FORK REBELLION

Abstract. After the civil War, the Soviet Republic faced a severe economic and political crisis. A wave of peasant uprisings and anti-Soviet uprisings swept through the country. The largest demonstrations took place on the territory of Bashkortostan under the name "Black Eagle" - fork uprising.

Keywords: uprising, fist, prodrazverstka.

After the end of the Civil War, the Soviet Republic found itself in a difficult international and domestic situation. The country is facing a severe economic and political crisis. As a result of almost seven years of war, Russia lost more than a quarter of its national wealth, industry suffered especially major damage: the volume of its gross output decreased by 7 times. Compared with 1913, the gross production of large-scale industry decreased by almost 13%, and small-scale by more than 44%. Stocks of raw materials and supplies were mostly exhausted by 1920. Huge destruction was inflicted on transport. In 1920, the volume of railway traffic was 20% compared to pre-war.The situation in agriculture has also worsened. The acreage, yield, and gross grain harvests have decreased. Agriculture has increasingly acquired a consumer character, its marketability has fallen by 2.5 times [1].

Animal husbandry was also in a state of decline. The number of livestock was decreasing, and less meat, lard, milk, wool, and leather were coming from the village. The population of the cities was starving. The nutrition of the country's population was getting worse.

The difficulties facing the village were enormous. There was a sharp shortage of inventory in the peasant economy - there were not enough plows, seeders and harvesters, sickles and scythes were in short supply. Many village forges stopped working altogether due to the lack of workers (mobilization of blacksmiths in the army) and materials. Other forges for the same reasons worked poorly and little. The depreciation of agricultural equipment by 1921 was 50-70%. In areas of irrigation agriculture, the irrigation system was in disrepair.

Without food, without raw materials, it was impossible to restore industry. Consequently, the recovery of the entire economy depended on the rise of agriculture. It was necessary to start the fight against the devastation from the peasant field. It was necessary to make every effort to put agriculture on the path of recovery and recovery.

The already difficult situation of agriculture was aggravated by the catastrophic crop failure and famine of 1920-1921. The famine had a particularly strong effect in a number of central provinces, affecting many areas of the Volga region.

The country was on the verge of a new Civil War. Strikes begin at industrial enterprises, a wave of peasant uprisings and anti-Soviet uprisings swept through the country: in Ukraine, Siberia, Central Asia, Tambov and Saratov provinces. The social support of these rebellions was the multi-million peasantry.

The largest peasant uprising on the territory of Bashkortostan took place in early 1920. The socio-economic and political situation here, as in the whole country, was extremely difficult and complicated at that time. During the Civil War, economic devastation reached unprecedented proportions.

However, the central and local authorities took little account of the difficult financial situation of the population and increased food procurement. This caused a general outrage.

The reason for the beginning of the performance was what happened in one of the villages of the Menzelinsk train. A certain Pudov, the head of the armed food squad, demanded the immediate execution of the prodrazverstki, otherwise, he threatened mass arrests. At the gathering, the peasants decided to perform the prodrazverstku not in full due to their lack of the necessary amount of bread. Then Pudov declared the village under martial law, arresting 20 people. Then the peasants decided to crack down on the food squad. Pudov and several pro-army soldiers escaped. The villagers sent messengers to neighboring villages calling for a fight against the government [3]. Thus began the movement that went down in history under the name of the uprising of the "Black Eagle" - the fork uprising. It very quickly moved to the neighboring Birsky and Belebeyevsky counties, covered part of the Ufa county.

The main reason for the uprising was the general dissatisfaction with the policy of the Communists, especially the methods of its implementation, abuse and violence by food detachments, party and Soviet bodies.

