Venkov A.V. Cossacks against the Bolsheviks // Donskoy Vremennik. Year 2008 / Don. state publ. b-ka. Rostov-on-Don, 2007. Issue. 16. P.120-124..aspx?art_id=628

COSSACKS AGAINST THE BOLSHEVIKS

Chronicle of the Novocherkassk uprising of 1918

On the Don, the period from February to May 1918, that is, the period of the first establishment of Soviet power, the transformations later described in Soviet historiography as “democratic” and “socialist”, was marked by a change in the attitude of various sections of the Cossacks towards the Soviets and the Bolsheviks.

Subsequently, in June 1920, at the Don Regional Conference of the RCP (b), the Bolsheviks noted: “For a short period of Soviet power in 1918, our organization was a weak group that could not lead events, but trudged on the occasion of the elements, and only revolutionary the elements rescued us ... ".

The economic and cultural center of the region - Rostov-on-Don - shuddered under the pressure of the destructive elements. On April 7, 1918, the prominent Bolshevik A.S. Bubnov declared at a meeting of the Rostov-Nakhichevan organization of the Bolsheviks that “the proletariat is in danger of being crushed by the lumpen-proletarian, tramp, hooligan element.”

Various "secret services" flourished. “Any “democratic government” began with counterintelligence,” noted A. I. Denikin. Rostov-on-Don was no exception. “Intelligence of the left-wing socialist revolutionaries, headed by Kalabukhov, was spying everywhere and everywhere. The intelligence of the Ukrainian Rada and the intelligence of the Bolsheviks did not lag behind either.

"... Power as such was in the hands of any armed man who took the right to execute and pardon at his own discretion."

The White Guard agent subsequently reported: “Our intelligence officers had access everywhere ... From police stations to the people's commissar, intelligence had its own eyes and ears ...”.

Nevertheless, the white spies who penetrated all Soviet structures did not prevent (and, apparently, did not seek) mass repressions and atrocities that fell on the "class enemy" and just civilians.

With the onset of spring, the contradictions in the countryside escalated. “In some places, the forcible seizure of land begins,” the Soviet press noted, describing the situation on the Don. The bulk of the Cossacks, as usual, hesitated at first. When the peasants tried to divide the land without waiting for the land issue to be resolved by law, the Cossacks even appealed to the local authorities. In the north of the region, the Cossacks reacted painfully even to the seizure of landowner lands by peasants. But then it got worse. “The out-of-town alien peasantry began to cultivate ... military spare land and surplus land in the yurts of the rich southern villages.” Peasants who rented land from the Cossacks "stopped paying rent." The authorities, instead of smoothing over the contradictions, headed for the fight against the “kulak elements of the Cossacks”.

Due to the fact that non-resident peasants stopped paying for land rent and began to use it free of charge, a part of the Cossack poor, who lived by renting land, found themselves practically without means of subsistence.

Starting to seize the land, the peasants rightly feared the Cossacks and, taking advantage of the presence of the Red Guard, tried to preliminarily disarm the farms and villages that were dangerous for them and intimidate the Cossacks. In accordance with the level of political culture, terror has become a means of intimidation. The Cossack of the Ust-Belokalitvenskaya village, I.V. Pyatibratov, recalled that “Khokhlov” of the Golovoy settlement entered their farm Svinarev “through the snow”, took 11 people and shot them (out of these 11, three were from other cities). “Then they explained that they killed for their own - for the beaten detachment of the Red Guards, who had been assembled at Grachi station since the autumn. 11 people - this is only with us, and there were up to two dozen such executed and burned farms only in our village.

The Cossacks in the neighborhood of the peasant settlements began to arm and unite. As the Cossacks themselves wrote, "the organization of troops for the defense of the village of Yegorlykskaya [began] from the first days of March."

The situation became explosive. On February 18 (March 3), at a rally in Novocherkassk, in the theater, Mamontov's intercepted telegram was read with a call to revolt, and in response, the "revolutionary" Cossacks of the garrison shouted "Hurrah".

The first recorded armed clash with the Soviet authorities took place on March 8 (21), 1918 - the Cossacks of the village of Luganskaya recaptured 34 arrested officers, who were taken from Kamenskaya to the Lugansk Cheka. But the Cossacks did not have enough strength yet, and when the Reds sent a punitive expedition against the Lugansk village, the Cossacks betrayed the officers they had released. Of the thirty-four, only one fled, who was able to reach the detachment of the marching ataman P. Kh. Popov, who had gone to the Salsky steppes and there was waiting for a general uprising on the Don.

Even earlier, a kind of Cossack self-defense detachment was allegedly created in the village of Gundorovskaya. By March 1 (14), a group of armed Cossacks, led by cornet M. A. Sukharev, gathered here and began to send appeals to farms about the need to protect the village. This immediately became known at the nearby mines, and from there a punitive detachment of 60 people was sent to Gundorovskaya. At midnight on March 1 (14), the Cossacks launched a detachment into the village and "put them into custody." Two days later, the attempt of the Reds from the mines was repeated, and again the Gundorites "caught" part, and the rest "drove back home." “So the whole of March passed in a clash of small red detachments with the Cossacks.” However, reporting on these events, eyewitnesses do not talk about a single person killed. Apparently, the small village of Gundorovskaya, cut off from the rest of the territory of the Army of the Bolshevik-minded Kamenskaya, was trying to fight back bloodlessly from the imposition of alien power.

But where the Cossacks had enough forces, the situation was different. On March 10 (23) in Novocherkassk, the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Medvedev, and the "Council of Five" decided to start a new campaign to eliminate officers and announced their registration. The Cossacks of the 6th foot battalion, the 10th Don and partially the 27th Don regiments and the entire artillery of the Golubovsky detachment, who, by the way, hid many officers and partisans in their ranks, demanded that registration be stopped. Since the authorities were slow to respond, the Cossacks brought loaded guns to the building of the Executive Committee. The most odious figures among the Novocherkassk Bolsheviks left the city altogether. From now on, the authorities in Novocherkassk could hardly be called "Soviet".

At the end of March, uprisings break out in a number of villages. On March 9 (22), the village of Khomutovskaya expelled the Bolsheviks. On March 13 (26), the Cossacks of Grushevskaya arrange a raid on the district village of Kamenskaya, seize a weapons depot and return to Grushevskaya with booty. On March 18 (31), as we remember, Suvorovskaya rebelled.

In early April, the Bolsheviks sent punishers to the Zadonsk villages of the Cherkassy district - Yegorlykskaya, Kagalnitskaya, Khomutovskaya, but the Cossacks of these villages, with the help of the Cossacks of the Manychskaya and Bagaevskaya villages, defeated the Red Guards sent against them.

March 24 (April 6), freeing the partisans captured by the Bolsheviks, the Baklanovskaya village rises. At the same time, unrest began in Novocherkassk.

Seeing that the power of the Bolsheviks in the city was no longer the same, the famous adventurer, who joined the Bolsheviks, the military foreman Golubov, tried to take it into his own hands and thought to involve in his adventure the well-known Cossack ideologist M.P. Bogaevsky.

Bogaevsky spoke to the Cossacks of the garrison with many hours of reports. He spoke about the Cossack history, about the problems of the Cossacks. A better campaign could not be imagined.

Since the garrison consisted of "revolutionary" Cossack units, which retained their sergeants and officers, and one regiment of the Red Guard - Titovsky, Golubov was actually the master of the situation in the city.

Representatives of the Soviet government, relying on Rostov, did not trust either Golubov, or the Cossacks of the Novocherkassk garrison, or the entire population of Novocherkassk, they tried to "get rid" of the restless military foreman, send him away from the Don village.

March 25 (April 7) Golubov was appointed "commander of all the armed forces of the Salsk district" and had to leave for the steppe to fight the partisans. Upon learning of the appointment, Golubov went for broke and made an attempt to mobilize the Cossacks around Novocherkassk. On March 26 (April 8), “a certain Sedov, who calls himself a delegate from the Novocherkassk garrison, arrived in Starocherkasskaya. And he began to call on the Cossacks for 4 years, openly saying that in order to fight the Soviet regime, and for which he, Sedov, was met friendly by the local bourgeoisie.

The Rostov authorities immediately reacted. On March 27 (April 9), additional forces of the Red Guards headed for Novocherkassk. Eyewitnesses saw how horse sailors - the vanguard of the punitive detachment - entered Novocherkassk, they were supported by armored cars, and Golubov with a group of 30 people retreated, firing back, towards the cathedral.

15 former partisans who were hiding in the 6th Donskoy foot battalion gathered in a real school. They exchanged fire with the Red Guards (7 killed Red Guards remained on Arsenalnaya Square), but fled after the Golubovites from the city.

Golubov and the commander of the Cossack units of the Novocherkassk garrison Smirnov headed from the city to the nearest village of Krivyanskaya. 20 sailors sent in pursuit of them demanded that the Krivyans hand over Golubov and all the officers, as well as pay an indemnity for harboring. The Cossacks disarmed and drove out the sailors and gathered the Circle, which decided to revolt.

Golubov at this time, having passed the village of Krivyanskaya, rode to the village of Bogaevskaya, where a Cossack detachment was also formed. The chieftain of the village asked him to get off his horse and talk. Golubov agreed to his misfortune. The conversation dragged on into the night, and in the course of it Golubov was arrested. The arrest was initiated by several students, natives of the village. The next morning, during a rally, Golubov was shot dead by a student, Pukhlyakov.

On the same day, March 29 (April 11), a dispatch was received in the village: “On March 27, in the evening, the Red Guard entered Novocherkassk. Cuts and kills civilians. The village of Krivyanskaya revolted. Fetisov was elected head of the detachment, and Govorov was elected assistant. Mobilize 20 years…”.

The nearby villages - Manychskaya, Besergenevskaya, Melikhovskaya, Bogaevskaya, Zaplavskaya, Razdorskaya - sent their squads to Krivyanskaya (the squads, apparently, were equal in number to hundreds), which arranged a general gathering on the village parade ground, and the Krivyanskaya hundred organized guards.

The rebels organized a headquarters. The chief of staff from March 29 to April 4 (April 11-17) was Lieutenant Colonel G. S. Rytikov, who had transferred from the Reds. The headquarters decided to go on the offensive against Novocherkassk.

On March 30 (April 12), the Bolsheviks advanced an armored car against Krivyanskaya with the support of 30 cavalrymen. The armored car was captured, the cavalrymen were killed, but the Cossack squads, just in case, retreated to the east, to the village of Zaplavskaya, from where two routes led to Novocherkassk - through Krivyanskaya from the east and through the suburb of Khotunok from the north.

On March 31 (April 13), the Red Guards from Novocherkassk (1 thousand bayonets and a squadron of cavalry with machine guns) launched an attack on Krivyanskaya. A fight broke out. Its outcome was decided by the Razdorskaya Hundred: it hit the Bolsheviks from the rear.

Pursuing the defeated enemy, the Hundred of Razdorskaya and the Krivyanskaya squad occupied Khotunok. The rest of the rebels, under the command of military foreman M.A. Fetisov, occupied the Novocherkassk railway station, disarmed the infantry echelon there and launched an attack on the city. At dawn on April 1 (14), the rebels occupied it. General K.S. Polyakov, who saw parts of the rebels at that time, noted that they were moving without division into hundreds and platoons. Some had rifles, some had stakes with bayonets.

In Novocherkassk, an airplane was recaptured from the Reds, with the help of which the rebels informed the southern villages of the uprising.

