Decossackization (Russian: Расказачивание, "Raskazachivaniye") was the Bolshevik policy of systematic repressions against Cossacks of the Russian Empire, especially of the Don and the Kuban, between 1919 and 1933 aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a separate ethnic, political, and economic entity. This was the first example of Soviet leaders deciding to "eliminate, exterminate, and deport the population of a whole territory," which they had taken to calling the "Soviet Vendée" The decossackization is sometimes described as a genocide of the Cossacks, a process described by scholar Peter Holquist as part of a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups" that showed the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering".