In 1919-1920. the Bolsheviks presented Donbass to Ukraine.
Historical reality
Most of Donbass was part of the Ukrainian People's Republic before - even before the first establishment of Soviet power, and then - part of the Ukrainian State in 1918. The Ukrainian Bolsheviks considered the borders of the UPR to be the borders of Soviet Ukraine.
Therefore, there was no need to "give" something to someone. Despite the expansion of the borders of Ukraine in 1918 after the Brest Peace, in the "Treaty on Borders" between the Ukrainian SSR and the RSFSR on March 10, 1919, the Ukrainian Bolsheviks were forced to come to terms with the fact that the borders of the Ukrainian SSR were now moved to the borders of the tsarist provinces, but with all that the Crimea and part of the Chernigov region were transferred to the RSFSR. This showed the double standards of the Moscow leadership, since Ukraine was losing its territories, but the RSFSR was not. But even according to these criteria, most of the Donbass remained part of the Ukrainian SSR, as before - in the UPR. When, during the stabilization of the Soviet regime, the principle of economic expediency began to play a role, then in 1920 the rest of the Donetsk basin (including mainly Russian district of the city of Shakhty and the Ukrainian district of Taganrog, designated for the food supply of Donbass). In this composition, the Ukrainian SSR entered the USSR, the official decision on the creation of which was approved on July 6, 1923.
And I have your support, I really need it in order to defeat this war without the death of Ukrainians, not killed residents of Odessa. It should be noted that Poroshenko is talking about the current situation in Donbass, and not about a possible situation in the future. He describes this using the present time, not the future used by Russian journalists in their interpretation of his words. That is why Channel One not only took his words out of context, but also misinterpreted them in order to give the wrong impression, as if the president was saying that the residents of Donbass would not receive a pension in the future.
The Ukrainian Bolsheviks in their territorial claims relied on the borders of the Ukrainian People's Republic (see:, "?"), Which included the Donetsk basin. During the existence of the Ukrainian State (April – November 1918), the territory of Ukraine was increased in the north and north-east. In 1919, after the second arrival of Soviet power, which, unlike 1918, was already centralized, the question of the borders between Soviet Ukraine and the RSFSR became really relevant. Without fundamentally abandoning the ethnographic criterion ("the right of nations to self-determination" was one of the key slogans that ensured the victory of the Bolsheviks), the Reds insisted that it be organic with the former provincial division.
Donbass: the last frozen conflict in Europe
The brutal life in the separatist republics of Ukraine, explained
✓ Life in the territories ruled by the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, self-proclaimed pro-Russian entities, is best described as difficult and often dangerous for those who remain. Many are warning of an impending humanitarian disaster.✓ The rule of law and security remains evasive, and it is undoubtedly dangerous to openly express pro-Ukrainian views or criticize armed groups. Donbass, abbreviated for Donbass in Russian and Ukrainian, is industrial center Ukraine. The region has been falling on hard times lately, even before the invasion of Russia. It is a region of factories, coal mines and an ever-aging population. Amendments from coal mining are disrupting the landscape of open fields and industrial sprawl. It is a region that was once marked by the proletarian spirit, the cornerstone of Soviet ideology.
This provision was approved.
The Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR approved the results of an Interdepartmental meeting held on February 25 at the Economic and Legal Department of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs on the allocation of the Gomel province and the establishment of borders with Ukraine. But this restriction concerned only Ukrainian claims: ethnographically non-Ukrainian Crimea and four districts of the Chernigov province were excluded from the Ukrainian SSR, while not a single ethnographically Ukrainian region was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. That is, the inequality of the Soviet republics and the inconsistency of declarations with real actions was evident. The decision not to annex some territories to the Ukrainian SSR was based primarily on the possibility of the fall of Soviet power in Ukraine.
The region makes up 5% of the territory of Ukraine; 10% of the population lives there, while it produces 20% of the gross domestic product and about a quarter of its exports to Ukraine. East Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions are highlighted in yellow. Collectively, both regions are known as Donbass. The self-proclaimed separatist Donetsk and Lugansk "People's Republics" control less than half of the region's territory, but contain most of its population.
The geographic proximity of Donbass to Russia makes this part of eastern Ukraine a place of intertwined identities and mixed loyalties. The Soviet mentality still runs deep, especially among the older generation. Plenty of time for stability and a sense of purpose, which is supposed to have existed in the times Soviet Union... Kremlin-backed rebels exploit this sentiment by selling trendy pro-Russian sentiments alongside communist-era nostalgia.
In 1920, Soviet Ukraine practically lost the autonomy in government that existed in 1919, which, among other things, was confirmed by Art.
Economic expediency has become the main criterion for changing borders. The result was an increase in the territory of Ukraine in the East: it was decided to unite the entire Donbass under one command. For this, the Donetsk province was created. Since most of the Donbass and until that time was part of the Ukrainian SSR, the newly created Donetsk province, which is quite natural, became an integral part of Soviet Ukraine. Accordingly, the territory of the Ukrainian SSR was increased.
As seen in a recent poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, Ukraine's Donbass region maintains a closer relationship with Russia in comparison to other regions of the country. As lawlessness and violence gripped Donbass during the recent conflict here, many of those with funds left in other regions of Ukraine or Russia. The United Nations estimates that over 1 million people have fled their homes in Donbas.
