Kolchak, Alexander Vasilievich

views updated

KOLCHAK, ALEXANDER VASILIEVICH

(1873–1920), admiral, supreme ruler of White forces during the Russian civil war.

Following his father's example, Alexander Kolchak attended the Imperial Naval Academy, and graduated second in his class in 1894. After a tour in the Pacific Fleet and participation in scientific expeditions to the Far North, he saw active duty during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). By July 1916 he merited promotion to vice-admiral and command of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Kolchak continued to serve under the Provisional Government following the February Revolution of 1917, but resigned his command when discipline broke down in his ranks. At the time of the Bolshevik seizure of power in October, Kolchak was abroad. But he responded with alacrity to the invitation of General Dimitry L. Horvath, manager of the Chinese Eastern Railway, to help coordinate the anti-Bolshevik forces in Manchuria.

White resistance to Soviet rule was also mounting along the Volga and in western Siberia, as well as in the Cossack regions of southern Russia. During May and June 1918 in Samara, KOMUCH (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly)—a moderate socialist government with pretensions to national legitimacy—emerged to compete with the even more anti-Bolshevik but autonomist-minded Provisional Siberian Government (PSG) in Omsk for leadership of the White cause. Under pressure from the Allies, KOMUCH agreed to merge with PSG into a five-man Directory as a united front against the Bolsheviks in September 1918. But the short-lived Directory lasted only until November 18. On that day, Kolchak was appointed dictator with the ambitious title of supreme ruler of Russia—and in due course recognized as such by the two other main White military commanders, Anton Denikin in the south and Nikolai Yudenich in the Baltic region.

The arrival of French General Maurice Janin, as commander-in-chief of all Allied forces in Russia, complicated the issue of the chain of command and authority. Its significance became obvious when Janin and the "Czechoslovak Legion" (prisoners-of-war from the Austro-Hungarian Army who were in the process of being repatriated with Allied assistance) took over guarding the Trans-Siberian railway and proceeded at their discretion to block the passage of the supreme ruler's echelons.

While Kolchak's British-trained army came to number approximately 200,000 men (with a very high proportion of officers), it was never an effective fighting machine. Moreover, the admiral failed to implement a popular political program. Indeed, he was unable to unite the White forces completely, even in Siberia and the Far East. The Russian heartland remained under control of the Bolsheviks, and their depiction of the admiral as a tool of the old regime and foreign interests had enough of the ring of truth.

For Kolchak the military tide turned decisively in the summer of 1919. In mid-November his capital in Omsk fell. By late December, the chastened supreme ruler was in the less-than-sympathetic custody of Janin and the hastily departing Czech Legion. Consequently, even his safe passage to Irkutsk—where the moderate socialist Political Center had just taken over—could not be guaranteed. When the Center demanded Kolchak as the price of letting the Legion and Janin go through, the Admiral was unceremoniously surrendered on January 15, 1920. To forestall Kolchak's rescue by other retreating White forces, he was shot early on February 7. His dignified conduct at the end has long been admired by White emigrés, and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kolchak's reputation has undergone a dramatic rehabilitation in Russia as well.

See also: civil war of 1917–1922; white army