1921 anti-Bolshevik revolt in Russia
The Kronstadt rebellion () was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors, naval infantry, and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. 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. For sixteen days in March 1921, rebels in Kronstadt's naval fortress rose in opposition to the Soviet government which they had helped to consolidate. Led by Stepan Petrichenko, it was the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule on Russian territory during the Russian Civil War.
Disappointed in the direction of the Bolshevik government, the rebels—whom Leon Trotsky himself had praised earlier as the "adornment and pride of the revolution"—demanded a series of reforms: reduction in Bolshevik power, newly elected "soviets" (councils) to include socialist and anarchist groups, economic freedom for peasants and workers, dissolution of the bureaucratic governmental organs created during the civil war, and the restoration of civil rights for the working class. Trotsky signed the order to crush the rebellion which outlined a series of operational measures including a warning to the sailors to stop the rebellion in advance of a Red Army assault. However, he did not personally participate in the military operations or repressions which were organized by Felix Dzerzhinsky.
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 the emigres. Although the council of officers advocated a more offensive strategy, the rebels maintained a passive attitude as they waited for the government to take the first step in negotiations. By contrast, the authorities took an uncompromising stance, presenting an ultimatum demanding unconditional surrender on March 5. Once this period expired, the Bolsheviks raided the island several times and suppressed the revolt on March 18 after shooting and imprisoning several thousand rebels.
Supporters saw the rebels as revolutionary martyrs while the authorities saw the rebels as "agents of the Entente and counter-revolution". The Bolshevik response to the revolt caused great controversy and was responsible for the disillusionment of several supporters of the Bolshevik regime, such as Emma Goldman. While the revolt was suppressed and the rebels' political demands were not met, it served to accelerate the implementation of the New Economic Policy, which replaced war communism. According to Lenin, the crisis was the most critical the Bolsheviks had yet faced, "undoubtedly more dangerous than Denikin, Yudenich, and Kolchak combined".
Background.
As the Russian Civil War wound down in late 1920, the Bolsheviks presided over a nation in ruin. 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 conditions—famine, disease, cold, and weariness—induced by the years of war and exacerbated by the Bolshevik policy of war communism. Peasants had started to resent government requisitions of grain, with seizures of their already meager harvest being coupled with cutbacks on bread rations and a fuel shortage.
Despite military victory and stabilized foreign relations, Russia faced a serious social and economic crisis. As foreign troops began to withdraw, Bolshevik leaders continued to sustain tight control of the economy through the policy of war communism. Discontent grew among the Russian populace, particularly the peasantry, who felt disadvantaged by government grain requisitioning ("prodrazvyorstka", the forced seizure of large portions of the peasants' grain crop used to feed urban dwellers). In resistance of these policies, peasants began refusing to till their farms. In February 1921, the Cheka reported 155 peasant uprisings across Russia. The workers in Petrograd were also involved in a series of strikes, caused by the reduction of bread rations by one third over a ten-day period. With this information and already stoked discontent, the revolt at the Kronstadt naval base began as a protest over the plight of the country. Agricultural and industrial production had been drastically reduced and the transport system was disorganized.
The arrival of winter and the maintenance of "war communism" and various deprivations by Bolshevik authorities led to increased tensions in the countryside (as in the Tambov Uprising) and in the cities, especially Moscow and Petrograd—where strikes and demonstrations took place—in early 1921. Due to the maintenance and reinforcement of "war communism", living conditions worsened even more after the fighting ended.
Preface.
Protests followed a January 1921 announcement in which the government reduced bread rations by one third for inhabitants of all cities. While this decision was forced, between heavy snow and fuel shortages preventing stored food transport in Siberia and the Caucasus, this justification did not prevent popular discontent. In mid-February, workers began to rally in Moscow; such demonstrations were preceded by workers' meetings in factories and workshops. The workers demanded the end of "war communism" and a return to free labor. The government's representatives could not alleviate the situation, and it quickly decided that the revolts could only be suppressed by armed troops.
When the situation seemed to calm down in Moscow, protests broke out in Petrograd, where about 60% of large factories closed in February due to lack of fuel and food supplies had virtually disappeared. As in Moscow, demonstrations and demands were preceded by meetings in factories and workshops. Faced with a shortage of government food rations and despite a ban on trade, workers organized expeditions to fetch supplies in rural areas near cities. They became unhappier when the authorities tried to stop this. In late February, a meeting at the small Trubochny factory decided to increase rations and immediately distribute winter clothes and shoes that were reportedly reserved for Bolsheviks. Workers called a protest the following day. The local Bolshevik-controlled soviet sent cadets to disperse the protesters. Grigori Zinoviev established a "Defense Committee" with special powers to end the protests; similar structures were created in the various districts of the city in the form of "troikas". The provincial Bolsheviks mobilized to deal with the crisis.
