Antonov-Ovseenko, Vladimir Alexandrovich

Becoming an Identity

He was born in Chernigov , in a noble family of a lieutenant of the reserve infantry regiment, who had risen to the rank of captain , Alexander Anisimovich Ovseenko (1852-1902). As he wrote himself: “I, at the age of seventeen, broke up with my parents, because they were people of old, royal views, I did not want to know them anymore. Blood connections are worth nothing unless otherwise stated. ^[4] In 1901 he graduated from the Voronezh Cadet Corps and entered the Nikolaev Military Engineering School , but refused to take the oath "allegiance to the tsar and the fatherland", later explaining it with an "organic aversion to military sphere", and after a week and a half of arrest he was dismissed.

He participated in the left-wing socialist wing of the revolutionary movement since 1901, when he joined the Social Democratic student group in Warsaw . In the spring of 1902 he went to St. Petersburg , where he worked first as an unskilled laborer at the port of Alexander, and then as a coachman in the Society for the Protection of Animals.

In the autumn of 1902 entered the St. Petersburg Infantry Cadet School . During his studies he was engaged in revolutionary agitation among the junkers, using propaganda literature, which he received from the members of the organization of social revolutionaries. In 1903, through the Bulgarian revolutionary B. S. Stomonyakova, he contacted the organization of the RSDLP . In 1904 he graduated from college and was assigned as a second lieutenant to the Kolyvansky 40th Infantry Regiment stationed in Warsaw, where he continued active organizational and propaganda activities among officers and soldiers and, in particular, founded the Warsaw Military Committee of the RSDLP .

Participation in the first Russian revolution

In the spring of 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War , he was assigned to the Far East out of turn, but did not arrive at the service site - he deserted by going to an illegal position, in which, according to his own recollections, local social democrats helped him particular Furstenberg . Ovseenko went to Krakow and Lviv (at that time in the territory of Austria-Hungary), staying in touch with his comrades in Poland. After some time, he illegally returned to Poland and tried to organize a military uprising of two infantry regiments and an artillery brigade in Novo-Alexandria, which ended in failure. He again moved to Austria-Hungary , from where he was sent by a local Menshevik émigré group to St. Petersburg, where he arrived in early May ^[5] . He became a member of the Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP, was engaged in campaigning among the military.

Arrest, Link, Escape, Emigration

In late June, he was arrested in Kronstadt, calling himself an alien name, which helped him to avoid the verdict of the military field court . In October 1905, under an amnesty on the occasion of the declaration of the Manifesto on October 17, he was released, while his real name remained unclear. Antonov-Ovseenko hid in Moscow, then in the south of Russia. In 1906, he tried to organize an uprising in Sevastopol , for which he was again arrested (during the arrest he put up armed resistance) and placed in the Sevastopol prison , and a year later he was sentenced to death with a substitute for 20 years hard labor. In June 1907, just before he was sent to penal servitude, together with a group of 15–20 prisoners, after undermining the prison wall, he escaped; hid in Finland , then for several years he worked in the underground in St. Petersburg and Moscow, specializing in revolutionary agitation among the military ^[5] .

In 1909, he was again arrested, but not identified, and spent six months in prison, from where he was released under an assumed name. In the middle of 1910, he illegally left Russia for France , where he joined the Mensheviks, but after the start of the First World War he passed to the Mezhrayonts ^[5] . Since September 1914, he participated in the publication and editing of the newspaper Martov and Trotsky "Our Word" ("Voice"). Leon Trotsky left the following memories about this period:

Antonov-Ovseenko, by his nature, is an impulsive optimist, much more capable of improvisation than of calculation. As a former little officer, he had some military information. During the big war, as an emigrant, he led a military review in the Paris newspaper Nashe Slovo and often showed strategic insight.

- cited by: Shramko S. Forgotten author of October (Rus.) // Siberian Lights: Journal. - 2007. - № 11 .

In 1917

The February revolution allowed Antonov-Ovseenko in June 1917 to return to Russia, where he immediately ^[6] joined the Bolshevik Party .

