This year marks the 110th anniversary of the first Russian revolution. For Russia, the revolutionary events of 1905-1907. were of great importance, being a kind of dress rehearsal for another revolutionary explosion that befell the country 10-12 years later. During the years of the first Russian revolution, the revolutionary upsurge that was universal for the Russian Empire did not bypass the North Caucasus. As in other regions, on the most radical flank of the revolutionary movement there were anarchists who did not hesitate to resort not only to terrorist acts against government officials, but also to robberies and murders. Their groups operated both in the Don and in the Stavropol Territory, but the Kuban became the real center of North Caucasian anarchism. In 1905-1906. groups of anarchists appeared not only in Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), but also in smaller settlements: in Novorossiysk, Maikop, Temryuk, Armavir.
The activities of revolutionary organizations in the North Caucasus were actively supported from abroad by interested circles of the Russian political emigration. In particular, the supply of weapons to the anarchists, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats was arranged from abroad. On September 15, 1905, the Special Department of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs sent a secret letter to the assistant to the head of the Kuban District Gendarme Directorate (KOZHU) for the city of Novorossiysk. The message said that on September 9, a week earlier, the steamer "Sirius" departed from Amsterdam for London with a cargo of 10 wagons of guns and ammunition on board. The Kuban District Gendarme Directorate was ordered to carry out inspections of the cargoes of ships arriving at the port of Novorossiysk with the utmost care. In October 1905, the Special Department of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia sent the following message - that the supply of weapons to the Russian Empire is carried out on steamers loaded in the Netherlands and Belgium, and then unloaded in England, from where on other steamships that are already delivering weapons directly to Russia. The Kuban gendarmes were ordered to pay special attention to the steamers arriving from England, since the British channels for the supply of weapons at that time became the main ones. In the Black Sea ports, foreign cargoes were met by local revolutionaries and distributed among the militant organizations of anarchists, Social Revolutionaries, Social Democrats, Armenian and Georgian nationalists.
Caucasian Geneva
For some time the anarchists of Armavir became almost the most active and militant in the Kuban, and Armavir became the center of anarchist expropriations in the North Caucasus. The activity of anarchists in Armavir began in the fall of 1906, when in this small southern city, then officially called a village, several former Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats, dissatisfied with the moderation of their parties, switched to the position of anarchism and created an anarchist group - the International Union of Anarchist Communists, in which eventually united about 40 people. The ideological leaders of the Armavir anarchists were the former waiter Anton Machaidze, nicknamed "Gramiton" and Aleksey Alimov. A notable role in the creation of the anarchist group was also played by a resident of Rostov-on-Don, Sergei Anosov, a former employee of the Vladikavkaz railway, who fled to Armavir in the same autumn of 1906.
It should be noted here that in 1906 Armavir became one of the centers of the revolutionary movement in the Kuban and the North Caucasus as a whole. This was explained by the fact that Armavir, due to its small population, also had an insignificant police contingent (only 40 police officers), which untied the hands of revolutionaries - not only local, but also "stray" ones. Revolutionaries of various views and parties from other cities of southern Russia began to come to Armavir in search of refuge. Thus, the entire Novorossiysk Soviet of Workers' Deputies was hiding in Armavir. The village was even nicknamed "Russian Geneva" - by analogy with the Swiss city - the center of European political emigration. The presence of a large number of visiting revolutionaries greatly outraged the local wealthy population, which repeatedly complained to the authorities about the increase in crime in Armavir and the inability to "go out" due to the presence of constant risks of being robbed.
In Armavir, predominantly trade oriented, there were very few industrial enterprises. Therefore, the bulk of the anarchists here were not factory workers, as in Yekaterinoslav, and not artisans, as in Bialystok, but workers in the service and trade sectors and people without specific occupations. A significant number of anarchists were visitors from other cities who were temporarily detained in Armavir. Almost all of them were young people under 25 years old. Since the activities of the group needed money, and almost all of its members did not have a permanent income, from the very first days of its existence, the International Union began to expropriate and extort large sums from representatives of the local wealthy population.
