The main causes and conditions of corruption include: Corruption in Russia: the fault of the authorities or a national peculiarity
The Kronstadt mutiny March 1-18, 1921 - a speech by sailors of the Kronstadt garrison against the Bolshevik government.
The Kronstadt sailors enthusiastically supported the Bolsheviks in 1917, but in March 1921 they rebelled against an order they considered a communist dictatorship.
The Kronstadt uprising was brutally suppressed by Lenin, but it led to a partial re-evaluation of plans for economic development in a more progressive direction: in 1921, Lenin developed the principles of the New Economic Policy (NEP).
...Youth took us on a saber campaign, Youth threw us onto the Kronstadt ice...
In the relatively recent past, the poem, the lines from which are given above, was included in the compulsory curriculum for Russian literature in high school. Even making allowances for revolutionary romance, it must be admitted that the poet is clearly exaggerating regarding the fatal role of “youth.” Those who “threw people onto the Kronstadt ice” had very specific names and positions. However, first things first.
Opening access to archival documents kept under seven seals makes it possible for us to answer questions in a new way about the cause of the Kronstadt rebellion, its goals and consequences.
Prerequisites. Reasons for the rebellion
By the beginning of the 1920s, the internal situation of the Soviet state remained extremely difficult. The shortage of workers, agricultural implements, seed funds and, most importantly, the surplus appropriation policy had extremely negative consequences. Compared to 1916, sown areas were reduced by 25%, and the gross harvest of agricultural products decreased by 40–45% compared to 1913. All this became one of the main reasons for the famine in 1921, which struck about 20% of the population.
The situation in industry was no less difficult, where the decline in production resulted in the closure of factories and mass unemployment. The situation was especially difficult in large industrial centers, primarily in Moscow and Petrograd. In just one day, February 11, 1921, 93 Petrograd enterprises were announced to be closed until March 1, among them such giants as the Putilov Plant, the Sestroretsk Arms Plant, and the Triangle rubber factory. About 27 thousand people were thrown onto the street. At the same time, bread distribution standards were reduced and some types of food rations were abolished. The threat of famine was approaching the cities. The fuel crisis has worsened.
The rebellion in Kronstadt was far from the only one. Armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks swept across Western Siberia, Tambov, Voronezh and Saratov provinces, the North Caucasus, Belarus, the Altai Mountains, Central Asia, the Don, and Ukraine. All of them were suppressed by force of arms.
"Petropavlovsk" and "Sevastopol" 1921
The unrest in Petrograd and protests in other cities and regions of the state could not go unnoticed by the sailors, soldiers and workers of Kronstadt. 1917, October - Kronstadt sailors acted as the main force of the coup. Now those in power were taking measures to ensure that a wave of discontent did not engulf the fortress, in which there were about 27 thousand armed sailors and soldiers. An extensive intelligence service was created in the garrison. By the end of February, the total number of informants reached 176 people. Based on their denunciations, 2,554 people were suspected of counter-revolutionary activities.
But this could not prevent an explosion of discontent. On February 28, the sailors of the battleships “Petropavlovsk” (after the suppression of the Kronstadt mutiny, renamed “Marat”) and “Sevastopol” (renamed “Paris Commune”) adopted a resolution, in the text of which the sailors outlined their goal as establishing truly popular power, and not a party dictatorship . A resolution calling on the government to respect the rights and freedoms that were proclaimed in October 1917. The resolution was approved by the majority of the crews of other ships. On March 1, a rally took place on one of the Kronstadt squares, which the command of the Kronstadt naval base tried to use to change the mood of the sailors and soldiers. Chairman of the Kronstadt Council D. Vasiliev, Commissioner of the Baltic Fleet N. Kuzmin and head of the Soviet government M. Kalinin rose to the podium. But those present overwhelmingly supported the resolution of the sailors of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol.
The beginning of the uprising
Lacking the required number of loyal troops, the authorities did not dare to act aggressively at that time. Kalinin left for Petrograd to begin preparations for repression. At that time, a meeting of delegates from various military units by a majority vote expressed no confidence in Kuzmin and Vasiliev. To maintain order in Kronstadt, a Provisional Revolutionary Committee (PRC) was created. Power in the city passed into his hands without firing a shot.
Members of the Military Revolutionary Committee sincerely believed in the support of their workers in Petrograd and the whole country. Meanwhile, the attitude of the workers of Petrograd to the events in Kronstadt was far from unambiguous. Some of them, under the influence of false information, negatively perceived the actions of the Kronstadters. To a certain extent, the rumors did their job that the “rebels” were headed by a tsarist general, and the sailors were just puppets in the hands of the White Guard counter-revolution. The fear of “purges” by the Cheka also played an important role. There were also many who sympathized with the uprising and called for support for it. This kind of sentiment was characteristic primarily of the workers of the Baltic shipbuilding, cable, pipe factories and other city enterprises. However, the largest group was made up of those indifferent to the Kronstadt events.
Who did not remain indifferent to the unrest was the leadership of the Bolsheviks. A delegation of Kronstadters, who arrived in Petrograd to explain the demands of the sailors, soldiers and workers of the fortress, was arrested. On March 2, the Council of Labor and Defense declared the uprising a “rebellion” organized by French counterintelligence and the former tsarist general Kozlovsky, and the resolution adopted by the Kronstadters was declared “Black Hundred-SR.” Lenin and company were quite effectively able to use the anti-monarchist sentiments of the masses to discredit the rebels. To prevent possible solidarity of the Petrograd workers with the Kronstadters, on March 3 a state of siege was introduced in Petrograd and the Petrograd province. In addition, repressions followed against the relatives of the “rebels”, who were taken as hostages.
Bolsheviks attack Kronstadt
Progress of the uprising
In Kronstad they insisted on open and transparent negotiations with the authorities, but the latter’s position from the very beginning of the events was clear: no negotiations or compromises, the rebels must be punished. Parliamentarians sent by the rebels were arrested. On March 4, Kronstadt was presented with an ultimatum. The Military Revolutionary Committee rejected him and decided to defend himself. For help in organizing the defense of the fortress, they turned to military specialists - headquarters officers. They suggested that, without expecting an assault on the fortress, they themselves should go on the offensive. In order to expand the base of the uprising, they considered it necessary to capture Oranienbaum and Sestroretsk. But the proposal to speak first was resolutely rejected by the Military Revolutionary Committee.
Meanwhile, those in power were actively preparing to suppress the “rebellion.” First of all, Kronstadt was isolated from the outside world. 300 delegates of the Congress began to prepare for a punitive campaign on the rebellious island. In order not to walk across the ice alone, they set about rebuilding the recently disbanded 7th Army under the command of M. Tukhachevsky, who was ordered to prepare an operational plan for the assault and “suppress the rebellion in Kronstadt as soon as possible.” The assault on the fortress was scheduled for March 8. The date was not chosen by chance. It was on this day that, after several postponements, the X Congress of the RCP (b) was supposed to open. Lenin understood the need for reforms, including replacing surplus appropriation with a tax in kind and allowing trade. On the eve of the congress, relevant documents were prepared in order to submit them for discussion.
