The three colors of the Civil War are white in the Civil War. The Green Movement during the Civil War

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Line UMK I. L. Andreeva, O. V. Volobueva. History (6-10)

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Documents on the activities of the Whites, Reds and Greens.

"White"

Documentation:

What are you fighting for and why did we take up arms?

You are fighting for the commissar state, for the deceitful power of the Apfelbaums (Zinoviev), Bronsteins (Trotsky), Rosenfelds (Kamenev), Nakhamkes (Steklovs), Kalinins, Petersons, who do not care about our Motherland and only want its shame.

We are fighting for the Constituent Assembly, for the popular and free choice of people who love the Motherland, who have one thought and one heart with the people... You are planting communes that enable lazy people, parasites to enjoy the fruits of working hands.

We defend property rights. Everyone has the right to what legally belongs to him, everyone has the right to acquire through honest labor what he lacks. Everyone has the right to freely dispose of what he has obtained through his labors...

You are embroiled in an endless war with the whole world. The Trotskys and Zinovievs want to drown the whole earth in... blood. They set workers against peasants, peasants against workers. Sons against fathers and fathers against sons.

We bring peace to Russian land. Immediately after the overthrow of the Bolshevik government, soaked in the blood of the Russian people, freedom of peaceful labor must be restored. Our fields have already been stained with Russian blood for quite some time due to the fault of rogues who do not have their own Fatherland. Let all the blood they shed fall on their heads. It’s time for you, Russian man, to take up your gun for the last time and overthrow the yoke of the Red executioners, and finally return to home and peaceful work. Bread is with us, peace is with us, and the owner of the Russian land is the Constituent Assembly.

White Army Headquarters

Address by the commander of the people's militia Antonov

The hour of our liberation has struck. The moment has come for deliverance from the red autocrats, who settled like a robber nightingale in white-stone Moscow, who desecrated our shrines, our icons with holy relics, who shed a sea of ​​innocent blood of our fathers and brothers, who turned our strong and rich state into an impassable desert. Here is my order for you: Regardless of any obstacles, immediately embark on a campaign to unite with my militia. The Fatherland is in danger, it calls for heroism. So, follow me to the rescue of Moscow! God and people are with us! Come to me, in Tambov!

Land Law P.N. Wrangel

The previous owners may retain part of their land, but the size of this part in each individual case is determined locally by local land institutions...

All lands transferred to the owners are assigned to them by deeds and become the eternal, hereditary property of each owner. The land is not alienated for nothing, but for payment to the State of its value. Such a transfer of land ensures its transfer to real, lasting owners, and not to any person greedy for free gifts and a stranger to the land. The price per tithe of land is determined by five times the cost of the average annual harvest per tithe. Payment for the land is spread over 25 years and, therefore, each owner will have to contribute annually one fifth of the harvest or pay its cost. Payment to the State can be made either in bread or in money, at the request of the payer.

Declaration of A.V. Kolchak on the agrarian question

April 8, 1919 ...At the same time, the Government will take measures to ensure landless peasants and land-poor peasants in the future, taking advantage, first of all, of privately owned and state-owned land, which has already become the actual possession of the peasants. Lands that were cultivated exclusively or predominantly by the families of land owners, farmers, Otrubentsy, Utrentsy, are subject to return to their rightful owners.

The measures taken are aimed at satisfying the urgent needs of the working population of the village. In its final form, the age-old land issue will be resolved by the National Assembly... and other sources.

General foundations of the political program of General L.G. Kornilov. January 1918

I. Restoration of citizenship rights:

All citizens are equal before the law without distinction of gender or nationality;

Abolition of class privileges;

Preservation of the inviolability of person and home;

Freedom of movement, residence, etc.

II. Full restoration of freedom of speech and press.

III. Restoring freedom of industry and trade, canceling the nationalization of private financial enterprises.

IV. Restoration of property rights.

V. Restoration of the Russian army on the basis of genuine military discipline. The army should be formed on a volunteer basis without committees, commissioners or elected positions.

VI. Full implementation of all allied obligations of international treaties accepted by Russia. The war must be brought to an end in close unity with our allies. Peace must be concluded as a general and honorable peace on democratic principles, that is, with the right to self-determination of enslaved peoples.

VII. In Russia, universal, compulsory primary education is being introduced with broad local school autonomy.

VIII. The Constituent Assembly, disrupted by the Bolsheviks, must be convened again. Elections to the Constituent Assembly must be held freely, without any pressure on the will of the people, throughout the country. The personality of people's representatives is sacred and inviolable.

IX. The government created according to the program of General Kornilov is responsible in its actions only to the Constituent Assembly, to which it transfers the fullness of state legislative power. The Constituent Assembly, as the sole owner of the Russian land, must develop the basic laws of the Russian constitution and finally construct the state system.

X. The Church must receive complete autonomy in religious affairs. State guardianship over religious affairs is eliminated. Freedom of religion is fully exercised.

XI. A complex agrarian question is presented to the Constituent Assembly for resolution. Until the latter develops the land question in its final form and publishes the corresponding laws, all kinds of anarchistic actions of citizens are recognized as unacceptable.

XII. All citizens are equal before the court. The death penalty remains in force, but is applied only in cases of the most serious state crimes.

XIII. The workers retain all the political and economic gains of the revolution in the field of labor regulation, freedom of workers' unions, meetings and strikes, with the exception of the forced socialization of enterprises and workers' control, leading to the death of domestic industry.

XIV. General Kornilov recognizes the right of individual nationalities that are part of Russia to broad local autonomy, subject, however, to maintaining state unity. Poland, Ukraine and Finland, formed into separate national-state units, should be widely supported by the Russian government in their aspirations for state revival, in order to further weld together the eternal and indestructible Union of fraternal peoples.

White archive. Collections of materials on the history and literature of war, revolution, Bolshevism, the white movement, etc. / Ed. Ya. M. Lisovsky. - Paris, 1928. - T. II-III. - pp. 130-131.

About the reprisal against the peasants who rebelled against Kolchak. Order of General Maikovsky. September 30, 1919

I. In each village in the region of the uprising (against Kolchak), search in detail; those captured with weapons in their hands, as enemies, are shot on the spot.

II. Arrest, based on testimony from local residents, all agitators, members of the Soviet of Deputies who helped the uprising, deserters, accomplices and concealers, and bring them to court-martial.

III. Send the unreliable and vicious element to the Berezovsky and Nerchen regions, handing them over to the police.

IV. Local authorities who did not provide adequate resistance to the bandits, carried out their orders and did not take all measures to eliminate the Reds with their own means, should be brought before a military court, the punishment increased up to and including the death penalty.

V. Villages that have rebelled again will be liquidated with double severity, up to the destruction of the entire village.

Homeland. - 1990. - No. 10. - P. 61.

We must help the healthy elements. From the materials of the main command of the Entente armies. February 17, 1919

///. Action plan

The restoration of the regime of order in Russia is a purely national matter, which must be carried out by the Russian people themselves.

However: support them by encircling the Bolshevik armies; provide them with our material and moral support.

EnvironmentBolshevism, what began with the north, east and south should be supplemented:

Onsouth- east actions taken from the Caspian Sea region to ensure the effective closure of the two main groupings of national forces (the armies of Denikin - Krasnov and the Ural Army).

Onwest through the restoration of a Poland capable of militarily defending its existence.

Eventually through the occupation of Petrograd and, in any case, through the blockade of the Baltic Sea.

Directsupport, whichshouldprovide Russiannationalforces, consists, among other things, in the supply of necessary material resources, Vcreating a database, where these forces could continue their organization and from where they could then launch their offensive operations.

In this regard, there is a need occupationUkraine.

The actions of the Entente should, therefore, be aimed mainly at the implementation of: the complete encirclement of Bolshevism, the occupation of Ukraine, the organization of Russian forces.

From the history of the civil war in the USSR. - M., 1961. - T. 2. - P. 7-8.

General A.I. Denikin on the land issue. From the official message of the chairman of a special meeting with the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in southern Russia. April 10, 1919

At the direction of A.I. Denikin, the following principles were used as the basis for the development and drafting of regulations and rules:

I. Ensuring the interests of the working population.

II. Creation and strengthening of small and medium-sized farms at the expense of state-owned and privately owned lands.

III. Reservation of the owners of their rights to land. ! At the same time, in each individual locality, the size of the land that can be retained in the hands of the previous owners must be determined, and the procedure for transferring the remaining privately owned land to the land-poor must be established. These transfers can be made through voluntary agreements or through forced alienation, but always for a fee. Land not exceeding the established size is assigned to the new owners as property rights.

IV. Cossack lands, allotment lands, forests, lands of highly productive agricultural enterprises, as well as lands that do not have an agricultural purpose, but constitute a necessary accessory for mining and other industrial enterprises, are not subject to alienation; in the last two cases - in the increased sizes established for each locality.

V. Full assistance to farmers through technical improvements of land (reclamation), agronomic assistance, credit, means of production, supply of seeds, live and dead implements, etc.

Without waiting for the final development of the land situation, measures must now be taken to facilitate the transition of land to land-poor land and to increase the productivity of agricultural labor. At the same time, the authorities must prevent revenge and class enmity, subordinating private interests to the good of the state.

October 1917 and the fate of the political opposition // Reader on the history of social movements and political parties: joint Russian-Belarusian research. - Gomel, 1993. - P. 65.

"Reds"

Documentation:

Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On the transformation of the Soviet republic into a military camp”

Face to face with the imperialist predators seeking to strangle the Soviet Republic and tear its corpse to pieces, face to face with the Russian bourgeoisie, which has raised the yellow banner of treason and is betraying the workers' and peasants' country to the jackals of foreign imperialism, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers', Peasants', Red Army and Cossack Deputies Decrees: The Soviet Republic is turning into a military camp. At the head of all fronts and all military institutions of the Republic is a Revolutionary Military Council with one commander-in-chief. All the forces and means of the Socialist Republic are placed at the disposal of the sacred cause of armed struggle against rapists. All citizens, regardless of occupation and age, must unquestioningly fulfill those duties for the defense of the country that will be assigned to them by the Soviet government.

Supported by the entire working population of the country, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army will crush and push back the imperialist predators trampling the soil of the Soviet Republic.

The Council of People's Commissars, having heard the report of the chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Ex-officio Crime on the activities of this commission, finds that in this situation, securing the rear through terror is a complete necessity... that it is necessary to secure the Soviet Republic from class enemies through isolating them in concentration camps; that all persons connected with White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions are subject to execution; that it is necessary to publish the names of all those executed, as well as the reasons for applying this measure to them.

From the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the transition to the general mobilization of workers and poor peasants of the workers' and peasants' red army

The Central Executive Committee believes that the transition from a volunteer army to a general mobilization of workers and poor peasants is imperatively dictated by the entire situation of the country, both for the struggle for bread and for repelling the insolent counter-revolution, both internal and external, due to hunger. It is necessary to move immediately to forced recruitment of one or more ages. In view of the complexity of the matter and the difficulty of carrying it out simultaneously over the entire territory of the country, it seems necessary to begin, on the one hand, with the most threatened areas, and on the other hand, with the main centers of the labor movement.

