One of the most massive socio-political movements in the modern world, uniting in its ranks various socio-political groups and organizations that oppose environmental pollution, the harmful consequences of nuclear, chemical, biological and other types of industrial production, for the creation of a democratic society, for reduction of military budgets, the size of armies, for the easing of international tension. The movement began with small groups performing in Western Europe in the 60s. on specific environmental issues. In the 70-80s. Green parties were created and began to actively operate in almost all Western European countries, including Austria, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, Denmark, as well as Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.
Green policy positions include a wide range of issues. These include requirements for the protection of nature and the human environment in the conditions of a modern industrial society; social provisions criticizing capitalist ownership of the means of production, proposing the elimination of large economic structures and the development of small and medium-sized production; measures for full employment and participation of workers in the management of plants and factories; calls for democratization of the state, the establishment of various forms of direct democracy, primarily in the form of various “civil initiatives”; demands for the protection of peace, the establishment of the principles of peaceful coexistence, the complete destruction of atomic, chemical and bacteriological weapons, the renunciation of the use of space for military purposes, the dissolution of military blocs, and the free development of all peoples. The “green” movement objectively reflects the growing desire for change and the search for an alternative among broad sections of the population.
The movement in different countries has its own characteristics. Thus, the program of the Environmental Party (Sweden) is based on four principles of solidarity. The first is solidarity with nature. You can’t take more from her than she can later restore. It is necessary to fight for the creation of environmentally friendly production. The second principle is solidarity with future generations: we must leave the Earth to our children and grandchildren in such a state that they can live no worse than we do. The third principle is solidarity with third world countries, providing them with the necessary support in the fight against hunger, infectious and other diseases, etc. The fourth principle is providing assistance to those who are in difficulty, who are in poverty, the formation of strong social programs, the fight against bureaucratization and centralization authorities.
What tactics do the “greens” propose? It is based on a number of general provisions based on the principle of non-violence. To achieve the goals of the “greens,” neither revolution nor reform are suitable. So what then? “Replacement, gradual displacement,” answer the leaders of this movement. At the same time, a “double strategy” must be implemented - to act not only within parliament and other government bodies, but first and foremost - outside them.
According to the “greens,” it is necessary to expand the “front of refusal” of the population from products and industries that are especially dangerous to human health and the environment, destroying valuable raw materials, to work to disseminate alternative projects, using all the capabilities of the “green” party to support them.
The Greens point to the need for industrial and trade union struggle among workers. They believe that such a struggle should be aimed primarily at reducing working hours, creating humane working conditions and possible changes in income policy. Moreover, parliamentary activity must be coordinated and agreed with the “basic movements,” that is, with the actions of the masses. Demonstrations, sit-ins, pickets, distribution of leaflets, theatrical events with political overtones, including concerts of rock bands - all this is taken into account by the “greens”. The combination of various forms of struggle indicates their flexible adaptability to a wide variety of conditions.
Recently, the “blue” ones have emerged from the “green” movement. If the former are primarily concerned with saving nature, then the latter are concerned with saving human spirituality. The main activities of the Blue Movement are the practical solution of humanitarian, educational, spiritual, educational and initiative-organizational tasks. The movement originated in Russia, but is addressed to all people of the Earth, since the entire civilization is experiencing a spiritual crisis. In Russia, the “blues” are represented by the public organization “For Human Social Ecology.” As part of its programs, youth clubs “Blue Bird” are created, where boys and girls become familiar with beauty, learn the history and traditions of their peoples, new, humanitarian entrepreneurship is developed - a type of business that combines commercial interest and attention to man and nature, clubs are formed The Blue Movement - humanitarian protection of people, the all-Union program "Lyceum" is being implemented, the English Club in Moscow is being revived, etc. In 1990, the Blue Confederation was created - an alliance of forces concerned with the spiritual and moral situation of man. It includes more than a hundred different cultural, educational, educational, scientific, and business organizations that are ready to jointly solve specific problems of humanitarian human protection.
The social base of the “green” movement consists of youth, intellectuals, various layers of workers and entrepreneurs, progressive army circles, and religious figures. It acquired its greatest scope in Germany, where in January 1980 it formed the Green Party, which has authority in wide circles of the public. In the parliamentary elections of 1987, the Green Party received more than 3 million votes, its faction in the Bundestag (Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany) has 42 deputies. In 1984, representatives of parties from 9 countries created the “Green Coordination Committee in Europe.” Considering parliamentary activities to complement the mass democratic movement, the “greens” entered the parliaments of Belgium, Portugal, Germany, and Switzerland. In 1989, 24 representatives of various European environmental parties formed a joint faction in the European Parliament to pursue a common policy. In the 1989 European Parliament elections, the Greens won 38 seats.
