Kronstadt uprising of 1921

March 17, 2013 Exactly 92 years ago on the streets of Kronstadt the situation was completely different from what it is now. A Sunday afternoon in a suburban area of ​​St. Petersburg does not promise anything unusual; everything goes according to the usual scenario of a quiet, peaceful, even somewhat patriarchal life. The streets are more lively than in weekdays. However, 92 years ago, 12-inch shells exploded here, machine-gun bursts did not subside for a minute, rifle volleys alternated with bayonet strikes. Thousands of people met in hand-to-hand combat, people fought with bitterness and frenzy. Rebellious Kronstadt did not give up without a fight. The fighting in the streets lasted for more than a day and ended by the morning of March 18.

Who has won? The question seems strange, even in the shortest tutorial on national history In the 20th century, it is quite clearly written that the rebels were driven out of the island of Kotlin, and Bolshevik power was restored in the city and naval base. However, years will pass and those who took the rebellious Kronstadt will themselves be destroyed by the power for which they fought tooth and nail with confidence in their rightness. But so far all this was not at all obvious and the specific task - to return Kronstadt - was carried out methodically and purposefully.

Walking through the streets and squares of Kronstadt, it is now difficult to imagine what we are going to tell our story about. The situation and conditions here have changed dramatically, and the people are no longer the same at first glance. But this is only at the first approximation. History tends to repeat itself, and what seemed to be a matter of time long past suddenly becomes timely and urgent, as if written these days. The connection of times is felt in every detail, if you look closely.

Prerequisites for the uprising.

So, 1921. The young country of the Soviets emerges victorious from the Civil War. The economic situation could be called critical. Three years of war and foreign intervention undermined the Russian economy, which the First World War began to undermine World War. By the end of 1920 general level The volume of industrial production decreased by almost 5 times compared to 1913. A critical situation developed with the supply of fuel and raw materials. Many Donbass mines were flooded and destroyed during the Civil War. The transport infrastructure was in complete disrepair. Food delivery to the cities was at an extremely unsatisfactory level. The domestic market collapsed due to the activities of food and barrage detachments.

At the beginning of 1921, Petrograd workers employed in smelting production received 800 grams daily. Of bread. Shock workers - 600. Other categories of workers from 400 to 200 grams. Part wages was given in kind; workers exchanged part of the production for food. Families left the cities in droves. During the 3 years of the Civil War, the population of Petrograd decreased from 2.5 million to 750,000. There was real hunger in the cities. Often, some workers were removed from enterprises and sent to other parts of the country in order to obtain food. Sailors often did the same. There is evidence that sometimes food was stolen along the route. So, one day a whole carload of meat went from Vologda to Petrograd, instead of Moscow, and only the intervention of the army prevented this theft. Naturally, in such a situation, the population of the cities became dissatisfied with the existing situation.

But Russia was an agricultural country, and the peasants felt all the hardships of the war no less than the population of the cities. The policy of war communism with the activities of food detachments primarily affected rural residents. A significant reduction in sown areas was associated with the general devastation in the country, but the surplus appropriation policy became the main blow to the peasantry. The land belonged to the peasants according to the land decrees of October 26, 1917. By 1920, the land was divided among peasant families. The peasants were given the land and they just wanted to be left alone. But the war dragged on, and the food problem became paramount. As the peasant delegates said, “the land is ours, and the bread is yours.” The activities of the food brigades were associated not with the Bolsheviks, but with the communists. Zinoviev, Trotsky and other party leaders, whose Jewish origin was associated with everything anti-people, were accused of having invented a new form of state farming, which again led to the enslavement of the peasants.

However, during the war, the peasants were generally loyal to the Bolsheviks. Although sometimes there was resistance to the surplus appropriation system, this was all explained by the fight against the whites, who were perceived as a greater evil.

In November 1920, Wrangel’s armies left Crimea, Civil War, in general, ended, and a series of peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks and the policy of war communism began in the country.

The winter of 1920-21 was a turning point. Almost 2 million soldiers were demobilized, the economy had to be transferred to a peaceful path. Between November 1920 and March 1921, the number of peasant uprisings increased sharply. On the eve of the Kronstadt rebellion, more than 100 different peasant uprisings swept across regions of the country - in the Volga region, the Urals, and Siberia peasant uprisings flared up again and again. Many sailors came from peasant backgrounds, and discontent from the villages quickly penetrated into the naval crews.

Lenin understood the need to transfer the economy to a peaceful path and abandon the policy of war communism. This issue was raised back in November 1920, but detailed proposals were actually prepared on the eve of the rebellion.

The main cause of discontent in the country was, first of all, hunger and deprivation. There was no plan for the transition from war communism, and in peacetime, military methods had the exact opposite effect. This was the impetus for the performance.

A particularly difficult situation at the beginning of 1921 developed in large industrial centers, primarily in Moscow and Petrograd. Bread distribution standards were reduced, some food rations were canceled, and the threat of famine arose. In February 1921, amid the crisis, strikes began in Petrograd. On January 22, 1921, a reduction in rations was announced. The cup of patience was overflowing. Petrograd was in a particularly difficult situation. More than 60% of factories were closed; in conditions of shortage of fuel and food, rumors immediately appeared that new government- the commissioners do not need anything, which only fueled discontent.

The fuel crisis has worsened. On February 11, 1921, it was announced that 93 Petrograd enterprises would be closed until March 1. Among them are such giants as the Putilov plant, Sestroretsky, Triangle and others. About 27 thousand people were unemployed.

On February 21, a meeting was held at the Pipe Plant on Vasilyevsky Island. A resolution was adopted demanding a transition to democracy. In response to this, the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet decided to close the plant and announce the re-registration of all employees and workers. Worker unrest began to develop into open riots. On the morning of February 24, about 300 workers of the Pipe Plant took to the streets. They were joined by workers from other factories and factories in Petrograd.

A crowd of up to 2,500 people gathered on Vasilyevsky Island. Not relying on the Red Army soldiers, the authorities sent Red cadets to disperse it. The crowd was scattered. In the afternoon, an emergency meeting of the bureau of the Petrograd Committee of the RCP (b) was held, which qualified the unrest in the factories of the city as a rebellion. The next day, martial law was introduced in the city.

On the evening of February 27, an extended meeting of the plenum opened Petrograd Soviet, in which the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee M.I. Kalinin, who arrived from Moscow, took part. Commissioner of the Baltic Fleet N.N. Kuzmin drew the attention of those gathered to alarming signs in the mood among the sailors. The situation became more and more threatening. On February 28, a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was held, at which the situation in Moscow and Petrograd was discussed. The first priority was the suppression of political opposition. The Cheka carried out arrests of Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Among those arrested in Petrograd was one of the leaders of the Menshevik Party, F.I. Dan.

