Who knows about the Ossetian war? And about the Karabakh war? Everything? And how was the First Chechen war lost, and how was the second won? I'm talking about those that happened in 1920. Do you want to know how the war in Donbass and Ukraine will end? Then you need to study very well the history of the first civil war in Russia, which, like two drops of water, repeats the current situation.
The first civil war in Russia was so similar to modern times that many are trying to forget it today. Forget that inconvenient analogies, comparisons are not made, and that far-reaching conclusions are not made on the basis of them. Each of the participants and movements of the multi-tribal nationalists, Bolsheviks, White Guards and interventionists in that first Civil War have their own prototypes today. And the problematic of the war was similar to the current one. The same problems give rise to the same solutions, which have already been found once.
What destroyed the Russian Empire
There were many reasons why the 300-year-old Romanov empire fell, and it makes no sense to dwell on them in detail in this article. Because, in fact, its foreign "partners" split it according to one criterion - national. Everything else was just a background and part of the search within Russia for the path along which to go further.
To be convinced of this, it is enough to look at the political map of 1918. Poland, as a result of the German occupation, actually fell out of the empire, and in its depths forces were prepared, ready to begin to restore the Rzeczpospolita "From sea to sea". Finland quickly went on a free voyage, at the same time destroying the "Russian occupiers" where they dared to linger out of sluggishness. In Ukraine (about which in more detail below), following the impotent Central Rada, Germany brought Hetman Skoropadsky to power. At the same time, the Belarusian People's Republic was proclaimed, but the Kaiser also did not need its services, and therefore it could not fully prove itself. The Baltic states, as in the early 1990s, quietly isolated themselves and began to eradicate the remnants of the "totalitarian past" on their territory. Transcaucasia immediately plunged into a series of internecine wars (Azerbaijanis and Armenians habitually slaughtered each other in Karabakh during their independence) from which there was no way out. And the Georgians tried to solve the Abkhaz and Ossetian problems, which they faced immediately after the coordination of territorial issues in the south. In the open spaces of the recently annexed Central Asia, with the help of "British comrades", "independent" emirs raised their heads, who did not want any republics, but simply wanted an independent government from anyone.
All this happened before General Denikin or Admiral Kolchak appeared on the political arena, and even before the Czechoslovak corps raised its famous uprising.
The role of Kiev in the Civil War
Kiev was the third most important city in the empire. It was from here that "Christianity" originated, it was the Kiev princes who first united Russia, and by the beginning of the 20th century, the city had grown into a fairly large industrial and commercial center. And besides, it was around Kiev that the most powerful national "minority" of the Russian Empire, which declared its independence, was created. 30 million Ukrainians - that's how it was written then.
Yes, I was not mistaken. For some reason, it is generally accepted in Russia that in 1918 in Ukraine everyone considered themselves Little Russians or Russians, and only stupid Bolsheviks deliberately created this "problem" - the Ukrainians - on their own heads. Here is the census of the inhabitants of Kiev for March 1919, where the population itself determined who they were and who they felt:
If anything, everything is taken from here.
As we understand, the main "preaching" on education of Ukrainians took place much earlier: in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An indirect confirmation of this is the belated and ineffective actions of the central government to limit the spread of such a phenomenon as “Ukrainian nationalism” (it is clear that it was called differently then).
The first such documents appeared in the 1870s. That is, before the UPR was still 40 years old. At the same time, it is noteworthy that only a negligible part of the inhabitants of Kiev in 1919 (less than 10%) owned Ukrainian grammar (ibid.). And that the Bolsheviks - they just took the lead in the process (good or bad in this case does not matter). It is important to note that the nationalization of Ukraine began long before the fall of tsarism and that the Central Rada and the attempt to oppose Ukraine and Russia had a rather prepared ground for several decades.
At the same time, one can say with 100% right to say that in 1919 Kiev was for the most part a Russian city.
It was he who, according to the plan of Germany, was to become "Anti-Russia". Rather, the center of pro-German Russia, which is no longer important what it is called: Kievan Rus, Ukraine or the Hetmanate of Skoropadsky. The main thing is that the idea of combining these two parts never again arises. Therefore, they did not spare their efforts and resources for the accelerated consciousness of the Ukrainian nation and the search for points of separation of society.
Moreover, in Great Russia itself, then the affairs with the national question were unimportant. It threatened to disintegrate into several warring states with (just don't laugh) different nationalities: Cossacks, Siberians, Vyatichi, Kuryans, Permians, etc.
Great Russia or Russia
Strange formulation of the question? This is today, but if we understand the terms and find out what was meant by them 100 years ago, then we will again see the modern problem of Russia.
"With Germany or with Russia" - here is a little-known geopolitical sketch of the situation in mid-1918, published in Petrograd, in which the author pays much attention not only to the split of the empire and the separation of the "national borderlands" from it, but also talks about the "intra-national" split in Great Russia.
Moreover, the author deliberately opposes the concept of Great Russia and Russia, implying completely different concepts.
