Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Grigory Semyonov
Execution by hanging
Allegiance 
Lieutenant General
Battles/warsWorld War I
Russian Civil War
AwardsOrder of St. George (twice[clarification needed])

Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, or Semenov (

Japanese-supported leader of the White movement in Transbaikal and beyond from December 1917 to November 1920, a lieutenant general, and the ataman of Baikal Cossacks (1919).[1] Semyonov was also a prominent figure in the White Terror. U.S. Army intelligence estimated that he was responsible for executing 30,000 people in one year.[2]

Early life and career

Semyonov was born in the

khorunzhiy (cornet or lieutenant), he rose to the rank of yesaul (Cossack captain), distinguished himself in battle against the Germans and the Austro-Hungarians in World War I, and earned the Saint George's Cross for courage.[4]

Pyotr Wrangel wrote:[5]

Semenov was a Transbaikalian Cossack – dark and thickset, and of the rather alert Mongolian type. His intelligence was of a specifically Cossack calibre, and he was an exemplary soldier, especially courageous when under the eye of his superior. He knew how to make himself popular with Cossacks and officers alike, but he had his weaknesses in a love of intrigue and indifference to the means by which he achieved his ends. Though capable and ingenious, he had received no education, and his outlook was narrow. I have never been able to understand how he came to play a leading role.

As somewhat of an outsider among his fellow officers because of his

Provisional Government in the Baikal region and was responsible for recruiting a regiment of Buryat volunteers.[4]

Russian Civil War in Transbaikal

After the

Chita Railway expelled the Bolshevik garrison guarding the rail junction, and recruited an army, mainly from Buryat and Chinese recruits. In January 1918, he invaded Transbaikal, but by February, had been forced by Bolshevik partisans to retreat back to Manzhouli, where he was visited by R.B.Denny, British Military Attache in Beijing, who formed an "extremely favourable impression of him". On his recommendation, the Foreign Office in London agreed to pay Semyonov £10,000 a month, with no conditions attached,.[7] The French government also decided to give him financial aid, while the Japanese placed an intelligence officer, Captain Kuroki Chikayochi, in Semyonov's headquarters.[8] The British subsidies ended, by which time "Japanese influence was so strong that Semyonov was for practical purposes a puppet."[7]

In April 1918, Semyonov launched another raid into Siberia and with the help of the

Hulunbei'er, and Tibet into one Mongolian state.[9]
The region under his control, also called
Transbaikal Cossack Host
.

In his rule over the Transbaikal, Semyonov has been described as a "plain bandit [who] drew his income from holding up trains and forcing payments, no matter what the nature of the load nor for whose benefit it was being shipped".

Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the Japanese troops with whom he became associated.[11]

Ataman Semyonov with the representatives of the American expedition to the Russian Civil War. Seated: Semyonov (left) and General Graves (right)

With Japanese protection, he recognised no other authority. When

Aleksandr Kolchak, who based in Omsk, in Siberia, was declared Supreme Ruler by the White Armies, Semyonov refused to submit to him. They had met once, in Manzhouli, in May 1918, when Semyonov insulted Kolchak by failing to be at the railway station to greet him.[12] Kolchak considered sending an army into Transbaikal to remove Semyonov, but had to abandon the idea because Semyonov was protected by the Japanese, who had 72,000 troops in Siberia. In October 1919, Kolchak recognised Semyonov as commander-in-chief of the Transbaikal region.[3]

In December 1919, Semyonov sent a detachment to Irkutsk, which had been the last city west of Lake Baikal still nominally under Kolchak's rule until a coalition of Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries seized control. The detachment reached Irkutsk, but did nothing except take 30 men and one young woman hostage. They took their hostages abroad an icebreaker on Lake Baikal, where, on 5 January, they clubbed them to death with a wooden mallet, one by one, and threw them overboard - all except for one man who put up a fight and was thrown alive into the freezing water.[13]

When Kolchak resigned on 4 January 1920 he transferred his military forces in the

internationalists, and the 5th Soviet Army under Genrich Eiche launched an operation to retake Chita. In October 1920, units of the Red Army and guerrillas forced Semyonov's army out of the Baikal region. He escaped by plane to Manchuria. In late May 1921 Semyonov travelled to Japan, where he received some support. He returned to the Primorye in the hope of continuing to fight against the Soviets, but was finally forced to abandon all of Russian territory by September 1921.[4]

In exile

He eventually returned to

intelligence community and mobilized exiled Russian and Cossack communities that planned an eventual overthrow of the Soviets. He was also employed by Puyi, the dethroned Emperor of China, whom he wished to restore to power.[15][16]

While he was an exile in China, he was still backed by the Japanese. His influence was such that when

Mussolini, and declared that he should be shot, an outburst that led to the Russian Fascist Party splitting in two.[18] Konstantin Rodzaevsky
, who supplanted Vonsiatsky as the leader of the Russian Fascists in China co-operated with Semyonov to placate the Japanese.

In 1934, the Japanese formed the Bureau for Russian Emigrants in Manchuria (BREM; Бюро по делам российских эмигрантов в Маньчжурской империи), which were nominally under the control of the recent Russian Fascist Party and provided identification papers necessary to live, work and travel in Manchukuo. Much more in favor with the Japanese than White General Kislitsin, Semyonov replaced him as BREM's chairman from 1943 to 1945.[19]

Arrest and execution

Photo of Semyonov after his arrest by Soviet authorities

Semyonov was captured in

Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. He pleaded guilty to espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and armed struggle,[20] and was sentenced to death by hanging. Semyonov was executed on August 29, 1946.[4]

References

  1. ^ Bisher, Jamie, White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian, Routledge, London, 2009.
  2. ^ "The Wilson administration's war on Russian Bolshevism". Peace History. Retrieved 2024-02-11.
  3. ^ a b Kvakin, Andrei.V. "Семенов Григорий Михайлович Биографический указатель1890-1946". Khronos. Retrieved 24 October 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d e Bisher, White Terror.
  5. ^ Always With Honour. By General baron Peter N Wrangel. Robert Speller & Sons. New York. 1957.
  6. ^ Bisher, Jamie (2006). White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian. Routledge. p. 152.
  7. ^
    ISBN 1-84158-138-0
    .
  8. ^ Bisher. White Terror. pp. 60–61.
  9. ^ Paine 1996, pp. 316-7.
  10. ^ Norton, Henry Kittredge (1923). "The Far Eastern Republic of Siberia." London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. p69.
  11. ^ Tokayer, Marvin (1979). The Fugu Plan. New York: Paddington Press Ltd. p47.
  12. ^ Fleming. Admiral Kolchak. p. 74.
  13. ^ Fleming. Admiral Kolchak. pp. 194–95.
  14. ^ Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, New York 1994, p.46, and Bisher, White Terror.
  15. ^ Arnold C. Brackman, The Last Emperor. Hew York: Scribner's, 1975, p. 151.
  16. ^ Williams, Stephanie (2011). Olga's Story: Three Continents, Two World Wars, and Revolution -- One Woman's Epic Journey Through the Twentieth Century. Doubleday Canada. p. 327.
  17. ISBN 0-241-10033-X
    .
  18. ^ Stephan. The Russian Fascists. pp. 164–65.
  19. ^ "General V.A. Kislitsin: From Russian Monarchism to the Spirit of Bushido," Harbin and Manchuria: Place, Space, and Identity, edited by Thomas Lahusen, special issue of South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 99, no. 1.
  20. ^ Stephan. The Russian Fascists. pp. 352–53.
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