The “Belarusian Peasant Party of the Green Oak” , often simply the “Green Oak”, is a political organization on the territory of Western Belarus , which from 1919 until the early 1930s led the anti-Soviet peasant Belarusian movement on the territory of Soviet Belarus. The party’s formal goal was to create an independent Belarusian state.
History
In 1910 , the youth organization Green Oak was born, focusing on the peasantry and the intelligentsia.
In the summer of 1919 , for the first time, it embarked on hostilities (at the initiative of the Belarusian Military Commission and the Belarusian Political Committee in Warsaw). The newspapers "Bell" and "Belarus" published the "Diary of the Green Oak Army" compiled by the head of the organization, Vyacheslav Adamovich (also known as Ataman Dergachev).
In the fall of 1920 , the General Staff of the partisan detachments was created, headed by Colonel Vladimir Ksenevich (party nickname Grach) and the Charter of the organization was adopted.
According to the Charter, the state system of independent Belarus and the land issue should be determined by the Constituent Assembly. Intensive Belarusization was envisaged, as well as an orientation toward the West, Poland, and Ukraine. On the Green Oak seal was an image of the Chase (a horseman with a sword), as well as a skull and crossbones. At the same time, the headquarters of the organization and the chieftain Dergachev used a seal with the image of three oak leaves.
The main headquarters of the Green Oak was located in Luninets , which at that time was part of Poland. There manned, armed and sent to the BSSR sabotage groups. At the beginning, there were only 400 people who were divided into “fives,” which, in turn, became the core of individual rebel groups, centers of gravity for the peasantry, which was unhappy with the Soviet system. "Zelenodubtsy" fought in Slutsk, Mozyr, Bobruisk, Borisov, Igumen regions. Ataman Dergachev personally led the Green Oak units in Polesie.
At the end of 1920 , more than a dozen Belarusian partisan detachments operated under the general name "Green Oak" in the front line on both sides of the demarcation line (at that time the Soviet-Polish war was going on ). With the consent and with the support of Polish intelligence, partisans attacked territory controlled by Soviet troops, and in case of danger they retreated to Poland. And although the slogan of “Green Oak” was the struggle for “independent Belarus within ethnographic boundaries,” in reality it had a more propaganda significance. Many Belarusian officers who participated in the war with the Red Army at the beginning of 1921 considered the established truce on the Polish-Soviet border to be only a temporary state of affairs. In this conviction, they were strengthened by representatives of the Polish intelligence, who supplied them with weapons and means for the maintenance of detachments.
Liquidation
After signing the Riga Peace Treaty on March 18, 1921 , according to which Belarusians living in Poland were forbidden to participate in any military operations against the RSFSR , some of the Green Oak commanders recognized the Belarusian emigrant government of Vaclav Lastovsky as the only legitimate government of the Belarusian people. At the same time, many of them abandoned anti-Soviet partisan activity and joined the anti-Polish movement, which organized the Kaunas Center in the territory of the Grodno region and Vilensky region.
The last mention of the Green Oak dates back to the early 1930s, after which the movement was partially crushed by the Soviet forces, partially came to naught by itself, including in connection with the polonization of the Belarusian population that began in Poland (the Polish government prohibited the release of books in the Belarusian language, as well as schools of the Partnership of the Belarusian School in Grodno) are closed).
Links
- Article about the Green Oak (bel.)
- Brotherhood of Russian truth