Translated into modern concepts, he has these synonyms of the Russian Federation (Great Russia) and a certain Union of Nations (Russia).
So, Siberians, Permians, Vyatichi, Kurians. The question of Don, Kuban and Crimea in the work of a contemporary V. I. Lenin was generally put on the basis of their "national" autonomy. This is how Russia lived then. Internal disorganization of political life and at the same time not a word about the white movement, which was just being created underground. Perhaps to some citizens, the war that would break out in just a few months seemed then also impossible, just like the war in Donbass for the inhabitants of Ukraine back in December 2013. The political thought of Russia lived with problems of how to live on with those countries that had already been formed: Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland. Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan (I give their modern names for better understanding). Their existence has already become a fact, and the likelihood of their absorption back (as it seemed at that time) tends to zero.
I repeat, at that moment, what is interesting. Until the German offensive on the Marne was repelled in July 1918, it was believed that by the end of the year Germany would crush the allies and impose a peace that would be beneficial to them. No wonder the French themselves then called their victory "a miracle on the Marne."
The very end of the book is also noteworthy, where the author gives his assessment of the processes taking place at that time:
“And if it was a historical crime of Russian social forces that they could not put a limit to oppression by the authorities in the old days, then it will be an absolutely irreparable disaster if these forces are currently in the net, or, even worse, if they take the path of betrayal small nations, on the path of saving Great Russia alone, at the cost of betrayal of the cause of Russia, on the path of "Great Russian separatism", alas, no less real and effective than the separatism of the outlying peoples."
Sound familiar? Is not it?
By the way, the independence of Chechnya was proclaimed during the years of the civil war. At first it was the North Caucasian Emirate, headed by the Emir-Imam Sheikh Uzun-Khadzhi. And then there was an uprising of the highlanders led by Seid-sheikh (a descendant of Shamil). Everything is as it should be, with the extermination of all Russians who did not run away, and clumsy attempts to pacify - in December 1920. An army of 9 thousand soldiers of the Red Army was thrown to suppress the rebels, who were stopped everywhere and thrown back with the loss of only killed and only in the last month of that fateful year 1372 people. And then it began: in 1922, the population of the region was allocated 110, 5 thousand poods of grain, 150 thousand poods of oil. 1 billion rubles was allocated for the restoration of the economy. Doesn't it look like anything? And the inclusion of the most influential imams in the revolutionary committees and executive committees in 1924? All this became the reason that by the end of 1925 the war in Chechnya was over.
So the picture of correspondences, the further - the more complete. There will be more further.
European Union and Central Europe
And what is this "Middle Europe", so often mentioned in the book, but unknown to us from history?
As we understand, at that time, without the existence of the Eurocentric idea, no split in the Russian Empire was possible. Only the creation of a powerful pole of gravity in the West could give the nationalists enough strength to resist the old imperial center. And such a center at the end of 1917 became Kaiser's Germany, in the depths of which in 1915 the idea of "Middle Europe" was born.
This concept, undeservedly forgotten today, has become the basis of the worldview of German politicians from Kaiser Wilhelm to Adolf Hitler (a man whose propaganda of ideas is prohibited in the Russian Federation).
That is why so often in the book of 1918 (link above) we read about "Middle Europe". Then it was not just a trend. At that time, it was considered only a matter of time to create it. The authors of the concept believed that for the common good it was only necessary to find a place for all the peoples of Europe in this formation and under the leadership of Germany (Chapter “German Orientation and“Middle Europe”).
After the collapse of Kaiser's Germany, this concept was fundamentally developed and developed in his writings by the outstanding German geopolitician Karl Haushofer (1869-1946). It was he who introduced such a concept, the Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo axis and opposing it in the form of a "Great Land" to the "Great Islands" represented by Britain and the United States. All European countries were supposed to join this union, except for Britain and, possibly, Scandinavia, and its basis was to be: "Middle Europe", "Heartland" (Eurasia) and the Japanese Empire, which at that time was considered a full-fledged master in the Far East … The new alliance of equal three centers of power was to become the basis of an invincible world order. But he did not, because the "Great Islands" were quicker.
By the way, the author of this theory did not like the Fuhrer Adolf very much and considered him an uneducated upstart who led Germany in the wrong direction. His son was shot in the case of an attempt on Hitler's life, and he himself was in a concentration camp until the end of the war.
Meanwhile, without Great Britain the idea of the EU has degenerated into the concept of "Middle Europe". How modern and interesting it is.
Two stages of the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War.
Suppression of internal Russian separatism and creation of a unifying idea.
If we consider the history of the Civil War of 1917-21, then we will encounter some discrepancies with its official assessment.
We will see a bloody clash between supporters of the Reds and Whites on the territory of modern Russia and those territories that themselves got into this confrontation: the Cossack territories of Asia and southern Russia, Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Republic, Crimea, Tavria.
It was generally completed by the beginning of 1920, and only Crimea was taken a little later.
