ABSTRACT
In spring 1918 an insurgency carried out in the name of the Cossacks overthrew Soviet power in the Don Territory. It has become a historiographical truism that this defeat of Soviet power resulted from a Cossack uprising, in defense of Cossack privileges and in response to Bolshevik excesses. This narrative is largely a recapitulation of the account set forth for the uprising by the All-Great Don Host (AGDH), the reconstituted antiSoviet Host government. The AGDH claimed legitimacy as the capstone of this selfsame anti-Soviet Cossack movement.1 To cement its authority, the AGDH arrogated to itself the primary role in this insurgent narrative. In place of a diffuse rebel movement, arising in many areas without any knowledge of the Cossack leadership’s existence, the Host literature portrayed the insurgency as radiating out from Novocherkassk, the Host capital.2
