Sergei Buntovsky: Why Donbass is a Russian region, and not “Russified Ukrainians”
The events of recent months have clearly demonstrated the unfortunate fact that residents of most of Ukraine have absolutely no understanding of what is happening in the Donbass. Our region turned out to be an absolute “blank spot” for them, and this was one of the reasons for the start of the war.
When the “Russian Spring” began in March, and tens of thousands of Donetsk residents took to the streets under the Russian tricolor, the Ukrainian media continued to convince that Donbass is an ordinary Ukrainian region, and the rallies are organized by marginalized people and “Russian tourists.” Adults and seemingly adequate interlocutors from Kyiv told me in all seriousness that Putin’s mercenaries from Rostov are coming to us and holding rallies, while real Donetsk residents support the Maidan. There were even photographs of buses circulating on the Internet that supposedly brought these tourists.
The fact that in Donetsk alone the rallies attracted twenty to thirty thousand people could not shake the confidence of supporters of a united Ukraine that they were right. Kyiv politicians and experts turned out to be completely blind and did not understand what was happening in the region. Instead of understanding the demands of the Donetsk people and meeting them halfway, they blocked the borders and looked for mythical “Russian tourists.” Instead of dialogue with residents of the East, arrests of protest leaders began. And here factors came into play that the Ukrainians did not even suspect.
For Maidan supporters, it was a complete surprise that in the two eastern regions there live not “Russified Ukrainians” similar to them, but people with a completely different mentality and character. People with a different historical memory and their own idea of the correct world order. People who perceived the Ukrainian troops brought into the region not as their army, but as occupiers with all the corresponding consequences.
However, the blindness of the Ukrainian establishment can be explained by their historical illiteracy. After all, both in Soviet times and during the years of independence, no one focused attention on the fact that Donbass is a completely specific region that has practically nothing in common with Ukraine, of which it became part of the whim of the communists almost a century ago. No one has studied the history of Donbass, but historical memory never disappears. Even if it is not articulated and seems to be reliably hidden in the depths of the collective unconscious, then at critical moments it breaks through into our world. That is why our fellow countrymen defend Slavyansk as desperately as their ancestors defended Azov three and a half centuries ago. Just as a hundred years ago Donbass residents joined the volunteer detachments of the Red and White Guards from the mines and mines, so now they enroll in the militia of Gubarev and Strelkov. So the latest events are in many ways historically logical, and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics proclaimed in the spring are only the reincarnation of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic, created in 1918.
Therefore, to understand modernity, let's plunge into the history of this region. After Tamerlane's campaigns at the end of the fourteenth century, this once fairly populated land became depopulated and received the name “Wild Field”. Then the eastern part of Donbass was conquered by the warlike and freedom-loving Don Cossacks and until the beginning of the twentieth century it was part of the Don Army Region. The western part of the region was controlled by the Crimean Khanate until the end of the eighteenth century.
In 1721, Russian ore explorer Grigory Kapustin discovered fuel deposits near the Kundryuchya River, a tributary of the Seversky Donets. Later, by order of Peter I, two more expeditions were equipped to explore coal and ore. In 1724, coal mining began in the Donbass, organized by local manager Nikita Vepreysky and captain Semyon Chirkov. After the Russian-Turkish War of 1735-1739. Almost the entire Donbass finally became part of the Russian Empire. Active colonization of the region began. Among the settlers, in addition to the inhabitants of the indigenous Russian lands, there were many Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks who fled from the Turkish yoke. The Russian government provided land to immigrants from other countries on preferential terms and recruited them to serve as border guards. In 1753, a Serbian squad led by colonels I. Šević and R. Preradovich arrived here, and a new administrative unit of the Russian Empire was created - Slavyanoserbia with its center in Bakhmut (now Artemovsk). In 1764, Slavyanoserbia was transformed into the Catherine Province, and then became part of the Yekaterinoslav Governorate.
So, initially the region was populated by determined free people, ready to defend their settlements with arms in hand both from an external enemy (in the form of Tatar hordes) and from excessive tutelage from the state.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Donbass became one of the leading industrial regions. Large state-owned metallurgical plants operate here: Lugansk, Petrovsky, Lisichansky. The coal, metallurgical and coke industries are actively developing. Thousands of active people from all over Russia go to work in Donetsk mines and factories. Hard work and difficult conditions led to the fact that only strong-willed and determined people remained in the region, ready to work until exhaustion, risk their lives in the mines, but at the same time earn as much in a few years as a peasant could not accumulate in his entire life. central provinces.
