THE REVOLUTION AND THE COSSACKS.
A peculiar part was played by the Cossacks in the history of the
Revolution.
Built up historically, in the course of several centuries, the
relations of the Cossacks with the Central Government, common to
Russia, were of a dual character. The Government did all to encourage
the development of Cossack colonisation on the Russian south-eastern
borders, where war was unceasing. It made allowances for the
peculiarities of the warlike, agricultural life of the Cossacks, and
allowed them a certain degree of independence and individual forms of
democratic rule, with representative organs (the Kosh, kroog, rada), an
elected "Army elder" and hetmans.
"In its weakness," says Solovyov, "The State did not look too strictly
on the activities of the Cossacks, so long as they were directed only
against foreign lands; the State being weak, it was considered needful
to give these restless forces an outlet." But the "activities" of the
Cossacks were more than once directed against Moscow as well. This
circumstance led to a prolonged internecine struggle, which lasted
until the end of the eighteenth century, when, after a ferocious
suppression of the Pougatchov Rebellion, the free Cossacks of the
South-East were dealt a final blow; they gradually lost their markedly
oppositionary character, and even gained the reputation of the most
conservative element in the State, the pillars of the throne and the
régime.
From that time onward the Government incessantly showed favour to the
Cossacks by emphasising their really great merits, by solemn promises
to preserve their "Cossack Liberties,"[30] and by the appointment of
members of the Imperial family to honorary posts among the Cossacks.
At the same time, the Government took all measures to prevent these
"liberties" from developing to excess at the expense of that ruthless
centralisation, which was a historical necessity in the beginning of
the building up of the Russian State and a vast historical blunder
in its later development. To the number of these measures we must
refer the limitation of Cossack self-government, and, latterly, the
traditional appointment to the post of Hetman of persons not belonging
to the Cossack caste, and often complete strangers to the life of the
Cossacks. The oldest and most numerous Cossack Army, that of the Don,
has had Generals of German origin at its head more than once.
It seemed as if the Czarist Government had every reason to depend upon
the Cossacks. The repeated repression of the local political labour
and agrarian disturbances which broke out in Russia, the crushing of
a more serious rising--the revolution of 1905-1906, in which a great
part was played by the Cossack troops--all this seemed to confirm the
established opinion of the Cossacks. On the other hand, sundry episodes
of the "repressions," accompanied by inevitable violence, sometimes
cruelty, were widely spread among the people, were exaggerated, and
created a hostile attitude towards the Cossacks at the factories,
in the villages, among the Liberal _intelligencia_, and especially
among those elements which are known as the Revolutionary Democracy.
Throughout the whole of the underground literature--in its appeals,
leaflets, and pictures--the idea of a "Cossack" became synonymous with
"servant" of the Reactionary party.
This definition was greatly exaggerated. The bard of the Don Cossacks,
Mitrophan Bogayevsky, says of the political character of the Cossacks:
"The first and fundamental condition which prevented the Cossacks, at
least in the beginning, from breaking up was the idea of the State,
a lawful order, a deep-seated realisation of the necessity of a life
within the bounds of law. This seeking of a lawful order runs, and has
run, like a scarlet thread through all the circles of all the Cossack
Armies." But such altruistic motives, by themselves, do not exhaust the
question. Notwithstanding the grievous weight of universal military
service, the Cossacks, especially those of the South, enjoyed a certain
prosperity which excluded that important stimulus which roused against
the Government and the régime both the workers' class and the peasantry
of Central Russia. An extraordinarily complicated agrarian question
set the caste economic interests of the Cossacks against the interests
of the "outsider"[31] settlers. Thus, for instance, in the oldest and
largest Cossack Army, that of the Don, the amount of land secured to an
individual farm was, on the average, in _dessiateens_: for Cossacks,
19.3 to 30; for native peasants, 6.5; for immigrant peasants, 1.3.
Finally, owing to historical conditions and a narrow territorial system
of recruiting, the Cossack units possessed a perfectly homogeneous
personnel, a great internal unity, and a discipline which was firm,
though somewhat peculiar as to the mutual relations between the
officers and the privates, and therefore they conceded complete
obedience to their chiefs and to the Supreme Power.
With the support of all these motives, the Government made a wide use
of Cossack troops for suppressing popular agitation, and thus roused
against them the mute exasperation of the fermenting, discontented
masses of the population.
