Terentii Galuzin’s betrayal of Strelnikov

Terentii Galuzin’s betrayal of Strelnikov is disclosed not by Galuzin himself but in Strelnikov’s account to Yurii Andreievich Zhivago. The revelation turns a fugitive’s story of survival into a chain of compromised loyalties: Galuzin sought to save his mother, agreed to work for the Cheka, and exposed Strelnikov’s hiding place. Strelnikov escaped, but his refuge was no longer secure.

A fugitive’s encounter

Strelnikov tells Yurii that, after his eastern hide-outs were uncovered, he was making his way west across Siberia on foot, keeping out of people’s way and going hungry. He describes sleeping in snowdrifts or in trains buried along the railway. He had chosen flight because he expected a court-martial on what he considered a trumped-up charge, and believed that if arrested he would have little chance to clear his name. Disappearing, keeping on the move, and living alone seemed to offer a chance to defend himself later, under more favorable circumstances.

On that journey Strelnikov encountered a boy who said he had escaped a partisan execution detail. The boy claimed he had been wounded, crawled from beneath the dead, hidden in the forest until he recovered, and then moved between hiding places. Strelnikov describes him as vicious, dull-witted, and expelled from school. The detail accumulates into recognition for Yurii: as Strelnikov speaks, Yurii becomes increasingly sure he knows whom the story concerns.

The disclosure and its motive

Yurii identifies the boy as Terentii Galuzin. Strelnikov confirms the name, and Yurii says Galuzin’s account of the partisans and the shooting was true, not invented. The exchange establishes that Galuzin’s tale of surviving the execution detail was part of the history that brought him into Strelnikov’s confidence; it was not simply a fabricated pretext.

Strelnikov then gives the motive behind the betrayal. Galuzin’s father had been shot as a hostage, and his mother was in prison, with a similar fate feared for her. Devotion to his mother, Strelnikov says, was the boy’s one good quality. When Galuzin learned of her danger, he decided to do what he could to secure her release. He went to the local Cheka, surrendered himself, and offered to work for them.

The Cheka agreed to give Galuzin a chance only on condition that he perform an important act of betrayal. Galuzin told them where Strelnikov was hiding. The account makes his action a deliberate exchange: the disclosure was the price demanded for the opportunity to help his mother, not an accidental revelation. The mother’s eventual fate is not stated in this passage.

Escape and renewed pursuit

Strelnikov says he got away in time. Galuzin’s information therefore exposed the hiding place without, at least immediately, delivering Strelnikov into custody. The escape did not restore his security. Strelnikov explains that he had eventually reached this part of the country after a difficult crossing of Siberia and had relied on being so well known there that his pursuers would not expect him to return. They searched around Chita while he stayed in the house or in other nearby places he believed safe.

Once the hiding place was disclosed, that calculation failed: Strelnikov says the pursuers were now on his trail. The betrayal changes the meaning of the refuge from a successful disguise into a temporary shelter whose protection has been compromised. In the conversation, he also says he has been unable to sleep for a long time and proposes continuing their talk through the night by candlelight. That immediate turn toward the candles and conversation follows his account of exposure, but the passage does not describe a further confrontation with the pursuers.

Narrative significance

The revelation is structured as a recognition scene. Yurii supplies Galuzin’s name only after Strelnikov’s recollection has furnished enough identifying details, and Strelnikov’s confirmation connects the boy’s reported escape to the betrayal. The reader learns the secret through this gradual identification rather than through a separate scene of Galuzin approaching the Cheka.

The episode also resists a simple division between loyalty and treachery. Galuzin betrays Strelnikov, but the account places that act within the peril facing his family: his father has been killed, his mother is imprisoned, and the Cheka makes cooperation conditional on betrayal. Strelnikov’s narrative gives the choice a clear personal motive without undoing its consequence. The information compromises his concealment, and even though he escapes, the pursuit resumes.