Based on the above, the Central Executive Committee decides to order the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs to develop within a week for Moscow, Petrograd, the Don and Kuban regions a plan for implementing forced recruitment within such limits and forms that would least disrupt the course of production and social life of the designated regions and cities.

The corresponding Soviet institutions are ordered to take the most energetic and active part in the work of the Military Commissariat to fulfill the tasks assigned to it.

From the report of the newspaper "Izvestia" about the execution of Tsar Nicholas II

On the night of July 16-17, by order of the Presidium of the Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies of the Urals, former Tsar Nikolai Romanov was shot. With this act of revolutionary punishment, Soviet Russia solemnly warns all its enemies who dream of returning the tsarist regime and even dare to threaten with weapons in their hands.

From the provisions on workers' control. Adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on November 14 (27), 1917.

3. For each large city, province or industrial region, a local Council of Workers' Control is created, which, being an organ of the Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, is composed of representatives of Trade Unions, Factory, Factory and other Workers' Committees and Workers' Cooperatives...

10. In all enterprises, the owners and representatives of workers and employees selected to exercise Workers' Control are declared responsible to the state for the strictest order, discipline and protection of property. Those guilty of concealing materials, products, orders and incorrectly maintaining reports, etc. abuses are subject to criminal liability...

Information about the atrocities of the Bolsheviks in the city of Ekaterinodar and its environs.

The Bolsheviks entered the city of Ekaterinodar on March 1, 1918. On the same day, a group of civilians, mainly intellectuals, was arrested, and all those detained... 83 people were killed, hacked to death and shot without any trial or investigation. The corpses were buried in three holes right there in the city. A number of witnesses, as well as doctors who then examined the dead, confirmed cases of burying unfinished, half-chopped victims. Among those killed were identified: a member of the Pushkari city council, a notary Globa-Mikhailenko and the secretary of the Peasant Union Molinov, as well as children 14-16 years of age and old people over 65 years old. The victims were mocked by cutting off their fingers and toes, genitals, disfiguring their faces and other sources.

The food policy of previous years showed that the disruption of fixed prices for bread and the abandonment of the grain monopoly, having made it easier for a handful of... capitalists to feast, would make bread completely inaccessible to the many millions of working people and would expose them to inevitable starvation... Not a single pood grain should not remain in the hands of the holders, except for the amount necessary to sow their fields and feed their families until the new harvest. And this must be put into practice immediately, especially after the occupation of Ukraine by the Germans, when we are forced to be content with grain resources, which are barely enough for seeding and reduced food...

Taking into account that only with the strictest accounting and equal distribution of all grain reserves will Russia get out of the food crisis, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets decided:

1. Confirming the inviolability of the grain monopoly and fixed prices, as well as the need for a merciless fight against grain speculators and bag smugglers, oblige each owner of grain to submit the entire excess in excess of the amount necessary for sowing the fields and personal consumption according to established standards before the new harvest, to declare for delivery within a week. after the announcement of this resolution in each volost...

2. Call on all working people and poor peasants to immediately unite for a merciless fight against the kulaks.

3. To declare everyone who has a surplus of grain and does not take it to dump points, as well as wasting grain reserves for moonshine, enemies of the people, transfer them to the revolutionary court so that the perpetrators are sentenced to imprisonment for a term of at least 10 years, expelled forever from communities, all their property was subject to confiscation, and moonshiners, moreover, were sentenced to forced community service.

4. If someone is found to have a surplus of bread that has not been declared for delivery, in accordance with paragraph 1, the bread is taken from him free of charge, and the value of the undeclared surplus due at fixed prices is paid in half to the person who indicates the concealment of the surplus, after the actual their receipt at dumping points, and half the amount - to the rural community...

For a more successful fight against the food crisis, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets decides to grant the People's Commissariat of Food the following powers:

1. Issue mandatory regulations on food matters that go beyond the normal competence of the People's Commissariat of Food.

2. Cancel decisions of local food authorities and other organizations and institutions that contradict the plans and actions of the People's Commissar of Food.

3. Demand that institutions and organizations of all departments unconditionally and immediately comply with the orders of the People's Commissar of Food in connection with food matters.

4. Use armed force in the event of opposition to the confiscation of bread or other food products.

5. Dissolve or reorganize local food authorities in case of opposition to their orders of the People's Commissar of Food.

6. Dismiss, dismiss, bring before a revolutionary court, arrest officials and employees of all departments and public organizations in the event of their disruptive interference with the orders of the People's Commissar of Food...

Collection of laws and orders of the workers' and peasants' government. - M., 1918. - No. 35. - Art. 468. - pp. 437-438.

From the Regulations on Workers' Control. Adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on November 14 (27), 1917.

2. Workers' Control is exercised by all workers of a given enterprise through their elected institutions, such as factory committees, councils of elders, etc., and these institutions include representatives from employees and technical personnel.

3. For each large city, province or industrial region, a local Council of Workers' Control is created, which, being an organ of the Council of Workers, Soldiers and PeasantDeputies, is being compiled from representatives of Trade Unions, Factory, Factory and other Work Committees and Work Cooperatives...

6. Bodies of Workers' Control have the right to monitor production, establish the minimum output of the enterprise, and take measures to determine the cost of manufactured products.

7. Bodies of Workers' Control have the right to control all business correspondence of an enterprise, and the owners are liable in court for concealing correspondence. Trade secrets are cancelled. Owners are required to present to the Workers' Control authorities all books and reports for both the current year and previous reporting years.

8. Decisions of the bodies of Workers' Control are binding on the owners of enterprises and can only be canceled by a resolution of the highest bodies of Workers' Control.

9. An entrepreneur or enterprise administration is given a three-day period to appeal to the appropriate supreme body of Workers' Control all decisions of the lower bodies of Workers' Control.

10. In all enterprises, owners and representatives workers And* employees, selectedForimplementation Workers' Control are declared responsible to the state for the strictest order, discipline and protection of property. Those guilty of concealing materials, products, orders and incorrectly maintaining reports, etc. abuses are subject to criminal liability...

Decisions of the party and government on economic issues. - pp. 25-27.

On the organization of the workers' and peasants' Red Army. From the decree of the Council of People's Commissars. January 15, 1918

The old army served as an instrument of class oppression of the working people by the bourgeoisie. With the transfer of power to the working and exploited classes, the need arose to create a new army, which would be the stronghold of Soviet power in the present, the foundation for replacing the standing army with all-people's weapons in the near future and would serve as support for the coming socialist revolution in Europe.

In view of this, the Council of People's Commissars decides: to organize a new army called the “Workers' and Peasants' Red Army” on the following grounds:

1) The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army is created from the most conscious and organized elements of the working masses.

2) Access to its ranks is open to all citizens of the Russian Republic at least 18 years of age. Anyone who is ready to give his strength, his life to defend the gains of the October Revolution, the power of the Soviets and socialism, joins the Red Army. To join the Red Army, recommendations are required: from military committees or public democratic organizations standing on the platform of Soviet power, party or professional organizations, or at least two members of these organizations. When joining in whole parts, mutual responsibility of everyone and a roll-call vote are required.

Decrees of the Soviet government. - M., 1957. - T. 1. - P. 356-357.

The Czechoslovaks met the echelons of Red Guards with fire. From the report of the Chairman of the West Siberian Regional Council to the NARKOMVOEN. Omsk. May 26, 1918

Starting with demands for large supplies of grain and advancing with weapons to Vladivostok, Czechoslovak echelons seize railways, telegraphs and stations, and communicate in their own language over the telegraph. They convene a Czechoslovak military congress in Chelyabinsk and declare that no train traffic will be allowed between Omsk - Chelyabinsk. In Omsk it came to bloodshed. The Czechoslovaks met the marching echelons of Red Guards with fire. Many wounded. Solid assistance from the Urals and certain instructions from the center are needed. I repeat, the situation is very serious. Between Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk, the Czechoslovak train disarmed the partisan detachment going to fight Semyonov and captured the city of Mariinsk...

Directives of the command of the fronts of the Red Army. - M., 1977. - T. 1. - P. 30.

About deserters. From the Order of the Chairman of the RVSR on troops and Soviet institutions of the southern front. November 24, 1919

1. Any scoundrel who incites retreat, desertion, or failure to comply with combat orders will be shot.

2. Any Red Army soldier who leaves his combat post without permission will be shot.

3. Any soldier who throws away his rifle or sells part of his uniform will be shot...

6. Those responsible for harboring deserters are subject to execution.

7. Houses in which deserters will hide will be burned.

Military-historical magazine. - 1989. - No. 8. - P. 46.

Greens

Documentation:

On the creation of a “true Soviet socialist system.” From a dispatch from the Revolutionary Military Council of Father Makhno's rebel army. January 7, 1920

1. All orders of Denikin’s volunteer power are abolished. Those orders of the communist government that were contrary to the interests of peasants and workers are also cancelled.

2. Note: as to which of the orders of the communist government are harmful to the working people, the working people themselves must decide - peasants at gatherings, workers in their factories and factories...

3. All workers' and peasants' organizations are expected to begin building free workers' and peasants' councils. Only workers who participate in one or another work necessary for the national economy should be elected to the councils. Representatives of political organizations do not have a place in the workers' and peasants' councils, since their participation in the workers' council will turn the latter into a council of party documents, which can lead to the death of the Soviet system.

4. The existence of emergency committees, party revolutionary committees and similar coercive, domineering and disciplinary institutions is unacceptable among free peasants and workers.

5. Freedom of speech, press, meetings, unions, etc. is the inalienable right of every worker, and any restriction thereof is a counter-revolutionary act.

6. State guards, police... are abolished. Instead, the population itself organizes its own self-protection. Self-protection can only be organized by workers and peasants... and other sources.

Not only “reds” and “whites” fought in the Civil War. There was also a third force – the “greens”. Their role is ambiguous. Some consider the “greens” to be bandits, others – freedom-loving defenders of their land.

Greens vs Reds & Whites

Candidate of Historical Sciences Ruslan Gagkuev outlined the events of those years as follows: “In Russia, the cruelty of the civil war was due to the breakdown of traditional Russian statehood and the destruction of the age-old foundations of life.” According to him, in those battles there were no vanquished, but only those destroyed. That is why rural people in entire villages, and even volosts, sought to protect the islands of their little world from an external deadly threat at any cost, especially since they had experience of peasant wars. This was the most important reason for the emergence of a third force in 1917-1923 - the “green rebels”.

In the encyclopedia edited by S.S. Khromov’s “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” gives a definition to this movement - these are illegal armed groups, whose participants were hiding from mobilizations in the forests.

However, there is another version. So General A.I. Denikin believed that these formations and detachments got their name from a certain Ataman Zeleny, who fought against both the Whites and the Reds in the western part of the Poltava province. Denikin wrote about this in the fifth volume of “Essays on Russian Troubles.”

