The confrontation between the communist regime and the fascist forces, and later the liberal world, has always caused and is causing even more heated discussions today. The years of Soviet rule were very ambiguous, especially in the first, pre-war period. The facts of mass executions, exiles, famine and a total atmosphere of fear of the authorities make part of the modern public categorically scold this very regime, forgetting
positive moments, exposing him in diabolical colors and justifying everyone who in any way declared their opposition. Even if it was a comfortable opposition from abroad or, even worse, cooperation with the Nazi regime. The clearest example of the last and one of the most controversial pages of the Great Patriotic War is the Lokot Republic, which existed for some time in the occupied territories.
Collaborator sanctuary or free zone?
The Lokot Republic arose in the fall of 1941 on the territory of the Oryol (and now Bryansk) region, at a time when the Red Army forces were forced to retreat from these lands under the onslaught of the Blitzkrieg. Literally the day before in the settlement of Lokot (the capital of the neoplasm)the armies of the Wehrmacht entered. These
territories even before the war were considered not the most loyal to the Soviet authorities: among the local population there was a significant number of former kulaks and other citizens who had reason to be dissatisfied with the government.
In general, in many of the occupied territories, the invaders found accomplices for themselves, from which the joys of the policemen were formed. However, the Lokot region stood out for its initiative. Since local self-government bodies had already formed here even before the arrival of the Nazis, and even testified to the latter their complete loy alty, the invaders preferred to leave such a formation as a small puppet state.
It should be noted that the Lokot Republic played an important role for the Third Reich in that it was actually an advertising sign for the conquered peoples. It served the same role as the posters that called to leave for work in Germany and promised all kinds of sweet life for renouncing resistance and cooperating with the leadership of the Reich.
Lokotsky district in the months of its heyday - from the autumn of 1941 to the summer of 1943 - numbered more than half a million people. The former active member of the CPSU (b) Konstantin Voskoboinik was elected burgomaster, who suddenly changed his
ideological views. Another pre-war Communist Party member, Bronisław Kaminsky, became his deputy. The latter, in the very first months of the existence of the puppet republic, took upthe creation of the famous RONA - the Russian National Liberation Army. She subsequently engaged in the fight against partisans who remained loyal to their country, as well as punitive raids against the local population suspected of collaborating with partisans and actions such as the forced selection of food, livestock and other useful things for the needs of the Wehrmacht.
During its almost two years of existence, the Lokot Republic was marked by daily executions of Jews and partisans, as well as clumsy attempts by its leadership to present itself as liberators and prophets of a new Russia, free from the "red plague". This territorial formation fell with its masters when, in August 1943, after Stalingrad and the Kursk salient, the Germans retreated to the west.
