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 completely clear and constitute a mystery for many historians. After all, the Cossacks in everyday life were the same farmers, like 75% of the Russian population, they bore the same state burdens, if not more, and were under the same administrative control of the state. With the beginning of the revolution that followed the abdication of the sovereign, the Cossacks within the regions and in the front-line units went through various psychological stages. During the February rebellious movement in Petrograd, the Cossacks took a neutral position and remained bystanders of the unfolding events. The Cossacks saw that in the presence of significant armed forces in Petrograd, the government not only did not use them, but also strictly prohibited their use against the rebels. During the previous rebellion in 1905-1906, the Cossack troops were the main armed force that restored order in the country, as a result, in public opinion, they earned the contemptuous title of "nagayechnik" and "tsarist satraps and oprichniks". 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 control of the country by the Provisional Government, the Cossacks considered the continuity of power to be legitimate and were ready to support the new government. But gradually this attitude 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 the destructive power, and the instructions of the Council of Cossack Troops, which operated 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 with revolutionary freedoms and, having made some local changes, continued to live in the old way, without producing any economic and, moreover, social upheavals. At the front in the military units, the order on the army, which completely changed the foundations of the military order, the Cossacks accepted 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 no settling of personal scores with the command staff took place either. But the tension grew gradually. The population of the Cossack regions and the Cossack units at the front were subjected to active revolutionary propaganda, which inadvertently had to be reflected in their psychology and forced to listen carefully to the calls and demands of the revolutionary leaders. In the area of the Donskoy army, one of the important revolutionary acts was the displacement of the order ataman Count Grabbe, his replacement by the elected ataman of Cossack origin, General Kaledin, and the restoration of the convocation of public representatives on the Army Circle, according to the custom that existed from antiquity, until the reign of Emperor Peter I. After which their life continued to walk without any particular shocks. The question of relations with the non-Cossack population arose sharply, which psychologically followed the same revolutionary paths as the population of the rest of Russia. At the front, a powerful propaganda was conducted among the Cossack military units, accusing the ataman Kaledin of counterrevolutionaryism 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 were 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 Donskoy army area
The Bolsheviks came to power under anti-war slogans and soon began to fulfill their promises. In November 1917, the Council of People's Commissars invited all the belligerent countries to begin peace negotiations, but the Entente countries refused. Then Ulyanov sent a delegation to Brest-Litovsk, occupied by the Germans, for separate peace negotiations with the delegates of 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 in the amount of 6 billion marks, recognize the independence of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. The hands of the Germans were untied for the continuation of the war in the west. In early March, the German army on the entire front began to advance to occupy the territories that the Bolsheviks had surrendered under a peace treaty. Moreover, Germany, in addition to the treaty, 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 adventurousness 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 the 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 end the war, but do not sign peace" interrupted 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 peace conditions. In view of the complete inability of the Sovietized old army and the rudiments of the Red Army to withstand even the limited offensive of the German troops and the need for a respite to strengthen the Bolshevik regime, Russia also signed the Brest Peace Treaty on March 3. After that, the "independent" Ukraine was occupied by the Germans and, as unnecessary, they threw Petliura "off 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, seized Ukraine and Crimea.
After the conclusion of the Brest Peace 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 eliminated the Soviets there. The allies vigilantly watched what was happening in Russia and also tried to secure their interests, linking them with the former Russia. In addition, in Russia there were up to two million prisoners who, with the consent of the Bolsheviks, could be sent to their countries, and for the Entente powers, it was important to prevent the return of prisoners of war to Germany and Austria-Hungary. To connect Russia with the allies, ports served in the north of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, in the Far East of Vladivostok. In these ports were concentrated large warehouses of property and military equipment, delivered by orders of the Russian government by foreigners. The accumulated cargo was over a million tons worth up to 2.5 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 of 12,000 and the Allies of 11,000. 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 parts of Japan of 57,000 and parts of other allies of 13,000. But they did not overthrow the Bolshevik regime. 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, a simple robbery was often carried out without any state leadership. Inevitable devastation began in the country, for which the Bolsheviks blamed the bourgeoisie and "rotten intellectuals", and these classes were subjected to the most severe terror, bordering on destruction. Until now, it is completely impossible to understand how this all destructive force came to power in Russia, given that power was seized in a country with a thousand-year history and culture. After all, by the same measures the international destructive forces hoped to produce an internal explosion in the agitated France, transferring up to 10 million francs to French banks for this purpose. But France, by the beginning of the twentieth century, had already exhausted its limit on revolutions and was tired of them. Unfortunately for the businessmen of the revolution, there were forces in the country that were able to unravel the insidious and far-reaching plans of the leaders of the proletariat and to resist them. This was written in more detail in the Military Review in the article "How America Saved Western Europe from the Phantom of the World Revolution."
