Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was a polar explorer and commander in the Imperial Russian Navy, who fought in the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. During the Russian Civil War, he established an anti-communist government in Siberia later the Provisional All-Russian Government and was recognised as the "Supreme Ruler and Commander-in-Chief of All Russian Land and Sea Forces" by the other leaders of the White movement from 1918 to 1920.
Background
Kolchak was born in Saint Petersburg in 1874 to a family of minor Russian nobility (Moldovan origin). His father was a retired major-general of the Marine Artillery and a veteran of the 1854 siege of Sevastopol, who after retirement worked as an engineer in ordnance works near St. Petersburg.
Education
Kolchak was educated for a naval career, graduating from the Naval Cadet Corps in 1894 and joining the 7th Naval Battalion.
Career
He received his first assignment with the Pacific Fleet. In 1900 the talented young lieutenant was invited to join an expedition to the North Pole, and he soon made a reputation for himself as an explorer. He fought with distinction at Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904/1905, commanding a destroyer, then a shore battery. After a stint as a Japanese prisoner of war, Kolchak returned to Russia to serve in the newly established Naval General Staff. This body, designed to reform the navy and to prepare for a future war, became home for a number of young military innovators. Kolchak's work there, along with new polar explorations, 1910/1911, marked him as an officer with a bright future. In 1912, then a commander, he requested sea duty and received charge of a destroyer in the Baltic Fleet under Admiral von Essen.
In World War I Kolchak received rapid and well deserved promotion. Essen set the stage. The admiral refused to accept the High Command's call to float passively behind mine barriers in the face of the superior German navy. Kolchak played a leading role, both as a staff and line officer, in implementing Essen's orders to cut away at German naval traffic in the Baltic. As a staff officer, Kolchak directed the Baltic Fleet's operations section; by the fall of 1915 he was the commanding officer of the crack Mine Division, the most active segment of the fleet. In the spring of 1916 Kolchak, at age forty-one, was a rear admiral. His reputation for efficiency joined with daring was well established; as early as February 1915 he had personally led a squadron of destroyers to mine the approaches to Danzig.
In July 1916, promoted vice admiral, Kolchak took command of the Black Sea Fleet. The Russians enjoyed a rough balance with their foes there, and Kolchak found even greater scope than in the Baltic for his energy and imagination. Using combined submarine and destroyer squadrons, he applied new techniques for the rapid deployment of mines. Such offensive operations obstructed enemy naval traffic between the Bosphorus and the Black Sea and constituted a severe blow to Turkish and German cruisers and submarines. In August the Russians mounted an imaginative offensive comparable to the air-sea strikes of World War II; leading a force of cruisers, destroyers, and sea plane carriers, Kolchak tried to attack the Bulgarian port of Varna. As the year ended, the Black Sea naval leader was looking forward to an assault on the Dardanelles the following spring.
Even in the adverse conditions following the March Revolution, Kolchak performed well. His fleet was well removed from the urban storm centers of northern Russia, and Kolchak himself quickly accepted the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of the provisional government. For months, he was able to negotiate with the fleet's revolutionary committees to maintain order and discipline. By June, however, the sailors of the Black Sea command were moving rapidly to the political left and Kolchak abandoned his command. The provisional government sent him to Washington to discuss future joint operations with the U.S. navy. Kolchak was returning from this disguised form of political exile by way of Japan when he received word of the November Revolution.
The distinguished young admiral, totally lacking any political experience, was determined to hold his country in the war against Germany. This dedication proved the road to personal and national tragedy. By November 1918, Kolchak had taken nominal command over anti-Bolshevik forces in Siberia. Although more than a figurehead, Kolchak found his power severely constricted. The admiral was dependent upon Czech and Allied, notably British, military power. A leader of political brilliance might have transformed the situation; but Kolchak had no appealing program to offer the Russian population in place of Bolshevism. The main effect of his rise to power was to stamp the White cause as one dominated by nationalist-minded military men, uninterested in political and social reform. Neither were Kolchak's substantial military talents at home in a war in which cavalry divisions rather than torpedo boats and mine sweepers were the crucial weapons. His spring advance westward in 1919 collapsed, went into reverse, then turned into a rout. In early 1920 the luckless admiral fell into the hands of the local government in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, then faced a tribunal dominated by the area's Bolsheviks. Russia's greatest naval hero of World War I was executed by firing squad outside Irkutsk, February 7, 1920.
Religion
No religious basis is needed in order to display ethical behavior.
Politics
Admiral Kolchak's government was not successful from the time of his taking the position of Supreme Ruler until his death. As a military commander he was unable to make successful strategic plans or to coordinate with other White Army generals such as Yudenich or Denikin.
Kolchak also failed to convince potentially friendly Finland to join with him against the Bolsheviks. He was unable to win diplomatic recognition from any nation in the world, even Great Britain (though the British did support him to some degree). In addition he alienated the Czechoslovak Legion, which for a time was a powerful organised military force in the region and very strongly anti-Bolshevik. As was mentioned above, the American commander, General Graves, disliked Kolchak and refused to lend him any military aid at all.
Views
The emphasis on peaceful coexistence doesn’t mean that the Soviet Union accepted a static world with clear lines. Socialism is inevitable and the "correlations of forces" were moving towards socialism.