De-Cossackization

De-Cossackization
Part of the Red Terror
LocationDon and Kuban, Russia
Date1919–1933
Attack type
Deportation, execution, ethnic cleansing
DeathsAnywhere from 10,000[1] to 700,000[2]
Victimsat least 45,000 Cossacks deported to Ukraine,[3] potentially up to 300,000 to 500,000 Cossacks deported and a lower amount killed overall[4]
PerpetratorsRed Army, Cheka
Part of a series on
Cossacks
"Zaporozhian Cossacks write to the Sultan of Turkey" by Ilya Repin (1844–1930)
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks
Cossack hosts
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History
Notable Cossacks
Cossack terms
Cossack folklore
Mass repression
in the Soviet Union
Economic repression
Political repression
Ideological repression
Ethnic repression

De-Cossackization (Russian: Расказачивание, romanized: Raskazachivaniye) was the Bolshevik policy of systematic repression against the Cossacks in the former Russian Empire between 1919 and 1933, especially the Don and Kuban Cossacks in Russia, aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a distinct collectivity by exterminating the Cossack elite, coercing all other Cossacks into compliance, and eliminating Cossack distinctness.[5] Several scholars have categorised this as a form of genocide,[6][7][8][9][10] whilst other historians have highly disputed this classification due to the contentious figures which range from "a few thousand to incredible claims of hundreds of thousands".[11][12][13]

The campaign began in March 1919 in response to growing Cossack insurgency.[5] According to Nicolas Werth, one of the authors of The Black Book of Communism, Soviet leaders deciding to "eliminate, exterminate, and deport the population of a whole territory", which they had taken to calling the "Soviet Vendée".[14] The process has been described by scholar Peter Holquist as part of a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups" that showed the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering".[15][1] Throughout this period, the policy underwent significant modifications, which resulted in the "normalization" of Cossacks as a component part of Soviet society.[1]

  1. ^ a b c Holquist, Peter (1997). "'Conduct merciless mass terror': decossackization on the Don, 1919". Cahiers du Monde Russe. 38 (1): 127–162. doi:10.3406/cmr.1997.2486.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rummeltwo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Polian, Pavel (2004). Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR. Central European University Press. p. 60. ISBN 978-963-9241-68-8.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gellately was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Schleifman, Nurit (2013). Russia at a Crossroads: History, Memory and Political Practice. Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-135-22533-9.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Figes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rayfield was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Nekrich was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rummel was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "Soviet order to exterminate Cossacks is unearthed". Archived December 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine University of York Communications Office, 21 January 2003
  11. ^ Adamski, Łukasz; Gajos, Bartłomiej (3 June 2019). Circles of the Russian Revolution: Internal and International Consequences of the Year 1917 in Russia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-76363-2.
  12. ^ "The socio-demographic statistical data for the period of the late 1920s summarized by the quota (local) representative sample and attracted by the article indicate the absence of negative population dynamics, including the Cossack population, which leads to the conclusion that the red power did not use terror and genocide against the Cossacks massively in the designated period of time, and, accordingly, the Bolsheviks did not carry out a large-scale decossackization policy."Skorik, Alexander. "Decossackization as a Policy and Social Process in the Don Region in the 1920s".
  13. ^ "Thus, one of the most famous manifestations of the Red Terror is the policy of “decossackization” on the Don in 1919. The number of its victims is estimated differently, up to tens and even hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes it is even defined as “genocide.” Recently, Cossack researcher A.V. paid attention to this issue. Venkov in a book about the Veshensky uprising, and he mainly relied on data from the rebels. As it turned out, both sides at the height of the conflict agreed that about 300 people were killed by the Reds before the uprising".Zayats, Nikolay. "On the scale of the Red Terror during the Civil War". scepsis.net.
  14. ^ Werth, Nicolas; Bartošek, Karel; Panné, Jean-Louis; Margolin, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Courtois, Stéphane (1999). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. p. 98. ISBN 0-674-07608-7.
  15. ^ Holquist, Peter (30 December 2002). Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674009073. Retrieved 1 March 2014.