According to the 1897 census, there were 2,928,842 military Cossacks with families, or 2.3% of the total population. The bulk of the Cossacks (63.6%) lived on the territory of 15 provinces, where there were 11 Cossack troops - Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, Siberian, Transbaikal, Amur and Ussuri. The most numerous were the Don Cossacks (1,026,263 people, or about a third total number Cossacks of the country). It made up to 41% of the region's population. Then came the Kuban - 787.194 people. (41% of the population of the Kuban region). Trans-Baikal - 29.1% of the population of the region, Orenburg - 22.8%, Terek - 17.9%, the same Amur, Ural - 17.7%. At the turn of the century, there was a noticeable increase in population: in the period from 1894 to 1913. the population of the 4 largest troops increased by 52% 2.

The troops arose at different times and on different principles - for the Don Cossacks, for example, the process of growing into Russian state went from the 17th to the 19th century. Similar was the fate of some other Cossack troops. Gradually, the free Cossacks turned into a military service, feudal class. There was a kind of "nationalization" of the Cossacks. Seven out of eleven troops (in the eastern regions) were created by government decrees, from the very beginning they were built as "state troops". In principle, the Cossacks were an estate, however, today there are more and more judgments that it is also a sub-ethnos, characterized by a common historical memory, self-awareness and a sense of solidarity 3.

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

Throughout its history, the Cossacks did not remain unchanged - each era had its own Cossack: at first it was a "free man", then he was replaced by a "service man", a warrior in the service of the state. Gradually, this type began to fade into the past. Already from the second half of the 19th century, the type of Cossack-farmer became predominant, which only the system and tradition forced to take up arms 4. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was an increase in contradictions between the Cossack-farmer and the Cossack-warrior. It was the latter type that the authorities tried to preserve and sometimes artificially cultivated.

Life changed, and, accordingly, the Cossacks also changed. The trend towards self-liquidation of the military class in its traditional form became more and more pronounced. The spirit of change seemed to be in the air - the first revolution awakened an interest in politics among the Cossacks, in fact high level the issues of extending the Stolypin reform to the Cossack territories, introducing zemstvos there, and so on, were discussed.

The year 1917 became a milestone and fateful for the Cossacks. The events of February had serious consequences: the abdication of the emperor, among other things, destroyed the centralized control of the Cossack troops. The bulk of the Cossacks for a long time was in an uncertain state, did not take part in political life - the habit of obedience, the authority of commanders, and a poor understanding of political programs affected. Meanwhile, politicians had their own vision of the positions of the Cossacks, most likely due to the events of the first Russian revolution, when the Cossacks were involved in police service and suppression of unrest. Confidence in the counter-revolutionary nature of the Cossacks was characteristic of both the left and the right. Meanwhile, capitalist relations penetrated deeper and deeper into the Cossack environment, destroying the estate "from the inside". But the traditional awareness of oneself as a single community somewhat conserved this process.

However, quite soon the understandable confusion was replaced by independent initiative actions. Elections of atamans are held for the first time. In mid-April, the Military Circle elected the military chieftain of the Orenburg Cossack army, Major General N.P. Maltsev. In May, the Great Military Circle created the Don Military Government headed by Generals A.M. Kaledin and M.P. Bogaevsky. The Ural Cossacks generally refused to elect an ataman, motivating the refusal by the desire to have not the sole, but the people's power.

In March 1917, on the initiative of a member of the IV State Duma, I.N. Efremov and deputy military ataman, M.P. Bogaevsky, a general Cossack congress was convened to create a special body under the Provisional Government to defend the interests of the Cossack class. AI Dutov, an active supporter of the preservation of the identity of the Cossacks and their freedoms, became the chairman of the Union of Cossack troops. The Union stood for strong power, supported the Provisional Government. At that time, A.Dutov called A.Kerensky "a bright citizen of the Russian land."

In contrast, the radical left forces created an alternative body on March 25, 1917 - Central Council labor Cossacks headed by VF Kostenetsky. The positions of these bodies were diametrically opposed. Both of them claimed the right to represent the interests of the Cossacks, although neither one nor the other was the true spokesman for the interests of the majority, their election was also very conditional.

By the summer, the Cossack leaders were already disappointed - both in the personality of the "bright citizen" and in the policy pursued by the Provisional Government. A few months of activity of the "democratic" government was enough for the country to be on the verge of collapse. The speeches of A. Dutov at the end of the summer of 1917, his reproaches to the powers that be are bitter, but fair. He was probably one of the few who already then held a firm political position. The main position of the Cossacks in this period can be defined by the word "waiting" or "waiting". The stereotype of behavior - orders are given by the authorities - for some time still worked. Apparently, therefore, the Chairman of the Union of Cossack troops, military foreman A. Dutov, did not take a direct part in the speech of L.G. Kornilov, but defiantly enough refused to condemn the "rebellious" commander in chief. In this he was not alone: ​​as a result, 76.2% of the regiments, the Council of the Union of Cossack troops, the Circles of the Don, Orenburg and some other troops declared support for the Kornilov speech. The provisional government actually lost the Cossacks. Separate steps to correct the situation no longer helped. A.Dutov, who lost his post, is immediately elected on the Extraordinary Circle as the ataman of the Orenburg army.

It is significant that in the context of the deepening crisis in various Cossack troops, their leaders adhered in principle to one line of conduct - the isolation of the Cossack regions as a protective measure. At the first news of the Bolshevik uprising, the military governments (of the Don, Orenburg region) assumed full state power and introduced martial law.

The bulk of the Cossacks remained politically inert, but still a certain part occupied a position different from that of the atamans. The authoritarianism of the latter was in conflict with the democratic sentiments characteristic of the Cossacks. In the Orenburg Cossack army, there was an attempt to create a so-called. "Cossack Democratic Party" (T.I. Sedelnikov, M.I. Sveshnikov), whose executive committee later transformed into an opposition group of deputies of the Circle. Similar views were expressed by F.K. Mironov in his "Open Letter" to a member of the Don Military Government P.M. Ageev on December 15, 1917, about the demands of the Cossacks - "re-election of members of the Military Circle on democratic principles" 5.

Another common detail: the newly-minted leaders opposed themselves to the majority of the Cossack population and miscalculated in assessing the mood of the returning front-line soldiers. In general, front-line soldiers are a factor that excites everyone, capable of fundamentally influencing the fragile balance that has arisen. The Bolsheviks considered it necessary to first disarm the front-line soldiers, arguing that the latter "could" join "the counter-revolution." As part of the implementation of this decision, dozens of trains going east were detained in Samara, which ultimately created an extremely explosive situation. The 1st and 8th preferential regiments of the Ural troops, who did not want to hand over their weapons, fought with the local garrison near Voronezh. Front-line Cossack units began to arrive on the territory of the troops from the end of 1917. Atamans could not rely on the newcomers: the Urals refused to support the White Guard being created in Uralsk, in Orenburg on the Circle, the front-line soldiers expressed "displeasure" to the ataman because he "mobilized the Cossacks, .. made a split in the Cossack environment" 6.

Almost everywhere, the Cossacks, who returned from the front, openly and persistently declared their neutrality. Their position was shared by the majority of the Cossacks in the field. The Cossack "leaders" did not find mass support. On the Don, Kaledin was forced to commit suicide, in the Orenburg region, Dutov could not raise the Cossacks to fight and was forced to flee from Orenburg with 7 like-minded people, an attempt by the junkers of the Omsk ensign school led to the arrest of the leadership of the Siberian Cossack army. In Astrakhan, the performance under the leadership of the chieftain of the Astrakhan army, General I.A. Biryukov, lasted from January 12 (25) to January 25 (February 7), 1918, after which he was shot. Everywhere the speeches were few in number, they were mainly officers, cadets and small groups of ordinary Cossacks. Front-line soldiers even took part in the suppression.

A number of villages refused on principle to participate in what was happening - as stated in the instruction to delegates to the Small Military Circle from a number of villages, "to remain neutral until the matter of the civil war is clarified" 7. However, to remain neutral, not to interfere in the civil war that began in the country, the Cossacks did not succeed. The peasantry at that stage can also be considered neutral, in the sense that the main part of it, having solved the land question one way or another during 1917, somewhat calmed down and was in no hurry to actively take sides. But if the opposing forces at that time were not up to the peasants, then they could not forget about the Cossacks. Thousands and tens of thousands of armed, military-trained people represented a force that was impossible to ignore (in the autumn of 1917, the army had 162 cavalry Cossack regiments, 171 separate hundred and 24 foot battalions). The sharp confrontation between the Reds and the Whites eventually reached the Cossack regions. First of all, this happened in the South and in the Urals. The course of events was influenced 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.

Both opposing sides actively tried to pull the Cossacks to themselves (or, at least, not to let them in to the enemy). There was active agitation in word and deed. The Whites emphasized the preservation of liberties, Cossack traditions, originality, and so on. The Reds - on the commonality of the goals of the socialist revolution for all working people, on the comradely feelings of the Cossacks-front-line soldiers for the soldiers. VF Mamonov drew attention to the similarity of the elements of religious consciousness in the propaganda of the Reds and Whites, as well as the methods of propaganda work 8. In general, neither one nor the other was sincere. Everyone was primarily interested in the combat potential of the Cossack troops.

In principle, the Cossacks clearly did not support anyone. Regarding how actively the Cossacks joined a particular camp, there is no generalized data. The Ural army rose almost completely, fielding 18 regiments (up to 10 thousand sabers) by November 1918 9. The Orenburg Cossack army fielded nine regiments - by the fall of 1918 there were 10,904 Cossacks in service. The call gave approximately 18% of the total number of combat-ready Cossacks of the Orenburg army 10. At the same time, in the fall of 1918, there were approximately 50 thousand Don and 35.5 thousand Kuban Cossacks in the ranks of the Whites 11.

According to V.F. Mamonov, in the South Urals in the spring of 1918, the 1st Soviet Orenburg Cossack labor regiment (up to 1000 people), five Red Cossack detachments in Troitsk (up to 500 people), detachments of I. and N. Kashirin in Verkhneuralsk (about 300 people). By autumn, more than 4,000 Orenburg Cossacks were on the side of the Reds. 12 In September 1918, 14 Red Cossack regiments operated on the Southern Front. Note that we are talking about formations called regiments - but there is no exact data on the number of military personnel in those. By February 1919, there were 7-8 thousand Cossacks in the Red Army, united in 9 regiments. In the report of the Cossack department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, compiled at the end of 1919, it was concluded that the Red Cossacks made up 20% of the total, and from 70 to 80% of the Cossacks, for various reasons, were on the side of the Whites 13.

It may sound somewhat paradoxical, but the neutrality of the Cossacks did not suit anyone. By the very force of circumstances, the Cossacks were doomed to participate in a fratricidal war.

The belligerents demanded a choice from the Cossacks: and in a word (“So know, whoever is not with us is against us. We need to finally agree: either go with us or take rifles and fight against us,” said the chairman of the Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee, S. Zwilling at the 1st Provincial Congress of Soviets on March 12, 1918 15) and in deed, trying to force the Cossacks to join the struggle.

In conditions when the Cossacks were waiting, the communists had a real chance to put an end to the armed confrontation. Most of the Cossacks still preferred to remain neutral. However, stereotypes about the Cossacks, political intolerance, mistakes in politics led to a crisis. He matured gradually, in stages. This is clearly seen in the events in the Orenburg region. In the first three days after the Red Guards entered Orenburg, several dozen villages declared their recognition of Soviet power. But the Orenburg Bolsheviks did not seek dialogue with the Cossacks, demanding only submission. The distribution of food detachments to the nearest villages led to the emergence of partisan "self-defense" detachments. On March 3, 1918, the Military Revolutionary Committee threatened that if "any stanitsa assists the counter-revolutionary partisan detachments with shelter, shelter, food, etc., then such a stanitsa will be destroyed mercilessly by artillery fire" 16. The threat was backed up by the taking of hostages. On March 23, according to eyewitnesses, a real "hunt for Cossacks" began in the city. As a response, the destruction of several food detachments in the Cossack villages.