Young people are actively involved in the “green” movement. She is attracted to the progressive anti-war and environmental programs of this movement, calls for the creation of a society without exploitation and violence. Young people are also attracted by the focus of a number of “green” parties and organizations on specific positive causes, the denial of the traditional orientation of bourgeois society towards the well-known triad “work - career - consumption”, orientation towards such values as mutual assistance, rejection of consumerism, propaganda of spiritual values (less money , less stress, more humanity, more time for self-education), the search for harmony between nature and man, support for the disadvantaged. Young people are of some interest in the concept of living in harmony with nature in small, environmentally friendly agricultural communities put forward by some “green” ideologists, which exist without causing damage to flora and fauna, switching to renewable energy sources, and taking care of the natural renewal of biological resources.
Among the “greens” there are supporters of the so-called ecological socialism, which is understood as a kind of democratic decentralized society with extremely limited resource consumption, waste-free technology, consisting of rural communes, environmentally friendly cities. From a social point of view, this is a utopian society, but there are rational grains in the idea of “ecological socialism”. This is a protest against environmental pollution as a result of the unreasonable development of science and technology, calls for the creation of democratic, environmentally friendly societies.
The “green” movement is gaining momentum in the CIS and Eastern European countries. Thus, the Ecological Union and the Ecological Fund have been created in Russia, and there are numerous societies actively fighting to solve pressing environmental problems. The speeches against the construction of the Volga-Don-2 and Volga-Chogray canals became very famous, since the implementation of these plans could lead to the destruction of the Caspian Sea; for the ecological safety of Lake Baikal, the Aral Sea, a ban on the construction of nuclear power plants in resort areas (Crimea), in areas where earthquakes and soil movements are possible. In fact, the movement to provide assistance in eliminating the consequences of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has become nationwide. Thanks to a daily telethon held on April 26, 1990, on the fourth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, voluntary donations were collected to eliminate its consequences in the amount of more than 50 million rubles. Almost every state has its own environmental movements. In the future, it is possible that some environmental movements will transform into political parties. The number of joint actions of “green” countries from different countries is increasing. These include events such as “Caravan without Coasts”, telethons, international peace marches, etc.
The international environmental organization Greenpeace (Green World) has gained worldwide fame. Today it has more than 30 chapters in 18 countries, 2 million active members and many millions of supporters. Greenpeace's headquarters are located in Amsterdam. Greenpeace deals with the following issues: ocean ecology, the state of the atmosphere and energy, toxic chemicals, and disarmament. Representatives of this organization have electronic and satellite communications, which gives them the ability to quickly respond to cases of environmental disasters or disasters. Greenpeace's contribution to the development of the anti-nuclear movement in the Pacific region and to the formation of modern environmental thinking is widely known.
Youth from many countries around the world support this progressive organization. A number of famous musicians and composers speak out in her defense and promote her ideas. On the initiative of Greenpeace, an album of records was prepared on an international basis: in Eastern Europe it was released under the name “Breakthrough”, and in the West - “Rainbow Warriors”. The album helped promote the ideas of this organization in those regions of the world where there are no branches yet.
Broad circles of the international community are increasingly aware of the need to unite the efforts of all people of good will in defense of the existence of civilization. This requires cooperation on a global scale: both at the interstate level and at the level of mass movements in the struggle to preserve peace, life, and nature on our planet. Young people, who make up more than half of the world's population, have a special role to play in this movement.
Civil War- This is a period of acute class clashes within the state between different social groups. In Russia, it began in 1918 and was a consequence of the nationalization of all land, the liquidation of landownership, and the transfer of factories and plants into the hands of the working people. In addition, in October 1917, the dictatorship of the proletariat was established.
In Russia, war was aggravated by military intervention.
The main participants in the war.
In November-December 1917, a Volunteer Army was created on the Don. This is how it was formed white movement. White color symbolized law and order. The tasks of the white movement: the fight against the Bolsheviks and the restoration of a united and indivisible Russia. The volunteer army was led by General Kornilov, and after his death in the battle near Yekaterinodar, General A.I. Denikin took command.
Created in January 1918 Bolshevik Red Army. At first it was built on the principles of voluntariness and on the basis of a class approach - only from workers. But after a series of serious defeats, the Bolsheviks returned to the traditional, “bourgeois” principles of army formation on the basis of universal conscription and unity of command.
