ЏОРЏ Ф. КЕНАН: Сисон – документите

In the winter of 1917-18 the Committee on Public information, which was the official American propaganda agency of World War I, stationed in Petrograd a special representative, Edgar Sisson, formerly an editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. In February and March 1918, Sisson purchased and removed from Russia a number of documents and photographs of documents purporting to prove that the leaders of the Bolshevik government were paid agents of the German General Staff. Translations of sixty-nine documents of this nature, accompanied in some instances by facsimiles of the originals, were published in the fall of that year by the Committee on Public information in a pamphlet which formed a part of its official “War Information Series.” The following is an effort to appraise, in the light of evidence available today, the authenticity and significance of these documents.

I.THE NATURE AND BACKGROUND OF THE DOCUMENTS

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II. EVIDENCE AS TO AUTHENTICITY

А. General historical implausibility

The state of affairs suggested in the main body of the documents is of such extreme historical implausibility that the question might well be asked whether the documents could not be declared generally fraudulent on this ground alone.

Whoever credits the authenticity of these documents must be prepared to accept following propositions:

1.That all times between the November revolution and the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Soviet leaders actually stood in a position of clandestine subservience to the German General Staff – a relationship which they succeeded in concealing not only at the time but for decades to come from even the most intimate of their party comrades;

2.That this subservience went so far that the German General Staff actually controlled the elections of a large group of people, including most of the Communist leaders;

3. That the German General Staff secretly maintained, during this period two full-fledged offices in Petrograd (one of them being its own “Russian division”) which succeeded in establishing and observing such fantastic security of operation that no hint of their existence ever leaked out from any other source;

and

4.That the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, together with the negotiations conducted simultaneously in Petrograd by Count Mirbach and admiral Keyserling, were an elaborate sham, designed to deceive public opinion everywhere, the Soviet negotiators being actually under clandestine German control the entire time through other channels.

It hardly needs to be said that such state of affairs cannot conceivably be reconciled with known historical truth. Surely no one familiar with the life of Lenin, the history of Bolshevik movement, and the internal debates among the Russian communist leaders over the problems presented by the Brest-Litovsk negotiations could question the reality from the Soviet standpoint of the issues at stake in Brest-Litovsk talks or the sincerity of the discussion on them in senior Communist circles. It is not conceivable that in these moments of deepest crisis Lenin should have concealed from his associates political circumstances of highest relevance to the great question at hand. Lenin, whatever one may think of him, was not a conspirator against the Russian Communist movement.

Similarly, from the German side, the captured German foreign office files dealing with the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, which appear to include practically all relevant material, contain nothing to indicate that any of the Germans concerned with these negotiations – including Foreign Minister Kuhlmann, the German military leaders, and the kaiser himself – was aware of any such relationship to the Bolshevik leaders as that suggested by the documents, with the known facts of the tremendous tension between two governments that marked and accompanied the Brest-Litovsk negotiations. It is wholly absurd to suppose that the Germans, at that time absorbed in preparations for their great final offensive in the west and having most urgent need for establishment of a clear and dependable military situation on the east, would have failed to exploit the utmost any such clandestine channel of authority over Bolshevik leaders as that indicated in the documents. Yet nowhere do the documents suggest that the Germans used this extensive implied authority in Petrograd to break the recalcitrance of the Soviet negotiators at Brest.

It should also be noted here that had there existed, as between the Germans and the Bolsheviki, any such relationship as that suggested here, this situation could not have failed to become subject of attention in the subsequent German parliamentary investigation into the causes of the German breakdown in 1918. In this investigation the policies of the German high command with relation to the Brest-Litovsk talks were subjected to a intense and critical scrutiny to which any clandestine channels of authority over Bolsheviki would have been highly pertinent. Yet no mention of the Sisson documents or the situation they suggest seems ever to have been made in all this prolonged and intensive inquiry, the authors of which had access to all the relevant secret German files.

The very suggestion that there should been actual offices of the German General Staff in Petrograd in the winter 1917-18 is in highest degree implausible and at variance with known historical circumstance. It is absurd to suppose that the Germans should have decided to station highly sensitive military offices, in wartime, in what was still officially enemy territory, well outside the German lines and removed from any possible prompt protection by the German army. There were, of course, two German official missions in Petrograd at that time, headed by Count Mirbach and Admiral Keyserling. What is known of the position and treatment of these missions does not check in any way with the situation suggested by the Sisson documents. The memoirs of Zalkind at that time Trocky’s deputy in the Soviet foreign office, reveal clearly the drastic and humiliating restrictions placed on this official German personnel by the Bolsheviki, despite Mirbach’s earnest protests. This situation is confirmed by the captured German documents. Clearly, such difficulties could and would have been, in the same city, German General Staff offices with huge power over the Bolshevik authorities as the Sisson documents imply. It is further significant that when the crisis was reached in Brest-Litovsk negotiations, the German official missions in Petrograd were promptly removed, in the interest of their own safety; and the resumption of the German offensive was even delayed pending their safe arrival on German-held territory. Yet the Sisson documents show the supposed German General Staff offices as remaining peacefully in Petrograd and exercising undiminished authority over the Soviet leaders, through the entire period of resumed hostilities pending final conclusion of the Treaty.

