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Pavlo Makarov

Pavlo Makarov (1892–1970) was a figure of the Bolshevik underground and the partisan movement in Crimea, adjutant to the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Volodymyr Mai-Maiievskyi, in 1918–1919, and author of the memoir The Adjutant of General Mai-Maiievskyi (1927). He is considered the real-life prototype of Pavlo Koltsov — the protagonist of the Soviet television film The Adjutant of His Excellency.

Overview

During the Civil War and the confrontation between the White and Red intelligence services, Pavlo Makarov went from a newspaperman to a praporshchyk (junior officer), was captured by the White Guards, and subsequently assumed the post of adjutant to General Volodymyr Mai-Maiievskyi.

In 1927, his memoirs The Adjutant of General Mai-Maiievskyi were published in Leningrad, in which he described his activities within the White headquarters. However, historical analysis and the memoirs of his contemporaries indicate that Makarov had no authorization or assignments from the intelligence directorate of the Red Army or the Cheka, acted situationally, and his "intelligence work" amounted to reading dispatches and encouraging Mai-Maiievskyi's alcoholism without any real transmission of secret data to the Reds.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Service in the White headquarters (1918–1919): From 1918 he was adjutant to Mai-Maiievskyi, with whom he left for Sevastopol in December 1919 after the general's resignation.
  • Arrest and escape: Arrested by the White counterintelligence in Sevastopol after the exposure of the underground group of his brother Volodymyr Makarov; he escaped custody by trickery, locking the chief of the guard inside his own cell.
  • Post-war fate: Served in the Cheka and the Simferopol militia; from 1926 he was a pensioner.
  • Criticism and repression: The publication of the memoirs caused outrage among war veterans due to the lack of evidence and exaggerations; as a result, Makarov was deprived of his personal pension, and in 1937 he was arrested (released in 1939).
  • Conflict over the film: In 1968 he demanded a credit in the titles of the television film The Adjutant of His Excellency, but the screenwriters (I. Bolharyn, H. Severskyi) refused, noting that the character of Koltsov was a composite one. He died in Simferopol in 1970.