The next stage is the raid of partisan detachments on Orenburg on the night of April 3-4. The partisans held several streets for several hours, then withdrew. Hatred, suspicion and fear again stirred up - as a result, reprisals against the Cossacks began again without trial. In the Cossack Forstadt, lynching continued for three days. Raids began in nearby villages, arrests of priests of Cossack parishes, executions of "hostile elements", indemnities and requisitions. Artillery fire destroyed 19 villages. The stations panicked. The protocols of the villages about the desire to start peace negotiations began to flow. In the minutes of the general meeting, Art. Kamenno-Ozernaya made a demonstrative remark: "we are between two fires" 18.

However, the communist authorities responded with yet another ultimatum, threatening "merciless red terror": "Guilty villages" will "be swept off the face of the earth without any discrimination between the guilty and the innocent"19.

At the congress of labor Cossacks on May 8, the Cossacks raised the issue of attitude towards them very sharply - "the Bolsheviks do not recognize us Cossacks"; "the word" Cossack "and with the arrested, the calculations are short." Numerous facts of violence against the Cossacks were cited. Those who gathered demanded an end to unjustified arrests and executions, requisitions and confiscations. But even at the end of May, the provincial executive committee and the military revolutionary headquarters adopted resolutions demanding an end to the ongoing lynching and destruction of villages. Such actions pushed the Cossacks away from the Soviets, pushed those who hesitated. Self-defense units became the backbone of the KOMUCH army.

A similar situation took place on the Don: in the village of Vyoshenskaya at the end of 1918 there was an uprising against the Whites. On the night of March 11, 1919, the uprising broke out again, this time due to dissatisfaction with the policy of the Bolsheviks.

Despite seemingly completely different goals, both sides acted with practically the same methods. At the beginning of 1918, Orenburg was under the control of the Reds for several months, then Ataman A. Dutov entered the city. The orders he established were surprisingly similar to the orders imposed by the communist authorities. Contemporaries noticed this almost immediately - an article appeared in the Menshevik newspaper Narodnoye Delo with the characteristic title "Bolshevism Turned Inside Out."20 Political opponents were immediately expelled from the local authorities. Censorship introduced. Indemnities were imposed: the communists demanded 110 million rubles from the Orenburg bourgeoisie, 500 thousand rubles from the Pokrovskaya village, and 560 thousand from the other three. Duts - 200 thousand rubles. from suburban settlements and nonresident residents of the Cossack Forstadt. The institution of hostage-taking appeared: the Reds took from the "exploiting classes", the Whites - "from candidates for future committees of the poor and commissars" 21. themselves as Bolsheviks." Both sides easily violated the principles of traditional legality. Thus, Dutov's "execution" order, announced on June 21, extended "to all crimes committed since January 18 of this year, i.e. from the day the Bolsheviks seized power in the city of Orenburg" 22. The Red Tribunals, in turn, relied on "revolutionary legal consciousness".

It is symptomatic that the Cossacks, who tried to conduct a dialogue with the authorities, suffered equally from both. Almost immediately after the occupation of Orenburg by the Reds, the Cossack newspaper, which was in opposition to Ataman Dutov, was closed, the Cossacks who advocated dialogue with the Soviets were arrested. The executive committee of the Council of Cossack Deputies was dissolved. Later, these same people were repressed by Dutov.

The parties masked their weakness with threats. The Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee turned to the Cossacks with an ultimatum, demanding in two days to "surrender their weapons" and "every harmful person from their members." For non-fulfillment, the headquarters threatened to shoot the villages with "artillery fire and shells and suffocating gases." For the murder or attempt on the life of a Red Guard, they threatened to shoot the entire village: "for one - a hundred people." In a new ultimatum, a few days later, the headquarters again threatened with "merciless red terror" 23.

Another indication of weakness is the readiness with which the parties attributed their failures to the successes of the other side. The Bolsheviks increasingly became a kind of "bugbear" with which the chieftains intimidated the Cossacks in their own interests. Any disagreement with the ataman eventually began to be attributed to the influence of the Bolsheviks, as was the case, for example, in Orenburg with the 4th regiment. It was proposed to disband it, "as propagandized by the Bolsheviks", although in fact the Cossacks of this regiment only made claims against the Circle 24. The fact that the partisans who raided Orenburg on April 4, 1918 had white armbands was interpreted by the communists as a sign of the White Guard. The logic of subsequent reasoning: the white guard is the bourgeoisie, officers; therefore, the raid was made by Cossack officers, fists, etc. As a result, everything that happened was declared the act of Dutov, who had nothing to do with it.

Both sides hid their weakness in violence, defiantly shifting the "blame" of individuals onto the entire village. Dutovites carried out reprisals against the villages that were not subject to mobilization. M.Mashin cited evidence of Art. Klyuchevskaya, which "was shot all without exception", the town of Solodyanka, which "was all burned and smashed" 25. V. Blucher's troops acted similarly: under their pressure, the Cossacks retreated from the village of Donetsk, after them "Cossacks with their families" retreated to neighboring peasant farms who did not participate." Nevertheless, Blucher reported, "taking out the remaining women and children from the village, for the uprising, increased damage to the road, the December uprising, the village was put on fire" 26. Executions became a mass phenomenon. During the two months of the directive on the Don, at least 260 Cossacks were shot. In the territories of the Ural and Orenburg troops, where at that time there were white governments, only in Orenburg in January 1919, 250 Cossacks were shot for evading service in the white army.

Whether the Reds and Whites wanted it or not, the punitive measures of one side inevitably pushed the Cossacks to the side of their opponents. General I.G. Akulinin wrote: "The inept and cruel policy of the Bolsheviks, their undisguised hatred of the Cossacks, abuse of Cossack shrines, and especially the massacres, requisitions and indemnities and robberies in the villages - all this opened the eyes of the Cossacks to the essence of Soviet power and forced them to take up arms" 27. However, he kept silent about the fact that the Whites acted in a similar way - and this also "opened the eyes of the Cossacks." The territories that had been under one authority and drank hard there, more strongly desired another in the hope of the best.

How did the Cossacks act when they found themselves between Bolshevism on the left and on the right? It was impossible to just sit on the sidelines. If for the peasants there was still such an opportunity - certain "bear corners" turned out to be outside the combat zones and the reach of the belligerents, then for the Cossacks this was practically excluded - the fronts passed precisely through the military territories.

Desertion can be considered a passive form of resistance: evasion of mobilization, leaving the front. Under the conditions of the civil war, when none of the authorities could unambiguously be considered a legitimate authority, the content of the concept of "deserter" is essentially changing. Each power - no matter "white" or "red" - proceeded from its "right of the strong" to mobilize. Hence - disobedient and became a deserter. It was force, violence, or the threat of such, that was what kept the mobilized in the ranks of military formations. And as the power weakened and began to suffer defeats and failures, the flow of fugitives from its ranks intensified. It is a paradox, but both whites and reds, proclaiming often diametrically opposed slogans, agreed on one thing - in assessing the peasants and the Cossacks as potential cannon fodder, from where you can endlessly draw replenishment for yourself.

Desertion for the Cossacks was a new phenomenon - betrayal of the oath and duty was always condemned. A.I. Denikin wrote that during the World War the Cossacks, in contrast to all the other component parts of the army, did not know desertion. Now, desertion has become massive and enjoyed the clear support of the population. The villagers voluntarily supplied the deserters with food, fodder, horses, and in addition to all this, they sheltered them. The data on the number of deserters that have come down to us are fragmentary, and do not allow us to give a complete picture of the phenomenon. In the Cossack villages, there were from 10 to 100 people in each 28. The bulk of the deserters were those who expected to sit out until better times. In fact, it was about the unwillingness of the peasants to fight in the ranks of any army, as well as the unwillingness to leave their farm for a long time. According to the Chekists, in the Cossack villages of the Orenburg province, deserters held open meetings, where they decided not to appear in part 29.

Round-ups were widely used to combat deserters - in the documentation of Soviet officials this was called "pumping out." In some areas, they were done almost daily, but still did not succeed. Raids often turned into local fighting. Many deserters were armed, and if they did not want to surrender and offered resistance, the punitive detachments simply sought to destroy them.

Another way was to evade service - the number of refusals was constantly increasing, attempts to evade by refusing to Cossack rank. A special order was issued for the Orenburg army, according to which "Cossacks expelled from the Orenburg army were transferred without any investigation or trial to a prisoner of war camp" 30.

From the end of 1918, refusals to conduct military operations and mass defections to the side of the Red Army became frequent occurrences. In the winter of 1918 - 1919. nine Ural regiments refused to fight, one regiment (7th) went over to the side of the Reds. In May 1919, Kolchak ordered the disbandment of the Separate Orenburg Army due to the loss of the last combat capability.

Cossack partisan detachments of "self-defense", which began to be created in the villages, for defense against any external threat, became a special form of counteraction. The basis of them was the Cossacks of the reserve category and unserved youth. A simplified bipolar scheme of the balance of power in the civil war, which dominated in domestic literature for decades, inevitably attributed the Cossack partisans to one of the camps. The Orenburg partisans, who opposed the requisitions of the Red detachments, began to be perceived as "white"; Cossack detachments (including F. Mironov) who met the Whites in the summer of 1918 on the way to the Volga - "Reds". However, everything was much more complicated: for example, one of the detachments of the Orenburg Cossacks in 1918 was commanded by Popov, later, in 1921, who joined with his detachment the speech of the red commander T. Vakulin 31.

It is natural to pose the question - what was the position of the bulk of the Cossacks? Of course, the Cossack class already at the beginning of the 20th century was not that single community, the legends about which were actively supported by interested forces. The stratification penetrated deeper and deeper into the Cossack environment, the interests of various groups in certain issues reached antagonism. These contradictions were caused not so much by property differences as by attitudes towards the war. Naturally, there were extremists on the right and on the left, but it can hardly be argued that it was they who determined the overall picture. Although, in principle, everyone wanted to consider themselves spokesmen for the views of the entire Cossacks. The position of the Cossacks, of course, was somewhat corrected under the influence of external factors. At the same time, it remained fundamentally unchanged.

The views of the peasantry and the Cossacks had a lot in common. In principle, as it seems to us, the Cossacks, as an agricultural population, just like the peasantry, were concerned about two important issues: "land and freedom." The comparison, of course, is conditional - both elements of this formula in relation to the peasantry and the Cossacks are filled with a slightly different content. However, for the peasantry in different periods they sounded differently.

The question of land was as acute for the Cossacks as it was for the peasants. Although there was a fundamental difference: the latter were looking for where to find the missing land, the Cossacks were looking for ways to save the land they already had.

The rise of the so-called. We observe the "anti-Soviet" actions of the Cossacks in the spring of 1918, when the agrarian policy of the Soviet government forces the masses of the Cossacks to abandon "neutralism." Firstly, these were the actions of the food detachments, the attitude towards which the Cossacks and the peasantry were equally hostile. But land legislation has become a much more serious factor. The option proposed by the communist government to resolve the land issue at the expense of the Cossack territories, in principle, ruled out the possibility of any union of farmers, drove a wedge between forces that could potentially become a decisive factor in the fate of the country. The Decree on Land and, to an even greater extent, the Basic Law on Socialization (January 27, 1918) resonated primarily with the peasantry. The Cossacks received nothing from them. Moreover, according to the law on socialization, it lost plots previously leased to peasants. In the Don and Kuban, the dissatisfaction of the Cossacks could be somehow neutralized by the transfer of officer allotments to ordinary Cossacks, but in the troops of the eastern regions there were either no such allotments at all, or they were small (an average of 5.2%). In the spring of 1918, for the first time on a significant scale, attempts were made to redistribute the land by seizing it from the Cossacks. The uprisings of the spring of 1918 were not so much uprisings against Soviet power as a struggle for land.

