Decossackization
Encyclopedia
Decossackization is a term used to describe the Bolshevik
s' policy of the systematic elimination of the Cossacks of the Don
and the Kuban
as a social and ethnic group. This was the first example of Soviet leaders deciding to "eliminate, exterminate
, and deport the population of a whole territory," which they had taken to calling the "Soviet Vendée" Some historians allege that the repressive measures imposed by the Soviets during decossackization constitute genocide
. One specialist of the conflict in the Don region, Peter Holquist, concludes that decossackization did not constitute an "open-ended program" of genocide but does claim that it shows the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering" and was a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups."
from the 18th to the early 20th century. They lived mainly in southern Russia in the Don
and Kuban
areas, as well as parts of Siberia
and Central Asia
such as Orenburg
and Transbaikalia. As a social group they were similar to the Streltsy
(professional musketeers) and artillerymen. Because of their military tradition, Cossack forces played an important role in Russia’s wars of the 18th and 19th centuries such as the Crimean War
and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, relying on the economic prosperity of the Cossacks, their privileged status as a military estate, and their political conservativsm, the tsarist regime employed them extensively to perform police service and suppress the revolutionary movement, especially in 1905–7.
Following the Russian Revolution, Cossack elites adopted a hostile policy against soviets of workers' deputies while poorer Cossacks supported the soviets. During the civil war in Russia, Cossacks served both the Red and White armies. Cossack units under the command of PV Bakhturov, MF Blinov, SM Budennyi, BM Dumenko, ND Kashirin, FK Mironov, and others fought in the ranks of the Red Army. One-fifth of all Cossacks under arms served in the Red Army.
The concept of decossackization was discussed in the Imperial period. There had long been talk about eliminating the Cossack estate as a judicial entity and reducing the Cossacks' privileges to those enjoyed by other citizens. This was a form of "decossackization." Some Cossacks supported these plans: elimination of privileges also entailed the elimination of burdens including universal, life-long military service or the need to meet equipment obligations.
Soon after the establishment of Soviet power in Petrograd and other cities in November 1917, conflict broke out between the new Communist regime in Russia and the Cossacks. In the Don territory, Ataman Kaledin declared that he would "offer full support, in close alliance with the governments of the other Cossack hosts" to Kerensky's forces. Establishing ties with the Ukrainian Central Rada and the Kuban, Terek, and Orenburg hosts, Kaledin sought to overthrow Soviet power and create a counterrevolutionary regime in Russia. On 15 November 1917 Generals Kornilov, Alekseev, and Denikin began to organize the Volunteer Army in Novocherkassk. Imposing martial law, Kaledin moved in late November to eliminate the soviets. On December 15, after a seven day battle, they occupied Rostov. On 7 January 1918, Soviet troops began a coordinated offensive from Gorlovka, Lugansk, and Millerovo. They were supported by uprisings among the workers and Cossacks. On February 25, Bolshevik troops occupied Rostov and Novocherkassk. The remnants of the White Cossacks, headed by Ataman Popov, fled into the Salsk steppes. In mid-March 1919 alone, Cheka
forces executed more than 8,000 Cossacks. In each stanitsa
, summary judgements were passed by revolutionary courts within minutes, and whole lists of people were condemned to execution for "counterrevolutionary
behavior."
After the German forces invaded and occupied Rostov on May 8, a puppet government headed by General Krasnov was formed in the Don province. In July 1918, the White Cossack forces of General Krasnov launched their first invasion of Tsaritsyn. Soviet forces counterattacked and drove out the White Cossacks by September 7. On September 22, Krasnov’s forces launched a second invasion of Tsaritsyn but by October 25, Krasnov’s forces were thrown back beyond the Don by Soviet troops. On January 1, 1919, Krasnov launched a third invasion of Tsaritsyn. Soviet forces repelled the invasion and forced Krasnov’s forces to withdraw from Tsaritsyn in mid-February 1919. In the period that General Krasnov's White Cossack forces controlled the Don province, from May 1918 to February 1919, the "All-Great Don Host" punitive organs sentenced some 25,000 people to death.