The third force was " Greens rebels,” or “green army men” (also “green partisans,” “Green movement,” “third force”) is a general name for irregular, predominantly peasant and Cossack armed formations that opposed foreign invaders, the Bolsheviks and the White Guards. They had national-democratic, anarchist, and also, sometimes, goals close to early Bolshevism. The first demanded the convening of a Constituent Assembly, others were supporters of anarchy and free Soviets. In everyday life there were the concepts of “red-green” (more gravitating towards red) and “white-green”. Green and black, or a combination of both, were often used as the colors of the rebel banners. The specific options depended on the political orientation - anarchists, socialists, etc., just a semblance of “self-defense units” without expressed political preferences.
Main stages of the war:
spring - autumn 1918 g. - rebellion of the White Czechs; the first foreign landings in Murmansk and the Far East; the campaign of P. N. Krasnov’s army against Tsaritsyn; the creation by the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks of the Committee of the Constituent Assembly in the Volga region; uprisings of the Social Revolutionaries in Moscow, Yaroslavl, Rybinsk; strengthening of “red” and “white” terror; the creation of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense in November 1918 (V.I. Lenin) and the Revolutionary Military Council (L.D. Trotsky); proclamation of the republic as a single military camp;
autumn 1918 - spring 1919 d. - increased foreign intervention in connection with the end of the world war; annulment of the terms of the Brest Peace in connection with the revolution in Germany;
spring 1919 - spring 1920 g. - performance of the armies of white generals: campaigns of A.V. Kolchak (spring-summer 1919), A.I. Denikin (summer 1919 - spring 1920), two campaigns of N.N. Yudenich to Petrograd;
April - November 1920 g. - the Soviet-Polish war and the fight against P. N. Wrangel. With the liberation of Crimea by the end of 1920, the main military operations ended.
In 1922 the Far East was liberated. The country began to transition to a peaceful life.
Both the “white” and “red” camps were heterogeneous. Thus, the Bolsheviks defended socialism, some of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries were for Soviets without the Bolsheviks. Among the whites there were monarchists and republicans (liberals); anarchists (N.I. Makhno) spoke first on one side and then on the other.
From the very beginning of the Civil War, military conflicts affected almost all national outskirts, and centrifugal tendencies intensified in the country.
The Bolshevik victory in the Civil War was due to:
concentration of all forces (which was facilitated by the policy of “war communism”);
the transformation of the Red Army into a real military force led by a number of talented military leaders (through the use of professional military specialists from among former tsarist officers);
targeted use of all economic resources of the central part of European Russia remaining in their hands;
support for the national outskirts and Russian peasants, deceived by the Bolshevik slogan “Land to the peasants”;
lack of overall command among whites,
support for Soviet Russia from labor movements and communist parties of other countries.
Results and consequences of the Civil War. The Bolsheviks won a military-political victory: the resistance of the White Army was suppressed, Soviet power was established throughout the country, including in most national regions, conditions were created for strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat and the implementation of socialist transformations. The price of this victory was huge human losses (more than 15 million people killed, died of hunger and disease), mass emigration (more than 2.5 million people), economic devastation, the tragedy of entire social groups (officers, Cossacks, intelligentsia, nobility, clergy and etc.), society’s addiction to violence and terror, the rupture of historical and spiritual traditions, the split into reds and whites.
Latest research on Russian history
The series “Newest Research on the History of Russia” was founded in 2016.
Design by artist E.Yu. Shurlapova
The work was carried out with financial support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project No. 16-41-93579)
Introduction
Revolution and internecine warfare are always very flowery, in every sense of the word. Vivid vocabulary, aggressive jargon, expressive names and self-designations, a real feast of slogans, banners, speeches and banners. Suffice it to recall the names of the units, for example in the American Civil War. The southerners had “Lincoln assassins”, all kinds of “bulldogs”, “thresherers”, “yellow jackets” and so on, the northerners had a grandiosely sinister anaconda plan. The civil war in Russia could not have been an exception, especially since in a country that was just approaching universal schooling, visual perception and marking meant a lot. No wonder the romantics of the world revolution expected so much from cinema. An incredibly expressive and understandable language has been found! Sound once again killed the aggressive revolutionary dream: films began to speak in different languages, dialogue replaced the irresistible power of a living poster.
Already in the revolutionary months of 1917, the banners of shock units and death units provided such expressive material that an interesting candidate’s dissertation was successfully defended on them 1 . It happened that a unit with the most modest actual combat strength had a bright banner.