The split between the Cossacks and the peasantry became tangible from the beginning of the 20th century. The scarcity of land, the better provision of land for the Cossacks, and the government's more benevolent policy towards them caused hostility among the peasants, because it contradicted their concepts of justice. During the revolution of 1905-1907. leftist propagandists specifically emphasized the confrontation between the Cossacks and the peasants. Their rivalry intensified even more during the years of the Stolypin reform, especially after the law of December 4, 1913 allowed the Cossacks to acquire, through the mediation of a peasant bank, privately owned lands not only in the military territory, but also beyond its borders. It should be noted that in 1917 military circles hurried to assign military lands to the Cossacks.

The White governments made their "contribution" by cleaning the territory of the army from the "undesirable" population, as was done, for example, in the Orenburg army 32. In the territory controlled by KOMUCH, the forcible return of landlord property with the help of Cossack detachments became a mass phenomenon. The Orenburg Cossacks, who did not want to fight on the common front of KOMUCH, were eventually involved most of all for punitive functions, maintaining order, etc. The Cossacks regained a perceptibly privileged position. The rather traditional hostility of the Cossacks and peasants acquired a "new breath". The head of the Orenburg provincial agitation cultural and educational department in his report dated November 9, 1918 to the central department stated: “The Cossack population sharply separates itself from the non-Cossack ... committees, restore the peasantry against the Constituent Assembly ... and push the peasantry into the arms of the Bolsheviks "33. The gulf between the Cossacks and the peasantry became wider and wider.

The concept of "will" for the Cossacks eventually resulted in the desire to preserve their identity, broad self-government, support for the ideas of Cossack autonomy. This idea, as they say, was in the air and for quite a long time. After the fall of the autocracy among the Cossack leaders, the idea was born of turning the troops into something in between a simple administrative-territorial unit and a national autonomous territory. Without raising the issue of secession from Russia at that stage, without raising the topic of creating a "Cossack" statehood, they talked about sovereignty, i.e. sovereignty within the army. The process of some isolation from the rest of Russia for different troops went at different times. So, on the Don, the Cossack government was created on May 26, 1917. The Ural Cossack army started talking about the complete separation of the territory of the Ural Cossacks from the Ural region in September, at the same time raising the question of renaming the army (to Yaitskoye). Separation (or more correctly, isolation) of the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army from the rest of the province by December 1917 was a fait accompli.

Until the beginning of 1918, the isolation of the Cossack regions was considered by the atamans as a forced, temporary measure, until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. However, A. Dutov already in the autumn of 1917 spoke about the creation of a Cossack federation to preserve the Cossack identity. As the revolutionary crisis intensified, the leaders of the Cossack troops pinned more and more hopes on the expansion of autonomy, until finally the ataman of the Don army A.M. highlanders of the Caucasus. Dutov stated that the Cossacks should consider themselves a special nation.

Different political forces, at different stages, invested different content in the concept of autonomy.

The broad Cossack masses understood autonomy in their own way, without rigidly linking its existence with the Constituent Assembly. Thus, the Cossack section of the Chelyabinsk Uyezd Congress of Peasant and Cossack Deputies approved the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on February 17, concluding that "the decree recognizing Russia as a federal Soviet republic ... there is a guarantee that our identity and historical rights will be preserved ..." 34 A significant majority of the Cossacks did not want to support Dutov in his opposition, and therefore they were ready for a dialogue with the Soviet authorities, of course, subject to certain guarantees for the preservation of Cossack autonomy. The idea, which at the initial stage was the product of the Cossack elite, begins to win more and more supporters among the Cossacks. Autonomy has become a kind of guarantor against the non-proliferation of Soviet power and military-communist measures. (This is how they understood their autonomy in Bashkurdistan.) The evidence from the field is indicative: in the order to the deputies, art. Razsypnaya spoke of the need to achieve complete autonomy of the territory of the army - "relative to the rest of the territory of the Orenburg province and the introduction of Soviet power in it, this does not concern us" 35. The title of the article in Cossack Pravda is even more expressive: "Do what you want, but don't touch us "36.

The fierce battles of January - April, the successes of the spring - summer of 1918 strengthened the separatist demands. On August 12, the Military Government of the OKW published a decree declaring "the territory of the Orenburg Army a special part of the Russian State" and decided to call it henceforth the "Region of the Orenburg Army". At the beginning of March 1918, the Ural region was declared completely autonomous.

The broad Cossack masses, apparently, understood autonomy, first of all, as a guarantee of the inviolability of their territory. They stubbornly refused to go beyond it. So, the Urals took the most massive part in the white movement. But they, too, for a long time respected the decision put forward at the beginning of 1918 - "We will not go beyond the line." Under Dutov, the Orenburg Cossacks did not go beyond the military territory - "limited themselves to placing guard pickets on the borders of their possessions" 37. This was also observed later: in 1920 - 1921. Cossack "armies" literally circled in certain areas, not wanting to go far from their native villages.

Cossack autonomy (both in the "ataman" and "folk" versions) did not suit anyone in principle. The White movement advocated a "united and indivisible Russia", which is why Kolchak eventually agreed to transfer powers to the chieftains only to resolve issues of internal control of the Cossacks. The communists, who for tactical reasons supported this idea, eventually stubbornly held on to the extension of the constitution of the RSFSR to the entire territory of the country, which did not mention Cossack autonomy.

Among other fundamental points, the attitude to the form of government should be noted. In principle, all the Cossack troops spoke out about the form of government in the summer of 1917, when military circles came out in favor of the republic. V. Lenin either did not have information, or deliberately distorted reality, judging by his statement, regarding the Cossacks of the Don, "after 1905 remained the same monarchical as before ..." 38 Almost immediately after February, democratic self-government, and this initiative found the widest support among the Cossacks.

The question of "telling" is of particular interest. It is important to clarify what is meant by this. Probably, we should talk about the elimination of the special estate status of the Cossacks. It is significant that they started talking about decossackization almost immediately after February - both the liberals, who proposed to eliminate both the rights and obligations of the Cossacks, and the Cossacks themselves. Already in the spring of 1917, at the congresses of the Cossacks, there were calls for the liquidation of the estate. Naturally, it was about the elimination, first of all, of the duties of the service. But there was another approach: to equalize the Cossacks with the peasants in the use of land. The communists refused to recognize the specialness of the Cossacks - I-th All-Russian The congress of labor Cossacks at the beginning of 1920 stated that "the Cossacks are by no means a special nationality or nation, but constitute an integral part of the Russian people, therefore, there is no question of any separation of the Cossack regions from the rest of Soviet Russia, which the Cossack leaders, closely allied with the landlords, are striving for and the bourgeoisie is out of the question." 39. Within the framework of this approach, the Cossack structures of self-government were liquidated, and along with all manifestations of originality. Since 1920, there has been a campaign to rename villages into volosts. In 1921 in the Orenburg province. an act of disobedience in one of the villages manifested itself in the defiant dressing of trousers with stripes and caps with cockades. All that V. Lenin casually called "archaic remnants familiar to the population" 40 was much greater for many people, and the ban - not a gradual withering away, but a violent ban - was perceived extremely painfully. The Cossack desire to preserve traditionalism was interpreted as an intention to preserve a special, chosen position. Undoubtedly, social stratification had already penetrated deep enough into the Cossack environment, but still the idea of ​​Cossack unity was stronger, it remained a cementing principle.

It seems to us that it would not be entirely true to assert that, having ended up on one side, the Cossacks, thereby, unambiguously became red or white. The explanations traditionally accepted in Soviet literature for the unconditional transfer of the “labor Cossacks” to the side of the Reds as a result of the propaganda activities of the Communists and the “kulaks” to the side of the Whites greatly simplify the complex picture. Cossacks fight not so much for anyone as against. The Cossack units in all the White armies retain some isolation: the Samara KOMUCH could not force the Orenburg Cossacks to actively participate in hostilities, confining themselves to police functions. The removal of hostile forces from the territory almost immediately entailed a decline in military activity. General I.G. Akulinin stated with annoyance: “after the expulsion of the Bolsheviks from the Cossack land, the enthusiasm of the Cossacks immediately fell; there was a desire to go home, especially since it was time for haymaking and harvesting; many Cossacks, out of myopia, considered the Bolsheviks completely defeated; some looked at the struggle outside the territory of the Army as a matter that did not concern them (emphasized by us - D.S.)” 41.

At the beginning of 1919, there was a crisis in the White Cossack movement, growing dissatisfaction with the hardships of the war and the policies of the White governments. Economic difficulties in the territories of the Cossack troops are becoming catastrophic. Most of the troops were in the war zone, the movement of the front from east to west and back exacerbated the devastation 42. As the White armies left the military territories, the outflow of Cossacks from them intensified. In our opinion, mass defections to the side of the Reds are not the result of an ideological choice, but simply a return home. Outside of Russia, in emigration, went first of all those for whom there was no way back. The rest tried to adapt to the new conditions. The establishment of the so-called Cossack territories. "Soviet power", but in fact the power communist party, made the most urgent issue of the relationship between the party and the Cossacks.

It should be recognized that the communist leadership treated the Cossacks unequivocally, seeing in it, first of all, "the support of the throne and reaction." L. Trotsky spoke out with exceptional hostility, arguing on the pages of Cossack Pravda that the Cossacks "always played the role of an executioner, pacifier and servant of the imperial house." “A Cossack,” he continued further, “... a man of little intelligence, a liar and cannot be trusted ... one has to notice the similarity between the psychology of the Cossacks and the psychology of some representatives of the zoological world” 43. I. Stalin treated the Cossacks with hostility and distrust. Indicative is his letter to V. Lenin from Tsaritsyn on August 4, 1918, accusing F. Mironov of defeats, blaming the latter for the “Cossack troops”, who “cannot, do not want” to fight the “Cossack counter-revolution” 44. And, between meanwhile, in fact, Mironov's troops held Tsaritsyn. In the pages of Pravda in December 1919, Stalin called the Cossacks “the primordial weapon of Russian imperialism”, which has long been exploiting “non-Russian peoples on the outskirts”. undoubtedly counter-revolutionary Cossacks, who after 1905 remained as monarchist as before...” 46 Such assessments were typical of a significant part of the communist leadership and were decisive in the policy pursued. Distrust of the Cossacks was observed at all stages of the civil war. It seems to us symptomatic that after the speech of F. Mironov, the Cossack department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was accused of involvement in him, the cases of which were sealed 47.

The Communists placed themselves outside the rest of society, more precisely, above it. The leadership of the party demanded from the rank-and-file party members intransigence towards all enemies, and everyone who disagreed in any way with the line of the RCP (b) became such. The communists were characterized by an amazing conviction that only they, their party, know the right path to happiness, only they do the right thing. Such an approach initially deprived this party of allies and ruled out an equal dialogue with anyone, especially with the peasantry and the Cossacks. Everyone else should have been led along - in party documents there are very often words about the political backwardness of the masses, the “backward Don”, etc. The agricultural population had to be “split”, as well as “for a long time and with great difficulty and great hardships ... remake” 48. There was a strict imposition of new rules, values, criteria - obviously a complete disregard for the traditions, habits of both the Russian village and the Cossack village. An ally could only be one who unconditionally accepted both the political line of the communists and their leadership. The third is not given - as noted in the report of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), "there can be no middle policy on the Don between Denikin's reaction and the workers' revolution" 49. This was said in relation to the speech of F. Mironov, whose slogans were called "illusion of democracy": “Against the communists (i.e. against the dictatorship of the revolutionary class), in defense of democracy (under the guise of ‘people’s’, i.e. interclass councils), against death penalty(that is, against harsh measures of reprisals against oppressors and agents), and so on and so forth.” fifty

It must be admitted that the Party of Communists was at war with the Cossacks (it seems to us that the phrase in the report of the Central Committee for October 1919, which said that the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkfront announced an amnesty “to all the Orenburg Cossacks who surrendered to our party”), is very revealing. All statements that the Cossacks (“the bulk of the Cossacks”) are considered by the party “as possible allies and friends” are nothing more than propaganda slogans.

