At the Bratsk necropolis, the burial place of General Slashchev was discovered and a slab of Reconciliation and Memory was erected. Yakov Slashchev

Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchev-Krymsky(in the old spelling Slashchov, December 29, 1885 - January 11, 1929, Moscow) - Russian military leader, lieutenant general, active participant in the white movement in southern Russia.

Born on December 29 (according to another version - December 12), 1885 in St. Petersburg. Father - Colonel Alexander Yakovlevich Slashchev, a hereditary military man. Mother - Vera Aleksandrovna Slashcheva.

“General Slashchev, the former sovereign ruler of the Crimea, with the transfer of headquarters to Feodosia, remained at the head of his corps. General Schilling was placed at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief. A good combat officer, General Slashchev, having assembled random troops, coped with his task perfectly. With a handful of people , amid the general collapse, he defended the Crimea. However, complete independence, beyond any control, the consciousness of impunity finally turned his head. Unbalanced by nature, weak-willed, easily susceptible to the most base flattery, poorly versed in people, and also subject to a morbid addiction to drugs and wine, he was completely confused in the atmosphere of general collapse. No longer content with the role of a combat commander, he sought to influence the general political work, bombarded the headquarters with all sorts of projects and assumptions, each more chaotic than the other, insisted on replacing a number of other commanders, demanded the involvement of persons who seemed outstanding to him (Wrangel P.N. Notes. November 1916 - November 1920 Memoirs. Memoirs.)"

• 1903 - Graduated from the St. Petersburg Gurevich Real School.
• 1905 - Graduated from the Pavlovsk Military School and was released into the Finnish Life Guards Regiment (by 1917 he had risen to the rank of assistant regiment commander).
• 1911 - Graduated from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff in the 2nd category (without the right to be assigned to the General Staff due to a low average score).
• 1914 - He went to the front with the regiment (wounded five times and shell-shocked twice).
• 1915 - Awarded the Arms of St. George.
• 1916 - Awarded the Order of St. George, IV degree. November 1916 - Colonel.
• July 14, 1917 - December 1, 1917 - Commander of the Moscow Guards Regiment. December 1917 - Joined the Volunteer Army.
• January 1918 - Sent by General Alekseev to the North Caucasus to create officer organizations in the Caucasian Mineral Waters region.
• May 1918 - Chief of Staff of the partisan detachment of Colonel A. G. Shkuro; then chief of staff of the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division of General Ulagai.
• September 6, 1918 - Commander of the Kuban Plastun Brigade as part of the 2nd Division of the Volunteer Army.
• November 15, 1918 - Commander of the 1st separate Kuban Plastun brigade.
• February 18, 1919 - Brigade commander in the 5th division.
• June 8, 1919 - Brigade commander in the 4th division.
• May 14, 1919 - Promoted to major general for military distinction.
• August 2, 1919 - Head of the 4th Division (13th and 34th Combined Brigades).
• December 6, 1919 - Commander of the 3rd Army Corps (13th and 34th combined brigades deployed in the division, numbering 3.5 thousand bayonets and sabers).
• December 27, 1919 - At the head of the corps, he occupied fortifications on the Perekop Isthmus, preventing the capture of Crimea.
• Winter 1919-1920 - Head of the Defense of Crimea.
• February 1920 - Commander of the Crimean Corps (formerly 3rd AK)
• March 25, 1920 - Promoted to lieutenant general with appointment as commander of the 2nd Army Corps (formerly Crimean).
• August 1920 - After the inability to liquidate the Kakhovka bridgehead of the Reds, supported by large-caliber guns of the TAON (Heavy Artillery for Special Purpose) of the Reds from the right bank of the Dnieper, he submitted his resignation.
• August 1920 - At the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief.
• August 18, 1920 - By order of General Wrangel, he received the right to be called “Slashchev-Krymsky”.
• November 1920 - As part of the Russian army, he was evacuated from Crimea to Constantinople.

He was fearless, constantly leading his troops to attack by personal example. He had nine wounds, the last of which, a concussion to the head, was received at the Kakhovsky bridgehead in early August 1920. He suffered many wounds practically on his feet. To reduce the unbearable pain from a wound in the stomach in 1919, which did not heal for more than six months, he began injecting himself with the painkiller morphine, then became addicted to cocaine, which is why he gained the “fame” of a drug addict...

After emigrating, he lived in Constantinople, vegetating in poverty and doing gardening. In Constantinople, Slashchev sharply and publicly condemned the Commander-in-Chief and his staff, for which, by the verdict of the court of honor, he was dismissed from service without the right to wear a uniform. In response to the court's decision, in January 1921 he published the book “I Demand the Court of Society and Glasnost. Defense and surrender of Crimea (Memoirs and documents).

Slashchev began to think about the wrongness of the white cause when his pregnant wife in the summer of 1920 fell into the hands of Dzerzhinsky’s security officers, who knew who she was, and was released by them back to the general across the front line, despite the threat of Trotsky’s protege, the commissar of the 13th Red Army, Rosalia Zemlyachka. shoot.

According to some reports, in 1920 Slashchev personally came to negotiate with the Reds in the Korsun monastery they occupied near Berislav and was freely released by the plenipotentiary commissar Dzerzhinsky.

The Chairman of the Cheka, Dzerzhinsky, treated Slashchev well; the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army, Trotsky, hated him.

Having entered into negotiations with the Soviet authorities in Constantinople, he was granted amnesty. On November 21, 1921, together with the White Cossacks, he returned to Sevastopol, from where he traveled to Moscow in Dzerzhinsky’s personal carriage. He addressed the soldiers and officers of the Russian Army with an appeal to return to the USSR. In 1924 he published the book “Crimea in 1920. Excerpts from Memoirs.” Since June 1922 - teacher of tactics at the Shot command school.

On January 11, 1929, he was killed by Trotskyist Lazar Kolenberg in his room at school - allegedly out of revenge for his brother, who was hanged on the orders of Slashchev, although in time this murder coincides with a wave of repressions that fell on former officers of the White Army.

