Rurkel
1st April 2013, 17:55
With all the semi-recent accusations at Lenin, it's only right to balance them out. This thread is for documents and memories about the terror of the White forces. Accusations directed at them deserve to be more exact then "they were murderous scum grrr", after all. Anyone is welcome to contribute.
Here are extracts from the memories of Z. U. Arbatov, a generally-sympathetic-to-whites journalist from Yekaterinoslav, Ukraine, about the actions of Denikin's forces (Yekaterinoslav 1917-1921):
[White] counter-espionage reached complete, wild arbitrariness in its actions. Prisons were full of arrested, Cossacks in the city continued to plunder it... The guards often raided the nearby villages to seek out deserters and those who, contrary to Dobrovoltsy (meaning, Deninkin's army) orders, refused to mobilize. Once, colonel Stepanov, the district governor, returned from his district, and, speaking to journalists about his "work", abruptly stated: "I've hanged six people..." The results were quick and catastrophic. Peasant indignation rose incredibly fast...
In the city itself, the [white] counter-espionage introduced a nightmarish system of "liquidating" people who they disliked, but against whom they didn't manage to find any evidence. These people just disappeared, and when their friends and relatives found their bodies, the counter-espionage organs replied that they were "killed while trying to escape"...
There was no one to complain to. Governor Schetin with Stepanov, taking all State guardsmen from the city, was busy hunting living people in Pavlogradsk district forests... the governor and his guards herded hundreds of peasants, who were trying to escape mobilization to the forests outskirts, and killed them by machine-gun fire.Memories of E. I. Dostovalov, military comrade of Kornilov, Denikin and Wrangel:
130 thousands landlords, who wanted to rule over 130 millions of peasants, and other castes, who were only a small layer, who benefited from the old regime, led the [white] officers to fight the people. Peasants and workers... 95% of Russian population, with all its resentments, were unknown to them [well, more like they didn't care about them. But in the memories of a White officer that's already quite a confession]...
Denikin South and Wrangel Crimea show what Russian [white] officers fought for. "The glorious prototype of modern Russia", with its horrible corruption and shootings, torture and prisons, with its pathetic laws on peasants and workers, with its insane governors, militant priests, counter-espionage, public executions of women and teenagers, robbery and violence... and hatred the people felt towards those who crucified them.
Anyone want to continue?
Here are extracts from the memories of Z. U. Arbatov, a generally-sympathetic-to-whites journalist from Yekaterinoslav, Ukraine, about the actions of Denikin's forces (Yekaterinoslav 1917-1921):
[White] counter-espionage reached complete, wild arbitrariness in its actions. Prisons were full of arrested, Cossacks in the city continued to plunder it... The guards often raided the nearby villages to seek out deserters and those who, contrary to Dobrovoltsy (meaning, Deninkin's army) orders, refused to mobilize. Once, colonel Stepanov, the district governor, returned from his district, and, speaking to journalists about his "work", abruptly stated: "I've hanged six people..." The results were quick and catastrophic. Peasant indignation rose incredibly fast...
In the city itself, the [white] counter-espionage introduced a nightmarish system of "liquidating" people who they disliked, but against whom they didn't manage to find any evidence. These people just disappeared, and when their friends and relatives found their bodies, the counter-espionage organs replied that they were "killed while trying to escape"...
There was no one to complain to. Governor Schetin with Stepanov, taking all State guardsmen from the city, was busy hunting living people in Pavlogradsk district forests... the governor and his guards herded hundreds of peasants, who were trying to escape mobilization to the forests outskirts, and killed them by machine-gun fire.Memories of E. I. Dostovalov, military comrade of Kornilov, Denikin and Wrangel:
130 thousands landlords, who wanted to rule over 130 millions of peasants, and other castes, who were only a small layer, who benefited from the old regime, led the [white] officers to fight the people. Peasants and workers... 95% of Russian population, with all its resentments, were unknown to them [well, more like they didn't care about them. But in the memories of a White officer that's already quite a confession]...
Denikin South and Wrangel Crimea show what Russian [white] officers fought for. "The glorious prototype of modern Russia", with its horrible corruption and shootings, torture and prisons, with its pathetic laws on peasants and workers, with its insane governors, militant priests, counter-espionage, public executions of women and teenagers, robbery and violence... and hatred the people felt towards those who crucified them.
Anyone want to continue?