Insurrectionary Movement in the Cossack Regions of the South of Russia: Causes and Political Forms in 1920—1924

Abstract

On the example of the insurrectionary movement of the Cossacks and peasants of the Don and Kuban in the early 1920s, one of the most difficult issues in the history of the transition from the policy of war communism to the new economic policy is considered. The reasons and manifestations of the insurrection in the South of Russia in 1920—1924, its influence on the content of reforms in the region are revealed. The features of the “white-green” movement in the southern Russian stanitsas, conditioned by the historically established order of land use, the forms of stanitsa self-government, the estate and class composition of the population, are established. It is noted that the relevance of the study increases in the context of rethinking the reforms of Russian society, the need to strengthen the social base of reforms and conflict resolution. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that for the first time we consider the insurrectionary movement not as a class confrontation, but as a confrontation between the authorities and the South Russian community, represented by various estate, class groups and socio-political movements. The factors for regulating the conflict during the transition to NEP have been established. The author comes to the conclusion that the “pacification” of the Cossack regions of the South of Russia took place not only through the active use of the regular units of the Red Army and security forces, but also through compromise decisions that became the basis for the start of economic reforms.