"Fight among yourselves"

The book by the Englishman H. Williamson “Farewell to the Don” contains the memoirs of one British officer who during the Civil War was in the Don Army of General V.I. Sidorina. “At the station we were met by a convoy of Don Cossacks... and units under the command of a man named Voronovich, lined up next to the Cossacks. The “greens” had practically no uniform; they wore mostly peasant clothes with checkered woolen caps or shabby sheep’s hats, on which a cross made of green fabric was sewn. They had a simple green flag and looked like a strong and powerful group of soldiers."

“Voronovich’s soldiers” refused Sidorin’s call to join his army, preferring to remain neutral. In general, at the beginning of the Civil War, the peasantry adhered to the principle: “Fight among yourselves.” However, the “whites” and “reds” every day stamped decrees and orders on “requisitions, duties and mobilization,” thereby involving the villagers in the war.

Village brawlers

Meanwhile, even before the revolution, rural residents were sophisticated fighters, ready at any moment to grab pitchforks and axes. The poet Sergei Yesenin in the poem “Anna Snegina” cited the conflict between the two villages of Radovo and Kriushi.

One day we found them...
They are in axes, so are we.
From the ringing and grinding of steel
A shiver ran through my body.

There were many such clashes. Pre-revolutionary newspapers were full of articles about mass fights and stabbings between residents of various villages, auls, kishlaks, Cossack villages, Jewish towns and German colonies. That is why each village had its own cunning diplomats and desperate commanders who defended local sovereignty.

After the First World War, when many peasants, returning from the front, took with them three-line rifles and even machine guns, it was dangerous to just enter such villages.

Doctor of Historical Sciences Boris Kolonitsky noted in this regard that regular troops often asked permission from the elders to pass through such villages and were often refused. But after the forces became unequal due to the sharp strengthening of the Red Army in 1919, many villagers were forced to go into the forests to avoid mobilization.

Nester Makhno and Old Man Angel

A typical Green commander was Nestor Makhno. He went through a difficult path from a political prisoner due to his participation in the anarchist group “Union of Poor Grain Growers” ​​to the commander of the “Green Army”, numbering 55 thousand people in 1919. He and his fighters were allies of the Red Army, and Nester Ivanovich himself was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the capture of Mariupol.

At the same time, being a typical “green”, he did not see himself outside his native places, preferring to live by robbing landowners and wealthy people. The book “The Worst Russian Tragedy” by Andrei Burovsky contains the memoirs of S.G. Pushkareva about those days: “The war was cruel, inhumane, with complete oblivion of all legal and moral principles. Both sides committed the mortal sin of killing prisoners. The Makhnovists regularly killed all captured officers and volunteers, and we used the captured Makhnovists for consumption.”

If at the beginning and in the middle of the Civil War the “greens” either adhered to neutrality or most often sympathized with the Soviet regime, then in 1920-1923 they fought “against everyone.” For example, on the carts of one “Father Angel” commander it was written: “Beat the Reds until they turn white, beat the Whites until they turn red.”

Heroes of the Greens

According to the apt expression of the peasants of that time, the Soviet government was both mother and stepmother for them. It got to the point that the Red commanders themselves did not know where -
the truth, and where is the lie. Once, at a peasant gathering, the legendary Chapaev was asked: “Vasily Ivanovich, are you for the Bolsheviks or for the communists?” He replied: “I am for the International.”

Under the same slogan, that is, “For the International,” the St. George cavalier A.V. Sapozhkov fought, who fought simultaneously “against the gold chasers and against the false communists who settled in the Soviets.” His unit was destroyed, and he himself was shot.

The most prominent representative of the “greens” is considered to be a member of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party A. S. Antonov, better known as the leader of the Tambov Uprising of 1921-1922. In his army, the word “comrade” was used, and the fight was waged under the banner “For Justice.” However, the majority of the “green army” did not believe in their victory. For example, in the song of the Tambov rebels “Somehow the sun doesn’t shine...” there are the following lines:

They will lead us all on a rampage,
They will give the command “Fire!”
C'mon, don't whine in front of the gun,
Don't lick the soil at your feet!..

During the Civil War, “greens” were originally the name given to people who evaded military service and hid in the forests (hence the name). This phenomenon became widespread in the summer of 1918, when forced mobilization of the population was launched. Then this name was assigned to irregular armed formations, consisting mainly of peasants, who equally opposed both the Reds and the Whites, or could temporarily support one of the sides, waging a guerrilla war.

Some Greens fought under their own banners - green, black-green, red-green or black. The flag of Nestor Makhno's anarchists was a black banner with a skull and crossbones and the slogan: “Freedom or death.”

Among the green detachments there could be peasants driven from their places by the Reds or Whites and evading mobilization, ordinary bandits, and anarchists. The leaders of the largest green association, the so-called Greens, adhered to anarchist ideology. Insurgent Army of Ukraine. And it was with anarchism that this movement was most closely connected.

By the time of the first (1905) Russian revolution, three main directions were clearly defined in anarchism: anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-individualism, with each of them having smaller factions.

On the eve of the 1905 revolution, most anarchists were adherents of anarcho-communism. Their main organization was "Bread and Freedom" with headquarters in Geneva. The main ideologist of the Khlebovoltsy was P. A. Kropotkin. Their program highlighted the following points:

The goal of the anarchists was declared to be “social revolution,” i.e., the complete destruction of capitalism and the state and replacing them with anarchist communism.

The beginning of the revolution was supposed to be a “general strike of the dispossessed both in cities and villages.”

The main methods of struggle in Russia were proclaimed to be “uprising and direct attack, both mass and personal, on the oppressors and exploiters.” The question of the use of personal terrorist attacks was to be decided only by local residents, depending on the specific situation.

The form of organization of anarchists was supposed to be “a voluntary agreement of individuals in groups and groups among themselves.

Anarchists rejected the possibility of their entry into any governing bodies (the State Duma or the Constituent Assembly), as well as the possibility of anarchists collaborating with other political parties or movements.

Essential for the Khlebovolites was the question of a future society created according to the model of anarcho-communism. Kropotkin's supporters imagined the future society as a union or federation of free communities, united by a free contract, where the individual, freed from the tutelage of the state, would receive unlimited opportunities for development. For the systematic development of the economy, Kropotkin proposed decentralizing industry. On the agrarian issue, Kropotkin and his comrades considered it necessary to transfer all the land seized as a result of the uprising to the people, to those who cultivate it themselves, but not into personal ownership, but to the community.

In the conditions of the revolution of 1905-07. Several more movements emerged in Russian anarcho-communism:

Beznachaltsy . This movement was based on the preaching of terror and robbery as methods of fighting the autocracy and the denial of all moral principles of society. They wanted to destroy the autocracy through “bloody popular reprisals” against those in power.

In the autumn of 1905 they took shape Black Banners (named after the color of the banners). In the revolution of 1905-07. this trend played one of the leading roles. The social base of the Black Banners consisted of individual representatives of the intelligentsia, part of the proletariat and artisan workers. They considered their main task to be the creation of a broad mass anarchist movement and the establishment of connections with all directions of anarchism. During the fighting at the end of 1905, the Black Banners split into “motiveless” terrorists and anarchist communists. The former considered the main goal to be the organization of “motiveless anti-bourgeois terror,” while the anarchist-communists advocated combining an anti-bourgeois war with a series of partial uprisings.

Anarcho-syndicalists . The syndicalists considered the main goal of their activities to be the complete, comprehensive liberation of labor from all forms of exploitation and the creation of free professional associations of workers as the main and highest form of their organization.

Of all types of struggle, syndicalists recognized only the direct struggle of workers with capital, as well as boycotts, strikes, destruction of property (sabotage) and violence against capitalists.

Following these ideals led the syndicalists to the idea of ​​a “non-party workers’ congress,” as well as to agitation for the creation of an all-Russian workers’ party of “proletarians, regardless of existing party divisions and views.” Some of these ideas were adopted by the Mensheviks from the syndicalists.

In Russia, at the beginning of the first Russian revolution, there also exists anarcho-individualism (individualist anarchism), which took as a basis absolute freedom of the individual “as the starting point and final ideal.”

Varieties of individualist anarchism also took shape:

Mystical Anarchism is a movement aimed not at social transformation, but at “a special kind of spirituality.” Mystic-anarchists were based on Gnostic teachings (or rather, on their own understanding of them), they rejected the institutions of the church, and preached a single path to God.

Association anarchism. He was represented in Russia in the person of Lev Chernov (pseudonym of P. D. Turchaninov), who took as a basis the works of Stirner, Proudhon and the American anarchist V. R. Thacker. Turchaninov advocated the creation of a political association of producers. He considered systematic terror to be the main method of struggle.

Mahaevtsy (Makhaevists). The Mahaevites expressed a hostile attitude towards the intelligentsia, government and capital. The creator and theorist of the movement was the Polish revolutionary J. V. Makhaisky.

In the wake of the rising revolution, anarchists began to take more active action. Seeking to expand their influence on the masses, they organized printing houses and published brochures and leaflets. In an effort to tear the working class away from the Marxists, the anarchists made all sorts of attacks on the Bolsheviks. Denying the need for any power at all, the anarchists opposed the Bolshevik demands for the creation of a provisional revolutionary government.

On the pages of the anarchist press, the tactics of anarchism were characterized as a constant rebellion, a continuous uprising against the existing social and state system. Anarchists often called on the people to prepare for an armed uprising. Anarchist fighting squads carried out so-called “motiveless” terror. On December 17, 1905, anarchists in Odessa threw 5 bombs at Libman's cafe. Terrorist acts were committed by anarchists in Moscow, the Urals, and Central Asia. Ekaterinoslav anarchists were especially active (about 70 acts). During the years of the first Russian revolution, the anarchists' tactics of political and economic terror often resulted in robbery. Using them, some anarchist groups created so-called “battle funds”, from which part of the money was given to the workers. In 1905-07. Many criminal elements joined anarchism, trying to cover up their activities.

Anarchist ideologists hoped that the expansion of the network of anarchist organizations in 1905-07. will accelerate the introduction into the consciousness of the masses (and primarily the working class) of the ideas of anarchism.

In 1914, the First World War broke out. It also caused a split among anarchists into social patriots (led by Kropotkin) and internationalists. Kropotkin deviated from his views and founded a group of “anarcho-trenchers”. Anarchists who disagreed with him formed an international movement, but there were too few of them to have a serious influence on the masses. In the years between the two revolutions, syndicalists became more active, publishing leaflets and verbally calling on citizens to open struggle.

Anarcho-communists in the period 1905-1917. experienced several splits. The so-called anarcho-cooperators separated from the orthodox supporters of anarcho-communism. They considered it possible to transition from capitalism to communism immediately, bypassing any transitional stages.

The Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups became the center for gathering forces of anarcho-communists. The most important thing during the revolution was the First Congress of Anarcho-Communists.

