One of the first attempts of the bourgeoisie and landlords to regain the power lost in October with the help of weapons was the appearance in October 1917-February 1918 of the Don counter-revolution, known as the Kaledin rebellion. This revolt was not only a local event, it became a major hotbed of the All-Russian counter-revolution, and the working people of the whole country rose up to fight it. Therefore, it is natural that Soviet historians should refer to the history of this struggle more than once .1 However, there are some issues that need further elaboration. Thus, questions about the measures taken by the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and the Soviet government to prepare for the defeat of the Kaledin rebellion, about the composition of the troops operating on the "Kaledin front" are not fully covered, and the tactics of the Rostov Bolsheviks in the initial period of the struggle against Kaledin are inconsistently interpreted. The proposed article attempts to cover these issues more fully, but without claiming to cover the whole topic exhaustively.
The Don region became the base of the counter-revolution not by chance: 38% of its population were Cossacks, who owned almost 80% of the land here. 2 V. I. Lenin described the Cossacks as "a layer of the population consisting of rich, small or medium-sized landowners... especially those who have saved them
1 Cm. For example, "Proletarian Revolution on the Don". Collection 2. Rostov-on-Don. 1922. Collection 4. M.-L. 1924; A. V. Golubev. Civil War in the USSR, 1918-1920, Moscow, 1932; I. Razgon. Defeat of the Kaledin region. Proletarskaya revolyutsiya, 1940, No. 2; Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya na Donu [October Revolution on the Don]. Collection of articles. Rostov-on-Don. 1957; "Struggle for: the Power of the Soviets in the Donbass". Collection of documents and materials. Donetsk, 1957; T. M. Koli;sher. Бі;льшовики Украї;ни в боротьбі; проти Каледі;на (листопад 1917 - лютий 1918 рр.). "Украї;нський і;сторичний журнал", 1962, N 5; Н. Гончаренко. The struggle for strengthening the power of the Soviets in the Donbass (November 1917-April 1918). Lugansk. 1963; L. I. Berz, K. A. Khmelevsky. Heroic years. The October Revolution and the Civil War on the Don. Rostov-on-Don. 1964; "Essays on the history of the Bolshevik organizations of the Don". Rostov-on-Don. 1965; V. Polikarpov. Kaledin region and its liquidation. "Military-historical journal", 1968, N 3; Kh. F. Lukyanov. The struggle of the Bolshevik Party against the bourgeois nationalist and cadet-Kaledin counter-revolution in the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog basin (1917-1918). Kiev, 1953 (cand. diss); Yu. K. Kiriyenko. Kaledin's rebellion and its collapse (October 1917 - February 1918). Rostov-on-Don. 1967 (abstract of cand. diss), etc. In addition, see generalizing works: "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", Vol. Book 1. Moscow, 1967; "History of the Great October Socialist Revolution", Moscow, 1967; see also publications of documents: "Correspondence of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) with local party organizations", Vol. 2. Moscow, 1957; "The Great October Socialist Revolution in Ukraine". Vol. III. Kiev, 1957; " The struggle for power of the Soviets on the Don (1917-1920)". Collection of documents. Rostov-on-Don. 1957; "The struggle for the establishment and consolidation of Soviet Power". Chronicle of events (October 26, 1917-January 10, 1918). Moscow, 1962; "The Triumphal March of Soviet Power". Documents and materials. Hh. 1-II. M. 1963, et al.
2 See P. Moskatov, G. Shablievsky, and M. Karagodskaya. The Don Working class in the struggle for Soviet Power (a brief historical sketch). Rostov-on-Don. 1957, p. 29.
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many medieval features of life, economy, and everyday life " 3 . Even before the Great October Revolution, he noted that in the Cossack regions "one can see the socio-economic basis for the Russian Vendee" 4 .