As a member of the Military Organization under the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), Antonov-Ovseenko was sent to Helsingfors ( Helsinki ) to conduct campaign work among the soldiers of the Northern Front and the sailors of the Baltic Fleet . At the same time he edited the newspaper "Wave". One of the most active participants in the All-Russian Conference of Front and Rear Organizations of the RSDLP (B), held in June 1917, Antonov-Ovseenko took direct part in organizing the July Bolshevik Uprising . After the July crisis, he was arrested by the Provisional Government and imprisoned in the Kresty prison , where, together with F. F. Raskolnikov, on behalf of the arrested Bolsheviks, he wrote a protest against the arrest. After being released on bail (September 4, 1917), the Centrobalt appointed Antonov-Ovseenko as Commissioner under the Governor-General of Finland.

In September - October 1917, Antonov-Ovseenko was a delegate to the All-Russian Democratic Conference and the Second Seamen's Congress of the Baltic Fleet, at which he announced the text of the appeal “To the oppressed of all countries”. September 30, 1917 was elected to the Finnish Regional Bureau of the RSDLP (b), was a member of the Organizing Committee and the Executive Committee of the Congress of the Northern Region. October 15, participated in the conference of military organizations of the RSDLP (b) of the Northern Front, from which he was elected to the Constituent Assembly . He was elected to the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee . In his report at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of the RSD on October 23, 1917, he reported that the Petrograd garrison was in general in favor of the transfer of power to the Soviets, the Red Guards occupied arms factories and warehouses and armed with seized weapons, the outer ring of Petrograd defense strengthened, and the actions of the Petrograd military district headquarters and the Provisional Government are paralyzed ^[7] .

As secretary of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, Antonov-Ovseenko, who was also a member of the Field Command of the October Revolutionary Committee on October 24 ^[6] , took an active part in the October armed uprising in Petrograd . As part of the “operational troika” (together with N. I. Podvoisky and G. I. Chudnovsky ) he was preparing to seize the Winter Palace ^{[6] [8]} . John Reed in the book “ Ten Days That Shook the World ” recalled: “In one of the rooms on the upper floor there was a thin-faced, long-haired man, a mathematician and chess player, once an officer of the tsarist army, and then a revolutionary and exile, a certain Ovseenko, nicknamed Antonov ". He led the actions of the Red Guards, the revolutionary soldiers and sailors during the storming of the Winter Palace , after which he arrested the Provisional Government . At the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets held at that time on October 26, 1917, Antonov-Ovseenko reported to deputies that the ministers of the Provisional Government were imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. At the congress he was elected a member of the Committee on Military and Marine Affairs at the Council of People's Commissars .

During a speech by Kerensky - Krasnov, Antonov-Ovseenko was a member of the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District and an assistant commander of the military district. On October 28, 1917, during the cadet uprising , he was taken hostage by the junkers, who intended to exchange him for fifty of his comrades who were captured by the supporters of the Soviet regime ^[6] . The next day he was released by revolutionary sailors with the mediation of the American correspondent A. R. Williams ^[7] .

From November 9 to December 1917 he served as commander of the Petrograd Military District ^[9] , replacing the left Social Revolutionary M. A. Muravyov in this post.

Participation in the Civil War

In December 1917, Antonov-Ovseenko, who had a military education, which was rare among the Bolshevik leadership, was sent to the south to lead the fighting against the Cossacks Ataman Kaledin and the Ukrainianized units of the Russian army who supported the Ukrainian Central Council .

On November 27 ( December 10 ), the Revolutionary Field Headquarters was created at the revolutionary headquarters in Mogilev , the operational body of the leadership in the armed struggle against counter-revolution. On December 6 (19) SNK RSFSR formed the Southern Revolutionary Front in the struggle against counter-revolution . Antonov-Ovseenko was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of the front ^[10] . The revolutionary field headquarters was directly subordinate to it. At the head of the Southern Group of Forces of the Soviet Russia, Antonov-Ovseenko entered Kharkov , where the Congress of Soviets proclaimed Soviet power in Ukraine , after which he transferred command of the troops operating in Ukraine to his chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel M.A. Muravyov , and himself headed the struggle against Cossack troops Don

In March-May 1918, Antonov-Ovseenko was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet forces of southern Russia , which included armed formations of the Ukrainian , Odessa , Donetsk-Krivoy Rog and Tauride Soviet republics.

