Solovyov and Larionov
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the dates of battles, the strength of subunits on both sides, and the military ranks of all the senior officers taking part in combat.
The topic of Solovyov’s paper was ‘General Larionov’s
Rout of Zhloba’s Cavalry Corps.’ It concerned a key oper-
ation in 1920 that allowed the Whites to hold on to Crimea until late autumn. Solovyov began by briefly touching on
the composition of the troops positioned on the front line in Northern Taurida. Here he could not help but speak of
General Kalinin’s Second Cavalry Division (1,500 sabers +
1,000 bayonets) and about General Guselshchikov’s Third
Cavalry Division (3,500 sabers + 400 bayonets from general Abramov’s Don Corps): these troops were positioned from
the Azov Sea to the village of Chernigovka. Naturally, he
did not forget about the Drozdov Division, either (it was
located by the village of Mikhailovka) or about General
Morozov’s Second Cavalry Division. In speaking about the
line of the front to the west of Mikhailovka, Solovyov
mentioned General Babiev’s Kuban Cavalry Division and
the Native Division positioned to its left along the front.
Finally, the Markov and Kornilov Divisions were located in the region of Kakhovka, while General Barbovich’s division was positioned closest to the Dnieper Estuary.
Opposing those forces were divisions of the Reds’
Thirteenth Army, including the First and Second Cavalry
Divisions of Dmitry Zhloba’s Combined Corps. The
numbers for just that one corps—including the troops
attached to it—reached 7,500. After some wavering, Solovyov decided not to dwell on the numerical data of other divisions that supported Zhloba (for example the Latvian and the
52nd Rifle Division, which were in the area of Beryslav).
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After casting a glance at his listeners, the researcher felt that an overabundance of figures might dull their attention.
In speaking about the Reds’ plans, Solovyov began by
limiting himself to pointing out Zhloba’s corps’ intention of attacking the Don Corps and taking Melitopol. After
grasping, however, that this picture would be incomplete,
the speaker nevertheless elaborated that four divisions were mobilized from Fedko’s group in the area from Zherebets
to Pologi at the same time as the 52nd and Latvian Divisions were already moving out of the area from the region of
Berislavl to Aleshki. Zhloba placed particular hopes on
Fedko’s group, something that raised no doubts among the
attendees. Fedko, however, did not warrant those hopes.
Did General Larionov know about the Reds’ plans?
Sources available to researchers (Solovyov carefully evened out the file of papers lying in front of him) gave no answer to that question. The general acted as if he was familiar
with the enemy’s plans in full detail. He had always been a half-step ahead of the Reds before, but those half-steps
invariably determined the outcome of the fighting. Zhloba’s most cunning schemes broke down against the measures
the White commander had taken, regardless of whether
they were the result of reconnaissance activity or the general’s ingenious foresight. Solovyov preferred to think the
latter.
After the general had studied his opponent’s way of
thinking (this happened fairly quickly), he flawlessly guessed all the operations Zhloba had conceived. In Solovyov’s
opinion, the general’s strength consisted of an absolutely precise assessment of Zhloba’s strategic potential. It was not overly high (which was natural) but was not lower than 580VV_txt.indd 174
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average, either. As General Larionov himself once said, flight school is capable of raising anyone—Dmitry Zhloba among
them—to an average level. Then again, it was the hand of
fate that threw Zhloba into the cavalry before he had the
chance to take wing as he should have. This merging of the earthly and the heavenly in his fate (along with unfavorable genetics, according to some data) significantly twisted the Red commander’s brains. To General Larionov’s credit, he
was able to sort through those intricacies.
Early in the morning, he ordered that strong coffee be
served; he would drink it in small sips, sitting on the steps of his armored train car. After the coffee, he smoked his
first cigarette. When the weather was not windy, he blew
smoke rings, observing their melancholy motion toward the
sky. When there was wind, the general released the smoke
in a thin stream, unconcerned about its further fate. It is usually thought that it was during those moments that he
formed the plans that ended up ruining Red commander
Dmitry Petrovich Zhloba’s career.
The steppe’s drowsy breathing, which moved in barely
perceptible waves, and the scent of grass that was still fresh, instilled calm and joy in the general. The sun rose quickly over the horizon, as if it were in a speeded-up film, and the steppe changed its colors. The steppe appeared to the
general in the form of a kaleidoscope that had been
hurriedly deployed around the armored train. It was unlim-
ited in its capabilities, boundless, and strewn with the ash of his cigarette.
