Tragedy of Russian society split (new documents on the ataman G.M. Semyonov activities in the far east in 1923-1928)

The article based on the declassified documents of the Central Archive of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service for the first time introduced into scientific circulation, analyzes some of the biographical and political views of the Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces and the march ataman of all Cossack troops of the eastern outskirts of Lieutenant-General Grigory Mikhailovich Semyonov during his emigration. Identified new documents (Documents of the Paris, Berlin, Harbin Residency of the Foreign Department of the OGPU, general summaries of information and communications, reports of operatives of the Foreign Department of the OGPU, personal letters of G.M. Semyonov to the USSR Ambassador in China L.M. Karakhan and letters of subordinates sent to his address, the minutes of the meetings of the Cossack circle of the Transbaikalian village in Harbin) substantially supplement his biographical data, his track record and his personal characteristics, which were extremely schematically shown in encyclopedic dictionaries and scientific research. The article focuses on his attempts to establish contacts with Soviet intelligence and move to the side of Bolshevik Russia. Such actions became public in the White emigre environment. As a result, ataman G.M. Semyonov begins to rapidly lose credibility even among his comrades-in-arms. And the European wing of the white emigration expresses its distrust of leadership of the united White Guard forces in the Far East. However, regarding G.M. Semyonova defeated the Soviet stereotype of officials of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. We did not look at how a person works in the present, on his modern views, but who he was in the past. On the example of G.M. Semyonov shows the tragedy as a whole of almost two million forced emigrants of the 1920s. The materials of the archive show and prove that in the emigration ataman G.M. Semenov did not engage in active anti-Soviet activities, he made attempts to minimize it and his environment. However, there were always people around him who covered themselves with the name of Semyonov, speaking on his behalf and pursuing self-serving and short-sighted policies. Without a doubt, the arrival of G.M. Semyonov in the USSR would have made it possible to fully control his activities, as well as those who wished to come with him from other positions of the White Guard army. It is suggested that he was not a double agent, his desire to return to his homeland was sincere, and a professional military man is not always a good and skillful politician. Archival materials show that the failure of G.M. Semyonov in his desire to return to his homeland was a clear miscalculation of the USSR’s foreign intelligence service.

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