Since the self-proclaimed separatist states of the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk people's republic expand their political power over the territories controlled by their police forces, a frozen conflict is created in the Donbass. Since neither Ukraine nor Russia is likely to invest in rebuilding the badly damaged infrastructure of the breakaway region of Ukraine, the economic and political situation is likely to continue to deteriorate. Many people are left without work or security.
How Stalin gave Ukraine Donbass
| April 05, 2014 |
From the editorial board of Rossiya Forever: It has always seemed that the apolitical Donbass and, more broadly, the South-East of Ukraine is now experiencing a real "Russian Spring". Donetsk people hang out Russian flags, desperately forming self-defense squads and demand that Russia "take them home." How solid are their messages? About it— mthe little-known circumstances of the forcible annexation of Donbass to the Ukraine hastily created by the Bolsheviks—the following historical documents and material of the Donetsk historian and publicist Alexander Dmitrievsky.
Railroads, bridges and other key infrastructure were also destroyed, probably by rebel forces during the active phase of the fighting. Elderly residents of the area are especially vulnerable due to the economic distress in the region. Given that the Ukrainian authorities do not have access to the territory, retirees and others must travel to Ukrainian-controlled territory to collect regular human rights payments, which is a daunting task for the elderly or disabled. Economic insecurity and the inability to collect pensions have been a major source of discontent so far, with several reports of retirees staging protests over the issue.
"Due to the fact that Stalin tried to give Donbass to the Ukrainian SSR, a terrible conflict erupted: Russia managed to return only our lands and Taganrog, and most of the territory remained on the other side of the border ... Today this problem has become acute again: the Russian-speaking multinational Donbass does not want to obey the will of the neobanderites who have seized power in Kiev. The people have launched an active struggle against being forced from above with whom to be with. Therefore, let us turn to the roots of the issue, "the author suggests.
Due to the regular shelling, many live in antiquated bomb shelters for several months. Take a video tour at one of them. Foreign journalists noted numerous violations. Armed men guarded polling stations, there were no electoral lists, and rebel representatives provided voters with reduced-price food. Distinguished election observers boycotted the elections, while those foreign observers who bothered to attend were mostly European extremist political parties such as the far-right Hungarian Jobbik Party and the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece.
The Russian man in the street still cannot forgive Nikita Khrushchev for the Crimea given to Ukraine - the original patrimony of the Russian tsars and the former all-Union health resort. Stalin would not have allowed this, shout hurray-patriots. And they forget that the most tasty morsel from the point of view of the economy - Donbass - went to Ukraine from the hands of Joseph Vissarionovich.
Former Swedish minister Carl Bildt opposes the elections. International elections were widely condemned or ignored by rebel elections in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Extremist parties on the European right and far left have watched widely disparaging elections in pro-Russian territory.
Pro-Russian soldiers of the Vostok battalion - a checkpoint in the Donetsk region. Civilians continue to be caught and killed in the crossfire. Human rights organizations blame both sides for the damage done to the civilian population.
The ideology of the self-proclaimed republics emphasizes Soviet and Russian history, portraying the West as immoral aggressors against conservative values and Russian Orthodoxy. The fate of the Russian people - repeat the feat of their fathers, defending their homeland.
However, serious economic and security problems remain in the region. A woman walks through unfinished and damaged buildings in the Donbass region of Ukraine. The region's infrastructure has been badly damaged by months of fighting. Access to basic utilities such as heating and running water is threatened in many areas.
IN A SINGLE FLOW OF A PEN
On January 20, 1920, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Stalin was appointed chairman of the Council of the Ukrainian Labor Army. Due to the end Civil war part of the Red Army was sent to recovery National economy, first of all, strategically important coal mines of Donbass.
Upon arrival, it turned out that they did not want to see either Stalin himself or his subordinates in Yuzovka (now Donetsk). The congress of the volost revolutionary committees of the Yuzovsky region, held in early February, adopted a decision on the economic and political merger of the region with Soviet Russia, and not with Ukraine. Even on the seals with which the document was attached, the Russian territory was clearly indicated.
Pro-Kremlin armed groups have also been accused of defending themselves against the Ukrainian military by stationing troops and vital war material in residential areas, exacerbating civilian casualties and potentially committing war crimes.
Pro-Russian police at a rally in Donbass. Human rights investigators and journalists have long reported that rebel fighters are prone to arbitrary arrest, torture, enforced disappearance and even execution. Correspondent of the "Guardian" in Moscow.
Some groups are under special control by the rebel authorities. The Russian Orthodox Church is the official religion of the self-proclaimed rebel "republics," and all other denominations are banned. Members of other religious groups are presumed to experience discrimination and even violence.
Stalin did not ask Moscow for military help in order to call the "rebels" to order, but carried out the operation in accordance with all the rules of bureaucratic science, in which he was unusually strong. On February 15, he signed a decree of the Council of Ukrtrudarm on the creation of the Donetsk province as part of the Ukrainian SSR, which included - attention! - and western part Don Cossack area, which has never been Little Russia. But it was here that the main coal deposits of the basin were located. This was pure arbitrariness: the decision to seize the territories was not within the competence of the leadership of the Labor Army, it was not agreed with either Moscow or Kharkov, which was then the capital of Ukraine.
Vice-news investigates the story of the executed civilians in the city of Slavyansk, Donetsk region. Among those killed were petty thieves and four members of the local Protestant church. Public disagreement with an officially sanctioned ideology is almost certainly dangerous in the two separatist republics. In the past, local Ukrainian activists have been detained and beaten and tortured. Other activists reported continued arbitrary detention and torture to express anti-separatist and pro-Ukrainian views.
