The practice of terror by Soviet workers in the fight against banditry in the Osinsky District of the Perm Governorate during the Civil War

Abstract

During the Civil War, Soviet workers had to fight against desertion and banditry. Since the majority of the country’s population was the peasantry, a confrontation arose with the Soviet government of that part of it that could not accept it. More often than not, peasants fell under such Bolshevik propaganda labels as “white gangs” or “gangs of deserters”, which had spread through the efforts of the party-Soviet propaganda machine. According to archival documents, local Soviet workers used terror not only to suppress resistance, but also as a forced measure caused by the real military-political situation in the Perm Governorate. The fight for the establishment of the power of the Soviets was fought against banditry, not desertion, and was fierce. Consequently, the widespread thesis in the history of the Civil War in the Perm Governorate about mass desertion is nothing more than an assumption. The line of the Eastern Front passed next to the Osinsky District, so the most fierce fight unfolded here, which in turn had an impact on the military-political situation in the governorate as a whole.