Whoever says that it’s not scary in war / He doesn’t know anything about war From the poem “I only saw hand-to-hand combat” (1943) by front-line poetess Yulia Vladimirovna Drunina (1924-1991): I only saw hand-to-hand combat once. Once - in reality and hundreds of times in a dream. Who says that the war is not

The reasons why the Cossacks of all Cossack regions for the most part rejected the destructive ideas of Bolshevism and entered into an open struggle against them, and in completely unequal conditions, are still not entirely clear and are a mystery to many historians. After all, the Cossacks in everyday life were the same farmers as 75% of the Russian population, they carried the same state burdens, if not more, and were under the same administrative control of the state. With the beginning of the revolution that came after the abdication of the sovereign, the Cossacks inside the regions and in the front-line units experienced various psychological stages. During the February rebellion in Petrograd, the Cossacks took a neutral position and remained outside spectators of the unfolding events. The Cossacks saw that in the presence of significant armed forces in Petrograd, the government not only did not use them, but also strictly prohibited their use against the rebels. During the previous rebellion in 1905-1906, the Cossack troops were the main armed force that restored order in the country, as a result, in public opinion, they earned the contemptuous title of "lashers" and "royal satraps and guardsmen." Therefore, in the rebellion that arose in the capital of Russia, the Cossacks were inert and left the government to decide on restoring order by the forces of other troops. After the abdication of the sovereign and the entry into the government of the country of the Provisional Government, the Cossacks considered the succession of power legitimate and were ready to support the new government. But this attitude gradually changed, and, observing the complete inactivity of the authorities and even the encouragement of unbridled revolutionary excesses, the Cossacks began to gradually move away from destructive power, and the instructions of the Council of Cossack troops, which operated in Petrograd, chaired by the ataman of the Orenburg army Dutov, became authoritative for them.

Inside the Cossack regions, the Cossacks also did not get drunk on revolutionary freedoms and, having made some local changes, continued to live in the old way, without producing any economic, much less social upheavals. At the front in the military units, the order for the army, which completely changed the basis of the military order, was accepted by the Cossacks with bewilderment and continued to maintain order and discipline in the units under the new conditions, most often electing their former commanders and chiefs. There were no refusals to execute orders, and there was also no settling of personal scores with the command staff. But the tension gradually increased. The population of the Cossack regions and the Cossack units at the front were subjected to active revolutionary propaganda, which involuntarily had to be reflected in their psychology and forced them to carefully listen to the calls and demands of the revolutionary leaders. In the area of ​​the Don army, one of the important revolutionary acts was the removal of the chief ataman Count Grabbe, replacing him with the elected ataman of Cossack origin, General Kaledin, and restoring the convocation of public representatives to the Military Circle, according to the custom that existed from antiquity, until the reign of Emperor Peter I. After which their life continued to walk without much disturbance. The question of relations with the non-Cossack population arose, which, psychologically, followed the same revolutionary paths as the population of the rest of Russia. At the front, powerful propaganda was carried out among the Cossack military units, accusing Ataman Kaledin of being counter-revolutionary and having a certain success among the Cossacks. The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd was accompanied by a decree addressed to the Cossacks, in which only geographical names changed, and it was promised that the Cossacks would be freed from the oppression of generals and the burden of military service and equality and democratic freedoms would be established in everything. The Cossacks had nothing against this.

Rice. 1 Region of the Don Army

The Bolsheviks came to power under anti-war slogans and soon set about fulfilling their promises. In November 1917, the Council of People's Commissars invited all the warring countries to start peace negotiations, but the Entente countries refused. Then Ulyanov sent a delegation to German-occupied Brest-Litovsk for separate peace talks with delegates from Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. Germany's ultimatum demands shocked the delegates and caused hesitation even among the Bolsheviks, who were not particularly patriotic, but Ulyanov accepted these conditions. The “obscene Brest peace” was concluded, according to which Russia lost about 1 million km² of territory, pledged to demobilize the army and navy, transfer ships and infrastructure of the Black Sea Fleet to Germany, pay an indemnity of 6 billion marks, recognize the independence of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. The hands of the Germans were untied to continue the war in the west. In early March, the German army began to advance along the entire front to occupy the territories given by the Bolsheviks under a peace treaty. Moreover, Germany, in addition to the agreement, announced to Ulyanov that Ukraine should be considered a province of Germany, to which Ulyanov also agreed. There is a fact in this case that is not widely known. The diplomatic defeat of Russia in Brest-Litovsk was caused not only by the venality, inconsistency and adventurism of the Petrograd negotiators. The Joker played a key role here. A new partner suddenly appeared in the group of contracting parties - the Ukrainian Central Rada, which, for all the precariousness of its position, behind the back of a delegation from Petrograd on February 9 (January 27), 1918, signed a separate peace treaty with Germany in Brest-Litovsk. The next day, the Soviet delegation with the slogan "we stop the war, but do not sign peace" broke off the negotiations. In response, on February 18, German troops launched an offensive along the entire front line. At the same time, the German-Austrian side tightened the terms of the peace. In view of the complete inability of the Sovietized old army and the rudiments of the Red Army to withstand even a limited advance of the German troops and the need for a respite to strengthen the Bolshevik regime, on March 3, Russia also signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. After that, the "independent" Ukraine was occupied by the Germans and, as unnecessary, they threw Petlyura "from the throne", placing the puppet hetman Skoropadsky on him. Thus, shortly before sinking into oblivion, the Second Reich under the leadership of Kaiser Wilhelm II captured Ukraine and Crimea.

After the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the Bolsheviks, part of the territory of the Russian Empire turned into zones of occupation of the Central countries. Austro-German troops occupied Finland, the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine and liquidated the Soviets there. The allies vigilantly followed what was happening in Russia and also tried to ensure their interests, linking them with the former Russia. In addition, there were up to two million prisoners of war in Russia who, with the consent of the Bolsheviks, could be sent to their countries, and it was important for the Entente powers to prevent the return of prisoners of war to Germany and Austria-Hungary. For communication between Russia and the allies, ports served, in the north Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, in the Far East Vladivostok. In these ports were concentrated large warehouses of property and military equipment delivered by order of the Russian government by foreigners. The accumulated cargo was over a million tons worth up to 2 and a half billion rubles. Cargo was shamelessly plundered, including by local revolutionary committees. To ensure the safety of cargo, these ports were gradually occupied by the Allies. Since the orders imported from England, France and Italy were sent through the northern ports, they were occupied by parts of the British in 12,000 and the Allies in 11,000 people. Import from the USA and Japan went through Vladivostok. On July 6, 1918, the Entente declared Vladivostok an international zone, and the city was occupied by 57,000 Japanese units and 13,000 other allied units. But they did not overthrow the Bolshevik government. Only on July 29, the power of the Bolsheviks in Vladivostok was overthrown by the White Czechs under the leadership of the Russian general M.K. Diterikhs.

In domestic politics, the Bolsheviks issued decrees that destroyed all social structures: banks, national industry, private property, land ownership, and under the guise of nationalization, simple robbery was often carried out without any state leadership. The inevitable devastation began in the country, in which the Bolsheviks blamed the bourgeoisie and the "rotten intellectuals", and these classes were subjected to the most severe terror, bordering on destruction. It is still impossible to fully understand how this all-destroying force came to power in Russia, given that power was seized in a country with a thousand-year history and culture. After all, by the same measures, the international destructive forces hoped to produce an internal explosion in a troubled France, transferring up to 10 million francs to French banks for this purpose. But France, by the beginning of the 20th century, had already exhausted its limit on revolutions and was tired of them. Unfortunately for the businessmen of the revolution, forces were found in the country that were able to unravel the insidious and far-reaching plans of the leaders of the proletariat and resist them. This was written in more detail in the Military Review in the article "How America Saved Western Europe from the Ghost of World Revolution."

One of the main reasons that allowed the Bolsheviks to carry out a coup d'état, and then rather quickly seize power in many regions and cities of the Russian Empire, was the support of numerous reserve and training battalions stationed throughout Russia, who did not want to go to the front. It was Lenin's promise of an immediate end to the war with Germany that predetermined the transition of the Russian army, which had decayed during the Kerensky period, to the side of the Bolsheviks, which ensured their victory. In most regions of the country, the Bolshevik power was established quickly and peacefully: out of 84 provincial and other large cities, Soviet power was established as a result of armed struggle in only fifteen. Having adopted the "Decree on Peace" on the second day of their stay in power, the Bolsheviks ensured the "triumphant procession of Soviet power" in Russia from October 1917 to February 1918.

Relations between the Cossacks and the rulers of the Bolsheviks were determined by decrees of the Union of Cossack troops and the Soviet government. On November 22, 1917, the Union of Cossack Troops submitted a resolution informing the Soviet government that:
- The Cossacks do not seek anything for themselves and do not demand anything for themselves outside the boundaries of their regions. But, being guided by the democratic principles of self-determination of nationalities, it will not tolerate any other power in its territories than that of the people, formed by the free agreement of local nationalities without any external and extraneous influence.
- Sending punitive detachments against the Cossack regions, in particular against the Don, will bring civil war to the outskirts, where vigorous work is underway to establish public order. This will cause a breakdown in transport, will be an obstacle to the delivery of goods, coal, oil and steel to the cities of Russia, and will worsen the food business, leading to the disorder of the granary of Russia.
- The Cossacks oppose any introduction of foreign troops into the Cossack regions without the consent of the military and regional Cossack governments.
In response to the peace declaration of the Union of Cossack Troops, the Bolsheviks issued a decree to open hostilities against the south, which read:
- Relying on the Black Sea Fleet, arm and organize the Red Guard to occupy the Donetsk coal region.
- From the north, from the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, move the combined detachments to the south to the starting points: Gomel, Bryansk, Kharkov, Voronezh.
- Move the most active units from the Zhmerinka region to the east to occupy the Donbass.