An Orwellian nightmare for pro-Ukrainians in love with the rebels. Khutor and Nika move quickly down the sidewalk, but not fast enough to get attention. Rebel leaders cited homosexuality as a perversion and a result of Western influence.
The Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, not immediately recovering from such daring Koba, on March 23, nevertheless approved the "redrawing". There is nothing to say about the Ukrainian government. The bulk of the republic's population was made up of the peasantry, who most often followed the anarchists and Socialist-Revolutionaries. And in the coal region, workers who supported the Bolsheviks prevailed. How, then, not to take control of the "proletariat - the gravedigger of the bourgeoisie"?
The armed conflict in Donbass has been widely reported in Western political circles and mainstream media as a result of Russia's covert military aggression against Ukraine with little local support. The Permanent Representative to the United Nations, compared the events in the region to Russia's intervention in Crimea, stating that "nothing was negligible." Since then, Western media reports and analysis have increasingly focused on exposing Russia's ties to the insurgency. However, by focusing on Russia's role in the conflict, it ignores the fact that the armed separatist movement arose in direct response to the violent regime change that took place in Kiev.
Stalin's arbitrariness had rather serious consequences. The factual leadership of the rejected Russian territories refused to obey. In Taganrog, the party organization actually turned back the new bosses sent from Kharkov. The city was on the verge of unrest, the Ukrainian authorities prepared to abandon military units to pacify the recalcitrant Taganrozhites. Before the conflict escalated into a "hot" phase, very little remained, the NKVD had to intervene in the dispute: in telegrams sent from the Lubyanka, it was ordered to immediately obey the decisions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars.
Initially, it consisted mainly of local residents and had the support of at least a quarter to a third of Donbass residents. This memorandum examines the Donbass uprising as primarily a homegrown phenomenon. It argues that political factors - fragmentation of the state, changing regimes of violence, and low government coercive capacity, combined with popular emotions characteristic of the region - resentment and fear, played a decisive role in the deployment of an armed separatist movement there.
At the structural level, political instability in the capital and low state capacity - two variables associated with a higher feasibility of civil war - were clearly visible in the case of Ukraine before the uprising. Low violence quickly spread from Kiev to other regions.
During the spring of 1920, real confusion reigned in the disputed territories: no one knew exactly who owned these territories. The Rostov leadership, including the military, was in no hurry to salute, despite the Lubyanka's circulars, and issued an order not to obey Lugansk, which was then the center of the Donetsk province, which, I recall, was part of the Ukrainian SSR. Lugansk, in turn, demanded the unquestioning implementation of its decisions.
THE PEOPLE AND THE PARTY ARE NOT ONE
And what about the people? And the people throughout the conflict were against the inclusion of Donbass in Ukraine. Even the opinion of the party organs did not differ in unity. So, in the city of Aleksandrovsk-Hrushevsky, renamed in 1921 by the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars to the city of Shakhty, the party organization initially took a pro-Ukrainian position, since Kharkov did not spare money on the development of the coal industry. But in Taganrog, the resistance of the authorities was broken only by personnel changes.
Among the pressing issues, it is especially worth highlighting the national one: the Ukrainian population accounted for about 40% of all residents, therefore the policy of Ukrainization, actively pursued by the government of the republic, was most often perceived with hostility.
Not only this caused discontent among the population - its main reason still lay in the economic plane. The fact is that each Soviet republic approached the support of the peasantry in its own way. In Russia, it was better than in Ukraine: for example, crediting with seeds was carried out on more favorable terms for the agricultural producer.
Again, the situation of agrarian and industrial areas: The same Taganrog District was extremely poorly funded.
"DONETSK PROVINCE SHOULD BE LIQUIDIZED ..."
The struggle between the parties continued until July 11, 1924, when at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) it was decided to return part of the disputed areas to the RSFSR, to which Ukraine put forward counter demands for additional transfer of the territories of the Primorsky volost of the Rostov district and the station areas to it Millerovo. Some party officials insisted that Rostov himself be included in the Ukrainian SSR.
Meanwhile, Kharkiv desperately resisted the return of the Taganrog and Shakhty districts to Russia. So, in April 1924, the newspaper "Soviet Yug" wrote: "The greatest objection from Ukraine was met with the question of transferring the Shakhty district. Before the war, this area gave 30% of the production of anthracite in the entire Donetsk basin ...
The production plan of Donbass is based on work in this area. Therefore, the raising of the question of transferring the Shakhty district to the South-East caused a sharp protest with reference to the rupture of a single coal industry. "
A similar opinion sounded on the pages of the Gorlovka "Kochegarka": "We consider the separation of the Shakhty and Taganrog districts to be wrong, because this is how the revolutionary forces of Donbass are scattered. Industry is fragmented and makes it impossible to create a single economy in Donbass, which is the heart of the USSR both in the economic and political sense. ... Donetsk province, in the absence of two districts, should be liquidated, which, of course, will sharply affect the state of Donbass. "
When the Ukrainian authorities learned that most of the Shakhty and Taganrog districts had been returned to Russia, an order was given to immediately dismantle and remove the equipment from the factories. The social sphere was also devastated: the construction of a hospital was stopped in Shakhty, and it was resumed only a few years later. The strategically important area was brought to the brink of ruin. Here is what is reported in the article "Taganrog impressions" published by the newspaper "Soviet Yug" on September 19, 1924: "In the terribly quiet deserted factories, where industrial life used to be in full swing, workers who survived from layoffs hope for changes for the better.<...>... Workers gather in small groups in the shops.