The anarcho-syndicalists acted more energetically than other trends. Unlike the anarcho-communists, the syndicalists constantly moved in the working environment and knew better the demands and needs of the working people. In their opinion, the day after the social revolution, state and political power should be destroyed and a new society created under the leadership of a federation of syndicates, responsible for organizing production and distribution.

In 1918, the so-called anarcho-federalists separated from the syndicalists. They considered themselves adherents of “pure syndicalism” and, in their opinion, social life after a social revolution should be organized by uniting individuals on the basis of a contract or agreement into communes.

In addition to those listed above, there were also many small, scattered groups of individualist anarchists.

Immediately after the February events (March 1, 1917), anarchists published a number of leaflets in which they expressed their opinions on the events that took place. Below are excerpts from the text of a leaflet of the United Organization of Petrograd Anarchists:

“Through the heroic efforts of soldiers and people, the power of Tsar Nicholas Romanov and his guardsmen was overthrown. The centuries-old shackles that tormented the soul and body of the people have been broken.

We, comrades, are faced with a great task: to create a new wonderful life on the principles of freedom and equality […].

We, anarchists and maximalists, say that the masses of the people, organizing themselves into unions, will be able to take the matter of production and distribution into their own hands and establish an order that ensures real freedom, that workers do not need any power, they do not need courts, prisons, or police.

But, indicating our goals, we, anarchists, in view of the exceptional conditions of the moment, ... will go together with the revolutionary government in its struggle against the old government until our enemy is crushed ...

Long live the social revolution."

Subsequently, anarchists began to sharply criticize the Provisional Government and other authorities.

The political activity of anarchists between the February and October revolutions mainly boiled down to an attempt to speed up the course of events - to carry out an immediate social revolution. This is what basically distinguished their program from the programs of other social democratic parties.

The anarchists launched their propaganda in Petrograd, Moscow, Kyiv, Rostov and other cities. Clubs were created that became centers of propaganda. Anarchist leaders gave lectures at industrial enterprises, in military units and on ships, recruiting sailors and soldiers into members of their organizations. Anarchists organized rallies on city streets. These groups were mostly small in number, but noticeable.

In March 1917, the anarchists of Petrograd held 3 meetings. It was decided to conduct active propaganda, but not take any action.

The second meeting of Petrograd anarchists took place on March 2. The following requirements were adopted:

"Anarchists say:

1. All adherents of the old government must be immediately removed from their places.

2. All orders of the new reactionary government that pose a danger to freedom are canceled.

3. Immediate reprisal against the ministers of the old government.

4. Exercise of valid freedom of speech and press.

5. Issuance of weapons and ammunition to all combat groups and organizations.

6. Material support for our comrades released from prison.”

At the third meeting, held on March 4, 1917, reports were heard on the activities of anarchist groups in Petrograd. Requirements adjusted and approved:

The right of representation from the anarchist organization in Petrograd in the Workers' Council and Soldiers' Deputies;

Freedom of the press for all anarchist publications;

Immediate support for those released from prison;

The right to carry and generally have all kinds of weapons.

On tactical issues, the anarchists after February were divided into two camps - anarcho-rebels (the majority of anarchists) and “peaceful” anarchists. The rebels proposed to immediately raise an armed uprising, overthrow the Provisional Government and immediately establish a powerless society. However, the people for the most part did not support them. “Peaceful” anarchists persuaded workers not to take up arms, proposing to leave the existing order for now. P. Kropotkin also joined them.

It is interesting that if practically no one supported the rebels, the views of the “peaceful” anarchists were shared by other political parties and movements. Even the Cadets Party quoted some of P. A. Kropotkin’s sayings in their leaflets.

Anarchists participated in all major rallies, and often served as their initiators. On April 20, Petrograd workers spontaneously took to the streets to protest against the imperialist policies of the Provisional Government. Rallies took place in all city squares. On Theater Square there was an anarchist tribune, decorated with black flags. The anarchists demanded the immediate overthrow of the Provisional Government.

Back in March 1917, anarchists began to take active steps to free their brothers from prison. But together with political prisoners they were released from prisons

so do criminals. The anarchist press did not ignore this:

“We see that the death penalty has been abolished for crowned and titled criminals: the king, ministers, generals, and criminals can be dealt with like mad dogs without any ceremony called a trial. … Real criminals, slaves of the old government, receive amnesties, have their rights restored, take the oath to the new government and receive appointments […].

The most inveterate villain and criminal did not do even a hundredth part of the harm that the former arbiters of Russia’s destinies brought […].

We must come to the aid of criminals and fraternally extend a hand to them, as victims of social injustice.”

In April, a declaration of anarchist groups was adopted in Moscow, which was published not only in Moscow, but also in print media in many Russian cities:

1. Anarchist socialism fights to replace the power of class rule with an international union of free and equal workers, with the aim of organizing world production.

2. In order to strengthen anarchist organizations and develop anarcho-socialist thought, continue the struggle for political freedoms.

3. Conducting anarchist propaganda and organizing the revolutionary masses.

4. Consider the world war as imperialist; anarchist socialism strives to end it through the labors of the proletariat.

5. Anarchist socialism calls on the masses to abstain from participation in non-proletarian organizations - trade unions, councils of workers' and soldiers' deputies.

6. Relying only on the revolutionary initiative of the masses, anarchist socialism puts forward a general strike of workers and a general strike of soldiers as a transitional stage to the direct seizure of the instruments and means of government by the organized proletariat.

7. Anarchist socialism calls on the masses to organize anarchist groups in industrial and transport enterprises in order to form an anarchist international […].

In May, anarchists staged two armed demonstrations. Their speakers called for terror and anarchy. Taking advantage of the workers' dissatisfaction with the policies of the Provisional Government, the anarchist leaders took military action to provoke armed uprisings.

In June 1917, anarchists seized all the premises of the newspaper “Russian Will” - the office, the editorial office, and the printing house. The Provisional Government sent a military detachment. After long negotiations, the anarchists surrendered. Most of them were subsequently found innocent and released.

On June 7, in response to the seizure of the printing house, the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government N.P. Pereverzev gave the order to clear the Durnovo dacha, where, in addition to the anarchists, the Prosvet workers' club and the board of trade unions of the Vyborg side were located. A wave of indignation and protest arose. On the same day, four enterprises on the Vyborg side began strikes, and by June 8th their number increased to 28 factories. The provisional government retreated.

On June 9, at the Durnovo dacha, the anarchists convened a conference, which was attended by representatives of 95 factories and military units in Petrograd. At the initiative of the organizers, a “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” was created, which included representatives of some factories and military units. The anarchists decided on June 10 to seize several printing houses and premises. They were supported by separate groups of workers. But the Bolsheviks' cancellation of the demonstration scheduled for that day thwarted their plans.

But the anarchists still took part in the demonstration that took place on June 18. By one o'clock in the afternoon, the anarchists approached the Champ de Mars, carrying several black banners with anarchist slogans. During the demonstration, the anarchists raided the Kresty prison, where their like-minded people were imprisoned. A group of 50-75 people raided the prison. The raiders freed 7 people: anarchists Khaustov (former editor of the newspaper “Okopnaya Pravda”), Muller, Gusev, Strelchenko and several criminals. Along with the anarchists, the Bolshevik Party was also accused of the raid on the “Crosses”.

The situation around Durnovo's dacha has again deteriorated sharply. On June 19, a Cossack hundred and an infantry battalion with an armored vehicle, led by Minister of Justice P. Pereverzev, Prosecutor R. Karinsky and General P. Polovtsev, headed to the dacha, demanding the extradition of those released from prison. The anarchists at the dacha tried to resist. They threw a grenade, but it did not explode. As a result of a clash with troops, the anarchist Asin was killed (possibly committed suicide), and 59 people were arrested. To the greatest regret of the authorities, they did not find the Bolsheviks there. The news of the pogrom at Durnovo's dacha raised the entire Vyborg side to its feet. On the same day, workers at four factories went on strike. The meetings were quite stormy, but the workers soon calmed down.

As a sign of protest against the pogrom, the anarchists tried to bring the 1st machine gun regiment into the streets. But the soldiers refused the anarchists: “We do not share the views or actions of anarchists and are not inclined to support them, but at the same time we do not approve of the authorities’ reprisals against anarchists and are ready to defend freedom from an internal enemy.”.

In July 1917, the political situation in Petrograd became very tense. Messages arrived in Petrograd about the failure of the Russian army's offensive at the front. This caused a government crisis. All cadet ministers of the Provisional Government resigned.

The anarchists, assessing the current situation, decided to act. On July 2, at the Durnovo dacha, the leaders of the Petrograd Federation of Anarchist-Communists held a secret meeting at which they decided to mobilize their forces and call on the people to an armed uprising under the slogans: “Down with the Provisional Government!”, “Anarchy and self-organization!” Active propaganda among the population was launched.

The main support of the anarchists was the 1st Machine Gun Regiment. The regiment's barracks were located not far from Durnovo, and the anarchists there had great influence. On July 2, a rally was held at the People's House under the leadership of the Bolshevik G.I. Petrovsky. The anarchists sought to win over the soldiers to their side. On the afternoon of July 3, on the initiative of soldier Golovin, who was a supporter of the anarchists, a regimental meeting was opened against the will of the regimental committee. Blaichman spoke on behalf of the anarchists at the meeting. He called for “to go out today, July 3rd, into the streets with arms in hand for a demonstration to overthrow ten capitalist ministers.” Other anarchists also spoke, posing as representatives of the workers of the Putilov plant, Kronstadt sailors and soldiers from the front. They didn't have any specific plan. “The street will show the goal,” they said. The anarchists also said that other factories were already ready to take action. The Bolsheviks tried to stop the crowd, but the indignant soldiers did not listen to them. At the meeting, a decision was made: to immediately go out into the street with weapons in hand.

The machine gunners decided to involve the sailors of Kronstadt in the armed uprising and sent a delegation to them, which included the anarchist Pavlov. In the fortress, the delegation attended a meeting of the executive committee of the Council and asked for the support of the sailors in an armed uprising, but was refused. Then the delegates decided to appeal directly to the sailors, where at that time the anarchist E. Yarchuk was giving a lecture on war and peace in front of a small audience (about 50 people). Having arrived there, the anarchists called for an immediate uprising. “Blood is already shed there, and the Kronstadters are sitting and lecturing,” they said. These performances caused unrest among the sailors. Soon 8-10 thousand people gathered on Anchor Square. The anarchists reported that the goal of their uprising was to overthrow the Provisional Government. The excited crowd was eagerly awaiting the performance. The Bolsheviks tried to stop the sailors from sailing to Petrograd, but they only managed to delay it.

Delegations of machine gunners, sent to many plants and factories, as well as to military units in Petrograd, called for an armed uprising of workers and soldiers. The machine gun regiment began to erect barricades. The machine gunners were followed by the Grenadier, Moscow and other regiments. By 9 pm on July 3, seven regiments had already left the barracks. They all moved to the Kshesinskaya mansion, where the Central Committee and PC of the Bolshevik Party were located. Delegations from factories also flocked there. The Putilovites and workers of the Vyborg side came out.

