Bykhov Sitting

General Kornilov, and with him three dozen other military and civilian officials – "accomplices" – were imprisoned in a local prison, a two–story gloomy building of a former Catholic monastery.

The Provisional Government responded to these actions by arresting the entire Senior Command Staff of the Southwestern Front, led by Denikin and Markov, and imprisoning them in Berdichev Prison.

Without being convicted, he, as Kornilov's adjutant, had unhindered entry into the prison, carrying out various assignments for prisoners (such as sending personal letters):[8] People, living in the same position, all together, under one roof, equally feeling the bitterness of resentment, the injustice of fate, feeling loneliness, the every–minute danger hanging over them, the bitter experience of the soul, and most importantly, accustomed to seeing each other hourly, every minute, began to lose that mutual respect with which they entered Bykhov.Mutual gossip began; when meeting with the generals, the younger ones did not seem to notice them and did not show much respect for them.

[1] Sergey Karpenko, a historian and researcher of the Civil War, describes the aspirations of the arrested generals: All conversations boiled down to "the most distressing and painful thing" – about the outbreak of "Russian Troubles and ways to end it".

After all, the very course of events leaves them no other choice: economic devastation is intensifying, the Germans are threatening the capital, fraternization with the enemy has accelerated the disintegration of the army, the Bolsheviks are behaving more and more insolently, and Kerenskiy, with his chatter, laxity and double–dealing, is clearing the way for Lenin to power.

[1] As a result of the inmates' search for answers to the pressing issues of Russian modern life and the turmoil, a small commission with the participation of Denikin developed a "strictly business–like program for keeping the country from a final fall", approved by Kornilov without wasting time on its discussion.

[1] According to Sergey Karpenko, this program turned out to be "dotted and unclear": due to the generals' vague ideas about the economic measures that need to be taken to create an "organized rear".

The generals hoped to entrust the development and implementation of these measures to the "public" and "specialists", but Sergey Karpenko states here that Kornilov and the generals who joined him "did not benefit from one of the most bitter reproaches of the August Failure": the failure of all attempts to guarantee the involvement of government public figures, officials and representatives of financial and industrial circles after the establishment of "firm power".

According to other sources,[10] after the October Coup, the chairman of the commission, Iosif Shablovskiy, was forced to go into hiding, and his place was taken by Colonel Roman fon Raupakh, who took the initiative to release the arrested.

On December 2, the Acting Supreme Commander–in–Chief of the Russian Army, Nikolay Dukhonin, gave an order (which turned out to be his last) to release the generals arrested in connection with the Kornilov's Uprising in August 1917.

According to the memoirs of Pyotr Makhrov, General Kelchevskiy used the catchphrase about the command staff of Denikin's Army that it was divided into "princes" (Bykhov Prisoners), "dukes" (Pioneers) and "others".

On June 16, at a meeting with members of the Provisional Government, I stated that through a number of military measures it had destroyed, corrupted the army and trampled our battle flags into the mud.