One of the main reasons that allowed the Bolsheviks to carry out a coup d'etat, 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 that 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 disintegrated during the Kerensky era, to the side of the Bolsheviks, which ensured their victory. In most regions of the country, the establishment of Bolshevik power took place quickly and peacefully: out of 84 provincial and other large cities, only in fifteen Soviet power was established as a result of an armed struggle. Having adopted the “Decree on Peace” on the second day of their stay in power, the Bolsheviks ensured the “triumphal march of Soviet power” across Russia in the period 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 Forces submitted a decree in which it informed the Soviet government that:
- The Cossacks do not seek anything for themselves and do not demand anything for themselves outside the limits of their regions. But, guided by the democratic principles of self-determination of nationalities, it will not tolerate any other power in its territories, except for the people, formed by the free agreement of local nationalities without any external and outside 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 disrupt transportation, obstruct the delivery of goods, coal, oil and steel to Russian cities and worsen the food supply, disrupting 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 Forces, the Bolsheviks issued a decree to open hostilities against the south, which read:
- Relying on the Black Sea Fleet, to carry out the armament and organization of the Red Guard to occupy the Donetsk coal region.
- From the north, from the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, move the combined detachments south to the starting points: Gomel, Bryansk, Kharkov, Voronezh.
- To move the most active units from the Zhmerinka region to the east for the occupation of Donbass.
This decree created the embryo of the fratricidal civil war of the Soviet government against the Cossack regions. For their existence, the Bolsheviks desperately needed Caucasian oil, Donetsk coal and bread from the southern outskirts. The massive famine that began pushed Soviet Russia towards the rich south. At the disposal of the Don and Kuban governments, there were no well-organized and sufficient forces 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 frontline Cossacks entered into an open struggle with the old people. In many villages, this struggle became fierce, the reprisals on both sides were brutal. But there were many Cossacks who came from the front, they were well armed and loudmouths, had combat experience, and in most of the villages victory remained with 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 in the headquarters this business was poorly organized. Permission to form such units was given to almost everyone who asked. Many adventurers appeared, even robbers, who simply robbed the population for the purpose of profit. However, the main threat to the Cossack regions was the regiments returning from the front, since 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 the 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 headquarters officers, military foremen Golubov and Mironov, and Golubov's closest employee was Podtyolkov, a lieutenant. In January 1918, the 32nd Don Cossack Regiment returned to the Don from the Romanian Front. Having elected a military sergeant major 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 the Cossacks he had promoted, dispersed the sitting Army Circle, arrested General Nazarov, who took over as chieftain of the Army after General Kaledin's death, 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 seized by the Cossacks and hanged by their verdict. Mironov's fate was also tragic. He managed to draw with him 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 mess on the Don. If the Cossack population was still hesitant, and only in a part of the villages the prudent voice of the old took over, then the 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, the nonresident hoped to take part in the division of the officer, landlord Cossack lands.
Other armed forces in the south were units of the newly formed Volunteer Army, located in Rostov. On November 2, 1917, General Alekseev arrived on the Don, got in touch with the ataman Kaledin and asked him for permission to form volunteer detachments on the Don. General Alekseev's goal was to use the southeastern base of the armed forces to gather the remaining staunch officers, junkers, old soldiers and organize from them the army necessary to establish order in Russia. Despite the complete lack of funds, Alekseev eagerly got down to business. On Barochnaya Street, the premises of one of the infirmaries were turned into an officers' dormitory, which became the cradle of volunteerism. Soon the first donation was received, 400 rubles. This is all that the Russian society allocated to its defenders in November. But people simply went to the Don, having no idea what awaited them, groping, in the darkness, across the continuous Bolshevik sea. We went to the place where the centuries-old traditions of the Cossack freemen and the names of the leaders, whom popular rumor associated with the Don, served as a bright beacon. They came exhausted, hungry, ragged, but not discouraged. On December 6 (19), disguised as a peasant, with a forged passport, General Kornilov arrived on the Don by rail. 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 business in Siberia. He was eager to open up. But the representatives of the National Center, who came to Novocherkassk from Moscow, insisted that Kornilov stay in southern Russia and work together with Kaledin and Alekseev. An agreement was concluded between them, according to which General Alekseev assumed control of all financial and political issues, General Kornilov assumed the organization and command of the Volunteer Army, General Kaledin continued the formation of the Don Army and the administration of the affairs of the Don army. Kornilov had little faith in the success of the 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 chieftains. He said: “I know Siberia, I believe in Siberia, there you can put things on a broad scale. Here Alekseev alone can easily cope with the matter. Kornilov, with all his heart and soul, was eager to go to Siberia, wanted to be released and took no particular interest in the work of forming 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 could fall apart. The formation of the Dobroarmiya progressed slowly, on average 75-80 volunteers were enrolled per day. There were few soldiers, mainly officers, cadets, students, cadets and high school students were enrolled. The weapons in the Don warehouses were not enough; they had to be taken from the soldiers traveling home in the 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 establish 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, even showed a tendency towards Bolshevism, declaring that the Bolsheviks did nothing wrong to them.
