why did the kronstadt sailors rebel

Darkness and fog hid the shock troops from rebel searchlights, who were then able to overpower the rebels in the south of the city, but were then met by the other forts' machine guns and artillery. The first infantry assault by around 20,000 men on Kronstadt was repulsed with the loss of thousands of communist troops. Kronstadt sailors in Finland after escaping across the ice following the battle. Some of the men sang the socialist Internationale anthem as they headed toward the icy wastelands around Kronstadt. There are no reliable reports for rebel deaths, but one report estimated 600 dead, 1,000 wounded, and 2,500 imprisoned, though more were killed in vengeance as the battle subsided. "After the Gulf had swallowed its first victims," Paul Avrich records, "some of the Red soldiers began to defect to the insurgents. In addition to economic reform, they demanded soviets without Bolsheviks, the release of non-Bolshevik socialists from prison, the end of the Communist Partys dictatorship, and the establishment of political freedoms and civil rights. About 300 Communists were arrested and treated humanely in prison (in comparison, at least 780 Communists left the party in protest of the actions it was taking against Kronstadt and its general role in the revolution). The Russian-American, whose fading hopes for an anarchist utopia had been revived by the Kronstadt rebellion, wrote in his diary: "My heart is numb with despair; something has died within me. In their eagerness to secure their power, the Bolsheviks caused the growth of their own opposition. [21] The rebels did not expect attacks from the authorities nor did they launch attacks against the continentrejecting Kozlovsky's advice[112]nor did the island's communists denounce any kind of collusion by the rebels in the early moments of the revolt. Kronstadt had excellent defenses between this weaponry and the protection of vast distances of open ice. Poor weather hampered the use of the aircraft, and their bombing runs were largely ineffective. October Revolution - Causes, events, effects - BBC Wage labor remained unchanged. [164], The Kronstadt rebels also had their difficulties, lacking the ammunition, winter clothing, food reserves, and fuel to fend off a prolonged siege. [1] It clarified an authoritarian streak in the Bolshevik approach in which emergency Civil War-era measures never expired. By 1917 the town's industrial workforce had swelled to 17,000. [153] The ice around the base was not broken, the warships were not released and the defenses of Petrograd's entrances were not strengthened. Our unity is indestructible. [140] Bolshevik leaders thought that rebel ideals resembled the Russian populism. [115], The rebels' claim of a "third revolution" to uphold ideals of 1917 and limit the Bolshevik government's power risked undermining and dividing popular support for the Bolshevik party. In view of the fact that the present Soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, the pre-election campaign to have full. The rebellion took place in the first weeks of March, 1921 in Kronstadt, a naval fortress on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland that served as the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet and as a guardpost for the approaches to Petrograd, now Saint Petersburg 35 miles away. Convinced of the popularity of the reforms they were fighting for (which they partially tried to implement during the revolt), the Kronstadt seamen waited in vain for the support of the population in the rest of the country and rejected aid from emigrants. The February Revolution replaced the Tsar's rule with a Provisional Government, which dispatched the liberal Victor Pepeliaev to run Kronstadt. [119] Kadetes, Mensheviks, and revolutionary socialists maintained their differences and did not collaborate to support the rebellion. The Kronstadt rebellion was an unsuccessful uprising of Soviet sailors, led by Stepan Petrichenko, against the government of the early Russian SFSR. On March 5th, two days before the bombardment of Kronstadt had begun, anarchists led by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman offered themselves as intermediates to facilitate negotiations between the rebels and the government. According to Serge, the "defeated sailors belonged body and soul to the Revolution; they had voiced the suffering and the will of the Russian people" yet "[h]undreds of prisoners were taken away to Petrograd; months later they were still being shot in small batches, a senseless and criminal agony". This defused peasant discontent with War Communism[205] and freed the Bolsheviks to consolidate power. Finland asked Russia to remove the bodies on the ice, fearing a public health hazard after the thaw. Introduction if his book Kronstadt 1921: Soviet Russia in 1921 was not the Leviathan of recent decades. Tell Me Where You Stand On Kronstadt | Alasdair MacIntyre Sailors were politically aware and unhappy with what they thought was a dictatorship. [201] Dissidents were expelled from the party. The final northern forts fell by 1 a.m.