IV. Don Cossacks at the beginning of the 20th century

The Don Army at the beginning of the 20th century. Administrative structure, population, management, economy, land ownership. The region of the Don Army occupied a vast territory of about 3 thousand square miles. Administratively, it was divided into 9 districts:

Don Cossacks and the Revolution of 1905–1907 Cossack units in the fight against revolutionary uprisings. The tragic events of January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg became the prologue to the first Russian revolution. The Don Cossacks were practically involved in violent revolutionary cataclysms to one degree or another during the period between the February and October revolutions. The formation of the highest bodies of Cossack government on the Don. Already in March 1917, the Provisional Government, taking into account the prevailing sentiments among the Cossacks, began to consider the issue of

Cossacks and the October Revolution Don army Cossacks and the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd. By the time of the Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd in October 1917, the capital’s garrison included the 1st, 4th and 14th Don Cossack regiments with a total number of 3,200

VI. Don Cossacks in the 1920s–1930s

Cossacks in emigration Exodus You go, my dear, to a foreign land, Take care of your Cossack honor! Siberian Cossack woman M.V. Volkova (Lithuania - Germany) The defeat of the White movement in the Civil War of 1917–1922 led to a mass exodus of Russian citizens abroad. ...With the downfall of all

Reasons for the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War Since the population of Russia was predominantly composed of peasants, the position of this particular class determined the winner in the civil battle. Having received the land from the hands of the Soviet government, the peasantry began to redistribute it and little

Cossacks of the Don and the revolution of 1905-1907.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the tsarist government began to involve not only the police and gendarmerie, but also the regular army, and with it Cossack units, to fight the revolutionaries. The Cossacks mainly performed security functions: they served around the clock to guard important state and industrial facilities; at the request of the owners, they were sent to factories, mines, factories, and landowners' estates. If necessary, they were also recruited to actively fight demonstrators, strikers, and participants in armed uprisings.

The growth of national self-awareness of the Cossacks - the so-called. “Cossack nationalism” was noticeably observed at the beginning of the twentieth century. The state, interested in the Cossacks as a military support, actively supported these sentiments and guaranteed certain privileges. In the conditions of growing land hunger that struck the peasantry, the class isolation of the troops turned out to be a successful means of protecting the lands.

As the revolutionary movement grew, the government recruited preferential Cossack regiments of the 2nd and 3rd order (they were older Cossacks - over 25 years old) to serve within the empire. In February 1905 and in September-October 1905. appropriate mobilizations were carried out. In total, 110 thousand Cossacks of all Cossack troops were put into service. But the scale of the protests was such that the government had to send 5 times more troops to suppress it than the Cossacks deployed. Nevertheless, cavalry and Cossacks, as the most mobile (mobile) units, were used 1.5-2 times more often than infantry. In addition, the government sought fewer casualties when dispersing demonstrations and preferred to use cavalry with its whips rather than infantry with its bayonets.

In addition to all this, the Cossack units were distinguished by high discipline and loyalty to military duty. Therefore, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they unquestioningly carried out all the orders of the command to combat the revolutionaries.

The attitude of the Cossacks towards police service was complex. Often they asked that instead of fighting the revolutionaries they would be sent to fight the Japanese. The Cossacks of the 31st Don Regiment wrote a letter to the State Duma in which they wrote that they would “gladly” go to war with Japan, but serving within the country and performing police functions is “a disgrace and disgrace to the Cossack rank.” The Cossacks of the 1st Consolidated Don Regiment wrote to the Duma: “We pray to dismiss us from the police service, which is disgusting to our conscience and which insults the dignity of our glorious Don army.” There were quite a few such examples in all Cossack troops.

Discontent sometimes led to open disobedience of the Cossacks to their superiors, but still most of the Cossacks unquestioningly fulfilled their duty, and after the suppression of the revolution, the tsarist government believed that pacification had come in the country, including thanks to the position of the Cossacks.

Cossacks of the Don in the revolutions of 1917

The attitude of the Cossacks to the February Revolution

The World War ("Great War") that began in the summer of 1914 took place with the participation of Cossack troops. The Cossack regiments were the only ones of all parts of the Russian army that did not know desertion, unauthorized departure from the front, revolutionary unrest in combat positions, etc.