The entire demonstration headed to the Tauride Palace. Among the slogans of the strikers were both Bolshevik slogans (“All power to the “Councils of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies””) on red banners, and anarchist ones (“Down with the Provisional Government,” “Long live anarchy!”). Nevsky Prospekt was filled with workers and revolutionary soldiers. Shooting rang out and lasted no more than 10 minutes.

On July 4, revolutionaries took to the streets again. At 12 noon they were joined by Kronstadt sailors. At least 500 thousand people took to the streets. They all rushed to the Tauride Palace. Government troops on Nevsky Prospekt opened fire. They also shot on Liteiny Prospekt, near the Tauride Palace and in other places. The dead and wounded began to appear. The demonstration began to wane.

The uprising of July 3-4, 17 ended in failure. Until October 1917, the anarchists fell silent, while continuing to conduct propaganda among the population.

On the eve of October 1917, the Bolsheviks did not fail to use the anarchists as a destructive force and provided them with assistance with weapons, food, and ammunition. Anarchists, plunging into their native element of destruction and struggle, participated in armed clashes in Petrograd, Moscow, Irkutsk and other cities.

After the October events, some anarchists partially changed their previous views and went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. Among them are such famous people as Chapaev, Anatoly Zheleznyakov, who dispersed the constituent assembly, Dmitry Furmanov and Grigory Kotovsky. Some anarchists were members of the main Bolshevik revolutionary organizations: the Petrograd Soviet, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets.

However, the Bolsheviks' rise to power was met with hostility by many anarchists. Literally from the first hours, the anarchists began to have disagreements with the Bolsheviks. Having previously advocated for the Soviets, the anarchists hastened to disassociate themselves from this organizational form of power. Others, recognizing Soviet power, were against the creation of a centralized government.

Anarchists still advocated the continuation of the revolution. They were not satisfied with the results of the October Revolution, which overthrew the power of the bourgeoisie, but established the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the view of anarchists, the transition from capitalism to communism, and then to anarchy should not be a long process, it only takes a few days. The transition was thought of as an “explosion,” one “big leap.” Based on this project, the anarchists proclaimed a course towards the transition to communism. “The struggle for the communist system must begin immediately,” wrote A. Ge.

Anarchists put forward the slogan of a “third revolution.” In their opinion, the following came out: the February Revolution overthrew the autocracy, the power of the landowners; Oktyabrskaya - Provisional Government, the power of the bourgeoisie; and the new, “third” must overthrow the Soviet government, the power of the working class and eliminate the state in general, that is, eliminate the state of the proletarian dictatorship.

Anarchists also opposed the ratification of the Brest Peace Treaty. They declared disagreement with the Bolsheviks, while in every possible way emphasizing the difference between their position and the Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik. The anarchists’ resolution proposed rejecting the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty “as an act of conciliation, and... practically and fundamentally incompatible with the dignity and interests of the Russian and world revolution.” Brest divided the anarchists even more deeply into supporters and opponents of the October Revolution. Some recognized the need for the measures taken by the Bolsheviks to save the revolution and took the path of cooperation with Soviet power. Others, on the contrary, were preparing to fight against Soviet power, creating detachments of the “Black Guard”.

In the winter of 1917-1918, the Federation of Anarchist Groups of Moscow seized several dozen merchant mansions, which turned into “Houses of Anarchy” - clubs, lecture halls, libraries, printing houses were set up there, and “Black Guard” detachments numbering three to four thousand fighters were based there. The Union of Anarchist Propaganda and rapidly growing youth anarchist organizations and unions launched extensive propaganda activities.

In the front-line cities of Kursk, Voronezh, and Yekaterinoslav, anarchists took up arms. Raids and expropriations of mansions have become more frequent in Moscow. Although the leaders of the anarchists repeatedly stated that “no actions against the Soviets would be allowed,” the threat of action by the “Black Guard” detachments was obvious.

Anarchists fought against the dictatorship of the proletariat for such revolutionary ideals as the transfer of land to peasants and factories to workers (and not to the state), the creation of free non-party Soviets (not hierarchical authorities, but based on the principle of delegation of bodies of people's self-government), universal arming of the people, etc. . Therefore, the anarchists very resolutely opposed the “white” counter-revolution.

Many criminals infiltrated the anarchist milieu with an extremely vulgar understanding of the ideas of anarchism. Spontaneous anarchism also arose, engulfing some of the soldiers and sailors of the decaying old army, who sometimes turned into ordinary bandit groups operating under the flag of anarchism.

Since mid-1918, the Russian anarchist movement has gone through a period of splits, interspersed with temporary unifications of individual groups.

The Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups was dissolved in April 1918. On its basis, the Union of Anarchist-Syndicalist Communists, the Union of Moscow Anarchists and the so-called First Central Sociotechnical School arose. The program of activity of the anarchists, regardless of their shades, increasingly took on anti-Bolshevik content and forms. The main criticism was directed against the construction of the Soviet state. Some anarchists, having recognized the idea of ​​a transition period in the form of a Republic of Soviets, put stateless content into it. “The Free Voice of Labor,” an organ of anarchist-syndicalists, defined the task as follows: “...The Republic of Soviets, that is, the dispersion of power among local Soviets, communities (urban and rural communes), the organization of free Soviet cities and villages, their federation through the Soviets - that’s the task of the anarcho-syndicalists in the coming communal revolution." The anarchists considered the organization of management generally necessary: ​​with this they associated the electoral principle, but not in the form of representation, which they considered a bourgeois creation, but in the form of delegation - “free councils”, which establish connections on the principles of federation, without any centralizing principle .

The slogan of the “third revolution” - against the “party of stagnation and reaction” (as they dubbed the Bolshevik Party) - increasingly captured members of anarchist organizations. Like the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, they accused the Bolsheviks of “dividing the working people into two hostile camps” and “inciting the workers to a crusade in the countryside.”

Anarchist-communists took an active part in developing the economic transformation of society. What they had in common was the thesis about the economic insolvency of the Bolsheviks due to their adherence to methods of political violence and the exclusion of workers from production management. Anarchist-communists substantiated their own concept of an “economic labor revolution” as opposed to the workers’ control of the Bolsheviks, the concept of socialization instead of Bolshevik nationalization.

At the same time, not all anarchist leaders had such an unambiguous attitude towards the Bolshevik policies.

At the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets, anarchist representatives assessed the food policy of the Council of People's Commissars as an attempt to “get closer to the peasant poor... to awaken their independence and organize them.” This group of “Soviet anarchists” began to help the Bolsheviks in building a socialist society. The dictatorship of the proletariat was supported by some anarchist-syndicalists.

Throughout 1918 – 1919. Anarchists sought to organize their forces and expand their social base. They tried to achieve this by diametrically opposed means. On the one hand, cooperation, albeit inconsistent, with the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, in March 1919, they, together with the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, tried to provoke worker strikes. At the end of March 1919, the Central Committee of the RCP(b) decided on measures to combat such activities: a number of anarchist publications were closed, and some of their leaders were arrested. On June 13, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), it was decided to allow the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee to personally release those arrested in some cases. Anarchist leaders were also released on bail. Most of the anarchists switched to positions of “active terror” and armed struggle against Soviet power.

The most striking episode of the civil war in Russia associated with the anarchist movement, of course, was the activity of the Insurgent Army led by N.I. Makhno. The peasant movement in Ukraine was broader than anarchism itself, although the leaders of the movement used anarchist ideology.

The roots of Makhnovshchina lie in the insurrectionary movement of the Ukrainian people against the German occupation and the hetmanate. It originated in the spring of 1918 in the form of partisan detachments fighting the Germans, Austrians and the hetman’s “sovereign war.” Makhno was also a member of one of these detachments in the Gulyai-Polye region of the Yekaterinoslav province.

Nestor Ivanovich Makhno (Mikhnenko) was born into a family of peasants in the Ukrainian village of Gulyai-Polye, Zaporozhye region, in 1888. He graduated from Gulyai-Polye primary school (1897). From 1903 he worked at the M. Kerner iron foundry in Gulyai-Polye. From the end of August to the beginning of September 1906, he was a member of the “Youth Circle of the Ukrainian Group of Anarchist-Communist Grain Growers,” which operated in Gulyai-Polye. Participated in several robberies on behalf of anarchist communists. He was arrested several times, spent time in prison, and in 1908 he was sentenced to death, which was later replaced by indefinite hard labor. The following year he was transferred to the convict department of Butyrka prison in Moscow. In his cell, Makhno met the famous anarchist activist, former Bolshevik Pyotr Arshinov, who in the future would become a significant figure in the history of the Makhnovshchina. Arshinov took up the ideological preparation of Makhno.

After the February Revolution, Makhno, like many other prisoners, both political and criminal, was released early from prison and returned to Gulyai-Polye. There he was elected fellow chairman of the volost zemstvo. Soon he created the Black Guard group, and with its help established a personal dictatorship in the village. Makhno considered dictatorship a necessary form of government for the final victory of the revolution and stated that “If possible, we need to throw out the bourgeoisie and take up positions with our people”.

In March 1917, Makhno became chairman of the Gulyai-Polye Peasant Union. He advocated immediate radical revolutionary changes before the convening of the Constituent Assembly. In June 1917, on Makhno’s initiative, workers’ control was established at the enterprises of the village; in July, with the support of Makhno’s supporters, he dispersed the previous composition of the zemstvo, held new elections, became the chairman of the zemstvo and at the same time declared himself commissar of the Gulyai-Polye region. In August 1917, on Makhno’s initiative, a committee of farm laborers was created under the Gulyai-Polye Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, whose activities were directed against local landowners; in the same month he was elected as a delegate to the provincial congress of the Peasant Union in Yekaterinoslav.

In the summer of 1917, Makhno headed the “committee to save the revolution” and disarmed the landowners and bourgeoisie in the region. At the regional congress of Soviets (mid-August 1917) he was elected chairman and, together with other anarchists, called on the peasants to ignore the orders of the Provisional Government and the Central Rada, proposed “immediately take away church and landowner land and organize a free agricultural commune on the estates, if possible with the participation of the landowners and kulaks themselves in these communes”.

On September 25, 1917, Makhno signed a decree of the district council on the nationalization of land and its division among peasants. From December 1 to December 5, 1917 in Yekaterinoslav, Makhno took part in the work of the provincial congress of Soviets of workers, peasants and soldiers' deputies, as a delegate from the Gulyai-Polye Soviet; supported the demand of the majority of delegates to convene the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets; elected to the judicial commission of the Aleksandrovsky Revolutionary Committee to consider cases of persons arrested by the Soviet government. Soon after the arrests of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, he began to express dissatisfaction with the actions of the judicial commission and proposed blowing up the city prison and releasing those arrested. He had a negative attitude towards the elections to the Constituent Assembly and called the emerging situation a “card game”: “The parties will not serve the people, but the people will serve the parties. Already now... in the affairs of the people only their name is mentioned, and the affairs of the party are decided.”. Having received no support from the Revolutionary Committee, he resigned from its membership. After the capture of Yekaterinoslav by the forces of the Central Rada (December 1917), he initiated an emergency congress of Soviets of the Gulyai-Polye region, which passed a resolution demanding the “death of the Central Rada” and spoke out for the organization of forces opposing it. On January 4, 1918, he resigned from the post of Chairman of the Council and decided to take an active position in the fight against opponents of the revolution. He welcomed the victory of the revolutionary forces in Yekaterinoslav. Soon he headed the Gulyai-Polye Revolutionary Committee, created from representatives of anarchists, left Socialist Revolutionaries and Ukrainian socialist revolutionaries.