This decree created the germ of a fratricidal civil war of Soviet power against the Cossack regions. For the existence of the Bolsheviks, Caucasian oil, Donetsk coal and bread from the southern outskirts were urgently needed. The outbreak of mass famine pushed Soviet Russia towards the rich south. There were no well-organized and sufficient forces at the disposal of the Don and Kuban governments to protect the regions. The units returning from the front did not want to fight, they tried to disperse to the villages, and the young front-line Cossacks entered into an open struggle with the old. In many villages, this struggle became fierce, the reprisals on both sides were cruel. But there were many Cossacks who came from the front, they were well-armed and loud-mouthed, they had combat experience, and in most villages the victory went to the front-line youth, heavily infected with Bolshevism. It soon became clear that in the Cossack regions, strong units can only be created on the basis of volunteerism. To maintain order in the Don and Kuban, their governments used detachments consisting of volunteers: students, cadets, cadets and youth. Many Cossack officers volunteered to form such volunteer (among the Cossacks they are called partisan) units, but this business was poorly organized at the headquarters. Permission to form such detachments was given to almost everyone who asked. Many adventurers appeared, even robbers, who simply robbed the population for the purpose of making money. However, the main threat to the Cossack regions was the regiments returning from the front, as many of those who returned were infected with Bolshevism. The formation of volunteer Red Cossack units also began immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. At the end of November 1917, at a meeting of representatives of the Cossack units of the Petrograd Military District, it was decided to create revolutionary detachments from the Cossacks of the 5th Cossack division, 1st, 4th and 14th Don regiments and send them to the Don, Kuban and Terek to defeat the counter-revolution and establish the Soviet authorities. In January 1918, a congress of front-line Cossacks gathered in the village of Kamenskaya with the participation of delegates from 46 Cossack regiments. The congress recognized Soviet power and created the Donvoenrevkom, which declared war on the ataman of the Don army, General A.M. Kaledin, who opposed the Bolsheviks. Among the command staff of the Don Cossacks, supporters of Bolshevik ideas turned out to be two staff officers, military foremen Golubov and Mironov, and Golubov's closest collaborator was the cadet Podtelkov. In January 1918, the 32nd Don Cossack Regiment returned to the Don from the Romanian Front. Having elected the military foreman F.K. Mironov, the regiment supported the establishment of Soviet power, and decided not to go home until the counter-revolution led by Ataman Kaledin was defeated. But the most tragic role on the Don was played by Golubov, who in February occupied Novocherkassk with two regiments of Cossacks propagandized by him, dispersed the meeting of the Military Circle, arrested General Nazarov, who had assumed the post of ataman of the Army after the death of General Kaledin, and shot him. After a short time, this "hero" of the revolution was shot by the Cossacks right at the rally, and Podtyolkov, who had large sums of money with him, was captured by the Cossacks and hanged by their verdict. The fate of Mironov was also tragic. He managed to drag along a significant number of Cossacks, with whom he fought on the side of the Reds, but, not satisfied with their orders, he decided with the Cossacks to go over to the side of the fighting Don. Mironov was arrested by the Reds, sent to Moscow, where he was shot. But it will be later. In the meantime, there was a great turmoil on the Don. If the Cossack population still hesitated, and only in part of the villages did the prudent voice of the old people prevail, then the out-of-town (non-Cossack) population entirely sided with the Bolsheviks. The nonresident population in the Cossack regions always envied the Cossacks, who owned a large amount of land. Taking the side of the Bolsheviks, non-residents hoped to take part in the division of officer, landlord Cossack lands.

Other armed forces in the south were detachments of the Volunteer Army, which was being formed, located in Rostov. On November 2, 1917, General Alekseev arrived on the Don, got in touch with Ataman Kaledin and asked him for permission to form volunteer detachments on the Don. The goal of General Alekseev was to use the southeastern base of the armed forces in order to gather the remaining staunch officers, cadets, old soldiers and organize from them the army necessary to restore order in Russia. Despite the complete lack of funds, Alekseev enthusiastically set to work. On Barochnaya Street, the premises of one of the infirmaries was turned into an officer's hostel, which became the cradle of volunteerism. Soon the first donation, 400 rubles, was received. This is all that Russian society allocated to its defenders in November. But people simply went to the Don, having no idea what awaits them, groping, in the dark, through the solid Bolshevik sea. They went to where the age-old traditions of the Cossack freemen and the names of the leaders, whom popular rumor associated with the Don, served as a bright beacon. They came exhausted, hungry, ragged, but not discouraged. On December 6 (19), disguised as a peasant, with a false passport, General Kornilov arrived by rail on the Don. He wanted to go further to the Volga, and from there to Siberia. He considered it more correct that General Alekseev remained in the south of Russia, and he would be given the opportunity to work in Siberia. He argued that in this case they would not interfere with each other and he would be able to organize a big deal in Siberia. He rushed into space. But representatives of the National Center who arrived in Novocherkassk from Moscow insisted that Kornilov stay in the south of Russia and work together with Kaledin and Alekseev. An agreement was concluded between them, according to which General Alekseev took charge of all financial and political issues, General Kornilov took over the organization and command of the Volunteer Army, General Kaledin continued to form the Don Army and manage the affairs of the Don Army. Kornilov had little faith in the success of work in the south of Russia, where he would have to create a white cause in the territories of the Cossack troops and depend on the military atamans. He said this: “I know Siberia, I believe in Siberia, there you can put things on a grand scale. Here, Alekseev alone can easily cope with the matter. Kornilov was eager to go to Siberia with all his heart and soul, he wanted to be released, and he did not take much interest in the work on the formation of the Volunteer Army. Kornilov's fears that he would have friction and misunderstandings with Alekseev were justified from the first days of their joint work. The forced abandonment of Kornilov in the south of Russia was a big political mistake of the "National Center". But they believed that if Kornilov left, then many volunteers would leave for him and the business started in Novocherkassk might fall apart. The formation of the Good Army moved slowly, on average, 75-80 volunteers were registered per day. There were few soldiers, mostly officers, cadets, students, cadets and high school students signed up. There were not enough weapons in the Don warehouses, they had to be taken away from the soldiers traveling home, in military echelons passing through Rostov and Novocherkassk, or bought through buyers in the same echelons. Lack of funds made the work extremely difficult. The formation of the Don units progressed even worse. Generals Alekseev and Kornilov understood that the Cossacks did not want to go to restore order in Russia, but they were sure that the Cossacks would defend their lands. However, the situation in the Cossack regions of the southeast turned out to be much more complicated. The regiments returning from the front were completely neutral in the events taking place, they even showed a penchant for Bolshevism, declaring that the Bolsheviks had done nothing wrong to them.

In addition, inside the Cossack regions, a hard struggle was waged against the nonresident population, and in the Kuban and Terek also against the highlanders. At the disposal of the military atamans was the opportunity to use well-trained teams of young Cossacks, who were preparing to be sent to the front, and organize the call of the next ages of youth. General Kaledin could have had support in this from the elderly and front-line soldiers, who said: "We have served our own, now others must be called." The formation of Cossack youth from draft ages could give up to 2-3 divisions, which at that time was enough to maintain order on the Don, but this was not done. At the end of December, representatives of the British and French military missions arrived in Novocherkassk. They asked what had been done, what was planned to be done, after which they declared that they could help, but so far only in money, in the amount of 100 million rubles, in tranches of 10 million per month. The first pay was expected in January, but never received, and then the situation changed completely. The initial funds for the formation of the Good Army consisted of donations, but they were scanty, mainly due to the greed and stinginess of the Russian bourgeoisie and other propertied classes, unimaginable for the given circumstances. It should be said that the stinginess and stinginess of the Russian bourgeoisie is simply legendary. Back in 1909, during a discussion in the State Duma on the issue of kulaks, P.A. Stolypin spoke prophetic words. He said: “... there is no more greedy and shameless kulak and bourgeois than in Russia. It is no coincidence that in the Russian language the phrase "fist-world-eater and bourgeois-world-eater" is used. If they do not change the type of their social behavior, we are in for big shocks ... ". He looked into the water. They did not change their social behavior. Practically all the organizers of the white movement point to the low usefulness of their appeals for material assistance to the property classes. Nevertheless, by mid-January, a small (about 5 thousand people), but very combative and morally strong Volunteer Army turned out. The Council of People's Commissars demanded the extradition or dispersal of volunteers. Kaledin and Krug answered: “There is no extradition from the Don!”. The Bolsheviks, in order to eliminate the counter-revolutionaries, began to gather units loyal to them from the Western and Caucasian fronts to the Don region. They began to threaten the Don from the Donbass, Voronezh, Torgovaya and Tikhoretskaya. In addition, the Bolsheviks tightened control of the railroads and the influx of volunteers dropped sharply. At the end of January, the Bolsheviks occupied Bataysk and Taganrog, on January 29, the horse units moved from the Donbass to Novocherkassk. Don was defenseless against the Reds. Ataman Kaledin was confused, did not want bloodshed and decided to transfer his powers to the City Duma and democratic organizations, and then committed suicide with a shot in the heart. It was a sad but logical outcome of his activities. The First Don Circle gave the leader to the elected ataman, but did not give him power.

The troop government was placed at the head of the region, consisting of 14 foremen elected from each district. Their meetings were in the nature of a provincial duma and left no trace in the history of the Don. On November 20, the government addressed the population with a very liberal declaration, convening a congress of the Cossack and peasant population for December 29 to arrange the life of the Don region. In early January, a coalition government was created on an equal footing, 7 seats were given to the Cossacks, 7 to non-residents. The involvement of demagogues-intellectuals and revolutionary democracy in the government finally led to the paralysis of power. Ataman Kaledin was ruined by his trust in the Don peasants and non-residents, his famous "parity". He failed to glue the heterogeneous pieces of the population of the Don region. Don under him split into two camps, Cossacks and Don peasants, along with non-resident workers and artisans. The latter, with few exceptions, were with the Bolsheviks. The Don peasantry, which made up 48% of the population of the region, carried away by the broad promises of the Bolsheviks, was not satisfied with the measures of the Don authorities: the introduction of zemstvos in peasant districts, the involvement of peasants in participating in stanitsa self-government, their wide acceptance into the Cossack estate and the allocation of three million acres of landowners' land. Under the influence of the alien socialist element, the Don peasantry demanded a general division of the entire Cossack land. The numerically smallest working environment (10-11%) was concentrated in the most important centers, was the most restless and did not hide its sympathy for the Soviet government. The revolutionary-democratic intelligentsia has not outlived its former psychology and, with surprising blindness, continued the destructive policy that led to the death of democracy on an all-Russian scale. The bloc of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries reigned in all peasant congresses, congresses from other cities, all kinds of thoughts, councils, trade unions and inter-party meetings. There was not a single meeting where resolutions of no confidence in the chieftain, the government and the Circle were not passed, protests against their taking measures against anarchy, criminality and banditry.

They preached neutrality and reconciliation with the power that openly declared: "He who is not with us is against us." In the cities, workers' settlements and peasant settlements, the uprisings against the Cossacks did not subside. Attempts to put units of workers and peasants in the Cossack regiments ended in disaster. They betrayed the Cossacks, went to the Bolsheviks and took the Cossack officers with them to torment and death. The war took on the character of a class struggle. The Cossacks defended their Cossack rights from the Don workers and peasants. With the death of Ataman Kaledin and the occupation of Novocherkassk by the Bolsheviks, the period of the Great War and the transition to civil war ends in the south.

