In the previous article, it was shown how, in the midst of the White offensive on Moscow, their troops were distracted by the Makhno raid and the actions of other rebels in Ukraine and the Kuban. Formed by the Reds from shock units, the 1st Cavalry Army, as a result of a successful counteroffensive, broke through to Taganrog by January 6, 1920 and was able to split the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (ARSUR) into two parts. In January, the Reds' offensive continued. January 7 Horse-Consolidated Corps B. M. Dumenko occupied the capital of the white Don, Novocherkassk. On January 10, units of the 1st Cavalry Army under the command of S. M. Budyonny occupied Rostov in battle. By the beginning of 1920, most of the Don territory was occupied by the Reds: Budyonny's cavalry army and the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th armies of 43,000 bayonets and 28,000 sabers with 400 guns, a total of 71,000 soldiers. The front between the belligerents passed along the Don line. During the retreat, the troops of the ARSUR were divided into two parts: the main forces retreated southeast to the Kuban, and the other part to the Crimea and beyond the Dnieper. Therefore, the Soviet front was divided into the South and South-East. The main bases of the counter-revolution were the Don, Kuban and the Caucasus, and therefore the main task of the Reds was to destroy the forces of the South-East. The 10th Red Army marched on Tikhoretskaya, the 9th advanced from Razdorskaya-Konstantinovskaya, the 8th advanced from the Novocherkassk area, and the Budyonny cavalry army with the infantry divisions attached to it operated in the Rostov area. The cavalry army consisted of 70% of the volunteers of the Don and Kuban regions, it consisted of 9,500 horsemen, 4,500 infantry, 400 machine guns, 56 guns, 3 armored trains and 16 airplanes.
The Don froze to death on January 3, 1920, and the Soviet commander Shorin ordered the 1st Cavalry and 8th armies to force it near the cities of Nakhichevan and Aksai. General Sidorin ordered to prevent this and defeat the enemy at the crossings, which was done. After this failure, the 1st Cavalry Army was withdrawn to the reserve and for replenishment. On January 16, 1920, the South-Eastern Front was renamed into the Caucasian Front, and Tukhachevsky was appointed its commander on February 4. He was tasked with completing the defeat of the armies of General Denikin and capturing the North Caucasus before the war with Poland began. Three reserve Latvian divisions and one Estonian division are transferred to strengthen this front. In the front zone, the number of red troops reached 60 thousand bayonets and sabers against 46 thousand for the whites. In turn, General Denikin was also preparing an offensive with the aim of returning Rostov and Novocherkassk. In early February, Dumenko's red cavalry corps was defeated on Manych, and as a result of the offensive of Kutepov's Volunteer Corps and the III Don Corps on February 20, the Whites again captured Rostov and Novocherkassk, which, according to Denikin, “caused an explosion of exaggerated hopes in Yekaterinodar and Novorossiysk … However, the movement to the north it could not get development, because the enemy was already going deep into the rear of the Volunteer Corps - to Tikhoretskaya."
The fact is that, simultaneously with the offensive of the Volunteer Corps, the strike group of the 10th Red Army broke through the white defense in the zone of responsibility of the unstable and decaying Kuban Army, and the 1st Cavalry Army was introduced into the breakthrough to develop success on Tikhoretskaya. The cavalry group of General Pavlov (II and IV Don corps) was put forward against her. On the night of February 19, Pavlov's cavalry group struck a blow at Torgovaya, but the fierce attacks of the whites were repulsed. The white cavalry was forced to retreat to Sredny Yegorlyk in severe frost. Leaving Torgovaya, the Cossack regiments joined the main forces, which were in a very unattractive position, located in the open sky in the snow, in a terrible frost. The morning awakening was terrible and there were many frozen and up to half frostbitten in the corps. To turn the tide in their favor, the White command decided on February 25 to strike in the rear of the 1st Cavalry Army. Budyonny was aware of the movement of Pavlov's group, and he prepared for battle. The rifle divisions took up positions. The cavalry regiments were lined up in columns. The head brigade of the IV corps was unexpectedly attacked by Budyonny's cavalry, crushed and put into disorderly flight, which upset the following columns. As a result, on February 25, south of the strategically important Sredny Yegorlyk, a battle takes place - the largest in the history of the civil war, an oncoming cavalry battle of up to 25 thousand sabers on both sides (15 thousand reds versus 10 thousand whites). The battle was distinguished by a purely cavalry character. The attacks of the opponents changed over the course of several hours and were distinguished by extreme ferocity. Horse attacks took place with alternating alternation of movements of the horse masses from one side to the other. The retreating masses of one cavalry were pursued by the enemy's cavalry mass rushing behind it to their reserves, upon approaching which the attackers fell under heavy artillery and machine gun fire. The attackers stopped and turned back, and at this time the enemy's cavalry, having recovered and replenished with reserves, proceeded to pursuit and drove the enemy also to its initial position, where the attackers fell into the same position. After artillery and machine-gun fire, they turned back, pursued by the recovered enemy cavalry. The fluctuations of the equestrian masses, occurring from one height to another through the vast basin that divided them, continued from 11 o'clock in the afternoon until the evening. The Soviet author, evaluating the operation of Pavlov's cavalry group, concludes: "The invincible Mamantov cavalry, the best white cavalry, which once thundered with glorious battles and dashing attacks, after this battle has greatly lost its formidable importance on Denikin and our Caucasian fronts." This moment for the Don cavalry in the history of the civil war was decisive, and after that everything went to the fact that the Don cavalry quickly lost its moral stability and, without offering resistance, began to quickly roll towards the Caucasus Mountains. This battle actually decided the fate of the Battle of the Kuban. The cavalry army of Budyonny, leaving cover in the direction of Tikhoretskaya with the support of several infantry divisions, moved in pursuit of the remnants of the cavalry group of General Pavlov. After this battle, the white army, having lost the will to resist, retreated. The Reds won the war in the southeast against the Cossacks. This battle of the elite horse masses of both warring parties practically ended the civil war between the Whites and Reds of the Southeastern Front.