Meanwhile, these very issues were among the main ones in the demands of the Kronstadters. Thus, the prospect of a peaceful resolution of the conflict could arise, which was not part of the plans of the Bolshevik elite. They needed demonstrative reprisals against those who had the audacity to openly oppose their power, so that others would be discouraged. That is why, precisely on the opening day of the congress, when Lenin was supposed to announce a turn in economic policy, it was planned to deal a merciless blow to Kronstadt. Many historians believe that from this time the Communist Party began its tragic path to dictatorship through mass repression.
Shelling of the Kronstadt forts
First assault
It was not possible to take the fortress right away. Suffering heavy losses, the punitive troops retreated to their original lines. One of the reasons for this was the mood of the Red Army soldiers, some of whom showed open disobedience and even supported the rebels. With great effort, it was possible to force even a detachment of Petrograd cadets, considered one of the most combat-ready units, to advance.
Unrest in military units created the danger of the uprising spreading to the entire Baltic Fleet. Therefore, it was decided to send “unreliable” sailors to serve in other fleets. For example, in one week, six trains with sailors from the Baltic crews were sent to the Black Sea, who, in the opinion of the command, were an “undesirable element.” To prevent a possible mutiny among sailors along the route, the Red government strengthened the security of railways and stations.
The last assault. Emigration
In order to increase discipline among the troops, the Bolsheviks used the usual methods: selective executions, barrage detachments and accompanying artillery fire. The second assault began on the night of March 16. This time the punitive units were better prepared. The attackers were dressed in winter camouflage, and they were able to covertly approach the rebel positions across the ice. There was no artillery bombardment; it was more trouble than it was worth; ice holes formed that did not freeze, but were only covered with a thin crust of ice, which was immediately covered with snow. So the attack took place in silence. The attackers covered the 10-kilometer distance by the pre-dawn hour, after which their presence was discovered. A battle began that lasted almost a day.
1921, March 18 - the headquarters of the rebels decided to destroy the battleships (along with the captured communists who were in the holds) and break through the ice of the bay to Finland. They gave the order to plant several pounds of explosives under the gun turrets, but this order caused outrage (because the leaders of the rebellion had already moved to Finland). On the Sevastopol, the “old” sailors disarmed and arrested the rebels, after which they released the communists from the holds and radioed that Soviet power had been restored on the ship. After some time, after the start of the artillery shelling, Petropavlovsk (which had already been abandoned by the majority of the rebels) also surrendered.
Forts of Kronstadt 1855
Results and consequences
On the morning of March 18, the fortress fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. The exact number of victims among those who stormed is unknown to this day. The only guide can be the data contained in the book “The Classification of Secrecy Has Been Removed: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Combat Actions and Military Conflicts.” According to them, 1912 people were killed and 1208 people were wounded. There is no reliable information about the number of casualties among the defenders of Kronstadt. Many who died on the Baltic ice were not even buried. With the melting of the ice, there is a danger of contamination of the waters of the Gulf of Finland. At the end of March in Sestroretsk, at a meeting of representatives of Finland and Soviet Russia, the issue of cleaning up the corpses remaining in the Gulf of Finland after the battles was decided.
Several dozen open trials were held of those who took part in the “rebellion.” The testimony of witnesses was falsified, and the witnesses themselves were often selected from among former criminals. Performers of the roles of Socialist Revolutionary instigators and “entente spies” were also discovered. The executioners were upset because of the failure to capture the former general Kozlovsky, who was supposed to provide a “White Guard trace” in the uprising.
Noteworthy is the fact that the guilt of the majority of those in the dock was their presence in Kronstadt during the uprising. This is explained by the fact that the “rebels” who were captured with weapons in their hands were shot on the spot. With particular predilection, the punitive authorities pursued those who left the RCP(b) during the Kronstadt events. The sailors of the battleships Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk were dealt with extremely cruelly. The number of executed crew members of these ships exceeded 200 people. In total, 2,103 people were sentenced to capital punishment, and 6,459 people were sentenced to various terms of punishment.
There were so many convicts that the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) had to take up the issue of creating new concentration camps. In addition, in the spring of 1922, the mass eviction of Kronstadt residents began. A total of 2,514 people were expelled, of which 1,963 were “crown rebels” and members of their families, while 388 people were not associated with the fortress.
On March 18, 1921, the Kronstadt mutiny was pacified - a revolt of sailors that could inflame Russia for a new struggle. The sailors wanted a “third” revolution, free trade and a better life without communists.
Reasons for the rebellion
Why did the sailors rebel? Did they lack bread? No, the sailors' ration was twice as much as that of St. Petersburg workers; they received 1.5 - 2 pounds of bread per day (1 pound = 400 g), a quarter of a pound of meat, a quarter of a pound of fish, a quarter of cereals, 60 - 80 gr. Sahara. For comparison: workers for the hardest work received 225 grams per day. bread, 7 gr. meat or fish and 10 gr. Sahara. The cause of the uprising, therefore, was not hunger, but the disagreement of the sailors (most of whom were peasants) with the policy of war communism, which implied expropriation and a ban on free trade.
Bolshevik reaction
The reaction of the Bolsheviks was not long in coming. A state of siege was introduced in Petrograd. An ultimatum was sent to the rebels; those who decided to surrender were promised to save their lives. After the ultimatum was presented to the city, airplanes began scattering leaflets with the lapidary text “Surrender! Otherwise you will be shot like partridges. Trotsky.” Such persuasion, of course, did not help change the rebels’ decision, but the propaganda machine worked with no less intensity; the newspaper “Red Baltic Fleet” reported on the past of the members of the “revolutionary committee”, their social origin, occupation, and property status before the rebellion.
Confusion
The first shots fired at Kronstadt caused mixed reviews among various segments of the population. Thus, at a meeting, the communists of the 2nd district committee of the mine and artillery unit of the Kronstadt port stated that they considered such “an act a crime against the people, the government called the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, which had lost the trust of workers and peasants and sought to retain it at the bayonets of deceived communist detachments and cadets,” so they decided to leave the Communist Party. The resolution of the communist meeting was signed by 15 people. The order to attack was received ambiguously in parts of the Red Army. The 561st Regiment refused to go on the offensive. The commander of the 561st regiment took “repressive measures against his Red Army soldiers in order to further force them to go on the offensive.” Simply put, he shot those retreating.
