On the evening of August 4, in the Yelanskaya village of the Sholokhov district of the Rostov region, Grand opening memorial complex"Don Cossacks in the fight against the Bolsheviks". Through the work of many Cossacks, primarily Vladimir Petrovich Melikhov, the memorial perpetuated the memory of the seven main administrative and military leaders of the Pacific Don during the Civil War. Six of these leaders are represented by bronze bas-reliefs: E. A. Voloshinov, V. M. Chernetsov, A. M. Kaledin, A. M. Nazarov, S. V. Denisov and I. A. Polyakov, the seventh is immortalized in a four-meter bronze statue with an ataman's pernach in his hands - General Pyotr Krasnov, ataman of the All-Great Don Army.
"PLEASE REMEMBER, COMRADES, TO WHOM DO YOU PUT A MONUMENT?"
In order to realize that the opening of the memorial complex in the village of Yelanskaya has nothing to do with the "opening of a monument to Hitler," as some local residents hastened to declare, one just needs to understand one simple thing. Although it is the leaders of the Don Army that are represented in the memorial (and in this capacity the monument is one of the first), first of all, the memorial was erected in memory of the tragedy of the entire Don Cossacks. And the same memorials should be placed on the lands of all the Cossack troops that were in Russia on the eve of the Civil War. Because the Cossacks, alas, did not leave any more tangible memory on their own. And they didn't leave it, not because they themselves wished to disappear without a trace, but because they were greatly "helped" to do so. Who exactly?
In the Soviet, and even in Russian historiography one can come across the point of view that the Cossacks themselves pushed the Bolsheviks away from themselves, who tried with all their might to integrate them into new life. The reason for this, they say, was the backwardness of the Cossacks and their stubborn unwillingness to break with the "exploiters". Therefore, therefore, if they received it, then according to their merits. Let's see how fair this point of view is and what exactly the Russian Cossacks were like on the eve of the revolution.
WHO THE COSSACKS WERE AND WHAT THEY DID TO THEM
The total number of Cossacks in 1917 was at least 4.4 million people (according to some sources, 67 million). At the same time, there were slightly more than 300 thousand Cossacks in the ranks. The total population Russian Empire on the eve of the revolution was estimated at 166 million people, and the Imperial Army - at 10 12 million people. Of the total number of Cossacks, the Don army numbered more than 2.5 million Cossacks, the Kuban - 1.4 million, the Terek - 250 thousand. The total number of the Amur, Ussuri, Siberian and Transbaikal Cossack troops was slightly less than 1 million people. The Ural Cossacks numbered more than 150 thousand people, of which there was no trace after the Civil War, which makes the fate of this army unique even by the standards of revolutionary Russia.
The Cossacks were one of the most closed estates of the Russian Empire. It was impossible to become a Cossack, they could only be born - since 1811, by a special royal decree, it was forbidden to leave the Cossacks and enroll in the Cossacks. Stanitsa and district Circles and Atamans enjoyed considerable independence in spending funds: they built schools, gymnasiums, military schools, assigned pensions to war invalids and the families of the dead, built bridges, repaired roads, and so on. Each Cossack was obliged to serve for 20 years, of which 4 years in personnel units, 7 years in the reserve of the 1st stage. After that, he could be involved in the ranks only in the event of a major war. This means that, starting service at the age of 21, from the age of 32 he could safely take care of his family and household.
The Cossacks, along with the peasantry and the clergy, were one of the most conservative classes in the Russian Empire. At the same time, they were perfectly organized, without exception armed and excellently trained to wield weapons. Of course, any government was obliged to reckon with them and, if possible, tried to win them over to its side.
The Soviet government was no exception. On December 7, 1917, the II Congress of Soviets issued an Appeal to the Labor Cossacks. I wonder how the Bolsheviks tried to attract the Cossacks? The Cossacks were a conservative, self-organizing and armed force. The Bolsheviks advocated the demolition of everything old, for the "dictatorship of the proletariat", in no way compatible with the original Cossack way of life, and for the complete disarmament of everyone except themselves and those who agree to fight for them. It would seem that there were no points of contact between the Cossacks and the Bolsheviks and could not be.
But no, such a point is still found. It was called exactly the same as the current ideological "national democrats", almost no different from the ideological Bolsheviks, even by nationality - "Down with labor!" In the sense - "Down with the public service!". And the Cossack youth, especially the front-line soldiers, bought into it.
Indeed, the service of the Cossacks to the state was difficult, even in material terms. For example, for each young Cossack, his kuren (that is, a large patriarchal family) had to buy a horse, a pike, a saber, a rifle, a dagger, two revolvers, two sets of summer and winter uniforms, and so on. And in peacetime, not to mention wartime, the Cossack did not dare to go anywhere for more than three days without the permission of the stanitsa ataman. In addition to the obligation to go to war, each Cossack had to regularly attend military training camps, which, in their seriousness and intensity, were incomparable with those that the Soviet "partisans" went through.
And Lenin offered the Cossacks three populist points, which the "Old Regime" had nothing to cover:
1) For the Cossacks, the mandatory military service;
2) All responsibilities for the uniform and armament of the Cossacks were taken over by the Soviet treasury;
3) All Cossacks were allowed freedom of movement around the country, military fees were canceled.
The real content of these points, as the Bolsheviks led by Lenin understood them "to themselves", was completely different, and the Cossacks soon had to make sure of this the hard way:
1) Those who did not go to the Red Army to fight far from their native places were decossackized and resettled in Central Russia or Siberia;
2) In order to receive weapons and equipment from the treasury, the Cossacks had to first hand them over there, for concealing weapons - execution;
3) You could walk and ride anywhere, but only during the day, even in your own village: a curfew, for its violation - execution.
Both then and now, the communists and their supporters argued and continue to argue that the main motivation for the repression of the Cossacks was the material class moment: since most of the Cossacks were prosperous, they fell under the punishing sword of decossackization.
This is not entirely true. The main target of repression was precisely the traditional way of life. In fairness, it should be said that the class hatred instilled by the Bolsheviks was not at all reduced to the principle of "rob the loot", although it included it as one of the main ideological components. Conservative communities, more or less loyal to old Russia, were exterminated regardless of their well-being: simply on the basis of their conservatism and loyalty.
"SHOULD BE DESTROYED TOTALLY"
The hypothesis that the Soviet government initially planned the destruction of the Cossacks as a class precisely because of the special way of life is confirmed, first of all, by the Soviet documents themselves. For example, the decision of the Don Bureau of the RCP (b) "On the basic principles in relation to the Cossacks", dated April 1919:
"1. The existence of the Don Cossacks with its economic way of life, the remnants of economic privileges, firmly entrenched reactionary traditions, memories of political privileges, remnants of the patriarchal system, with the dominant household and political influence of richer old people and a closely knit group of officers and bureaucrats, stands before the proletarian power by the constant threat of counter-revolutionary actions.
These performances are all the more dangerous because the military organization of the Cossacks was an integral part even of its everyday peaceful life. In general, training in the art of war, which makes every Cossack from 18 years old to the age of complete physical old age a skilled warrior, gives the counter-revolution a ready-made cadre of soldiers (up to 300 thousand people) who can very quickly mobilize (examples of all former uprisings) and arm themselves (hidden with the greatest cunning of weapons).
The situation of Soviet power, against which the threat of a successful offensive by foreign imperialism has not yet been eliminated, is threatened with the greatest danger by the presence of this cadre of counterrevolutionary manpower.
All this raises the urgent task of the complete, rapid and decisive destruction of the Cossacks as a special everyday economic group, the destruction of its economic foundations, the physical destruction of the Cossack officials and officers, in general, all the top Cossacks, actively counter-revolutionary, dispersal and neutralization of the ordinary Cossacks and the formal liquidation of the Cossacks .
2. Practical implementation of this task in currently should be in accordance with the strategic position of the front, so as not to cause immediate complications for the front by internal actions and so as not to stop the disintegration among the Cossacks who still remain in the ranks of the enemy by imprudent demonstrative repressions.
The use of repressions and mass terror should be in the nature of a justified punishment for the behavior of individuals, farms, villages (attempts to revolt, opposition to Soviet power, espionage, etc.).
In relation to the southern, most counter-revolutionary, Cossacks, economic terror should be carried out (economic bleeding of the Cossacks). Such measures should be:
1. Landlessness of the multi-landed Cherkasy Cossacks, landlessness of the most counter-revolutionary groups in other districts.
2. Abolition of military ownership of land (destruction of military, yurt lands), allocating this land to small-land local peasants and migrants, observing, if possible, the forms of collective land use.
3. Confiscation of fishing property from the Cossacks along the Don (the possession of which determined one of the existing privileges of the Cossacks) and its transfer to fishing artels and peasant fishermen.
4. The imposition of contributions on individual pages.
5. Carrying out an emergency tax in such a way that it, along with the big bourgeoisie, would bear its main burden on the Cossacks ... "
Even more briefly, this can be formulated in the words of another April document of the Donburo: "the very existence of the Cossacks, with its way of life, privileges and survivals, and, most importantly, the ability to conduct armed struggle, poses a threat to Soviet power. The Donburo proposed to eliminate the Cossacks as a special economic and ethnographic group by spraying it and settlement outside the Don"
The true motivation for such cruel actions against the Cossacks can be better understood from the following thought expressed by Trotsky: "The Cossacks are the only part of the Russian nation capable of self-organization. For this reason, they must be destroyed without exception." From here, the emotionality that Trotsky expressed about the fate of the Cossacks becomes clear and indecent for a politician: “This is a kind of zoological environment, and nothing more. throughout the Don and all of them to instill fear and almost religious horror.The old Cossacks must be burned in flames social revolution... Let their last remnants, like evangelical pigs, be thrown into the Black Sea..." To deal with the passionate sub-ethnic groups of the Russian people, as can be seen from here, it is possible to "pull by the ears" even hated by all Bolsheviks, and especially "ethnic", The gospel - if only to set the various parts of the Russian people against each other ...