The formation of the Don artillery began. From the captured guns, captain Yakov Ivanovich Afanasiev formed the 2nd gun battery on April 1 (14). The senior officer was the captain Maxim Konstantinovich Buguraev, the gunners were Colonel Alexei Vasilievich Pavlenko and the captain Pavel Prokhorovich Zharov. The numbers were podsauls and centurions, a colonel (Krasnushkin), who soon received a regiment, a cadet and a schoolboy, a total of 12 people. Chiefs were appointed as they came to the Don Artillery Directorate.

The squads that took the city were called the Southern Corps, and their headquarters was formed on the model of the headquarters of the corps.

The rebels began negotiations with the 7th, 10th and 27th Don regiments, which constituted the Cossack garrison of the city. They were invited to join. The 10th and 27th regiments refused under the pretext that they would go to raise an uprising in the Donetsk district. They were offered to take possession of Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky along the way. They agreed, but later simply walked around the city.

On the day of the occupation of Novocherkassk, the rebel squads, building on their success, began to advance towards Rostov, to the southwest, and towards Aleksandrovsk-Grushevsky, to the north. In this regard, the South building on April 2 (15) was divided into two groups - South and North.

On the evening of 1 (14) April, the leaders of the rebels, gathered in the Winter Theater, organized the highest insurgent authority - the Defense Council. It was headed by the former military captain G.P. Yanov. It follows from the documents that representatives of the insurgent hundreds entered the Defense Council - mainly constables and ordinary Cossacks, since anti-officer sentiments were still strong.

The same tendencies were also manifested in military units - in the Southern Group advancing on Nakhichevan and Rostov. The commander was a constable, and his chief of staff was a colonel.

On April 2-3 (15-16), the rebel Cossacks fought in two directions - near Rostov and near Kamenomny. They made a demand to the Rostov Bolshevik authorities to release MP Bogaevsky, whom the Bolsheviks immediately shot.

Forces until were clearly unequal. The Bolshevik troops were led by the same Cossack officers - ensign Krivoshlykov under the head of the operational department, centurion Doroshev. The Bolsheviks later said that Krivoshlykov fought for five days, having 40 thousand bayonets and 3 wagons of cartridges.

Among the rebels, as in any rebel army, defensive moods reigned, the desire not to go far from their native courtyards, and the defense of Novocherkassk after its liberation was considered a personal matter of local Cossacks.

The turning point in the battles came on April 3 (16). The detachment of the Grushevskaya village (to the north-west of Novocherkassk), under pressure from the Red Guard, advancing from Aleksandrovsk-Grushevsky, left their positions. At 4 pm the Bolsheviks occupied Grushevskaya.

On the same day, at 10 o'clock in the morning, the rebels moved the chains from the village of Aleksandrovskaya to Nakhichevan. By 4 p.m., they were stopped by the assembled Soviet forces and withdrew.

On the morning of April 4 (17), the Reds attacked Novocherkassk. “From 10 o’clock in the morning, the outskirts of the city began to be fired upon by enemy artillery, and an indescribable panic began in the city,” General Denisov recalled.

The rebels from Novocherkassk withdrew to the east, to Krivyanskaya (where, in fact, the uprising began). The retreat was covered by the newly appointed chief of staff, Colonel S. V. Denisov, who lingered at the station, and then with a group of 300 Cossacks retreated to the western outskirts of the village.

Denisov himself arrived in Novocherkassk on April 2 (15) "on business". Prior to that, he was the "head of defense" of the village of Bagaevskaya. Having accepted the post of chief of staff at 10 am on April 4 (17), he received "a briefcase that turned out to be empty and a tattered map of the immediate environs of Novocherkassk."

Denisov recalled that at the station “great courage was shown by the ranks of the police guard, headed by their chief, Major General Smirnov. Only these ranks fired back, and did not run away ... ".

Afanasiev's officer battery moved into position, but was fired upon and, not accepting the battle, began to leave for Zaplavskaya.

The southern group, which fought near the village of Alexandrovskaya, was sandwiched between Rostov and Novocherkassk and partly broke through Novocherkassk, partly dispersed. From Rostov, the first to enter Novocherkassk were the "Red Cossacks" - "a detachment of the Central Executive Committee of Ukraine". At 5 p.m., news was received in Rostov that Novocherkassk was occupied, and an "enhanced seizure of counter-revolutionaries" began.

On the morning of April 4 (17), the remnants of the squads of the villages of Krivyanskaya, Zaplavskaya, Besergenevskaya, Bogaevskaya gathered in Krivyanskaya. Then, on April 4 (17), at 10 o’clock, General K. S. Polyakov took command of the Cossacks who had gone to Krivyanskaya. All available rebel forces were called the "Cossack army", and then declared "Donskoy" ...

Polyakov decided to retreat to Zaplavskaya, and then, if necessary, up the Don to Melikhovskaya and, according to ancient custom, sit out on the islands that arose as a result of the spring flood of the Don and Aksai rivers and wait for help from the Volunteer Army. The Cossacks knocked out of Novocherkassk were still incapable of organized resistance. They were "a handful of 3-4 thousand people, in the form of a poorly armed crowd" .

The retreat took place with a fight. On April 6 (19), the Bolshevik command reported that on April 5 (18), at 9 pm, Krivyanskaya was occupied with battle, the battle went on from 8 am to 10 pm. The village was badly damaged by artillery fire. "Kornilov detachments fled, leaving a lot of war booty".

Having retreated to the islands near Zaplavskaya, the Don army began to reorganize.

The reorganization was facilitated by a mass scattered Cossack uprising, which diverted the attention of the Bolsheviks, and was hindered by the general decline in discipline inherent in any revolutionary time. S. V. Denisov recalled: “Everything was loose, vulgarized and distorted. Generals have forgotten their seniority and the right of authority. The officers did not refuse to serve, but they did not want to be chiefs, but rather went into the chain as ordinary shooters. I haven't had to think about shoulder straps and insignia yet. About servility - forget. The words “I order”, “I punish” are temporarily excluded from everyday life.

Nevertheless, in 3-4 days, Polyakov and Denisov deployed discordant crowds into foot and horse regiments and batteries. The elective beginning was canceled, since the reserve of officers turned out to be large - 500-600 people, of which 100-150 were non-Cossacks. Badges with the name of the regiment were introduced as insignia. There was an evening roll call.

By this time, the Don Army included:

1. Infantry:

Novocherkassk regiment - 700 bayonets;

Krivyansky regiment - 1000 bayonets;

Zaplavsky regiment - 900 bayonets;

Besergenevsky regiment - 800 bayonets;

Bogaevsky regiment - 900 bayonets;

Melikhovsky regiment - 500 bayonets;

Razdorsky regiment - 200 bayonets;

6th foot battalion - 160 bayonets;

Consolidated hundreds of Aksai, Olginskaya and Grushevskaya villages - 60 bayonets.

In total - 5220 bayonets.

2. Cavalry:

7th Don Cossack Regiment - 700 checkers;

Consolidated regiment - 400 drafts.

In total - 1100 checkers.

4. Machine guns- 30 (trophy, unevenly distributed on the shelves).

5. Technical means:

Cars - 2;

Truck - 1 (faulty);

Bicycles - 4;

Wire - 3 miles;

Telephone sets - 6 (faulty);

Telegraph devices - 2.

6. Ammo- 3 per rifle.

7. Shells- 5 per gun.

The war has acquired the most cruel character. Parliamentarians, considering them to be agitators, were hanged by the rebel command. “A terrible everyday picture vividly arises before my eyes, but the usual picture of the war is when at the command hut, at the stanitsa house of the Zaplavskaya stanitsa, Cossack women with their own hands, not allowing their husbands, deal with the prisoners brought from the position, torment and tear them apart alive - recalled General Denisov. “Resistance to this and opposition from the authorities would be completely unnecessary and even harmful.”

On April 8 (21), the Titov Red Regiment attacked the location of the rebels, but was repulsed, losing up to a hundred dead and the regiment commander himself. The rebels in the battle were commanded by General E. I. Balabin. The victory inspired the rebels. On the same day, the "Council of Defense" declared itself the Provisional Don Government - the highest authority on the Don.

The new Don government was composed of representatives of the rebel units. The mandates of the elected members of the Provisional Don Government have been preserved. From the Krivyanskaya village were elected constable Vasily Mitrofanovich Chebotarev and constable Dmitry Yakovlevich Albakov; from the Zaplavskaya cavalry hundreds - constable Daniil Ivanovich Anokhin; from the horse hundred of the Besergenevskaya village - Stefan Evgrafovich Chebotarev; from the detachment of the Melikhovskaya village - the Cossacks Ippolit Fedorovich Apryshkin, Grigory Denisovich Lukyanov, Nikolai Vasilyevich Osipov. In addition, the government included Cossacks Ivan Petrovich Motovilin, Ivan Ivanovich Gusev, Cossack Naumov, constable Martynov and others.

The detachment of the marching ataman P. Kh. Popov learned about the capture of Novocherkassk by the rebels on April 3 (16) and the next day in the evening set out from Nizhne-Kurmoyarskaya down the Don towards the Don capital, but on the way he learned about the abandonment of the city by the rebels, about retreat to Zaplavy and beginning of sitting.

Despite the news of the creation of the Provisional Don Government and the Don Army, the field ataman continued to consider himself the supreme authority on the Don (the legal deputy of Ataman A. M. Nazarov, who was shot by the Bolsheviks). He took command of the Cossacks who rebelled everywhere, developed a plan to create a standing army from the young and negotiated the convening of a new Circle as the highest authority on the Don. On April 5 (18) in Nizhne-Kurmoyarskaya, a decision was made to convene the Circle, and for the first time it was called the "Circle of Saving the Don".

The uprising soon spread throughout the Don Army Region, marking a new stage in the civil war on the Don.