In Moscow, General Ya. A. Slashchev, one of the active participants in the white movement, who earned a very sad memory for his exceptional cruelty and recklessness, was killed in his apartment. Already in Crimea, Slashchev tried to replace General Wrangel at the head of the army, and then in Constantinople he published a well-known brochure in which he demanded a trial of the commander-in-chief (Wrangel). From Constantinople, Slashchev moved to Moscow, the Soviet government willingly forgave him for his sins against her and appointed him a professor at the Military Academy. However, he was unable to stay there due to the extremely hostile attitude of his listeners towards him. Slashchev was transferred to rifle-tactical courses for improving command personnel (the so-called “Vystrel”), where he remained until his last days as a lecturer, who managed to publish several works on military issues during his stay in the USSR. Slashchev’s residence in Moscow was carefully hidden. Recent reports from Berlin newspapers talk about the arrest of the killer, 24-year-old Kohlenberg, who said that he killed Slashchev for the shooting of his brother, committed by Slashchev in Crimea. Moscow claims that the murder was committed several days ago, but they did not immediately decide to report it. Slashchev's body was burned in a Moscow crematorium. Unschlicht and other representatives of the Revolutionary Military Council were present at the burning. (Newspaper "Rul", Berlin, January 16, 1929)

Subsequently, it will become clear whether he was killed by a hand that was truly guided by a sense of vengeance, or that was guided by the requirement of expediency and safety. After all, it is strange that the “avenger” for more than four years could not put an end to a man who did not hide behind the thickness of the Kremlin walls and in the labyrinth of the Kremlin palaces, but lived peacefully, without security, in his private apartment. And at the same time, it is understandable that during hours of noticeable shaking of the ground under one’s feet, it is necessary to eliminate a person known for his determination and mercilessness. Here it was necessary to really hurry up and quickly use both some kind of murder weapon and the oven of the Moscow crematorium, which could quickly destroy traces of the crime. (“For Freedom”, Warsaw, January 18, 1929)

In the twenties, there was, perhaps, no more colorful figure at the commander’s courses at Vystrel, the main “military academy” in the USSR at that time, than “Professor Yasha.” Judge for yourself: a former guardsman, a graduate of the Nikolaev General Staff Academy, who went through the entire First World War in the trenches. During the Civil War he was the chief of staff of General Shkuro; in Denikin’s Volunteer Army and Wrangel’s Armed Forces of the South of Russia he commanded a brigade, division and corps, and wore lieutenant general’s shoulder straps.
And now he teaches wisdom to the Red commanders, whom he recently successfully defeated on the battlefields. He teaches, sarcastically picking apart all the mistakes and miscalculations of the authoritative army commanders and division commanders of the army of workers and peasants.

At one of these classes, Semyon Budyonny, who became a legend during his lifetime, unable to withstand caustic comments about the actions of his 1st Cavalry Army, discharged a revolver drum towards the former white general. And he just spat on his fingers, stained with chalk, and calmly said towards the silent audience: “This is how you shoot, this is how you fight.”

The name of this extraordinary man was Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchev.

Fight, fight like that

HE WAS BORN on December 12, 1885 in a family of hereditary military men. His grandfather fought the Turks in the Balkans, and a little later, in burning Warsaw, he pacified the arrogant nobles. My father rose to the rank of colonel and retired with honor. In 1903, Yakov graduated from one of the most prestigious secondary educational institutions of the northern capital - the St. Petersburg Gurevich Real School, after which he was admitted to the Pavlovsk Military School and, upon graduation, was assigned to the Finnish Life Guards Regiment.

The twenty-year-old second lieutenant did not have time to attend the Russian-Japanese mission. And, either out of frustration, or on the advice of his elders, he submitted documents to the Academy of the General Staff. There, the young man, who did not belong to the brilliant youth of the capital, was not received very kindly: Slashchev was smart, but at the same time he was quick-tempered, painfully proud and very often unrestrained.

Not finding loyal friends among his classmates, Yakov did not put much effort into his studies, preferring the joys of noisy St. Petersburg life to the silence of academic classrooms and libraries. But it was then that Slashchev, who was bored with maps and diagrams of classical campaigns and battles, first began to “dabble” in the development of night operations unusual for his time - a kind of mixture of the actions of partisan detachments and flying sabotage groups.

Having completed his studies in the “second category,” Lieutenant Slashchev was not assigned to the General Staff and returned to his native regiment, taking command of a company. Realizing that he would not be able to make a career through education, Yakov Aleksandrovich, using all the knowledge and skills of the capital’s womanizer, married the daughter of the regiment commander, General Vladimir Kozlov. His career advancement would have proceeded so quietly and peacefully if the First World War had not broken out.
The general's son-in-law met the news of the start of the war at a friendly party at a café table. Having put out a cigarette in a glass of champagne and poured out the entire contents of his wallet onto a tray, Slashchev said: “Well, gentlemen, fight, fight. Otherwise, I began to forget how it’s done,” and left for my unit, which had already received an order to go to the front line.

On August 18, 1914, the Finnish Life Guards Regiment moved to the front with all four battalions. Together with the rest of the guard, he was enlisted in the reserve of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters. Let the word “reserve” not mislead anyone. Until July 1917, when almost all of them died in battles near Tarnopol and on the Zbruch River, the Finns were used as a striking force in offensives, and in defense and during retreats - to plug holes in particularly dangerous areas.

What is a company commander, and then a battalion commander of a fighting regiment for three years? It is unlikely that additional explanations are required for this line in Slashchev’s job description. Let’s just say that Yakov Aleksandrovich and his guardsmen participated in bayonet attacks in the Kozenice forests, and led the battalion in all the oncoming battles of the Battle of Krasnostav. In 1916, near Kovel, when the Russian infantry offensive was about to collapse, it was he who raised the Finnish chains in a suicidal attack. And, having passed through the swamps, killing two-thirds of the personnel, he achieved victory with bayonets in the division’s breakthrough area, paying for it with two of his own wounds.

In total, Slashchev ended up in hospitals five times. He suffered two concussions on his feet without leaving the battalion location. He met the February Revolution as a colonel and deputy regiment commander, a holder of the Order of St. George, 4th degree, and a holder of the St. George.

In the summer of 1917, soldiers from reserve companies rebelled in Petrograd, not wanting to go to the front. In order to prevent a repetition of a similar incident in other cities, the Provisional Government recalled several energetic and strong-willed officers from the front and put them in charge of the garrisons and guards regiments that remained in the capitals. Slashchev was among them: on July 14, he took over the Moscow Guards Regiment and commanded it until December of the seventeenth year.
And then he suddenly disappeared...

In the Dobrarmiya

ON A COLD December morning in 1917, a tall officer with a pale face, on which all the muscles twitched nervously, walked into the headquarters of the Volunteer Army in Novocherkassk. Pushing open the door where the sign “Personnel Commission” hung, he clicked his heels and, putting the documents on the table, dryly said to those sitting in the room: “Colonel Slashchev. I’m ready to take command of any unit.” He was told to wait.

Going out into the street, Yakov Aleksandrovich decided to while away the time in one of the city cafes. And there he came face to face with a fellow student at the academy, Staff Captain Sukharev. He was an envoy for General Kornilov, one of the leaders of the Dobrarmia. After a short exchange of everyday news, the far middle-aged staff captain looked carefully at the thirty-two-year-old colonel. “Do you remember, dear friend, your academic interests in partisan warfare? This could be very useful now.”…

At that time, the cavalry detachments of the Cossack Colonel Andrei Shkuro were in full swing in Kuban, Laba and Zelenchuk. Their spontaneous semi-partisan actions needed to be given, according to the plans of the command of the Volunteer Army, an organized character in order to jointly clear the south of Russia from the Bolsheviks. It would have been difficult to find a more suitable candidate for this mission than Colonel Slashchev. And, obeying the order, Yakov Alexandrovich went to the Kuban people.

