Kuban Cossacks during the years of Soviet power (civil war, years of repression). Cossacks in the Civil War

Don Cossacks and the Revolution of 1905-1907

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the tsarist government began to involve not only the police and the gendarmerie, but also the regular army, and with it the Cossack units, to fight the revolutionaries. The Cossacks mainly performed security functions: they carried out round-the-clock service on the protection of important state and industrial facilities, at the request of the owners they were sent to factories, mines, factories, and landowners' estates. If necessary, they were also involved in the active struggle against demonstrators, strikers, and participants in armed uprisings.

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

As the revolutionary movement grew, the government attracted preferential Cossack regiments of the 2nd and 3rd stage to serve within the empire (they were older Cossacks - over 25 years old). In February 1905 and in September-October 1905. appropriate mobilizations were carried out. In total, 110 thousand Cossacks of all Cossack troops were put into operation. But the scale of the performances was such that the government had to send 5 times more troops for suppression than the Cossacks put up. Nevertheless, cavalry and Cossacks, as the most mobile (mobile) units, were used 1.5-2 times more often than infantry. In addition, the government wanted fewer casualties in breaking up demonstrations and preferred to use cavalry with their whips rather than infantry with their bayonets.

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

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

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

Don Cossacks in the revolutions of 1917

The attitude of the Cossacks to the February Revolution

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cossacks and political crises of spring-summer 1917

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

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

Cossacks and the October Revolution

Cossacks in 1917 - these are thousands and tens of thousands of armed, trained in military affairs people, they were a force that was impossible to ignore (in the fall of 1917, the army had 162 cavalry Cossack regiments, 171 separate hundreds and 24 foot battalions).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On one side were the Cossacks under the banner of Generals A. M. Kaledin, P. N. Krasnov and A. P. Bogaevsky, the white partisans of Colonel Chernetsov and General Sidorin, and on the other, the Red Cossacks F. Podtelkov and M. Krivoshlykov, brigade commander B Dumenko and commander F. Mironov.

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

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

The struggle of Ataman Kaledin

In November-December 1917, the Don Ataman A. M. Kaledin launched an active work to rally all the anti-Bolshevik forces. But he wasn't strong enough. The Cossack units located on the Don clearly shied away from armed struggle.

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

In December, Cossack units from the front began to return to the Don, but they did not want to openly fight the Bolsheviks, who launched an attack on the Don from three sides. Kaledin and the military government announced the entry of volunteer partisan detachments. Mostly young students signed up - cadets, cadets, high school students, students. For some time, small partisan detachments actively and boldly repulsed the offensive of the Red Guard. Particularly distinguished partisans from the detachments of V. Chernetsov, E. Semiletov, D. Nazarov.

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

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

The new chieftain A. M. Nazarov announced a general mobilization. The Cossacks did not respond to this call. The Bolsheviks and Podtelkovsky Cossacks approached Novocherkassk. Part of the partisans went along with the Volunteer Army to the Kuban to join with the anti-Bolshevik Kuban Cossacks, the other part united in the "Detachment of Free Don Cossacks" under the command of General P. Kh. Popov and went to the Salsky steppes to wait for the "awakening of the Cossacks."

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



Last summer 2015, visiting his relatives, he crossed the Don land from the city of Shakhta through the village of Oblivskaya to the banks of the Volga, where for the first time in the bay he saw the lotus bloom. The flowers of the plant are pale pink. I involuntarily recalled the memorial alley of busts of the "white" heroes of the Pacific Don in the Cadet Cossack Corps named after Ataman Baklanov in the city of miners. And after all, there were famous “red” Cossacks, about whom they don’t write very much these days. But they were both "white" and "red" were and remained in history all Cossacks. Both of them practically had one goal - to protect their people. But the opponents understood each according to their own people's dream of freedom, and they shed people's scarlet blood ....

The "Red" Cossacks Podtelkov and Kochubey were hanged, the "White" Cossacks were drowned in the Black Sea.

In my archive there is a document dated October 1986, which I cite for the first time. "Evidence. This certificate was compiled in the presence of N.M. Eremin, head of the local history circle. and circle members L.G. Mamtseva, N.F. Ponamareva, I.V. street Cooperative, house 27; Otinova Elena Vasilievna, born in 1900, living in the village of Shelkovskaya along Komsomolskaya street, house 16; Dmitriev Efim Stepanovich, born in 1909, living in the village of Shelkovskaya along Partizanskaya street, house 20, are eyewitnesses and witnesses of the fact that during the Civil War in November 1918 - February 1919 in the former ataman's board of the village of Shelkovskaya Terek region (now the Shelkovskaya district is located there) there was a stanitsa revolutionary committee, the chairman of which was the Cossack Luchininov Prokofy Savelyevich. During the entry of Denikin's troops in February 1919 into the village, Luchinov was killed by white bandits as a supporter of Soviet power.
On the same night, the Cossack Shapovalov and the soldier Kosov were killed. Subsequently, two streets in the village were named after them, but Luchininov, as a former tsarist officer, was not awarded such an honor ....
There is a fraternal cemetery in the village, where hundreds of nameless victims Civil War.
Cossack girl Anna Voloshina told me that blood flowed in a stream through the threshold of the village school, because whites shot sick with typhus and wounded Red Army soldiers through the window, and then dragged them out of the room with hooks and buried them on the outskirts of Shelkovskaya.

In the eighties of the twentieth century, with the participation of the Grebensky Cossack of the village of Kurdyukovskaya, Vasily Lobov, I managed to record the memoirs of contemporaries about the “red” brigade commander, Cossack Ivan Antonovich Kochubey.

Ivan Kochubey was born in 1893 on the farm Grove of the Kuban region. During the First World War, he showed courage and prowess. He was awarded the George Cross. When his former commander, Colonel Shkuro, created a detachment of supporters of the "white movement", Ivan Kochubey gathers "red" partisans. At the head of this unit in the spring of 1918, he liberates the village of Nevinnomysskaya from the whites. For the personal courage shown during this bold and daring operation, Kochubey was promoted to brigade commander. The military glory of the Kochubeevites spread widely throughout the Southern Front and they did not have a single lost battle.

... January 1919. The 11th Red Army retreated in the direction of Astrakhan through Mozdok, Chervlennaya and Kizlyar. The Terek villages met and saw off the departing "Reds" silently. Until now, the Tertsians have not seen such a stream of people, which seemed to have no end. The refugees of the cities and villages of the Kuban and Terek, Taman and Stavropol left with the troops.
On January 13, the "whites" began an active offensive along the entire front. On the brigade of Ivan Kochubey, covering the withdrawal of the army, the best regiments of the White Guards were thrown. The Kochubeevs with unparalleled courage repulsed the attacks, counterattacking the enemy. Kochubey inspired the fighters with his personal example, appearing in the most dangerous areas of defense. Near Georgievsk, an officer division was defeated, stopping the enemy's offensive and enabling the XI Red Army to continue its retreat to Kizlyar. In the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe village of Mekenskaya, the Leninsky regiment, which came to the rescue from Astrakhan, was surrounded. Thanks to the timely help of the Kochubeevs, the regiment got out of the encirclement, and after a short and fierce battle, the enemy was thrown back to the village of Alpatovo.