So, in 1918, the Bolsheviks launched a uniform terror against the Cossacks, which was "legislated" by the directive of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of January 24, 1919 "On the extermination of the Cossacks" (!) - a case that had no precedent in Russian history when entire sub-ethnic groups of the Russian people were subject to legislative extermination: they were to, as Trotsky put it, "arrange Carthage." After such directives, it would be somehow strange to expect from ordinary Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks loyalty to "one and indivisible Russia", which actively exterminated them in the Soviet guise.
At first, the Cossacks were suppressed by force, destroying not only everyone who raised weapons against the Soviet regime, but also all suspicious people in general, even just randomly.
"... I propose the following for steady execution: intensify all efforts to quickly eliminate the unrest that has arisen by concentrating maximum forces to suppress the uprising and by applying the most severe measures in relation to the instigators-farms:
A) the burning of the rebel farms;
b) merciless executions of all persons without exception who took direct or indirect part in the uprising;
c) executions through 5 or 10 people of the adult male population of the rebelled farms;
d) mass taking of hostages from neighboring farms to the insurgents;
e) widespread notification of the population of villages, villages, etc., that all villages and farms seen in helping the rebels will be subjected to merciless extermination of the entire adult male population and be burned at the first case of finding help; exemplary implementation of punitive measures with a wide notification of the population".
"The Revolutionary Military Council of the 8th Army orders as soon as possible to suppress the uprising of traitors who took advantage of the confidence of the Red troops and mutinied in the rear. The traitors of the Don once again discovered in themselves centuries-old enemies of the working people. All Cossacks who raised weapons in the rear of the Red troops must be completely destroyed, all those who have anything to do with the uprising and anti-Soviet agitation must also be destroyed, without stopping at the percentage destruction of the population of the villages, burn the farms and villages that have raised weapons against us in the rear. There is no pity for traitors. All units acting against the rebels , is ordered to pass with fire and sword the area embraced by the rebellion, so that other villages would not even have the thought that by means of a treacherous uprising it is possible to return the Krasnov tsarist general regime.
But enough to quote Soviet documents. The above quotes are more than enough to understand their general direction. Let's move on to the fate of individual Cossack troops who died in the Civil War, most of which, as the realities of recent decades have shown, were never destined to be reborn.
Being limited by the volume of the publication, we cannot tell about all the disappeared Cossack troops, for example, about the Astrakhan, Ussuriysk or Semirechensk Cossacks, or about the Euphrates army, which was not equipped to the end. Therefore, we confine ourselves to only the most numerous Cossack troops, which had the greatest influence on the course of Russian history at the beginning of the middle of the 20th century.
DON, KUBAN AND TEREK COSSACKS
The first time the Don Cossacks took the side of the Bolsheviks in late 1917 - early 1918 "out of interest" and out of a desire to end the war. Their hopes were immediately cruelly deceived. Already in the answer to the Donskoy Krug from the commander of the Northern Detachment Yu.V. The Don people were not going to endure the first attempt at “decossackization” for a long time, and already on March 21, 1918, an anti-communist uprising broke out in the village of Suvorovskaya, which soon engulfed the entire Don. In early May 1918, the Don Salvation Circle was assembled, which chose General P. N. Krasnov as Ataman and set about liberating the Don from the Bolsheviks and building their own statehood - "until the restoration of the national state on an all-Russian scale."
The second time the Don people succumbed to the promises of the Bolsheviks in late 1918 - early 1919, when the authority of Krasnov and the Circle of the Don Army staggered under the blows of the Red troops at the front and volunteers with "allies" - in the rear. The Cossacks, under the influence of the red propaganda that was corrupting the Don army, did not wait for the arrival of the "allies" promised by Denikin, leaving the front, hoping to "make peace with the Bolsheviks" according to the principle proposed by the latter: "You are on your own, and we are on our own." The spring of 1919 showed how deceived the Cossacks were in their naive expectations.
For the third and last time during the Civil War, the Don Cossacks en masse went over to the side of the Reds already in 1920 - during the Novorossiysk evacuation, which was absolutely shameful for the volunteer command, and especially during the capitulation of the Kuban army on the Black Sea coast, when 2 Don and 4 Kuban corps, abandoned volunteers. Most of those who surrendered went to the Reds not out of love for them - they hated the Reds for a long time and stubbornly - but only because after this surrender they hated the Whites even more. As the Donets of the Gundorovsky Regiment, who escaped from the red captivity, said in June 1920, “They have our lads - a passion. Chernomorye "Pipes," they say, "so that someday we will again serve the whites. Why did they leave us to the mercy of fate in Novorossiysk? Gentlemen generals showed themselves there. Enough to amuse their excellencies, waking up with us. "These, who were captured by the Reds from the sea, are the most furious. They are ferocious for nothing. They say that your rastudy is your general."
The tragic fate of the Kuban Cossack army, the second largest after the Don, among other circumstances, was due to the ill-fated intrigue of politicians from the Kuban Rada with "independence". This "independence" reached its climax in the autumn of 1919, when members of the Rada concluded an agreement with the highlanders of the Caucasus, according to which the Kuban troops were placed at the disposal of the mountain government. At a time when the fate of the entire White Struggle was being decided in the Moscow direction, such an agreement could not be called anything other than treason. The massacre of the "independents", which was perpetrated by General Wrangel, who arrived in the Kuban, finally undermined the spirit of many Kuban Cossacks, who naively believed that "the Rada stood up for us." The Kuban people began to leave the front en masse, hoping to reach an agreement with the Bolsheviks at home. Needless to say, after the evacuation of volunteers from Novorossiysk, at best, the Red Army and the Polish front waited for the Kuban, at worst and most often - northern and Siberian camps. The remnants of the Kuban Cossacks, who were aware of their identity, were finished off in the late 1920s and early 1930s: collectivization, famine, "black boards", unsuccessful uprisings suppressed by punishers - about all this in the works of Soviet agitprop, such as the film "Kuban Cossacks", not find no mention.
The Terek Cossack army, the smallest of the three Cossack troops in the South of Russia, was the very first to leave the historical stage. By the time of the October Revolution, less than 40 thousand people remained in the ranks of the Terek Cossacks. The chieftain of the Terek army, Mikhail Alexandrovich Karaulov, with his authority and military-administrative abilities, forced the highlanders, who had long been hostile to the Terek Cossacks and surrounded him from all sides, to reckon with the Terek army. But on December 12, 1917, Ataman Karaulov was killed at the Prokhladnaya station by revolutionary soldiers, and the highlanders with the Terek Cossacks immediately began to cut and shoot each other. The Tertsy spent almost the entire Civil War mainly on their own land, bleeding under the onslaught of the many times superior forces of the highlanders and the Bolsheviks who supported them. Only a few managed to evacuate from Novorossiysk and, subsequently, from the Crimea, led by the last Ataman of the Terek army, G. A. Vdovenko. Most of the surviving Terek Cossacks were subjected to "Decossackization", and their lands and property were given to the Chechens.
ORENBURG AND URAL COSSACKS
In Orenburg and the Urals, the Cossacks were much more polarized in their political views than in the Kuban and the Don. True, in the opposite way. If a significant part of the Orenburg Cossack army, with the exception of the military school, senior officials and many officers, almost immediately went over to the side of the Reds, then the Urals almost without exception took the side of the Whites.
There are several reasons for this: in particular, the Orenburg Cossack army was relatively "young" and there was a huge percentage of front-line youth who succumbed to Bolshevik propaganda and went under the command of the main Orenburg "Red Cossacks" of the Kashirin brothers. True, after the repressions that began on the lands of the Orenburg army, many older Cossacks and even front-line soldiers went over to the Whites.
The Ural Cossack army, on the contrary, had a long tradition, existing at least since the 15th century. In addition, most of the Ural army were Cossacks of the Old Believers, who were horrified by the inverted pentagrams on the tunics and caps of the Red Army (the entire Civil War, red stars were worn in this way - in the later Soviet period, only the order remained an ominous reminder of this "anti-Christ seal" Fighting Red Banner).
Actually, the Bolsheviks did not particularly hide the fact that their goal on the territory of the Ural Cossack army, as elsewhere, was precisely the genocide of the Cossacks, the destruction of all combat-ready Cossacks capable of raising weapons against them. Very indicative in this respect is the novel by D. A. Furmanov "Chapaev": "Chapaev, so sensitive and flexible in all his actions, so quickly catching everything and applying to everything, realized here, in the steppes, that it was not necessary to fight the Cossacks the weapon that they recently fought against the forcibly mobilized Kolchak peasants. You won’t take the Cossacks for fear, you won’t confuse them with the occupied territory, the Cossack territory is the whole wide steppe, along which he will gallop far and wide, in which he will find greetings from the Cossack population everywhere, will be to live in your rear, it will be elusive and infinitely harmful - seriously, truly dangerous. The Cossack troops do not need to be driven, you do not need to wait until decomposition occurs, do not take away the village from them one by one - this is a very important matter and necessary, but not the main thing. manpower, destroy the Cossack regiments. If it was possible to replenish the thinned ranks of their regiments from captured Kolchak soldiers, then it is impossible to make this set of captured Cossacks: here - like a Cossack, then an implacable enemy. In any case, he will not soon become a friend and helper! The destruction of a living enemy force is the task that Chapaev set for himself.
So, after such a "general disposition" of the Chapaev division, the indignation of Furmanov and his heroes with "cruelties" on the part of the Ural Cossacks is at least inconsistent. The war between the Ural Cossacks and the Chapaevs was uncompromising - for mutual extermination. True, after the surrender of Uralsk, the ataman of the Ural Cossack army, 33-year-old Lieutenant-General Vladimir Sergeevich Tolstov, managed to develop a plan for a special operation, during which the Urals, with negligible losses, were able to destroy the headquarters of the Chapaev division and kill Chapaev himself (in total, more than 2,500 Red Army soldiers were killed and captured ), but a typhus epidemic in the ranks of the Ural Cossacks and a sharp increase in the number of the 4th Turkestan army forced them to leave their land forever and retreat to Guryev, on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Approximately 90 percent of the personnel of the Ural army did not die in battle, but precisely from typhus brought by captured Red Army soldiers, which the Cossacks had nothing to treat: in almost all regiments, which had 500 people on the payroll, 40 60 Cossacks remained in the ranks.