Naturally, the unrest in Petrograd and protests in other cities and regions of the country had a serious impact on the mood of the sailors, soldiers and workers of Kronstadt. The sailors of Kronstadt, who were the main support of the Bolsheviks in the October days of 1917, were among the first to understand that Soviet power was essentially replaced by party power, and the ideals for which they fought were betrayed. By mid-February, the total number of ship crews, military sailors of coastal units, auxiliary units stationed in Kronstadt and at the forts exceeded 26 thousand people.

The beginning of the uprising.

Delegations were sent there to clarify the situation in Petrograd. Having returned, the delegates reported to the general meetings of their teams about the reasons for the unrest of the workers, as well as the sailors of the battleships Gangut and Poltava, stationed on the Neva. This happened on February 27, and the next day the sailors battleships"Petropavlovsk" and "Sevastopol" adopted a resolution, which was submitted for discussion to representatives of all ships and military units of the Baltic Fleet. This resolution was, in essence, an appeal to the government to respect the rights and freedoms proclaimed in October 1917. It did not contain calls for the overthrow of the government, but was directed against the omnipotence of one party.

On March 1, a rally was held on Anchor Square, which was attended by Kalinin, Kuzmin and Vasiliev, as well as about 15 thousand sailors and city residents. Representatives of the authorities tried to calm the sailors and called for an end to the riots, but they were booed. Petrichenko came to the podium and read out the resolution, which was adopted unanimously (except for Kalinin, Kuzmin and Vasilyev). The communists, of whom there were also quite a few gathered in the square, voted for the resolution.

RESOLUTION OF THE MEETING OF THE 1ST AND 2ND BRIGADES TEAMS

After hearing the report of representatives of the teams sent by the general meeting of teams from the ships to the mountains. Petrograd, to clarify matters in Petrograd, decided:

1) In view of the fact that the present councils do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately re-elect the councils by secret ballot, and conduct free preliminary campaigning of all workers and peasants before the elections.

2) Freedom of speech and press for workers and peasants, anarchists, left socialist parties.

3) Freedom of assembly and trade unions and peasant associations.

4) Convene no later than March 10, 1921, a non-party conference of workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of the mountains. Petrograd, Kronstadt and Petrograd province.

5) Release all political prisoners of the socialist parties, as well as all workers and peasants, Red Army soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with the worker and peasant movements.

6) Select a commission to review the cases of prisoners in prisons and concentration camps.

7) Abolish all political departments, since no party can enjoy privileges to propagate its ideas and receive funds from the state for this purpose. Instead, locally selected cultural and educational commissions should be established, for which funds should be allocated by the state.

8) Immediately remove all barrage detachments.

9) Equalize rations for all workers, with the exception of hazardous workshops.

10) Abolish communist combat detachments in all military units, as well as in factories and factories, various duties on the part of the communists, and if such duty or detachments are needed, then they can be appointed in military units from companies, and in factories and factories at the discretion of the workers.

11) Give peasants full right to act over their land in the way they wish, and also have livestock, which they must maintain and manage on their own, i.e. without using hired labor.

12) We ask all military units, as well as fellow military cadets, to join our resolution.

13) We demand that all resolutions be widely published in print.

Unrest in Kronstadt. Demands of sailors, soldiers and workers of the fortress 51

14) Assign a traveling bureau for control.

15) Allow free handicraft production with your own labor.

The resolution was adopted by the brigade meeting unanimously with 2 abstentions.

Education of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

In the building of the former Engineering School there were major events the beginning of the uprising. On March 2, representatives elected to the delegate meeting gathered in the House of Education in Kronstadt (formerly the Engineering School). It was discovered by Stepan Petrichenko, a clerk from the battleship Petropavlovsk. The delegates elected a presidium of five non-partisans. The main issue at the meeting was the issue of re-election of the Kronstadt Council, especially since the powers of its previous composition were already ending. Kuzmin spoke first. Indignation was caused by his words that the communists would not voluntarily give up power, and attempts to disarm them would lead to “blood.” He was supported by Vasiliev, who then spoke.

By a majority vote, the meeting expressed no confidence in Kuzmin and Vasiliev. Suddenly a message arrived that the communists of the fortress were preparing for resistance. A sailor burst into the meeting shouting “half-hearted!” The communists are heading towards the building to arrest the meeting.” In this regard, it was decided to urgently create a Provisional Revolutionary Committee (PRC) to maintain order in Kronstadt. The responsibilities of the committee were assumed by the presidium and the chairman of the delegate meeting, Petrichenko. The Committee also included his deputy Yakovenko, machine foreman Arkhipov, master of the electromechanical plant Tukin and head of the third labor school I. E. Oreshin.

The government's reaction to the uprising.

The authorities declared the rebels “outlaws.” Repressions followed against the relatives of the leaders of the uprising. They were taken as hostages. Among the first to be arrested was the family of former General Kozlovsky (chief of the fortress artillery).

Petrograd was declared under martial law, the authorities made every effort to isolate Kronstadt and prevent the uprising from spreading to the mainland. We managed to do this.

However, the beginning of unrest in the fortress was accompanied by the collapse of Bolshevik cells in the military and civilian organizations of Kronstadt. As of January 1921, they numbered 2,680 members and candidates for membership of the RCP(b). The Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee, the revolutionary troikas, and the editors of Izvestia VRK (the rebels' printed organ) began to receive both individual and collective statements about leaving the party. Many asked for their statements to be published in the newspaper. The organization of the battleship Petropavlovsk almost completely left the party. A lot of applications came from workers at industrial enterprises in the city that service the fleet. The withdrawal from the party continued until the final assault on Kronstadt, when it was already clear to everyone that the besieged were doomed. In total, during the Kronstadt events, about 900 people left the RCP (b). Most of them joined the party during the civil war. But there were also those who connected their lives with the party in the October days of 1917. On March 2, the Provisional Bureau of the Kronstadt organization of the Russian Communist Party was organized, consisting of Ya. I. Ilyin, F. Kh. Pervushin and A. S. Kabanov, which called on the Kronstadt communists to cooperate with the Military Revolutionary Committee.

News of the events in Kronstadt caused a sharp reaction from the Soviet leadership. 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 4, the Council of Labor and Defense approved the text of the government message. The movement in Kronstadt was declared a "rebellion" organized by French counterintelligence and the former tsarist general Kozlovsky, and the resolution adopted by the Kronstadters was “Black Hundred-Socialist Revolutionary”.

On the afternoon of March 5, 1921, Commander-in-Chief S.S. Kamenev, Commander of the Western Front M.N. Tukhachevsky and other leading officials of the RVSR arrived in Petrograd. Trotsky was personally present and gave the order to liquidate the rebellion. At the same time, an important operational order was given on measures to eliminate Kronstadt rebellion. Its main points were as follows:

"1. Restore the 7th Army, subordinating it directly to the High Command. 2. Temporary command of the 7th Army should be entrusted to Comrade Tukhachevsky, leaving him in the post of commander. 3. To the temporary commander-7, Comrade Tukhachevsky, to subordinate in all respects all the troops of the Petrograd District, the commander of the troops of the Petrograd District and the commander of the Baltic Fleet. 4. The commander of the troops of the Petrograd district, Comrade Avrov, should be simultaneously appointed commandant of the Petrograd fortified area.” Further, the order instructed to offer the Kronstadt rebels to surrender, and otherwise, to open military action. The order came into force on March 5 at 5 p.m. 45 min.