The victory of the armed insurrection in Petrograd brought the counter-revolutionary forces on the Don into action. The" military government " headed by General A. Kaledin, ataman of the Don Army, already seized power in the region on October 25, 1917.5 and imposed martial law. Detachments of White Cossacks were sent to the Donbass. Novocherkassk became the center of attraction for counter-revolutionaries throughout the country. Members of the deposed Provisional Government and the counter-revolutionary "Soviet of the Russian Republic" were hurried to "invite"here. In addition, the leader of the cadet party, P. Milyukov, the leader of the monarchists, M. Rodzianko, and generals L. Kornilov, M. Alekseev, and A. Denikin settled here. On the Don, the formation of officers of the "Volunteer Army" began. The big banks and capitalists of Russia gave the most energetic support to the reactionaries of the Don. Kaledin's "government" actually led the counter-revolutionary forces in the South of the country and concluded an agreement with the Ukrainian Central Rada, which launched a struggle not only with the Bolshevik Soviets in Ukraine, but also with the Soviet government on an all-Russian scale.
The political leadership of the armed struggle of the counter-revolution was taken over by the Cadet party. At the same time, the most active role in organizing the Kaledin rebellion was played by the Entente imperialists. This made him a deadly threat to the Soviet government.
Having established a military dictatorship, Kaledin began to prepare for the capture of Rostov, an important center in the south of the country. The Bolsheviks of Rostov were at the forefront of the struggle against the Kaledin region, and its outcome largely depended on their actions. Therefore, it was especially important for the local Bolshevik organization to correctly determine its tactics in the rather difficult situation of the first days of the victory of the socialist revolution.
At that time the Bolsheviks of Rostov, as well as the party as a whole, were faced with the question of their attitude to the petty-bourgeois parties. The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries in Rostov tried to prevent the creation of a revolutionary body to direct the struggle against counter-revolution in the Don region, but failed. At an emergency meeting of the Rostov - Nakhichevan Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, 6 at the insistence of the Bolsheviks, a Military Revolutionary Committee was created "to fight the counter-revolution, support the Petrograd proletariat and garrison, and prevent possible Kaledinism in the Don region." 7 However, representatives of the petty-bourgeois parties refused to join it and formed a "Committee for Saving the Motherland and Revolution" under the City Duma, opposing it to the Bolshevik VRK.
A stubborn struggle against the compromisers unfolded at a meeting of the Council on November 4 during the discussion of the report on the results of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which was delivered by the delegate of the Congress, Secretary of the Don District Bureau of the RSDLP (b) M. P. Zhakov. While the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries strongly condemned the armed insurrection in Petrograd as supposedly adventurous, they tried to prove (as did their leaders in Petrograd) the necessity of creating a "homogeneous democratic government." At a meeting of the Council, a representative of the Social Revolutionaries suggested that Raspa-
3 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 34, p. 219.
4 Ibid.
5 All dates before 1 (14) February 1918 are given in the old style.
6 Its Executive Committee consisted of 16 Bolsheviks, 9 Mensheviks and 5 Social Revolutionaries.
7 "Our banner", 28. X. 1917. The Bolshevik S. I. Syrtsov, who was the chairman of the Council, was elected Chairman of the VRK.
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the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution and create a body that would include representatives of" all democratic organizations "of the city. The Bolsheviks rejected this resolution .8 Despite the insistence of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, the Soviet declared its readiness to support and implement the decrees of the Second Congress of Soviets and the resolutions of the Soviet Government .9
However, at this meeting of the Soviet, it was revealed that some of the leaders of the Rostov Bolsheviks did not deny the possibility of an agreement with the petty-bourgeois parties.10 The Bolshevik newspaper Nasha Znamya strongly opposed the agreement, pointing out in an editorial in the November 7 issue that the actions of the Rostov Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were closely connected with the attempts of the compromisers in the capital to liquidate the power of the Soviets by peaceful means, by creating a "homogeneous socialist government." "The Mensheviks and socialist-revolutionaries,"the article said," who, like all other parties, borrow their political behavior patterns from the capitals, seized on the model thrown by the party center and began to operate with it in Rostov as well." Since the victory of the socialist revolution in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks in Rostov, the newspaper noted, "have strengthened the ranks of genuine revolutionary democracy more than ever," despite the fact that the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries tried in every possible way to prevent this. Having failed, the latter changed their tactics. Now, the newspaper wrote, they were telling the Bolsheviks: "Destroy your work yourself; when we unite, it will be easy to do so. This is the unity that the Mensheviks and the socialist-revolutionaries, who imagine themselves to be leftists, propose." The newspaper drew attention to the fact that the proletariat needed "to unite even more strongly, to conduct its independent campaign even more energetically."