B. Specific instances of historical plausibility

Both individually and collectively, the documents abound in specific suggestions that are irreconcilable with historical fact. It would be redundant to attempt to list any great number of this. The following is good example. The Nachtrichten-Bureau series are signed by a certain Colonel R. Bauer. When, at much later date, Allied officials complained to Semenov that it had never been possible to discover in the German army lists of any officer who could have played this role, Semenov explained that the signature “R. Bauer” was only a cover for one Bayermeister, whose name appears elsewhere in the Sisson documents. Semenov was undoubtedly referring, here, to Lieutenant A. Bauermeister, who was indeed a real person – a senior Russian-speaking German intelligence officer who served in the eastern front in World War I. Bauermeister’s name had appeared in the Russian press in 1915 in connection with the charges advances against the Russian officer Myaseydov, executed in 1915 as a German spy; and it was no doubt from this episode that Semenov was familiar with it.

But the real Bauermeister’s memoirs have subsequently been published, and while thy are lurid and unconvincing in many details, there is no reason to doubt the main facts of Bauermeister’s wartime service as related therein. These facts leave no room for any such whereabouts and activities as the Sisson documents would suggest.

At the time his memoirs were written (1933-34), Bauermeister seems to have heard of only one of the documents of the series: apparently, from his description, one not printed in the American pamphlet nor present in the American files, but plainly of this same origin. In this document it was evidently suggested that Bauermeister have conferred with the Bolshevik leaders in Kronstadt in midsummer 1917. (The allegation that such conferences took place, with Lenin’s participation, is found in document No. 5 of the official American pamphlet; it was unquestionably false, and is another striking instance of a historical implausibility.) Bauermiester, who was at that time serving as intelligence officer to the Austrian Third Army in the Carpathians, ridicules the allegation of his participation in such conference. It is particularly significant that this is clearly all he had heard, as late as 1933-34, of the Sisson documents. A real “R. Bauer” would hardly have remained for sixteen years ignorant of the publication by the United States government of eighteen of his most important secret communications to another government.

The Sisson documents were plainly drawn up by someone who had something more than a good Petrograd-newspaper-reader’s knowledge of historical fact; and an impressive effort made to weave this fact in with the abundant fiction. The result remains nevertheless unconvincing. At every hand one finds serious discrepancies between circumstances suggested by the documents and the known historical fact.

C. Lack of accord with normal governmental usage

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Евангелос Кофос: ИМПАКТОТ НА МАКЕДОНСКОТО ПРАШАЊЕ

THE IMPACT OF THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION ON CIVIL CONFLICT IN GREECE (1943-1949)

IV

…On the international level, the Macedonian question became once again the focal point of the Greek government’s case. Greece, it was argued, was faced with not with internal civil war, but with an international conspiracy aiming at turning Greece into a communist state, or a movement aspiring at detaching Macedonia. Both the earlier U.N. Commission of Investigation Concerning Greek Frontier Incidents and its successor, the U.N. Special Committee on the Balkans, were provided with whatever evidence was available on the subject: even wartime alleged, but in fact forged KKE agreements with neighboring countries for the cession of Macedonia to a Balkan communist federation. There was, of course, ample documentation for the material support offered to the Greek communist insurgents by Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and for the statements by these states on the future unification of Macedonia. But until the latter part of 1947, when Bled agreement was concluded, it was difficult to build a thoroughly convincing case, particularly for inquisitive third parties.

What counted most, however, was whether the Greek government’s threat perceptions were shared in London and Washington. The British government, having already committed itself in retaining Greece in the Western fold, needed little convincing. In the event, it frequently spear-headed anti-Soviet bloc polemics, utilizing the argument of the threat posed to Greece’s territorial integrity by Yugoslav aspirations on Macedonia. Similarly, the United States, being more and more involved in Greek affairs, found the Macedonian question a valid argument to justify its policy. Yet, at times, more reserved assessments were voiced. Such was the Case of Labor Foreign Minister Bevin, in late 1946, who held the view that Yugoslav public statements for the unification of Macedonia were for internal consumption, and in no way could constitute an imminent threat to Greece’s territorial integrity. Later, however, when Soviet threat in the direction of the Straits began to develop, the Foreign Office and subsequently the State Department, assumed that the case of Macedonia and Thrace, along with the Straits, constituted a well-designed Soviet objective aimed at controlling the Aegean. What appeared to be in doubt was the timing of Soviet initiative. Thus, the Macedonian question gradually emerged as a peon in the global context of East-West relations.

It is interesting to note that for the same reasons, the Turks also expressed deep concern about rumors for the establishment of a unified Macedonian state that would include Greek Macedonia. In the view of a Turkish diplomat, a Slavo-Macedonian state, with Thessaloniki included, would reduce Greece to impotence and cut Turkey from Europe. In such case, he concluded, “if there were not Greece, there would be no Turkey”.

