The confrontation between the communist regime and the fascist forces, and later the liberal world, has always provoked and causes even more heated discussions today. The years of Soviet rule were very mixed, especially for the first, pre-war period. The facts of mass executions, exile, famine, and the total atmosphere of fear of power make some of the modern public categorically scold this very regime, forgetting
positive moments, exposing it in devilish colors and justifying all who at least somehow declared their opposition. Even if it was a comfortable opposition from abroad or, even worse, cooperation with the Nazi regime. The most striking example of the last and one of the most controversial pages of the
Great Patriotic War is the Lokot Republic, which existed for some time in the occupied territories.
Collaborant refuge or free zone?
The Lokot Republic arose in the autumn of 1941 on the territory of the Oryol (and now Bryansk) region, at a time when the forces of the Red Army were forced to retreat from these lands under the onslaught of Blitzkrieg. Just the day before, the Wehrmacht armies entered the Lokot settlement (the capital of the neoplasm). These
territories before the war were not considered the most loyal to the Soviet regime: among the local population there were a significant number of former kulaks and other citizens who had cause for dissatisfaction with the government.
In general, in many of the occupied territories, the occupiers found accomplices, from which the police were formed. However, the Lokot region stood out by the initiative. Since local self-government bodies had already formed here even before the Nazis arrived, and even the last to testify to their full devotion, the invaders preferred to leave such a formation as a small puppet state.
It should be noted that the Lokot Republic for the Third Reich played an important role in the sense that it was actually an advertising sign for the conquered peoples. She performed the same role as the posters, urging them to go to work in Germany and promising all kinds of sweet life for refusing resistance and cooperation with the leadership of the Reich.
The Lokot district in the months of its heyday - from the fall of 1941 to the summer of 1943 - totaled more than half a million people. The former active member of the CPSU (b) Konstantin Voskoboynik, who suddenly changed his
ideological views. His deputy was another pre-war member of the Communist Party, Bronislaw Kaminsky. The latter, in the very first months of the existence of the puppet republic, began to create the famous RONA - the Russian national liberation army. She subsequently engaged in the fight against partisans who remained loyal to their country, as well as punitive raids against the local population suspected of collaborating with partisans and actions such as forced selection of food, livestock and other utilities for the needs of the Wehrmacht.
During its almost two-year existence, the Lokot Republic was marked by the daily executions of Jews and partisans, as well as by the clumsy attempts of its leadership to present themselves as liberators and prophets of a new Russia free from the "red plague". This territorial formation fell with its masters when, in August 1943, after Stalingrad and the Kursk Bulge, the Germans retreated to the west.