braiding and ferrules, the latter in their czerkeskas. This Caucasian national dress was also worn by the Kuban Cossack Host but in different facing colors. Tall black fur hats were worn on all occasions with light blue cloth tops and (for officers) silver lace. A whip was used instead of spurs. Prior to 1908, individual cossacks from all Hosts were required to provide their own uniforms (together with horses, Caucasian saddles and harness). On active service during World War I the Terek Cossacks retained their distinctive dress but with a dark waistcoat replacing the conspicuous light blue one and without the silver ornaments or blue facings of full dress. A black felt cloak (bourki) was worn in bad weather both in peace-time and on active service. The Terk and Kuban Cossacks of the Imperial Escort (Konvoi) wore a special gala uniform; including a scarlet kaftan edged with gold braid and a white waistcoat. Soviet period The arrival of the February and later the October Revolution caught most Cossacks on the front lines in Kurdistan. The unrequited mountainous peoples took full advantage of the crises, Chechens and Ingush on the Sunzha line wiping out several Cossack stanitsas. In 1918, according to Peter Kenez, "The Bolsheviks were more successful in the nearby Terek. In November the Twelfth Red army defeated the Cossacks who fought independently of the Volunteer army." However, by January 1919, the defeat of the Eleventh Red Army foced the Twelfth to retreat from Terek towards Astrakhan. Yet, according to Kenez, "The Chechen and the Ingush were never subdued and their raids and risings made the Northern Caucasus a festering sore for the Volunteer Army." In 1920 many Terek Cossacks were deported to Ukraine and the northern part of European Russia and a new Mountain ASSR was formed. This left the former Sunzha-Terek Mesopotamia triangle split by the returned Chechen land stretching through the middle. The remaining portions were formed by the Sunzha Cossack Okrug which also encompassed lands around Grozny. However, the Sunzha's importance to the Vainakh peoples as their historical territorial heart ensured that the early communists, mindful of the claims of indigenous peoples, would return it in order to turn them from the Mensheviks toward the Bolsheviks (to balance out the anti-Bolshevik Cossacks). A deadlock formed in the Northern Caucasus. On one hand, the Cossacks were very adverse to Bolshevism, and the latter responded with a Decossackization