Deserters from the Red Army during the Civil War: to the History of the Guslitsky Region in 1920
Aug 18 2023Posadsky A.V. Deserters from the Red Army during the Civil War: to the History of the Guslitsky Region in 1920 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №2. P. 36-45.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-2-36-45
Annotation
Based on the local historical data, the article aims at proving the importance of a wide range of factors in the analysis of the events of the Civil War in Russia. The author shows both the potential of local research for significant generalizations and the dangers of such extrapolation. In the studies of the Russian Civil War, cultural and historical features of certain regions are often ignored, although they were crucial for the new revolutionary life. The proposed issues are connected with a common phenomenon of that period — the peasants’ mass desertion and evasion from service in the Red Army. The article is based on the official correspondence of the Internal Service Troops of Soviet Russia. The events of the era of war communism strongly affected the cultural-historical micro-region with a rich history — the Guslitsy Old Believers. The author identifies at least three information layers in the presented description and concludes that during the Civil War, horizontal and vertical social relationships developed under the influence of both factors of internal confrontation and cultural-historical characteristics of the region. Thus, the research should focus on such features to reconstruct with a high degree of reliability both the situation of the Civil War and the social history of war communism.
Keywords
Local history, Russia, Civil War, Moscow Province, old believers, Guslitsy Region, Soviet power, desertion.
About the author
Posadsky Anton V., DSc (History), Professor, Povolzhsky Institute of Management — a branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Moskovskaya St., 164. Saratov, 410012.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The small civil war: The events in the Penza Province at the end of 1921–the first half of 1922
Feb 17 2018Posadsky A.V. The small civil war: The events in the Penza Province at the end of 1921–the first half of 1922 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №4. P. 148-159.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-4-148-159
Annotation
This publication is a commented historical document from the fund of the special units’ headquarters. This document summarizes the events of several months (at the end of 1921 — the first half of 1922) in the Penza Province, which were determined by a sharp surge of banditry in a number of this province districts. The document describes in detail, with comments and notes, the stages of the struggle against banditry and its results favorable for the Soviet government. The comments assess the situation in 1921, and reconstruct the history of peasant uprisings in the Penza Province in 1918–1920 that expanded up to the half of its counties. The document reveals the motives of a relatively large group of peasants for participation in the bandit movement. The question is whether there were political motives or social hatred considerations in this movement criminal in form. The document describes the features of all types of peasant armed movements, such as the cluster of villages supporting the active core of rebels or bandits; and the ability of gangs to dissipate and restore strength for fight, etc. The author of the document shows that this active bandit movement was not described in detail in the reports of the State Political Directorate despite its dynamic development through a number of stages. The author emphasizes that the participation of some local peasants in the fight against banditry only strengthened the gangs, which indicates a significant potential for hostility within the rural society. The author of the document was a student of the Military Academy, and the document was probably his study assignment, which determines the historical value of this documentary essay on the history of special units of the Penza Province.
Keywords
history of the peasantry, Civil War, the Penza Province, banditry, special units
About the author
Posadsky Anton V., DSc (History), Professor, Povolzhsky Institute of Management — a branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 410012, Saratov, Moskovskaya St., 164.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Russian Peasant Studies. Scientific journal
Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
- Publisher: Delo Publishing, RANEPA
- Editor-in-Chief: Nikulin Alexander
- ISSN 2500-1809 (Print), ISSN 2949-2564 (Online)
- Founded in 2016
- Frequency: four issues per year (March, Jun, September, December)
- Open Access: All volumes and articles can be downloaded for free in the PDF format.
- Author fees: free of chagre
- Indexation: Russian Science Citation Index, Russian Science Citation Index Core, List of Journals approved by Russian Hihger Attestation committee (Ministry for Sciende and Education), Scopus, UlrichWeb Global Serials Directory, European reference index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIHPLUS), CNKI scholar
- Russian registration number: PI FS77-65824 27-May-2016
Hard copies of the journal can be purchased at the Delo e-store or by subscription in the "Press of Russia" Agency (subscription index - Т81017).
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