One of the most striking episodes of the Civil War in southern Russia was the creation of an independent people's republic on the territory of the Kuban and its struggle against both the Bolsheviks and the volunteer White Guard army, which was trying to take control of it. How events of this full dramatic history unfolded is described in our article.
Territory, flag and coat of arms of the newly formed republic
The territory of the Kuban People's Republic, proclaimed in February 1918, was very extensive and amounted to 94,400 km². It stretched from the Yeisk estuary (the Gulf of the Sea of Azov) in the north to the main Caucasus Range in the south. In its western part, it reached the Kerch Strait, and in the eastern part it reached the Black Sea province, the center of which was Novorossiysk.
The flag of the Kuban People’s Republic was a cloth divided horizontally by blue, raspberry and green stripes, and the width of the middle strip was two times that of the extreme ones. The meaning of each color was not documented, but it is believed that the raspberry symbolized the Black Sea Cossacks - the descendants of the Cossacks, blue - the heirs of the Don Cossacks, and green - the Cossacks, who were Muslim highlanders. The republic had its own coat of arms, a photo of which is placed in the article.
What was the Kuban People's Republic?
The internal structure of this self-proclaimed state was a structure led by the chief ataman, who was at the same time the commander in chief of the armed forces. His competence included the appointment of members of the government, while he himself was elected for a term of 4 years by the Kuban Regional Council, which, together with the Kuban Legislative Council, was the highest legislative body of state education.
The Kuban People’s Republic of 1918 was very heterogeneous in its political composition, while the bulk of the population preferred the two most numerous groups. One of them, economically stronger, bore the name "Black Sea" and consisted mainly of representatives of the Black Sea Ukrainian-speaking Cossacks, standing on separatist principles. The Black Sea people advocated the creation of an independent Kuban state, united with Ukraine on federal principles.
Supporters of the second political group, called the Lineets, advocated the entry of the Kuban into the "united and indivisible Russia." Throughout the entire period when the Kuban People’s Republic existed (1918-1920), an ongoing struggle was waged between these political forces, which sometimes took extremely harsh forms. The establishment of the power of the Bolsheviks in the Kuban gave it particular urgency.
The choice of political landmarks
In 1918, the Kuban People's Republic, like the territories surrounding it, became part of the general process of transfer of power into the hands of the Bolsheviks, whose support was the Black Sea province, the control of which they established back in December 1917.
How successful the efforts of the Bolsheviks in the Kuban could have turned out in many respects depended on which side the local Cossacks would take, who at that time took a wait-and-see position and did not express open support either to them or to their main adversary - the White Volunteer Army fighting in the south of Russia.
The reasons that pushed the Cossacks from the new government
However, by the autumn of 1918, a significant turning point had come in the mood of the Cossacks. Its cause was a policy contrary to their interests, pursued by the Bolsheviks in territories under their control. It was expressed in the confiscation of lands previously owned by the Cossack army, as well as the restructuring of the foundations of estate land use, which had a centuries-old tradition.
It caused protest and equalization of the rights of the Cossacks with representatives of the rest of the population of the region. This led to incitement of inter-divisive discord, often resulting in bloody conflicts. Finally, the decisive role in their choice was played by more frequent cases of looting and robbery, done by detachments of the Red Army, and acts carried out by the Bolshevik leadership, that is, depriving the Cossacks of their political and military rights.
The beginning of the struggle with the Bolsheviks
As a result, by the fall of 1918, most of the Cossacks became opponents of the new government, and almost the entire Kuban People’s Republic joined the anti-Bolshevik movement. In the current situation, the Kuban Regional Rada, and, consequently, the army subordinate to it, tried to win over two anti-Bolshevik military-political forces acting separately from each other - the leadership of the Don Don Region and the Ukrainian government. Such competition, which impeded joint action, only weakened general resistance to the advancing units of the Red Army and introduced discord into the anti-Bolshevik movement.