Rice. 2 Ataman Kaledin

On February 12, Bolshevik detachments occupied Novocherkassk and the military foreman Golubov, in "gratitude" for the fact that General Nazarov had once saved him from prison, shot the new chieftain. Having lost all hope of holding Rostov, on the night of February 9 (22), the Good Army of 2,500 fighters left the city for Aksai, and then moved to the Kuban. After the establishment of the power of the Bolsheviks in Novocherkassk, terror began. The Cossack units were prudently scattered throughout the city in small groups, dominance in the city was in the hands of non-residents and the Bolsheviks. On suspicion of having links with the Good Army, merciless executions of officers were carried out. The robberies and robberies of the Bolsheviks made the Cossacks alert, even the Cossacks of the Golubovsky regiments took a wait-and-see attitude. In the villages where nonresident and Don peasants seized power, the executive committees began to divide the Cossack lands. These outrages soon caused uprisings of the Cossacks in the villages adjacent to Novocherkassk. The head of the Reds on the Don, Podtelkov, and the head of the punitive detachment, Antonov, fled to Rostov, were then caught and executed. The occupation of Novocherkassk by the White Cossacks in April coincided with the occupation of Rostov by the Germans, and the return of the Volunteer Army to the Don region. But out of 252 villages of the Donskoy army, only 10 were liberated from the Bolsheviks. The Germans firmly occupied Rostov and Taganrog and the entire western part of the Donetsk region. Outposts of the Bavarian cavalry stood 12 miles from Novocherkassk. Under these conditions, the Don faced four main tasks:
- immediately convene a new Circle, in which only delegates of the liberated villages could take part
- establish relations with the German authorities, find out their intentions and negotiate with them
- recreate the Don army
- Establish relationships with the Volunteer Army.

On April 28, a general meeting of the Don government and delegates from the villages and military units that took part in the expulsion of Soviet troops from the Don region took place. The composition of this Circle could not have a claim to resolving issues for the entire Army, which is why it limited itself in its work to issues of organizing the struggle for the liberation of the Don. The assembly decided to declare itself the Don's Salvation Circle. There were 130 people in it. Even on the democratic Don, it was the most popular assembly. The circle was called gray because there was no intelligentsia on it. The cowardly intelligentsia at that time sat in the cellars and basements, shaking for their lives or groveling before the commissars, signing up for service in the Soviets or trying to get a job in innocent institutions for education, food and finance. She had no time for elections in this troubled time, when both voters and deputies risked their heads. The circle was chosen without party struggle, it was not up to that. The circle was chosen and elected to it exclusively by the Cossacks, who passionately desired to save their native Don and were ready to give their lives for this. And these were not empty words, because after the elections, having sent their delegates, the electors themselves took apart their weapons and went to save the Don. This Circle did not have a political physiognomy and had one goal - to save the Don from the Bolsheviks, by all means and at any cost. He was truly popular, meek, wise and businesslike. And this gray, from overcoat and overcoat cloth, that is, truly democratic, the Circle was saved by the people's mind Don. By the time the full military circle was convened on August 15, 1918, the Don land was cleared of the Bolsheviks.

The second urgent task for the Don was to settle relations with the Germans, who occupied Ukraine and the western part of the lands of the Don army. Ukraine also claimed the Don lands occupied by the Germans: Donbass, Taganrog and Rostov. The attitude towards the Germans and Ukraine was the most acute issue, and on April 29, the Circle decided to send a plenipotentiary embassy to the Germans in Kyiv in order to find out the reasons for their appearance on the territory of the Don. The talks were held in calm conditions. The Germans declared that they were not going to occupy the region and promised to clear the occupied villages, which they soon fulfilled. On the same day, the Circle decided to organize a real army, not from partisans, volunteers or combatants, but obeying laws and discipline. That, around and around which Ataman Kaledin with his government and the Circle, consisting of chatterboxes-intellectuals, trampled about for almost a year, the gray Circle of the Don's salvation decided at two meetings. The Don Army was also only in the project, and the command of the Volunteer Army already wished to crush it under itself. But Krug answered clearly and specifically: "The supreme command of all military forces, without exception, operating on the territory of the Donskoy army, should belong to the military ataman ...". Such an answer did not satisfy Denikin, he wanted to have large replenishments in people and materiel in the person of the Don Cossacks, and not to have a “allied” army nearby. The circle worked intensively, meetings were held in the morning and in the evening. He was in a hurry to restore order and was not afraid of reproaches in an effort to return to the old regime. On May 1, the Circle decided: “Unlike the Bolshevik gangs, which do not wear any external insignia, all units participating in the defense of the Don should immediately take on their military appearance and put on shoulder straps and other insignia.” On May 3, as a result of a closed vote, by 107 votes (13 against, 10 abstained), Major General P.N. Krasnov. General Krasnov did not accept this election until the Krug passed the laws that he considered necessary to introduce in the Don army in order to be able to fulfill the tasks assigned to him by the Krug. Krasnov said at the Circle: “Creativity has never been the lot of the team. The Madonna of Raphael was created by Raphael, not by a committee of artists ... You are the owners of the Don land, I am your manager. It's all about trust. If you trust me, you accept the laws I proposed, if you do not accept them, then you do not trust me, you are afraid that I will use the power you have given to the detriment of the army. Then we have nothing to talk about. Without your complete trust, I cannot rule the army.” To the question of one of the members of the Circle, could he propose to change or redo something in the laws proposed by the ataman, Krasnov replied: “You can. Articles 48,49,50. You can propose any flag other than red, any emblem other than the Jewish five-pointed star, any anthem other than the International…” The very next day, the Circle considered all the laws proposed by the ataman and adopted them. The circle restored the ancient pre-Petrine title "Great Don Army". The laws were almost a complete copy of the basic laws of the Russian Empire, with the difference that the rights and prerogatives of the emperor passed to ... the ataman. And there was no time for sentimentality.

Before the eyes of the Don's Salvation Circle stood the bloodied ghosts of the shot ataman Kaledin and the shot ataman Nazarov. The Don lay in rubble, it was not only destroyed, but polluted by the Bolsheviks, and the German horses drank the water of the Quiet Don, a river sacred to the Cossacks. The work of the former Circles led to this, with the decisions of which Kaledin and Nazarov fought, but could not win, because they did not have power. But these laws created many enemies for the ataman. As soon as the Bolsheviks were expelled, the intelligentsia, hiding in the cellars and cellars, crawled out and staged a liberal howl. These laws did not satisfy Denikin either, who saw in them a desire for independence. On May 5, the Circle dispersed, and the ataman was left alone to rule the army. On the same evening, his adjutant Yesaul Kulgavov went to Kyiv with handwritten letters to Hetman Skoropadsky and Emperor Wilhelm. The result of the letter was that on May 8, a German delegation came to the chieftain, with a statement that the Germans did not pursue any aggressive goals in relation to the Don and would leave Rostov and Taganrog as soon as they saw that complete order had been restored in the Don region. On May 9, Krasnov met with the Kuban chieftain Filimonov and the delegation of Georgia, and on May 15 in the village of Manychskaya with Alekseev and Denikin. The meeting revealed deep differences between the Don ataman and the command of the Dobrarmia both in tactics and in the strategy of fighting the Bolsheviks. The purpose of the rebel Cossacks was the liberation of the land of the Don army from the Bolsheviks. They had no further intentions to wage war outside their territory.

Rice. 3 Ataman Krasnov P.N.

By the time Novocherkassk was occupied and the ataman was elected by the Don Rescue Circle, all the armed forces consisted of six foot and two cavalry regiments of various sizes. The junior officers were from the villages and were good, but there was a shortage of hundreds and regimental commanders. Having experienced many insults and humiliations during the revolution, many senior leaders at first had a distrust of the Cossack movement. The Cossacks were dressed in their semi-military dress, there were no boots. Up to 30% were dressed in props and bast shoes. Most wore epaulettes, all wore white stripes on their caps and hats to distinguish them from the Red Guard. The discipline was fraternal, the officers ate with the Cossacks from the same boiler, because they were most often relatives. The headquarters were small, for economic purposes in the regiments there were several public figures from the villages who solved all rear issues. The fight was short lived. No trenches or fortifications were built. There were few entrenching tools, and natural laziness prevented the Cossacks from digging in. The tactics were simple. At dawn, the offensive began with liquid chains. At this time, a bypass column was moving along an intricate route to the flank and rear of the enemy. If the enemy was ten times stronger, this was considered normal for the offensive. As soon as a bypass column appeared, the Reds began to retreat, and then the Cossack cavalry rushed at them with a wild, soul-chilling boom, overturned and took them prisoner. Sometimes the battle began with a feigned retreat of twenty miles (this is an old Cossack venter). The Reds rushed to pursue, and at this time the bypass columns closed behind them and the enemy found himself in a fire bag. With such tactics, Colonel Guselshchikov with regiments of 2-3 thousand people smashed and captured entire Red Guard divisions of 10-15 thousand people with convoys and artillery. Cossack custom demanded that the officers go ahead, so their losses were very high. For example, the division commander, General Mamantov, was wounded three times and all in chains. In the attack, the Cossacks were merciless, they were also merciless to the captured Red Guards. They were especially harsh towards the captured Cossacks, who were considered traitors to the Don. Here the father used to sentence his son to death and did not want to say goodbye to him. It also happened vice versa. At this time, the echelons of the Red troops, who fled to the east, still continued to move across the territory of the Don. But in June, the railway line was cleared of the Reds, and in July, after the Bolsheviks were expelled from the Khoper District, the entire territory of the Don was liberated from the Reds by the Cossacks themselves.

In other Cossack regions, the situation was no easier than on the Don. A particularly difficult situation was among the Caucasian tribes, where the Russian population was scattered. The North Caucasus was raging. The fall of the central government caused a more serious shock here than anywhere else. Reconciled by the tsarist authorities, but not outlived by centuries of strife and not forgetting old grievances, the diverse population became agitated. The Russian element that united it, about 40% of the population consisted of two equal groups, Terek Cossacks and non-residents. But these groups were separated by social conditions, settled their land scores and could not oppose the Bolshevik danger of unity and strength. While Ataman Karaulov was alive, several Terek regiments and some ghost of power survived. On December 13, at the Prokhladnaya station, a crowd of Bolshevik soldiers, on the orders of the Vladikavkaz Soviet of Deputies, unhooked the ataman’s car, drove it to a distant dead end and opened fire on the car. Karaulov was killed. In fact, power on the Terek passed to local soviets and gangs of soldiers of the Caucasian Front, who flowed in a continuous stream from Transcaucasia and, unable to penetrate further to their native places, due to the complete blockage of the Caucasian highways, settled like locusts in the Terek-Dagestan region. They terrorized the populace, planted new councils, or hired themselves into the service of existing ones, spreading fear, blood, and destruction everywhere. This stream served as the most powerful conductor of Bolshevism, which swept the nonresident Russian population (because of the thirst for land), offended the Cossack intelligentsia (because of the thirst for power) and embarrassed the Terek Cossacks (because of the fear of "going against the people"). As for the highlanders, they were extremely conservative in their way of life, in which social and land inequality was very weakly reflected. True to their customs and traditions, they were governed by their own national councils and were alien to the ideas of Bolshevism. But the highlanders quickly and willingly accepted the applied aspects of the central anarchy and intensified violence and robbery. By disarming the passing military echelons, they had a lot of weapons and ammunition. On the basis of the Caucasian native corps, they formed national military formations.

