"Green movement": peasants against the Empire and the Bolsheviks. “Against everyone”: what the “greens” fought for in the Civil War
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Title: Revolution Under Siege
Release date: 2011
Genre: Strategy(Turn-based/Wargame, Top-down
Developer: SEP REDS and AGEod
Publisher: Matrix Games
Edition type: Repack
Voice language: English
Interface language: Russian
Size: 896Mb
Tablet: Sewn in (SKiDROW)
System requirements:
● operating system: Windows XP/Vista/7
●Processor: 2.0 Ghz
● RAM: 3Gb
●Video card: 256Mb
●Sound Card: DirectX® compatible sound device
●Free hard disk space: 2.0Gb
Game description:
“Civilian Heroes: Reds vs. Whites 1918-1923” is a historical strategy dedicated to one of the most tragic and heroic periods in Russian history. This game, with precision and great attention to detail, reproduces the fratricidal war that blazed like a monstrous fire over Russia for five years. The old concepts of noble honor and the noble goal of saving Great Russia come into conflict with the people's Revolution and Bolshevik ideology, and armed confrontation is the only possible way to resolve the conflict. Military innovations of the 20th century, mechanical killers born in the heat of the First World War - machine guns, tanks, airplanes, armored trains - will reap a bountiful harvest on the battlefields of the Civil War, but the military leadership and diplomatic art of the commander-in-chief in this war are immeasurably more important. To put the infrastructure in order, to establish an uninterrupted supply of troops, to enlist the support of the population and break the resistance of the enemy - this is your task in the game “Civil Heroes: Red vs. White 1918-1923.”
Game Features:
● Historical realism: hundreds of real-life officers and weapons were meticulously transferred into the game.
● A large selection of warring parties: the Red Army under the leadership of Trotsky, the counter-revolutionary forces of General Denikin, the Siberian army of Kolchak, the white and red Finns, the Polish army of Marshal Pilsudski.
● Large-scale military operations over a vast area from Poland to Pacific Ocean.
● Repressions, uprisings and requisitions are tools of politics: win the support of the population or pin them down with a ruthless dictatorship.
● All available weapons of the era: planes, tanks, armored trains, infantry and cavalry.
● The opportunity to change the history of Russia by choosing the “what if?” scenario.
Features of Repack:
Nothing was cut.
Nothing is recoded.
Installing Redistributables
: DX9, MV C++ (optional).
* Installed Russifier [textures/text] from Akella.
Installation time ~6 minutes.
By fatal2266
Installation and launch:
1. Montage the image with the game in Daemon Tools (Alcohol 120, Nero, UltraISO...) and install it.
2. Let's play.
Defenders of their world
Historian Ruslan Grigorievich Gagkuev very aptly described the events in our country associated with the change of power: “In Russia, the cruelty of the civil war was due to the breakdown of traditional Russian statehood and the destruction of the age-old foundations of life.” And since there were no “defeated” in the battles, but only “destroyed”, the level of human confrontation reached a different level. Because of this, rural residents, most often, with all their small homeland inserted to defend the territory. The external threat was too dangerous and insidious. It concealed radical changes in everything. And the peasants were afraid of this. It was they who became the third force in the Civil War - the Green Army.
The peasants were afraid of changing life
The encyclopedia “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” has a clear definition of this phenomenon. The book says that these are illegal armed groups, whose members were hiding from mobilizations in the forests.
But General Denikin thought differently. He said that this force received such an “ecological” name not because of its deployment in the forests, but by the name of its leader, Ataman Zeleny. The officer mentioned this in “Essays on the Russian Troubles.” Ataman is known for having fought in the Poltava region against the Whites, the Reds, the Hetmans, and the German invaders. He himself simply called himself father (ataman) Bulak-Bulakhovich.
Green Army flag
There are mentions of greens among foreigners as well. For example, the Englishman Williamson in “Farewell to the Don” cited the memories of his compatriot, who happened to find himself during Civil War as part of the Don Army under General Sidorin. Here's what Williamson wrote: “At the station we were met by a convoy of Don Cossacks... and units under the command of a man named Voronovich, lined up next to the Cossacks. The “greens” had practically no uniform; they wore mostly peasant clothes with checkered woolen caps or shabby sheep’s hats, on which a cross made of green fabric was sewn. They had a simple green flag and looked like a strong and powerful group of soldiers."