Rice. 1 Battle of the 1st Cavalry Army near Yegorlyk
On March 1, the Volunteer Corps left Rostov, and the White armies began to withdraw to the Kuban River. The Cossack units of the Kuban army (the most unstable part of the Armed Forces of South Russia) finally decomposed and began to massively surrender to the Reds or go over to the side of the “greens”, which led to the collapse of the White front and the retreat of the remnants of the Volunteer Army to Novorossiysk. The next most significant events were the crossing of the Kuban, the Novorossiysk evacuation, and the transfer of some of the Whites to the Crimea. On March 3, the red troops approached Yekaterinodar. Stavropol was commissioned on 18 February. The Kuban Territory was overwhelmed by the retreating and advancing waves of the fighting sides, large parties of greens formed in the mountains, which declared that they were against the Reds and against the Whites, in fact it was one of the ways to get out of the war, and the Greens (if necessary) easily turned into Reds. By the spring of 1920, a 12-thousand-strong partisan army of the Greens was actively operating in the rear of the Whites, providing substantial assistance to the five advancing armies of the Reds, under the blows of which the All-Soviet Union's front collapsed, and the Cossacks en masse went over to the side of the Greens. The volunteer army with the remnants of the Cossack units retreated to Novorossiysk, the Reds moved after. The success of the Tikhoretsk operation allowed them to switch to the Kuban-Novorossiysk operation, during which on March 17 the 9th Army of the Caucasian Front under the command of I. P. Uborevich occupied Yekaterinodar and forced the Kuban. Leaving Yekaterinodar and crossing the Kuban, refugees and military units found themselves in unfavorable natural conditions. The low and swampy bank of the Kuban River and the numerous rivers flowing from the mountains with swampy banks made it difficult to move. On the foothills were scattered Circassian auls with a population, irreconcilably hostile, both white and red. The few villages of the Kuban Cossacks were with a strong admixture of nonresident, mostly sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. The mountains were dominated by the green. Negotiations with them did not lead to anything. The Dobrarmia and the I Don Corps retreated to Novorossiysk, which was a "disgusting sight". Tens of thousands of people gathered behind the back of the agonizing front in Novorossiysk, most of whom were quite healthy and fit to defend their right to exist with arms in hand. It was hard to observe these representatives of the bankrupt government and the intelligentsia: landlords, officials, the bourgeoisie, tens and hundreds of generals, thousands of officers who were eager to leave as soon as possible, angry, disappointed and cursing everyone and everything. Novorossiysk, in general, was a military camp and a rear nativity scene. Meanwhile, in the port of Novorossiysk, troops were being loaded onto ships of all types, more reminiscent of fistfights. All ships were provided for the loading of the Volunteer Corps, which on March 26-27 left Novorossiysk by sea for the Crimea. For parts of the Don army, not a single vessel was given and General Sidorin, infuriated, went to Novorossiysk with the goal of shooting Denikin in case of refusal to load the Don units. This did not help, there were simply no ships, and the 9th Red Army captured Novorossiysk on March 27. The Cossack units located in the Novorossiysk region were forced to surrender to the Reds.
Rice. 2 Evacuation of whites from Novorossiysk
Another part of the Don army, together with the Kuban units, was drawn into the mountainous hungry region and moved to Tuapse. On March 20, Shefner-Markevich's I Kuban Corps occupied Tuapse, easily expelling the Red units that occupied the city from it. Then he moved on to Sochi, and the II Kuban corps was entrusted with covering Tuapse. The number of troops and refugees retreating to Tuapse turned out to be up to 57,000 people, the only decision remained: to go to the borders of Georgia. But in the negotiations that began, Georgia refused to let the armed mass cross the border, since it did not have either food or sufficient funds, not only for the refugees, but even for itself. However, the movement towards Georgia still continued, and the Cossacks reached Georgia without any complications.
After the defeat of his troops with an intensification of opposition sentiments in the white movement, Denikin left the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Russia on April 4, handed over command to General Wrangel and on the same day departed on the British battleship "Emperor of India" along with his friend, colleague and former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of South Russia General Romanovsky to England with an intermediate stop in Constantinople,where the latter was shot dead in the building of the Russian embassy in Constantinople by lieutenant Kharuzin, a former counterintelligence officer of the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia.