As stated in the documents of the Special Commission for the Investigation of the Atrocities of the Bolsheviks, held under the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces in southern Russia , on personal instructions from Antonov-Ovseenko on April 1, 1918, the winner of 8 Germanic army under Gumbinnen , general of the Russian Imperial Army P. K. Rennenkampf ^[12] .

In late August - early September 1918, at the head of the Soviet delegation, he was sent to Berlin to conclude an agreement with representatives of the German command on the possibility of the participation of German troops in the armed struggle against the military forces of the Entente who had landed in the Northern Region ^[7] . In September - October 1918, he commanded a group of troops of the Eastern Front of the Red Army to crush the Izhevsk-Votkinsk uprising . Coordinated the actions of the 2nd and 3rd armies and the Volga military flotilla ^[13]

November 17-30, 1918 - member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Special Group of Forces of the Kursk sector (see the Group of Forces of the Kursk sector ) ^[14] . ^[15] ,

November 30, 1918 - January 4, 1919 Antonov-Ovseenko commanded the Ukrainian Soviet Army ^[16] , who acted against the German occupiers and Petliurists ; from January 4 to June 15, 1919 — Commander of the Ukrainian Front ^[16] ; in May-June 1919 — Commander of all armed forces of the Ukrainian SSR. He took an active part in the establishment of Soviet power on almost the entire territory of Ukraine, in the formation of the armed forces of the Ukrainian SSR , in military actions against the army of the Directory , and the liquidation of the Grigorievsky insurrection . When he was commander in the territory of Soviet Ukraine, mass repressions against class enemies and nationalists were widely used ^[17] . There is a version that when owners of Kharkiv enterprises refused to pay workers a salary in protest against the introduction of an 8-hour workday, Antonov-Ovseenko put 15 entrepreneurs in a train car and demanded a million of them in cash, threatening to send them to work in the mines otherwise . This was approved by Lenin in a telegram with the following content: “... I particularly approve and welcome the arrest of millionaire saboteurs in a car of class I and II. I advise you to send them for six months for forced labor in the mines. Once again, I salute you for your determination and condemn those who are wavering. ” ^[18]

At the economic work

In June 1919 he was transferred to the economic work. As indicated in the autobiography of Antonov-Ovseenko, in August-September 1919 he was authorized by the Central Executive Committee for the surplus in the Vitebsk province , from November 1919 - authorized by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the Tambov province , then the chairman of the Tambov provincial committee and the executive committee. From April 1920 - Deputy Chairman of the Chief Labor Administration , member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Labor , from November 1920 to January 1921. - Member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and deputy chairman of the Small Council of People's Commissars , from mid-January to early February 1921 - authorized by the Central Executive Committee in the Perm province.

Suppression of the Tambov Uprising

In mid-February 1921, Antonov-Ovseenko was appointed chairman of the Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on Combating Banditry in the Tambov Gubernia ^{[19] [20] [21]} .

The mass peasant uprising in the Tambov province, which broke out as early as August 1920, had reached its peak by this time and began to go beyond the province, finding a response in the border districts of the neighboring Voronezh and Saratov provinces. After the victory over Wrangel and the suppression of the Kronstadt insurgency, the suppression of the Tambov uprising became a priority task of the Soviet government. The plenipotentiary commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee headed by Antonov-Ovseenko, formed in late February - early March 1921, concentrated all power in the Tambov province in its hands. The disbanding of the Soviet fronts against Poland and Wrangel made it possible to transfer large and combat-ready military contingents and military equipment, including artillery, bronchast and aircraft, to the province. On April 27, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (B.) Adopted a secret decision “On the liquidation of the Antonov gangs in the Tambov province”, which M. N. Tukhachevsky was appointed “the sole commander of the Tambov district responsible for the liquidation of the gangs ... no later than a month”. Under his command were other well-known military leaders, including G. I. Kotovsky and I. P. Uborevich . The number of Red Army soldiers was constantly growing and by the summer reached 100 thousand people ^{[22] [23]} .

The strategy of defeating the uprising, formulated in the order of Tukhachevsky No. 130 dated May 12, 1921, as well as in the order of the Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee No. 171 dated June 11, 1921 (signed by Antonov-Ovseenko), consisted in the complete and cruel implementation of the military occupation of rebel areas. Subsequently, Antonov-Ovseenko, summarizing the experience gained in dealing with the insurgent peasant movement, described the system of measures used:

The basis is again the occupation system, but due to the arrival of significant new forces, it is extended to a larger area. In this region, special gangster villages are allocated, in relation to which mass terror is carried out - such villages are given a special “sentence”, which lists their crimes against the working people, the entire male population is announced under the Revolutionary Tribunal court, all gangster families will be convicted hostages for their members - a gang member, given a two-week period for the gangster to appear, after which the family is expelled from the province, and her property (previously conditionally arrested) is finally confined skuta. At the same time, universal searches are carried out and, in the event that a weapon is found, the senior worker of the house is to be shot on the spot. The order establishing such a measure has been widely published under No. 130.

Researcher David Feldman in 1989 published documents ^[24] , which, in his opinion, indicate that the proposal to use chemical warfare agents against Tambov insurgents came from the Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, headed by V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko. In particular, in the appeal “To the Participants of gangster gangs”, published on June 11, 1921 and signed by the Plenipotentiary Commission, it was stated:

The participants of white-bandit gangs, partisans, gangsters, surrender ... If you hide in the forest, you will smoke. The Plenipotentiary Commission decided to smoke out gangs from the forests with suffocating gases ...

In July 1921, Antonov-Ovseenko and Tukhachevsky were recalled from Tambov Region ^[25] . Returning to Moscow, Antonov-Ovseenko presented to the Central Committee of the RCP (b) a detailed report on the state of affairs in the Tambov province and the experience of fighting the rebel movement, in which he submitted proposals on measures to be taken if such situations were repeated ^[26] .

From October 1921 - Chairman of the Guba Executive Committee of the Samara Province ^[27] , where he led the fight against hunger. In 1920, his son Anton was born - in the future a famous Russian historian and publicist.

In opposition

In 1922, Antonov-Ovseenko was appointed head of the Political Administration of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (PUR) ^[5] . Actively speaking against the strengthening of Stalin’s power, he supported Lev Trotsky and joined the Left Opposition . On December 11, 1923, Trotsky published a series of four articles, New Course, in Pravda. On December 24, Antonov-Ovseenko issued a PUR circular number 200, in which he offered his subordinates to change political training in the army in the spirit of the provisions of the “New Deal”. In response to the Politburo's demand to cancel the Antonov-Ovseenko circular, on December 27, 1923, he sent a letter to the Politburo warning that “if Trotsky is touched, the entire Red Army will defend the Soviet Carnot ” and that the army will be able to “call leaders to order”. At that time there were rumors about the possibility of a military coup, about the elimination of Stalin’s party from the power, but Trotsky, for unclear reasons, refused to take such a step. Meanwhile, the “troika” Zinoviev-Kamenev-Stalin by mid-January 1924 managed to defeat the Left Opposition as a whole, Stalin’s supporters urgently made personnel replacements in the top military leadership, and on January 17, 1924 Antonov-Ovseenko was dismissed from the post of head of the PUR ^[28] and replaced by A. S S. Bubnov ; PUR Circular No. 200 was canceled.

Diplomatic work

Antonov-Ovseenko was sent to diplomatic work, he held the posts of plenipotentiary in a number of Eastern European countries, including Czechoslovakia (since 1924), Lithuania (since 1928) and Poland (since 1930). In 1928, under pressure, he was forced to break with the Left Opposition. In the 1930s, he was allowed for some time to work in a variety of positions related to jurisprudence, including the posts of Prosecutor of the RSFSR (since 1934 ) and People's Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR (August-October 1937 ). In the post of Prosecutor of the RSFSR, Ovseenko helped establish the practice of sentencing "according to proletarian necessity."

During the Spanish Civil War , he was Consul General of the USSR in Barcelona ( 1936 - 1937 ): most military cargoes from the USSR for the Spanish communist formations passed through this city. He helped the Republican troops as a military adviser . The collection of documents, tentatively called the “Antonov-Ovseenko Diary,” suggests that he tried to defend the opposition to the Stalinist line of anarcho-syndicalists and Marxists from POUM , who controlled the anti-fascist movement in Catalonia , for which Juan Negrin was called “more Catalan than the Catalans themselves. " After the conflict with the Soviet Consul General, Negrin was even going to resign.

Arrest, shooting

At the end of 1937, Antonov-Ovseenko was recalled from Spain, after which the NKVD was arrested during the Great Terror campaign in the USSR on October 12, 1937.

His son Anton Antonov-Ovseenko under the pseudonym A. Rakitin writes ^[29] :

... late evening on October 11, 1937. Film director S. Vasilyev will never part with Vladimir Alexandrovich: the very hero of the October Revolution tells very interesting details. The director of the film “Lenin in October” M. Romm is allowed to show only Lenin, Stalin, Dzerzhinsky and Sverdlov on the screen. Such is the will of Stalin himself. Antonov-Ovseenko knows this. He knows, but advises the filmmakers. Just as he did for the editors of "The History of the Civil War", a book from which his name was also deleted. ... Vasiliev left late at night. Half an hour later, Antonov-Ovseenko was arrested.

In the second (“augmented”) edition of the cited book (1973), this story is removed. Almost simultaneously, his wife was arrested (“she knew about her husband’s terrorist activities”), who was shot two days before her husband was shot. ^[30]

On February 8, 1938, he was sentenced to death by the All-Union Military Council of the USSR for "belonging to a Trotskyist terrorist and espionage organization." He was shot on February 10, 1938, buried at the Kommunarka training ground ^[30] .

Antonov's cellmate recalled: “When he was summoned to be shot, Antonov began to say goodbye to us, took off his jacket, shoes, gave us and the half dressed man went to be shot.” 21 years ago, wearing a hat to his side, with shoulder-length hair, he declared the Provisional Government deposed. Now his bare feet led to the shooting chamber ^[31] . According to Mikhail Tomsky’s son Yuri, who reproduce Giuseppe Boff and Robert Conquest , before he died Antonov-Ovseenko said the words: “I ask the one who will live to freedom, tell people that Antonov-Ovseenko was a Bolshevik and remained a Bolshevik until the last day”.

Rehabilitated posthumously on February 25, 1956 ^[30] .

The first marriage (not legally registered) with Anna Mikhailovna (died during the Civil War from typhoid):

• son Vladimir was adopted by Dzerzhinsky when his parents were imprisoned (before the revolution) ^[4] .

Wife Rosalia Borisovna, nee Katznelson, married five children, three survived: Vera (b. 1917), Anton (b. 1920), Galina (b. 1921). Rosalia Katsnelson in 1929 was arrested as an “enemy of the people”, committed suicide in 1936 in the Khanty-Mansiysk prison:

• Anton Vladimirovich Antonov-Ovseenko - publicist and writer.
  • Anton Antonovich Antonov-Ovseenko - the grandson of V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko.

In 1936, he married Sophia Ivanovna Levina (after her first husband, Tikhanova), born in 1898. Shot in Kommunarka in February 1938:

• daughter Valentina Tikhanova is a Russian and Soviet art historian, founder and director of the museum “Creativity and Life of the Gulag” ^[4] .

1932-1937: Novinsky Boulevard, Building 25, Building 1 (Second House of the Council of People's Commissars ^[32] or Narkomfin House ), apartment 49, where he lived with his wife Sofia Ivanovna and fifteen-year-old stepdaughter Valentina.