It all started with the fact that a number of Armavir merchants in the fall of 1906 received letters demanding money. But at the same time, unlike ordinary racketeers, the anarchists did not lose a certain humanity - in case of refusal, they doubled the amount, in case of repeated refusal, they damaged property, and only then could they commit physical violence. For example, after the merchant V. F. … as a fine. Sometimes the anarchists managed to win a very big jackpot - for example, I. Popov's group knocked out 30 thousand rubles from city homeowners. And over time, the Armavir anarchists extended their expropriatory activities to the surrounding villages, and later to other cities, leaving for Yekaterinodar, Stavropol and Rostov-on-Don. Often, actions were planned with like-minded accomplices from other cities, for example, together with the anarchists of Yekaterinodar, the Armavir people were planning an attack on the Yekaterinodar treasury.
A typical example of a letter-demand of the Armavir anarchists looked like this. A wealthy city dweller was sent a letter of approximately the following content: “We, anarchists-communists, having gathered and examined your financial situation, which, judging by the extensive trade operations, gives great income, decided to propose to give out 5 thousand rubles for the needs of the liberation movement. If you refuse to issue it now, then we will double the amount, and in case of repeated refusal - death. Death awaits even when our comrade is handed over to the police (Quoted from: Karapetyan LA Political parties in the North Caucasus, late 90s of the 19th century - February 1917: Organization, ideology, tactics. Sciences. Krasnodar, 2001). In addition to extorting money from wealthy citizens, the Armavir anarchists also used the practice of violent actions against political opponents, primarily representatives of the Black Hundred movement. Also, the Armavir anarchists sought to expand their activities to the surrounding villages and farms, the wealthy population of which was also subjected to extortion of funds.
In Armavir itself, the militants of the Don Committee of Anarchist Communists who came from Rostov exacted 20 thousand rubles from the merchant Mesnyankin for the needs of revolutionary propaganda in the Don. In total, in the spring of 1907 alone in Armavir, the anarchists received an income of 500 thousand rubles from the expropriations of merchants - a colossal amount at that time. Quite often, anarchists used weapons. They themselves explained this by the insensitivity of some people to the influence of "spiritual". But if the expropriators often pitied merchants and homeowners, limiting themselves to a monetary fine, then the gendarmes and police officials were killed mercilessly. So, the anarchists killed the sergeant Butskago and the chieftain of the Labinsk department Kravchenko. On October 29, 1906, the anarchists shot dead a non-commissioned officer of the Kuban District Gendarme Directorate A. Sereda.
In addition to expropriations and terrorist acts, the Armavir anarchists actively acted in the direction of promoting their views among the social lower classes and the working class. In particular, one of the prominent representatives of the International Union G. M. Turpov paid special attention to the creation of circles among the workers of local factories and workshops. Anarchists walked in groups of three to five people in the surrounding villages and handed out leaflets to the Cossack population. Facing a shortage of propaganda literature, anarchists asked for help from like-minded people in larger cities who had access to literature or printed their own leaflets and newspapers.
Naturally, such an active activity of anarchists in small Armavir could not be ignored by the police and the security department. Practically from the very first days of the existence of the International Union of Anarchists-Communists, police persecution of its activists began, who were subjected to searches and arrests. So, on November 24, 1906, the police searched Trubetskov's apartment, seizing the seal of the anarchist union, letters demanding money from local entrepreneurs and illegal propaganda literature. Ten people were arrested and on December 4, 1906, a court-martial sentenced the anarchists M. Vlasov to death, N. Bolshakov to indefinite hard labor, D. Klivedenko to 20 years in hard labor.
However, these measures failed to completely eliminate the anarchist group in the city. In April 1907, 50 merchants, officials and simply wealthy people were killed in Armavir, who refused to pay compensation to the anarchists. Among them were the owners of the factories Shakhnazarov and Mesnyankin, the manager of the estates of Baron Steingel Hagen, the bailiff Colonel Kravchenko and a number of other wealthy Armavir residents. Naturally, the authorities could not but react to the wave of terror in Armavir. Moreover, the police persecution of the anarchists began throughout the Kuban.