Kronstadt was presented with an ultimatum demanding surrender, to which the rebels refused. Military experts offered to support the uprising in Oranienbaum and facilitate its spread to the mainland, but the Military Revolutionary Committee firmly stood on the position of not being the first to use force. They naively believed that an uprising would break out in Petrograd and other parts of the country, sweeping away the power of the communists.

The first assault on Kronstadt.

Meanwhile, on March 8, the X Congress of the RCP(b) opened in Moscow. It was precisely on this date that the assault on Kronstadt was scheduled. Trotsky and Tukhachevsky wanted to come to the congress as winners, but the planned performance was not a success. Trotsky believed that with the first shots the rebels would surrender and therefore hastened the start of the military operation.

The troops were drawn to Kronstadt and on March 7, the Northern Combat Group (headed by E. S. Kazansky), concentrated in the Sestroretsk area, numbered 3,763 people (of which the most combat-ready unit was a detachment of Petrograd cadets - 1,195 fighters). The southern group (chief A.I. Sedyakin) consisted of 9853 people. The artillery forces consisted of 27 field artillery batteries: 18 in the Southern Group sector and 9 in the Northern Group sector; however, these were predominantly light guns, unsuitable for fighting the concrete forts and battleships of the rebels; there were only three batteries of heavy guns, but their caliber also did not exceed six inches. On the afternoon of March 8, Soviet aerial reconnaissance reported that the shells landed at the fortress with a large undershoot, and “no damage was found in the city itself or on the two battleships stationed in the harbor.”

The Soviet forces, which launched an offensive on March 8, were driven back from the walls of the fortress without losses to the rebels. Having suffered serious losses, the Red Army soldiers retreated. Some battalions surrendered. The attack failed.

Preparing for the decisive battle.

The next 10 days passed in an atmosphere of gathering strength. Both the Red Army and the rebels were preparing for a decisive battle. However, gathering forces to suppress the rebellion was not at all an easy task. It was necessary to overcome not only technical difficulties in the operation of transport and a catastrophic shortage of uniforms, but also open sabotage by some groups of troops.

So in the area of ​​Art. Since March 10, Ligovo concentrated the 27th Omsk Rifle Division , directed from Western Front to strengthen Soviet troops near Kronstadt. The division consisted of 1,115 command personnel, 13,059 infantrymen, 488 cavalrymen, as well as 319 machine guns and 42 guns. The unit's personnel had good combat training and glorious military traditions: the division successfully fought against the Kolchakites and Belopoles. However, near Kronstadt, before entering the battle, the commanders and political workers of the 27th division were faced with complex problems of an ideological nature. Division commander V. Putna noted that the units departed from Gomel in a fighting mood, but he emphasized that the political personnel were understaffed and did not correspond to the staffing schedule, and most importantly, they were not sufficiently prepared to work in such difficult conditions.

In fact, the soldiers simply refused to go into battle, citing fear of ice, lack of supplies, but more often - agreement with the demands of the rebels.

To raise awareness and carry out political work in the Red Army units, about 300 delegates were sent from the Tenth Congress. They were also joined by communists from other regions, aimed at raising the consciousness of the Red Army soldiers. The group was headed by K. E. Voroshilov, a member of the presidium of the Tenth Congress. Among the delegates who traveled to Kronstadt there were many military specialists - commanders and commissars, active participants in the civil war: Ya. F. Fabritsius, I. F. Fedko, P. I. Baranov, V. P. Zatonsky, A. S. Bubnov , I.S. Konev and many others. The delegates left Moscow for Petrograd in several special trains by rail on the night of March 11.

Leaflets with the following content were scattered over Kronstadt: “People of Kronstadt! Your “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” assures: “In Kronstadt there is a struggle for Soviet power.” Many of you think that the great work of the revolution is being continued in Kronstadt. But your real leaders are those who conduct business secretly, who, out of cunning, do not yet express their real goal. Oh, they know very well what they are doing, they perfectly understand the meaning of the events taking place and soberly calculate when they can take the next step towards restoring the power of the bourgeoisie...

Think about what you are doing. Learn to distinguish words from deeds, because if you don’t learn, the coming weeks will teach you this, and you will quickly see how the living words about the Soviet power of your leaders are very quickly replaced by an open struggle against Soviet power, open White Guardism. But then it will be too late.

Now your actions are open Whiteguardism, covered for the time being by empty words about Soviet power without communists. Empty, because during the difficult struggle of the working people for self-liberation, without the Communist Party there can be no Soviet power...

The White Guards applaud you and hate us; choose quickly - with whom you are, with the White Guards against us or with us against the White Guards...

Time doesn't wait. Hurry up"

In party propaganda, special emphasis was placed on explaining the fundamental decisions of the Tenth Congress on the abolition of food allocation and other economic measures designed to alleviate the situation of the peasantry and improve the financial situation of the working people. At the same time, a stern and decisive rebuff was given to all attempts at hostile agitation. The verdicts of the revolutionary tribunals against instigators and provocateurs, cowards and deserters were widely publicized among the personnel of the Red Army units stationed near Kronstadt. The decisions of the Tenth Congress largely corresponded to the economic demands of the rebels, but the communists did not intend to share political power.

At this time, the Kronstadt Military Revolutionary Committee was gathering forces for last battle. The city’s resources were limited, although the Izvestia of the Military Revolutionary Committee published several times reports that “the food situation of the city can be considered quite satisfactory.” However, the norms for issuing cards were constantly decreasing, while the Red Army soldiers and Petrograd workers were issued an increased norm. Subsequently, already in Finland, the sailors recalled with bitterness that the St. Petersburg workers betrayed them for half a pound of meat.

Well, on the northern and southern shores Gulf of Finland work was underway to prepare the final suppression of the rebellion. It was necessary to hurry, because... in a few weeks the ice would melt and ships with food, fuel and medicine would arrive in Kronstadt. The Russian emigration made a lot of efforts to organize the supply of Kronstadt by ice, but these attempts were generally suppressed. The Red Cross was able to transport a small batch of flour from Finland, but this was not a mass phenomenon and did not change the food situation in the city for the better.

However, special lightweight portable bridges were designed for the Soviet troops in order to cross the ice holes that could form on the ice of the bay from shell explosions. In total, it was possible to prepare 800 sleds and 1000 walkways in the Southern group, and 115 sleds and 500 walkways in the Northern group.