Under the circumstances, the State Department took the view that the crux of the Macedonian problem was the maintenance of the territorial integrity of Greece itself. And although the United States could have no saying over a possible unification of the Bulgarian and Yugoslav parts of Macedonia, the preservation of Greece’s frontiers against irredentist claims by northern neighbors, justified “all possible and appropriate steps” by the U.S. Government.

Such concern was not without some basis. The Macedonian unification scheme that had emerged in the last months of 1944, in the abortive Yugoslav-Bulgarian negotiations for a South-Slav Federation, resurfaced with the conclusion of the Tito—Dimitrov agreements at Bled and Evxinograd (August and November 1947, respectively). Despite certain nuances as to the timing and the sequence of the steps necessary to implement the agreements, the fact was that the leader of Bulgaria committed his country to the cession of Pirin Macedonia to Yugoslavia. Along with the last portion of Macedonian land, Dimitrov’s Bulgaria was relinquishing all future interest in Macedonian affairs in exchange for a federation arrangement with Yugoslavia and the return of the “Western Bulgarian regions”, annexed by Yugoslavia after World War I.

There is no doubt that an arrangement was reached at Bled on the fate of Greek Macedonia as well. No concrete details were revealed at the time, nor have became known since. Two years later, however, in 1949, Tito publicly revealed that the case of Greek Macedonia had been examined and that two leaders had decided to “definitely solve Macedonian question as a whole; the Macedonian people not only in the Vardar, but in Pirin, and Aegean Macedonia, would receive their rights and they alone will decide on their future”.

Despite the fate of the South Slav Federation, the signing of the agreement was a turning point for the Macedonian question. Yugoslavia had finally secured a contractual agreement from Bulgaria to be master of the coveted land. But what had been the position of the KKE leaders on this triangular question? There was an inexplicable silence at the time, that has been maintained to this day. Was Zachariadis aware of the Yugoslav-Bulgarian deliberations throughout 1947? Was he consulted by Tito and/or Dimitrov? And if so, what were his reactions, if not his comments? Opponents suspected the worse: possibly a tacit consent. But they have produced no proof to support their suspicion. The question resurfaced after the publication in 1979 of a certain documents from the KKE archives.

On April 14^th 1947, Zachariadis, than in Yugoslavia along with the Polit Bureau of the KKE, sent to Vafiadis his instructions outlining the strategic objective of the struggle. He wrote:

-“Events show that the region that constitutes the weakest and the most important point for the enemy, which offers the people’s democratic movement the most favorable politico-social prerequisites, is Macedonia and Thrace, wit Thessaloniki at a center. Thus, under these conditions, a basic objective for DAG today is the occupation of Thessaloniki, which would bring a decisive change of the situation and would solve their our entire problem.”-

Zachariadis presented the same views in his memorandum to Tito, following their talks on April 22^nd. He added that the Northern Greece for “monarchofascism” was its weakest – and most important – point from a social economic, political, national, military and geopolitical viewpoint”. Consequently, DAG was planning to concentrate its main strike in this region. The final objective was to secure a territorial base for the establishment of a nucleus for a “Free Greece”.

The plan was approved by Tito and subsequently by the Soviet leadership. It was endorsed by the Third Plenum of the CC of KKE in October 1947. Whether this plan, discussed extensively with the leadership of the CPY – which would bear most of the burden for its logistical support – fitted Tito’s perception for a South Slav federation and unified Macedonian state is till matter of speculation. The timing, however, coincides with the Yugoslav-Bulgarian negotiations, which led to the Bled agreement. Furthermore, reference in Zachariadis’ memorandum to Tito, to the national factor, as one of the points of weakness of the Greek government for keeping Northern Greece – a reference missing in the instructions sent to Vafiadis – should be interpreted as referring to the question of national minorities. To venture further in speculation without more concrete evidence, is precarious. Nevertheless, the time coincidence of the discussion of the two projects – the establishment of a “free Greek state” in Northern Greece, and the unified Macedonian state in the context of South Slav federation – leaves Zachariadis exposed to the assumption that he might have had at least some knowledge of the aims of the two Balkan leaders.

Putting aside the military aspects of the Civil War, it appears that the aid furnished to the KKE was not up to the initial, grandiose of Soviet-Yugoslav relations did not augur well for the revolution in Greece. The crisis that came into the open, late in June 1948, left no choice to Zachariadis but to side with the Soviet Union.