They quickly found a common language with Shkuro. Andrei Grigorievich, an excellent cavalry commander, did not organically digest any staff work, preferring dashing saber clashes to “crawling on maps” and careful planning of operations. It’s no wonder that Slashchev took the position of chief of staff from him.

A few months later, Shkuro’s Cossack “army,” which had seriously battered the Reds, already numbered about five thousand sabers. With these experienced fighters who had gone through the fire of the World War, Andrei Grigorievich, without much difficulty, occupied Stavropol on July 12, 1918, presenting it on a silver platter to the Volunteer Army approaching the city. For this, Denikin, who became the head of the “volunteers” after the death of Lavr Kornilov, awarded Shkuro and Slashchev the rank of major general. Soon Slashchev took command of an infantry division, conducting successful raids on Nikolaev and Odessa, which allowed the White Guards to take control of almost the entire Right Bank of Ukraine.

Looking ahead, let's say that in the same 1918, Slashchev met a young man of desperate courage, the St. George Cavalier, Junker Nechvolodov, who became his orderly. Very soon it became clear that under this name was hiding... Nina Nechvolodova. For three years of the Civil War, Ninochka practically did not leave Yakov Alexandrovich, several times she carried him wounded from the battlefield. In 1920 they became husband and wife.

Ironically, the uncle of “junker Nechvolodov” all these years was... the chief of artillery of the Red Army! In the twentieth, pregnant Nina, due to circumstances, remained in the territory occupied by the Reds, was arrested by security officers and transported to Moscow, where she appeared before the menacing eyes of Iron Felix. Dzerzhinsky acted more than nobly towards the wife of the white general: after several confidential conversations, Nechvolodova-Slashcheva was transported across the front line to her husband. These meetings of the wife with the head of the Cheka subsequently played a huge role in the fate of Yakov Alexandrovich...

In the midst of the Civil War, when the scales tipped in one direction or another almost every month, Slashchev and his division, finding themselves in his native element, smashed the Reds, the Greens, the Makhnovists, the Petliurists, as well as all the other fathers and atamans with equal success , against whom Denikin threw him. None of them could find an effective antidote to Slashchev’s tactics of rapid raids, night assaults and daring raids, which became the calling card and signature style of the desperate general.

All this time, Yakov Aleksandrovich literally lived on the front line, behaved extremely withdrawn, practically not appearing at Headquarters, communicating only with his officers and soldiers. They literally idolized “General Yasha.” And he, who added to the five wounds of the First World War seven more received in the Civil War, literally doused himself with alcohol in the evenings in the headquarters carriage to drown out the unbearable pain throughout his body and the longing for a dying Russia. When alcohol stopped helping, Slashchev switched to cocaine...

And the flywheel of the Civil War continued to gain momentum. Yakov Alexandrovich, who was already at the head of the corps, reached the Podolsk province without a single defeat. It was here that an event little known even to military historians happened: almost the entire Galician army of Simon Petlyura surrendered to Slashchev without a fight, whose officers declared that they were no longer going to fight for an independent Ukraine and agreed to fight for a great and indivisible Russia.
But then Denikin received an order to immediately transfer Slashchev to Tavria, where the uprising of Nestor Makhno took place, under whose black banners almost one hundred thousand peasants stood. The rear of the Dobramiya found itself under serious threat.

By November 16, 1919, Slashchev concentrated the main forces of his corps near Yekaterinoslav and launched a surprise attack in the dead of night. The armored trains, with the fire of their cannons, paved the way for the cavalry of the “mad general.” Nestor Ivanovich, surrounded by his closest associates, barely had time to leave the city, the streets of which the Slashchevites “decorated” for three days with the bodies of hanged Makhnovists. Cruel, of course, but Yakov Aleksandrovich’s subordinates knew very well how the same Makhnovists mocked the captured officers...

After this terrible defeat, Makhno’s army still continued to fight, but was never able to regain its former strength.
Alas, this victory could not change the general course of the war: near Voronezh, the cavalry corps of Shkuro and Mamontov were defeated by the Reds, and Denikin’s army inexorably began to roll back to the south. The last hope of the Volunteer Army was Crimea, which received the remnants of the White Guards. It was there that General Slashchev’s star lit up.

Slashchev-Krymsky

AS A MILITARY specialist, Yakov Aleksandrovich encountered Crimea not for the first time. Back in the summer of 1919, when the peninsula was completely Bolshevik, a small detachment of whites tightly clung to a tiny bridgehead near Kerch. The Red Army soldiers tried to take their positions in a swoop, but were repulsed and calmed down, thinking that the enemy was in a mousetrap and had nowhere to go. And he unexpectedly organized a landing near Koktebel, received reinforcements, attacked Feodosia and threw the Reds out of Crimea. So, Yakov Slashchev was in charge of all this.

In December of the nineteenth, on the way of two Red armies, numbering more than 40 thousand bayonets and sabers, only 4 thousand Slashchev fighters stood on Perekop. Therefore, the general had to rely only on the use of non-standard tactics, capable of somehow compensating for the tenfold (!) superiority of the enemy. And Slashchev found such a tactical method, although many considered his plan for the defense of the Chongar Peninsula and the Perekop Isthmus to be absurd. But he insisted on his own and began to “rock the Crimean swing”...

Soon after the general was appointed responsible for the defense of the peninsula, the Reds took Perekop. But the next day they were thrown back to their original positions. Another two weeks later a new assault followed - and with the same result. Twenty days later, the Red Army soldiers were again in Crimea, some of the Red brigade commanders and division commanders even managed to receive the Order of the Red Banner for the capture of Tyup-Dzhankoy. And two days later the Bolsheviks were defeated again!
The whole point is that Slashchev completely abandoned positional defense. It was an unusually severe winter in Crimea for those places; there was no housing at all on the Crimean isthmuses. Therefore, Yakov Aleksandrovich placed parts of his corps in populated areas inside the peninsula. The Reds crossed the isthmuses with impunity, reported on the “capture of Crimea,” but were forced to spend the night in the windswept steppe. The general, meanwhile, raised his squadrons, hundreds and battalions, rested in the warmth, threw them into an attack on the numb enemy and threw him out.

Later, already in exile, Slashchev would write: “It was I who dragged out the Civil War for fourteen long months, which caused additional casualties. I repent."