Evdokia Deonisievna Kabylina, a Cossack from the village of Kurdyukovskaya, testifies to that time. “It was January 1919. Winter was still not cold, with little snow, which often happens in our places.
Before dinner, I go out for water to the well, and the stanitsa daredevil Sidorka Kadaskov jumps along the street and yells: “The Reds are coming, meet Dunyasha!” And at the very smile of joy from ear to ear. And already from a distance he shouted: "Kochubey is coming!" I got some water and quickly go home, and to meet the riders in cloaks, kubankas under hoods. We galloped to the center of the village, and behind them the convoy. I stand and look from behind the wattle fence. And I'm scared and curious, I was still a girl. I wanted to look at Kochubey, what he is. After all, they told different things about him.
Then a cart drove up to our yard. They unharnessed the horses, began to give water, hay. There was an altercation. I got scared and ran into the house. Well, I think, maybe these will rob, like the "cadets" and the "greens". And let's push your little chest with the dowry into the darker corner. And then two people entered the house. One, which is younger, with a Mauser in his hands, the other has a saber on his belt. "What are you hiding?" - they ask. I died, but I shouted: “I won’t give it, it’s my mother who collected it for me as a dowry!” Where did my fear go? The Cossacks smiled, they hid the weapons and told me: “Well, here’s the thing, girl, gather something to eat, and take it to the wounded in the convoy.” I was about to roar after they left, but then I thought: who knows, maybe like this, my brothers are toiling somewhere. One of them was with the Red partisans, and there was no news about the other for many years.
I handed over the food and went back to the house, and the young Cossack who was with the Mauser was sitting on the footboard of the cart, leaning on his saber. He saw me and said: “Well, did the maiden get away? Don't be afraid, the time is now. Soon we’ll be back, then there will be no one to be frightened of. ” And he himself seems not to be talking to me, but looking somewhere into the distance. Then they called him: "Father, go to dinner." I marveled, the guy is young, and they call him dad. After dinner, the cavalrymen left, and they told me that this "father" was Ivan Kochubey. This is how fate brought me to the famous brigade commander. I heard that at the Black Market behind Kizlyar he was captured and persuaded to serve the Whites. He didn't agree to the deal. He answered this way to his opponents: “I have a straight soul. I knew what I fought for, I know what I would die for. I don't fear death. If I met you in battle, I would cut you without looking! The whites executed Ivan Kochubey.
Then, in the fifties, a film about Kochubey was shot on our Terek. Through the Terek, near the village of Chervlennaya, they staged a battle, they put chains from our Cossacks in breakers ... .. Russian lieutenant colonel Georgy Mazurov, whose grandfather was a Cossack colonel of the 2nd Kizlyar-Grebensky regiment in the Great War, held his breath watching the Soviet film "Kochubey", where in the episode was filmed by his father.
And in the villages on the Terek, Kurdyukovskaya and Kargalinskaya, Dubovskaya and Borozdinovskaya, Staroshchedrinskaya and Starogladkovskaya, Chervlennaya and Nikolaevskaya, there were monuments to the “red” Cossacks.
At the entrance to the modern regional city of Belgorod with north side there is now an Orthodox cross on the mass grave of the “white” Denikinists.
There are no winners in the Civil War!

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, the fact of the regularity of raising violence and lawlessness to the rank of state policy becomes obvious. The desire for limitless dictatorship provoked a cynical justification for the inevitability of terror.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Yekaterinodar on January 18, 1920, the Cossack Supreme Circle gathered, which set about creating an independent union state and declared himself 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 – almost in full force represented a united front.” The Kubans were reproached for leaving the front by the Kuban units, proposals were made to separate the eastern departments (“Lineists”) from this army and attach them to the Terek. Terek ataman G. A. Vdovenko spoke with the following words: “The course of the Tertsy is one. We have written in gold letters "United and indivisible Russia".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The civil war in Siberia had its own characteristics. Siberia in terms of territorial space several times exceeded the territory of European Russia. The peculiarity of the Siberian population was that it did not know serfdom, there were no large landlord lands that hampered the possessions of peasants, and there was no land issue. In Siberia, the administrative and economic exploitation of the population was much weaker, if only because the centers of administrative influence spread only along the line of the Siberian railway. Therefore, such an influence almost did not extend to the internal life of the provinces, which lay at a distance from the railway line, and the people needed only order and the possibility of a peaceful existence. Under such patriarchal conditions, revolutionary propaganda could only be successful in Siberia by force, which could not but arouse resistance. And it inevitably arose. In June, Cossacks, volunteers and detachments of Czechoslovaks cleared the entire Siberian railway from Chelyabinsk to Irkutsk of Bolsheviks. After that, an irreconcilable struggle began between the parties, as a result of which the advantage was established for power structure, formed in Omsk, based on the armed forces of about 40,000, among which half were from the Ural, Siberian and Orenburg Cossacks. The anti-Bolshevik rebel detachments in Siberia fought under a white-green flag, since “according to the decision of the emergency Siberian regional congress, the colors of the flag of autonomous Siberia were white and green - as a symbol of Siberian snows and forests.”

Rice. 1 Flag of Siberia

It should be said that during the Russian Troubles of the 20th century, not only Siberia declared autonomy, there was an endless parade of sovereignties. The same was true of the Cossacks. During the collapse of the Russian Empire and the civil war, several Cossack state entities were proclaimed:
Kuban People's Republic
Great Don Army
Terek Cossack Republic
Ural Cossack Republic
Orenburg Cossack Circle
Siberian-Semirechensk Cossack Republic
Transbaikal Cossack Republic.

Of course, all these centrifugal chimeras arose primarily from the impotence of the central government, which happened again in the early 1990s. In addition to the national-geographical divide, the Bolsheviks also managed to organize an internal split: the previously united Cossacks were divided into "red" and "white". Part of the Cossacks, especially young people and front-line soldiers, were deceived by the promises and promises of the Bolsheviks, and left to fight for the Soviets.