The course towards “decossackization”, which began as the elimination of estate partitions and duties of the Cossacks (decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars “On the destruction of estates and civil ranks” of November 11, 1917, the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of December 9, 1917, which abolished the compulsory military service of the Cossacks), gradually acquired a different, more sinister content - the extermination of the Cossacks and its dissolution in the peasant environment. Quite often, this is associated with the directive of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) of January 24, 1919, which demanded that “the most ruthless struggle against all the tops of the Cossacks through their total extermination. No compromises... are allowed.” Merciless mass terror was to be carried out against all Cossacks "who took any direct or indirect part in the struggle against Soviet power." It was required to carry out complete disarmament, “shooting everyone who was found to have a weapon after the deadline for surrender” 51. The instruction of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front of February 7, published in development, demanded that “immediately shoot” “all without exception” Cossacks who held elected positions, all officers of the Krasnov army, all the figures of the counter-revolution, “all the wealthy Cossacks without exception”, who had weapons found. As a result, the situation on the Don-Kuban and Ural-Orenburg fronts deteriorated sharply 52.

On the territory of the Orenburg army, the directive was not implemented - the region was controlled by the Whites. However, there are facts of its use by whites for propaganda purposes. All this led to the loss of the Orenburg-Ural region and the uprisings of the Cossacks. On March 16, 1919, the plenum of the Central Committee decided that “in view of the obvious split between the northern and southern Cossacks on the Don” “we are suspending measures against the Cossacks” 53. This decision was not at all an admission of a mistake - it was simply “suspended”. On the ground, this was ignored and continued the same course. So, the next day, March 17, the Revolutionary Military Council of the 8th Army demanded in a directive: “All Cossacks who raised arms in the rear of the Red troops must be completely destroyed, all those who have anything to do with the uprising and anti-Soviet agitation, not stopping at the percentage destruction of the population of the villages ...” 54 As a result, the successful breakthrough of Denikin in May 1919 in the Millerovo region and the insurgents joining them.

For Soviet historians and a certain part of today's Russian historians, it is common to focus on the decrees of the Soviet government, party documents, analyzing the policy of the Communists towards the Cossacks on their basis. Of course, they are the source, but the picture created on their basis is ideal - the reality was noticeably different. In a comprehensive examination, the ease of adjusting the course is striking - sometimes to the diametrically opposite one. What some authors believe to be the correction of the “mistakes” made, in fact, was only a tactic. Actually, consent to Cossack autonomy can also be attributed here - a rather important and painful issue for the Cossacks.

The policy was quite ambivalent. The communist government seemed to recognize the desire of the Cossacks for autonomy. The appeal of the Second Congress of Soviets expressed the idea of ​​the need to create everywhere councils of Cossack deputies 55. At the same time, the Cossack department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was created. At first, being weak and in need of help, the communists were inclined to support the idea of ​​autonomy - thus, in January 1918, Lenin declared: "I have nothing against the autonomy of the Don region" 56. The III All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January proclaimed Russia a Federal Republic. Since the IV Congress, this has become a congress of “Cossack” deputies. In the spring of 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a “Decree on the organization of the management of the Cossack regions”, which noted that all Cossack regions and troops “are considered as separate administrative units of local Soviet associations, i.e. like provinces. As a result, in March - April 1918, the Don, Terek, Kuban-Black Sea republics existed. The decree of June 1, 1918 secured the broad autonomy of the Cossack regions. Between October 1917 and May 1918 (a period of perceptible weakness), the communists stood for the autonomy of the Cossack regions. By the autumn of 1918, a revision of policy began: on September 30, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to liquidate the Don Republic. As soon as the situation on the fronts changed for the better, there was a slight rejection of their own guarantees. On the ground, the Cossack self-government bodies were destroyed - instead of them revolutionary committees were created, in some places centrally. So, after the return of the Reds to Orenburg in April 1919, the provincial committee decided to introduce revolutionary committees in the Cossack regions, and Soviets in civilian territory.

The revolutionary committees were characterized by appointment, coercion, control. The temporary regulation on the stanitsa revolutionary committees required them to organize, under the threat of a tribunal, the surrender of military property, including even pouches, binoculars, and saddles. Revolutionary committees were required to “delimit the entire male population of a given village, keep a record of the White Guard Cossacks and Red Army Cossacks, drawing up lists for them” 57. But when mobilization began in October, an order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkfront appeared, promising to replace the revolutionary committees with government bodies elected by the population. When in April 1919 in Orenburg they tried to create a Cossack executive committee for Cossack autonomy, they were severely rebuffed by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The telegram, signed by Y. Sverdlov, clearly stated: “There must be a single authority at each point” 58. In fact, the Cossacks were not allowed to create their own power - only the option formulated by P. Kobozev, authorized by the center, was allowed: “My instructions for order the formation of a new Cossack soviet through the Committee of the Poor Peasant Comma Communist cell through the full implementation of the Soviet class food policy” 59.

The final point on the issue can be considered the decree of the Council of People's Commissars “On the construction of Soviet power in the Cossack regions”, which in 1920 directly set the task of “establishing common bodies of Soviet power in the Cossack regions” on the basis of the Constitution of the RSFSR. Soon, by a special decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, all general legal provisions on land management, land use, and forests were extended to the former Cossack regions.

The situation was similar regarding the conscription of the Cossacks, giving them the opportunity to fight for Soviet power. In the Southern Urals, where Dutov shamefully fled at the beginning of 1918, there was no need for Cossacks. On February 1, 1918, the Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee demanded that the Provisional Council of the OKW cancel the mobilization - because. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars “all Cossack units are dissolved” 60. On the Don, the situation was different, and on May 30, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars called on the “labor Cossacks of the Don and Kuban” to take up arms 61. New decrees should be considered a consequence of the crisis at the beginning of 1918: On June 1, 1918, “On the organization of the administration of the Cossack regions” already provided for the possibility of forming units of the revolutionary army, and the decree on June 11 announced the mobilization on the territory of the Siberian and Orenburg troops 62.

The determining factor in that period was the activity of the communists on the ground. F. Mironov quite correctly noted in a letter to V. Lenin on July 31, 1919: “Most of the peasants judge Soviet power by its executors.”63 A hundred humane decrees were easily crossed out in the minds of people by one lawless execution. The position of the local communists was much tougher and more consistent - for the most part, they refused to recognize any special status for the Cossacks, let alone autonomy. The reason for such hostility, in our opinion, lay in the stereotypes rooted in the minds of the peasants, who always believed that the Cossacks were in a privileged position and envied that, and urban residents, workers who imagined the Cossacks as a monolithic reactionary force, the backbone of the old regime - in orders and appeals, there are repeated references to the "Cossack whip", "walking" on the backs of the working people, "the age-old enemies of the working people", "the age-old tsarist serfs". The Orenburg Provincial Congress of Soviets in March 1918 declared that “all Cossacks are against Soviet power” 64.

An extremely hostile and irreconcilable position was taken by the Donburo, which repeatedly raised the question of the destruction "by a whole series of measures ... of the kulak Cossacks as an estate." The January directive found support in the Ural Cossack army, in the territory controlled by the communists - the so-called. "Left" Urals stood for the extermination of the Cossacks. Calls to destroy the Cossacks were heard at the Chelyabinsk district party conference in August 1919, the Orenburg province party conference in November.

Perhaps, of all the local party structures, it was the Donbureau that formulated its positions most frankly. The decision, adopted no later than April 21, 1919, spoke of “the complete, rapid and decisive destruction of the Cossacks as a special everyday economic group, the destruction of its economic foundations, the physical destruction of the Cossack bureaucracy and officers, in general, all the tops of the Cossacks, actively counter-revolutionary, spraying and neutralization of the ordinary Cossacks and the formal liquidation of the Cossacks” 65.

It is wrong to think that contemporaries did not understand the meaning of what was happening. F. Mironov, in a letter to V. Lenin on July 31, 1919, directly called such an idea a plan for the destruction of the Cossacks: then the landless, start building a “communist paradise” 66.

The implementation of the military-communist experiment in the “Soviet” territories, burdened with stereotypes of a hostile attitude towards the Cossacks, quickly led to a break. An important element of the policy was the implementation of economic terror aimed at the economic bleeding of the Cossacks. As part of the “decossackization”, lands were confiscated from the Cossacks - for example, only on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, about 400 thousand dessiatins were transferred to the peasants and the poor. arable land and 400 thousand hayfields. The well-known directive of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) of January 24, 1919, calling for terror, among other things, demanded the confiscation of agricultural products from the Cossacks and the encouragement of the resettlement of the poor 67.

The surplus has played a special role. And no matter how hard the communist ideologists tried to cover up what was happening with elegant constructions about the well-thought-out withdrawal of “surpluses” with subsequent compensation to the farmers, in fact, everything came down to the withdrawal of everything that the hands of the contractors got their hands on. They took it where they could take it and where they managed to take it. There was no question of any justice. Voluntariness did not guarantee against consequences; rather, on the contrary, they took more from the obeyer. According to the instructions, only “surpluses” were allowed to be “requisitioned” from those who surrendered voluntarily, while total confiscation was allowed from those who did not obey. Logically, it turned out that it was even more profitable for the food detachments to deal with enemies, to provoke the Cossacks to counteract. The size of the apportionment was constantly growing, gradually the concept of “surplus” became rather conditional - the circular letter of the Central Committee “To the food campaign” explained that “the appropriation given to the volost is in itself a definition of surplus” 68. By 1921, the farms of the producing strip were up to 92% of the produced product 69.

The final blow to the Cossacks was dealt by the famine of 1921-1922. It cannot be considered provoked, but at a certain stage it was used to “cleanse” unnecessary “human material of the capitalist era” (N. Bukharin). One got the impression that this was also used to fight peasant uprisings - the rebels received food and other assistance from the local population, and it was very difficult for them to find help in the starving areas, they had to leave. In addition, it was a covert repression against the population supporting the rebels. So, the Cossack population of the Iletsk district of the Orenburg province actively assisted the rebels in 1920. Then an almost absolute “pumping out” of food was carried out (the villages handed over 120% of bread, 240% of meat) - fearing punishment, the population preferred to obey. But when the famine broke out, the residents of the villages did not receive any help from the authorities. Moreover, in September 1921, leaving the area was forbidden - as a result, there was a huge mortality rate. A similar situation was in the neighboring Samara province, where the Pugachev and Buzuluk districts in 1920 - 1921. were perhaps the most explosive. At the beginning of 1922, there were even cases of cannibalism.

In 1920 - 1922 a wave of peasant protests rises throughout the country, caused by the policy pursued by the communists. Protests against it take various forms - from statements of discontent to unrest and rebellion. In order for the civilian population to rise up in arms against the newly established power, some time must pass - a certain period is needed, during which there is, as it were, an acquaintance with the power and an attempt to get used to it. The impossibility of normal coexistence eventually becomes the decisive factor. The protests of the Cossack population against the surplus during this period, as it were, dissolve in the general peasant protest and it is rather difficult to isolate them from the general picture, especially since, in fact, they were similar.

The active insurrectionary actions of the newly created Cossack partisan detachments stand apart. All of them were, as a rule, small in number, uniting a maximum of several hundred people. Weakness required the search for allies - that is why the commanders of these detachments were constantly looking for contacts with each other. Basically, such groups did not have a permanent base, being in constant motion. Their actions, which consisted in raids on settlements and the extermination of “enemies” there, inevitably led to the curtailment of agitation activities. The ideological positions of the rebels were stated extremely sparingly, it can be said without exaggeration that the fight against the communists was put at the forefront. All these detachments were already beginning to balance on the line that separated the ideological opponents of the communist regime from the bandits who fought against everyone and everything. Their tragedy was the impossibility of returning to peaceful life- the way back was blocked both by mutual unwillingness to compromise, and already shed blood. The fact that victory was now out of the question was obvious to everyone. The resistance of small groups of rebels was the resistance of the doomed.