In addition, within the Cossack regions, a hard struggle was waged against the nonresident population, and in the Kuban and Terek also against the highlanders. At the disposal of the military atamans was the opportunity to use well-trained teams of young Cossacks who were preparing to be sent to the front, and to organize the call of the next age of youth. General Kaledin could have been supported in this by the old men and veterans, who said: "We have served ours, now we must call on others." The formation of Cossack youth from the draft age could give up to 2-3 divisions, which in those days 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 inquired about what had been done, what was planned to be done, after which they announced that they could help, but so far only with money, in the amount of 100 million rubles, in tranches of 10 million a month. The first paycheck was expected in January, but was never received, and then the situation changed completely. The initial funds for the formation of the Dobroarmy consisted of donations, but they were scanty, mainly due to the unimaginable greed and avarice of the Russian bourgeoisie and other possessing classes for the given circumstances. It should be said that the tight-fisted and stingyness of the Russian bourgeoisie is simply legendary. Back in 1909, during a discussion in the State Duma on the issue of the kulaks, P. A. Stolypin uttered 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-the world-eater and the bourgeois-world-eater” is used. If they do not change the type of their social behavior, we will face great shocks …”. He looked into the water. They did not change social behavior. Almost all the organizers of the white movement point to the little usefulness of their appeals for material assistance to the property classes. Nevertheless, by mid-January, a small (about 5 thousand people), but very combat and morally strong Volunteer Army had turned out. The Council of People's Commissars demanded the extradition or dispersal of the volunteers. Kaledin and Krug answered: "There is no issue from the Don!" The Bolsheviks, in order to liquidate the counter-revolutionaries, began to draw units loyal to them from the Western and Caucasian fronts to the Don area. They began to threaten the Don from the Donbass, Voronezh, Torgovaya and Tikhoretskaya. In addition, the Bolsheviks tightened control of the railways and the influx of volunteers dropped sharply. At the end of January, the Bolsheviks occupied Bataysk and Taganrog, on January 29, horse units moved from 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 first to the elected chieftain, but did not give him power.
At the head of the region was put the Military Government of 14 foremen, elected from each district. Their meetings were in the nature of a provincial duma and did not leave any trace in the history of the Don. On November 20, the government turned to the population with a very liberal declaration, convening a congress of the Cossack and peasant population on December 29 to organize 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 nonresidents. The involvement of intellectual demagogues 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 nonresident, his famous "parity". He failed to glue the heterogeneous pieces of the population of the Don region. Under him, the Don split into two camps, Cossacks and Don peasants, together with nonresident workers and artisans. The latter, with few exceptions, were with the Bolsheviks. The Don peasantry, which constituted 48% of the region's population, carried away by the broad promises of the Bolsheviks, was not satisfied with the measures of the Don government: the introduction of zemstvos in the peasant districts, the attraction of peasants to participate in the stanitsa self-government, their wide acceptance into the Cossack estate and the allotment of three million dessiatines of landlord land. Under the influence of the newcomer 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 hectic and did not hide its sympathy for the Soviet regime. The revolutionary-democratic intelligentsia did not outlive its former psychology and with surprising blinding continued the destructive policy that led to the death of democracy on a national scale. The bloc of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries reigned in all peasant and nonresident congresses, all kinds of dumas, councils, trade unions and inter-party meetings. There was not a single meeting where resolutions of no confidence in the ataman, the government and the Circle, protests against their taking measures against anarchy, criminality and banditry were not passed.
They preached neutrality and reconciliation with the force that openly declared: "He who is not with us is against us." In the cities, workers' settlements and peasant settlements, the uprising against the Cossacks did not subside. Attempts to place subdivisions of workers and peasants in the Cossack regiments ended in disaster. They betrayed the Cossacks, went to the Bolsheviks and took the Cossack officers with them to torment and death. The war took on the character of a class struggle. The Cossacks defended their Cossack rights from the Don workers and peasants. The death of Ataman Kaledin and the occupation of Novocherkassk by the Bolsheviks ends in the south the period of the Great War and the transition to civil war.