Rice. 2 Red Cossacks

On the Southern Urals Red Guards, under the leadership of the Bolshevik worker V.K. Blucher, and the Red Orenburg Cossacks of the brothers Nikolai and Ivan Kashirin fought surrounded and retreated from Vekhneuralsk to Beloretsk, and from there, repelling the attacks of the White Cossacks, began a great campaign along the Ural Mountains near Kungur, to join with the 3rd Red Army. Having fought more than 1000 kilometers along the rear of the Whites, the Red fighters and Cossacks in the Askino region connected with the Red units. Of these, the 30th Rifle Division was formed, with Blucher appointed as its commander, and former Cossack commanders Kashirins appointed as deputy and brigade commander. All three receive the newly established Orders of the Red Banner, and Blucher received it under No. 1. During this period, about 12 thousand Orenburg Cossacks fought on the side of Ataman Dutov, up to 4 thousand Cossacks fought for the power of the Soviets. The Bolsheviks created Cossack regiments, often on the basis of the old regiments of the 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. In June, the Don Red partisans were consolidated into the 1st Socialist Cavalry Regiment (about 1000 sabers), led by Dumenko and his deputy Budyonny. In August, this regiment, supplemented by the cavalry of the Martyno-Orlovsky detachment, turned into the 1st Don Soviet Cavalry Brigade, led by the same commanders. Dumenko and Budyonny were the initiators of the creation of large cavalry formations in the Red Army. Since the summer of 1918, they persistently convinced the Soviet leadership of the need to create cavalry divisions and corps. Their views were shared by K.E. Voroshilov, I.V. Stalin, A.I. Yegorov and other leaders of the 10th Army. By order of the commander of the 10th Army K.E. Voroshilov No. 62 dated November 28, 1918, the Dumenko cavalry brigade was reorganized into the Consolidated Cavalry Division. The commander of the 32nd Cossack regiment, military foreman Mironov, also unconditionally sided with the new government. The Cossacks elected him military commissar of the Ust-Medveditsky District Revolutionary Committee. In the spring of 1918, to fight the Whites, Mironov organized several Cossack partisan detachments, which were then merged into the 23rd division of the Red Army. Mironov was appointed chief of the division. In September 1918 - February 1919, he successfully and famously smashed the white cavalry near Tambov and Voronezh, for which he was awarded the highest award of the Soviet Republic - the Order of the Red Banner under No. 3. However, most of the Cossacks fought for the Whites. The Bolshevik leadership saw that it was the Cossacks who made up the bulk of the manpower of the White armies. This was especially characteristic of the south of Russia, where two-thirds of all Russian Cossacks concentrated in the Don and Kuban. The civil war in the Cossack regions was carried out with the most cruel methods, the destruction of prisoners and hostages was often practiced.

Rice. 3 Execution of captured Cossacks and hostages

Due to the small number of Red Cossacks, it seemed that all the Cossacks were fighting with the rest of the non-Cossack population. 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 Reds. On the fields of the outbreak of civil war, the white Cossacks of Shkuro fought with the red Cossacks of Budyonny, the red Cossacks of Mironov fought with the white Cossacks of Mamantov, the white Cossacks of Dutov fought with the red Cossacks of Kashirin, and so on ... A bloody whirlwind swept over the Cossack lands. The grief-stricken Cossack women said: "We divided into whites and reds and let's cut each other to the delight of the Jewish commissars." This was only to the advantage of the Bolsheviks and the forces behind them. Such is the great Cossack tragedy. And she had her reasons. When in September 1918 the 3rd Extraordinary Circle of the Orenburg Cossack Host took place in Orenburg, where the first results of the struggle against the Soviets were summed up, the chieftain of the 1st district K.A. Kargin with brilliant simplicity and very accurately described the main sources and causes of Bolshevism among the Cossacks. “The Bolsheviks in Russia and in the army were the result of the fact that we have many poor people. And neither disciplinary charters, nor executions can eliminate discord as long as we have a squalor. Eliminate this squalor, give it the opportunity to live like a human being - and all these Bolshevisms and other "isms" will disappear. However, it was already too late to philosophize, and on the Circle, harsh punitive measures were planned against supporters of the Bolsheviks, Cossacks, non-residents and their families. It must be said that they differed little from the punitive actions of the Reds. The gulf among the Cossacks deepened. In addition to the Ural, Orenburg and Siberian Cossacks, Kolchak's army included the Trans-Baikal and Ussuri Cossack troops, which were under the auspices and support of the Japanese. Initially, the formation of the armed forces to fight against the Bolsheviks was based on the principle of voluntariness, but in August the mobilization of young people of 19-20 years of age was announced, as a result, the Kolchak army began to number up to 200,000 people. By August 1918, only on the Western Front of Siberia, forces were deployed, numbering up to 120,000 people. Parts of the troops were distributed into three armies: Siberian under the command of Gaida, who broke with the Czechs and was promoted to general by Admiral Kolchak, Western under the command of the glorious Cossack general Khanzhin and Southern under the command of the ataman of the Orenburg army, General Dutov. The Ural Cossacks, who pushed back the Reds, fought from Astrakhan to Novonikolaevsk, occupying a front of 500-600 miles. Against these troops, the Reds had from 80 to 100,000 people on the Eastern Front. However, having strengthened the troops by forced mobilization, the Reds went on the offensive and occupied Kazan on September 9, Simbirsk on September 12, and Samara was occupied by them on October 10. By the Christmas holidays, Ufa was taken by the Reds, the Siberian armies began to retreat to the east and occupy the passes of the Ural Mountains, where the armies were to replenish, put themselves in order and prepare for the spring offensive. At the end of 1918, the Southern Army of Dutov, formed mainly from the Cossacks of the Orenburg Cossack Army, also suffered heavy losses, and in January 1919 left Orenburg.

In the south, in the summer of 1918, 25 ages were mobilized into the Don Army and there were 27,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 175 guns, 610 machine guns, 20 aircraft, 4 armored trains, not counting the young standing army. By August, the reorganization of the army was completed. Foot regiments had 2-3 battalions, 1000 bayonets and 8 machine guns in each battalion, horse regiments were six hundred strong with 8 machine guns. The regiments were consolidated into brigades and divisions, divisions into corps, which were placed on 3 fronts: the northern one against Voronezh, the eastern one against Tsaritsyn, and the southeastern one near the village of Velikoknyazheskaya. The special beauty and pride of the Don was a standing army of Cossacks aged 19-20. It consisted of: 1st Don Cossack division - 5 thousand drafts, 1st plastun brigade - 8 thousand bayonets, 1st rifle brigade - 8 thousand bayonets, 1st engineer battalion - 1 thousand bayonets, technical troops - armored trains , airplanes, armored detachments, etc. In total, up to 30 thousand excellent fighters. A river flotilla of 8 vessels was created. After bloody battles on July 27, the Don units went beyond the troops in the north and occupied the city of Boguchar, Voronezh province. The Don Army was free from the Red Guard, but the Cossacks categorically refused to go further. With great difficulty, the chieftain managed to carry out the decision of the Circle on the crossing of the borders of the Don army, which was expressed in the order. But it was a dead letter. The Cossacks said: "We will go if the Russians go." But the Russian Volunteer Army was firmly stuck in the Kuban and could not go north. Denikin refused the ataman. He declared that he must remain in the Kuban until he liberates the entire North Caucasus from the Bolsheviks.