However, the situation with uniforms was catastrophically bad. There was not enough warm clothing, underwear, and overcoats. For example, in the 499th Infantry Regiment, 25% of the Red Army soldiers wore felt boots during the thaw, and 50% wore bast shoes. The uniforms of even the relatively fresh and combat-ready 27th Omsk Rifle Division were in extremely poor condition. But the fighting forces of the Red Army increased every day. According to the summary of the operational department of the headquarters of the 7th Army as of 9th of March, the number of Soviet rifle troops was as follows. Northern combat group: total soldiers and commanders - 3285 (including 105 cavalrymen), 27 machine guns, 34 guns. Southern group: total number of fighters - 7615 people (including 103 cavalrymen), 94 machine guns, 103 guns, there were also armored trains, but the document does not contain details on this matter. A brigade of cadets was also stationed here, the number of which is determined contradictorily in the document; approximately it amounted to 3,500 soldiers and commanders, including 146 cavalrymen; the brigade had 189 machine guns and was equipped with 122 guns and 3 armored trains.

Assault on the fortress:

On the day of the decisive assault, March 17, the Soviet command managed to assemble the following forces: the 11th and 27th rifle divisions, the 187th brigade of the 56th rifle division, communist special forces, red cadets from 16 military educational institutions, as well as a number of other small units and numerous artillery . There is no exact data on the quantity. According to the calculations of A.S. Pukhov, the total number of soldiers of the 7th Army was 24 thousand with 433 machine guns and 159 guns, and together with the rear and auxiliary units, the Soviet troops concentrated for the assault on Kronstadt amounted to about 45 thousand people.

It was prescribed to move across the ice field exclusively in marching columns while maintaining complete silence and order; it was possible to scatter into a chain (even in the event of enemy shelling) only in exceptional cases by order of the commander; it was specifically stipulated that “in the city, do not enter into any conversations with the rebels, arrest them and send them to the rear.” As an example of a specific implementation of a general combat mission, an excerpt from the order of the commander of the 167th Infantry Brigade, issued on the eve of the assault on the evening of March 16, should be cited: “The brigade headquarters should establish telephone communication over the ice with the units and headquarters of the combined division, duplicating it with a human chain and messengers. During operations and movement on the ice, maintain silence and use columns or reserve formations until the last opportunity. The columns should have shock groups in white coats at their heads, equipped with walkways and assault ladders; have machine guns on sleds. When advancing, remember one cry: “Forward!” There can be no retreat. Do not enter into negotiations with rebels in the city. Organize proper supply of units with fire supplies from the Oranienbaum shore. The orderlies with stretchers should follow the units.”

The night of March 17 was dark and moonless, which made the task easier for the Soviet troops. In the northern combat sector, in the evening the cannonade on both sides fell silent, so the Soviet units went on the offensive in complete silence; on the contrary, in the southern section from 1 to 4 o'clock. at night, the red artillery fired intensely, trying to strike the two most powerful forts of Kronstadt - “Konstantin” and “Milyutin”; After several successful hits from heavy shells, both rebel forts were forced to fall silent.

The advanced units of the attacking infantry descended onto the ice in complete darkness at about 2 a.m., followed by second echelon troops and reserves at various intervals. In the Southern Combat Group, the first wave of the offensive included the 32nd and 187th Rifle Brigades. The rebels noticed the attacking Soviet units quite late: the soldiers of the 32nd brigade managed to approach the distance of one mile from the city without firing, the 187th brigade, advancing to the left, was noticed and fired at earlier. The Red Army soldiers turned around in a chain and began to overcome the wire fences. The first took the enemy's attack at 4 o'clock. 30 min. 537th Regiment under the command of I.V. Tyulenev. The rebels opened intense fire from rifles, machine guns and light guns at the forward lines of the attackers. At the same time, their heavy batteries opened fire on the Soviet units of the second line moving on the ice, as well as on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland.

At 5 o'clock. 30 min. A green rocket flew into the sky - a signal that the attackers had broken into the city. At the same time, the soldiers of the special purpose regiment, which was part of the 187th brigade, distinguished themselves. Under enemy fire, the regiment quickly walked straight to the Petrograd pier - to the center of Kronstadt; One hundred and fifty steps before the target, regiment commander Burnavsky and Commissar Bogdanov came out in front of the chains and ran to lead them into the attack. They managed to walk only a hundred steps, and the attackers lay down under heavy fire. However, this allowed the reserve units to approach, and when the rebels were forced to transfer fire to them.

The street battle that began within Kronstadt became extremely heavy and protracted. The shore of the bay and city streets were entangled with barbed wire barriers, the spaces between the houses were blocked off with logs, firewood, fragments of buildings, etc. The rebels fired aimed fire from rifles and machine guns from short distances, inflicting noticeable losses on the attackers. They used, as a rule, windows and attics of stone buildings, hiding behind various structures and hiding in basements.

Nevertheless, the fierce battle in the city gradually brought success to the Soviet troops. Heavy and bloody battles took place especially in the area of ​​the Petrograd Gate and the adjacent Petrogradskaya Street. The rebels here repeatedly launched counterattacks, but each time they were forced to retreat deeper into the city. By 2 p.m. On March 17, units of the 167th Brigade cut off the rebel ships stationed in the harbor from the port. This was a major success for the Soviet troops. In order to suppress a possible attack by the teams of the rebel battleships, a military guard of Soviet troops was placed along the coastline, but it was clearly insufficient in number (this apparently explains the fact that some rebel activists later managed to escape from the ships under cover of darkness). It seemed that victory was already close, but the rebels launched fierce counterattacks. In the area of ​​Yakornaya Square, the head units of the Soviet troops - the 187th and 32nd brigades - came under cross-blow and were forced to retreat. The rebel artillery fired intensely at the advancing units of the second echelon, which were forced to move in bright sunlight. Fortunately, many shells did not explode or, falling at an acute angle, ricocheted without breaking through the ice. However, Soviet reserves suffered losses while crossing the bay.

In the afternoon, the 80th Brigade came to the aid of the vanguard units, along with it the commander of the combined division P.E. Dybenko and the commissar of the Southern Group K.E. Voroshilov came to the very center of the battle. The rebels retreated deeper into the city. Here a fierce, protracted battle began. Soviet units suffered losses, because in street battles superiority was on the side of the rebels, who knew the topography of the city well; Often their groups went through basements and attics to the rear of the Red Army soldiers. At the same time, the Northern Group was also forced to slow down its advance and shift to the left, in the direction of the main attack; As a result, it was not possible to cut the road with Finland.

Fierce mutual counterattacks continued in the city for a long time. Around noon, Soviet units were forced to retreat from the city center to the pier. At this moment, one of the most spectacular episodes of the Battle of Kronstadt occurred. 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.

P.E. Dybenko described this turning point of the battle as follows:

“By 5 pm on March 17, one third of the city was in our hands. But, as it turned out, at that time the rebel headquarters decided to hold out on the city’s strongholds until nightfall and at night attack the Red Army soldiers exhausted by the daily battle, cut them out and recapture Kronstadt... But the rebels failed to carry out this insidious plan. At 20:00 on March 17, the Red troops launched a decisive offensive, supported by artillery that arrived over the ice. A cavalry regiment galloping across the ice to support the units located in the city caused considerable confusion on the rebels. By 11 p.m., all strong points were occupied by red units, and the rebels began to surrender in whole parties.

