Puppet Theater

Trying to split Ukraine and take it to his hands, Putin acts the same methods that Lenin and other leaders of the Bolsheviks acted during the Civil War. They have already brought success in the case of Crimea. Now the map of the Donetsk Republic is being played out, which ideally intend to include all eastern Ukraine.

All this has already been. Immediately after the capture of power in Petrograd and Moscow, the Bolsheviks took care of the establishment of their control over Ukraine. In Kyiv, the Central Rada on November 7 (20) 1917 proclaimed the Ukrainian People’s Republic. But her power was not recognized by the Bolshevik advice of Donbass, who took power in Lugansk, Makeevka, Gorlovka, Kramatorsk. The Moscow Council of People's Commissars created the Southern Front, headed by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, who was supposed to act against the Central Rada and the Don government of Ataman Kaledin. In mid-December 1917, the Antonov-Ovseenko troops occupied Kharkov, and soon, under the protection of the Red Guard bayonets, the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets was held, which proclaimed the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic and formed the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine, in which there were practically no Ukrainians. During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks considered not national, but social slogans and treated the Ukrainian language with suspicion. (In the same way today, Russian representatives and their agents in Ukraine call "Bandera" everyone who speaks Ukrainian.)

On January 12 (25), 1918, the Central Rada for its fourth wagon announced the withdrawal from Russia and the state independence of Ukraine. But the Red Guards from the Russian provinces commanded by the Left Socialist Revolutionary Colonel Mikhail Muravyov quickly broke the resistance of the Central Rada troops and took Kyiv on February 8, 1918, teaching a monstrous massacre there.

The Ukrainian army of that time was as weak as today. She was the decomposed and hastily “Ukrainianized” regiments of the former Russian imperial army, whose soldiers did not want to fight with anyone and sought only home. The Secretary (Minister) of the Central Rada for Military Affairs Simon Petliura realized that it was necessary to form volunteer units, and, having left on December 18, 1917, from his post, formed from volunteers the Gaidamatsky Kosh (regiment), which became the most combat -ready part of the Army of the UPR and successfully fucked with Muravyov’s troops. However, because of his small number, he could not change the course of events.

On February 9, 1918, the delegation of the Central Rada entered into a peace treaty with the central powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) in Brest and asked them to introduce troops to Ukraine to combat the Bolshevik invasion. And already on February 12, at the 4th Regional Congress of the Councils of Workers' Deputies of Donetsk and Kryvyi Rih basins in Kharkov, the Donetsk-Crivorous Soviet Republic was proclaimed. This pseudone -dependent education was to be an alternative to UPR and confront it if Soviet Russia still has to conclude peace with Germany and its allies. The Donetsk-Krivorozhsky Republic claimed the entire territory of the left bank of the Dnieper. With its help, the Bolsheviks expected to maintain control of the industrial eastern Ukraine. However, already in early April, the troops of the central powers, with the support of the Ukrainian troops, took Kharkov, and at the end of the month-Lugansk, after which the Government of the Donetsk-Crivorous Republic went to Rostov-on-Don, and after its capture by the Cossacks of the Ataman Peter Krasnov and the Germans-to Tsaritsyn.

The central powers meanwhile, on April 29, 1918, dispersed mainly the socialist central Rada and established the puppet regime of the hetman Pavel Skoropadsky, the former Svitsky general. With its help, Germany and Austria-Hungary, which were exhausted from the blockade, hoped to produce extremely necessary food requisitions in Ukraine. The Skoropadsky government did not enjoy any support in the country and after the surrender of Germany was easily overthrown in mid -December 1918 as a result of the uprising raised by the former leaders of the Central Rada Petlyura and Vladimir Vinnichenko, who formed the UPR Directory. However, the main attention of the new government paid the support of the West-Ukrainian People’s Republic (ZUNR), whose army, after the collapse of Austria-Hungary, fought with the Poles for Eastern Galicia. Meanwhile, the Soviet troops from the north on January 3, 1919 occupied Kharkov, and on February 5 - Kyiv. After that, on February 17, the Donetsk-Crivorous Republic was liquidated.