By the beginning of the February Revolution, the overwhelming majority of Cossack units of all the country's troops were at the front. The 1st and 4th Don Cossack regiments were stationed in the capital, and in the imperial residence in Tsarskoye Selo the emperor’s personal convoy was located, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Kuban and 3rd and 4th Terek Life Guards Cossack hundreds .

From the very first days of the revolution, these Cossacks were involved in the thick of events. So, on February 23-24, 1917, they, together with garrison soldiers and police, guarded especially important objects and dispersed demonstrators. At the same time, they tried to understand the events and, as they said then, did not want to “go against the people.” Already on February 25, there were cases of Cossacks refusing to disperse demonstrators, and on February 27, the Cossacks, along with other parts of the capital’s garrison, went over to the side of the rebels.

News of the revolution in Petrograd and the overthrow of the tsarist regime caused confusion among the Cossacks at the front and on the territory of the Cossack troops. Many were worried about their rights, especially to military lands. In general, the Cossacks, like the rest of the country’s population, reacted calmly to the change in state power.

After the revolution, the Cossacks decided to restore the highest body of Cossack power and self-government - the Military Circle.

In the spring and summer of 1917, Military circles and congresses were held in all Cossack troops of the country. They became the highest legislative and administrative bodies of Cossack self-government. They elected the highest officials of each army - military atamans. On the Don it became A. M. Kaledin. At the same time, at circles and congresses in each army, the main executive bodies were formed - Military Governments. Along with the bodies of Cossack power in each army, there were also structures of central state power - the apparatus of the commissars of the Provisional Government, civil or executive committees. In March and June 1917, general Cossack congresses took place in Petrograd. Their goal was to unite the Cossacks throughout the country in order to defend Cossack interests. It was decided to form the “Union of Cossack Troops” of the country.

Cossacks and the political crises of the spring-summer of 1917

In the spring and summer of 1917, four state and political crises occurred in the country - April, June, July and August. All of them were caused by dissatisfaction with the policies of the Provisional Government. The April crisis was very short-lived. June was artificially interrupted by the beginning of the offensive of the Russian army at the front. The July and August crises were particularly acute and widespread.

On July 3-5, mass anti-government protests took place in the capital by soldiers of some units of the Petrograd garrison and workers of a number of factories. This spontaneous action was supported by the Bolsheviks. The Provisional Government gave the order to bring military units loyal to it to the streets of Petrograd. Among them were the 1st and 4th Don Cossack regiments. During brutal armed clashes, opponents of the Provisional Government were defeated and disarmed. The official press called the Cossacks the most loyal supporters and even saviors of the government.

Cossacks and the October Revolution

The Cossacks in 1917—thousands and tens of thousands of armed, military-trained people—represented a force that was impossible not to take into account (in the fall of 1917, the army had 162 cavalry Cossack regiments, 171 separate hundreds and 24 foot battalions).

By the time of the Bolshevik October armed uprising in Petrograd, the capital's garrison included the 1st, 4th and 14th Don Cossack regiments.

As soon as the Bolshevik uprising began on the night of October 24-25, 1917, the government gave the order to the 1st, 4th and 14th Don Regiments to arrive at the Winter Palace to defend the government. At the same time, all other Cossack regiments stationed around Petrograd were ordered to urgently arrive in the capital. But the Cossacks were in no hurry to carry out these orders. They sought to take a neutral position, fearing being drawn into a fratricidal civil war; they wanted to be with the people, who by that time had become disillusioned with the Provisional Government. The called regiments did not appear in Petrograd, and several hundred who arrived to guard the Winter Palace returned to the barracks on the evening of October 25.

The neutral position of the Cossacks during the armed uprising in Petrograd affected its course. The uprising won quickly and bloodlessly.

The commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, General P.N. Krasnov, led the 1st Don Division to Petrograd, he managed to gather 700 Cossacks. But in the battle near Pulkovo, the Cossacks were stopped by detachments of soldiers, sailors and the Red Guard. Soon agitators from Petrograd infiltrated their ranks. Negotiations began, and Krasnov’s campaign failed. The Cossacks saw that other military units did not support them, and declared that “they will not go against the people.”