The topic of conversation is the same - how to move on to the South-East, let all the factories run at full speed, they believe - Rostov will help. In the dead workshops, work is feverishly going on. Aliens from Donbass hastily remove motors and machine tools, load them onto platforms and send them to their factories. It became quiet on the main, Leninskaya, Taganrog Street, there are many boarded up and empty rooms on it. The quiet and dying Taganrog must be revived. ”The return of part of the territories to Russia nevertheless allowed the Ukrainian authorities to defeat the supporters of the region's self-determination.
On December 15, 1924, the Donetsk provincial committee of the CP (b) of Ukraine sent a secret letter No. 885/2 to the party cells, which said: “The majority of the Bureau recognized that the existence of the Donetsk province under such conditions makes no sense. directly connected with Kharkov ".
CROSSED BY THE BORDER
During the delimitation, a third of the disputed territories went to Ukraine. There was a case when, during the division, the village remained in one republic, and the lands of its peasants - in another. It got to the point that the borders were drawn along the streets of one settlement.
Residents of the territories inherited by Ukraine, over the two pre-war decades, have repeatedly submitted applications for the return of their areas to the RSFSR. The last such letter, according to the recollections of old-timers, went to Moscow at the end of August 1941, when there were battles on the outskirts of Donbass. But the authorities did not take into account the opinion of the population either then or now.
At the Uspenka station, bordering on Ukraine, in the Rostov region, the author of these lines was shocked by an unusual sight: the funeral procession was walking along the pedestrian bridge over the railway. Locals they said that in 1924 the village was simply cut in two, and after the collapse of the USSR it turned out that the people themselves live in Russia, but they have to be buried in the territory of a neighboring state.
I first learned about this story in the town of Shakhty in the Rostov Region, when the guide in the museum said:
- Do you know that our city got its modern name in 1920 by the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine, before that it was called Aleksandrovsk-Hrushevsky.
Due to the fact that Stalin tried to give Donbass to the Ukrainian SSR, a terrible conflict erupted: Russia managed to return only our lands and Taganrog, and most of the territory remained on the other side of the border ... Today this problem has become acute again: the Russian-speaking multinational Donbass is not wants to obey the will of the neobanderites who have seized power in Kiev. The people launched an active struggle against being forced from above with someone to be with.
Therefore, let's turn to the roots of the question.
HOW STALIN GIVEN DONBASS TO UKRAINE
The idea of separating Donbass into a single administrative entity was put forward even before the First World War by the Congress of Miners of the South of Russia, a little later it was implemented in the form of the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Soviet Republic, which became the world's only experience of state-building on an economic rather than ethnic principle. The voluntarist position of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which considered Donbass a part of Ukraine, did not fully allow such a useful undertaking to be fully realized, while lower-ranking functionaries, along with ordinary party members, for the most part, wanted to join Russia.
The division of Donbass took place in an atmosphere of nervousness and haste. The order of the Donetsk provincial executive committee on the seizure of the lands of the Don region was issued on January 17, 1920. Three days later, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Stalin was appointed chairman of the Council of the Ukrainian Labor Army (after the end of the Civil War, part of the troops were sent to restore the national economy, militarization was introduced in Donbass coal industry and universal labor service for men from 18 to 45 years old, and for specialists - up to 65 years; all workers and employees were assigned to enterprises, and unauthorized abandonment of the workplace was considered as desertion and was subject to a military tribunal), on February 15, he signed a decree of the Council of Ukrtrudarm on the creation of the Donetsk province as part of the Ukrainian SSR, which included part of the territory of the Don Army Region. Stalin's decision was approved on March 23 at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars in Moscow, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved it only on April 2, and the government of Soviet Ukraine two weeks later. The reason for this was the struggle of the leadership of Soviet Ukraine against the supporters of self-determination of Donbass, who at that time had a fairly strong position.
Donetsk historian Dmitry Kornilov reported the following in one of his works: "In February 1920, a congress of volost revolutionary committees of the Yuzovsky region was held in Yuzovka, which declared:" The congress insists on the rapid economic and political merger of Donetsk province with Soviet Russia in a single All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets. " seals that have survived on the documents of that time, it is clearly visible that Yuzovka was considered a part of the RSFSR, and not the Ukrainian SSR. "
Erupted between the republics cold war for the Donbass had every chance of developing into a hot one.
“The documents I found show that the Ukrainian authorities did threaten the leadership of the Taganrog District with the use of armed force in case of insubordination,” says local historian Yuri Galkin. - This is stated in the telegram of the Taganrog district conference of the RCP (b), sent to Lenin on April 24, 1920. During that spring, the disputed territories were in real confusion: no one knew exactly who owned these territories. The Rostov leadership, including the military, sent out to the district authorities an order not to obey Lugansk, which was then the center of Donetsk province, Lugansk demanded unquestioning obedience, local authorities insisted on restoring order. The NKVD had to intervene in the dispute: in telegrams sent five days later from the Lubyanka, the Rostov, Luhansk and Taganrog authorities were ordered to immediately obey the decisions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars.