Tukhachevsky
The pacification of the Kronstadt uprising became Tukhachevsky’s “finest hour.” He led the 7th Army. He acted decisively and very cruelly; after the Polish failure, he could not show any weakness. The orders were ultimatum: “Carry out the attack quickly and boldly, preparing it with hurricane artillery fire.” It was here that Tukhachevsky first came up with the idea of using poisonous gases to destroy the enemy. He ordered the shelling of the fortress and battleships with chemical shells. Only unsuitable weather conditions (fog) and the proximity of the Finnish border stopped the army commander. Tukhachevsky gained not only glory from the suppression of Kronstadt, but also the wife of Baltic Fleet Commissioner Nikolai Kuzmin, who became his mistress.
Fed from the spear of revolution
The suppression of the Kronstadt uprising went down in history as one of the bloodiest operations of the Red Army. The first assault on the fortress did not bring success; the frontal attack was “choked” by machine-gun and artillery fire. The defenders of Kronstadt showed that they were ready to stand to the end; they were united and well organized. It is interesting that Lenin was absolutely confident in the imminent victory over the rebels and deliberately underestimated his role. In an interview with an American journalist given in March 1921, he emphatically stated that “the uprising in Kronstadt is really a completely insignificant incident.” But that was not the case. The final assault on March 17-18 was a real bloodbath, dozens of Red Army soldiers fell through the ice, which was red with blood. It was impossible to retreat; the soldiers understood this perfectly well. Reiter's brigade, which was the first to break into the fortress, was thinned by a third. The Nevelskaya regiment, having lost one of the battalions, was saved at the cost of the death of cadets of the brigade school. When the defenders were driven out of the fortress, the cavalry began to move. By the end of the day, having learned that the “leaders” had gone to Finland, the rebels began to surrender...
Rebellion and emigration
The white emigration raised the rebels on their shield at the very beginning of the rebellion, then actively shaped public opinion, using even newspaper “ducks” for propaganda. Thus, a note appeared in the emigrant press that a ship sent by the American Red Cross had arrived in Kronstadt. “Demolition teams” also worked: on the night of March 9-10 in Revel (Tallinn), “a flag was stolen by unknown persons” from the house of the Soviet embassy, and a “poster with an anti-Semitic inscription” was hung on the wall of the house. Active efforts to assist the rebels were launched in In Tallinn, representative of the American Red Cross, Colonel Ryan. It must be said that accepting help from the West was an ideological mistake of the rebels. Even in the event of a hypothetical “victory,” they certainly would not have achieved the support of the masses.
Results
Retribution for the riot was “in the spirit of the times”: 2,103 people were shot, 6,459 were sent to Solovki. It is significant that the Bolsheviks did not want to recognize the mutiny as a rebellion of sailors, so it was attributed to the Petrograd military organization discovered by the Cheka in the summer of 1921, for participation in which 96 people were shot, including the poet Nikolai Gumilyov. The families of many participants in the uprising were repressed, approximately half of the civilian residents of Kronstadt - about 10 thousand people - were evicted as unreliable. The term “crown rebels” appeared in official documents. About eight thousand people fled across the ice to Finland. Stalin remembered everything: in 1944, at the conclusion of peace with Finland, he demanded their extradition.
The armed rebellion of the city garrison became one of the bloodiest pages in the history of Kronstadt. the site recalls why the uprising began and how it ended.
On the verge of starvation
In 1921, the still very young country of the Soviets was experiencing a very difficult economic situation. The economy was undermined by both the Civil War of 1917 and the First World War. In addition, the Red Terror was raging in the country, which could not but affect the people’s attitude towards the policies of the Bolsheviks.
By the end of 1920, the volume of industrial production in the country decreased by almost 5 times compared to 1913. The situation was aggravated by interruptions in the supply of fuel and raw materials. The fact is that many Donbass mines were destroyed during the Civil War.
Due to the lack of fuel, 93 factories in Petrograd were closed, and 27 thousand workers found themselves on the street. There were also interruptions in food supplies, which led to a reduction in bread distribution standards - before this, Petrograd workers employed in smelting production received 800 grams daily, shock workers - 600, and other categories of workers from 400 to 200 grams. of bread. Families were starving.
On February 24, strikes and rallies of workers with political and economic demands began in Petrograd. Then the Petrograd Committee of the RCP (b) carried out a series of arrests of labor activists, and introduced martial law in the city. This was the trigger for the mutiny of the Kronstadt sailors and soldiers.
Beginning of the rebellion
On February 28, a meeting of the teams of the battleships Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk took place in Kronstadt. It adopted a resolution with a number of demands. Including, holding re-elections of the Soviets and expelling all communists from them, abolishing commissars, allowing free trade, granting freedom of speech, meetings and unions to all parties, etc.
Battleships "Sevastopol" and "Petropavlovsk" Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
And on March 1, on Yakornaya Square in the city, a crowd of 15 thousand gathered for a rally, shouting slogans - “Power to the Soviets, not parties!” Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Mikhail Kalinin, Navy Commissioner Nikolai Kuzmin and Chairman of the Kronstadt Council Pavel Vasiliev also arrived there. Representatives of the authorities tried to reason with those gathered, but they were booed and then read the resolution from the stands.
On the same day, the “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” (VRK) was created, headed by sailor Stepan Petrichenko, and Kuzmin and Vasilyev were expressed no confidence by a majority vote. With the help of powerful radio stations of warships, the Military Revolutionary Committee broadcast the resolution of the meeting. The authorities declared the rebels “outlaws.”
“Down with the provocateurs of the Entente! Not strikes, not demonstrations, but united work in factories, workshops and railways will lead us out of poverty, save us from hunger and cold!” - such appeals were published everywhere.The authorities declared Petrograd under martial law, and every effort was made to isolate Kronstadt and prevent the uprising from spreading to the mainland. We managed to do this. And although the rebels sought open and transparent negotiations, the position of the authorities was adamant - no concessions, the rebels must lay down their arms without any conditions. Those whom the Kronstadters sent to negotiate were simply arrested.
On March 4, the Petrograd Defense Committee presented Kronstadt with an ultimatum offering to surrender. The rebels refused. Then Leon Trotsky personally gave the order to liquidate the rebellion by force; he arrogantly believed that with the first shots the rebels would surrender. Lev Davidovich was wrong.
Storming the fortress
On the evening of March 7, artillery shelling of Kronstadt began, and at dawn on March 8, Red Army soldiers stormed the fortress. It is noteworthy that on the same day the X Congress of the RCP (b) opened in Moscow. Trotsky really wanted to arrive there as a winner. However, already in the afternoon, Soviet aerial reconnaissance reported that Soviet forces were driven back from the walls of the fortress without losses to the rebels. Having suffered serious losses, the Red Army soldiers retreated. The attack failed.
The assault on the fortress failed. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
The rebels understood that this was the calm before the decisive battle. Both the rebels and the Red Army soldiers mobilized all their forces over the next week.
By the day of the decisive assault, the Soviet command managed to gather about 24 thousand soldiers, and together with the rear and auxiliary units, the Soviet troops concentrated for the assault on Kronstadt amounted to about 45 thousand people.