If after the successful landing on Koktebel and the liberation of Feodosia, Yakov Aleksandrovich officially received the right to write his surname with the prefix “Crimean,” then for military-administrative activities on the peninsula in 1920 he was awarded the unofficial nickname “Hangman.”
From Slashchev, who essentially became the military dictator of Crimea, everyone got it - the Bolshevik underground, anarchist raiders, unprincipled bandits, selfish speculators, and unruly officers of the White Army. Moreover, the sentence for everyone was the same - gallows. And Yakov Aleksandrovich did not delay in carrying it out. Once, right next to his staff car, he even strung up one of Baron Wrangel’s favorites, who was caught stealing jewelry, while saying: “You can’t dishonor anyone’s shoulder straps.”

But, strange as it may seem, the name of Slashchev in Crimea was pronounced more with respect than with fear.
“Despite the executions,” General P. I. Averianov wrote in his memoirs, “Yakov Aleksandrovich was popular among all classes of the population of the peninsula, not excluding workers. And how could it be otherwise if the general was everywhere in person: he himself entered the crowd of protesters without security, he himself sorted out the complaints of trade unions and industrialists, he himself raised the chains to attack. Yes, they were afraid of him, but at the same time they also hoped, knowing for sure: Slashchev would not betray him or sell him. He had an amazing and, for many, incomprehensible ability to inspire trust and devoted love among the troops.”

Slashchev's popularity among soldiers and trench officers was truly prohibitive. Both of them called him “our Yasha” behind his back, which Yakov Aleksandrovich was very proud of. As for the local population, many Crimeans seriously believed that Slashchev was in fact none other than Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, brother of the murdered emperor and heir to the Russian throne!

When Denikin left the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, there were two candidates for the vacant seat - Lieutenant General Baron Wrangel and Major General Slashchev. But Yakov Aleksandrovich, who shunned all politics all his life, abandoned any fight for the highest military position, retiring from Sevastopol to Dzhankoy, where the headquarters of his corps was located. Wrangel, realizing the full scale of Slashchev’s personality and, most importantly, his importance for the continuation of the armed struggle, called Yakov Alexandrovich back, instructed him to command a parade of troops in honor of his appointment as commander-in-chief and even awarded him the rank of lieutenant general - equal to his own.

It seemed that all decency was observed. But relations between the two most influential generals in Crimea deteriorated day by day. The stumbling block was relations with the allies: England, and later France, exerted extreme pressure on Wrangel, and all recent military operations were planned by the baron and developed by his headquarters, taking into account the interests of these countries. Slashchev fought exclusively for Russia...

When in the summer of 1920 the armies of Tukhachevsky and Budyonny were beaten near Warsaw and rolled back, Yakov Aleksandrovich proposed to strike from the Crimea to the northwest, towards the advancing regiments of Pilsudsky, in order to jointly finish off the demoralized enemy. But Wrangel moved the units that had escaped from the peninsula into operational space, including Slashchev’s corps, to the northeast, to the Donbass, where until 1917 most of the mines belonged to the French.

The Poles did not go further than their borders. And the Reds brought up fresh infantry and cavalry divisions from the central provinces. A famous battle took place near Kakhovka, which ended in a terrible defeat for the Whites, who had no strategic reserves. The Wrangelites began to be methodically “driven” back into Crimea.

In the second half of August 1920, the baron dismissed Slashchev, who never stopped pointing out his mistakes in strategy, and offered to leave the peninsula. Yakov Aleksandrovich wrote on the telegram “Krymsky will not leave Crimea” and fell into a terrible binge.

On October 30, Frunze’s regiments stormed Perekop, desperately defended by the Whites. Wrangel announced evacuation. In the general chaos and confusion that reigned in Sevastopol, a clean-shaven, ironed and absolutely sober Slashchev unexpectedly appeared to the baron. He proposed to transfer the military units loaded onto the ships not to Turkey, but to the Odessa region and expressed his readiness to lead the landing operation, the plan of which had already been developed by the restless general, who always stood out among his colleagues for his healthy adventurism and unconventional thinking.
Wrangel refused. And this day became the last day of the Civil War in the European part of Russia.

Outcast

HAVING PLACED his wife and little daughter on the cruiser Almaz, Slashchev spent several days gathering officers of his native Finnish Life Guards Regiment in Crimea, inexplicably found a regimental banner somewhere in the convoys, and in this encirclement literally left the burning peninsula on the last ship.

Having set foot on Turkish soil, the general disbanded all the Finns. And he settled with his family on the outskirts of Constantinople in a shack made of boards, plywood and tin. He did not interfere in the political squabbles that tore apart the emigrant camp; he lived by his own labor: he grew vegetables and sold them in markets, raised turkeys and other animals. In rare hours of rest I read the press. He was remembered, they wrote about him, about his military operations with anger, but also spoke with respect, both red and white.

Analyzing what was happening in his homeland, Slashchev once spoke with his characteristic directness: “The Bolsheviks are my mortal enemies, but they did what I dreamed of - they revived the country. I don’t care what they call it!”

Around the same time, Wrangel’s appeal was made about a new agreement with the Entente and preparations for an invasion of Soviet Russia. This was more than realistic, since at that time there were more than one hundred thousand people evacuated from Crimea near Constantinople alone. Disarmed, but completely preserving the organizational structure, the military units settled in camps, maintaining strict discipline. The soldiers and officers were constantly instilled with confidence that the struggle was not over and that they would still play their role in overthrowing the Bolsheviks.

Slashchev, having abandoned his principles, publicly declared the baron a traitor to national interests and demanded a public trial of him. Wrangel immediately issued an order to convene a court of honor for the generals. By his decision, Yakov Alexandrovich was dismissed from service without the right to wear a uniform and excluded from the army lists. This deprived Slashchev of any financial support and doomed him to a miserable existence. Among other things, he was deprived of all awards, including those received on the fields of the First World War. The confrontation between former comrades has reached its peak. And this did not go unnoticed by the Soviet intelligence services.

It must be said that by 1921, the Foreign Department of the Cheka and the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army already had foreign residencies that were actively operating among the emigration. Security officers and military intelligence officers also worked in Constantinople. The All-Ukrainian Cheka, as well as the reconnaissance of the troops of Ukraine and Crimea, subordinate to M. V. Frunze, had great operational capabilities in Turkey.

In general, on one of the dark Constantinople nights there was a knock on Slashchev’s door...

Yakov Aleksandrovich, with all the understanding of the doom of the White movement and personal hostility towards many of its leaders, experienced serious hesitations in making the decision to return to Soviet Russia. Emigrant newspapers were full of reports of mass executions of former officers, policemen and priests in Crimea. Echoes of the Civil War were the Kronstadt rebellion, continued fierce battles with the Makhnovists, and peasant uprisings in the Tambov region and Siberia. Slashchev knew about all this and was clearly aware that in such a situation his life would not be worth a penny. But he no longer saw himself outside Russia, even Bolshevik.