The anarchist influence on Makhno's rebel movement increased significantly due to the appearance of visiting anarchists of various directions among the rebels. The highest command positions in Makhno's rebel army were occupied by the most prominent anarchists. V.M. Volin headed the RVS, P.A. Arshinov headed the cultural and educational department and edited the Makhnovist newspapers. V.M. Volin, one might say, was the main theoretician, and Arshinov was the political leader of the Makhnovshchina. Influencing Makhno's views, they determined the goals and objectives of the insurgency. Nestor Makhno himself, more than other anarchists, was susceptible to the idea of ​​anarchy and never deviated from it. They viewed an alliance with the Bolsheviks as a tactical necessity. The agreement concluded with the Bolsheviks of Yekaterinoslav on a joint fight against the Petliurists in December 1918 was carried out very inconsistently. Having driven the Petliurites out of the city, the Makhnovist army showed itself in all its anarchist “brilliance”. Prominent anarchists in Makhno’s army did not hesitate to use their “official” position for the purpose of personal enrichment.

In July 1918, Makhno met with Lenin and Sverdlov. To the latter, Makhno introduced himself as an anarchist-communist of the Bakunin-Kropotkin persuasion. Makhno later recalled that Lenin, pointing out the fanaticism and short-sightedness of the anarchists, noted at the same time that he considered Makhno himself “a man of reality and ebullience of the day” and if there were at least one third of such anarchist-communists in Russia, then the communists ready to work with them. According to Makhno, Lenin tried to convince him that the Bolshevik attitude towards the anarchists was not so hostile and was largely due to the behavior of the anarchists themselves. “I felt that I was beginning to revere Lenin, whom I had recently confidently considered to be the culprit of the destruction of anarchist organizations in Moscow,” writes Makhno. In the end, both came to the conclusion that it was impossible to fight the enemies of the revolution without sufficient organization of the masses and firm discipline.

However, immediately after this conversation, Makhno called on his comrades in Gulyai-Polye to “destroy the slave system,” to live freely and “independently of the state and its officials, even the Red ones.” Thus, in case of any hesitation, Makhno, as a rule, sided with anarchism. Makhno came close to the Bolsheviks and was ready to completely merge with them, but the influence of anarchism on his worldview and psychology remained predominant.

In January-February 1919, Makhno organized a series of pogroms against German colonists in the Gulyai-Polye region and interfered with the measures of the Soviet government aimed at creating a class split in the countryside (“committees of the poor”, surplus appropriation); called on the peasants to put into practice the idea of ​​“equal land use based on their own labor.”

In February 1919, Makhno convened the 2nd District Congress of Soviets of Gulyai-Polye. The resolution of the congress assessed the White Guards, imperialists, Soviet power, Petliurists and Bolsheviks, accused of compromising with imperialism, equally.

The Makhnovist detachments united heterogeneous elements, including a small percentage of workers. Under the influence, first of all, of anarchism, the Makhnovshchina was a politically loose movement. Essentially, it was a movement of peasant revolutionism. The Makhnovists’ position on the land issue was quite definite: the 2nd District Congress of Soviets spoke out against state farms decreed by the Ukrainian Soviet government and demanded the transfer of land to peasants on an egalitarian basis. Nestor Makhno called himself a peasant leader.

In the context of the offensive of the troops of General A.I. Denikin in Ukraine in mid-February 1919, Makhno entered into a military agreement with the command of the Red Army and on February 21, 1919, became the commander of the 3rd brigade of the 1st Trans-Dnieper division, which fought against Denikin’s troops on the Mariupol line. Volnovakha.

For the raid on Mariupol on March 27, 1919, which slowed down the White advance on Moscow, brigade commander Makhno was awarded the Order of the Red Banner number 4.

Nestor Ivanovich repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the emergency policy of Soviet power in the liberated areas. On April 10, 1919, at the 3rd regional congress of Soviets of the Gulyai-Polye region, he was elected honorary chairman; in his speech he stated that the Soviet government had betrayed the “October principles”, and the Communist Party legitimized power and “protected itself with extraordinary events.” Makhno signed a resolution of the congress, which expressed disapproval of the decisions of the 3rd All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets (March 1919) on the land issue (on the nationalization of land), a protest against the Cheka and the policies of the Bolsheviks, and a demand for the removal of all persons appointed by the Bolsheviks from military and civilian posts; at the same time, the Makhnovists demanded the “socialization” of land, factories and factories; food policy changes; freedom of speech, press and assembly to all left-wing parties and groups; personal integrity; rejection of the dictatorship of the Communist Party; freedom of elections to the Soviets of working peasants and workers.

From April 15, 1919, Makhno led a brigade as part of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Army. After the start of the mutiny of the Red Army commander N.A. Grigoriev (May 7), Makhno took a wait-and-see attitude, then took the side of the Red Army and personally shot Grigoriev. In May 1919, at a meeting of rebel commanders in Mariupol, Makhno supported the initiative to create a separate rebel army.

The population supported Makhno because he fought for things that were understandable to every peasant: for land and freedom, for people's self-government based on a federation of non-party Soviets.

Makhno did not allow Jewish pogroms on his territory (which were then common in territories controlled by the Petliurites or Grigorievites), brutally punished looters and, relying on the bulk of the peasantry, was harsh with the landowners and kulaks. The Makhnovsky district was a relatively free place: political agitation of all socialist parties and groups was allowed in it: from the Bolsheviks to the socialist revolutionaries. The Makhnovsky district was perhaps the most “free economic zone”, where there were various forms of land use (of course, except for landowners) - communes, cooperatives, and private peasant farms (without the use of farm laborers).

In the literature one can find vivid characteristics of anarchist leaders. Before us appear very colorful figures of prominent anarchists.

For example, as A. Vetlugin describes, A. L. Gordin - “a little lame man... surpassed both Martov and Bukharin, the first in ugliness, the second in anger.” A.A. said about him with deadly aptness. Borovoy: “Gordin, of course, is a Russian Marat, but he is not afraid of Charlotte Corday, because he never takes a bath!..” He spat on everyone and everything. Kropotkin and Lenin, Longuet and Brusilov, allied ambassadors and Swiss socialists, owners of printing houses and General Mannerheim. Money was needed - and Gordin, without hesitating for a minute, organized raids on private apartments...

The most impromptu, the most conscious, internally justified, perhaps, ennobled was the anarchism of Lev Cherny. In his younger years, he was close to the Marxists... Disillusioned with the socialist idea, Cherny did not believe in the goodness of any power, but anarchy did not deceive him in its idealism. Sometimes it seemed that first of all he wanted to persuade himself... Gordin is the commander-in-chief; Barmash - tribune; Leo Black - conscience. Wisdom and erudition were represented by the pupil of the old world, Alexei Solonovich, at the age of twenty - a novice of the Svyatogorsk Monastery, at twenty-six - a private assistant professor at Moscow University in the department of mathematics.”

Thus, during the Civil War, anarchism experienced a painful process of demarcation and, as a consequence, organizational splits, which led to a change in political orientation: a transition to pro-Bolshevik positions or departure to the camp of anti-Bolshevik forces with all the ensuing consequences.

