Brotherhood of Russian Truth

Flag of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth

The Brotherhood of the Russian Pravdy (PDU) is a Russian White-Immigrant Orthodox monarchist sabotage and terrorist organization formed in Berlin in 1921 by Duke G. N. Leichtenberg , writers S. A. Sokolov-Krechetov and A. V. Amphitheatrov , general P. N. Krasnov , His Serene Highness Prince, Colonel AP Lieven , counterintelligence Russian Army VG Orlov and other former members of the White struggle, distracting political apathy and ineffective military activity emigration led by PN Wrangel, to continue I-Soviet Resistance (m. n. "activism"). The PDU was considered to be an organization of “Nikolayevets” monarchists, but as part of the organization, along with monarchist patriots, there were also freemasons. For example - Amphitheatres, Sokolov-Krechetov, Burtsev were prominent representatives of Freemasonry .

The BRP motto: “Communism will die! Russia will not die! ”And“ We are invisible, but we are everywhere, ”and the most frequently used symbol of the PDU was an Orthodox eight-pointed cross with an inscription in Slavonic script“ Lord! Save Russia! ”

The central print organ of the PDU was the magazine Russkaya Pravda. Initially, the BRP itself was created as an organizational structure for the publication and distribution of the Russkaya Pravda, and only then were the High Circle and the hierarchy of the organization formed. At the same time, the propaganda role of the Brotherhood has only increased.

The activities of the Brotherhood had two main areas:

1. literary and agitational (printing anti-Soviet materials and transferring them to the USSR for propaganda)
2. insurgent-terrorist.

The organization conducted sabotage and reconnaissance work on the territory of the USSR, arranged terrorist acts and murders of party leaders, and collaborated with foreign intelligence services. The PDU was headed by the executive body - the High Circle. The main Circle - wider in composition - combined executive and representative functions. In the Primary Circle, they took the leaders of local organizations for outstanding achievements, and the brothers - for selfless dedication to the Brotherhood and vigorous activity. The internal device was built on an autonomous basis. Local and regional organizations, combat centers, autonomous divisions and subdivisions, terrorist groups and militias subordinated directly to the Supreme Circle and often, acting in the same countries and localities, for conspiracy reasons, did not even know about each other's existence. All departments were divided into rear and combat. The rear units were located in countries that had borders with the USSR, and their main work was to raise funds and train personnel. At the same time, many departments in the ports where ships came with Soviet crews were actively engaged in propaganda work with sailors. In countries located far from the USSR , in fact, the departments functioned as outreach centers. All members of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth had pseudonyms and numbers. The organization was headed by Brother No. 1 S. A. Sokolov (Krechetov) under the pseudonym For Ever, editor of the Russkaya Pravda magazine and director of the publishing house The Bronze Horseman, opened at the expense of G. N. Leikhtenberg.

The brotherhood had a wide network of cells in different states, it had its own schools and special camps for training militants. The BRP departments were located in Paris ( V.L. Burtsev ), in the Baltic States ( A. P. Liven ), in the Far East (D.V. Gondatti), in Yugoslavia ( S.N. Paleolog and S.N. Tregubov ) and in America ( A. A. Vonsyatsky ). ^[1] According to the INO GPU: “The PDU had its departments in 22 countries: 1. France, 2. Italy, 3. England, 4. Germany, 5. America, 6. Czechoslovakia, 7. Yugoslavia, 8. Romania, 9 Persia, 10. Estonia, 11. Lithuania, 12. Poland, 13. Finland, 14. Latvia, 15. Greece, 16. Bulgaria, 17. Austria, 18. Belgium, 19. Egypt, 20. China, 21. Japan. 22. Korea. To this list you can add organizations operating in the “free city of Danzig", Hungary, Canada, Turkey, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil and Australia. To help the BRP, S. N. Paleolog founded the Russian Liberation Treasury in memory of the Tsar - Martyr Nicholas II ", which matured during the years of its existence has attracted donations the most patriotic and not infected partisanship Russian people. Often representatives ROCK considered heads of local departments PDU. In the Far East to cover the PDUs to use the structure of East Union of the Cossack and Cossack Union in Shanghai .

The activities of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth supported led. Prince Nikolay Nikolayevich . The philosopher I.Ilin, an authoritative philosopher among the emigrants, actively promoted the activity of the BRP. The brotherhood also enjoyed the blessing of the First Hierarch of the ROCOR, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) , worked closely with the ROVS, and in the 1930s with the National Union of the New Generation (NNP). and in 1931, the EMRO leaders in the Far East, M.K. Diterikhs and D.L. Horvat, were accepted as honorary brothers by the EMRO leaders in the Far East.