By evening there was a sharp turning point in the battle. The rebels could not withstand the tension of the battle and began to retreat. Together with them, most of the members of the “revolutionary committee” led by Petrichenko and the officers who led the rebellion were among the first to leave the city. The crews of both battleships threw out white flags. However, the fighting with individual enemy groups continued all night and subsided only the next morning. March 18 at 12 noon. 10 min. The last order of the Kronstadt operation was finally given:

"1. The Kronstadt fortress has been cleared of rebels. 2. Comrade was appointed military commandant of Kronstadt. Dybenko. 3. The highest command of the troops of the fortress and coastal bureau is transferred by the command group to Comrade Sedyakin until the order of Army Commander-7.”

Results.

Thus the uprising was suppressed.

Soviet troops captured 2,444 rebels, including three members of the “revolutionary committee” - Valka, Perepelkin, Pavlov. Some of the active leaders of the rebellion, mainly former officers, a few days later were immediately tried in Kronstadt by a military tribunal and, according to its verdict, were shot. At the same time, the total losses of the Red Army are estimated at 10,000 people (although official data are several times less), some of them are buried in a mass grave on Anchor Square in Kronstadt.

In fact, the introduction of the NEP, the abolition of barrage detachments and surplus appropriation, the permission of small handicraft production and other changes were the embodiment of the economic program of the rebels. But there was no political progress; the power of the Soviet bureaucracy and communists only strengthened, ultimately leading to the sole rule of I.V. Stalin.

March 25 1921 a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet took place. The delegates stood and paid tribute to the memory of the fallen. Then Nikolai Nikolayevich Kuzmin, a fearless commissar who remained faithful to duty to the end, who made a big speech, was greeted with thunderous applause. On the same day, a civil memorial service was held in the St. George Hall of the Winter Palace in honor of the fallen Red Army soldiers, and then the funeral procession headed across Nevsky Prospect to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, where the victims of the battles near Kronstadt were buried. In the Petrograd Military District alone, 487 commanders and Red Army soldiers were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Most of the Kronstadters were placed in the forts of the former Russian fortress Ino (Petrichenko was also located here), the rest were in camps near Vyborg, in Teriokki and other places. Finnish soldiers guarded the camps.

The fate of the participants in the uprising was tragic. Of the 8,000 who fled to Finland, many returned, where they ended up in concentration camps. Stepan Petrichenko himself lived in Finland, collaborated with Soviet intelligence, was arrested by the Finns in 1941 and extradited to the USSR in 1944. In the Soviet Union, he was sentenced to 10 years in the camps and died in Vladimir in 1947 during a transfer.

General Alexander Nikolaevich Kozlovsky, during the years of living in a foreign land, he changed many professions: he was a teacher of physics and natural science, a road worker, a foreman at a mechanical plant, and a mechanic in a garage. He died in 1940 in Helsinki, his family remained hostages, his sons and wife were sentenced to correctional labor and prison sentences, one of his sons committed suicide.

More is known about the commanders of the Red Army, but their fate turned out to be sad. L. Trotsky, as you know, was deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the country. Early on the morning of August 20, 1940, NKVD agent Ramon Mercader assassinated Trotsky in Mexico.

Chairman of the Petrosovet Zinoviev Grigory. Evseevich On August 24, 1936, Zinoviev was sentenced to capital punishment in the case of the Anti-Soviet United Trotskyist-Zinoviev Center. Shot on August 25, 1936 in Moscow.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky and former commander 27 of the Omsk division of V. Putna were shot in Moscow in the basement of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on June 11, 1937.

Who has won?

It's difficult to give an answer.

The idea and course of development of the country won, as the Bolsheviks understood and did.

At the end of 1920-1921, completely exhausted from the Bolshevik dictatorship, the most “revolutionary” areas, the support of the communists in previous years. They rose to the Don " Mironovsky» Ust-Medveditsky and Khopersky districts. In the Voronezh province - Bogucharsky district, where troops were usually formed to fight the Don Cossacks. Perm and Motovilikha, led by an ultra-revolutionary, were seething in the Urals Myasnikov, who shot the Grand Duke in 1918 Mikhail Alexandrovich and buried Archbishop Andronik alive. In Siberia, the partisan regions turned against the Reds, brutally killing surplus appropriation agents. In Crimea, “Bolshevik” villages, which under Wrangel were bases for underground fighters, after the first raid food detachments They began to shelter the surviving officers and transport them to the mountains to the “greens”.

Those who allowed themselves to be stupefied by the illusions of a communist paradise rebelled. The deception of these illusions now began to be revealed more and more clearly. However, the fatal circumstance was the fragmentation of the popular movement against the Leninists. Tracing the geography of anti-Bolshevik protests in 1918-1921, we will see that almost all regions of the country rebelled, but not at the same time. Some areas were suppressed earlier, in others the protest broke out only at the end civil war. The resourcefulness of their policy, the principle of “divide and conquer,” also made it possible to maintain the dominance of the Bolsheviks. To pacify the Bogucharians, in 1921 they abandoned the Don Cossacks, whom these Bogucharians themselves had suppressed before.

Lenin demanded that airplanes and armored cars be used against peasant “gangs.” In the Tambov region, riot participants were poisoned with asphyxiating gases.

One of major events The popular anti-communist movement was the Kronstadt uprising (in Soviet literature - the Kronstadt rebellion). It also broke out in one of the main centers of past “revolutionism.” At the turn of 1920-21 Russian cities were in hunger and poverty. There was a shortage of fuel everywhere, even Baku was without kerosene. Petrograd workers received only a quarter of a pound of bread a day - malnutrition assumed almost the same proportions as during the later German blockade of the city. At the end of February 1921, a wide strike began in Petrograd. Military cadets were deployed against the workers, and martial law and a curfew were introduced in the city. Cheka began mass arrests, but the unrest did not stop. For a whole week, Soviet newspapers remained deathly silent about them, and then the Bolshevik scribblers began to blame the discontent on “White Guards, Black Hundred gangs, spies, England-France-Poland,” on “chatterboxes and whisperers.” It was seriously said that hunger and cold in Petrograd were “prepared by the destructive work Social Revolutionaries And Mensheviks" Citizens were encouraged to “report suspicious persons to the Military Council of the Fortified Area.”

From Petrograd, strikes spread to Moscow factories. Workers tried to organize demonstrations in front of the Red Army barracks. The administration began to close factories, and armed guards were created from members of the RCP in order to prevent possible mass protests. The Moscow Soviet agitated heart-rendingly: “Down with the Entente provocateurs! Only united work will lead us out of poverty. No whisperers will seduce the working class from the path of socialist revolution!”