Rice. 2 Ataman Kaledin
On February 12, the Bolshevik detachments occupied Novocherkassk and the military sergeant major Golubov, in "gratitude" for the fact that General Nazarov once saved him from prison, and shot the new chieftain. Having lost all hope of keeping Rostov, on the night of February 9 (22), the Dobroarmiya of 2500 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. Cossack units were prudently scattered throughout the city in small groups, domination in the city was in the hands of nonresident and Bolsheviks. On suspicion of links with the Dobroarmiya, officers were ruthlessly executed. The robberies and robberies of the Bolsheviks made the Cossacks wary, even the Cossacks of the Golubov regiments took a wait-and-see attitude. In the villages where power was seized by nonresident and Don peasants, the executive committees began to divide the Cossack lands. These atrocities soon caused a Cossack uprising in the villages adjacent to Novocherkassk. The leader of the Reds on the Don, Podtyolkov, and the head of the punitive detachment, Antonov, fled to Rostov, then were 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 of the 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. The outposts of the Bavarian cavalry stood 12 versts from Novocherkassk. In these conditions, Don faced four main tasks:
- immediately convene a new Circle, in which only the delegates of the liberated villages could take part
- establish relations with the German authorities, find out their intentions and negotiate with them
- to recreate the Don army
- to establish a relationship with the Volunteer Army.
On April 28, a general meeting of the Don government and delegates from the villages and military units that took part in the expulsion of Soviet troops from the Don region took place. The composition of this Circle could not have a claim to resolve 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 meeting decided to declare itself the Don Salvation Circle. There were 130 people in it. Even in the democratic Don it was the most popular meeting. The circle was called gray because there were no intelligentsia on it. The cowardly intelligentsia was sitting at this time in cellars and basements, shaking for their lives or cheating in front of the commissars, signing up for service in the Soviets or trying to get a job in innocent institutions for education, food and finance. She had no time for elections in this troubled time, when both voters and deputies risked their heads. The circle was chosen without a party struggle, it was not up to that. The circle was chosen and elected to it exclusively by the Cossacks, who passionately wanted 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 dismantled the 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 the greatcoat and overcoat cloth, that is, truly democratic, the Circle was saved by the people's minds Don. Already by the time of the convocation of the full military circle on August 15, 1918, the Don land was cleared of the Bolsheviks.
The second urgent task for the Don was the settlement of 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 towards Ukraine was the most pressing issue, and on April 29 the Krug decided to send a plenipotentiary embassy to the Germans in Kiev in order to find out the reasons for their appearance on the territory of the Don. The negotiations took place in calm conditions. The Germans said that they were not going to occupy the region and promised to clear the occupied villages, which they soon did. On the same day, the Circle decided to organize a real army, not from partisans, volunteers or vigilantes, but obeying the laws and discipline. That, around and about which the ataman Kaledin with his government and the Circle, consisting of chatterbox-intellectuals, had been hovering about for almost a year, the gray Don's Salvation Circle decided at two sessions. Even the Don Army was only in the project, and the command of the Volunteer Army already wished to crush it under themselves. But the Krug answered clearly and concretely: "The supreme command of all military forces operating on the territory of the Donskoy army, without exception, should belong to the military chieftain …" Such an answer did not satisfy Denikin, he wanted in the person of the Don Cossacks to have large replenishments of people and materiel, 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 must immediately take on their military uniform 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 Circle adopted 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 Circle. Krasnov said at the Circle: “Creativity has never been the lot of the collective. Raphael's Madonna was created by Raphael, not 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 have proposed, if you don’t accept them, then you don’t trust me, you’re afraid that I will use the power you have given to the detriment of the army. Then we have nothing to talk about. I cannot rule the army without your complete trust. " To the question of one of the members of the Circle, if he could propose to change or alter something in the laws proposed by the ataman, Krasnov replied: “You can. Articles 48, 49, 50. You can offer any flag other than red, any coat of arms other than the Jewish five-pointed star, any anthem except the International …”. The very next day, the Circle considered all the laws proposed by the chieftain and adopted them. The circle has restored the old pre-Petrine title “The Great Don Host”. 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 chieftain. And then there was no time for sentimentality.
