This wall newspaper is part of a series of wall newspapers from the Kostiantynivka bottling plant, created in 1967. The series consisted of 13 excerpts dedicated to local participants in the fights against the White Guards after the First World War. Thirteen newspaper issues reveal the plant’s history, explain its name “13 Executed Workers Plant”, and call for the publication of photographs and memories related to the confrontation with the White Guards. The presented here example tells the story of the family of Bobylov Aleksandr Semenovych and Bobylova-Chumychkina Mariia Semenivna, who were participants in the revolutionary movement.
In 1918-1920, Kostiantynivka underwent numerous power changes, seized first by the White Guards and then by the Red Army. According to one of the legends, the White Guards forced the workers of the local bottle plant to decide: either they would hand over the Bolsheviks who were among them, or every tenth worker would be shot. The workers disobeyed the order to hand over their comrades — thirteen of them died. According to local historians, this legend results from later communist propaganda. Documents provide different information; however, one version says that in December 1918, a small group of communists in the city killed Colonel Zelenskyi, the head of the State Guard of the Ukrainian People’s Republic military. The “krasnovtsi” (supporters of the Almighty Don Host led by Petro Krasnov), at that time, allies of the UPR troops, responded to this provocation by carrying out a punitive action at the bottle factory. It ultimately led to the discrediting of the White Cossack movement.