Rice. 4 Cossack regions of southern Russia

Under these conditions, the chieftain carefully looked at Ukraine. As long as there was order in Ukraine, as long as there was friendship and an alliance with the hetman, he was calm. The western border did not require a single soldier from the ataman. There was a proper exchange of goods with Ukraine. But there was no firm confidence that the hetman would resist. The hetman did not have an army, the Germans prevented him from creating one. There was a good division of Sich Riflemen, several officer battalions, a very well-dressed hussar regiment. But these were parade troops. There were a bunch of generals and officers who were appointed commanders of corps, divisions and regiments. They put on the original Ukrainian zhupans, let go of the settled forelocks, hung crooked sabers, occupied the barracks, issued charters with covers in Ukrainian and contents in Russian, but there were no soldiers in the army. All order was provided by the German garrisons. Their formidable "Halt" silenced all political mongrels. However, the hetman understood that it was impossible to rely on German troops forever and sought a defensive alliance with the Don, Kuban, Crimea and the peoples of the Caucasus against the Bolsheviks. The Germans supported him in this. On October 20, the hetman and ataman held negotiations at the Skorokhodovo station and sent a letter to the command of the Volunteer Army, outlining their proposals. But the outstretched hand was rejected. So, the goals of Ukraine, the Don and the Volunteer Army had significant differences. The leaders of Ukraine and the Don considered the main goal to be the fight against the Bolsheviks, and the determination of the structure of Russia was postponed until victory. Denikin adhered to a completely different point of view. He believed that he was on the same path only with those who denied any autonomy and unconditionally shared the idea of ​​a united and indivisible Russia. In the conditions of the Russian Troubles, this was his enormous epistemological, ideological, organizational and political mistake, which determined the sad fate of the white movement.

Ataman faced the fact of harsh reality. The Cossacks refused to go beyond the Donskoy army. And they were right. Voronezh, Saratov and other peasants not only did not fight the Bolsheviks, but also went against the Cossacks. The Cossacks, not without difficulty, were able to cope with their Don workers, peasants and non-residents, but they could not defeat the whole of central Russia and understood this very well. The ataman had the only means to force the Cossacks to march on Moscow. It was necessary to give them a break from the hardships of battle and then force them to join the Russian people's army advancing on Moscow. He twice asked for volunteers and twice was refused. Then he set about creating a new Russian southern army at the expense of Ukraine and the Don. But Denikin in every possible way prevented this business, calling it a German undertaking. However, the chieftain needed this army because of the extreme fatigue of the Donskoy army and the decisive refusal of the Cossacks to march on Russia. In Ukraine, there were personnel for this army. After the aggravation of relations between the Volunteer Army and the Germans and Skoropadsky, the Germans began to impede the movement of volunteers to the Kuban and in Ukraine quite a lot of people accumulated who were ready to fight the Bolsheviks, but did not have such an opportunity. From the very beginning, the Kyiv Union "Our Motherland" became the main supplier of personnel for the southern army. The monarchical orientation of this organization sharply narrowed the social base for recruiting the army, since monarchist ideas were very unpopular among the people. Thanks to the propaganda of the socialists, the word tsar was still a bogey for many people. With the name of the tsar, the peasants inextricably linked the idea of ​​a severe collection of taxes, the sale of the last cow for debts to the state, the dominance of landlords and capitalists, gold-chasing officers and an officer's stick. In addition, they were afraid of the return of the landowners and punishment for the ruin of their estates. Ordinary Cossacks did not want restoration, because they associated with the concept of monarchy universal, long-term, compulsory military service, the obligation to equip themselves at their own expense and keep combat horses that were not needed in the economy. Cossack officers associated tsarism with ideas of ruinous "benefits". The Cossacks liked their new independent system, they were amused that they themselves were discussing issues of power, land and subsoil. The king and the monarchy were opposed to the concept of freedom. It is difficult to say what the intelligentsia wished for and what it feared, for it itself never knows. She is like that Baba Yaga, who is "always against." In addition, General Ivanov, also a monarchist, took command of the southern army, a very well-deserved man, but already sick and elderly. As a result, little came of this venture.

And the Soviet government, everywhere suffering defeats, from July 1918 set about the correct organization of the Red Army. With the help of officers involved in it, scattered Soviet detachments were brought together into military formations. Military specialists were placed in command posts in regiments, brigades, divisions and corps. The Bolsheviks managed to split not only among the Cossacks, but also among the officers. It was divided approximately into three equal parts: for the whites, for the reds, and for no one. Here is another great tragedy.

Rice. 5 Mother's tragedy. One son is for the whites, and the other is for the reds.

The Don army had to fight against a militarily organized enemy. By August, more than 70,000 fighters, 230 guns with 450 machine guns, were concentrated against the Don Army. The numerical superiority of the enemy forces created a difficult situation for the Don. This situation was exacerbated by political turmoil. On August 15, after the liberation of the entire territory of the Don from the Bolsheviks, a Great Military Circle was convened in Novocherkassk from the entire population of the Don. It was no longer the former "gray" Don's Rescue Circle. The intelligentsia and semi-intelligentsia, folk teachers, lawyers, clerks, clerks, solicitors entered it, managed to master the minds of the Cossacks and the Circle broke up into districts, villages, parties. On the Circle, from the very first meetings, opposition to Ataman Krasnov, which had roots in the Volunteer Army, opened up. The chieftain was blamed for his friendly relations with the Germans, the desire for solid independent power and independence. Indeed, the ataman opposed Cossack chauvinism to Bolshevism, Cossack nationalism to internationalism, and Don independence to Russian imperialism. Very few people then understood the significance of Don separatism as a transitional phenomenon. Denikin did not understand this either. Everything on the Don annoyed him: the anthem, the flag, the coat of arms, the chieftain, the Circle, discipline, satiety, order, Don patriotism. He considered all this a manifestation of separatism and fought against the Don and Kuban by all means. As a result, he cut the branch on which he sat. As soon as the civil war ceased to be national and popular, it became a class war and could not be successful for the whites because of the large number of the poorest class. First, the peasants, and then the Cossacks, fell away from the Volunteer Army and the White movement, and it died. They talk about the betrayal of the Cossacks to Denikin, but this is not so, but quite the opposite. If Denikin had not betrayed the Cossacks, if he had not severely insulted their young national feeling, they would not have left him. In addition, the decision taken by the ataman and the Military Circle to continue the war outside the Don intensified anti-war propaganda on the part of the Reds, and ideas began to spread among the Cossack units that the ataman and the government were pushing the Cossacks to gain alien conquests outside the Don, which the Bolsheviks did not encroach on mastering . The Cossacks wanted to believe that the Bolsheviks would really not touch the territory of the Don and that it was possible to negotiate with them. The Cossacks reasonably reasoned: "We liberated our lands from the Reds, let the Russian soldiers and peasants lead the further struggle against them, and we can only help them." In addition, for summer field work on the Don, working hands were required, and because of this, the older ages had to be released and sent home, which greatly affected the strength and combat effectiveness of the army. Bearded Cossacks, with their authority, firmly rallied and disciplined hundreds. But despite the intrigues of the opposition, popular wisdom and national egoism prevailed on the Circle over the cunning attacks of political parties. The ataman's policy was approved, and on September 12 he was re-elected. Ataman firmly understood that Russia itself must save Russia. He did not trust the Germans, much less the Allies. He knew that foreigners go to Russia not for Russia, but to snatch as much as possible from it. He also understood that Germany and France, for opposite reasons, needed a strong and powerful Russia, while England needed a weak, fragmented, federal one. He believed Germany and France, he did not believe England at all.