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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, at 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, is immediately elected on the Extraordinary Circle as the ataman of the Orenburg army.
It is significant that in the conditions of the deepening crisis in the 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 emerging delicate balance. The Bolsheviks considered it necessary to first disarm the front-line soldiers, arguing that the latter "could" join "the counter-revolution." As part of the implementation of this decision, dozens of trains going east were detained in Samara, which ultimately created an extremely explosive situation. The 1st and 8th preferential regiments of the Ural troops, who did not want to hand over their weapons, fought with the local garrison near Voronezh. Front-line Cossack units began to arrive on the territory of the troops from the end of 1917. Atamans could not rely on the newcomers: the Urals refused to support the White Guard being created in Uralsk, in Orenburg on the Circle, the front-line soldiers expressed "displeasure" to the ataman because he "mobilized the Cossacks, .. made a split in the Cossack environment".
Almost everywhere, the Cossacks, who returned from the front, openly and persistently declared their neutrality. Their position was shared by the majority of the Cossacks in the field. The Cossack "leaders" did not find mass support. On the Don, Kaledin was forced to commit suicide, in the Orenburg region, Dutov could not raise the Cossacks to fight and was forced to flee from Orenburg with 7 like-minded people, an attempt by the junkers of the Omsk ensign school led to the arrest of the leadership of the Siberian Cossack army. In Astrakhan, the performance under the leadership of the 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 were a force that was impossible to ignore (in the autumn of 1917, the army had 162 cavalry Cossack regiments, 171 separate hundred and 24 foot battalions). The sharp confrontation between the Reds and the Whites eventually reached the Cossack regions. First of all, this happened in the South and in the Urals. The course of events was influenced 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 to some extent interconnected: in July 1920, the 2nd cavalry division stationed in the Buzuluk region under the command of A. Sapozhkov rebelled, declaring itself the “First Red Army of Truth”; in December 1920 he led the speech in the next. Mikhailovskaya K. Vakulin (the so-called detachment of Vakulin-Popov); in the spring of 1921, Okhraniuk-Chersky’s “First People’s Revolutionary Army” arose from a part of the Red Army stationed in the Buzuluk district to suppress “revolts of kulak gangs” (the consequences of the activities of the “Army of Truth” there); in the autumn of 1921, the Orlovo-Kurilov regiment rebelled, calling itself the “Ataman division of the rebel [troops] groups of the will of the people,” commanded by one of the former commanders of Sapozhkov, V. Serov.
All the leaders of these rebel forces were combat commanders and had awards: K. Vakulin previously commanded the 23rd regiment of the Mironov division, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner; A. Sapozhkov - the organizer of the defense of Uralsk from the Cossacks, for which he received a gold watch and personal gratitude from Trotsky. The main combat zone is the Volga region: from the Don regions to the Ural River, Orenburg. There was some rejection of the locality of speeches - the Orenburg Cossacks make up a significant part of Popov's rebels in the Volga region, the Urals - near Serov. At the same time, suffering defeats from the communist troops, the rebels always tried to retreat to the areas where these units were formed, native to the majority of the rebels. The Cossacks brought elements of organization into the rebellion, playing the same role that they played earlier in the previous peasant wars - they created a combat-ready core.
The slogans and appeals of the insurgents testify that, speaking out against the communists, they did not abandon the very idea. So, A. Sapozhkov believed that "the policy of the Soviet government at the same time and 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 who came forward during the war from the Cossack and peasant environment, enjoying well-deserved authority, leaders capable of leading (perhaps even appropriate say, charismatic personalities).
The main outcome of the Civil War for the Cossacks was the completion of the process of “decossackization”. It must be admitted that in the early 1920s the Cossack population has already merged with the other agricultural population - merged in terms of its status, range of interests and tasks. Just as the decree of Peter I on the taxable population, at one time, eliminated in principle the differences between groups of the agricultural population by unifying their status and duties, in the same way, the policy pursued by the communist authorities towards farmers brought together groups that had previously differed so much, equalizing all as citizens 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.

Diaries of Ataman V.G. Naumenko, as a source on the history of the Civil War and the relationship of the Kuban Cossacks with General P.N. Wrangel

N. Khalizev. A book about our war. Part III. Chapter 4

The Cossacks, returning from the fronts, did not want a new war. In the trenches of the First World War, they changed their attitude towards non-residents, who, like them, shed their blood. Their attitude towards the tsar-priest, his generals, who turned the army (both Cossacks and peasants) into cannon fodder, also changed. The war dramatically changed the behavior and psychology of the Cossack, he did not want to shoot at his people. That is why, when the Soviets with the Bolsheviks at the head came to power in St. Petersburg, the government of the Kuban Cossack army failed to mobilize. Their troops consisted of a motley variety of volunteers.
The situation in the village of Korenovskaya in late January - early February 1918 was difficult. The first Korenovsk Council, elected in December 1917, was arrested. Strizhakov, Purykhin, Kolchenko (They went to Petrograd and met with the first chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Vladimir Ilyich Lenin) were taken into custody, they were sent to Yekaterinodar /Part.AKK f.2830, d.40./
Ataman rule was restored in the village. The Kuban Rada (government of the Cuban region) demanded to urgently organize hundreds in the nearest villages and deploy them in Korenovskaya under the general command of Colonel Pokrovsky (before the massacre of the parliamentarians, he was a captain). But most of the villages at their gatherings decided to refuse these demands.
The verdict of the gathering of the village of Dyadkovskaya on January 28, 1918 speaks of "the organization of self-defense units from volunteers." The verdict of the gathering of the village of Platnirovskaya dated February 2, 1918. speaks of "sending delegates to the Congress of Soviets in the village of Kirpilskaya." A council was created in the village of Razdolnaya. In the village of Berezanskaya, "February 3, 1918, the congress of Cossack and peasant deputies demands the disarmament of the officers and cadets who have swept into the Kuban." The verdict of the gathering of the village of Sergievskaya condemned the decision of the Platnirists and decided to support the decision of the Rada to fight the Bolsheviks. / GAKK, AoUVD f. 17/s r-411, op.2./
In Art. Korenovskaya, in the first half of February, under the command of Pokrovsky (he was the first to start terror in the Kuban, having shot the parliamentarians, Sedin and Strilko in Ekaterinodar), a detachment was created. The backbone of this detachment was the Korenov Cossacks, headed by V. Pariyev and U. Urazka. On February 16, the troops of I.L. Sorokin approached the village of Korenovskaya. The whites, with almost no resistance, fled ...
Not everyone was happy with the arrival of the Reds. “Priest Petro (Nazarenko) knelt for three hours and anathematized all the Bolsheviks and their descendants.”/GAKK f.17/s p-411, op.
On February 18, 1918, Sorokin's train arrived at Stanichnaya station in the morning. Front-line soldiers and city dwellers (Bolsheviks) met him. At 12 o'clock in the courtyard of the former administration there was a general meeting, where again (2nd time) they elected the Council of Cossack, Peasant and Red Army Deputies. Dr. Boguslavsky and 75 members of the Council were elected Chairman of the Council. If you read this list, then the majority in the Council were the Cossacks-old-timers and front-line soldiers: Murai I., Krasnyuk P., Zozulya A., Dmitrenko A., Kanyuka G., Us F., Desyuk I., Gaida M., Bugay N., Bugai E., Tsys I., Khit Kh., Okhten M., Zabolotniy A., Dmitriev S., Adamenko the old man, Avdeenko Luka, Deinega and others./GAKKf.17/s, op.2./ . We met these names more than once among the heroes who defended their land in previous wars. Many joined the Reds.

At a time when the Reds were fighting for Yekaterinodar, fighting with the troops of V.L. Pokrovsky, Kornilov’s volunteer detachments approached Korenovskaya. For the first time, the Kornilovites met stubborn resistance. Kornilov had 5 guns, 2 cars, the Reds had an armored train, which retreated, fearing that the Whites would dismantle the rails. From 4 am to 5 pm there was a battle, but the Kornilov regiment under the command of General A.P. Bogaevsky passed almost without a fight through the Krasnyukov rowing from Dyadkovskaya. Panic began among the defenders, they retreated to Platnirovskaya station.

General Afrikan Petrovich Bogaevsky (after Krasnov he will become the chieftain of the Donskoy army) in his memoirs described our village as follows:
“Extensive, like most Kuban villages, Korenovskaya with clean houses, an old church and even a monument to the Cossacks - participants in the Russian-Turkish war, looked like a county town. However, the unpaved streets at this time of the year were a real swamp. A significant part of the population of the village was made up of non-residents, and this partly explains the stubbornness of the defense of Korenovskaya. The long-term enmity between the Cossacks and non-residents, which does not have such a sharp character on the Don, where the non-Cossack population lives for the most part in separate settlements, but in a small number of villages, was especially strong in the Kuban: here non-residents in most cases were laborers and tenants from the rich Cossacks and, envious of them, did not love them in the same way as the peasants - landowners in the rest of Russia. Nonresident, and made up a significant part of the Bolsheviks.

L.G. Kornilov drove into the village in a car and stopped in the third quarter at the priest Nikolai Volotsky (for this no one shot him). On the evening of March 5, he left in the direction of the village of Sergievskaya, but the forces of the Reds were just concentrating on the Platnirovskaya - Sergievskaya line. Before that, from March 1 to March 2 (according to the old style), 1918, the troops of Avtonomov and I.L. Sorokin hit Yekaterinodar, drove Pokrovsky’s detachments out of the city, but did not pursue. Soviet power was established throughout the Kuban region. This, probably, could have ended the civil war, but this did not happen. Having received the news that the Kuban Rada had left Ekaterinodar, Kornilov with his army moved unhindered to Razdolnaya and further to the village of Voronezh and Ust-Labinskaya, where he crossed the Kuban. / Memories, Korenovsk. Museum. Recorded by Grigoriev. The same is stated in the memoirs of General Bogaevsky /.
In the village of Korenovskaya, Soviet power was again established. The council had to be re-elected, because. many died, some were shot, and some left with the Kornilovites, they did not want to "lie under the mound."

Korenovskaya in the Civil War

Broken field.

Washed by dew, warmed by light,
Everything suddenly comes to life, comes to motion.
Awakened by a trill, blown by the wind,
Two armies rush towards the battle.
Well, did the Russian look lack beauty?
Nature played with beauty expanse,
But blood will be shed here, and Evil rejoiced.
Who was waiting for death under the barrow?
Two brothers aspire to bloody moments:
Fate, you are a villain, fate is insidious.
Deadly shine of steel, damask steel,
And time will rush away irrevocably ...
Two armies clashed, two Truths scolded:
“Saint George brings victory to us!”
"No, holiness is found only in the equality of all,"
And death swung and mows, and mows ...
And neighing, and groans, and wheezing horses
Over the field are rushing terrible.
Horses gathered in a herd without ideas,
Left without whites and reds.

N. Khalizev

The Kornilovites tried to mobilize in the villages. But neither calls to join the fight against the Soviets, nor 150 rubles. in a month, at everything ready, they did not seduce the Korenovites, who were tired of the war. After the battle for the village on 03/04/1918, the Korenets did not want to join the ranks of volunteers. Having received the news that the Sorokinites defeated the troops of the Kuban Rada and took Yekaterinodar, Kornilov gives the order to move to Ust-Laba. In the red troops of A.I. Avtonomov and I.L. Sorokin, under the command of G.I. Mironenko, about 300 Korenovets fought. This is an indicator that the Cossacks (especially the returned front-line soldiers) accepted Soviet power as their own. With weapons in their hands, they defended the government, which finally ended the war, which was disgusting to everyone, which had been grinding human lives for three years. The Kornilovites forcibly requisitioned food from the Kornilovites for the needs of the army. This caused protests, which were suppressed by executions and floggings. Kornilov said: "The more terror, the more victory."
After the volunteers left the village, another hundred Cossacks under the command of Zozulya went to Yekaterinodar.
The Korenovites very soon had to face the Kornilovites again. Volunteers united with the troops of the Kuban government, which fled from Yekaterinodar. This meeting took place near the villages of Novodmitrievskaya and Kaluga. The Kuban tried to defend cooperation with the Volunteer Army on an equal footing. “They,” A. Denikin wrote, “talked about the constitution, the sovereign Kuban, autonomy, etc.” / Essays on the Russian Troubles. 1922 /
We agreed that all troops were subordinate to Kornilov. The united troops turned to Yekaterinodar. On March 28, the Kornilovites began the battle for Yekaterinodar. On the morning of March 31, in front of the adjutant Dolinsky, a shell that exploded nearby fatally wounded the commander of the White volunteer army. By order of Alekseev, A.I. Denikin took command of the army.

The confusion continues.

Soviet power lasted in art. Korenovskaya not for long, from 02/18/18. on 07/18/18, moreover, on 03/04/2018. and 5.03 (according to the old style) Kornilovites had power in the village. Korenovtsy in the spring of 1918 sowing was carried out in unison, more land was sown. It seemed that the war was over. But an uprising of officers Gulik and Tsybulsky broke out on Taman. It would have been suppressed by the Taman army under the command of Matveev, but the whites turned to the Germans, who helped them. began new war- civil.

The Korenovites felt
themselves deceived again.
The Bolsheviks promised - the end
war, but it continued!