The autumn of 1917 finally determined the names of the main characters - Reds and Whites. The Red Guard, and soon the army, were opposed by the Whites - the White Guards. The name “White Guard” itself is believed to have been adopted by one of the detachments in the Moscow battles of late October - early November. Although the logic of the development of the revolution suggested an answer even without this initiative. Red has long been the color of rebellion, revolution, and barricades. White is the color of order, legality, purity. Although the history of revolutions also knows other combinations. In France, whites and blues fought, under this name one of A. Dumas’s novels from his revolutionary series was published. The blue demi-brigades became the symbol of the victorious young revolutionary French army.
Along with the “main” colors, other colors were woven into the picture of the unfolding Civil War in Russia. Anarchist detachments called themselves the Black Guard. Thousands of Black Guards fought in the southern direction in 1918, very wary of their Red comrades. Until the battles of the early 1930s, the self-name of the rebels “black partisans” appeared. In the Orenburg region, even the Blue Army is known among many rebel anti-Bolshevik formations. “Colored,” almost officially, will be the name given to the most united and combat-ready white units in the South - the famous Kornilovites, Alekseevites, Markovites and Drozdovites. They got their name from the color of their shoulder straps.
Color markings were also actively used in propaganda. In the leaflet of the headquarters of the recreated North Caucasus Military District in the spring of 1920, “yellow bandits are the sons of offended kulaks, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, dads, Makhnovists, Maslaks, Antonovites and other comrades-in-arms and hangers-on of the bourgeois counter-revolution”, “black” bandits, “white”, “brown” 2.
However, the most famous third color in the Civil War remained green. The Greens became a significant force at some stages of the Civil War. Depending on the inclination of specific green formations to support one or another “official” side, white-green or red-green ones appeared. Although these designations could only record a temporary, momentary tactical line or behavior dictated by circumstances, and not a clear political position.
A civil war in a large country invariably creates certain main subjects of confrontation and a significant number of intermediate or peripheral forces. For example, the American Civil War pulled the Indian population into its orbit, Indian formations appeared both on the side of the northerners and on the side of the southerners; there were states that remained neutral. Many colors emerged in civil wars, for example, in multinational Spain in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the Russian Civil War, the main subjects of the confrontation crystallized quite quickly. However, within the white and red camps there were often very serious contradictions, not so much of a political nature, but at the level of political emotions. The Red partisans did not tolerate commissars, the White Cossacks did not trust the officers, etc. In addition, new state formations were structured with greater or less success on the national outskirts, striving first of all to acquire their own armed forces. All this made the overall picture of the struggle extremely varied and dynamically changing. Finally, active minorities always fight; they rally the broader masses of their fellow citizens behind them. In peasant Russia (and a landslide re-peasantization in 1917–1920 due to land redistribution and rapid deindustrialization) Russia, the main character in any prolonged struggle was the peasant. Therefore, the peasant in the armies of the warring parties, in the rebels, in the deserters - in any conditions created by a large-scale internal war - was already a very significant figure by its very mass nature. The Greens became one of the forms of peasant participation in the events of the Civil War.
The Greens had obvious predecessors. The peasant always suffers from war, and is often drawn into it out of necessity, either while serving the state or defending his home. If we decide to draw close analogies, we can remember how the military successes of the French during the Hundred Years' War in the 1360s and 1370s grew out of the need for self-defense and the emerging national feeling. and in the era of Joan of Arc, successes and innovations in the military art of the Dutch Geese at the end of the 16th century with their “transfer” through the Swedes to the Russian militias of the Time of Troubles, led by M. Skopin-Shuisky. However, the era of the New Age has already separated the combat capabilities of the regular army and any improvised rebel formations too far. Probably, this situation was most clearly demonstrated by the epic of the klobmen - “bludgeoners” - during the civil wars in England in the 17th century.
Royalist cavaliers fought the parliamentary armies. The fight was carried out with varying degrees of success. However, any internal war primarily affects the non-combatants. The intemperate armies of both sides placed a heavy burden on the peasant population. In response, the bludgeoners rose. The movement was not widespread. It was localized in several counties. In Russian literature, the most detailed presentation of this epic remains the long-standing work of Professor S.I. Arkhangelsky.
The activity of the clobmen is one of the stages in the development of the peasant movement in England during the civil wars of the 17th century. The peak of development of this self-defense movement occurred in the spring - autumn of 1645, although evidence of local armed formations is known almost from the beginning of hostilities, as well as later, beyond 1645.