Fighting on the border of the Don region by the end of the summer concentrated around Tsaritsyn, which was also not part of the Don region. The defense there was headed by the future Soviet leader I.V. Stalin, whose organizational abilities are now doubted only by the most ignorant and stubborn. Putting the Cossacks to sleep with propaganda about the futility of their struggle outside the borders of the Don, the Bolsheviks concentrated large forces on this front. However, the first offensive of the Reds was repulsed, and they retreated to Kamyshin and the lower Volga. At a time when the Volunteer Army fought during the summer to clear the Kuban region from the army of paramedic Sorokin, the Don Army ensured its activities on all fronts against the Reds from Tsaritsyn to Taganrog. During the summer of 1918, the Don Army suffered heavy losses, up to 40% of the Cossacks and up to 70% of the officers. The quantitative superiority of the Reds and the vast front space did not allow the Cossack regiments to leave the front and go to the rear to rest. The Cossacks were in constant combat tension. Not only people got tired, but the horse train was also exhausted. Difficult conditions and lack of proper hygiene began to cause contagious diseases, typhus appeared in the troops. In addition, units of the Reds under the command of Goon, defeated in battles north of Stavropol, went towards Tsaritsyn. The appearance from the Caucasus of Sorokin's army, which was not finished by volunteers, constituted a threat from the flank and rear of the Don army, which was waging a stubborn struggle against the garrison of 50,000 people who occupied Tsaritsyn. With the onset of cold weather and general fatigue, the Don units began to move away from Tsaritsyn.

But how were things in the Kuban? The lack of weapons and fighters of the Volunteer Army was made up for by enthusiasm and dashing. On the open field, under hurricane fire, the officer companies, striking the imagination of the enemy, moved in orderly chains and drove the Red troops ten times larger in number.

Rice. 6 Attack of the officer company

Successful battles, accompanied by the capture of a large number of prisoners, cheered up the Kuban villages, and the Cossacks began to take up arms en masse. The composition of the Volunteer Army, which suffered heavy losses, was replenished large quantity Kuban Cossacks, volunteers who arrived from all over Russia and people from the partial mobilization of the population. The need for a unified command of all the forces that fought against the Bolsheviks was recognized by the entire command staff. In addition, it was necessary for the leaders of the White movement to take into account the all-Russian situation that had developed in the revolutionary process. Unfortunately, none of the leaders of the Dobrarmia, who claimed the role of leaders on an all-Russian scale, possessed flexibility and dialectical philosophy. The dialectics of the Bolsheviks, who, in order to retain power, gave the Germans more than a third of the territory and population of European Russia, of course, could not serve as an example, but Denikin’s claims to the role of an immaculate and adamant guardian of “one and indivisible Russia” in the Time of Troubles could only be ridiculous. In the context of a multifactorial and merciless struggle "all against all" he did not have the necessary flexibility and dialectics. Ataman Krasnov's refusal to subordinate the management of the Don region to Denikin was understood by him not only as the personal vanity of the ataman, but also as the independence of the Cossacks hidden in this. All parts of the Russian Empire, seeking to restore order on their own, were considered by Denikin as enemies of the white movement. The local authorities of the Kuban also did not recognize Denikin, and from the first days of the struggle, punitive detachments began to be sent against them. Military efforts were scattered, significant forces were diverted from the main goal. The main parts of the population, objectively supporting the Whites, not only did not join the struggle, but became its opponents. The front demanded a large number of the male population, but it was necessary to reckon with the requirements of internal work, and often Cossacks who were at the front were released from units for certain periods. The Kuban government exempted some ages from mobilization, and General Denikin saw this as "dangerous prerequisites and a manifestation of sovereignty." The army was fed at the expense of the Kuban population. The Kuban government paid all the expenses for supplying the Volunteer Army, which could not complain about the food supply. At the same time, according to the laws of wartime, the Volunteer Army arrogated to itself the right to all property seized from the Bolsheviks, cargo going to the Reds, the right to requisition and more. Other means of replenishing the treasury of the Dobroarmiya were indemnities imposed on the populations that showed hostile actions towards it. To account for and distribute this property, General Denikin organized a commission of public figures of the military-industrial committee. The activities of this commission proceeded in such a way that a significant part of the cargo was spoiled, some was plundered, among the members of the commission there was abuse that the commission was made up of persons in the majority who were not trained, useless, even harmful and ignorant. The immutable law of any army is that everything beautiful, brave, heroic, noble goes to the front, and everything cowardly, evading battle, everything thirsting not for feat and glory, but for profit and outward brilliance, all speculators gather in the rear. People who have not seen even a hundred-ruble ticket before are turning over millions of rubles, they are dizzy from this money, they sell “booty” here, their heroes are here. The front is torn off, barefoot, naked and hungry, and here people are sitting in cleverly sewn Circassians, in colored hoods, jackets and riding breeches. Here they drink wine, clink gold and politicize.

Here are infirmaries with doctors, nurses and nurses. There is love and jealousy. So it was in all the armies, so it was in the white armies. Together with ideological people, self-seekers went into the white movement. These self-seekers firmly settled in the rear and flooded Yekaterinodar, Rostov and Novocherkassk. Their behavior cut the sight and hearing of the army and the population. In addition, it was not clear to General Denikin why the Kuban government, while liberating the region, put in place the rulers of the same persons who were under the Bolsheviks, renaming them from commissars to chieftains. He did not understand that the business qualities of each Cossack were determined in the conditions of Cossack democracy by the Cossacks themselves. However, not being able to restore order in the areas liberated from the power of the Bolsheviks, General Denikin remained intransigent to the local Cossack order and to local national organizations that lived in pre-revolutionary times with their own customs. They were credited to them as hostile "independents", and punitive measures were taken against them. All these reasons could not contribute to the attraction of the population to the side of the white army. At the same time, both during the Civil War and in exile, General Denikin thought a lot, but to no avail, about the completely inexplicable (from his point of view) epidemic spread of Bolshevism. Moreover, the Kuban army, territorially and by origin, was divided into the army of the Black Sea Cossacks, resettled by the order of Empress Catherine II after the destruction of the Dnieper army, and the rulers, whose population was made up of immigrants from the Don region and from the communities of the Volga Cossacks.

