Contenu du sommaire : Guerre, guerres civiles et conflits nationaux dans l'Empire russe et en Russie soviétique, 1914 - 1922

Articles

• Avant-propos - Jutta Scherrer, Andrea Graziosi p. 7
• La guerre civile et l'économie de guerre : Origines du système soviétique - Jacques Sapir p. 9-28
  Jacques Sapir, Civil War and wartime economy as origins of the Soviet system. In the double process which brought the downfall of the tsarist system and the birth of the Soviet system, the place of the First World War and the Civil War continues to be an important research theme for the study and deeper understanding of what has been the USSR. It is necessary to take into account the notion of wartime economy in order to grasp how the Soviet system could set up. Thanks to this, the question of the Russian past in the Soviet present finds again its place and we can leave behind the fruitless couple modernity/archaism. Then, the origins of the Soviet system show up in their multiplicity: as a combination of various ideological legacies, stability of practices and institutions which were in place long before the coming into power of the Bolsheviks. The wartime economy model and the dialectical pair organization/mobilization prove to be essential tools to avoid a reading too idealistic of the birth of the USSR.
• Чрезвычайные меры и « чрезвычайщина » в Советской Республике и других государственных образованиях на территории России в 1918-1920 гг. - Gennadij А. Bordjugov p. 29-43
  Gennadij Bordjugov, Measures of exception and "chrezvychaishchina" in the Soviet Republic and the other States of the Russian territory, during the years 1918-1920. This article analyzes the consequences brought by the crisis of the Soviet and constitutional forms of democracy, forms which turned to methods which at first seemed obsolete. Making a comparison between the regimes of the Reds and the Whites, the author notices the synchronism of their birth, regardless of doctrine. However, if on the one hand the "strong power," with its measures and governing offices of exception, was caused by the Civil War logic, on the other hand the will to stay in power at all costs made the bed for "chrezvychaishchina " (a form of government based on mass terror) in both camps. The transformation of "chrezvychaishchina " into a form of organized dictatorship was a deciding factor in the issue of the Civil War.
• The tragedy of the Russian Revolution : Promise and default of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in 1918* - Ettore Cinnella p. 45-82
  Ettore Cinnella, The tragedy of the Russian Revolution. Promise and default of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in 1918. The unpublished minutes of the three congresses held by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (PLSR) in 1918 are the main source of this article. Its starting point is the crisis the old Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) suffered during the fall of 1917 and the rise of the Left SRs. Though the Left SRs actually agreed with the Bolsheviks on the crucial questions of land and peace, they were mistrustful of the way in which the Council of People's Commissars governed. Between November 1917 and the first months of 1918, the countryside was the scene of the crucial battle for the survival and consolidation of the new power. The PLSR played a very important role in making available the institutional tools for reorganizing land ownership (land socialization). Their activity during this period was fruitful because it answered the deepest aspirations of the rural world. But the Left SRs were enthusiastic and intransigent internationalists and indeed this dream so blinded them that they lost sight of more urgent tasks. How can we explain the collapse of a party so strongly rooted in the countryside as was the PLSR? It can be ascribed to the murder of Mirbach and the party's quixotic quest for intemationalim. However, there is another important reason: the erratic and contradictory response of the Populist left to the introduction of the kombedy (committees of village poors).
• La gestion des approvisionnements et la restauration de la gosudarstvennost' [Le Narkomprod, l'armée et les paysans, 1918-1921] - Alessandro Stanziani p. 83-116
  Alessandro Stanziani, The management of the supplies and the restoration of gosudarstvennosť. The Narkomprod, the Army and the peasants, 1918-1921. Since its very establishment during the summer 1918, the Prodarmiia (military and militarized units in charge of the supplies) causes several problems. Above all, there is the question of the hierarchy between the Bolshevik administration and the Army for, if the supplies are militarized, how can the Party and the civil administration keep their supremacy on the Army? Moreover it has to be kept in mind that most officers served in the tsarist army and that the peasants-soldiers were ready to desert. Therefore their desertion becomes ever more likely when the peasant uprisings against the Bolshevik policy inteasify. Teasions within the Bolshevik administration arise, in particular between the Narkomprod, the NKVD and the Cheka, all wanting control over the Prodarmiia. Last but not least, a split stems from those conflicts at the head of the Soviet hierarchy and between central and local administrations. These questions are studied through the creation and evolution of the Prodarmiia until its dissolution (Summer 1921) and the purges (at the end of 1921).
• Военная цензура в Росии в годы гражданской войны, 1918-1920 гг. - Irina Davidjan p. 117-125
  Irina Davidjan, Military censorship in Russia during the Civil War, 1918-1920. This article unveils the secrets of the activity of an institution, part of the system founded by the Bolsheviks for monitoring the state of mind and mood of the population. The Soviet organization of censorship retained many aspects of the tsarist military censorship. But the people would never have imagined how the Soviet government violated private correspondence (perliustratsijia). The services of the military censorship were mainly interested by the attitude and the political loyalty of the people towards the regime. The documents accumulated by the military censorship are a great source of information on the state of mind of the population at that time.