• Antonov-Ovseenko V. A. Under the pennant of October. - M .: 1923.
• Antonov-Ovseenko V. A. Building the Red Army in the revolution. - M., 1923
• Antonov-Ovseenko V. A. In the seventeenth year. - M .: GIKHL, 1933 .
• Antonov-Ovseenko V. A. Notes on the Civil War. - T.1. - M., 1924; T.2. - M., GIZ, 1928; V.3.- M.-L., Voenizdat, 1932; T.4. - M.-L., Voenizdat, 1933.

• In honor of V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko, streets in Kiev (now renamed Vladimir Naumovich St.), Samara , Voronezh , Moscow , St. Petersburg , Tambov, Chernihiv (renamed Uspenskaya St. in December 2015) were named.
• In Chernigov , on the Alley of Heroes, a bust of V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko was installed. On February 9, 2014, during the performances of the Second Maidan, the monument was dropped from the pedestal and handed over to the museum.
• Antonov-Ovseenko is also mentioned as a close friend of Maxim Isayev in the work “To be ordered” by Yulian Semenov .
• Antonov-Ovsenko is dedicated to the poem by the Slovak poet Ladislav Novomesky “Villa Teresa”.
• In 1984, the Vietnam Post issued a series of 4 stamps dedicated to the memory of V. I. Lenin, one of which captured A. Plotnov’s “Peace to the Nations!” Depicting Lenin’s speaker, next to which V. Antonov was captured. Ovseenko (Mi # 1502)

• In the feature film “ Baltic Glory ” (1957) Antonov-Ovseenko played Mikhail Ekaterininsky.
• In the feature film " Day One " (1958) Antonova-Ovseenko played Innokenty Smoktunovsky
• In the feature film " In the Days of October " (1958) Antonov-Ovseenko played George Sati .
• In the feature film “ Loneliness ” (1964) Antonov-Ovseenko played Alexander Grave .
• Sergei Yakovlev played the Antonov-Ovseenko film “ Aurora” (1965) in the feature film.
• In the feature film " The Kotsyubinsky Family " (1970) Antonova-Ovseenko played Viktor Malyarevich.
• In the feature film " December 20 " (1981) Antonova-Ovseenko played Alexander Goloborodko .
• In the film “ Red Bells. Film 2. I saw the birth of a new world ”(1982) Antonova-Ovseenko was played by Alexander Saiko.
• In the series “ Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno ” (2007) Antonov-Ovseenko played Stanislav Boklan .

• Ракитин А. В. А. Антонов-Овсеенко. — Л.: Лениздат, 1989. — 351 с.
• Якупов Н. М. Трагедия полководцев. — М. : Мысль , 1992. — С. 267—281. — 349 с. - 20 000 copies — ISBN 5-244-00525-1 .
• Civil war and military intervention in the USSR. Encyclopedia. M .: Soviet encyclopedia, 1983.
• Red Banner Kiev. Essays on the history of the Red Banner Kiev Military District (1919-1979). Second edition, revised and updated. Kiev, publishing house of political literature of Ukraine, 1979.
• Ратьковский И., Ходяков М. История Советской России. Глава 1. V. Боевые действия в конце 1918 — начале 1919 гг.
• Млечин Л. М. Полководцы — Революционеры. СПб., 2015 год, изд. ООО Торгово-издательский дом «Амфора».

• Антонов-Овсеенко В. А. В семнадцатом году. Государственное издательство художественной литературы, Москва, 1933 г.
• Антонов-Овсеенко В. А. Записки о Гражданской войне. Том 1. Октябрь в походе (с 6-ю схемами и 17-ю фотографиями). Издание Высшего Военного Редакционного Совета. Moscow. 1924 г.
• Антонов-Овсеенко В. А. Записки о Гражданской войне. Том 2. Издание Высшего Военного Редакционного Совета. Moscow. 1928 г.
• Антонов-Овсеенко В. А.: Записки о гражданской войне, Т.3. — М.:, — Л.: 1932
• Антонов-Овсеенко В. А.: Записки о гражданской войне, Т.4. — М.:, — Л.: 1933
• Марк Васильев «Дневник советского военного консула в Барселоне (1936 год)»