On the territory of the USSR, the organization consisted of autonomous combat detachments, which led the partisan struggle, for security reasons, without informing conspiratorial details even in the center. The combat personnel of the organization were the remnants of the Belarusian national detachments, the so-called "Green oak squads " , detachments of S. N. Bulak-Balakhovich , organizations of B. V. Savinkov , etc. For 10 years, the organization has grown and developed quite successful partisan activities in Soviet Russia, mainly in Belarus and in the Far East.

S. A. Sokolov developed four main types of "weapons of the people" :

1. widespread insurgency;
2. grassroots anti-red terror;
3. wrecking red apparatus;
4. fraternal propaganda - in 16 “fraternal methods for the destruction of anti-christ power” , which are, in essence, a catechism of partisan anti-state struggle.

In their campaign materials, the Brotherhood called for the creation of Soviet cells in Soviet Russia, for anti-communist propaganda, for the organization of widespread terror against security officers, Soviet and party workers, for sabotage and sabotage. The main slogans of the organization, invariably reflected in the names of individual leaflets, were: "All-Russian National Revolution", "Land to the Peasants", "Orthodox Christian Russia", "All-Russian Zemsky Sobor" and even "Peasantry! ... Vali vali for your native Brotherhood of Russian Pravda" . The BRP proposed to bring the Russian Christian Government to power and again from the nameless USSR to become the Russian Christian State. Unusual for Russian social thought, even monarchical, were calls to transfer all the secular power of the Russian Orthodox Church. Under the influence of S. A. Sokolov, the "demonization" of the Soviet power was carried out, Bolshevism was represented as anti-Christian, satanic power.

The main requirements were:

1. The primacy and freedom of the Orthodox Faith.
2. Protection of Russian life.
3. Equality of all citizens before the law.
4. Private property, as the basis of the entire life of the country.
5. Freedom of private trade and industry.
6. Class peace and friendly cooperation of classes with full protection of the rights and interests of the working people.
7. A non-partisan court and a clear, impartial law. <...>
8. Consolidation of the peasantry in the full and hereditary property of all the land received during the revolution. <...>
9. All-Russian National Zemsky Sobor to decide the final structure of government, after establishing order in Russia and without the admission of the Communists.

According to the reports of the PDU itself, in 1925–1930 its partisan activities, mainly stopping and “checking” trains, shooting of security officers, and explosions of objects in the western Soviet regions gained considerable scope.

The PDU was the first of the political organizations of the Russian emigration to apply new forms of agitation and propaganda designed for the Soviet people. These were ball stocks, pasting railway cars, throwing leaflets into loads and their alloying in bottles, catapults, agitation on Soviet ships coming to foreign ports, reliance on leaflets of organizations under the influence of leaflets, etc. districts and cities, but also to Moscow and to the Soviet province.

The brotherhood of the first of the immigrant organizations created a radio station that broadcast on the USSR in 1926-31. It was opened in the city of Rezekne (Rezhitsa) in Latvia on Sadovaya Street and transmitted articles from Russian newspapers and magazines published abroad, the latest news. The forms and methods developed by the PDU, which are associated mainly with the People’s Labor Union and its publication “Seeding”, have been used by practically all the “activist” political organizations of the Russian emigration.

In 193 2-33, due to financial problems and systematic disinformation about the activities of the UWP from Sokolov S. A., the organization broke up into supporters of S. A. Sokolov-Krechetov (departments in France and Yugoslavia) and Prince A. P. Liven (the rest departments). General P. N. Krasnov, A. A. von Lampe and a major sponsor, the head of the North American section of the Brotherhood, A. A. Vonsiatsky, withdrew from its membership. After a number of successful operations of the GPU, for example, recruitment by the secret police of the organization’s secretary A.N. Kohlberg (pseudonym "True" and "Lomonosov"), murder in December. 1932 in Harbin, one of the leaders of the Brotherhood of Colonel Argunov, the defeat in 1933 of the "Latvian branch", and so on. The BRP as an organization ceases its military activities. The death of S. A. Sokolov in 1936 and a year later the passing out of the life of Prince Lieven forced the remaining active cadres to go to other right-wing organizations. The efforts of the member of the Supreme ("Sokolovsky") Circle, the head of the BRP department in Yugoslavia, Sergei Nikolaevich Tregubov (1867-1945), to continue the work of the Brotherhood were of little success.

PN Krasnov put forward five reasons for the termination of the organization: 1) the indifference and fatigue of the public in Abroad Russia to “activist” work, which had already appeared by 1930; 2) envy and intrigue of other emigre organizations, first of all, EMRO; 3) disappointment in the BWP’s activities of foreign intelligence services that demanded the execution of clearly unrealistic plans, such as the murder of Stalin and the explosion of Lenin’s Mausoleum; 4) severe illness of S. A. Sokolov himself; 5) as a result of the previous ones, the complete loss of the treasury.