The tactical line of that part of the leadership of the Rostov Bolsheviks, which allowed for the possibility of an agreement with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, essentially diverged from the line of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), which, as is well known, did not object to expanding the government's base and changing its composition, but resolutely rejected Vikzhel's demand to include representatives of all "Soviet parties"in the government11 . The Bolshevik Party agreed only with the leftmost section of the petty - bourgeois democracy, the "left Social Revolutionaries." As a result of the very sharp struggle that unfolded around the question of creating a "homogeneous socialist government", thanks to the great perseverance and foresight of V. I. Lenin, the oppositionists within the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party (L. Kamenev, G. Zinoviev, A. Rykov, V. Nogin, V. Milyutin) who tried to make concessions to the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were severely condemned, and their plans were thwarted enemies of the revolution.
In Rostov, the petty-bourgeois parties succeeded in drawing the Bolsheviks into negotiations on the so - called "agreement", which took place on November 12-15 . Defining its platform of negotiations with the Menshevis-
8 At the same time, the Bolsheviks achieved that the conference of public organizations of the Don Region, held in Rostov on November 5, 1917, recognized the leading role of the VRC (see Nasha Znamya, 7.XI.1917).
9 "News of the Rostov-Nakhichevan Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers 'Deputies", 8. XI. 1917.
10 M. P. Zhakov declared to the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries at a meeting of the Soviet: "Van Front should straighten up to the left. Despite the fact that you were still with Bogaevsky yesterday (M. Bogaevsky is a comrade of the ataman of the Don Army), we extend our hand to you." The Bolshevik M. I. Ravikovich also supported an agreement with the petty-bourgeois parties: "We do not renounce the agreement..." (see Izvestiya Rostovo - Nakhichevan Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, 8.XI.1917).
11 See "Minutes of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). August 1917-February 1918", Moscow, 1958, pp. 122-123.
12 The negotiations were initiated by the Council of Soldiers 'and Officers' Deputies, which existed in Rostov along with the Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputations-
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The Don District Bureau of the RSDLP (b) put forward a demand for non - recognition of martial law in the region imposed by the Cubans, and for military actions against them, but on the main issue - about power-made a concession to the compromisers. The platform did not include a clause recognizing the SNK as the only legitimate government and its program, but only referred to a "socialist government (without further definitions)." The issue of local government was essentially avoided 13 . This half-hearted and inconsistent platform did not contain the same ultimatums that were presented to Vikzhel by the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), 14 which affected the results of the Rostov negotiations on November 12-15: the question of attitude towards the central government remained open. Moreover, this decision was made at the suggestion of S. I. Syrtsov and M. P. Zhakov, who feared that disagreements on this issue could lead to the breakdown of the agreement .15
On the issue of local government, the negotiators also adopted a compromise resolution. On the last day of the negotiations, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, taking advantage of the desire of some of the Bolshevik leaders to reach an agreement with the petty-bourgeois parties even by making serious concessions in principle, passed by a majority vote a resolution on reorganization (and, in fact, liquidation) VRK and the creation of a new, coalition body-VRK "united democracy". The majority in it turned out to be the compromise parties and those who supported them, although the Bolsheviks S. I. Syrtsov and M. I. Ravikovich were elected chairman and secretary of the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee of United democracy.
Was it right to set up a coalition body in the current circumstances? The answer to this question was given by subsequent events. Very soon the Bolsheviks became convinced that the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries had joined the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee of united democracy not to fight the counter-revolution, but to come to an agreement with it. Under pressure from the compromisers, the United Democracy Military Revolutionary Committee entered into negotiations on November 20 with General Potocki, Kaledin's protege in Rostov.
