Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Glossary

ataman: A Cossack leader (hetman in Ukraine).

aul: A village or settlement, often fortified, in Daghestan and the Caucasus.

Basmachi: Term, first deployed in Soviet times, to describe Muslim rebels in Central Asia. It has pejorative overtones (of banditry), but has become standard.

batko: An affectionate title (meaning “Little Father”) by which were known many of the insurgent peasant leaders of Ukraine and southern Russia in the civil-war years.

Black Hundreds: Right-wing, monarchist, and anti-Semitic groups in late-imperial Russia.

Borotbists: Borotbisty: the popular name for the Ukrainian Party of Socialists-Revolutionary Borotbists (Communist). Literally, “fighters. ”

budenovka: A peaked cloth helmet worn by the Red Army, named for S. M. Budennyi (although it was first termed a frunzevka, for M. V. Frunze).

cadet: Russian term for a pupil at an officer training school (sometimes also rendered “junker”).

Chekist: A member of the Cheka.

commissar: An official of either the Provisional Government or the Soviet government charged with a particular task. The term was derived from the commissaries of the era of the French Revolution.

composite: A term (in Russian, svodnii) chiefly used by White forces during the civil wars to denote units formed from the core of larger units of the Imperial Russian Army. (Thus, the Composite Regiment of the 19th Infantry Division was a regiment containing former members of the 19th Infantry Division.)

Cossack: Originally a population group of eastern Slavs who settled Russia’s steppe frontier, from the 14th to the 17th centuries, and prospered largely by raiding and looting. By the 19th century, the term denoted a member of a military caste living in the borderlands of the Russian Empire in a separate Host (voisko) that received certain privileges in return for military service.

defensists: Those European socialists who, in 1914, opted to support their countries’ war efforts (typified in Russia by G. V. Plekhanov). Their enemies dubbed them ‘social patriots.’ Cf. internationalists.

desiatina: A Russian unit of area: 1 desiatina = 2. 7 acres or 1. 09 hectares (pl. destiatiny).

druzhina: A militia or small military unit; a squadron.

duma: See State Duma and municipal council.

fedayeen: “Freedom fighters”: Armenian guerrilla groups formed in the late 19th century to oppose Ottoman rule of western Armenia.

front: In Imperial Russian and Soviet usage, a group of armies (or what might be called an army corps).

genshtabisty: Graduates of the imperial Russian Academy of the General Staff.

guberniia: A province (pl. gubernii).

hetman: A Ukrainian Cossack leader.

Host: A Cossack group, based on a geographical nomenclature (e.g., the Don Cossack Host, the Kuban Cossack Host). The Russian term is voisko.

hromada: A union, or brotherhood, associated with Lithuanian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian nationalist organizations.

Inter-District Group: Mezhraionka: a faction of the RSDLP, led by L. D. Trotsky, which occupied a position independent from and intermediate to the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The group joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917.

internationalists: Those European socialists who, in 1914, opted to oppose their countries’ war efforts (typified in Russia by V. I. Lenin, Iu. O. Martov, and V. M. Chernov). Their enemies dubbed them “defeatists.” Cf. defensists.

junker: See cadet.

Kadets: Members of the Constitutional Democratic Party (also known as the Party of the People’s Freedom), Russia’s main liberal party after 1905.

khutor: An individual, consolidated farmstead (pl. khutora) that had separated from the village commune; in Cossack regions, a small village.

komandarm: Army commander of the Red Army.

kombrig: Brigade commander of the Red Army.

komdiv: Divisional commander of the Red Army

kosh: A term originally used by the Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine in the 16th–18th centuries to describe a variety of military units. It was resurrected by Ukrainian nationalist forces during the civil wars.

krai: A district.

krug: A Cossack assembly or council (literally, “a circle”).

kursant: An officer cadet in the Red Army.

left-bank Ukraine: Levoberezhnaia Ukraina: that part of Ukraine on the left (eastern) bank of the River Dnepr, absorbed into the Russian state after 1654. It was sometimes referred to as “Little Russia. ”

Left-SR: A member of the Party of Left Socialists-Revolutionaries.

meshochniki: Petty traders, literally “bagmen. ”

Mezhraionka: See Inter-District Group.

military district: A region, usually made up of several provinces, responsible for mobilizing, training, and supplying troops in Imperial Russia and Soviet Russia, also used in areas controlled by the Whites during the civil wars.

mir: See village commune.

municipal council: Gorodskaia duma: a city council, established from 16 June 1870, elected by property holders.

muzhik: A peasant (literally, “a little man”).

narkom: See People’s Commissar.

narodnik: A term (pl. narodniki) originally coined by G. V. Plekhanov to describe a supporter of any of the Populist parties who would not, he claimed, accept that Russia would pass through a capitalist stage before socialism could be established. The word is derived from narodnichestvo, which originally meant the tendency of radical groups of the 1870s to base plans for the revolution on the immediate needs of the peasantry.

New Russia: A contemporary term for the steppe region of southern Ukraine, to the north of the Black Sea, annexed by Russia from the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century.

oblast′: A peripheral region of the Russian Empire not designated as a province (guberniia), being under “special administration”: the Far East, Siberia, Central Asia, Transcaucasia, etc.

oblastnik: A proponent of regionalism (oblastnichestvo), especially Siberian regionalism.

obshchina: See village commune.