As soon as it became known in the Cossack regions about the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the Military Governments declared their regions under martial law; they did not recognize the new Bolshevik government.

The Cossacks, sacredly honoring the motto “For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland,” came out to defend the Don from Bolshevism, which was advancing throughout Russia. The Don and its capital Novocherkassk became the “center of counter-revolution,” a stronghold of Russian statehood and the white movement. It was here that the young Don Army and the Volunteer Army were formed, defending the Don and Kuban from the advancing Red Army. The revolution and civil war split the united Don Cossacks into white and red.

The intense confrontation between the Reds and the Whites eventually reached the Cossack villages. This happened primarily in the south of the country. The course of events was influenced by local conditions. Thus, the most fierce struggle was on the Don, where after October there was a mass exodus of anti-Bolshevik forces and, in addition, this region was closest to the center.

On one side stood the Cossacks under the banners of generals A. M. Kaledin, P. N. Krasnov and A. P. Bogaevsky, the white partisans of Colonel Chernetsov and General Sidorin, and on the other - the red Cossacks F. Podtelkov and M. Krivoshlykov, brigade commander B Dumenko and corps commander F. Mironov.

All those dissatisfied with the new government poured from Central Russia into the Cossack regions. On the Don, General M.V. Alekseev began to form the Volunteer Army to fight the Bolsheviks.

The majority of Cossacks in the villages and at the front condemned the Bolshevik seizure of power and supported the actions of their governments. But they were in no hurry to enter into an open armed struggle with the Bolsheviks. First of all, they wanted to maintain order in their areas, to extinguish the aggravated contradictions between the Cossack and non-Cossack populations. In order to protect their territories from the influence of the Bolsheviks, many Cossacks began to think about separating their regions from Russia until a stable government recognized by all the people was established there.

In November-December 1917, Don Ataman A. M. Kaledin began active efforts to unite all anti-Bolshevik forces. But he didn't have enough strength. The Cossack units located on the Don clearly shied away from armed struggle.

In November, supporters of Soviet power, with the help of Black Sea sailors, captured the large economic and political center of the Don region, the city of Rostov-on-Don. With great difficulty, attracting detachments of General Alekseev's Volunteer Army formed on the Don, Kaledin managed to drive the Bolsheviks out of Rostov.

In December, Cossack units from the front began to return to the Don, but they did not want to openly fight with the Bolsheviks, who launched an attack on the Don from three sides. Kaledin and the Military Government announced the registration of volunteer partisan detachments. Mostly students signed up - cadets, cadets, high school students, and students. For some time, small partisan detachments actively and boldly repelled the advance of the Red Guard. The partisans from the detachments of V. Chernetsov, E. Semiletov, and D. Nazarov especially distinguished themselves.

In January 1918, the regular Cossack regiments on the Don, under the influence of Bolshevik agitation, convened their congress in the village of Kamenskaya, elected the Don Military Revolutionary Committee and declared it power on the Don. The leaders of the Don Revolutionary Committee F. Podtelkov and M. Krivoshlykov tried to come to an agreement with both Kaledin and the Bolsheviks. Chernetsov's partisan detachment drove the rebel Cossacks out of Kamenskaya. After this, Podtelkov and Krivoshlykov openly recognized the power of the Bolshevik regiments. Most of the regular regiments went home. And the Cossack detachments loyal to the Revolutionary Committee under the command of military foreman N.M. Golubov, together with the Red Guards, defeated Chernetsov’s detachment and began an attack on Novocherkassk, the capital of the Don.

All this time, Kaledin tried to smooth out the contradictions within the region itself. He even created a government of representatives of Cossacks and non-Cossacks in order to jointly keep the Don from a fratricidal war. But the Cossacks went home, and the majority of non-Cossacks supported the Bolsheviks. On January 29, 1918, A. M. Kaledin resigned as ataman and shot himself.