Before the eyes of the Don's Salvation Circle stood the bloody ghosts of the shot ataman Kaledin and the shot ataman Nazarov. The Don lay in the rubble, it was not only destroyed, but contaminated by the Bolsheviks, and German horses drank the water of the Quiet Don, a river sacred to the Cossacks. This was the result of the work of the previous Circles, with whose decisions Kaledin and Nazarov fought, but could not win, because they did not have power. But these laws created many enemies for the chieftain. As soon as the Bolsheviks were driven out, the intelligentsia, hiding in the cellars and basements, got out and started a liberal howl. Denikin, who saw in them a striving for independence, did not satisfy these laws either. On May 5, the Circle parted, and the chieftain was left alone to rule the army. That same evening, his adjutant, Esaul Kulgavov, went to Kiev with his own 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 conquest goals in relation to the Don and would leave Rostov and Taganrog as soon as they saw that complete order had been restored in the Don region. On May 9 Krasnov met with the Kuban Ataman Filimonov and the Georgian delegation, and on May 15 in the village of Manychskaya with Alekseev and Denikin. The meeting revealed deep differences between the Don chieftain and the command of the Dobrarmia both in tactics and in the strategy of fighting the Bolsheviks. The goal of the insurgent Cossacks was the liberation 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 of the occupation of Novocherkassk and the election of the ataman of the Don Salvation Circle, all the armed forces consisted of six foot and two cavalry regiments of different numbers. The junior officers were from the villages and were good, but there was a lack of centenary and regimental commanders. Having experienced many insults and humiliations during the revolution, many senior leaders at first had distrust of the Cossack movement. The Cossacks were dressed in their paramilitary dress, they lacked boots. Up to 30% were wearing boots and bast shoes. Most wore shoulder straps; on their caps and hats, everyone wore white stripes to distinguish them from the red guards. The discipline was fraternal, the officers ate with the Cossacks from the same pot, 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 logistical issues. The battle was fleeting. Trenches and fortifications were not built. The trench tool was not enough, and natural laziness prevented the Cossacks from digging in. The tactics were simple. At dawn, the offensive began in 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, it was considered normal for the offensive. As soon as a roundabout column appeared, the Reds began to retreat, and then the Cossack cavalry rushed at them with a wild, chilling boom, overthrew and took them prisoner. Sometimes the battle began with a feigned retreat of twenty miles (this is an old Cossack vent). The Reds rushed to chase, and at this time the detour columns closed behind them and the enemy found himself in a fire sack. With this tactic, Colonel Guselshchikov with regiments of 2-3 thousand people smashed and took prisoners whole divisions of the Red Guard of 10-15 thousand people with carts and artillery. The Cossack custom demanded that the officers go ahead, so their losses were very great. For example, the chief of the division, General Mamantov, was wounded three times and everyone was in chains. In the attack, the Cossacks were merciless, they were also merciless towards 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 happened the other way around. At this time, echelons of red troops, fleeing to the east, continued to move through 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 Khopyorsky District, the entire Don territory was liberated from the Reds by the Cossacks themselves.
In other Cossack regions, the situation was no easier than on the Don. The situation was especially difficult among the Caucasian tribes, where the Russian population was scattered. The North Caucasus was raging. The fall of the central government has caused a shock here more serious than anywhere else. Reconciled by the tsarist power, but not outlived age-old strife and not forgetting old grievances, the multi-tribal population became agitated. The Russian element that united it, about 40% of the population consisted of two equal groups, the Terek Cossacks and nonresident. But these groups were divided by social conditions, settled their land accounts and could not oppose the Bolshevik danger of unity and strength. While the ataman Karaulov was alive, several Terek regiments and some specter of power survived. On December 13, at the Prokhladnaya station, a crowd of Bolshevik soldiers, by order of the Vladikavkaz Soviet Department, uncoupled the ataman's carriage, drove it to a distant dead end and opened fire on the carriage. Karaulov was killed. In fact, on the Terek, power passed to the local councils and gangs of soldiers of the Caucasian Front, which flowed in a continuous stream from Transcaucasia and, unable to penetrate further, to their native places, due to the complete blockage of the Caucasian highways, settled like locusts along the Terek-Dagestan Territory. They terrorized the populace, planted new councils, or hired themselves to serve existing ones, bringing fear, blood, and destruction everywhere. This stream served as the most powerful conductor of Bolshevism, which engulfed the nonresident Russian population (because of the thirst for land), offended the Cossack intelligentsia (because of the thirst for power) and embarrassed the strongly 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 troop echelons, they had a lot of weapons and ammunition. On the basis of the Caucasian native corps, they formed national military formations.
Rice. 4 Cossack regions of Russia
After the death of Ataman Karaulov, an unbearable struggle with the Bolshevik detachments that filled the region and the aggravation of controversial issues with neighbors - Kabardians, Chechens, Ossetians, Ingush - the Terek Host was turned into a republic that was part of the RSFSR. Quantitatively, the Terek Cossacks in the Terek region accounted for 20% of the population, nonresident - 20%, Ossetians - 17%, Chechens - 16%, Kabardians - 12% and Ingush - 4%. The most active among other peoples were the smallest - the Ingush, who put forward a strong and well-armed detachment. They robbed everyone and kept Vladikavkaz in constant fear, which they captured and plundered in January. When Soviet power was established on March 9, 1918 in Dagestan, as well as on the Terek, the Council of People's Commissars set its first goal to break the Terek Cossacks, destroying its special advantages. Armed expeditions of the mountaineers 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 by improvisation, the natural Cossack army, which had 12 well-organized regiments, disintegrated, dispersed and disarmed at the request of the Bolsheviks. However, the atrocities of the Reds led to the fact that on June 18, 1918, an 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 summoned to a congress, at which they decided on an armed uprising against Soviet power. The Tertsi 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 struggle against the Soviets, Orenburg Cossack General I. G. Akulinin recalled: “The stupid and harsh policy of the Bolsheviks, their undisguised hatred of the Cossacks, desecration of the Cossack shrines and, especially, bloody reprisals, requisitions, indemnities and robbery in the villages - all this opened our eyes to the essence of Soviet power and forced us to take up arms … The Bolsheviks could do nothing to lure the Cossacks. The Cossacks had the land, and the freedom - in the form of the broadest self-government - they returned to themselves in the first days of the February Revolution. The mood of the rank-and-file and front-line Cossacks gradually came to a turning point; they began to speak out more and more actively against the violence and arbitrariness of the new government. If in January 1918 the ataman Dutov, under the pressure of Soviet troops, left Orenburg, and he had barely three hundred active fighters left, then on the night of April 4, more than 1000 Cossacks were raided on sleeping Orenburg, and on July 3 in Orenburg, power again passed into the hands of the chieftain.