Yekaterinodar: "avengers" and "black crows"
In addition to Armavir, anarchist organizations were active in a number of other cities of the Kuban. Several armed groups of anarchists launched activities in Yekaterinodar. The epic of anarchist terror in the city was opened by the attack on G. Dagayev's groceries on June 25, 1907. Five anarchists who entered the store presented a letter of demand, instructing the grocery owner to pay 500 rubles for the needs of the anarchist group.
In September 1907, the Yekaterinodar group of communist anarchists "Anarchy" was created. At the origins of the group was the above-mentioned Sergei Anosov, one of the most active participants in the Armavir International Union of Communist Anarchists. Anosov, arrested in the case of the Armavir anarchists, managed to escape from prison and hide in the territory of Yekaterinodar. Gathering like-minded people, he created the Anarchy group, which not only embarked on armed expropriations, but also created its own print edition of the same name. Yekaterinodar anarchists, like their associates from Armavir, prioritized expropriation. Participation in armed robberies and extortion of money from wealthy townspeople was the "calling card" of anarchists in the North Caucasus. If in the western regions of the Russian Empire there was rather an economic terror associated with labor conflicts, then in the North Caucasian cities, in the Don and Kuban, the anarchists focused primarily on replenishing the treasury of their organizations, for which they did not hesitate to commit mercenary crimes. Racket of wealthy strata of the population became the main activity of the Kuban and Terek anarchists.
The bias towards expropriation was associated not only with the socio-economic features of the development of the Kuban and Don - mainly commercial and agricultural regions, but also with the specifics of the mentality of the local population. The mainstay of the anarchists here were the declassed strata of urban youth, who dictated the fashion for expropriation. However, the latter did not disdain neither the Socialist-Revolutionaries, nor the Social Democrats, nor the nationalist organizations of the Caucasian peoples. The apogee of robberies and extortion in Yekaterinodar came at the end of 1907 - beginning of 1908. This was due to the general decline of the revolutionary movement and, at the same time, with the arrests of many prominent revolutionaries. Some of them managed to escape, but living in an illegal position excluded the possibility of legal earnings and required large expenses, which were provided by the funds received as a result of expropriations. In turn, the obsession of the Kuban anarchists with expropriations attracted people of a specific type, prone to criminal activity and personal enrichment, into their ranks. Their presence in the ranks of anarchist organizations contributed to the further "slide" of the anarchists, mainly to racketeering and expropriation.
Within two months, several wine shops, a brewery, a tram, and a train were robbed in Yekaterinodar. On July 21, 1907, anarchist militants shot and killed the assistant chief of police of the city G. S. Zhuravel, and a month later, on August 29, 1907, the assistant bailiff of the city police I. G. Bonyaka. The latter was on duty - he "took" expropriators who extorted money from the merchant M. M. Orlova. By the way, the latter in October 1907 received letters of demand for a thousand rubles from the socialist-revolutionaries-maximalists, and then a similar demand from the anarchist-communists. In addition to the "Anarchy" group, Yekaterinodar entrepreneurs were also terrorized by other anarchist organizations - "Bloody Hand", "Black Raven", "Ninth group of anarchists", "Flying squad of anarchists-communists". In December 1907, Yekaterinodar anarchists sent letters of demand to almost all wealthy townspeople, who were demanded to pay from 3 to 5 thousand rubles "for revolutionary needs." It is obvious that the anarchists had gunners who had data on the financial situation of individual Yekaterinodar residents and, accordingly, their potential "solvency." The people of Yekaterinodar were afraid to refuse to pay money to the anarchists, remembering the sad fate of the "refuseniks" - several merchants killed by the anarchists during 1907. The merchant Kuptsov, who complained to the police about extortion of five thousand rubles from him, was forced to flee the city to Moscow after he received a new "letter of demand" and a death sentence from a group of anarchists.
