The protest moods of the Don Cossacks and the repressive state policy of the late 1920s — 1930s

Abstract

In the late 1920s after the abandonment of the New Economic Policy and expansion of the forced collectivization relationships between the peasantry and the Party and State authorities sharply deteriorated. The collectivization was especially painful in the Don Cossack area. The article reveals the causes and forms of protest mood of the Don Cossacks as well as the activities of Cossack counterrevolutionary organizations in the late 1920s and 1930s. The principal causes of Cossacks’ opposition to the authorities were the forced collectivization and mass persecutions of the countryside population. In many cases Cossacks’ protests were accompanied by violence. But in the late 1920s, the Don Cossacks were not able to protest actively as they had been broken down by the Civil War. Besides the state “face to Cossacks” policy in the south of Russia reached its goals in the mid-1920s and in 1935–1936. A major part of the Don Cossacks grew loyal to the Soviet power and supported the authorities in the abandonment of the NEP and conducting collectivization. The reported formation of Cossack counterrevolutionary organizations on the Don in 1927–1937 turned out to be false in most cases. It is proved by the newly revealed historical documents. Law-enforcement organs kept on “cleaning out” those who could menace the state regime while the Cossacks could be easily used to “show” the mass character and widespread of counterrevolutionary plots from any kind of opposition.