Sometimes General Larionov would lie down in the grass
and observe the life of its inhabitants. In his eyes, this life appeared just as petty as human life. Perhaps not as brutal.
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The grass’s businesslike residents ate each other but they did so out of necessity, conforming to biology’s ancient
laws. They did not experience mutual hatred. Encouraged
by the general’s motionlessness, these creatures ran along his splayed fingers, between which something was already
sprouting, springing up, and maturing. One could maintain
that more than a dozen or two ants, grasshoppers, aphids,
beetles, and numerous other creations he would have had
difficulty giving names to had passed through his hands.
Located in a region of embittered battles between the Red
and White Armies, they maintained strict neutrality. Their ability not to notice social cataclysms achieved an absolute, evoking the general’s admiration.
There was something posthumous in the general’s fingers
when they were plunged into the grass. If this was connected with life, then it was in some sort of broad, age-old sense of converting human bodies into grasses and trees. Pressing his face to the crushed stalks, the general imagined himself dead on that field. Arms outstretched. Head sprinkled with earth. This is how he saw his soldiers again and again after battle.
The general remembered how one time, when he was
still a cadet, he had gone to military summer camp. During field exercises, he had to dig trenches while being timed.
There was a hot spell. He was digging a trench for the first time and became horribly tired. Nausea rose in his throat
and his legs began to shake. He was soaked in sweat. After digging the trench, cadet Larionov lay down in it and closed his eyes. A fabulous coolness replaced the scorching sun.
The shouts of officers, clanging of shovels, and clatter of horses on the road still carried to Larionov, muted, as
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from hundreds of versts away, but none of that was with
him any longer. Maybe it was in another world.
‘A blissful coolness,’ he whispered, imagining he was lying in a grave.
‘It’s not the time to rest up, cadet!’
An officer was looking at him from somewhere above,
almost as if from the clouds that were sailing past, over the trench.
‘I’m deathly tired,’ said the boy.
The officer walked away without saying anything. The
expanse he had vacated was immediately covered over by
a celestial curtain speckled with white clouds.
‘Thank you,’ the cadet uttered soundlessly. He did not
rule out that this had been an angel.
The general continued to lie there. He already sensed a
powerful call from below. He was experiencing the soothing sense of growing into the earth that, as it seemed to him, was familiar to everyone killed in battle. The killed understood that everything was over for them and they could
enjoy the repose that had arrived. The general’s immobility was almost otherworldly. Only the cautious glance of the
sentries—the general knew they were observing him, for
security reasons—prevented him from giving himself over,
completely, to merging with the earth.
In speaking about the essence of what happened during
the summer of 1920, Solovyov could not help but quote
from Mikhail A. Kritsky’s famous characterization in The Kornilov Shock Regiment, which discusses how, over the course of multiple battles, the Russian Army surrounded
Zhloba’s cavalry, squeezing the troops into a dead-end
situation and severely reducing their maneuverability.
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Because of the natural crowding that came about, Zhloba’s group lost a significant degree of the cavalry’s most important qualities: movement and maneuverability.’
The natural crowding into which Zhloba cast the troops
entrusted to him was the result of General Larionov’s
considered and protracted actions. Like an experienced chess player, the general offered a sacrifice to his adversary: a few pawns at the center of the board that Zhloba swallowed
very readily. After winning a series of localized battles, the Higher Aviation School graduate did not notice that the
places he was victorious were located on a defined axis and had a precisely delineated direction. The victories ceased when the general was of the opinion that Zhloba had moved
far enough in that direction. Zhloba continued to attack out of inertia, but this time the adversary was not thinking of retreat. And although the general’s army did not counterattack, all the Reds’ attempts to move further were crushed on that very first line of trenches that, it turned out, had been dug more than a week earlier.
Only after familiarizing himself with how solidly the
defense had been prepared in this spot did Zhloba begin to understand that his own victorious march had done nothing
more than enable the Whites to occupy previously arranged
positions. That understanding became complete for him the
morning the Whites’ first lines appeared at the rear of the troops he headed. General Larionov had personally led them into battle, leaving his habitable armored train for the occasion. The general was not one to take a risk for the sake of risk. He simply knew that sometimes one must lead the
troops oneself. He sensed those moments flawlessly.
After warning his listeners that he was going to depart
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from the Zhloba theme for a while, Solovyov reminded
them of the famous breach in Kakhovka. He had in mind
an episode of the war when part of General Larionov’s
army ended up surrounded. Discussions began about surren-
dering as prisoners.