The beginning of the Kronstadt "rebellion"

Was going to Moscow X Communist Party Congress, and the workers largest cities just these days they loudly demanded the abolition of war communism, the convocation Constituent Assembly, multi-party system and coalition government. As the movement grew in Petrograd, discontent began to grow rapidly in Kronstadt, a military fortress whose garrison numbered almost 27 thousand people. The Local Council, led by the Communists, did not enjoy any authority among the Kronstadters, but they did not allow it to be re-elected. The movement here began with a meeting of the crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol on February 28, 1921. The sailors supported the demands of the Petrograd workers and, following the example of 1917, elected Military Revolutionary Committee. It was led by sailor Stepan Petrichenko. The main demands of the “rebels” were: “The councils must become non-partisan and represent the working people; Down with the carefree life of the bureaucracy, down with the bayonets and bullets of the guardsmen, the serfdom of the commissar state and the state-owned trade unions!” The fact of the Kronstadt uprising was hidden by the Bolsheviks for three days, and when it became impossible to remain silent, it was declared a mutiny of one staff general (Kozlovsky), allegedly prepared by French counterintelligence. The Bolsheviks inspired that with the hands of Kronstadt “the White Guards and Black Hundreds want to strangle the revolution.” Trotsky declared: the uprising was raised with the aim of disrupting our peace with Poland and a trade agreement with England.

Stepan Petrichenko - head of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt

The sailor "mutiny" was not accompanied by severe cruelty. The Kronstadters did not kill their communists, but only arrested them, and even then a smaller part - 327 out of 1116. But the Bolshevik bosses were terribly frightened. Kronstadt protected access to Petrograd from outside invasion. The Kronstadt garrison was previously among the troops most loyal to communism, and others could follow it. A large army of rebels (much more than they had Yudenich!) near the “cradle of the revolution”, with powerful fortress and naval artillery, was very dangerous. The Leninists immediately arrested the families of the rebels in Petrograd as hostages, but the frightened communist Council of Labor and Defense hastened to issue a decree on the purchase of food for workers abroad for 10 million. “Reliable” troops were hastily drawn to the scene of events, and unreliable ones were withdrawn further away. Several thousand sailors stationed in Petrograd were sent in trains to Sevastopol, which did not accept them, fearing anti-Soviet sentiments. The trains stopped in Aleksandrovsk (Zaporozhye), where the sailors wandered around the city, loudly cursing the communists. Ferment began among local workers, and trains were sent to Melitopol. They were driven throughout the south until the “rebellion” was suppressed.

An attempt was made to calm the Kronstadters with persuasion. But the sailors could tear apart the hated head of Petrograd, the Jew Zinoviev. The seemingly simple-minded Russian Kalinin was sent to persuade them. However, his speech to the rebels on Anchor Square on March 1, 1921 failed. Kalinin barely left for home.

The main mistake of the rebels was indecision. The insurgent Kronstadt held a meeting without taking active actions, “so as not to shed unnecessary blood,” and the Petrograd factories hesitated to raise their weapons until the armed Kronstadters arrived. The Communists, taking advantage of this hitch, quickly pulled up artillery and created two military groups - at Oranienbaum and Lisiy Nos. However, in Oranienbaum, a regiment of Red Army soldiers refused to move against the rebels, and every fifth one in it was ordered to be shot.

Arrived in Petrograd Trotsky And Stalin. Tukhachevsky was sent to directly command the troops. On March 5, 1921, the Bolshevik elite presented an ultimatum to Kronstadt: to lay down arms without any conditions, otherwise there will be a merciless defeat. Leaflets of this ultimatum were scattered over Kronstadt by a special airplane. The fortress, which had a lot of weapons, was vulnerable because it did not have supplies of food and fuel. The Russian emigration began collecting funds to purchase food for the Kronstadt residents. Alexander Guchkov from Paris appealed to the US President with a request to urgently transfer 6 thousand tons of food from Finland from the warehouses of the Hoover organization to Kronstadt, but this was not done.

A famous Socialist Revolutionary arrived in Revel Chernov, planning to create three detachments of 300 people from Yudenich’s remaining White Guards in Estonia, which would become the organizing cores for the attack on Yamburg, Pskov and Gdov. Representatives also came here Savinkova, Wrangel, Tchaikovsky. But the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow, out of socialist solidarity with the communists, hastened to dissociate itself from its foreign leaders. The Kronstadt residents also avoided Chernov’s offers to help. The Bolshevik press assured that Wrangel intended to transfer his entire army, recently evacuated from Crimea, to Petrograd. But these rumors were a shameless lie: the White movement, left without funds, did not have the capabilities for such an operation. Russia's former allies in the Entente, on whom concrete steps depended, were inactive. The Anglo-French squadron in Copenhagen (14 ships) was put on alert, but never moved. And it consisted of small ships and was not intended for serious action.

Opened on March 7 fighting. Over two days, more than 5 thousand shells were fired. On the night of March 8, 1921, an assault followed. The Red Army soldiers were thrown into battle crawling through the ice, but they were repulsed by the fire of the fortress and ships.

Demands of the rebels of Kronstadt

After the assault, an appeal was drawn up from the residents of Kronstadt and the fortress garrison to the Soviet population. It said:

Comrades and citizens! Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, and economic devastation have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. Communist Party, ruling the country, broke away from the masses and was unable to bring it out of the state of general devastation. With those worries that Lately took place in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses, it was not considered. It also did not take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the machinations of counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken.

These unrest, these demands are the voice of all the people, all the working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the moment that only through common efforts, the common will of the working people, can we give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the shoeless and undressed, and lead the republic out of the deadlock. This will of all workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors was definitely carried out at the garrison meeting of our city on Tuesday, March 1st. At this meeting, the resolution of the naval commands of the 1st and 2nd brigades was unanimously adopted. Among decisions made It was decided to immediately hold re-elections to the Council. To conduct these elections on fairer grounds, namely, so that the workers find true representation in the Council, so that the Council is an active, energetic body.

March 2 p.m. Delegates from all maritime, Red Army and workers' organizations gathered in the House of Education. At this meeting it was proposed to work out the basis for new elections in order to then begin the peaceful work of rebuilding the Soviet system. But due to the fact that there were reasons to fear reprisals, as well as due to the threatening speeches of government officials, the meeting decided to form a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, to which it would transfer all powers to govern the city and the fortress.

The Temporary Committee has a stay on the battleship Petropavlovsk.

Comrades and citizens! The Provisional Committee is concerned that not a single drop of blood will be shed. He took emergency measures to organize revolutionary order in the city, fortresses and forts.

Comrades and citizens! Don't interrupt your work. Workers! Stay at your machines, sailors and Red Army soldiers in their units and at the forts. All Soviet workers and institutions continue their work. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee calls on all workers' organizations, all workshops, all trade unions, all military and naval units and individual citizens to provide it with all possible support and assistance. The task of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, through friendly and common efforts, is to organize in the city and fortress the conditions for correct and fair elections to the new Council.