These two parts, which made up one army, were different in character. In both parts their historical past was kept. The Chernomorians were the heirs of the troops of the Dnieper Cossacks and Zaporozhye, whose ancestors, due to their many times demonstrated political instability, were destroyed as an army. Moreover, the Russian authorities only completed the destruction of the Dnieper Army, and Poland began it, under the rule of the kings of which the Dnieper Cossacks were for a long time. This unstable orientation of the Little Russians brought many tragedies in the past, it is enough to recall the inglorious fate and death of their last talented hetman Mazepa. This violent past and other features of the Little Russian character imposed a strong specificity on the behavior of the Kuban in the civil war. The Kuban Rada was divided into 2 currents: Ukrainian and independent. The leaders of Rada Bych and Ryabovol proposed to merge with Ukraine, the independentists stood for a federation in which the Kuban would be completely independent. Both of them dreamed and strove to free themselves from Denikin's tutelage. He, in turn, considered them all traitors. The moderate part of the Rada, the front-line soldiers and Ataman Filimonov held on to the volunteers. They wanted to free themselves from the Bolsheviks with the help of volunteers. But ataman Filimonov had little authority among the Cossacks, they had other heroes: Pokrovsky, Shkuro, Ulagay, Pavlyuchenko. The Kuban people liked them very much, but their behavior was difficult to predict. Even more unpredictable was the behavior of numerous Caucasian peoples, which determined the great specifics of the civil war in the Caucasus. Frankly, with all their zigzags and frills, the Reds used all this specificity much better than Denikin.

Many white hopes were associated with the name of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich lived all this time in the Crimea, without openly entering into political events. He was greatly oppressed by the thought that by sending his telegram to the sovereign with a request for abdication, he contributed to the death of the monarchy and the destruction of Russia. The Grand Duke wanted to make amends for this and take part in combat work. However, in response to a lengthy letter from General Alekseev, the Grand Duke replied with only one phrase: “Be calm” ... and General Alekseev died on September 25. The high command and the civilian part of the administration of the liberated territories were completely united in the hands of General Denikin.

Heavy continuous battles exhausted both sides of the warring in the Kuban. The Reds also fought among the high command. The commander of the 11th Army, the former paramedic Sorokin, was eliminated, and the command was transferred to the Revolutionary Military Council. Not finding support in the army, Sorokin fled from Pyatigorsk in the direction of Stavropol. On October 17, he was caught, put in prison, where he was killed without any trial. After the murder of Sorkin, as a result of internal squabbles among the red leaders and from impotent rage at the stubborn resistance of the Cossacks, also wanting to intimidate the population, in Mineralnye Vody A demonstration execution of 106 hostages was carried out. Among those executed were General Radko-Dmitriev, a Bulgarian in the Russian service, and General Ruzsky, who so insistently urged the last Russian Emperor to abdicate. After the verdict, General Ruzsky was asked the question: "Do you now recognize the great Russian revolution?" He replied: "I see only one great robbery." It is worth adding to this that the beginning of the robbery was laid by him at the headquarters of the Northern Front, where violence was carried out against the will of the emperor, who was forced to abdicate. As for the bulk of the former officers who were in the North Caucasus, it turned out to be absolutely inert to the ongoing events, not showing a desire to serve either whites or reds, which sealed their fate. Almost all of them were "just in case" destroyed by the Reds.

In the Caucasus, the class struggle was heavily involved in the national question. Among the many peoples that inhabited it, Georgia was of the greatest political importance, and in the economic sense, Caucasian oil. In political and territorial terms, Georgia found itself, first of all, under pressure from Turkey. The Soviet government, but to the Brest Peace, ceded Kars, Ardagan and Batum to Turkey, which Georgia could not recognize. Turkey recognized the independence of Georgia, but on the other hand, the territorial demands were even more severe than the demands Brest Peace. Georgia refused to fulfill them, the Turks went on the offensive and occupied Kars, heading towards Tiflis. Not recognizing Soviet power, Georgia sought to ensure the independence of the country by armed force and began to form an army. But Georgia was ruled by politicians who took an active part after the revolution as part of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. These same persons now ingloriously tried to build the Georgian army on the same principles that had once led the Russian army to disintegration. In the spring of 1918, the struggle for Caucasian oil began. The German command removed a cavalry brigade and several battalions from the Bulgarian front and transferred them to Batum and Poti, which was leased by Germany for 60 years. However, the Turks were the first to appear in Baku, and the fanaticism of Turkish Mohammedanism, the ideas and propaganda of the Reds, the strength and money of the British and Germans clashed there. In Transcaucasia, since ancient times, there has been an irreconcilable enmity between Armenians and Azerbaijanis (then they were called Turko-Tatars). After the established power of the Soviets, the age-old enmity was intensified by religion and politics. Two camps were created: the Soviet-Armenian proletariat and the Turko-Tatars. Back in March 1918, one of the Soviet-Armenian regiments, returning from Persia, seized power in Baku and massacred entire quarters of the Turko-Tatars, killing up to 10,000 people. For several months, power in the city remained in the hands of the Red Armenians. In early September, a Turkish corps under the command of Mursal Pasha arrived in Baku, dispersed the Baku commune and occupied the city. With the arrival of the Turks, the massacre of the Armenian population began. The Muslims were jubilant.

Germany, after the Brest peace, strengthened on the shores of the Azov and Black Seas, in the ports of which part of their fleet was introduced. In the coastal cities of the Black Sea, German sailors, who sympathetically followed the unequal struggle of the Dobroarmiya with the Bolsheviks, offered their help to the army headquarters, which Denikin contemptuously rejected. Georgia, separated from Russia by a mountain range, had a connection with the northern part of the Caucasus through a narrow strip of coast, which constituted the Black Sea province. Having annexed the Sukhumi district to its territory, Georgia put forward an armed detachment under the command of General Mazniev in Tuapse by September. This was a fatal decision, when the national interests of the newly emerged states, with all their sharpness and insolubility, were poured into the Civil War. Against the Volunteer Army in the direction of Tuapse, the Georgians sent a detachment of 3,000 people with 18 guns. On the coast, the Georgians began to build fortifications with a front to the north; a small German landing force landed in Sochi and Adler. General Denikin began to reproach the representatives of Georgia for the difficult and humiliating situation of the Russian population on the territory of Georgia, the plunder of the Russian state property, the invasion and occupation by the Georgians, together with the Germans, of the Black Sea province. To which Georgia replied: "The Volunteer Army is a private organization... Under the current situation, the Sochi District should become part of Georgia...". In this dispute between the leaders of the Dobrarmia and Georgia, the Kuban government turned out to be entirely on the side of Georgia. The Kubans had friendly relations with Georgia. It soon became clear that the Sochi District was occupied by Georgia with the consent of the Kuban, and that there were no misunderstandings between the Kuban and Georgia.

Such turbulent events that developed in Transcaucasia left no room there for the problems of the Russian Empire and its last stronghold, the Volunteer Army. Therefore, General Denikin finally turned his eyes to the East, where the government of Admiral Kolchak was formed. An embassy was sent to him, and then Denikin recognized Admiral Kolchak as the Supreme Ruler of national Russia.

