Civil war and terror
January 1919
Decossackization
An entire military-social estate was marked for elimination, not for defeat in battle.
Cossack hosts had been both privileged by the tsars and divided among themselves. Many fought the Reds. In January 1919 the Bolshevik Orgburo, with Sverdlov in the chair, adopted a secret circular on “decossackization”: mass terror against rich Cossacks, extermination of those who had taken part in the struggle against Soviet power, and the dismantling of Cossack landholding.
On the Don this became village-level killing and deportation. Historians argue about the exact death toll and about how completely the center controlled local revenge. They do not argue that the circular was a forgery. It is an early case of the regime naming a population category and authorizing its destruction — a pattern later used on “kulaks,” on nationalities, and in the famine provinces.
Where to check it · Orgburo circular, January 1919; Peter Holquist’s research on the Don; publications in Otechestvennye arkhivy and later documentary volumes.