On October 19, 1918, the Labor Commune of the Volga Germans was established in Soviet Russia. An important clarification is that at that time it was an autonomous region, not an autonomous Soviet socialist republic. However, it was this commune that became the basis of the future Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Volga Germans.
The decree was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR and covered parts of the Saratov and Samara provinces. Initially, the territory included three districts - Golo-Karamyshki, Ekaterinenshtadsky and Rovnensky. The administrative center was Saratov, but in the following years the administration was moved to Marxstadt, and in 1922 to Pokrovsk, today's city of Engels.
Autonomy with German language and institutions
The creation of the commune was part of the national policy of the Bolshevik government, which was building territorial autonomies for some of the peoples in the former Russian Empire. The decree stated that the native language of the Germans should be able to be used in schools, local administration, courts and public life.
In the 1920s, the German language was used in education, the press and administration. According to the German Federal Center for Political Education, in 1923–1924 the commune was transformed into the Volga Germans Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The Presidential Library of Russia indicates December 19, 1923 as the date of transformation, while other reference sources date the administrative formation to 1924.
The republic stretches along both banks of the lower Volga River, and its capital is Pokrovsk, renamed Engels in 1931. The 1926 census recorded 379,630 Germans, who made up 66.4% of the population. In 1939, the Germans numbered 366,685, or 60.5% of the republic's population.
The end came after the German attack
After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the German population in the USSR was placed under collective suspicion. On August 28, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on the resettlement of Germans from the Volga regions.
The document claimed that among the German population there were saboteurs and spies sent by Germany. The decree did not indicate individual guilt, but provided for the resettlement of the entire German population to Kazakhstan, Siberia and other remote areas. The US State Department described the decision as the transfer of the entire German community from the Volga region, with estimates of the number affected varying around 400,000 people.
On 7 September 1941, the republic was formally liquidated, and its territory was divided between the Saratov and Stalingrad regions. For the deportees, this meant the loss of their homes, land, and the local social system that had been built up over more than two decades. The autonomy of the Volga Germans was not restored.
Sources: bpb.de, prlib.ru, history.state.gov