The article deals with some episodes of the struggle against political banditry in 1920-1921 in the Kalmyk Autonomous Region. The study was conducted on archival and published materials of Kalmykia and neighboring territories: Astrakhan region, Volgograd region and Stavropol region. The peculiarity of this region was that it did not unite anti-Soviet forces like in Ukraine, in the Tambov province or in Western Siberia. However, archival documents show that the intensity of discontent, turning into armed speeches, was no less acute. In addition, there were attempts to "export" organized anti-Soviet struggle from the outside, from the leadership of the Makhno-movement in Ukraine, by sending the "Caucasian Rebel army" led by G. S. Maslakov. Fighting with her took place on the territory of Kalmykia during the spring-summer of 1921. Initially, success was accompanied by Maslakov. The "Rebel army" managed to take control of a part of the Kalmyk autonomous region, including Elista, where Maslakov’s fighters carried out a massacre of Communists and responsible Soviet workers. It was only after the approach of significant reinforcements that the situation was reversed. The "Rebel army" was defeated, Maslakov was killed. In addition to the militarized, well-organized units that fought with the Soviet government, in the territory of Kalmykia in 1920-1924, there were at least 15 large criminal gangs of up to 50 people. And robbing on the territory of the Kalmyk autonomous region, the bandits, taking advantage of the inconsistency of actions on the part of the authorities, hid in the territories of the neighboring provinces. Also there were small criminal groups of 5-10 people in all the uluses. The main burden of the fight against the "Rebel army", as well as with the another the anti-Soviet units, due to the unreliability of the Red Army units, fell on the special forces, formed from the Communists and members of the Komsomol. But the decisive factor that reversed the situation in favor of the Soviet government in 1921 was the transition to a new economic policy, declared at the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party-Bolshevics (RCP-B), canceling the surplus, forced labor mobilization and allowing free trade. It was the introduction of new economic police and the actual rejection of the policy of "war communism" that changed the course of the struggle in favor of Soviet power.
