March 20, 1919, or Second Occupation

On this day in Moscow, the “Agreement of the Central Soviet Authorities with the Bashkortostan Government on the Soviet Autonomous Bashkortostan” was concluded between representatives of the Central Soviet Authorities and the Government of Small Bashkortostan.

Almost immediately, armed uprisings of the Bashkorts against the Muscovites began. The first to revolt were the residents of Burzyan-Tangaurovsky, Tamyan-Kataysky and Usergansky cantons. Already by May 19, 1919, that is, less than 2 months later, all the “rights” of the Bashkorts promised by Moscow were trampled upon and forgotten by it. Moscow began brutal reprisals not so much against the insurgents as it took revenge on the civilian population for supporting the insurgents. At least 10,000 people became victims of Russian punishers, and this is only according to Moscow, understated data. In the spring of 1921, due to the appearance of Okhranyuk-Chersky’s detachments on the territory of the Burzyan-Tangaurovsky, Kipchak-Dzhitirovsky and Usergansky cantons, a new wave of uprising began. But the uprisings were suppressed – the last defense of the Bashkorts fell. There are no longer any obstacles left to the attempt to destroy the entire nation. And then Moscow began to act, as it always did. It began to commit extermination.

The famine of 1921-1922 engulfed the entire republic. If more of the population understood what would happen if the uprising were lost, the insurgents troops would have been much stronger. But there were many people who believed the Bolsheviks, believed Moscow, or simply hoped to sit out the “storm,” believing that “this is politics” and it did not concern them. Then politics came to their homes and forced them to eat their children.

Nowadays, also, politics does not concern many people, and if you remind them of the mistakes of the past, they answer, “The time is not the same anymore, now something similar is impossible.” However, if the Bashkorts of the XX century were told how Moscow exterminated their ancestors in previous centuries, then you could also hear from some of them, “the time is not the same anymore.”

The empire never changes, so as long as it exists, the “time” will always be the same.

Is an artificial Holodomor (famine) impossible in the XXI century? Moscow showed the opposite by trying to organize a famine in Ukraine already now. It has not worked out yet. What prevents it from trying in other places, with other nations? Maybe it will work out there.