gennady Zyuganov, chairman of the CRPF, writes: “In 1917, the population of Russia within its current borders was 91 million people. By 1926, when the first Soviet census was conducted, its population in the RSFSR (that is, again on the territory of present-day Russia) had grown to 92.7 million people. And this despite the fact that only 5 years earlier ended the destructive and bloody Civil War. Zyuganov G.A. Stalin and Modernity. http://www.politpros.com/library/9/223.

Where did he get these figures from, from which statistical collections exactly, the main communist of Russia does not stutter, hoping that they will believe him without proof.
Communists have always used someone else's naivety.
And what was really?

The article by Vladimir Shubkin "The Difficult Farewell" (Noviy Mir, No. 4, 1989) is devoted to the population losses of the times of Lenin and Stalin. According to Shubkin, during the years of Lenin's rule from the autumn of 1917 to 1922, the demographic losses of Russia amounted to almost 13 million people, of which emigrants (1.5-2 million people) must be subtracted.
The author, referring to the study by Yu.A. Polyakova, points out that the total human losses from 1917 to 1922, taking into account missed births and emigration, amount to about 25 million people (academician S. Strumilin estimated the losses from 1917 to 1920 at 21 million).
During the years of collectivization and famine (1932-1933), the human losses of the USSR, according to V. Shubkin's calculations, amounted to 10-13 million people.

If we continue to study arithmetic, then during the 1st World War for more than four years, the Russian Empire lost 20 - 8 = 12 million people.
It turns out that the average annual losses of Russia during the First World War amounted to 2.7 million people.
Apparently, this includes casualties among the civilian population.

However, these figures are also disputed.
In 1919-1920, the publication of a 65-volume list of the killed, wounded and missing lower ranks of the Russian army in 1914-1918 was completed. Its preparation was started back in 1916 by employees General Staff Russian Empire. Based on this work, the Soviet historian reports: "During the 3.5 years of the war, the loss Russian army amounted to 68,994 generals and officers, 5,243,799 soldiers. This includes the dead, the wounded and the missing." Beskrovny L. G. The Russian Army and Navy at the Beginning of the 20th Century. Essays on the Military-Economic Potential. M., 1986. P.17.

In addition, it is necessary to take into account the captured. At the end of the war, 2,385,441 Russian prisoners were registered in Germany, 1,503,412 in Austria-Hungary, 19,795 in Turkey, and 2,452 in Bulgaria, totaling 3,911,100 people. Proceedings of the Commission for the Survey of the Sanitary Consequences of the War of 1914-1920. Issue. 1. S. 169.
Thus, the total amount of human losses in Russia should be 9,223,893 soldiers and officers.

But from here you need to subtract 1,709,938 wounded who returned to duty from field hospitals. As a result, minus this contingent, the number of those killed, dying of wounds, seriously wounded and captured will be 7,513,955 people.
All figures are given according to the information of 1919. In 1920, work on the lists of losses, including clarifying the number of prisoners of war and missing persons, made it possible to revise the total military losses and determine them at 7,326,515 people. Proceedings of the Survey Commission ... S. 170.

The unprecedented scale of the 1st World War, indeed, led to a huge number of prisoners of war. But the question of the number of servicemen of the Russian army who were in enemy captivity is still debatable.
Thus, in the encyclopedia "The Great October Socialist Revolution" over 3.4 million Russian prisoners of war are named. (M., 1987, p. 445).
According to E.Yu. Sergeev, a total of about 1.4 million soldiers and officers of the Russian army were captured. Sergeev E.Yu. Russian prisoners of war in Germany and Austria-Hungary // Modern and recent history. 1996. N 4. S. 66.
Historian O.S. Nagornaya calls a similar figure - 1.5 million people (Nagornaya O.S. Another military experience: Russian prisoners of war of the First World War in Germany (1914-1922). M., 2010. P. 9).
Other data from S.N. Vasilyeva: "by January 1, 1918, the Russian army lost prisoners: soldiers - 3,395,105 people, and officers and class officials - 14,323 people, which amounted to 74.9% of all combat losses, or 21.2% of the total number of mobilized" . (Vasilyeva S. N. Prisoners of war in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia during the First World War: Textbook for a special course. M., 1999. S. 14-15).
Such a discrepancy in numbers (more than 2 times) is apparently the result of poorly established accounting and registration of prisoners of war.

But if you delve into the statistics, all these figures do not look too convincing.

“Speaking of the losses of the Russian population as a result of two wars and a revolution,” writes historian Yu. Polyakov, “a strange disparity in the population of pre-war Russia is striking, which, according to various authors, reaches 30 million people. This discrepancy in the demographic literature is explained, first of all, by the territorial discrepancy. One takes data on the territory Russian state in the pre-war (1914) boundaries, others - on the territory within the boundaries established in 1920-1921. and existing before 1939, the third - on the territory in modern borders with a retrospection for 1917 and 1914. Estimates are sometimes made with the inclusion of Finland, the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva, sometimes without excluding them. We do not resort to data on the population in 1913-1920, calculated on the territory in modern borders. These data, important for showing the dynamics of the growth of the current population, are not very applicable in historical studies on the First World War, October revolution and civil war.
These figures speak of the population in the territory that exists now, but in 1913-1920. it did not correspond to either the legal or actual borders of Russia. Recall that according to these data, the population of the country on the eve of the First World War was 159.2 million people, and at the beginning of 1917 - 163 million (USSR in figures in 1977. - M., 1978, p. 7). The difference in determining the size of the pre-war (at the end of 1913 or the beginning of 1914) population of Russia (within the boundaries established in 1920-1921 and existing until September 17, 1939) reaches 13 million people (from 132.8 million to 145.7 million).
Statistical collections of the 60s determine the population at that time at 139.3 million people. Inconsistent data are given (in relation to the territory within the boundaries before 1939) and for 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921, etc.
An important source is the 1917 census. A significant part of its materials has been published. Studying them (including unpublished arrays stored in archives) is quite useful. But the census materials do not cover the country as a whole, the conditions of the war affected the accuracy of the data, and in determining the national composition, its data have the same defects as all pre-revolutionary statistics, which made serious mistakes in determining nationality, based only on linguistic affiliation.
Meanwhile, the difference in determining the size of the population, according to the citizens' own application (this principle is accepted by modern statistics), is very large. A number of nationalities before the revolution were not taken into account at all.
The 1920 census also, unfortunately, cannot be named among the basic sources, although its materials should undoubtedly be taken into account.
The census was carried out during the days (August 1920) when there was a war with bourgeois-landlord Poland and the front and front areas were inaccessible to census takers, when Wrangel still occupied the Crimea and Northern Tavria, when counter-revolutionary governments existed in Georgia and Armenia, and large territories Siberia and the Far East were under the rule of the interventionists and the White Guards, when nationalist and kulak gangs were active in different parts of the country (many scribes were killed). Therefore, the population of many outlying territories was calculated according to pre-revolutionary information.
The census also had shortcomings in determining the national composition of the population (for example, the small peoples of the North were united in a group under the dubious name "Hyperboreans"). There are many contradictions in the data on population losses in the First World War and the Civil War (the number of those killed, those who died from epidemics, etc.), on refugees from the occupied by Austro-German troops and front-line territories in 1917, on the demographic consequences of crop failure and famine.
Statistical collections of the 60s give figures of 143.5 million people as of January 1, 1917, 138 million - as of January 1, 1919, 136.8 million - as of August 1920.
In 1973-1979. at the Institute of History of the USSR, under the guidance of the author of these lines (Polyakov), a methodology was developed and implemented for using (with the use of a computer) the data of the 1926 census to determine the population of the country in previous years. This census recorded the composition of the country's population with an accuracy and scientific character unprecedented in Russia before. The materials of the 1926 census were published widely and completely - in 56 volumes. The essence of the technique in general form is as follows: based on the data of the 1926 census, primarily based on the age structure of the population, the dynamic series of the country's population for 1917-1926 is restored. At the same time, the data contained in other sources and in the literature on the natural and mechanical movement of the population for specified years. Therefore, this method can be called the method of retrospective use of population census materials, taking into account the complex of additional data at the disposal of the historian.
As a result of the calculations, many hundreds of tables were obtained, characterizing the movement of the population in 1917-1926. for different regions and the country as a whole, determining the number and proportion of the peoples of the country. In particular, the size and national composition of the population of Russia in the autumn of 1917 on the territory within the borders of 1926 (147,644.3 thousand) were determined. It seemed to us extremely important to carry out the calculation on the actual territory of Russia in the autumn of 1917 (i.e., without the areas occupied by the Austro-German troops), because the population behind the front line was then excluded from the economic and political life of Russia. The definition of the actual territory was carried out by us on the basis of military maps, fixing the front line for the autumn of 1917.
The population on the actual territory of Russia in the autumn of 1917, excluding Finland, the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva, was determined at 153,617 thousand people; without Finland, including Khiva and Bukhara - 156,617 thousand people; with Finland (together with the Pechenga volost), Khiva and Bukhara - 159,965 thousand people. Polyakov Yu.A. The population of Soviet Russia in 1917-1920 (Historiography and sources). - Sat. Russian problems social movement and historical science. M., Nauka, 1981. pp. 170-176.

If we recall the figure of 180.6 million people named in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, then which of the mentioned Yu.A. Polyakov can’t take the numbers, then in the autumn of 1917 the population deficit in Russia will not be 12 million, but will fluctuate between 27 and 37.5 million people.

What can these numbers be compared to? In 1917, for example, Sweden had a population of 5.5 million. In other words, this statistical error is equal to 5-7 Sweden.

The situation is similar with the losses of the country's population in the civil war.
"The countless victims suffered in the war against the Whites and the interventionists (the country's population decreased by 13 million people from 1917 to 1923) were rightly attributed to the class enemy - the culprit, the instigator of the war." Polyakov Yu.A. 1920s: moods of the party avant-garde. Questions of the history of the CPSU, 1989, No. 10, p.30.

In the reference book of V.V. Erlikhman, Population loss in the 20th century. (M.: Russian panorama, 2004) it is said that in the civil war of 1918-1920. about 10.5 million people died.

According to the historian A. Kilichenkov, "during the three years of fratricidal civil slaughter, the country lost 13 million people and retained only 9.5% of the previous (before 1913) gross national product." Science and Life, 1995, No. 8, p. 80.

Professor of Moscow State University L. Semyannikova objects: "The civil war, extremely bloody and destructive, claimed, according to Russian historians, 15-16 million lives." Science and Life, 1995, No. 9, p.46.

Historian M. Bernshtam in his work “Parties in the Civil War” tried to draw up a general balance sheet of the losses of the Russian population during the war years of 1917-1920: “According to the special reference book of the Central Statistical Bureau, the number of population in the territory of the USSR after 1917, excluding the population of territories that had departed from Russia and not included in the USSR, amounted to 146.755.520 people. - The administrative-territorial composition of the USSR on July 1, 1925 and on July 1, 1926, in comparison with the pre-war division of Russia. Experience in establishing a connection between the administrative-territorial composition of pre-war Russia and the modern composition of the USSR. CSU USSR. - M., 1926, pp. 49-58.

This is the initial figure of the population, which from October 1917 found itself in the zone of the socialist revolution. On the same territory, the census of August 28, 1920, together with those who were in the army, finds only 134,569,206 people. — Statistical Yearbook 1921. Issue. 1. Proceedings of the CSB, vol. VIII, no. 3, M., 1922, p.8. The total population deficit is 12.186.314 people.
Thus, the historian summarizes, during the incomplete three first years of the socialist revolution on the territory of the former Russian Empire (from the autumn of 1917 to August 28, 1920), the population lost 8.3 percent of its original composition.
Over the years, emigration allegedly amounted to 86,000 people (Alekhin M. White emigration. TSB, 1st ed., vol. 64. M., 1934, column 163), and the natural decline - the excess of deaths over births - 873,623 people (Proceedings of the CSB, vol. XVIII, M., 1924, p. 42).
Thus, the losses from the revolution and civil war for the first incomplete three years of Soviet power, without emigration and natural loss, amounted to more than 11.2 million people. Here it should be noted, - the author comments, - that the "natural decline" requires a reasonable interpretation: why the decline? Is the term “natural” accepted in science appropriate here? It is clear that the excess of mortality over births is an unnatural phenomenon and belongs to the demographic results of the revolution and the socialist experiment.

However, if we consider that this war lasted 4 years (1918-1922), and the total losses are taken as 15 million people, then the average annual losses of the country's population during this period amounted to 3.7 million people.
It turns out that the civil war was more bloody than the war with the Germans.

