In the field of aeronautics, the Soviet state has achieved very great success. One need not recall the first flight into space, the numerous military victories of Soviet military aviation in the Great Patriotic War, and the participation of Soviet military pilots in hostilities in almost all corners of the globe. This is remembered by all Russian citizens who know their history and are proud of it. But, unfortunately, the names of those amazing people who stood at the origins of Russian and Soviet military aviation are little known to the general public. Meanwhile, their life path is so rich and interesting that it may not be enough not only articles - books to describe the biography of each of the pioneers of Russian and Soviet aviation.
The history of the Russian Air Force officially began on August 12, 1912, when the aviation control was separated into an independent unit of the General Staff of the Imperial Army. However, the process of forming the air fleet in the country began a little earlier - until 1912, aviation belonged to the department of the Main Engineering Directorate. In 1910, the first school for training military pilots was opened, and even earlier - in 1908 - the Imperial All-Russian Aero Club was created. In 1885, the Aeronautical Team was created, subordinate to the Commission on Aeronautics, Pigeon Mail and Watchtowers.
For a very short period of its official existence - five years from 1912 to 1917. - The Imperial Air Force of Russia, nevertheless, proved to be at its best. Significant attention was paid to the aviation business in Russia, primarily due to the efforts of enthusiasts from among both the aviators themselves and some leaders of the military department. By the beginning of the First World War, the Russian air force consisted of 263 aircraft, 39 air units and was thus the most numerous in the world.
The war and revolution of 1917 somewhat slowed down the development of aviation in Russia. Nevertheless, almost immediately after the approval of Soviet power, the leaders of Soviet Russia also became concerned about the creation of "red" aviation. Like other divisions of the Russian armed forces, the Air Fleet Directorate, which existed during the monarchy and the Provisional Government, was purged by the Bolshevik Party, aimed at bringing aviation control structures in line with revolutionary requirements, on the one hand, and getting rid of officers loyal to the previous government, on the other sides. Nevertheless, aviation could not do without specialists of the "old school". Colonel of the Russian army S. A. Ulyanin is an old aviator, but the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Military and Naval Affairs could not completely trust the former Tsarist officer, even despite his loyalty to the new government. On December 20, 1917, the All-Russian Collegium for Air Fleet Management was created. Konstantin Vasilyevich Akashev was appointed its chairman - a person with a very interesting and difficult fate, which will be discussed below.
From anarchist to aviator
Konstantin Akashev, who was destined to become the first head of Soviet military aviation, was born on October 22, 1888 in the Pildensky volost of the Lyutsin district of the Vitebsk province. These lands, which were part of the historical region of Latgale, became part of the Russian Empire at the end of the 18th century, after the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, the Akashevs were Russian by nationality. The mother of the future aviator, Ekaterina Semyonovna Voevodina, owned her own estate, although she was of peasant origin. Since the family had money, young Kostya Akashev, unlike other peasant children, was able to enter the Dvinskoe real school and graduate from it, preparing for the profession of a technical specialist.
The mass protests of the working class in 1905, following the brutal shooting of the 9 January demonstration, rocked the then Russian society. The period from 1905 to 1907 went down in history as the "First Russian Revolution" or "Revolution of 1905". Practically all leftist parties and organizations of the Russian Empire took part in it - social democrats, socialist revolutionaries, Jewish socialists - "Bundists", anarchists of all kinds. Naturally, revolutionary romance attracted many young people from a wide variety of social backgrounds.
Konstantin Akashev was no exception. He joined one of the communist anarchist groups and soon became a fairly active member of it, a militant. Back in his native Lyutsin district, Akashev began anarchist propaganda among the peasants, which led to the persecution of the police and forced Akashev to flee to the Kiev province on a fake passport in the name of a certain Milyaev. During the arrest, Akashev explained his life with forged documents by leaving home and by a quarrel with his mother and her second husband, Voevodin.
After settling in Kiev, eighteen-year-old Akashev becomes an important figure in the Kiev group of communist anarchists. The anarchists - "Chernoznamentsy", who acted in Kiev during those years, were very radical and planned an attempt on the life of Pyotr Stolypin (which Dmitry Bogrov, in the past, a member of the Kiev group of anarchists - "Chernoznamensk", who, according to most sources, turned out to be a police provocateur). Konstantin Akashev participates in the distribution of the anarchist press coming from abroad, including the magazine "Rebel". For a long time, Konstantin Akashev was wanted as a political criminal, until he was arrested and convoyed on July 25, 1907 from the Kiev prison to St. Petersburg.
