Bolshevik Decossackisation: 10,000-500,000 (jan 1, 1919 – jan 1, 1933)

Description:

The Decossackization was carried out by the Bolshevik government (Red Army and Cheka forces) against the Don and Kuban Cossacks between January 24, 1919 (secret resolution of the Bolshevik Central Committee) and 1933 (end of campaign including collectivization period), with an estimated death toll between thousands or tens of thousands (Peter Holquist's conservative estimate for 1919-1920)

The Bolsheviks also engaged in mass executions by special tribunals (troiki), forced deportation (over 45,000 Cossacks from Terek to Ukraine according to Russian Academy of Sciences), confiscation of land and property, forced labor in concentration camps, village destruction, elimination of Cossack elite and leadership, systematic repression of Cossack culture and identity, arbitrary arrests, and denial of Cossack distinctness as a separate social and ethnic group.

It has been labeled as genocide by historians Shane O'Rourke (University of York), Orlando Figes, Donald Rayfield, Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev (head of Presidential Committee for Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression), Robert Gellately, and numerous other scholars who characterize it as genocidal.

Though some historians including Peter Holquist dispute the classification, describing it instead as a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups" showing Soviet "dedication to social engineering."

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