The conflict immediately caused a lot of harm: the management of the territories was lost for several months. From the end of 1920 until the spring of 1922, anti-Soviet uprisings constantly broke out here and rebel detachments operated, enjoying the active support of the rural population, dissatisfied with the surplus appropriation system and the policy of war communism. About a third of the fifty rebel formations operating at that time in the Don, showed their activity in the disputed territories. They migrated from the Don region to the Donetsk province and vice versa - depending on where it was easier to hide from the security officers and regular units of the Red Army: the operational space of the Ukrainian and Russian security forces was limited to the borders of the republics. In the collection of the results of the census of the population of the Taganrog district of the Donetsk province for 1920, this is reported: "In each district there was one or two volosts where the survey could not be carried out thanks to the bandits who either did not allow the registrants at all to the census, or they destroyed the materials if the census were produced".
The population throughout the conflict was against the inclusion of the territory of their residence in the Ukrainian SSR, the opinion of the party bodies did not differ in unity: in the city of Shakhty, the party organizations initially took a pro-Ukrainian position, since Kharkov, which was at that time the capital of the republic, did not spare money on the development of the coal industry. In Taganrog, the authorities for a long time opposed the seizure of the city and the district from the Don region and the entry into the Ukrainian SSR,
but in 1924, after personnel reshuffles arranged by the Ukrainian leadership, they categorically did not want to return to the RSFSR.
Among the pressing issues, it is especially worth highlighting the national one. In 1923, the Vsedonetsk population census was carried out, the data collection of which says the following: "Of 72.3% of the Ukrainian population, 124253 people speak Ukrainian, which is only 44.6% of the entire population of the Taganrog District." Pure "Ukrainians as such. in the Taganrog district there is almost no, and the group shown in the column "Ukrainians" is actually a population that has assimilated with the Russian population and speaks a mixed Russian-Ukrainian language. " The policy of Ukrainization, actively pursued by the official Kharkov, was most often perceived with hostility.
“In the village of Sinyavskoye, where I was born, and which was located in the immediate vicinity of the disputed territories, everyone there was categorically against Ukrainization,” recalls Yuri Galkin. “This step only instilled in the people a dislike for the Ukrainian language: I remember when I was in school, and it was 1953, and when someone started speaking with a Ukrainian accent, the teacher immediately demanded to switch to pure Russian.
Not only this caused discontent among the population: its main reason still lay in the economic plane. The fact is that each Soviet republic approached the support of the peasantry in its own way, and in Russia it was better than in Ukraine: for example, crediting with seeds was carried out on more favorable terms for the agricultural producer. Again, the position of the agrarian and industrial regions was different: the same Taganrog Okrug was financed much worse than Shakhtinsky.
The struggle between the parties continued until July 11, 1924, when at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) it was decided to return part of the disputed areas to the RSFSR. The Don region did not put forward territorial claims, but Ukraine responded to the demand to return the seized territories with a counter demand for additional transfer of the territories of the Primorskaya volost of the Rostov district and the districts of the Millerovo station to it. Some party workers even put forward the idea of including Rostov in the Ukrainian SSR.
The Ukrainian leadership desperately resisted the return of the Taganrog and Shakhty districts to Russia. So, in April 1924, the newspaper "Soviet Yug" wrote: "The greatest objection from Ukraine was met with the question of transferring the Shakhty district. Before the war, this area gave 30% of anthracite production in the entire Donetsk basin ... Therefore, the raising of the question of transferring the Shakhty district to the South-East caused a sharp protest with reference to the rupture of a single coal economy. "
A similar opinion sounded on the pages of "Kochegarka": "We consider the separation of the Shakhty and Taganrog districts to be wrong, because this is how the revolutionary forces of Donbass are scattered. Industry is fragmented and does not make it possible to create a single economy in Donbass, which is the heart of the USSR both in the economic and political sense. .. Donetsk province, in the absence of two districts, should be liquidated, which will undoubtedly have a sharp impact on the state of Donbass. "
In September of the same year, work began on the final settlement of the conflict, which lasted until December 1925. When the Ukrainian authorities learned that most of the Shakhty and Taganrog districts had been returned to Russia, an order was given to immediately dismantle and remove the equipment from the factories. The social sphere was also destroyed: for example, the construction of a hospital was stopped in Shakhty, it was resumed only in 1925.
The strategically important area was brought to the brink of ruin. This is what the article "Taganrog impressions" published by the newspaper "Soviet Yug" on September 19, 1924 says: The topic of conversation is one - how will we move to the South-East, let all the factories run at full speed, they believe - Rostov will help. Work is feverishly going on in the dead workshops. Aliens from Donbass hastily remove motors, machine tools, load them onto platforms and send them to their factories It has become quiet on the main, Leninskaya, Taganrog street, there are many boarded up and empty premises on it. The quiet and dying Taganrog needs to be revived. "
The return of part of the territories to Russia, however, allowed the Ukrainian authorities to defeat the supporters of self-determination of Donbass. On December 15, 1924, the Donetsk provincial committee of the CP (b) U sent to the party cells a secret letter No. 885/2, which said: "After the withdrawal of the Shakhtinsky and Taganrog districts, the Gubkom bureau, by the majority, recognized that the existence of the Donetsk province under such conditions loses its meaning. in Donbass, go to the system of three powerful districts directly connected with Kharkov. "
However, the idea of uniting Donbass was resurrected for the first time in the years of industrialization, when the Stalin region was created, from which, however, a few years later, Luhansk was separated, and the second - in the post-war period in the form of the Donetsk-Pridneprovsky economic region.