Fig. 5 Ataman Dutov
In the area of the Ural Cossacks, the resistance was more successful, despite the small number of troops. Uralsk was not occupied by the Bolsheviks. The Ural Cossacks, from the beginning of the birth of Bolshevism, 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 nonresident among the Urals, there was a lot of land, and the Cossacks were Old Believers, who more strictly preserved their religious and moral principles. In general, the Cossack regions of Asian Russia 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 purpose 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 the forms of statehood, they all turned out to be hostile to the advancing Bolshevism. In mid-April 1918, the troops of Ataman Semyonov launched an offensive from Manchuria in Transbaikalia about 1000 bayonets and sabers against 5, 5 thousand from the Reds. At the same time, an uprising of the Trans-Baikal Cossacks began. By May, Semyonov's troops approached Chita, but they could not immediately take it. The battles between Semyonov's Cossacks and the red detachments, which consisted mainly of former political prisoners and Hungarian prisoners, 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 atamans: Zabaikalsky - Semyonov, Ussuriysky - Kalmykov, Semirechensky - Annenkov, Uralsky - Tolstov, Siberian - Ivanov, Orenburg - Dutov, Astrakhan - Prince Tundutov, they entered into a decisive battle. In the struggle against the Bolsheviks, the Cossack regions fought exclusively for their lands and law and order, and their actions, according to 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 Czechs and Slovaks, numbering up to 45,000 people. By the beginning of the revolution, the Czech corps was in the rear of the Southwestern Front in the Ukraine. In the eyes of the Austro-Germans, the legionaries, as 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. According to the agreement with the Bolsheviks, the echelons of Czechs were sent towards Siberia to board ships in Vladivostok and send them to Europe. In addition to the Czechoslovakians, there were many Hungarian prisoners in Russia, who mainly sympathized with the Reds. With the Hungarians, the Czechoslovakians had a centuries-old and fierce enmity and enmity (how can one not recall the immortal works of J. Hasek in this regard). Due to fear of attacks on the way of 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 the groups of echelons of 1000 kilometers, so that the echelons with the Czechs stretched across the whole of Siberia from the Volga to Transbaikalia. The Czech legions played a colossal role in the Russian civil war, since after their revolt the struggle against the Soviets intensified sharply.
Rice. 7 Czech legion en route along the Transsib
Despite the agreements, there were considerable misunderstandings in the relationship between 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 power of the Bolsheviks was overthrown on May 26 in Novonikolaevsk, on May 29 in Penza, on May 30 in Syzran, on May 31 in Tomsk and Kurgan, on June 7 in Omsk, on June 8 in Samara and on June 18 in Krasnoyarsk. In the liberated areas, the formation of Russian combat units began. On July 5, Russian and Czechoslovak troops occupy Ufa, and on July 25 they take Yekaterinburg. At the end of 1918, the Czechoslovak legionaries themselves began a gradual retreat to the Far East. But, participating in the battles in Kolchak's army, they will finally finish the withdrawal and leave Vladivostok for France only at the beginning of 1920. In 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 struggle against the Bolsheviks immediately after they came to power. On June 8, in Samara, liberated from the Reds, a Constituent Assembly Committee (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 rising population of the Volga region began a successful struggle against the Bolsheviks, but in the liberated areas, the administration was in the hands of the fleeing 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, in Samara, a detachment of 350 people began to command Lieutenant Colonel Kappel. The replenished detachment in mid-June takes Syzran, Stavropol Volzhsky (now Togliatti), and also inflicts a heavy defeat on the Reds near Melekes. On July 21, Kappel takes Simbirsk, defeating the superior forces of the Soviet commander Gai defending the city. As a result, by the beginning of August 1918, the territory of the Constituent Assembly stretches from west to east for 750 versts from Syzran to Zlatoust, from north to south for 500 versts 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, took Kazan. There they seize part of the gold reserve 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, and ammunition. This gave the Samara government a solid financial and material base. With the capture of Kazan, the General Staff Academy, headed by General A. I. Andogsky, was transferred to the anti-Bolshevik camp in full force.