The Don region was required by the Soviets to make a grain contribution equal to the total annual production of the area. Almost all Cossacks joined the Green Army or other rebel forces. Together with Baron Wrangel's
troops, they forced the Red Army out of the region in August 1920. After the retaking of the Crimea
by Red Army
, the Cossacks became victims of the Red Terror
. Special commissions
in charge of decossackization condemned more than 6,000 people to death in October 1920 alone. The families and often the neighbors of suspected rebels were taken as hostages and sent to concentration camps. According to Martin Latsis
who led the Ukrainian Cheka
:
In November 1920 Feliks Dzerzhinsky, head of the Cheka
, reported to Lenin:
The Pyatigorsk
Cheka
organized a "day of Red Terror
" to execute 300 people in one day. They ordered local Communist Party organizations to draw up execution lists. According to one of the chekists
, "this rather unsatisfactory method led to a great deal of private settling of old scores... In Kislovodsk
, for lack of a better idea, it was decided to kill people who were in the hospital." Many Cossack towns were burned to the ground, and all survivors deported on the orders by Sergo Ordzhonikidze who was head of the Revolutionary Committee of the Northern Caucasus. The files of Sergo Ordzhonikidze include documents which detail such operations. On the 23rd of October he ordered:
Three weeks later Ordzhonikidze received a report outlining how the operation was progressing:
against wealthy Cossacks, exterminating
all of them; carry out merciless mass terror against any and all Cossacks taking part in any way, directly or indirectly, in the struggle against Soviet power." On February 7 the Southern Front issued its own instructions on how the resolution was to be applied: "The main duty of stanitsa and khutor
executive committees is to neutralize the Cossackry through the merciless extirpation of its elite. District and Stanitsa ataman
s are subject to unconditional elimination, [but] khutor atamans should be subject to execution only in those cases where it can be proved that they actively supported Krasnov's policies (having organized pacification, conducted mobilization, refused to offer refuge to revolutionary Cossacks or to Red Army men).” The policy of “high decossackization” was cancelled on March 16, 1919 in response to a major revolt against Soviet power in Veshenskaia. The Soviet state focused on the formal elimination of the Cossackry as a monolithic social, juridical, and economic entity. The complete rehabilitation of the Cossacks and the Don Territory came in September 1919. An article in the newspaper of the Army instructed that: "While it is true that a certain portion of the Don Territory's population is counter-revolutionary for reasons of an economic nature, this is far from the majority. And this entire remaining section of the population could become our ally." In spite of this, deportations and executions continued well into 1920.
Peter Holquist claims the overall number of executions is difficult to establish, but that they clearly numberd in the thousands, probably exceeding 10,000. In some regions hundreds were executed. In Khoper, the tribunal was very active, with a one-month total of 226 executions. The Tsymlianskaia tribunal oversaw the execution of over 700 people. The Kotel'nikovo tribunal executed 117 in early May and nearly 1,000 overall. Others were not quite as active. The Berezovskaia tribunal made a total of twenty arrests in a community of 13,500 people. One Russian historian provides a comprehensive estimate of executions in the Veshenskaia area: "it is possible, and indeed likely, that the number of those who would have suffered repression would have reached a large figure, but in fact the number at the time of the uprising was around 300." Holquist concludes that White reports of Red atrocities in the Don were consciously scripted for agitational purposes. In one example, an insurgent leader reported that 140 were executed in Bokovskaia, but later provided a different account, according to which only eight people in Bokovskaia were sentenced to death, and the authorities did not manage to carry these sentences out. This same historian emphasises he is "not seeking to downplay or dismiss very real executions by the Soviets." Other historians, among them Orlando Figes
, Donald Rayfield
, Alexander Nekrich
, R.J. Rummel and Stéphane Courtois
, conclude that decossackization amounted to genocide
and involved numbers in the hundreds of thousands. University of York
Russian specialist Shane O'Rourke states that "ten thousand Cossacks were slaughtered systematically in a few weeks in January 1919" and that this "was one of the main factors which led to the disappearance of the Cossacks as a nation." The late Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
, head of the Presidential Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, notes that "hundreds of thousands of Cossacks were killed." Historian Robert Gellately
claims that "the most reliable estimates indicate that between 300,000 and 500,000 were killed or deported in 1919-20." This out of a population of around three million. Research by P. Polian from Russia's Academy of Sciences on the subject of forced migrations in Russia shows that more than 45,000 Cossacks were deported from the Terek
province to Ukraine. Their land was distributed among pro-soviet Cossacks and Chechens.