On January 5, 1920, General Tolstov, with his headquarters, refugees and the remnants of the last two regiments of the Ural army (a total of 15,000 people), left Guryev and made the hardest 700-kilometer journey along the "Hungry Steppe" to Fort Aleksandrovsky - in his own words, "from red paws into the unknown distance. The Urals suffered especially heavy losses during the ascent to the Mangyshlak plateau and on the plateau itself, through which even the local Kyrgyz considered it impossible to pass in winter. The Urals passed, but at the cost of huge sacrifices: according to the testimony of one of the Kappel cavalrymen who traveled this path together with the Ural army, "a chain of corpses stretched continuously for thirty miles ...". 13,000 people froze to death on the road or were killed by the "Red Kirghiz" who robbed and killed the stragglers. Fortunately, some of the Cossacks entered Fort Aleksandrovsky before the others and sent help to the Kappelites and the Uralians who were with them. Tolstov himself after that, on April 5, 1920, left Fort Aleksandrovsky and went to Krasnovodsk with only 214 Cossacks.
On May 22, when he crossed the border with Persia, there were already 162 Cossacks with him. From Persia, Tolstov moved to France, and from there in 1942 he moved to Australia. Together with him were the last 60 Cossacks loyal to him. General Tolstov died in Sydney in 1956 at the age of 72. Together with him, the history of the once great and glorious Ural Cossack army ended forever.
SIBERIAN, TRANSBAIKAL AND AMUR COSSACKS
The fates of the Siberian and Trans-Baikal Cossack troops differ in the contribution that the Cossacks of each of these troops made to the Civil War - and are strikingly similar in what fate awaited the Cossacks of both troops after the war ended.
The Cossacks of the Trans-Baikal Army, two regiments of which (the 1st Argunsky and the 2nd Chitinsky) were infected with Bolshevism at the beginning of 1918, spent the entire Civil War in battles at home. The Siberian Cossacks, being indifferent to the propaganda of Bolshevism, remained just as indifferent to the cause of saving the Motherland from him. Almost the entire Siberian army during the Civil War was sick with an even more serious illness than Bolshevism itself - the so-called "Cossack pragmatism" and the belief that it was possible to negotiate with the Bolsheviks. This was facilitated by the fact that the Siberian Cossacks had never seen real Bolshevism in their country until the fall of Kolchak's power. In addition, the elected ataman of the Siberian army turned out to be the former policeman Ivanov Rinov, known throughout Siberia for his "Khimrodovism." Therefore, the participation of the Siberian Cossack army in the battles against the Reds was limited, by and large, to one single major episode - a raid on the rear of the enemy in the early autumn of 1919. Due to the mediocrity and indiscipline of Ivanov-Rinov, this raid, which could save the entire front of the Kolchak army, did not bring significant results. By 1921, a significant part of the Siberian, Transbaikal and Amur Cossacks found themselves in exile, having crossed the Chinese border.
Unlike European white émigrés, Siberian and especially Transbaikal and Amur Cossacks who ended up in China did not stop fighting against Soviet power throughout the 1920s. Almost every month, several dozen or even hundreds of Cossacks broke through the border and staged raids on border towns and villages. The purpose of the raids were by no means ordinary workers and peasants, but local party workers, high-ranking officials and security officers. The Cossacks had a well-established network of agents in the Soviet Far East, which indicated to them targets for attacks and punished those who returned from abroad. Chinese border traitors.
The beginning of the end of the Transbaikal and Amur Cossack troops came in 1928, when an uprising took place in the Chinese province of Xinjiang under Marxist slogans against the power of Chiang Kai-shek. According to the "template" already tested by the communists in Finland and Transcaucasia, "warriors of the internationalists" rushed to Northern China. In addition, it was 1928-1929 that was marked by an increase in the activity of the White Cossacks by east line CER - Transbaikalians fought their way to their homes, crossed the Ussuri and Amur, cut out entire detachments and frontier posts ...
Therefore, the Soviet government considered September-October 1929 convenient time in order to return at least part of the CER to the state of 1917. At the same time, of course, it is cruel to get even - not only with the Cossacks, but in general with all Russian refugees. Regardless of whether they participated in the struggle against Soviet power or not. Regardless of gender and age. How exactly this was done, those who survived and were able to write to the cities of China, untouched by the massacre, told:
"... On the 30th, the dead were brought to us - the priest, his son and the Kruglik family of 6 people (husband, wife and four children).
They were killed and burned in oil, and one driver was also killed with them, he left his wife and three children here. The appearance of the dead is terrible, the priest can be recognized, the face has been preserved. Kruglik's wife's face was preserved and one breast, that's why they recognized the woman, and everything burned down in the children. There is no smell from them, because they are fried with the skin; a coffin was made for the priest, another for the woman and the priest's son, and the remaining six people were put in one coffin.
In one village, red partisans and a detachment of Komsomol members who were with them killed men and women, and children were thrown alive into the river or smashed their heads against stones.
In another village, women and children were driven into a canal and shot in the water, and those who remained on the shore were finished off with stakes or thrown into fires.
About 120 people were killed only in the villages of Argunskoye, Komary and on the Damysovo farm.
In the village of Katsinor, the Reds killed all the men and many women.
During the last raid on Usl-Urovsk on October 11 with. In desperation, the inhabitants fired back at the Red partisans from shotguns and old Berdanok, the Reds surrounded the village and opened fire on it from machine guns and from guns standing on the river. Soviet Argun gunboat. As a result of this raid, at least 200 Russian and Chinese civilians were killed.
What to add to this? That the murdered priest Fr. Modest Gorbunov was previously subjected to torture, that he was tied by the hair to a horse, which dragged his body along the ground. That women and girls, before being tortured or killed, were raped by red partisans and Komsomol members.
Let us also add that, according to the words of the red partisans themselves (some of those who fled from Three Rivers personally heard these words), they were sent by the Soviet authorities with orders to exterminate all Russian settlers living in Three Rivers without exception, and to destroy all their property. In those places where the red partisans visited, they exactly carried out this order of the satanic authorities and it is not their fault if some victims managed to escape and tell us exactly everything that they saw and heard in these terrible days ... "(" Heavenly Bread " , 1929, N 13, Harbin).
This is how most of the Transbaikal and Amur Cossack troops who left for Northern China ended their existence. For the "victory" over unarmed women and children in the "conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway," the Red Army and GPU punishers received military orders and award weapons. And in memory of the dead refugees, not a single memorial sign, not a single memorial plaque. The only monuments left to them are the fiery letters written in their defense to Christians all over the world by ROCOR First Hierarch Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), and the poem by the poetess of the Trans-Baikal Cossack army Marianna Kolosova "They shot the Cossacks":
You seem to have fallen asleep, human pity?!
Why are you silent, I do not understand.
I know that you were not in Three Rivers these days.
There was cruelty - your eternal enemy.
Ah, the defenseless farmhouse did not look for trouble ...
People, do not be silent - the stones will scream!
They shot from a machine gun in the morning
Lovely, round-faced, lively Cossacks ...
At the Throne of God, whose foot is holy,
For the righteous - mercy, for sinners - a thunderstorm,
With a silent complaint, the Cossacks will rise ...
And the Lord will look into children's eyes.
The youngest will say: "We are from a machine gun
They shot this morning at dawn."
And someone throws up his hands in sorrow
On a high white cloudy mountain.
A pale boy will come out and quietly ask:
"Cossack brothers, who offended you?"
Human pity will ring in the question
Light streams from sad eyes.
Come closer, look into his eyes -
And they know right away. How can you not know?!
"You were a bright Ataman of the Cossack troops
In the days when children weren't allowed to be shot."
And the Cossacks will cry bitterly
At the Throne of God, whose foot is holy.
Lord, You see, crying with them
Martyr-Tsarevich, Ataman Cossack!
REVIVE THE BEST
On the eve of the catastrophe of 1917, the most strong and valuable estates of the Russian people were the peasantry, the clergy, the merchants and the Cossacks. It was these estates that the Bolsheviks tried to destroy in the first place. To do this, they had to set different parts of the Russian people against each other. They did not hide it - for example, in relation to the peasants, Y. M. Sverdlov voiced this in May 1918: "Only if we can split the village into two irreconcilable hostile camps, if we can ignite the same civil war there, which ... went in the cities ... we will do in relation to the countryside what we could do for the cities. Of all the estates, the Bolsheviks managed to split the Cossacks to the least extent, but the general split of the Russian people they achieved made this circumstance no longer so important. And this split continues, to a large extent, to this day.
In order to heal him, monuments are erected. Monuments are not for the dead. We need them for ourselves historical memory and correct ideological evaluation of people and events. Nobody knows whether the Russian Cossacks will be revived. It was destroyed very thoroughly for almost the entire first half of the 20th century. But if there are no monuments, there will be no historical memory. And in this case, the Cossacks are definitely never destined to be reborn again.
http://www.specnaz.ru/article/?1137
January marks one hundred years since the adoption by the organizational bureau (Orgburo) of the RCP (b) of the so-called "Circular letter of the Central Committee on the attitude towards the Cossacks" ("To all responsible comrades working in the Cossack regions").
The document was adopted on January 24, 1919. This controversial document was in effect for less than two months, until March 16, 1919, when it was suspended. In modern bourgeois propaganda, this "circular letter" is widely used to whip up anti-Soviet sentiments in the historical regions of the Cossacks, primarily on the Don. Therefore, it is important to know why this document was adopted, what its effect was, and why its effect was canceled.