On April 20, military ships arrived from the Crimea in Tuapse, Sochi, Sukhum and Poti to load the Cossacks and transport them to the Crimea. But only people who decided to part with their comrades in arms - horses, were submerged, since the transportation could be carried out without horses and horse equipment. It should be said that the most implacable were evacuated. So the 80th Zyungar regiment did not accept the terms of surrender, did not lay down its arms and in full strength, along with the remnants of the Don units, was evacuated to the Crimea. In the Crimea, the 80th Zyungar regiment, which consisted of the Salsk Cossacks-Kalmyks, marched in the parade before the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia P. N. Wrangel, since among the units evacuated from Novorossiysk and Adler, besides this regiment, there was not a single whole armed unit. Most of the Cossack regiments, pressed against the shore, accepted the terms of surrender and surrendered to the Red Army. According to the information of the Bolsheviks, they took 40,000 people and 10,000 horses on the Adler coast. It should be said that during the civil war, the Soviet leadership slightly adjusted its policy towards the Cossacks, trying not only to split them even more, but also to attract them to their side as much as possible. For the leadership of the Red Cossacks and for propaganda purposes, to show that not all Cossacks are against Soviet power, a Cossack department is created under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. As the Cossack military governments became more and more dependent on the "white" generals, the Cossacks, singly and in groups, began to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks. In the early 1920s, these transitions became massive. In the Red Army, whole divisions of the Cossacks are beginning to be created. Especially many Cossacks join the Red Army when the White Guards are evacuated to the Crimea and abandoned tens of thousands of Donets and Kubans on the Black Sea coast. Most of the abandoned Cossacks, after filtration, are enlisted in the Red Army and sent to the Polish front. In particular, it was then that the 3rd cavalry corps of Guy was formed from the captured White Cossacks, recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as "the best cavalry of all times and peoples." Along with the White Cossacks, a large number of white officers are enrolled in the Red Army. Then the joke was born: "The Red Army is like a radish, outside is red, inside is white." Due to the large number of former whites in the Red Army, the military leadership of the Bolsheviks even imposed a limit on the number of white officers in the Red Army - no more than 25% of the command staff. The "surpluses" were sent to the rear, or went to teach at military schools. In total, during the civil war, about 15 thousand white officers served in the Red Army. Many of these officers tied their further fate with the Red Army, and some achieved a high position. So, for example, from this "call" the former drove up the Don army TT Shapkin. during the Patriotic War he was a lieutenant general and corps commander, and the former Kolchak artillery headquarters captain Govorov L. A. became a front commander and one of the marshals of Victory. At the same time, on March 25, 1920, the Bolsheviks issued a decree on the abolition of the Cossack military lands. Soviet power was finally established on the Don and adjacent territories. The Great Don Host ceased to exist. This is how the civil war ended on the lands of the Don and Kuban Cossacks and the entire southeast. A new tragedy began - the epic of the war on the territory of the Crimea.
The Crimean peninsula was the last stage of the civil war in the southeast. Both in geographical position and in the political aspirations of the leaders of the Volunteer Army, he responded in the best way, because he represented a neutral zone, independent of the power of the Cossack administration and the Cossacks' claims to internal independence and sovereignty. Parts of the Cossacks transported from the Black Sea coast, psychologically, were also volunteers who left their territories and were deprived of the opportunity to fight directly for their lands, homes and property. The command of the Volunteer Army was relieved of the need to reckon with the governments of the Don, Kuban and Terek, but it was also deprived of their economic base, which was necessary for a successful war. It was obvious that the Crimean region was not a reliable territory for the continuation of the civil war, and it was necessary to continue the struggle to build calculations only for unforeseen happy circumstances, or a miracle, or to prepare for the final exit from the war and look for ways of retreat. The army, refugees and rear services numbered up to one and a half million people, especially not inclined to put up with the Bolsheviks. Western countries followed the tragedy in Russia with keen attention and curiosity. England, previously taking an active part in the history of the white movement in Russia, tended to end the civil strife, with the goal of concluding a trade agreement with the Soviets. General Wrangel, who replaced Denikin, was well aware of the general state of affairs in Russia and the West and did not have bright hopes for a successful continuation of the war. Peace with the Bolsheviks was impossible, negotiations for the conclusion of peace agreements were excluded, there was only one inevitable decision: to prepare the basis for a possible safe exit from the struggle, i.e. evacuation. Having assumed command, General Wrangel stood up energetically to continue the struggle, at the same time directing all efforts to putting in order the ships and vessels of the Black Sea Fleet. At this time, an unexpected ally appeared in the struggle. Poland entered the war against the Bolsheviks, which opened up the opportunity for the white command to have at least this very slippery and temporary ally in the struggle. Poland, taking advantage of the internal turmoil in Russia, began to extend the borders of its territory to the east and decided to occupy Kiev. On April 25, 1920, the Polish army, equipped with funds from France, invaded the Soviet Ukraine and occupied Kiev on May 6.