The relationship between the armed men and the main active forces of civil strife - the gentlemen and supporters of parliament - is indicative. Let us highlight some subjects that are interesting for our topic.
The Klobmen are mainly rural people who organized to resist looting and force peace between the warring parties.
The Clobmans had their own territory - these were primarily the counties of South-West England and Wales. These territories mainly stood for the king. At the same time, the movement spread beyond the core territory, covering, at its peak, more than a quarter of the territory of England. The Klobmen seemed to “not notice” the Civil War, expressing their readiness to feed any garrisons so that they would not commit outrages, expressing in petitions reverence for royal power and respect for parliament. At the same time, the outrages of the troops caused a rebuff, and sometimes quite effective. Ordinary klobmen were mainly rural residents, although their leadership included nobles, priests, and a significant number of townspeople. Different counties had different sentiments and motivations for participating in the Klobman movement. This is due to differences in socio-economic status. Everyone suffered from the war, but patriarchal Wales and the economically developed, wool-rich English counties paint a different picture.
In 1645 there were about 50 thousand people. This number exceeded the royal armed forces - about 40 thousand, and was slightly inferior to the parliamentary ones (60-70 thousand).
It is interesting that both the king and parliament tried to attract the klobmen to their side. First of all, promises were made to curb the predatory tendencies of the troops. At the same time, both sides sought to destroy the Klobmen organization. Both the cavalier Lord Goring and the parliamentary commander Fairfax equally prohibited Klobman meetings. Apparently, the understanding that the klobmen, in further development, are capable of growing into some kind of third force, existed both on the side of the king and on the side of parliament, and caused opposition. Both needed a resource, not an ally with their own interests.
It is believed that by the end of 1645 the Klobmen movement was largely eliminated by the efforts of parliamentary troops under the command of Fairfax. At the same time, organizations of many thousands, even relatively weakly structured ones, could not disappear overnight. Indeed, already in the spring of 1649, at a new stage of the mass movement, a case was recorded of the arrival of an impressive detachment of clobmen from Somerset County to the aid of the Levellers 3 .
Despite the riskiness of analogies after three centuries, let us note the plots themselves, which are similar in the civil wars in England and Russia. Firstly, the grassroots mass movement is inclined to a certain independence, although it is quite ready to listen to both “main” sides of the struggle. Secondly, it is geographically localized, although it tends to expand into neighboring territories. Thirdly, local interests prevail in the motives, primarily the tasks of self-defense from ruin and atrocities. Fourthly, it is the real or potential independence of the rebel movement that causes concern to the main active forces of the civil war and the desire to eliminate it or integrate it into their armed structures.
Finally, the Russian Civil War unfolded when a large civil strife with active peasant participation was burning out on another continent - in Mexico. A comparative study of the civil war in America and Russia has obvious scientific prospects. In fact, the activities of the peasant armies of Zapata and Villa provide rich and picturesque material for the study of the rebellious peasantry. However, what is more important for us is that this analogy was already visible to contemporaries. The famous publicist V. Vetlugin wrote about “Mexican Ukraine” in the white press in 1919; the image of Mexico also appears in his book of essays “Adventurers of the Civil War,” published in 1921. The steppe daredevils who mercilessly plundered railroads in the South are quite naturally evoked such associations. True, I visited relatively little in the “green” areas of “Mexico”; this is more a property of the steppe ataman region.
To designate the insurrection and anti-Bolshevik insurgent struggle in the RSFSR, already in 1919, the term “political banditry” appeared, firmly and for a long time included in historiography. At the same time, the main subject of this banditry was the kulaks. This evaluative standard also applied to situations of other civil wars, as a result of which the communists came to power. Thus, a book on the history of China published in 1951 in the USSR reported that in the PRC in 1949 there were still a million “Kuomintang bandits.” But by the first anniversary of the republic, the number of “bandits” had decreased to 200 thousand 4. During the perestroika years, this plot caused controversy: “rebels” or “bandits”? The inclination towards one designation or another determined the research and civic position of the writer.
The “big” civil war did not attract as much attention from analysts of the Russian diaspora as the initial volunteer period. This is clearly seen in the famous works of N.N. Golovin and A.A. Zaitsova. Accordingly, the green movement was not the focus of attention. It is significant that the late Soviet book about the red partisans does not deal at all with the green movement, even the red-green one. At the same time, for example, in the Belarusian provinces the largest possible number, hardly corresponding to reality, of communist partisans is shown 5. The recent seminal attempt to present a non-communist view of Russian history 6 also does not specifically highlight the green movement.