At the same time, the size of the Red Army by the end of 1919 reached 3 million people, by the autumn of 1920 - 5.5 million people.
The famous demographer B.Ts. Urlanis in the book “Wars and Population of Europe”, speaking about the losses among the fighters and commanders of the Red Army in the civil war, cites such figures. Total number killed and dead, in his opinion, 425 thousand people. Approximately 125 thousand people were killed at the front, died in active army and in the military districts about 300 thousand people. Urlanis B. Ts. Wars and population of Europe. - M., 1960. pp. 183, 305. Moreover, the author writes that "the comparison and the absolute value of the figures give reason to assume that the dead and wounded are attributed to combat losses." Urlanis B.Ts. Ibid, p. 181.

The reference book "The National Economy of the USSR in Figures" (M., 1925) contains completely different information about the losses of the Red Army in 1918-1922. In this book, according to official data from the statistical department of the Main Directorate of the Red Army, the combat losses of the Red Army in the civil war are 631,758 Red Army soldiers, and sanitary (with evacuation) - 581,066, and in total - 1,212,824 people (p. 110).

The white movement was rather small. By the end of the winter of 1919, that is, by the time of its maximum development, according to Soviet military reports, it did not exceed 537 thousand people. Of these, no more than 175 thousand people died. - Kakaurin N.E. How the revolution fought, v.2, M.-L., 1926, p.137.

Thus, there were 10 times more reds than whites. But there were many more victims in the ranks of the Red Army - either 3, or 8 times.

But, if we compare the three-year losses of the two opposing armies with the losses of the Russian population, then there is no escape from the question: so who fought with whom?
White with red?
Or those and others with the people?

“Cruelty is inherent in any war, but in the civil war in Russia, incredible ruthlessness reigned. White officers and volunteers knew what would happen to them if they were captured by the Reds: more than once I saw terribly disfigured bodies with epaulettes carved on their shoulders. Orlov, G. Drozdov's diary. // Star. - 2012. - No. 11.

The Reds were no less brutally destroyed. "As soon as the party affiliation of the communists was established, they were hung on the first bough." Reden, N. Through the Hell of the Russian Revolution. Memoirs of a midshipman 1914-1919. - M., 2006.

The atrocities of Denikin's, Annenkov's, Kalmyk's and Kolchak's men are well known.

At first ice hike Kornilov declared: "I give you an order, very cruel: do not take prisoners! I take responsibility for this order before God and the Russian people!" One of the participants of the campaign recalled the cruelty of ordinary volunteers during the "Ice Campaign" when he wrote about the massacres of those captured: "All the Bolsheviks captured by us with weapons in their hands were shot on the spot: alone, in tens, hundreds. It was a war "for extermination". Fedyuk V.P. White. Anti-Bolshevik Movement in the South of Russia 1917-1918.

A witness, the writer William, told about Denikin's people in his memoirs. True, he is reluctant to talk about his own exploits, but he conveys in detail the stories of his accomplices in the struggle for the united and indivisible.
“The Reds were driven out - and how many of them were put, the passion of the Lord! And they began to put things in order. Liberation has begun. First, the sailors were frightened. They stayed with the fool, “our business, they say, is on the water, we will live with the Cadets” ... Well, everything is as it should, in a good way: they kicked them out behind the pier, forced them to dig a ditch for themselves, and then they will bring them to the edge and from revolvers one by one. So, believe me, like crayfish they moved in this ditch until they fell asleep. And then, in this place, the whole earth moved: therefore, they didn’t finish it off, so that it would be disrespectful to others. ”

The commander of the US occupation corps in Siberia, General Grevs, in turn, testifies: “Terrible murders were committed in Eastern Siberia, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as is usually thought. I will not be mistaken if I say that in Eastern Siberia, for every person killed by the Bolsheviks, there were 100 people killed by anti-Bolshevik elements.

“It is possible to put an end to ... the uprising as soon as possible, more decisively, without stopping at the most strict, even cruel measures against not only the rebels, but also the population supporting them ... For harboring ... there should be merciless reprisals ... For intelligence, communication, use local residents, taking hostages . In case of incorrect and untimely information or treason, the hostages are to be executed, and the houses belonging to them to be burned.” These are quotes from the order of the supreme ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak dated March 23, 1919

And here are excerpts from the order of the specially authorized Kolchak S. Rozanov, governor of the Yenisei and part of the Irkutsk province, dated March 27, 1919: in villages that do not issue Reds, “shoot the tenth”; burn the resisting villages, and “shoot the adult male population without exception”, completely take away property and bread in favor of the treasury; hostages in case of resistance of fellow villagers “to shoot mercilessly”.

The political leaders of the Czechoslovak corps B. Pavel and V. Girs in their official memorandum to the allies in November 1919 stated: “Admiral Kolchak surrounded himself with former tsarist officials, and since the peasants did not want to take up arms and sacrifice their lives for the return of these people to power , they were beaten, flogged with whips and killed in cold blood by the thousands, after which the world called them "Bolsheviks".

“The most significant weakness of the Omsk government is that the vast majority is in opposition to it. Roughly speaking, approximately 97% of the population of Siberia today is hostile to Kolchak. Testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Eichelberg. New time, 1988. No. 34. S. 35-37.

However, the fact that the Reds brutally cracked down on the recalcitrant workers and peasantry is also true.

It is interesting that during the years of the civil war there were almost no Russians in the Red Army, although few people know this ...
“You wouldn’t go, Vanek, to the soldiers.
In the Red Army there are bayonets, tea,
The Bolsheviks will manage without you"...

In the defense of Petrograd from Yudenich, in addition to the Latvian riflemen, more than 25 thousand Chinese participated, and in total there were at least 200 thousand Chinese internationalists in the Red Army units. In 1919, more than 20 Chinese units operated in the Red Army - near Arkhangelsk and Vladikavkaz, in Perm and near Voronezh, in the Urals and beyond the Urals ...
Probably there is no person who has not seen the film "The Elusive Avengers", but not many people know that the film was based on the book by P. Blyakhin "The Red Devils", and there are already very few people who remember that there is no gypsy Yashka in the book, there is Chinese Yu-yu, and in the film, filmed in the 30s, instead of Yu there was a Negro Johnson.
Yakir, the first organizer of Chinese units in the Red Army, recalled that the Chinese were distinguished by high discipline, unquestioning obedience to orders, fatalism and self-sacrifice. In the book “Memories of the Civil War,” he writes: “The Chinese looked at the salary very seriously. Life was easily given, but pay on time and feed well. Yes, like this. Their representatives come to me and say that 530 people were hired and, therefore, I have to pay for all of them. And how many there are, then nothing - the rest of the money that is due to them, they will divide among everyone. For a long time I talked to them, convinced them that this was not right, not our way. Yet they got theirs. Another argument was given - we, they say, should send the families of the dead to China. We had a lot of good things with them on a long, long-suffering journey through the whole of Ukraine, the whole Don, to the Voronezh province.
What else?

There were about 90 thousand Latvians, plus 600 thousand Poles, 250 Hungarians, 150 Germans, 30 thousand Czechs and Slovaks, 50 thousand from Yugoslavia, there were a Finnish division, Persian regiments. In the Korean Red Army - 80 thousand, and in different parts about 100 more, there were Uighur, Estonian, Tatar, mountain units ...

The personnel command staff is also curious.
"Many of Lenin's most bitter enemies agreed to fight side by side with the Bolsheviks they hated when it came to defending the Motherland." Kerensky A.F. My life is underground. Change, 1990, No. 11, p. 264.
S. Kavtaradze's book "Military Specialists in the Service of Soviet Power" is well-known. According to his calculations, 70% of the tsarist generals served in the Red Army, and 18% in all the White armies. There is even a list of names - from general to captain - of officers of the General Staff who voluntarily joined the Red Army. Their motives were a mystery to me until I read the memoirs of N.M. Potapov, quartermaster general of the infantry, who in 1917 led the counterintelligence of the General Staff. He was a difficult man.
I will briefly retell what I remember. I'll just make a reservation first - part of his memoirs was published in the 60s in the Military History Journal, and I read the other in the Leninka manuscript department.
So what's in the magazine.
In July 1917, Potapov met with M. Kedrov (they had been friends since childhood), N. Podvoisky and V. Bonch-Bruevich (head of party intelligence, and his brother Mikhail later led the Field Operational Headquarters of the Red Army for some time). These were the leaders of the Bolshevik Voenka, the future organizers of the Bolshevik coup. After long negotiations they came to an agreement: 1. The General Staff will actively help the Bolsheviks in overthrowing the Provisional Government. 2. The people of the General Staff will move to the structures for the creation new army instead of the broken one.
Both parties fulfilled their obligations. Potapov himself, after October, was appointed manager of the Ministry of War, since the people's commissars were on the road forever, in fact, he served as the head of the People's Commissariat, and from June 1918 he worked as an expert. By the way, he played important role in operations Trust and Syndicate-2. He was buried with honors in 1946.
Now about the manuscript. According to Potapov, the army was completely decomposed through the efforts of Kerensky and other democrats. Russia was losing the war. The influence of the banking houses of Europe and the USA on the government was too noticeable.
The pragmatic Bolsheviks, in turn, needed the destruction of false democracy in the army, the establishment of iron discipline, in addition, they defended the unity of Russia. The regular patriotic officers were well aware that Kolchak had promised the Americans to give up Siberia, while the British and French secured similar promises from Denikin and Wrangel. Actually, on these conditions, arms were supplied from the West. Order #1 has been cancelled.
Trotsky restored iron discipline and complete subordination of the rank and file to the commanders in six months, resorting to the most stringent measures, up to and including executions. After the revolt of Stalin and Voroshilov, known as the military opposition, the Eighth Congress introduced unity of command in the army, forbidding the attempts of the commissars to interfere. Tales of hostages were myths. The officers were well provided for, they were honored, awarded, their orders were unconditionally carried out, one after another the armies of their enemies were thrown out of Russia. This position suited them as professionals. So, anyway, wrote Potapov.

Pitirim Sorokin, a contemporary of the events, testifies: “Since 1919, power has in fact ceased to be the power of the working masses and has become simply a tyranny, consisting of unprincipled intellectuals, declassed workers, criminals and various adventurers.” Terror, he noted, "began to be carried out against the workers and peasants to a greater extent." Sorokin P.A. The current state of Russia. New world. 1992. No. 4. P.198.

That's right - against the workers and peasants. Suffice it to recall the executions in Tula and Astrakhan, Kronstadt and Antonovism, the suppression of hundreds of peasant uprisings...

And how not to rebel when you are robbed?

“If we in the cities can say that the revolutionary Soviet power is strong enough to resist all attacks from the bourgeoisie, then in no case can we say the same about the countryside. We must most seriously put before ourselves the question of stratification in the countryside, about creating two opposing hostile forces in the countryside ... Only if we can split the village into two irreconcilable hostile camps, if we can ignite there the same civil war that was going on not so long ago in the cities, if we manage to restore the village the poor peasants against the rural bourgeoisie – only if we can say that we will do what we could do for the cities in relation to the countryside.” Yakov Sverdlov Speech at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the 4th convocation on May 20, 1918

On June 29, 1918, speaking at the 3rd All-Russian Congress of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, N.I. Melkov exposed the exploits of the food detachments in the Ufa province, where “the food business was “well organized” by the chairman of the food administration, Tsyurupa, who was made commissar of food for all of Russia, but the other side of the matter is clearer for us, the Left S.R., than for anyone. or. We know how this bread was squeezed out of the villages, what atrocities this Red Army did in the villages: purely robber gangs appeared, who began to rob, reached debauchery, etc. Party of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. Documents and materials. 1917-1925 In 3 volumes. T. 2. Part 1. M., 2010. S. 246-247.

For the Bolsheviks, the suppression of the resistance of their opponents was the only way to retain power in a peasant country in order to turn it into the base of the international socialist revolution. The Bolsheviks were confident in the historical justification and fairness of the use of merciless violence against their enemies and "exploiters" in general, as well as coercion in relation to the vacillating middle strata of the city and countryside, primarily the peasantry. Based on experience Paris Commune, V.I. Lenin considered the main reason for her death to be the inability to suppress the resistance of the overthrown exploiters. It is worth thinking about his admission, repeated several times at the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921, that “the petty-bourgeois counter-revolution is undoubtedly more dangerous than Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak put together”, and ... “is a danger, in many respects times greater than all the Denikins, Kolchaks and Yudenichs put together.

He wrote: "... The last and most numerous of the exploiting classes rose up against us in our country." PSS, 5th ed., v.37, p.40.
“Everywhere the greedy, gluttonous, bestial kulaks united with the landlords and capitalists against the workers and against the poor in general... Everywhere it entered into an alliance with foreign capitalists against the workers of their own country... There will be no world: the kulak can and can easily be reconciled with the landowner , king and priest, even if they quarreled, but never with the working class. And that is why we call the battle against the kulaks the last, decisive battle. Lenin V.I. PSS, vol. 37, p. 39-40.