The new ataman A.M. Nazarov announced general mobilization. The Cossacks did not respond to this call. The Bolsheviks and Podtelkov Cossacks approached Novocherkassk. Some of the partisans went with the Volunteer Army to the Kuban to unite with the anti-Bolshevik-minded Kuban Cossacks, the other part united in the “Detachment of Free Don Cossacks” under the command of General P. Kh. Popov and went to the Salsky steppes to wait for the “awakening of the Cossacks.”

Military foreman Golubov dispersed the Military Circle in Novocherkassk. Ataman Nazarov and the chairman of the Circle, Voloshinov, were arrested and shot. Soviet power was established on the Don.

Rice. 4 Comfronta M.V. Frunze

Rice. 5 Liberation of Crimea from the whites

Rice. 6 Running

With the fall of the White Crimea, organized resistance to Bolshevik rule in the European part of Russia came to an end. But the issue of fighting the peasant uprisings that swept the whole of Russia and directed against this government was urgently on the agenda for the red “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Peasant uprisings, which had not stopped since 1918, by the beginning of 1921 had developed into real peasant wars, which was facilitated by the demobilization of the Red Army, as a result of which millions of men familiar with military affairs came from the army. These uprisings covered the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, Volga region, Urals and Siberia. The peasants demanded, first of all, changes in tax and agricultural policies. Regular units of the Red Army with artillery, armored vehicles and aviation were sent to suppress these uprisings. In February 1921, strikes and protest rallies by workers with political and economic demands also began in Petrograd. The Petrograd Committee of the RCP(b) qualified the unrest in the factories of the city as a rebellion and introduced martial law in the city, arresting worker activists. But discontent spread to the armed forces. The Baltic Fleet and Kronstadt, once, as Lenin called them in 1917, “the beauty and pride of the revolution,” became agitated. However, the then “beauty and pride of the revolution” had long since either become disillusioned with the revolution, or died on the fronts of the civil war, or, together with another, dark-haired and curly-haired “beauty and pride of the revolution” from Little Russian and Belarusian towns, implanted the “dictatorship of the proletariat” in a peasant country . And now the garrison of Kronstadt consisted of the same mobilized peasants, whom the “beauty and pride of the revolution” made happy with a new life.

Rice. 7 The beauty and pride of the revolution in the village

“Comrades and citizens!

Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, and economic devastation have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, which rules the country, has become disconnected from the masses and has been unable to bring it out of the state of general devastation. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently occurred in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses. It also did not take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the machinations of counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of all the people, all the working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the moment that only through common efforts, the common will of the working people, can we give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the shoeless and undressed, and lead the republic out of the dead end...

1. Since the current Soviets no longer reflect the will of the workers and peasants, immediately hold new, secret elections and for the election campaign provide complete freedom of agitation among the workers and soldiers;

2. Grant freedom of speech and press to workers and peasants, as well as to all anarchist and left-socialist parties;

3. Guarantee freedom of assembly and coalitions to all trade unions and peasant organizations;

4. Convene a supra-party conference of workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of St. Petersburg, Kronstadt and the St. Petersburg province, which should take place at the latest on March 10, 1921;

5. Release all political prisoners belonging to socialist parties and release from imprisonment all workers, peasants and sailors who were arrested in connection with worker and peasant unrest;

6. To check the affairs of other prisoners in prisons and concentration camps, elect an audit commission;

7. Eliminate all political departments, since no party has the right to claim special privileges for the dissemination of its ideas or financial assistance for this from the government; instead, create commissions on issues of culture and education, which should be elected locally and financed by the government;

8. Immediately disband all barrage detachments;

9. Establish equal amounts of food rations for all workers, with the exception of those whose work is especially dangerous from a medical point of view;
10. Eliminate special communist departments in all formations of the Red Army and communist security groups in enterprises and replace them, where necessary, with formations that will have to be allocated by the army itself, and in enterprises - formed by the workers themselves;

11. Grant peasants complete freedom to dispose of their land, as well as the right to have their own livestock, provided that they make do with their own means, that is, without hiring labor;