Rice. 3 Soviet poster of 1920
The head of the Polish state, Y. Pilsudski, hatched a plan for the creation of a confederal state "from sea to sea", which would include the territories of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania. Not reckoning with the claims of Poland unacceptable for Russian politics, General Wrangel agreed with Pilsudski and concluded a military treaty with him. However, these plans were not destined to come true. The Reds began to take measures against the impending threat for them from the west. The Soviet-Polish war began. This war took on the character of a national war among the Russian people and began successfully. On May 14, a counter-offensive by the troops of the Western Front (commanded by M. N. Tukhachevsky) began, on May 26 - the South-West Front (commanded by A. I. Polish troops quickly began to retreat, did not hold Kiev, and in mid-July the Reds approached the borders of Poland. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), clearly overestimating its own forces and underestimating the forces of the enemy, set a new strategic task for the command of the Red Army: enter Poland with battles, take its capital and create conditions for the proclamation of Soviet power in the country. According to the statements of the Bolshevik leaders, on the whole it was an attempt to push the "red bayonet" deep into Europe and thereby "stir up the West European proletariat", to push it to support the world revolution. Speaking on September 22, 1920 at the IX All-Russian Conference of the RCP (b), Lenin said: “We decided to use our military forces to help Sovietize Poland. Further general policy followed from this. We did not formulate this in an official resolution recorded in the minutes of the Central Committee and constituting a law for the party until the new congress. But among ourselves we said that we must probe with bayonets whether the social revolution of the proletariat in Poland is ripe. " Tukhachevsky's order to the troops of the Western Front No. 1423 of July 2, 1920 sounded even clearer and more understandable: “The fate of the world revolution is being decided in the West. Through the corpse of Belopanskaya Poland lies the path to a world fire. Let us carry happiness to working mankind on bayonets! " However, some military leaders, including Trotsky, feared for the success of the offensive and offered to respond to the proposals of the Poles for peace. Trotsky, who knew well the state of the Red Army, wrote in his memoirs: “There were fervent hopes for an uprising of the Polish workers…. Lenin had a firm plan: to bring the matter to the end, that is, to enter Warsaw to help the Polish working masses overthrow the Pilsudski government and seize power …. I found in the center a very strong mood in favor of bringing the war to an end. I strongly opposed this. The Poles have already asked for peace. I believed that we had reached the culminating point of success, and if, without calculating the strength, we go further, then we can pass by the victory already won - to defeat. " Despite Trotsky's opinion, Lenin and almost all members of the Politburo rejected his proposal for an immediate peace with Poland. The attack on Warsaw was entrusted to the Western Front, and on Lvov to the Southwest. The successful advance of the Red Army to the west posed a great threat to Central and Western Europe. The Red cavalry invaded Galicia and threatened to capture Lvov. The allies, who triumphed over Germany, had already demobilized and did not have free troops to counter the impending threat of Bolshevism, but sent Polish volunteer legionnaires and officers of the General Staff of the French army from France to help the Polish command, and they arrived as military advisers.
The attempted invasion of Poland ended in disaster. The troops of the Western Front in August 1920 were utterly defeated near Warsaw (the so-called "Miracle on the Vistula"), and rolled back. During the battle, of the five armies of the Western Front, only the 3rd survived, which managed to retreat. The rest of the armies were defeated or destroyed: the 4th army and part of the 15th fled to East Prussia and were interned, the Mozyr group, the 15th and 16th armies were also defeated. More than 120 thousand Red Army soldiers were captured, most of them captured during the battle near Warsaw, and another 40 thousand soldiers were in East Prussia in internment camps. This defeat for the Red Army is the most catastrophic in the history of the civil war. According to Russian sources, in the future, about 80 thousand of the Red Army soldiers from the total number of those captured by Polish captivity, died of hunger, disease, torture, bullying, executions, or did not return to their homeland. It is reliably known only about the number of returned prisoners of war and internees - 75 699 people. In estimates of the total number of prisoners of war, the Russian and Polish sides differ - from 85 to 157 thousand people. The Soviets were forced to enter into peace negotiations. In October, the parties concluded an armistice, and in March 1921 another "obscene peace" was concluded, like Brest, only with Poland and also with the payment of a large indemnity. Under its terms, a significant part of the lands in the west of Ukraine and Belarus with 10 million Ukrainians and Belarusians went to Poland. None of the sides achieved their goals during the war: Belarus and Ukraine were divided between Poland and the Soviet republics that entered the Soviet Union in 1922. The territory of Lithuania was divided between Poland and the independent Lithuanian state. The RSFSR, for its part, recognized the independence of Poland and the legitimacy of the Pilsudski government, temporarily abandoned plans for a "world revolution" and the elimination of the Versailles system. Despite the signing of the peace treaty, relations between the USSR and Poland remained very tense over the following years, which ultimately led to the participation of the USSR in the partition of Poland in 1939. During the Soviet-Polish war, disagreements arose between the Entente countries over the issue of military-financial support for Poland. Negotiations on the transfer of part of the property and weapons seized by the Poles to Wrangel's army also did not lead to any results due to the refusal of the leadership of the white movement to recognize the independence of Poland. All this led to a gradual cooling and cessation of support by many countries of the white movement and anti-Bolshevik forces in general, and subsequently to the international recognition of the Soviet Union.