In the south, such detachments operated in the period 1920-1922. So. in July 1920, near Maykop M. Fostikov, the Cossack “Army of the Revival of Russia” was created. In the Kuban, not earlier than October 1920, the so-called. The 1st detachment of the Russian Partisan Army under the command of M.N. Zhukov, which existed until the spring of 1921. Since 1921, he also headed the “White Cross Organization”, which had underground cells in the north-west of the Kuban. In late 1921 - early 1922 on the border of the Voronezh province. and the Upper Don District, a detachment of the Cossack Yakov Fomin, the former commander of the Red Army cavalry squadron, operated. In the first half of 1922, all these detachments were finished.

In the region bounded by the Volga and the Urals, a large number of small Cossack groups operated, the existence of which was limited, mainly, to 1921. They were characterized by constant movement: either to the north - to the Saratov province, then to the south - to the Ural region. Passing along the borders of both districts and provinces, the rebels for some time, as it were, fell out of the control of the Chekists, “discovering themselves” in a new place. These units sought to unite. They received a significant replenishment at the expense of the Orenburg Cossacks, and young people. In April, the Sarafankin and Safonov groups, which had previously operated independently, merged. After a series of defeats on September 1, the detachment joined the detachment of Aistov, which arose, most likely, in the Ural region as early as 1920 at the initiative of several Red Army front-line soldiers. In October 1921, a number of previously disparate partisan detachments finally united, merging with Serov's "Rebel Troops of the People's Will".

To the east, in the Trans-Urals, (mainly within the Chelyabinsk province), partisan detachments operated mainly in 1920. In September - October, the so-called. "Green Army" Zvedin and Zvyagintsev. In mid-October, Chekists discovered an organization of local Cossacks in the area of ​​​​the village of Krasnenskaya, which supplied deserters with weapons and food. In November, a similar organization of Cossacks arose in the village of Krasinsky, Verkhneuralsk district. The insurgent groups are gradually being crushed. In the reports of the Cheka for the second half of 1921, “small gangs of bandits” were constantly mentioned in the region.

The Cossacks of Siberia and the Far East acted later, since Soviet power was established there only in 1922. The partisan Cossack movement reached its peak in 1923-1924. This region is characterized by a special moment - the intervention in the events of the detachments of the Cossacks of the former White armies, who went abroad, and now are passing to the Soviet side. The rebellion was over here by 1927.

In our opinion, the most important indicator of the crisis in the policy pursued by the communists was a period of uprisings under the red banner and Soviet slogans. Cossacks and peasants act together. The basis of the insurgent forces were the Red Army units. All speeches had similar features and were even to some extent interconnected: in July 1920, the 2nd cavalry division stationed in the Buzuluk region under the command of A. Sapozhkov rebelled, declaring itself the “First Red Army of Truth”; in December 1920 he led the speech in the next. Mikhailovskaya K. Vakulin (the so-called detachment of Vakulin-Popov); in the spring of 1921, Okhraniuk-Chersky’s “First People’s Revolutionary Army” arose from a part of the Red Army stationed in the Buzuluk district to suppress “revolts of kulak gangs” (the consequences of the activities of the “Army of Truth” there); in the autumn of 1921, the Orlovo-Kurilov regiment rebelled, calling itself the “Ataman division of the rebel [troops] groups of the will of the people,” commanded by one of the former commanders of Sapozhkov, V. Serov.

All the leaders of these rebel forces were combat commanders and had awards: K. Vakulin previously commanded the 23rd regiment of the Mironov division, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner; A. Sapozhkov - the organizer of the defense of Uralsk from the Cossacks, for which he received a gold watch and personal gratitude from Trotsky. The main combat zone is the Volga region: from the Don regions to the Ural River, Orenburg. There was some rejection of the locality of speeches - the Orenburg Cossacks make up a significant part of Popov's rebels in the Volga region, the Urals - near Serov. At the same time, suffering defeats from the communist troops, the rebels always tried to retreat to the areas where these units were formed, native to the majority of the rebels. The Cossacks brought elements of organization into the rebellion, playing the same role that they played earlier in the previous peasant wars - they created a combat-ready core.

The slogans and appeals of the insurgents testify that, speaking out against the communists, they did not abandon the very idea. So, A. Sapozhkov believed that “the policy of the Soviet government, at the same time, and of the Communist Party, in its three-year course, went far to the right from the policy and declaration of rights that were put forward in October 1917” 71. The Serovites already spoke about several other ideals - about establishing the power of the "most" people "according to the principle of the great February revolution." But at the same time they declared that they were not against communism as such, “recognizing a great future for communism and its sacred idea” 72. People's power was also mentioned in K. Vakulin's appeals.

All these performances were labeled as “anti-Soviet” for many years. Meanwhile, it must be admitted that they were “pro-Soviet”. In the sense that they were in favor of the Soviet form of government. The slogan “Soviets without communists” by and large does not carry the crime that has been attributed to it for decades. Indeed, the Soviets were to be organs of power for the masses of the people, and not for the parties. Maybe these speeches should have been called “anti-communist”, again taking into account their slogans. However, the scope of the speeches does not mean at all that the Cossack and peasant masses were against the course of the RCP (b). Speaking against the communists, the Cossacks and peasants, first of all, had in mind “their” locals - it was the actions of specific individuals that were the reason for each speech.

The uprisings of the Red Army were suppressed with exceptional cruelty - for example, 1,500 people. The surrendered “People’s Army” of Okhranyuk were mercilessly cut down for several days by sabers 73.

The city of Orenburg in this period can be regarded as a kind of border. To the west, its population mainly supported the Soviet form of government, most of the activities of the Soviet government, protesting only against their “distortion” and blaming the communists for this. The main force of the rebel detachments are Cossacks and peasants. To the east there were also performances, mainly in the Chelyabinsk province. These detachments, almost entirely Cossack in composition, loudly called themselves “armies”, were sufficiently disciplined, had all or almost all of the mandatory attributes of real military formations - headquarters, banner, orders, etc. An important difference was the conduct of printed propaganda - they all published and distributed appeals. In the summer of 1920, the Blue National Army of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, the First People's Army, and the Green Army arose. Around the same time, a detachment of S. Vydrin arose, declaring himself "a military instructor of the free Orenburg Cossacks." An analysis of the slogans and statements of the rebellious Cossacks of the Chelyabinsk province (“Down with Soviet power”, “Long live the Constituent Assembly”) shows that in the eastern regions the population wanted to live more traditionally. In the occupied villages, the bodies of Soviet power were liquidated and atamans were again elected - as a provisional government. In policy statements, the power of the Soviets and the power of the Communists are treated as something unified. The appeal of the struggle for power of the Constituent Assembly, which, most likely, was perceived as the antithesis of the power of the Soviets, was widely spread and echoed among the masses - the power was more legitimate.

It seems significant to us that in relation to dissenting allies, the communist government has always used lies. In no case were the true causes of the conflict revealed. Any speeches against the communists were interpreted by the latter solely as a manifestation of unhealthy ambitions and so on. - but never admitted their own mistakes. Accused of rebellion in 1919, F. Mironov was literally slandered. Trotsky's leaflet said: “What was the reason for Mironov's temporary joining the revolution? Now it is quite clear: personal ambition, careerism, the desire to rise up on the back of the working masses” 74. Both A. Sapozhkov and Okhraniuk were accused of exorbitant ambition and adventurism.

Distrust of the Cossacks extended to the Cossack leaders. Their policy can be summed up in one word - use. Actually, this cannot be considered as some kind of special attitude towards the Cossacks - the communists behaved similarly in relation to all allies - the Bashkir leaders headed by Validov, Dumenko and so on. The entry in the minutes of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee on October 15, 1919 is indicative: “To ask the Revolutionary Military Council of the South-Eastern Front and the Don Executive Committee about ways to use the antagonism of the Don and Kuban with Denikin for military and political purposes (using Mironov)” 75. The fate of F. Mironov is generally typical for Cossack commander: at the stage of the active struggle for Soviet power, he was not even awarded - he never received the order to which he was presented. Then, for "mutiny" he is sentenced to death and ... forgiven. Literally mixed with mud, Mironov “suddenly” turns out to be good. Trotsky proved himself to be an intelligent and unprincipled politician: Mironov is the name. In a telegram to I. Smilga on October 10, 1919, we read: “I put the question of changing the policy towards the Don Cossacks for discussion in the Politburo of the CEC. We give the Don, the Kuban full "autonomy", our troops clear the Don. The Cossacks are completely breaking with Deninkin. The calculation was made on the authority of Mironov - "Mironov and his comrades could act as intermediaries" 76. Mironov's name was used for agitation, appeals. This is followed by high appointments, awards, up to honorary revolutionary weapons. And in the final, in February 1921 - an accusation of conspiracy, and already on April 2 - execution.

As the outcome of the war became more and more obvious, authoritative guerrilla commanders and peasant leaders capable of leading them became unnecessary, and even dangerous. So, only one statement by K. Vakulin that F. Mironov is on his side provided him with massive support. A. Sapozhkov clearly belonged to the type of non-party peasant leaders, capable of captivating him - what is his demand for his Red Army men to either shoot him or give him and the entire command staff full confidence 77. The conviction that it is his personality that is the cementing beginning for the division , eventually led him into conflict with party structures.

The words of A. Sapozhkov, who believed that “there is an unacceptable attitude towards the old honored revolutionaries on the part of the center” are indicative: “Such a hero as Dumenko was shot. If Chapaev had not been killed, he would, of course, have been shot, just as Budyonny will no doubt be shot when they are able to do without him.

In principle, we can talk about the purposeful program carried out by the communist leadership at the final stage of the Civil War to discredit and remove (exterminate) people's commanders who came forward during the war from the Cossack and peasant environment, enjoying well-deserved authority, leaders capable of leading (perhaps even appropriate say, charismatic personalities).

The main outcome of the Civil War for the Cossacks was the completion of the process of “decossackization”. It must be admitted that in the early 1920s the Cossack population has already merged with the other agricultural population - merged in terms of its status, range of interests and tasks. Just as the decree of Peter I on the taxable population, at one time, eliminated in principle the differences between groups of the agricultural population by unifying their status and duties, in the same way, the policy pursued by the communist authorities towards farmers brought together groups that had previously differed so much, equalizing all as citizens" Soviet Republic”.

At the same time, the Cossacks suffered irreparable losses - the officers were almost completely knocked out, a significant part of the Cossack intelligentsia died. Many villages were destroyed. A significant number of Cossacks ended up in exile. Political suspicion of the Cossacks remained for a long time. Involvement, at least indirectly, in the White Cossacks or the insurgent movement left a stigma for the rest of his life. In a number of districts, a large number of Cossacks were deprived of voting rights. Everything that reminded of the Cossacks fell under the ban. Until the early 1930s. there was a methodical search for "guilty" before the Soviet government; the accusation of anyone of involvement in the "Cossack counter-revolution" remained the most serious and inevitably entailed repression.

Notes

Danilov V.P., Tarkhova N. Introduction // Philip Mironov (Quiet Don in 1917 - 1921) Documents and materials. M., 1997. S. 6.

There. S. 263.

There. S. 138.

News of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1989. App. to No. 12. P. 3.

Nikolsky S.A. Power and land. M., 1990. S. 55.

Safonov D.A. Great peasant war 1920 - 1921 and the South Urals. Orenburg, 1999. S. 85, 92.

Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Orenburg region. D. 13893. T. 11. L. 501.

Safonov D.A. Decree. op. S. 275.

Documentation Center recent history Chelyabinsk region. F. 77. Op. 1. D. 344. L. 118, rev.

Philip Mironov... S. 375.

There. S. 453.

There. S. 447.

Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Orenburg region. D. 13893. T. 11. L. 40.

There. L. 502.