In return for their historical "liberties," the Cossack Armies, as I
have said, give all but universal military service. Its burden and the
degree of relative importance of these troops among the armed forces of
the Russian Empire are shown in the following table:
COMPOSITION OF THE COSSACK TROOPS IN THE AUTUMN OF 1913.
---------------+------------+---------------+-------------
Armies. | Cavalry | Sotnias not | Infantry
| Regiments. | included | Battalions.
| | in Regiments. |
---------------+------------+---------------+-------------
Don | 60 | 72 | --
Kouban | 37 | 37 | 22
Orenburg | 18 | 40 | --
Terek | 12 | 3 | 2
Ural | 9 | 4 | --
Siberian | 9 | 3 | --
Trans-Baikal | 9 | -- | --
Semiretchensk | 3 | 7 | --
Astrakhan | 3 | -- | --
Amur | 2 | 5 | --
---------------+------------+---------------+-------------
TOTAL[32] | 162 | 171 | 24
---------------+------------+---------------+-------------
Partly as cavalry of the line--in divisions and corps, partly as Army
corps and divisional cavalry--in regiments, sub-divisions and detached
_sotnias_, the Cossack units were scattered over all the Russian
fronts, from the Baltic to Persia. _Among the Cossacks, as against all
the other component parts of the Army, desertion was unknown._
At the outbreak of Revolution all the political groups, and even
the representatives of the Allies, devoted great attention to the
Cossacks--some building exaggerated hopes on them, others regarding
them with unconcealed suspicion. The circles of the Right looked to the
Cossacks for Restoration; the Liberal Bourgeoisie, for active support
of law and order; while the parties of the Left feared that they were
counter-Revolutionary, and therefore started a strong propaganda in
the Cossack units, seeking to disintegrate them. This was to some
extent assisted by the spirit of repentance which showed itself at
all Cossack meetings, Congresses, "Circles" and "Radas" at which the
late power was accused of systematically rousing the Cossacks against
the people. The mutual relations between the Cossacks and the local
agricultural population were unusually complicated, especially in
the Cossack territories of European Russia.[33] Intermingled with
the Cossack allotments were peasant lands--those of whilom settlers
(the indigenous peasantry)--lands let on long lease, on which large
settlements had sprung up, finally lands which had been granted by the
Emperor to various persons and which had gradually passed into the
hands of "outsiders." On the basis of these mutual relations dissension
now arose which began to assume the character of violence and forcible
seizures. With respect to the Don Army, which gave the keynote to
all others, the Provisional Government considered it necessary to
publish on April 7th an appeal in which, while affirming that "the
rights of the Cossacks to the land, as they have grown historically,
remain inviolable," also promised the "outsider" population, "whose
claim to the land is also based on historical rights," that it would
be satisfied, in as great a measure as possible, by the Constituent
Assembly. This agrarian puzzle, which surrounded with uncertainty the
most tender point of the Cossacks' hopes, was explained unequivocally,
in the middle of May, by the Minister of Agriculture, Tchernov (at the
All-Russia Peasant Congress), who stated that the Cossacks held large
tracts of land and that now they would have to surrender a portion of
their lands.
In the Cossack territories meanwhile work was in full swing in the
sphere of self-determination and self-government; the information
supplied by the Press was vague and contradictory; no one had yet heard
the voice of the Cossacks as a whole. One can understand, therefore,
that general attention which was concentrated on the All-Russia Cossack
Congress, which gathered in Petrograd in the beginning of June.
The Cossacks paid a tribute to the Revolution and to the State,
referred to their own needs (after all, the question of their holdings
was the most vital one), and ... smiled to the Soviet....
The impression thus produced was indefinite; neither were the hopes of
the one side fulfilled nor the fears of the other dissipated.
Meanwhile, at the initiative of the Revolutionary Democracy, a violent
propaganda was set on foot for introducing the idea of doing away with
the Cossacks as a separate caste. But, on the whole, this idea of
self-abolition had no success. On the contrary, a growing aspiration
spread among the Cossacks for maintaining their internal organisation
and for the union of all the Cossack Armies.
