Krasnodar Book Publishing House. 1969. 216 p. It has a circulation of 30,000 copies. Price 54 kopecks.

The book under review by I. T. Sirchenko, a teacher at the Krasnodar Polytechnic Institute, covers the issue of the sinking of Black Sea Fleet warships near Novorossiysk in June 1918, whose crews, following the directive of the Soviet Government, destroyed their ships so that they would not fall into the hands of German interventionists and could not be used against the young Republic of Soviets. with a book, you will see that its content is much broader. It also addresses a range of issues related to the consolidation of Soviet power in Crimea, Ukraine, and other parts of the south of the country. I. T. Sirchenko shows the difficulties of the struggle for Bolshevization.

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The role of seamen is revealed by the specific assistance provided to the Bolsheviks by the Central Committee of the RCP(b), personally by V. I. Lenin and Ya. M. Sverdlov, and the selfless work of the envoys of the Central Committee of the Party - N. I. Ostrovskaya, Yu. P. Gaven, N. A. Pozharov and others in educating the revolutionary consciousness of sailors, soldiers and workers. The author, who followed the Bolsheviks in defeating the counter-revolutionary forces of the White Guards and Tatar nationalists in the Crimea in January 1918, analyzes the first revolutionary transformations in this region. The author brings the reader to the conclusion that the establishment of Soviet power in the Crimea was accompanied by the stubborn resistance of all reactionary forces, including the Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, anarchists, and Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists, who fiercely fought against the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, disorganized the ranks of sailors, and helped implement the plans of the German military for the Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet. The book rightly notes that the organizing center of the struggle for Soviet power in the Crimea was Sevastopol, the base of the Black Sea Fleet. The author gives an idea of how the influence of the Bolsheviks grew in Sevastopol and among the sailors, but some questions are too straightforward and simplified. In some cases, the sailors ' consciousness is exaggerated, and the influence of compromising parties among them is underestimated. It seems to us that C's point of view is more correct. From Hesin, who writes about the dominance of the Social Revolutionaries in the Black Sea Fleet during the entire period of the revolution 1 . One can hardly agree with I. T. Sirchenko's categorical statement that in December 1917 "the Black Sea Fleet became a reliable support for the Bolshevik Party in the struggle for Soviet power in the south of the country" (p. 43), and that in February 1918 "the bulk of the Black Sea Fleet's sailors followed the Bolsheviks" (p. 61).. The fact that more than 2,500 armed sailors marched in Sevastopol in February 1918, undertaken in addition to the Soviet and the Bolshevik Committee, and accompanied by anarchic self-will (p.60), speaks for itself. The vacillation of a considerable part of the sailors, their individual anarchist antics, can be explained by their petty-bourgeois, peasant composition. This question, apparently, should have been considered in more detail.

The author should also pay more attention to the analysis of the position of the Sevastopol Soviet and the Sevastopol Bolshevik Committee in relation to the Brest Peace. The material cited by I. T. Sirchenko (p. 59) cannot serve as sufficient proof of their unconditional approval of the Brest Peace. It should be borne in mind that with the active participation of the Soviet and the committee of the Bolshevik Party in the city at the beginning of March 1918, although at the initiative of the left SRS, the Committee for the Defense of the Socialist Revolution, or "Council of Five", was created, which took the position of "revolutionary war" against imperialist Germany, and called for not recognizing the treaty concluded in Brest 2 . The" Council of Five " also included the Bolsheviks-Yu. P. Gaven, N. A. Pozharov 3 . The Sevastopol Soviet sent to the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets a left Socialist-Revolutionary, V. B. Spiro, with instructions to fight the Brest Peace by all means .4 Consequently, contrary to what the author writes, the Sevastopol Committee of the RCP(b) and the Sevastopol Soviet did not consistently adopt a Leninist position on this issue, which could not but affect the attitude of Black Sea sailors to the Brest Peace. The role of the Soviet Republic of Taurida in the struggle for the Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet in the spring of 1918 is also insufficiently revealed in the book.

The chapters devoted to the fate of the fleet are of the greatest interest. They deal with the events surrounding the Soviet government's attempt to save the fleet by evacuating it to Novorossiysk, when German troops invaded Crimea and rushed to Sevastopol to seize the Black Sea Fleet, as well as the events that took place in Novorossiysk, when the German government, threatening to resume hostilities, demanded the return of the fleet to Sevastopol captured by the Germans, and when Soviet ruler-

1 S. S. Khesin. The Navy votes for Lenin's policy. "History of the USSR", 1970, N 1.

2 On March 22, 1918, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Republic of Taurida issued a decree on the transformation of the" Council of Five "into the Supreme Military Revolutionary Headquarters (see"Struggle for Soviet Power in the Crimea". Documents and materials. Vol. 1. Simferopol. 1957, p. 229).

3" Izvestiya Sevastopolskogo Soveta voennykh, rabochikh i krestevskikh deputatsii", 7.III.1918.

4 TsGAOR USSR, f. 1235, op. 3, d. 32, l. 314; "News of the Sevastopol Council", 12. III. 1918.

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The government headed by V. I. Lenin, having no other choice, decided to sink the fleet 5 . The author describes in detail, day after day, the intense and dramatic struggle of patriotic sailors, led by the Bolsheviks, for the implementation of Lenin's directive. Nevertheless, it should be said more clearly that the Central Executive Committee of the Kuban - Cheriomorsk Republic, headed by A. Rubin, an opponent of the sinking of the fleet, ignored Lenin's directive for a long time. It was because of this that time was lost and the squadron commander, Captain 1st Rank Tikhmenev, managed to take the battleship Volya, the cruiser Trajan and six destroyers to Sevastopol and treacherously hand them over to the Germans (p.183-185).

In the book, unfortunately, there are many inaccuracies, stylistic errors and repetitions (p. 36, 49, 50, etc.). Tikhmenev is characterized by either weak-willed, then inflexible and firm in his decisions (p. 146, 163, 165, 166). The Central Election Commission of the Soviets of the Black Sea Province (Black Sea Republic) is for some reason named Novorossiysk Regional Central Executive Committee (p. 103). Pages 75-77 describe the struggle of the Soviets in Sevastopol among themselves, and it is difficult to understand which Council was old, which was new, and how many of them there were in general, what position the workers occupied and what they fought for. One can hardly agree with the author's statement that even in Sevastopol "the sailors were ready to destroy the ships" (p. 138). At that time, there was no need to destroy them, as it was possible to transfer them to Novorossiysk. In general, the book by I. T. Sirchenko fills a gap in our historiography to some extent, but it is not prepared for publication carefully enough. Its scientific apparatus is sparse, there are no references to archival sources, and many of the author's statements are sometimes not confirmed by specific factual material.

5 See V. I. Lenin. Military correspondence (1917-1920), Moscow, 1957, p. 36.

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