The final decision to return to his homeland came to him in the early summer of 1921. An agent who was in touch with the general reported this to Moscow. On October 7, after much deliberation, the Chairman of the Cheka brought to a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) the question of organizing the return of Slashchev and his further use in the interests of Soviet power.

Opinions were divided. Zinoviev, Bukharin and Rykov spoke out against, while Kamenev, Stalin and Voroshilov voted “for”. Lenin abstained. Everything was determined by the voice of Dzerzhinsky, who insisted on his proposal. Thus, the issue was resolved at the highest level. Deputy Chairman of the Cheka Unshlikht was assigned to think through the details and directly manage the operation.

Meanwhile, Slashchev, together with his wife and several officers personally devoted to him, rented a dacha on the shores of the Bosphorus and organized a partnership for the cultivation of orchards. Soviet intelligence agents spread a rumor throughout Constantinople about the general's intention to leave for Russia, allegedly with the aim of uniting the rebel movement and leading it in the fight against the Bolsheviks. This information, as planned, reached the Wrangel, French and British counterintelligence services, lulling their vigilance.

Yakov Aleksandroich and his like-minded people managed to leave their home unnoticed, get to the port, and then board the ship “Jean”. They were missed only a day later, when the ship was already halfway to Sevastopol. A detachment of Turkish police, led by the head of the Wrangevlev counterintelligence, combed through the abandoned house, but, naturally, found no one and nothing there. And the next day, Slashchev’s prepared statement was published in Constantinople newspapers: “At the moment I am on my way to Crimea. Suggestions and conjectures that I am going to organize conspiracies or organize rebels are meaningless. The revolution within Russia is over. The only way to fight for our ideas is evolution. They will ask me: how did I, the defender of Crimea, go over to the side of the Bolsheviks? I answer: I did not defend Crimea, but the honor of Russia. Now I am also called to defend the honor of Russia. And I will defend it, believing that all Russians, especially the military, should be in their homeland at the moment.” This was Slashchev’s personal statement, not edited by any of the Bolshevik leaders!

Together with Yakov Aleksandrovich, the former assistant to the minister of war of the Crimean government, Major General Milkovsky, the last commandant of Simferopol, Colonel Gilbikh, the chief of staff of the Slashchev corps, Colonel Mezernitsky, and the head of his personal convoy, Captain Voinakhovsky, returned to Russia. And, naturally, the general’s wife Nina Nechvolodova with her young daughter.

“What have you done to us, Motherland?!”

The emigration was shocked: the bloodiest and most implacable enemy of the Soviet of Deputies returned to the enemy’s camp! Panic also began among the middle-level Bolshevik leadership: in Sevastopol, Slashchev was personally met by the Chairman of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, and in his carriage the “hanging general” arrived in Moscow.

Yakov Aleksandrovich’s career path was destined at the same October meeting of the party leadership: no command positions, writing memoirs with a detailed analysis of the actions of both warring parties, appealing to former colleagues in the White Army. And - as the peak of the loyalty of the new owners - the provision of a teaching position with full support, which was due to the highest command staff of the Red Army.
And Slashchev began to serve Russia as passionately and selflessly as he had done before. At the beginning of 1922, he wrote in his own hand an appeal to Russian officers and generals abroad, urging them to follow his example, since their military knowledge and combat experience were needed by their homeland.
The authority of Yakov Aleksandrovich among trench officers was so great that almost immediately after the publication of this appeal, Generals Klochkov and Zelenin, Colonels Zhitkevich, Orzhanevsky, Klimovich, Lyalin and a dozen others came to Russia. All of them received teaching positions in the Red Army, gave lectures freely and published many works on the Civil War. In total, by the end of 1922, 223 thousand former officers returned to their homeland. The emigration was split, for which the leaders of the Russian All-Military Union sentenced Yakov Alexandrovich to death in absentia.

Having become a teacher at the “Vystrel” courses, located in Lefortovo, Slashchev teaches students how to combat landing forces and conduct maneuver operations. The magazine “Military Affairs” regularly publishes his articles, the titles of which speak for themselves: “Actions of the vanguard in an oncoming battle,” “Breakthrough and coverage of a fortified area,” “The significance of fortified zones in modern warfare and overcoming them.”

His students in those years were the future Marshals of the Soviet Union Budyonny, Vasilevsky, Tolbukhin, Malinovsky. General Batov, hero of the Great Patriotic War, recalled Slashchev: “He taught brilliantly, his lectures were always full of people, and the tension in the audience was sometimes like in battle. Many listeners themselves recently fought with Wrangel’s troops, including on the outskirts of the Crimea, and the former White Guard general, sparing no causticity, examined the shortcomings in his and our actions. They ground their teeth in anger, but they learned!”

Cabinet battles were now flaring up between yesterday's mortal enemies; disputes about tactical techniques often moved from classrooms to command staff dormitory rooms and dragged on long after midnight, turning into friendly tea drinking. Of course, when they got into a frenzy, they also drank stronger drinks...

Yakov Aleksandrovich’s wife, Nina Nechvolodova, also contributed to the education of painters. She organized an amateur theater at the Shot course, where she staged several classical plays with the participation of the wives and children of the students. In 1925, the Proletarskoe Kino film company made a feature film about Baron Wrangel and the capture of Crimea. In this film, Slashchev himself starred in the role of General Slashchev, and in the role of “Junker N.” - his wife!

Of course, Slashchev's position was far from ideal. He periodically submitted reports with a request to be transferred to a command position in the troops, which he was naturally denied. His lectures increasingly began to be booed by “politically conscious” listeners. Incomprehensible and unpleasant personalities began to swirl around Yakov Alexandrovich. And “Professor Yasha” seriously got ready to go to Europe, intending to spend the rest of his days as a private citizen...

On January 11, 1929, he did not show up for lectures. Before lunch, no one attached much importance to this fact: they decided that Yakov Aleksandrovich “fell ill” after regular gatherings. Although, on the other hand, he was always a disciplined person and even in a state of heavy drinking did not forget to warn his superiors about any temporary delays in his work.

The winter day was rolling towards sunset, and Slashchev still did not make himself known. A group of fellow teachers who arrived at his dormitory found the former general dead. As an immediate examination determined, he was shot with several shots from a pistol, fired into the back of the head and back almost point-blank.

Soon the killer was captured. He turned out to be a certain Kolenberg, a former White Guard, who stated that he had taken revenge on Slashchev for his brother hanged in the Crimea. The investigation considered this an exculpatory reason, and a week later the killer was released.

And the general’s body, three days after the murder, was cremated on the territory of the Donskoy Monastery in the presence of relatives and close friends. There was no official funeral; where the ashes were laid to rest remains unknown. Yakov Alexandrovich simply sunk into oblivion!