Earlier, the Bolshevik leadership examined two options for Ukrainian politics: the Donetsk-Krivorozhsky Republic was supposed to either become part of the RSFSR or become part of a formally independent, but actually completely dependent on the RSFSR of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The second option was chosen, since it was considered useful for the Ukrainian Republic to join the proletariat of Donbass, which was considered resistant to Ukrainian nationalism. Yes, and the slogan proclaimed by the Bolsheviks of the right of nations to self -determination, such a policy corresponded better.

Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks failed to finish the UNR in the first half of 1919. At the end of August, during Denikin’s advance to Moscow, her army was even able to capture Kyiv for one day, but was immediately supplanted from there Denikins. And after the defeat of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, the Red Army almost completely occupied the territory of the UNR, pushing the Petliurists to the front of the Polish troops. By that time, the Poles had defeated the ZUNR, occupying not only the eastern Galicia, but also Volyn. The situation of the UPR was critical, since the Entente countries did not recognize her and she did not receive any military and financial assistance. Therefore, in April 1920, Petlyura entered into an agreement with Poland. In exchange for diplomatic recognition and assistance in the war with Soviet Russia, the UPR government lost to Poland Eastern Galicia and Volyn, setting the border along the Zbruch. However, fearing the Ukrainian uprising on these lands, the Poles forbade Petliura to mobilize in the border counties of Soviet Ukraine. During the Soviet-Polish war, Petliura could not create a combat-ready army. The Galician Army, his main shock force when capturing Kyiv in August 1919, did not want to fight side by side with her yesterday's enemies - Poles. It so happened that mainly foreign armies fought in Ukraine - Russian Red Army soldiers, Russian White Guards, Polish soldiers. Ukrainians mainly united in armed detachments around local Batex like Grigoryev or Makhno, who rarely acted outside their county, adjacent to one or the other side.

According to the same scheme, the Bolsheviks also acted on other former national outskirts of the Russian Empire after the surrender of Germany. Already on November 16, 1918, the Red Army received an order to advance on the territory of Estonia and Latvia. On November 29, the commander in chief of the Red Army Joachim Vacetis received Lenin’s order "to support the Soviet regime in the territories occupied by Germany." And on December 17, the manifesto of the Provisional Workers 'and Peasants' Government of Latvia, led by Bolshevik Peter Stock, was released. It opposed the People’s Council, headed by Carlis Ulmanis, who proclaimed the independence of Latvia on November 18 in Riga. On the basis of the Latvian shooters faithful to the Bolsheviks, the Latvian Red Army was hastily formed, which, with the help of Russian Red Army units, occupied almost the entire territory of Latvia in January 1919 left by the Germans. The government of Ulmanis did not have their own troops then.

In Estonia on November 21, 1918, the power was transferred by the Germans to the Provisional Government of Constantine Pytsa. Since the Estonian units supporting the Bolsheviks were the few, the main role in the invasion of Estonia was played by the Russian and Latvian units of the 7th Soviet Army. On November 29, the Red Army occupied Narva, and there the Estland labor commune was formed, which was recognized on December 7 by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. However, the majority of Estonian national formations stood to the side of the Pentas government, and it was supported by the Entente and the neighboring Finland. As a result, in February 1919, the Red Army was supplanted from Estonia.

Subsequently, the activation of the armies of Kolchak and Denikin forced the Bolsheviks to temporarily abandon the Sovietization of the Baltic. In Moscow, it was hoped that after the victory in the Soviet-Polish war, Baltic states could easily be occupied, even if they, like Poland, would support the Entente. On July 30, 1920, at the height of the Soviet offensive, the creation of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Poland, headed by Dzerzhinsky, was proclaimed in the newly captured Bialystok. The Committee was previously formed in Smolensk and was supposed to proclaim the creation of the Polish Soviet Republic after the capture of Warsaw, for which the All -Pol Congress of the Soviets of Workers and Peasant Deputies was being prepared. But the defeat of the Red Army near Warsaw for a while removed the issue of the absorption of Poland and the Baltic states from the agenda.