On November 24, the Bolsheviks, who were part of the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee of United democracy, made a proposal at its meeting to stop these negotiations and present an ultimatum to the "military government" within 24 hours to lift martial law and withdraw the Cossacks from the Donetsk mines, as well as to demand the abandonment of claims to supreme power. However, the Menshevik-SR majority of the committee passed a resolution to continue negotiations, disarm the Red Guard, remove the Black Sea Flotilla 16 and the Soviet troops, at the request of-
Comrade (The Menshevik-Socialist-Revolutionary leadership of this Soviet tried to rise above the two contending camps. While condemning Kaledin's punitive measures, it did not support the Bolsheviks. See Svobodnoe Slovo, 19. XI. 1917.) Representatives of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, the executive committees of both Soviets, the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Committee for Saving the Motherland and Revolution, and the Regional Military Committee took part in the negotiations. The Regional Military Committee was originally located in Novocherkassk and united the military units of the Don region. After the split of the committee caused by Kaledin's order to disarm infantry units, the infantry section of the committee left it and moved to Rostov. See "The Triumphal March of Soviet Power", Part I, p. 434.
13 See Correspondence of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) with Local Party organizations, vol. 2, p. 256.
14 See "Minutes of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). August 1917-February 1918", p. 130. It should be noted that in the "News of the Rostov-Nakhichevan Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies " on November 8, 1917, the text of the resolution read out by L. Kamenev at the meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on November 2 was given. This resolution fundamentally diverged from the Resolution of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) of November 1 (14), 1917.
15 See Our Banner, 15. XI. 1917.
16 The Black Sea military flotilla with an amphibious detachment of sailors arrived in Rostov on November 23.....
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sent to fight the Kaledin people. This clearly showed that it is necessary to act decisively.
The mistake made by the leaders of the Rostov Bolsheviks was soon corrected. The Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) sent a member of the Central Committee, A. S. Bubnov, to help the Rostov Bolsheviks. The Soviet government forbade "any negotiations with the leaders of the counter-revolutionary insurrection or attempts at mediation" and called on the local revolutionary garrisons "to act with all determination against the enemies of the people, without waiting for any instructions from above." 17 Clearly convinced of the treachery of the petty-bourgeois parties, the Bolsheviks of Rostov on November 25 achieved the withdrawal of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries from the "united democracy" VRK18 and restored the Bolshevik VRK. But since time was lost, additional difficulties had to be overcome in the fight against the cadet-Kaledin counter-revolution.
Kaledin took advantage of negotiations with representatives of the VRK "united democracy "and pulled up to Rostov the Cossack units loyal to the" military government", which carried out an armed attack on the Red Guard headquarters located in the Council's premises and the RSDLP (b) committee on the night of November 25-26. Several Red Guards and members of the Council were killed. On November 26, the Bolshevik newspaper Nasha Znamya, in an editorial, severely denounced the tactics of negotiations and stressed that the counter-revolution continues to mobilize its forces, puts them on alert, and is only waiting for an excuse to move the Cossack troops into the center of the country. "Only determination, only struggle will ensure victory," the newspaper pointed out. "To the struggle, brothers, revolutionary sailors, soldiers and workers! It's time to win!"
Considering these events, it is difficult to agree with the opinion of the authors of "Essays on the History of the Bolshevik organizations of the Don "that" the Bolsheviks considered the negotiations of the VRC with the military government as a maneuver to gain time " 19. The review of these "Essays" also raises objections to the tactics of the Rostov Bolsheviks in the initial period of the struggle against the Kaledin region. The authors of the review claim that "the creation of the bloc (i.e., the formation of the United democracy All - Russian Revolutionary Committee) bound Kaledin, depriving him of the opportunity to carry out a campaign against Moscow and Petrograd. The tactics of the Bolsheviks were justified in those historic days. " 20 It seems to us that in reality the leaders of the Bolsheviks in Rostov and the Don region failed to understand the current situation and the policy pursued by the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries in a timely and correct manner. Only after the armed attack on the Soviet was carried out did the Bolsheviks begin to act offensively. Under their leadership, the Red Guards and revolutionary-minded military units expelled the Kaledin Cossacks from Rostov and captured General Potocki; consequently, the struggle of the working people of the Don, and not an agreement with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, prevented Kaledin's march on Moscow and Petrograd.
After an unsuccessful attempt to take Rostov, Kaledin and his staff decided to regroup their forces and strike again. Cossack subrace-
17 "The struggle for Soviet Power in the Donbas", p. 260.