This movement was directed against the imposed communist orders in general. It is no coincidence that the leaflet of the headquarters of the rebels was called a proclamation for the fight against communism. As it was noted at the meeting of responsible workers of the Ufa province after the suppression of peasant protests, the uprising was caused by excessive prodrazverstka and its incorrect layout between volosts, villages and farms, outrages of food detachments, mockery of the Bashkir and Tatar population. At the meeting, facts were cited that pro-army soldiers beat Muslims, take bribes, get drunk, rape women, kill innocent peasants, arbitrarily confiscate property they liked [1]. In his Memoirs, Z. Validi wrote that after learning about the capture of Western Ukraine and Kiev by the Poles, "rural people, exhausted from the robberies of the Bolsheviks, began to rise up in the Urals… Unarmed peasants of the Tatar villages of Ufa, Belebeyevsky and Menzelinsky counties, taking wooden and iron pitchforks in their hands, in January 1920, raised a spontaneous and scattered riot, which was called the "fork rebellion" [5].

Both Russian and Tatar, Latvian, German and Mari populations participated in the uprising – only about 26 thousand people. Among them were the Kulaks, the well-to-do, the middle peasants and the poor, i.e. all social strata of the peasantry. The rebels put forward the slogans "Down with the Communists!", "Long live free trade!", "Long live the people's government, elected by secret and equal vote for all!", "Long live the land and freedom!".

The main headquarters was created to lead the uprising, which consisted mainly of Russian White Guards and Social Revolutionaries. He sent out to the chairmen of the executive committees and village councils orders to mobilize men aged 18 to 48 years into the ranks of the peasant army, which many Soviet workers carried out. Individual employees of the executive committees and other Soviet institutions went over to the side of the rebels and even became commanders of rebel detachments and commandants of settlements. Thanks to this, the uprising took on a huge scale. The rebels were armed mainly with pitchforks and axes, only some had rifles and hunting rifles. They primarily dealt with communists, pro-army workers, teachers, librarians who helped or sympathized with the new government.

Special purpose units, internal security troops, CHEKA battalions numbering over 7 thousand soldiers with 4 guns and 48 machine guns were moved against the rebellious peasants.

The ruthless suppression of the uprising began. Poorly armed peasants put up desperate resistance to the troops. According to incomplete data, 1,078 rebels were killed, 2,400 wounded and 2,049 captured during the fighting. According to the testimony of the Social revolutionaries, from 10 to 20 thousand peasants were killed. Government forces lost only 15 people killed. The security officers showed special cruelty.

They had mandates in their hands that gave them the rights to "shoot on the spot persons who provide armed resistance," and the chekists used this right quite widely.

Authorized representative of the Regional Committee of the RCP(b), CEC and BCHK. V. Polenov, who was sent to the Burzyan-Tangaur canton to fight deserters, regarded the movement of the Bashkir masses as bandit and, having dispersed local authorities and established a military dictatorship, began mass executions of Bashkirs without trial. During the interrogations of the arrested, torture and bullying were allowed. V. Polenov, M. Rudenko and others acted under the slogan "Death to all Bashkirs!". As a result of the actions of punitive detachments, up to 3 thousand Bashkirs died only in the Temyasovo area.

And the Bashkirs rebelled. And this uprising was quite natural: it was an act of self-defense against ordinary Russian chauvinism, which was rampant under the guise of "left communism".

The rebels smashed the bulk points, dealt with the workers of food agencies, communists, as well as with Russian "temporary settlers", in whom they saw the conductors of a foreign policy of the Soviet government. Every day the uprising became more and more threatening.

In these circumstances, it was decided to abandon punitive measures. It was deemed advisable to start negotiations with the rebels.

On November 26, 1920, an agreement was signed with the rebels in the village of Temyasovo, which provided for amnesty to all participants in the uprising who voluntarily stopped the armed struggle [2]. Thus ended the largest popular uprising of the Bashkir people against the forcible imposition of communism, which was alien to them.

The peasant insurrectionary movement in Bashkortostan and in other regions of Russia after the cancellation of the prodrazverstka quickly began to decline. The uprisings showed that the peasantry is ready to fight with arms in their hands against anyone who attempts on their life and property.