Cossack Governments sprang up everywhere, elected Hetmans and
representative institutions ("Circles" and Radas), whose authority
increased in accordance with the weakening of the authority and power
of the Provisional Government. Such eminent men appeared at the head
of the Cossacks as Kaledin (the Don), Doutov (Orenburg), and Karaoulov
(the Terek).
A triple power was formed in the Cossack territories; the Hetman with
his Government, the commissary of the Provisional Government, and the
Soviet.[34]
The Commissaries, however, after a short and unsuccessful struggle,
soon subsided and exhibited no activity. Far more serious became
the struggle of the Cossack authority with the local Soviets and
Committees, which sought support in the unruly mob of soldiers who
flooded the territories under the name of Reserve Army Battalions and
Rear Army Units. This curse of the population positively terrorised
the land, creating anarchy in the towns and settlements, instituting
sacks, seizing lands and businesses, trampling upon all rights, all
authority, and creating intolerable conditions of life. The Cossacks
had nothing with which to combat this violence--all their units were at
the Front. Only in the Don territory, accidentally, in the autumn of
1917, not without the deliberate connivance of the Stavka, a division
was concentrated, and afterwards three divisions, with the aid of which
General Kaledin attempted to restore order.
But all the measures taken by him, as for instance the occupation by
armed forces of railway junctions, of the more important mines, and of
large centres, which secured normal communication and supplies for the
centre and the fronts, were met not only with violent resistance on the
part of the Soviets and with accusations of counter-revolutionism, but
even with some suspicion on the part of the Provisional Government. At
the same time the Cossacks of the Kouban and of the Terek asked the Don
to send them if only a few _sotnias_, as it was "becoming impossible to
breathe for _comrades_."
The friendly relations, instituted in the early days of the Revolution,
between the general Russian and the Cossack Revolutionary Democracies
were soon broken off finally. "Cossack Socialism" turned out to be
so self-sufficing, so concentrated in its own castes and corporation
limits, that it could find no place in that doctrine.
The Soviets insisted on the equalising of the holdings of the Cossacks
and the peasants, while the Cossacks vigorously defended their right
of property and disposal in the Cossack lands, basing it on their
historical merits as conquerors, protectors, and colonisers of the
former marches of Russia's territory.
The organisation of a general territorial Government failed. An
internecine struggle began.
The consequences were two-fold: The first was a painful atmosphere of
estrangement and hostility between the Cossacks and the "outsider"
population, which later, in the swiftly changing kaleidoscope of the
civil war, sometimes assumed monstrous forms of mutual extermination,
as the power passed from the hands of one side into those of the
other. Along with this, one or the other half of the population of the
larger Cossack territories were generally deemed as participating in
the building up and the economy of the land.[35] The second was the
so-called Cossack separatism or self-determination.
The Cossacks had no reason to expect from the Revolutionary Democracy
a favourable settlement of their destiny, especially in the question
most vital to it--the land question. On the other hand, the Provisional
Government had also assumed an ambiguous attitude in this matter, and
the Government power was openly tending to its fall. The future assumed
altogether indefinite outlines. Hence, independently of the general
healthy aspiration towards decentralisation, there appeared among the
Cossacks, who for centuries had been seeking "freedom," a tendency
themselves to secure the maximum of independence, so as to place the
future Constituent Assembly before an accomplished fact, or as the
more outspoken Cossack leaders put it, "that there should be something
from which to knock off." Hence a gradual evolution from territorial
self-government to autonomy, federation, and confederation. Hence,
finally--with the intrusion of individual local self-love, ambition,
and interests--a permanent struggle began with every principle of an
imperial tendency, a struggle which weakened both sides and greatly
prolonged the civil war.[36] It was these circumstances, too, that gave
birth to the idea of an independent Cossack army, which first arose
among the Cossacks of the Kouban and was not then supported by Kaledin
and the more imperialistic elements of the Don.
All that I have related refers mainly to the three Cossack bodies (the
Don, the Kouban, and the Terek) which form more than sixty per cent.
of Cossack-dom. But the general characteristic features belong to the
other Cossack armies as well.
