The ideas set forth in the monograph by
N.N. Lysenko “The genocide of the Cossacks in Soviet Russia and the USSR: 1918–1933. The experience of ethnopolitical research ”is an example of how a person is trying to split the united Russian people. The book was released by Altair LLC (Rostov-on-Don) in 2017. The author is a doctor of historical sciences, a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the first convocation (1993–1996). N.N. Lysenko perfectly understands what goal she sets herself. This is the destruction of Russia, the rejection of part of its territory. To this end, he seeks to oppose one part of a single Russian people to another, distorting the facts, using unverified sources and publishing a direct lie.
Most ideological installations, plot moves and even verbal turns used by N.N. Lysenko can be found on the pages of dozens of similar books, actively published by nationalists of all stripes in Georgia, Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union. In the text of the book, we see the same set of techniques and moves, aimed at inciting national hatred between the Cossacks and residents of other regions of Russia.
Successful technology does not change. If such texts were effective in the republics that constituted a single state - the USSR, then they are beginning to be actively used in our state. Let's hope that here such literature will have the opposite effect. Annotation reports: “The monograph discusses the concept of deliberately violent annihilation of Cossacks as an original ethnic group (ethnocultural community) in the period of the formation of the state system of the RSFSR and the USSR in 1918–1933. and the process of reading evokes a feeling of participation in some kind of tragifarce. Horrific facts and documents are cited, but the accompanying comments and conclusions are surprising. There are no clear sections on the historiography of the issue and the corpus of sources used. The author motivates this lack of relevant research. However, later refers to the work of V.P. Truta "exterminate polls. How to organize the story ”, published in the magazine“ Rodina ”in 2004 [Trut, 2004].
Evaluation of the works of the predecessors of the author is peculiar. So, he makes a comment MA Ryblova, a recognized ethnographer, that in her research she did not notice the “classical works” of I.A. Bilogo (engineer) and Is.F. Bykadorov (General) (p. 15). Well, then something from postmodern: “The striving for scientific objectivity does not, in our opinion, contradict the Cossacks’s inalienable right to have their own opinion about certain events of their national history” (p. 18).
The analysis of sources is also peculiar. The author points to the lack of necessary documents in the archives of the Cheka, the NKVD (later in the text he refers to documents from the FSB archive), but he is nevertheless ready to press the leading special services of the USSR and the Russian Federation for the genocide of the population of his own country (p. 84).
The purpose of the study is also peculiar - to show and prove that “the genocide of the Cossacks in the period 1918–1933. was precisely genocide ”(p. 51). And the author dreams that “at the new process of the International Tribunal to investigate the crime of the Cossack genocide (let's call it the“ Novocherkassk process ”), the (procuratorial) list of the genocide of the Cossack population committed by the administrative punitive machine will be presented to the fullest extent possible. the regime of the RCP (b) - the CPSU (b) "(p. 17).
"International Tribunal" ... And who will he judge? Further, already in subsequent chapters, the author unobtrusively recalls that the Russian Federation as a subject-successor of the USSR is also responsible for the policy pursued in the USSR (p. 100). The logic should prompt the reader that in Novocherkassk the International Tribunal will have to judge the Russian Federation.
In order for a genocide to take place, the author needs, naturally, a people subjected to genocide. He addresses this problem both in his original preface, and in the first chapter “Cossacks: original people or Russian estate?”. N.N. Lysenko recalls that in the government documents of the Russian Federation, the Cossacks are recognized as "a historically established cultural and ethnic community of people." The author believes that the Cossacks are an ethnic group that has its sub-ethnic levels - the Don, Terek, Ural and Kuban Cossack Troops. The remaining Cossacks "differed in a significant degree of Russification" (p. 18). But already on the next page, Don and Ural Cossacks and Cossacks of the Black Sea Army (p. 19) are cited as an example of Cossack subethnuses (at the end of the nineteenth century it no longer exists). And representatives of the Cossack ethnic group possessed "from the middle of the fifteenth century a distinctive historical and cultural tradition" (p. 18). Further, in order to use the term “genocide”, the author wants to “continue the discussion about the nature of the Cossack ethnicity” (p. 24). But here, a priori, it states: “the destruction of the Cossack population of the former Russian empire ... was genocide from any point of view” (p. 24).
To confirm his version, the author introduces the paragraph "Russian historians and encyclopedists about the origin of the Cossack ethnicity." V.D. Sukhorukov, N.M. Karamzin, E.P. Saveliev (the last ancestor of the Cossacks, "aces", compared with antiquity of origin with Trojans). And - iron logical structure - since the Cossacks did not consider themselves Russian, then Russia's relations with them went through the Ambassadorial Order. Conclusion: “Cossacks and Great Rus are completely different nations, sometimes non-complementary peoples” (p. 38).