18 According to the newspaper Nashe Znamya (November 29, 1917), the compromisist part of the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee of United Democracy withdrew from the committee "because of the decision to issue an ultimatum" to Kaledin.
19 "Essays on the history of the Bolshevik organizations of the Don", p. 349.
20 "Don", 1966, No. 12, p. 171. A similar point of view is shared by Yu. K. Kiriyenko, who asserts that" under the pressure of circumstances " the Bolsheviks of Rostov carried out the tactics of a united front (see Yu.K. Kiriyenko. Op. ed., p. 11).
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divisions occupied those areas of the Donbass that were part of the Don Army region, and at the end of November 1917, they again launched an offensive on Rostov together with units of the "volunteer army". On December 2, despite stubborn resistance from the Red Guards and workers, the city was captured by the Kaledin Cadets. Having captured Rostov, the Cossacks and Junkers began to disperse the Soviets in the mines and in the cities of the Donbass. The coal pool workers also had to take up arms.
While the workers of the Don region and Donbass were repelling the first onslaught of the Kaledin people, the Soviet government was preparing forces to defeat the rebellion. On November 25, in an appeal "To the entire population", the Council of People's Commissars, pointing out the great danger from the counter-revolution in the Don and Urals, called on the workers to "sweep away the criminal enemies of the people" and defeat the counter-revolutionary uprisings. 21 In order to prevent an armed conflict with the Central Rada, which helped Kaledin pull together Cossack regiments from the front to the Don and did not allow revolutionary troops to pass through the territory of Ukraine, the SNK issued a manifesto to the Ukrainian people on December 4, setting out its ultimatum demands to the Rada. Once again, having confirmed the right of the Ukrainian people to independence, the Council of People's Commissars demanded that the Rada withdraw its support for the Cadet Kaledinists .22 Only after the Rada rejected these demands did the Council of People's Commissars decide to " consider the Rada in a state of war with us." It was also decided to create a commission headed by V. I. Lenin, instruct it to act on the Ukrainian issue on behalf of the Council of People's Commissars and take active measures to communicate with the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command located in Mogilev .23
The Council of People's Commissars and V. I. Lenin personally directed the actions taken by the Stavka to suppress the counter-revolution. On December 6, the Council of People's Commissars ordered the Stavka to "continue the merciless struggle against the Kaledins" and throw all available forces into the fight against the counter-revolution. In response, the commander-in-Chief N. V. Krylenko reported that possible measures have already been taken. On the instructions of the VRK at the Headquarters, several detachments were formed in the Petrograd, Novgorod and Smolensk provinces, in Minsk and Bryansk under the general command of R. I. Berzin and the commissar of the Lithuanian regiment G. N. Kudinsky. The largest of them, the Northern detachment under the command of R. F. Sivers, arrived on December 6 in Kharkiv,which became the place of concentration of Soviet troops sent to fight the Kaledins. In early December, the Soviet government appointed V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko as the commander of the Soviet troops that were to act against the Kaledin cadets and Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists. V. I. Lenin ordered him to " inform the Council of People's Commissars daily by direct wire (personally or through an adjutant) about who exactly he or other military personnel appointed authorities, responsible persons for the management of individual operations, especially for the movement and collection of troops and for command " 24. V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko left for Kharkov and began to perform the duties of commissar for the fight against the Don counter-revolution. By the decision of the Council of People's Commissars, G. K. Ordzhonikidze was sent to Ukraine as an emergency commissioner. The plan for defeating the Kaledin revolt was to concentrate Soviet troops in the Donbass, separate the forces of the Don and Ukrainian bourgeois-nationalist counterrevolution, and then, relying on the local Red Guard, defeat them in parts. In this regard, VRK. at
21 "The Struggle for: the Power of the Soviets in the Donbass", p. 260.
22 See V. I. Lenin, PSS. Vol. 35, pp. 143-145.
23 E. V. Klopov. Lenin in Smolny. Moscow, 1965, p. 164.
24 V. I. Leni n. PSS. Vol. 50, p. 18.
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At the direction of the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of People's Commissars, Stavke decided to concentrate significant revolutionary forces in the Donbass region and in southern Russia.