The assault began on the night of March 16, as a result of which the attackers were able to successively occupy forts No. 7, 6, 5 and 4. The rebels held a fierce defense and suffered significant losses.
March 17 at 5 o'clock. 30 min. A green rocket flew into the sky - a signal that the attackers had broken into the city. A street fight began. The rebels hid in attics and basements, and fired from there with rifles and machine guns, causing noticeable damage to the Soviet troops.
Fierce mutual counterattacks continued for a long time. However, the Soviet command threw one of the last reserves into battle - the cavalry regiment of the 27th division. The cavalry attacked the sea fortress across the ice, turning the tide of the battle. The rebels began to retreat.
Losses and reprisals
2,444 rebels were captured, some of them were tried by a military tribunal within a few days and shot. However, reprisals were carried out not only against those who held weapons in their hands, but also against the ordinary population - the Soviet command considered all residents of the city involved in the uprising. 2,103 people were sentenced to death and 6,459 people to various terms of punishment.For a long time after the uprising, the surviving rebel participants were persecuted, and most were repressed. They were rehabilitated only in 1994 by decree of President Boris Yeltsin.
As for the attackers, according to Soviet sources, they lost 527 people killed and 3,285 wounded. However, modern experts believe that the losses of the Red Army amounted to about 10 thousand soldiers. Some of them are buried in a mass grave on Anchor Square in Kronstadt.
The uprising accelerated the transition from War Communism to NEP - New Economic Policy. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee announced this already in mid-1921.
1921 the end of a bloody civil war. The armies of the White Guards and interventionists are almost completely defeated, the young Soviet state of workers and peasants is gradually strengthening and recovering from the agrarian legacy of tsarist power and military devastation. But internal contradictions, fueled by counter-revolutionary forces, do not leave the country. And one of the most frequently recalled results of such contradictions that occurred during the period of establishment of Soviet power throughout Russia is the counter-revolutionary Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921.
To begin with, let's look at the main reasons and nature of the rebellion that took place. In the bourgeois environment, it is customary to present the Kronstadt residents as some kind of heroes of the struggle against the “Bolshevik dictatorship”, and with the help of the bourgeoisie, this heroic aura of the sailors of the Baltic Fleet is picked up by all sorts of “left” movements of an anti-Soviet orientation, especially anarchists, presenting this as almost a new revolution bearing anti-state character. But how did things really stand?
With the outbreak of the civil war, the workers' and peasants' government was forced to switch to an emergency policy of so-called “war communism”, part of which was the surplus appropriation system that took place in the villages. Initially, the peasantry tolerated this, accepting it as a temporary evil, but as the Civil War dragged on for three long years, the contradictions between the city and the petty-bourgeois village, the contradictions between (in this case) consumer-workers and producers-peasants grew more and more, which led to the emergence of all kinds of peasant gangs of a counter-revolutionary nature: Makhnovist gangs, “green rebels” and others. This was not a struggle “for”, but a struggle exclusively “against” the proletarian dictatorship. Enraged petty property owners, dissatisfied with the expropriation of their property for wartime needs, attacked the Workers' and Peasants' Government as the source of all troubles in their minds, masking their openly counter-revolutionary essence under beautiful slogans. And one could also justify the uprising by the famine that followed the surplus appropriation, but breaking down these unfounded speculations, let us quote L.D. Trotsky, who left a note on this issue:
Demoralization due to hunger and profiteering generally increased terribly towards the end of the civil war. The so-called "bag-bag" took on the character of a social disaster that threatened to strangle the revolution. It was in Kronstadt, whose garrison did nothing and lived on whatever was ready, that demoralization reached especially great proportions. When things were especially difficult for hungry St. Petersburg, the Politburo more than once discussed the question of whether to make an “internal loan” from Kronstadt, where there were still old reserves of all sorts of goods. But the delegates of the St. Petersburg workers answered: “You can’t take anything good from them. They speculate in cloth, coal, bread. In Kronstadt now all the bastards have raised their heads.”
This was the real situation, without any sugary idealizations in hindsight.
It should also be added that in the Baltic Fleet, those Latvian and Estonian sailors who were afraid to go to the front and were planning to move to their new bourgeois fatherland: Latvia and Estonia, were employed as “volunteers”. These elements were fundamentally hostile to Soviet power and fully demonstrated their counter-revolutionary essence during the days of the Kronstadt rebellion. Along with this, many thousands of Latvian workers, mainly former farm laborers, showed unparalleled heroism on all fronts of the civil war. Therefore, neither Latvians nor “Kronstadters” can be painted the same color. You need to be able to make social and political distinctions.
Thus, During the hungry years, the rebels themselves did not provide assistance to hungry St. Petersburg, and when what they had accumulated seemed to be not enough, they bared their teeth, also demanding that the workers’ and peasants’ authorities “disarm and disband the political departments,” thereby generally openly demonstrating their counter-revolutionary essence. And the very slogan of the rebels “power to the Soviets, not to the parties” cannot leave any doubt about the genuine essence of the rebellion, hostile to the dictatorship of the proletariat, since it was difficult not to understand that the elimination of the Bolshevik leadership over the Soviets would very quickly destroy the Soviets themselves. Like the rebels' demand for free trade, this threatened the basic principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and, as a consequence, the rebellion itself threatened to nip it in the bud.
So, the reasons and counter-revolutionary nature of the rebellion became clear to us. It was not the romantic spirit of anarchist struggle against the state or hunger that was the reason for the rebels’ dissatisfaction with the policies of war communism, but only the threat that what they had accumulated would “leak away” from them.
At the end of February, a wave of strikes and rebellious sentiments swept through Kronstadt, disrupting the work of factories. Having taken decisive action, according to a message from the deputy chairman of the Petrograd gubchek Ozolin, mentioned in negotiations with Petrograd, the Cheka managed to arrest “the entire head of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.” Also, Ozolin tells Yagoda: “In total there are up to 300 people arrested, the remaining 200 are active workers and members of the intelligentsia. According to the investigation, the Mensheviks play a prominent role in the events taking place.”. The role of the latter in inciting protest sentiments is, in principle, beyond any doubt. It is worth emphasizing that during the Civil War, the Mensheviks almost openly advocated the restoration of capitalism, which is why their participation in the Kronstadt rebellion even more gives the latter a pronounced counter-revolutionary connotation, regardless of any slogans of the rebels.
