Bodies of transitional power at the final stage of the Civil War

Abstract

The article is based on research based on a large set of documents stored in the central and regional archives of the Russian Federation and neighboring countries. The authors formulated a problematic question, which consists in identifying the common in the restoration of Soviet power on the outskirts of the country at the last stage of the Civil War. In the article the material concerning short period of time between retreat of whites (in territory of Arkhangelsk province, Don and Tersk regions, Kuban region, Dagestan) and liquidation of governing bodies of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and entry of Red Army units is attracted. If before January-February 1920 the "whites" retreated with battles, then a preventive retreat ensued, and a regime of interstate power has been established in the territory they left behind. Two scenarios were revealed on the eve of the reunification of the peripheral territories with the central Bolshevik power. And leaving the territory without power and order was quite rare. Usually, the consolidated democratic society either intercepted power from the weakened hands of the white administration or organized the reins of power from the command of the outgoing white army. Temporary transitional authorities usually included representatives of socialist parties and non-partisan public, trade unions. But in practice, this process had a distinct regional specificity, influenced by the local palette of political forces, in the configuration that had developed before the Civil War. This phenomenon was very poorly reflected in the synchronous historical sources, so along with such separate miraculously preserved documents, the basis for the study was personal evidence collected during the early Soviet memorial campaigns.

Keywords:

Interim Committees, 1920, multi-party system, Arkhangelsk province, Don region, Kuban region, Tersk region, Eastern Transcaucasia