• "Conduct merciless mass terror": decossackization on the Don, 1919 - Peter Holquist p. 127-162
  Peter Holquist, "Conduct merciless mass terror. " Decossackization on the Don, 1919. In 1919 the Soviet regime engaged in a policy to eliminate the "Cossack threat to proletarian power" by "extirpating the Cossack elite"; terrorizing all other Cossacks; and bringing about the "formal liquidation of the Cossackry." This article examines how the Soviet regime conceived, implemented and subsequently renounced decossackization as a policy by analyzing the most extensive case of that policy's implementation, in the Don Territory. In the course of this analysis, previous interpretations of decossackization are reexamined. The article argues that decossackization did not result simply from the exigencies of the Civil War, nor was it the inevitable outcome of socialist politics. It proposes instead that decossackization represented a particularly socialist form of a more general trend emerging throughout Europe at this time: the tendency of states to practice prophylactic political hygiene upon their respective populations. While showing that there was a specifically socialist way of pursuing this new form of "population politics," the article argues that this type of politics must nevertheless be situated as part of a more general European trend emerging during and out of the First World War.
• Советизация Закавказья в переписке большевистского руководства, 1920-1922 гг. - Aleksandr V. Kvashonkin p. 163-194
  Aleksandr V. Kvašonkin, The Sovietization of Transcaucasia through the correspondence of the Bolshevik leadership, 1920-1922. This article studies the questions of the establishment of the Soviet power in the Transcaucasian republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) through the correspondence both formal and informal of the Bolshevik leadership during the years 1920-1922. The correspondence of the representatives of the party and the army of Transcaucasia with the Center and between themselves is an extremely rich material which helps establish a true picture of the events in this area, understand and enlight the role played by different leaders of the Bolshevik elite in what they called among themselves the "Sovietization". Beginning in April 1920 in Azerbaijan, the "Sovietization" then spreads out to Armenia and Georgia in the same way: a communist coup takes place in the capital, a Revolutionary Committee is created, calls for help to Soviet Russia which sends troups to the rescue and finally Moscow makes a welcoming speech to the "freed people." Letters, telegrams, talks over a "direct line" (the telegraph) restore the dynamic and bring sense to the chain of acts and events. Among the actors we meet Lenin, Trotskii, Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, Kirov, Chicherin, Tukhachevskii, Krestinskii, Mdivani, Frumkin, Kosior, Vrachev, Trifonov, Kvirkeliia, Smigla and many others.
• Ethnicité et politique dans la guerre civile : À propos du basmačestvo au Fergana - Marco Buttino p. 195-222
  Marco Buttino, Ethnicity and politics during the Civil War : the case of the basmachestvo in Fergana. In Central Asia (in Turkestan) the Soviet government was, at first, not only a political but also an ethnic dictatorship. The Russian minority who seized power met an armed opposition of Muslims: the basmachestvo. The conflict between Russian émigrés and the local population was due to the crisis of the old regime's iastitutional order, or in other words the crisis of the colonial order was the starting point of the conflict and not the contrary. To that was added the creation of new powers based on ethnicity and territoriality. This article means to look over thoroughly the case of a region in Turkestan: the Fergana where the Russian political elite builds up and uses ethnic oppositioas. Thus the Red Army enroled Russians, Armenians and Aastrian war prisoners who, for one reason or another, accepted to fight the Maslims. Later on, the ruling Rassiaas used Maslim soldiers from other regions to fight the basmachi. But the allies were not always so obvious. At some point an armed organization of Russian settlers took side with the basmachi, so did the Maslim communists who, succumbing to national solidarity, signed secret agreements with the basmachi. This micro-analysis of different situations is a way to examine on a more general scale the reasons and means of ethnic conflicts.
• Голод 1921-1922 гг. в Самарской губернии и реацкия советского правительства - Markus Wehner p. 223-241
  Mariais Wehner, The 1921-1922 famine in the province of Samara and the reaction of the Soviet government. Based mainly on material found in the Moscow archives, this article tells about the famine which took place in Russia and the Ukraine in 1921-1922 and in which five millions of persons died. The province of Samara in the Volga region which was badly affected by the famine is chosen as an example. Notwithstanding the drought and the Civil War, the Bolsheviks' agricultural policy during the years 1918-1921 was responsible for the extent of the disaster. The Soviet governement and the Party leaders rejected the demands concerning the confiscation of cereals coming from Samara. Their reaction came too late to avoid the catastrophy which was to fall on the country. For the government and the Party leaders supplying workers and city dwellers was more important than saving the rural population. And moreover the famine helped strengthen the Bolshevik power in crashing the peasants' resistance. In 1923, famine still affected a number of regions in the Soviet Union.