Orphans during the Civil War: from homelessness to concentration camps

We investigate specifically and comprehensively the orphans situation and transformation of social protection system in the Civil War years and its ultimate phase Tambov Rebellion in the Tambov Governorate through the lens of children’s everyday life and policy of the Soviet government. On the basis of a wide complex of primary materials attraction, first of all archival documents, we representatively and specially investigate various little-known aspects of the scientific problem declared in study. We generalize practices of children survival in the incredibly bloody and violent clashes of rebels and parts of the Red Army in one region – Tambov Governorate. We reveal the conditions of children placement in concentration camps, as well as attempts of the authorities to regulate their situation, to stabilize the morbidity of children and catastrophic child mortality. We provide the specific data on the peculiarities of orphans charity in the conditions of Civil War, Tambov Rebellion, new economic policy at the regional and county level, which allows to evaluate not only the social policy of the Soviet government, but also the survival of children’s society in the chronological period under consideration. We clarify the consequences of taking rebel family members (residents of the region who joined A.S. Antonov) hostage and using children as an attractive mechanism to combat “banditry”. We specially consider the influence of “party and class” selection of children at their admission to orphanages, as well as taking into account their social origin, the position of parents. We reveal the main results of the new economic policy (NEP) impact on children’s social protection and the constriction of the existing practice of orphans charity in the conditions of the actual cessation of funding for many children’s institutions. We draw conclusions about the historical experience, traditions and features of the children survival, including orphans at the regional level (governorate and county) in the conditions of hunger strikes of the 20s of the 20th century, which allowed to successfully reconstruct the actual population situation of the Tambov Governorate in the post-revolutionary period. We give the characteristics of the local authorities’ policy, the interaction of the capital and the regions in the conditions of almost incessant cataclysms and social disasters of the first years of Soviet power.

1. Protasov L.G. (executive ed.). «Antonovshchina». Krest’yanskoye vosstaniye v Tambovskoy gubernii v 1920–1921 gg. [“Antonovshchina” Peasant Rebellion in the Tambov Governorate in 1920–1921]. Tambov, State Archive of Tambov Region, 2007. (In Russian).

2. Danilov V., Esikov S., Kanishchev V., Protasov L. (executive compilers). Krest’yanskoye vosstaniye v Tambovskoy gubernii v 1919–1921 gg. («Antonovshchina»): dokumenty i materialy [Peasant Rebellion in the Tambov Governorate in 1919–1921 (“Antonovshchina”): Documents and Materials]. Tambov, Redaktsionno-izdatelskiy otdel Publ., 1994. (In Russian).

3. Posadskiy A.V. (ed.). Tambovskoye vosstaniye 1920–1921 gg.: issledovaniya, dokumenty, vospominaniya [Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1921: Researches, Documents, Memories]. Moscow, Russian Society Researches Association–XXI Publ., 2018. (In Russian).

4. Sennikov B.V. Tambovskoye vosstaniye 1918–1921 gg. i raskrest’yanivaniye Rossii 1929–1933 gg. Vyp. 9 [Tambov Rebellion 1918–1921 and Disintegration of the Peasant Class of Russia 1929–1933]. Moscow, Posev Publ., 2004, issue 9. (In Russian).

5. Bobkov A.S. On the issue of using asphyxiating gas in the suppression of the tambov uprising. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 2012, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 65-104.

6. Shcherbinin P.P. Deti russko-yaponskoy, podrostki Pervoy mirovoy… Etapy vzrosleniya uchastnikov revolyutsii 1917 g. i Grazhdanskoy voyny [Children of the russian-japanese, teens of the First world… stages of becoming grown-up of participants of the revolution of 1917 and the Civil War]. Tsentr i periferiya [Center and Periphery], 2015, no. 3, pp. 18-24. (In Russian).

7. Shcherbinin P.P. «Antonovshchina» skvoz’ prizmu vospriyatiya detey i podrostkov: vybor zhiznennogo puti i ego posledstviya v pervoy chetverti XX veka [“Antonovshchina” through the lenses of perception of children and adolescents: choice of life course and its consequences in the first quarter of the XX century]. Istoricheskiye, filosofskiye, politicheskiye i yuridicheskiye nauki, kul’turologiya i iskusstvovedeniye. Voprosy teorii i praktiki – Historical, Philosophical, Political and Law Sciences, Culturology and Study of Art. Issues of Theory and Practice, 2017, no. 6 (80), pt 2, pp. 113-115. (In Russian).

8. Eliseev V.V. Deti posle «Antonovshchiny» [Children after “Antonovshchina”]. Posev, 2013, no. 7 (1630), pp. 42-46. (In Russian).

9. Eliseev V.V. Detstvo za kolyuchey provolokoy [Childhood for the barbed wire]. Filo Ariadne, 2017, no. 4 (8), pp. 81-90. (In Russian).

10. Shcherbinin P.P. «Pustite detey ko mne...»: «deti bedy» i popechitel’stvo do i posle 1917 goda [«Suffer the children to come unto me...»: «children of misfortune» and patronage before and after 1917]. Tambov, Derzhavinsky Publishing House, 2018, 370 p. ISBN 978-5-00078-230-9 (In Russian).

11. Yakovlev A.N. (ed.), Vilenskiy S.S. et al. (compiler) Deti GULAGa. 1918–1956 [Children of GULAG. 1918–1956]. Moscow, MFD Publ., 2002. (In Russian).

12. Bezai O.V. Ispol’zovaniye kontslagerey v khode podavleniya Tambovskogo vosstaniya 1920–1921 gg. [Use of concentration camps during the suppression of tambov uprising of 1920–1921]. Istoricheskiye, filosofskiye, politicheskiye i yuridicheskiye nauki, kul’turologiya i iskusstvovedeniye. Voprosy teorii i praktiki – Historical, Philosophical, Political and Law Sciences, Culturology and Study of Art. Issues of Theory and Practice, 2018, no. 8 (94), pp. 18-22. (In Russian).

13. Abinder A. Novyy ekonom kurs i narodnoye prosveshcheniye [New Economic Course and People’s Enlightenment]. Vestnik prosveshcheniya [Herald of Enlightenment], 1921, no. 8, p. 3. (In Russian).

14. Krivoshenin N.V. Gorod Lebedyan’ i ego uyezd v 1917–1921 gg. [City of Lebedyan and its County in 1817–1921]. Moscow, 2016, 470 p. (In Russian).