The Germans sent an infantry regiment to Taman, at the same time German units and the troops of Ataman Krasnov also moved from Rostov-on-Don. It was too early to lay down arms and build a new life. The intervention of foreigners: Germans, Czechs, British, French, Americans, Japanese fanned the fire of the white resistance that had already died out. The sincere striving of Soviet power for peace was trampled on by foreign states and whites. They paid money and armed the Russians in order to destroy Russia with the hands of the Russian people, they awakened the Time of Troubles.
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich / uncle of Nicholas II / in the “Book of Memoirs” in Paris, wrote: “.. Apparently, the“ allies ”were going to turn Russia into a British colony ..., the British Foreign Office revealed a daring intention to deliver a mortal blow to Russia , ... the leaders of the White movement, ... pretending not to notice the intrigues of the allies called for holy war against the Soviets, on the other hand, none other than the internationalist Lenin stood guard over Russian national interests ... ”/ Book of Memoirs., M., 1991, pp. 256-257 / (Paris, before death)
The Reds were forced to defend the Kuban from the invasion. Avtonomov ordered I.L. Sorokin to concentrate troops in the Bataysk area. The Korenovites felt once again deceived. The Soviets promised an end to the war, but it continued, through no fault of their own. The armies of the Reds and the cities of Russia, where the famine began, needed food. From the barns and from the backhouses located near the railway station, bread was exported by wagons to big cities. This also made many people angry. "Reds are robbing" - "smart" people started a rumor. The alarming spring ended with the May redistribution of land, which was now given to non-residents (peasants of the village). This redistribution did not suit the Cossacks, from whom the surplus land was taken away, now the land was received not for the Cossack, but for the number of eaters and girls too.
The summer of 1918 was rainy, it seemed to continue the leitmotif of despondency, threats and injustice. Thunderstorms rumbled incessantly. This even more oppressed the Korenovites. In July 1918, the sounds of the roar of guns intertwined with the peals of frequent thunderstorms. The replacement of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the North Caucasus Avtonomov with Kalnin led to the defeat of the Reds. The new campaign of the whites to the Kuban was successful.

The material and financial assistance of the British to the troops of A.I. Denikin, as well as the dissatisfaction of the Cossacks with the results of the redistribution of the land, pushed them into the army of the whites, with each advance it replenished its ranks. Now the Cossacks saw in Denikin those who would return to them the tithes of land lost in the redistributions. The newly appointed commander-in-chief I.L. Sorokin began fighting with the White troops. The battle near Korenovskaya was fierce. The village changed hands several times. As a result of shelling, many huts were destroyed by the fire of Denikin's batteries. The 1st revolutionary Kuban cavalry regiment under the command of the Cossack-razdolnenets G.I. Mironenko distinguished himself in battles with whites. The regiment, created back in April 1918, liberated the village from the White Cossacks several times in horse attacks. The backbone of this army consisted of Korenets and Razdolnenians. It is not their fault that military happiness in July 1918 betrayed them. / The Sharia column of the Reds, which included the 1st revolutionary Kuban cavalry regiment, smashed the army (Musavatists) of Bicherakhov and General Mistulov on the Terek. For this, G.I. Mironenko was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (consider the Hero of Russia) and a silver checker. This means that the Korenovites knew how to fight. Subsequently, the 1st revolutionary Kuban cavalry regiment with the Vyselkovsky and Yeysk regiments formed the 33rd Kuban Red Army division. It was the actions of this division near Liski that decided the outcome of the battle for Voronezh in 1919. (the commander of the Vyselkovsky regiment was Lunin, then N. Maslakov, and the commissar was our countryman Purykhin Trofim Terentyevich, who died in August 1919 near the village of Podgornaya, one of the streets in Korenovsk was named after him) /. Mironenko G. I. with his horsemen overturned the regiments of Drozdovsky and Kazanovich, only a retreat to Vyselki saved them from complete destruction. Now it is quite difficult to restore the situation in July 1918 near the village of Korenovskaya.

According to the GACC f.r-411. and other sources, the following picture emerges:

On July 13, a detachment of Latvian riflemen, reinforced by volunteers and a hundred Circassians, breaks into Korenovskaya. On July 15, the Reds drove this "International" A. Bogaevsky out of the village;
- On July 16, the rifle unit of Colonel Andreev, reinforced by two English armored cars, entered Korenovskaya. 19-20 they retreated;
- On July 23, the elite regiments of Drozdovsky and Kazanovich break into our village, but the horsemen of G.I. Mironenko almost completely destroy these units, throwing the whites out of their native village. The 1st Revolutionary Regiment of Mironenko defeated the regiments of Drozdovsky and Kazanovich and drove their remnants to the village of Vyselki. For some time the front stabilized, but the Reds did not have enough forces to develop the offensive, they needed reinforcements and ammunition. The soldiers of the army are half-starved. The front of the Reds begins to "crack". Some commanders do not follow the orders of the commander-in-chief. (Goon, the "Steel Division" goes to the Kalmyk steppes).
And the whites are supplied with ammunition from the British, they regrouped and again took Korenovskaya, then continued their attack on Yekaterinodar. 07/25/1918 Denikin's troops finally capture the village of Korenovskaya. The retreat of the Reds became uncontrollable.
The Taman army was cut off from the main forces. They were forced to retreat to Tuapse, and then, with battles, through Belorechenskaya, break through to join Sorokin's army ("Iron Stream", Serafimovich).
Many mistakes and miscalculations were made by the commanders of the Red troops, but the main reason for the defeat was the loss of mass support from the Kuban Cossacks. In the spring of 1918, the Cossacks followed the Soviets because they gave peace to the country. But the inhabitants of Kuban did not feel this world. Kornilovites with foreigners started a civil war in the Kuban. The Soviet authorities did not give the Kubans peace of mind. Requisitions, robbery (Golubov's gangs), redistribution of land not in favor of the Cossacks - these are the main reasons that pushed the Cossacks into the camp of Denikin. However, money also played a role, 150 rubles. at that time there was a decent amount, the Cossacks are not averse to earning some money even now.
The White movement was alien to peasant Russia. The workers and peasants understood that the victory of the whites meant a return to the power of the landlords, to the old order, to the return of the land that the Bolsheviks had given them. To the dominance of one over the other. This was understood by many Cossacks who, as part of the Red Army, fought against this.

White retreat.

The defeat of the whites near Yegorlykskaya on February 25, 1920. marked the beginning of a major retreat. White, putting up fierce resistance, retreated to the river Her. Near Kushchevskaya, a desperate attempt was made to stop the Red Army. But the battles are lost. The ninth (9A) army of Uborevich rolled on like an asphalt rink, not giving the whites the slightest rest. With a blow to the flank, she overturned the whites near Tikhoretskaya and breaks through Staroleushkovskaya to Medvedovskaya. 10A and the 50th Taman Army complete their defeat with a frontal attack on Tikhoretskaya. Fierce resistance is crushed, White flees. The cavalrymen of S.M. Budyonny and G.D. Gai are striving for Ust-Labinskaya to intercept the retreating enemy. In February 1920, the Whites were preparing a spring offensive, but on February 25, the Red Army went on the offensive. There was a decisive turning point in the civil war. By this time, many of the Korenovites, who had previously gone to the Whites, had already returned home from the strife of the enemy. The units covering Ekaterinodar are also fleeing criminally. Thousands of wagons were thrown, a lot of valuable goods.
Denikin concentrates 20 thousand sabers at Berezanskaya. He sets the task for Sidorin to defeat the Reds and return Tikhoretskaya. But the 9th Army is attacking the Beisug group of Denikin with all its might. The cavalry corps of D.P. Zhloba attacked Sidorin's cavalry. The 33rd Kuban division of Rodionov beats the enemy at Zhuravka. Both in the cavalry corps of Zhloba, and in the cavalry brigade of P. Belov, the Kuban Cossacks form the backbone. Sidorino Don residents felt uncomfortable in the Kuban. / R. Govorovsky. Kuban. Spring of the twentieth… A documentary story.//Cossack news No. 10-13, 1999// The front rolled inexorably towards Korenovskaya. Denikin, as in the summer of 1918, hoped for a turning point in the course of events. But parts of the Kuban Cossacks are increasingly going over to the side of the Reds (Shapkin's squadrons). And even earlier, the Cossacks of Musiy Pilyuk, having defeated the punishers of Colonel Zakharov at Maryanskaya, went into the partisans. At Korenovskaya - a crowd of white troops. Confusion and chaos at Stanichnaya station.
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Trains do not have time to take away refugees from Stanichnaya station, who is not here ... (Picture from the encyclopedia)​

Who is not here. The crowd is rushing about, all trains. The mass of the military, strayed from their units. The officers are arguing about whether the Kuban will finally go over to the side of the Reds or not. The soldiers grab, shake, drag the head of the station somewhere. He, beaten, hides from the crowd. Meanwhile, the officers calculated that Korenovskaya had changed hands nine times since 1918. / Thesis. Exactly two years ago, on the same slushy day, the Kornilovites of the 1st Kuban campaign left the village, leaving for Ust-Laba. But then no one hung on their tail. Now, on March 13, 1920, the regiments of Commander Ovchinnikov and the cavalry of S.M. Budyonny and Gai were literally “on their heels”.
As in 1918, it froze at night, thawed during the day, a dirty spring both at the beginning of the white movement and at the end of it. The Kuban nature itself, as it were, told the participants in the white movement that the war against its people is a wrong, vile deed. One of the ardent opponents of the Reds, A.G. Shkuro, already in exile wrote about the retreat of those days: “Entire divisions, drunk on looted alcohol and vodka, flee without a fight.” / Notes of a white partisan. M, 1994. / In the same place, he promised to cut out the Dubinka (Cheryomushki), who rebelled against the whites.
Therefore, the white cause was doomed. In addition, even earlier, the contradictions between Denikin and the Kuban Rada led to a clash. The Rada was dispersed in 1919, the regimental priest A.I. Kalabukhov was hanged, the chairman of the Kuban regional council, N.S. Ryabovol, was shot dead in Rostov by a Denikin officer. Only a year before the summer of 1919, the Kuban Cossacks supported Denikin, then mass desertion from the White Army began, and partisan detachments began to appear. A.I. Denikin wrote in his memoirs: “... at the end of 1918, the Kubans made up two-thirds of the army, and by the end of the summer of 1919 there were only 15% of them ...”. Thus, representing the white movement as something unified is not quite correctly. All of them were united by hatred for the Bolsheviks and for the future that dared to live without masters, for those who aspired to equality.
The units covering Yekaterinodar are also fleeing. Thousands of wagons of goods looted by the Cossacks according to custom were abandoned, left by the road.
​