Rice. 8 Hero of Komucha 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 Trans-Baikal army. Allies dominated Vladivostok. Then General Horvath arrived from Harbin, and as many as three authorities were formed: from the henchmen of the Allies, General Horvath and from the board of the railway. Such fragmentation of the anti-Bolshevik front in the east demanded unification, and a meeting was convened in Ufa to select a single authoritative state power. The situation in units 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 the members of the Komuch in the troops and the people. In addition, the representative of England, General Knox, said that until a solid 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 the head of the government and the supreme commander with the transfer of all power to him.
In the south of Russia, events developed as follows. After the Reds occupied Novocherkassk in early 1918, the Volunteer Army retreated to the Kuban. During the campaign to Yekaterinodar, the army, having endured all the difficulties of the winter campaign, later called 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 clean up their territory. Only by May did the army find itself in conditions that allowed it to rest and replenish itself for the further struggle against the Bolsheviks. Although the attitude of the command of the Volunteer Army to the German army was irreconcilable, it, having no means of weapons, tearfully begged Ataman Krasnov to send the Volunteer Army weapons, shells and cartridges that he received from the German army. Ataman Krasnov, in his colorful expression, receiving military equipment from the hostile Germans, washed them in the clear waters of the Don and handed over part of the Volunteer Army. The Kuban was still occupied by the Bolsheviks. In the Kuban, the gap with the center, which on the Don occurred due to the collapse of the Provisional Government, occurred earlier and sharper. Back on October 5, with a decisive protest of the Provisional Government, the regional Cossack Council adopted a resolution on the separation of the region into 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-time peasants, that is, almost half of the region's population was deprived of voting rights. The army chieftain, Colonel Filimonov, was made the head of the socialist government. The discord between the Cossack and nonresident population took on more and more acute forms. Not only the nonresident population, but also the 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 Don ended in the same paralysis of power. Everywhere, in every village, stanitsa, the Red Guards from nonresidents gathered, part of the front-line Cossacks adjoined them, poorly subordinate to the center, but following exactly its policy. These undisciplined, but well-armed and violent gangs began to plant Soviet power, land redistribution, seizure of grain surpluses and socialization, and simply to rob wealthy Cossacks and beheading the Cossacks - the persecution of officers, non-Bolshevik intelligentsia, priests, authoritative old people. And above all, to disarmament. It is surprising with what complete non-resistance the Cossack villages, regiments and batteries gave up their rifles, machine guns, and guns. When the villages of the Yeisk department revolted at the end of April, it was a completely unarmed militia. The Cossacks had no more than 10 rifles per hundred, the rest armed themselves with whatever they could. Some of them attached daggers or scythes to long sticks, others took pitchforks, others took stocks, and others just shovels and axes. Punitive detachments with … Cossack weapons came out against the defenseless villages. By the beginning of April, all nonresident villages and 85 out of 87 villages were Bolsheviks. But the Bolshevism of the villages was purely external. Often only the names changed: the ataman became a commissar, the stanitsa gathering became a council, the stanitsa government became a waste of time.
Where the executive committees were captured by nonresidents, their decisions were sabotaged, reelecting every week. There was a stubborn, but passive, without inspiration 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 leader Luka Bych, who stood at the head of 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 region of Stavropol, where the Council met, intensified the struggle and presented an ultimatum to the Council. The uprising of the Kuban Cossacks was rapidly gaining strength. 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 Kalnin's 30,000th army at Belaya Glina and Tikhoretskaya, then Sorokin's 30,000th army in a fierce battle near Yekaterinodar. On July 21, whites occupy Stavropol, and on August 17, Yekaterinodar. Blocked on the Taman Peninsula, a 30,000-strong Red group under the command of Kovtyukh, the so-called "Taman Army", along the Black Sea coast with battles breaks through 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 number of the White army reaches 40 thousand bayonets and sabers. However, having entered the territory of the Kuban, Denikin issued a decree addressed to the Kuban chieftain and the government, demanding:
- full tension on the part of the Kuban for its early liberation from the Bolsheviks
- all the primary units of the military forces of the Kuban should henceforth be part of the Volunteer Army to carry out national tasks
- in the future, no separatism should be shown on the part of the liberated Kuban Cossacks.