Along with the alterations in the composition of the Provisional
Government and with the decline of its authority, changes took place
in the attitude toward it of Cossack-dom, expressing themselves
in the resolutions and appeals of the Council of the union of the
Cossack armies, of the hetmans, circles, and Governments. If before
July the Cossacks voted for all possible support to the Government
and for complete obedience, later, however, _while acknowledging the
authority of the Government to the very end_, it comes forward in
sharp opposition to it on the questions of the organisation of the
Cossack administration and _zemstvo_, of the employment of Cossacks
for the repression of rebellious troops and districts and so forth. In
October the Kouban rada assumes constituent powers and publishes the
constitution of the "Kouban territory." It speaks of the Government in
such a manner as the following: "When will the Provisional Government
shake off these fumes (the Bolshevist aggression) and put an end, by
resolute measures, to these scandals?"
The Provisional Government, being already without authority and without
any real power, surrendered all its positions and agreed to peace with
the Cossack Governments.
It is remarkable that, even at the end of October, when, owing to the
breach of communications, no correct information had yet been received
on the Don about the events in Petrograd and Moscow and about the fate
of the Provisional Government, and when it was supposed that its
fragments were functioning somewhere or other, the Cossack elders, in
the person of the representatives of the South-Eastern Union, then
gathering,[37] sought to get into touch with the Government, offering
it aid against the Bolsheviks, but conditioning this aid with a whole
series of economic demands: a non-interest-bearing loan of 500,000,000
roubles, the State to pay all the expenses of supporting Cossack units
outside the territory of the union, the institution of a pension fund
for all sufferers, and the right of the Cossacks to all "spoils of
war"(?) which might be taken in the course of the coming civil war.
It is not without interest that for a long time Pourishkevitch
cherished the idea of the transfer of the State Duma to the Don, as a
counterpoise to the Provisional Government and for the preservation of
the source of authority, in case of the fall of the latter. Kaledin's
attitude towards this proposal was negative.
A characteristic indication of the attitude which the Cossacks had
succeeded in retaining towards themselves in the most varied circles
was that attraction to the Don which later, in the winter of 1917,
led thitherward Rodzianko, Miliukov, General Alexeiev, the Bykhov
prisoners, Savinkov, and even Kerensky, who came to General Kaledin, in
Novotcherkassk, in the latter days of November, but was not received by
him. Pourishkevitch alone did not come, and that only because he was
then in prison in Petrograd, in the hands of the Bolsheviks.
And suddenly it turned out that the whole thing was a mystification,
pure and simple, that at that time the Cossacks had no power left
whatever.
In view of the growing disorders on the Cossack territory, the hetmans
repeatedly appealed for the recall from the front of if only part of
the Cossack divisions. They were awaited with enormous impatience,
and the most radiant hopes were built on them. In October these hopes
seemed to be on the eve of fulfilment; the Cossack divisions had
started for home. Overcoming all manner of obstacles on their way,
retarded at every step by the Vikzhel (All-Russia Executive Railway
Committee) and the local Soviets, subjected more than once to insults,
disarmament, resorting in one place to requests, in another to cunning,
and in some places to armed threats, the Cossack units forced their way
into their territories.
But no measures could preserve the Cossack units from the fate which
had befallen the Army, for the whole of the psychological atmosphere
and all the factors of disruption, internal and external, were
absorbed by the Cossack masses, perhaps less intensively, but on the
whole in the same way. The two unsuccessful and, for the Cossacks,
incomprehensible marches on Petrograd, with Krymov[38] and Krasnov,[39]
introduced still greater confusion into their vague political outlook.
The return of the Cossack troops to their homeland brought complete
disenchantment with it: they--at least the Cossacks of the Don, the
Kouban, and the Terek[40]--brought with them from the front the most
genuine Bolshevism, void, of course, of any kind of ideology, but with
all the phenomena of complete disintegration which we know so well.
This disintegration ripened gradually, showed itself later, but at
once exhibiting itself in the denial of the authority of the "elders,"
the negation of all power, by mutiny, violence, the persecution and
surrender of the officers, but principally by complete abandonment
of any struggle against the Soviet power, which falsely promised the
inviolability of the Cossack rights and organisation. Bolshevism and
the Cossack organisation! Such grotesque contradictions were brought to
the surface daily by the reality of Russian life, on the basis of that
drunken debauch into which its long-desired freedom had degenerated.
Now began the tragedy of Cossack life and the Cossack family in which
an insurmountable barrier had arisen between the "elders" and the "men
of the front," destroying their life and rousing the children against
their fathers.