Almost in the spring of 1920, the civil war in the Kuban was over. After the capitulation on May 21 of the 60,000-strong white army of General Morozov, the Kuban Cossacks and many Korenovites returned to peaceful work, the Soviet authorities declared an amnesty for them.
But in August, near Novorossiysk, Primorsko-Akhtarskaya and Taman, S.G. Wrangel believed to once again make the Kuban an economic springboard for the Whites. In Maikop, Labinsk, Batalpashinsky departments, General Fostikov M.A. organized the Renaissance Army. However, the bulk of the Cossacks did not support the Whites. And after this uprising, in June 1921. The Soviet government granted amnesty to all those who laid down their arms. The heroic past of the Cossacks and their service to Russia deserve special attention of creative people. Without the Cossacks, there would be no Russia in the form in which it is. Russian Orthodoxy was defended not only by asceticism and devotion to God, but also by weapons. A Russian soldier and a Cossack with a bayonet and a sharp saber managed to defend Orthodoxy - the soul of the Russian people. This, too, must be remembered, and understood that love, equality and brotherhood, as the ethical component of Orthodoxy, were the essence of the Cossack. And the Cossack was ready to defend this Truth with weapons in his hands from any enemies.
It is not the fault of the Cossacks that they reacted especially painfully to insults, often with weapons in their hands. They were pushed to this by those who strove for power, who used the Cossacks in their own selfish interests. Six years of battles, in which millions took part, they had to be fed and clothed. People fell in the fields from fatigue, and in the cities they died at the machines from hunger.
The Russian people paid a huge price for the aspirations of the young Russian bourgeoisie to power and the interference of foreigners in our lives. In these battles, he realized that power should be in the hands of the people, only he can dispose of it for the benefit of all.
As you can see, the intentions of the Bolsheviks and Kornilovites were the same in 1917 - to seize power, but the goals are directly opposite. Some want to continue the war in the name of the interests of the bourgeoisie of England, France and the Russian elite (these interests were clearly stipulated in the Secret Agreements on the post-war division of booty, later published by the Bolsheviks), while others are against the war.
(Already!) On November 8, the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin, ordered Dukhonin (commander-in-chief) "to address the military authorities of the enemy armies with a proposal to immediately suspend hostilities in order to open peace negotiations" (telephone message dated 11/8/1917). There is nothing to feed the army, starvation begins in the cities.
Due to the confrontation of the Headquarters, negotiations began only on November 19 (therefore, Dukhonin was killed by a brutal crowd of soldiers in the Headquarters).
November 19, 1917 L.G. Kornilov leaves his "prison" in Bykhov and, together with the Tekins "guarding" him, goes to the Don to start a war with those who want to stop the bloodshed.
We are convinced that the white officers were true to their oath. To whom? They did not support the king. To the people? The people came to power, they want to end the war. No, gentlemen officers cannot allow him to do this. Now they are trying to convince us that the leaders of the white movement were patriots. A patriot is a defender of the people and the Fatherland. This is how it is necessary to pervert consciousness in order to call those who started a war against their people in their Fatherland patriots. I agree that it was a tragedy for millions of people, but the way out of the tragedy can be different. In 1991 we also suffered a tragedy. The people understood that they were being robbed, under the guise of democracy they seized power and property, but the greatness of the Russian people lies precisely in the fact that it does not value property, and power too. In order for him to take up arms, he must be brought either to a mental breakdown or to despair, but everything was normal with the Soviet people with the psyche.
However, it is easy to explain who imposes on us the view of the White Guard as martyrs for the idea. This point of view is being imposed on us by those who, in 1991, fulfilled the plans of foreign states to divide “European Russia into four or more states”.

A sane person cannot have a single argument to justify the actions of Kaledin, Krasnov, Kornilov, Kolchak:
- "the officers could not bear the" obscene "peace with Germany." But the "obscene" peace was concluded only on March 1, 1918, and fighting on the Don began in November 1917, in the Kuban in February 1918;
- the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly took place on January 6, 1918, which also could not be the reason that pushed for armed resistance.

There is only one explanation - the tops of the Cossacks, the generals of the tsarist army, aspired to power. They (Alekseev, Kornilov, Denikin, Kolchak) longed to become the arbiters of the destinies of Russia. And it was all the same to them on what to “drive” into the Mother See; on a white horse or on a boat on a sea of ​​human blood, the blood of his people. And Kornilov, and Alekseev, and Denikin - themselves from the people. With their talent, courage, courage they reached the unattainable heights of power. They achieved this position with sweat, blood, hardships. The very idea of ​​equality (Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin received a worker's salary) was madness for them. They saw more negative things in their people.
The Cossack elite strove for separation from Russia, for autonomy, independence, but separatism, both then and now, is detrimental to ordinary people.
The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, believed that the sacred fire of the revolution would awaken the mind, the creative forces of man. They believed in their people, in man.
This faith in the best qualities of a person made them forgive their opponents in the first months of Soviet power. On parole that they would no longer take up arms, the Cadets, Cossacks, Ataman Krasnov, all who took up arms in October, and much later, took up arms to overthrow the Soviet government.
At the end of 1917, the Bolsheviks tried to "solder the unity of the nation" with Love. And it was not their fault that the world turned out to be unnecessary neither for the governments of "enlightened Europe" nor for military professionals. Now, of course, we rightly condemn the terrible repressions, but we forget that they were often retaliatory actions against conspiracies and uprisings.
Nobody destroyed the generals at the beginning of 1918, they were simply made equal with everyone else, they could not survive this. Enlisting the support of foreigners (financial and military), the White Guards, like a flock of predators, bared their fangs and bristled their "skins", rushed into battle. As if mammoths, opponents of Soviet power, sent their tusks (guns, planes, machine guns, armies) into the heart of wounded Russia. And she, their homeland, needed support, she was dying of typhus and hunger generated by THEIR war (World War I). Generated by the activities of THEIR government (Provisional Government). January and February 1918 (as, indeed, the next two years) were a time of survival. The Germans, in view of the treacherous policy of another lover of proxy war - Trotsky, whom Lenin very often called a "political prostitute", rushed into the depths of Russia. Only emergency measures to create new army and providing it with food stopped their advance. A dying country is forced to pay huge sums of indemnities and reparations. And at this time, the tops of the Cossacks beat Russia from below (in the groin or in the stomach). Believe me, it hurts a lot. You can, of course, understand and forgive the masses of the Cossacks, who perceived the activities of the food detachments as a robbery. They defended themselves from the Bolsheviks, who saved Russia from starvation, and from the Germans.
But how to make peace with those who understood everything, but raised the officers and Cossacks against their people? However, our people are not vindictive. During the Caucasian war, many Cossacks among the highlanders had kunaks. We have already forgiven our rulers who unleashed a civil - Chechen war. It remains only to make heroes of Kornilov, Shkuro, Krasnov, Denikin and erect monuments to them. Well, apparently, really insanity in the mind, its distortion has reached its climax. Let's glorify those who staged a bloody massacre and "washed Russia with blood."
We're walking the glorious road
We bring life to the altar,
So that the United and Sovereign
Russia has risen, as of old.

From Kuban to Baikal
Along the steppes, forests and mountains
Rolled with a powerful shaft
Russian guns conversation.

Belgium.
A.G.

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 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 the issue of restoring order by the forces of other troops. After the sovereign's abdication and the Provisional Government taking control of the country, 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 acted in Petrograd under the chairmanship of 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, they 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 field 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 peace of Brest” was concluded, according to which Russia lost about 1 million km² of territory, undertook to demobilize the army and navy, transfer ships and infrastructure of the Black Sea 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 Bolsheviks Brest Peace 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 policy, 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 that had a thousand-year-old 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 quite 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, 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 follow 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 was not enough in the Don warehouses, it had to be taken from the soldiers traveling home, in military trains passing through Rostov and Novocherkassk, or bought through buyers in the same trains. 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 chieftains 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 accounted for 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 participation 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. The death of Ataman Kaledin and the occupation of Novocherkassk by the Bolsheviks ends in the south of the period great war and transition to civil war.

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 coat 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 Don 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 military establishment consisted of six foot and two cavalry regiments of different numbers. 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 captured them. 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 bands 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.

Rice. 4 Cossack regions of Russia

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 the 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.

Rice. 6 White Cossacks

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.

Rice. 7 Czech legion on the way along the Trans-Siberian

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 complete the withdrawal 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.

Rice. 8 Hero of Komuch Lieutenant Colonel Kappel V.O.

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 elect 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 at the beginning of 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 Yekaterinodar 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 population of the region 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 Cossack front-line soldiers, who did not obey the center well, but followed exactly its policy. These undisciplined, but well-armed and violent gangs began to plant Soviet power, redistribute land, seize grain surpluses and socialize, but simply to rob wealthy Cossacks and behead the Cossacks - the persecution of officers, non-Bolshevik intelligentsia, priests, authoritative 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 per 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 Kyiv: 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 Dobroarmiya 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 country's administration 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 Russia 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 Russia 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

The 1st Cavalry Army, formed by the Reds from shock units, as a result of a successful counter-offensive, broke through to Taganrog by January 6, 1920 and was able to split the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSUR) into two parts. In January, the offensive of the Reds continued. January 7 Horse-Consolidated Corps B.M. Dumenko occupied Novocherkassk, the capital of the White Don. On January 10, units of the 1st Cavalry Army under the command of S. M. Budyonny occupied Rostov with a fight. By the beginning of 1920, most of the territory of the Don was occupied by the Reds: the cavalry army of Budyonny and the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th armies numbering 43,000 bayonets and 28,000 sabers with 400 guns, a total of 71,000 soldiers. The front between the belligerents passed along the Don line. During the retreat, the troops of the AFSR were divided into two parts: the main forces retreated to the southeast to the Kuban, and the other part to the Crimea and beyond the Dnieper. Therefore, the Soviet front was divided into the Southern and South-Eastern. The main base of the counter-revolution was the Don, Kuban and the Caucasus, and therefore the main task of the Reds was the destruction of the forces of the South-East. The 10th Red Army was advancing on Tikhoretskaya, the 9th was advancing from Razdorskaya-Konstantinovskaya, the 8th was advancing from the Novocherkassk region, and in the Rostov region the Budyonny cavalry army with infantry divisions attached to it operated. The cavalry army consisted of 70% volunteers from the Don and Kuban regions, it included 9500 horsemen, 4500 infantry, 400 machine guns, 56 guns, 3 armored trains and 16 airplanes.

Don froze on January 3, 1920, and the Soviet commander Shorin ordered the 1st Cavalry and 8th armies to force it near the cities of Nakhichevan and Aksai. General Sidorin ordered to prevent this and to defeat the enemy at the crossings, which was done. After this failure, the 1st Cavalry Army was withdrawn to the reserve and replenished. On January 16, 1920, the South-Eastern Front was renamed the Caucasian Front, and Tukhachevsky was appointed commander of it on February 4. He was given the task of completing the defeat of the armies of General Denikin and capturing the North Caucasus before the war with Poland began. Three reserve Latvian divisions and one Estonian are being transferred to reinforce this front. In the front line, the number of red troops reached 60,000 bayonets and sabers against 46,000 of the whites. In turn, General Denikin was also preparing an offensive to return Rostov and Novocherkassk. In early February, the red cavalry corps of Dumenko was defeated on Manych, and as a result of the offensive of the Volunteer Corps of Kutepov and the III Don Corps on February 20, the Whites again captured Rostov and Novocherkassk, which, according to Denikin, “caused an explosion of exaggerated hopes in Yekaterinodar and Novorossiysk ... However, the movement to the north could not be developed, because the enemy was already moving into the rear of the Volunteer Corps - to Tikhoretskaya.