So, comrades, to order, to calm, to restraint, to new, honest socialist construction for the benefit of all working people.

Chairman of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee: Petrichenko

Secretary: Tukin

Suppression of the Kronstadt uprising

Fearing that many of their units would go over to the rebels, the Bolsheviks strengthened party influence in them. The panic-stricken Tenth Congress even sent a third of the delegates (more than 300 people), all military, to suppress the uprising. On March 16, a new artillery duel followed, and on the night of March 17, a second assault. Shock groups from Oranienbaum and Lisiy Nos in camouflage suits began secretly moving across the ice. They were discovered too late. Despite heavy losses, they broke into Kronstadt. 25 Bolshevik airplanes raided the battleship Petropavlovsk. After brutal hand-to-hand fighting, the uprising was suppressed. The lack of unity among the “rebels” had an effect. Some fought to the death, for some others the Reds still remained “theirs.” The lack of discipline and good command also had an effect - otherwise would they have defeated so quickly a garrison that was numerically larger than Wrangel’s entire Crimean army and settled in a fortress much stronger than Perekop? Some of the rebels crossed the ice to Finland, while others surrendered. On March 18, the Bolsheviks occupied Kronstadt completely.

Red Army soldiers in camouflage suits attack across the ice against the rebel Kronstadt (March 1921)

The Bolsheviks punished the Kronstadters with their usual bestial cruelty. Only on the first day after the capture of the fortress, about 300 “rebels” were shot, not counting those killed in battle. It is not known exactly how many were executed later, how many hostages died. According to official data, more than 2,100 people were sentenced to death. However, in St. Petersburg, one of the streets still bears the “honorary” name of the security officer V. Trefolev, the chairman of the revolutionary tribunal that tried the Kronstadters. In the fortress itself, since 1984, an eternal flame has been burning over the grave of the punishers who died during the assault.

During the days of the Kronshadt uprising, the famous “flexibility” of Lenin’s policy manifested itself. Seeing that the popular movement was taking on dangerous proportions, the Soviet leader literally changed his party course within a week. On March 8, 1921, at the X Congress, he also stated:

“Free trade will immediately lead to White Guard rule, to the victory of capitalism, to its complete restoration,”

and Pravda then wrote that free trade would lead to “hunger for the working masses and gluttony for the bourgeoisie.” But by the end of the congress, Lenin had already convinced the delegates that there was nothing wrong with free trade, since “power remains with the working class.” The “Kronstadt rebellion” and other popular uprisings forced the Bolsheviks to break with the popularly cursed “war communism” and, reluctantly, to proclaim a policy at the same X Congress NEP. This concession was designed not only for the Kronstadters, but to pacify Petrograd, to ensure that the rebellion did not cause a new powerful peasant explosion, to calm the Red Army, which consisted of the same peasants. The real introduction of the NEP, the replacement of the surplus appropriation system tax in kind, then tightened it in every possible way. In the former “white” regions, even in 1921, surplus appropriation was collected under the pretext of their “debts.”

The claims of Soviet scribblers about a “conspiracy” in Kronstadt do not stand up to criticism. The Kronstadt movement was purely spontaneous. What sane conspirator would start an uprising in early March, instead of waiting a couple of weeks? The melting ice of the Gulf of Finland would have made the fortress impregnable for many months, and the rebels themselves would have had complete freedom of action, having the entire fleet at their disposal. That is why emigrants cared about food aid.

But the communists could not openly admit that “the beauty and pride of the revolution,” the sailors, themselves rebelled against their party. Another explanation was required - an insidious conspiracy. In March 1921 Central Committee of the RCP(b) And SNK They set the security officers the task of “exposing the real organizers of the Kronstadt rebellion.” And so the case of “ Tagantsev conspiracy" The security officers involved in it stated that they had allegedly uncovered the “Petrograd Combat Organization” with extensive foreign connections and plans to overthrow Soviet power throughout Russia.

The exaggeration of this case is obvious. There were only 36 military personnel in the “organization” - and with such weak professional forces, it allegedly intended to capture Petrograd, Bologoe, Staraya Russa, Rybinsk, and Dno in the fall. On August 24, 1921, 61 people – “active participants” in the conspiracy – were shot. Even in the KGB case, their guilt was indicated: “was present”, “knew”, “delivered letters”, “delivered information about information to organizations for transfer abroad” museum affairs"... Who became the victims? Professors V.N. Tagantsev, M.M. Tikhvinsky, N.I. Lazarevsky - geologist, chemist, lawyer. Famous poet N. S. Gumilev. Sculptor S. A. Ukhtomsky. Officers V. G. Shvedov, Yu. P. German, P. P. Ivanov. Factory electrician A. S. Vekk. 16 women aged from 20 to 60 years - of which 4 were “accomplices in the case” husbands»...

Arrests in the “Tagantsev case” continued until November, they were directed personally by Lenin. Prominent people were caught in the meat grinder. Many petitions were sent to Lenin on their behalf, but he invariably rejected these requests. The Kronstadt uprising was used as a pretext for a new terrible blow to the flower of the Russian intelligentsia.

Kronstadt mutiny, 1921

The mutiny took place

The essence of the rebellion

An armed uprising against the Bolsheviks of the garrison of the city of Kronstadt and some ships of the Baltic Fleet in March 1921.

Occasion

The introduction of martial law in Petrograd due to active protests by workers of factories and factories caused by the closure of 93 factories (there were no raw materials and fuel).

Causes

Dissatisfaction with the policies of the Bolsheviks, especially “war communism”

The deterioration of the situation of the people, intensified due to the crop failure in 1920-1921 and famine.

The rebels blamed the Bolsheviks for this, the slogan: “Soviets without communists!”

Move

28th of February- meeting on the ships “Sevastopol” and “Petropavlovsk”. Solutions: hold re-elections of the Soviets, abolish commissars, allow free trade, give freedom of activity to socialist parties.

March 1- rally in Kronstadt. Slogan: “Power to the Soviets, not to the parties!” Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Kalinin M.I. could not calm the people. And the commissioner of the fleet Kuzmin N.N. and Chairman of the Kronstadt Council Vasiliev P.D. were generally arrested.

March 1- Creation " Provisional Revolutionary Committee"(VRK), headed by sailor S.M. Petrichenko.

The speech in Kronstadt caused serious concern in the Council of People's Commissars. In the appeal "To all workers of the city of Moscow" The reasons for temporary economic difficulties were explained, and the rebels were called “entente provocateurs.”

In Moscow they did not negotiate with the rebels and called for them to lay down their arms. They were declared outlaws, and relatives of the leaders were taken hostage.

March, 3rd- created in the fortress defense headquarters, which included mainly officers tsarist army: General A.R. Kozlovsky commanded the artillery, Rear Admiral S.N. Dmitriev entered. and officer General Staff royal army Arkannikov B.A.

March 4- the rebels were presented with an ultimatum: either they surrender, or an assault will begin.

