Remnev, Afanasy Iosifovich (1890-1919)

Afanasy Remnev was born in the village of Lapino, in Tambov province in Russia into a peasant family. He had an incomplete secondary education and graduated from 6 classes of gymnasium (high school).

In 1905 he lived in Bryansk, in the Oryol province, and worked as a clerk at Bryansk station. This was the time of the first Russian Revolution and he was fired in the same year for participating in the revolutionary movement. He was sentenced to exile in Siberia for a year in 1906-1907. It was reported that he showed sympathy for the Bryansk Robin Hood, social bandit Alexander Savitsky, allied with the SR Maximalists.

In 1908 he returned to Bryansk, and was given a certificate of clerk, 2nd class by the city council. He worked as a clerk at the Vinitsky textile shop. He married Klavdiya Kremneva, and in 1913 they had a daughter, Tamara.

With the outbreak of the World War, he was drafted , and initially served as a telegraph operator in the 286th Infantry Regiment. He received the St. George Class, 4th Class, for bravery in the battle for the Przemysl fortress. He then graduated from the 1st Orienbaum school of ensigns in 1916, and joined the 24th Siberian Reserve Regiment.

By the beginning of 1917 he served in the 703rd Surami Regiment on the Western Front. He wrote:

"The first days of the revolution found me in the 703rd Suramsky Regiment of the Caucasian Corps at Zalesye Station on the Western Front, where I eliminated three generals and temporarily commanded the II Caucasian Corps. There were also plans to arrest me by the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus, General Gurko, which was prevented by comrades from the entire corps. During Easter 1917, members of the division committee uncovered a conspiracy and attempt on my life, which came from the officers of the entire corps. In order to avoid excesses, I was delegated by the division to Petrograd, where I organized a meeting of the front-line soldiers' congress, of which I was the chairman for the first few days."

This refers to the removal of General Mekhmandarov by a decision of the corps committee and his replacement by General Beneskul, who then committed suicide Tsarist officers wrote disparagingly of him. Second Lieutenant Zolotukhin wrote: “The reason for the disgrace of the 2nd Caucasian Grenadier Division is the ensign of the 703rd regiment Remnev, who vilely and basely subjugated the dark masses, and his first step was carried out on General Mekhmandarov and agitation against the superiors, as well as about the war (“it is needed only by the bourgeoisie and generals”).” Colonel Kirillovich spluttered that :“The behaviour of Ensign Remnev was unworthy of an officer, it revealed in him the absence of any moral decency and integrity, his behaviour was more reminiscent of a jailer, a pogromist, an insolent provocateur, but not an officer or a citizen.”

It appears that Remnev joined the Bolshevik party around this time, and that he was transferred to Kronstadt in June 1917, where he was a teacher at the machine school. He was a member of the Kronstadt Committee of the Bolsheviks, a deputy of the Kronstadt Soviet, and member of the executive committee of the Soviet. During the July Days, he gave a fiery speech on Anchor Square in Kronstadt on July 3rd , inspired by the 1st Machine Gun Regiment, which included many anarchists in its ranks, and which had sent delegates to Kronstadt on that day, urging armed revolution. . He called for an immediate armed uprising and the establishment of the power of the soviets. The following day, he was elected a member of the organisational commission created by the Kronstadt Soviet to lead the 10,000 strong demonstration of sailors that marched to Petrograd. The machine school team led by Remnev was fired upon on Liteiny Prospekt.

With the suppression of the abortive uprising, Remnev was arrested on 5th July and held in the Kresty prison, in the same block as Trotsky (not actually a member of the Bolsheviks at this time), and the Bolshevik leaders Kamenev, Lunacharsky, Sakharov, Roshal, Khaustov, Antonov-Ovseenko, Dybenko, Khovrin and Raskolnikov.