Bourgeois anti-communist propaganda is inventing itself in every possible way, trying to portray the "circular letter" as a kind of directive that set in motion the "genocide of the Cossacks" along ethnic lines. In publications on this topic propagandists compete in the Solzhenitsyn style - who will name the largest number of Cossacks "shot by the Bolsheviks." True, it is not clear - if the Bolsheviks carried out the "genocide" of the Cossacks, then where did the people who call themselves Cossacks come from today? And why, if there was a "genocide", then the Bolsheviks, who won the civil war, did not shoot the ancestors of these people?
The appeal "To all responsible comrades ..." was adopted by the Orgburo, led by Y. Sverdlov, which gives some publicists reason to claim that he was the author of the document. However, by 1919 Sverdlov held a number of posts and signed many documents. The topic of dealing with the Cossacks was never his topic. In fact, the authors of the "circular letter" remained unknown. There are versions that the text of the document could have been developed in the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs. However, most historians are inclined to believe that it was prepared by the Don Bureau (Donburo) of the RCP(b) and adopted by the Organizing Bureau based on a report from the Don. The Orgburo itself consisted of three people - Sverdlov, M. Vladimirsky and N. Krestinsky.
In modern publications, they like to quote the first paragraph of the letter: “To carry out mass terror against the rich Cossacks, exterminating them without exception; to carry out merciless mass terror against all Cossacks in general who took any direct or indirect part in the struggle against Soviet power. It is necessary to apply to the average Cossacks all those measures that give a guarantee against any attempts on their part to new actions against the Soviet power.
Thus, the document deals with the fight against the rich and the Cossacks who fought against the Soviets. Citing this paragraph, anti-Soviet propagandists immediately begin to assert with foam at the mouth: you see, you see, this is an order to kill Cossacks ... They try not to turn attention, blurting out the essence.
The document stated that to the average Cossacks "it is necessary to apply all those measures that give a guarantee against any attempts on their part to new performances." The measures are not indicated, and it is obvious that different measures were assumed. But modern liars do not even notice this, repeating: "... terror, terror ...". Some scribblers realize that there are not enough arguments and falsify the document by adding the “same” particle to the text. It turns out: "all the same measures must be applied to the average Cossacks ...". So they try to convince that the Soviet government did not make a difference between the rich and the average Cossacks. But fortunately, photocopies of the "circular letter" exist in the public domain, which expose the forgery.
The existence of poor Cossacks who supported Soviet power and fought for it with weapons in their hands, and, accordingly, did not belong either to the enemies - rich Cossacks, or to the vacillating average Cossacks, modern hacks do not remember at all. Some kind of strange picture of "genocide" is obtained ...
But everything falls into place, if you remember who today, in early XXI century, calls himself "Cossacks" and draws an informational picture in this topic.
Let's take, for example, a person who today holds the position of "ataman of the military Cossack society" Great Don Host "" - Viktor Goncharov. ... And we find out that he is also the deputy governor of the Rostov region.
Or let's take the "ataman of the Kuban Cossack army" - Nikolai Doluda. And then we find out that he is also the Deputy Governor of the Krasnodar Territory. And so - throughout the power vertical in the modern "Cossacks". Its leaders are at the same time officials, big businessmen, deputies from United Russia…
Now it is clear why they perceive the directive of 1919 on the extermination of wealthy Cossacks - enemies of Soviet power - is perceived as a call for the "destruction of the Cossacks." Because today they themselves are “rich Cossacks”. The cat smells whose meat it has eaten. The only pity is that they are trying to draw into the anti-Soviet bacchanalia also ordinary members of the Cossack societies, who are not “rich Cossacks”.
Let's move on to what were the consequences and results of the action of the "circular letter" and why it was necessary to cancel it. At the beginning of 1919, only the northern part of the Don region (Upper Don) was occupied by the Red Army. The rest of the Don continued to remain in the hands of the Whites (which is why the Bolsheviks could not arrange a "genocide" against the Cossacks, even if they had such an intention). How many Cossacks were shot as a result of terror? Member of the Donkom of the RCP(b) S. Syrtsov (future "right-wing deviationist", himself shot in 1937) reported: “Mass executions were carried out in the region. Exact figures are not available (over 300). The mood of the Cossack population from the very beginning was depressed, but oppositional. The planned conspiracy was revealed, the participants were shot. The conduct of terror was hampered by the opposition of the 8th Army.
Thus, the number of those executed was about 300 people. On the "genocide" is clearly not drawn. It is another matter that the January directive of the Orgburo, which staked on terror, actually set in motion excesses in the localities. The northern part of the Don region was occupied by Red Army units, which consisted mainly of Red Army peasants who were not friendly to the Cossacks. The events of 1905 were still remembered, when the Cossack units, loyal to the tsar, mercilessly suppressed peasant uprisings. The Red Army soldiers also saw the cruelty of the White Cossacks towards the peasant population on the Don during the civil war. The reciprocal hatred of the peasants for the Cossacks gave rise to abuses and led to unnecessary repressions against the Cossack population. But, as we see from Syrtsov's report, even then the leadership of the 8th Army prevented the implementation of unnecessary measures of terror. The point of the directive on terror "in relation to all Cossacks in general who took ... participation in the fight against Soviet power" was generally absurd and impracticable, since in 1918 a significant number of Cossacks, who had previously fought on the side of the Whites, transferred to the Red Army - sometimes they crossed over with entire regiments .
However, local excesses, coupled with White Guard agitation, which frightened the Cossacks with the coming "horrors of Bolshevism", led to the fact that on March 11, 1919, an anti-Soviet rebellion broke out in the north of the Don.
The situation was analyzed in Moscow by the Soviet government. On March 16, a plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) was held with the participation of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin. The plenum decided that the decision of the Orgburo was "impossible for the Don Cossacks" and suspended "the use of measures against the Cossacks", in fact canceled the "circular letter". The kink has been eliminated.
Today, bourgeois propaganda in every possible way exaggerates the consequences of the “circular letter” (which was in effect for less than two months), attributing “cruelty” to the Bolsheviks, but does not want to notice the real atrocities of the White Guards, the reaction to which was, among other things, that directive. Meanwhile, it is the actions of the Whites - both in relation to the Cossacks who supported the Soviet power, and in relation to the peasant population ("non-residents") - that fall under the definition of genocide.
In 1918, during the reign of the white general Krasnov on the Don, a real policy of “decossackization” was carried out, when the Cossacks, accused of sympathizing with the Soviets, were expelled from the Cossack class. Exclusion meant expulsion from the territory of the Cossack region. According to historians, over 30 thousand Cossacks were subjected to such expulsion, according to the "stanitsa sentences".
The peasant population, who did not submit to the whites, was also subject to expulsion. Let's turn to the documents of the Whites themselves. On August 29, 1918, General Krasnov wrote an order about the situation in the white "1st Don Plastun Division", recruited from the peasants. Revolutionary agitation was discovered in the division. In response to this white general ordered "the families of all the listed guilty persons to be immediately sent outside the all-great Don army, and the property of the latter to be confiscated." “In the event of a repetition of these sad phenomena, I will disband the units from the peasants with all the further consequences for them, that is, the eviction of families from the army,” the general threatened.
Krasnov repeated similar threats about the expulsion of the non-Cossack population on November 6, 1918 in relation to the residents of the Taganrog district, who disrupted the mobilization in white army. “I warn the inhabitants of the Taganrog district that if by the future recruitment they do not recover from Bolshevism and do not give the army a healthy and honest contingent of recruits, then all those families in which there are scoundrel soldiers or who evade the supply of recruits will be deprived of the right to land: the land and property they have will be taken away to the army, the lands and property will be transferred to the defenders of the Don, and they themselves will be expelled from the Army as beggars. Then do not let these worthless sons of our country bother me with requests for mercy to their elderly parents, wives and small children. There should be no place for tares among the rich fields of the Don ... ”, - said the White Guard leader.
Why, then, does modern bourgeois propaganda not write about "genocide" in this case?
In the case where the masses of the people rose to open resistance, the White Guards passed with fire and sword. The inhabitants of the village of Stepanovka rose in revolt, shooting one Cossack and capturing a white officer. “For the murdered Cossack, I order 10 inhabitants to be hanged in the village of Stepanovka ... For capturing an officer, burn the entire village,” wrote the order on November 10 (October 28, old style), the chief of staff of the White Army, General Denisov.
“I forbid arresting workers, but I order them to be shot or hanged”, “I order all arrested workers to be hanged on the main street and not removed for three days,” General Denisov wrote in his orders dated November 23 (November 10 old style).
Fleeing from the reprisals of the White Guards, tens of thousands of people already in the summer of 1918 fled along with the retreating Red detachments. “With the 1st Don Rifle Division, thousands of refugees moved east to Tsaritsyn. With the liberation of the Martyno-Orlovsky detachment, the number of refugees increased to eighty thousand. This huge mass of people moved on foot, in carts, in railway echelons. People brought with them their meager property, drove cattle. It was hot, the vegetation dried up, clouds of caustic dust hung over the roads. In the area between Zimovniki and Kotelnikovsky there is no good fresh water, lakes and rivers here, with rare exceptions, are bitter-salty. People and animals suffered from excruciating heat and thirst, suffocated from the dust, and were exhausted from hunger. The weak could not stand, fell and died either from hunger and thirst, or from widespread infectious diseases. It was terrible to watch how exhausted people, along with animals, fell down to dirty puddles, teeming with all sorts of vile, near which the dying lay ... , a native of the Don peasants, Semyon Budyonny.
Isn't this a real genocide?
The rule of the White Guards in the Don and Kuban, in the Urals and in Siberia in 1918-1919 demonstrated who is who in the civil war: it convincingly showed that the whites, henchmen of the capitalists and landowners, are the enemies of the working man, be he a Cossack or a peasant.
On February 29, 1920, the first All-Russian Congress of Labor Cossacks opened in Moscow. The congress adopted a resolution in which it emphasized the need to strengthen the unity of workers, peasants and labor Cossacks. Those Cossacks who, under duress or out of darkness, fought on the side of the Whites were offered amnesty in case of surrender. Lenin spoke at the congress, who said that the difficulties of the civil war "rallied the workers and forced the peasants and the laboring Cossacks" to follow the "truth of the Bolsheviks."