The green movement is sometimes interpreted as broadly as possible, as any armed struggle within the Civil War outside the boundaries of white, red and national formations. So, A.A. Shtyrbul writes about “a broad and numerous, albeit scattered, all-Russian partisan-insurgent movement of the greens.” He draws attention to the fact that anarchists played a significant role in this movement, and also to the fact that for most representatives of this environment, whites were “more unacceptable” than reds. An example is given by N. Makhno 7 . R.V. Daniele attempted to provide a comparative analysis of civil wars and their dynamics. In his opinion, the Russian revolutionary peasantry, alienated by the surplus appropriation policy, “became a free political force in many parts of the country,” opposing the whites and the reds, and this situation was most dramatically manifested in the “Green movement” of Nestor Makhno in Ukraine” 8 . M.A. Drobov examines the military aspects of guerrilla warfare and small war. He examines in detail the Red insurgency of the Civil War. For him, the Greens are, first of all, an anti-White force. “Among the “greens” it is necessary to distinguish between gangs of bandits, self-dealers, various types of criminal punks who had nothing to do with the insurrection, and groups of poor peasants and workers scattered by whites and interventionists. It was these last elements... having no connections either with the Red Army or with the party organization, who independently organized detachments with the aim of harming the whites at every opportunity” 9. M. Frenkin writes about the operations of the greens in Syzran and other districts of the Simbirsk province, in a number of districts of Nizhny Novgorod and Smolensk, in the Kazan and Ryazan provinces, clusters of greens in Belarus with its vast forest and swampy areas 10. At the same time, the name “green” is uncharacteristic for, for example, the Kazan or Simbirsk regions. An expanded understanding of the green movement is also inherent in historical journalism 11 .
T.V. played a major role in the study of peasant participation in the Civil War. Osipova. She was one of the first to raise the topic of the subjectivity of the peasantry in the internecine war 12. Subsequent works by this author 13 developed a picture of peasant participation in the revolutionary and military events of 1917–1920. T.V. Osipova focused on the fact that the protest movement of the Great Russian peasantry was not noticed in Western literature, but it existed and was massive.
M. Frenkin’s well-known essay on peasant uprisings naturally also concerns the topic of greens. He quite correctly assesses the green movement as a specific form of peasant struggle that appeared in 1919, that is, as a kind of innovation in the peasant struggle with the authorities. He connects with this movement the active work of peasants in destroying Soviet farms during Mamontov's raid 14. M. Frenkin is right from the point of view of the general logic of the peasant struggle. At the same time, one should be careful in accepting his value judgments about the unchanged multi-thousandth greens. Sometimes, in this matter, conscious distortions gave rise to a whole tradition of incorrect perception. So, E.G. Renev showed that Colonel Fedichkin’s memoirs about the Izhevsk-Botkin uprising, published abroad, were subjected to serious editing by the editors of the publication with deliberate distortion of the content. As a result, instead of peasant detachments of one hundred people who supported the workers' uprising in the Vyatka province, detachments of ten thousand people appeared in the publication 15. M. Bernshtam, in his work, proceeded from the published version and counted the active fighters on the side of the rebels, reaching a quarter of a million people 16. On the other hand, a small active detachment could operate successfully with the total support and solidarity of the local population, sometimes from a fairly impressive area. Therefore, when calculating insurgent, weakly armed and poorly organized (in the military sense of the word) forces, it may be appropriate to estimate not only the number of fighters, but also the total population involved in an uprising or other protest movement.
In 2002, two dissertations were defended on the military-political activity of the peasantry in the Civil War, specifically addressing the issues of the green movement. These are the works of V.L. Telitsyn and P.A. Pharmacist 17. Each of them contains a separate story dedicated to the “Zelenovism” of 1919. 18 The authors published these stories 19 . P. Aptekar gives a general outline of the green uprisings, V. Telitsyn actively used Tver material.
During the Civil War, there was a separate formation - the “greens”, the so-called “third force”. She opposed everyone - the White Guards, the Bolsheviks, foreign interventionists. The green movement during the Civil War, the leaders - N.I. Makhno, A.S. Antonov, Ataman Bulak-Balakhovich (Green) tried to adhere to neutrality. However, this was only possible until 1919. Then it became impossible to remain on the sidelines.Bulak-Balakhovich
Makhno's Army
The Green Army leaders gathered people mainly from Cossack and peasant armed formations. The “green” movement was gaining momentum, the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks tried to fight on both sides, creating the “Third Way” program.According to it, the opponents were the Bolsheviks and the Whites, whose leaders were Denikin and Kolchak.