He was transferred to Minsk prison in August. There thousands of soldiers from the Western Front units were imprisoned for having spoken out against the war. On the eve of the outbreak of the October Revolution, Remnev led the soldiers and other political prisoners out of the jail, and occupied the arsenal and the garrison. He organised and was the first commander of the First Revolutionary Regiment of the Minsk Soviet, put together from political prisoners, and dissident soldiers. The Minsk soldiers defeated the attempt by General Dukhonin to wrest back control. Remnev was now seen as a brave and decisive commander.
In early 1918, the 2nd Special Army was formed, with the Minsk Regiment as its basis. In March, it engaged the German invaders , Polish legionaries, and the troops of the Ukrainian Rada.

Apparently, there were many anarchists in the Special Army, and Remnev appears to have left the Bolsheviks to join the anarchist communists. This political decision was to seal his fate. At the beginning of April 1918, the Germans broke through the 2nd Army front and advanced 150 miles. In Shostka, an anti-Soviet uprising by workers in the plant there, involving Mensheviks and SRs, was put down by the 2nd Army.

Remnev suffered a fall from his horse and was rendered unconscious. He was ordered to report to the Council of People’s Commissars over the Shostka events on 17th April 1918. Shortly after , on the 19th, General Sytin, the military leader of the Bryansk region of the Western Front, accused Remnev of violating his revolutionary duty and was subject to trial by a revolutionary tribunal. On 25th April, Bryansk district headquarters telegraphed Moscow that the Remnev units had turned into anarcho-bandit gangs.

On 26th April, Remnev reported to Trotsky saying that the breakthrough by German troops had occurred in his absence, due to his accident. Remnev’s time in Kresty prison did not save him, as the following day , he was arrested and charged with committing a crime in office-looting the treasury- and imprisoned in Butyrky prison.

Over the next few days, units of the 2nd Special Army were disarmed after they had abandoned the front on learning of Remnev’s arrest, and many soldiers, including anarchists, were arrested.

In early June, Remnev was interrogated by investigators from the Bryansk Revolutionary Tribunal. As a result, it was established that a partisan detachment led by Pavel Psheradsky, was responsible for the robbery of the treasury, and not Remnev. Despite this, Remnev remained in prison without any charges.

Towards the end of that month, he was transferred to a prison hospital, and then spent two months under arrest in the district psychiatric hospital. It appears he was simulating mental illness in order to arrange an escape. During this time, he survived on half a pound of bread a day.

He escaped in spring 1919, with the help of the hospital warden and a sympathetic clerk, who bought a ticket that got him to Kozlov, from where he was able to get to his native Lapino. There he lived using documents in the name of a cousin, and worked as a driver. He then went into hiding after month and a half, fearing impending arrest. He settled in the village of Naryshkino. He was arrested in June 1919.

He was sent to the Special Department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 4th Army "as a swindler and counter-revolutionary." The head of the Special Department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 4th Army, General Chibisov, telegraphed the Special Department of the Cheka :"Based on information received, Remnev, the former commander of the Special Army during my service in the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, was arrested and escaped from custody. He is feigning insanity. I ask that he be shot on the spot without trial or sent to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission." Deputy Chairman of the Special Department Ivan Pavlunovsky responded without delay:

“In order to protect the front, Remnev should be shot as a bandit and photographs of Remnev before and after the shooting should be sent to the Special Department.”

Afanasy Remnev was shot at 4 a.m. in the morning of August 13th, 1918. Apparently even his executioner did not understand why Remnev was being killed.

Many years later, Remnev was rehabilitated and found not guilty of the charges against him. One of the significant actors in the beginnings of the 1917 Revolution was murdered by the Bolsheviks on false charges, without trial or proper investigation, presumably for his anarchist beliefs.

Nick Heath

Sources:

Raskolnikov, F. Kronstadt and Petrograd in 1917:
https://marxist.com/kronstadt-and-petrograd-in-1917.htm
https://www.bragazeta.ru/news/2017/10/15/yad-platinovoy-chashi-bryanskaya-tragediya-revolyucionnogo-komandarma-remneva/
https://www.5.ua/ru/rehyoni/bolshevyky-vorovaly-y-oruzhye-y-zhenskye-platia-kak-zhytely-shostky-zashchyshchaly-horod-y-porokhovoi-zavod-ot-rossyiskoho-maroderstva-241179.html