The general formed his troops and lit a cigarette. He
released several smoke rings and those who had gathered
watched, entranced, as they soared.
‘This is the sort of question I do not wish to decide for
you,’ said the general. ‘Whoever wants to may go ahead
and surrender.’
The general began heading toward his horse but stopped
halfway. The smoke rings he’d released were still hanging
in the air, like doleful zeroes. The general’s horse was
stamping its hoof. Several dozen people broke ranks and
gloomily wandered toward the front line. The general did
not utter a word. He looked at them without judgment,
most likely surprised. He himself could not explain his
certainty that death awaited them. He knew cases when the
Reds had shot only officers and then mobilized the rest.
Everyone watched, silent, as those who were leaving moved
toward the grove: it was a red grove. With clouds gathering over it. They choked up when they saw those people moving
under that leaden sky. And felt better after they had finally disappeared behind the trees.
This is how strange the war was—Russians against
Russians—when soldiers taken prisoner could fight the very next day for the other side. They did so just as selflessly as before. There were quite a few people for whom shifts of
this sort became a habit. For some, it was the only possible work under war conditions. For some, it was a way of life
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at a time when, by and large, people were indifferent about who they fought for. L’existence for civilians did not give them the thrill they needed. Or that intoxicating military brotherhood that is available only in the face of death. As a rule, it was a bullet that stopped those shifts. Or a saber.
Essentially, there were not many choices.
Lightning flashed beyond the grove where the departed
had disappeared. It was still very far away: the thunder only caught up a minute after. Another minute later, several bursts of machine gun fire sounded from the grove. Both the general and his soldiers remained silent. It is possible there were more bursts of fire but they were no longer audible through the drumming of the rain pounding at their tents, helmets, and field kitchens. It was the drumming before marching out.
They began a prayer service under pouring rain.
The general did not lead them toward the grove. They
moved along the steppe, southwesterly, to where the thun-
derstorm was slowly heading and where—according to the
general’s notions—the encirclement was less dense. They
walked for a long time. Water flowed from their soaked
clothing into their boots, squishing loudly. Larionov formed his soldiers into a hollow square a few hundred meters from the Red positions. The cavalry was placed up front, at the head, with the general. What alcohol remained was distributed to his personnel.
The general broke into a trot, as did his horse cavalry.
The general drew his saber and the cavalrymen galloped
off, their sabers drawn, too. He felt the cold drenching rain snaking down his back and it was pleasant. They rode into
the adversary’s position—this happened on its own—as
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ingly on the general’s saber. Along the way, he remembered
‘Our Figner, dressed as an old man . . .’ Our Figner . . .
Lightning flashed three times in a row, illuminating listless shadows by the tents. Three brief flashes did not pinpoint any movement among the defenders, though they were not
really defending anyway. Forlornly pressing into whatever
was closest to them, these people first let in the general, then the cavalry and then, of course, the infantry, too. This all happened without a single shot.
In Solovyov’s opinion, the history of the Kakhovka breach
was the complete opposite of what happened near Melitopol.
Since an oppositeness in substance implies a particular
resemblance in form (Prof. Nikolsky called this ‘historical circumstances’), the young historian did not consider it
possible to examine these two cases of encirclement in
isolation. After showing a map of the Kahkovka breach with bright red arrows, Solovyov took a map of Zhloba’s encirclement from his folder, too. The sheets were held up briefly and then handed around. The princess held them longest
of all. She drew her index finger along the arrows and looked pensively at the lecturer from time to time.
Zhloba began racing around after (as Kritsky so aptly put
it) falling into the cul-de-sac. At first, Zhloba tried to get away from the general’s cavalry that had overtaken him,
but he ran into intense machine gun fire. This is where
Zhloba finally grasped that he was surrounded. He again
turned his troops to meet the cavalry but that could no
longer improve matters. The appearance of the legendary
general heading up the attackers made a stunning impression on the Reds. They began surrendering.
Zhloba successfully boarded his armored train and began
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rolling north, fighting battles along the way. The armored train, accompanied by a detachment of about two hundred
men, managed to leave the encirclement. This was all that
remained of a cavalry corps of many thousands. Lacking
troops, weapons, the armored train (which eventually had
to be abandoned during the retreat), and, most importantly, horses, Zhloba fell into severe depression. All that remained at his disposal was an old airplane that he had never used in battle, for reasons of principle. Forgotten by everyone, the machine was collecting dust in a hangar outside the