This book is devoted to unknown aspects of the history of the formation of unique Ataman regimes during the Civil War in Russia. Contrary to all myths, the Red Army was not only "built," but also constantly collapsed in those troubled times. Cossack chieftains, who initially found themselves in the camp of the "Reds," raised popular riots, the peasant leaders of the Volga region and Ukraine declared their army "free Cossacks" and under the slogan: "Lands and wills!" smashed the "commune." On the pages of this book, the reader will meet glorious atamans, whom Soviet propaganda dubbed "demons": ataman Antonov, Zeleny, Grigoriev, Bulakh-Banakhovich, Rogov, Serov and many others. Yes, the Cossack spirit filled the old bellows and spilled on the ground not with wine, but with blood: the Cossack experiment on the construction of a "new yule" was sunk, lost, and its memory was destroyed for decades. But it's time to take a sober look at the events of those years and adequately appreciate the attempts of the freedom-loving Cossacks to resist the "red threat."