D.A. SAFONOV ("WORLD OF HISTORY", 2001, No. 6)

The civil war is usually presented as a confrontation between the “reds” and the “whites”. Moreover, supporters of both those and others like to accuse each other of unleashing the conflict. Find out who first took up arms and resorted to a policy of terror. Nevertheless, the war would have begun even if the white movement could not have arisen and had been suppressed, say, at the beginning of 1918. Or the red ones suddenly evaporated somewhere. After all, in addition to the above guys, there were other parties to the conflict. For example, national movements and regional governments, the so-called "green", foreign interventionists. However, there was another force, thanks to which the Whites were able to form massive armies. And her name is Cossacks.
Source of illustration: http://lemur59.ru Dissatisfied with the new government, the Cossacks made up a large proportion of the majority of the White Guard armies. Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks in 1919 made up the bulk of the white cavalry of the All-Union Socialist Republic on the Southern Front and a considerable (up to fifty percent) part of the foot formations. In 1918, it was the Cossacks who became a mass, mobilized element in parts of the Don and Volunteer armies. The Ural Cossack army on the Eastern Front was subordinate to Admiral Kolchak, it was the Urals who destroyed the headquarters of the division of the famous Vasily Chapaev. Such a large-scale participation of the Cossacks in the Civil War was due to several reasons:
1. The desire of the Cossacks for independence, their relatively rich existence in the "good old" tsarist Russia.
2. The presence of the Cossacks not just weapons, but also their own military organizations, which sometimes numbered tens (!) Of thousands of fighters.
3. The Cossack regions themselves, quite distant from the center, isolated.
There were, of course, "red" Cossacks. For example, the Red Cossacks, where there were many descendants of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks. Many poor people, "out-of-town", fighters of the decomposed whites and insurgent units also went to the service of the Bolsheviks. But, nevertheless, according to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (the legislature of the young Soviet government), in 1919 only a fifth of the Cossacks served in the Red Army. The rest, up to three-quarters, supported the whites or were in rebel groups.
Source of illustration: https://www.syl.ru The bottom line, however, is that the Cossacks, in no small part, cared primarily about their native regions. The Bolsheviks unequivocally turned into oppressors for them, a force that seeks to deprive the Cossacks of their old rights and privileges. But the goals of the White Guards (a large-scale war, a campaign against Moscow, a united and indivisible Russia) were of little interest to the Cossacks, excluding some of the officers. But their, Cossack, separatism had serious support among the masses. Therefore, even if there were no whites, the Cossacks would still oppose the Bolsheviks, striving for independence. Actually, the Veshensky uprising went on like this, moreover, the popular slogan at that time was an interesting phrase: “soviets without communists!” Previously, the Don Cossacks also fought separately from Volunteer army whites, led by ataman Peter Krasnov. At that time (1918), the Cossacks were guided by Germany, receiving equipment from it. In any case, the Cossack regions could not peacefully become part of the new Soviet state, if only because of the large number of owners who did not share the ideas of land redistribution. And the Cossack women did not want to part with their weapons ...

In December 1918, at a meeting of party activists in the city of Kursk, L.D. Trotsky, chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and People's Commissar for Naval Affairs, analyzing the results of the year of the civil war, instructed: “It should be clear to each of you that the old ruling classes inherited their art, their skill to govern from their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. What can we do to counter this? How can we compensate for our inexperience? Remember, comrades, only terror. Terror consistent and merciless! Compliance, softness history will never forgive us. If up to now we have destroyed hundreds and thousands, now the time has come to create an organization whose apparatus, if necessary, will be able to destroy tens of thousands. We have no time, no opportunity to seek out our real, active enemies. We are forced to embark on the path of annihilation."

In confirmation and development of these words, on January 29, 1919, Ya. M. Sverdlov, on behalf of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), sent a circular letter, known as the "directive on decossackization to all responsible comrades working in the Cossack regions." The directive read:

“Recent events on various fronts and Cossack regions, our advances deep into the Cossack settlements and disintegration among the Cossack troops compels us to give instructions to party workers about the nature of their work in these regions. It is necessary, taking into account the experience of the Civil War with the Cossacks, to recognize the only right thing is the most merciless struggle against all the tops of the Cossacks, through their total extermination.

1. Carry out mass terror against the rich Cossacks, exterminating them without exception; to carry out merciless terror against all Cossacks who took any direct or indirect part in the struggle against Soviet power. To the average Cossacks it is necessary to take all those measures that give a guarantee against any attempts on their part to new actions against the Soviet power.

2. Confiscate grain and force it to dump all surpluses at the indicated points, this applies both to bread and to all agricultural products.

3. To take all measures to assist the resettled immigrant poor, organizing resettlement where possible.

4. To equalize the newcomers from other cities with the Cossacks in land and in all other respects.

5. to carry out complete disarmament, to shoot anyone who is found to have a weapon after the deadline for surrender.

6. Issue weapons only to reliable elements from other cities.

7. Leave the armed detachments in the Cossack villages until full order is established.

8. All commissars appointed to certain Cossack settlements are invited to show maximum firmness and steadily implement these instructions.

The Central Committee decides to pass through the relevant Soviet institutions the obligation of the People's Commissariat of Land to develop in a hurry the actual measures for the mass resettlement of the poor on the Cossack lands. Central Committee of the RCP(b).

There is an opinion that the authorship of the directive on storytelling belongs to only one person - Ya. M. Sverdlov, and neither the Central Committee of the RCP (b), nor the Council of People's Commissars took any part in the adoption of this document. However, analyzing the entire course of the seizure of power by the Bolshevik Party in the period 1917-1918, the fact of the regularity of raising violence and lawlessness to the rank of state policy becomes obvious. The desire for limitless dictatorship provoked a cynical justification for the inevitability of terror.

Under these conditions, the terror unleashed against the Cossacks in the occupied villages acquired such proportions that, on March 16, 1919, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was forced to recognize the January directive as erroneous. But the flywheel of the extermination machine was started, and it was already impossible to stop it.

The beginning of the state genocide on the part of the Bolsheviks and distrust of yesterday's still neighbors - the highlanders, fear of them, pushed part of the Cossacks again onto the path of fighting the Soviet regime, but now as part of the Volunteer Army of General Denikin.

The undisguised genocide of the Cossacks that had begun led the Don to a catastrophe, but in the North Caucasus it ended in complete defeat for the Bolsheviks. The 150,000-strong XI Army, which Fedko headed after Sorokin's death, was cumbersomely deploying for a decisive blow. From the flank it was covered by the XII Army occupying the area from Vladikavkaz to Grozny. From these two armies, the Caspian-Caucasian Front was created. In the rear, the Reds were restless. The Stavropol peasants leaned more and more towards the whites after the invasion of the food detachments. Highlanders turned away from the Bolsheviks, even those who supported them during the period of general anarchy. So, inside the Chechens, Kabardians and Ossetians there was their own civil war: some wanted to go with the Reds, others with the Whites, and still others wanted to build an Islamic state. The Kalmyks openly hated the Bolsheviks after the outrages committed against them. After the bloody suppression of the Bicherakhovsky uprising, the Terek Cossacks hid.

On January 4, 1919, the Volunteer Army dealt a crushing blow to the XI Red Army in the area of ​​​​the village of Nevinnomysskaya and, breaking through the front, began to pursue the enemy in two directions - to the Holy Cross and to Mineralnye Vody. The gigantic XIth Army began to fall apart. Ordzhonikidze insisted on retreating to Vladikavkaz. Most of the commanders were against it, believing that the army pressed against the mountains would fall into a trap. Already on January 19, Pyatigorsk was taken by the Whites, on January 20, the St. George group of the Reds was defeated.

To repulse the white troops and to manage all military operations in the region, by the decision of the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b), at the end of December 1918, the Defense Council was created. North Caucasus headed by G. K. Ordzhonikidze. At the direction of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, weapons and ammunition were sent to the North Caucasus to help the XI Army.

But, despite all the measures taken, the units of the Red Army could not resist the onslaught of the Volunteer Army. The Extraordinary Commissar of the South of Russia, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, in a telegram addressed to V. I. Lenin dated January 24, 1919, reported on the state of affairs as follows: “There is no XI Army. She finally broke down. The enemy occupies the cities and villages almost without resistance. At night, the question was to leave the entire Terek region and go to Astrakhan.

On January 25, 1919, during the general offensive of the Volunteer Army in the North Caucasus, the Kabardian cavalry brigade, consisting of two regiments under the command of captain Zaurbek Dautokov-Serebryakov, occupies Nalchik and Baksan with battle. And on January 26, the detachments of A. G. Shkuro occupy the railway stations of Kotlyarevskaya and Prokhladnaya. At the same time, the White Guard Circassian division and two Cossack plastun battalions, turning to the right from the village of Novoossetinskaya, went to the Terek near the Kabardian village of Abaevo and, having joined at the Kotlyarevskaya station with detachments of Shkuro along the railway line, moved to Vladikavkaz. By the beginning of February, the white units of Generals Shkuro, Pokrovsky and Ulagay blocked the administrative center of the Terek region - the city of Vladikavkaz - from three sides. February 10, 1919 Vladikavkaz was taken. Denikin's command forced the XIth Red Army to retreat across the hungry steppes to Astrakhan. The remnants of the XII Red Army crumbled. The Extraordinary Commissar of the South of Russia, G.K. Ordzhonikidze, fled to Ingushetia with a small detachment, some units under the command of N. Gikalo went to Dagestan, and the bulk, representing already disorderly crowds of refugees, poured into Georgia through winter passes, freezing in the mountains, dying from avalanches and snowfalls, exterminated by yesterday's allies - the highlanders. The Georgian government, fearing typhus, refused to let them in. The Reds tried to storm their way out of the Darial Gorge but were met by machine-gun fire. Many died. The rest surrendered to the Georgians and were interned as prisoners of war.

By the time the Volunteer Army occupied the North Caucasus, of the independent Terek units that survived the defeat of the uprising, only a detachment of Terek Cossacks in Petrovsk, led by the commander of the Terek Territory, Major General I. N. Kosnikov, survived. It consisted of the Grebensky and Gorsko-Mozdok cavalry regiments, the cavalry hundred of Kopay Cossacks, the 1st Mozdok and 2nd Grebensky Plastun battalions, the hundreds of foot Kopay Cossacks, the 1st and 2nd artillery divisions. By February 14, 1919, the detachment consisted of 2,088 people.

One of the first units of the Terts who joined the Volunteer Army was the Terek officer regiment, formed on November 1, 1918 from the officer detachment of Colonel B.N. Litvinov, who arrived in the army after the defeat of the Terek uprising (disbanded in March 1919), as well as detachments of colonels V. K. Agoeva, Z. Dautokova-Serebryakova and G. A. Kibirova.

On November 8, 1918, the 1st Terek Cossack Regiment was formed as part of the Volunteer Army (later merged into the 1st Terek Cossack Division). The broad formation of the Terek units began with the establishment of the Volunteer Army in the North Caucasus. The basis of the Terek formations in the Civil War was the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Terek Cossack divisions and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Terek plastun brigades, as well as the Terek Cossack horse artillery divisions and separate batteries, which were both part of the Troops Terek-Dagestan region, and the Volunteer and Caucasian Volunteer armies. Starting from February 1919, the Terek formations were already conducting independent combat operations against the Red Army. This was especially significant for the white forces in the south, in connection with the transfer of the Caucasian Volunteer Army to the Northern Front.

The Terek Plastunskaya separate brigade was formed as part of the Volunteer Army on December 9, 1918 from the newly formed 1st and 2nd Terek Plastunskaya battalions and the Terek Cossack artillery division, which included the 1st Terek Cossack and 2nd Terek Plastunskaya batteries.

With the end of the North Caucasian operation of the Volunteer Army, the Armed Forces in the South of Russia established control over for the most part territory of the North Caucasus. On January 10, 1919, A. I. Denikin appointed the commander of the III Army Corps, General V. P. Lyakhov, commander-in-chief and commander of the troops of the created Terek-Dagestan Territory. The newly appointed commander, in order to recreate the Terek Cossack army, was ordered to assemble the Cossack Circle to select the Army Ataman. The Terek Great Military Circle began its work on February 22, 1919. More than twenty issues were put on the agenda, but in terms of its importance, the issue of the adoption of the new Constitution of the region, which was then adopted on February 27, was in the first row. The next day after the adoption of the Constitution, the elections of the military ataman took place. They became Major General G. A. Vdovenko - a Cossack of the State village. The Big Circle showed support for the Volunteer Army, elected a small Circle (Commission of Legislative Provisions). At the same time, the Military Circle decided on the temporary deployment of military authorities and the residence of the military ataman in the city of Pyatigorsk.