Workers of many regions of the country rose up to fight against the Kaledin region. On December 6, the Moscow City Council Presidium proposed that the Moscow Military District and the Red Guard headquarters mobilize all forces against the Kaledin residents and the Rada. A meeting of representatives of the district headquarters of the Red Guard of Moscow elected a commission that was supposed to organize revolutionary detachments. Soon, a detachment of 600 people was sent from Moscow to Kharkiv. Two detachments of Red Guards were sent to fight the Kaledin region by the workers of Tver 25 . The Ivanovo-Voznesensky Soviet, after discussing the question of sending troops against the Kaledins, decided: immediately organize a volunteer squad of workers. The workers of Kovrov started forming volunteer detachments. In Ryazan, a detachment was created from representatives of the local garrison units under the command of G. K. Petrov. Detachments to fight the Kaledin region were created in Voronezh, Tsaritsyn, Nizhny Novgorod and other cities .26
In the fight against the cadet-Kaledin counter-revolution, the Soviet command expected to use the garrisons of the central regions of Russia. A detachment formed in Kostroma from parts of military garrisons and Red Guard volunteers, numbering over a thousand people, marched on December 19 to the front against Kaledin. At the same time, detachments of volunteers from Yaroslavl and Ivanovo-Voznesensk were sent to the southern front .27 The troops sent by the Soviet government against the Don and Ukrainian bourgeois - nationalist counter-revolution were to include Latvian units and detachments of Kronstadt sailors. V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko sent sailor P. Purvin to Petrograd with an appeal to the Executive Committee of the United Soviets of Latvia, which indicated the need to send Latvian units to the Donbass. Ovseenko asked V. I. Lenin to speed up their dispatch to the south 28 . The request was fulfilled, and in January 1918 a Combined detachment consisting of the 3rd Kurzeme Latvian and 18th Siberian Rifle Regiments arrived in the Donbass.
Organizing the country's workers to defeat the Kaledin rebellion, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and the People's Commissariat of People's Commissars paid much attention to financing military operations in the south of the republic. On December 20, V. I. Lenin sent a letter to the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs about the leave of V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko of 5 million rubles. for the maintenance of troops operating against the Kaledin people 29 . At a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars on December 21, a resolution was adopted to allocate 1 million rubles to the commander of the Moscow Military District for the maintenance of troops recruited in the district to fight the Don counterrevolution .30
An important event in preparing for its defeat was the creation of the Southern Front headquarters in Kharkiv on December 24. By order of its commander-in-Chief, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, all issues of supplying troops with weapons and food were to be resolved in the relevant departments of the headquarters .31
25 "The struggle for the establishment and consolidation of Soviet power", pp. 404, 414, 432, 462.
26 Ibid., pp. 439-440, 469, 463.
27 Ibid., pp. 503, 498, 509.
28 V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko. Notes on the Civil War, vol. 1. Moscow, 1924, p. 102; TsGAOR USSR, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 4, l. 25.
29 "Documents on the history of the Civil War in the USSR", Moscow, 1941, p. 44.
30 "The struggle for the establishment and consolidation of Soviet power", p. 514.
31 TSASA, f. 1, op. 1, d. 13s, ll. 12-13.
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The measures of the Soviet command headed by V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko were approved by the Kharkiv City and regional committees of the Bolshevik Party.
So, during November and December, the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of People's Commissars carried out a series of decisive organizational, political and military measures to prepare for the suppression of the Kaledin rebellion. Significant armed forces were sent to fight the Kaledin region, which were supposed to be replenished at the expense of the Red Guard detachments created by the workers of Donbass under the leadership of the Bolsheviks. The main difficulty that had to be overcome during the formation of Red Guard detachments in the Donbass was the lack of weapons. The Soviet government gave the workers great help in obtaining weapons. On December 11, V. I. Lenin, answering questions from a delegation of workers of the Alexander-Grushevsky district, said that the Council of People's Commissars had decided "to offer the workers of the Alexander-Grushevsky district to get in touch with Kharkiv to arm the Red Guard. Ask your comrades to hold on as long as they can, to the last extreme, and not give up their work. " 32 Workers of the Bokovo-Khrustalsky district of the Don Region also asked Lenin to help them get weapons. Vladimir Ilyich instructed the Tula Arms Factory to "immediately supply rifles, revolvers, ammunition, and other weapons to the Red Guard of the Bokovsky Mountain Region." 33 Soon, 1 thousand rifles, 150 thousand rounds of ammunition and 3 machine guns were sent from Tula to Bokovo-Khrustalsky and Makeyevsky districts.
