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Soviet Cossacks

When the Communists came to power, many Cossacks welcomed the new order. However, the Cossacks represented an organized, armed military group that could threaten the existence of the Communist state. Vladimir Lenin saw the Cossack borderlands as a base for counterrevolution and disbanded the Union of Cossack Hosts. Armed communist columns were sent south to seize control of Cossack lands. Many of the poorer Cossacks joined the communist ranks. The Cossack elders saw the Communists as a threat to the Cossack way of life and vowed to save Moscow and the Motherland during this "time of troubles."

Although Cossacks fought both with the “Reds” and the “Whites” during the Civil War, the majority supported the Whites. When the war ended, the Cossacks were clearly among the losers. The war had ravaged their lands, and Bolshevik scavengers were determined to extract what little grain and goods remained to supply loyal Bolshevik regions. Thousands of Cossacks immigrated to France, Tunisia, Egypt, Türkiye, China, England and America. Those who stayed behind were subject to depredations by armed bands of renegades and Bolshevik-forced industrialization and agricultural collectivization programs. The communist regime was determined to eliminate every vestige of Cossack life. Their property and livestock were confiscated, over two million Cossacks were repressed, more than 1.5 million were killed and over 53 million desyatins (1.4 billion acres) of their land was taken. Cossack institutions, laws, self-government and customs were abolished. By the late 1920s, Cossack brotherhoods had ceased to exist. Cossack institutions, laws, self-government and customs were abolished.

Joseph Stalin maintained a few Cossack trappings. Before World War II, he established a “Cossack” cavalry division in the Soviet army. However, it appears that Cossack ancestry was not a prerequisite for membership in the division. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, some 100,000 soldiers of Cossack parentage were in the Red Army. Many fought heroically for the Motherland, but others supported the Germans in hopes of future Cossack autonomy. During World War II, the Soviets raised a Cossack cavalry corps and several other Cossack units, but there was no effort to place Cossacks in these units. Rather, some Cossack uniforms were designed and issued to 17th Cavalry Corps soldiers, while the corps was redesignated a Cossack cavalry corps.

During WWII Cossacks collaborated with the Nazi Germany, and some of the leaders of the White Army, who fought against bolsheviks in 1918-1922 were given the opportunity to fight against Red Army again as a part of Wehrmacht. One of the leaders of cossacks general Peter Krasnov stated in 1941, that Nazis are fighting not against Russia, but against communists and jews. He was one of the most active propagandist of collaboration. Himself alongside with general Andrei Shkuro, were involved in cossack military unit Kosakenlager that included over 20 000 people. Most of the leaders of cossacks were hanged in Moscow in 1947, including Krasov and Shkuro.

The German army raised some Cossack units from among their prisoners of war, Red Army deserters and the Russian emigre population of occupied Europe. The Wehrmacht raised a Cossack division that eventually became a Cossack cavalry corps and saw action in Yugoslavia. After the war, its members were forcibly repatriated by British forces to the Soviet Union, where many were executed.

After the war, the Cossack uniform again disappeared from the Soviet army, as Stalin and his successors again attempted to bury the very memories of a Cossack past.

In the 1970s, folk ensembles in Moscow discussed a revival of the Cossack culture, but nothing happened until Spring 1989, when a chapter of Cossack countrymen in Moscow was created under the auspices of the All-Union Historical and Cultural Monument Preservation Society Central Propaganda House—it was officially registered at the start of 1990. This led to the founding of countrymen chapters, communities, clubs and finally, Cossack political movements countrywide.

In the Don region in the spring of 1990, the first Cossack assembly was held in the Starodonye Club. Lawyer Samsonov was elected ataman or chieftain. 16 The local Communist Party committee did its best to destroy this and other "unofficial” groups, but due to political turmoil, the party failed to wield the same power it had in the past. 17 The Rostov Oblast Communist Party committee received secret instructions to keep the Cossack movement away from the democrats. The party was not to lose control of the Cossacks at any cost.

Party apparatchiks began coming to Cossack assemblies, and the First Assembly of the Don Cossacks, held in November 1990, elected party functionaries to leadership positions. This process was repeated among other Cossack groups and the Cossack movement began to split among “Reds” and "Whites.” In Moscow, the Party's attempt to control from within the original Moscow Countrymen's chapter failed. A group of pro-Communist Cossacks separated from the chapter at the end of May 1990. On 29 June, a Grand Krug was convened under the leadership of the Communist Party Central Committee and announced the founding of the Union of Cossacks. Relations between the Moscow Countrymen's Chapter and the Union of Cossacks was stormy at best. The "Red" Union of Cossacks supported former Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov, while the "White" Countrymen's Chapter plus 10 other Cossack organizations signed an open letter of support for Boris Yeltsin.

During July 1991, over 30 "White" Cossack organizations conducted a krug in Moscow. Sponsors for the krug included the Cossacks in the Moscow Countrymen Chapter, the Rostov Dolomanovskaya Cossack stanitsa, the Cherkassy region of the Don Host, the Siberian Host, Kuban Host and Yenisey Host. The krug resurrected the Union of Cossack Hosts of Russia (SVRK), which had been abolished by the Bolsheviks.

The hosts also carried popular appeal to ethnic Russians, who saw Cossacks as far more willing to defend their interests than the Russian government. Both the Reds and Whites claimed to hate the Communist Party and everything for which it stood. Prominent Cossack leaders, especially in the Red camp, were ranking Party functionaries and, although most of them denounced the Party, old allegiances die slowly. Local opposition parties are quick to accuse local atamen of lusting for power and being part of the Party nomenklatura. A. Martynov, a former Communist, was the ataman of the Union of Cossacks. S. Meshcheryakov, his bitter opponent and also a former Communist, was ataman of Southern Russia and ataman of the Don Cossack Host. Prominent ultra-right-wing RedBrown leaders, such as former KGB General A. Sterligov (leader of the National-Patriots) and A. Barkashov (Russian National Unity), paid avid court to Meshcheryakov and, by extension, to the Don, Kuban and Terek Cossacks.

Russian politicians saw Cossacks as an organized, armed, potentially coherent force which, if harnessed, could assure the ascendancy of a political bloc. Politicians wish to make Cossacks their pawns; however, on a Russian chessboard, a pawn can advance to control or become a king.