In 1920, the white generals were finally defeated. The end of the civil war opened the way for the popular masses in the South of Russia, including the Cossack population, to build a new society.
Mass uprising of the Cossacks against the Soviet regime. The first transformations of the new government were directed against the Cossacks. Some Cossack troops, such as Amur, Astrakhan, Orenburg, Semirechensk, Transbaikal, were declared abolished. Cossacks of the Semirechensk army were deprived of voting rights by the local Soviet authorities. Contradictions between the Cossack and non-Cossack population escalated over the Cossack land. Extrajudicial reprisals against Cossack officers began.
The Cossacks begin to gather in detachments and wage partisan struggle. In April 1918, a massive Cossack uprising broke out in the very large army- Donskoy. At the same time, a struggle flared up in the Urals, a Cossack uprising broke out in Transbaikalia and Semirechye. The fight goes on with varying success. But offensive German troops along the Black Sea and Azov coasts and the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps on the line railway from the Volga to Far East divert the forces of the Bolsheviks.
In the summer of 1918, the Don Cossacks, led by Ataman P.N. Krasnov occupy the entire territory of the Don and, together with the Volunteer Army of General A.I. Denikin help the rebellious Kuban Cossacks. In August 1918, Astrakhan Cossacks join the uprising.
Since June 1918, the Cossack uprising on the Terek begins. By November, the Bolsheviks manage to defeat the rebel forces, but in December, the Kuban and the Volunteer Army come to their aid. Cossack power is established on the Terek, headed by ataman Vdovenko.
In July 1918 Orenburg Cossacks occupied Orenburg. Atamans Krasilnikov, Annenkov, Ivanov-Rinov, Yarushin take control of the Siberian and Semirechensk troops. Transbaikalians unite around Ataman Semenov, Ussuri around Kalmykov. In September, the Amur Cossacks, together with the Japanese, occupy Blagoveshchensk.
Thus, by the autumn of 1918, most of the Cossack troops liberated their territories and established their military authority there.
Cossack state formations. On the territory of the oldest Cossack troops, having experience of independence and self-government, bodies of the old Cossack power spontaneously arise. While the picture of the future Russia is not clear, some Cossack troops announce the creation of their own state formations, state paraphernalia, standing armies. The largest state formation among all the Cossack troops is the "Great Don Army", which exposes a 95,000-strong army to the borders of the Don.
Farthest in their desire for independence are the Kubans, their Ukrainian-speaking part. The delegation of the Kuban Rada is trying to achieve recognition by the League of Nations that Kuban is an independent state.
However, the struggle dictates to the Cossack governments the need to unite with the White Guard armies fighting for the "United, Great and Indivisible Russia". Kuban and Tertsy are fighting as part of the Volunteer Army of General A.I. Denikin. In January 1919, the Don Cossacks recognized Denikin's leadership. It is the Cossacks in the South of Russia who give mass strength to the "white" movement. The Bolsheviks call their Southern Front "Cossack."
At the end of 1918, the authority of Admiral A.V. was recognized. Kolchak Orenburgers and Uralians. After some bickering, Ataman Semyonov recognizes Kolchak's power. Siberians were a reliable support for Kolchak.
Being recognized as the "Supreme Ruler of Russia", A.V. Kolchak appointed Ataman Dutov as the Supreme Marching Ataman of all Cossack troops.
"Red" Cossacks. In the struggle against the Soviet power, the Cossacks were not united. Some of the Cossacks, mostly the poor, took the side of the Bolsheviks. By the end of 1918, it became obvious that in almost every army, approximately 80% of the combat-ready Cossacks were fighting the Bolsheviks and about 20% were fighting on the side of the Bolsheviks.
The Bolsheviks create Cossack regiments, often on the basis of old regiments tsarist army. So, on the Don, for the most part, the Cossacks of the 1st, 15th and 32nd Don regiments went to the Red Army.
In battles, the Red Cossacks appear as the best combat units of the Bolsheviks. On the Don, the Red Cossack commanders F. Mironov and K. Bulatkin are very popular. In the Kuban - I. Kochubey, Ya. Balakhonov. The Red Orenburg Cossacks are commanded by the Kashirin brothers.
In the east of the country are drawn into guerrilla war against Kolchak and the Japanese, many Transbaikal and Amur Cossacks.
The Soviet leadership is trying to further split the Cossacks. To guide the Red Cossacks and for propaganda purposes - 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 go over to the side of the Bolsheviks. By the beginning of 1920, when Kolchak and Denikin were defeated, the crossings 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 are enrolled in the Red Army and sent to the Polish front.
First World War clearly demonstrated that in the new conditions of warfare, the cavalry can only play an auxiliary role. Massive cavalry attacks are a thing of the past. The children, who dreamed of military exploits, imagined themselves no longer in a luxurious hussar uniform, but in a pilot's leather jacket or tanker uniform. However, erupted in Russia Civil War showed that it was too early to write off the cavalry.
Donets begin
The initiative to create large cavalry formations in the Civil War belonged to the white side. This is not surprising: the counter-revolutionary forces had at their disposal the human resources of the Don and Kuban, and people from there made up a significant part of the former cavalry of the Russian Imperial Army (RIA). Horse breeding centers, both public and private, were also located there. Returned from the fields great war the Cossacks for the most part retained the horses, which made it possible already in 1918 to create many horse units as part of the Don army.
Initially, the cavalry was attached to foot regiments, forming a separate formation of 30 to 300 horsemen. Later, separate cavalry regiments began to be created from them. They were formed according to the stanitsa principle and united into numbered regiments, consisting of six hundred (in this situation, a hundred did not mean the number of soldiers). Their number was not constant and fluctuated between 150-1000 horsemen. During the hostilities of 1918, the Cossack cavalry, as a rule, was attached to the infantry. Ataman Pyotr Krasnov described the Cossack tactics as follows:
“Usually at dawn, an offensive was launched with very thin chains from the front, at the same time, a bypass column of the main forces with cavalry was moving in some intricate beam to the flank and rear of the enemy. If the enemy was ten times stronger than the Cossacks, this was considered normal for a Cossack offensive. As soon as a bypass column appeared, the Bolsheviks began to retreat, then the cavalry with a chilling boom rushed at them, overturned them, destroyed them and took them prisoner. Sometimes the battle began with a feigned retreat of twenty miles of the Cossack detachment, the enemy rushed to pursue, and at that time the bypass columns closed behind him, and he found himself in a bag.
The text quite realistically - if, of course, we discard the ratio of 1 to 10 - describes the specifics of the tactics of the battles of the Civil War in the Don region. As you can see, the cavalry here played a more auxiliary role, finishing off the fleeing enemy.
However, occasionally there were frontal attacks by riders. For example, on May 17, 1919, the Guards Brigade of the 1st Don Division attacked the positions of the Red Army soldiers near Lugansk on horseback. The attack was prepared by the fire of a white armored train and was supported by the infantry of the Gundorovsky battalion. Well-coordinated interaction led to a positive result: the enemy positions were captured, and with them several guns and machine guns, although the attack was carried out in a situation "inconsistencies between the forces of the attackers and the forces of the enemy, moreover, in conditions of a completely open area".
The first major operation of the Don cavalry is, perhaps, the raid of the Cossacks of General A.S. Secretev in May-June 1919. In March of the same year, the famous Veshensky rebellion began, later brilliantly described by Mikhail Sholokhov. Despite all the courage of the Cossacks, the numerically superior troops of the Red Army almost managed to suppress the uprising. Why almost? Yes, because the commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin, singled out an equestrian group of three divisions (8th, 11th and 12th equestrian) under the command of an experienced cavalryman, Major General Alexander Secretev. After passing more than 300 miles, the riders broke through the encirclement and joined with the rebels. Of course, not everything went smoothly. The pace of the advance of the cavalrymen was rather low. In addition, the Cossacks were often distracted from the main task, smashing the small detachments of the Red Army who were nearby. But in any case, this raid radically changed the situation in favor of the whites, not only in the area of the uprising, but throughout southern front, whose troops retreated 150 km.
It was from this point on that the white leadership paid close attention to the strategic use of cavalry. The planning of operations was in the hands of the command of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (VSYUR), created by combining the Don and Volunteer armies. The latter was headed by General Anton Denikin, who also headed the All-Union Socialist Revolutionary Federation. Let's see how things were with the cavalry of the volunteers.
Volunteer Army Cavalry
Having begun to form an army in Rostov-on-Don to counter the Bolsheviks, the white command was faced with a shortage of horses: there were cavalrymen, but there were no cavalry. Speaking on the Ice Campaign, General Lavr Kornilov had only a little more than 300 horsemen in three "regiments", which in March 1918 were consolidated into the 1st Cavalry Regiment under the command of Colonel Pyotr Glazenap. In May of the same year, after joining the Volunteer Army with the Drozdovsky detachment, the 2nd cavalry regiment was formed, the basis of which was the Drozdovites. Order No. 409 approved the temporary regimental staff of the cavalry, which was subsequently to be extended to the newly formed units. According to the document, the regiment consisted of six squadrons, each of which had 19 officers, eight non-commissioned officers and 120 combat soldiers. In total, there were 114 officers and 768 non-commissioned officers and soldiers in six squadrons. The staff of the machine gun team consisted of four officers, nine non-commissioned officers and 54 soldiers, the communications team - three officers and 26 soldiers, the non-combat team - two officers, seven combatants and 115 non-combatants. In the convoy of the 1st category there were 29, the 2nd category - nine, and in the machine-gun team - five convoy soldiers. In addition, the regimental headquarters consisted of four officers, seven military officials and one headquarters trumpeter. In total, the regiment had 127 officers, four class ranks and 965 soldiers with 1078 horses. Naturally, as in the Don army, the staffing level existed only on paper, but in reality it was much lower.