At the height of the Soviet-Polish war, Baron P. N. Wrangel. With the help of harsh measures, including public executions of demoralized soldiers and officers, the general turned the scattered Denikin divisions into a disciplined and efficient army. After the start of the Soviet-Polish war, the Russian Army (formerly the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia), which had recovered from an unsuccessful attack on Moscow, set out from the Crimea and occupied Northern Tavria by mid-June. Military operations on the territory of the Tauride region can be classified by military historians as examples of brilliant military art. But soon the resources of the Crimea were practically exhausted. In the supply of weapons and ammunition, Wrangel was forced to rely only on France, since England stopped helping the whites in 1919. On August 14, 1920, an assault force (4, 5 thousand bayonets and sabers) was landed from the Crimea in the Kuban under the leadership of General S. G. Ulagai, in order to unite with numerous rebels and open a second front against the Bolsheviks. But the initial successes of the landing, when the Cossacks, having defeated the red units thrown against them, had already reached the approaches to Yekaterinodar, could not be developed due to the mistakes of Ulagai, who, contrary to the original plan of a rapid attack on the capital of the Kuban, stopped the offensive and began to regroup the troops. This allowed the Reds to pull up reserves, create a numerical advantage and block parts of the Ulagai. The Cossacks fought back to the coast of the Sea of Azov, to Achuev, from where they were evacuated on September 7 to the Crimea, taking with them 10 thousand insurgents who joined them. The few landings landed on Taman and in the Abrau-Dyurso area to divert the forces of the Red Army from the main Ulagayev landing, after stubborn battles, were also taken back to the Crimea. Fostikov's 15,000-strong partisan army operating in the Armavir-Maikop area could not break through to help the landing party. In July-August, the main forces of the Wrangelites fought successful defensive battles in Northern Tavria. After the failure of the landing on the Kuban, realizing that the army blocked in the Crimea was doomed, Wrangel decided to break the encirclement and break through to meet the advancing Polish army.
But before transferring the hostilities to the right bank of the Dnieper, Wrangel threw parts of his Russian army into the Donbass in order to defeat the Red Army units operating there and prevent them from hitting the rear of the main forces of the White Army that were preparing to attack on the Right Bank, with which they successfully coped … On October 3, the White offensive began on the Right Bank. But the initial success could not be developed and on October 15 the Wrangelites withdrew to the left bank of the Dnieper. Meanwhile, the Poles, contrary to the promises given to Wrangel, on October 12, 1920, concluded an armistice with the Bolsheviks, who immediately began to transfer troops from the Polish front against the White Army. On October 28, units of the Southern Front of the Reds under the command of M. V. Frunze launched a counteroffensive, with the aim of encircling and defeating the Russian army of General Wrangel in Northern Tavria, not allowing it to retreat to the Crimea. But the planned encirclement failed. The main part of Wrangel's army withdrew to the Crimea by November 3, where it entrenched itself on the prepared defense lines. MV Frunze, concentrating about 190 thousand fighters against 41 thousand bayonets and sabers at Wrangel, on November 7 began the assault on the Crimea. Frunze wrote an appeal to General Wrangel, which was broadcast by the front's radio station. After the text of the radio telegram was reported to Wrangel, he ordered the closure of all radio stations, except for one, served by officers, in order to prevent the troops from getting acquainted with Frunze's appeal. No response was sent.
Rice. 4 Komfronta M. V. Frunze
Despite the significant superiority in manpower and weapons, the red troops for several days could not break the defense of the defenders of the Crimea. On the night of November 10, a machine-gun regiment on carts and a cavalry brigade of the rebel army of Makhno, under the command of Karetnik, crossed the Sivash along the bottom. They were counterattacked near Yushunya and Karpovaya Balka by the cavalry corps of General Barbovich. Against Barbovich's cavalry corps (4590 sabers, 150 machine guns, 30 cannons, 5 armored cars) the Makhnovists used their favorite tactical technique of "false oncoming cavalry attack." The cartwright placed Kozhin's machine-gun regiment on carts in the battle line right behind the cavalry lava and led the lava into an oncoming battle. But when there were 400-500 meters to the white horse lava, the Makhnovsk lava spread to the sides of the flanks, the carts quickly turned around on the move and right from them the machine gunners opened heavy fire from close range at the attacking enemy, who had nowhere to go. The fire was carried out with the highest tension, creating a density of fire of up to 60 bullets per linear meter of the front per minute. Makhnov's cavalry at this time went out to the enemy's flank and completed his defeat with melee weapons. The machine-gun regiment of the Makhnovists, which was a mobile reserve of the brigade, in one battle completely destroyed almost all the cavalry of the Wrangel army, which decided the result of the entire battle. Having defeated Barbovich's cavalry corps, the Makhnovists and Red Cossacks of Mironov's 2nd Cavalry Army went to the rear of Wrangel's troops defending the Isthmus of Perekop, which contributed to the success of the entire Crimean operation. The white defense was broken and the Red Army broke into the Crimea. On November 12, Dzhankoy was captured by the Reds, on November 13 - Simferopol, on November 15 - Sevastopol, on November 16 - Kerch.