Dreadnought "Petropavlovsk"
In the following days the situation began to escalate more and more. Fermentation and confusion began in some of the reserve regiments, which were still able to be calmed. February 28, 1921 A meeting of the commands of the battleships "Sevastopol" and "Petropavlovsk" was held at which the rebels adopted a resolution with demands worthy of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks: to hold re-elections of the Soviets without communists, to abolish commissars and political departments, to provide freedom of activity to all socialist parties and to allow free trade. And already on March 1, a 15,000-strong rally took place on Anchor Square in Kronstadt under the slogans “Power to the Soviets, not to the parties!” Everyone was expecting the arrival of the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, at the rally, who arrived on the melted ice of the bay. Dolutsky in “Materials for the study of the history of the USSR (1921 - 1941)” writes: “The brothers greeted Mikhail Ivanovich with applause - he wasn’t afraid, he came. The All-Russian headman knew where he had arrived - yesterday at a general meeting of the crew of the battleship Petropavlovsk they adopted a resolution for re-election to the Soviets, but without communists, for freedom of trade. The resolution was supported by the crew of the second battleship - Sevastopol - and the entire garrison of the fortress. And here is Kalinin in bustling Kronstadt. One - without security, guides, took only his wife!
But the sailors (who just recently demanded freedom of speech) did not give Mikhail Ivanovich an opportunity to speak, just as they did not give Baltic Fleet Commissioner Kuzmin, who arrived to speak at the rally, the opportunity to speak. “Stop the old songs, give me some bread!” - the rebels shouted, not allowing Kalinin to continue. Here, however, it should be noted that the Kronstadters had just enough bread; the Red Navy ration for the winter of 1921 (data given in the same Dolutsky source) was in a day: 1.5 - 2 pounds of bread (1 pound = 400 g), a quarter pound of meat, a quarter pound of fish, a quarter of cereals, 60 - 80 gr. Sahara. A St. Petersburg worker was content with half the ration, and in Moscow, for the hardest physical labor, workers received 225 grams per day. bread, 7 gr. meat or fish and 10 gr. sugar, which once again confirms the thesis about the exclusively anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary nature of the rebellion.
Kalinin tried to reason with the crowd: “Your sons will be ashamed of you! They will never forgive you today, this hour, when you betrayed the working class of your own free will!”. But the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was no longer listened to. Kalinin left, and on the night of March 1-2, the rebels arrested the leaders of the Kronstadt Council and about 600 communists, including Baltic Fleet Commissioner Kuzmin. A first-class fortress that covered the approaches to Petrograd fell into the hands of the rebels. On March 2, the rebels attempted to start negotiations with the authorities, but the latter’s position on what was happening was simple: before any negotiations began, the rebels must lay down their arms. Without fulfilling these demands, all envoys sent to the Bolsheviks from the rebels were arrested. On March 3, a defense headquarters was created in the Kronstadt fortress, headed by former captain Solovyanin. Former General of the Red Army Kozlovsky, Rear Admiral Dmitriev and General Staff Officer of the Tsarist Army Arkannikov were appointed military specialists of the headquarters.
The Bolsheviks did not delay any further, and on March 4 the rebels were given an ultimatum demanding that they immediately lay down their arms. On the same day, a meeting of the delegate meeting was held in the fortress, attended by 202 people, at which this issue was raised. The decision was made to defend. At the suggestion of Petrichenko, the leader of the rebellion (not Kozlovsky at all, as the Bolsheviks believed then and as some sources now mention), the composition of the VRK - the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, created by the rebels on March 2, was increased from 5 to 15 people. The total number of the garrison of the Kronstadt fortress was 26 thousand people, however, not all the personnel took part in the counter-revolutionary action, in particular, 450 people who refused to join the rebellion were arrested and locked in the hold of the battleship Petropavlovsk. In addition to them, the party school and part of the communist sailors went ashore in full force with weapons in their hands; there were also defectors (in total, more than 400 people left the fortress before the assault began).
Semanov writes: “At the very first news of the beginning of the Kronstadt armed rebellion, the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government took the most decisive measures to eliminate it as quickly as possible.”
V.I. Lenin took an active part in their development and implementation. On March 2, 1921, the Council of Labor and Defense of the RSFSR adopted a special resolution in connection with the rebellion. The next day, signed by Lenin, it was published. The resolution prescribed:
“1) Former General Kozlovsky and his associates are outlawed.
2) The city of Petrograd and the Petrograd province are declared under a state of siege.
3) Transfer all power in the Petrograd fortified region to the Petrograd Defense Committee.”
But it is clear that military operations against the rebels could not be limited to the forces of the Petrograd garrison alone, requiring the transfer of military units from other parts of the country.
“Foreseeing the possibility of inconsistency in actions between the local Petrograd leadership and the army command,” writes Semanov further, “The STO of the RSFSR, chaired by Lenin, decided on March 3: “The Petrograd Defense Committee in the field of all activities and actions related to the liquidation of the Socialist Revolutionary-White Guard armed rebellion is entirely subordinate to The Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, which exercises its leadership in the prescribed manner."
So, throughout the entire struggle against the rebels, the government provided support to the St. Petersburg workers, the Bolsheviks and the Petrograd Defense Committee. The available military and material forces were deployed to help the defenders of the city from the rebels.
The party also had to make considerable efforts to take counter-propaganda measures. The matter was also complicated by the fact that Kronstadt was traditionally considered the “capital” of the Baltic Fleet. And especially the authority of the oldest naval fortress in Russia increased after October, when the bulk of the Baltic Fleet sailors became the vanguard of the socialist revolution. And of course, in his propaganda, the rebellious self-proclaimed revolutionary committee tried in every possible way to use this fact, presenting himself as a successor to the deeds of the revolutionary Baltic sailors, therefore, even before the start of the armed suppression of the rebellion, party organizations began a major explanatory campaign among the sailors of the Baltic Fleet. Meetings and rallies were held on ships and in military units; fleet veterans made appeals to ordinary sailors and soldiers, urging them to come to their senses and go over to the side of the workers' and peasants' Soviet power.
Counter-propaganda measures were also taken against sailors accidentally involved in the mutiny by the Kronstadt leaders. Semanov writes: “The propaganda materials strongly emphasized the counter-revolutionary essence of the “revolutionary committee” and proved that its actual leaders were former officers, camouflaged White Guards. On March 4, the appeal of the Petrograd Defense Committee “We got through. To the deceived Kronstadters". It said:
“Now you see where the scoundrels led us. Got through. From behind the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, the bared teeth of the former tsarist generals were already peeking out... All these generals Kozlovskys, Burskers, all these scoundrels Petrichenkos and Tukins, at the last minute, of course, will run away to the White Guards in Finland. And you, deceived ordinary sailors and Red Army soldiers, where will you go? If they promise you that they will feed you in Finland, they are deceiving you. Haven't you heard how the former Wrangelites were taken to Constantinople and how they died there in the thousands, like flies, from hunger and disease? The same fate awaits you if you do not come to your senses immediately... Whoever surrenders immediately will have his guilt forgiven. Surrender immediately!