All the active, enterprising and risk-taking people of the empire in the second half of the nineteenth century flocked here to achieve success in the new land. It was not for nothing that Donbass was called New America at that time. It was at this time that Donbass formed into a single interconnected economic region, covering Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov provinces and the Don Army Region.
The question of separating Donbass into a special administrative unit has been raised more than once. At the beginning of 1917, a government body was even created - the Provisional Donetsk Committee, whose task was to plan the economic development of Donbass as a single complex. But the collapse of the Russian Empire had already begun, and then the Civil War.
After the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne in March 1917, the territory of the Russian Empire was left with virtually no central leadership. The provisional government clearly failed to cope with its responsibilities, and the state went into disarray. But since the power of the Center weakened, people quickly found people willing to take advantage of this on the ground. Thus, in Kyiv, a group of comrades appointed themselves as the Ukrainian government and called themselves the Central Rada. The Provisional Government had no time to find out the details. The Central Rada in Petrograd was recognized and even agreed with the creation of either an autonomous or independent Ukraine. The only thing is that everyone could not agree on the boundaries of the new political entity. Kyiv delegates in the capital of the former empire in June 1917 tried to achieve recognition of their jurisdiction over the vast territories of southern Russia. So even St. Petersburg democratic intellectuals were forced to ask: “Will there be too much?” As a result, a consensus was reached: three Novorossiysk (Ekaterinoslav, Kherson and Tauride), Kharkov and partially Chernigov provinces were withdrawn from the territories controlled by the Central Rada. The annexation of these lands to Ukrainian autonomy (!) was possible only on the condition that the local population spoke out for it.
While Kyiv and Petrograd politicians were arguing, residents of the five disputed provinces decided to live by their own wits. Already in March 1917, the First Conference of Donbass Soviets took place in the city of Bakhmut. A month later, the 13st Regional Congress of the Councils of the Donetsk and Krivoy Rog Basins met in Kharkov, which established the Regional Committee of Donkrivoy Basins and adopted the regulations on the organizational structure of the Councils of the Donetsk and Krivoy Rog Basins. On July 16-1917, XNUMX, a regional conference of the RSDLP(b) was held in Kharkov, which created its own regional committee. The Bolsheviks chose as their leader the favorite of the masses, a man with a legendary fate, Fyodor Sergeev (Artem).
After the October coup, the Central Rada proclaimed the creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). Not only Kiev, Podolsk, Volyn, Poltava and the entire Chernigov provinces, but also Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Kherson and Tauride (without Crimea) were declared Ukraine. In response, on November 17 (30), the plenum of the Executive Committee of the Donkrivbass Soviets almost unanimously condemned the Third Universal of the Central Rada and spoke out against the Rada’s encroachments on the territory of Donbass. On that day, Artyom’s words were heard about the need to create “a self-governing autonomous Donetsk region independent of the Kyiv centers and to seek for it the full power of the Soviets.” At the same time, the Ukrainian Bolsheviks tried to take power in Kyiv, but when the First Congress of Soviets of Ukraine met in Kyiv, it turned out that the Bolsheviks were in an absolute minority. Therefore, the Ukrainian Bolsheviks went to Kharkov, where the Third Congress of Donkrivbass Soviets was taking place. After the arrival of the Kyiv fugitives, the congress was renamed the First Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies of Ukraine, and on December 25, according to the new style, the creation of Soviet Ukraine was announced. The name of the new state remained the same as that of the Central Rada - Ukrainian People's Republic. This formation was headed by Ukrainian communist Nikolai Skrypnik.
It is worth noting that the Kyiv and Donetsk Bolsheviks treated each other very coolly. The main reason for the misunderstanding was the eternal question of who is boss. The people of Kiev argued that DonKrivbass is part of Ukraine, and therefore should obey them. The Donetsk comrades explained that they were not going to submit to the fugitives, since Donkrivbass was a completely independent entity. Moreover, it is not connected either economically or culturally with Ukraine, and the population of the region is predominantly Russian. Things got to the point where Sergo Ordzhonikidze arrived from Moscow to reconcile the Bolsheviks. Temporarily, the situation was calmed down, but as soon as the revolutionary troops took Kyiv and the authorities of the Soviet UPR moved there, the IV Congress of Donkrivbass Soviets immediately met in Kharkov, and on February 9, 1918, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was proclaimed. The congress elected the regional committee of the DKR, which included 5 Bolsheviks, 3 Socialist Revolutionaries and 1 Menshevik. Five days later, the DKR government was formed.