After the death of Ataman Karaulov, an unbearable struggle with the Bolshevik detachments that filled the region and the aggravation of contentious issues with neighbors - Kabardians, Chechens, Ossetians, Ingush - the Terek Host was turned into a republic that was part of the RSFSR. Quantitatively, Terek Cossacks in the Terek region made up 20% of the population, non-residents - 20%, Ossetians - 17%, Chechens - 16%, Kabardians - 12% and Ingush - 4%. The most active among other peoples were the smallest - the Ingush, who put up a strong and well-armed detachment. They robbed everyone and kept Vladikavkaz in constant fear, which they captured and plundered in January. When on March 9, 1918, Soviet power was established in Dagestan, as well as on the Terek, the first goal of the Council of People's Commissars was to break the Terek Cossacks, destroying their special advantages. Armed expeditions of the highlanders were sent to the villages, robberies, violence and murders were carried out, land was taken away and transferred to the Ingush and Chechens. In this difficult situation, the Terek Cossacks lost heart. While the mountain peoples created their armed forces through improvisation, the natural Cossack army, which had 12 well-organized regiments, decomposed, dispersed and disarmed at the request of the Bolsheviks. However, the excesses of the Reds led to the fact that on June 18, 1918, the uprising of the Terek Cossacks began under the leadership of Bicherakhov. The Cossacks defeat the Red troops and block their remnants in Grozny and Kizlyar. On July 20, in Mozdok, the Cossacks were convened for a congress, at which they decided on an armed uprising against Soviet power. The Tertsy established contact with the command of the Volunteer Army, the Terek Cossacks created a combat detachment of up to 12,000 people with 40 guns and resolutely took the path of fighting the Bolsheviks.

The Orenburg Army under the command of Ataman Dutov, the first to declare independence from the power of the Soviets, was the first to be invaded by detachments of workers and red soldiers, who began robbery and repression. Veteran of the fight against the Soviets, Orenburg Cossack General I.G. Akulinin recalled: “The stupid and cruel policy of the Bolsheviks, their undisguised hatred of the Cossacks, desecration of Cossack shrines and, especially, massacres, requisitions, indemnities and robbery in the villages - all this opened my eyes to the essence of Soviet power and made me take up arms . The Bolsheviks could not lure the Cossacks. The Cossacks had land, and the will - in the form of the broadest self-government - they returned to themselves in the first days of the February Revolution. In the mood of the ordinary and front-line Cossacks, a turning point gradually occurred, it increasingly began to oppose the violence and arbitrariness of the new government. If in January 1918, Ataman Dutov, under pressure from the Soviet troops, left Orenburg, and he had barely three hundred active fighters left, then on the night of April 4, more than 1000 Cossacks were raided on sleeping Orenburg, and on July 3, power in Orenburg again passed into the hands of the ataman.

Fig.5 Ataman Dutov

In the region of the Ural Cossacks, the resistance was more successful, despite the small number of troops. Uralsk was not occupied by the Bolsheviks. From the beginning of the birth of Bolshevism, the Ural Cossacks did not accept its ideology and back in March they easily dispersed the local Bolshevik revolutionary committees. The main reasons were that there were no non-residents among the Urals, there was a lot of land, and the Cossacks were Old Believers, who more strictly kept their religious and moral principles. The Cossack regions of Asian Russia generally occupied a special position. All of them were not numerous in composition, most of them were historically formed under special conditions by state measures, for the purposes of state necessity, and their historical existence was determined by insignificant periods. Despite the fact that these troops did not have well-established Cossack traditions, foundations and skills for forms of statehood, they all turned out to be hostile to the impending Bolshevism. In mid-April 1918, about 1000 bayonets and sabers against 5.5 thousand of the Reds went on the offensive from Manchuria to Transbaikalia. At the same time, an uprising of the Transbaikal Cossacks began. By May, Semyonov's troops approached Chita, but they could not immediately take it. The battles between the Cossacks of Semenov and the Red detachments, which consisted mainly of former political prisoners and captured Hungarians, went on in Transbaikalia with varying success. However, at the end of July, the Cossacks defeated the Red troops and took Chita on August 28. Soon the Amur Cossacks drove the Bolsheviks out of their capital, Blagoveshchensk, and the Ussuri Cossacks took Khabarovsk. Thus, under the command of their chieftains: Transbaikal - Semyonov, Ussuriysky - Kalmykov, Semirechensky - Annenkov, Ural - Tolstov, Siberian - Ivanov, Orenburg - Dutov, Astrakhan - Prince Tundutov, they entered into a decisive battle. In the fight against the Bolsheviks, the Cossack regions fought exclusively for their lands and law and order, and their actions, by definition of historians, were in the nature of a partisan war.

A huge role along the entire length of the Siberian railway was played by the troops of the Czechoslovak legions, formed by the Russian government from prisoners of war of Czechs and Slovaks, numbering up to 45,000 people. By the beginning of the revolution, the Czech corps stood in the rear of the Southwestern Front in Ukraine. In the eyes of the Austro-Germans, the legionnaires, like former prisoners of war, were traitors. When the Germans attacked Ukraine in March 1918, the Czechs offered them strong resistance, but most Czechs did not see their place in Soviet Russia and wanted to return to the European front. Under an agreement with the Bolsheviks, trains of Czechs were sent towards Siberia to board ships in Vladivostok and send them to Europe. In addition to the Czechoslovaks, there were many captured Hungarians in Russia, who mostly sympathized with the Reds. With the Hungarians, the Czechoslovaks had a centuries-old and fierce hostility and enmity (how can one not recall the immortal works of J. Hasek in this connection). Because of the fear of attacks on the way by the Hungarian red units, the Czechs resolutely refused to obey the order of the Bolsheviks to surrender all weapons, which is why it was decided to disperse the Czech legions. They were divided into four groups with a distance between groups of echelons of 1000 kilometers, so that the echelons with the Czechs stretched over the whole of Siberia from the Volga to Transbaikalia. The Czech legions played a colossal role in the Russian civil war, since after their rebellion the struggle against the Soviets intensified sharply.

Despite the agreements, there were considerable misunderstandings in the relationship between the Czechs, Hungarians and local revolutionary committees. As a result, on May 25, 1918, 4.5 thousand Czechs rebelled in Mariinsk, on May 26, the Hungarians provoked an uprising of 8.8 thousand Czechs in Chelyabinsk. Then, with the support of the Czechoslovak troops, the Bolsheviks were overthrown on May 26 in Novonikolaevsk, May 29 in Penza, May 30 in Syzran, May 31 in Tomsk and Kurgan, June 7 in Omsk, June 8 in Samara and June 18 in Krasnoyarsk. In the liberated areas, the formation of Russian combat units began. On July 5, Russian and Czechoslovak detachments occupy Ufa, and on July 25 they take Yekaterinburg. The Czechoslovak legionnaires themselves at the end of 1918 begin a gradual retreat to the Far East. But, participating in the battles in the army of Kolchak, they will finally finish the retreat and leave Vladivostok for France only at the beginning of 1920. Under such conditions, the Russian White movement began in the Volga region and Siberia, not counting the independent actions of the Ural and Orenburg Cossack troops, who began the fight against the Bolsheviks immediately after they came to power. On June 8, in Samara, liberated from the Reds, the Committee of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) was created. He declared himself a temporary revolutionary power, which, having spread over the entire territory of Russia, was to transfer the government of the country to the legally elected Constituent Assembly. The risen population of the Volga region began a successful struggle against the Bolsheviks, but in the liberated places, management was in the hands of the fled fragments of the Provisional Government. These heirs and participants in destructive activities, having formed a government, carried out the same pernicious work. At the same time, Komuch created his own armed forces - the People's Army. On June 9, Lieutenant Colonel Kappel began to command a detachment of 350 people in Samara. The replenished detachment in the middle of June takes Syzran, Stavropol Volzhsky (now Tolyatti), and also inflicts a heavy defeat on the Reds near Melekes. July 21 Kappel takes Simbirsk, defeating the superior forces of the Soviet commander Guy defending the city. As a result, by the beginning of August 1918, the territory of the Constituent Assembly stretched from west to east for 750 miles from Syzran to Zlatoust, from north to south for 500 miles from Simbirsk to Volsk. On August 7, Kappel's troops, having previously defeated the red river flotilla that had come out to meet at the mouth of the Kama, take Kazan. There they seize part of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire (650 million gold rubles in coins, 100 million rubles in credit marks, gold bars, platinum and other valuables), as well as huge warehouses with weapons, ammunition, medicines, ammunition. This gave the Samara government a solid financial and material base. With the capture of Kazan, the Academy of the General Staff, which was in the city, headed by General A.I. Andogsky, moved to the anti-Bolshevik camp in full force.

In Yekaterinburg, a government of industrialists was formed, in Omsk - the Siberian government, in Chita the government of Ataman Semyonov, who headed the Transbaikal army. Allies dominated Vladivostok. Then General Horvat arrived from Harbin, and as many as three authorities were formed: from proteges of the allies, General Horvat and from the board of the railway. Such a fragmentation of the anti-Bolshevik front in the east required unification, and a meeting was convened in Ufa to select a single authoritative government. The situation in parts of the anti-Bolshevik forces was unfavorable. The Czechs did not want to fight in Russia and demanded that they be sent to the European fronts against the Germans. There was no trust in the Siberian government and members of Komuch in the troops and the people. In addition, the representative of England, General Knox, said that until a firm government was created, the supply of supplies from the British would be stopped. Under these conditions, Admiral Kolchak entered the government and in the fall he made a coup and was proclaimed head of government and supreme commander with the transfer of all power to him.

