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Yevgeny Miller

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Yevgeny Miller
Miller before 1920
Birth nameYevgeny-Ludvig Karlovich Miller
Born7 October [O.S.25 September] 1867
Dünaburg,Vitebsk Governorate,Russian Empire
Died11 May 1939(1939-05-11)(aged 71)
Moscow,Russian SFSR,Soviet Union
Cause of deathExecution by shooting
AllegianceRussian Empire(1884–1917)
Russian Republic(1917)
Russian RepublicRussian State(1917–1920)
Service/branchImperial Russian Army
White Army
Years of service1884–1920
RankLieutenant-General
Battles/warsWorld War I
Russian Civil War

Yevgeny-Ludvig Karlovich Miller(Russian:Евге́ний-Лю́двиг Ка́рлович Ми́ллер;[1]7 October [O.S.25 September] 1867 – 11 May 1939) was a Russian general ofBaltic Germandescent and one of the leaders of theanti-communistWhite Armyduring theRussian Civil War.After the civil war, he lived in exile in France. Kidnapped by Soviet intelligence operatives inParisin 1937, he was smuggled to the Soviet Union and executed inMoscowin 1939.

Early life[edit]

Miller was a career officer born to aBaltic Germanaristocratic family in Dünaburg (nowDaugavpils,Latvia).[2]After he graduated from theGeneral Staff Academy,he served with theRussian Imperial Guard.Between 1898 and 1907, he was a Russianmilitary attachéin several European capitals, such asRome,The HagueandBrussels.During theFirst World War,he headed theMoscow Military Districtand the26th Army Corpsand was promoted to the rank oflieutenant general.

Civil War[edit]

After theFebruary Revolutionof 1917, Miller opposed "democratization" of the Russian army and was arrested by his own soldiers after he ordered them to remove red armbands.

After theOctober Revolutionof 1917, Miller fled toArchangelskand was declaredGovernor-Generalof Northern Russia. In May 1919,Admiral Kolchakappointed him to replaceVladimir Marouchevskyin charge of theWhite Armyin the region. InArchangelsk,MurmanskandOlonets,his anti-BolshevikNorthern Armywas supported by theTriple Entente,mostlyBritishforces. However, after an unsuccessful advance against theRed Armyalong theNorthern Dvinain the summer of 1919, British forces withdrew from the region, and Miller's men faced the enemy alone.

Exile[edit]

General Yevgeny Miller in the 1930s

In February 1920, General Miller with 800 refugees sailed from Archangelsk toTromsø,Norway.Later, he moved toFranceand, together withGrand Duke NicholasandPyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel,continued his anticommunist activism.

Between 1930 and 1937, Miller served as chairman of theRussian All-Military Union(ROVS), an organization of exiled former White Army officers and soldiers opposed to the Soviet Union. His nieceNathalie Sergueiewalso fled to France and subsequently became anMI5agent.[3]As the ROVS chairman, Miller was not an influential figure, as he did not belong to the dominant clan in the ROVS, namely former members of the White Army ofSouth Russia,nor the former "Gallipoli campers".[4]During theSpanish Civil War,Miller expressed support for theNationalists.The ROVS attempted to create its own Russian unit to join the Nationalists, which would be composed of at least 2,000 soldiers. However, the effect proved insignificant: only several dozen Russians agreed to join the Nationalists.[5]

Illegal rendition[edit]

On 22 September 1937, former Tsarist officer,All-Military Union counter-intelligencechief, andNKVDmoleNikolai Skoblinled Miller to a Parissafe house,ostensibly to meet with two GermanAbwehragents, who were in fact officers of the Soviet NKVD disguised as German military intelligence operatives. They drugged Miller, locked him inside a steamer trunk, and smuggled him aboard a Soviet ship inLe Havre.[6][7]

Miller, however, had left behind a note to be opened in case he failed to return from the meeting. In it, he detailed his mounting suspicions about Skoblin. French police launched a massive manhunt, but Skoblin fled to the Soviet embassy in Paris and eventually was smuggled toBarcelona,where theSecond Spanish Republicrefused to extradite him to theSecond French Republic.[8]However, the French police arrested Skoblin's wife,Nadezhda Plevitskaya.A French court convicted her ofkidnappingand sentenced her to 20 years in prison. Plevitskaya died in prison in 1940.[8][9]

The NKVD successfully smuggled Miller back toMoscow,where he was tortured and summarily shot nineteen months later on 11 May 1939, aged 71. NKVD agentPavel Sudoplatovlater claimed that "[Miller's] kidnapping was acause célèbre.Eliminating him disrupted his organization of Tsarist officers and effectively prevented them from collaborating with the Germans against us. "[10]Sudoplatov also claimed that Western accounts of NKVD agentLeonid Eitingonhaving played a role in the abduction of Miller are false.[11]

Copies of letters written by Miller while imprisoned in Moscow are in theDmitri Volkogonovpapers at theLibrary of Congress.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

Notes and citations[edit]

  1. ^A. Tarulis, American-Baltic relations, 1918-1922: the struggle over recognition, Catholic University of America Press, 1965, p. 190
  2. ^V. Goldin, J. Long, Resistance and Retribution: The Life and Fate of General EK Miller. Revolutionary Russia, 1999.
  3. ^Собачье сердце и двойной обман
  4. ^″Врангелов неоспорни ауторитет: Из тајних архива УДБЕ: РУСКА ЕМИГРАЦИЈА У ЈУГОСЛАВИЈИ 1918–1941.″ //Politika,8 December 2017, p. 17.
  5. ^Seixas, Xosé M. Núñez; Beyda, Oleg (2023-03-27)."'Defeat, Victory, Repeat': Russian Émigrés between the Spanish Civil War and Operation Barbarossa, 1936–1944 ".Contemporary European History:1–16.doi:10.1017/S0960777323000085.hdl:10347/30957.ISSN0960-7773.
  6. ^Sudoplatov 1994,pp. 38, 91.
  7. ^″Помирљивост према политичким партијама: Из тајних архива УДБЕ: РУСКА ЕМИГРАЦИЈА У ЈУГОСЛАВИЈИ 1918–1941.″ //Politika,12 December 2017, p. 21.
  8. ^abBarmine, Alexander,One Who Survived,New York: G.P. Putnam (1945), pp. 232–233
  9. ^Orlov, Alexander,The March of Time,St. Ermin's Press (2004),ISBN1-903608-05-8
  10. ^Sudoplatov 1994,p. 37.
  11. ^Sudoplatov 1994,p. 36.

References[edit]

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External links[edit]


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