In other cities of the Kuban, anarchist groups in 1906-1909. also acted, although less actively than in Yekaterinodar and Armavir. Thus, an anarchist group existed in Novorossiysk. Like Yekaterinodar like-minded people, Novorossiysk anarchists were united in the Novorossiysk group of communist anarchists "Anarchy", which appeared in 1907. It included the spouses M. Ya. Krasnyuchenko and E. Krasnyuchenko, G. Grigoriev, P. Gryanik and other militants and propagandists. The group had its own printing house and a device for making bombs, and maintained contacts with organizations of the anarchist communists of the Transcaucasus and the North Caucasus. A group of thirteen anarchists also operated in small Temryuk - under the name of the Temryuk group of communist anarchists. In the village of Kubanka, Labinsk uyezd, the anarchist organization - the International Union of Anarchists-Communists - was even smaller in number and had only six members. Also, anarchist groups operated in Maikop and in the Khutorok estate in the vicinity of Armavir. These groups were also involved in expropriation and extortion of money from local wealthy citizens.
Terek and Stavropol region
As for the Terek region and the Stavropol province, which included the territory of the modern Stavropol Territory and a number of North Caucasian republics, the anarchist movement here was much less developed than in the Kuban. This was due to the general remoteness of the region from Russia in comparison with the Kuban. Nevertheless, here in a number of settlements in 1907-1909. there were anarchist organizations. In the Stavropol province, in particular, anarchist groups appeared thanks to the propaganda activities of the Kuban anarchists - after the arrival in August 1907 of the anarchist emissary I. Vitokhin from the city of Novorossiysk, who delivered propaganda literature and leaflets to the village of Donskoye in the Stavropol province. In March 1908, the first mention of the Stavropol group of the International Union of Anarchists-Communists appeared, which included retired lieutenant N. Krzhevetsky, nobleman D. Shevchenko, petty bourgeois M. V. Ivanov, I. F. Terentyev, V. P. Slepushkin.
Like the Kuban like-minded people, the Terek anarchists focused primarily on extortion and expropriation. It is known that the Vladikavkaz group of communist anarchists operated in the current capital of North Ossetia. In 1908, the Vladikavkaz anarchists made seven attempts to extort money from the local wealthy population. In the Caucasian Mineral Waters, anarchists made 12 attempts to extort money, in the Stavropol province there were four cases of extortion.
It is known that anarchist students who arrived from Rostov-on-Don contacted the famous Chechen abrek Zelimkhan Kharachoevsky in 1911. The anarchists handed over to Zelimkhan a red and black flag, four bombs and a seal with the imprint “A group of Caucasian mountain terrorists - anarchists. Ataman Zelimkhan . The famous abrek subsequently put this seal on all his letters of demand. Although, of course, one can hardly say that Zelimkhan was seriously versed in the ideology of anarchism - most likely, he saw the anarchists as fellow travelers in the fight against the hated tsarist government and the Russian presence in the Caucasus. It is also known that in 1914 a group of communist anarchists also operated in the city of Grozny.
In addition to purely anarchist groups, there were also mixed organizations operating in the Kuban, Terek Oblast, Black Sea Governorates and Stavropol Governorates, which did not have a single and clear ideology. As a rule, these organizations were created for practical actions and existed for a short time. Historians know about the following similar groups on the territory of the region: the revolutionary circle of A. M. Semenova in Pyatigorsk (Tersk region), a circle of "Comrade Leonid" and "Fani" in Novorossiysk (Black Sea province), a circle "People's Party" in the village of Peschanokopsky (Stavropol province), N. Pirozhenko's group in the Gelendzhik district of the Black Sea province, preparing an attack on Gelendzhik bank. All of these groups included representatives of various political trends and ideologically approached the socialist-revolutionaries, although they had a significant anarchist component.