In St. Petersburg, Akashev was accused of belonging to the St. Petersburg group of communist anarchists and on May 31, 1908, was sentenced to four years of exile in the Turukhansk region. Note that by the standards of those years, this was a rather mild sentence - many anarchists were shot or sentenced to 8-10-12 years of hard labor. The mildness of the sentence to Akashev testified that he did not participate in the killings or expropriations, at least - that there was no serious evidence against him. Apparently, Akashev's complicity in the attempted murder of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin, which was accused of him and other detained anarchists, did not find serious evidence, or Akashev's participation in the conspiracy was not so serious as to allow him to be given a long term or the death penalty …
However, in Siberia, Konstantin Akashev did not stay long. He managed to escape from exile and already in March 1909, according to the gendarmes, he was … on the North African coast, in Algeria, from where he moved to Paris. Here Konstantin, moving away from revolutionary activity, focused his attention on an occupation that required no less personal courage and gave no less adrenaline rush. He decided to devote himself to the then new profession of an aviator and aeronautical engineer. The conquest of the sky seemed no less romantic than the struggle to overthrow the autocracy and establish social justice.
To undergo a practical training course, Akashev moved to Italy in 1910. The aviation school of the famous pilot Caproni, who also had Russian students, operated here. Giovanni Caproni, who was only two years older than Akashev, by that time had become not only a pilot, but also an aircraft designer - the author of the first Italian aircraft.
In addition to flying and designing, he was also engaged in the important matter of training new pilots - young and not so people flocked to him from all over Europe, eager to learn how to fly an airplane. In general, in Italy in those years, aviation was in high esteem. Despite the fact that Italy was significantly inferior in military-technical equipment to Russia, including, not to mention Great Britain or Germany, interest in aviation among the "advanced" Italians was fueled by the spread of futurism as a special direction in art and culture, praising technological progress in all his forms. By the way, the founder of futurism was also an Italian - Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Another Italian - the poet Gabriele d Annunzio, although he was not a futurist, but also noted in military aviation, at the age of 52, having received the profession of a military pilot and participated in the First World War as a pilot.
Whatever it was, but in June 1911, the Russian émigré Konstantin Akashev was issued a diploma from the Italian Aero Club about his obtaining the profession of a pilot. After graduation, Akashev returned to Paris, where his wife Varvara Obyedova lived - the daughter of the old revolutionary Mikhail Obyedov, whose three sons were prosecuted for subversive activities against the tsarist government. In Paris, Akashev entered the Higher School of Aeronautics and Mechanics, from which he graduated in 1914. Amazingly, all this time the tsarist special services did not take their eyes off him. The political investigation was very concerned that the revolutionary, who had fled from the place of exile, received the profession of a pilot, suggesting that the purpose of Akashev's aviation training was nothing more than preparation for terrorist acts against the royal family.
In 1912, Akashev was going to visit his mother in Russia, as the political police learned about. Paris agents reported that Akashev, who received aviation education in Italy and France, would try to infiltrate Russia under the name of student Konstantin Elagin and the purpose of his trip was not to visit his mother, but to organize "air terrorist attacks." It was attributed to Akashev that, together with like-minded people, they were going to drop bombs from airplanes on the site of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, as a result of which the emperor, his closest relatives and ministers would die. However, the fears turned out to be in vain - Akashev never came to Russia in 1912. But the wife of Akashev, Varvara Obyedova, arrived in Russia to give birth to a daughter (the first daughter of Konstantin Akashev was born in Geneva when he was in exile).
Akashev returned to Russia only in 1915. The outbreak of the First World War forced yesterday's political emigrant - an anarchist who did not lose his love for his homeland - to go to Russia at his own risk and offer himself to the military department as a pilot. Akashev, who by this time graduated not only from the Higher School of Aeronautics and Mechanics, but also from the military aviation school in France, was undoubtedly one of the most qualified Russian pilots and aviation engineers. But the General Staff, having requested information about Akashev from the gendarmerie, refused to enroll a graduate of foreign aviation schools in the air fleet because of his political unreliability.
Having received a refusal, Akashev decided to benefit his homeland at least "in civilian life". He began working as an engineer at the Lebedev aviation plant. Vladimir Lebedev, the owner and director of the plant, was himself a professional pilot. His interest in aviation grew on the basis of his hobbies also for the then new bicycle racing and motor sports. Like Akashev, Lebedev received his aviation education in Paris, and on April 8, 1910 he took part in the record of Daniel Keene, who stayed in the air with a passenger (that is, Lebedev) for 2 hours and 15 minutes. After receiving his pilot's diploma, Lebedev returned from France and opened his own aircraft manufacturing plant, which produced aircraft, seaplanes, propellers and motors for aircraft. Naturally, such an interesting person and an excellent specialist evaluated people not according to the principle of their political reliability, but according to their personal and professional qualities. Akashev, who also studied in France, Lebedev hired him without any unnecessary questions. At the beginning of 1916, Akashev moved to the Shchetinin plant as assistant director for the technical part. He met the February revolution of 1917 while working at the Slyusarenko plant.