In the summer of 1918, two cavalry divisions had already been created in the Volunteer Army. The increase in numbers occurred mainly due to the Kuban cavalry units. And then disagreements broke out in the leadership over the further development of the cavalry. General Pyotr Wrangel was an ardent supporter of the creation of a regular cavalry. In his memoirs, he wrote:
« I attached great importance to the creation of a powerful cavalry in a real war, where maneuver played a dominant role. Knowing the Cossacks, he fully took into account that after the liberation of the Cossack lands they would be reluctant to take part in our further struggle, and considered it necessary to urgently attend to the restoration of regular cavalry units. A large number of cavalry officers remained idle or served in infantry units all the time as privates. The most valuable personnel of the best cavalry in the world were killed. Meanwhile, because among the people of the headquarters, starting with the Commander-in-Chief, with a few exceptions, the majority were infantry officers, the tops of the army were not only indifferent, but also negatively to the idea of the need to create regular cavalry units.».
As you can see, the general accused Anton Denikin of incompetence, believing that the infantry general was unable to realize the advantages that cavalry could give. To a certain extent, General A.S. was in solidarity with Wrangel. Lukomsky, who emphasized that the command of the Volunteer Army, although aware of the need to create a mass cavalry, did nothing for this.
However, if we give the floor to General Denikin himself, the picture looks a little different. Wrangel, planning the growth of the cavalry, saw the restoration of the former regiments of the Russian Imperial Army as the main way to achieve the goal. The former cavalry officers themselves strove for the same, who largely retained their cadres: from 50% to 90% of the officers from each RIA cavalry regiment participated in the ranks of the White movement. In the Volunteer Army, and later in Armed Forces South of Russia was restored in the form of divisions, squadrons and even regiments of 49 out of 57 regular army cavalry regiments. P. Wrangel himself laid the foundation for this, having restored the 10th Ingermanland Hussar Regiment back in October 1918: first as a division, and from May 1919 as a full-fledged regiment. Denikin reacted negatively, first of all, not to the development of cavalry, but to the development of cavalry in the way that Wrangel was guided by. The commander-in-chief thought:
“A major evil in the organization of the army was the spontaneous desire for formations - under the slogan “the revival of historical parts Russian army". "Cells" of the old regiments, especially in the cavalry, arose, became isolated, strove for separation, turning the combat unit - the regiment - into a mosaic collective of dozens of old regiments, weakening its ranks, unity and strength. Such formations also arose in the rear, existed behind the scenes for whole months, extracting private funds or taking advantage of the connivance of authorities of various ranks, weakening the front and sometimes turning the ideological slogan “under native standards” into a cover for selfishness.
Which of the generals was right? The answer to this can be given by an overview of the military operations of the Combined Cavalry Division of the Don Army. Although the former regiments of the RIA were restored, as a rule, in the Volunteer Army, there was an exception here. The desire of cavalry officers to revive their units ran into opposition from the command of the volunteers, but unexpectedly received the support of the leadership of the Don. The reason was that the Don Ataman Afrikan Bogaevsky during the First World War led the 4th Mariupol Hussar Regiment - one of the units striving for restoration.
From left to right: military ataman Afrikan Bogaevsky, Lieutenant General Anton Denikin, ataman of the Great Don Army Pyotr Krasnov, Lieutenant General Ivan Romanovsky. Chir station, 1918.
en.wikipedia.org
On October 9, 1919, an order was given to the Don Army to form the 1st Consolidated Cavalry Division as part of the 4th Mariupol and 6th Klyastitsky Hussars, the 11th Chuguevsky Lancers and the Native Cavalry Regiments. Major General Pyotr Chesnakov was entrusted to command the division. However, due to the deteriorating military situation, on November 28, 1919, the division went to the front to defend the Donets Basin, without having had time to complete the formation process. The formation actively participated in the battles against the red 1st Cavalry Army in the northern part of the Donbass, in the area of Svatovo and Rubizhnaya stations. The losses of the division were so great that it was folded into a combined cavalry regiment, which was later disbanded, and its remnants became part of other cavalry units.
A. Denikin's objections in those conditions were quite reasonable. And yet the command of the Volunteer Army, not wanting to depend on the wayward Cossack generals, tried to at least to some extent reorganize and increase their own cavalry. All its cavalry units, created on the basis of the old regiments of the Russian Empire, were consolidated in July 1919 into the 5th Cavalry Corps, which was headed by Lieutenant General Yakov Yuzefovich. This corps operated at the junction of the 1st Army Corps advancing on Moscow and the Kyiv group of General N.E. Bredov. The 5th Cavalry Corps included the 1st (Major General I.I. Chekotovsky) and the 2nd (Colonel I.M. Miklashevsky) Cavalry Divisions. The number of regiments in divisions ranged from three to five, but their numbers were small. Volunteer cavalry played a secondary role, supporting the offensive of the shock "colored" divisions and repelling the counterattacks of the Red Army, but never acquired a strategic character. The White Guards still pinned all their hopes on the Cossacks.
What to fight?
Let's say a few words about the equipment of the white cavalry. It was based on the former stocks of RIA. However, there was no single supply, and therefore the armament and equipment of the troops was very diverse. For example, the division of the Sumy hussars was armed with
“Dragoon, Cossack, Caucasian checkers, hussar sabers, English and French broadswords, there was even one ancient sword found in an abandoned plundered estate. To match the edged weapons, there were saddles of a wide variety of models, including racing ones, Cossack, Caucasian, or even just one cushion from a Cossack saddle, pulled up by a saddle with stirrups thrown over it. The quartermastership did not give saddles ... "
Peaks were widely used in the cavalry units of the All-Union Socialist Republic. All regular cavalry, even hussars and dragoons, were armed with them, although in the RIA they were only in the uhlan regiments. As for the Cossacks, the peaks were used exclusively by the Don people: neither the Terts nor the Kuban used them. In the hands of an experienced cavalryman, the pike became a terrible weapon. An example of this is the legend of the Don Cossack Kozma Kryuchkov, who during the First World War in one skirmish stabbed eleven German soldiers with a lance.
Kuban Cossacks
Not only the Don Cossacks were in the ranks of the VSYUR. Another component of the White movement was the Kuban Cossacks. From the first days of the Civil War, the Kuban people supported the actions of the Volunteer Army. However, without having such military and political leaders as P.N. Krasnov, A.P. Bogaevsky and V.I. Sidorin, they failed to create a separate army, joined the volunteers and for a long time acted in the same ranks with them. For example, as mentioned above, the 1st Cavalry Division, formed in the summer of 1918, half consisted of Kuban units.
In May 1919, during the next reorganization, the Kuban formed the basis of the Caucasian army, which operated in the Tsaritsyno direction. It was the cavalry of the 1st (commander - Lieutenant General V.L. Pokrovsky) and 2nd (commander - Major General S.G. Ulagay) Kuban Corps that defeated the red cavalry corps of Boris Dumenko in the Zadonsk steppes in oncoming battles. The 3rd Kuban Corps (commander - Lieutenant General A.G. Shkuro) was attached to the Volunteer Army, advancing in the Donbass. The Cossacks of Andrey Shkuro were forced to act both against the Red Army and against their temporary ally - the army of Nestor Makhno, often acting as a kind of mobile fire brigade. The Kubans often broke through the line of the red front, but did not invade far behind enemy lines, acting in the interests of the “colored” regiments of the Volunteer Army. During the summer offensive against Moscow, the 3rd Kuban Corps operated at the junction of the Volunteer and Don armies, often interacting with the Cossacks of the 4th Don Corps (commander - Lieutenant General K.K. Mamontov). In the fall, the corps had to be divided. The 1st Terek Division (commander - Major General V.K. Agoev) continued to fight against the Reds, and the 1st Caucasian Division (commander - General Gubin) was sent against the Makhno rebels.
In December 1919, the 2nd Kuban Corps, which was already headed by Major General V.G., was transferred to the disposal of the Volunteer Army. Naumenko. Both Kuban corps, as well as the 4th Donskoy, were involved in the defense of Donbass in December 1919, where they were defeated by the red 1st Cavalry Army.
It should be noted that if in 1918 the Kuban were distinguished by high combat effectiveness, then by the end of the next year they had become the most unreliable units of the All-Union Socialist Revolutionary Federation. The reason for this was the so-called Kuban action - the dispersal of the opposition VSYUR of the Kuban Rada, which pursued separatist goals. The fighting spirit of the Kuban formations was undermined. Cases of desertion and non-compliance with orders became more frequent. It was no longer necessary to count on the Kuban in a difficult combat situation.
Approximately such a situation developed with the white cavalry by the middle of 1919, when perhaps the most significant event related to the fighting of the cavalry took place - the cavalry raid of the Don Cossacks K.K. Mamontov. Most of all, paradoxically, the red side won from the raid, finally convinced that it was in the use of strategic cavalry that the key to victory lay.
To be continued
Sources and literature:
- Venkov, A.V. Don Cossacks in the Civil War (1918–1920) / A.V. Venkov. - Rostov n / a.: Publishing house Rostov. un-ta, 1992.
- Volkov, S.V. White movement. Encyclopedia of the Civil War / S.V. Volkov. - St. Petersburg: Neva Publishing House, M .: OLMA-PRESS Publishing House, 2003.
- Wrangel, P.N. Notes. November 1916 - November 1920 / P.N. Wrangell. - In 2 volumes. T.1. - Minsk: Harvest, 2002.
- Gagkuev, R.G. White movement in the south of Russia. Military construction, sources of recruitment, social composition. 1917–1920 / R.G. Gagkuev. - M.: Commonwealth "Posev", 2012.
- Civil War. 1918–1921: In 3 volumes / ed. S.S. Kamenev. - T. 2. Military Art of the Red Army. - M .: Military Bulletin, 1928.
- Civil War. 1918–1921 / N.E. Kakurin, I.I. Vatsetis; Ed. A.S. Bubnova and others - St. Petersburg: Polygon Publishing House LLC, 2002.