[183], The larger southern group timed its assault to follow the northern group's lead by an hour. The revolt at the Kronstadt naval base began as a protest over the plight of the country. The Bolsheviks made premature, triumphalist statements of their imminent victory, but their forces had suffered hundreds of casualties and defections due to insufficient preparation, low morale, and the danger of their unprotected approach by ice. [192], There were no public trials. [126] No power agreed to provide military support to the rebels, and only France tried to facilitate the arrival of food on the island. He later joined pro-Soviet groups. [187] Trotsky and his commander-in-chief, Sergey Kamenev, had approved chemical warfare by gas shells and balloons against Kronstadt if the resistance continued. [123] The Mensheviks, for their part, were sympathetic to the rebel demands but not to the revolt itself. Why did the Kronstadt sailors rebel against the Bolsheviks in 1921 In the early evening, Oranienbaum artillery entered and ravaged the city. In this way, the Kronstadt rebels repeated the same fatal hesitation of the Paris Commune rebels 50 years prior. Kronstadt was (and is) a naval fortress on an island in the Gulf of Finland. To equalize the rations of all who work, with the exception of those employed in trades detrimental to health; To abolish the Bolshevik fighting detachments in all branches of the Army, as well as the Bolshevik guards kept on duty in mills and factories. The rebellion served notice to Lenin that the level of discontent . The workers demanded the end of "war communism" and a return to free labor. [213], Soviet international diplomacy concurrent with the rebellion, such as the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement and Treaty of Riga negotiations, continued unabated. Even as anti-Bolsheviks called on the Russian Red Cross's assistance, no help came to the island during the two-week rebellion. Communist fighters advance across the frozen Gulf of Finland toward the port city of Kronstadt in March 1921. Tukhachevsky had to rely on the cadets, Cheka and Bolshevik units to head the attack on the rebel island. This process accelerated in January 1919 with Trotsky's visit to Kronstadt following a disastrous naval attack on Tallinn. [114], Some of the government troops sent to suppress the revolt, upon learning that the island's rule by commissioners had been eliminated, instead defected to the rebellion. Bolshevik fighters, some dressed in white cloaks for camouflage, arrive on the outskirts of Kronstadt. There are no reliable figures for the rebels loses or how many were later shot by the Cheka or sent to prison camps. [39], Since 1917, anarchist sympathies held a strong influence on Kronstadt. They even attended the delegate assembly on March 2. The ship was in the hands of the rebels throughout the uprising. [15] Due to the maintenance and reinforcement of "war communism", living conditions worsened even more after the fighting ended. There was mounting evidence that Russian emigres were trying to assist the insurrection and to turn it to their own advantage. In a few weeks the ice in the Finnish Gulf would melt, and supplies and reinforcements could then be shipped in from the West, converting the fortress into a base for a new intervention. The naval fortress at Kronstadt had a long history of left-wing radicalism, rebellion, and sometimes shocking acts of vengeance. The October Revolution - Reasons for the success of the October - BBC [144] Disillusioned with the political parties, unions in the uprising advocated for free unions to give economic power back to workers. In the centre of the fortress an enormous public square served as a popular forum holding as many as 30,000 persons. [98] During the early hours of March 2, the town, fleet boats and island fortifications were already in the hands of the PRC, which met with no resistance. The Kronstadt sailors' 15-point manifesto (1921) - Alpha History The Kronstadt rebellion ( Russian: , romanized : Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. The Bolshevik repression of the revolt can be justified in terms of defending the state power of the Bolsheviks but it cannot be defended in terms of socialist theory. The Bolsheviks did not adopt worker council autonomy ("free soviets") and did not entertain direct, democratic soldier election of military officials. Later that evening, the northern cadets captured the Kronstadt headquarters, taking prisoners, and met the southern forces in the center of town. [196] Petrichenko, chair of the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee, remained respected among the Finnish refugees. [179] Most of the Bolshevik troops concentrated south of the island to attack from the south and east, while a smaller contingent of cadets gathered to the north. While the Bolsheviks prepared additional troops with less emotional investment (cadet regiments, Communist Youth, Cheka forces, and non-Russians), Zinoviev made concessions to the people of Petrograd to keep the peace. In 1920, only two battleships, sixteen destroyers, six submarines, and a minesweeper fleet remained from the original fleet. Possible evidence that Kronstadt was a foreign-backed uprising is a document titled Memorandum on the Question of Organizing an Uprising in Kronstadt, which includes information about the Kronstadt rebellion. Protests demanding improvements in soldier food rations went ignored and agitators were arrested. [11][12] With this information and already stoked discontent, the revolt at the Kronstadt naval base began as a protest over the plight of the country. After the revolt had been put down, the Bolshevik government reorganised the fortress. Kronstadt