In the south of Russia, events unfolded as follows. After the occupation of Novocherkassk by the Reds in early 1918, the Volunteer Army retreated to the Kuban. During the campaign to Yekaterinodar, the army, having endured all the difficulties of the winter campaign, later nicknamed the "ice campaign", fought continuously. After the death of General Kornilov, who was killed near Ekaterinodar on March 31 (April 13), the army again made its way with a large number of prisoners to the territory of the Don, where by that time the Cossacks, who had rebelled against the Bolsheviks, had begun to clear their territory. The army only by May fell into conditions that allowed it to rest and replenish for further struggle against the Bolsheviks. Although the attitude of the command of the Volunteer Army towards the German army was irreconcilable, it, having no weapons, tearfully begged Ataman Krasnov to send the Volunteer Army weapons, shells and cartridges received from the German army. Ataman Krasnov, in his colorful expression, receiving military equipment from hostile Germans, washed them in the clear waters of the Don and transferred part of the Volunteer Army. The Kuban was still occupied by the Bolsheviks. In the Kuban, the break with the center, which occurred on the Don due to the collapse of the Provisional Government, occurred earlier and more sharply. As early as October 5, with a strong protest from the Provisional Government, the regional Cossack Rada adopted a resolution on the allocation of the region to an independent Kuban Republic. At the same time, the right to choose a self-government body was granted only to the Cossack, mountain population and old-timer peasants, that is, almost half of the region's population was deprived of voting rights. A military ataman, Colonel Filimonov, was placed at the head of the government from among the socialists. The strife between the Cossack and non-resident populations took on ever more acute forms. Not only non-resident population, but also front-line Cossacks stood up against the Rada and the government. Bolshevism came to this mass. The Kuban units returning from the front did not go to war against the government, did not want to fight the Bolsheviks and did not follow the orders of their elected authorities. An attempt to create a government on the basis of "parity" on the model of the Don ended in the same paralysis of power. Everywhere, in every village, the village, the Red Guard from other cities gathered, they were joined by a part of the front-line Cossacks, who did not obey the center well, but followed exactly its policy. These undisciplined, but well-armed and violent gangs set about imposing Soviet power, redistributing land, seizing grain surpluses and socializing, and simply robbing wealthy Cossacks and beheading the Cossacks - persecuting officers, non-Bolshevik intelligentsia, priests, respected old people. And above all to disarmament. It is worthy of surprise with what complete non-resistance the Cossack villages, regiments and batteries gave up their rifles, machine guns, guns. When at the end of April the villages of the Yeysk department rebelled, it was a completely unarmed militia. The Cossacks had no more than 10 rifles per hundred, the rest armed themselves with what they could. Some attached daggers or scythes to long sticks, others took pitchforks, a third spear, and others simply shovels and axes. Against the defenseless villages, punitive detachments with ... Cossack weapons came out. By the beginning of April, all nonresident villages and 85 out of 87 villages were Bolshevik. But the Bolshevism of the villages was purely external. Often only the names changed: the ataman became the commissar, the stanitsa gathering - the council, the stanitsa board - the ispokom.

Where the executive committees were captured by non-residents, their decisions were sabotaged, being re-elected every week. There was a stubborn, but passive, without enthusiasm and enthusiasm, the struggle of the age-old way of Cossack democracy and life with the new government. There was a desire to preserve the Cossack democracy, but there was no daring. All this, in addition, was heavily implicated in the pro-Ukrainian separatism of a part of the Cossacks who had Dnieper roots. The pro-Ukrainian activist Luka Bych, who headed the Rada, said: “To help the Volunteer Army means to prepare for the re-absorption of the Kuban by Russia.” Under these conditions, Ataman Shkuro gathered the first partisan detachment, located in the Stavropol region, where the Council met, intensified the struggle and presented the Council with an ultimatum. The uprising of the Kuban Cossacks quickly gained momentum. In June, the 8,000th Volunteer Army began its second campaign against the Kuban, which had completely rebelled against the Bolsheviks. This time White was lucky. General Denikin successively defeated the 30 thousandth army of Kalnin near Belaya Glina and Tikhoretskaya, then in a fierce battle near Ekaterinodar the 30 thousandth army of Sorokin. On July 21, the Whites occupy Stavropol, and on August 17, Ekaterinodar. Blocked on the Taman Peninsula, the 30,000-strong group of Reds under the command of Kovtyukh, the so-called "Taman Army", along the Black Sea coast, fights its way across the Kuban River, where the remnants of the defeated armies of Kalnin and Sorokin fled. By the end of August, the territory of the Kuban army is completely cleared of the Bolsheviks, and the size of the white army reaches 40 thousand bayonets and sabers. However, having entered the territory of the Kuban, Denikin issued a decree in the name of the Kuban ataman and the government, demanding:
- full tension from the Kuban for its speedy liberation from the Bolsheviks
- all priority units of the military forces of the Kuban should henceforth be part of the Volunteer Army to carry out nationwide tasks
- in the future, no separatism should be shown by the liberated Kuban Cossacks.

Such a gross intervention of the command of the Volunteer Army in the internal affairs of the Kuban Cossacks had a negative effect. General Denikin led an army that did not have a definite territory, a people subject to him and, even worse, a political ideology. The commander of the Don Army, General Denisov, in his hearts even called the volunteers "wandering musicians." The ideas of General Denikin focused on armed struggle. Not having sufficient funds for this, General Denikin demanded for the struggle that the Cossack regions of the Don and Kuban be subordinated to him. Don was in better conditions and was not at all bound by Denikin's instructions. The German army was perceived on the Don as a real force that helped to get rid of Bolshevik domination and terror. The Don government entered into contact with the German command and established fruitful cooperation. Relations with the Germans turned into a purely business form. The rate of the German mark was set at 75 kopecks of the Don currency, a price was made for a Russian rifle with 30 cartridges for one pood of wheat or rye, and other supply agreements were concluded. During the first month and a half, the Don Army received from the German army through Kiev: 11,651 rifles, 88 machine guns, 46 guns, 109 thousand artillery shells, 11.5 million rifle cartridges, of which 35 thousand artillery shells and about 3 million rifle cartridges. At the same time, all the shame of peaceful relations with an irreconcilable enemy fell solely on Ataman Krasnov. As for the High Command, according to the laws of the Don Cossacks, such a command could only belong to the Army ataman, and before his election - to the marching ataman. This discrepancy led to the fact that the Don demanded the return of all the Don people from the Dorovol’s army. Relations between the Don and the Dobrarmia became not allied, but relations of fellow travelers.

In addition to tactics, there were also large differences in the white movement in strategy, policy and war goals. The goal of the Cossack masses was to liberate their land from the invasion of the Bolsheviks, establish order in their region and provide the Russian people with the opportunity to arrange their own destiny at their own will. Meanwhile, the forms of civil war and the organization of the armed forces brought military art back to the epoch of the 19th century. The success of the troops then depended solely on the qualities of the commander who directly controlled the troops. Good commanders of the 19th century did not scatter the main forces, but directed towards one main goal: to capture the political center of the enemy. With the capture of the center, paralysis of the government of the country occurs and the conduct of the war becomes more complicated. The Council of People's Commissars, who was sitting in Moscow, was in exceptionally difficult conditions, reminiscent of the position of Muscovite Rus' in the XIV-XV centuries, limited by the Oka and Volga rivers. Moscow was cut off from all types of supplies, and the goals of the Soviet rulers were reduced to obtaining basic food and a piece of daily bread. In the pathetic appeals of the leaders, there were no longer motivating high motives emanating from the ideas of Marx, they sounded cynical, figurative and simple, as they once sounded in the speeches of the people's leader Pugachev: “Go, take everything and destroy everyone who gets in your way” . Narkomvoenmor Bronstein (Trotsky), in his speech on June 9, 1918, indicated the goals are simple and clear: “Comrades! Among all the questions that concern our hearts, there is one simple question - the question of daily bread. All our thoughts, all our ideals are now dominated by one concern, one anxiety: how to survive tomorrow. Everyone involuntarily thinks about himself, about his family ... My task is not at all to conduct only one agitation among you. We need to have a serious talk about the food situation in the country. According to our statistics, in the year 17 there was a surplus of grain in those places that are producing and exporting grain, there were 882,000,000 poods. On the other hand, there are regions in the country where there is a shortage of their own bread. If you calculate, it turns out that they lack 322,000,000 poods. Consequently, in one part of the country there are 882,000,000 poods of excess, and in another, 322,000,000 poods are not enough ...

In the North Caucasus alone, there are now no less than 140,000,000 poods of grain surpluses; in order to satisfy hunger, we need 15,000,000 poods a month for the whole country. Just think about it: 140,000,000 pounds of surplus, located only in the North Caucasus, may be enough, therefore, for ten months for the whole country. ... Let each of you now promise to provide immediate practical assistance to us to organize a campaign for bread. In fact, it was a direct call for robbery. Thanks to the complete lack of glasnost, the paralysis of public life and the complete fragmentation of the country, the Bolsheviks promoted people to leadership positions for whom, under normal conditions, there is one place - prison. Under such conditions, the task of the White Command in the struggle against the Bolsheviks was to have the shortest goal of capturing Moscow, without being distracted by any other secondary tasks. And in order to fulfill this main task, it was necessary to attract the widest sections of the people, especially the peasants. In reality, it was the other way around. The volunteer army, instead of marching on Moscow, got bogged down in the North Caucasus, the white Ural-Siberian troops could not cross the Volga in any way. All revolutionary changes beneficial to the peasants and the people, economic and political, were not recognized by the Whites. The first step of their civilian representatives in the liberated territory was a decree canceling all orders issued by the Provisional Government and the Council of People's Commissars, including those relating to property relations. General Denikin, having absolutely no plan to establish a new order capable of satisfying the population, consciously or unconsciously, wanted to return Rus' to its original pre-revolutionary position, and the peasants were obliged to pay for the occupied lands to their former owners. After that, could the whites count on the support of their activities by the peasants? Of course not. The Cossacks also refused to go beyond the Donskoy army. And they were right. Voronezh, Saratov and other peasants not only did not fight the Bolsheviks, but also went against the Cossacks. It was not without difficulty that the Cossacks were able to cope with their Don peasants and non-residents, but they could not defeat the entire peasant central Russia and understood this very well.

As Russian and non-Russian history shows us, when cardinal changes and decisions are required, not just people are needed, but extraordinary personalities, who, unfortunately, did not turn out during the Russian timelessness. The country needed a government capable of not only issuing decrees, but also having intelligence and authority, so that these decrees were carried out by the people, preferably voluntarily. Such power does not depend on state forms, but is based, as a rule, solely on the abilities and authority of the leader. Bonaparte, having established power, did not look for any forms, but managed to force him to obey his will. He forced both representatives of the royal nobility and people from the sans-culottes to serve France. There were no such consolidating personalities in the white and red movements, and this led to an incredible split and bitterness in the ensuing civil war. But that's a completely different story.

