Kuban-Black Sea Soviet Republic

a Soviet republic which was in existence from May 30 to July 6, 1918; it was formed from the Kuban’ and Black Sea Soviet republics for the purpose of uniting their forces in the fight against foreign interventionists and White Guards.

By the time the Kuban’-Black Sea Soviet Republic was created, Soviet power had been consolidated in the North Caucasus and the Don region; the Don, Stavropol’, and Terek Soviet republics had been formed. In March at the congress of soviets of the Black Sea Province in Tuapse the Black Sea Republic was proclaimed, and in April at the congress of soviets of the Kuban’ Oblast in Ekaterinodar (present-day Krasnodar) the Kuban’ Soviet Republic was proclaimed; these both became part of the RSFSR. Subsequently, the third extraordinary congress of soviets of the Kuban’ and the Black Sea region, with the participation of delegates from the front (Ekaterinodar, May 27–30, 1918), under the leadership of Extraordinary Commissar of Southern Russia G. K. Ordzhonikidze, decreed the merger of the Kuban’ and Black Sea republics into a single republic within the RSFSR. This congress also elected the new republic’s Central Executive Committee (27 Bolsheviks and 17 Left Socialist Revolutionaries), which then formed the Council of People’s Commissars of the Kuban’-Black Sea Republic (with la. V. Poluian as chairman).

Under the conditions of the offensive by General A. I. Denikin’s Volunteer Army from the Mechetinskaia-Kagal’nik region against the Kuban’ (it began on June 23, 1918), the First Congress of soviets of the North Caucasus, which assembled in Ekaterinodar (on July 5–7, 1918), decreed, following the report by G. K. Ordzhonikidze, the unification of the Kuban’-Black Sea, Terek, and Stavropol’ soviet republics into a single North Caucasus Soviet Republic within the RSFSR.