rebellion | Military Wiki | Fandom He saw it as a threat and sent 45,000 soldiers to eliminate the sailors. Nevertheless, by dramatically demonstrating popular dissatisfaction with the Communists policies, the rebellion forced the party to adopt the New Economic Policy (March 1921), which brought economic relief to Soviet Russia. In resistance of these policies, peasants began refusing to till their farms. [160] The hostage tactic also contributed to the failure of the sole attempt at mediation, as Kronstadt and Petrograd disagreed over the composition of a commission that could be sent to observe and mediate Kronstadt's conditions. The Red Guards and Kronstadt sailors gained control of key infrastructure in the city. Dawn of March 17 broke the fog and cover of night. Most island delegates sent to the continent were arrested. Bolshevik military commanders "discuss the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion." Their communist Red Army had defeated Pyotr Wrangel's anti-communist White Army, and was militarily equipped to suppress outstanding peasant insurrections, but faced mass disillusionment from unbearable living conditionsfamine, disease, cold, and wearinessinduced by the years of war and exacerbated by Bolshevik war communism policies. Again, the Bolsheviks had to force their troops to fight. This was ignored by the Bolsheviks. Alongside the Russian workers' attempts to create socialism -- not as some abstract far-off utopia. [129], The rebels justified the uprising as an attack on Bolshevik "commissiocracy". There were 6 main reasons why the Kronstadt Mutiny happened: War Communism was causing terrible suffering. It had been the main base of the Baltic Fleet since the evacuation of Tallinn and Helsinki after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. [49][50] Now unable to heat their ships, the sailors were further angered [50] by the fuel shortage[51] and there were fears that even more ships would be lost owing to flaws that made them especially vulnerable in winter. The captain ordered that the ringleaders to be shot. [9] As foreign troops began to withdraw, Bolshevik leaders continued to sustain tight control of the economy through the policy of war communism. A century ago, Lenin's communists turned their guns on rebelling sailors once hailed as the "pride and glory" of the Bolshevik Revolution. All across Russia popular protests were erupting in the countryside and in the towns and cities. Scores of Red Army soldiers drowned as the ice beneath them was blown out by explosions. Ida Mett's history of the Kronstadt uprising highlights one of the most important yet neglected events of the Russian Revolution. [38] Another wing of the party, the Group of Democratic Centralism, advocated for the decentralization of power to the soviets. During the revolt, Kronstadt started to re-organise itself from the bottom up. By the afternoon, the Bolsheviks had taken several forts and the cadets had reached Kronstadt's northeast wall. A Kronstadt sailor is questioned by Bolsheviks after the crushing of the rebellion. Traditionally, it has served as the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet and to guard the approaches to the city of St. Petersburg (which during the first world war was re-named Petrograd, then later Leningrad, and is now St. Petersburg again) thirty-five miles away. [217][218][219][220] The Kronstadt events are idealized in early Soviet period historiography as an example of "legitimate" popular expression. The sailors decided to support the protesters of the capital[71] by passing a resolution with fifteen demands that would be sent to the government. [32] There was a hurry to gain control of the fortress before the thawing of the frozen bay, which would have made it impregnable for the land army. Kronstadt Uprising - Seventeen Moments in Soviet History At this meeting it was decided to send another delegation to Petrograd to explain to the strikers and the city garrison of the demands of Kronstadt and to request that non-partisan delegates be sent by the Petrograd workers to Kronstadt to learn first-hand what was happening there. Why are the soldiers at Kronstadt referred to as the reddest of the red [175], On March 16, as Kronstadt accepted a proposal for Russian Red Cross emergency food and medicine, Tukhachevsky's reinforced army of 50,000 prepared to take the island and its 15,000 rebels. [45], Troop morale was low, with sailors discouraged by inactivity, supply and ammunition shortages, the administrative crisis, and the impossibility of leaving the service. With speeches emphasizing land collectivization, freedom, popular will and participation, and the defense of a decentralized state, the rebels' ideas were comparable with anarchism. 