Cultural and historical research is built around the painting "Counter-revolutionary performance of Czechoslovak detachments" (1935), written by N. M. Kochergin (1897-1974). The images and style of this work of historical and revolutionary painting are considered in the context of the artist's creative path and the time of the creation of the canvas under the domination of Stalinist ideology. The picture is analyzed as a cultural fact of the Soviet discourse of the first half of the 1930s about the events of the Civil War in the Southern Urals. In addition, the peculiarities of the performance of Czechoslovak legionnaires in Chelyabinsk in May 1918 and the consequences of their military operations in Russia from the point of view of the outcome of the Civil War are considered.