Anti-peasant activities of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage organs in the Volga Region and in the Ural Region during the Civil War

Abstract

The article focuses on the anti-peasant activities of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage organs in the Volga Region and in the Ural Region during the Civil War. The peasantry of the South-East of the European Russia that suffered a humanitarian catastrophe due to the ruinous politics of the higher party authorities was involved in every form of civil confrontation; however, the peasant opposition towards the authorities became large-scale and stood out because of its huge destructive potential. The analysis of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage activities lets us not only reveal the repressive motivation of Bolsheviks, who monopolized the power in the Soviets and blocked the initiatives of peasants, but also examine the degree of the involvement and the functional role which belonged to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage organs during the suppression of peasant protests. The control, supervisory, investigative , judicial, extrajudicial and military methods that were used by the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage organs are demonstrated in the article. That is based on the example of the study of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage organs participation in the suppression of the Chapan uprising, Black Eagle uprising and Sapozhkov uprising. Moreover, the actions of extraordinary structures towards the partisan peasant units have been studied. In order to research the given problem the published as well as unpublished documents of ordinary and extraordinary soviet government and authority bodies were used. These documents are kept in the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the National Archive of the Republic of Bashkortostan, the State Archive of the Saratov Region, the Saratov Region State Archive of Contemporary History, the Central State Archive of the Samara Region. In the course of the research it was proved that the operation of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage organs reflected the interests of the higher party authorities of the RSFSR, whose aim was the provision of the continuous execution of the military mobilization and economic activities. The peasantry of the Samara, Saratov, Orenburg and Ufa regions turned out to be a hostage of the plans of the centre and their interests were abandoned.

Keywords

• civil war in the volga region and in the ural region, peasantry, uprisings, all-russian extraordinary commission for combating counter-revolution, speculation, and sabotage organs, repressions, vladimir lenin, felix dzerzhinsky.