This time, the spotlight of the Macedonian question shifted in direction of Yugoslav Macedonia. Initial statements by Bulgarian leaders denied neither existence of “Macedonians”, nor the ideal of a “united Macedonian state”. But, as it has frequently happened in the history of Macedonia, names assumed different meanings in the service of different and, at times, contradictory political ends. The “Macedonians” – in Bulgarian propaganda literature – were now linked to the Bulgarians, while reference to a “united Macedonian state”, in a South Slav federation, certainly was not the concept envisaged in Bled; it rather brought recollections of the 1924 Comintern prototype. In the last months of 1948, however, a long-term solution to the Macedonian question was not the major preoccupation of the Bulgarian leaders, who had now hard work to eradicate four years of “Macedonian” infiltration in Bulgarian Macedonia, before turning their attention to reintroducing Bulgarian nationalism among the population of the P.R. of Macedonia.

Such was the situation in his immediate vicinity when Zachariadis sought to seize full control of NOF and Slavo-Macedonians at home. New documents reveal that in the second half of 1948, KKE, having already side with Cominform, lost no time to remove pro-Tito Slavo-Macedonians from the leadership of NOF and from important posts in regional KKE organizations. By one stroke, the KKE leadership freed itself not only of avowed Titoists, but also of extremist nationalists, maintaining close relations with P.R. of Macedonia. Nevertheless, instead of attempting to stamp out “Macedonian” nationalism and consolidate the slavophone element within the Greek revolutionary movement, Zachariadis revealed his weakness by going in other direction. Having placed trusted Slavophones at the head of NOF, he initiated a series of measures aiming at raising the level of indoctrination and education of slavophone peasants and andartes in the concept of “Macedonian nation”. That was, no doubt, a policy full of contradictions, dictated by international developments and the specific requirements of the armed struggle. Imitating the Bulgarian communists, Zachariadis tried to profit – or at least not to lose – from the turn of Macedonian politics. His own gamble – if it were not dictated from abroad – came late in January 1949.

The announcement of the Fifth Plenum resolution (31.1.1949), particularly its reference to the Macedonian question, created reverberations around the world’s chanceries, reappraisal of attitudes towards the KKE of the fence-standing segment of Greek public opinion and politicians, and eventually the hardening of Greek government policy towards KKE that survived the end of the Civil War for decades. Worse yet, it made collaboration with Tito’s Yugoslavia almost impossible. In-Party criticism came into the open immediately after the defeat, and continued until Zachariadis’ expulsion from the leadership of the Party.

Briefly stated, the new Party line, as presented in a series of documents and public statements, was the re-introduction of the 1924 platform for an independent Macedonian state, probably within a Balkan communist federation. The difference was that, whereas the 1924 decision was merely statement of intent, its 1949 reproduction appeared as an action program of a revolution in full swing. Certainly, the full extent of this major policy shift, is not and could not be reflected in a carefully worded Central Committee resolution. To understand the policy behind it, the historian needs to see all official statements made at the time (including those of KKE-controlled NOF) the measures taken by the KKE leadership to implement the decision, and the criticism voiced from within the Party hierarchy after the defeat, while Zachariadis was still at the helm. Undoubtedly, detailed accounts and documents released in recent years by pro-Tito Slavo-Macedonians give a better perspective, although caution is need for points of omission.

The basic, much-quoted texts are the Resolution of the Fifth Plenum of the CC of KKE (January 31^st ), the Decision of the Executive Council of NOF (February 4^th ), KKE and NOF “disclaimers” (broadcast by the Radio Free Greece on March 8^th and 9^th ) and the Resolution of the 2^nd Congress of NOF (end of March). These texts clearly indicate that after the successful conclusion of the revolution, the Slavo-Macedonians would be able to establish their own Macedonian state within a Balkan communist federation.

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ИСАК ДОЈЧЕР: Вооружениот пророк

IV An Intellectual Partnership

…When Trotsky, barred from Iskra and at loggrheads with everybody, left Geneva, he went to Munich, where Parvus was living; he stayed in Parvus’s home, and there Sedova, his second wife, later joined him. In Parvus he found a man viewing with detachment internal Russian alignments, capable of taking in the whole international scene of socialism, a master at Marxist analysis, unsurpassed in visualizing himself and others the broad vistas of class struggle. Last but not least, Trotsky admired in Parvus his ‘virile, muscular style’, which he was to remember hankeringly long after their break. In brief, Parvus still towered above Trotsky in erudition, experience, and literally taste. It is not easy, however, to define the extent on his influence in Trotsky. To this day Trotsky’s detractors attribute the exclusive authorship of the theory of ‘permanent revolution’, the hallmark of Trotskysm, to Parvus, and suggest either that Trotsky copied or plagiarized it or that a theory coming from so contaminated source must be worthless. Trotsky himself never denied his dept to Parvus, although the warmth with which acknowledged it varied with times and circumstances. What they both wrote in the hey-day of their association reveals how many of the ideas and views first formulated from Parvus left a deep mark on Trotsky, and how many of them was to repeat through his life in a form not very different from that in which his older friend had first put them.