The true reasons for the mysterious murder of Slashchev have never received a clear explanation from historians. Perhaps, the former officer of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment, I. N. Sergeev, said the most accurate thing about them: “The alarming situation in Russia at the end of the 20s forced its rulers to deal with the most active internal opponents and those who could lead the anti-Bolshevik resistance in the future " And Yakov Aleksandrovich could easily be among them...

Be that as it may, Lieutenant General of the White Army and “Red Professor”, brilliant tactician and strategist Yakov Slashchev went down in history as a patriot of Russia, who fought all his life for its greatness and glory, and became one of the symbols of his times - a bright, cruel, mistaken, but not broken.

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Yakov Slashchev. 1913

White Guard - Red Teacher

Slashchev (Slashchov) is the same White Guard hangman general who became for Mikhail Bulgakov prototype of Khludov. When Denikin After the defeat by the Red Army, he retreated to the Caucasus, Slashchev occupied the Crimea and organized an effective defense of the isthmuses. He was the undivided ruler of Crimea until the Military Council elected a new commander Wrangel (Slashchev pointedly ignored this meeting). He had his own views on the conduct of further military operations against the Reds, wrote reports to Wrangel, which the latter perceived as nothing other than the ravings of a madman ( see below a fragment from Wrangel’s memoirs). The main peculiarity of Slashchev’s biography was his return to Soviet Russia a year after the evacuation from Crimea. He was given the opportunity to write and publish a book of memoirs "Crimea " , an appeal to the White Guards who remained in exile, but were not accepted into leadership positions in the Red Army. They gave him a teaching position at the Shot tactics school for command personnel. They say that during a discussion in class about the Soviet-Polish war, in the presence of Soviet military leaders, he spoke about the stupidity of our command during the military conflict with Poland. Budyonny, who was present in the audience, jumped up, pulled out a pistol and fired several times in the direction of the teacher, but missed. Slashchev approached the red commander and edifyingly said: “The way you shoot is the way you fought.” Or maybe this episode is hyperbole. Slashchev died at the hands of Kolenberg, whose brother was executed on his orders during the civil war. Liberal historiography has no doubt that these were the machinations of Stalin’s agents. However, there is every reason to believe that there was no politics in this murder, only personal revenge.

Ya.A. Slashchov - brigade commander of General Shkuro's division. 1918

Slashchev-Krymsky

Slashchev Yakov Alexandrovich (12/29/1885-01/10/1929). Colonel (11.1916). Major General (04.1919). Lieutenant General (04.1920). He graduated from the St. Petersburg Real School (1903), the Pavlovsk Military School (1905) and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff (1911). Participant First World War : commander of a company and battalion of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment, 01.1915-07.1917. Commander of the Life Guards of the Moscow Regiment, 07/14-12/1917. During the war he was wounded 5 times. In the White movement: formed units of the Volunteer Army on the instructions of the general Alekseeva in the Mineralnye Vody area, 01-05.1918. An officer in a detachment (about 5,000) of a colonel Skin ; 05-07.1918. Commander of the 1st Kuban Plastun Infantry Brigade and Chief of Staff of the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division of General Laying down , 07.1918-04.1919. Commander of the 5th Infantry Division, 04-08.1919. Commander of the 4th Infantry Division (13th and 34th Combined Brigades); 08-11.1919. Commander of the 3rd Army Corps, (13th and 34th brigades deployed in the division); 12.1919-02.1920. Took up defensive positions on the Perekop Isthmus of Crimea on 12/27/1918, forestalling the Red Army's invasion of Crimea. Commander of the Crimean (former 3rd) Corps, 02-04.1920. Commander of the 2nd Army Corps (formerly Crimean, renamed by General Wrangel); 04-18.08.1920. Removed by General Wrangel and removed from command of the corps, transferred to reserve; 08/18/1920. Evacuated from Crimea (11.1920). In exile, 11.1920-11.1921. Returned to Russia on November 21, 1921. Teacher of the Shot courses, 06.1922-01.1929. Killed by Kolenberg on 02/11/1929 in his room at the Shot course in Lefortovo. As a hero of the defense of Crimea, on August 18, 1920, by order of General Wrangel, he received the right to be called “Slashchev-Krymsky.”

Materials used from the book: Valery Klaving, Civil War in Russia: White Armies. Military-historical library. M., 2003.

Ya. Slashchev feeds turkey poults.
Constantinople, 1921.

I demand public justice and transparency!

SLASCHOV Yakov Alexandrovich (1885-1929) - Lieutenant General. He graduated from the Pavlovsk Military School and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff in the 2nd category (without the right to be assigned to the General Staff due to a low average score) (1911). He left the school for the Finnish Life Guards Regiment in 1905, in which he continued to serve as a company commander, battalion commander and assistant regiment commander (in 1917). He took part in almost all the battles of his regiment on the front of the First World War. He was wounded five times and shell-shocked twice. In 1915 he was awarded the Arms of St. George, and in 1916 - the Order of St. Victorious George, 4th degree. In 1916 - colonel. Since July 1917 - commander of the Moscow Guards Regiment.

In the Volunteer Army from December 1917. At the beginning of January 1918, he was sent by General M.V. Alekseev to the North Caucasus as an emissary of the Volunteer Army to create officer organizations in the Caucasian Mineral Waters region. In May 1918 - chief of staff of the partisan detachment of Colonel A. G. Shkuro, and then chief of staff of the 2nd Kuban Cossack division. From September 6, 1918 - commander of the Kuban Plastun brigade as part of the 2nd division of the Volunteer Army. November 15, 1918 - head of the 1st separate Kuban Plastun brigade. On February 18, 1919, he was appointed brigade commander in the 5th division, and on June 8 of the same year - brigade commander of the 4th division. On May 14, 1919, he was promoted to major general - for military distinction and on August 2, he was appointed head of the 4th division. On December 6, 1919, he was appointed commander of the 3rd Army Corps and in the winter of 1919-1920. successfully led the defense of Crimea. After General Wrangel took over the Main Command of the AFSR, General Slashchov was promoted to lieutenant general on March 25, 1920 - for military distinction and was appointed commander of the 2nd Army Corps. After unsuccessful battles, the corps in July 1920 near Kakhovka, General Slashchov submitted his resignation, which was accepted by General Wrangel. Since August 1920 - at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief. In November 1920, as part of the Russian army, he was evacuated from Crimea to Constantinople. In Constantinople, in a number of letters and speeches, both oral and in print, he sharply condemned the Commander-in-Chief and his staff. By the verdict of the court of honor, General Slashchov was dismissed from service without the right to wear a uniform. In response to the court’s decision, General Slashchov published a book in January 1921: “I demand a court of society and openness. Defense and surrender of Crimea. (Memoirs and Documents)" (Constantinople, 1921). At the same time, he entered into secret negotiations with the Soviet authorities and on November 21, 1921 returned to Sevastopol. Here I went to Moscow in Dzerzhinsky's carriage. He appealed to the soldiers and officers of the Russian army to return. In 1924 he published the book: “Crimea in 1920. Excerpts from memories” (M.; Lg., 1924) *). Since June 1922, he was listed as a teacher of tactics at the Shot command school. On January 2, 1929, he was killed on the premises of a school, allegedly out of personal revenge, although the timing of this murder coincides with the wave of repressions that befell former officers of the White Army in 1929-1930.