Materials used:
Gordeev A.A. - History of the Cossacks
Mamonov V.F. etc. - History of the Cossacks of the Urals. Orenburg-Chelyabinsk 1992
Shibanov N.S. – Orenburg Cossacks of the 20th century
Ryzhkova N.V. - Don Cossacks in the wars of the early twentieth century-2008
Brusilov A.A. My memories. Military publishing house. M.1983
Krasnov P.N. The Great Don Army. "Patriot" M.1990
Lukomsky A.S. The origin of the Volunteer Army. M.1926
Denikin A.I. How the fight against the Bolsheviks began in southern Russia. M.1926

On the evening of August 4, the grand opening of the memorial complex "Don Cossacks in the fight against the Bolsheviks" took place in the Yelanskaya village of the Sholokhov district of the Rostov region. Through the work of many Cossacks, primarily Vladimir Petrovich Melikhov, the memorial perpetuated the memory of the seven main administrative and military leaders of the Pacific Don during the Civil War. Six of these leaders are represented by bronze bas-reliefs: E. A. Voloshinov, V. M. Chernetsov, A. M. Kaledin, A. M. Nazarov, S. V. Denisov and I. A. Polyakov, the seventh is immortalized in a four-meter bronze statue with an ataman's pernach in his hands - General Pyotr Krasnov, ataman of the All-Great Don Army.

"PLEASE REMEMBER, COMRADES, TO WHOM DO YOU PUT A MONUMENT?"

In order to realize that the opening of the memorial complex in the village of Yelanskaya has nothing to do with the "opening of a monument to Hitler," as some local residents hastened to declare, one just needs to understand one simple thing. Although it is the leaders of the Don Army that are represented in the memorial (and in this capacity the monument is one of the first), first of all, the memorial was erected in memory of the tragedy of the entire Don Cossacks. And the same memorials should be placed on the lands of all the Cossack troops that were in Russia on the eve of the Civil War. Because the Cossacks, alas, did not leave any more tangible memory on their own. And they didn't leave it, not because they themselves wished to disappear without a trace, but because they were greatly "helped" to do so. Who exactly?

In Soviet, and even in Russian historiography, one can come across the point of view that the Cossacks themselves pushed the Bolsheviks away from themselves, who tried with all their might to integrate them into a new life. The reason for this, they say, was the backwardness of the Cossacks and their stubborn unwillingness to break with the "exploiters". Therefore, therefore, if they received it, then according to their merits. Let's see how fair this point of view is and what exactly the Russian Cossacks were like on the eve of the revolution.

WHO THE COSSACKS WERE AND WHAT THEY DID TO THEM

The total number of Cossacks in 1917 was at least 4.4 million people (according to some sources, 67 million). At the same time, there were slightly more than 300 thousand Cossacks in the ranks. The total population of the Russian Empire on the eve of the revolution was estimated at 166 million people, and the Imperial Army - at 10 12 million people. Of the total number of Cossacks, the Don army numbered more than 2.5 million Cossacks, the Kuban - 1.4 million, the Terek - 250 thousand. The total number of the Amur, Ussuri, Siberian and Transbaikal Cossack troops was slightly less than 1 million people. The Ural Cossacks numbered more than 150 thousand people, of which there was no trace after the Civil War, which makes the fate of this army unique even by the standards of revolutionary Russia.

The Cossacks were one of the most closed estates of the Russian Empire. It was impossible to become a Cossack, they could only be born - since 1811, by a special royal decree, it was forbidden to leave the Cossacks and enroll in the Cossacks. Stanitsa and district Circles and Atamans enjoyed considerable independence in spending funds: they built schools, gymnasiums, military schools, assigned pensions to war invalids and the families of the dead, built bridges, repaired roads, and so on. Each Cossack was obliged to serve for 20 years, of which 4 years in personnel units, 7 years in the reserve of the 1st stage. After that, he could be involved in the ranks only in the event of a major war. This means that, starting service at the age of 21, from the age of 32 he could safely take care of his family and household.

The Cossacks, along with the peasantry and the clergy, were one of the most conservative classes in the Russian Empire. At the same time, they were perfectly organized, without exception armed and excellently trained to wield weapons. Of course, any government was obliged to reckon with them and, if possible, tried to win them over to its side.

The Soviet government was no exception. On December 7, 1917, the II Congress of Soviets issued an Appeal to the Labor Cossacks. I wonder how the Bolsheviks tried to attract the Cossacks? The Cossacks were a conservative, self-organizing and armed force. The Bolsheviks advocated the demolition of everything old, for the "dictatorship of the proletariat", in no way compatible with the original Cossack way of life, and for the complete disarmament of everyone except themselves and those who agree to fight for them. It would seem that there were no points of contact between the Cossacks and the Bolsheviks and could not be.

But no, such a point is still found. It was called exactly the same as the current ideological "national democrats", almost no different from the ideological Bolsheviks, even by nationality - "Down with labor!" In the sense - "Down with the public service!". And the Cossack youth, especially the front-line soldiers, bought into it.

Indeed, the service of the Cossacks to the state was difficult, even in material terms. For example, for each young Cossack, his kuren (that is, a large patriarchal family) had to buy a horse, a pike, a saber, a rifle, a dagger, two revolvers, two sets of summer and winter uniforms, and so on. And in peacetime, not to mention wartime, the Cossack did not dare to go anywhere for more than three days without the permission of the stanitsa ataman. In addition to the obligation to go to war, each Cossack had to regularly attend military training camps, which, in their seriousness and intensity, were incomparable with those that the Soviet "partisans" went through.

And Lenin offered the Cossacks three populist points, which the "Old Regime" had nothing to cover:

1) Compulsory military service was abolished for the Cossacks;
2) All responsibilities for the uniform and armament of the Cossack servants were assumed by the Soviet treasury;
3) All Cossacks were allowed freedom of movement around the country, military fees were canceled.

The real content of these points, as the Bolsheviks led by Lenin understood them "to themselves", was completely different, and the Cossacks soon had to make sure of this the hard way:

1) Those who did not go to the Red Army to fight far from their native places were decossackized and resettled in Central Russia or Siberia;
2) In order to receive weapons and equipment from the treasury, the Cossacks had to first hand them over there, for concealing weapons - execution;
3) You could walk and ride anywhere, but only during the day, even in your own village: a curfew, for its violation - execution.

Both then and now, the communists and their supporters argued and continue to argue that the main motivation for the repression of the Cossacks was the material class moment: since most of the Cossacks were prosperous, they fell under the punishing sword of decossackization.

This is not entirely true. The main target of repression was precisely the traditional way of life. In fairness, it should be said that the class hatred inculcated by the Bolsheviks was not at all reduced to the principle of "rob the loot", although it included it as one of the main ideological components. Conservative communities, more or less loyal to old Russia, were exterminated regardless of their well-being: simply on the basis of their conservatism and loyalty.

"SHOULD BE DESTROYED TOTALLY"

The hypothesis that the Soviet government initially planned the destruction of the Cossacks as a class precisely because of the special way of life is confirmed, first of all, by the Soviet documents themselves. For example, the decision of the Don Bureau of the RCP (b) "On the basic principles in relation to the Cossacks", dated April 1919:

"1. The existence of the Don Cossacks with its economic way of life, the remnants of economic privileges, firmly entrenched reactionary traditions, memories of political privileges, remnants of the patriarchal system, with the dominant household and political influence of richer old people and a closely knit group of officers and bureaucrats, stands before the proletarian power by the constant threat of counter-revolutionary actions.

These performances are all the more dangerous because the military organization of the Cossacks was an integral part even of its everyday peaceful life. In general, training in the art of war, which makes every Cossack from 18 years old to the age of complete physical old age a skilled warrior, gives the counter-revolution a ready-made cadre of soldiers (up to 300 thousand people) who can very quickly mobilize (examples of all former uprisings) and arm themselves (hidden with the greatest cunning of weapons).

The situation of Soviet power, against which the threat of a successful offensive by foreign imperialism has not yet been eliminated, is threatened with the greatest danger by the presence of this cadre of counterrevolutionary manpower.

All this raises the urgent task 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 officials and officers, in general, all the top Cossacks, actively counter-revolutionary, dispersal and neutralization of the ordinary Cossacks and the formal liquidation of the Cossacks .

2. The practical implementation of this task at the present moment should be consistent with the strategic position of the front, so as not to cause immediate complications for the front by internal actions and so as not to stop the decay among the Cossacks who still remain in the ranks of the enemy by imprudent demonstrative repressions.

The use of repressions and mass terror should be in the nature of a justified punishment for the behavior of individuals, farms, villages (attempts to revolt, opposition to Soviet power, espionage, etc.).

In relation to the southern, most counter-revolutionary, Cossacks, economic terror should be carried out (economic bleeding of the Cossacks). Such measures should be:

1. Landlessness of the multi-landed Cherkasy Cossacks, landlessness of the most counter-revolutionary groups in other districts.

2. Abolition of military ownership of land (destruction of military, yurt lands), allocating this land to small-land local peasants and migrants, observing, if possible, the forms of collective land use.

3. Confiscation of fishing property from the Cossacks along the Don (the possession of which determined one of the existing privileges of the Cossacks) and its transfer to fishing artels and peasant fishermen.

4. The imposition of contributions on individual pages.

5. Carrying out an emergency tax in such a way that it, along with the big bourgeoisie, would bear its main burden on the Cossacks ... "

Even more briefly, this can be formulated in the words of another April document of the Donburo: "the very existence of the Cossacks, with its way of life, privileges and survivals, and, most importantly, the ability to conduct armed struggle, poses a threat to Soviet power. The Donburo proposed to eliminate the Cossacks as a special economic and ethnographic group by spraying it and settlement outside the Don"

The true motivation for such cruel actions against the Cossacks can be better understood from the following thought expressed by Trotsky: "The Cossacks are the only part of the Russian nation capable of self-organization. For this reason, they must be destroyed without exception." From here, the emotionality that Trotsky expressed about the fate of the Cossacks becomes clear and indecent for a politician: “This is a kind of zoological environment, and nothing more. throughout the Don and all of them to instill fear and almost religious horror... The old Cossacks must be burned in the flames of the social revolution ... Let their last remnants, like evangelical pigs, be thrown into the Black Sea ... "To crack down on the passionate sub-ethnic groups of the Russian people, as can be seen from here, it is possible to "pull by the ears" even hated by all Bolsheviks, and especially by "ethnic" ones, the Gospel - if only to incite various parts of the Russian people against each other ...

So, in 1918, the Bolsheviks launched a uniform terror against the Cossacks, which was "legislated" by the directive of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of January 24, 1919 "On the extermination of the Cossacks" (!) - a case that had no precedent in Russian history, when entire sub-ethnic groups of the Russian people were subject to extermination in the legislative order: they had to, as Trotsky put it, "arrange Carthage." After such directives, it would be somehow strange to expect from ordinary Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks loyalty to "one and indivisible Russia", which actively exterminated them in the Soviet guise.

At first, the Cossacks were suppressed by force, destroying not only everyone who raised weapons against the Soviet regime, but also all suspicious people in general, even just randomly.

