The governing body of the territorial-political entity that existed on the territory of the former Black Sea governorate of the Russian Empire.

 

It was formed on December 1, 1919, at the congress of representatives of the Greens peasant detachments of the Black Sea governorate (Sochi, Tuapse, Novorossiysk districts). The congress was held in the neutral zone established between the positions of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) and the army of the Democratic Republic of Georgia during the Sochi conflict. The congress elected a former member of the Committee of the Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), Socialist Revolutionary (SR) Vasily Filippovsky as Chairman of the Committee, and SR Nikolay Voronovich as his deputy and commander of the Black Sea peasant units. The declaration of the congress set the goal of the movement: the formation of the Black Sea Democratic Republic, the establishment of a federal link with other democratic state formations, and the organization of the Russian Federal Republic “as a free union of free peoples”.

 

The Congress authorized the Committee to exercise full power in the Black Sea governorate, to push the Whites out of its borders, to appeal to the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian SFSR and to the Bolshevik Party with a proposal to abandon the party dictatorship and to form a coalition socialist government. The Greens units of the Committee were supported by the Democratic Republic of Georgia, whose government was interested in preserving a buffer state.

 

At the beginning of 1920, the peasant troops liberated the Sochi region from the AFSR forces, whereby in the middle of February the Committee got a foothold for organizing the peasant state. On February 26, the Committee declared the autonomy and independence of the Black Sea governorate and appealed to the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian SFSR with a demand that the units of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army should not cross its borders. The Committee created its own financial system, a department of finance, commerce and industry, carried out the issue of banknotes. A peasant congress became the highest authority in the territory under its control. On March 7 in Tuapse, the Bolsheviks decided to create a Red Army of the Black Sea Region from the part of the peasant units and on March 8 reached an agreement with the Committee, under which the latter took civil power in the region and restored the Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

 

In early April, the Sochi district was occupied by White troops. The Committee’s detachments from the coastal strip retreated into the mountains. On April 29, the 34th Division of the Red Army drove the Whites out of Sochi. Soviet power was established in the city, and then throughout the Black Sea governorate. In mid-May the Committee left their headquarters in the mountain village of Mige, expecting that the Soviet command would leave the Sochi district in their hands and would allow them to continue the formation of the militia and self-government bodies. A few days later, Vasily Filippovsky was arrested. In the Sochi district, Committee activists and supporters were repressed. Committee members who fled to the mountains began to form insurgent bands again and fought the Bolsheviks for several months. In October 1920, a peasant congress in the mountains decided to end the guerrilla war.