However, the Social Revolutionaries missed their plans, they were so far from the peasants and could not win their favor.
The "Third Way" became most popular in Ukraine, where a rebel army of peasants was led by Nestor Makhno.
The basis of the armed formation included wealthy peasants who traded grain and were engaged in agriculture. They took an active part in the redistribution of landowners' lands. Subsequently, their new possessions became objects of requisitions, which were carried out in turn by the Reds, the interventionists and the Whites. The “green” movement came to the defense against such lawlessness.
Antonovsky "green" movement
The uprising in the Volga region and Tambov region was just as large-scale. It received a second name - “Antonovshchina”, after the name of the leader. Peasants began to control the land of the landowners in the autumn of 1917 and active development of the land began. Life improved significantly, but in 1919 surplus appropriation began. Everyone who could began to take away food from the peasants. This caused an angry reaction and people began to defend their interests with weapons.The greatest tension occurred in 1920, when the Tambov region was severely affected by drought and, as a result, the “lion’s” part of the harvest died. Everything that the peasants were able to collect was taken by the Red Army. As a result, a new round of the “green” movement began, led by A. S. Antonov.
He used simple slogans that were accessible to the villagers, which called for building a free future and fighting the communists. The uprising grew rapidly, spreading to other regions, and the Bolshevik government had difficulty suppressing it. Kotovsky and Tukhachevsky dealt with this issue.
Goals of the green movement
Who are the Greens in the Civil War? These were peasant mass uprisings that were aimed against everyone who claimed power in the country. The Greens did not recognize both the Bolsheviks and the White Guards. Moreover, the latter were hated more than the others. The main goal of the “green” movement is the formation of free Soviets that would adhere to the will of peasants and workers.Some strove for a national democratic idea and believed that the creation of a Constituent Assembly was necessary. Others adhered to anarchy or goals close to the original Bolshevism. In general, the green demands were as follows:
· redistribution of communal land;
· cessation of surplus appropriation and monopolism, return to free market relations;
· socialization of lands, plants and factories;
· freedom of speech, elective principle;
· no serfdom;
· respect for local traditions, customs and religions.
There were also the concepts of “white- and red-green”. Some gravitated more towards the White Guards, others towards the Bolsheviks. One of the goals was self-government without communists (later Jews and “Muscovites” were added to them). The exceptions were the Urals, Western Siberia and the Tambov region, where the Constituent Assembly was preferred.
Makhno and the commanders of his army adhered to anarchism. The most attractive for them was the social revolution, which denied any power and violence over people. The main goals of the program are people's self-government and the exclusion of any dictatorship.
The results of the “greens” in the Civil War
The green movement is mass protests of peasants who were doomed to death from hunger. It was the lack of food that caused the formation of underground detachments. The intensity of the confrontation occurred in the period 1919–1920. The “green” movement during the war was very important, since the confrontation involved mainly peasants, who were in the overwhelming majority in the country.The outcome of the war largely depended on the support of the “greens” to the warring parties. Everyone understood this - the Reds, the Whites, the interventionists. They all tried to win over the peasant movement, in which millions of people participated. The attempts of the White Guards to force people to serve by force caused even greater discontent than the Bolshevik acts.
When, after the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army released its main forces and became the strongest enemy, some peasants gave it preference, others simply went into the forests, abandoning their houses and lands. However, they were gradually forced out from there too. In addition to punitive measures, the concession of the abolition of food appropriation had an impact on reducing the resistance of the rebels. Gradually the green movement faded away.
As a result, people's opinions were divided. Some believe that the “greens” lost, others believe that they were still able to defend (albeit partially) their principles. Some consider them bandits, others – defenders of their homeland.
Not only “reds” and “whites” fought in the Civil War. There was also a third force – the “greens”. Their role is ambiguous. Some consider the “greens” to be bandits, others – freedom-loving defenders of their land.
Greens vs Reds & Whites
Candidate of Historical Sciences Ruslan Gagkuev outlined the events of those years as follows: “In Russia, the cruelty of the civil war was due to the breakdown of traditional Russian statehood and the destruction of the age-old foundations of life.” According to him, in those battles there were no vanquished, but only those destroyed. That is why rural people in entire villages, and even volosts, sought to protect the islands of their little world from an external deadly threat at any cost, especially since they had experience of peasant wars. This was the most important reason for the emergence of a third force in 1917-1923 - the “green rebels”.