12. Ask all soldiers, sailors and cadets to support our demands;

13. Make sure that these decisions are disseminated in the press;

14. Appoint a traveling control commission;

15. Allow freedom for handicraft production if it is not based on the exploitation of someone else’s labor force.”

Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the sailors, the authorities began to prepare to suppress the uprising. On March 5, the 7th Army was restored under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was ordered to “suppress the uprising in Kronstadt as soon as possible.” On March 7, artillery began shelling Kronstadt. The leader of the uprising, S. Petrichenko, later wrote: “Standing waist-deep in the blood of the working people, the bloody Field Marshal Trotsky was the first to open fire on the revolutionary Kronstadt, which rebelled against the rule of the communists to restore the true power of the Soviets.” On March 8, 1921, on the opening day of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), units of the Red Army stormed Kronstadt. But the assault was repulsed, the punitive troops, having suffered heavy losses, retreated to their original lines. Sharing the demands of the rebels, many Red Army soldiers and army units refused to participate in suppressing the uprising. Mass executions began. For the second assault, the most loyal units were drawn to Kronstadt; even delegates from the party congress were thrown into battle. On the night of March 16, after intense artillery shelling of the fortress, a new assault began. Thanks to the tactics of shooting the retreating barrage detachments and the advantage in forces and means, Tukhachevsky’s troops broke into the fortress, fierce street battles began, and only by the morning of March 18 was the resistance in Kronstadt broken. Some of the defenders of the fortress died in battle, another went to Finland (8 thousand), the rest surrendered (2,103 of them were shot according to the verdicts of the revolutionary tribunals). But the sacrifices were not in vain. This uprising was the last straw that overflowed the cup of people's patience, and made a colossal impression on the Bolsheviks. On March 14, 1921, the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted the new economic policy “NEP”, which replaced the policy of “war communism” pursued during the civil war.

By 1921, Russia was literally in ruins. The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Kars region (in Armenia) and Bessarabia were ceded from the former Russian Empire. The population in the remaining territories did not reach 135 million people. Losses in these territories as a result of wars, epidemics, emigration, and declining birth rates have amounted to at least 25 million people since 1914. During the hostilities, mining enterprises in the Donetsk coal basin, Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were especially damaged, and many mines and mines were destroyed. Factories shut down due to a lack of fuel and raw materials. Workers were forced to leave the cities and go to the countryside. The overall level of industry decreased by more than 6 times. The equipment has not been updated for a long time. Metallurgy produced as much metal as it was smelted under Peter I. Rural production decreased by 40%. During the civil war, from hunger, disease, terror and battles, from 8 to 13 million people died (according to various sources). Erlikhman V.V. provides the following data: in total, about 2.5 million people were killed or died from wounds, including 0.95 million Red Army soldiers; 0.65 million fighters of the white and national armies; 0.9 million rebels of different colors. About 2.5 million people died as a result of terror. About 6 million people died from hunger and epidemics. In total, about 10.5 million people died.

Up to 2 million people emigrated from the country. The number of street children has increased sharply. According to various sources, in 1921-1922 there were from 4.5 to 7 million street children in Russia. The damage to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell in various industries to 4-20% of the 1913 level. As a result of the civil war, the Russian people remained under communist rule. The result of the Bolshevik rule was the outbreak of an apocalyptic general famine that covered Rus' with millions of corpses. To avoid further famine and general devastation, the communists did not have any methods in their arsenal, and their brilliant leader, Ulyanov, decided to introduce a new economic program under the name NEP, to destroy the foundations of which he had so far taken all conceivable and inconceivable measures. Back on November 19, 1919, in his speech, he said: “far from all peasants understand that free trade in bread is a state crime: I produced bread; this is my product, and I have the right to trade it: this is how the peasant argues, out of habit, out of habit.” "the old fashioned way. And we say that this is a state crime." Now, not only free trade in bread was introduced, but also in everything else. Moreover, private property was restored, private enterprises were returned to individuals, private initiative and hired labor were allowed. These measures satisfied the bulk of the country's population, primarily the peasantry. After all, 85% of the country's population were small owners, primarily peasants, and workers were - funny to say, a little more than 1% of the population. In 1921, the population of Soviet Russia within the then limits was 134.2 million, and there were 1 million 400 thousand industrial workers. The NEP was a 180-degree turn. Such a reset was not to the liking and beyond the strength of many Bolsheviks. Even their brilliant leader, who possessed a titanic mind and will, who experienced dozens of incredible metamorphoses and turns in his political biography, based on his reckless dialectics and naked, almost unprincipled pragmatism, could not withstand such an ideological somersault and soon lost his mind. And how many of his comrades went crazy or committed suicide because of the change in course, history is silent about this. Discontent was brewing in the party, and the political leadership responded with massive party purges.

