This definition was greatly exaggerated. The bard of the Don Cossacks, Mitrophan Bogayevsky, says of the political character of the Cossacks: “The first and fundamental condition which prevented the Cossacks, at least in the beginning, from breaking up was the idea of the State, a lawful order, a deep-seated realisation of the necessity of a life within the bounds of law. This seeking of a lawful order runs, and has run, like a scarlet thread through all the circles of all the Cossack Armies.” But such altruistic motives, by themselves, do not exhaust the question. Notwithstanding the grievous weight of universal military service, the Cossacks, especially those of the South, enjoyed a certain prosperity which excluded that important stimulus which roused against the Government and the régime both the workers’ class and the peasantry of Central Russia. An extraordinarily complicated agrarian question set the caste economic interests of the Cossacks against the interests of the “outsider”[31] settlers. Thus, for instance, in the oldest and largest Cossack Army, that of the Don, the amount of land secured to an individual farm was, on the average, in dessiateens: for Cossacks, 19.3 to 30; for native peasants, 6.5; for immigrant peasants, 1.3. Finally, owing to historical conditions and a narrow territorial system of recruiting, the Cossack units possessed a perfectly homogeneous personnel, a great internal unity, and a discipline which was firm, though somewhat peculiar as to the mutual relations between the officers and the privates, and therefore they conceded complete obedience to their chiefs and to the Supreme Power.
With the support of all these motives, the Government made a wide use of Cossack troops for suppressing popular agitation, and thus roused against them the mute exasperation of the fermenting, discontented masses of the population.
In return for their historical “liberties,” the Cossack Armies, as I have said, give all but universal military service. Its burden and the degree of relative importance of these troops among the armed forces of the Russian Empire are shown in the following table:
| Armies. | Cavalry Regiments. | Sotnias not included in Regiments. | Infantry Battalions. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Don | 60 | 72 | — |
| Kouban | 37 | 37 | 22 |
| Orenburg | 18 | 40 | — |
| Terek | 12 | 3 | 2 |
| Ural | 9 | 4 | — |
| Siberian | 9 | 3 | — |
| Trans-Baikal | 9 | — | — |
| Semiretchensk | 3 | 7 | — |
| Astrakhan | 3 | — | — |
| Amur | 2 | 5 | — |
| Total[32] | 162 | 171 | 24 |
Partly as cavalry of the line—in divisions and corps, partly as Army corps and divisional cavalry—in regiments, sub-divisions and detached sotnias, the Cossack units were scattered over all the Russian fronts, from the Baltic to Persia. Among the Cossacks, as against all the other component parts of the Army, desertion was unknown.
At the outbreak of Revolution all the political groups, and even the representatives of the Allies, devoted great attention to the Cossacks—some building exaggerated hopes on them, others regarding them with unconcealed suspicion. The circles of the Right looked to the Cossacks for Restoration; the Liberal Bourgeoisie, for active support of law and order; while the parties of the Left feared that they were counter-Revolutionary, and therefore started a strong propaganda in the Cossack units, seeking to disintegrate them. This was to some extent assisted by the spirit of repentance which showed itself at all Cossack meetings, Congresses, “Circles” and “Radas” at which the late power was accused of systematically rousing the Cossacks against the people. The mutual relations between the Cossacks and the local agricultural population were unusually complicated, especially in the Cossack territories of European Russia.[33] Intermingled with the Cossack allotments were peasant lands—those of whilom settlers (the indigenous peasantry)—lands let on long lease, on which large settlements had sprung up, finally lands which had been granted by the Emperor to various persons and which had gradually passed into the hands of “outsiders.” On the basis of these mutual relations dissension now arose which began to assume the character of violence and forcible seizures. With respect to the Don Army, which gave the keynote to all others, the Provisional Government considered it necessary to publish on April 7th an appeal in which, while affirming that “the rights of the Cossacks to the land, as they have grown historically, remain inviolable,” also promised the “outsider” population, “whose claim to the land is also based on historical rights,” that it would be satisfied, in as great a measure as possible, by the Constituent Assembly. This agrarian puzzle, which surrounded with uncertainty the most tender point of the Cossacks’ hopes, was explained unequivocally, in the middle of May, by the Minister of Agriculture, Tchernov (at the All-Russia Peasant Congress), who stated that the Cossacks held large tracts of land and that now they would have to surrender a portion of their lands.
In the Cossack territories meanwhile work was in full swing in the sphere of self-determination and self-government; the information supplied by the Press was vague and contradictory; no one had yet heard the voice of the Cossacks as a whole. One can understand, therefore, that general attention which was concentrated on the All-Russia Cossack Congress, which gathered in Petrograd in the beginning of June.
The Cossacks paid a tribute to the Revolution and to the State, referred to their own needs (after all, the question of their holdings was the most vital one), and ... smiled to the Soviet....
The impression thus produced was indefinite; neither were the hopes of the one side fulfilled nor the fears of the other dissipated.
Meanwhile, at the initiative of the Revolutionary Democracy, a violent propaganda was set on foot for introducing the idea of doing away with the Cossacks as a separate caste. But, on the whole, this idea of self-abolition had no success. On the contrary, a growing aspiration spread among the Cossacks for maintaining their internal organisation and for the union of all the Cossack Armies.