On January 29, 1918, an insignificant episode of the civil war took place - a battle near Kruty between the troops of the Central Rada and detachments of red soldiers, sailors and Red Guards workers. The latter went to the aid of the workers of the insurgent "Arsenal", who at that moment were being shot by the Petliurites.
I don't know why and who needs it, Who sent them to their death with an unwavering hand?
Only so merciless, so evil and unnecessary
Lowered them into Eternal Peace!
A. Vertinsky
The Battle of Kruty, like no other event of the revolution and civil war in Ukraine, gave rise to an unprecedented number of myths. Over time, the basis of the mythologeme also crystallized: Kruty are “Ukrainian Thermopylae”. The historical reality disappeared into the myth of 300 students who took up the fight with the "Bolshevik hordes" and almost all of them died.
Three hundred Spartans and Athenian fetas
The battle of Thermopylae itself has long turned into a colossal myth and is perceived by many through the prism of the American comic book, filmed in the film "300 Spartans". This episode of the Greco-Persian wars of 480 BC. NS. went down in history as an example of rare courage and self-sacrifice. The Greek cities were able to put up, according to various sources, from 5200 to 7700 people against the 200-250 thousandth army of the Persian king. Their main task was to delay the advance of the Persian army into the territory of Hellas. In defending the narrow Thermopylae pass, the Greeks could hope to solve this strategic problem. Having placed their forces in the narrowest places on the way of the Persian army, they neutralized the numerical superiority of the enemy. After the traitor led the Persians to the rear, most of the Greeks retreated. The remaining detachment (about 500 people, including about 300 Spartans led by Tsar Leonidas) heroically died, but made it possible for the rest of the army to retreat.
The Battle of Thermopylae is one of the most famous battles of antiquity. When describing it, they primarily emphasize the valor and courage of the Spartans. However, it became a heavy defeat for the Greeks. The way for the Persians to central Greece was opened. However, the self-sacrifice of the Spartans was not fruitless. It served as an example for the Greeks and shook the Persians' confidence in victory.
And yet, not 300 noble Spartans at Thermopylae, but the Athenian fleet, staffed from the lowest qualification group of citizens - fetas, played a decisive role in the expulsion of the aggressor. But it so happened that the feat of the Spartans remained for centuries, and the names of the Athenian fetas did not reach us. Less than 10 years later, Themistocles, the leader of the People's Party and the creator of the Athenian fleet, was expelled from his hometown.
Episode of echelon war
The situation in January 1918 bears little resemblance to the events of the Greco-Persian wars. There was no invasion of the Bolsheviks. The authoritative diaspora historian Ivan Lisyak-Rudnitskiy noted: "The legend that needs to be archived is a fairy tale about the" super-numerous hordes "of enemies, under whose blows the Ukrainian statehood allegedly collapsed." The main blow was struck by the Red detachments on the counter-revolutionary Don. The total number of troops advancing on Kiev, according to various estimates, ranged from 6 to 10 thousand. It was not a regular army, but detachments of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards workers, Red Cossacks. The existing system of electing commanders and the division of detachments according to party affiliation did not add to the combat effectiveness. Member of the Soviet government of Ukraine Georgy Lapchinsky described the red fighters as follows: “The warriors were fancifully dressed, absolutely undisciplined people, hung with various weapons, rifles, sabers, revolvers of all systems and bombs. The combat effectiveness of this army for me was and still remains very doubtful. But she successfully moved forward, as the enemy was completely demoralized."
Unlike the ancient Greeks, there was no patriotic upsurge among the Ukrainians: they did not see in the Soviet regime the threat of enslavement, the "Soviet occupation" that some contemporaries assert. The Central Rada had at its disposal up to 15 thousand soldiers. In Kiev itself, there were up to 20 thousand soldiers. Almost all Ukrainianized units and regiments at the decisive moment refused to support the Rada. Many of them have declared their neutrality. British Sovietologist Edward Carr noted that the Ukrainian national movement at this stage did not evoke a wide response from either the peasants or industrial workers. Not so many forces remained under the control of the Central Rada: the Gaidamatsky kosh of the Sloboda Ukraine of Simon Petliura, the Sich archers - former prisoners of war Galicians, the Gaidamatsky regiment named after I. K. Gordienko and a number of other small parts. According to Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Soldatenko, around the Central Rada in late 1917 - early 1918. a vacuum has been created. The population of Ukraine en masse enrolled in the units of the Red Guard.
It was a strange, "echelon" war: military forces were concentrated along the railways. Red troops attacked Kiev in two groups along the railways: Kharkov - Poltava - Kiev and Kursk - Bakhmach - Kiev. Vladimir Vinnichenko called this war a "war of influence." “Our influence,” noted the head of the Central Rada government, “was less. It was already so small that with great difficulty we could make up some small, more or less disciplined units and send them against the Bolsheviks. True, the Bolsheviks also did not have large disciplined units, but their advantage was that all our broad masses of soldiers did not offer them any resistance or even went over to their side, that almost all the workers of every city stood for them; that in the villages the rural poor were clearly Bolshevik; that, in a word, the vast majority of the Ukrainian population itself was against us. " It did not come to major military operations. As a rule, with the approach of the Reds, an uprising of workers arose in the city, and the local garrison declared neutrality or went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.