Rice. 8 Lenin before his death

The answer to the question of who is responsible for the outbreak of the civil war in Russia does not depend on the facts, but depends on the political orientation of people. For the followers of the Reds, the war was naturally started by the Whites, and among the followers of the Whites, it was naturally the Bolsheviks. There is not much debate only about the places and dates of its beginning, as well as the time and place of its end. It ended in March 1921 at the X Congress of the RCP(b) with the introduction of the NEP, i.e. with the abolition of the policy of “war communism”. And no matter how cunning and disingenuous the communists are, this circumstance automatically gives the correct answer to the question posed. It was the irresponsible introduction of the class chimeras of Bolshevism into the life and life of a peasant country that became the main cause of the civil war, and the abolition of these chimeras became the signal for its end. This also automatically resolves the issue of responsibility for all its consequences. Although history does not accept the subjunctive mood, the entire course and especially the ending of the war speaks for the fact that if the Bolsheviks had not broken people’s life over their knees, then such a bloody war would not have happened. The defeat of Dutov and Kaledin at the beginning of 1918 speaks volumes about this. The Cossacks then answered their atamans clearly and specifically: “The Bolsheviks did nothing bad to us. Why are we going to fight with them?” But everything changed dramatically after just a few months of the Bolsheviks actually being in power, and mass uprisings began in response. Throughout its history, humanity has waged many senseless wars. Among them, civil wars are most often not only the most senseless, but also the most cruel and merciless. But even in this series of transcendental human idiocy, the civil war in Russia is phenomenal. It ended after the restoration of political and economic economic conditions, due to the abolition of which, in fact, it began. The bloody circle of reckless voluntarism has closed. So what were they fighting for? And who won?

The war was over, but it was necessary to solve the problem of deceived heroes of the civil war. There were many of them, for several years on foot and on horseback they earned themselves a bright future, promised by commissars of all ranks and all nationalities, and now they demanded, if not communism, then at least a tolerable life for themselves and their loved ones, the satisfaction of their most minimal needs. The heroes of the civil war occupied a significant and important place on the historical stage of the 20s, and it was more difficult to deal with them than with the passive, intimidated people. But they did their job, and their time has come to leave the historical stage, leaving it to other characters. The heroes were gradually declared oppositionists, draft dodgers, enemies of the party or the people and doomed to destruction. For this purpose, new personnel were found, more obedient and loyal to the regime. The strategic goal of the leaders of communism was world revolution and the destruction of the existing world order. Having seized the power and funds of the Great Country, having a favorable international situation that developed as a result of the World War, they turned out to be incapable of achieving the goals they had set and were unable to successfully demonstrate their activities outside the borders of Russia. The most encouraging success of the Reds was the advance of their army to the line of the Vistula River. But after the crushing defeat and “obscene peace” with Poland, their claims to world revolution and advancement into the depths of Europe before the Second World War were put to a limit.

The revolution was costly for the Cossacks. During the brutal, fratricidal war, the Cossacks suffered enormous losses: human, material, spiritual and moral. On the Don alone, where by January 1, 1917, 4,428,846 people of different classes lived, as of January 1, 1921, there were 2,252,973 people left. In fact, every second person was “cut out.” Of course, not everyone was “cut out” in the literal sense; many simply left their native Cossack regions, fleeing the terror and tyranny of the local committees of the poor and komjacheki. The same picture was in all other territories of the Cossack Troops. In February 1920, the 1st All-Russian Congress of Labor Cossacks took place. He adopted a resolution on the abolition of the Cossacks as a special class. Cossack ranks and titles were liquidated, awards and insignia were abolished. Individual Cossack troops were liquidated and the Cossacks merged with the entire people of Russia. In the resolution “On the construction of Soviet power in the Cossack regions,” the congress “recognized the existence of separate Cossack authorities (military executive committees) as inappropriate,” provided for by the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of June 1, 1918. In accordance with this decision, Cossack villages and farms were henceforth part of the provinces on whose territory they were located. The Cossacks of Russia suffered a severe defeat. In a few years, the Cossack villages will be renamed into volosts and the word “Cossack” itself will begin to disappear from everyday life. Only in the Don and Kuban did Cossack traditions and customs still exist, and dashing and free, sad and soulful Cossack songs were sung.