Notes:

*) In 1990 it was republished: Slashchov Y. A. White Crimea. 1920 M., 1990.

Materials used from the book: Nikolai Rutych Biographical reference book of the highest ranks of the Volunteer Army and the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. Materials on the history of the White movement M., 2002

General Wrangel testifies:

General Slashchev, the former sovereign ruler of Crimea, with the transfer of headquarters to Feodosia, remained at the head of his corps. General Schilling was placed at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief. A good combat officer, General Slashchev, having assembled random troops, coped with his task perfectly. With a handful of people, amid general collapse, he defended Crimea. However, complete independence, beyond any control, the consciousness of impunity completely turned his head. Unbalanced by nature, weak-willed, easily susceptible to the basest flattery, poor understanding of people, and also prone to a morbid addiction to drugs and wine, he was completely confused in the atmosphere of general collapse. No longer content with the role of a combat commander, he sought to influence the general political work, bombarded the headquarters with all sorts of projects and assumptions, each more chaotic than the other, insisted on replacing a number of other commanders, and demanded the involvement of what seemed to him outstanding individuals in the work.

Wrangel P.N. Notes. November 1916 - November 1920 Memoirs. Memoirs. - Minsk, 2003. t. 11. p. 22-23

General Slashchev arrived. After our last date, he became even more haggard and flabby. His fantastic suit, loud nervous laughter and random, abrupt conversation made a painful impression. I expressed my admiration for the difficult task he had accomplished in holding the Crimea and expressed confidence that, under the protection of his troops, I would be able to put the army in order and improve the rear. I then briefed him on the latest decisions of the military council. General Slashchev replied that he completely agreed with the council’s decision and asked to believe that his units would fulfill their duty. He had reason to expect an enemy offensive in the coming days. I briefly introduced him to the planned operation to seize the exits from Crimea. Then General Slashchev raised questions of a general nature. He considered it necessary in the coming days to widely notify the troops and population about the views of the new Commander-in-Chief on issues of domestic and foreign policy.

Wrangel P.N. Notes. November 1916 - November 1920 Memoirs. Memoirs. - Minsk, 2003. t. 11. p. 29

At the end of our conversation, I conveyed an order to General Slashchev, in which, in reward for his services in saving the Crimea, he was given the name “Crimean”; I knew that this was his long-time dream (order No. 3505, August 6 (19), 1920).

Slashchev was completely moved; in a choking voice, interrupted by tears, he thanked me. It was impossible to look at him without pity.

On the same day, General Slashchev and his wife visited my wife. The next day we went to pay a visit. Slashchev lived in his carriage at the station. There was incredible chaos in the carriage. A table laden with bottles and snacks, scattered clothes, cards, weapons on the sofas. Among this chaos, Slashchev is wearing a fantastic white mentic, embroidered with yellow cords and trimmed with fur, surrounded by all kinds of birds. There were a crane, a raven, a swallow, and a starling. They jumped on the table and sofa, flew up onto the shoulders and head of their owner.

I insisted that General Slashchev allow himself to be examined by doctors. The latter identified the strongest form of neurasthenia, requiring the most serious treatment. According to the doctors, the latter was possible only in a sanatorium and recommended that General Slashchev go abroad for treatment, but all my attempts to convince him of this were in vain, he decided to settle in Yalta.

Wrangel P.N. Notes. November 1916 - November 1920 Memoirs. Memoirs. - Minsk, 2003. t. 11. p. 236-137

Death of Slashchev

On January 11, A. was killed in his apartment. (typo - d.b. "I") Slashchev *). An unknown person entered the apartment, shot at Slashchev and disappeared. Slashchev, a former commander of one of Wrangel’s armies, has recently been a teacher at rifle and tactical courses for improving command personnel.

Murder of Ya.A.Slashchev

On January 11, as we reported, former Wrangel general and military school teacher Ya. A. Slashchev was killed in his apartment in Moscow. The killer, named Kolenberg, 24 years old, stated that he committed the murder out of revenge for his brother, who was executed by order of Slashchev during the Civil War. Since 1922, from the moment of his voluntary transfer to serve in the Red Army, Y.A. Slashchev worked as a teacher of tactics at the Shot courses. Ya.A. Slashchev came from the nobility. He began his service in the tsarist army in 1902. In 1911, he graduated from the General Staff Academy and, refusing to enroll in the General Staff, went to serve in the Corps of Pages, where he taught military science until the outbreak of World War II. He began the war as a company commander, and in 1916 he was appointed regiment commander. During the civil war, Ya.A. Slashchev was on the side of the whites. In Denikin's army, he served as commander-in-chief of the troops of Crimea and Northern Tavria, and later under Wrangel he was appointed commander of a separate corps. During his stay in Crimea, Slashchev brutally dealt with the peasant workers. Not getting along with Wrangel for official and personal reasons, he was recalled and left for Constantinople. In Constantinople, Wrangel demoted Slashchev to the rank and file. In 1922, Slashchev voluntarily returned from emigration to Russia, repented of his crimes against the working class and was amnestied by the Soviet government. Since 1922, he has been conscientiously working as a teacher at Vystrel and collaborating in the military press. Recently he published the work “General Tactics”. An investigation is underway into the murder. Yesterday at 16:30, the cremation of the body of the late Ya.A. Slashchev took place in the Moscow crematorium.

Murder of Slashchev

In Moscow, General Ya. A. Slashchev, one of the active participants in the white movement, who earned a very sad memory for his exceptional cruelty and recklessness, was killed in his apartment. Already in Crimea, Slashchev tried to replace General Wrangel at the head of the army, and then in Constantinople he published a well-known brochure in which he demanded a trial of the commander-in-chief (Wrangel). From Constantinople, Slashchev moved to Moscow, the Soviet government willingly forgave him for his sins against her and appointed him a professor at the Military Academy. However, he was unable to stay there due to the extremely hostile attitude of his listeners towards him. Slashchev was transferred to rifle-tactical courses for improving command personnel (the so-called “Vystrel”), where he remained until his last days as a lecturer, who managed to publish several works on military issues during his stay in the USSR. Slashchev’s residence in Moscow was carefully hidden.<...>Recent reports from Berlin newspapers talk about the arrest of the killer, 24-year-old Kohlenberg, who said that he killed Slashchev for the shooting of his brother, committed by Slashchev in Crimea. Moscow claims that the murder was committed several days ago, but they did not immediately decide to report it. Slashchev's body was burned in a Moscow crematorium. Unschlicht and other representatives of the Revolutionary Military Council were present at the burning.