But Trotsky was possessed of certain qualities which enabled him to be from the outset more that Parvus’s mere disciple. He Had his fresh experience of Russia and of the underground struggle, which Parvus had not. He had in incandescent political imagination, while Parvus’s analyses and prognostications sprang from a bold but cold mind. He had the revolutionary fervour which gave wings to his ideas, while Parvus was the cynical type of revolutionary. Trotsky, than, had his own contribution to make to their common fund of ideas. As in most associations of this sort, the respective shares of the partners cannot be unscrambled, not even by the partners themselves. The thinking is done in common; and even if sometimes it is possible to say who has first formulated in print this or that part of a theory, the invisible, two-way traffic of of suggestions and stimuli that has passed between the partners can never be traced. All that can be said of Parvus and Trotsky is that at first the older of the two was well ahead, leading with ideas and formulas. At the next stage both seemed to advance pari passu. In the end the junior leapt forward with a contribution which was distinctly his own, and which made and rounded off a new political doctrine; and with this doctrine he came to the fore on the vast and confused stage of revolution. It should be added that the whole process developed and was concluded rapidly. It began of summer 1904. It was consummated in 1906, when, awaiting trial on a Petersburg prison, Trotsky expounded in writing the theory of the permanent revolution in its finished form. The time of his apprenticeship with Parvus was briefer still: it hardly lasted longer than till the beginning of 1905, the opening of first revolution. This was a time of condensed and rapid thinking; and the young Trotsky, who had already projected the image of Jacobinism in Russian revolution, was a quick learner.

.            .            .            .            .            .            .            .            .            .            .            .

After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, Parvus published a series of essays in Iskra on ‘War and Revolution’. Even before that his contributions, which he used to sign as Molotov, had strongly impressed Trotsky. But it was mainly the views which he put forward in ‘War and Revolution’ that made the lasting impression.

Parvus’s central idea was that nation-state, as it had developed in capitalism, had outlived its day. This view had belonged to the common stock of Marx’s theory – it had been stated by Marx in the Communist Manifesto. But to most socialist writers at the turn of century this was one of the master’s sayings, fit to be prepared on festive occasions, but bearing little relation to the realities of a late Victorian, nation-conscious, and empire proud Europe. Only a very remote future, it was thought, might bring eclipse of the nation-state. Parvus, on the contrary, saw the eclipse coming, pointed in its symptoms, forecast its cataclysmic intensification, and urged the Socialists to adjust their attitudes and policies accordingly. He placed an unusually emphasis on the interdependence of nations and states, and this emphasis gave to a reasoning a broad, worldwide sweep, rare in other Socialists. He saw the Russo-Japanese conflict of 1904 as the start of a lonf sequence of wars, in which the nation-states, impelled by capitalist competition, would fight for their survival. The fate of continents had become intertwined. The opening of the American west had sharpened the competition for world markets between the agriculture producers. European, especially German, farming and industrial interests joined hands in order to do away with free trade and to impose a protectionist system in western Europe. ‘The customs wall have become an economic barrier to the historical process of the cultural unification of nations; they have increased the political conflicts between states … and enhanced the power of states and governments … - the stronger the power of governments, the easier do the states clash in arms’. These ideas were to become for Trotsky axioms from which he would argue all his life.

Russia’s expansion in Asia and conflict with Japan, Parvus held, were partly brought about domestic by domestic pressures: Tsardom was seeking in external conquest an escape from internal weakness. But more important were the external pressures to which Russia was subjected. In the worldwide struggle between capitalist nation-states only the great modern powers acted with independence; and even an empire as vast as the Tsar’s, was, because of its industrial backwardness, merely ‘a pensioner of the French Bourse’. ‘The war started over Manchuria and Korea; but it has already grown into a conflict over leadership in east Asia. At the next stage Russia’s entire position in the world will be at stake; and the war will end in a shift in the political balance of the world’.

Parvus concluded his analysis as follows: ‘The worldwide process of capitalist development leads to a political upheaval in Russia. This in its turn must have its impact on the political development of all capitalist countries. The Russian revolution will shake the bourgeois world… And the Russian proletariat may well play the role of the vanguard of social revolution’.

Thus already in 1904 Parvus viewed the approaching revolution not as purely Russian affair but as a reflection in Russia of worldwide social tensions; and ha saw in the coming Russian upheaval a prelude to world revolution. Here were the main elements for the theory of permanent revolution. Yet, Parvus had so far spoken only about a ‘political upheaval’ in Russia, not about a ‘social’ or Socialist revolution. He apparently still shared the view, than accepted by all Marxists, that the Russian revolution by itself would, because of the country’s semi-feudal and backward outlook, be merely bourgeois in character. Trotsky would be the first to say that the revolution would of its own momentum pass from the bourgeois to the Socialist stage, and establish a proletarian dictatorship in Russia, even before the advent of revolution in the West.