Reading Chapter 2, “Raskazachivanie” of the Cossacks: the facts of ethnopolitics against propaganda and lies, one can only guess at a loss: either the author does not know the trite things
or deliberately distorts them. An absolutely authentic thesis is given: “The Cossacks gradually lost economic competition with the surrounding Russian peasant population” (p. 62). But why lose? The storytelling, it turns out, was a long time ago. Cossacks lost part of their land. The lands were taken from the Cossacks of the Romanovs by the “force of arms” (p. 55). In the end, the Provisional Government conducted a rasskazachivanie, it abolished the estate duties and benefits (p. 70). Strange, of course. Cossacks - the people. The author did not find them in the list of estates in the polemical enthusiasm. And raskazachivanie, it turns out - the abolition of estates.
Then follows Chapter 3, “State Terror: Forms and Stages of the Genocide of the Cossacks”. Determined by the main enemy of the Cossacks. This is Russia. "Russia has a terrible leadership in savage cruelty towards its people." (p. 71). And modern Russia is a “multimillion array of“ Sovietites ”,“ neo-Bolshevik renaissance ”,“ ethnopolitical infantilism of the Russian-speaking population ”and unsuccessful attempts to“ arrange Russia in the form of a modern national state ”. And further on throughout the text “the Soviet Federal Federation” (p. 82) and the “Russian-language“ Soviet ”(p. 83).
In Chapter 4, “On the anvil of the Soviets under the hammer of non-resident: ethnopolitical contradictions on the lands of Prisud”, the author writes that Moscow Russia acted
"In the role of an extremely unsuccessful state." And if not for the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Cossacks ...
The policy conducted against the Cossacks has a “particularly negative connotation, at least for Russia's historical reputation” (p. 69). The author compares this policy with the destruction of Indians in the United States, the genocide of Armenians in Turkey and the Holocaust.
(p. 95). Also mentioned are the Katyn case and the “monstrous extermination of millions of Ukrainians” - the genocide of the Ukrainian people (p. 201). "The Cossacks were destroyed by the regime of the RCP (b) - VKP (b) primarily because they were Cossacks" (p. 95). “Similar conclusions were made, apparently, also with regard to the Vainakhs (Chechens and Ingush) and Ukrainians ...” (p. 95). The Bolsheviks staged a famine against the Ukrainians, and deported the Chechens “at the first convenient excuse” (p. 96).
The concept of the civil war on the Don and in other Cossack regions was borrowed by the author from the Cossack generals who emigrated: the Cossacks fought with Russia. The author quotes General Is.F. Bykadorov and I.V. Stalin and finds that they are united in the opinion that the Cossacks are fighting against the Russians. He confirms Krasnov’s conclusions about the national liberation struggle of the Cossacks and the opinion of the Bolshevik S. Vasilchenko, that on the Don is not a class struggle, but everyday antagonism between the Cossacks and the peasants.
And the Cossacks suffered a defeat for two reasons: for White’s unwillingness to agree to Cossack autonomy and, at the request of the officers, to preserve national Russia (p. 157). Yes, this is exactly what Cossack generals who went beyond the cordon considered. The author himself added: the Cossacks had two obstacles in the struggle - many non-Kazakhs in the region and the Russification of the Cossack elite.
The author does not know the personalities of the Red Cossacks, whom he calls “Cossack ethnic collaborators”. So, Viktor Semenovich Kovalev, the chairman of the Don CEC, is named the former centurion of the Life-Atamansky Regiment (p. 237). In fact, he was a non-combatant, a blacksmith in this regiment. The chronic myth repeats: “L. Trotsky personally took the decision to liquidate Mironov” (p. 240). Meanwhile, the resolution of the Cheka panel was clearly named in the rehabilitation documents. The author’s heart softens when he writes about I.A. Kochubee and I.L. Sorokin, though “krasnopuzye”, “collaborators”, but his, Kuban. “There was no more popular personality in the region than Kochubey” (p. 240).
And then the author goes directly to 1919. The chapter contains documents that are terrible in their essence (although not new, they have all been known for a long time). It is enough to list the names of the paragraphs of the chapter: "The genocide of the Cossacks in the occupation zone of the Red Army troops in 1919", "Bet on the genocide: the general line of the Cossack policy of the RCP (b)", "The official recognition of the Cossacks" Russian " Cossack autonomy ”,“ State terror, hostage system and concentration camps in the Kuban: 1920–1922. ”,“ Ethnic cleansing and deportations of the Cossacks of the Tersky Army: 1920–1921. ”
The ethnic component of the question “touches” the author: “Georgians G.K. decided to live or die for the Cossacks. Ordzhonikidze and V.M. Kirikelia, Armenian A.I. Mikoyan, Pole S.V. Kosior (later, in 1932–1933, who organized the famine in Ukraine), the great Russians S.M. Kirov and I.Ya. Doctors "(p. 349).