As early as July 1918, there were 96 peasant armed uprisings against the Soviet government and its food policy.

On August 5, 1918, an uprising broke out among the peasants of the Penza province, dissatisfied with the food requisitions of the Soviet government. It covered the volosts of the Penza and neighboring Morshansky districts (8 volosts in total). See: Chronicle of the Penza regional organization of the CPSU. 1884-1937 Saratov, 1988, p. 58.

On August 9 and 10, V.I. Lenin received telegrams from the chairman of the Penza Provincial Committee of the RCP (b) E.B. Bosch and the chairman of the Council of Provincial Commissars V.V. Kuraev with a message about the uprising and in response telegrams gave instructions on organizing its suppression (see V. I. Lenin, Biographical Chronicle, V. 6. M., 1975, pp. 41, 46, 51, and 55; , 148, 149 and 156).

Lenin sends a letter to Penza addressed to V.V. Kuraev, E.B. Bosch, A.E. Minkin.
August 11, 1918
T-sham Kuraev, Bosch, Minkin and other Penza communists
Shchi! The uprising of the five volosts of the kulaks must lead to merciless suppression.
This is required by the interest of the entire revolution, for now everywhere is the “last decisive battle” with the kulaks. You have to give a sample.
1) Hang (be sure to hang, so that the people can see) at least 100 notorious kulaks, rich people, bloodsuckers.
2) Publish their names.
3) Take away all the bread from them.
4) Assign hostages.
Make it so that for hundreds of miles around the people see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle the bloodsuckers of the kulaks.
Wire receipt and execution.
Your Lenin.
P.S. Find stronger people. Foundation 2, on. 1, d. 6898 - autograph. Lenin V.I. unknown documents. 1891-1922 - M.: ROSSPEN, 1999. Doc. 137.

The Penza rebellion was suppressed on August 12, 1918. Local authorities managed to do this through agitation, with limited use military force. Participants in the murder of five pro-Darmians and three members of the village council c. Heaps of the Penza district and the organizers of the rebellion (13 people) were arrested and shot.

All punishments were brought down by the Bolsheviks on farmers who did not hand over grain and products: peasants were arrested, beaten, shot. Naturally, the villages and volosts rebelled, the peasants took up pitchforks and axes, dug up hidden weapons and brutally cracked down on the "commissars".

Already in 1918, more than 250 major uprisings took place in Smolensk, Yaroslavl, Oryol, Moscow and other provinces; more than 100 thousand peasants of the Simbirsk and Samara provinces revolted.

During the Civil War, the Don and Kuban Cossacks, peasants of the Volga region, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia.

In the summer of 1918, in Yaroslavl and the Yaroslavl province, thousands of city workers and surrounding peasants rebelled against the Bolsheviks, in many volosts and villages, the entire population without exception, including women, the elderly, and children, took up arms.

The summary of the Headquarters of the Eastern Red Front contains a description of the uprising in the Sengileevsky and Belebeevsky districts of the Volga region in March 1919: “The peasants went berserk, with pitchforks, with stakes and rifles alone and crowds climb machine guns, despite piles of corpses, their fury is indescribable.” Kubanin M.I. Anti-Soviet peasant movement during the civil war (war communism). - On the agrarian front, 1926, No. 2, p.41.

Of all the anti-Soviet actions in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the most organized and large-scale was the uprising in the Vetluzhsky and Varnavinsky districts in August 1918. The reason for the uprising was dissatisfaction with the food dictatorship of the Bolsheviks and the predatory actions of the food detachments. The rebels included up to 10 thousand people. Open confrontation in the Uren region lasted about a month, but individual gangs continued to operate until 1924.

An eyewitness to a peasant rebellion in the Shatsk district of the Tambov province in the fall of 1918 recalled: “I am a soldier, I have been in many battles with the Germans, but I have not seen anything like this. The machine gun mows down the rows, but they go, they see nothing, they climb through the corpses, over the wounded, their eyes are terrible, the mothers of the children go ahead, shouting: Mother, Intercessor, save, have mercy, we will all lie down for You. There was no more fear in them.” Steinberg I.Z. The moral face of the revolution. Berlin, 1923, p.62.

Since March 1918, Zlatoust and its environs have been fighting. At the same time, about two-thirds of the Kungur district was engulfed in the fire of the uprising.
By the summer of 1918, the "peasant" regions of the Urals also flared with resistance.
Throughout the Ural region - from Verkhoturye and Novaya Lyalya to Verkhneuralsk and Zlatoust, and from Bashkiria and the Kama region to Tyumen and Kurgan - detachments of peasants smashed the Bolsheviks. The number of rebels was incalculable. Only in the area of ​​Okhansk-Osa there were more than 40 thousand of them. 50 thousand rebels put the Reds to flight in the region of Bakal - Satka - Mesyagutovskaya volost. On July 20, the peasants took Kuzino and cut the Trans-Siberian Railway, blocking Yekaterinburg from the west.

In general, by the end of the summer, vast territories were liberated from the Reds by the rebels. This is almost the entire South and Middle, as well as part of the Western and Northern Urals (where there were no whites yet).
The Urals were also on fire: the peasants of the Glazovsky and Nolinsky districts of the Vyatka province took up arms. In the spring of 1918, the flames of the anti-Soviet uprising engulfed Lauzinskaya, Duvinskaya, Tastubinskaya, Dyurtyulinsky, Kizilbashsky volosts of the Ufa province. In the region of Krasnoufimsk, a battle took place between Yekaterinburg workers, who came to requisition grain, and local peasants, who did not want to give bread. Workers against peasants! Neither one nor the other did not support the Whites, but this did not prevent them from exterminating each other ... On July 13-15 near Nyazepetrovsk and on July 16 near Verkhny Ufaley, the Krasnoufim rebels defeated units of the 3rd Red Army. Suvorov Dm. Unknown civil war, M., 2008.

N. Poletika, historian: "The Ukrainian village waged a brutal struggle against food requisitions and requisitions, ripping open the stomachs of the rural authorities and agents of Zagotzern and Zagotskot, stuffing these stomachs with grain, carving Red Army stars on their foreheads and chests, driving nails into their eyes, crucifying on the crosses."

The uprisings were suppressed in the most brutal and customary way. In six months, 50 million hectares of land were confiscated from the kulaks and distributed among the poor and middle peasants.
As a result, by the end of 1918, the amount of land in the use of the kulaks decreased from 80 million hectares to 30 million hectares.
Thus, the economic and political positions of the kulaks were severely undermined.
The socio-economic face of the countryside has changed: the share of the peasant poor, which in 1917 was 65%, by the end of 1918 decreased to 35%; middle peasants instead of 20% became 60%, and kulaks instead of 15% became 5%.

But a year later, the situation has not changed.
The delegates from Tyumen told Lenin at the party congress: "To carry out the surplus appropriation, they arranged such things: those peasants who did not want to give the apportionment were put in pits, filled with water and frozen ..."

F. Mironov, commander of the Second Cavalry Army (1919, from an appeal to Lenin and Trotsky): “The people are groaning ... I repeat, the people are ready to throw themselves into the arms of the landlord bondage, if only the torment were not so sick, so obvious, as it is now. .."

In March 1919, at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), G.E. Zinoviev briefly described the state of affairs in the countryside and the mood of the peasants: "If you now go to the village, you will see that they hate us with all their might."

A.V. Lunacharsky in May 1919 informed V.I. Lenin on the situation in Kostroma province: “There were no serious disturbances in most counties. There were only purely hungry demands, not even riots, but simply demands for bread, which is not there ... But on the other hand, in the east of the Kostroma province there are forest and grain kulak counties - Vetluzhsky and Varnavinsky, in the latter there is a whole rich, prosperous, Old Believer region, the so-called Urensky ... A uniform war is being waged with this region. We want at all costs to pump out those 200 or 300 thousand poods from there... The peasants resist and become extremely hardened. I saw terrible photographs of our comrades, from whom Varnavin's fists skinned, whom they froze in the forest or burned alive ... ".

As noted in the same 1919 in a report to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the RCP (b), the chairman of the Higher Military Inspectorate N.I. Podvoisky:
"The workers and peasants who took the most direct part in the October Revolution, without understanding its historical significance thought to use it to meet their immediate needs. Maximalist-minded with an anarcho-syndicalist bias, the peasants followed us during the period of the destructive period of the October Revolution, showing no disagreement with its leaders. During the period of the creative period, they naturally had to diverge from our theory and practice.

Indeed, the peasants parted ways with the Bolsheviks: instead of giving them all the bread grown in their labors with respect, they pulled out machine guns and sawn-off shotguns taken from the war from secluded places.

From the minutes of the meetings of the Special Commission for the Supply of the Army and the Population Orenburg province and the Kirghiz Territory on rendering assistance to the proletarian center on September 12, 1919.
Listened. Comrade Martynov's report on the catastrophic food situation of the Center.
Decided. Having heard the report of Comrade Martynov and the contents of the conversation by direct wire with Comrade Blumberg, authorized by the Council of People's Commissars, the Special Commission decides:
1. To mobilize members of the collegium, party and non-party workers of the provincial food committee to send them to the districts in order to increase the bulking of grain and deliver it to the stations.
2. To carry out a similar mobilization among the workers of the Special Commission, the food section of the Kirghiz Revolutionary Committee and use the workers of the political department of the 1st Army to send them to the regions.
3. Urgently instruct the chairmen of the district food committees to take the most exceptional measures to strengthen the bulk [grain], the responsibility of the chairmen and members of the collegiums of the regional food committees.
4. Comrade Gorelkin, head of the department of transport of the Gubernia Food Committee, to order to show maximum energy for the organization of transport.
5. Send to the areas of the following persons: comrade Shchipkova - to the Orskaya railway area. (Saraktash, Orsk), comrade Styvrina - to the Isaevo-Dedovsky, Mikhailovsky and Pokrovsky regional food committees, comrade Andreeva - to Iletsk and Ak-Bulaksky, comrade Golynicheva - to the Krasnokholmsky regional food committee, comrade Kiselev - to Pokrovsky, vol. Chukhrit - to Aktobe, giving him the broadest powers.
6. Send all available bread to the centers immediately.
7. Take all measures to export from Iletsk all the stocks of grain and millet available there, for which purpose send the required number of wagons to Iletsk.
8. Apply to the Revolutionary Military Council with a request to take possible measures to provide the Gubernia Food Committee with transport in this hasty work, for which, if necessary, cancel the underwater outfit of the Revolutionary Military Council for some areas and issue a mandatory decree that the Revolutionary Military Council guarantees timely payment of the carters who brought bread.
9. To propose to osprogenivs 8 and 49 to temporarily serve the needs of the army with the help of their districts so that the remaining districts can be used to supply the centers ...
Genuine with proper signatures
Archive of the KazSSR, f. 14. op. 2, d. 1. l 4. Certified copy.

Trinity-Pechora uprising, anti-Bolshevik rebellion on the upper Pechora during the civil war. The reason for it was the export of grain stocks by the Reds from Troitsko-Pechorsk to Vychegda. The initiator of the uprising was the chairman of the volost cell of the RCP (b), the commandant of Troitsko-Pechorsk I.F. Melnikov. The conspirators included the commander of the Red Army company M.K. Pystin, priest V. Popov, deputy. chairman of the volost executive committee M.P. Pystin, forester N.S. Skorokhodov and others.
The uprising began on February 4, 1919. The rebels killed part of the Red Army, the rest went over to their side. During the uprising, the head of the Soviet garrison in Troitsko-Pechorsk, N.N. Suvorov, red commander A.M. Cheremnykh. District military commissar M.M. Frolov shot himself. The judicial board of the rebels (chairman P.A. Yudin) executed about 150 communists and activists of the Soviet government - refugees from the Cherdyn district.

Then anti-Bolshevik riots broke out in the volost villages of Pokcha, Savinobor and Podcherye. After Kolchak's army entered the upper reaches of the Pechora, these volosts came under the jurisdiction of the Siberian Provisional Government, and the participants in the uprising against Soviet power in Troitsko-Pechorsk entered the Separate Siberian Pechora Regiment, which proved itself in offensive operations in the Urals as one of the most combat-ready units of the Russian army.

Soviet historian M.I. Kubanin, reporting that 25-30% of the total population participated in the uprising against the Bolsheviks in the Tambov province, summed up: "There is no doubt that 25-30 percent of the village population means that the entire adult male population went to Antonov's army." Kubanin M.I. Anti-Soviet peasant movement during the years of the civil war (war communism) .- On the agrarian front, 1926, No. 2, p.42.
M.I. Kubanin also writes about a number of other major uprisings during the years of war communism: about Izhevsk people's army, which had 70,000 people, which managed to hold out for more than three months, about the Don uprising, in which 30,000 armed Cossacks and peasants participated, and with rear forces that had a strength of one hundred thousand people and broke through the red front.