Not only were Parvus’s international ideas and revolutionary perspectives becoming part and parcel of Trotsky’s thinking, but, also, some of Trotsky’s views on Russian history, especially his conception of the Russian state, can be traced back to Parvus. The view that the Russian state, a cross between Asian despotism and European absolutism, had formed itself not as the organ of any class in Russian society, but as a military bureaucratic machine designed primarily to resist pressure from the more highly civilized West. It was for this purpose that Tsardom had introduced elements of European civilization into Russia, especially into the army. It was enough, he remarked, to cast a glance at the line of Russian frontier fortresses to see that the Tsars had intended to separate Russsia from the West by a sort of Chinese wall. Some of these theories, as they were developed and refined by Trotsky, became a objects of heated historical and political disputes twenty years later.

Parvus influence on Trotsky is felt also in the style and manner of exposition, especially in the characteristic sweep of historical prognostication. This is not to say that Trotsky played the literary ape to Parvus. He absorbed the influence naturally and organically because of his intellectual and literally affinity with Parvus, an anffiity which has not lessened by contrasts in character and temperament.

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Дојно Дојнов: КРЕСНЕНСКО-РАЗЛОШКОТО ВОСТАНИЕ 1878 - 1879

I. Подготовка, обявяване и ход на въстанието

3. Избухване и първи резултати 
Призори на 5 октомври 1878 г. около 400 въстаници нападнали турската войскова част в кресненските ханове и след 18-часова битка успели да сломят съпротивата й. Това успешно сражение поставило началото на Кресненско-Разложкото въстание.
Битката при Кресна била предварително добре обмислена. На първо място за целта били привлечени и съсредоточени няколко опитни от предишната борба чети начело с войводите Стоян Карастоилов, Коста Кукето, Стою Торолинко, Кръстю Светиврачки. 
От този момент започва и дейността на Стоян в Кресненското въстание. Главни източници за живота на този заслужил, но ненамерил достойно място в литературата българин са записките на писаря му Ив. Попгеоргиев, публикувани от Евл. Бужашки. При изворите на народната съпротива. - ИБИД, кн. XXVI, С., 1968, и писмата на Т. А. Страхинов. Оригиналът и на записките, и на писмата се намира в архива на Сп. Прокопов - БАН, инв. № 1428.
Подобен бил животът и дейността на останалите войводи. Биографични данни за тях вж. у Кирил, патриарх български. Съпротивата . . ., с. 75-84.
На 3 октомври в Сърбиново към четите се присъединява с отряда си и А. Калмиков, капитан, сотник от Донската казашка войска. [130] В общия отряд имало и мнозина бивши опълченци, между които изпъквал дядо Георги Гаджала (Гаджал войвода) от Котел.
На 4 срещу 5 октомври сборният отряд тръгнал от Сърбиново за Кресна, разделен на четири отделения, начело на които застанали войводите Стоян, Коста Кукето, Стою Торолинко и Кръстю Светиврачки. [131] Движението се извършвало тайно с оглед да не предизвикат вниманието на турската стража. Въстаническият отряд се разположил вън от с. Кресна (на 1/2 час път) непосредствено пред кресненските ханове. Тук отново било проведено съвещание, на което се разисквал начинът, по който следва да се нападне и овладее турската войскова част. Според сведенията на Т. А. Страхинов съществували две мнения: Стоян войвода предлагал хановете да се обходят и нападнат на разсъмване, а Калмиков от своя страна настоявал нападението да стане внезапно и фронтално и при изненадата и суматохата сред турските редици с ръкопашен бой да се сломи съпротивата им.
Според Страхинов съвещанието възприело плана, предлаган от Калмиков. [132]
Междувременно обаче обстановката се изменила. Турската войскова част предугадила по всяка вероятност опасността, защото, както Ив. Попгеоргиев пише: “Тук бяхме вече един срещу други с неприятеля и турците, без да подозират в началото опасността, която ги очакваше, разхождаха се свободно из голите Кресненски каменни полянки, но по едно време захвана да се забелязва някакво движение - види се, чрез шпиони узнаха опасното си положение.” [133] Незабавно войниците били изведени от помещенията и започнали да правят окопи и укрепления около караулните помещения. [134]
При това положение в изпълнение, както показват последвалите събития, влязъл в действие планът на Стоян войвода.
Вечерта въстаническият отряд се придвижва още по-напред. Водачи са местни хора (един от тях Мицо Чорбаджи от с. Кресна предвожда въстаниците от Сърбиново до сборния им пункт пред Кресна) [135] и преди всичко Стоян войвода, който “познаваше на пръсти местността” [136]. Едва тук, пред самото нападение, било раздадено оръжие на новопристигналите - пушки и патрони, и всички се приготвили за бой.