Some Bolsheviks themselves admitted to the genocidal nature of decossackization. Reingold, the president of the Revolutionary Committee of the Don who was entrusted with imposing Bolshevik rule in Cossack territories, stated that in practice "what was carried out instead against the Cossacks was an indiscriminate policy of massive extermination
."
In June 1919, Lenin disingenuously attempted to blame the excesses on local official's "immatutre overenthusiasm." But regional committees were merely implementing the aforementioned resolutions. Holquist asserts that the Central government was "fully aware of the tribunal's activities" and that the tribunals "were showing no compunction about executing people." The late Soviet historian Dmitri Volkogonov
estimates that "almost a third of the Cossack population was exterminated on Lenin’s orders."
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s' policy of the systematic elimination of the Cossacks of the Don
Don Cossacks
Don Cossacks were Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don.- Etymology and origins :The Don Cossack Host was a frontier military organization from the end of the 16th until the early 20th century....
and the Kuban
Kuban
Kuban is a geographic region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, Volga Delta and the Caucasus...
as a social and ethnic group. This was the first example of Soviet leaders deciding to "eliminate, exterminate
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, and deport the population of a whole territory," which they had taken to calling the "Soviet Vendée" Some historians allege that the repressive measures imposed by the Soviets during decossackization constitute genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
. One specialist of the conflict in the Don region, Peter Holquist, concludes that decossackization did not constitute an "open-ended program" of genocide but does claim that it shows the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering" and was a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups."
Background
Cossacks were a military estate in pre-revolutionary RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
from the 18th to the early 20th century. They lived mainly in southern Russia in the Don
Don
- People :* Don , a short form of the masculine given name Donald in English, also a masculine given name in Irish* Don , a Spanish, Portuguese and Italian title, given as a mark of respect* Don, a crime boss...
and Kuban
Kuban
Kuban is a geographic region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, Volga Delta and the Caucasus...
areas, as well as parts of Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
such as Orenburg
Orenburg
Orenburg is a city on the Ural River and the administrative center of Orenburg Oblast, Russia. It lies southeast of Moscow, very close to the border with Kazakhstan. Population: 546,987 ; 549,361 ; Highest point: 154.4 m...
and Transbaikalia. As a social group they were similar to the Streltsy
Streltsy
Streltsy were the units of Russian guardsmen in the 16th - early 18th centuries, armed with firearms. They are also collectively known as Marksman Troops .- Origins and organization :...
(professional musketeers) and artillerymen. Because of their military tradition, Cossack forces played an important role in Russia’s wars of the 18th and 19th centuries such as the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, relying on the economic prosperity of the Cossacks, their privileged status as a military estate, and their political conservativsm, the tsarist regime employed them extensively to perform police service and suppress the revolutionary movement, especially in 1905–7.
Following the Russian Revolution, Cossack elites adopted a hostile policy against soviets of workers' deputies while poorer Cossacks supported the soviets. During the civil war in Russia, Cossacks served both the Red and White armies. Cossack units under the command of PV Bakhturov, MF Blinov, SM Budennyi, BM Dumenko, ND Kashirin, FK Mironov, and others fought in the ranks of the Red Army. One-fifth of all Cossacks under arms served in the Red Army.
The concept of decossackization was discussed in the Imperial period. There had long been talk about eliminating the Cossack estate as a judicial entity and reducing the Cossacks' privileges to those enjoyed by other citizens. This was a form of "decossackization." Some Cossacks supported these plans: elimination of privileges also entailed the elimination of burdens including universal, life-long military service or the need to meet equipment obligations.