In the summer-autumn of 1919, in the peasant uprising against the Bolsheviks in the Yaroslavl province, according to M.I. Lebedev, chairman of the Yaroslavl provincial Cheka, 25-30 thousand people participated. Regular units of the 6th Army of the Northern Front and detachments of the Cheka, as well as detachments of Yaroslavl workers (8.5 thousand people), were thrown against the "white-greens", ruthlessly cracking down on the rebels. In August 1919 alone, they destroyed 1845 and wounded 832 rebels, shot 485 rebels on the orders of the Revolutionary Military Tribunals, and over 400 people went to prison. Documentation Center for the Modern History of the Yaroslavl Region (TsDNI YAO). F. 4773. Op. 6. D. 44. L. 62-63.

The scope of the insurgent movement in the Don and Kuban reached a special strength by the autumn of 1921, when the Kuban rebel army under the leadership of A.M. Przhevalsky made a desperate attempt to capture Krasnodar.

In 1920-1921. on the territory of Western Siberia, liberated from the Kolchak troops, a bloody 100,000-strong peasant revolt against the Bolsheviks blazed.
“In every village, in every village,” wrote P. Turkhansky, “the peasants began to beat the communists: they killed their wives, children, relatives; they chopped with axes, chopped off their arms and legs, opened their bellies. The food workers were dealt with especially cruelly.” Turkhansky P. Peasant uprising in Western Siberia in 1921. Memories. - Siberian archive, Prague, 1929, No. 2.

The war for bread was not for life, but for death.
Here is an excerpt from the Report of the Administration Department of the Novonikolaevsky Uyezd Executive Committee of Soviets on the Kolyvan Uprising to the Administration Department of Sibrevkom:
“In the rebellious areas, the komacheks are almost completely exterminated. The survivors were random, who managed to escape. Even those expelled from the cell were exterminated. After the suppression of the uprising, the defeated cells were restored on their own, increased their activities, and a large influx into the cells of the poor was noticeable in the villages after the suppression of the uprising. The cells insist on arming them or on creating special-purpose detachments from them under district party committees. There were no cases of cowardice, extradition of cell members by individual members of the cells.
The police in Kolyvan were taken by surprise, 4 policemen and an assistant to the district police chief were killed. The remaining policemen (a small percentage fled) handed over their weapons to the rebels one by one. About 10 policemen from the Kolyvan militia took part in the uprising (passively). Of these, after our occupation of Kolyvan, three were shot by order of a special department of the district check.
The reason for the unsatisfactoriness of the police is due to its composition from the local Kolyvan burghers (there are about 80-100 workers in the city).
The communist executive committees were killed, the kulak took an active part in the uprising, often becoming the head of the insurgent departments.
http://basiliobasilid.livejournal.com/17945.html

The Siberian rebellion was suppressed as ruthlessly as all the others.

“The experience of the civil war and peaceful socialist construction has convincingly proved that the kulaks are the enemies of Soviet power. The complete collectivization of agriculture was a method of liquidating the kulaks as a class. (Essays on the Voronezh organization of the CPSU. M., 1979, p. 276).

The Statistical Directorate of the Red Army determines the combat losses of the Red Army for 1919 at 131,396 people. In 1919, there was a war on 4 internal fronts against the White armies and on the Western Front against Poland and the Baltic states.
In 1921, none of the fronts no longer existed, and the same department estimates the losses of the "workers' and peasants'" Red Army for this year at 171,185 people. Parts of the Cheka of the Red Army were not included and their losses are not included here. Not included, perhaps, are the losses of the ChON, VOKhR and other communist detachments, as well as the militia.
In the same year, peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks flared in the Don and Ukraine, in Chuvashia and in the Stavropol region.

Soviet historian L.M. Spirin summarizes: “We can say with confidence that there was not only not a single province, but not a single county, where there were no protests and uprisings of the population against the communist regime.”

When the civil war was still in full swing, on the initiative of F.E. Dzerzhinsky in Soviet Russia everywhere (on the basis of the decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) of April 17, 1919) special units and troops are being created. These are military-party detachments at factory party cells, district committees, city committees, ukoms and provincial committees of the party, organized to help the organs of Soviet power in the fight against counter-revolution, guard duty at especially important facilities, etc. They were formed from communists and Komsomol members.

The first CHONs arose in Petrograd and Moscow, then in the central provinces of the RSFSR (by September 1919, they had been created in 33 provinces). CHONs of the front line of the Southern, Western and Southwestern fronts took part in front-line operations, although their main task was to fight against internal counter-revolution. The personnel of the CHON was divided into personnel and militia (variable).

On March 24, 1921, the Central Committee of the Party, on the basis of the decision of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b), adopted a resolution on the inclusion of the ChON in the militia units of the Red Army. In September 1921, the command and headquarters of the CHON of the country were established (commander A.K. Aleksandrov, chief of staff V.A. Kangelari), for political leadership - the Council of the CHON under the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (secretary of the Central Committee V.V. Kuibyshev, deputy chairman VChK I.S. Unshlikht, commissar of the headquarters of the Red Army and commander of the CHON), in the provinces and districts - the command and headquarters of the CHON, the Councils of the CHON at the provincial committees and party committees.

They were quite a serious police force. In December 1921, there were 39,673 personnel in the CHON. and variable - 323,372 people. The ChON included infantry, cavalry, artillery and armored units. More than 360 thousand armed fighters!

With whom did they fight if the civil war officially ended in 1920? After all, special-purpose units were disbanded by the decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) only in 1924-1925.
Until the very end of 1922, martial law was maintained in 36 provinces, regions and autonomous republics of the country, that is, almost the entire country was under martial law.

CHON. Regulations, guidelines and circulars. - M .: ShtaCHONresp., 1921; Naida S.F. Parts of special purpose (1917-1925). Party leadership in the creation and activities of the CHON // Military History Journal, 1969. No. 4. pp.106-112; Telnov N.S. From the history of the creation and combat activities of communist special forces during the civil war. // Scientific notes of the Kolomna Pedagogical Institute. - Kolomna, 1961. Volume 6. S. 73-99; Gavrilova N.G. The activities of the Communist Party in the leadership of special forces during the civil war and the restoration of the national economy (based on the materials of the Tula, Ryazan, Ivanovo-Voznesensk provinces). Diss. cand. ist. Sciences. - Ryazan, 1983; Krotov V.L. The activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine in the creation and combat use of special forces (CHON) in the fight against counter-revolution (1919-1924). Dis. cand. ist. Sciences. - Kharkov, 1969; Murashko P.E. The Communist Party of Belarus - the organizer and leader of the communist formations for special purposes (1918-1924) Diss. cand. ist. Sciences - Minsk, 1973; Dementiev I.B. CHON of the Perm province in the fight against the enemies of Soviet power. Diss. cand. ist. Sciences. - Perm, 1972; Abramenko I.A. Creation of communist detachments for special purposes in Western Siberia (1920). // Scientific notes of Tomsk University, 1962. No. 43. S.83-97; Vdovenko G.D. Communist detachments - Parts of the special purpose of Eastern Siberia (1920-1921) .- Diss. cand. ist. Sciences. - Tomsk, 1970; Fomin V.N. Parts of special purpose in the Far East in 1918-1925. - Bryansk, 1994; Dmitriev P. Parts for special purposes. - Soviet Review. No. 2.1980. S.44-45. Krotov V.L. Chonovtsy.- M.: Politizdat, 1974.

The time has come to finally look at the results of the civil war in order to realize: out of more than 11 million dead, more than 10 million are civilians.
We need to admit that it was not just a civil war, but a war against the people, first of all, the peasantry of Russia, which was the main and most dangerous force in resisting the dictatorship of the exterminating power.

Like any war, it was waged in the interests of profit and robbery.

D. Mendeleev, creator periodic system elements, the most famous Russian scientist, was engaged not only in chemistry, but also in demography.
Hardly anyone will deny him a thorough approach to science. In his work To the Knowledge of Russia, Mendeleev predicted in 1905 (based on the data of the All-Russian population census) that by the year 2000 the population of Russia would be 594 million people.

It was in 1905 that the Bolshevik Party actually began the struggle for power. The retribution for their so-called socialism was bitter.
According to Mendeleev’s calculations, on the land that was called Russia for centuries, by the end of the 20th century, we were missing almost 300 million people (before the collapse of the USSR, about 270 million lived in it, and not about 600 million, as the scientist predicted).

B. Isakov, head of the department of statistics at the Plekhanov Moscow Institute of National Economy, states: “Roughly speaking, we are “halved”. Because of the “experiments” of the 20th century, the country lost every second inhabitant... Direct forms of genocide claimed from 80 to 100 million lives.”

Novosibirsk. September 2013

Reviews of “Russia in 1917-1925. Loss arithmetic” (Sergey Shramko)

Very interesting and rich in digital material article. Thanks, Sergey!

Vladimir Eisner 02.10.2013 14:33.

I completely agree with the article, at least on the example of my relatives.
My great-grandmother died young in 1918, when food detachments raked out all her grain, and she ate from hunger somewhere in a rye field. From this, she had a "volvulus of the intestines" and she died in terrible agony.
Further, my grandmother's sister's husband died from persecution already in 1920, when two daughters were babies.
Another grandmother's sister's husband died of typhus in 1921, and two daughters were also babies.
In my father's family, from 1918 to 1925, three little brothers died of starvation.
My mother's two brothers died of starvation, and she herself, born in 1918, barely survived.
The food detachments wanted to shoot my grandmother when she was pregnant with my mother and shouted to them: "Oh, you robbers!"
But grandfather stood up and he was arrested, beaten and released barefoot for 20 kilometers.
Both my mother's and father's parents had to leave with their families from warm houses in the city to remote villages to unadapted houses. Due to hopelessness, contact with the rest of the relatives was lost, and we do not know the whole terrible picture from 1917 to 1925. Sincerely. Valentina Gazova 09/19/2013 09:06.

Reviews

Thank you Sergey for the great and intelligible work. Now, when the Khmer Rouge again begin to wave flags, erecting terrible blocks here and there to the tyrant, murmuring their utopian prayers, powdering the brains of young people, polluting weak souls with heresy, WE must defend our state with the whole world in order to prevent the Middle Ages! Ignorance! - This is a terrible force, especially in the countryside, in the countryside. I see this in my native Siberian places. Those who knew the real horror, and went through it - they are no longer alive. Only the children of the war remained. In my village, where 30 households have been preserved, my aunt was left alone - a child of war. It turns out that one knows the horror of continuous ruin, the destruction of quality human capital, any perspective. And the rest of the youth, completely ignorant! She up to one place that HISTORY! She needs to survive! Drinking too much, ready even tomorrow under the banner of the next proletarians to become; on a new divide, shred, exile and put up against the wall! I lived in Siberia, according to the stories of the old people, I know how a red bloody tornado swept through the land, which did not know serfdom. Grandmother, recalling the time of the depeasantization of a peasant (dispossession of kulaks), collectivization, she always began to cry, pray and whisper: “Oh, Lord, don’t worry, you’ve got a granddaughter, you saw it with your eyes, you lived with it inside” Now the fields are all abandoned, the farms are destroyed, and this the whole consequence of those terrible years when the Stalinists and Leninists forged a new man, burning out in him the feelings of an owner, a master! Here at the exit, in the end, they got completely dead villages. "Vaska take the land! After all, your grandfather went to the lead for it!" - I say to my fellow countryman, who recently turned fifty. And he sits on a bench, already toothless, lets out a cigarette, spits on the grass, in galoshes on his bare feet, and smoky smile "-" And nah ... I Nikolaich she is to me, that land, what will I do with it! A seed was thrown to this terrible fruit in 17. Here is a mighty tree called HOLY RUSSIA and collapsed, tearing out roots, roots, to one of the fertile earth. another demolition, revolutionary bacchanalia ... As they say, do not wake up dashing!

introduction

backstory

Contrary to popular belief, mass emigration from Russia began even before the revolution

Maria Sorokina

historian

“The first major migration flow was labor migration late XIX- the beginning of the XX century. These were primarily national streams - Jews, Poles, Ukrainians and Germans. .... Expand > In fact, until the end of the 19th century, only Jews were allowed to travel freely, all the rest were issued a passport for only 5 years, then it had to be renewed. At the same time, even the most loyal citizens had to ask for permission to leave.

It is believed that during this period Russian empire about two million Jews left. There was also an emigration of ethno-professional groups and sectarians - Old Believers, Mennonites, Molokans, etc. They went mainly to the USA, many to Canada: there are still settlements of Russian Doukhobors, whom Leo Tolstoy helped to leave. Another direction of labor migration is Latin America, up to 200 thousand people left there by 1910.”