- Denikin, A.I. Essays on Russian Troubles: The Armed Forces of the South of Russia. The final period of the struggle. January 1919 - March 1920 / A.I. Denikin. - Minsk: Harvest, 2002.
- Deryabin, A.I. Civil War in Russia 1917–1922: White armies / A.I. Deryabin. - M.: AST Publishing House LLC, 2000.
- Egorov, A.I. The defeat of Denikin, 1919 / A.I. Egorov // Civil War in Russia: The defeat of Denikin. - M.: AST Publishing House LLC; St. Petersburg: Terra Fantastica, 2003. - S. 9–376.
- History of the Civil War in the USSR. 1917–1922 - V. 4. Decisive victories of the Red Army over the combined forces of the Entente and the internal counter-revolution (March 1919 - February 1920) / Ed. S.F. Naida, G.D. Obichkina, A.A. Struchkova, N.N. Shatagina, S.N. Shishkin. - M.: Gospolitizdat, 1959.
- Krasnov, P.N. The Great Don Army / P.N. Krasnov // White business. Don and the Volunteer Army. - M.: Voice, 1992. - S.5–209.
- Lekhovich, D. White against the Reds / Dmitry Lekhovich: militera.lib.ru
- Mamontov, S.I. We will not be judged: Campaigns and horses / S.I. Mammoths. - M.: Military Publishing, 1999.
- Sumy Hussars in the Civil War // Revived Regiments of the Russian Army in the White Struggle in the South of Russia / Ed. S.V. Volkov. - M.: CJSC Publishing House Tsentrpoligraf, 2002. - S. 11–57.
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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 on naval affairs, analyzing the results of the year of the civil war, he 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, it becomes obvious that violence and lawlessness are elevated to the rank of public policy. The desire for limitless dictatorship provoked a cynical justification for the inevitability of terror.
Under these conditions, the terror unleashed against the Cossacks in the occupied villages acquired such proportions that, on March 16, 1919, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was forced to recognize the January directive as erroneous. But the flywheel of the extermination machine was started, and it was already impossible to stop it.
The beginning of the state genocide on the part of the Bolsheviks and distrust of yesterday's still neighbors - the highlanders, fear of them, pushed part of the Cossacks again onto the path of fighting the Soviet regime, but now as part of the Volunteer Army of General Denikin.
The undisguised genocide of the Cossacks that had begun led the Don to a catastrophe, but in the North Caucasus it ended in complete defeat for the Bolsheviks. The 150,000-strong XI Army, which Fedko headed after Sorokin's death, was cumbersomely deploying for a decisive blow. From the flank it was covered by the XII Army occupying the area from Vladikavkaz to Grozny. From these two armies, the Caspian-Caucasian Front was created. In the rear, the Reds were restless. The Stavropol peasants leaned more and more towards the whites after the invasion of the food detachments. Highlanders turned away from the Bolsheviks, even those who supported them during the period of general anarchy. So, inside the Chechens, Kabardians and Ossetians there was their own civil war: some wanted to go with the Reds, others with the Whites, and still others wanted to build an Islamic state. The Kalmyks openly hated the Bolsheviks after the outrages committed against them. After the bloody suppression of the Bicherakhovsky uprising, the Terek Cossacks hid.
On January 4, 1919, the Volunteer Army dealt a crushing blow to the XI Red Army in the area of the village of Nevinnomysskaya and, breaking through the front, began to pursue the enemy in two directions - to the Holy Cross and to Mineralnye Vody. The gigantic XIth Army began to fall apart. Ordzhonikidze insisted on retreating to Vladikavkaz. Most of the commanders were against it, believing that the army pressed against the mountains would fall into a trap. Already on January 19, Pyatigorsk was taken by the Whites, on January 20, the St. George group of the Reds was defeated.
To repulse the white troops and to manage all military operations in the region, by the decision of the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b), at the end of December 1918, the Defense Council was created. North Caucasus headed by G. K. Ordzhonikidze. At the direction of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, weapons and ammunition were sent to the North Caucasus to help the XI Army.
But, despite all the measures taken, the units of the Red Army could not resist the onslaught of the Volunteer Army. The Extraordinary Commissar of the South of Russia, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, in a telegram addressed to V. I. Lenin dated January 24, 1919, reported on the state of affairs as follows: “There is no XI Army. She finally broke down. The enemy occupies the cities and villages almost without resistance. At night, the question was to leave the entire Terek region and go to Astrakhan.
On January 25, 1919, during the general offensive of the Volunteer Army in the North Caucasus, the Kabardian cavalry brigade, consisting of two regiments under the command of captain Zaurbek Dautokov-Serebryakov, occupies Nalchik and Baksan with battle. And on January 26, the detachments of A. G. Shkuro occupy the railway stations of Kotlyarevskaya and Prokhladnaya. At the same time, the White Guard Circassian division and two Cossack plastun battalions, turning to the right from the village of Novoossetinskaya, went to the Terek near the Kabardian village of Abaevo and, having joined at the Kotlyarevskaya station with detachments of Shkuro along the railway line, moved to Vladikavkaz. By the beginning of February, the white units of Generals Shkuro, Pokrovsky and Ulagay blocked the administrative center of the Terek region - the city of Vladikavkaz - from three sides. February 10, 1919 Vladikavkaz was taken. Denikin's command forced the XIth Red Army to retreat across the hungry steppes to Astrakhan. The remnants of the XII Red Army crumbled. The Extraordinary Commissar of the South of Russia G.K. Ordzhonikidze with a small detachment fled to Ingushetia, some units under the command of N. Gikalo went to Dagestan, and the bulk, representing already disorderly crowds of refugees, poured into Georgia through winter passes, freezing in the mountains, dying from avalanches and snowfalls, exterminated by yesterday's allies - the highlanders. The Georgian government, fearing typhus, refused to let them in. The Reds tried to storm their way out of the Darial Gorge but were met by machine-gun fire. Many died. The rest surrendered to the Georgians and were interned as prisoners of war.
By the time the Volunteer Army occupied the North Caucasus, of the independent Terek units that survived the defeat of the uprising, only a detachment of Terek Cossacks in Petrovsk, led by the commander of the Terek Territory, Major General I. N. Kosnikov, survived. It included the Grebensky and Gorsko-Mozdok cavalry regiments, the cavalry hundred of Kopay Cossacks, the 1st Mozdok and 2nd Grebensky Plastun battalions, the hundreds of foot Kopay Cossacks, the 1st and 2nd artillery divisions. By February 14, 1919, the detachment consisted of 2,088 people.
One of the first units of the Tertsians who joined the Volunteer Army was the Terek officer regiment, formed on November 1, 1918 from the officer detachment of Colonel B.N. Litvinov, who arrived in the army after the defeat of the Terek uprising (disbanded in March 1919), as well as detachments of colonels V. K. Agoeva, Z. Dautokova-Serebryakova and G. A. Kibirova.
On November 8, 1918, the 1st Terek Cossack Regiment was formed as part of the Volunteer Army (later merged into the 1st Terek Cossack Division). The broad formation of the Terek units began with the establishment of the Volunteer Army in the North Caucasus. The basis of the Terek formations in the Civil War was the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Terek Cossack divisions and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Terek plastun brigades, as well as the Terek Cossack horse artillery divisions and separate batteries, which were both part of the Troops Terek-Dagestan region, and the Volunteer and Caucasian Volunteer armies. Beginning in February 1919, the Terek formations were already conducting independent military operations against the Red Army. This was especially significant for the white forces in the south, in connection with the transfer of the Caucasian Volunteer Army to the Northern Front.
Terskaya plastunskaya separate brigade was formed as part of the Volunteer Army on December 9, 1918 from the newly formed 1st and 2nd Terek plastun battalions and the Terek Cossack artillery division, which included the 1st Terek Cossack and 2nd Terek plastun 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 led among themselves bloody wars for several weeks. The dead were counted in the hundreds. Almost every valley had its own money, often homemade, and rifle cartridges were the universally recognized "convertible" currency. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and even Great Britain tried to act as guarantors of the "mountain autonomies". But the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army A. I. Denikin (whom the Soviet propaganda liked to portray as a puppet of the Entente) resolutely demanded the abolition of all these “autonomies”. By placing governors in the national regions from white officers of these nationalities. So, for example, on January 19, 1919, the commander-in-chief of the Terek-Dagestan region, Lieutenant General V.P. Lyakhov, issued an order according to which a colonel, later a major general, Tembot Zhankhotovich Bekovich-Cherkassky, was appointed the ruler of Kabarda. His assistants: Captain Zaurbek Dautokov-Serebryakov was appointed for the military unit, Colonel Sultanbek Kasaevich Klishbiev for civil administration.
Relying on the support of the local nobility, General Denikin convened mountain congresses in March 1919 in Kabarda, Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan. These congresses elected Rulers and Councils under them, who had extensive judicial and administrative powers. Sharia law was preserved in criminal and family cases.
At the beginning of 1919, a system of self-government by the region of two centers was formed in the Terek-Dagestan region: Cossack and volunteer (both were in Pyatigorsk). As A. I. Denikin later noted, the unresolved nature of a number of issues dating back to pre-revolutionary times, lack of agreement in relations, and the influence of the Kuban independentists on the Tertsy could not but give rise to friction between these two authorities. Only due to the awareness of mortal danger in the event of a break, the absence of independent tendencies among the mass of the Terek Cossacks, personal relationships between representatives of both branches of power, the state mechanism in the North Caucasus worked throughout 1919 without significant interruptions. Until the end of the white power, the region continued to be in dual subordination: the representative of the volunteer government (General Lyakhov was replaced by cavalry general I.G. a meeting in May 1919; military ataman ruled on the basis of the Terek constitution.