October Manifesto: Nicholas II’s pronouncement of 17 October 1905, promising a legislative assembly and the extension of civil rights.

Octobrists: A right-liberal party—formally, the Union of 17 October—founded in 1905, which advocated working within the terms of the October Manifesto.

Okhrana: The secret police in tsarist Russia. Although invariably spelled this way in English, the Russians actually called it the Okhranka.

Old Believers: Those Orthodox Christians who did not accept the church reforms of the 17th century. They were heavily persecuted in the 19th century.

otaman: During the civil wars, this was the title accorded to a division, corps, or army group commander in the Ukrainian Army. (Originally it was the title of the elected leader of the Zaporozhian Cossack Host.)

otrub: A peasant household that had separated from the village commune but remained, physically, in the village (cf. khutor).

Pale of Settlement: The 15 provinces along the western marches of the Russian Empire where most Russian Jews were obliged, by law, to live.

People’s Commissar: A member of Sovnarkom; a Soviet cabinet minister (narkom).

pervopokhodniki: Veterans of the Volunteer Army’s First Kuban (Ice) March.

plastun: A Cossack infantryman (originally a scout).

pogrom: A violent attack on the Jews.

Populism: Narodnichestvo: the Russian revolutionary movement of the mid- to late 19th century that focused on the peasantry as the class most likely to overthrow the monarchy.

prodnalog: prodovol′stvennyi nalog: the Bolsheviks’ system of taxing agricultural production in kind during the NEP.

prodotriad: prodovol′stvennyi oriad: a Soviet grain confiscation brigade.

prodrazverstka: prodovol′stvennaia razverstka: the Bolsheviks’ system of requisitioning foodstuffs during the period of War Communism.

rada: A Ukrainian term meaning “council,” as in the Ukrainian Central Rada. The term was also adopted by the assembly of the generally pro-Ukrainian Kuban Cossack Host. (Other Hosts used the term krug.)

revkom: Revoliutsionnyi komitet: a Bolshevik revolutionary committee, often prefaced by an abbreviated form of its location (e.g., Sibrevkom, the Siberian Revolutionary Committee); an extraordinary military–civilian administrative organ established to oversee a region’s transition to Soviet power.

revvoensovet: Revoliutsionnyi voennyi komitet: a revolutionary military council; an army council, answerable to the central Revvoensovet of the Republic.

right-bank Ukraine: Pravoberezhnaia Ukraina: that part of Ukraine, on the right (western) bank of the River Dnepr, that had been annexed by Russia during the late 18th century (in the second and third partitions of Poland). The region was sometimes referred to as “the south-western provinces. ”

rubl′: Russian unit of currency (often “rouble” in English); one rubl′ = 100 kopeki.

Sejm: A parliament (notably in Poland and Transcaucasia).

sel′skoe obshchestvo: See village commune.

serf: A peasant in bondage.

skhod: The assembly of members of the village commune.

sotnia: A Cossack term (literally “a hundred”) for a company or squadron.

stanitsa: A Cossack village.

starosta: The elected or appointed head of any group, but especially that of the village commune.

State Council: Gosudarstvennyi sovet: the central Russian governmental institution, founded in 1810, which was formally responsible for approving laws before they were sent to the tsar for ratification. After 1905 and the foundation of the State Duma, it was regarded as the “upper house.”

State Duma: Gosudarstvennaia duma: the consultative assembly, first elected in 1906, following Nicholas II’s October Manifesto.

stavka: The general headquarters of the Russian Army. During the First World War, this was initially located at Baranovichi and then (from August 1915) at Mogilev.

steppe: The treeless, grassy plain covering much of southern and southeastern Russia.

taiga: The chiefly coniferous forest stretching across northern Russia, between the steppe and the tundra.

trudovik: A member of the Labor group (the name adopted by Populist deputies in the State Duma).

uezd: A subdivision of a province (guberniia); a district.

uriadnik: A Cossack noncommissioned officer.

versta: A Russian unit of distance (pl. versty): 1 versta = 1,067 meters or 3,500 feet.

village commune: The fundamental institution of peasant self-government throughout much of European Russia. Russian peasants tended to call it the mir (literally “the peace” or “the world,” or even “the universe”); from the 1830s intellectuals often called it the obshchina; after 1861 it was officially constituted as the sel′skoe obshestvo (“village community”).

voisko: See Host (pl. voiska).

volost′: A county; the unit of local administration, established by the Emancipation Edict of 1861, with its own peasant assembly, courts, officials, etc.; it united between 300 and 2,000 people, often from a number of settlements and village communes.

Volunteers: Members of the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army, established by General M. V. Alekseev at Novocherkassk in November 1917 and from January 1918 incorporated into the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR).

War Communism: The term used (retrospectively) by V. I. Lenin to denote the series of economic measures employed (or inherited) by the Bolsheviks during the civil wars, including wholesale nationalization of industry, forced requisitioning of food, devaluation of the currency, etc.

zemstvo: Officially, zemskoe uchrezhdenie: an elected assembly (pl. zemstva), at uezd and guberniia levels, of representatives of all classes, established by the reform of 1 January 1864.