The fact is that simultaneously with the offensive of the Volunteer Corps, the shock group of the 10th Red Army broke through the defenses of the Whites in the zone of responsibility of the unstable and decaying Kuban Army, and the 1st Cavalry Army was introduced into the breakthrough to develop success on Tikhoretskaya. The cavalry group of General Pavlov (II and IV Don Corps) was advanced against it. On the night of February 19, Pavlov's cavalry group attacked Torgovaya, but the whites' fierce attacks were repulsed. The white cavalry was forced to retreat to Sredny Yegorlyk in severe frost. Leaving Torgovaya, the Cossack regiments joined the main forces, which were in a very unattractive position, located under the open sky in the snow, in a terrible frost. The morning awakening was terrible and in the composition of the buildings there were many frozen and half frostbite. In order to turn the tide in their favor, the White command on February 25 decided to strike at the rear of the 1st Cavalry Army. Budyonny was aware of the movement of Pavlov's group, and he prepared for battle. Rifle divisions took up positions. Horse regiments lined up in columns. The head brigade of the IV Corps was unexpectedly attacked by Budyonny's cavalry, crushed and put into a disorderly flight, which upset the following columns. As a result, south of the strategically important Sredny Yegorlyk, on February 25, a battle takes place - the largest in the history of the civil war, an oncoming cavalry battle of up to 25 thousand sabers on both sides (15 thousand red against 10 thousand white). The battle was distinguished by a purely cavalry character. The attacks of the opponents alternated for several hours and were distinguished by extreme bitterness. Horse attacks took place with a variable alternation of movements of horse masses from one side to the other. The retreating masses of one cavalry were pursued by the cavalry mass of the enemy rushing behind it to their reserves, when approaching which the attackers came under heavy fire from artillery and machine guns. The attackers stopped and turned back, and at this time the enemy cavalry, having recovered and replenished with reserves, proceeded to pursue and drove the enemy also to his starting position, where the attackers fell into the same position. After artillery and machine-gun fire, they turned back, pursued by the recovered enemy cavalry. The fluctuations of the horse masses, which took place from one height to another through the vast hollow that separated them, continued from 11 o'clock in the afternoon until the very evening. The Soviet author, evaluating the operation of Pavlov’s cavalry group, concludes: “Once thundering with glorious battles and dashing attacks, the invincible Mamantov cavalry, the best white cavalry, after this battle, greatly lost its formidable significance on Denikin’s and our Caucasian fronts.” This moment for the Don cavalry in the history of the civil war was decisive, and after that everything went to the fact that the Don cavalry quickly lost moral stability and, without offering resistance, began to quickly roll towards the Caucasus Mountains. This battle actually decided the fate of the battle for the Kuban. Budyonny's cavalry, leaving cover in the direction of Tikhoretskaya with the support of several infantry divisions, moved to pursue the remnants of General Pavlov's cavalry group. After this battle, the white army, having lost the will to resist, retreated. The Reds won the war in the southeast against the Cossacks. This battle of the elite cavalry masses of both warring parties practically ended the civil war between the whites and reds of the South-Eastern Front.


Rice. 1 Battle of the 1st Cavalry Army near Yegorlyk

On March 1, the Volunteer Corps left Rostov, and the White armies began to retreat to the Kuban River. The Cossack units of the Kuban army (the most unstable part of the All-Union Socialist Republic) completely decomposed and began to massively surrender to the Reds or go over to the side of the “Greens”, which led to the collapse of the White front and the retreat of the remnants of the Volunteer Army to Novorossiysk. The next most significant events were the crossing of the Kuban, the Novorossiysk evacuation, and the transfer of part of the Whites to the Crimea. On March 3, the Red troops approached Yekaterinodar. Stavropol was surrendered on February 18th. The Kuban region was overwhelmed by retreating and advancing waves of the fighting parties, large parties of greens formed in the mountains, who declared that they were against the reds and against the whites, in fact it was one of the ways to get out of the war, and the greens (if necessary) easily turned into reds. By the spring of 1920, a 12,000-strong partisan army of the Greens was actively operating in the rear of the Whites, providing significant assistance to the five advancing armies of the Reds, under the blows of which the front of the All-Union Socialist Revolutionary Federation collapsed, and the Cossacks en masse went over to the side of the Greens. The volunteer army with the remnants of the Cossack units retreated to Novorossiysk, the Reds followed. The success of the Tikhoretsk operation allowed them to move on to the Kuban-Novorossiysk operation, during which on March 17 the 9th Army of the Caucasian Front under the command of I.P. Uborevich was occupied by Ekaterinodar and crossed the Kuban. Leaving Yekaterinodar and crossing the Kuban, refugees and military units found themselves in unfavorable natural conditions. The low and swampy bank of the Kuban River and the numerous rivers flowing from the mountains with swampy banks made it difficult to move. Circassian auls were scattered along the foothills with a population that was irreconcilably hostile to both white and red. The few villages of the Kuban Cossacks were heavily mixed with non-residents, most of them sympathizing with the Bolsheviks. Greens dominated the mountains. Negotiations with them did not lead to anything. Dobrarmia and I Don Corps retreated to Novorossiysk, which was a "vile spectacle." Tens of thousands of people gathered behind the back of the agonizing front in Novorossiysk, most of whom were quite healthy and fit to defend their right to exist with arms in their hands. It was hard to watch these representatives of the bankrupt government and the intelligentsia: landowners, officials, the bourgeoisie, tens and hundreds of generals, thousands of officers eager to leave as soon as possible, embittered, disappointed and cursing everyone and everything. Novorossiysk, in general, was a military camp and rear nativity scene. Meanwhile, in the port of Novorossiysk, troops were being loaded onto ships of all types, more reminiscent of fistfights. All vessels were provided for loading the Volunteer Corps, which on March 26-27 left Novorossiysk by sea for the Crimea. For parts of the Don army, not a single vessel was given, and General Sidorin, infuriated, went to Novorossiysk with the aim of shooting Denikin in case of refusal to load the Don units. This did not help, there were simply no ships, and on March 27 the 9th Red Army captured Novorossiysk. The Cossack units located in the Novorossiysk region were forced to surrender to the Reds.

Rice. 2 Evacuation of whites from Novorossiysk

Another part of the Don army, together with the Kuban units, was drawn into the mountainous hungry region and moved towards Tuapse. On March 20, the I Kuban Corps of Shefner-Markevich occupied Tuapse, easily expelling the red units occupying the city from it. Then he moved on to Sochi, and the cover of Tuapse was entrusted to the II Kuban Corps. The number of troops and refugees retreating to Tuapse turned out to be up to 57,000 people; there was only one solution: to go to the borders of Georgia. But in the negotiations that began, Georgia refused to let the armed masses cross the border, as it had neither food nor sufficient funds not only for the refugees, but even for itself. However, the movement towards Georgia still continued, and the Cossacks reached Georgia without any complications.

Faced with the intensification of opposition sentiments in the white movement after the defeat of his troops, on April 4, Denikin resigned the post of Commander-in-Chief of the All-Union Socialist League, handed over command to General Wrangel, and on the same day, on the English battleship "Emperor of India", departed with his friend, ally and former chief of staff of the All-Union Socialist League General Romanovsky to England with an intermediate stop in Constantinople, where the latter was shot dead in the building of the Russian embassy in Constantinople by Lieutenant Kharuzin, a former counterintelligence officer of the All-Russian Union of Youth Leagues.

On April 20, warships arrived from the Crimea in Tuapse, Sochi, Sukhum and Poti to load the Cossacks and transport them to the Crimea. But only people who decided to part with their comrades-in-arms - horses, were loaded, since transportation could be carried out without horses and horse equipment. It should be said that the most irreconcilable were evacuated. So the 80th Zyungar Regiment did not accept the terms of surrender, did not lay down their arms, and in full strength, together with the remnants of the Don units, was evacuated to the Crimea. In the Crimea, the 80th Zyungar Regiment, consisting of the Salsk Kalmyk Cossacks, marched in front of the Commander-in-Chief of the All-Union Socialist Republic P.N. Wrangel, since among the units evacuated from Novorossiysk and Adler, apart from this regiment, there was not a single whole armed unit. Most of the Cossack regiments, pressed to the shore, accepted the terms of surrender and surrendered to units of the Red Army. According to the Bolsheviks, they took 40,000 men and 10,000 horses from the Adler coast. It should be said that during the civil war, the Soviet leadership somewhat adjusted its policy towards the Cossacks, trying not only to split it even more, but also to bring it to its side as much as possible. For the leadership of the Red Cossacks and for propaganda purposes, in order to show that not all Cossacks are against the Soviet regime, a Cossack department is created under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. As the Cossack military governments became more and more dependent on the "white" generals, the Cossacks singly and in groups began to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks. In the early 1920s, these transitions become massive. Entire divisions of Cossacks are beginning to be created in the Red Army. Especially many Cossacks join the Red Army when the White Guards evacuate to the Crimea and leave tens of thousands of Donets and Kuban on the Black Sea coast. Most of the abandoned Cossacks, after filtering, are enlisted in the Red Army and sent to the Polish front. In particular, it was then that Guy’s 3rd cavalry corps was formed from the captured White Cossacks, recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as “the best cavalry of all times and peoples.” Along with the White Cossacks, a large number of white officers are enrolled in the Red Army. Then a joke was born: "The Red Army is like a radish, red on the outside, white on the inside." Because of a large number former whites in the Red Army, the military leadership of the Bolsheviks even introduced a limit on the number of white officers in the Red Army - no more than 25% of the command staff. "Surplus" went to the rear, or went to teach in military schools. In total, about 15 thousand white officers served in the Red Army during the civil war. Many of these officers connected their future fate with the Red Army, and some achieved a high position. So, for example, from this “call”, the former lieutenant of the Don Army Shapkin T.T. in World War II he was a lieutenant general and commander, and the former Kolchak artillery headquarters captain Govorov L.A. became a commander of the front and one of the marshals of the Victory. At the same time, on March 25, 1920, the Bolsheviks issued a decree on the abolition of the Cossack military lands. Soviet power was finally established on the Don and adjacent territories. The Great Don Army ceased to exist. Thus ended the civil war in the lands of the Don and Kuban Cossacks and the entire southeast. A new tragedy began - the epic of the war on the territory of Crimea.

The Crimean peninsula was the last stage of the civil war in the southeast. Both in terms of geographical location and the political aspirations of the leaders of the Volunteer Army, he responded in the best way, because he represented a neutral zone, independent of the power of the Cossack administration and the Cossacks' claims to internal independence and sovereignty. Parts of the Cossacks transported from the Black Sea coast, according to psychology, were also volunteers who left their territories and were deprived of the opportunity to fight directly for their lands, houses and property. The command of the Volunteer Army was relieved of the need to reckon with the governments of the Don, Kuban and Terek, but it was also deprived of their economic base, necessary for the successful conduct of the war. It was obvious that the Crimean region was not a reliable territory for the continuation of the civil war, and in order to continue the struggle, it was necessary to rely only on unforeseen happy circumstances, or on a miracle, or else prepare for the final exit from the war and look for ways to retreat. The army, refugees and home fronts numbered up to one and a half million people, especially those who were not inclined to put up with the Bolsheviks. Western countries followed the tragedy taking place in Russia with keen attention and curiosity. England, which had previously taken an active part in the history of the white movement in Russia, was inclined to end the civil strife, with the aim of concluding a trade agreement with the Soviets. General Wrangel, who replaced Denikin, was well acquainted with the general state of affairs in Russia and in the West and did not have bright hopes for a successful continuation of the war. Peace with the Bolsheviks was impossible, negotiations for the conclusion of peace agreements were excluded, one inevitable decision remained: to prepare the basis for a possible successful exit from the struggle, i.e. evacuation. Having assumed command, General Wrangel stood up energetically to continue the struggle, at the same time he directed all his efforts to putting the ships and vessels of the Black Sea Fleet in order. At this time, an unexpected ally appeared in the struggle. Poland entered the war against the Bolsheviks, which opened up the possibility for the white command to have at least this very slippery and temporary ally in the fight. Poland, taking advantage of the internal turmoil in Russia, began to spread the borders of its territory to the east and decided to occupy Kyiv. On April 25, 1920, the Polish army, equipped at the expense of France, invaded Soviet Ukraine and occupied Kyiv on May 6.