9 Credits. [118], The various groups of emigres and government opponents were too divided to make a joint-effort for the rebels. [152], Despite this setback,[152] the rebels continued their passive stance and rejected the advice of the "military experts"a euphemism used to designate the tsarist officers employed by the Soviets under the surveillance of the commissarsto attack various points of the continent rather than staying on the island. Why is Kronstadt important? But the communists regrouped and rounded up hard-line fighters for another, massive invasion force. Red Army commander and prominent officers of the final attack, clockwise from top left: Kronstadt Rebellion, Kronstdter Aufstand In: Dictionary of Marxism, left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks, Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks, http://www.inkrit.de/e_inkritpedia/e_maincode/doku.php?id=k:kronstaedter_aufstand, "Leon Trotsky: Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt (1938)", "The Baltic Fleet and the Kronstadt Mutiny", "The Truth about Kronstadt: A Translation and Discussion of the Authors", "The Crisis of War Communism: Kronstadt and NEP", A Kramer, "Kronstadt: Trotsky Was Right! Located on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, Kronstadt defended the former capital city, Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), as the base of the Baltic Fleet. What was the Kronstadt Rebellion? In the afternoon, Bolshevik aircraft began bombarding the island, but to little effect. [188], Faced with the prospect of summary executions, about 8,000 Kronstadt refugees (mostly soldiers)[189] crossed into Finland within a day of Kronstadt's fall, about half of the rebel forces. While happy to negotiate and compromise with foreign governments, they treated the workers and peasants of Kronstadt (and the rest of Russia) as the class enemy! The saga of Kronstadt is a microcosm of the Russian Revolution. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Only two Bolshevik officials voted against the resolution. [90] Three of them, the president of the local soviet and the commissars of the Kuzmin fleet and the Kronstadt platoon, were arrested by the rebels. [117] The Bolsheviks tried to present themselves as the sole legitimate defenders of working class interests. [89] The leading Bolshevik representatives tried to dissuade the delegates through threats, but were unsuccessful. [55] Zinoviev attempted to present himself as a defender of the old Soviet democracy and accused Trotsky and his commissioners of being responsible for introducing centralized overreach into the organization of the fleet. The Russian Civil War had ended in Western Russia in November 1920 with the defeat of General Wrangel in the Crimea. The Kronstadt Rebellion in the Early Soviet Union - Brewminate The myth of Kronstadt is that it was an anarchist uprising of soldiers, sailors and workers of the Kronstadt Soviet. Peasant uprisings were occurring against the Communist Party policy of grain requisitioning. Towards the end of the revolt Trotsky sanctioned the use of chemical warfare against the rebels and if they had not been crushed, a gas attack would have been carried out. [28] The provincial Bolsheviks mobilized to deal with the crisis. 'Shot Like Partridges': The Crushing Of The Kronstadt Uprising. When we returned home, our parents asked us why we fought for the oppressors. [162], Kronstadt, meanwhile, reinforced its defenses with 2,000 civilian recruits atop the 13,000-man garrison. [125] Wrangel, whom the French continued to supply, promised his Constantinople troops to Kozlovsky and began an unsuccessful campaign to gain the support of the powers. an appointed three man committee). Kronstadt Uprising - Spartacus Educational [101] None of the rebel-held Bolsheviks suffered abuse, torture or executions. Corrections? New Material from Soviet Archives Confirms the Bolsheviks' Position", "Kronstadt 1921 Bolshevism vs. Counterrevolution", The Kronstadt Uprising: A View from within the Revolt, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kronstadt_rebellion&oldid=1161797993, Around 1,000 killed in battle and 1,2002,168 executed. They sent a manifesto to Lenin on what they wanted changed. Bibliography General Anarchist/Libertarian Socialist Leninist March 17 th 2006 marked the 85 th anniversary of the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Bolsheviks. The Sailors were pheasants perhaps tricked or led on by Counter-Revolutionaries. Finland wanted the refugees to settle in other countries while Bolsheviks sought their repatriation, promising amnesty. Kronstadt, they feared, might ignite the Russian mainland or become the springboard for another anti-Soviet invasion. The sailors, located at the Kronshtadt fortress in the Gulf of Finland overlooking Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), had supported the Bolsheviks in 1917; their cooperation had been crucial to the success of the October Revolution. A mass meeting called a "Conference of Delegates" for March 2nd. That would open the island fortress to resupply by sea and make the anti-communist stronghold virtually impossible to capture. One sailor recalled that "for years the happenings at home while we were at the front or at sea were concealed by the Bolshevik censorship. The sailors had discovered the country's grave situation after months or years of fighting for the government, which triggered a strong sense of disillusionment. [53] A government-appointed Revolutionary Military Committee now controlled the fleet and the naval committees were abolished. Kronstadt 1921: the end of the Bolshevik Myth The Petrograd workers were under martial law and could take little or no action to support Kronstadt (assuming they refused to believe the Bolshevik lies about the uprising). One group breached the city walls north of the gate, followed by another group's march through the gate itself. [77], The following day, March 1, about fifteen thousand people [78] attended a large assembly convened by the local soviet[79] in Anchor Square. Others