New demonstrations by Trubochny workers followed and this time spread throughout the city, in part because of rumors about the repression of the previous demonstration. Faced with growing protests, the local soviet closed factories with high concentrations of protesters, which further intensified the movement. The economic demands became political in nature, which was of great concern to the Bolsheviks. To definitively end the protests, the authorities flooded the city with Red Army troops, tried to close even more protest-affiliated factories, and proclaimed martial law. The Bolsheviks started a detention campaign, carried out by the Cheka, resulting in thousands of arrests: thousands of students and intellectuals, about 500 workers and union leaders, and a few anarchists, Socialist Revolutionaries, and key leaders of the Mensheviks. The authorities urged workers to return to work to prevent spillage of blood. They granted certain concessions: permission to go to the countryside to bring food to cities, relaxation of controls against speculation, permission to buy coal to alleviate fuel shortages, an end to grain confiscations, and increased rations for workers and soldiers, even at the expense of depleting scarce food reserves. Such measures convinced the workers of Petrograd to return to work at the start of March.
Bolshevik authoritarianism and the continued lack of freedom and reforms led to increased discontent among their own followers and reinforced the opposition. In their eagerness to secure their power, the Bolsheviks caused the growth of their own opposition. The centralism and bureaucracy of "war communism" added to the existing logistical difficulties. With the end of the civil war, opposition groups emerged within the Bolshevik party itself. One of the more left-wing, syndicalism-aligned opposition groups, the Workers' Opposition, aimed to take control of the party leadership. Another wing of the party, the Group of Democratic Centralism, advocated for the decentralization of power to the soviets.
Fleet composition.
Since 1917, anarchist sympathies held a strong influence on Kronstadt. The inhabitants of the island favored the local soviet autonomy won in the revolution, and considered central government interference undesirable and unnecessary. Displaying a radical support for the Soviets, Kronstadt had taken part in important revolutionary period events such as the July Days, October Revolution, the assassination of the Provisional Government ministers, the Constituent Assembly dissolution, and the civil war. More than forty thousand sailors from the Soviet Baltic Fleet participated in the fighting against the White Army between 1918 and 1920. Despite participating in major conflicts alongside the Bolsheviks and being among the most active troops in government service, sailors from the outset were wary of the possibility of centralization of power and bureaucratization.
The composition of the naval base, however, had changed during the civil war. While many of its former sailors had been sent to various other parts of the country during the conflict and had been replaced by Ukrainian peasants less favorable to the Bolshevik government, most of the sailors present in Kronstadt during the revolt—about three quarters—were veterans of 1917. At the beginning of 1921, the island had a population of about 50,000 civilians and 26,000 sailors and soldiers. 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. Until the revolt, the naval base still considered itself in favor of the Bolsheviks and several party affiliates. However, Rogovin found that only 1,650 members of the 26,687 Kronstadt sailors were members and candidate members of the Bolshevik party at the beginning of 1921.
The Baltic Fleet had been shrinking since the summer of 1917, when it had eight battleships, nine cruisers, more than fifty destroyers, about forty submarines, and hundreds of auxiliary vessels. In 1920, only two battleships, sixteen destroyers, six submarines, and a minesweeper fleet remained from the original fleet. Now unable to heat their ships, the sailors were further angered by the fuel shortage and there were fears that even more ships would be lost owing to flaws that made them especially vulnerable in winter. Island supply was also poor, partly due to the highly centralized control system. Many units had not yet received their new uniforms in 1919. Rations decreased in quantity and quality, and towards the end of 1920 the fleet suffered an outbreak of scurvy. Protests demanding improvements in soldier food rations went ignored and agitators were arrested.
The organization of the fleet had changed dramatically since 1917. The Tsentrobalt central committee took control after the October Revolution and progressively centralized its organization. This process accelerated in January 1919 with Trotsky's visit to Kronstadt following a disastrous naval attack on Tallinn. A government-appointed Revolutionary Military Committee now controlled the fleet and the naval committees were abolished. Attempts to form a new body of Bolshevik naval officers to replace the few tsarists still running the fleet failed. Fyodor Raskolnikov's appointment as commander in chief in June 1920, aimed at increasing the fleet's ability to act and ending tensions, resulted in failure and the sailors met it with hostility. Attempts at reform and increasing discipline led to a change in fleet personnel and produced great dissatisfaction among local party members. Attempts to centralize control displeased most local communists. Raskolnikov also clashed with Zinoviev, as both wished to control political activity in the fleet. 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. Raskolnikov tried to get rid of the strong opposition by expelling a quarter of the fleet's members at the end of October 1920, but failed.
Growing discontent and opposition.
By January 1921, Raskolnikov had lost real control of fleet management because of his disputes with Zinoviev and held his position only formally. The sailors revolted in Kronstadt, officially deposing Raskolnikov from office. On February 15, 1921, an opposition group within the Bolshevik party itself passed a critical resolution at a party conference with Bolshevik delegates from the Baltic Fleet. This resolution harshly criticized the fleet's administrative policy, accusing it of removing power from the masses and most active officials, and becoming a purely bureaucratic body. It demanded the democratization of party structures and warned that if there were no changes there could be a rebellion.
Troop morale was low, with sailors discouraged by inactivity, supply and ammunition shortages, the administrative crisis, and