Editing Cossacks (section)

=== Bolshevik uprising and Civil War, 1917–1922 ===

====Cossack autonomies in Don, Kuban and North Caucasus====

Soon after the [[Bolsheviks]] seized power in Petrograd on 7–8&nbsp;November 1917, most Cossack atamans and their government refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new regime. The Don Cossack ataman, [[Aleksey Kaledin]], went as far as to invite opponents of the Bolsheviks to the Don Host.<ref>Kenez, Peter, ''Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971) 59.</ref> But the position of many Cossack governments was far from secure, even within the boundaries of their hosts. In some areas, [[Soviet (council)|soviets]] formed by outlanders and soldiers rivaled the Cossack government, and ethnic minorities also tried to acquire a measure of self-rule. Even the Cossack communities themselves were divided, as the atamans tended to represent the interests of prosperous landowners and the officer corps. Poorer Cossacks, and those serving in the army, were susceptible to Bolshevik propaganda promising to spare "toiling Cossacks" from land appropriation.<ref name=Mueggenberg_2019/>{{rp|50–51}}<ref>{{cite book |author1=Bunyan, James |author2=Fisher, H. H. |title=The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–18 |location=Stanford, CA |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=1965 |pages=80–81, 407–409}}</ref>

The unwillingness of rank-and-file Cossacks to vigorously defend the Cossack government enabled the [[Red Army]] to occupy the vast majority of Cossack lands by late spring of 1918. But the Bolsheviks' policy of requisitioning grain and foodstuffs from the countryside to supply Russia's starving northern cities quickly fomented revolt among Cossack communities. These Cossack rebels elected new atamans and made common cause with other [[Anti-communism|anticommunist]] forces, such as the [[Volunteer Army]] in [[South Russia (1919–1920)|South Russia]]. Subsequently, the Cossack homelands became bases for the [[White movement]] during the [[Russian Civil War]].<ref name=Mueggenberg_2019/>{{rp|53–63}}

Throughout the civil war, Cossacks sometimes fought as an independent ally, and other times as an auxiliary, of White armies. In South Russia, the [[Armed Forces of South Russia]] (AFSR) under [[Anton Denikin|General Anton Denikin]] relied heavily on conscripts from the Don and Kuban Cossack Hosts to fill their ranks. Through the Cossacks, the White armies acquired experienced, skilled horsemen that the Red Army was unable to match until late in the conflict.<ref name=Kenez_1977>{{cite book |author=Kenez, Peter |title=Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites |location=Berkeley |publisher=University of California Press |year=1977 |pages=19–21}}</ref> But the relationship between Cossack governments and the White leaders was frequently acrimonious. Cossack units were often ill-disciplined, and prone to bouts of looting and violence that caused the peasantry to resent the Whites.<ref name=Kenez_1977/>{{rp|110–139}} In Ukraine, Kuban and Terek Cossack squadrons carried out [[Pogroms in the Russian Empire|pogroms]] against Jews, despite orders from Denikin condemning such activity.<ref name=Mueggenberg_2019/>{{rp|127–128}} Kuban Cossack politicians, wanting a semi-independent state of their own, frequently agitated against the AFSR command.<ref name=Kenez_1977/>{{rp|112–120}} In the [[Russian Far East]], anticommunist Transbaikal and Ussuri Cossacks undermined the rear of Siberia's White armies by disrupting traffic on the [[Trans-Siberian Railway]] and engaging in acts of banditry that fueled a potent insurgency in that region.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Bisher, Jamie |title=White Terror: Cossack warlords of the trans-Siberian |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |year=2005 |pages=163–170}}</ref>

As the Red Army gained the initiative in the civil war during late 1919 and early 1920, Cossack soldiers, their families, and sometimes entire stanitsas retreated with the Whites. Some continued to fight with the Whites in the conflict's waning stages in [[Crimea]] and the Russian Far East. As many as 80,000–100,000&nbsp;Cossacks eventually joined the defeated Whites in exile.<ref>G. O. Matsievsky, "Political Life of the Cossacks in Emigration: Tendencies and Features," ''Modern Studies of Social Problems'', 2013, No 3 (23), 3.</ref>

Although the Cossacks were sometimes portrayed by Bolsheviks and, later, émigré historians, as a monolithic [[counterrevolutionary]] group during the civil war, there were many Cossacks who fought with the Red Army throughout the conflict, known as [[Red Cossacks]]. Many poorer Cossack communities also remained receptive to the communist message. In late 1918 and early 1919, widespread desertion and defection among Don, Ural, and Orenburg Cossacks fighting with the Whites produced a military crisis that was exploited by the Red Army in those sectors.<ref name=Mueggenberg_2019/>{{rp|50–51, 113–117}} After the main White armies were defeated in early 1920, many Cossack soldiers switched their allegiance to the Bolsheviks, and fought with the Red Army against the Poles and in other operations.<ref>{{cite book |author=Babel, Isaac |title=1920 Diary |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1995 |pages=28–29, 63–65}}</ref>