Meanwhile, the defense of the Don continued on the front from Tsaritsyn to Taganrog. All summer and autumn, the Don Army, without any outside help, fought heavy and constant battles in the main directions from Voronezh and Tsaritsyn. Instead of the Red Guard gangs, the newly created Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) had already fought against the people's Don Army. By the end of 1918, the Red Army already had 299 regular regiments, including eastern front there were 97 regiments against Kolchak, in the north against the Finns and Germans 38 regiments, in the west against the Polish-Lithuanian troops 65 regiments, in the south 99 regiments, of which there were 44 regiments on the Don front, on Astrakhan 5 regiments, on the Kursk-Bryansk 28 regiments , against Denikin and Kuban 22 regiment. The army was commanded by the Revolutionary Military Council, headed by Bronstein (Trotsky), at the head of all the country's military efforts was the Defense Council, headed by Ulyanov (Lenin). The headquarters of the Southern Front in Kozlov received in October the task of demolishing the Don Cossacks from the face of the earth and occupying Rostov and Novocherkassk at all costs. The front was commanded by General Sytin. The front consisted of Sorokin's 11th Army, headquarters in Nevinnomyssk, which acted against volunteers and Kuban, Antonov's 12th Army, headquarters in Astrakhan, Voroshilov's 10th Army, headquarters in Tsaritsyn, General Yegorov's 9th Army, headquarters in Balashov, 8th Army of General Chernavin, headquarters in Voronezh. Sorokin, Antonov and Voroshilov were the remnants of the former electoral system, and the fate of Sorokin had already been decided, Voroshilov was looking for a replacement, and all the other commanders were former staff officers and generals of the imperial army. Thus, the situation on the Don front was developing in a very formidable way. The chieftain and the commanders of the armies, Generals Denisov and Ivanov, were aware that the times when one Cossack was enough for ten Red Guards had passed and understood that the period of "handicraft" operations had passed. The Don army was preparing to fight back. The offensive was stopped, the troops withdrew from the Voronezh province and entrenched themselves on a fortified strip along the border of the Donskoy army. Relying on the left flank on Ukraine, occupied by the Germans, and on the right flank on the hard-to-reach Trans-Volga region, the ataman hoped to keep the defense until spring, during which time, having strengthened and strengthened his army. But man proposes and God disposes.

In November, exceptionally unfavorable events of a general political nature took place for the Don. The Allies defeated the Central Powers, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated, a revolution began in Germany and the expansion of the army. German troops began to leave Russia. The German soldiers did not obey their commanders, they were already ruled by their Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies. More recently, the formidable "Halt" stern German soldiers stopped crowds of workers and soldiers in Ukraine, but now they dutifully allowed themselves to be disarmed by Ukrainian peasants. And then Ostap suffered. Ukraine boiled up, seethed with uprisings, each volost had its own "fathers" and the civil war famously rolled across the country. Hetmanate, haidamatchina, Petliurism, Makhnovshchina…. All this was heavily implicated in Ukrainian nationalism and separatism. Many works have been written about this period and dozens of films have been shot, including incredibly popular ones. If you recall "Wedding in Malinovka" or "Red Devils", then you can vividly imagine ... the future of Ukraine.

And then Petliura, having united with Vinnichenko, revolted the Sich Riflemen. There was no one to suppress the rebellion. The hetman did not have his own army. The German Soviet of Deputies concluded a truce with Petliura, who drove the trains and the German soldiers loaded into them, leaving their positions and weapons, and went to their homeland. Under these conditions, the French command on the Black Sea promised the hetman 3-4 divisions. But in Versailles, on the Thames and the Potomac, they looked at it quite differently. Big politicians saw a united Russia as a threat to Persia, India, the Middle and Far East. They wanted to see Russia destroyed, fragmented and burning in a slow fire. In Soviet Russia, they followed the events with fear and trembling. Objectively, the victory of the allies was the defeat of Bolshevism. Both the commissars and the Red Army men understood this. As the Don people said that they could not fight all of Russia, so the Red Army understood that they could not fight against the whole world. But there was no need to fight. In Versailles, they did not want to save Russia, they did not want to share the fruits of victory with her, so they postponed help. There was another reason as well. Although the British and French said that Bolshevism is a disease of the defeated armies, but they are the victors and their armies are not touched by this terrible disease. But it wasn't. Their soldiers no longer wanted to fight with anyone, their armies were already corroded by the same terrible gangrene of war weariness as others. And when the allies did not come to Ukraine, the Bolsheviks had hope for victory. Hastily formed squads of officers and junkers remained to defend Ukraine and the hetman. The Hetman's troops were defeated, the Ukrainian Council of Ministers surrendered Kyiv to the Petliurists, bargaining for itself and the officer squads the right to evacuate to the Don and Kuban. The hetman escaped.

Petlyura's return to power was colorfully described in the novel Days of the Turbins by Mikhail Bulgakov: chaos, murders, violence against Russian officers and just Russians in Kyiv. And then a stubborn struggle against Russia, not only against the red, but also against the white. Petliurists in the occupied territories staged a terrible terror, massacre and genocide of Russians. The Soviet command, having learned about this, moved Antonov's army to Ukraine, which easily defeated the Petliura gangs and occupied Kharkov, and then Kyiv. Petlyura fled to Kamenetz-Podolsk. In Ukraine, after the departure of the Germans, there were huge stocks of military equipment that went to the Reds. This gave them the opportunity to form a ninth army from the Ukrainian side and send it against the Don from the west. With the departure of the German units from the borders of the Don and Ukraine, the situation of the Don was complicated in two respects: the army was deprived of replenishment with weapons and military supplies, and a new, western front stretching 600 miles was added. For the command of the Red Army, there were ample opportunities to use the prevailing conditions, and they decided to first defeat the Don army, and then destroy the Kuban and Volunteer armies. All the attention of the ataman of the Don army was now turned to the western borders. But there was a belief that the allies would come and help out. The intelligentsia was lovingly and enthusiastically disposed towards the allies and looked forward to them with impatience. Thanks to the wide dissemination of Anglo-French education and literature, the British and French, despite the remoteness of these countries, were closer to the Russian educated heart than the Germans. And even more so the Russians, because this social stratum is traditionally and firmly convinced that in our Fatherland there can be no prophets by definition. The common people, including the Cossacks, had other priorities in this regard. The Germans were sympathetic and liked by ordinary Cossacks as a serious and hardworking people, ordinary people looked at the Frenchman as a frivolous creature with some contempt, at the Englishman with great distrust. The Russian people were firmly convinced that during the period of Russian successes, "an Englishwoman always crap." It soon became clear that the faith of the Cossacks in the allies turned out to be an illusion and a chimera.