The main economic body of the republic was the Southern Regional Council of National Economy (YOSNKh). The Economic Council did a lot of work to study the technical condition of Donbass enterprises, identifying unprofitable enterprises, and nationalized a number of large monopolies. It should be noted that in a number of mines that the Economic Council took control of, there was even an increase in productivity. The created association Glavsakhar investigated sugar factories and introduced a number of benefits for private owners. Let us note that the YuOSNKh not only did not interfere with the development of private retail trade, but also took it under protection from arbitrary actions of local Soviets.
The solution of social problems in the DKR was entrusted to the Commissariat of Labor under the leadership of Boris Magidov. This People's Commissariat was in charge of a wide range of issues: the conclusion of collective agreements, the establishment of a minimum wage, the resolution of labor conflicts, social insurance, the fight against unemployment... Education and culture were dealt with by the Commissariat for Public Education, which created departments of public education under local Soviets. The People's Commissariat banned the closure of schools and introduced free education for poor children. A number of educational institutions for adults, literacy courses, kindergartens were opened in the DKR, and a program was developed to create children's summer camps. It should be noted that measures were also taken to expand education in the Ukrainian language: at the end of February, the opening of Ukrainian schools in the republic was reported, and a Ukrainian gymnasium was opened in Kharkov. A full-fledged political and economic life in the autonomous republic was successfully established. Back on March 20, 1918, the newspaper Izvestia Yuga proudly declared: “Since Ukraine separated from Soviet Russia, this is its business. We are not following her... We must shout to the whole world that the Donetsk proletarian does not consider himself part of the Ukrainian state.”
When the German offensive began after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the leaders of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic reassured themselves for some time that international agreements regarding Ukraine, whatever they were, no matter who signed them, did not apply to the DKR. However, the Austro-German command did not think so. Focusing on the state borders of the UPR, determined by the III and IV Universals of the Central Rada, Austro-German troops began the occupation of the eastern lands of modern Ukraine.
And then the DKR army went into battle against them. Initially it numbered 8,5 thousand bayonets. In many ways, the 8th Army, which had withdrawn from the Romanian Front, helped in its formation. Its elected commander, Anatoly Gekker, became the first commander of the Donetsk army. On April 5, the field headquarters of the Donetsk Army was created, which by that time already numbered 13 thousand people. Despite the formal subordination of all military forces of the southern Russian republics to Antonov-Ovseenko, the army acted independently.
The Russian Council of People's Commissars tried to use the newborn DKR quite pragmatically as a temporary barrier to Western aggression. This is due to the fact that the German offensive put the first issue on the agenda to save the Soviet government at any cost. Weak Red Guard detachments, even united in the Donetsk Workers' Army, could not stop the iron tread of the Kaiser's veterans. However, with their desperate resistance they delayed the Germans for a whole month.
When the battles with the Germans were already taking place near Kharkov, the Council of People's Commissars of the DKR announced its protest to the Central Rada on April 7, 1918: “We declare that the Kiev government cannot refer, in conquering our Republic with German-Austrian bayonets, to any historical and other rights other than the right for conquest”... But that same night the German army broke into Kharkov, and the DKR government fought and left the capital with the last detachment of 300 fighters. Even after the fall of Kharkov, the red troops continued to resist and retreated, snarling with steel and fire, and repeatedly launched counterattacks. In mid-April, battles took place on the approaches to the Yuzovsky defensive region. On April 20, the Germans captured Slavyansk, on April 22, Mariupol, Yuzovka and Makeevka, and on April 24, Gorlovka and Nikitovka.
However, desperate resistance made it possible to evacuate thousands of wagons with equipment, weapons, ammunition, bread, as well as at least 30 thousand workers and members of their families from Donbass to Soviet Russia.
At the end of April, the final battles took place in the northeastern part of Donbass. Covering the Svatovo-Lisichansk-Rodakovo-Lugansk railway line, soldiers of the Soviet units retreating from Kharkov fought. April 25 at the station. A fierce battle broke out in Rodakovo. Having repelled the enemy's onslaught, the soldiers of the Soviet detachments launched a counterattack and forced the invaders to flee. However, the German command, trying to capture Lugansk, threw five divisions into battle. Having taken up defense along the Lugan and Olkhovka rivers, the fighters of the understaffed 5th Army, which had suffered heavy losses in previous battles, together with the small working detachments of Donbass, heroically held back the 40-strong enemy group for 80 hours. At the same time, the evacuation of Lugansk continued. About 28 trains with workers' families, valuable equipment and raw materials were sent from the city towards Millerovo. On April XNUMX, German troops occupied the city.