The successes and failures of opponents at the fronts were decisively determined by the strength of the situation in the front-line territories and in the rear, and depended on the attitude of the bulk of the population - the peasantry - to the authorities. The peasants who received the land, not wanting to participate in the Civil War, were drawn into it against their will by the active actions of the Whites and Reds. This gave birth to the green movement. This was the name of the peasant rebels who fought against food requisitions, mobilizations into the army, arbitrariness and violence of both the white and red authorities. In terms of scale and numbers, the movement significantly exceeded the white movement. The “Greens” did not have regular armies; they united in small detachments, often consisting of several dozen, less often hundreds of people. The rebels operated mainly in their areas of residence, but the movement itself covered the entire territory of Russia. It is no coincidence that Lenin considered the “petty-bourgeois counter-revolution” more dangerous than Kolchak and Denikin “taken together.”
The development of this mass peasant protest took place in the summer-autumn of 1918. The implementation of the “food dictatorship” meant the confiscation of “surplus” food from the middle and wealthy peasantry, i.e. majority of the rural population; “the transition from the democratic to the socialist” stage of the revolution in the countryside, within which the offensive against the “kulaks” began; dispersal of democratically elected and “Bolshevization” of rural Soviets; the forced establishment of collective farms - all this caused sharp protests among the peasantry. The introduction of the food dictatorship coincided with the beginning of the “front-line” Civil War and the expansion of the use of “red terror” as the most important means of solving political and economic problems.
The forced confiscation of food and forced mobilization into the Red Army agitated the village. As a result, the bulk of the villagers recoiled from Soviet power, which manifested itself in massive peasant uprisings, of which there were more than 400 in 1918. To suppress them, punitive detachments, hostage-taking, artillery shelling and storming of villages were used. All this strengthened anti-Bolshevik sentiments and weakened the rear of the Reds, in connection with which the Bolsheviks were forced to make some economic and political concessions. In December 1918, they liquidated the hostile committees, and in January 1919, instead of a food dictatorship, they introduced food surplus. (Its main purpose is the regulation of food procurement.) In March 1919, a course towards an alliance with the middle peasants was proclaimed, who previously, as “grain holders,” were actually united with the kulaks in one category.
The peak of resistance of the “greens” in the rear of the red troops occurred in the spring - summer of 1919. In March - May, uprisings swept Bryansk, Samara, Simbirsk, Yaroslavl, Pskov and other provinces of Central Russia. The scale of the insurgency in the South: Don, Kuban and Ukraine was especially significant. Events developed dramatically in the Cossack regions of Russia. The participation of Cossacks in the anti-Bolshevik struggle on the side of the white armies in 1918 became the cause of mass repressions, including against the civilian population of the Kuban and Don in January 1919. This again stirred up the Cossacks. In March 1919, on the Upper Don and then on the Middle Don, they raised an uprising under the slogan: “For Soviet power, but against the commune, executions and robberies.” The Cossacks actively supported Denikin's offensive in June - July 1919.
The interaction of red, white, “green” and national forces in Ukraine was complex and contradictory. After the departure of German and Austrian troops from its territory, the restoration of Soviet power here was accompanied by the widespread use of terror by various revolutionary committees and “cherekas”. In the spring and summer of 1919, local peasants experienced the food policies of the proletarian dictatorship, which also caused sharp protests. As a result, both small detachments of “greens” and fairly massive armed formations operated on the territory of Ukraine. The most famous of them were the movements of N. A. Grigoriev and N. I. Makhno.
Former staff captain of the Russian army Grigoriev in 1917-1918. served in the troops of the Central Rada, under Hetman Skoropadsky, joined the Petliurists, and after their defeat in early February 1919, he went over to the side of the Red Army. As a brigade commander and then a division commander, he took part in battles against the interventionists. But on May 7, 1919, refusing to transfer his troops to the aid of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he withdrew them from the front zone and started a mutiny in the rear of the Red Army, which was fighting against Denikin. Grigoriev's military forces amounted to 20 thousand people, over 50 guns, 700 machine guns, 6 armored trains. The main slogans are “Power to the Soviets of Ukraine without communists”; "Ukraine for Ukrainians"; "Free trade in bread." In May - June 1919, the Grigorievites controlled vast lands in the Black Sea region. However, in June their main forces were defeated, and the remnants went to Makhno.
A convinced anarchist, Makhno created a detachment in April 1918 and became famous for its partisan struggle against the Germans; opposed the hetman regime and parts of Petliura. By the beginning of 1919, the size of his army exceeded 20 thousand and included divisions, regiments, and had its own headquarters and Revolutionary Military Council. In February 1919, when Denikin's troops invaded the territory of Ukraine, Makhno's units became part of the Red Army. However, politically the Makhnovists were far from the Bolsheviks. In May, Makhno wrote to one of the Soviet leaders: “I and my front remain invariably faithful to the workers’ and peasants’ revolution, but not to the institution of violence in the person of your commissars and Chekas, who commit tyranny over the working population.” The Makhnovists advocated for a “powerless state” and “free Soviets”; their main slogan was: “To defend Ukraine from Denikin, against the whites, against the reds, against everyone attacking Ukraine.” Makhno refused to cooperate with Wrangel against the Bolsheviks, but three times signed agreements with the Reds on a joint struggle against the Whites. Its units made a great contribution to the defeat of Denikin and Wrangel. However, after solving common problems, Makhno refused to submit to Soviet power and was eventually declared an outlaw. Nevertheless, its movement was not local in nature, but covered a vast territory from the Dniester to the Don. The “Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine,” numbering 50 thousand people in 1920, included motley elements that did not shy away from robberies and pogroms, which was also a characteristic feature of the movement.
After the defeat of the main forces of the Whites at the end of 1919 - beginning of 1920, the peasant war in European Russia flared up with renewed vigor and, as many historians believe, the bloodiest phase of the Civil War began. The internal front for the Red Army became the main one. 1920 - the first half of 1921 is called the period of the “green flood”, as it was the time of the bloodiest massacres, the burning of villages and hamlets, and mass deportations of the population. The basis of peasant discontent was the policy of “war communism”: the war ended, and emergency measures in economic policy were not only preserved, but also strengthened. The peasants opposed surplus appropriation, military, horse, horse-drawn and other duties, failure to comply with which resulted in arrest, confiscation of property, taking hostages, and execution on the spot. Desertion became widespread, reaching 20 or even 35% of military units in some units. Most of the deserters joined the “green” units, which were called “gangs” in the official Soviet language. In Ukraine, Kuban, Tambov region, the Lower Volga region and Siberia, peasant resistance had the character of a real cross-country war. In each province there were groups of rebels who hid in the forests, attacked punitive detachments, took hostages and shot them. Regular units of the Red Army were sent against the “greens,” led by military leaders who had already become famous in the fight against the whites: M. N. Tukhachevsky, M. V. Frunze, S. M. Budyonny, G. I. Kotovsky, I. E. Yakir , I. P. Uborevich et al.
One of the most large-scale and organized was the peasant uprising that began on August 15, 1920 in the Tambov province, which received the name “Antonovshchina” after the name of its leader. Here, the provincial Congress of the Labor Peasantry, not without the influence of the Social Revolutionaries, adopted a program that included: the overthrow of the Bolshevik government, the convening of the Constituent Assembly, the formation of a provisional government from opposition parties, the abolition of the tax in kind and the introduction of free trade. In January 1921, the number of “bandits” reached 50 thousand. Their “Main Operational Headquarters” had two armies (consisting of 21 regiments) and one separate brigade at its disposal. The South-Eastern Railway was cut, which disrupted the supply of grain to the central regions, about 60 state farms were plundered, and over two thousand party and Soviet workers were killed. Artillery, aviation, and armored vehicles were used against the rebels. Tukhachevsky, who led the suppression of the rebellion, wrote that the troops had to fight “an entire occupation war.” In June 1921, the main forces were defeated, and only in July the uprising was finally suppressed.
In October 1920, there was an uprising in the garrison of Nizhny Novgorod. The Red Army soldiers - mobilized peasants - at a non-party conference adopted a resolution demanding improved nutrition, free elections to the Soviets and the permission of free trade. It also condemned commanders and commissars who did not share the hardships of a soldier's life. When the conference leaders were arrested, a rebellion broke out in response. It reflected the sentiments that had become widespread in the army and navy, and was the predecessor of the Kronstadt mutiny.
Perhaps the most tragic on the internal front in 1920-1921. there were events in the Don and Kuban. After the Whites left in March-April 1920, the Bolsheviks established a regime of strict control here, treating the local population as victors in a conquered hostile country. In response to the Don and Kuban, in September 1920, the insurgent movement began again, in which 8 thousand people took part. Its suppression marked the Bolsheviks' transition to a policy of mass terror against the entire population of the region. The territory was divided into sectors, and three representatives of the Cheka were sent to each. They had the authority to shoot on the spot anyone found to have connections with whites. The scope for their activities was great: in certain periods, up to 70% of the Cossacks fought against the Bolsheviks. In addition, concentration camps were created for family members of active fighters against Soviet power, and the “enemies of the people” included old people, women, and children, many of whom were doomed to death.
The inability to consolidate anti-Bolshevik forces, restore order in their rear, organize reinforcements and organize food supplies for army units was the main reason for the military failures of the Whites in the 1919-1920s. Initially, the peasantry, as well as the urban population, who experienced the food dictatorship and the terror of the Red Cheka, greeted the whites as liberators. And they won the most high-profile victories when their armies were several times smaller in number than Soviet units. So, in January 1919, in the Perm region, 40 thousand Kolchakites captured 20 thousand Red Army soldiers. The admiral’s troops included 30 thousand Vyatka and Izhevsk workers who fought staunchly at the front. At the end of May 1919, when Kolchak's power extended from the Volga to the Pacific Ocean, and Denikin controlled vast areas in the south of Russia, their armies numbered hundreds of thousands of people, and aid from the allies was regularly received.
However, already in July 1919 in the East, from the Kolchak front, the decline of the White movement began. Both the whites and the reds represented their enemies well. For the Bolsheviks, these were the bourgeoisie, landowners, officers, cadets, Cossacks, kulaks, nationalists; for the whites, they were communists, commissars, internationalists, Bolshevik sympathizers, socialists, Jews, separatists. However, if the Bolsheviks put forward slogans that were understandable to the masses and spoke on behalf of the working people, the situation was different for the Whites. The White movement was based on the ideology of “non-predecision”, according to which the choice of the form of political structure and the determination of the socio-economic order should have been carried out only after the victory over the Soviets. It seemed to the generals that rejection of the Bolsheviks alone was enough to unite their disparate opponents into one fist. And since the main task of the moment was the military defeat of the enemy, in which the main role was assigned to the white armies, they established a military dictatorship in all their territories, which either sharply suppressed (Kolchak) or pushed organized political forces into the background (Denikin). And although the whites argued that “the army is outside of politics,” they themselves were faced with the need to solve pressing political problems.
This is precisely the character that the agrarian question acquired. Kolchak and Wrangel postponed his decision “for later,” brutally suppressing the seizure of land by peasants. In Denikin's territories, their lands were returned to the previous owners, and peasants were often dealt with for the fears and robberies they had endured in 1917-1918. Confiscated enterprises also passed into the hands of their former owners, and workers' protests in defense of their rights were suppressed. In the sphere of socio-economic relations, there has largely been a throwback to the pre-February situation, which, in fact, led to the revolution.
Standing in the position of “united and indivisible Russia,” the military suppressed any attempts at autonomous isolation within the country, thereby pushing away national movements, primarily the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia; There were not isolated manifestations of xenophobia, especially anti-Semitism. The reluctance to meet the Cossacks halfway and recognize their rights to autonomy and self-government led to a rift between the whites and their loyal allies - the Kuban and Don people. (Whites even called them “half-Bolsheviks” and “separatists.”) This policy turned their natural anti-Bolshevik allies into their own enemies. Being honest officers and sincere patriots, the White Guard generals turned out to be worthless politicians. In all these matters the Bolsheviks showed much greater flexibility.
The logic of the war forced the whites to pursue policies similar to those of the Bolsheviks on their territories. Attempts to mobilize into the army provoked the growth of the insurgent movement, peasant uprisings, to suppress which punitive detachments and expeditions were sent. This was accompanied by violence and robberies of civilians. Desertion became widespread. Even more repulsive were the economic practices of the white administrations. The basis of the administrative apparatus were former officials who reproduced red tape, bureaucracy, and corruption. “Entrepreneurs close to the authorities” profited from supplies to the army, but normal supplies to the troops were never established. As a result, the army was forced to resort to self-supply. In the fall of 1919, an American observer characterized this situation as follows: “... the supply system was so unsecured and became so ineffective that the troops had no other choice but to supply themselves from the local population. The official permission that legitimized this practice quickly degenerated into permissiveness, and the troops are held accountable for all sorts of excesses.”
The White Terror was as merciless as the Red Terror. The only difference between them was that the Red Terror was organized and consciously directed against class-hostile elements, while the White Terror was more spontaneous, spontaneous: it was dominated by motives of revenge, suspicions of disloyalty and hostility. As a result, arbitrariness was established in the white-controlled territories, anarchy and permissiveness of those who had power and weapons triumphed. All this had a negative impact on morale and reduced the combat effectiveness of the army.
The attitude of the population towards whites was negatively influenced by their connections with the allies. Without their help, it was impossible to establish powerful armed resistance to the Reds. But the frank desire of the French, British, Americans, Japanese to take possession of Russian property, using the weakness of the state; The large-scale export of food and raw materials caused discontent among the population. The Whites found themselves in an ambiguous position: in the struggle for the liberation of Russia from the Bolsheviks, they received the support of those who viewed the territory of our country as an object of economic expansion. This also worked for the Soviet government, which objectively acted as a patriotic force.

The civil war in Russia became a tragedy for the entire population of the country. The confrontation gripped all segments of the population and entered every home. Kuban was no exception, where the confrontation involved the Cossack and non-resident population. The first battles took place in early January 1918 near the city of Yekaterinodar and ended in the defeat of Bolshevik supporters. January 2018 will mark 100 years since the start of this tragedy.