Having defeated the internal opposition and having gotten stronger, the government of the RSFSR embarked on the second stage of the civil war: the return of the "borderlands" that had disappeared during this new Russian turmoil. There the war took a completely different turn: a hybrid - a combination of diplomacy, agitation and targeted strikes.
An example of such operations can be called the landing of the Red Army in Baku (1920) to help the "rebellious Azerbaijani people". The coming to power in Armenia of a revolutionary government in December 1920, and in Georgia the analogies were simply ridiculously similar to the recent history of the post-Soviet space:
Already on May 28, 1918, Georgia and Germany signed an agreement according to which the three thousandth expeditionary force under the command of Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein was transferred by sea from the Crimea to the Georgian port of Poti; it was subsequently reinforced by German troops transferred here from Ukraine and from Syria, as well as by liberated German prisoners of war and mobilized German colonists. The combined German-Georgian garrisons were deployed in various parts of Georgia; military assistance to Germany made it possible in June 1918 to eliminate the threat from the Russian Bolsheviks, who proclaimed Soviet power in Abkhazia.
You can read about the analogies of the century-old South Ossetian conflict here. Wikipedia
Now it is clear from what the Russian army saved the Ossetians in 2008? It all ended with the lightning-fast campaign of the Red Army in February 1921 to Tiflis and the establishment of Soviet power there.
Remind me of nothing? If that were all, I would not write this article.
From a completely different angle, I propose to consider the seemingly well-studied Soviet-Polish war of 1919-21.
To begin with, the composition of the participants. "For Poland" fought: the Polish Republic, the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Belarusian People's Republic, the Republic of Latvia with their full military-technical support from the governments of the Entente.
Regarding the BPR, you can simply read the mass of available materials and see how similar these two sisters (Belarus and Ukraine) were then. The creation of something similar in the 1990s was prevented by the "last dictator of Europe" Alexander Lukashenko. That is why, unlike Ukraine, there was no merger in a single ecstasy of the “BNR governments in exile” and the “democratic government” in Minsk.
The creation of an independent Ukraine under a German protectorate in 1918 and a center of German influence on its basis on the western borders of Russia did not work out. The power of the Rada, and then the hetman, fell along with the German power and the Ukrainian "statehood" fell into complete insanity.
Only the creation of a new center of forces in Warsaw and the defeat of the Galicians of the ZUNR by the army of Pilsudski, by the beginning of 1919, allowed the Entente countries to think about creating a new belt of independent states against the still weak Russia, the main goals of which were the war with the RSFSR or the Whites.
Whoever won, this belt would be hostile to the new Russia, so it was valuable.
The main striking force against Russia was to be Poland and the junior allies who had come under her hand: Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia. Lithuania, for obvious reasons, could not be such. We again saw the familiar picture of confrontation, where the role of cannon fodder is now assigned to Ukraine by the West.
Perhaps because in Poland they understand this well, they so zealously support the nationalist Ukraine. They understand that if the regime in Kiev falls, then they will have to become the "shield of Europe" against Russia - with all the ensuing consequences.
The campaign of the Red Army to Warsaw in 1920 failed and finally all the issues of the civil war were removed only in 1939-40, when Soviet units were greeted with flowers in Tallinn, Riga, Vilna and even Lvov.
This is a historical fact, and the enthusiasm of the local population in this regard was not disputed by anyone at that time. Then there was the SS Galicia division and many similar units in the Baltic States, but this is another story, which has not logically ended yet.
Precisely implying the complexity of solving the national problems that have arisen in Ukraine and Belarus, Transcaucasia and Central Asia, as well as the completely unresolved problem as a result of the civil war, forced the government in Moscow to give the green light to the creation of the USSR as a union of republics, and not autonomies within the RSFSR …
With regard to the Ukrainian SSR, it will be interesting to consider the example of the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Republic. In order to strengthen the influence of an element alien to Ukrainian nationalism throughout the territory of Ukraine, at the "proposal" of the head of the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Defense of the RSFSR V. I. Lenin in February 1919, it included (without the consent of the population and with some opposition from the local authorities) the territory of the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Republic. And the capital of the Ukrainian SSR until 1932 was in Kharkov - in the city where the Soviet (pro-Russian) Ukraine, alternative to the nationalist, was proclaimed.
An interesting way to resolve the "Donetsk-Ukrainian" conflict? Moreover, 100 years ago, it was solved that way.
That's all. It's time to start drawing conclusions.
Conclusions. Will we never be brothers?
As we saw in the mass of examples above, the scenario of the Civil War in Russia in 1917-… is remarkably similar to the scenario of today's confrontation (1991-…). The same painful nodal points and the same problems. Coincidences are sometimes just down to the smallest detail. And when some very “patriotic” citizens on both front lines really want to read again and again the poem by Anastasia Dmitruk “We will never be brothers”, I want to ask them: “What do you understand in civil wars and how well you do you know your story?"