The territories liberated from Soviet power were returning to the mainstream of peaceful life. The former Terek region itself was transformed into the Terek-Dagestan region with the center in Pyatigorsk. The Cossacks of the Sunzha villages evicted in 1918 were returned back.

The British tried to limit the advance of the Whites, keeping oil fields Grozny and Dagestan behind small "sovereign" formations, like the government of the Central Caspian Sea and the Gorsko-Dagestan government. Detachments of the British, even having landed in Petrovsk, began to move towards Grozny. Having outstripped the British, the White Guard units entered Grozny on February 8 and moved on, occupying the Caspian coast to Derbent.

In the mountains, to which the White Guard troops approached, confusion reigned. Each nation had its own government, or even several. So, the Chechens formed two national governments, which waged bloody wars between themselves for several weeks. The dead were counted in the hundreds. Almost every valley had its own money, often homemade, and rifle cartridges were the universally recognized "convertible" currency. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and even Great Britain tried to act as guarantors of the "mountain autonomies". But the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army A. I. Denikin (whom the Soviet propaganda liked to portray as a puppet of the Entente) resolutely demanded the abolition of all these “autonomies”. By placing governors in the national regions from white officers of these nationalities. So, for example, on January 19, 1919, the commander-in-chief of the Terek-Dagestan region, Lieutenant General V.P. Lyakhov, issued an order according to which a colonel, later a major general, Tembot Zhankhotovich Bekovich-Cherkassky, was appointed the ruler of Kabarda. His assistants: Captain Zaurbek Dautokov-Serebryakov was appointed for the military unit, Colonel Sultanbek Kasaevich Klishbiev for civil administration.

Relying on the support of the local nobility, General Denikin convened mountain congresses in March 1919 in Kabarda, Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan. These congresses elected Rulers and Councils under them, who had extensive judicial and administrative powers. Sharia law was preserved in criminal and family cases.

At the beginning of 1919, a system of self-government by the region of two centers was formed in the Terek-Dagestan region: Cossack and volunteer (both were in Pyatigorsk). As A. I. Denikin later noted, the unresolved nature of a number of issues that dated back to pre-revolutionary times, lack of agreement in relations, and the influence of the Kuban independentists on the Tertsy could not but give rise to friction between these two authorities. Only due to the awareness of mortal danger in the event of a break, the absence of independent tendencies among the mass of the Terek Cossacks, personal relationships between representatives of both branches of power, the state mechanism in the North Caucasus worked throughout 1919 without significant interruptions. Until the end of the white power, the region continued to be in dual subordination: the representative of the volunteer government (General Lyakhov was replaced by cavalry general I.G. a meeting in May 1919; military ataman ruled on the basis of the Terek constitution.

Political disagreements and misunderstandings between representatives of the two authorities, as a rule, ended with the adoption of a compromise solution. Friction between the two centers of power throughout 1919 was created mainly by a small but influential part of the radical independent Terek intelligentsia in the government and the Circle. The most obvious illustration is the position of the Terek faction of the Supreme Cossack Circle, which met in Yekaterinodar on January 5 (18), 1920 as the supreme power of the Don, Kuban and Terek. The Terek faction maintained a loyal attitude towards the government of the South of Russia, proceeding from the position of unacceptability for the army of separatism and the fatefulness of the mountain issue. The resolution on breaking off relations with Denikin was adopted by the Supreme Circle of the Don, Kuban and Terek with an insignificant number of votes of the Terek faction, most of which went home.

On the territory liberated from the Bolsheviks, the work of transport was adjusted, paralyzed enterprises were opened, and trade revived. In May 1919, the South-Eastern Russian Church Council was held in Stavropol. The Council was attended by bishops, clerics and laity chosen from the Stavropol, Don, Kuban, Vladikavkaz and Sukhumi-Black Sea dioceses, as well as members of the All-Russian Local Council who ended up in the south of the country. Questions of the spiritual and social structure of this vast territory were discussed at the Council, and the Supreme Provisional Church Administration was formed. Archbishop Mitrofan (Simashkevich) of the Donskoy became its chairman, the members were Archbishop Dimitry (Abashidze) of Tauride, Bishop Arseniy (Smolenets) of Taganrog, Protopresbyter G. I. Shavelsky, Professor A. P. Rozhdestvensky, Count V. Musin-Pushkin and Professor P. Verkhovsky.

Thus, with the arrival of the White troops in the Terek region, the Cossack military government was restored, headed by the ataman, Major General G. A. Vdovenko. The “South-Eastern Union of Cossack Troops, Highlanders of the Caucasus and Free Peoples of the Steppes” continued its work, the basis of which was the idea of ​​the federal principle of the Don, Kuban, Terek, the North Caucasus region, as well as the Astrakhan, Ural and Orenburg troops. The political goal of the Union was its accession as an independent state association to the future Russian Federation.

A. I. Denikin, in turn, advocated “preserving the unity of the Russian state, subject to the granting of autonomy to individual nationalities and original formations (Cossacks), as well as the broad decentralization of everything government controlled... The basis for the decentralization of management was the division of the occupied territory into regions.

Recognizing the fundamental right of autonomy for the Cossack troops, Denikin made a reservation regarding the Terek army, which "in view of the extreme stripedness and the need to reconcile the interests of the Cossacks and mountaineers" had to enter the North Caucasian region on the rights of autonomy. It was planned to include representatives of the Cossacks and mountain peoples in the new structures of the regional authorities. The mountain peoples were granted broad self-government within ethnic boundaries, with elected administration, non-interference on the part of the state in matters of religion and public education, but without funding these programs from the state budget.

Unlike the Don and the Kuban, the “connection with the all-Russian statehood” has not weakened on the Terek. On June 21, 1919, Gerasim Andreevich Vdovenko, elected military ataman, opened the next Great Circle of the Terek Cossack Army at the Park Theater in the city of Essentuki. The Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army A. I. Denikin was also present at the circle. The program of the Terek government stated that "only a decisive victory over Bolshevism and the revival of Russia will create the possibility of restoring the power and native army, bled white and weakened by civil strife."

In view of the ongoing war, the Tertsians were interested in increasing their numbers by attracting their neighbors-allies to the anti-Bolshevik struggle. Thus, the people of the Karanogays were included in the Terek army, and on the Big Circle, the Cossacks expressed their consent in principle to joining the Army "on an equal footing" of Ossetians and Kabardians. The situation was more complicated with the out-of-town population. Encouraging the entry of individual representatives of the indigenous peasants into the Cossack estate, the Tertsy treated with great prejudice the demand of non-residents to solve the land issue, to introduce them into the work of the Circle, as well as into the central and local government.

In the Terek region liberated from the Bolsheviks, a complete mobilization took place. In addition to the Cossack regiments, units formed from the highlanders were also sent to the front. Wishing to confirm their loyalty to Denikin, even yesterday's enemies of the Tertsy, the Chechens and Ingush, responded to the call of the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army and replenished the White Guard ranks with their volunteers.

Already in May 1919, in addition to the Kuban combat units, the Circassian cavalry division and the Karachaev cavalry brigade operated on the Tsaritsy front. The 2nd Terek Cossack division, the 1st Terek plastun brigade, the Kabardian cavalry division, the Ingush cavalry brigade, the Dagestan cavalry brigade and the Ossetian cavalry regiment, who arrived from the Terek and Dagestan, were also transferred here. In Ukraine, the 1st Terek Cossack Division and the Chechen Cavalry Division were involved against Makhno.

The situation in the North Caucasus remained extremely difficult. In June, Ingushetia raised an uprising, but a week later it was crushed. Kabarda and Ossetia were disturbed by their attacks by the Balkars and "Kermenists" (representatives of the Ossetian revolutionary democratic organization). In the mountainous part of Dagestan, Ali-Khadzhi raised an uprising, and in August this "baton" was taken over by the Chechen sheikh Uzun-Khadzhi, who settled in Vedeno. All nationalist and religious uprisings in the North Caucasus were not only supported but also provoked by anti-Russian circles in Turkey and Georgia. The constant military danger forced Denikin to keep up to 15 thousand soldiers in this region under the command of General I. G. Erdeli, including two Terek divisions - the 3rd and 4th, and another plastun brigade.

Meanwhile, the situation at the front was even more deplorable. So, by December 1919, the Volunteer Army of General Denikin, under pressure from three times superior enemy forces, lost 50% of its personnel. As of December 1, there were 42,733 wounded in military medical institutions in southern Russia alone. A large-scale retreat of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia began. On November 19, units of the Red Army broke into Kursk, on December 10 Kharkov was abandoned, on December 28 - Tsaritsyn, and already on January 9, 1920, Soviet troops entered Rostov-on-Don.

On January 8, 1920, the Terek Cossacks suffered irreparable losses - units of the First Cavalry Army of Budyonny almost completely destroyed the Terek Plastun Brigade. At the same time, the commander of the cavalry corps, General K.K. Mamontov, despite the order to attack the enemy, led his corps through Aksai to the left bank of the Don.

In January 1920, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia numbered 81,506 people, of which: Volunteer units - 30,802, Don troops - 37,762, Kuban troops - 8,317, Terek troops - 3,115, Astrakhan troops - 468, Mountain units - 1042. These forces were clearly not enough to contain the offensive of the Reds, but the separatist games of the Cossack leaders continued at this critical moment for all anti-Bolshevik forces.

In Ekaterinodar on January 18, 1920, the Cossack Supreme Circle gathered, which set about creating an independent union state and declared itself the supreme authority in the affairs of the Don, Kuban and Terek. Part of the Don delegates and almost all of the Tertsians called for the continuation of the struggle in unity with the high command. Most of the Kuban, part of the Don and a few Terts demanded a complete break with Denikin. Some of the Kuban and Don people were inclined to stop fighting.

According to A. I. Denikin, “only the Tertsy – the ataman, the government and the faction of the Circle – almost in full force represented a united front.” The Kubans were reproached for leaving the front by the Kuban units, proposals were made to separate the eastern departments (“lineists”) from this army and attach them to the Terek. Terek ataman G. A. Vdovenko spoke with the following words: “The course of the Tertsy is one. We have written in gold letters "United and indivisible Russia".

At the end of January 1920, a compromise provision was developed, accepted by all parties:

1. South Russian power is established on the basis of an agreement between the High Command of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia and the Supreme Circle of the Don, Kuban and Terek, until the convocation of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.

2. Lieutenant-General A. I. Denikin is recognized as the first head of the South Russian authorities ....

3. The law on the succession of power of the head of state is developed by the Legislative Chamber on a general basis.

4. Legislative power in the South of Russia is exercised by the Legislative Chamber.

5. The functions of the executive power, except for the head of the South Russian government, are determined by the Council of Ministers ...

6. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers is appointed by the head of the South Russian government.

7. The person heading the South Russian government has the right to dissolve the Legislative Chamber and the right to a relative "veto" ...

In agreement with the three factions of the Supreme Circle, a cabinet of ministers was formed, but "the appearance of a new government did not bring any change in the course of events."

The military and political crisis of the White Guard South was growing. Government reform no longer saved the situation - the front collapsed. On February 29, 1920, Stavropol was taken by the Red Army, on March 17 Yekaterinodar and the village of Nevinnomysskaya fell, on March 22 - Vladikavkaz, on March 23 - Kizlyar, on March 24 - Grozny, on March 27 - Novorossiysk, on March 30 - Port-Petrovsk and on April 7 - Tuapse . Almost throughout the entire territory of the North Caucasus, Soviet power was restored, which was confirmed by a decree of March 25, 1920.

Part of the army of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (about 30 thousand people) was evacuated from Novorossiysk to the Crimea. The Terek Cossacks, who left Vladikavkaz (together with the refugees, about 12 thousand people), went along the Georgian Military Highway to Georgia, where they were interned in camps near Poti, in a swampy malaria area. The demoralized Cossack units, squeezed on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, for the most part surrendered to the red units.

