Regional Cu1tur;l History Project Paul Dotsenko An Interview Conducted by Richard A. Pierce All use's of this rimuscript are cover'ed by an a~reementbetxeea. the ~e~ents'of the University of California ar~dPaul Dotsenko, dated June 30, 1959. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes.. All literary rights in the manuscript, in- ,clubing the rL@t to publish, are reserved to the . i 3 * General Library 3f .the University of ~aliforniaat :j $ . ,-9 f Serkeley. No ?e~t of the :manuscript may be quoted, -.j / . for p~lication u2t5out the written permission of 1 1 . 2 4 L the University ~i3~arianof the University of Califor- i 1 I i. ' nia at Berkeley. 3 i . , .j ' . i . i 1 .'1 I . i 1. .. .i f >i . - i i . 1 3 . f ! ? 1 . i I . .1I .I. - '. ' I . .$ . , . ! . 4 . .! . ... ... ........... ... 3 . .; . ....... 4 ...; . .... a . - .. 1 ... 1 . ... - --,- The Rus sian-Aner icens, although numerically a small J f proportion of the population, have for long been a con- r: . iI 5. spicuous and picttu-esque element in the cosmopolitan 1 1 make-up of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sone cane here . f prior to the Russian evolution, but the major ity were refugees from the Revolution of 1917 t!ho came to California throu,gh Siberia and the Orient. Recognizins the historical i value of preserving the remin.iscences of these Russian i i refugees, in the spring of 1958 Dr. Richard A. Pierce, a author of Rupsian Central Asia, 1867-1912, (U. C. Press, I2 , Spring 1960) then a research historian at the University i 1 working on the history of th6 Communist Party in Central Asia, made the f ollouix proposal to Professor Charles . i1 Jelavich, chairman of tkie Center for Slavic Studies: 1 I would like to start on the Berkeley campus, under the auspices of the Center of Slavic Studies, an 3ral history project to collect and preserve fhe recollections of meabers of I the Russian c~lomof the Bay Regi~n. We have in this mea the second largest community of Russian refugees in th U. S., some 30,000 in Ssn Frcncisco alone. These represent an in- veluable ana up to now alnost entirely neglected I - &Hk k al. 0 a, "E.Q)$> C, a P mad k.9 CC,-+a CdoCxPtC Firet Series: Interviewe conducted by Richard A. Pierce and Alton C. Donnelly. Dotsenko, Paul The Struggle for the Liberation of Siberia, 1918-1921. 114 pages, 1960 [Pierce] Maloeemoff, Elizabeth The Life of a Russian ~eacher. 444 pages, 1961 [Donnelly] Shebeko, Borie Russian Civil War, 1918-1922. 284 pages, 1961 [Pierce] Shneyeroff, Michael M. Recollections of the Russian Revolution. 270 pages, 1960 [Pierce] Second Series: Interviews conducted by Boris Raymond (Romanoff) under the auspices of the Center for Slavic and East European Studies. Fedoulenko, Valentin V. Ruseian Emigre Life in Shanghai. 171 pages, 1967 Guins, George C. Professor and Government Official: Russia, China, and California. 364 pages, 1966 Lenkoff, Aleksandr N. Life of a Russian Emigre Soldier. 64 pages, 1967 Volume also contains: Report to Subcommittee on Russian Emigre Project. 4 pages Bibliography of Works on Far Eastern Emigration. 16 pages Third Series: Interviews conducted by Richard A. Pierce and Boris Raymond (Romanoff) under the auspices of the Center for Slavic and East European Studies. Guins, George C. Impressions of the Russian Imperial Government. 95 pages, 1971 [Pierce] Marschak, Jacob Recollections of Kiev and the Northern Caucasus, 1917-18. 78 pages, 1971 [Pierce] Moltchanoff, Victorin M. The Last White General. 132 pages, 1972 [Raymond] Nagy-Talavera, Miklos Recollections of Soviet Labor Camps, 1949-1955. 100 pages, 1972 [Pierce] Pacl Dotaenko, Russian emigre, was en active perticf- F pant in ths Russian revolutionary rnovexint from 1910 to I \ 1923, In ",he followlng tape orecorded istezview he recounts J his experiences as a mmber of the Socislist Revolutionary i i Party, Ws party, successor to .the Poplists (narodniki) of the L?tfi,century, placed its hopes on the awakening and 1 i cducaticr of the peasontry, and for s=ae tine enjoyed i gz-eater pmstige than the smaller but more ruthlessly t 5 !I R~ssirn '1 disciplf=e3 Bolshevist wing of the Social Democratic i # Labop Perttg, which ulti~atelyseized power, 1 4 Dot~enko, the son of a farmer who ovned the land he 3 1 cultivate2, was born in the Ukraine aad educated in the f!i 1 1 North Cezeasus, Nhile yet a boy he okserred and sympathized 1 . :1 with a mcaement resulticg In a wave cr reilroad strikes .I . :I I i based on dexands more substantial than higher wages: t I demnds Car the granticg of such liberties as freedom of . I4 1I speech, freedom of assembly, and elections. These strikes, t Q 8? 