At the beginning of the Civil War, the Greens tried to remain neutral
Vladimir Ilyich Sidorin invited Voronovich to join him, but was refused. Green declared his neutrality. But, of course, the peasants were unable to stay between two fires for long. After all, both the Reds and the Whites constantly tried to infuse the powerful forces of the villagers into their armies.
Peasant power
But even before the beginning of troubled times in Russia, the peasants represented a special stratum, whose peaceful activities could mislead an inexperienced person. The peasants constantly fought... among themselves. At any moment, under any pretext, they could grab axes and pitchforks. Such a conflict between two villages was well shown by Sergei Yesenin in the poem “Anna Snegina”. There, an “apple of discord” swept between Radovo and Kriushi.
And such confrontations were constant. Pre-revolutionary newspapers were not shy and did not hesitate to write about this. Every now and then they were full of articles about how the peasants had staged a mass brawl or a stabbing. Moreover, nothing much changed in those articles, except for settlements. Instead of villages they wrote auls, instead of auls - Cossack villages, and so on. They went, of course, to deal with both the Jews and the Germans. All in all, pre-revolutionary Russia was restless.
Due to this situation, each village had its own cunning elders, hardened warriors who, without hesitation, would give their lives to protect the sovereignty of their little world.
Peasants returned from World War I armed
And after Russia stopped participating in the First World War, most of the peasants returning from the front took firearms with them. Some are rifles, and some, the luckiest and most cunning, are machine guns. Accordingly, strangers in such an armed village could be given a worthy rebuff.
There is a lot of evidence that says that during the Civil War, both the Reds and the Whites asked the village elders for permission to pass through the village. And they often received refusals. The Greens hoped until the last that the situation in the country would “somehow” be resolved and their familiar world would not collapse.
Cruel realities
But the world soon collapsed. It was possible to keep the “hut on the edge” only until 1919. But then the Red Army became too strong. The village could no longer talk on equal terms with the Bolshevik commanders. Therefore, many peasants, in order not to go over to their side, abandoned everything and went into the forests.
But there were also those who accepted the challenge. They fought against everyone. And at the head of the “green movement” was Father Angel. So he ordered to write on the carts: “Beat the reds until they turn white, beat the whites until they turn red.”
After 1919 it was no longer possible to remain on the sidelines
The Greens also had another hero - a member of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, Alexey Stepanovich Antonov. He became famous after becoming the leader of the Tambov (Antonov) uprising in 1921-1922. His army fought under the banner “For Justice.” But few believed in victory. After all, the forces of the outside world were on a completely different scale. And the peasants, of course, failed to preserve their familiar little world intact.
Not only “reds” and “whites” fought in the Civil War. There was also a third force - the “greens”. Their role is ambiguous. Some consider the “greens” to be bandits, others – freedom-loving defenders of their land.
Greens vs Reds & Whites
Candidate historical sciences Ruslan Gagkuev described the events of those years as follows: “In Russia, the cruelty of the civil war was due to the breakdown of traditional Russian statehood and the destruction of the age-old foundations of life.” According to him, in those battles there were no vanquished, but only those destroyed. That is why rural people in entire villages, and even volosts, sought to protect the islands of their little world from an external deadly threat at any cost, especially since they had experience of peasant wars. This was the most important reason for the emergence of a third force in 1917-1923 - the “green rebels”.
The encyclopedia edited by S. S. Khromov “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” defines this movement as illegal armed groups whose participants were hiding from mobilizations in the forests. [C-BLOCK]
However, there is another version. Thus, General A.I. Denikin believed that these formations and detachments received their name after a certain Ataman Zeleny, who fought against both the Whites and the Reds in the western part of the Poltava province. Denikin wrote about this in the fifth volume of “Essays on Russian Troubles.”