Mikhail Denisenko

demographer

“Until 1905, emigration was allowed in relation to Jews, Poles and sectarians, among whom, in addition to the Doukhobors, were the descendants of German colonists who lost their privileges in the second quarter of the 19th century. .... Expand > Cases of proper Russian (which before the revolution included Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians) emigration were relatively rare - it was either political emigration, or sailors who served in the merchant fleet, seasonal workers who left to work in Germany, as well as the already mentioned sectarians.

After 1905, leaving to work was allowed, and a Russian working mass began to form in the USA, Canada, Australia and Latin America. If in 1910, according to the census, there were only 40,000 Russians in the United States, then in the next decade, more than 160,000 people arrived there.

Numerous communities have formed in the states of Pennsylvania and Illinois. True, in American statistics, the Orthodox Ukrainians of Austria-Hungary were also classified as Russians, who settled together with the Russians and went to the same churches with them. Basically, they were engaged in hard physical labor in metallurgical and automobile plants, slaughterhouses and textile factories, in mines. However, there were also nobles and raznochintsy, who for various reasons were forced to leave Russia. For example, a well-known Russian engineer, the inventor of the incandescent lamp, Alexander Lodygin, worked in the USA for a long time. The founder of the city of St. Petersburg in Florida was the Russian nobleman Pyotr Dementiev, who became a well-known businessman in exile. Trotsky and Bukharin found political asylum in the United States.

Formerly illiterate peasants, who constituted the majority in this stream, it was not easy to adapt to the high rates of labor in American industry; they often received industrial injuries, foremen and managers treated them with disdain. After the Bolshevik revolution, many lost their jobs and could not find a new one - employers saw a Bolshevik in every Russian.

Photo: ITAR-TASS
Lenin (second from right) in a group of Russian political emigrants in Stockholm, passing from Switzerland to Russia, 1917

first wave

1917 - late 1920s

It is this wave, caused by the 1917 revolution, that is traditionally called the first, and it is with it that many associate the concept of “Russian emigration”

Marina Sorokina

historian

“Strictly speaking, the stream formed after the two revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War cannot be called “emigration”. People did not choose their fate, in fact they were refugees. .... Expand > This status was officially recognized, under the League of Nations there was a commission for refugees, which was headed by Fridtjof Nansen (this is how the so-called Nansen passports appeared, which were issued to people deprived of a passport and citizenship. - BG).

At first, we went primarily to the Slavic countries - Bulgaria, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Czechoslovakia. A small group of Russian military went to latin america.

The Russian refugees of this wave had a rather strong branched organization. In many settlement countries, Russian scientific institutes arose to help scientists. In addition, a significant number of specialists took advantage of the established connections, left and made a brilliant career. A classic example is Sikorsky and Zworykin in the USA. A less well-known example is Elena Antipova, who went to Brazil in 1929 and actually became the founder of the Brazilian psychological and pedagogical system. And there are many such examples."

Mikhail Denisenko

demographer

“The idea of ​​Americans about Russians as Bolsheviks and Communists was radically changed by the white emigration, shining with the names of S. Rakhmaninov and F. Chaliapin, I. Sikorsky and V. Zvorykin, P. Sorokin and V. Ipatiev. .... Expand > In terms of ethnic composition, it was heterogeneous, but these emigrants identified themselves with Russia and this, first of all, determined their nationality.

The first main flow went to countries located relatively close to Russia (Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland). As the Wrangel army was evacuated major centers became Istanbul, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The White Fleet until 1924 was based in Bizerte (Tunisia). In the future, emigrants moved further to the West, in particular to France. In the years that followed, many moved on to the US, as well as Canada and Latin America. In addition, white emigration went through the Far Eastern borders; large emigrant centers formed in Harbin and Shanghai. From there, many emigrants subsequently moved to America, Europe and Australia.

The number of this flow is estimated differently - from 1 to 3 million people. The most widely accepted estimate is 2 million people, based on Nansen passports issued. But there were also those who did not fall into the sphere of attention of organizations that helped refugees: the Volga Germans fleeing the famine of 1921-1922, Jews who fled from pogroms that resumed during the Civil War, Russians who received citizenship of states that were not part of the USSR. By the way, during the Civil War, the idea of ​​marrying a foreigner and leaving the country became popular - foreign prisoners of war of the First World War (mainly from the former Austria-Hungary) in Russia had more than 2 million people.

In the mid-1920s, the emigration outflow noticeably weakened (the Germans continued to leave), and in the late 1920s the country's borders were closed.

second wave

1945 - early 1950s

The Second World War caused a new wave of emigration from the USSR - some left the country after the retreating German army, others, driven to concentration camps and forced labor, did not always return back

Marina Sorokina

historian

“This wave primarily consists of the so-called displaced persons (DP). These are residents of the Soviet Union and annexed territories who, as a result of World War II, left the Soviet Union for one reason or another. .... Expand > Among them were prisoners of war, collaborators, people who voluntarily decided to leave, or those who simply ended up in another country in a whirlwind of war.

The fate of the population of the occupied and non-occupied territories was decided at the Yalta Conference in 1945; what to do with Soviet citizens, the allies left Stalin to decide, and he sought to return everyone to the USSR. For several years, large groups of DP lived in special camps in the American, British and French zones of occupation; in most cases they were sent back to the USSR. Moreover, the Allies handed over to the Soviet side not only Soviet citizens, but also former Russians who had long had foreign citizenship, emigrants - such as, for example, the Cossacks in Lienz (in 1945, the British occupation forces handed over to the USSR several thousand Cossacks who lived in the vicinity of the city of Lienz. - BG). In the USSR they were repressed.

The bulk of those who avoided returning to the Soviet Union went to the United States and Latin America. A large number of Soviet scientists from the Soviet Union left for the United States - they were helped, in particular, by the famous Tolstovsky Foundation, created by Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya. And many of those whom the international authorities classified as collaborators left for Latin America - because of this, the Soviet Union subsequently had difficult relations with the countries of this region.

Mikhail Denisenko

demographer

“The emigration of the Second World War is very diverse in terms of ethnic composition and other characteristics. Volksdeutsche (Russian Germans), who lived in the territory of the Soviet Union occupied by the Germans, left with the Germans of their own free will. .... Expand > Naturally, those who actively collaborated with the German occupation authorities, primarily policemen and soldiers and officers of military units created by the Nazis, sought to hide. Finally, not all of the Soviet prisoners of war and civilians deported to Germany wanted to return to their homeland - some were afraid of reprisals, others managed to create families. In order to avoid forced repatriation and obtain refugee status, some Soviet citizens changed their documents and surnames, hiding their origin.

Numerical estimates of the emigration wave caused by World War II are very approximate. The most probable is in the interval from 700 thousand to 1 million people. More than half of them were the peoples of the Baltic states, a quarter were Germans, a fifth were Ukrainians, and only 5% were Russians.”

third wave

early 1960s - late 1980s

Few managed to get over the Iron Curtain - Jews and Germans were released first of all, if the political situation was favorable for them. At the same time, dissidents began to be expelled

Marina Sorokina

historian

“This stream is often called Jewish. After the Second World War, with the active assistance of the USSR and Stalin, the State of Israel was created. By this point, Soviet Jews had already survived the terror of the 1930s and the struggle with the cosmopolitans of the late 1940s, so when the opportunity to leave appeared during the thaw, many took it. .... Expand > At the same time, part of the emigrants did not stay in Israel, but went further - mainly to the USA; it was then that the expression "a Jew is a means of transportation" appeared.

These were no longer refugees, but people who really wanted to leave the country: they applied to leave, they were refused, they applied again and again - and finally they were released. This wave became one of the sources of political dissidence - a person was denied the right to choose a country of life, one of the basic human rights. Many sold all the furniture, quit their jobs - and when they refused to let them out, they went on strikes and hunger strikes in empty apartments, attracting the attention of the media, the Israeli embassy, ​​and sympathetic Western journalists.

Jews constituted the overwhelming majority in this stream. It was they who had a diaspora abroad, ready to support new members. The rest were more difficult. Life in exile is bitter bread. From the beginning of the 20th century, they found themselves abroad different people with very different ideas about the future: some sat on their suitcases and waited for their return to Russia, others tried to adapt. Many were completely unexpectedly thrown out of life, someone managed to get a job, someone could not. The princes drove a taxi and starred in extras. Back in the 1930s in France, a significant layer of the Russian emigration elite was literally entangled in the intelligence network of the Soviet NKVD. Despite the fact that by the period described the situation had changed, intra-diaspora relations remained very tense.”

Mikhail Denisenko

demographer

“The Iron Curtain came down with the start of the Cold War. The number of people leaving the USSR during the year was, as a rule, small. So, in 1986, a little more than 2 thousand people left for Germany, about 300 for Israel. .... Expand > But in some years, a change in the foreign policy situation led to a surge - emigration issues often acted as a bargaining chip in various negotiations between the governments of the USSR and the USA or the USSR and Germany. Thanks to this, after the Six-Day War from 1968 to 1974, Israel received almost 100,000 migrants from the Soviet Union. Subsequent restrictions led to a sharp reduction in this flow. For this reason, in the United States, the Jackson-Vanik amendment was adopted in 1974, which was repealed this fall (an amendment to American Law on trade restricted trade with countries that violate the right of their citizens to emigrate, and primarily concerned the USSR. - BG).

If we take into account the small outflow of people to Germany and Israel that existed in the 1950s, it turns out that in total this wave involved more than 500 thousand people. Its ethnic composition was formed not only by Jews and Germans, who were in the majority, but also by representatives of other nations with their own statehood (Greeks, Poles, Finns, Spaniards).

The second, smaller flow consisted of those who fled the Soviet Union during business trips or tours or were forcibly expelled from the country. The third stream was formed by migrants for family reasons - wives and children foreign citizens, they were predominantly destined for third world countries.”

fourth wave

since the late 1980s

After the end of the Cold War, everyone who could one way or another get settled abroad poured out of the country - through repatriation programs, through refugee status, or in some other way. By zero, this wave has noticeably dried up

Mikhail Denisenko

demographer

“What is traditionally called the fourth wave of emigration, I would divide into two separate flows: one - from 1987 to the early 2000s, the second - the 2000s. .... Expand >

The beginning of the first flow is associated with changes in Soviet legislation adopted in 1986–1987, which made it easier for ethnic migrants to travel abroad. From 1987 to 1995, the average annual number of migrants from the territory Russian Federation increased from 10 to 115 thousand people; more than 1.5 million left Russia between 1987 and 2002. This migration flow had a clear geographical component: from 90 to 95% of all migrants went to Germany, Israel and the USA. This direction was set by the presence of generous repatriation programs in the first two countries and programs for the reception of refugees and scientists from the former USSR in the latter.

Since the mid-1990s, in Europe and the United States, the policy regarding emigration from the former USSR began to change. Opportunities for emigrants to obtain refugee status have been sharply reduced. In Germany, the program for the admission of ethnic Germans began to be curtailed (by the beginning of the 2000s, the quota for their admission was reduced to 100 thousand people); the requirements for repatriates in terms of the level of knowledge of the German language have noticeably increased. In addition, the potential for ethnic emigration has been exhausted. As a result, the outflow of the population for permanent residence abroad has decreased.

In the 2000s, a new stage in the history of Russian emigration began. Currently, this is normal economic emigration, which is subject to global economic trends and is regulated by the laws of those countries that receive migrants. The political component no longer plays a special role. Russian citizens seeking to emigrate to developed countries have no advantages over potential migrants from other countries. They have to prove their professional competence to the immigration services of foreign states, demonstrate knowledge foreign languages and integration opportunities.

Largely due to tough selection and competition, the Russian immigrant community is becoming younger. Emigrants from Russia living in Europe and North America are distinguished by a high level of education. Women predominate among emigrants, which is explained by the higher frequency of marriage with foreigners compared to men.

In total, the number of emigrants from Russia from 2003 to 2010 exceeded 500 thousand people. At the same time, the geography of Russian emigration has noticeably expanded. Against the backdrop of declining flows to Israel and Germany, the importance of Canada, Spain, France, Great Britain and some other countries has increased. It should be noted that the process of globalization and new communication technologies have significantly increased the variety of forms of migration movements, due to which “emigration forever” has become a very conditional concept.”