According to the same Semanov, in early March, a general mobilization of universal education was carried out. By March 4, there were 1,376 communists and 572 Komsomol members in units of this kind. The trade unions did not stand aside either, forming their own detachment of 400 people. These forces were so far used only for the internal defense of the city, but at the same time they became a reserve for regular Red Army units surrounding the rebellious Kronstadt. Party, trade union, Komsomol mobilizations, as well as the call for universal education, were carried out in an organized and quick manner, demonstrating the full readiness of the Petrograd communists to repel the rebels.
Trade unions played their own significant role in mobilizing the working masses of Petrograd. Trade unions, as Pukhov testifies, were a great force: in their ranks there were 269 thousand members in the city and about 37 thousand in the province.
March 4, The Trade Union Council addressed an appeal to the city population. “Golden shoulder straps appeared again at the outskirts of Red Petrograd.” This is how the call for the council began, implying General Kozlovsky and other leaders of the rebellion with a “royal” past. Further, the appeal recalled the troubled days of 1919, when the White Guards stood literally under the walls of the city. “What saved Red Petrograd from Yudenich? Close unity between St. Petersburg workers and all honest workers.” The appeal recalled the decisive events of the civil war, to respond with close unity to the provocations of anti-Soviet forces.
Armed detachments of Komsomol members were created in all areas of Petrograd. And the slogan of the revolutionary troikas: “Not a single communist should stay at home” turned out to be fulfilled one hundred percent.
On March 5, 1921, by order of the Revolutionary Military Council No. 28, the 7th Army was restored under the command of Tukhachevsky, who was ordered to prepare an operational plan for the assault and “to suppress the uprising in Kronstadt as soon as possible.” The assault on the fortress was scheduled for March 8. It was on this day that, after several postponements, the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) was supposed to open. But this was not a mere coincidence, but a thoughtful step taken with a certain political calculation.
The short preparation time for the operation was also determined by the fact that the opening of the Gulf of Finland could greatly complicate the assault and capture of the fortress. On March 7, the forces of the 7th Army numbered almost 18 thousand Red Army soldiers: almost 4 thousand soldiers in the Northern group, about ten in the Southern group and another 4 thousand in reserve. The main striking force was the combined division under the command of Dybenko, which included the 32nd, 167th and 187th brigades of the Red Army. At the same time, the 27th Omsk Rifle Division began moving towards Kronstadt.
At 18:00 March 7 shelling of the Kronstadt forts began with directional batteries. At dawn on the 8th, on the opening day of the 10th Congress of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), Red Army soldiers stormed Kronstadt across the ice of the Gulf of Finland. However, it was not possible to take the fortress: the assault was repulsed and the troops returned to their original positions with losses.
The unsuccessful battle, as Voroshilov later recalled, undermined the morale of some parts of the army: “the political and moral state of individual units was alarming,” as a result of which two regiments of the 27th Omsk Rifle Division (235th Minsk and 237th Nevelsky) refused to participate in battle and were disarmed.
According to the Soviet Military Encyclopedia, as of March 12, the rebel forces numbered 18 thousand soldiers and sailors, more than a hundred guns and over a hundred machine guns, as a result of which the number of troops preparing for the second assault on the fortress was also increased to 24 thousand bayonets , 159 guns and 433 machine guns, and the units themselves were divided into two operational formations: the southern group, under the command of Sidyakin, advancing from the south, from the Oranienbaum area, and the northern group, under the leadership of Kazansky, advancing on Kronstadt from the north along the ice of the bay, from the coastline from Sestroretsk to Cape Lisiy Nos.
The preparations were carried out carefully: a detachment of employees of the Petrograd provincial police was sent to the active units for reinforcement (of which 182 fighters took part in the assault - employees of the Leningrad Criminal Investigation Department), about 300 delegates of the X Party Congress, 1114 communists and three regiments of cadets from several military schools. Reconnaissance was carried out, white camouflage suits, boards and lattice walkways were prepared to overcome unreliable sections of the ice surface.
Storming the fortress was launched on the night of March 16, 1921, before the start of the battle, the Red Army forces managed to quietly occupy Fort No. 7, which turned out to be empty, but Fort No. 6 put up prolonged and fierce resistance. Fort No. 5 surrendered immediately after the artillery bombardment began, but before the assault group approached it. The garrison itself, it is worth noting, did not offer any resistance; the cadets from the assault group were greeted with exclamations of “Comrades, do not shoot, we are also for Soviet power,” from which we can conclude that not all participants in the rebellion were eager to continue to participate in it.
But the neighboring fort No. 4 held out for several hours and during the assault the attackers suffered heavy losses. During heavy battles, they also managed to capture forts No. 1 and No. 2, “Milyutin” and “Pavel”, however, as Voroshilov later recalled, the defenders left the “Rif” battery and the “Shanets” battery before the assault began and went across the ice of the bay to Finland , who willingly accepted them.
After capturing all the forts, the Red Army soldiers broke into the fortress, where fierce street battles with the rebels began, but by 5 a.m. on March 18, the resistance of the Kronstadters was broken, after which the headquarters of the rebels, located in one of the gun towers of Petropavlovsk, decided to destroy the battleships together with the prisoners who were in the holds and break through to Finland. They ordered several pounds of explosives to be placed under the gun turrets, but this order caused outrage. On the Sevastopol, the old sailors disarmed and arrested the rebels, after which they released the communists from the hold and radioed that Soviet power had been restored on the ship. Some time later, after the start of the artillery shelling, Petropavlovsk also surrendered, which most of the rebels had already abandoned.
On the deck of the battleship Petropavlovsk after the suppression of the mutiny. In the foreground is a hole from a large-caliber shell.
According to the Soviet military encyclopedia, the attackers lost 527 people killed and 3,285 wounded. During the assault, over a thousand rebels were killed, over 2 thousand were “wounded and captured with weapons in their hands,” more than two thousand surrendered and about eight thousand went into exile. Finland.
The counter-revolutionary rebellion in Kronstadt was suppressed. Life in the city gradually improved, but the sacrifices were considerable.
The Kronstadt forts, the port and structures of the fortified city, and the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol were damaged. Large material resources were spent. This is the price for a senseless rebellion raised by a handful of counter-revolutionaries who managed to drag along half-starved and tired sailors and soldiers with their demagoguery and lies. Among the captured rebels were three members of the so-called temporary revolutionary committee. Some of the immediate leaders of the rebellion, who did not have time to escape to Finland, were handed over to the court and, according to its verdict, were shot.
Life in Petrograd returned to normal quite quickly. Already on March 21, V.I. Lenin sent a telephone message to the Petrograd Soviet about the immediate lifting of the state of siege in the city, and even earlier Tukhachevsky was recalled to Moscow, and D.N. Avrov again became the commander of the troops of the Petrograd Military District. On his orders, the Northern and Southern groups of troops were disbanded. On April 10, 1921, the 27th Omsk Rifle Division, which had done so much to defeat the rebellion, was transferred to the Trans-Volga Military District on the instructions of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. On March 22 in Moscow, Vladimir Ilyich received the delegates of the Tenth Congress who had returned after the battles near Kronstadt. He told them about the results of the congress, talked with them about the battles with the rebels, and then, at the request of the delegates, took a photo with them.