In the encyclopedia edited by S.S. Khromov’s “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” gives a definition to this movement - these are illegal armed groups, whose participants were hiding from mobilizations in the forests.
However, there is another version. So General A.I. Denikin believed that these formations and detachments got their name from a certain Ataman Zeleny, who fought against both the Whites and the Reds in the western part of the Poltava province. Denikin wrote about this in the fifth volume of “Essays on Russian Troubles.”
"Fight among yourselves"
The book by the Englishman H. Williamson “Farewell to the Don” contains the memoirs of one British officer who during the Civil War was in the Don Army of General V.I. Sidorina. “At the station we were met by a convoy of Don Cossacks... and units under the command of a man named Voronovich, lined up next to the Cossacks. The “greens” had practically no uniform; they wore mostly peasant clothes with checkered woolen caps or shabby sheep’s hats, on which a cross made of green fabric was sewn. They had a simple green flag and looked like a strong and powerful group of soldiers."
“Voronovich’s soldiers” refused Sidorin’s call to join his army, preferring to remain neutral. In general, at the beginning of the Civil War, the peasantry adhered to the principle: “Fight among yourselves.” However, the “whites” and “reds” every day stamped decrees and orders on “requisitions, duties and mobilization,” thereby involving the villagers in the war.
Village brawlers
Meanwhile, even before the revolution, rural residents were sophisticated fighters, ready at any moment to grab pitchforks and axes. The poet Sergei Yesenin in the poem “Anna Snegina” cited the conflict between the two villages of Radovo and Kriushi.
One day we found them...
They are in axes, so are we.
From the ringing and grinding of steel
A shiver ran through my body.
There were many such clashes. Pre-revolutionary newspapers were full of articles about mass fights and stabbings between residents of various villages, auls, kishlaks, Cossack villages, Jewish towns and German colonies. That is why each village had its own cunning diplomats and desperate commanders who defended local sovereignty.
After the First World War, when many peasants, returning from the front, took with them three-line rifles and even machine guns, it was dangerous to just enter such villages.
Doctor of Historical Sciences Boris Kolonitsky noted in this regard that regular troops often asked permission from the elders to pass through such villages and were often refused. But after the forces became unequal due to the sharp strengthening of the Red Army in 1919, many villagers were forced to go into the forests to avoid mobilization.
Nester Makhno and Old Man Angel
A typical Green commander was Nestor Makhno. He went through a difficult path from a political prisoner due to his participation in the anarchist group “Union of Poor Grain Growers” to the commander of the “Green Army”, numbering 55 thousand people in 1919. He and his fighters were allies of the Red Army, and Nester Ivanovich himself was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the capture of Mariupol.
At the same time, being a typical “green”, he did not see himself outside his native places, preferring to live by robbing landowners and wealthy people. The book “The Worst Russian Tragedy” by Andrei Burovsky contains the memoirs of S.G. Pushkareva about those days: “The war was cruel, inhumane, with complete oblivion of all legal and moral principles. Both sides committed the mortal sin of killing prisoners. The Makhnovists regularly killed all captured officers and volunteers, and we used the captured Makhnovists for consumption.”
If at the beginning and in the middle of the Civil War the “greens” either adhered to neutrality or most often sympathized with the Soviet regime, then in 1920-1923 they fought “against everyone.” For example, on the carts of one “Father Angel” commander it was written: “Beat the Reds until they turn white, beat the Whites until they turn red.”
Heroes of the Greens
According to the apt expression of the peasants of that time, the Soviet government was both mother and stepmother for them. It got to the point that the Red commanders themselves did not know where -
the truth, and where is the lie. Once, at a peasant gathering, the legendary Chapaev was asked: “Vasily Ivanovich, are you for the Bolsheviks or for the communists?” He replied: “I am for the International.”
Under the same slogan, that is, “For the International,” the St. George cavalier A.V. Sapozhkov fought, who fought simultaneously “against the gold chasers and against the false communists who were entrenched in the Soviets.” His unit was destroyed, and he himself was shot.
The most prominent representative of the “greens” is considered to be a member of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party A. S. Antonov, better known as the leader of the Tambov Uprising of 1921-1922. In his army, the word “comrade” was used, and the fight was waged under the banner “For Justice.” However, the majority of the “green army” did not believe in their victory. For example, in the song of the Tambov rebels “Somehow the sun doesn’t shine...” there are the following lines:
They will lead us all on a rampage,
They will give the command “Fire!”
C'mon, don't whine in front of the gun,
Don't lick the soil at your feet!..