"... I propose the following for steady execution: intensify all efforts to quickly eliminate the unrest that has arisen by concentrating maximum forces to suppress the uprising and by applying the most severe measures in relation to the instigators-farms:

A) the burning of the rebel farms;
b) merciless executions of all persons without exception who took direct or indirect part in the uprising;
c) executions through 5 or 10 people of the adult male population of the rebelled farms;
d) mass taking of hostages from neighboring farms to the insurgents;
e) widespread notification of the population of villages, villages, etc., that all villages and farms seen in helping the rebels will be subjected to merciless extermination of the entire adult male population and be burned at the first case of finding help; exemplary implementation of punitive measures with wide notification of the population".

"The Revolutionary Military Council of the 8th Army orders as soon as possible to suppress the uprising of traitors who took advantage of the confidence of the Red troops and mutinied in the rear. The traitors of the Don once again discovered in themselves centuries-old enemies of the working people. All Cossacks who raised weapons 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 must also be destroyed, without stopping at the percentage destruction of the population of the villages, burn the farms and villages that have raised weapons against us in the rear. There is no pity for traitors. All units acting against the rebels , is ordered to pass with fire and sword the area embraced by the rebellion, so that other villages would not even have the thought that by means of a treacherous uprising it is possible to return the Krasnov tsarist general regime.

But enough to quote Soviet documents. The above quotes are more than enough to understand their general direction. Let's move on to the fate of individual Cossack troops who died in the Civil War, most of which, as the realities of recent decades have shown, were never destined to be reborn.

Being limited by the volume of the publication, we cannot tell about all the disappeared Cossack troops, for example, about the Astrakhan, Ussuriysk or Semirechensk Cossacks, or about the Euphrates army, which was not equipped to the end. Therefore, we confine ourselves to only the most numerous Cossack troops, which had the greatest influence on the course of Russian history in the early middle of the 20th century.

DON, KUBAN AND TEREK COSSACKS

The first time the Don Cossacks took the side of the Bolsheviks in late 1917 - early 1918 "out of interest" and out of a desire to end the war. Their hopes were immediately cruelly deceived. Already in the answer to the Donskoy Krug from the commander of the Northern Detachment Yu.V. The Don people were not going to endure the first attempt at “decossackization” for a long time, and already on March 21, 1918, an anti-communist uprising broke out in the village of Suvorovskaya, which soon engulfed the entire Don. In early May 1918, the Don Salvation Circle was assembled, which chose General P. N. Krasnov as Ataman and set about liberating the Don from the Bolsheviks and building their own statehood - "until the restoration of the national state on an all-Russian scale."

The second time the Don people succumbed to the promises of the Bolsheviks in late 1918 - early 1919, when the authority of Krasnov and the Circle of the Don Army staggered under the blows of the Red troops at the front and volunteers with "allies" - in the rear. The Cossacks, under the influence of the red propaganda that was corrupting the Don army, did not wait for the arrival of the "allies" promised by Denikin, leaving the front, hoping to "make peace with the Bolsheviks" according to the principle proposed by the latter: "You are on your own, and we are on our own." The spring of 1919 showed how deceived the Cossacks were in their naive expectations.

For the third and last time during the Civil War, the Don Cossacks en masse went over to the side of the Reds already in 1920 - during the Novorossiysk evacuation, which was absolutely shameful for the volunteer command, and especially during the capitulation of the Kuban army on the Black Sea coast, when 2 Don and 4 Kuban corps, abandoned volunteers. Most of those who surrendered went to the Reds not out of love for them - they hated the Reds for a long time and stubbornly - but only because after this surrender they hated the Whites even more. As the Donets of the Gundorovsky Regiment, who escaped from the red captivity, said in June 1920, “They have our lads - a passion. Chernomorye "Pipes," they say, "so that someday we will again serve the whites. Why did they leave us to the mercy of fate in Novorossiysk? Gentlemen generals showed themselves there. Enough to amuse their excellencies, waking up with us. "These, who were captured by the Reds from the sea, are the most furious. They are ferocious for nothing. They say that your rastudy is your general."

The tragic fate of the Kuban Cossack army, the second largest after the Don, among other circumstances, was due to the ill-fated intrigue of politicians from the Kuban Rada with "independence". This "independence" reached its climax in the autumn of 1919, when members of the Rada concluded an agreement with the highlanders of the Caucasus, according to which the Kuban troops were placed at the disposal of the mountain government. At a time when the fate of the entire White Struggle was being decided in the Moscow direction, such an agreement could not be called anything other than treason. The massacre of the "independents", which was perpetrated by General Wrangel, who arrived in the Kuban, finally undermined the spirit of many Kuban Cossacks, who naively believed that "the Rada stood up for us." The Kuban people began to leave the front en masse, hoping to reach an agreement with the Bolsheviks at home. Needless to say, after the evacuation of volunteers from Novorossiysk, at best, the Red Army and the Polish front waited for the Kuban, at worst and most often - northern and Siberian camps. The remnants of the Kuban Cossacks, who were aware of their identity, were finished off in the late 1920s and early 1930s: collectivization, famine, "black boards", unsuccessful uprisings suppressed by punishers - about all this in the works of Soviet agitprop, such as the film "Kuban Cossacks", not find no mention.

The Terek Cossack army, the smallest of the three Cossack troops in the South of Russia, was the very first to leave the historical stage. By the time of the October Revolution, less than 40 thousand people remained in the ranks of the Terek Cossacks. The ataman of the Terek army, Mikhail Alexandrovich Karaulov, with his authority and military-administrative abilities, forced the highlanders, who had long been hostile to the Terek Cossacks and surrounded him from all sides, to reckon with the Terek army. But on December 12, 1917, Ataman Karaulov was killed at the Prokhladnaya station by revolutionary soldiers, and the highlanders with the Terek Cossacks immediately began to cut and shoot each other. The Tertsy spent almost the entire Civil War mainly on their own land, bleeding under the onslaught of the many times superior forces of the highlanders and the Bolsheviks who supported them. Only a few managed to evacuate from Novorossiysk and, subsequently, from the Crimea, led by the last Ataman of the Terek army, G. A. Vdovenko. Most of the surviving Terek Cossacks were subjected to "Decossackization", and their lands and property were given to the Chechens.

ORENBURG AND URAL COSSACKS

In Orenburg and the Urals, the Cossacks were much more polarized in their political views than in the Kuban and the Don. True, in the opposite way. If a significant part of the Orenburg Cossack army, with the exception of the military school, senior officials and many officers, almost immediately went over to the side of the Reds, then the Urals almost without exception took the side of the Whites.

There are several reasons for this: in particular, the Orenburg Cossack army was relatively "young" and there was a huge percentage of front-line youth who succumbed to Bolshevik propaganda and went under the command of the main Orenburg "Red Cossacks" of the Kashirin brothers. True, after the repressions that began on the lands of the Orenburg army, many older Cossacks and even front-line soldiers went over to the Whites.

The Ural Cossack army, on the contrary, had a long tradition, existing at least since the 15th century. In addition, most of the Ural army were Cossacks of the Old Believers, who were horrified by the inverted pentagrams on the tunics and caps of the Red Army (the entire Civil War, red stars were worn in this way - in the later Soviet period, only the order remained an ominous reminder of this "anti-Christ seal" Fighting Red Banner).

Actually, the Bolsheviks did not particularly hide the fact that their goal on the territory of the Ural Cossack army, as elsewhere, was precisely the genocide of the Cossacks, the destruction of all combat-ready Cossacks capable of raising weapons against them. Very indicative in this respect is the novel by D. A. Furmanov "Chapaev": "Chapaev, so sensitive and flexible in all his actions, so quickly catching everything and applying to everything, realized here, in the steppes, that it was not necessary to fight the Cossacks the weapon that they recently fought against the forcibly mobilized Kolchak peasants. You won’t take the Cossacks for fear, you won’t confuse them with the occupied territory, the Cossack territory is the whole wide steppe, along which he will gallop far and wide, in which he will find greetings from the Cossack population everywhere, will be to live in your rear, it will be elusive and infinitely harmful - seriously, truly dangerous. The Cossack troops do not need to be driven, you do not need to wait until decomposition occurs, do not take away the village from them one by one - this is a very important matter and necessary, but not the main thing. And the main thing is to crush the manpower, to destroy the Cossack regiments. If it was possible to replenish the thinned ranks of their regiments from captured Kolchak soldiers, then it is impossible to make this set of captured Cossacks: here - what a Cossack, then the enemy is irreconcilable. In any case, he will not soon become a friend and helper! The destruction of a living enemy force is the task that Chapaev set for himself.

So, after such a "general disposition" of the Chapaev division, the indignation of Furmanov and his heroes with "cruelties" on the part of the Ural Cossacks is at least inconsistent. The war between the Ural Cossacks and the Chapaevs was uncompromising - for mutual extermination. True, after the surrender of Uralsk, the ataman of the Ural Cossack army, 33-year-old Lieutenant-General Vladimir Sergeevich Tolstov, managed to develop a plan for a special operation, during which the Urals, with negligible losses, were able to destroy the headquarters of the Chapaev division and kill Chapaev himself (in total, more than 2,500 Red Army soldiers were killed and captured ), but a typhus epidemic in the ranks of the Ural Cossacks and a sharp increase in the number of the 4th Turkestan army forced them to leave their land forever and retreat to Guryev, on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Approximately 90 percent of the personnel of the Ural army did not die in battle, but precisely from typhus brought by captured Red Army soldiers, which the Cossacks had nothing to treat: in almost all regiments, which had 500 people on the payroll, 40 60 Cossacks remained in the ranks.

On January 5, 1920, General Tolstov, with his headquarters, refugees and the remnants of the last two regiments of the Ural army (15,000 people in total), left Guryev and made the hardest 700-kilometer journey along the "Hungry Steppe" to Fort Aleksandrovsky - in his own words, "from red paws into the unknown distance. The Urals suffered especially heavy losses during the ascent to the Mangyshlak plateau and on the plateau itself, through which even the local Kyrgyz considered it impossible to pass in winter. The Urals passed, but at the cost of huge sacrifices: according to the testimony of one of the Kappel cavalrymen who traveled this path together with the Ural army, "a chain of corpses stretched continuously for thirty miles ...". 13,000 people froze to death on the road or were killed by the "Red Kirghiz" who robbed and killed the stragglers. Fortunately, some of the Cossacks entered Fort Aleksandrovsky before the others and sent help to the Kappelites and the Uralians who were with them. Tolstov himself after that, on April 5, 1920, left Fort Aleksandrovsky and went to Krasnovodsk with only 214 Cossacks.

On May 22, when he crossed the border with Persia, there were already 162 Cossacks with him. From Persia, Tolstov moved to France, and from there in 1942 he moved to Australia. Together with him were the last 60 Cossacks loyal to him. General Tolstov died in Sydney in 1956 at the age of 72. Together with him, the history of the once great and glorious Ural Cossack army ended forever.