It seemed that the de-Cossackization in the Bolshevik style had taken place abruptly, completely and irrevocably, and the Cossacks would never be able to forgive this. But, despite all the atrocities, the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks, during the Great Patriotic War, maintained their patriotic positions and in difficult times took part in the war on the side of the Red Army. Only a few Cossacks betrayed their Motherland and took the side of Germany. The Nazis declared these traitors to be descendants of the Ostrogoths. But that's a completely different story.

After the February Revolution of 1917, a political situation developed in Kuban that was different from the all-Russian one. Following the commissioner of the Provisional Government, K. L. Bardizh, appointed from Petrograd and the Kuban Regional Council that arose on April 16, the Kuban Military Rada at its First Congress proclaimed itself and the military government the highest governing bodies of the army. The “triple power” that emerged in this way lasted until July 4, when the Rada declared the Council dissolved, after which K. L. Bardizh transferred all power in the region to the military government.

Ahead of the development of events in Petrograd, the 2nd Regional Rada, which met in late September and early October, proclaimed itself the supreme body not only of the army, but of the entire Kuban Territory, adopting its constitution - “Temporary Regulations on the Supreme Bodies of Power in the Kuban Territory.” After the 1st session of the Legislative Rada and part of the 1st regional congress of nonresidents, which began simultaneously on November 1, united, they declared non-recognition of the power of the Council of People's Commissars and formed the Legislative Rada and the regional government on a parity basis. N.S. became the Chairman of the Rada. Ryabovol, chairman of the government instead of A.P. Filimonov, elected ataman of the Kuban army - L.L. Bych. On January 8, 1918, Kuban was proclaimed an independent republic, part of Russia on a federal basis.

Having put forward the slogan of “fighting dictatorship on the left and right” (that is, against Bolshevism and the threat of restoration of the monarchy), the Kuban government tried to find its own, third way in the revolution and civil strife. Over the course of 3 years in Kuban, four atamans (A.P. Filimonov, N.M. Uspensky, N.A. Bukretov, V.N. Ivanis), 5 chairmen of the government (A.P. Filimonov, L.L.) were replaced in power. Bych, F. S. Sushkov, P. I. Kurgansky, V. N. Ivanis). The composition of the government changed even more often - a total of 9 times. Such frequent changes of government were largely a consequence of internal contradictions between the Black Sea and linear Cossacks of the Kuban. The first, economically and politically stronger, stood on federalist (so-called “independent”) positions, gravitating towards “Nenka-Ukraine”. Its most prominent representatives were K. L. Bardizh, N. S. Ryabovol, L. L. Bych. The second political direction, represented by Ataman A.P. Filimonov, traditionally for Russian-speaking Lineists was oriented toward a united and indivisible Russia.

Meanwhile, the First Congress of Soviets of the Kuban Region, held on February 14-18, 1918 in Armavir, proclaimed Soviet power throughout the region and elected an executive committee headed by Ya. V. Poluyan. On March 14, Ekaterinodar was taken by Red troops under the command of I. L. Sorokin. The Rada, which left the capital of the region, and its armed forces under the command of V. L. Pokrovsky united with the Volunteer Army of General L. G. Kornilov, which set out on its first Kuban (“Ice”) campaign. The bulk of the Kuban Cossacks did not support Kornilov, who died on April 13 near Yekaterinodar. However, the six-month period of Soviet power in the Kuban (from March to August) changed the attitude of the Cossacks towards it. As a result, on August 17, during the second Kuban campaign, the Volunteer Army under the command of General A.I. Denikin occupied Yekaterinodar. At the end of 1918, 2/3 of it consisted of Kuban Cossacks. However, some of them continued to fight in the ranks of the Taman and North Caucasian red armies, which retreated from the Kuban.

