[Excerpt]
The Russian volunteers were distinguished by a high degree of motivation. Some fell in combat and were glorified as martyrs. Among the defenders of the position of Quinto de Ebro in August 1937, during the Republican Army offensive in Belchite, were Lieutenant Iakov Polukhin and General Anatolii Fok.
The ‘fallen heroes’ of Quinto were raised high by Francoist propaganda and were collectively bestowed the highest award. They were also remembered in emigration. When Nikolai Ivanov, a member of the small Russian Imperial Union‐Order (RISO), was killed in March 1939, RISO’s members came up with a special greeting in his honour.
Three months after Franco’s victory in April 1939, all the Russians were officially demobilised. Four months later, a group led by Colonel Nikolai Boltin met with Franco himself. Their goal was that the Russian veterans be allowed to join the Spanish Legion as officers, which some in the end actually did. Those who remained on Iberian soil received Spanish citizenship and were given modest jobs in the army and the national militia, dependent on the Spanish fascist party, Falange (FET de las JONS).
All in all, the Russians had been a small part of the international contingent of Franco partisans. […] According to the maximum figures, from 150 to 170 White Russians fought for Franco, of whom 19 perished and many more were wounded. […] For the right‐wing Russian émigrés, the victory of the Francoists raised their hopes for a triumphant return home. However, the diaspora proved to be fettered by a multitude of factors that brought this to nought.
[…]
The fact was that the Spanish division needed the Russians. Hardly anyone in the Spanish Corps had any knowledge of the Russian language. The White Guards might have been weary but they demonstrated enormous enthusiasm.
Georgii Staritskii joined the division and was subsequently sent as a translator to the 269th Infantry Regiment’s second section. Aleksandr V. Bibikov and Vladimir I. Kovalevskii served in the Falangist militia in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa — both volunteered for the division. One of them wrote in a local Falange daily that they were ready to continue ‘on our steppes’ the campaign begun in 1936. The author finished his tirade with the slogans ‘Long live national Russia!’ and ‘Up with Spain! (¡Arriba España!)’.
The Spanish Legion’s forty‐six‐year‐old Lieutenant Ali (Sergei) Gurskii‐Magometov had served in two Carlist tercios. He approached Franco for permission to join the [Wehrmacht]. His motives were a mix of anti‐communism, nationalism and a certain dollop of anti‐Semitism:
When the Fuhrer [sic], Hitler, declared war on the communists, Bolsheviks and Jews, who defeated my Motherland, and who stepped foot on Russian soil, I considered it my holy duty as a former Russian officer and patriot to immediately leave for there in order to once again assist, with my strength and knowledge, the liberation of my former Motherland from the horrible terror of communism.
Two White émigrés, who had lived in Spain before 1936, were also admitted. Igor Perchin was the son of Russian émigrés and grew up in Madrid. Sergei Ponomarev settled in Barcelona and had been a member of the Falange since 1934. Another two requests were made to join the division, sent from two Russians from Bucharest and Morocco. Finally, there was a small group of those officers who were turned down. They left much later as translators for the [Regio Esercito] in Russia.
(Emphasis added.)
Some of you might be especially interested in the minority of Whites who regretted their participation in the anticommunist invasion of the U.S.S.R.
In late 1941, Kovalevskii participated in the anti‐partisan sweep that ended up in a summary execution; despite an attempt to save the Soviet prisoners, the émigré was made to witness the tragic fates of former Red Army men.
This death shook me to the depths of my soul . . . Did I have the right at my age, having lived, been worn out and disappointed in everything and not expecting anything from life, but chiefly tired, tired of life and wanderings and betrayed illusions, to kill (after all, I essentially killed those three Russians who had surrendered to me) a life just beginning . . . ? I must bitterly note that I am falling lower and lower. And my line of conduct is moving further and further from the best ideals of humanity.
This one goes into the collection, thank you. Indeed, the connection between Russian anti-coms, especially the “white movement”, and fascists is not as well known as it should. They’ve been working really hard to hide it, to obscure the truth, all the while piling accusations on Soviet Union.