Marina Sorokina

historian

“The 20th century was exceptionally active in terms of migrations. Now the situation has changed. Take Europe - it no longer has national borders. .... Expand > If earlier cosmopolitanism was the lot of singles, now it is an absolutely natural psychological and civil state of a person. We can not say that in the late 1980s - early 1990s. a new wave of emigration began in Russia, but that the country entered a new open world. This has nothing to do with the flows of Russian emigration that we spoke about above.”

photo story

pearl by the sea

In the 70s, Russian emigrants began to actively settle in the New York area of ​​Brighton Beach.
He became the main symbol of the third wave of emigration, a time machine that is still able to transfer anyone who wishes to an imaginary Odessa of the Brezhnev times. Brighton "pounds" and "slash", concerts by Mikhail Zadornov and pensioners walking along the "boardwalk" - all this, obviously, is not long, and the old-timers complain that Brighton is not the same anymore. Photographer Mikhail Fridman (Salt Images) observed the modern life of Brighton Beach

One of the most complex and intractable problems in Russian history was, is and remains emigration. Despite its apparent simplicity and regularity as a social phenomenon (after all, every person is given the right to freely choose their place of residence), emigration often becomes a hostage to certain processes of a political, economic, spiritual or other nature, while losing its simplicity and independence. Revolution of 1917, followed by civil war and reconstruction of the system Russian society not only stimulated the process of Russian emigration, but also left their indelible imprint on it, giving it a politicized character. Thus, for the first time in history, the concept of “white emigration” appeared, which had a clearly defined ideological orientation. At the same time, the fact was ignored that of the 4.5 million Russians who voluntarily or involuntarily found themselves abroad, only about 150 thousand were involved in so-called anti-Soviet activities. But the stigma attached at that time to the emigrants - "enemies of the people", remained common to all of them for many years to come. The same can be said about the 1.5 million Russians (not counting citizens of other nationalities) who found themselves abroad during the Great Patriotic War. There were, of course, among them accomplices of the fascist invaders, and deserters who fled abroad, fleeing from just retribution, and other kinds of renegades, but the basis was still made up of people who languished in German concentration camps and were taken to Germany as free labor force. But the word - "traitors" - was the same for all of them.
After the revolution of 1917, the constant interference of the party in the affairs of art, the ban on freedom of speech and the press, and the persecution of the old intelligentsia led to a mass emigration of representatives, primarily of the Russian emigration. This was most clearly seen in the example of a culture that was divided into three camps. The first consisted of those who turned out to accept the revolution and went abroad. The second consisted of those who accepted socialism, glorified the revolution, thus acting as the "singers" of the new government. The third included those who hesitated: they either emigrated or returned to their homeland, convinced that a true artist cannot create in isolation from his people. Their fate was different: some were able to adapt and survive in the conditions of Soviet power; others, like A. Kuprin, who lived in exile from 1919 to 1937, returned to die a natural death in their homeland; still others committed suicide; finally, the fourth were repressed.

Cultural figures who formed the core of the so-called first wave of emigration ended up in the first camp. The first wave of Russian emigration is the most massive and significant in terms of its contribution to the world culture of the 20th century. In 1918-1922, more than 2.5 million people left Russia - people from all classes and estates: tribal nobility, state and other service people, petty and big bourgeoisie, clergy, intelligentsia - representatives of all art schools and trends (symbolists and acmeists , cubists and futurists). Artists who emigrated in the first wave of emigration are usually referred to as Russian abroad. Russian Abroad- this is a literary, artistic, philosophical and cultural trend in Russian culture of the 20-40s, developed by emigrants in European countries and directed against official Soviet art, ideology and politics.
Many historians have considered the problems of Russian emigration to one degree or another. However, the largest number of studies appeared only in last years after the collapse of the totalitarian regime in the USSR, when there was a change in the very view of the causes and role of Russian emigration.
Especially many books and albums began to appear on the history of Russian emigration, in which photographic material either constitutes the main content, or is an important addition to the text. Of particular note is the brilliant work of Alexander Vasiliev "Beauty in Exile", dedicated to the art and fashion of the Russian emigration of the first wave and numbering more than 800 (!) Photos, the vast majority of which are unique archival material. However, for all the value of the listed publications, it should be recognized that their illustrative part reveals only one or two aspects of the life and work of the Russian emigration. And a special place in this series is occupied by the luxurious album “Russian emigration in photographs. France, 1917-1947". This is essentially the first attempt, moreover, undoubtedly successful, to compile a visible chronicle of the life of the Russian emigration. 240 photographs, arranged in chronological and thematic order, cover almost all areas of the cultural and social life of Russians in France in the period between the two world wars. The most important of these areas, in our opinion, are the following: the Volunteer Army in Exile, children's and youth organizations, charitable activities, the Russian Church and the RSHD, writers, artists, Russian ballet, theater and cinema.
At the same time, it should be noted that there is a rather small number of scientific and historical studies devoted to the problems of Russian emigration. In this regard, it is impossible not to single out the work "The Fate of Russian Immigrants of the Second Wave in America". In addition, it should be noted the work of Russian immigrants themselves, mainly of the first wave, who considered these processes. Of particular interest in this regard is the work of Professor G.N. Pio-Ulsky (1938) "Russian emigration and its significance in the cultural life of other peoples".

1. REASONS AND FATE OF EMIGRATION AFTER THE 1917 REVOLUTION

Many prominent representatives of the Russian intelligentsia met the proletarian revolution in the full bloom of their creative powers. Some of them very soon realized that under the new conditions, Russian cultural traditions would either be trampled underfoot or brought under the control of the new government. Valued above all the freedom of creativity, they chose the lot of emigrants.
In the Czech Republic, Germany, France, they took jobs as drivers, waiters, dishwashers, musicians in small restaurants, continuing to consider themselves bearers of the great Russian culture. Gradually, the specialization of the cultural centers of the Russian emigration emerged; Berlin was a publishing center, Prague - scientific, Paris - literary.
It should be noted that the paths of Russian emigration were different. Some did not immediately accept Soviet power and went abroad. Others were or were forcibly deported.
The old intelligentsia, which did not accept the ideology of Bolshevism, but did not take an active part in political activities, fell under the harsh pressure of the punitive authorities. In 1921, over 200 people were arrested in connection with the case of the so-called Petrograd organization, which was preparing a "coup". A group of well-known scientists and cultural figures was announced as its active participants. 61 people were shot, among them the scientist-chemist M. M. Tikhvinsky, the poet N. Gumilyov.

In 1922, at the direction of V. Lenin, preparations began for the expulsion abroad of representatives of the old Russian intelligentsia. In the summer, up to 200 people were arrested in the cities of Russia. - economists, mathematicians, philosophers, historians, etc. Among those arrested were stars of the first magnitude not only in domestic, but also in world science - philosophers N. Berdyaev, S. Frank, N. Lossky and others; rectors of Moscow and St. Petersburg universities: zoologist M. Novikov, philosopher L. Karsavin, mathematician V. V. Stratonov, sociologist P. Sorokin, historians A. Kizevetter, A. Bogolepov and others. The decision to expel was made without trial.

Russians ended up abroad not because they dreamed of wealth and fame. They are abroad because their ancestors, grandparents could not agree with the experiment that was carried out on the Russian people, the persecution of everything Russian and the destruction of the Church. We must not forget that in the first days of the revolution the word "Russia" was banned and a new "international" society was being built.
So the emigrants were always against the authorities in their homeland, but they always passionately loved their homeland and fatherland and dreamed of returning there. They kept the Russian flag and the truth about Russia. Truly Russian literature, poetry, philosophy and faith continued to live in Foreign Rus'. The main goal was for everyone to “bring a candle to the homeland”, to preserve Russian culture and the unspoiled Russian Orthodox faith for the future free Russia.
Russians abroad believe that Russia is approximately the territory that was called Russia before the revolution. Before the revolution, Russians were divided by dialect into Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians. They all considered themselves Russians. Not only they, but other nationalities also considered themselves Russians. For example, a Tatar would say: I am a Tatar, but I am a Russian. There are many such cases among the emigration to this day, and they all consider themselves Russians. In addition, Serbian, German, Swedish and other non-Russian surnames are often found among the emigration. These are all the descendants of foreigners who came to Russia, became Russified and consider themselves Russians. They all love Russia, Russians, Russian culture and the Orthodox faith.
Emigrant life is basically pre-revolutionary Russian Orthodox life. Emigration does not celebrate November 7th, but arranges mourning meetings "Days of Intransigence" and serves memorial services for the repose of millions dead people. May 1st and March 8th are unknown to anyone. They have a holiday of holidays Easter, the Bright Resurrection of Christ. In addition to Easter, Christmas, Ascension, Trinity are celebrated and fasting is observed. For children, a Christmas Tree is arranged with Santa Claus and gifts, and in no case a New Year Tree. Congratulations on the "Resurrection of Christ" (Easter) and on the "Christmas and New Year", and not just on the "New Year". Before Lent, a carnival is arranged and pancakes are eaten. Easter cakes are baked and cheese Easter is prepared. Angel Day is celebrated, but almost no birthday. New Year considered a non-Russian holiday. They have icons everywhere in their houses, they bless their houses and the priest goes to Baptism with holy water and blesses the houses, they also often carry a miraculous icon. They are good family men, have few divorces, good workers, their children study well, and morality is high. In many families, a prayer is sung before and after meals.
As a result of emigration, about 500 prominent scientists ended up abroad, who headed departments and entire scientific areas (S. N. Vinogradsky, V. K. Agafonov, K. N. Davydov, P. A. Sorokin, and others). The list of figures of literature and art who left is impressive (F. I. Chaliapin, S. V. Rakhmaninov, K. A. Korovin, Yu. P. Annenkov, I. A. Bunin, etc.). Such a brain drain could not but lead to a serious decrease in the spiritual potential of the national culture. In the literary abroad, experts distinguish two groups of writers - formed as creative personalities before emigration, in Russia, and gained fame already abroad. The first includes the most prominent Russian writers and poets L. Andreev, K. Balmont, I. Bunin, Z. Gippius, B. Zaitsev, A. Kuprin, D. Merezhkovsky, A. Remizov, I. Shmelev, V. Khodasevich, M. Tsvetaeva, Sasha Cherny. The second group consisted of writers who published nothing or almost nothing in Russia, but fully matured only outside its borders. These are V. Nabokov, V. Varshavsky, G. Gazdanov, A. Ginger, B. Poplavsky. The most prominent among them was V. V. Nabokov. Not only writers, but also outstanding Russian philosophers ended up in exile; N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov, S. Frank, A. Izgoev, P. Struve, N. Lossky and others.
During 1921-1952. more than 170 periodicals in Russian were published abroad, mainly on history, law, philosophy and culture.
The most productive and popular thinker in Europe was N. A. Berdyaev (1874-1948), who had a huge impact on the development of European philosophy. In Berlin, Berdyaev organized the Religious and Philosophical Academy, participates in the creation of the Russian Scientific Institute, and contributes to the formation of the Russian Student Christian Movement (RSHD). In 1924 he moved to France, where he became the editor of the journal Put (1925-1940) founded by him, the most important philosophical body of the Russian emigration. Widespread European fame allowed Berdyaev to fulfill a very specific role - to serve as an intermediary between Russian and Western cultures. He meets leading Western thinkers (M. Scheler, Keyserling, J. Maritain, G. O. Marcel, L. Lavelle, etc.), arranges interfaith meetings of Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox (1926-1928), regular interviews with Catholic philosophers (30s), participates in philosophical meetings and congresses. Through his books, the Western intelligentsia became acquainted with Russian Marxism and Russian culture.

But, probably, one of the most prominent representatives of the Russian emigration was Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968), who is known to many as a prominent sociologist. But he is also speaking (albeit for a short time) as a political figure. Feasible participation in the revolutionary movement led him after the overthrow of the autocracy to the post of secretary of the head of the Provisional Government A.F. Kerensky. This happened in June 1917, and by October P.A. Sorokin was already a prominent member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
He met the Bolsheviks' coming to power almost with despair. P. Sorokin responded to the October events with a number of articles in the newspaper "Will of the People", the editor of which he was, and he was not afraid to sign them with his name. In these articles, written largely under the influence of rumors about the atrocities committed during the storming of the Winter Palace, the new rulers of Russia were characterized as murderers, rapists and robbers. However, Sorokin, like other socialist revolutionaries, does not lose hope that the power of the Bolsheviks is not for long. Already a few days after October, he noted in his diary that "the working people are in the first stage of 'sobering up', the Bolshevik paradise is beginning to fade." And the events that happened to him himself seemed to confirm this conclusion: the workers several times saved him from arrest. All this gave hope that power could soon be taken away from the Bolsheviks with the help of the Constituent Assembly.
However, this did not happen. One of the lectures "On the current moment" was read by P.A. Sorokin in the city of Yarensk on June 13, 1918. First of all, Sorokin announced to the audience that, “according to his deep conviction, with a careful study of the psychology and spiritual growth of his people, it was clear to him that nothing good would happen if the Bolsheviks came to power ... our people have not yet passed that stage in the development of the human spirit. the stage of patriotism, consciousness of the unity of the nation and the might of one's people, without which it is impossible to enter the doors of socialism. However, "by the inexorable course of history - this suffering ... became inevitable." Now, - continued Sorokin, - "we see and feel for ourselves that the tempting slogans of the October 25 revolution have not only not been implemented, but have been completely trampled on, and we have even lost those politically"; freedoms and conquests that they owned before. The promised socialization of the land is not carried out, the state is torn to shreds, the Bolsheviks "entered into relations with the German bourgeoisie, which is robbing an already poor country."
P.A. Sorokin predicted that the continuation of such a policy would lead to civil war: “The promised bread is not only not given, but by the last decree must be taken by force by armed workers from a half-starved peasant. The workers know that by such a loot of grain they will finally separate the peasants from the workers and start a war between two working classes one against the other. Somewhat earlier, Sorokin emotionally noted in his diary: “The seventeenth year gave us the Revolution, but what did it bring to my country, except for destruction and shame. The revealed face of the revolution is the face of a beast, a vicious and sinful prostitute, and not the pure face of a goddess, which was painted by historians of other revolutions.