Political disagreements and misunderstandings between representatives of the two authorities, as a rule, ended with the adoption of a compromise solution. Friction between the two centers of power throughout 1919 was created mainly by a small but influential part of the radical independent Terek intelligentsia in the government and the Circle. The most obvious illustration is the position of the Terek faction of the Supreme Cossack Circle, which met in Ekaterinodar on January 5 (18), 1920 as the supreme power of the Don, Kuban and Terek. The Terek faction maintained a loyal attitude towards the government of the South of Russia, proceeding from the position of unacceptability for the army of separatism and the fatefulness of the mountain issue. The resolution on breaking off relations with Denikin was adopted by the Supreme Circle of the Don, Kuban and Terek with an insignificant number of votes of the Terek faction, most of which went home.
On the territory liberated from the Bolsheviks, the work of transport was adjusted, paralyzed enterprises were opened, and trade revived. In May 1919, the South-Eastern Russian Church Council was held in Stavropol. The Council was attended by bishops, clerics and laity chosen from the Stavropol, Don, Kuban, Vladikavkaz and Sukhumi-Black Sea dioceses, as well as members of the All-Russian Local Council who ended up in the south of the country. Questions of the spiritual and social structure of this vast territory were discussed at the Council, and the Supreme Provisional Church Administration was formed. Archbishop Mitrofan (Simashkevich) of the Donskoy became its chairman, the members were Archbishop Dimitry (Abashidze) of Tauride, Bishop Arseniy (Smolenets) of Taganrog, Protopresbyter G. I. Shavelsky, Professor A. P. Rozhdestvensky, Count V. Musin-Pushkin and Professor P. Verkhovsky.
Thus, with the arrival of the White troops in the Terek region, the Cossack military government was restored, headed by the ataman, Major General G. A. Vdovenko. The “South-Eastern Union of Cossack Troops, Highlanders of the Caucasus and Free Peoples of the Steppes” continued its work, the basis of which was the idea of a federation of the Don, Kuban, Terek, the North Caucasus region, as well as the Astrakhan, Ural and Orenburg troops. The political goal of the Union was its accession as an independent state association to the future Russian Federation.
A. I. Denikin, in turn, advocated “preserving the unity of the Russian state, subject to 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 from 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 anti-bolshevik struggle their neighbor allies. Thus, the people of the Karanogays were included in the Terek army, and on the Big Circle, the Cossacks expressed their consent in principle to joining the Army "on an equal footing" of Ossetians and Kabardians. The situation was more complicated with the out-of-town population. Encouraging the entry of individual representatives of the indigenous peasants into the Cossack estate, the Tertsy treated with great prejudice the demand of non-residents to resolve the land issue, to introduce them into the work of the Circle, as well as into the central and local government.
In the Terek region liberated from the Bolsheviks, a complete mobilization took place. In addition to the Cossack regiments, units formed from the highlanders were also sent to the front. Wishing to confirm their loyalty to Denikin, even yesterday's enemies of the Tertsy, the Chechens and Ingush, responded to the call of the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army and replenished the White Guard ranks with their volunteers.
Already in May 1919, in addition to the Kuban combat units, the Circassian cavalry division and the Karachaev cavalry brigade operated on the Tsaritsy front. The 2nd Terek Cossack Division, the 1st Terek Plastun Brigade, the Kabardian Cavalry Division, the Ingush Cavalry Brigade, the Dagestan Cavalry Brigade and the Ossetian Cavalry Regiment, who arrived from the Terek and Dagestan, were also transferred here. In Ukraine, the 1st Terek Cossack Division and the Chechen Cavalry Division were involved against Makhno.
The situation in the North Caucasus remained extremely difficult. In June, Ingushetia raised an uprising, but a week later it was crushed. Kabarda and Ossetia were disturbed by their attacks by the Balkars and "Kermenists" (representatives of the Ossetian revolutionary democratic organization). In the mountainous part of Dagestan, Ali-Khadzhi raised an uprising, and in August he took over this "baton" 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 Yekaterinodar on January 18, 1920, the Cossack Supreme Circle gathered, which set about creating an independent union state and declared himself the supreme authority on 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 - are almost in in full force represented a united front. The Kubans were reproached for leaving the front by the Kuban units, proposals were made to separate the eastern departments (“lineists”) from this army and attach them to the Terek. Terek ataman G. A. Vdovenko spoke with the following words: “The course of the Tertsy is one. We have written in gold letters "United and indivisible Russia".
At the end of January 1920, a compromise provision was developed, accepted by all parties:
1. South Russian power is established on the basis of an agreement between the High Command of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia and the Supreme Circle of the Don, Kuban and Terek, until the convocation of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly.
2. Lieutenant-General A. I. Denikin is recognized as the first head of the South Russian authorities ....
3. The law on the succession of power of the head of state is developed by the Legislative Chamber on a general basis.
4. Legislative power in the South of Russia is exercised by the Legislative Chamber.
5. The functions of the executive power, except for the head of the South Russian government, are determined by the Council of Ministers ...
6. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers is appointed by the head of the South Russian government.
7. The person heading the South Russian government has the right to dissolve the Legislative Chamber and the right to a relative "veto" ...
In agreement with the three factions of the Supreme Circle, a cabinet of ministers was formed, but "the appearance of a new government did not bring any change in the course of events."
The military and political crisis of the White Guard South was growing. Government reform no longer saved the situation - the front collapsed. On February 29, 1920, Stavropol was taken by the Red Army, on March 17 Yekaterinodar and the village of Nevinnomysskaya fell, on March 22 - Vladikavkaz, on March 23 - Kizlyar, on March 24 - Grozny, on March 27 - Novorossiysk, on March 30 - Port-Petrovsk and on April 7 - Tuapse . Almost throughout the entire territory of the North Caucasus, Soviet power was restored, which was confirmed by a decree of March 25, 1920.
Part of the army of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (about 30 thousand people) was evacuated from Novorossiysk to the Crimea. The Terek Cossacks, who left Vladikavkaz (together with the refugees, about 12 thousand people), went along the Georgian Military Highway to Georgia, where they were interned in camps near Poti, in a swampy malaria area. The demoralized Cossack units, squeezed on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, for the most part surrendered to the red units.
On April 4, 1920, A. I. Denikin ordered the appointment of Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel as his successor to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia.
After the evacuation of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia to the Crimea, from the remnants of the Terek and Astrakhan Cossack units in April 1920, a Separate Terek-Astrakhan Cossack brigade was formed, which from April 28 as the Terek-Astrakhan brigade was part of the 3rd cavalry division of the Consolidated Corps. On July 7, after reorganization, the brigade again became separate. In the summer of 1920, she was part of the Special Forces Group, which participated in the Kuban landing. From September 4, the brigade operated separately as part of the Russian army and included the 1st Terek, 1st and 2nd Astrakhan regiments and the Terek-Astrakhan Cossack cavalry artillery division and the Separate Terek spare Cossack hundred.
The attitude of the Cossacks to Baron Wrangel was ambivalent. On the one hand, he contributed to the dispersal of the Kuban Regional Rada in 1919, on the other hand, his rigidity and commitment to order impressed the Cossacks. The attitude of the Cossacks towards him was not spoiled by the fact that Wrangel brought the Don general Sidorin to justice because he telegraphed the military ataman Bogaevsky about his decision to “withdraw the Don army from the limits of the Crimea and the subordination in which it is now located.”
The situation with the Kuban Cossacks was more complicated. The military ataman Bukretov was an opponent of the evacuation to the Crimea of the Cossack units squeezed on the Black Sea coast. Wrangel was not immediately able to send the ataman to the Caucasus to organize the evacuation, and the remnants of those who did not surrender to the Reds (about 17 thousand people) were only able to board the ships on May 4th. Bukretov handed over ataman power to the chairman of the Kuban government Ivanis and, together with the "independent" - deputies of the Rada, taking with him part of the military treasury, fled to Georgia. The Kuban Rada, which gathered in Feodosia, recognized Bukretov and Ivanis as traitors, and elected military general Ulagay as the military chieftain, but he refused power.
The small Terek group led by Ataman Vdovenko was traditionally hostile to the separatist movements and, therefore, had nothing in common with the ambitious Cossack leaders.
The lack of unity in the political Cossack camp and Wrangel's uncompromising attitude towards the "independents" allowed the commander-in-chief of the Russian army to conclude with the military atamans the agreement that he considered necessary for the state structure of Russia. Gathering together Bogaevsky, Ivanis, Vdovenko and Lyakhov, Wrangel gave them 24 hours to think, and thus, “On July 22, a solemn signing of an agreement took place ... with the atamans and governments of the Don, Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan ... in development of the agreement dated 2 (15 ) April of this year ...
1. The state formations of the Don, Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan are provided with complete independence in their internal structure and management.
2. In the Council of Heads of Departments under the Government and the Commander-in-Chief, with the right of a decisive vote on all issues, the chairmen of the governments of the state formations of the Don, Kuban, Terek and Astrakhan, or members of their governments replacing them, participate.
3. The Commander-in-Chief is assigned full power over all the armed forces of state formations ... both in operational terms and on fundamental issues of organizing the army.
4. All necessary for the supply ... food and other means are provided ... on a special allocation.
5. Management of railway tracks and main lines telegraph lines granted 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 choked September offensive on the Kakhovka bridgehead forced Baron Wrangel to close within the Crimean peninsula and begin preparations for defense and evacuation.
By the beginning of the offensive on November 7, 1920, the Red Army had 133,000 bayonets and sabers, while the Russian army had 37,000 bayonets and sabers. superior forces Soviet troops broke the defense, and already on November 12, Baron Wrangel issued an order to leave the Crimea. The evacuation organized by the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army was completed on November 16, 1920 and made it possible to save about 150,000 military and civilians, including about 30,000 Cossacks.
The remnants of the last provisional nationwide government and the last legitimate governments of the Cossack troops of the Russian Empire, including Terek, left the territory of Russia.
After the evacuation of the Russian army from the Crimea in Chataldzha, the Terek-Astrakhan regiment was formed as part of the Don Corps. After the transformation of the army into the Russian General Military Union (ROVS), the regiment until the 1930s was a cropped unit. So by the autumn of 1925, there were 427 people in the regiment, including 211 officers.