Rice. 5 Liberation of Crimea from whites
After the seizure of Crimea by the Bolsheviks, mass executions of the civilian and military population began on the peninsula. The evacuation of the Russian army and civilians also began. For three days, troops, families of officers, part of the civilian population from the Crimean ports of Sevastopol, Yalta, Feodosia and Kerch were loaded onto 126 ships. On November 14-16, 1920, an armada of ships flying the St. Andrew's flag left the coast of the Crimea, taking white regiments and tens of thousands of civilian refugees to a foreign land. The total number of voluntary exiles was 150 thousand people. Leaving on an impromptu "armada" into the open sea and becoming inaccessible to the Reds, the commander of the armada sent a telegram addressed to "everyone … everyone … everyone …" with a statement of the situation and a request for help.
Rice. 6 Running
France responded to the call for help, its government agreed to accept the army as emigrants for its maintenance. Having received consent, the fleet moved towards Constantinople, then a corps of volunteers was sent to the Gallipoli peninsula (then it was the territory of Greece), and the Cossack units, after some stay in the Chataldja camp, were sent to the island of Lemnos, one of the islands of the Ionian archipelago. After a year's stay of the Cossacks in the camps, an agreement was reached with the Slavic Balkan countries on the deployment of military units and emigration in these countries, with a financial guarantee for their food, but without the right to free deployment in the country. In the difficult conditions of the camp emigration, epidemics and famine were frequent, and many of the Cossacks who left their homeland died. But this stage became the base from which the placement of emigrants in other countries began, as it opened up opportunities to enter European countries to work on a contract basis in groups or individuals, with permission to look for work on the spot, depending on professional training and personal abilities. About 30 thousand Cossacks once again believed the promises of the Bolsheviks and returned to Soviet Russia in 1922-1925. They were later repressed. So for many years the white Russian army became for the whole world the vanguard and an example of an irreconcilable struggle against communism, and the Russian emigration began to serve as a reproach and moral antidote to this threat for all countries.
With the fall of the White Crimea, the organized resistance of the Bolsheviks in the European part of Russia was terminated. But the agenda for the red "dictatorship of the proletariat" sharply raised the issue of combating peasant uprisings that swept the whole of Russia and directed against this power. Peasant uprisings, which did not stop since 1918, by the beginning of 1921 developed into real peasant wars, which was facilitated by the demobilization of the Red Army, as a result of which millions of men who were familiar with military affairs came from the army. These uprisings covered the Tambov region, Ukraine, Don, Kuban, the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia. The peasants demanded, above all, changes in tax and agrarian policies. Regular units of the Red Army with artillery, armored vehicles and aircraft were sent to suppress these uprisings. In February 1921, strikes and protest rallies of workers with political and economic demands also began in Petrograd. The Petrograd Committee of the RCP (b) qualified the unrest in the factories and factories of the city as a mutiny and introduced martial law in the city, arresting the workers' activists. But discontent spread to the military. The Baltic Fleet and Kronstadt were worried, once, as Lenin called them in 1917, "the beauty and pride of the revolution." However, the then “beauty and pride of the revolution” had long since either become disillusioned with the revolution, or perished on the fronts of the civil war, or together with another, dark and curly “beauty and pride of the revolution” from Little Russian and Belarusian townships implanted the “dictatorship of the proletariat” in a peasant country … And now the garrison of Kronstadt consisted of the same mobilized peasants whom the "beauty and pride of the revolution" made happy with a new life.
Rice. 7 Beauty and pride of the revolution in the countryside
On March 1, 1921, sailors and Red Army men of the Kronstadt fortress (garrison of 26 thousand people) under the slogan "For Soviets without Communists!" passed a resolution to support the workers of Petrograd, created a revolutionary committee and addressed the country with an appeal. Since in it, and in the mildest form, almost all the then people's demands were formulated, it makes sense to cite it in full:
“Comrades and citizens!
Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, economic devastation have kept us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, ruling the country, broke away from the masses and was unable to bring it out of the state of general ruin. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently taken place in Petrograd and Moscow and which clearly enough indicated that the party had lost the confidence of the masses of the workers. Neither did it take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them to be the intrigues of the counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of the entire people, of all working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army men clearly at the present moment see that only by common efforts, by the common will of the working people, it is possible to give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the barefoot and undressed and lead the republic out of the impasse …
1. Since the present Soviets no longer reflect the will of the workers and peasants, immediately hold new, secret elections and, for the election campaign, grant complete freedom of agitation among the workers and soldiers;
2. Grant freedom of speech and press to workers and peasants, as well as to all anarchist and left-socialist parties;
3. Guarantee freedom of assembly and coalition for all trade unions and peasant organizations;
4. Convene a supra-party conference of workers, Red Army men and sailors of St. Petersburg, Kronstadt and St. Petersburg province, which should take place, at the latest, on March 10, 1921;
5. Release all political prisoners belonging to the socialist parties and release from prison all workers, peasants and sailors who were arrested in connection with workers 'and peasants' unrest;
6. To check the cases of other prisoners in prisons and concentration camps, elect an audit commission;
7. Eliminate all political departments, since no party has the right to claim special privileges to spread its ideas or financial assistance for this from the government; instead, establish cultural and educational commissions to be elected locally and funded by the government;
8. Immediately disband all barrage detachments;
9. Establish equal amounts of food ration for all workers, with the exception of those whose work is especially dangerous from a medical point of view;
10. Eliminate special communist departments in all formations of the Red Army and communist guard groups at enterprises and replace them, where necessary, with units that will have to be allocated by the army itself, and at enterprises - formed by the workers themselves;
11. Provide peasants with complete freedom to dispose of their land, as well as the right to have their own livestock, provided that they manage by their own means, that is, without hiring labor;
