In the summer of 1918 Pepelyayev's corps was involved in a remarkable expedition to the east along the
Trans-Siberian Railway. It was as a consequence of this expedition that the Whites managed to bring
Siberia under their direct control. On 18 June Pepelyayev entered
Krasnoyarsk; on 26 August he advanced as far east as
Chita. Having crossed
Transbaikalia, Pepelyayev's forces linked up with the
Amur Cossacks of
Grigory Semyonov in early September.
Service under Kolchak
In December, Pepelyayev's forces resumed their high tempo advance, this time to the west. On December 16, 1918, Pepelyaev signed Order No. 049, directing an attack on
Perm.[48][49][50] His greatest victory was the
Capture of Perm, where some roughly 20,000[51][52]~
Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner on 25 December 1918[29][53][52][54][d] following its abandonment.[54][29] By the evening of the aforementioned 25 of December, the city was under White Army control.[48] These Bolsheviks were reportedly released back to their homes on Pepelyayev's personal orders.[51][54][29] For this victory, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General,[29] nicknamed "Siberian Suvorov" (because his accomplishment coincidentally happened just after the 128th anniversary of the
capture of the fortress of Izmail by
Alexander Suvorov[52]), and, for preliminary accomplishments and this, awarded the Order of St. George of the 3rd degree.[29] Further advances on
Vyatka were impeded by heavy frost. As the spring
rasputitsa arrived, Pepelyayev's position deteriorated. His armies had outrun their supply lines and were exhausted from many months of incessant warfare, while the Red Army was pouring newly raised troops into the area.
Pepelyayev's taking of
Glazov on 2 June 1919 was his last success. During the following months, his First Siberian Army suffered a series of setbacks and fell back on
Tobolsk, where they were forced to make a last stand against the Bolsheviks. By the end of the year, the
White Army had collapsed into a panic and abandoned
Omsk, followed by Tomsk.
Pepelyayev's conflict with Kolchak came to a head in mid-December 1919 when he issued threats to arrest the White admiral. They were reconciled by Viktor Pepelyayev before Anatoly was disabled by
typhus and transferred for convalescence to
Harbin. The remains of his army joined that of
Vladimir Kappel and crossed the frozen
Lake Baikal during the
Great Siberian Ice March.
During his stint in Harbin, the former general was employed in menial jobs, including those of carpenter and taxi driver.[55] Still, he harboured the intention of wresting Siberia from the Bolsheviks. On 31 August 1922 Pepelyayev and 553-strong volunteer "
druzhina" embarked on the last major operation of the Civil War. They sailed into the
Sea of Okhotsk and disembarked at the port of
Okhotsk, aiming to penetrate westward into the rugged mountainous country.
In September Pepelyayev sailed up the
Okhota River into Siberia, with his eyes set on
Yakutsk. His troops swarmed over
Yakutia, but were contained by
Ivan Strod's Bolsheviks. Numerically weaker, they were defeated by sheer weight of numbers. After abandoning the key settlement of
Amga, Pepelyayev pressed on towards the Pacific in the hope of making a crossing to
Sakhalin. This final campaign saw him defeated near Okhotsk on 1–2 May. Pepelyayev surrendered to the Bolsheviks after the siege of the seaside village of
Ayan on 17 June 1923. This was the last siege of the Russian Civil War.
Imprisonment and death
Lieutenant General Pepelyayev was tried by the
Vladivostok military tribunal and sentenced to execution by
firing squad. After he asked
Mikhail Kalinin for pardon, the sentence was commuted to ten years in prison. He served this term in the
Yaroslavl prison, then in
Butyrki. Pepelyayev was finally set at liberty on 6 June 1936 and was employed as a carpenter in
Voronezh. In August 1937, during
The Great Purges, he was again arrested, taken to
Novosibirsk, tried on charges of having created a counter-revolutionary organization, sentenced to death on December 7[56][57] and executed on 14 January 1938[e] as '
enemy of the people'. His Civil War rival Ivan Strod also perished in the Great Purge. Pepelyayev was posthumously cleared of these charges and completely
rehabilitated on October 20, 1989[f][g].
Honours and awards
Order of St. Anna, 4th class with the inscription "For Bravery", 3rd class and 2nd class
Pepelyayev is a supporting character in the novel 1936, written by Sean League. It offers a fictional explanation for his release from prison in 1936 and re-arrest and execution a year later.[68]
^1936, Sean League, Published by Candlelight Press, 2017,
ISBN978-1942319252
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Александр Петрушин. Омск, Аян, Лубянка... Три жизни генерала Пепеляева. // «Родина», 1996 No. 9. (Alexander Petrushin. Omsk, Ayan, Lubyanka ... Three Lives General Pepelyaev. / / "Homeland", 1996 number 9)
Клипель В. И. Аргонавты снегов. О неудавшемся походе генерала А. Пепеляева. (Klipel VI Argonauts snow. On the failed campaign of General A. Pepelyaev)
Домен припаркован в TimewebArchived 8 November 2017 at the
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Грачев Г. П. Якутский поход генерала Пепеляева (под ред. П. К. Конкина) (Grachev GP Yakut hike General Pepelyaev (ed. Konkin PK))
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