And the war was really carried on extremely cruel. AND ABOUT. Tyumentsev believes that the civil war of 1918–1922. was a classic peasant war [Tyumentsev, 2017, p. 15]. A peasant war involves an appropriate level of political culture. The author himself cites data that the executions in the Kuban were carried out not by the bodies of the Cheka, and the 9th Army, whose commander himself was from the Cossacks (p. 88). And the Cossacks of the captive reds were cut. Cossacks robbed, and the Cossacks robbed. Suffice it to recall the complaints of Wrangel and Denikin against the Cossacks of Mamontov. But since the Red Army soldiers who shot the Cossacks are ethnic Russians (I wonder how they found this out?), Then, according to the author, “the procedure of ethnic cleansing is described in the exact meaning of this term” (p. 93).
However, the demographic losses were rather quickly restored ... Toward the end of the monograph, in chapter 8, the author suddenly discovers that by the end of the 20s the number of Cossacks had recovered (this was shown in their studies by AV Baranov and AP Kozhanov) . “This conclusion of the researcher, in our opinion, is excessively optimistic,” the author writes, referring to A.V. Baranova (p. 452). Still, it turns out that the Cossacks coped with the consequences of the “genocide” in less than 10 years.
As we see, the genocide has not yet happened.
In the paragraph “The Myth of Unintended, Situationally Emerging Lethal Famine,” the author refers to the authority of the special US Congress Commission, created in 1986. In April 1988, the findings of the James Mace Commission were voiced. In them, “artificially induced famine in Ukraine and the North Caucasus was for the first time qualified as genocide” (p. 460). “Thus, an objective analysis of the ethnopolitical specificity of the Holodomor leaves no doubt ...” (p. 460). Clear. Once the Americans said it was so.
The conclusions of the author are relevant. The Soviet regime destroyed everything — right down to family relationships and traditional folk morality (p. 487). After the famine, "the Cossacks as a demographically dynamic, territorially consolidated and economically self-sufficient people, in essence, did not become" (p. 107). “The previously flourishing, underlined masculine, self-confident, cheerful Cossack people turned into their opposite” (p. 567–568). On the territory of the Cossacks, Cossack traditions began to instill inoculated peasants before the war (p. 108). Elements of indirect genocide persist today (p. 108). Well, about turning the Cossacks into their opposite - sorry. By the number of Heroes of the Soviet Union, the Rostov region was in second place in the USSR.
In the "Conclusion" the author again refers to the idea of the International Criminal Court. The Novocherkassk International Tribunal should "ostracize the memory" of all enemies of the Cossacks. And in general, it is necessary to “complete the purification of the Russian ideology and statehood from all stinking sediments of the ideology of Bolshevism” (p. 607), i.e. decommunization, what is happening now in Ukraine and in Poland. And the trouble of Russia is that the country cannot overcome the mythology of internationalism "in fact anti-Russian and anti-Slavic" (p. 608). That is, the Russians should officially declare themselves the main people ...
Well, about the "Novocherkassk International Tribunal" the author was wondering. In 1990, at the First Don Circle, the Cossacks adopted a resolution on ending the civil war on the Don, and in Novocherkassk, the Military Cathedral now has a monument to the reconciliation of white and red Cossacks. As for the Kubanians, they first landed on the Crimean coast in 2014, blocked the Isthmus of Perekop and stopped the “trains of friendship” of Ukrainian nationalists, in fact saved the inhabitants of the Crimea from the massacre.
Overall, a very hard book. Its meaning is as follows: the Cossacks were an ancient individual people, the Russians killed them, the natural allies of the Cossacks were Ukrainians. Undoubtedly, the events of the revolution, civil war, collectivization and famine were tragic for the Cossacks. But the Cossacks did not disappear. The tragic pages of the history of the Cossacks must be investigated and remembered about them, and if you write about these tragic pages, then do it with great tact, do not turn the study into a testing ground for anti-Russian mockery.
The article is an abbreviation of a detailed review of the monograph by N.N. Lysenko “The genocide of the Cossacks in Soviet Russia and the USSR: 1918–1933. The experience of ethnopolitical research ”, published in Rostov-on-Don in 2017. The author considers the researched N.N. Lysenko problem on the topics and chapters of the book. The article focuses on the artificiality and tension of a number of conclusions, the incorrect problem message and the artificial contradictions often layered around it.
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