On 22 December 1917, the [[Sovnarkom|Council of People's Commissars]] effectively abolished the Cossack estate by ending their military service requirements and privileges.<ref name=ORourke_2000/>{{rp|230}} After the widespread anticommunist rebellions among Cossacks in 1918, the Soviet regime's approach hardened in early 1919, when the Red Army occupied Cossack districts in the Urals and northern Don. The Bolsheviks embarked on a policy of "[[de-Cossackization]]", intended to end the Cossack threat to the [[Politics of the Soviet Union|Soviet regime]]. This was pursued through resettlement, widespread executions of Cossack veterans from the White armies, and favoring the outlanders within the Cossack hosts. Ultimately, the de-Cossackization campaign led to a renewed rebellion among Cossacks in Soviet-occupied districts and produced a new round of setbacks for the Red Army in 1919.<ref name=ORourke_2000/>{{rp|246–251}}

When the victorious Red Army again occupied Cossack districts in late 1919 and 1920, the Soviet regime did not officially reauthorize the implementation of de-Cossackization. There is, however, disagreement among historians as to the degree of Cossack's persecution by the Soviet regime. For example, the Cossack hosts were broken up among new provinces or [[Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union|autonomous republics]]. Some Cossacks, especially in areas of the former Terek host, were resettled so their lands could be turned over to natives displaced from them during the initial Russian and Cossack colonization of the area. At the local level, the stereotype that Cossacks were inherent counterrevolutionaries likely persisted among some Communist officials, causing them to target, or discriminate against, Cossacks despite orders from Moscow to focus on class enemies among Cossacks rather than the Cossack people in general.<ref name=ORourke_2000/>{{rp|260–264}}

====Ukrainian State====
{{main|Ukrainian State}}

Until January 1918, the Free Cossacks of Ukraine were subordinate to the Ukrainian [[General Secretariat]] of Internal Affairs. With the begin of the [[Ukrainian-Soviet War|Ukrainian-Bolshevik War]] their units were incorporated into the [[Ukrainian People's Army|regular army]]. However, after a number of battles against the Bolsheviks, Free Cossacks were disarmed in compliance with orders of the German command, whose troops had occupied Ukraine in March-April 1918 after the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (Ukraine-Central Powers)|Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Free Cossacks |url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/F/R/FreeCossacks.htm}}</ref>

On 29 April 1918 Pavlo Skoropadskyi, the earlier leader of Free Cossacks, was proclaimed [[Hetman of Ukraine]] at a congress of the conservative All-Ukrainian Union of Landowners. This coup was backed by generals of German and Austrian armies which were occupying Ukraine at that time. The previously democratic [[Ukrainian People's Republic]] was replaced with the [[Ukrainian State|Hetmanate]], the [[Central Rada]] and the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian People's Republic were abolished, with all their powers, as well as command over the military, being transferred to Skoropadskyi, and private land ownership was reinstated. Local administration was entrusted to commissioners personally appointed by the hetman.<ref>{{cite web |title=Hetman government |url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CH%5CE%5CHetmangovernment.htm}}</ref> 

To achieve legitimacy among the Ukrainian population, the Skoropadskyi styled his regime as a continuation of Ukrainian Cossack traditions of the 17-18th centuries. The hetman's government included representatives of old Cossack nobility ([[starshyna]]), most prominently [[Fedir Lyzohub]] (head of the Conucil of Ministers) and [[Dmytro Doroshenko]] (Minister of Foreign Affairs). Skoropadskyi himself supported the idea of reviving the Cossack class in Ukraine as a privileged social group personally loyal to the hetman. However, his initiative was viewed with skepticism by his ministers, and the law on re-establishment of Cossack administration in Ukraine was adopted only in October 1918, shortly before the hetman's resignation, and never realized.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ukrainian State |url=http://resource.history.org.ua/cgi-bin/eiu/history.exe?Z21ID=&I21DBN=EIU&P21DBN=EIU&S21STN=1&S21REF=10&S21FMT=eiu_all&C21COM=S&S21CNR=20&S21P01=0&S21P02=0&S21P03=TRN=&S21COLORTERMS=0&S21STR=Ukrainska_Derzhava}}</ref>

During Skoropadskyi's tenure in power the Ukrainian State developed diplomatic ties with Cossack entities in the [[Kuban People's Republic|Kuban]] and [[Don Republic|Don region]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Hetman government|url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CH%5CE%5CHetmangovernment.htm}}</ref>