During the delimitation, a third of the disputed territories went to Ukraine. There was a case when, during the division of the territory, the village remained in Ukraine, and the lands of its peasants - in Russia. There were cases when borders were drawn along the streets of one settlement... A striking example is the now border village of Uspenka in the Matveyevo-Kurgan district of the Rostov region, which in 1924 was simply cut in two. The tragicomic nature of the situation was especially aggravated after the collapse of the USSR, when it turned out that the road to the cemetery passes through the territory of Ukraine, so now the funeral procession is on pedestrian bridge through the station of the same name - a common occurrence.
However, the inhabitants of the territories inherited by Ukraine, over the two pre-war decades, have repeatedly submitted applications to return to the RSFSR, although the authorities did not take their opinion into account. The last such letter, according to the recollections of the old-timers of Amvrosievka, went to Moscow at the end of August 1941, when there were battles on the outskirts of Donbass.
SHARE ARCHIVES
We publish excerpts from some documents belonging to a huge array, which the hand of researchers first touched just a few years ago. The style and text of the materials have been preserved in accordance with the original; a link to the source is given to each of them. Abbreviations: GARF - State Archives Russian Federation, RGASPI - Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, RSL - Russian State Library (former Lenin Library), all three institutions - Moscow, GADO - State Archives of Donetsk Region, TSKHADRO - Center for storing archival documents of Rostov Region, St. Mines, TFGARO - Taganrog branch State Archives Rostov region.
- Order of the Donetsk provincial committee
17.01.1920
Until the economic territory of Donetsk province is clarified and the districts of the province are correctly distributed, the following eleven administrative districts that make up the Donetsk province are temporarily approved: Enakievsky, Yuzovsky, Grishinsky, Bakhmutsky, Almaznyansky, Lisichansky, Lugansky, Chistyakovsky, Belo-Kalitvensky, Bokovo-Khrustalsky -Grushevsky (the last four areas are taken from the Region of the Don Army. - Approx.).
Pre-Gubernia Committee Antonov-Saratovsky
GADO f. R-1146, op. 2, fol. one
Newspaper "Luhansk Izvestia", No. 3 dated 01/18/1920
- Pstopping the council of Ukrtrudarm
15.02.1920
Harkov city
To form the Donetsk province from parts of the Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav provinces and the Oblast of the Don Army
Chairman of the Ukrsovtrudarm I. Stalin
TFGARO, f. 1, op. 1, d.132
- Telegram No. 1455
From Rostov to Taganrogispolkom and district department
27.03.1920
Resolution of the Don Executive Committee, printed in No. 40 "Soviet Don": The Don region remains within the old borders. The district executive committees were asked to take urgent measures to include them back into the composition of all localities that were assigned to other provinces. Please inform additionally about the actions of the Amvrosievskiy Revolutionary Committee.
Head of Don, Land Department Babajanyan
TFGARO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 3
2.04.1920
Council of People's Commissars at a meeting on March 23 this year. recognized it necessary to allocate the Carboniferous Basin in a special Donetsk province with the center in the city of Lugansk
Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Kalinin
GARF, f.5677, op.1, d.3
- From the resolution of the Presidium of the All-Ukrainian CEC of Soviets
16.04.1920
According to the proposal of the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine and the Ukrsovtrudarmii and an agreement with the All-Russian All-Russian Central Executive Committee, as well as in the abolition of all previously issued resolutions, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided:
- to approve the following boundaries and the composition of the Donetsk province from parts of the Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav provinces and the Oblast of the Don Army.
3. From the Region of the Don Army
a) Donetsk district: the villages of Gundorovskaya, Kamenskaya, Kalitvenskaya, Ust-Belokalitvenskaya; volost - Karpovo-Oblivskaya;
b) Cherkassk district: villages: Vladimirskaya, Aleksandrovskaya, further to the west the conventional line, Cossack camps, Malo-Nesvetaevskaya, Nizhne-Kremenskaya and further to the borders with the Taganrog district;
c) the Taganrog District as a whole.
Chairman of the VUTSIK Petrovsky
TFGARO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 3
- Telegram No. 71/2468
21.04.1920
The Don executive committee reaffirms its resolution of March 27, 1920 that the borders of the Don region remain the same.
Head of the Don Executive Committee Afonin
TFGARO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 3
- Telegram
Moscow, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars comrade. Lenin
Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Comrade Kalinin
Lugansk, Governmental Executive Committee, Rostov-on-Don Don Executive Committee
24.04.1920
The district party conference of the CP (b) of the Taganrog district is outraged by the confusion around the question of the borders of the Donetsk province and the Don region. Lugansk telegraphically orders Taganrog, referring to the Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars to obey him. Rostov-on-Don to this telegraph Taganrog that the borders of the Don region remain the same. Part of the Taganrog District, without the knowledge of the Taganrog District Revolutionary Committee, is already occupied by the Donetsk province, where representatives of Lugansk threaten the representatives of Taganrog with armed force arrest.
The party conference earnestly asks for an end to the outrages that completely disorganize the work of the Taganrog Revolutionary Committee and local volunteer committees.
Conference Bureau
GARF, f. 5677, op. 1, d.83
- Telegram to Don Executive Committee, Rostov-on-Don
Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the formation of the Donetsk province
28.04.1920
By the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars on April 2, the Donetsk province was approved as part of: from the Don Cossack Region: Taganrog District; from the Donetsk district of the village of Gundarevskaya (Gundorovskaya - Approx.), Kamenskaya, Kalitvenskaya, Ust-Belokalitvenskaya and the volost - Karpovo-Oblivskaya; from the Cherkassk district - the Fedorovskaya volost, the Vladimirovskaya village, the Sulinovskaya volost, the Aleksandrovskaya village and the northern halves of the Grushevskaya and Aksayskaya villages
The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee confirmed this resolution, it is proposed to carry it out exactly.
Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party signature
GARF, f. 5677, op. 1, d.82
- Telegram
Luhansk gubernial executive committee
Rostov Don Executive Committee, Taganrog Revkom
30.04.1920
By the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of March 23 and the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on March 28 and April 26, the Taganrog District was included in the Donetsk province and subordinate to the provincial center of Lugansk. Any opposition to this is unacceptable. Copies of the resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars and the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee have been sent.
The exact establishment of the boundaries between Donetsk province and Don region is provided to local administrative commissions.
Vreede. Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs Vasiliev
Office of the NKVD, Moscow, Lubyanka, 2
GARF, f. 5677, op. 1, d.83
- Telegram No. 8420
From Moscow, Kremlin, Military
3.05.1920
The question of the borders of the Donetsk province was decided by the Council of People's Commissars and approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. There can be no changes or deviations. Taganrog is part of the Donetsk province
Secretary of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Yuri Platonov
TFGARO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 3
- Telegram No. 4403
Taganrog RVC, Taganrog regional executive committee
I categorically propose to end the disorganizing campaign by passing resolutions by volosts and disobeying those regional executive committees to which they are assigned by the order of the Donetsk provincial committee. Borders, the list of parishes in your area are reported additionally.
Head Gubupr Kostelovskaya
TFGARO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 3
- Head GUBUPR Kostelovskaya
In response to telegram 4403, the executive committee reports that a disorganizing campaign is not being waged, but on the contrary, all measures are being taken to settle the border issue. Any resolution of volosts about their desire to obey one or another executive committee is rejected. At present, our representative has been dispatched to you to find out exactly the assignment of localities to one or another administrative unit.
Pre-Executive Committee Shabanev
TFGARO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 3
- Telegram from Kharkov to Lenin
28.04.1921
The decision of the Administrative Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the allocation of the Taganrog district from the Donetsk province and its annexation to the Rostov district puts the food supply of Donbass in a catastrophic situation, since of all the districts of the Donetsk province, Taganrog is the main food base.
Deputy Representative SNKOMA Chubar
GARF, f. 5677, op. 2, d.253
- From the minutes of the meeting of the Commission on Zoning at the Regional Economic Council of the South-East of Russia
8.10.1921
The agricultural part of the Taganrog region has a direct attraction to Taganrog, and with it to Rostov, and not to the Donetsk region, annexed to Ukraine.
It is proposed to include in the Don Oblast:
1. The agricultural part of the Taganrog District;
2. Grushevsky district in the old (1919) borders of the Cherkasy district;
3. Kamensky district in the former (1919) borders of the Donetsk district;
4. Yekaterinoslavskaya stanitsa (along the border of 1919, Donskoy district).
GARF, f. 5677, op. 2, d. 63, ibid., Op. 4, d. 304
- People's Commissar of Internal Affairs
Petition of citizens of Popovo-Nesvetaevsk
15.10.1922
Our village Popovo-Nesvetaevsk currently belongs to the Donetsk province, while we belonged to the Don region until April 24, 1920. We ask you to return it again to the Don region.
GARF, f. 5677, op. 3, d.89
- Inquiry
20.01.1923
The Donetsk Provincial Executive Committee is petitioning for the annexation of the Primorskaya volost of the Rostov district from the Don region to the Donbass, since the overcrowding of the population near Taganrog has long used the land reserve of this volost, which is almost close to Taganrog.
GARF, f. 5677, op. 3, d.85
- From the resolution of the Zoning Section of the State Planning Commission
03.02.1923
... The zoning section considers it necessary to annex to Ukraine not only the Millerovsky site, but also the Aleksandro-Hrushevsky district.
GARF, f. 5677, op. 3, d.85
- From the minutes No. 8 of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP
11.07.1924
Consider the joining of Taganrog and the Aleksandro-Hrushevsky district to the South-Eastern District as desirable, so that the transferred territory with the Ukrainian population would be reduced.
RGASPI, f.17, op. 3, d.448
- On the annexation of the Taganrog and Shakhtinsky districts to the South-East
24.04.1924
... the greatest objection from Ukraine was met with the question of transferring the Shakhty district. In the pre-war period, this area gave 30% of the production of anthracite in the entire Donetsk basin ... the production plan of Donbass is based on work in this area. Therefore, the raising of the question of transferring the Shakhty district to the South-East caused a sharp protest with reference to the rupture of a single coal industry.
With regard to the Taganrog District, Ukraine put forward the message that next year it will export bread through Taganrog and that the population of the Taganrog District is mainly Ukrainian.
In Kharkov, the issue was discussed exclusively on the party line ... long negotiations did not lead to any results. The resolution adopted by the commission noted the impossibility of agreeing on differences. Ukraine recognized our project as inexpedient and its implementation untimely.
The only positive consequence of our stay in Kharkov was the recognition by Ukraine of the presence economic ties between Taganrog, its port and the roadstead with Rostov.
RSL, newspaper "Soviet Yug", No. 94
- From the selection of materials "For a united Donbass. Against the rejection of the Shakhty and Taganrog districts"
05.08.1924
What the Shevchenko cell said:
We consider the separation of the Shakhtinsky and Taganrog districts to be wrong, because this is how the revolutionary forces of Donbass are scattered. Industry is fragmented and does not provide an opportunity to create a single economy of Donbass, which is the heart of the USSR, both in the economic and political sense.