Rice. 3 Soviet poster from 1920

The head of the Polish state, J. Pilsudski, hatched a plan to create a confederate state "from sea to sea", which would include the territories of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. Ignoring the claims of Poland, which were unacceptable to Russian politics, General Wrangel agreed with Pilsudski and concluded a military treaty with him. However, these plans were not destined to come true. The Reds began to take measures against the impending threat to them from the west. The Soviet-Polish war began. This war took on the character of a national war among the Russian people and began successfully. On May 14, the counteroffensive of the troops of the Western Front (commander M.N. Tukhachevsky) began, on May 26 - the South-Western Front (commander A.I. Egorov). Polish troops quickly began to retreat, did not hold Kyiv, and in mid-July the Reds approached the borders of Poland. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), clearly overestimating its strength and underestimating the strength of the enemy, set a new strategic task for the command of the Red Army: to enter the territory of Poland with battles, take its capital and create conditions for the declaration of Soviet power in the country. According to the statements of the Bolshevik leaders, on the whole, this was an attempt to push the "red bayonet" deep into Europe and thereby "stir up the Western European proletariat", push it to support the world revolution. Speaking on September 22, 1920 at the IX All-Russian Conference of the RCP (b), Lenin said: “We decided to use our military forces to help the Sovietization of Poland. From this followed the further general policy. We did not formulate this in an official resolution written down in the minutes of the Central Committee and representing the law for the party until the next congress. But among ourselves we said that we should probe with bayonets whether the social revolution of the proletariat in Poland was ripe.” The order of Tukhachevsky to the troops of the Western Front No. 1423 of July 2, 1920 sounded even clearer and more understandable: “The fate of the world revolution is being decided in the West. Through the corpse of White Pan Poland lies the path to the world conflagration. On bayonets we will carry happiness to the working mankind! However, some military leaders, including Trotsky, feared for the success of the offensive and offered to respond to the Poles' proposals for peace. Trotsky, who knew the state of the Red Army well, wrote in his memoirs: “There were ardent hopes for an uprising of the Polish workers .... Lenin developed a firm plan: to bring the matter to an end, that is, to enter Warsaw in order to help the Polish working masses overthrow the Pilsudski government and seize power .... I found in the center a very firm mood in favor of bringing the war to an end. I strongly opposed this. The Poles have already asked for peace. I believed that we had reached the climax of success, and if, without calculating our strength, we go further, we can pass by an already won victory - to defeat. Despite Trotsky's opinion, Lenin and almost all members of the Politburo rejected his proposal for an immediate peace with Poland. The attack on Warsaw was entrusted to the Western Front, and on Lvov to the South-Western. The successful advance of the Red Army to the west posed a great threat to Central and Western Europe. The Red cavalry invaded Galicia and threatened to occupy Lvov. The allies, who triumphed over Germany, had already demobilized and did not have free troops to counter the impending threat of Bolshevism, but sent from France to help the Polish command of Polish legionnaires-volunteers and officers of the General Staff of the French army, who arrived as military advisers.

The attempted invasion of Poland ended in disaster. The troops of the Western Front in August 1920 were utterly defeated near Warsaw (the so-called "Miracle on the Vistula"), and rolled back. During the battle, out of the five armies of the Western Front, only the 3rd survived, which managed to retreat. The rest of the armies were defeated or destroyed: the 4th Army and part of the 15th fled to East Prussia and were interned, the Mozyr group, the 15th and 16th armies were also defeated. More than 120 thousand Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner, for the most part captured during the battle near Warsaw, and another 40 thousand soldiers were in East Prussia in internment camps. This defeat of the Red Army is the most catastrophic in the history of the civil war. According to Russian sources, in the future, about 80,000 Red Army soldiers from the total number of those who fell into Polish captivity died from starvation, disease, torture, bullying, executions, or did not return to their homeland. Only the number of returned prisoners of war and internees is known for certain - 75,699 people. In estimates of the total number of prisoners of war, the Russian and Polish sides disagree - from 85 to 157 thousand people. The Soviets were forced to enter into peace negotiations. In October, the parties concluded a truce, and in March 1921 another "obscene peace" was concluded, like the Brest peace, only with Poland and also with the payment of a large indemnity. According to its terms, a significant part of the lands in the west of Ukraine and Belarus with 10 million Ukrainians and Belarusians went to Poland. None of the parties during the war achieved their goals: Belarus and Ukraine were divided between Poland and the Soviet republics, which in 1922 became part of Soviet Union. The territory of Lithuania was divided between Poland and the independent state of Lithuania. The RSFSR, for its part, recognized the independence of Poland and the legitimacy of the Pilsudski government, temporarily abandoned the plans for a "world revolution" and the elimination of the Versailles system. Despite the signing of a peace treaty, relations between the USSR and Poland remained very tense over the following years, which ultimately led to the participation of the USSR in the partition of Poland in 1939. During the Soviet-Polish war, disagreements arose between the Entente countries on the issue of military-financial support for Poland. Negotiations on the transfer of part of the property and weapons of the Wrangel army captured by the Poles also did not lead to any results due to the refusal of the leadership of the white movement to recognize the independence of Poland. All this led to a gradual cooling and cessation of support by many countries of the white movement and anti-Bolshevik forces in general, and subsequently to the international recognition of the Soviet Union.

In the midst of the Soviet-Polish war, Baron P.N. Wrangell. With the help of harsh measures of influence, including public executions of demoralized soldiers and officers, the general turned Denikin's scattered divisions into a disciplined and combat-ready army. After the outbreak of the Soviet-Polish war, the Russian Army (former VSYUR), which had recovered from an unsuccessful attack on Moscow, set out from the Crimea and occupied Northern Tavria by mid-June. Military operations on the territory of the Tauride region can be classified by military historians as examples of brilliant military art. But soon the resources of the Crimea were practically exhausted. In the supply of weapons and ammunition, Wrangel was forced to rely only on France, since England had stopped helping the Whites back in 1919. On August 14, 1920, an assault force (4.5 thousand bayonets and sabers) was landed from the Crimea to the Kuban under the leadership of General S. G. Ulagay, in order to join with numerous rebels and open a second front against the Bolsheviks. But the initial successes of the landing, when the Cossacks, having defeated the red units thrown against them, had already reached the approaches to Yekaterinodar, could not be developed due to the mistakes of Ulagai, who, contrary to the original plan for a swift attack on the capital of the Kuban, stopped the offensive and began regrouping troops. This allowed the Reds to pull up reserves, create a numerical advantage and block parts of Ulagai. The Cossacks fought back to the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov, to Achuev, from where they were evacuated on September 7 to the Crimea, taking with them 10,000 rebels who had joined them. A few landings landed on Taman and in the Abrau-Dyurso region to divert the forces of the Red Army from the main Ulagaev landing after stubborn battles were also taken back to the Crimea. The 15,000-strong partisan army of Fostikov, operating in the Armavir-Maikop area, could not break through to help the landing force. In July-August, the main forces of the Wrangel troops fought successful defensive battles in Northern Tavria. After the failure of the landing on the Kuban, realizing that the army blocked in the Crimea was doomed, Wrangel decided to break the encirclement and break through to meet the advancing Polish army.

But before transferring hostilities to the right bank of the Dnieper, Wrangel threw parts of his Russian army into the Donbass in order to defeat the units of the Red Army operating there and prevent them from hitting the rear of the main forces of the White Army preparing for an offensive on the Right Bank, which they successfully coped with. . On October 3, the White offensive began on the Right Bank. But the initial success could not be developed, and on October 15, the Wrangel troops withdrew to the left bank of the Dnieper. Meanwhile, the Poles, contrary to promises made to Wrangel, on October 12, 1920, concluded a truce with the Bolsheviks, who immediately began to transfer troops from the Polish front against the White Army. On October 28, units of the Southern Red Front under the command of M.V. The Frunze went on a counteroffensive in order to encircle and defeat the Russian army of General Wrangel in Northern Tavria, preventing it from retreating to the Crimea. But the planned encirclement failed. By November 3, the main part of Wrangel's army withdrew to the Crimea, where they entrenched themselves on the prepared defense lines. M. V. Frunze, having concentrated about 190 thousand fighters against 41 thousand bayonets and sabers at Wrangel, on November 7 began the assault on the Crimea. Frunze wrote an appeal to General Wrangel, which was broadcast by the radio station of the front. After the text of the radio telegram was reported to Wrangel, he ordered all radio stations to be closed, except for one serviced by officers, in order to prevent the troops from familiarizing themselves with Frunze's appeal. No response was sent.

Rice. 4 Komfronta M.V. Frunze

Despite a significant superiority in manpower and weapons, the Red troops could not break the defense of the Crimean defenders for several days. On the night of November 10, a machine-gun regiment on carts and a cavalry brigade of the rebel army of Makhno, under the command of Karetnik, crossed the Sivash along the bottom. They were counterattacked near Yushun and Karpova Balka by the cavalry corps of General Barbovich. Against the cavalry corps of Barbovich (4590 sabers, 150 machine guns, 30 cannons, 5 armored cars), the Makhnovists used their favorite tactic of "false oncoming cavalry attack." The coachman placed Kozhin's machine-gun regiment on carts in the battle line immediately behind the lava of the cavalry and led the lava to the oncoming battle. But, when 400-500 meters were left to the horse lava of the whites, the Makhnovskaya lava spread to the sides of the flanks, the carts quickly turned around on the move and right from them the machine gunners opened heavy fire at close range on the attacking enemy, who already had nowhere to go. The fire was carried out with the highest tension, creating a fire density of up to 60 bullets per linear meter of the front per minute. The Makhnovist cavalry at that time went to the flank of the enemy and completed his rout with cold weapons. The machine-gun regiment of the Makhnovists, which was a mobile reserve of the brigade, in one battle completely destroyed almost the entire cavalry of the Wrangel army, which decided the outcome of the entire battle. Having defeated Barbovich's cavalry corps, the Makhnovists and Red Cossacks of Mironov's 2nd Cavalry Army went to the rear of Wrangel's troops defending the Perekop Isthmus, which contributed to the success of the entire Crimean operation. The defense of the whites was broken through and the Red Army broke into the Crimea. On November 12, Dzhankoy was taken by the Reds, on November 13 - Simferopol, on November 15 - Sevastopol, on November 16 - Kerch.

Rice. 5 Liberation of Crimea from Whites

After the capture of the Crimea by the Bolsheviks, mass executions of the civilian and military population on the peninsula began. The evacuation of the Russian army and civilians also began. Within three days, troops, families of officers, part of the civilian population from the Crimean ports - Sevastopol, Yalta, Feodosia and Kerch were loaded onto 126 ships. On November 14-16, 1920, an armada of ships under the St. Andrew's flag left the coast of Crimea, taking white regiments and tens of thousands of civilian refugees to a foreign land. The total number of voluntary exiles amounted to 150 thousand people. Having gone out on an impromptu "armada" to the open sea and becoming inaccessible to the Reds, the commander of the armada sent a telegram addressed to "everyone ... everyone ... everyone ..." outlining the situation and asking for help.

