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"The Adjutant of His Excellency" (Historical Myth and Reality)

"The Adjutant of His Excellency" is a cult Soviet 5-episode television movie (1969, screenwriters Ihor Bolharyn and Heorhiy Severskyi), centered on the figure of Bolshevik intelligence agent Pavel Koltsov in the headquarters of the White Guard Volunteer Army during the Civil War (1918–1920). Sevastopol native Pavlo Makarov was long considered the prototype of the main character in Soviet mass culture.

Overview

The war between intelligence services was an integral component of military operations in Crimea and southern Ukraine in 1918–1920. Both the Reds and Whites, as well as the newly formed Ukrainian State of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, had their own secret services and espionage networks (for example, the Ukrainian intelligence network exposed in Yekaterinodar in 1918, which aimed to reunite Kuban with Ukraine).

The first book on the topic of clandestine intelligence in the White headquarters was the memoirs of Pavlo Makarov, The Adjutant of General May-Mayevsky (Leningrad, 1927). However, critical historical analysis demonstrates a deep gulf between the romanticized cinematic myth and real events: 1. Lack of an intelligence assignment: Makarov acted situationally, without coordination with the Cheka or the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. 2. Nature of activity: Instead of sabotage (which, like the sabotage of a tank train in the film, did not exist in reality), the adjutant's activities were reduced to reading dispatches and encouraging the alcoholism of General Vladimir May-Mayevsky. 3. No transmission of intelligence data: Makarov himself admitted in his book that attempts to contact the Bolshevik underground in Rostov were in vain. 4. Composite character: The film's screenwriters refused to credit Makarov in the film's titles, as the onscreen agent Koltsov is a composite synthesis of many figures from the Bolshevik underground.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Confrontation of special services (1918–1920): activities of intelligence networks of the Whites, Bolsheviks, and the Ukrainian State of Pavlo Skoropadskyi.
  • Sevastopol Underground: exposure of a Bolshevik underground group led by Volodymyr Makarov (the adjutant's brother) and the arrest of Pavlo Makarov by White counterintelligence.
  • Assessment of contemporaries and veterans: Makarov's book sparked a wave of indignation among war veterans due to a lack of evidence and the author's boastfulness.