Сражението почнало в момента, когато някои от въстаниците достигнали съвсем близо до предните турски постове. “На около 50-60 крачки - описва битката Ив. Попгеоргиев - внезапно се извика два пъти: “Кимсънъс, кимсънъс?” и се изгърмява срещу нас три пушки; веднага се спряхме на мястото. Стоян, без да губи време, заповяда всички да налягат на земята и лазешком да се разреждат. От шанцовете, гдето турците чакали и биле готови, тутакси подир гръмването на караула изгърмя в залп, но никого не закачи. Огънят се отвори и от двете страни. . .” [137]
Когато битката започва, въстаническият отряд получава първите подкрепления от местното население. “Тук, от как се зазори дойдоха на помощ (на въстаниците - б. м.) от селата кресненски” - свидетелствува Т. А. Страхинов. Това били няколкостотин души главно от Кресна, Влахи, Ошава и др. [138]
По време на започналата се ожесточена стрелба Стоян с още четири души добри стрелци “нишанджии” се насочва към хана с цел да изведе оттам конете и да пресече пътя за доставяне храна на неприятеля, разположен по позицията. Караулите в хана осуетяват този опит. Нападателите не успяват и да изкъртят дувара и да се вмъкнат вътре в хана. Тогава, пак по нареждане на войводата, едно отделение заема позиция зад хановете със задача “да вардят, когато някой ще иска да влезе за хляб, да гърмят върху него” [139]. В това време цялата турска позиция била обхваната от въстаническия обръч. До сутринта боят продължил. Въстаниците успели да обградят неприятеля, да прекъснат снабдяването му с храна и да подсигурят капитулацията му.
Сутринта битката продължила. Турските войници били притиснати в окопите и всеки опит да се надигнат или пък снабдят с хляб бил осуетяван от въстаническия огън. Въстаниците по нареждане на Стоян войвода последователно, на групи се хранели “и бодри добивали ежеминутно кураж”. Едновременно с отрязването на пътя за доставка на хляб Стоян войвода заедно с някой си Янко, тръбач, заемат позиция и по този начин турците “даже и с капка вода не можеха да си разквасят устата от чешмичката, която беше току до шанца; немислимо беше да си подадат главата, понеже Стоян беше пресметнал и разпоредил най-първите нишанджии накръст, така щото кога попадне куршум в турския шанц да може да покосява по няколко души. . .” [140]Въстаническият обръч бил затегнат на 50 крачки от турските позиции. Тогава чрез тръбен сигнал и парламентьори (ханджиите от хановете) въстаническото ръководство предложило на няколко пъти на турците да се предадат. Накрая турският офицер (юзбашия) приел, но “като видя, че отпреде му се изпречиха хора с фльоки, помисли си, че има работа с харамии, които може би, след като се предадат, ще ги изколят” [141], се стъписал. Последвала молба на турските офицери за примирие. Въстаниците им дали срок да обмислят положението си и да се предадат. Въстаническото ръководство взело допълнителни мерки, за да предотврати евентуално бягство на противника, като турците се възползуват от даденото им време за обмисляне и след това - от нощната тъмнина.
В края на деня турската войскова част се предала - 119 души войници и 2-ма офицери. [142]
Актът на капитулацията останал незабравим за присъствуващите въстаници - низшите чинове събрали на снопове пушките и снаряжението си, а офицерите посрещнали въстаническите ръководители в отделна стаичка на хановете. Между войводите се намирал и Адам Калмиков, пристигнал преди края на битката на мястото на полесражението. Неговото присъствие в униформа на руски казашки офицер ускорило решението на турските офицери да сложат оръжие. Желанието на пленените турци, опасявайки се от наказание от собственото си правителство, било да бъдат изпратени не в Турция, а в Княжеството.
Освен пленените бойци и офицери в ръцете на въстаниците паднали над 100 пушки, 13 товара патрони, 13 коня. [143] В няколкочасовата битка при Кресна най-много се отличил с опитността, храбростта и тактическото си умение Стоян войвода. Макар че двама от свидетелите - Ив. Попгеоргиев и Т. Страхинов, които са ни оставили бележките си за тази битка - са твърде пристрастни, но те и всички други документи и спомени говорят, че той е бил душата на пъстрата по състав, опитност и произход въстаническа сила. 
В случая за сравнение може да се вземе и цифрата от подписите под молбата на пленените, съхранявана понастоящем в ЦГВИА, Москва, ф. 430, д. № 90, л. 82-88. Там са посочени 115 души войници и 4-ма офицери, или общо 119 души, но по всяка вероятност двама от ранените през това време са били умрели.
Пленените редовни турски войници и офицери създали големи трудности на въстаническото ръководство, пък и на Джумайския и Софийския комитет.
Въстаническото ръководство предоставило въпроса за съдбата на пленниците на Джумайския комитет, а той от своя страна на Софийския. На 8 октомври Мелетий отговорил за необходимостта да се вземе разписка, че се освобождават пленниците, като желаещите останат в Княжество България. След това с разрешение на джумайския окръжен управител да се намери място за тяхното настаняване в Княжеството. Сам Мелетий изготвил проекта на тази разписка-заявление и я изпратил до Джумайския комитет с изричното напомняне “подписите на заробените турци да ги земе главатарът на въстаниците, а не вашият комитет”. Мелетий искал с това да покаже, че въстаниците са самостоятелна организация, че нямат връзка с комитетите в България.