The promises of the Central Rada were believed only by the most trusting and inexperienced in politics part of the Ukrainian society - the youth. On January 11, 1918, the newspaper of the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Federalists (a bourgeois party that appropriated the name of the socialist one) "Novaya Rada" published an appeal to students to enroll in the kuren of the Sich Streltsy. On January 18, at a meeting of students of the Kiev University and the Ukrainian People's University, a record of volunteers was announced. They were joined by the students of the 2nd Ukrainian Gymnasium named after Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. In total, about 200 people signed up, who underwent basic military training for several days. Initially, the kuren was created as an auxiliary military unit for carrying out security services in Kiev. To date, historians have not been able to figure out how untrained students got to the front.
There is a version that the students left for the front without permission at the request of the cadets, who, without receiving reinforcements, held their positions in the Bakhmach area and, out of despair, sent a delegation to Kiev. Only students who arrived in the area of the Kruty railway station were able to persuade them. Bakhmach had already been delivered by that time.
The balance of forces on the eve of the battle, which began on the morning of January 29, was as follows: a kuren of cadets (400-500 people) and a hundred student kuren (116-130 people) against several thousand Red Guards, soldiers and sailors. The battle itself was vividly described by the historian and politician Dmitry Doroshenko: “The unfortunate youth were taken to the Kruty station and dropped off here at their“position”. At a time when the young men (mostly never holding guns in their hands) bravely entered the battle against the Bolshevik detachments, their commanders, a group of officers, remained on the train and organized a booze in the carriages; the Bolsheviks easily defeated the youth detachment and drove it out of the station. Noticing the danger, the command on the train hastily gave a signal to leave the echelon, not pausing for a minute to take the fleeing people with them."
A vain sacrifice
The Battle of Kruty did not attract the attention of contemporaries. However, with the return of the Central Rada in March 1918, relatives and friends of the victims raised the issue of reburial. Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladislav Verstyuk explains that the battle near Kruty became widely known due to the participation in it of a number of well-known persons, including the brother of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UPR A. Shulgin. A scandalous publication appeared in the press, accusing the leadership of the Central Rada of the death of young men.
And the experienced politician Mikhail Grushevsky played ahead of the curve - a ceremonial reburial was organized. The losses claimed by the commander of the cadets Averky Goncharenko (later served in the SS Galicia division) of 280 people were not confirmed. Contrary to the allegations of the execution of 27 students, only 17 bodies were found, which were buried at Askold's grave. Although initially prepared 200 coffins. The rest, apparently, fled. 8 wounded who were captured were sent to Kharkov for treatment.
According to V. Soldatenko, in the absence of other vivid examples of the manifestation of national self-awareness and sacrifice, they turn more and more actively to the battle near Kruty, implementing educational activities, especially among young people. At the same time, the workers of "Arsenal", who fought for their rights, are presented as "Moscow occupiers", "the fifth column". Although Ukrainian and Russian workers fought side by side for social justice and the right of peoples to self-determination.
The Battle of Kruty did not solve any military problems. It did not stop the offensive of the Red detachments and did not cause a general patriotic upsurge among the population. But it made it possible for the Petliurites to cruelly deal with the rebellious Arsenals, which, however, did not save the Central Rada. The attempt to return on the bayonets of the Germans and Austro-Hungarians, which in modern textbooks is often bashfully called "the international recognition of Ukraine", once again proved the unviability of its power.
Ukraine has its own Thermopylae
In fact, "Ukrainian Thermopylae" exist, but they are not related to the events of 1918, but to the times of the national liberation war of the Ukrainian people under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. During the battle of Berestechko in the summer of 1651, which ended in the defeat of the Cossacks, an episode occurred reminiscent of the feat of 300 Spartans.
An eyewitness to the events, the Frenchman Pierre Chevalier, wrote: “In one place in the middle of the swamp, 300 Cossacks gathered and bravely defended themselves against a large number of attackers, who pressed them from everywhere; to prove their contempt for the life they were promised to give them, and for everything valuable except life, they pulled all the money out of their pockets and belts and threw it into the water.
Finally, completely surrounded, they almost all died, but they had to fight with each of them. He was left alone, fighting against the entire Polish army, he found a boat on a swamp lake and, hiding behind its side, withstood the shooting of the Poles against him; having spent all the gunpowder, he then took his scythe, with which he beat off everyone who wanted to grab him … the battle. The king was very carried away by the courage of this man and ordered to shout out that he would give him life when he surrendered; to this the latter proudly replied that he no longer cares about living, but only wants to die like a real warrior. He was killed with a spear blow by another German who came to the aid of the attackers."
The death of these Cossacks, like the death of the Spartans, made it possible to withdraw the best Cossack troops from the battlefield. And the victory of the royal army, like the victory of the Persians at Thermopylae, turned out to be Pyrrhic - soon they faced a popular war and were forced to leave.