The revolution
In parallel with his work at Russian aircraft factories, Konstantin Akashev returns to political activity. Residing permanently in St. Petersburg, he becomes close to representatives of local anarchist circles. If during the revolution of 1905-1907. in St. Petersburg the anarchist movement was very poorly developed, then ten years later in the Russian capital there was a surge of anarchist revolutionism. Not only romantic-minded students and high school students, representatives of bohemians, but also sailors, soldiers, and workers went to the anarchists. Konstantin Vasilyevich Akashev became the secretary of the Petrograd club of anarchist communists, while closely interacting with the Bolsheviks.
After the February Revolution of 1917, the Russian anarchist movement split. Some anarchists called the Bolsheviks statists and "new tyrants", calling for the refusal of any cooperation with the revolutionary parties of the Bolsheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, while others, on the contrary, argued that the main goal was to overthrow the exploiting government, for which it is possible and necessary to blockade both the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, and with any other revolutionary socialists. Konstantin Akashev took the side of the so-called. "Red anarchists", focusing on cooperation with the Bolsheviks. In June - July 1917, when all of Petrograd was seething and it seemed that the revolutionaries were about to overthrow the Provisional Government and take power into their own hands, Akashev actively participated in the preparation and organization of workers' demonstrations. He was destined to play an important role directly in the October Revolution.
In August 1917, in order to counteract a possible invasion of Petrograd by the detachments of General Lavr Kornilov, Akashev was sent as a commissar to the Mikhailovskoye Artillery School to keep under control the military personnel of the school - soldiers of the support units who were trained as cadets and teacher-officers. This was all the more surprising that Akashev did not join the party and remained an anarchist. Nevertheless, at the school Akashev managed to squeeze out the monarchist-minded officers and intensify the work of the soldiers' committee. On October 25, 1917, when the Winter Palace was surrounded by revolutionary-minded soldiers and sailors, the opinions of the officers, cadets and soldiers of the school were divided.
Most of the officers and three hundred junkers came out in favor of coming forward to defend the Provisional Government. A team of three hundred soldiers, serving the guns and guarding the school, was on the side of the Bolsheviks. Ultimately, two batteries of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School nevertheless moved to the Winter Palace to defend the Provisional Government. Akashev followed them. He managed to convince the cadets and officers of the school to leave the Winter Palace. More precisely, he fraudulently, without informing the cadets and course officers of the essence of the order, led the artillery batteries from the territory of the Winter Palace to Palace Square. Thus, the Provisional Government lost its artillery and the storming of the Winter Palace by Red Guard detachments was greatly simplified.
Almost immediately after the victory of the revolution, Akashev was appointed commissar in the Air Fleet Directorate. By 1917, the Air Fleet Directorate - the heir to the imperial aviation - numbered 35 thousand officers and soldiers, 300 different units, and one and a half thousand aircraft. Naturally, this entire array needed control by the new government, which only trusted people could carry out.
After the October Revolution, one of the primary tasks of the established Soviet power was the creation of new armed forces. This was possible only with the reliance on the use of some of the old qualified specialists. However, not all specialists could be trusted by the new government - nevertheless, among the tsarist officers, a significant part had a rather negative reaction to the October Revolution.
Akashev was the best fit for the role of the head of the air fleet. Firstly, he was a specialist - a qualified pilot with a specialized education and an excellent aviation engineer with extensive experience in engineering and administrative work in the aviation field. Secondly, Akashev was still not a tsarist officer, but was a professional revolutionary of the "old school" who went through exile, escape, emigration, participation in the storming of the Winter Palace. It is not surprising that when in December 1917 a candidate was selected for the post of chairman of the All-Russian Collegium for Air Fleet Management, the choice fell on Konstantin Akashev, who by that time was already a commissar in the Air Fleet Directorate.
Commissioner and commander-in-chief
The primary task of Akashev in his new post was to collect the property of the Air Fleet Directorate, which after the revolution turned out to be partially abandoned, partially to someone who did not know where and where. In addition, it was necessary to complete the construction of fifty aircraft that were at the factories, as well as prepare the required number of motors and propellers at the relevant specialized enterprises. All these issues were within the competence of the Chairman of the All-Russian Collegium for Air Fleet Management of the RSFSR. Among other things, Akashev was also involved in the search for personnel to create a new structure for managing the air fleet and the aviation industry. So, Russobalt's engineer Nikolai Polikarpov was sent by Akashev to the Dux plant, which had previously produced bicycles, but during the First World War reoriented to the production of airplanes. As it turned out, it was not in vain: it was under the leadership of Polikarpov that a team of specialists designed the I-1 - the first Soviet monoplane, and later the famous U-2 (Po-2).