Such a gross interference by 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, people under his control and, even worse, no political ideology. The commander of the Don Army, General Denisov, in his hearts even called the volunteers "wandering musicians." General Denikin's ideas were guided by armed struggle. Lacking sufficient funds for this, General Denikin for the struggle demanded the subordination of the Cossack regions of the Don and Kuban 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 the Bolshevik domination and terror. The Don government entered into contact with the German command and established fruitful cooperation. Relations with the Germans resulted in a purely businesslike form. The exchange rate of the German mark was established at 75 kopecks of the Don currency, a price was made for a Russian rifle with 30 rounds of one pood of wheat or rye, and other supply agreements were concluded. The Don army received from the German army through Kiev in the first month and a half: 11,651 rifles, 88 machine guns, 46 opudes, 109,000 artillery shells, 11.5 million rifle cartridges, of which 35,000 artillery shells and about 3 million rifle cartridges. At the same time, the entire shame of peaceful relations with an implacable enemy fell solely on Ataman Krasnov. As for the High Command, such, according to the laws of the Don Army, could only belong to the Military Ataman, and before his election - to the marching Ataman. This discrepancy led to the fact that Don demanded the return of all donors from the Pre-Volunteer Army. The relationship between the Don and the Dobrarmia became not allied, but the relationship of fellow travelers.
In addition to tactics, there were also large differences in the white movement in the strategy, politics and goals of the war. The goal of the Cossack masses was to free their land from the invasion of the Bolsheviks, to establish order in their area and provide an opportunity for the Russian people to arrange their fate at their own will. Meanwhile, the forms of civil war and the organization of the armed forces brought the art of war back to the epoch of the 19th century. The successes of the troops then depended solely on the qualities of the commander who directly controlled the troops. The good generals of the 19th century did not scatter the main forces, but were directed towards one main goal: the capture of the political center of the enemy. With the seizure of the center, the paralysis of the government of the country occurs and the conduct of the war becomes more complicated. The Council of People's Commissars, who was sitting in Moscow, was in extremely difficult conditions, reminiscent of the position of Muscovite Russia in the XIV-XV centuries, limited by the borders of the Oka and Volga rivers. Moscow was cut off from all types of supplies, and the goals of the Soviet rulers were reduced to obtaining basic means of food and a piece of daily bread. In the pathetic appeals of the leaders there were no longer the high incentive 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" … The People's Commissariat for Military Affairs Bronstein (Trotsky), in his speech on June 9, 1918, indicated the goals simple and clear: “Comrades! Among all the questions that excite our hearts, there is one simple question - the question of our daily bread. Over all thoughts, over all our ideals, one concern now dominates, 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 seriously discuss the food situation in the country. According to our statistics, in 17 the surplus of grain in those places that produce and export grain was 882,000,000 pounds. On the other hand, there are regions in the country where there is not enough bread of their own. If we calculate it, it turns out that they lack 322 OOO OOO poods. Hence, in one part of the country there are 882,000,000,000 pounds of surplus, and in the other 322,000,000,000 poods are not enough …
In the North Caucasus alone, there is now a grain surplus of no less than 140,000,000 poods: in order to satisfy our hunger, we need 15,000,000 poods a month for the whole country. Just think: 140 million poods of surplus, which is only in the North Caucasus, may be enough, therefore, for ten months for the entire country. … Let each of you now promise to provide immediate practical assistance in order for us to organize a hike for bread. In fact, it was a direct call for robbery. Due to the complete lack of publicity, the paralysis of public life and the complete fragmentation of the country, the Bolsheviks nominated people for leadership positions for whom, under normal conditions, there was only one place - a prison. In such conditions, the task of the white command in the fight against the Bolsheviks should have had the shortest goal of capturing Moscow, without being distracted by any other secondary tasks. And to fulfill this main task it was necessary to involve the broadest strata of the people, primarily the peasants. In reality, the opposite was true. The volunteer army, instead of marching on Moscow, was firmly bogged down in the North Caucasus, the white Ural-Siberian troops could not get across the Volga in any way. All revolutionary changes beneficial to the peasants and the people, economic and political, were not recognized as white. The first step of their civilian representatives in the liberated territory was a decree that canceled all orders issued by the Provisional Government and the Council of People's Commissars, including those concerning property relations. General Denikin, having absolutely no plan for establishing a new order that could satisfy the population, consciously or unconsciously, wanted to return Russia to its original pre-revolutionary position, and the peasants were obliged to pay for the seized 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, on the other hand, refused to go beyond the limits of 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 peasants and nonresident people, but they could not defeat the entire peasant central Russia and they understood this perfectly.
As Russian and non-Russian history shows us, when cardinal changes and decisions are required, we need not just people, but extraordinary personalities, who, to our great regret, did not appear 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 seek any forms, but managed to force him to obey his will. He forced to serve France as representatives of the royal nobility, and immigrants from the sans-culottes. There were no such consolidating personalities in the white and red movement, and this led to an incredible split and bitterness in the ensuing civil war. But that's a completely different story.