При търсенето на изход за съдбата на пленниците Мелетий уведомил и руските власти и лично Дондуков-Корсаков.
Пленниците били пазени постоянно и на различни места, като за тях въстаническото ръководство имало не само грижи и главоболия, но и харчило доста средства за изхранването им (Освобождение Болгарии от турецкого ига. Т. 3, д. № 164, 166, с. 267, 268-269; Г. Кацаров и Ив. Кепов. Цит. съч., д. № 19, 20, 29, 30, 49, 53, 99, 120, 121 и др.).
Той не само подготвил майсторски нападението, но и показвал пример на безстрашие и с това окуражавал въстаниците, между които е имало хора, помирисващи за пръв път барутния дим. “През време на боя - пише Ив. Попгеоргиев - Стоян дава разпореждания, лети из куршумите, разрежда момчетата и не се спира никак, възседнал на коня, хич не иска да знае от хвърчащите около му куршуми. . ., насърчава момчетата да не се боят.” [144]
В боя се проявили и останалите войводи, и старият опълченец дядо Георги Гаджала. [145]
В навечерието на първата битка се проявило разногласие между Адам Калмиков и войводата Стоян по тактическите въпроси - главно за начина, по който трябва да се нападнат кресненските ханове. Още тук с оглед на изменилата се обстановка мнението на опитния Стоян войвода взело преднина и се оказало по-правилно. Самият Калмиков, а и Димитър Попгеоргиев, който също се намирал на полесражението в Кресна, оставили на Стоян войвода прякото ръководство, а те се заели с организирането на въстаниците, особено на тия от селата, с по-общите въпроси на организацията на сражението и на начеващото въстание. [146]
Едновременно с боя в Кресненската клисура в самото село Кресна станал един езипод, който, макар и да бил маловажен в общия ход на въстанието, имал голямо морално въздействие върху селяните от Кресна и околните села. Случаят бил следният: в Кресна пристигнали и се установили в една селска къща 7 души турски спахии, неподозирайки опасноста, която ги грози. Битката при хановете окуражила селяните и те обсадили полупияните турци. Сражението пламнало. Трима от обсадените успели да се измъкнат, а другите продължавали да се съпротивяват. Известен за случая, Стоян войвода изпратил в помощ на селяните една група въстаници под предводителството на Анастас Джостов, в която влизал и Т. Страхинов. [147] След като турците пак отказали да се предадат, сам “сайбията” на къщата - Ангел Кресналията, я запалил. Двама от обградените били убити, като се опитвали да се измъкнат от пламъците, а други двама били пленени. Калмиков, който се намирал по същото време в селото, наредил пленените да се откарат в Джумая.
По пътя обаче, както и в много други случаи на въстания и борби, историята се повторила - двамата въоръжени придружвачи - селяни, ги подкарали, но не ги закарали до града, а ги обезглавили [148] и с това създали основания по-късно за протести и дипломатически анкети.
Имало обаче и случаи, когато към пленените турски офицери и войници въстаническото ръководство постъпвало много хуманно - не само животът на всички бил запазван, но оставяли и всичките им пари, давали им храна, а на командира на частта, пленена при Кресна, и помощника му оръжието било върнато. [149] Този акт направил голямо впечатление не само на пленените, но получил по-късно одобрение и широко разпространение в европейската преса.
Веднага след приключване на сражението въстаническото ръководство уведомило Джумайския комитет, както и останалите благотворителни комитети за големия успех. В писмо от 6 октомври 1878 г. Д. Попгеоргиев съобщава: “Високо Почитаемый госопода! Македонските Востаныци следваме делото си. Вчера държахме битка 18 часа с два булюка регулярна турска войска. Битката ся свърши с пожертвование от над един убыен и трима ранени, а от турците 9 убыени, единаесе ранени и прочийте в плен 119 солдата и двама офицери с припасите и военните им потреби. Двама от войводите продължават битката в повътрешните села Мелнички.” [150]
Известията за победата при Кресна намират широко отражение както в българската преса, така и в Европа. На 17 октомври в. “Марица”, излизащ в Пловдив, пише: “Достоверни пътници, които пристигнаха вчера тука, разказват за една важна победа, нанесена на турските войски от българските въстаници в Мелничко. Битката се продължава почти цяла нощ и утринта, при изгряването на слънцето, турците бидоха принудени да се предадат на българските въстаници.” [151]
Няколко дни след битката А. Филипов пише от Дупница до Д. Попгеоргиев, като му съобщава, че “Фар дьо Босфор”, “Вакът” и гръцкият “Неологос” съобщили за битката, но предавали неверни сведения, включително и това, че въстаниците броели 7000-8000 души. “Бившият солунски руски консул н. в. пр. г-н Юсубович (Т. П. Юзефович - б. м.) - продължава по-нататък А. Филипов - ме уведоми, че в голямо учудване паднали всички европейски агенти в Цариград как тъй въстаниците да могат да уловят роби. Като не е възможно всичко подробно да ви явя, за какво е мнението на цяла Европа, затова желая по-скоро да се видим и устно да се разговорим за всичко.”