12. To ask all soldiers, sailors and cadets to support our demands;
13. Ensure that these solutions are disseminated in print;
14. Appoint a traveling control commission;
15. To allow freedom of handicraft production, if it is not based on the exploitation of someone else's labor."
Convinced of the impossibility of reaching an agreement with the sailors, the authorities began to prepare to suppress the uprising. On March 5, the 7th Army was restored under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was ordered "to suppress the uprising in Kronstadt as soon as possible." On March 7, artillery began shelling Kronstadt. The leader of the uprising S. Petrichenko later wrote: "Standing up to his waist in the blood of workers, the bloody Field Marshal Trotsky was the first to open fire on the revolutionary Kronstadt, which had rebelled against the rule of the Communists to restore the true power of the Soviets." On March 8, 1921, on the day of the opening of the X Congress of the RCP (b), units of the Red Army went to the assault on Kronstadt. But the assault was repulsed, the punitive troops, having suffered heavy losses, retreated to their original lines. Sharing the demands of the insurgents, many Red Army men and army units refused to participate in the suppression of the uprising. Mass shootings began. For the second assault, the most loyal units were drawn to Kronstadt, even the delegates of the party congress were thrown into battle. On the night of March 16, after an intensive shelling of the fortress, a new assault began. Thanks to the tactics of shooting the retreating barrage detachments and the advantage in forces and means, Tukhachevsky's troops broke into the fortress, fierce street battles began, and only by the morning of March 18, the resistance in Kronstadt was broken. Some of the defenders of the fortress died in battle, the other went to Finland (8 thousand), the rest surrendered (of them, 2103 people were shot according to the verdicts of the revolutionary tribunals). But the sacrifices were not in vain. This uprising was the last straw that overflowed the cup of the people's patience, and made a colossal impression on the Bolsheviks. On March 14, 1921, the X Congress of the RCP (b) adopted a new economic policy "NEP", which replaced the "war communism" policy pursued during the civil war.
By 1921, Russia was literally in ruins. The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Kara region (in Armenia) and Bessarabia departed from the former Russian Empire. The population in the remaining territories did not reach 135 million. Since 1914, losses in these territories as a result of wars, epidemics, emigration, and a decline in the birth rate amounted to at least 25 million people. During the hostilities, the mining enterprises of the Donetsk coal basin, the Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were particularly affected, many mines and mines were destroyed. Due to the lack of fuel and raw materials, factories were stopped. The workers were forced to leave the cities and go to the countryside. The overall level of industry has decreased by more than 6 times. The equipment has not been updated for a long time. Metallurgy produced as much metal as it was smelted under Peter I. Agricultural production fell by 40%. During the civil war, from hunger, disease, terror and in battles (according to various sources) from 8 to 13 million people died. Erlikhman V. V. cites the following data: in total, about 2.5 million people were killed and died of wounds, including 0.95 million soldiers of the Red Army; 0, 65 million soldiers of the white and national armies; 0.9 million rebels of different colors. About 2.5 million people died as a result of the terror. About 6 million people died of hunger and epidemics. In total, about 10, 5 million people died.
Up to 2 million people emigrated from the country. The number of street children has increased dramatically. According to various sources, in 1921-1922 in Russia there were from 4.5 to 7 million street children. The damage to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production in various sectors fell to 4-20% of the 1913 level. As a result of the civil war, the Russian people remained under communist rule. The result of the domination of the Bolsheviks was the outbreak of an apocalyptic general famine, which covered Russia with millions of corpses. To avoid further hunger and general devastation, the communists did not have any methods in the arsenal, and their brilliant leader, Ulyanov, decided to introduce a new economic program under the name of NEP, to destroy the foundations of which he had taken up to now all imaginable and inconceivable measures. As early as November 19, 1919, in his speech, he said: "Far from all the peasants understand that free trade in grain is a crime against the state: I have produced bread; this is my product, and I have the right to trade it: this is how the peasant thinks, out of habit, according to the old fashioned way. And we say that this is a crime against the state. " Now, not only was the free trade in grain introduced, but also for everything else. Moreover, private property was restored, private enterprises were returned to their own enterprises, and private initiative and hired labor were allowed. These measures satisfied the bulk of the country's population, primarily the peasantry. After all, 85% of the country's population were small owners, primarily peasants, and the workers were - funny to say, a little more than 1% of the population. In 1921, the population of Soviet Russia in the then limits was 134, 2 million, and industrial workers were 1 million 400 thousand. The NEP was a 180 degree turn. Such a reset was not to the liking and beyond the strength of many Bolsheviks. Even their brilliant leader, who possessed a titanic mind and will, who survived in his political biography dozens of incredible metamorphoses and turns based on his reckless dialectics and naked, practically unprincipled, pragmatism, could not stand such an ideological somersault and soon lost his mind. And how many of his comrades-in-arms from the change of course went crazy or committed suicide, history is silent about this. Discontent was ripening in the party, the political leadership responded with massive party purges.