SIBERIAN, TRANSBAIKAL AND AMUR COSSACKS

The fates of the Siberian and Trans-Baikal Cossack troops differ in the contribution that the Cossacks of each of these troops made to the Civil War - and are strikingly similar in what fate awaited the Cossacks of both troops after the war ended.

The Cossacks of the Trans-Baikal Army, two regiments of which (the 1st Argunsky and the 2nd Chitinsky) were infected with Bolshevism at the beginning of 1918, spent the entire Civil War in battles at home. The Siberian Cossacks, being indifferent to the propaganda of Bolshevism, remained just as indifferent to the cause of saving the Motherland from him. Almost the entire Siberian army during the Civil War was sick with an even more serious illness than Bolshevism itself - the so-called "Cossack pragmatism" and the belief that it was possible to negotiate with the Bolsheviks. This was facilitated by the fact that the Siberian Cossacks had never seen real Bolshevism in their country until the fall of Kolchak's power. In addition, the elected ataman of the Siberian army turned out to be the former policeman Ivanov Rinov, known throughout Siberia for his "Khimrodovism." Therefore, the participation of the Siberian Cossack army in the battles against the Reds was limited, by and large, to one single major episode - a raid on the rear of the enemy in the early autumn of 1919. Due to the mediocrity and indiscipline of Ivanov-Rinov, this raid, which could save the entire front of the Kolchak army, did not bring significant results. By 1921, a significant part of the Siberian, Transbaikal and Amur Cossacks found themselves in exile, having crossed the Chinese border.

Unlike European white émigrés, Siberian and especially Transbaikal and Amur Cossacks who ended up in China did not stop fighting against Soviet power throughout the 1920s. Almost every month, several dozen or even hundreds of Cossacks broke through the border and staged raids on border towns and villages. The purpose of the raids were by no means ordinary workers and peasants, but local party workers, high-ranking officials and security officers. The Cossacks had a well-established network of agents in the Soviet Far East, which indicated to them targets for attacks and punished traitors who returned from abroad.

The beginning of the end of the Transbaikal and Amur Cossack troops came in 1928, when an uprising took place in the Chinese province of Xinjiang under Marxist slogans against the power of Chiang Kai-shek. According to the "template" already tested by the communists in Finland and Transcaucasia, "warriors of the internationalists" rushed to Northern China. In addition, it was precisely 1928-1929 that were marked by an increase in the activity of the White Cossacks on the eastern line of the CER - the Transbaikalians fought their way to their homes, crossed the Ussuri and Amur, massacred entire detachments and frontier posts ...

Therefore, the Soviet government considered September-October 1929 a convenient time to return at least part of the CER to its 1917 state. At the same time, of course, it is cruel to get even - not only with the Cossacks, but in general with all Russian refugees. Regardless of whether they participated in the struggle against Soviet power or not. Regardless of gender and age. How exactly this was done was told by those who survived and were able to write to the cities of China, untouched by the massacre:

"... On the 30th, the dead were brought to us - the priest, his son and the Kruglik family of 6 people (husband, wife and four children).

They were killed and burned in oil, and one driver was also killed with them, he left his wife and three children here. The appearance of the dead is terrible, the priest can be recognized, the face has been preserved. Kruglik's wife's face was preserved and one breast, that's why they recognized the woman, and everything burned down in the children. There is no smell from them, because they are fried with the skin; a coffin was made for the priest, another for the woman and the priest's son, and the remaining six people were put in one coffin.

In one village, red partisans and a detachment of Komsomol members who were with them killed men and women, and children were thrown alive into the river or smashed their heads against stones.

In another village, women and children were driven into a canal and shot in the water, and those who remained on the shore were finished off with stakes or thrown into fires.

About 120 people were killed only in the villages of Argunskoye, Komary and on the Damysovo farm.

In the village of Katsinor, the Reds killed all the men and many women.

During the last raid on Usl-Urovsk on October 11 with. In desperation, the inhabitants fired back at the Red partisans from shotguns and old Berdanok, the Reds surrounded the village and opened fire on it from machine guns and from guns standing on the river. Argun of the Soviet gunboat. As a result of this raid, at least 200 Russian and Chinese civilians were killed.

What to add to this? That the murdered priest Fr. Modest Gorbunov was previously subjected to torture, that he was tied by the hair to a horse, which dragged his body along the ground. That women and girls, before being tortured or killed, were raped by red partisans and Komsomol members.

Let us also add that, according to the words of the red partisans themselves (some of those who fled from Three Rivers personally heard these words), they were sent by the Soviet authorities with orders to exterminate all Russian settlers living in Three Rivers without exception, and to destroy all their property. In those places where the red partisans visited, they exactly carried out this order of the satanic authorities and it is not their fault if some victims managed to escape and tell us exactly everything that they saw and heard in these terrible days ... "(" Heavenly Bread " , 1929, N 13, Harbin).

This is how most of the Transbaikal and Amur Cossack troops who left for Northern China ended their existence. For the "victory" over unarmed women and children in the "conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway," the Red Army and GPU punishers received military orders and award weapons. And in memory of the lost refugees, not a single memorial sign, not a single memorial plaque has yet been erected. The only monuments left to them are the fiery letters written in their defense to Christians all over the world by ROCOR First Hierarch Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), and the poem by the poetess of the Trans-Baikal Cossack army Marianna Kolosova "They shot the Cossacks":

You seem to have fallen asleep, human pity?!
Why are you silent, I do not understand.
I know that you were not in Three Rivers these days.
There was cruelty - your eternal enemy.

Ah, the defenseless farmhouse did not look for trouble ...
People, do not be silent - the stones will scream!
They shot from a machine gun in the morning
Lovely, chubby, lively Cossacks ...

At the Throne of God, whose foot is holy,
For the righteous - mercy, for sinners - a thunderstorm,
With a silent complaint, the Cossacks will rise ...
And the Lord will look into children's eyes.

The youngest will say: "We are from a machine gun
They shot this morning at dawn."
And someone throws up his hands in sorrow
On a high white cloudy mountain.

A pale boy will come out and quietly ask:
"Cossack brothers, who offended you?"
Human pity will ring in the question
Light streams from sad eyes.

Come closer, look into his eyes -
And they know right away. How can you not know?!
"You were a bright Ataman of the Cossack troops
In the days when children weren't allowed to be shot."

And the Cossacks will cry bitterly
At the Throne of God, whose foot is holy.
Lord, You see, crying with them
Martyr-Tsarevich, Ataman Cossack!

REVIVE THE BEST

On the eve of the catastrophe of 1917, the most strong and valuable estates of the Russian people were the peasantry, the clergy, the merchants and the Cossacks. It was these estates that the Bolsheviks tried to destroy in the first place. To do this, they had to set different parts of the Russian people against each other. They did not hide it - for example, in relation to the peasants, Y. M. Sverdlov voiced this in May 1918: "Only if we can split the village into two irreconcilable hostile camps, if we can ignite the same civil war there, which ... went in the cities ... we will do in relation to the countryside what we could do for the cities. Of all the estates, the Bolsheviks managed to split the Cossacks to the least extent, but the general split of the Russian people they achieved made this circumstance no longer so important. And this split continues, to a large extent, to this day.

In order to heal him, monuments are erected. Monuments are not for the dead. We ourselves need them - for historical memory and a correct ideological assessment of people and events. Nobody knows whether the Russian Cossacks will be revived. It was destroyed very thoroughly for almost the entire first half of the 20th century. But if there are no monuments, there will be no historical memory. And in this case, the Cossacks are definitely never destined to be reborn again.

http://www.specnaz.ru/article/?1137

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 Council of Defense of the North Caucasus was created, 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 with a small detachment fled to Ingushetia, some units under the command of N. Gikalo went to Dagestan, and the bulk, representing already disordered 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, headed by the commander of the Terek Territory, Major General I. N. Kosnikov, survived. It included 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 Tertsians 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. Beginning in February 1919, the Terek formations were already conducting independent military 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 most of the 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 the oil fields of Grozny and Dagestan in the hands of small "sovereign" formations, such as 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 so loved 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 number of issues that dated back to pre-revolutionary times, the lack of agreement in relations, 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 Ekaterinodar 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 ​​a federation 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 granting autonomy to individual nationalities and original formations (Cossacks), as well as broad decentralization of the entire state administration ... 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 resolve 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 over 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 the governments of the state formations of the Don, Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan, or members of their governments replacing them, participate.

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 choked 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. The superior forces of the 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.

The revolution of 1917 and the civil war that followed it turned out to be a turning point in the fate of several million Russians who called themselves Cossacks. This estate-separated part of the rural population was peasant in origin, as well as in the nature of work and way of life. Class privileges, the best (in comparison with other groups of farmers) land provision partially compensated for the heavy military service of the Cossacks.
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 of the total number of Cossacks in 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%.
The troops arose at different times and on different principles - for the Don Cossacks, for example, the process of growing into the Russian state went from the 17th to the 19th centuries. 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.
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, who was forced to take up arms only by the system and tradition. At the beginning of the twentieth 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, issues of spreading the Stolypin reform to the Cossack territories, introducing zemstvos there, and so on, were discussed at the highest level.
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 - the Central Council of 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, was 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."
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. The front-line Cossack units began to arrive on the territory of the troops from the end of 1917. The atamans could not rely on the new arrivals: 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".
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 school of warrant officers led to the arrest of the leadership of the Siberian Cossack army. In Astrakhan, the performance under the leadership of the ataman 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 was 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." However, the Cossacks still failed to remain neutral, not to intervene in the civil war that began in the country. 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 Cossack cavalry regiments, 171 separate hundreds 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 by local conditions. So, 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.

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 interconnected to some extent: 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 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." The Serovites were already talking about somewhat different ideals - about establishing the power of the "most" people "on 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." Democracy was also mentioned in the appeals of K. Vakulin.
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 Okhraniuk were mercilessly cut down with sabers for several days.
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 rebel Cossacks of the Chelyabinsk province (“Down with the 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 climb up on the back of the working masses. Both A. Sapozhkov and Okhranyuk were accused of excessive 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 request the Revolutionary Military Council of the South-Eastern Front and the Don Executive Committee on ways to use the antagonism of the Don and Kuban with Denikin for military-political purposes (using Mironov).” The fate of F. Mironov is generally typical for a Cossack commander: at the stage of an 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." Mironov's name was used for campaigning and 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 soldiers to either shoot him or give him and the entire command staff complete confidence. The conviction that it was his personality that was the cementing element 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 undoubtedly 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 from the Cossack and peasant environment who came forward during the war, 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 in relation to farmers brought together groups that had previously differed so much, equalizing all as citizens of the "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.