March 1918 was marked by the move of the All-Russian Collegium for Air Fleet Management, following the Soviet government, from Petrograd to Moscow. At the same time, the publication of the official printed organ of the collegium - the journal "Bulletin of the Air Fleet", began, the editor-in-chief of which also became Konstantin Akashev.
At the end of May 1918, on the basis of the All-Russian Collegium for Air Fleet Management, the Main Directorate of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Air Force (Glavvozduhoflot) was created. The leadership of Glavvozduhoflot at that time consisted of a chief and two commissars. One of the commissars is appointed Konstantin Akashev, who previously led the collegium, and the other - Andrei Vasilyevich Sergeev - also a revolutionary with experience in the RSDLP since 1911, who later headed the Soviet transport aviation. The head of the Glavvozduhoflot was first Mikhail Solovov, then the former Tsarist Aviation Colonel Alexander Vorotnikov.
However, the rapidly developing events on the fronts of the Civil War are forcing the Soviet military command to send Akashev to the active army while retaining the post of commissar of Vozdukhoflot. Now this would have been perceived as an obvious decrease, but then the professional qualities of a candidate for the most difficult area came to the fore - Akashev was appointed commander of the air forces of the 5th Army of the Eastern Front, then - the chief of aviation of the Southern Front. As commander of the aviation of the 5th Army, Akashev showed himself from the best side, managing to organize uninterrupted air support for the Red Army units. So, on the initiative of Akashev, the bombing of the airfield in Kazan was undertaken, which actually deprived the "whites" of aviation, since their planes were bombed before they could take off. Among other merits of Akashev in this post - air support of the Red Army in the battles for Rostov-on-Don and Novocherkassk. Akashev introduced the old idea of V. I. Lenin on the scattering of propaganda materials from the air aimed at the rank and file of the "whites". In August - September 1919. he commanded an air group whose task was to suppress the "white" cavalry corps on the southern front. In this position, Akashev led the red aviators who attacked the equestrian units of Mamontov and Shkuro from the air.
March 1920 to February 1921 Konstantin Akashev, replacing his predecessor Vorotnikov, served as head of the Main Directorate of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Air Force (RKKVVF) of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, that is, the commander-in-chief of the air forces of the Soviet state. In fact, he commanded the Soviet Air Force in one of the most crucial periods of victory in the Civil War, while simultaneously solving issues of their further enlargement and improvement, attracting new aviation flight and engineering personnel, and providing aviation with the latest foreign equipment. And yet, the Soviet leadership did not fully trust the former anarchist. As soon as the turning point in the Civil War became apparent, it chose to get rid of the former anarchist in such an important command position as the commander-in-chief of the country's Air Force.
In March 1921, Konstantin Akashev was removed from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force and transferred to military-diplomatic work. In his new capacity, he was involved in organizing the supply of equipment from foreign aviation enterprises to Soviet Russia. Akashev attended conferences in Rome and London, the Genoa conference in 1922, served as the trade representative of the USSR in Italy, was a member of the technical council of the All-Russian Council of the National Economy. Returning from abroad, Akashev worked at aircraft factories, taught at the established Air Force Academy of the RKKA named after V. I. NOT. Zhukovsky. It is difficult to say whether he shared the political convictions of his youth during these years, but at least since the second half of the 1920s, he no longer held senior command posts in the Soviet military aviation system, although he continued to work in engineering and teaching positions, according to - still paying a lot of attention to the development of Soviet military aviation.
In 1931, Konstantin Vasilyevich Akashev, like many other old revolutionaries, especially anarchists, was repressed. So, tragically, at the age of forty-three, the most interesting life of a man who devoted his life to realizing the dream of conquering the sky and the dream of social justice, which, obviously, were closely linked in his worldview, ended tragically. Constantine had four children - daughters Elena, Galina and Iya, son Icarus. The fate of Ikar Konstantinovich Akashev also developed tragically - deprived, after the arrest of his father, of male upbringing, he, as they say, “went down an inclined path” - began to drink, went to prison for a fight, then sat down for murder and died in prison from cancer liver.
Unfortunately, in the Soviet years, the personality of Konstantin Akashev was undeservedly forgotten. Firstly, the fact that Akashev was repressed by the Soviet government, and even in the post-Stalinist period of Russian history, would have seemed very difficult to explain why the first head of Soviet military aviation was destroyed by the Soviet government itself without real reasons. And secondly, Soviet historians could hardly explain the anarchist past of the main Soviet military pilot. At least, this would be very superfluous information for a person of this magnitude - one of the first commander-in-chief of Soviet aviation, a hero of the Civil War, a renowned commissar and military engineer.
There is still very little information about Konstantin Akashev. Although this man played a leading role in the formation of the Soviet air force, and therefore the air force of modern Russia, which grew up on the basis of the Soviet tradition, no books are published about him and practically no articles are published. But the memory of such people, without any doubt, needs to be immortalized.
