Orenburg Cossack ataman who severed Soviet Russia from Turkestan, opening a front between the Volga and the Urals
Russia is dying. We are witnessing her last breath.
Ataman of the Orenburg Cossacks and a lieutenant general of the White movement. In November 1917 he became the first military leader to repudiate Soviet power, severing the Orenburg-Tashkent railway and cutting off Soviet Russia from Central Asia for twenty months. He commanded the Orenburg Independent Army under Kolchak, and after defeat led his men through the 'Hunger March' into China, where Cheka agents assassinated him in 1921.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1899Graduated Nicholas Cavalry School; cornet, 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment
- 1908Graduated General Staff Academy
- 1914–1917WWI; commanded 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment
- 1917.09Elected ataman, Orenburg Cossack Host
- 1917.11Repudiated Bolshevik authority; led armed revolt
- 1918–1919Commander, Orenburg Independent Army under Kolchak
- 1919–1920Defeated at Aktobe; Hunger March retreat into China
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World WarCommander of the 1st Orenburg Cossack RegimentHe commanded the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment from 1914 to 1917.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionAtaman who opposed Bolshevik powerFive days after the October Revolution, he signed an order in Orenburg refusing to recognize the Bolshevik seizure of power.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionOrenburg Cossack AtamanHe opened a front between the Volga and the Urals, severing Soviet Russia from Turkestan.
The first ataman to defy Soviet power
Two months of politicking in 1917 made Dutov's name known across Russia. Arriving in Petrograd in March as a regimental delegate to the First All-Cossack Congress, the unknown staff-captain rose to chair the Second Congress in June and then the council of the All-Russian Union of Cossack Troops, becoming the politician who spoke for the entire Cossack estate. During the Kornilov affair that August he professed neutrality while leaning toward the commander-in-chief, and, standing on republican and democratic positions, he was elected ataman of the Orenburg Cossack Host and head of its military government in September.
On 26 February [O.S.], five days after the October Revolution, he returned to Orenburg and signed Host Order No. 816 the same day. It declared that the Bolsheviks' violent seizure of power in Petrograd could not be recognized, and that until the Provisional Government's authority was restored the military government assumed full executive power over the Host. With this Dutov became the first military ataman to declare war on Soviet power. Orenburg sat astride the routes linking central Russia to Turkestan and Siberia, so his rising immediately became a front strangling Soviet Russia's communications. Named military commander of the 'Committee for the Salvation of the Homeland', which gathered every faction except the Bolsheviks and Kadets, he arrested the local Bolshevik leadership, disarmed the pro-Bolshevik garrison, and closed the Bolshevik club.
The rising never won broad Cossack support. Most Cossacks returning from the front refused to fight, and Dutov could muster barely two thousand officers and student volunteers. Driven out of Orenburg in January 1918 by Blyukher's Red Guards, he withdrew into the Turgai steppe, then retook the city in July on the wave of the Czechoslovak Legion's revolt and the Cossack insurrection. Elected to the Constituent Assembly, he nominally joined Komuch while in fact opposing it, proclaimed Orenburg a 'Special Region of the Orenburg Host', and was among the first to back Kolchak, becoming marching ataman of all Cossack troops in 1919. Even in defeat he sought to carry the struggle beyond the Chinese border, and that persistence is what finally drew the Cheka's assassination operation upon him.