3 in which Usbrother and cousins took part, were met with S i $ f brutal suqgression. In 1910, at the age of 19, he was 4 I elreaCy wsrking as an orator-propagandist for the Socialist Revolutksary Party, which resulted In arrest and prolonged .i .inpriaament, and the threat of pemnent impaimnt of 1 * I despite austere living conditions, he we8 able to reoover his health, he became an underground worker in the 1i 1 pre -Revolutionary cooperative movement in Sibgria, I . ; Following the Revolution of February, 1917, Mr. r Dotsenko was granted amnesty and worked in Siberia during the difficult period of "dual power" in which authority was iJ contested between the Soviets and the organs of the i i l Provisional Government. He tells of the ,Bolshevik Revolution P of October 1917, of 0 revolt sgainst the Communist power : in the spring of 1918, and of how 'the anti-Bolshevik Ufa ! - regime was supplanted by the supporters of Admiral Kolchak. This government, losing popular support, finallg collapsed -. -. before the Red onslaught. 1 ! ; From February to April 1920 Mr. Dotsenko served aa 1 d ' chief of the instruction section of the cooperative union . i : in Vladivostok, and in April assumed the position of Second ? : Assistant Minfster of the 1nteri6r in the Medved'ev, or i I Zemstvo government. In August he left for the Zone of 1 ' Delimitation in Fanchuria, working there as instructor for j f ; the cooperative on the railroad for two years, ? i Mr. Dotsenko and his wife cane to the United Stetes i4 1 in September 1923. He has engaged for some years in the i I. importing of Italian antique end period furniture, Keenly 1 interested in current affairs, he subscribes to Time and the New York Times. He wes in the American Socialist Party . ' . ... ... .. ... ......... .. ... ...-" - . ...... .... - . .. .... ..... .... ..... .... ... .... .... ... ,. ... :.. ....... in the 1930'8. He and his wife take part in activities of the local Russian Orthodox St, John's Church in Berkeley. Mr. Dotsenko recounted these reminiscences in five interviews granted me during the period January-Xay 1959, I tape -recorded them in the pleasant, well-furnished Berkeley home of the narrator where he lives with his wife and daughter, His uife makes excellent pirozhki and other Russian delicacies, asd he always served Rhine wine so potent that 'I almost vent to sleep in the middle of the first interview,. so tktat thereefter' I alweys asked to have , it after the ihtemien was over, The niateriel wes sivefi in ~ussian,translated by me and carefully gane over by Mr. Dotsenko, The material here is substantially as givsn originaily. Very' little rearranging was necessery. Richard Pierce . Interviewer . iv TABU OF CONTENTS vii ! PAST I: 1910-1918 . .: . ' . -. .i' Yoath and Imprisonment Prison in Central Russia and-Exile in Siberia .10 i Cooperative Movement in Siberia 15-b Fe5ruary and October Revolutions and the Struggle for Power 16 Plans for Revolt Against the Bolsheviks 30 Krasnoiarsk Uprising. and Overthrow of the ~olsheyiks. 39 Struggles to Establish a Stable .Government 46 Overthrow by Kilitary - ' Kolchak Coup d'etat and Kolchak' s Policies Ball of Kolchak and Political Xork in Irkutsk and Vladivostok 1 i 3 To the United States of America . 90 . ? ! . e 3 APPENDIX "Fight for Freedom in Siberia: Its Success . 2' . and Feilure," a speech delivered by Paul . Dotsenko in Hew York, June 1954 94. j i . 1. ? . I ' . ... : ... -. : . .: . R . ...... :-, ..... :.... .. ;I . ---_.. -.- . i :I...." . J ... - .... .- 1 . ..... ,. .... : .:...;....... .... '.: -:.- PART I: 1910-1918 1 . i3 . Dotsenko: , I was born ir, 1894 in Chernef Gtioern1a*, in I . 1 the Ukraine. My father omd.land and udrked as a-farmer. ' I When I was six months old he decided to move to the Caucasus. i There he worked first as a laborer and then acqutred a home, In the last years before his death he did not work, and we + 5 lived on income obtained from renting houses. L a My elder brother was an expert in wine production. i 4 He produced wlne and sold. it to groceries and delicatessens, !I and we also had our own vIne store (vinp-gastronomichesk<i 3 . : magazin), 3 I *Briefly the territorial divisions of the Russian Empire were, 1 in descending order, called guberniia, -uezd, volost. Okrw 1 was a tern used for certain special areas. as for example in the a4 4 Caucasus, Siberia, and Central Asfa, which had not been completely 1 I incorporat ed into the routine governmental system, A military 3 1! olcrug was a military district separate from the civil admin- ] istrative divisions. Oblast is the term used by the Soviets for a province or district, X studied in Wovoros siisk, in the North Caucasus, In 1902, while I was still a boy, there was a railroad strike, t and to stop the mvement of trains the workers lay on the I .