Improving the organizational work of the Bolsheviks of the Donbass to mobilize workers to fight the counter-revolution was facilitated by the creation of the Regional Military Revolutionary Committee in Ukraine on December 18, which was instructed to start organizing the Red Guard. Its detachments and headquarters were established at this time in Kramatorsk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and a number of other cities .34 The headquarters of the Red Guard did a lot to provide the formed detachments with the necessary weapons in a timely manner. It was issued from an artillery depot in Kharkov and distributed among detachments by the chief quartermaster of the Southern Front headquarters. A special train sent from Kharkiv to Yuzovka delivered almost 2 thousand rifles and 200 thousand rounds of ammunition to the workers of mines and factories .35 At the expense of weapons obtained from the Kharkov artillery depot, the First Red Guard Regiment of the Donetsk basin was armed, which included more than 2 thousand workers and miners 36. V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko reported to V. I. Lenin: "Arming the workers is going well" 37 .
By the second half of December, the mobilization of military forces was largely completed, and the Soviet command began to implement a plan to suppress the cadet-Kaledin mutiny. To successfully conduct military operations against the Kaledin Cossack detachments that were rampant in the Donbass, it was necessary, first of all, to seize the Southern Railway and thereby cut off the connection of the Ukrainian Rada with the Don. The solution of this important strategic task was assigned to the combined detachment of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Red Guards under the general command of P. V. Yegorov, which also included: the 30th Revolutionary Regiment, commanded by a Bolshevik, Ensign N. A. Rudnev, 500 Red Guards from Kharkov, a dugout train and a battery from Bryansk. December 17 - 21 summary
32 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, p. 159.
33 V. I. Lenin. Military correspondence, Moscow, 1966, p. 326.
34 TsGAOR USSR, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 5, ll. 392, 493.
35 TSGASA, f. 14, op. 1, d. 27, ll. 581, 662, 1176.
36 Ibid., l. 419.
37 TsGAOR. USSR, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 4, l. 25.
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the detachment liberated Lozovaya, Pavlograd and Sinelnikovo stations from the Rada troops, after which it was sent to Yekaterinoslav to support the workers ' uprising that had begun there.
A detachment led by Yu. V. Sablin, who arrived from Moscow, captured Kupyansk on December 20 and disarmed the Haidamaks, whom the rada intended to move against the revolutionary troops concentrated in Kharkov. Then the detachment advanced into the depths of the Donbass and occupied Lugansk and Rodakovo. A detachment under the command of R. F. Sivers was sent from Kharkiv to the Nikitovka - Horlivka - Debaltseve area. Here it was replenished with local Red Guards. He was ordered to gain a foothold in the occupied area and accumulate forces for a joint strike with Yu. V. Sablin's detachment in the direction of Zverevo-Likhaya-Millerovo, where both detachments were to connect with the detachment advancing from Voronezh under the command of G. K. Petrov and jointly deliver a decisive blow to Novocherkassk-Rostov.
Thus, by the end of December, the Soviet troops had taken up their starting positions for a general offensive and began to clear the Donbass of the White Cossacks and Junkers. The detachment of R. F. Sivers occupied Makeyevka, Krinichnaya, Yasinovataya and, continuing to advance further, took Ilovaiskoe. P. V. Yegorov's detachment, which liberated Ekaterinoslav on December 29, successfully operated.