I do not pretend to provide a detailed examination of all aspects related to those distant events, but I will try to consider the preparedness of the military units of the warring parties at the initial stage of the confrontation. It should be noted that at this period of time, the confrontation involved the masses of soldiers, who stood mainly on the side of the Bolsheviks, and Cossack formations, who tried to resist the aspirations of the Bolshevik leaders. The Kuban Cossacks did not yet understand the threats that arose before them as one of the classes subject to liquidation, and tried to defend their traditional rights. Unfortunately, this came at a high price.

The Black Sea region was the first to fall under Bolshevik rule. In this regard, the Kuban Regional Food Committee refused to send trains with grain to Novorossiysk, which served to strengthen anti-Cossack sentiments, although the committee was not Cossack in composition.

The Bolsheviks, guided by the decisions made at the first conference of party organizations of the Kuban and Black Sea region, held on November 25-26, 1917 in Novorossiysk, focused on the formation of Red Guard detachments and strengthening work in military units returning from the front. The leader of the Bolsheviks A.A. Yakovlev proposed to go to Trebizond for troops in order to immediately move to Kuban. This decision was made unanimously.

At the end of December 1917, meetings of military workers were held in the villages of Krymskaya and Primorsko-Akhtarskaya. They make decisions on the transition to an active fight against the regional government. By the end of 1917, the power of the Kuban government extended only to Ekaterinodar and the villages closest to it.

The events of 1917-1918 showed the inability of the democratic forces in the region to resolve economic and political issues peacefully. Passions boiled over the issue of land, but it was resolved only in favor of the Cossack part of the population, which meant attempts to establish a dictatorship. Speculation in land rentals deepened divisions in society. The intensity of political passions led to the fact that the majority of political parties and movements saw the possibility of their existence only in support on an armed basis. The process of militarization of parties began. The parties moved from local clashes to a large-scale civil war.

On January 12, 1918, in the village of Krymskaya, the Bolsheviks made a decision to storm Ekaterinodar. Their forces, according to Ataman Vyacheslav Naumenko, amounted to up to 4,000 people. The regional government could oppose them with about 600 fighters with four guns.

The opposing side did not sit idly by. I will give an assessment by historian D.E. Skobtseva: “N.M., a member of the government for military affairs, finally arrived from the Caucasian Front. Uspensky and set about putting together units of Kuban volunteers. He hastily passed through the Government Council a regulation on service in the Kuban volunteer detachments. A decent salary was determined for the volunteers, the military regulations were adapted, the regulations on rank production, discipline, revolutionary field courts, etc. were revised.”

The phase of active formation of the first units has begun. The above-mentioned author noted: “By the end of Christmastide, there were already several Kuban volunteer detachments that took the name of their commanders: military foreman Golaev, Colonel Demenik and others. The initiative and popularity of the bosses were of great importance.”

At the end of January 1918, near Enem and Georgie Afipska, the struggle became widespread. Skobtsev noted: “... three directions of the Bolshevik offensive on Yekaterinodar were determined: Caucasian, Tikhoretsk and Novorossiysk - along the main railway lines. At first, Novorossiysk turned out to be the most stormy - led by the “Minister of War of the Novorossiysk Republic,” Ensign Seradze. The battle began at the very approach to Ekaterinodar, at the Enem crossing. Galaev and Pokrovsky spoke out against Seradze.

In the first battle near the Enem station, the Bolsheviks suffered a serious defeat. During the battle, military sergeant major P.A. Galaev shot the commander of the Red Guard, cadet Alexander Yakovlev, and was immediately killed himself. An interesting fact is that during the First World War Yakovlev served as a supplier of uniforms for the needs of the army and was not a professional commander. During one of the trips near the town of Molodechko, a grenade flew into the window of the carriage where he was, the cadet was wounded, after which he underwent treatment on the Black Sea coast. After the events of 1917, he was sent by the Bolsheviks to Novorossiysk.

The second battle was also unsuccessful. The left Socialist Revolutionary ensign Seradze, who was appointed instead of Yakovlev, was captured and died from his wounds in a military hospital.

In Novorossiysk, several armored trains were prepared for the attack on the capital of Kuban. The number of Red Army soldiers, according to Soviet and emigrant experts, was about 4,000 people. Supporters of the regional government sent no more than 600 Cossacks against this group. Cossack cavalry and several guns were thrown against the armored trains.

The result of this operation is impressive. The Red Guard on armored trains with artillery was defeated, and most of its participants fled: “The Bolsheviks fled, leaving numerous trophies and their mortally wounded commander-in-chief Seridze on the battlefield. Here, in a battle near the Enem crossing, a girl, warrant officer Barkhash, died. Pokrovsky was given a triumph similar to Caesar’s.”

Thus, it turned out that the Cossacks were more prepared for combat operations, and the Cossacks had a much higher motive for defending their land. In addition, the level of commander training among Bolshevik leaders was highly questionable.

The population of Kuban reacted negatively to the Bolshevik performance. A gathering of residents of the village of Pashkovskaya condemned this action. Cossacks from the villages of Voronezh, Platnirovskaya, Novotitarovskaya and others spoke out in support of the regional government. The villagers of Kushchevskaya refused to submit to the power of the soviets.

The first attempt by Bolshevik supporters to seize power in the Kuban capital failed. A new stage of escalation of the civil war has begun. To replenish supplies, the Novorossiysk executive committee continued to disarm the units of the Caucasian front passing through the city.

An attempt to agitate among seven thousand soldiers in the capital of the Black Sea province about a repeat performance led to a split in their ranks. Soldiers of the 22nd Varnavinsky Regiment and the 41st Artillery Division agreed to participate in the fight against the regional government. Sailors of the Black Sea Fleet played an active role. At the request of the Novorossiysk Bolshevik Committee, a detachment of F.M. arrived from Crimea. Karnau-Grushevsky.

The Kuban-Black Sea Military Revolutionary Committee received weapons from the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Caucasian Army, the Central Executive Committee of the Military Fleet from Kerch, Sevastopol, Odessa. Contact was established with Armavir and Tikhoretskaya to form a new front against Ekaterinodar.

A base of armed resources for a new assault on the Kuban capital was created. Moreover, support was provided in all directions. Supporters of the Cossacks did not have such a wide base; the industrial regions of Russia came under the control of the Bolsheviks. There was no ammunition, small arms, cartridges, military equipment and ammunition.

On the one hand, we see excellent command cadres among the opponents of the Bolsheviks, and on the other, the lack of material support for military operations.

The situation among Bolshevik supporters was completely opposite. And time was not long in coming; the next stage of the armed confrontation began, which ended in the spring of 1918 with the defeat of the anti-Bolshevik coalition in the Kuban. The process of accumulation of forces began again, which grew into confrontation in the summer of 1918, when the Volunteer Army, together with units of the Kuban Cossacks, took full control of the territory of the former Kuban region.

"White-green" 20s

The majority of Kuban residents, tired of the war, supported the Bolsheviks in the spring of 1920. Peasants and workers joyfully greeted the Red Army, and the Cossacks maintained a benevolent neutrality. Pilyuk and Savitsky, the leaders of the “green army” who rebelled against Denikin, hoped for moderation by the Bolsheviks, an agreement between the socialist parties, and the granting of autonomy to the Cossack regions. It seemed to them that the Bolsheviks would not introduce the system of military communism in the Kuban. A peculiar situation arose in the Sochi and Tuapse districts, where the Black Sea Liberation Committee, led by the Socialist-Revolutionary Voronovich, created the Black Sea Peasant Republic, fighting against both the Volunteer and Red Army.

In the spring of 1920, only a few continued to fight against the Bolsheviks. But by May 1920, the introduction of labor duties and surplus appropriation, the redistribution of Cossack lands and lawless reprisals, and the ban on the participation of kulaks in elections heated the atmosphere. At the end of April, the 14th Cavalry Division of the 1st Cavalry Army, formed mainly from former whites, rebelled. Knowing about the direction against Wrangel, the division started a riot in the village of Umanskaya with the call “Down with the war, down with the commune!” Near the village of Kushchevskaya, the rebels, led by Colonel Sukhenko, were defeated and scattered.

The anti-Bolshevik movement represented a wide range of forces. Agents of foreign states and criminals acted; the protracted war demoralized many and devalued life. But it is wrong to neglect the heterogeneity and complex balance of forces of the rebels. The opinion of political commissar of the 1st Cavalry Army Stroilo gives cause for thought: “Pure banditry is a property of very few small detachments that have nothing in common with large political organizations.”

The social composition of the “white-greens” was complex. Usually the detachments were led by officers or Cossacks; there were many former soldiers of the Volunteer Army, refugees from Central Russia. When the villages were captured, all Cossacks of military age were subject to mobilization. Relations between the “white-green” groups are contradictory; they were united by hatred of the Soviet regime.

An accurate estimate of the number of rebels, their deployment and equipment is difficult. The special department of the Caucasian Front believed that the number of large detachments of “white-greens” from June to July 6, 1920 grew in the south from 5,400 to 13,100 people in 36 detachments with 50 machine guns and 12 guns. The historian Stepanenko summarized the data, according to which in August 1920 the counter-revolutionary forces on the Don, Kuban and Terek reached 30,000 people. Military operations had a seasonal rhythm, dying down during sowing and harvesting, flaring up in autumn and early spring. The next peak of protests occurred in February-March 1921, a period of worsening food crisis and a turning point in the policy of the RCP (b).
The main centers of the insurgency were the Trans-Kuban region (the deployment of the Russian Renaissance Army), the Azov region (Wrangel's landings), and the Sochi district.

In mid-April 1920, General Fostikov began to create a Plastun regiment and a cavalry brigade near Maikop. In July, a spontaneous riot caused by surplus appropriation and the seizure of ¾ of the hay reserves engulfed the villages of the Labinsk department. On July 18, Colonel Shevtsov with a detachment of 600 sabers captured the Prochnookopskaya village and announced the mobilization of the Cossacks. The total forces of the “white-green” Labinsky, Batalpashinsky and Maikop departments reached 11,400 people with 55 machine guns and 6 guns in mid-July.

On July 23, military foreman Fartukov restored ataman rule in the mountainous zone of the Maikop department.

Growing rebellions forced requests for military assistance. On August 1, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Cheka received a telegram from the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee: “The entire Kuban is engulfed in uprisings. There are detachments led by a single hand - Wrangel's agents. The green detachments grow and expand significantly with the end of the busy season of field work - around August 15. If Wrangel is not liquidated within a short time, we risk temporarily losing the North Caucasus.”

The authorities took strict measures. On July 29, 1920, order No. 1247 was issued for the troops of the Caucasian Front, signed by Trifonov and Gittis. By August 15, residents were required to surrender their weapons under pain of confiscation of property and execution on the spot. The same punishment was established for joining gangs, assisting the “greens” or harboring them. The rebel villages were subject to pacification "with the most decisive and merciless measures, up to their complete ruin and destruction."