It’s a question that’s been bugging me since I first thought of it a few days ago. I’m aware that any survivors of the Russian Civil War would be at best, in their eighties by 1991, but that would still leave at least a handful alive. Have any of their stories been written down, and did any make the journey back to Russia? My thanks in advance.
Did any soldiers of the White Arm(ies) live to see the fall of the Soviet Union?
For example, Colonel of the Imperial Army, Alexander Sergeevich Brazol, who died in New Hampshire in 1993, at the age of 100. In the summer of 1993, Captain Boris Mikhailovich Ivanov, a participant in the First Kuban campaign of 1918, and later chairman of the Russian All-Military Union, died in Detroit. The second lieutenant of the horse artillery of the Russian army of Wrangel, Vasily Dmitrievich Matasov, lived until 1999.
An interesting example is Konstantin Nikolaevich Svezhevsky. He was born in Proskurov in 1899, graduated from the Sergievsky Artillery School in 1917, fought on the Romanian front of the First World War. During the Civil War, he studied at the officer's school, took part in battles in Northern Tavria. In 1957 he became Bishop of Caracas and Venezuela, and held this chair for 27 years. The last years of his life he spent in the Novo-Diveevo monastery in the USA. From his interview with the magazine " Vozvrashcheniye" (1993): “Emigration is a terrible and bitter word for everyone. But I went through almost all the stages of it: Constantinople, Chataldja, Lemnos, Bulgaria, Belgium, America. I am from that first “wave” of Russians who first lost their homeland - Russia, then buried the remnants of the army in a foreign land and later buried the hope of a quick return home. When the 94-year-old archbishop was asked about the situation in post-Soviet Russia, he replied: “Yes, things are not going smoothly in Russia now, but everything takes time and patience. And love is needed. This is first of all."
Nikolai Fedorov (1901-2003) can be considered one of the last soldiers. In 1917 he volunteered for the detachment of Esaul Chernetsov. He was wounded and awarded the 4th degree St. George Cross. In 1920, with the Wrangel units, he emigrated. Until the end of his days, he led a large social and political work in the Russian white abroad, was repeatedly elected ataman of the Great Don Army abroad. In 1991-2003, he united around himself the few surviving veterans, opposed the termination of anti-communist work and the idea of closing white organizations, condemned parts of the Russian emigration who went to reconciliation with the authorities of the Russian Federation.
In general, among the veterans of the Civil War, as well as among the emigrants and the Russian diaspora as a whole, there was no consensus. The hopes for democratic transformations in Russia were combined with grief over the loss of vast territories.
Sources: Volkov S. V. Beloye dvizheniye. Entsiklopediya grazhdanskoy voyny. — SPb.: «Neva», 2002; Utkov V. N. Istoricheskiye zapiski i vospominaniya chlena Russkogo Obshche-Voinskogo Soyuza //«Vestnik ROVS», № 1-9, 2001—2004.