Denikin had an ambivalent attitude towards the Don. While the affairs of Germany were good, and supplies went to the Good Army from Ukraine through the Don, Denikin's attitude towards Ataman Krasnov was cold, but restrained. But as soon as it became known about the victory of the Allies, everything changed. General Denikin began to take revenge on the chieftain for independence and show that now everything is in his hands. On November 13, in Yekaterinodar, Denikin gathered a meeting of representatives of the Good Army, Don and Kuban, at which he demanded to resolve 3 main issues. About a single power (the dictatorship of General Denikin), a single command and a single representation before the allies. The meeting did not come to an agreement, and relations escalated even more, and with the arrival of the allies, a cruel intrigue began against the ataman and the Donskoy army. Denikin's agents among the allies had long been presented as a figure of "German orientation". All attempts by the ataman to change this characteristic were unsuccessful. In addition, when meeting foreigners, Krasnov always ordered the old Russian anthem to be played. At the same time, he said: “I have two options. Either play in such cases "God save the Tsar", not attaching importance to the words, or a funeral march. I deeply believe in Russia, that's why I can't play a funeral march. I play the Russian anthem." Ataman was also considered a monarchist abroad for this. As a consequence, the Don had no help from the allies. But the ataman was not up to parrying intrigues. The military situation changed dramatically, the Don army was threatened with death. Attaching special importance to the territory of the Don, by November the Soviet government had concentrated four armies numbering 125,000 soldiers with 468 guns and 1,337 machine guns against the Don army. The rear of the red armies were reliably covered by railway lines, which ensured the transfer of troops and maneuvering, and the red units increased numerically. Winter was early and cold. With the onset of cold weather, diseases developed, and typhus began. The 60,000-strong Don army began to melt and freeze numerically, and there was nowhere to take replacements. The resources of manpower on the Don were completely exhausted, the Cossacks were mobilized from 18 to 52 years old, and as volunteers were even older. It was clear that with the defeat of the Don Army, the Volunteer Army would also cease to exist. But the front was held by the Don Cossacks, which allowed General Denikin, taking advantage of the difficult situation on the Don, to wage an undercover struggle against Ataman Krasnov through members of the Military Circle. At the same time, the Bolsheviks resorted to their tried and tested means - the most tempting promises, behind which there was nothing but unheard-of perfidy. But these promises sounded very attractive and humane. The Bolsheviks promised the Cossacks peace and complete inviolability of the borders of the Don army, if the latter lay down their arms and go home.

They pointed out that the allies would not provide assistance to them, on the contrary, they were helping the Bolsheviks. The struggle against the enemy's 2-3 times superior forces depressed the morale of the Cossacks, and the promise of the Reds to establish peaceful relations in some parts began to find supporters. Separate units began to leave the front, exposing it, and, finally, the regiments of the Upper Don District decided to enter into negotiations with the Reds and ceased resistance. The armistice was concluded on the basis of self-determination and friendship of peoples. Many Cossacks went home. Through the gaps in the front, the Reds penetrated into the deep rear of the defending units and, without any pressure, the Cossacks of the Khoper district rolled back. The Don army, leaving the northern districts, withdrew to the line of the Seversky Donets, surrendering stanitsa after stanitsa to the Red Mironov Cossacks. The ataman did not have a single free Cossack, everything was sent to the defense of the western front. The threat arose over Novocherkassk. Only volunteers or allies could save the situation.

By the time the front of the Don Army collapsed, the regions of the Kuban and the North Caucasus had already been liberated from the Reds. By November 1918, the armed forces in the Kuban consisted of 35 thousand Kuban and 7 thousand volunteers. These forces were free, but General Denikin was in no hurry to help the exhausted Don Cossacks. The situation and the allies demanded a unified command. But not only the Cossacks, but also the Cossack officers and generals did not want to obey the tsarist generals. This conflict had to be resolved somehow. Under pressure from the allies, General Denikin suggested that the chieftain and the Don government meet for a meeting in order to clarify the relationship between the Don and the command of the Good Army. On December 26, 1918, Don commanders Denisov, Polyakov, Smagin, Ponomarev, on the one hand, and generals Denikin, Dragomirov, Romanovsky and Shcherbachev, on the other, gathered for a meeting in Torgovaya. The meeting was opened with a speech by General Denikin. Beginning with a broad perspective of the fight against the Bolsheviks, he called on those present to forget personal grievances and insults. The issue of a unified command for the entire command staff was a vital necessity, and it was clear to everyone that all armed forces, incomparably smaller in comparison with enemy units, should be united under one common leadership and directed towards one goal: the destruction of the center of Bolshevism and the occupation of Moscow. Negotiations were very difficult and constantly came to a standstill. There were too many differences between the command of the Volunteer Army and the Cossacks, in the field of politics, tactics and strategy. But still, with great difficulty and great concessions, Denikin managed to subdue the Don army.

In these difficult days, the ataman accepted the military mission of the Allies, led by General Poole. They examined the troops in positions and in reserve, factories, workshops, stud farms. The more Poole saw, the more he realized that help was needed immediately. But in London there was a completely different opinion. After his report, Poole was removed from the leadership of the mission in the Caucasus and replaced by General Briggs, who did nothing without a command from London. And there were no orders to help the Cossacks. England needed Russia weakened, exhausted and immersed in permanent turmoil. The French mission, instead of helping, presented an ultimatum to the ataman and the Don government, in which they demanded the complete subordination of the ataman and the Don government to the French command in the Black Sea and full compensation for all losses of French citizens (read coal producers) in the Donbass. Under these conditions, persecution against the ataman and the Donskoy troops continued in Yekaterinodar. General Denikin maintained contacts and conducted constant negotiations with the chairman of the Circle, Kharlamov, and other figures from the opposition to the ataman. However, realizing the seriousness of the situation of the Don army, Denikin sent the May-Maevsky division and 2 more Kuban divisions to the Mariupol region and were echeloned and were waiting for the order to march. But there was no order, Denikin was waiting for the decision of the Circle regarding Ataman Krasnov.

The Big Military Circle gathered on February 1. It was no longer the circle that was August 15 in the days of victories. The faces were the same, but the expression was different. Then all the front-line soldiers were with shoulder straps, orders and medals. Now all the Cossacks and junior officers were without shoulder straps. The circle, in the face of its gray part, democratized and played like the Bolsheviks. On February 2, Krug expressed no confidence in the commander and chief of staff of the Don Army, Generals Denisov and Polyakov. In response, ataman Krasnov was offended for his associates and resigned from his post as ataman. The circle did not accept it at first. But on the sidelines, the opinion dominated that without the resignation of the ataman, there would be no help from the allies and Denikin. After that, the Circle accepted the resignation. In his place, General Bogaevsky was elected ataman. On February 3, the Circle was visited by General Denikin, where he was greeted with thunderous applause. Now the Volunteer, Don, Kuban, Terek armies and the Black Sea Fleet were united under his command under the name of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (VSYUR).

The truce between the Severodonsk Cossacks and the Bolsheviks continued, but not for long. A few days after the armistice, the Reds appeared in the villages and began to carry out savage reprisals among the Cossacks. They began to take away grain, steal cattle, kill the recalcitrant and produce violence. In response, on February 26, an uprising began that engulfed the villages of Kazanskaya, Migulinskaya, Veshenskaya and Yelanskaya. The defeat of Germany, the elimination of ataman Krasnov, the creation of the All-Russian Union of Socialist Youth and the uprising of the Cossacks began a new stage in the struggle against the Bolsheviks in southern Russia. But that's a completely different story.

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

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

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

Rice. 1 Region of the Don Army

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rice. 2 Ataman Kaledin

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

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

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

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

Rice. 3 Ataman Krasnov P.N.

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

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

Rice. 4 Cossack regions of Russia

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

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

Fig.5 Ataman Dutov

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

Rice. 6 White Cossacks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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