The defeat of the anarchist movement
Unlike the western provinces of the country, where the anarchist movement was most active in 1905-1907, in the Kuban and in the South of Russia in general, the peak of the activity of anarchist organizations fell on 1907-1908. In 1908, as in Russia as a whole, in the Kuban, the defeat of the anarchist organizations by the police began. This was due to the fact that thanks to the activities of the anarchists, the Kuban cities, commercial and prosperous, began to experience serious problems. Entrepreneurs were afraid to do business and tried to move from the region, since the anarchists imposed a "revolutionary tax" on almost all representatives of the wealthy population of Yekaterinodar, Armavir and some other settlements. Ultimately, the Kuban authorities decided to put an end to the lawlessness happening in the district and became concerned about intensifying the political persecution of the anarchists.
In Yekaterinodar, the chief chieftain, General M. P. Babich even imposed a curfew, banning walking around the city from 8 pm to 4 am and gathering in groups of more than two people. For this, however, he received a letter with the following content: "If you do not remove this stupid state of siege, then keep in mind that you will not wait for a bright holiday … Let several of us die, but you, sir, cannot escape. So, choose one of two things: either submit your resignation and cancel the resolution, or wait for the Passion Week - it will be remembered for you … Hurray! We will get rid of the tyrant " century // https://politzkovoi.livejournal.com/1417.html). On September 21, 1907, a combined detachment of Cossacks and gendarmes from Rostov-on-Don, Novorossiysk and Yekaterinodar arrived in Armavir, commanded by Colonel Karpov. All entrances and exits from the city were taken under the control of the Cossacks, after which the process of “cleansing” Armavir from revolutionary elements began.
On September 22, 1907, the police arrested 12 Armavir anarchists. Of these, ten people did not have a permanent occupation and lived in the hotels "Europe" and "New York", and two worked in the buffet as a cook and a waiter. Later, another anarchist was arrested, who, to the surprise of the police, turned out to be their colleague - police officer A. Dzhagoraev. The composition of the anarchist group was international - it fully justified its name: the group included Russians S. Popov and Y. Bobrovsky, Georgians A. Machaidze, D. Mokhnalidze, M. Metreveli, A. Gobedzhishvili. The arrests carried out dealt a severe blow to the anarchist organization in Armavir, from which it was no longer able to recover, bringing its activities to the previous level. Almost all Armavir anarchists ended up behind bars. On the night of October 4, 1907, about 200 people were arrested, 50 of whom were transferred to the prison in Yekaterinodar. Among those arrested were revolutionaries of various political views - anarchists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, maximalists, social democrats.
The anarchists of Armavir were tried along with like-minded people from several other southern Russian cities at a general trial in the case of anarchists-communists in the Kuban. The Caucasian Military District Court handed down harsh sentences. For participation in terrorist acts, seven people were sentenced to death, including the leader of the International Union of Anarchist Communists Anton Machaidze. This put an end to the two-year history of the Armavir anarchist group, which terrified the local wealthy population and made the Kuban police work hard before the law enforcement officers managed to identify and arrest the organizers and perpetrators of terrorist acts and expropriations.
In December 1907 - March 1908. The Ekaterinodar police are taking decisive steps to end the anarchist terror in the city. On January 18, 1908, after months of searching, the police found the trail of the well-known anarchist - expropriator Alexander Morozov, nicknamed "Frost". It was believed that it was "Moroz" who killed the head of the regional office S. V. Rudenko and some other officials, and was also guilty of many expropriations. There were real legends about this man among the Yekaterinodar marginal youth - for a long time he was considered an elusive anarchist. It is noteworthy that "Frost" moved along the street, dressed in a woman's dress, powdered. The "lady" did not arouse suspicion among the police. In this form, the anarchist could freely wander around Yekaterinodar, looking for new targets for attacks and expropriations. When the police got on the trail of "Moroz", he shot at the detective and in a cab, dashed off to Dubinka - the working outskirts of Yekaterinodar, where he hid in the first house he came across. "Took" Morozov a whole detachment of policemen and Cossacks. During the shootout, two law enforcement officers were killed. However, "Moroz" himself, not wanting to surrender and knowing full well that the death penalty awaited him, chose to shoot himself.