Rice. 6 Running

France responded to the call for help, its government agreed to accept the army as emigrants for its maintenance. Having received consent, the fleet moved towards Constantinople, then the corps of volunteers was sent to the Gallipoli peninsula (then it was the territory of Greece), and the Cossack units, after some stay in the Chataldzha camp, were sent to the island of Lemnos, one of the islands of the Ionian archipelago. After a year's stay of the Cossacks in the camps, an agreement was reached with the Slavic Balkan countries on the deployment of military units and emigration in these countries, with a financial guarantee for their food, but without the right to free accommodation in the country. In the difficult conditions of camp emigration, epidemics and famine were frequent, and many of the Cossacks who left their homeland died. But this stage became the base from which the placement of emigrants in other countries began, as it opened up opportunities to enter European countries to work under a contract in groups or individuals, with permission to search for work locally, depending on professional training and personal abilities. About 30 thousand Cossacks once again believed the promises of the Bolsheviks and returned to Soviet Russia in 1922-1925. Later they were repressed. So for many years the white Russian army became for the whole world the vanguard and an example of an uncompromising struggle against communism, and the Russian emigration began to serve for all countries as a reproach and a moral antidote to this threat.

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

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

On March 1, 1921, the sailors and Red Army soldiers of the Kronstadt fortress (garrison of 26 thousand people) under the slogan "For Soviets without Communists!" passed a resolution on the support of the workers of Petrograd, created a revolutionary committee and appealed to the country with an appeal. Since in it, and in the mildest form, almost all the then demands of the people were formulated, it makes sense to quote it in full:

“Comrades and citizens!

Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, economic ruin have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, ruling the country, broke away from the masses and proved unable to lead it out of the state of general ruin. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently taken place in Petrograd and Moscow, and which showed quite clearly that the Party had lost the confidence of the working masses. Nor did they take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the intrigues of the counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of the entire people, of all working people. All the workers, sailors and Red Army men clearly see at the present moment that only by joint efforts, by the common will of the working people, can bread, firewood, coal be provided to the country, to clothe the barefooted and undressed, and lead the republic out of the impasse...

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

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

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

4. To convene an supra-Party conference of workers, Red Army men and sailors of St. Petersburg, Kronstadt and the St. Petersburg province, to be held, at the latest, on March 10, 1921;

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

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

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

8. Immediately disband all barrage detachments;

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

11. Give the peasants complete freedom to dispose of their land, and also the right to have their own livestock, provided that they manage with their own means, that is, without hiring labor;

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

13. Ensure that these decisions are disseminated in the press;

14. Appoint a traveling control commission;

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

Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the sailors, the authorities began to prepare to suppress the uprising. On March 5, the 7th Army was restored under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was instructed "to suppress the uprising in Kronstadt as soon as possible." On March 7, artillery began shelling Kronstadt. The leader of the uprising, S. Petrichenko, later wrote: “Standing up to the waist in the blood of the working people, the bloody Field Marshal Trotsky was the first to open fire on revolutionary Kronstadt, which rebelled against the rule of the Communists in order to restore the true power of the Soviets.” On March 8, 1921, on the opening day of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), units of the Red Army stormed Kronstadt. But the assault was repulsed, the punitive troops, having suffered heavy losses, retreated to their original lines. Sharing the demands of the rebels, many Red Army soldiers and army units refused to participate in the suppression of the uprising. Mass shootings began. For the second assault on Kronstadt, the most loyal units were gathered, even delegates to the party congress were thrown into battle. On the night of March 16, after an intensive artillery shelling of the fortress, a new assault began. Thanks to the tactics of shooting the retreating barrage detachments and the superiority in forces and means, Tukhachevsky's troops broke into the fortress, fierce street fighting began, and only by the morning of March 18, resistance in Kronstadt was broken. Part of the fortress defenders died in battle, another went to Finland (8 thousand), the rest surrendered (of which 2103 people were shot according to the verdicts of revolutionary tribunals). But the sacrifices were not in vain. This uprising was the last straw that overflowed the cup of people's patience, and made a tremendous impression on the Bolsheviks. On March 14, 1921, the 10th Congress of the RCP(b) adopted a new economic policy, the NEP, which replaced the policy of "war communism" pursued during the civil war.

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

Up to 2 million people emigrated from the country. The number of homeless children has sharply increased. According to various sources, in 1921-1922 there were from 4.5 to 7 million homeless children in Russia. The damage to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell in various sectors to 4-20% of the 1913 level. As a result of the civil war, the Russian people remained under the rule of the communists. The result of the domination of the Bolsheviks was the outbreak of an apocalyptic general famine, covering Russia with millions of corpses. To avoid further famine and general ruin, the communists had no methods in their arsenal, and their brilliant leader, Ulyanov, decided to introduce a new economic program under the name of the NEP, for the destruction of the foundations of which he had taken until now all conceivable and unthinkable measures. As early as November 19, 1919, in his speech, he said: “far from all the peasants understand that the free trade in grain is a state crime: I produced bread; this is my product, and I have the right to trade it: this is how the peasant argues, out of habit, according to And we say that this is a crime against the state." Now, not only free trade in grain was introduced, but also in everything else. Moreover, private property was restored, private enterprises were returned to their own enterprises, private initiative and hired labor were allowed. These measures satisfied the bulk of the country's population, especially the peasantry. After all, 85% of the country's population were small proprietors, primarily peasants, and the workers were - it's ridiculous to say, a little more than 1% of the population. In 1921, the population of Soviet Russia at that time was 134.2 million, and there were 1,400,000 industrial workers. The NEP was a 180-degree turn. Such a reboot was not to the liking and beyond the strength of many Bolsheviks. Even their brilliant leader, who possessed a titanic mind and will, experienced dozens of incredible metamorphoses and turns in his political biography, based on his reckless dialectics and naked, almost unprincipled pragmatism, could not stand such an ideological somersault and soon lost his mind. And how many of his associates went crazy from the change of course or committed suicide, history is silent about this. Discontent was ripening in the party, the political leadership responded with massive party purges.

Rice. 8 Lenin before his death

With the introduction of the NEP, the country quickly came to life, and life in all respects began to revive in the country. The civil war, having lost its economic causes and mass social base, quickly began to stop. And now it's time to ask questions: What did you fight for? What have you achieved? What have you won? In the name of what did they destroy the country and put millions of lives of its people? After all, they returned practically to the starting points of being and worldview, from which the civil war began. The Bolsheviks and their followers do not like to answer these questions.

The answer to the question of who is responsible for unleashing the civil war in Russia does not depend on the facts, but depends on the political orientation of the people. Among the followers of the Reds, the Whites naturally started the war, and among the followers of the Whites, of course, the Bolsheviks. They do not argue much only about the places and dates of its beginning, as well as the time and place of its end. It ended in March 1921 at the 10th Congress of the RCP(b) with the introduction of the NEP, i.e. with the abolition of the policy of "war communism". And no matter how clever and cunning the communists are, this circumstance automatically gives the correct answer to the question posed. It was the irresponsible introduction of class chimeras of Bolshevism into the life and life of a peasant country that became the main cause of the civil war, and the abolition of these chimeras became a signal for its end. It also automatically resolves the issue of responsibility for all its consequences. Although history does not accept the subjunctive mood, the entire course and especially the finale of the war speaks for the fact that if the Bolsheviks had not broken people's life through the knee, then such a bloody war would not have happened. This is very eloquently evidenced by the defeat of Dutov and Kaledin at the beginning of 1918. The Cossacks then answered their chieftains clearly and specifically: “The Bolsheviks did nothing bad to us. Why are we going to fight them?" But everything changed dramatically after a few months of the real stay of the Bolsheviks in power, and mass uprisings began in response. Throughout its history, humanity has unleashed many senseless wars. Among them, civil wars are most often not only the most senseless, but also the most cruel and merciless. But even in this series of transcendent human idiocy, the civil war in Russia is phenomenal. It ended after the restoration of the political and economic conditions for managing, due to the abolition of which, in fact, it began. The bloody circle of reckless voluntarism has closed. So what were they fighting for? And who won?

The war was over, but it was necessary to solve the problem of deceived heroes of the civil war. There were many of them, for several years, on foot and on horseback, they got themselves a bright future, promised by commissars of all ranks and all nationalities, and now they demanded, if not communism, then at least a tolerable life for themselves and their loved ones, satisfaction of their most minimal demands. The heroes of the civil war occupied a significant and important place on the historical stage of the 1920s, and it was more difficult to deal with them than with a passive, frightened people. But they did their job, and the time has come for them to leave the historical stage, leaving it to other actors. The heroes were gradually declared oppositionists, deviators, enemies of the party or the people and doomed to destruction. For this, new cadres were found, more obedient and loyal to the regime. The strategic goal of the leaders of communism was the world revolution and the destruction of the existing world order. Having seized the power and means of the Great Country, having a favorable international situation that had developed as a result of the World War, they were unable to achieve their goals and could not successfully carry out their activities outside of Russia. The most encouraging success of the Reds was the advance of their army to the line of the Vistula River. But after the crushing defeat and the "obscene peace" with Poland, their claims to a world revolution and advance into the depths of Europe before the Second World War were put to the limit.

The revolution cost the Cossacks dearly. In the course of a cruel, fratricidal war, the Cossacks suffered enormous losses: human, material, spiritual and moral. Only on the Don, where by January 1, 1917, 4,428,846 people of different classes lived, as of January 1, 1921, 2,252,973 people remained. In fact, every second one was "cut out". Of course, not everyone was "cut out" in the literal sense, many simply left their native Cossack regions, fleeing the terror and arbitrariness of local committees and Komyacheks. The same picture was in all other territories of the Cossack Troops. In February 1920, the 1st All-Russian Congress of Labor Cossacks took place. He adopted a resolution on the abolition of the Cossacks as a special class. Cossack ranks and titles were eliminated, awards and insignia were abolished. Separate Cossack troops were liquidated and the Cossacks merged with the entire people of Russia. In the resolution "On the construction of Soviet power in the Cossack regions", the congress "recognized as inexpedient the existence of separate Cossack authorities (voispolkoms)", provided for by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of June 1, 1918. In accordance with this decision, the Cossack villages and farms from now on were part of the provinces on whose territory they were located. The Cossacks of Russia suffered a severe defeat. In a few years, the Cossack villages will be renamed into volosts and the very word "Cossack" will begin to disappear from everyday life. Only in the Don and Kuban, Cossack traditions and orders continued to exist, and dashing and secluded, sad and sincere Cossack songs were sung.

It seemed that the decossackization in the Bolshevik way took place abruptly, finally and irrevocably, and the Cossacks could never forgive this. But, despite all the atrocities, the vast majority of the Cossacks, during the Great Patriotic War, stood on patriotic positions and took part in the war on the side of the Red Army in hard times. Only a few Cossacks betrayed their homeland and took the side of Germany. The Nazis declared these traitors to be descendants of the Ostrogoths. 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
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
Karpov N. D. The tragedy of the White South. 1920
Wrangel P.N. White business. 1926

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 consisted of the Grebensky and Gorsko-Mozdok cavalry regiments, the cavalry hundred of Kopay Cossacks, the 1st Mozdok and 2nd Grebensky Plastun battalions, the hundreds of foot Kopay Cossacks, the 1st and 2nd artillery divisions. By February 14, 1919, the detachment consisted of 2,088 people.

One of the first units of the 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 cavalry 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 Yekaterinodar on January 5 (18), 1920 as the supreme power of the Don, Kuban and Terek. The Terek faction retained 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 to join it as an independent state association to the future Russian Federation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. The person who heads 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 marshy malarial 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 Ivanis, the chairman of the Kuban government, 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 state structure 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 left to the authority of the Commander-in-Chief.

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

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

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

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

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

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

By the beginning of the offensive on November 7, 1920, the Red Army had 133,000 bayonets and sabers, while the Russian army had 37,000 bayonets and sabers. 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.