On April 4, 1920, A. I. Denikin ordered the appointment of Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel as his successor to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia.

After the evacuation of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia to the Crimea, from the remnants of the Terek and Astrakhan Cossack units in April 1920, a Separate Terek-Astrakhan Cossack brigade was formed, which from April 28 as the Terek-Astrakhan brigade was part of the 3rd cavalry division of the Consolidated Corps. On July 7, after reorganization, the brigade again became separate. In the summer of 1920, she was part of the Special Forces Group, which participated in the Kuban landing. From September 4, the brigade operated separately as part of the Russian army and included the 1st Terek, 1st and 2nd Astrakhan regiments and the Terek-Astrakhan Cossack cavalry artillery division and the Separate Terek spare Cossack hundred.

The attitude of the Cossacks to Baron Wrangel was ambivalent. On the one hand, he contributed to the dispersal of the Kuban Regional Rada in 1919, on the other hand, his rigidity and commitment to order impressed the Cossacks. The attitude of the Cossacks towards him was not spoiled by the fact that Wrangel brought the Don general Sidorin to justice because he telegraphed the military ataman Bogaevsky about his decision to “withdraw the Don army from the limits of the Crimea and the subordination in which it is now located.”

The situation with the Kuban Cossacks was more complicated. The military ataman Bukretov was an opponent of the evacuation to the Crimea of ​​the Cossack units squeezed on the Black Sea coast. Wrangel was not immediately able to send the ataman to the Caucasus to organize the evacuation, and the remnants of those who did not surrender to the Reds (about 17 thousand people) were only able to board the ships on May 4th. Bukretov handed over ataman power to the chairman of the Kuban government Ivanis and, together with the "independent" - deputies of the Rada, taking with him part of the military treasury, fled to Georgia. The Kuban Rada, which gathered in Feodosia, recognized Bukretov and Ivanis as traitors, and elected military general Ulagay as the military chieftain, but he refused power.

The small Terek group led by Ataman Vdovenko was traditionally hostile to the separatist movements and, therefore, had nothing in common with the ambitious Cossack leaders.

The lack of unity in the political Cossack camp and Wrangel's uncompromising attitude towards the "independents" allowed the commander-in-chief of the Russian army to conclude with the military atamans the agreement that he considered necessary for the state structure of Russia. Gathering together Bogaevsky, Ivanis, Vdovenko and Lyakhov, Wrangel gave them 24 hours to think, and thus, “On July 22, a solemn signing of an agreement took place ... with the atamans and governments of the Don, Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan ... in development of the agreement dated 2 (15 ) April of this year ...

1. The state formations of the Don, Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan are provided with complete independence in their internal structure and management.

2. In the Council of Heads of Departments under the Government and the Commander-in-Chief, with the right of a decisive vote on all issues, the chairmen of governments participate state formations Don, Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan or members of their governments replacing them.

3. The Commander-in-Chief is assigned full power over all the armed forces of state formations ... both in operational terms and on fundamental issues of organizing the army.

4. All necessary for the supply ... food and other means are provided ... on a special allocation.

5. Management of railways and main telegraph lines is vested in the authority of the Commander-in-Chief.

6. Agreement and negotiations with foreign governments, both in the field of political and in the field of commercial policy, are carried out by the Ruler and the Commander-in-Chief. If these negotiations concern the interests of one of the state formations ..., the Ruler and Commander-in-Chief first enters into an agreement with the subject ataman.

7. A common customs line and a single indirect taxation are being established ...

8. A single monetary system is established on the territory of the contracting parties ...

9. Upon the liberation of the territory of state formations ... this agreement has to be submitted for approval by large military circles and regional councils, but it takes effect immediately upon its signing.

10. This agreement is established until the complete end of the Civil War.

The unsuccessful landing of the Kuban troops led by General Ulagai in the Kuban in August 1920, and the bogged down September offensive on the Kakhovka bridgehead forced Baron Wrangel to close within the Crimean peninsula and begin preparations for defense and evacuation.

By the beginning of the offensive on November 7, 1920, the Red Army had 133,000 bayonets and sabers, while the Russian army had 37,000 bayonets and sabers. superior forces Soviet troops broke the defense, and already on November 12, Baron Wrangel issued an order to leave the Crimea. The evacuation organized by the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army was completed on November 16, 1920 and made it possible to save about 150,000 military and civilians, including about 30,000 Cossacks.

The remnants of the last provisional nationwide government and the last legitimate governments of the Cossack troops of the Russian Empire, including Terek, left the territory of Russia.

After the evacuation of the Russian army from the Crimea in Chataldzha, the Terek-Astrakhan regiment was formed as part of the Don Corps. After the transformation of the army into the Russian General Military Union (ROVS), the regiment until the 1930s was a cropped unit. So by the autumn of 1925, there were 427 people in the regiment, including 211 officers.

Cossack Don: Five centuries of military glory Author unknown

Don Cossacks in the Civil War

On April 9, 1918, the Congress of Soviets of Workers, Peasants, Soldiers and Cossacks of the Don Republic met in Rostov, which elected the highest local authorities - the Central Executive Committee, chaired by V.S. Kovalev and the Don Council of People's Commissars chaired by F.G. Podtelkova.

Podtelkov Fedor Grigorievich (1886–1918), Cossack of the village of Ust-Khoperskaya. An active participant in the establishment of Soviet power on the Don at the initial stage of the Civil War. In January 1918, F.G. Podtelkov was elected chairman of the Don Cossack Military Revolutionary Committee, and in April of the same year at the I Congress of Soviets of the Don Region - chairman of the Council people's commissars Don Soviet Republic. In May 1918, the detachment of F.G. Podtelkov, who carried out the forced mobilization of the Cossacks of the northern districts of the Don region into the Red Army, was surrounded and captured by the Cossacks who rebelled against the Soviet regime. F.G. Podtelkov was sentenced to death and hanged.

Both Kovalev and Podtelkov were Cossacks. The Bolsheviks specifically nominated them to show that they were not opposed to the Cossacks. However, the real power in Rostov was in the hands of the local Bolsheviks, who relied on the Red Guard detachments of workers, miners, non-residents and peasants.

In the cities, general searches and requisitions were carried out, officers, junkers and all others who were suspected of having links with the partisans were shot. With the approach of spring, the peasants began to seize and redistribute the landlords' and military spare lands. In some places, spare stanitsa lands were seized.

The Cossacks could not bear it. With the beginning of spring, scattered Cossack uprisings broke out in individual villages. Having learned about them, the Marching ataman Popov led his “Free detachment” from the Salsky steppes. Don Cossacks"to the north, to the Don, to join the rebels.

While the Marching ataman led his detachment to join the Cossacks of the rebellious Suvorov village, the Cossacks near Novocherkassk rebelled. The Krivyanskaya stanitsa was the first to rise. Her Cossacks, under the command of the military foreman Fetisov, broke into Novocherkassk and drove out the Bolsheviks. In Novocherkassk, the Cossacks created the Provisional Don Government, which included ordinary Cossacks with a rank no higher than a constable. But then it was not possible to keep Novocherkassk. Under the blows of the Bolshevik detachments from Rostov, the Cossacks withdrew to the village of Zaplavskaya and fortified here, taking advantage of the spring flood of the Don. Here, in Zaplavskaya, they began to accumulate strength and form the Don army.

Having united with the detachment of the Marching Ataman, the Provisional Don Government handed over to P.Kh. Popov all military power and united the military forces. Novocherkassk was taken by another assault on May 6, and on May 8, the Cossacks, supported by the detachment of Colonel Drozdovsky, repulsed the Bolshevik counteroffensive and defended the city.

F.G. Podtelkov (standing on the right) (ROMK)

By mid-May 1918, only 10 villages were in the hands of the rebels, but the uprising was rapidly expanding. The government of the Don Soviet Republic fled to the village of Velikoknyazheskaya.

On May 11, in Novocherkassk, the rebellious Cossacks opened the Don Salvation Circle. The circle elected a new Don ataman. He was elected Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov. In the pre-war years, Krasnov established himself as a talented writer and an excellent officer. During the First World War, P.N. Krasnov showed himself as one of the best cavalry generals of the Russian army, went through the military path from regiment commander to corps commander.

The region of the Don army was proclaimed democratic republic titled "The Great Don Army". The Great military circle, elected by all Cossacks, except for those who were in military service, remained the supreme power on the Don. Voting rights were given to female Cossacks. In the land policy, when landlord and private landownership was eliminated, land was first allocated to small-land Cossack societies.

In total, up to 94 thousand Cossacks were mobilized into the ranks of the troops to fight the Bolsheviks. Krasnov was considered the supreme leader of the armed forces of the Don. General S.V. directly commanded the Don Army. Denisov.

The Don army was divided into the "Young Army", which began to be formed from young Cossacks who had not previously served and had not been at the front, and into the "Mobilized Army" from Cossacks of all other ages. The "Young Army" was supposed to deploy from 12 cavalry and 4 foot regiments, train it in the Novocherkassk region and keep it in reserve as the last reserve for a future campaign against Moscow. The "mobilized army" was formed in the districts. It was assumed that each village will put up one regiment. But the villages on the Don were of different sizes, some could put up a regiment or even two, others could put up only a few hundred. Nevertheless, the total number of regiments in the Don army was brought to 100 with great effort.

In order to supply such an army with weapons and ammunition, Krasnov was forced to make contact with the Germans, who were in the western regions of the region. Krasnov promised them the neutrality of the Don in the ongoing world war, and for this he offered to establish a "correct exchange of goods." The Germans received food on the Don, and in return they supplied the Cossacks with Russian weapons and ammunition captured in Ukraine.

Krasnov himself did not consider the Germans allies. He openly said that the Germans were not allies to the Cossacks, that neither the Germans, nor the British, nor the French would save Russia, but would only ruin it and cover it with blood. Krasnov considered allies "volunteers" from the Kuban and Terek Cossacks, who rebelled against the Bolsheviks.

Krasnov considered the Bolsheviks to be obvious enemies. He said that while they were in power in Russia, the Don would not be part of Russia, but would live according to its own laws.

In August 1918, the Cossacks ousted the Bolsheviks from the territory of the region and stood on the borders.

The trouble was that Don was not united in the fight against the Bolsheviks. Approximately 18% of the combat-ready Don Cossacks supported the Bolsheviks. Almost completely, the Cossacks of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 15th, 32nd Don regiments of the old army went over to their side. In total, the Don Cossacks made up about 20 regiments in the ranks of the Red Army. Prominent red commanders emerged from among the Cossacks - F.K. Mironov, M.F. Blinov, K.F. Bulatkin.

Almost without exception, the Bolsheviks were supported by Don non-residents, Don peasants began to create their own units in the Red Army. It was from them that the famous red cavalry B.M. Dumenko and S.M. Budyonny.

In general, the split on the Don received a class coloring. The overwhelming majority of the Cossacks were against the Bolsheviks, the overwhelming majority of the non-Cossacks supported the Bolsheviks.

In November 1918, a revolution took place in Germany. The First World War is over. The Germans began to return to their homeland. The supply of weapons and ammunition to the Don stopped.

In winter, the Bolsheviks, having mobilized the million-strong Red Army throughout the country, launched an offensive to the west in order to break into Europe and unleash a world revolution there, and to the south in order to finally suppress the Cossacks and "volunteers" who prevented them from finally establishing themselves in Russia.

The Cossack regiments began to retreat. Many Cossacks, having passed their village, lagged behind the regiment and remained at home. By the end of February, the Don army rolled back from the north to the Donets and Manych. Only 15 thousand fighters remained in its ranks, the same number of Cossacks “hung out” in the rear of the army. Krasnov, whom many saw as a German ally, resigned.

Confident in the invincibility of the Red Army, the Bolsheviks decided once and for all to crush the Cossacks, to transfer the methods of the "Red Terror" to the Don.