Bodies of Transitional Power at the Final Stage of the Civil War

Abstract

The article is grounded on the research based on a large set of documents stored in the central and regional archives of the Russian Federation and neighboring countries. The authors have formulated a research question concerning identification of the common features in the process of restoration of the Soviet power on the outskirts of the country during the last stage of the Civil War. The article draws on the material spanning a short period between the retreat of the whites (in the territory of Arkhangelsk province, the Don and Tersk regions, Kuban, Dagestan) and liquidation of governing bodies of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and entrance of the Red Army units. If before January-February 1920, the “whites” retreated with battles, then a preventive retreat ensued, and a regime of interstate power was established in the territory they left behind. The article reveals two scenarios on the eve of the reunification of the peripheral territories with the central Bolshevik power. It was quite rare that the area was abandoned without power and order. Usually, the consolidated democratic society either intercepted power from the weakened hands of the white administration or took over the reins of power from the command of the withdrawing White army in an organized manner. Temporary transitional authorities usually included representatives of socialist parties, non-partisan public, and trade unions. But in practice, this process had a distinct regional specificity influenced by the local palette of political forces, in the configuration that had developed before the Civil War. This phenomenon was very poorly reflected in the synchronous historical sources, so along with such miraculously preserved separate documents, personal evidence collected during the early Soviet memorial campaigns formed the basis for the study.