General Ya.A.Slashchev

<...>Subsequently, it will become clear whether he was killed by a hand that was truly guided by a sense of vengeance, or that was guided by the requirement of expediency and safety. After all, it is strange that for more than four years the “avenger” could not put an end to a man who did not hide behind the thickness of the Kremlin walls and in the labyrinth of the Kremlin palaces, but lived peacefully, without security, in his private apartment. And at the same time, it is understandable that during hours of noticeable shaking of the ground under one’s feet, it is necessary to eliminate a person known for his determination and mercilessness. Here it was necessary to really hurry up and quickly use both some kind of murder weapon and the oven of the Moscow crematorium, which could quickly destroy traces of the crime.

*) Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchev served Mikhail Bulgakov as the prototype of General Khludov in the play “Running”.

Read further:

Slashchov-Krymsky Yakov Alexandrovich. Crimea, 1920.

World War I(chronological table).

Civil war 1918-1920 in Russia(chronological table).

WSUR(reference article).

All-Great Don Army(chapters from the book).

White movement in faces(biographical index).

Slashchev Yakov Aleksandrovich (1885-1929) - Lieutenant General of the Russian Army. Born on December 29 (according to another version - December 12), 1885 in St. Petersburg. Father - Colonel Alexander Yakovlevich Slashchev, a hereditary military man. Mother - Vera Aleksandrovna Slashcheva. He graduated from the Pavlovsk Military School and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff in the 2nd category (the latter was assigned to the General Staff in 1911 due to a low average score). He left the school for the Finnish Life Guards Regiment in 1905, in which he continued to serve as a company commander, then as a battalion commander and as an assistant regiment commander by 1917. He took part in almost all the battles of his regiment on the front of the First World War. He was wounded five times and shell-shocked twice. In 1915 he was awarded the Arms of St. George, and in 1916 - the Order of St. Victorious George, 4th class. In 1916 he received the rank of colonel. Since July 1917 - commander of the Moscow Guards Regiment.

At the very beginning of the civil war, Yakov Slashchev ended up in the Volunteer Army (December 1917). At the beginning of January 1918, he was sent by General M.V. Alekseev to the North Caucasus as an emissary of the Volunteer Army to create officer organizations in the Caucasian Mineral Waters region. In May 1918 - chief of staff of the partisan detachment of Colonel A. G. Shkuro, and then chief of staff of the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division. From September 6, 1918 - commander of the Kuban Plastun brigade as part of the 2nd division of the Volunteer Army. November 15, 1918 - head of the 1st separate Kuban Plastun brigade. On February 18, 1919, he was appointed brigade commander in the 5th division, and on June 8 of the same year - brigade commander of the 4th division. On May 14, 1919, he was promoted to major general - for military distinction and on August 2, he was appointed head of the 4th division. On December 6, 1919, he was appointed commander of the 3rd Army Corps. It was under the leadership of Slashchev in the winter of 1919-1920 that the 3rd Army Corps successfully defended the Crimean isthmus from the Red Army. After General Wrangel took over the Main Command of the AFSR, General Slashchev was promoted to lieutenant general on March 25, 1920 - for military distinction and was appointed commander of the 2nd Army Corps. After the unsuccessful battles of the corps in July 1920 near Kakhovka and the loss of the latter, General Slashchev submitted his resignation, which was accepted by General Wrangel. From August 1920 it was at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief.

He was fearless, constantly leading his troops to attack by personal example. He had nine wounds, the last of which, a concussion to the head, was received at the Kakhovsky bridgehead in early August 1920. He suffered many wounds practically on his feet. To relieve the unbearable pain from a wound in the stomach in 1919, which did not heal for more than six months, he began injecting himself with the painkiller morphine, then became addicted to cocaine.

General Wrangel wrote about him: “General Slashchev, the former sovereign ruler of the Crimea, with the transfer of headquarters to Feodosia, remained at the head of his corps. General Schilling was placed at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief. A good combat officer, General Slashchev, having assembled random troops, did an excellent job with his task. With a handful of people, amid general collapse, he defended Crimea. However, complete independence, beyond any control, the consciousness of impunity finally turned his head. Unbalanced by nature, weak-willed, easily susceptible to the most base flattery, poor understanding of people, Moreover, subject to a morbid addiction to drugs and wine, he was completely confused in the atmosphere of general collapse. No longer content with the role of a combat commander, he sought to influence the general political work, bombarded the headquarters with all sorts of projects and assumptions, each more chaotic than the other, insisted on replacing a number of others bosses, demanded the involvement of outstanding persons who seemed to him to be involved in the work."

In November 1920, as part of the Russian army, General Slashchev was evacuated from Crimea to Constantinople. In Constantinople, in a number of letters and speeches, both oral and in print, he sharply condemned the Commander-in-Chief and his staff. As a result, by the verdict of the court of honor, General Slashchev was dismissed from service without the right to wear a uniform. In response to the court's decision, General Slashchev published a book in January 1921: “I demand the trial of society and openness. Defense and surrender of Crimea. (Memoirs and documents)” (Constantinople, 1921). At the same time, he entered into secret negotiations with the Soviet authorities and on November 21, 1921 returned to Sevastopol. Here I went to Moscow in Dzerzhinsky's carriage. He appealed to the soldiers and officers of the Russian army to return. In 1924 ode. published a book: “Crimea in 1920. Excerpts from memories.” Since June 1922, he was listed as a teacher of tactics at the Shot command school. They say that during a discussion in class about the Soviet-Polish war, in the presence of Soviet military leaders, he spoke about the stupidity of our command during the military conflict with Poland. Budyonny, who was present in the audience, jumped up, pulled out a pistol and fired several times in the direction of the teacher, but missed. Slashchev approached the red commander and edifyingly said: “The way you shoot is the way you fought.”

On January 11, 1929, Yakov Slashchev was killed on the school premises in very strange circumstances - allegedly out of personal revenge. But the timing of this murder coincides with the wave of repression that hit former officers of the White Army in 1929 - 1930.

The newspaper “For Freedom” Warsaw on January 18, 1929 wrote: “It will subsequently become clear whether he was killed by a hand that was truly guided by a feeling of vengeance, or that was guided by the requirement of expediency and safety. After all, it is strange that the “avenger” could not put an end to his life for more than four years a man who did not hide behind the thickness of the Kremlin walls and in the labyrinth of the Kremlin palaces, but lived peacefully, without security, in his private apartment. And at the same time, it is understandable that in the hours of noticeable shaking of the ground under one’s feet, it is necessary to eliminate a person known for his determination and mercilessness "Here it was necessary to really hurry up and quickly use both some kind of murder weapon and the oven of the Moscow crematorium, which could quickly destroy traces of the crime."