However, despite the disappointment that at that moment seized many political figures who were waiting and approaching the seventeenth year in Russia. Pitirim Alexandrovich believed that the situation was not at all hopeless, because "we have reached a state that cannot be worse, and we must think that it will be better further." He tried to reinforce this shaky basis of his optimism with hopes for the help of Russia's allies in the Entente.
Activity P.A. Sorokin did not go unnoticed. When the power of the Bolsheviks in the north of Russia was consolidated, Sorokin at the end of June 1918 decided to join N.V. Tchaikovsky, the future head of the White Guard government in Arkhangelsk. But, before reaching Arkhangelsk, Pitirim Alexandrovich returned to Veliky Ustyug to prepare the overthrow of the local Bolshevik government there. However, the anti-communist groups in Veliky Ustyug were not strong enough for this action. And Sorokin and his comrades got into a difficult situation - the Chekists followed him on the heels and was arrested. In prison, Sorokin wrote a letter to the Severo-Dvinsk provincial executive committee, where he announced his resignation from his deputy powers, leaving the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and his intention to devote himself to work in the field of science and public education. In December 1918 P.A. Sorokin was released from prison, and he never returned to active political life. In December 1918, he again set about pedagogical activity in Petrograd, in September 1922 he left for Berlin, and a year later he moved to the USA and never returned to Russia.

2. IDEOLOGICAL THOUGHT OF THE "RUSSIAN ABROAD"

The First World War and the revolution in Russia immediately found a deep reflection in cultural thought. The brightest and at the same time optimistic understanding of the new era that has come historical development culture became the ideas of the so-called "Eurasians". The largest figures among them were: the philosopher and theologian G.V. Florovsky, the historian G.V. Vernadsky, linguist and culturologist N. S. Trubetskoy, geographer and political scientist P.N. Savitsky, publicist V.P. Suvchinsky, lawyer and philosopher L.P. Karsavin. The Eurasianists had the courage to tell their compatriots expelled from Russia that the revolution was not absurd, not the end of Russian history, but a new page full of tragedy. The answer to such words was accusations of complicity with the Bolsheviks and even in cooperation with the OGPU.

However, we are dealing with an ideological movement that was in connection with Slavophilism, pochvenism, and especially with the Pushkin tradition in Russian social thought, represented by the names of Gogol, Tyutchev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Leontiev, with an ideological movement that was preparing a new, updated view of Russia, its history and culture. First of all, the formula “East-West-Russia” worked out in the philosophy of history was rethought. Based on the fact that Eurasia is that geographical area endowed with natural boundaries, which in a spontaneous historical process it was destined, ultimately, to master the Russian people - the heir of the Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, Avars, Khazars, Kama Bulgarians and Mongols. G. V. Vernadsky said that the history of the spread of the Russian state is to a large extent the history of the adaptation of the Russian people to their place of development - Eurasia, as well as the adaptation of the entire space of Eurasia to the economic and historical needs of the Russian people.
Departing from the Eurasian movement, GV Florovsky argued that the fate of Eurasianism was a history of spiritual failure. This path leads nowhere. We need to return to the starting point. The will and taste for the revolution that has taken place, love and faith in the elements, in the organic laws of natural growth, the idea of ​​​​history as a powerful forceful process close before the Eurasians the fact that history is creativity and a feat, and it is necessary to accept what happened and what happened only as a sign and judgment. God's, as a formidable call to human freedom.

The theme of freedom is the main one in the work of N. A. Berdyaev, the most famous representative of Russian philosophical and cultural thought in the West. If liberalism is in the very general definition- is the ideology of freedom, then it can be argued that the work and worldview of this Russian thinker, at least in his "Philosophy of Freedom" (1911), clearly acquires a Christian-liberal coloring. From Marxism (with the enthusiasm with which he began his creative way) in his worldview, the faith in progress was preserved and the Eurocentric orientation was not overcome. There is also a powerful Hegelian layer in his cultural constructions.
If, according to Hegel, the movement world history carried out by the forces of individual peoples, affirming in their spiritual culture (in principle and idea) various aspects or moments of the world spirit in absolute ideas, then Berdyaev, criticizing the concept of "international civilization", believed that there is only one historical path to achieving the highest inhumanity, to the unity of mankind - the path of national growth and development, national creativity. All-humanity does not exist by itself, it is revealed only in the images of individual nationalities. At the same time, the nationality, the culture of the people is conceived not as a "mechanical formless mass", but as a holistic spiritual "organism". The political aspect of the cultural and historical life of peoples is revealed by Berdyaev with the formula "one - many - all", in which the Hegelian despotism, republic and monarchy are replaced by autocratic, liberal and socialist states. From Chicherin, Berdyaev borrowed the idea of ​​"organic" and "critical" epochs in the development of culture.
The “intelligible image” of Russia, which Berdyaev strove for in his historical and cultural reflection, received a complete expression in The Russian Idea (1946). The Russian people are characterized in it as "a highly polarized people", as a combination of opposites of statehood and anarchy, despotism and liberty, cruelty and kindness, the search for God and militant atheism. The inconsistency and complexity of the “Russian soul” (and the Russian culture that grows out of it) Berdyaev explains by the fact that in Russia two streams of world history collide and come into interaction - East and West. The Russian people are not purely European, but they are not an Asian people either. Russian culture connects two worlds. It is "the vast East-West". Due to the struggle between the Western and Eastern principles, the Russian cultural-historical process reveals a moment of discontinuity and even catastrophicity. Russian culture has already left behind five independent periods-images (Kiev, Tatar, Moscow, Petrine and Soviet) and, perhaps, the thinker believed, “there will be a new Russia.”
G. P. Fedotov's work "Russia and Freedom", created simultaneously with Berdyaev's "Russian Idea", discusses the question of the fate of freedom in Russia, posed in a cultural context. The answer to it can be obtained, according to the author, only after understanding whether "Russia belongs to the circle of peoples of Western culture" or to the East (and if to the East, then in what sense)? Thinker believing that Russia knew the East in two guises: "nasty" (pagan) and Orthodox (Christian). At the same time, Russian culture was created on the periphery of two cultural worlds: East and West. Relations with them in the thousand-year cultural and historical tradition of Russia took four main forms.

Kievan Russia freely perceived the cultural influences of Byzantium, the West and the East. Time Mongolian yoke- a time of artificial isolation of Russian culture, a time of painful choice between the West (Lithuania) and the East (Horde). Russian culture in the era of the Muscovite kingdom was essentially connected with social and political relations of the eastern type (although since the 17th century, a clear rapprochement between Russia and the West has been noticeable). New era comes into its own in the historical period from Peter I to the revolution. It represents the triumph of Western civilization on Russian soil. However, the antagonism between the nobility and the people, the gap between them in the field of culture, Fedotov believes, predetermined the failure of Europeanization and the liberation movement. Already in the 60s. In the 19th century, when a decisive step was taken in the social and spiritual emancipation of Russia, the most energetic part of the Westernizing, liberation movement went along the “anti-liberal channel”. As a result, the entire latest social and cultural development of Russia appeared as a "dangerous race for speed": what will forestall Europeanization of liberation or the Moscow revolt, which will flood and wash away the young freedom with a wave of popular anger? The answer is known.
By the middle of the XX century. Russian philosophical classics, developed in the context of disputes between Westerners and Slavophiles and under the influence of the creative impulse of Vl. Solovyov, came to its end. I. A. Ilyin occupies a special place in the last segment of classical Russian thought. Despite the huge and deep spiritual heritage, Ilyin is the least known and least studied thinker of the Russian diaspora. In the respect that interests us, his metaphysical and historical interpretation of the Russian idea is most significant.
Ilyin believed that no nation had such a burden and such a task as the Russian people. Russian task, which has found a comprehensive expression in life and thought, in history and culture, is defined by the thinker as follows: the Russian idea is the idea of ​​the heart. The idea of ​​a contemplative heart. A heart that contemplates freely in an objective way to transmitting its vision to the will for action and thought for awareness and words. The general meaning of this idea lies in the fact that Russia has historically taken over from Christianity. Namely: in the belief that "God is love." At the same time, Russian spiritual culture is the product of both the primary forces of the people (heart, contemplation, freedom, conscience), and secondary forces grown on their basis, expressing will, thought, form and organization in culture and in public life. In the religious, artistic, scientific and legal spheres, Ilyin discovers the Russian heart that freely and objectively contemplates, i.e. Russian idea.
Ilyin's general view of the Russian cultural and historical process was determined by his understanding of the Russian idea as the idea of ​​Orthodox Christianity. The Russian People, as a subject of historical life activity, appears in its descriptions (concerning both the initial, prehistoric era and the processes of state building) in a characterization quite close to the Slavophile one. He lives in the conditions of tribal and communal life (with a veche system in the power of princes). He is the bearer of both centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, in his activity a creative, but also destructive principle is manifested. At all stages of cultural and historical development, Ilyin is interested in the maturation and assertion of the monarchical principle of power. The post-Petrine era is highly valued, which gave a new synthesis of Orthodoxy and secular civilization, a strong supra-estate power and great reforms of the 60s. nineteenth century Despite the establishment of the Soviet system, Ilyin believed in the revival of Russia.

The emigration of more than a million former subjects of Russia was experienced and understood in different ways. Perhaps the most common point of view by the end of the 1920s was the belief in the special mission of the Russian diaspora, designed to preserve and develop all the life-giving principles of historical Russia.
The first wave of Russian emigration, having experienced its peak at the turn of the 20s and 30s, came to naught in the 40s. Its representatives proved that Russian culture can exist outside of Russia. The Russian emigration accomplished a real feat - it preserved and enriched the traditions of Russian culture in extremely difficult conditions.
The era of perestroika and reorganization of Russian society that began in the late 1980s opened a new path in solving the problem of Russian emigration. For the first time in history, Russian citizens were granted the right to freely travel abroad through various channels. Previous estimates of Russian emigration were also revised. At the same time, along with positive moments in this direction, some new problems in emigration have also appeared.
Predicting the future of Russian emigration, one can state with sufficient certainty that this process will go on and on, acquiring ever new features and forms. For example, in the near future, a new “mass emigration” may appear, that is, the departure of entire groups of the population or even peoples abroad (like “Jewish emigration”). The possibility of “reverse emigration” is also not ruled out - the return to Russia of persons who had previously left the USSR and did not find themselves in the West. It is possible that the problem with “near emigration” will worsen, for which it is also necessary to prepare in advance.
And finally, most importantly, it must be remembered that 15 million Russians abroad are our compatriots who share the same Fatherland with us - Russia!

The formation of the Russian Diaspora, a unique phenomenon in the history of modern Europe, began after the revolution of 1917 and the civil war, which split the population of Russia into two irreconcilable camps. In Soviet Russia, the fact of the existence of a stable Russian diaspora abroad was recognized later, after the publication of the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of December 15, 1921, on the deprivation of civil rights to certain categories of the population. According to the decree, citizenship rights were lost to persons who were abroad continuously for more than five years and did not receive a passport from the Soviet government before July 1, 1922, persons who left Russia after November 7, 1917 without the permission of the Soviet authorities; faces; voluntarily serving in the White Army or participating in counter-revolutionary organizations. The decree (Article 2) provided for the possibility of returning to their homeland, subject to the recognition of Soviet power.

Post-October emigration was caused by a whole range of reasons due to the Russian events of 1917-1922. Based on motivation, three main categories of emigrants can be distinguished. These are political emigrants (representatives of the upper strata of society, the big bourgeoisie, landlords, heads of the central and local administration), who, as a result of the October Revolution, were deprived of their former social status and property. Ideological disagreements and conflicts with the Soviet authorities forced them to leave the country literally in the first post-revolutionary years. The second group includes officers and soldiers who fought in the civil war against the Bolsheviks and the Red Army. The third group consisted of citizens who left the country for economic reasons. In fact, these were refugees who were forced by war, ruin, terror to seek shelter in foreign lands. This category can include small proprietors (Cossacks, peasants), the bulk of urban residents, and the non-politicized part of the intelligentsia. Obviously, many of them would have remained in Russia if the revolution had developed according to a different scenario.