Soon after the establishment of Soviet power in Petrograd and other cities in November 1917, conflict broke out between the new Communist regime in Russia and the Cossacks. In the Don territory, Ataman Kaledin declared that he would "offer full support, in close alliance with the governments of the other Cossack hosts" to Kerensky's forces. Establishing ties with the Ukrainian Central Rada and the Kuban, Terek, and Orenburg hosts, Kaledin sought to overthrow Soviet power and create a counterrevolutionary regime in Russia. On 15 November 1917 Generals Kornilov, Alekseev, and Denikin began to organize the Volunteer Army in Novocherkassk. Imposing martial law, Kaledin moved in late November to eliminate the soviets. On December 15, after a seven day battle, they occupied Rostov. On 7 January 1918, Soviet troops began a coordinated offensive from Gorlovka, Lugansk, and Millerovo. They were supported by uprisings among the workers and Cossacks. On February 25, Bolshevik troops occupied Rostov and Novocherkassk. The remnants of the White Cossacks, headed by Ataman Popov, fled into the Salsk steppes. In mid-March 1919 alone, Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
forces executed more than 8,000 Cossacks. In each stanitsa
Stanitsa
Stanitsa is a village inside a Cossack host . Stanitsas were the primary unit of Cossack hosts.Historically, the stanitsa was a unit of economic and political organisation of the Cossack peoples primarily in the southern regions of the Russian Empire.Much of the land was held in common by the...
, summary judgements were passed by revolutionary courts within minutes, and whole lists of people were condemned to execution for "counterrevolutionary
Counterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
behavior."
After the German forces invaded and occupied Rostov on May 8, a puppet government headed by General Krasnov was formed in the Don province. In July 1918, the White Cossack forces of General Krasnov launched their first invasion of Tsaritsyn. Soviet forces counterattacked and drove out the White Cossacks by September 7. On September 22, Krasnov’s forces launched a second invasion of Tsaritsyn but by October 25, Krasnov’s forces were thrown back beyond the Don by Soviet troops. On January 1, 1919, Krasnov launched a third invasion of Tsaritsyn. Soviet forces repelled the invasion and forced Krasnov’s forces to withdraw from Tsaritsyn in mid-February 1919. In the period that General Krasnov's White Cossack forces controlled the Don province, from May 1918 to February 1919, the "All-Great Don Host" punitive organs sentenced some 25,000 people to death.
The Don region was required by the Soviets to make a grain contribution equal to the total annual production of the area. Almost all Cossacks joined the Green Army or other rebel forces. Together with Baron Wrangel's
Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire...
troops, they forced the Red Army out of the region in August 1920. After the retaking of the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
by Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, the Cossacks became victims of the Red Terror
Red Terror
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...
. Special commissions
NKVD troika
NKVD troika or Troika, in Soviet Union history, were commissions of three persons who convicted people without trial. These commissions were employed as an instrument of extrajudicial punishment introduced to circumvent the legal system with a means for quick execution or imprisonment...
in charge of decossackization condemned more than 6,000 people to death in October 1920 alone. The families and often the neighbors of suspected rebels were taken as hostages and sent to concentration camps. According to Martin Latsis
Martin Latsis
Martin Ivanovich Latsis was a Latvian-born Soviet politician, revolutionary and state security high officer...
who led the Ukrainian Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
:
"Gathered together in a camp near MaikopMaikopMaykop or Maikop may refer to:*Maykop, capital of the Republic of Adygea, Russia*Maykop culture, prehistoric culture of the northern Caucasus, ca. 3500 BCE–2500 BCE...
, the hostageHostageA hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...
s, women, children and old men survive in the most appalling conditions, in the cold and the mud of October... They are dying like flies. The women will do anything to escape death. The soldiers guarding the camp take advantage of this and treat them as prostitutes."
In November 1920 Feliks Dzerzhinsky, head of the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, reported to Lenin:
"the republic has to organize the internmentInternmentInternment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
in camps of about 100,000 prisoners from the Southern front and vast masses of people expelled from the rebellious [Cossack] settlements of the Terek, the Kuban, and the Don. Today 403 Cossack men and women aged between 14 and 17 arrived in OryolOryolOryol or Orel is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow...
for internment in concentration camp. They cannot be accepted as Oryol is already overloaded."
The Pyatigorsk
Pyatigorsk
Pyatigorsk is a city in Stavropol Krai on the Podkumok River, about from Mineralnye Vody. Since January 19, 2010 it has been the administrative center of the North Caucasian Federal District of Russia...
Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
organized a "day of Red Terror
Red Terror
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...