In August 1918, after the victory of the uprising that broke out in Taman under the leadership of Colonel P.S. Peretyatko, it was possible to free the entire Right-Bank Kuban from the Bolsheviks and create a reliable outpost there for the advance of the Volunteer Army. Thanks to the opportunities that have opened up, Ekaterinodar captured its advanced units on August 17.
Rash decision
An important event in the life of the republic was the meeting of the government held shortly before this. It was decided at which the Kuban People’s Republic continued the anti-Bolshevik struggle in alliance with the Don Volunteer Army, and not with Ukraine.
As it turned out, later this choice became the cause of many conflicts and contradictions that arose between the Kuban leaders and the White Guard command. The fundamental disagreement was that the Don, considering the Kuban as an integral part of Russia, sought to limit the powers of its government and subordinate the chief ataman to the commander of the Don Army, General A.I. Denikin (photo is presented below).
The Kuban, in turn, claimed equality in resolving the most important military and political issues. In addition, their discontent was caused by the actions of Denikin himself, who made it a rule to intervene in resolving the internal issues of the Cossack regions and impose his decisions on them. Thus, the barely formed alliance soon began to fall apart.
Fatal Crime
The final gap between yesterday’s allies came after the incident on June 19, 1919 at the South Russian Conference convened in Rostov to create a united anti-Bolshevik front. On that day, the head of the Kuban government N. Ryabovol was shot dead after he criticized Denikin. His killer turned out to be one of the members of the leadership of the Volunteer Army.
This crime provoked indignation among the broad strata of the inhabitants of the Kuban. The Cossacks, who had previously joined the ranks of the Volunteer Army and by that time accounted for 68.7% of its personnel, began to leave their units en masse. This process went so intensively that after 3 months less than 10% of them remained in the Denikin troops.
As a result, both the Volunteer Army of Southern Russia and the Kuban People’s Republic suffered significant damage and weakened their combat effectiveness. In the end, this was one of the reasons for the defeat of the White movement.
Recent attempts to break the deadlock
In the early fall of 1919, the Kuban People’s Republic, whose history was drawing to a close, proclaimed as opponents not only the Bolsheviks, but also the defenders of the monarchy, who found support in the voluntary White Guard movement of the Don.
At the same time, the deputies of the Kraeva were actively propagating for the separation of the Kuban from Russia. At the end of the same year, an attempt was made to appeal to the newly created League of Nations with a request to accept the Kuban People’s Republic into its composition as an independent entity.
To strengthen its military potential, the leadership of the Kuban entered into a military alliance with the Mountain Republic - the state proclaimed in 1917 on the territory of the Terek region, the capital of which was Vladikavkaz. The consequence of this step was an even greater aggravation in relations with the command of the armed forces of the South of Russia, since the Volunteer Army was fighting at that time with the Cossack army of the Mountain Republic.
The collapse of the Kuban People's Republic
The end of their mutual hostility and claims to supreme power in this vast region was laid by the offensive of the Red Army in 1920, which provoked massive desertion in the ranks of Denikin’s troops. The Commander-in-Chief tried to prevent this by sending special detachments to the Cossack villages, whose task was to catch and return to the army all those who voluntarily left its ranks. However, by this he achieved even greater bitterness of the Kuban in relation to himself and his army. During this period, many Cossacks sided with the Red Army.
The final defeat of the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Kuban and the Don Army Region occurred in March 1920. Then the Red Army carried out its famous Kuban-Novorossiysk operation. Leaving the enemy Ekaterinodar, the Volunteer Corps retreated, and the Kuban army, pressed to the border with Georgia, capitulated on May 3.
Despite the fact that soon the Kuban was included in the RSFSR, separate actions of the Cossacks against the new authorities continued until 1925 in the hope that the Kuban People's Republic could be reborn again. This became the reason that throughout all subsequent years, until the outbreak of World War II, mass repressions, as well as acts of dispossession and dispossession, which caused hunger that claimed thousands of lives, were carried out with particular ruthlessness in the Kuban.