Complicated and tragic is the emigration of civilians. Many of them hesitated until the last moment, because it was not easy to change the fatherland for a foreign land, the usual way of life for the unknown. For many Russians, brought up in the highest notions of honor and dignity, the very idea of ​​fleeing from their own homeland seemed humiliating. These sentiments, especially widespread among the intelligentsia, were described in detail by A.V. Peshekhonov, exiled from Soviet Russia in 1922, in his pamphlet Why I Didn't Emigrate. Few people imagined what life would be like in the new Russia, many were very far from politics, did not sympathize with either the whites or the reds, even staunch opponents of the Bolsheviks considered it possible for themselves to stay in their homeland.

The artist M. V. Nesterov has a painting "Philosophers". It depicts two thinkers - Sergei Bulgakov and Pavel Florensky. They walk along the shore of the lake and talk peacefully. Fate decreed that S. Bulgakov ended up in exile, and P. Florensky, deciding to stay in Russia, went through all the circles of hell: 1919-20s - persecution and persecution, 1928 - exile to Nizhny Novgorod, February 1933 - arrest and the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp, 1937 - second conviction and August 8, 1937 - camp death.

Gradually, three main directions of emigration were formed: northwestern, southern and Far Eastern. On the first route, emigrants through Poland and the Baltic states were sent to the countries of Central Europe (Germany, Belgium, France). Through this channel, immediately after the fall of the monarchy, members of the royal family, higher officials and nobility. In early 1919, well-known politicians P. B. Struve, A. V. Kartashov, S. G. Lianozov, N. A. Suvorov and others emigrated from Petrograd to Finland. After the defeat in October 1919, a hasty evacuation to Estonia and Finland of Yudenich's army began, in February 1920 - General Miller. As a result, in northwest direction up to 200 thousand people fled from Russia, the vast majority of whom later ended up in the countries of Western Europe.

The southern route through Turkey was formed as a result of the "Crimean evacuation". By October 1920, there were more than 50 thousand civilians and military persons in the Crimea, by November 1920, after the defeat of Wrangel's army, their number reached 200 thousand people. However, Turkey turned out to be only a temporary stop for the majority of emigrants. By the mid-20s. the number of Russians in this country did not exceed 3 thousand people. After the collapse of the Russian army in exile, many servicemen moved to Bulgaria, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. The refugees hoped that in the Slavic countries, traditionally associated with Russia, they would be able to wait out the hard times and then return to Russia. The idea of ​​a quick return to their homeland, which owned the vast majority of emigrants in the first years of exile, determined the originality of their life even in those countries where integration and assimilation could have been relatively easy, as, for example, in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, (Kingdom of the SHS) .

One of the largest was the Far Eastern direction, which was distinguished by the originality of its political and legal situation. The peculiarity of the situation was that, according to the Russian-Chinese agreements, the territory of the CER was considered the Russian right-of-way. Russian citizenship was preserved here, the Russian administration, the court, educational establishments, banks. The revolution of 1917 and the civil war changed the status of the local population. Unexpectedly for themselves, Russian subjects who settled in Manchuria found themselves in the category of emigrants. A stream of defeated White Guard units and refugees also poured in here. In the early 1920s, the number of emigrants in China reached its peak and amounted to a quarter of a million people. The Russian emigrant environment was replenished to a large extent at the expense of the military and the Cossacks.

Of particular difficulty in studying the history of the first wave of emigration is the question of the number of emigrants. Many researchers, representatives of international and charitable organizations have tried to establish the number of Russian refugees. As a result, some initial data have emerged that, complementing each other, give a rough idea of ​​the magnitude of this unique outcome. Today, two sources of information can be distinguished: Soviet historiography and foreign statistics. Researchers from the former USSR provided data on the number of emigrants based on Lenin's calculations. For the first time, the number of "enemies of the Bolshevik government" who found themselves outside Soviet Russia was determined by V. I. Lenin at the All-Russian Congress of Transport Workers on March 27, 1921. It was about 700 thousand people. Three months later, in a report on the tactics of the RCP (b), read on July 5, 1921, at the Third Congress of the Comintern, Lenin named a figure of one and a half to two million people. The basis for such conclusions was the intelligence of the Red Army, which stated that the total number of Russian emigrants in the early 1920s. reached 2 million 92 thousand people. Subsequently, this information was included in all Soviet reference and encyclopedic publications.

According to the results of calculations by international organizations, a rather wide range of figures has been revealed, none of which is generally accepted. So, according to the American Red Cross - 1963500 people on November 1, 1920; from the report of the High Commissioner of the League of Nations for Refugees F. Nansen - 1.5 million people in March 1922 and 1.6 million people in March 1926. According to the historian from the USA M. Raev, by 1930 in countries of the world there were 829 thousand Russian refugees, and according to the German historian G. von Rimsha, the number of emigrants from Russia in 1921 was 2935000 people. The Russian emigrants themselves called the figure of 1 million people.

More comparable were the calculations carried out by a number of international organizations (the commission of the League of Nations, the Russian Press Bureau in Constantinople, the Russian Committee in Belgrade, etc.), which concluded that the number of Russian emigrants in European countries in the early 20s ranged from 744,000 up to 1215500 people.

It should be recognized that there is no more complete and accurate information about the size of the first wave of emigration. An avalanche-like flow of refugees from Russia, their forced migration from one country to another, administrative chaos in post-war Europe made almost impossible any account.

The analysis of the national, socio-professional composition and general educational level of emigration is also rather approximate. Based on a few sources, for example, "questionnaires" filled out by refugees in the Bulgarian port of Varna in 1919-1922, one can get a general idea of ​​the bulk of the first wave of emigrants. So, by nationality, the majority were Russians - 95.2%, of the rest, Jews predominated. Among the emigrants, men were 73.3%, children - 10.9%, people over 55 years old - 3.8%; 20-40-year-old refugees were the majority - 64.8%. According to M. Raev, "in the Russian Diaspora there was much more high level about two-thirds of adult emigrants had a secondary education, almost all of them had a primary education, one in seven had a university degree. Among them were qualified specialists, representatives of science and the intelligentsia, and the wealthy sections of the urban population. According to one of the emigrants, Baron B. Nolde, in 1917 the "flower of the nation" left Russia, people who held key positions in the economic, socio-political, cultural life of the country.

Russian post-October emigration is a complex and controversial phenomenon. It represented various social and national groups, political currents and organizations, a wide range of social activity and positions in relation to Soviet Russia. But it would be an oversimplification to bring all emigration to some single negative denominator. Most of the emigration was against the Bolshevik government, but not always - against Russia.



1. The first wave.
2. Second wave.
3. The third wave.
4. The fate of Shmelev.

The poet has no biography, he has only destiny. And his fate is the fate of his homeland.
A. A. Blok

The literature of the Russian diaspora is the literature of Russian emigrants who, by the will of fate, did not have the opportunity to create in their homeland. As a phenomenon, the literature of the Russian diaspora arose after the October Revolution. Three periods - waves of Russian emigration - were stages of expulsion or flight of writers abroad.

Chronologically, they are dated to important historical events in Russia. The first wave of emigration lasted from 1918 to 1938, from World War I and civil war to the outbreak of World War II. It was of a massive nature and was forced - about four million people left the USSR. These were not only people who went abroad after the revolution: Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, anarchists emigrated after the events of 1905. After the defeat of the volunteer army in 1920, the White Guards tried to escape in exile. Went abroad V. V. Nabokov, I. S. Shmelev, I. A. Bunin, M. I. Tsvetaeva, D. S. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius, V. F. Khodasevich, B. K. Zaitsev and many others. Some still hoped that in Bolshevik Russia it was possible to be creative, as before, but reality showed that this was impossible. Russian literature existed abroad, just as Russia continued to live in the hearts of those who left it and in their works.

At the end of World War II, a second wave of emigration began, also forced. In less than ten years, from 1939 to 1947, ten million people left Russia, among them writers such as I. P. Elagin, D. I. Klenovsky, G. P. Klimov, N. V. Narokov, B. N. Shiryaev.

The third wave is the time of Khrushchev's "thaw". This emigration was voluntary. From 1948 to 1990, just over a million people left their homeland. If earlier the reasons that prompted to emigrate were political, then the third emigration was guided mainly by economic reasons. Mostly representatives of the creative intelligentsia left - A. I. Solzhenitsyn, I. A. Brodsky, S. D. Dovlatov, G. N. Vladimov, S. A. Sokolov, Yu. V. Mamleev, E. V. Limonov, Yu Aleshkovsky, I. M. Guberman, A. A. Galich, N. M. Korzhavin, Yu. M. Kublanovskii, V. P. Nekrasov, A. D. Sinyavskii, and D. I. Rubina. Many, for example A. I. Solzhenitsyn, V. P. Aksenov, V. E. Maksimov, V. N. Voinovich, were deprived of Soviet citizenship. They leave for the USA, France, Germany. It should be noted that the representatives of the third wave were not filled with such poignant nostalgia as those who emigrated earlier. Their homeland sent them out, calling them parasites, criminals and slanderers. They had a different mentality - they were considered victims of the regime and accepted, providing citizenship, patronage and material support.

The literary work of the representatives of the first wave of emigration is of great cultural value. I want to dwell in more detail on the fate of I. S. Shmelev. “Shmelev, perhaps, is the most profound writer of the Russian post-revolutionary emigration, and not only emigration ... a writer of great spiritual power, Christian purity and lordship of the soul. His "Summer of the Lord", "Praying Prayer", "The Inexhaustible Chalice" and other creations are not even just Russian literary classics, it seems to be itself marked and illuminated by the Spirit of God, ”the writer V. G. Rasputin highly appreciated Shmelev’s work .

Emigration changed the life and work of the writer, who worked very fruitfully until 1917, who became known to the whole world as the author of the story “The Man from the Restaurant”. Terrible events preceded his departure - he lost his only son. In 1915, Shmelev went to the front - this was already a shock for his parents. But ideologically, they were of the opinion that the son must fulfill his duty to his homeland. After the revolution, the Shmelev family moved to Alushta, where there was hunger and poverty. In 1920, Shmelev, who fell ill with tuberculosis in the army and was undergoing treatment, was arrested by B. Kun's Chekists. Three months later he was shot despite the amnesty. Upon learning of this, Shmelev does not return to Russia from Berlin, where he is caught by this tragic news, and then moves to Paris.

In his works, the writer recreates the terrible in its authenticity picture of what is happening in Russia: terror, lawlessness, hunger. It is terrible to consider such a country as a homeland. Shmelev considers all those who remained in Russia to be holy martyrs. No less terrible was the life of emigrants: many lived in poverty, did not live - survived. In his journalism, Shmelev constantly raised this problem, urging compatriots to help each other. In addition to hopeless grief, pressing questions also weighed on the writer's family - where to live, how to earn a living. He, who was a deep believer and observed Orthodox fasts and holidays even in a foreign land, began to collaborate in the Orthodox patriotic magazine "Russian Bell", t Caring for others, Ivan Sergeevich did not know how to think about himself, did not know how to ask, fawn, so he was often deprived of the most necessary of things. In exile, he writes stories, pamphlets, novels, while the best work written by him in exile is “The Summer of the Lord” (1933). In this work, the way of life and the spiritual atmosphere of the pre-revolutionary Russian Orthodox family are recreated. In writing the book, he is driven by "love for his native ashes, love for his father's coffins" - these lines of A. S. Pushkin are taken as an epigraph. “The Summer of the Lord” is a counterbalance to the Sun of the Dead”, about what was alive in Russia.

“Maybe this book will be - "The Sun of the Living" - this is for me, of course. In the past, all of us, in Russia, had a lot of LIVE and truly bright things that could be lost forever. But it WAS. Life-giving, the manifestation of the Spirit is Alive, which, killed by its own death, verily, must trample death. It lived - and lives - like a sprout in a thorn, waiting ... ”- these words belong to the author himself. The image of the past, true, imperishable Russia Shmelev recreates through her faith - he describes the divine service of the annual circle, church services, holidays through the perception of the boy. He sees the soul of the motherland in Orthodoxy. The life of believers, according to the author, should become a guideline for raising children in the spirit of Russian culture. It is noteworthy that at the beginning of his book he set the feast of Great Lent and spoke of repentance.

In 1936, a new blow overtook the writer - the death of his wife. Shmelev, blaming himself for the fact that his wife took care of him too much, goes to the Pskov-Caves Monastery. There the "Summer of the Lord" was completed, two years before the death of the writer. Shmelev was buried in the Russian cemetery in Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, and fifty years later the ashes of the writer were transported to Moscow and buried in the Donskoy Monastery, next to the grave of his father.