"Fight among yourselves"
The book by the Englishman H. Williamson “Farewell to the Don” contains the memoirs of one British officer who during the Civil War was in the Don Army of General V.I. Sidorin. “At the station we were met by a convoy of Don Cossacks... and units under the command of a man named Voronovich, lined up next to the Cossacks. The “greens” had practically no uniform; they wore mostly peasant clothes with checkered woolen caps or shabby sheep’s hats, on which a cross made of green fabric was sewn. They had a simple green flag and looked like a strong and powerful group of soldiers." [C-BLOCK]
“Voronovich’s soldiers” refused Sidorin’s call to join his army, preferring to remain neutral. In general, at the beginning of the Civil War, the peasantry adhered to the principle: “Fight among yourselves.” However, the “whites” and “reds” every day stamped decrees and orders on “requisitions, duties and mobilization,” thereby involving the villagers in the war.
Village brawlers
Meanwhile, even before the revolution, rural residents were sophisticated fighters, ready at any moment to grab pitchforks and axes. The poet Sergei Yesenin in the poem “Anna Snegina” cited the conflict between the two villages of Radovo and Kriushi.
One day we caught them... They were in axes, so were we. The ringing and grinding of steel sent a shiver through my body.
There were many such clashes. Pre-revolutionary newspapers were full of articles about mass fights and stabbings between residents of various villages, auls, kishlaks, Cossack villages, Jewish towns and German colonies. That is why each village had its own cunning diplomats and desperate commanders who defended local sovereignty.
After the First World War, when many peasants, returning from the front, took with them three-line rifles and even machine guns, it was dangerous to just enter such villages. [C-BLOCK]
Doctor of Historical Sciences Boris Kolonitsky noted in this regard that regular troops often asked permission from the elders to pass through such villages and were often refused. But after the forces became unequal due to the sharp strengthening of the Red Army in 1919, many villagers were forced to go into the forests to avoid mobilization.
Nester Makhno and Old Man Angel
A typical Green commander was Nestor Makhno. He went through a difficult path from a political prisoner due to his participation in the anarchist group “Union of Poor Grain Growers” to the commander of the “Green Army”, numbering 55 thousand people in 1919. He and his fighters were allies of the Red Army, and Nester Ivanovich himself was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for the capture of Mariupol.
At the same time, being a typical “green”, he did not see himself outside his native places, preferring to live by robbing landowners and wealthy people. In the book “The Worst Russian Tragedy” by Andrei Burovsky, S. G. Pushkarev’s memories of those days are given: “The war was cruel, inhuman, with complete oblivion of all legal and moral principles. Both sides committed the mortal sin of killing prisoners. The Makhnovists regularly killed all captured officers and volunteers, and we used the captured Makhnovists for consumption.” [C-BLOCK]
If at the beginning and in the middle of the Civil War the “greens” either adhered to neutrality or most often sympathized with the Soviet regime, then in 1920-1923 they fought “against everyone.” For example, on the carts of one “Father Angel” commander it was written: “Beat the Reds until they turn white, beat the Whites until they turn red.”
Heroes of the Greens
According to the apt expression of the peasants of that time, the Soviet government was both mother and stepmother for them. It got to the point that the Red commanders themselves did not know where the truth was and where the lie was. Once, at a peasant gathering, the legendary Chapaev was asked: “Vasily Ivanovich, are you for the Bolsheviks or for the communists”? He replied: “I am for the International.” [C-BLOCK]
Under the same slogan, that is, “For the International,” the St. George cavalier A.V. Sapozhkov fought, who fought simultaneously “against the gold chasers and against the false communists who were entrenched in the Soviets.” His unit was destroyed, and he himself was shot.
The most prominent representative of the “greens” is considered to be a member of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party A. S. Antonov, better known as the leader of the Tambov Uprising of 1921-1922. In his army, the word “comrade” was used, and the fight was waged under the banner “For Justice.” However, the majority of the “green army” did not believe in their victory. For example, in the song of the Tambov rebels “Somehow the sun doesn’t shine...” there are the following lines:
They will lead us all on a rampage, They will give the command “Fire!” C'mon, don't whine before the gun, don't lick the ground at your feet!..