As for the fate of the rebels who fled to Finland, they were met rather coldly. The Latest News correspondent, in the issue of March 20, 1921, dispassionately described the following expressive scene: “The Finnish border guards disarm sailors and soldiers, first forcing them to return and pick up abandoned machine guns and rifles on the ice. More than 10 thousand guns have been collected." The leaders of the rebellion were placed in the former Russian fortress of Ino, and the rest were distributed among camps near Vyborg and Terijoki. At first there was a stir around the leaders of the rebellion, they were interviewed, and even minor figures in the Russian emigration were interested in them. However, they were soon forgotten, and responsibility for their existence was placed on the Red Cross.
All this most accurately emphasizes V.I. Lenin’s thought that during the period of fierce class struggle there is not and cannot be a third force, it either merges with one of the opposing factions fighting among themselves, or it disperses and dies.
Lenin himself returned to the lessons of Kronstadt more than once in his notes, and in a letter to the Petrograd workers he formulated one of the most important conclusions of the “Kronstadt lesson”:
“Workers and peasants began to understand after the Kronstadt events better than before that any shift of power in Russia [from the Bolsheviks to the “non-party people”] benefits the White Guards; It was not for nothing that Miliukov and all the intelligent leaders of the bourgeoisie welcomed the Kronstadt slogan “Soviets without Bolsheviks.”
And he put an end to this sad story a month later, writing the following:
“The mass of workers and peasants need an immediate improvement in their situation. By putting new forces, including non-party people, into useful work, we will achieve this. The tax in kind and a number of related measures will help this. We will cut off the economic root of the inevitable fluctuations of the small producer. And we will fight mercilessly against political fluctuations, which are useful only to Miliukov. There are many who hesitate. We're few. Those who waver are separated. We are united. Those who hesitate are economically dependent. The proletariat is economically independent. Those who hesitate do not know what they want: they want it, they hesitate, and Miliukov does not order it. And we know what we want.
And that’s why we will win.”
Literature:
1) Voroshilov K.E: From the history of the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, “Military Historical Journal. 1961. No. 3.S. 15-35.
2) Pukhov A.S.: Kronstadt rebellion in 1921. Civil war in essays. [L.], 1931, p. 93.
3) Semanov S.N: Elimination of the anti-Soviet Kronstadt rebellion.
4) Trotsky L.D: “The hype around Kronstadt”
Sappers who participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion
Today marks 95 years since the start of the Kronstadt rebellion. In February 1921, unrest began in Petrograd among workers who came forward with economic and political demands.
The Petrograd Committee of the RCP(b) introduced martial law in the city, the worker instigators were arrested. On March 1, sailors and Red Army soldiers of the military fortress of Kronstadt (garrison of 26 thousand people) under the slogan “Power to the Soviets, not parties!” adopted a resolution to support the workers of Petrograd. This is how the famous Kronstadt uprising began.
There are two main points of view on this event. The Bolshevik approach, where the rebellion is called senseless, criminal, which was raised by a mass of sailors, yesterday’s peasants, disorganized by anti-Soviet agents, outraged by the results of war communism.
The liberal, anti-Soviet approach is when the rebels are called heroes who put an end to the policy of war communism.
Speaking about the preconditions for the rebellion, they usually point to the difficult situation of the population - peasants and workers, who were devastated by the war that had been going on since 1914 - the First World War, then the Civil War. In which both sides, white and red, supplied their armies and cities with food at the expense of the rural population. A wave of peasant uprisings swept across the country, both in the rear of the white and red armies. The last of them were in the south of Ukraine, in the Volga region, in the Tambov region. This allegedly became the prerequisite for the Kronstadt uprising.
The immediate causes of the uprising were:
Moral decay of the crews of the dreadnoughts "Sevastopol" and "Petropavlovsk". In 1914-1916, the Baltic battleships did not fire a single shot at the enemy. During the two and a half years of the war, they only went to sea a few times, carrying out the combat mission of long-range cover for their cruisers, and never took part in military clashes with the German fleet. This was largely due to the design shortcomings of the Baltic dreadnoughts, in particular, weak armor protection, which led to the fear of the naval leadership of losing expensive ships in battle. It is not difficult to guess how this affected the psychological state of their teams.
Vladimir Feldman, head of the 1st special department of the Cheka, who inspected the Baltic Fleet in December 1920, reported:
“The fatigue of the masses of the Baltic Fleet, caused by the intensity of political life and economic turmoil, aggravated by the need to pump out from this mass the most resistant element, hardened in the revolutionary struggle, on the one hand, and diluting the remnants of these elements with a new immoral, politically backward addition, and sometimes downright politically unreliable - on the other hand, the political physiognomy of the Baltic Fleet has changed to some extent towards deterioration. The leitmotif is the thirst for rest, the hope for demobilization in connection with the end of the war and for an improvement in the material and moral condition, with the achievement of these desires along the line of least resistance. these desires of the masses or lengthens the path to them, causing discontent.”
Negative impact of “fathers-commanders”. Instead of appointing a real combat commander to Kronstadt, who would restore order to the “sailor freemen”, where the anarchists’ positions were strong, Fyodor Raskolnikov, a protégé of L. Trotsky, was appointed commander of the Baltic Fleet in June 120.
Propaganda of Trotskyism. Raskolnikov practically did not engage in official affairs, and devoted the time not to drinking, to disseminating the ideas of Trotskyism. Raskolnikov managed to drag the Kronstadt party organization of about 1.5 thousand Bolsheviks into the “discussion about trade unions.” On January 10, 1921, a discussion among party activists took place in Kronstadt. Trotsky’s platform was supported by Raskolnikov, and Lenin’s by the Baltic Fleet Commissioner Kuzmin. Three days later, a general meeting of Kronstadt communists took place with the same agenda. Finally, on January 27, Raskolnikov was removed from his post as fleet commander, and Kukel was appointed acting commander.
It’s strange, but emigrant and Western newspapers began publishing reports about the supposedly already started uprising in Kronstadt 3-4 weeks before it began.
In Paris on February 10, 1921, the message of the Russian “Latest News” was, in fact, a newspaper canard completely common for that time and the emigrant press:
"London, February 9. (Correspondent). Soviet newspapers report that the crew of the Kronstadt fleet mutinied last week. It captured the entire port and arrested the chief naval commissar. The Soviet government, not trusting the local garrison, sent four red regiments from Moscow. According to rumors, the mutinous sailors intend to launch operations against Petrograd, and a state of siege has been declared in this city. The rioters declare that they will not surrender and will fight against the Soviet troops.".