Meanwhile, the situation in the Donbas was difficult by the end of December. As a result of the mass mobilization of workers in the Red Guard, many mines began to lack qualified miners. In order to prevent the closure of the mines, the command of the Soviet troops ordered all the headquarters of the Red Guard and the executive committees of the Soviets to strictly observe the principle of voluntariness when registering Red Guards in detachments and to dismiss to their homes those workers who were taken from the mines and enterprises in excess of the norm .38 To eliminate the shortcomings made in the formation of the Red Guard detachments, on January 5, the Central Headquarters of the Red Guard was created from representatives of the Petrograd, Moscow and local detachments, which began to directly train the Red Guard workers for the armed struggle against counter-revolution .39
On January 6, the general offensive of the Soviet troops in the Donbass began. Units of Yu. V. Sablin's detachment successfully advanced from Rodakov to Likhaya and from Debaltsevo to Zverev, and G. K. Petrov's Voronezh detachment - to Millerov. In this regard, the commander-in-chief ordered Yu.V. Sablin to provide Petrov's detachment with support from Luhansk, to consolidate a common front, in order to then jointly develop an offensive south to Novocherkassk. In the direction of Taganrog and Rostov, a detachment of R. F. Sivers was to operate, replenished with a battalion of Yaroslavl, a mortar battery and a Gatchina detachment.
In the fight against the Kaledin region, the Central Committee of the Party and the SNK attached great importance to attracting the Working Cossacks to the side of the revolution. The Council of People's Commissars appealed to "all the Labor Cossacks" to stop the senseless struggle against the power of the workers. The resolution of the Council of People's Commissars on the solution of the land question in the interests of the poor and middle Peasant masses of the Cossacks and the propaganda work carried out by the Bolsheviks among the labor Cossacks contributed to the class division among the population of the Don and other Cossack regions.
On January 10, a congress of revolutionary - minded front-line Cossacks was held in the village of Kamenskaya. On it the Don Military Council was elected.-
38 See The Great October Socialist Revolution in Ukraine. Vol. III, p. 110.
39 See "The Struggle for Soviet Power in the Donbas", pp. 276-277.
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The no-revolutionary committee, headed by non-commissioned officer F. G. Podtelkov and Ensign M. V. Krivoshlykov, declared war on the Kaledin people. Cossack units of the Donrevkom, acting together with Soviet troops, took an active part in the liquidation of the Kaledin region.
Decisive battles with the Cadet-Kaledin forces unfolded in the second half of January. On January 20, at the Glubokaya station, a detachment of G. K. Petrov and the Donrevkom Cossacks defeated a large detachment of Kaledin residents. "On the occasion of the victories over Kaledin and Co.," V. I. Lenin wrote to V. A. Antonov - Ovseenko on January 21, " I send my warmest greetings and wishes and congratulations to you! Hurrah and hurrah!"40 . Yu. V. Sablin's detachment, replenished by Black Sea sailors under the command of A.V. Mokrousov, also launched an offensive, expelled junkers and Cossacks from Likhaya and Zverevo stations on January 27, then liberated Sulin, Shakhtnaya station and Alexandrovsk-Grushevsk (now the city of Shakhty)41 . Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, Kaledin resigned and shot himself on January 29. General A. Nazarov became the military ataman.
On February 3 (16), Soviet troops occupied the Quarry station and thus cleared the way for a direct attack on Rostov and Novocherkassk. At the end of January, the Soviet offensive began against the counter-revolutionaries of the Don and from the North Caucasus. As a result, Tikhoretskaya and Bataysk stations were occupied. The remnants of the defeated White Guard detachments were surrounded in the Rostov - Novocherkassk area from three sides: Taganrog, Alexandrovsk-Grushevsk and Bataysk.
The situation of the Soviet Republic, which was complicated by the offensive of the Kaiser's troops that began on February 18, urgently demanded to speed up the final blow to the Don counter-revolution. On February 21, V. I. Lenin issued a direct wire order to V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko: "Immediately take Rostov and Novocherkassk. Send about 2,000 reliable Petrograd Red Guards to this task. " 42 Two days later, he confirmed this order: 43. On February 24, Soviet troops liberated Rostov, and on February 26, Novocherkassk. The counterrevolutionary revolt ended in complete collapse.
The victory of the workers, soldiers, and labor Cossacks over the Kaledin region was a natural result of the political and organizational activities of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet Government, and V. I. Lenin personally. In the struggle against the cadet-Kaledin counterrevolution, military units and Red Guard detachments passed the test and received battle training, which later became the basis for the creation of the regular Red Army.
40 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 50, p. 35.
41 V. Polikarpov. Op. ed., p. 24.
42 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, p. 580.
43 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 50, p. 46.
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