Units of the 5th Army that retreated from Lugansk to Millerovo, as well as dozens of trains with people and cargo concentrated here, were unable to make their way to the north. In an effort to squeeze Soviet troops in a vice and seize property evacuated from Donbass, the Germans from Svatovo through Starobelsk - Belovodsk broke through to Chertkovo and cut the South-Eastern Railway, along which troops and trains were retreating from Donbass. In the south, the Germans occupied Taganrog and were approaching Rostov. The only way out was to fight our way through the Don steppes east to Tsaritsyn.
Guarding trains numbering more than three thousand wagons with the families of workers, the wounded, weapons, equipment and other valuable cargo, units of the 5th and 3rd armies and detachments of Donbass workers under the command of Voroshilov began a 500-kilometer march along the Millerovo-Likhaya railway. Tsaritsyn. For almost three months, fighting daily battles with the Cossacks, restoring destroyed railway tracks and bridges, the fighters and working groups of Donbass advanced. Later, having joined the ranks of the Red Army, they took an active part in the defense of Tsaritsyn from the White Guard troops.
Following the German and Austrian troops, the former owners of the mines and factories returned to the Donbass. Soon, entrepreneurs moved on to a complete revision of all labor legislation adopted by the Provisional and Soviet governments. Working hours were extended, wages were reduced, trade unions were closed and strikes were declared illegal.
When the soldiers of the Red Army of Donbass retreated, the DKR government went with them. The struggle for Donbass moved from the battlefields to offices, where persistent disputes were held about the ownership of the coal basin. Soviet Russia and Ukraine, which was under German control, tried at any cost to prove the legitimacy of their claims to an economically important region. Since the eastern borders of Ukraine were never determined, it was decided to resort to referendums among the local population on the disputed territories. It is known that on August 27, 1918, Russia and Germany signed an agreement, the 12th article of which stated that Donbass was temporarily occupied German territory and even retained Russia’s right to mine Donetsk coal.
But already at the end of 1918, when the Germans left Ukraine, the question of a sovereign DKR and its relationship to Ukraine again arose in the liberated lands. This time, the Bolsheviks immediately forgot their promise about the referendum and took an unambiguously tough position in relation to the opinion of the Donbass residents. Lenin explained this by saying that for the Bolsheviks “the question of the borders of states is a secondary, if not ten-fold, issue,” and called on the Russian Bolsheviks “to be compliant in disagreements with the Ukrainian communist Bolsheviks, if the disagreements concern the state independence of Ukraine, the forms of its union with Russia, generally a national question." The result of such internationalist calls from Lenin was the resolution of the Defense Council of February 17, 1919: “Ask Comrade. Stalin, through the Bureau of the Central Committee, to carry out the destruction of Krivdonbass.” And this request was fulfilled: the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog regional party conference scheduled for February 20, 1919 was banned. A few days later, an agreement was signed between Russia and Ukraine (Soviet), according to which most of the DKR went to the latter without any referendum. Thus, the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was liquidated by violent actions “from above.” Donetsk leaders, however, still did not let up. A year later, when Soviet power was finally established in the Donbass, in February 1920, a congress of volost revolutionary committees of the Yuzovsky district was held in Yuzovka, which stated: “The congress insists on the rapid economic and political merger of the Donetsk province with Soviet Russia in a single All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets.” However, the central government once again sided with the Ukrainian Bolsheviks, and Donbass remained part of the Ukrainian SSR.
For almost a hundred years, the question of Donbass ownership was closed, but the events of the winter of 2013-14 again gave the residents of Donbass a chance to revive their own statehood.
In many ways, the situation in 2014 is similar to that in 1918. We are again witnessing a confrontation between pro-Western Ukraine and the Russian Donbass, once again one of the strongest countries in the West stands behind the back of official Kyiv, and Moscow is in every possible way distancing itself from helping its fellow tribesmen. From this similarity, skeptics have the right to conclude that the new republics will share the fate of the DKR. Moreover, modern DPR and LPR occupy a smaller territory than the DKR, which means their potential is less than in the revolutionary years.
However, there are also serious differences. In 1918, the Ukrainian army was just a screen behind which the personnel armies of Germany and Austria operated. It was these professionals who broke the defenses of our grandfathers. Today, there is no direct military intervention by Western countries, and the Ukrainian army, even reinforced by foreign advisers, mercenaries from PMCs and volunteer battalions, turns out to be unable to crush the smaller and worse armed militias. Moreover, if the RSFSR could not then provide any real assistance to Donbass, today Russia is quite capable of turning the tide of the struggle with its intervention.
So now the patriots of Donbass have a real chance to take revenge for the defeat of the DKR. The only question is whether they will be able to implement it.
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