" to execute 300 people in one day. They ordered local Communist Party organizations to draw up execution lists. According to one of the chekists
Chekism
Chekism is a term used by some historians and political scientists to emphasize the omnipotence and omnipresence of secret political police in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia...
, "this rather unsatisfactory method led to a great deal of private settling of old scores... In Kislovodsk
Kislovodsk
Kislovodsk is a city in Stavropol Krai, Russia, which lies in the North Caucasian region of the country, between the Black and Caspian Seas. The closest airport is located in the city of Mineralnye Vody. Population:...
, for lack of a better idea, it was decided to kill people who were in the hospital." Many Cossack towns were burned to the ground, and all survivors deported on the orders by Sergo Ordzhonikidze who was head of the Revolutionary Committee of the Northern Caucasus. The files of Sergo Ordzhonikidze include documents which detail such operations. On the 23rd of October he ordered:
1. The Town of Kalinovskaya to be burned.
2. The inhabitants of Ermolovskaya, Romanovskaya, Samachinskaya, and Mikhailovskaya to be driven out of their homes, and the houses and land redistributed among the poor peasants, particularly among the Chechens, who have always shown great respect for Soviet power.
3. All males ages eighteen to fifty from the above-mentioned towns to be gathered into convoys and deported under armed escort to the north, where they will be forced into heavy laborUnfree labourUnfree labour includes all forms of slavery as well as all other related institutions .-Payment for unfree labour:If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of the following forms:...
.
4. Women, children, and old people to be driven from their homes, although they are allowed to resettle farther north.
5. All the cattle and goods of the above mentioned towns to be seized.
Three weeks later Ordzhonikidze received a report outlining how the operation was progressing:
Kalinovskaya: town razed and the whole population (4,220) deported or expelled
Ermolovskaya: emptied of all inhabitants (3,218)
Romanovskaya: 1,600 deported, 1,661 awaiting deportation
Samachinskaya: 1,018 deported, 1,900 awaiting deportation
Mikhailovskaya: 600 deported, 2,200 awaiting deportation
History
The policy was established by a secret resolution of the Bolshevik Party on January 24, 1919, which ordered local branches to "carry out mass terrorState terrorism
State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...
against wealthy Cossacks, exterminating
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
all of them; carry out merciless mass terror against any and all Cossacks taking part in any way, directly or indirectly, in the struggle against Soviet power." On February 7 the Southern Front issued its own instructions on how the resolution was to be applied: "The main duty of stanitsa and khutor
Khutor
Khutor or khutir is usually taken to refer to a single-homestead rural settlement of Eastern Europe.In Cossack-settled lands that encompassed today's Ukraine, Kuban, and the lower Don river basin the word khutor was used to describe new settlements which had detached themselves from stanitsas...
executive committees is to neutralize the Cossackry through the merciless extirpation of its elite. District and Stanitsa ataman
Ataman
Ataman was a commander title of the Ukrainian People's Army, Cossack, and haidamak leaders, who were in essence the Cossacks...
s are subject to unconditional elimination, [but] khutor atamans should be subject to execution only in those cases where it can be proved that they actively supported Krasnov's policies (having organized pacification, conducted mobilization, refused to offer refuge to revolutionary Cossacks or to Red Army men).” The policy of “high decossackization” was cancelled on March 16, 1919 in response to a major revolt against Soviet power in Veshenskaia. The Soviet state focused on the formal elimination of the Cossackry as a monolithic social, juridical, and economic entity. The complete rehabilitation of the Cossacks and the Don Territory came in September 1919. An article in the newspaper of the Army instructed that: "While it is true that a certain portion of the Don Territory's population is counter-revolutionary for reasons of an economic nature, this is far from the majority. And this entire remaining section of the population could become our ally." In spite of this, deportations and executions continued well into 1920.
Peter Holquist claims the overall number of executions is difficult to establish, but that they clearly numberd in the thousands, probably exceeding 10,000. In some regions hundreds were executed. In Khoper, the tribunal was very active, with a one-month total of 226 executions. The Tsymlianskaia tribunal oversaw the execution of over 700 people. The Kotel'nikovo tribunal executed 117 in early May and nearly 1,000 overall. Others were not quite as active. The Berezovskaia tribunal made a total of twenty arrests in a community of 13,500 people. One Russian historian provides a comprehensive estimate of executions in the Veshenskaia area: "it is possible, and indeed likely, that the number of those who would have suffered repression would have reached a large figure, but in fact the number at the time of the uprising was around 300." Holquist concludes that White reports of Red atrocities in the Don were consciously scripted for agitational purposes. In one example, an insurgent leader reported that 140 were executed in Bokovskaia, but later provided a different account, according to which only eight people in Bokovskaia were sentenced to death, and the authorities did not manage to carry these sentences out. This same historian emphasises he is "not seeking to downplay or dismiss very real executions by the Soviets." Other historians, among them Orlando Figes
Orlando Figes
Orlando Figes is a British historian of Russia, and Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London.-Overview:Figes is the son of the feminist writer Eva Figes. His sister is the author and editor Kate Figes. He attended William Ellis School in north London from 1971-78...
, Donald Rayfield
Donald Rayfield
Donald Rayfield is professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Joseph Stalin and his secret police...
, Alexander Nekrich
Alexander Nekrich
Aleksandr Moiseyevich Nekrich was a Soviet Russian historian, since 1976 in emigration to the United States, known for his works on the history of the Soviet Union, especially under Joseph Stalin’s rule....
, R.J. Rummel and Stéphane Courtois
Stéphane Courtois
Stéphane Courtois is a French historian, an internationally known expert on communist studies, particularly the history of communism and communist genocides, and author of several books...
, conclude that decossackization amounted to genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
and involved numbers in the hundreds of thousands. University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
Russian specialist Shane O'Rourke states that "ten thousand Cossacks were slaughtered systematically in a few weeks in January 1919" and that this "was one of the main factors which led to the disappearance of the Cossacks as a nation." The late Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev was a Soviet politician and historian who was a Soviet governmental official in the 1980s and a member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...
, head of the Presidential Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, notes that "hundreds of thousands of Cossacks were killed." Historian Robert Gellately
Robert Gellately
Robert Gellately is a Newfoundland-born Canadian academic who is one of the leading historians of modern Europe, particularly during World War II and the Cold War era. He is presently Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University....
claims that "the most reliable estimates indicate that between 300,000 and 500,000 were killed or deported in 1919-20." This out of a population of around three million. Research by P. Polian from Russia's Academy of Sciences on the subject of forced migrations in Russia shows that more than 45,000 Cossacks were deported from the Terek
Terek
The Terek River is a major river in the Northern Caucasus, flowing through Georgia and Russia into the Caspian Sea. It rises in Georgia near the juncture of the The Greater Caucasus Mountain Range and the Khokh Range, to the southwest of Mount Kazbek, then flows north through North Ossetia and...
province to Ukraine. Their land was distributed among pro-soviet Cossacks and Chechens.
Some Bolsheviks themselves admitted to the genocidal nature of decossackization. Reingold, the president of the Revolutionary Committee of the Don who was entrusted with imposing Bolshevik rule in Cossack territories, stated that in practice "what was carried out instead against the Cossacks was an indiscriminate policy of massive extermination
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
."
In June 1919, Lenin disingenuously attempted to blame the excesses on local official's "immatutre overenthusiasm." But regional committees were merely implementing the aforementioned resolutions. Holquist asserts that the Central government was "fully aware of the tribunal's activities" and that the tribunals "were showing no compunction about executing people." The late Soviet historian Dmitri Volkogonov
Dmitri Volkogonov
Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov was a Russian historian and officer.-Biography:...
estimates that "almost a third of the Cossack population was exterminated on Lenin’s orders."
See also
- Red TerrorRed TerrorThe Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...
- DekulakizationDekulakizationDekulakization was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, and executions of millions of the better-off peasants and their families in 1929-1932. The richer peasants were labeled kulaks and considered class enemies...
- Population transfer in the Soviet UnionPopulation transfer in the Soviet UnionPopulation transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
- Forced settlements in the Soviet Union
External links
- Soviet order to exterminate Cossacks is unearthed University of YorkUniversity of YorkThe University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
Communications Office, 21 January 2003