defected or refused to advance. Power in Practice: Kronstadt and the Spanish Revolution - Write To Rebel To you, brothers of the revolution in Petrograd and in all Russia, we extend our hand, we, sailors, soldiers, and workers of Kronstadt. [191], Dybenko, a Bolshevik officer in the Kronstadt assault, was given full power to purge dissent as the Kronstadt Fort's new commander. "[200], Lenin announced two conclusions from Kronstadt: political rank closure within the party, and economic ingratiation for the peasantry. [151] During the early morning hours, an armored cadet and three light artillery batteries arrived in Petrograd, surrounded the barracks of the rebel unit, and arrested the insurgents. In place of the Kronstadt Soviet, a troika of Kronstadt's former Bolshevik Party leaders assisted him. Kronstadt's newspaper was renamed. On February 26th 1921, in response to these events in Petrograd, the crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol held an emergency meeting and agreed to send a delegation to the city to investigate and report back on the ongoing strike movement. Russian sailors at Petrograd (which had been St. Petersburg) were among the first of their countrymen to become revolutionaries, when they set up their own soviet in 1905. Of the four Bolsheviks who led the suppression of Kronstadt, three were later executed during Stalin's "purges." Once the Bolshevik forces finally entered the city of Kronstadt "the attacking troops took revenge for their fallen comrades in an orgy of bloodletting." [198], The Kronstadt rebellion was the last major Russian buntarstvothe rural, traditional, spontaneous, preindustrial uprisings. On their turn two days later, the delegates informed their fellow sailors of the strikes (with which they had full sympathy with) and the government repression directed against them. [150] The commissioner of Oranienbaum, aware of the facts and fearing the upheaval of his other units, requested Zinoviev's urgent help, armed the local party members, and increased their rations to secure their loyalty. The Kronstadt rebellion (Russian: , Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a major unsuccessful uprising against the Bolsheviks in March 1921, during the later years of the Russian Civil War.Led by Stepan Petrichenko and consisting of Russian sailors, soldiers, and civilians, the rebellion was one of the reasons for Vladimir Lenin's and the Communist Party . [29] Faced with growing protests, the local soviet closed factories with high concentrations of protesters, which further intensified the movement. [212] The greater threat to Bolsheviks was a wider revolt[210] and the rebels' only potential for success, as went the unheeded advice of the rebels' military specialists, was in an immediate mainland offensive before the government could respond. and more. Kronstadt Rebellion Flashcards | Quizlet The figures that exist are fragmentary. The Kronstadt rebellion was an anti-Bolshevik uprising carried out by soldiers and sailors on the island fortress of Kronstadt, a few . [177] White Colonel Georg Elfvengren would confirm in a April 1921 report that there had indeed been white agents based in Petrograd plotting a coup of the Soviet government in February and March of 1921, but he also reported that the Kronstadt revolt was "not the actions of the [white] organizations" and that the revolt "occurred spontaneously against [the whites'] wishes. [163] The base also had eight docked warships, amid other gunboats and tugboats, all rendered inaccessible by ice. Many units had not yet received their new uniforms in 1919. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like How many anti-communist fighters fought in the 1921 Tambov rebellion?, What were the Tambov rebels rebelling?, Why did the Kronstadt sailors rebel? 5. [184] Liberated Bolshevik prisoners joined the assault. The few troops who reached the island were forced to withdraw. [131] According to the rebels, a "third revolution" should restore power to the freely elected Soviet councils, eliminate union bureaucracy, and begin the implantation of a new socialism that would serve as an example for the whole world. [17] While this decision was forced, between heavy snow and fuel shortages preventing stored food transport in Siberia and the Caucasus,[16] this justification did not prevent popular discontent. ", On the evening of March 7, author and radical "communist anarchist" Alexander Berkman was walking along Petrograd's main street when he heard the distant boom of artillery. [210] Petrichenko, chair of the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee, shared this retrospective criticism. The rebels responded that their prisoners had full liberties and would not be released while Petrograd held families hostage. In contrast, the Bolshevik authorities executed forty-five sailors in Oranienbaum and took relatives of the rebels hostage. This delegation of thirty members was arrested by the Bolshevik government. [52] Island supply was also poor,[51] partly due to the highly centralized control system. [95] The committee enlarged to 15 members two days later. Families of many of the sailors were then rounded up as hostages. [114] Many of the local members of the Bolshevik party did not see in the rebels and their demands the supposedly counterrevolutionary character denounced by the Moscow leaders.

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