After returning to Yekaterinodar, the Rada began to resolve issues of the state structure of the region. On February 23, 1919, at a meeting of the Legislative Rada, the 3-stripe blue-raspberry-green flag of Kuban was approved, and the regional anthem “You, Kuban, you are our Motherland” was performed. The day before, a Rada delegation led by L. L. Bych was sent to Paris for the Versailles Peace Conference. The idea of ​​Kuban statehood came into conflict with General Denikin’s slogan about a great, united, indivisible Russia. This confrontation cost the Chairman of the Rada N.S. Ryabovol his life. In June 1919, he was shot dead in Rostov-on-Don by a Denikin officer.

In response to this murder, wholesale desertion of the Kuban Cossacks began from the front, as a result of which no more than 15% of them remained in the Armed Forces of southern Russia. Denikin responded to the Parisian diplomatic demarche of the Rada by dispersing it and hanging the regimental priest A.I. Kulabukhov. The events of November 1919, called by contemporaries the “Kuban Action,” reflected the tragedy of the fate of the Kuban Cossacks, expressed by the phrase “one among strangers, a stranger among one’s own.” This expression can also be attributed to the Kuban Cossacks who fought on the side of the Reds - I.L. Sorokin and I.A. Kochubey, who were declared adventurers by the Soviet authorities after their deaths. Later, in the late 30s, their fate was shared by the famous Kuban Bolshevik Cossacks - Ya. V. and D. V. Poluyan, V. F. Cherny and others.

The capture of Yekaterinodar by units of the Red Army on March 17, 1920, the evacuation of the remnants of Denikin’s army from Novorossiysk to the Crimea and the capitulation of the 60,000-strong Kuban army near Adler on May 2-4 did not lead to the restoration of civil peace in the Kuban. In the summer of 1920, a Cossack insurrectionary movement unfolded against Soviet power in the Trans-Kuban region and the Azov flood plains. On August 14, in the area of ​​the village of Primorsko-Akhtarskaya, a landing of Wrangel troops under the command of General S. G. Ulagai landed, which ended in failure. However, the armed struggle of the Kuban Cossacks in the ranks of the white-green movement continued until the mid-20s. Of the 20 thousand Kuban Cossacks who emigrated, more than 10 thousand remained abroad forever.

Kuban paid a heavy price for the establishment of Soviet power. From the memorandum of the Regional Rada it is known that in the spring-autumn of 1918 alone, 24 thousand people died here. Soviet sources provide an equally terrifying picture of the White Terror. However, in 1918 - early 1920. The region managed to avoid the negative impact of the policy of military communism and decossackization, since from the autumn of 1918 to the spring of 1920, Kuban was in the rear of Denikin’s army. Together with the powerful agricultural potential and the presence of ports, this created, compared with other regions of Russia, more favorable conditions for economic development. The same can be said about the state of affairs in the sphere of culture and education. During the civil war, Ekaterinodar became one of the small literary capitals of Russia. If on the eve of the First World War there were 1915 educational institutions in Kuban, then by 1920 there were 2200. In 1919, the Kuban Polytechnic Institute was opened in Yekaterinodar, and in 1920 - the Kuban State University.

The drama of the confrontation between the forces of old and new, which collided in the Kuban like “ice and fire,” is clearly captured in the figurative titles of books about the civil war in the region. These are the memoirs of R. Gul “Ice March” and the story of A. Serafimovich “Iron Stream”, dedicated to the heroic campaigns of the Volunteer and Taman armies. The tragedy of the fratricidal war is reflected in the title of A. Vesely’s novel “Russia, Washed in Blood,” which also tells about the events that took place in the Kuban. In a concise and frank form, the laconic language of ditties of that time conveys the mood of the Cossacks at various stages of the revolution and civil war: “We are not Bolsheviks and not cadets, we are neutral Cossacks,” “Young officer, white shoulder straps, don’t go to Kuban until intact" and, finally, "Gentlemen Bolsheviks, don't work for nothing, a Cossack cannot be reconciled with a Soviet commissar."

Candidate of Historical Sciences,Associate Professor A. A. Zaitsev

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