Simultaneously with Morozov, on the same day, the police got on the trail of another dangerous militant - Alexander Mironov. This man was guilty of the murder of the mayor and bailiff of the city of Sukhumi. During the pursuit, Mironov was shot dead by a police officer Zhukovsky. The latter immediately after the murder of Mironov began to receive letters with threats from a group of communist anarchists "The Avengers", but on January 26 the police tracked down the author of the letters - he turned out to be a friend of the murdered Mironov, a certain Severinov, who was arrested and placed in Yekaterinodar prison. The arrests of anarchists continued in February 1908. Thus, on February 1, members of the Anarchist Group, Matvey Gukin, Fyodor Ashurkov and Dmitry Shurkovetsky, were arrested. They were engaged in sending letters of demands to Yekaterinodar entrepreneurs from the "Group of Anarchists". On February 5, police arrested Georgy Vidineev, who was sending letters of demand on behalf of the Flying Combat Detachment of an anarchist terrorist group, as well as Nikita Karabut and Yakov Kovalenko. Nikita Karabut was a liaison officer for the Yekaterinodar group of communist anarchists "Anarchy". On February 6, Samson Samsonyants was arrested at the Rossiya Hotel, with two revolvers, 47 cartridges and the seal of the “Caucasian Flying Group of Anarchist-Terrorists” in his possession.
The next day, February 7, the police arrested Iosif Mirimanov and Alexei Nanikashvili, who were also sending out letters of demand on behalf of the Anarchist Group. On February 9, Mikhail Podolsky was arrested for such activities, and on February 12, a citizen of the Ottoman Empire, Mironidi. On February 12, 1908, the Yekaterinodar police arrested Armavir Solodkov, who had escaped from prison, thanks to which they got on the trail of the Yekaterinodar group of communist anarchists. All 13 members of the group were arrested. During a search in the house where the group's headquarters was located, its program documents were found, which emphasized the "working" nature of the Yekaterinodar group of anarchist-communists and its focus on agitation and propaganda activities in the working environment and the commission of terrorist attacks and expropriations against the possessing classes and public authorities. On February 13, as a result of a police operation to capture extortionists, Aleksey Denisenko and Ivan Koltsov, who came to the businessman Kuptsov for money, were killed. The anarchists killed during the arrest were found with letters of demand on behalf of the Flying Party of Communist Anarchists - the Avengers group and the Volunteer Flying Combat Detachment. Colonel
F. Zasypkin, who led the struggle of law enforcement agencies against the anarchists, reported in 1908 to the head of the Kuban region that “by the measures taken … in connection with the rise in energy … a number of murders, the possibility of attempting to assassinate the head of the region was prevented, a number of important criminals were discovered, many of whom have already been hanged”(Quoted from: Mityaev E. A. The fight against terrorism in the Kuban during the revolution of 1905-1907 // Society and Law, 2008, No. 1).
In November 1909, the Yekaterinodar District Court completed the investigation of the case "On the activities of anarchist communists in the Kuban region." In this case, there were 91 accused of 13 facts of economic and political terror. On December 17, 1909, the case was transferred to the Caucasian Military District Court. In May 1910, members of the "Avengers" group were sentenced to hard labor for a period of 4 to 6 years and exile to a settlement. In September 1910, 68 anarchists from Yekaterinodar appeared before the court, of whom 7 were sentenced to death by hanging, 37 to hard labor, 19 were acquitted by court verdict. A year later, the anarchists of Novorossiysk were convicted.
Thus, the anarchist movement in the Kuban by 1909-1910. due to effective measures on the part of law enforcement agencies, it actually ceased to exist. The members of the anarchist groups who remained at large either retired or slipped into "pure criminality", ceasing to put forward political slogans. It is known that in the period after 1909, only "visiting" anarchists, primarily from the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, were active in the territory of the Kuban Okrug, who were mainly focused on raiding with the aim of expropriating funds and no longer campaigned among the local population.
When writing the article, photographs were used