Bureau of the Glubokinsky District Committee of the KP (b) U:
Donetsk province, in the absence of two districts, should be liquidated, which will undoubtedly have a sharp impact on the state of Donbass
- Bureau of Rovenets Raipartkom:
The rejection will adversely affect the Rovenets district, which has 80% of Ukrainians, which would violate the plan of Ukrainization.
RSL, newspaper "Kochegarka", No. 178
- Taganrog impressions
19.09.1924
On the Rostov-Taganrog local train, they speak a lot and loudly, and in conversation - the words of the Ukrainian SSR, VUTSIK ... At small stations, where the train stands for several minutes, mailboxes are decorated in parallel with the Russian and Ukrainian inscriptions "Post screen for listing". However, they speak Russian. Ukrainian speech is not heard, as in Kharkov or Poltava. This is because the population here, with few exceptions, is Russian ...
In the city - the topic of the day - zoning, joining the South-East. In the eerily quiet deserted factories, where production life used to be in full swing, the workers who survived the layoffs hope for changes for the better ... workers gather in small groups in the shops. There is only one topic of conversation - how will we move on to the South-East, let all the factories run at full speed, they believe that Rostov will help. In the dead workshops, work is feverishly going on. Aliens from Donbass hastily remove motors and machine tools, load them onto platforms and send them to their factories.
It became quiet on the main, Leninskaya, Taganrog Street ... there are many boarded up and empty rooms on it.
The quiet and dying Taganrog must be revived.
RSL, newspaper "Soviet South"
- From the minutes of the general meeting of citizens of the settlement Matveev Kurgan
Date missing
According to circulating rumors and newspaper reports about the departure of the Matveyevo-Kurgan region to the Ukrainian SSR, the general meeting of citizens ... believes that the transition to the Ukrainian SSR is fraught with the greatest difficulties, since the economic and everyday gravitation of the population ... is directed to the North Caucasian Territory, the population's ignorance of a stranger to us of the Ukrainian language, misunderstanding of all orders issued by the government of Ukraine, makes us not fulfill these orders on time, since the population consists of 80% of Russian nationality.
TFGARO, f. R-10, op. 1, d.181, l. 34
- From the letter of the Donetsk provincial committee of the CP (b) U No. 885/2
15.12.1924
Sov. secretly
To all members of the Donetsk organization of the KP (b) U
The Gubkom bureau, after the withdrawal of the Shakhty and Taganrog districts, the majority recognized that the existence of the Donetsk province ... under such conditions makes no sense, that it is necessary ... Kharkov.
TSKHADRO, f. 104, op. 1, d.136, l. 35
APPEAL OF DONBASS RESIDENTS TO THE STATE DUMA OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation
Dear Deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation!
For 23 years, Donbass has been one of the most apolitical regions of the country. Hundreds of thousands of workers, despite all kinds of political unrest, have always adhered to constitutional norms and laws. In 1994, Kiev did not hear our voice in the form of a referendum on federalization, the Russian language and closer integration with Russia; in 2004, it did not take into account our legitimate votes in the presidential elections, when a candidate who illegally came to power took office. And now in the courtyard of 2014, again nobody wants to hear the voice of Donbass.
But now the situation has changed. In addition to the violation of our constitutional rights, there is a direct threat to our spirituality, our roots and, moreover, a threat to our lives.
Our only hope to whom we can turn for help is to the fraternal people of Russia. The people who came to power in Kiev openly declare that the Russians are their main enemies. Today, the people of Donbass are trying to take power into their own hands, but the city and regional authorities, which have submitted to the participants in the coup d'etat in Kiev, are hindering this in every possible way. No matter how decisive the people are, they will still be weaker against armed militants.
On March 1 of this year, more than 35,000 people marched across Donetsk with the flags of Russia, near the building of the Donetsk Regional State Administration, instead of the yellow-blue one, the Russian flag was raised. Thus, we are trying to draw your attention to us and urge you to become the guarantor of the security of the people of Donbass.
In connection with the above, expressing the will of the inhabitants of the Donetsk region, we, on behalf of the public of the Donetsk region:
1. We ask the Russian Federation to act as a guarantor of the safety of Russian and Russian-speaking residents of the Donetsk region.
2. We ask the Russian Federation to act as the guarantor of the military and political security of the entire Donetsk region.
3. We ask the Russian Federation to ensure the legality of the holding of a referendum in the Donetsk region on the future status of the Donetsk region.
4. In case of the start of fascist aggression against us by the Kiev Bandera junta, we ask you to protect us and accept our region into Russia.
Donetsk, 03.03.2014,
Square near the Donetsk Regional State Administration.
On behalf of the gathered residents of Donetsk region:
- Donetsk Regional Public Organization "Donetsk Republic"
Public organization "Ukrainian-Russian Union"
Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Donetsk regional branch
All-Ukrainian public organization "Union of Citizens of Ukraine", Donetsk branch
Public organization "People's Liberation Movement"
Party "Russian Bloc", Donetsk regional branch
Union of Veterans of the Navy of the USSR in Donetsk region
P.S. If among those who will read this appeal there are those who have the opportunity to contact the deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, please give them this document so that it can be read at a meeting of the Russian parliament.
Hear the people of Donbass!