But in the Transcaucasia, Lenin and his comrades actually received a card blanche. According to the initial plan of the post-war reconstruction of the world, the victorious powers in the First World War, the United States was to accept the responsibility for Turkey and Transcaucasia. However, America did not ratify the Versailles agreement, and other countries of the Entente, after the defeat of Kolchak and Denikin, did not protect the Transcaucasia from the Bolsheviks. And on April 27, 1920, Soviet troops crossed the border of Azerbaijan and occupied Baku almost without resistance, proclaiming the education of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic on the same day. The army of the Musavatist Azerbaijan Democratic Republic at that time waged war with Armenia for Karabakh, Zangezur and other border territories and practically did not resist the Soviet invasion.

The Sovietization of Armenia was delayed by the Soviet-Polish war. Only on November 29, 1920, a group of Armenian Bolsheviks, along with the troops of the Soviet 11th Army, entered the city of Izhavan and proclaimed the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia. The Dashnak government has just lost the war with Kemalist Turkey and was forced to give up most of the Armenian territory on December 3 in the Alexander Polish world. Soviet troops did not meet resistance and on December 4 occupied Yerevan. Some of the Dashnakov went over to the side of the Bolshevik power, provided that they will participate in the government and will not be subjected to repression. When this promise was broken, the Dashnaks raised the uprising and on February 18, 1921, Erevan occupied. But when neighboring Georgia was occupied, the 11th Army returned from there on April 3 repulsed Yerevan.

The Georgian Democratic Republic, where the Social Democrats (Mensheviks) ruled, was the most democratic of the Transcaucasian states. Free elections were held in the country, political parties operated (only the Communist Party was banned), there was freedom of speech. On January 12, 1921, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) decided to Sovietize Georgia, despite the fact that its independence was recognized as a peace treaty of May 7, 1920 and Soviet Russia pledged not to intervene in the internal affairs of the republic. On February 6, by order of the commander of the Caucasian Front, Vladimir Hittis, a group of tiflis troops was created. On February 12, Georgian Bolsheviks formed in the neutral zone between Armenia and Georgia Revok. On February 15, Lenin telegraphed the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army: "The Tseks considers the operations of the RVS 11 as the local protection of the rebels of the neutral zone from the extermination of the White Guards that threatens them ... of course, we expect 11 energetic and quick actions that do not stop before Tiflis’s capture ..." On February 16, 1921, the Revum of Georgia, led by Philip Maharadze, proclaimed "Georgian Soviet Republic" and asked for military assistance to the government of the RSFSR. On the same day, Soviet troops invaded Georgia from three sides. The Georgian army, inferior to the enemy in number and weapons two and a half times, fought stubbornly, but was forced to surrender on March 18.

Another attempt to create puppet power with the aim of the "legal" joining foreign territory was arranged at the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940, when the "Finnish Democratic Republic" led by the Cominter Otto Kuusinen was proclaimed in the occupied city of Terioki. However, this venture did not receive any support in Finland. The courageous resistance of the Finnish army and assistance from England, France and the United States helped Finland to maintain independence and conclude a compromise of the Moscow world, after which the FDR government transformed into the Government of the Karelian-Finnish SSR, which included most of the territories rejected among Finland.

Thus, the Bolshevik expansion suffered failure only in cases where a repulsion from the new independent states was combined with the support of these states by the West (Entente). When there was no such support, the state was gun. The Bolsheviks used simple, but effective tactics: they inspired a minority from among their own agents, which called for the aid of the Russian Red Army. Moscow also used in its interests interethnic conflicts in the territory of new states, in particular, Ukrainian-Polish and Armenian-Azerbaijani.

It is unlikely that today's Ukraine will resist Russian pressure if it does not receive support in the form of strict financial and economic sanctions against Russia and military assistance from NATO countries. If the policy of Moscow, aimed at the dismemberment of Ukraine, will be successful, the post -Soviet space may return to about the state in which the former national outskirts of the Russian Empire were in the Civil War.