Rice. 8 Lenin before his death
With the introduction of the NEP, the country quickly revived, and life in all respects began to revive in the country. The civil war, having lost its economic causes and mass social base, quickly began to end. And then it's time to ask questions: What did you fight for? What have you achieved? What have you won? In the name of what did they destroy the country and sacrifice millions of lives of representatives of its people? After all, they returned practically to the starting points of being and worldview, from which the civil war began. The Bolsheviks and their followers do not like to answer these questions.
The answer to the question of who is responsible for unleashing a civil war in Russia does not depend on the facts, but depends on the political orientation of the people. Among the followers of the Reds, the Whites naturally started the war, and among the followers of the Whites, naturally the Bolsheviks. They do not argue much only about the places and dates of its beginning, as well as about the time and place of its end. It ended in March 1921 at the X Congress of the RCP (b) with the introduction of the NEP, i.e. with the abolition of the policy of "war communism". And no matter how cunning and cunning the communists are, this circumstance automatically gives the correct answer to the question posed. It was the irresponsible introduction of the class chimeras of Bolshevism into the life and everyday life of the peasant country that became the main reason for the civil war, and the abolition of these chimeras became the signal for its end. It also automatically resolves the issue of responsibility for all its consequences. Although history does not accept the subjunctive mood, the entire course and especially the ending of the war speaks for the fact that if the Bolsheviks did not break people's life through the knee, then there would not have been such a bloody war. The defeat of Dutov and Kaledin at the beginning of 1918 speaks volumes about this. The Cossacks then answered their chieftains clearly and concretely: “The Bolsheviks did nothing wrong to us. Why are we going to fight them? " But everything changed dramatically after just a few months of the actual stay of the Bolsheviks in power, and in response, mass uprisings began. Throughout its history, humanity has unleashed many senseless wars. Among them, civil wars are often not only the most senseless, but also the most brutal and merciless. But even in this series of transcendent human idiocy, the civil war in Russia is phenomenal. It ended after the restoration of the political and economic conditions of management, due to the abolition of which, in fact, it began. The bloody circle of reckless voluntarism has closed. So what were you fighting for? And who won?
The war was over, but it was necessary to solve the problem of the deceived heroes of the civil war. There were many of them, for several years, on foot and on horseback, they were seeking a bright future for themselves, promised by commissars of all ranks and all nationalities, and now they demanded, if not communism, then at least a bearable life for themselves and their loved ones, the satisfaction of their most minimal requests. The heroes of the Civil War occupied a significant and important place on the historical stage of the 1920s, and it was more difficult to cope with them than with a passive, intimidated people. But they did their job, and it was time for them to leave the historical scene, leaving it to other actors. The heroes were gradually declared oppositionists, deviators, enemies of the party or the people, and were doomed to destruction. For this, new cadres were found, more obedient and loyal to the regime. The strategic goal of the leaders of communism was the world revolution and the destruction of the existing world order. Having seized the power and means of the Great Country, having a favorable international situation as a result of the World War, they turned out to be incapable of achieving their goals and were unable to successfully demonstrate their activities outside of Russia. The most encouraging success of the Reds was the advancement of their army to the line of the Vistula River. But after the crushing defeat and "obscene peace" with Poland, their claims for a world revolution and advancement into the depths of Europe before the Second World War were limited.
The revolution cost dearly to the Cossacks. In the course of a cruel, fratricidal war, the Cossacks suffered enormous losses: human, material, spiritual and moral. Only on the Don, where by January 1, 1917, 4,428,846 people of different classes lived, as of January 1, 1921, 2,252,973 people remained. In fact, every second was "cut". Of course, not all were literally "cut out", many simply left their native Cossack regions, fleeing the terror and arbitrariness of local commissars and komyachek. The same picture was in all other territories of the Cossack Troops. In February 1920, the 1st All-Russian Congress of Labor Cossacks took place. He adopted a resolution to abolish the Cossacks as a special class. Cossack ranks and titles were eliminated, awards and distinctions were abolished. Individual Cossack troops were eliminated and the Cossacks merged with the entire people of Russia. In the resolution “On the construction of Soviet power in the Cossack regions”, the congress “recognized the existence of separate Cossack authorities (military executive committees) as inexpedient”, provided for by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of June 1, 1918. In accordance with this decision, the Cossack villages and farms from now on were part of the provinces on the territory of which they were located. The Cossacks of Russia suffered a severe defeat. In a few years, the Cossack villages will be renamed into volosts and the very word “Cossack” will begin to disappear from everyday life. Only in the Don and the Kuban were Cossack traditions and orders still prevalent, and dashing and loose, sad and sincere Cossack songs were sung.
It seemed that the Bolshevik-style decossackization had taken place abruptly, finally and irrevocably, and the Cossacks would never be able to forgive this. But, despite all the atrocities, the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks, during the Great Patriotic War, resisted their patriotic positions and took part in the war on the side of the Red Army in a hard time. Only a few Cossacks betrayed their homeland and took the side of Germany. The Nazis declared these traitors to be the descendants of the Ostrogoths. But that's a completely different story.