Dreadnought "Petropavlovsk"
Nothing like this was observed in Kronstadt at that moment, and Soviet newspapers, of course, did not report any riot. But three days later, the Parisian newspaper Le Matin (The Morning) published a similar message:
“Helsingfors, February 11. It is reported from Petrograd that, in view of the latest unrest among the Kronstadt sailors, the Bolshevik military authorities are taking a number of measures to isolate Kronstadt and prevent the Red soldiers and sailors of the Kronstadt garrison from infiltrating Petrograd. The delivery of food to Kronstadt has been suspended until further orders. Hundreds of sailors were arrested and sent to Moscow, apparently to be shot."
On March 1, a resolution was issued to support the workers of Petrograd, with the slogan “All power to the Soviets, not the Communists”. They demanded the release from prison of all representatives of socialist parties, re-election of the Soviets and the expulsion of all communists from them, granting freedom of speech, meetings and unions to all parties, ensuring freedom of trade, allowing handicraft production with their own labor, allowing peasants to freely use their land and dispose of products their economy, that is, the elimination of the food dictatorship. To maintain order in Kronstadt and organize the defense of the fortress, a Provisional Revolutionary Committee (VRK) was created, headed by the sailor-scribe Petrichenko, in addition to whom the committee included his deputy Yakovenko, Arkhipov (machine foreman), Tukin (master of the electromechanical plant) and Oreshin (manager third labor school).
On March 3, Petrograd and the Petrograd province were declared under a state of siege. The Kronstadters sought open and transparent negotiations with the authorities, but the latter’s position from the very beginning of the events was clear: no negotiations or compromises, the rebels must lay down their arms without any conditions. Parliamentarians who were sent by the rebels were arrested.
On March 4, the Petrograd Defense Committee presented an ultimatum to Kronstadt. The rebels were forced to either accept it or defend themselves. On the same day, a meeting of the delegate meeting was held in the fortress, which was attended by 202 people. It was decided to defend ourselves. At Petrichenko’s proposal, the composition of the Military Revolutionary Committee was increased from 5 to 15 people.
On March 5, the authorities issued an order for prompt measures to eliminate the uprising. The 7th Army was restored under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was ordered to prepare an operational plan for the assault and “to suppress the uprising in Kronstadt as soon as possible.” The 7th Army is being reinforced with armored trains and air detachments. Over 45 thousand bayonets were concentrated on the shores of the Gulf of Finland.
On March 7, 1921, the artillery shelling of Kronstadt began. On March 8, 1921, units of the Red Army launched an assault on Kronstadt, but the assault was repulsed. A regrouping of forces began, additional units were assembled.
On the night of March 16, after intense artillery shelling of the fortress, a new assault began. The rebels noticed the attacking Soviet units too late. Thus, the soldiers of the 32nd brigade were able to get within one mile of the city without firing a single shot. The attackers were able to break into Kronstadt, and by morning the resistance was broken.
During the battles for Kronstadt, the Red Army lost 527 people killed and 3,285 people wounded. The rebels lost about a thousand people killed, 4.5 thousand (half of them were wounded) were taken prisoner, some fled to Finland (8 thousand), 2,103 people were shot according to the verdicts of the revolutionary tribunals. Thus ended the Baltic Freemen.
Features of the uprising:
In fact, only a part of the sailors rebelled; later the garrisons of several forts and individual inhabitants from the city joined the rebels. There was no unity of sentiment; if the entire garrison had supported the rebels, it would have been much more difficult to suppress the uprising in the most powerful fortress and more blood would have been shed. The sailors of the Revolutionary Committee did not trust the garrisons of the forts, so over 900 people were sent to Fort “Reef”, 400 each to “Totleben” and “Obruchev”. Commandant of Fort “Totleben” Georgy Langemak, future chief engineer of the RNII and one of the “fathers” "Katyusha", categorically refused to obey the Revolutionary Committee, for which he was arrested and sentenced to death.
On the deck of the battleship Petropavlovsk after the suppression of the mutiny. In the foreground is a hole from a large-caliber shell.
The demands of the rebels were pure nonsense and could not be fulfilled in the conditions of the Civil War and Intervention that had just ended. Let’s say the slogan “Soviets without Communists”: Communists made up almost the entire State Apparatus, the backbone of the Red Army (400 thousand out of 5.5 million people), the command staff of the Red Army was 66% graduates of Kraskom courses from workers and peasants, appropriately processed by communist propaganda. Without this corps of managers, Russia would again have sunk into the abyss of a new Civil War and the Intervention of fragments of the white movement would have begun (only in Turkey the 60,000-strong Russian army of Baron Wrangel was stationed, consisting of experienced fighters who had nothing to lose). Along the borders were young states, Poland, Finland, Estonia, which were not averse to chopping off more Russian land. They would have been supported by Russia’s “allies” in the Entente. Who will take power, who will lead the country and how, where will the food come from, etc. — it is impossible to find answers in the naive and irresponsible resolutions and demands of the rebels.
The rebels were mediocre commanders, militarily, and did not use all the opportunities for defense (probably, thank God - otherwise much more blood would have been shed). Thus, Major General Kozlovsky, commander of the Kronstadt artillery, and a number of other military experts immediately proposed to the Revolutionary Committee to attack Red Army units on both sides of the bay, in particular, to capture the Krasnaya Gorka fort and the Sestroretsk area. But neither the members of the revolutionary committee nor the ordinary rebels were going to leave Kronstadt, where they felt safe behind the armor of battleships and the concrete of forts. Their passive position led to a quick defeat. During the fighting, the powerful artillery of the battleships and forts controlled by the rebels was not used to their full potential and did not inflict any significant losses on the Bolsheviks. The military leadership of the Red Army, in particular Tukhachevsky, also did not always act satisfactorily.
Both sides were not shy about lying. The rebels published the first issue of the News of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, where the main “news” was that “There is a general uprising in Petrograd.” In fact, in Petrograd, unrest in the factories began to subside; some ships stationed in Petrograd and part of the garrison hesitated and took a neutral position. The overwhelming majority of soldiers and sailors supported the government.
Zinoviev lied that White Guard and British agents penetrated Kronstadt, who threw gold left and right, and General Kozlovsky started a rebellion.
- The “heroic” leadership of the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee, headed by Petrichenko, realizing that the jokes were over, at 5 o’clock in the morning on March 17, they left by car across the ice of the bay to Finland. A crowd of ordinary sailors and soldiers rushed after them.
The result of the suppression of the rebellion was the weakening of Trotsky’s positions: the beginning of the New Economic Policy automatically relegated Trotsky’s positions to the background and completely discredited his plans for the militarization of the country’s economy. March 1921 was a turning point in our history. The restoration of statehood and the economy began, the attempt to plunge Russia into a new Time of Troubles was stopped.