To suppress the rebels, the 7th Army was restored, commanded by Tukhachevsky M.N.

March 8, on the opening day of the 10th Congress of the RCP(b), an assault began, but the rebels repulsed it. After this, two army regiments refused to participate in suppressing the uprising and were disarmed.

In preparation for the second assault, two units were created in the army: the first - Northern group(Kazansky E.S., Veger E.I.) for an attack from the north along the people of the Gulf of Finland, the second - Southern group(Sedyakin A.I.., Voroshilov K.E.) - advanced from the south.

Results

The Bolsheviks brutally dealt with the rebels and residents of the city, believing that they supported the rebels (by order of F.E. Dzerzhinsky).

Figures and facts:

Shot - 2103 people

The text of the work is posted without images and formulas.
Full version work is available in the "Work Files" tab in PDF format

Introduction

The events of October 1917 opened new era in the history of mankind. These events stirred up gigantic masses of people. The cities and villages of the vast country seemed to be seething and seething with the frantic energy of awakened people.

A civil war broke out and became unusually violent and protracted. By the end of 1920, the civil war was over. Wrangel's troops were defeated. On November 15, the red flag was raised over Sevastopol Bay. advancing new period in the life of our country.

In history there is often confusion in information and facts. Some are distorted, others disappear and are lost forever. Most often this happens due to the fault of the authorities. Some things are considered outdated and unnecessary, while others are simply not profitable to preserve. The Kronstadt rebellion of 1921 is one of the most striking examples of this. Almost all information about these events has disappeared. By the end of the 40s, all witnesses to those events were exterminated.

When starting work on the project, I considered many different points of view, read documents and essays, and nowhere is there an unambiguous point of view on these events of 1921; there is always something left unsaid. Therefore, at the beginning of my work, I posed a question to myself, which became the goal of my work: what gave rise to the armed uprising of the sailors of the Kronstadt fortress against Soviet power, was it a counter-revolutionary rebellion or an expression of the people’s dissatisfaction with the power of the “Bolsheviks” led by V. I. Lenin ? The answer to this question will not be so easy and simple, given that over the past years, most authors have considered it their duty to at least embellish and sometimes distort the facts. Trying to assess events that lie so far in time from the moment where we live, I will have to try to give an objective assessment of the articles and documents that are at my disposal. Such an assessment of these events may not provide a guarantee of the truthfulness and reliability of the events in question, but it will help to consider some versions of the events of those days and will help to draw one’s own conclusions about the events in question. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to complete the following tasks:

1. Get to know in detail the events of the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921.

2. Consider points of view:

"Bolsheviks";

The instigators;

Historians of different periods;

Formulate your own point of view and answer the question posed by the topic;

3. Summarize the facts found and draw a conclusion whether the hypothesis of my work is correct.

Hypothesis: The Kronstadt mutiny of the Baltic Fleet was the apogee of popular discontent with the Bolshevik policies.

The object of the study is the uprising against Soviet power in the Kronstadt fortress in 1921, its causes, course, warring parties, outcome and consequences. As well as the points of view of contemporaries of the uprising, Soviet and modern Russian historians.

In my work, I used materials that I found in magazines stored in my home library and those that were given to me by my supervisor, as well as monographs found in the city library. In addition, I used materials from some Internet sites. I used the article by V. Voinov, “Kronstadt: rebellion or uprising?” published in the journal Science and Life in 1991, which describes the progress of the uprising; article by Shishkina I. Kronstadt rebellion of 1921: “unknown revolution”?, which was published in the magazine “Zvezda” in 1988 and tells about versions of these events. In the second half of the 80s and the first half of the 90s, with the beginning of “perestroika”, such unknown pages history, so I turned to articles from other magazines, such as “Questions of History” for 1994 and the Military Historical Journal for 1991, where the articles were published: “The Kronstadt tragedy of 1921” and “Who provoked the Kronstadt rebellion?” The first simply outlines the events that took place, the second puts forward versions of the causes of these events. In addition, I became acquainted and used in my work the materials of the Central State Military Archive Navy, taken from the website of this archive (www.rgavmf.ru).

98 years ago, on March 18, 1921, the Kronstadt rebellion, which began under the slogan “For Soviets without Communists!” was suppressed. This was the first anti-Bolshevik uprising after the end of the Civil War. The crews of the battleships Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk demanded re-elections of the Soviets, abolition of commissars, granting freedom of activity to socialist parties and allowing free trade. It would seem, why now, in 2017, should we turn to events almost a century ago? But I believe that it is necessary to study such “forgotten” events of our history, since they can teach us to evaluate modernity from different positions. Events such as the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921 will always be relevant for Russian citizens, as they form an integral part of our historical memory, our historical heritage.

In my work I will try to understand, consider different points view, compare facts and hypotheses and draw conclusions. Of course, professional historians are also pondering the question that is the purpose of my work, and it would be very arrogant for me to compete with them; in addition, the scope of the research project is too small for a comprehensive consideration of these events. But still, in my work I will try to figure it out, consider different points of view, compare facts and hypotheses and draw my own conclusions based on these facts.

Chapter 1. Kronstadt uprising of 1921

1. Causes of the Kronstadt uprising of 1921

Let us consider the economic and political situation in the country on the eve of the rebellion in Kronstadt.

The bulk of Russia's industrial potential was disabled, economic ties were severed, and there was a shortage of raw materials and fuel. The country produced only 2% of the pre-war amount of pig iron, 3% of sugar, 5-6% of cotton fabrics, etc.

The industrial crisis gave rise to social collisions: unemployment, dispersal and declassification of the ruling class - the proletariat. Russia remained a petty-bourgeois country, 85% of its social structure was accounted for by the peasantry, exhausted by wars, revolutions, and surplus appropriation. Life for the vast majority of the population has turned into a continuous struggle for survival.[No.4.P.321-323]

At the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921, armed uprisings engulfed Western Siberia, Tambovskaya, Voronezh province, Middle Volga region, Don, Kuban. Big number anti-Bolshevik peasant formations operated in Ukraine. IN Central Asia The creation of armed nationalist detachments was increasingly developed. By the spring of 1921, uprisings were raging throughout the country.[No. 10.P.23]

Having traced the geography of anti-Bolshevik protests in 1918-1921, I saw that almost all regions of the country rebelled, but not at the same time. Some areas were suppressed earlier, while in others protest broke out only at the end of the civil war. The resourcefulness of their policy, the principle of “divide and conquer,” also made it possible to maintain the dominance of the Bolsheviks. Lenin demanded that airplanes and armored cars be used against peasant “gangs.” In the Tambov region, riot participants were poisoned with asphyxiating gases.

Lenin said about this period: “... in 1921, after we overcame the most important stage of the civil war, and overcame it victoriously, we stumbled upon a big - I believe, the biggest - internal political crisis of Soviet Russia. This internal crisis revealed discontent not only of a significant part of the peasantry, but also of the workers. This was the first and, I hope, the last time in the history of Soviet Russia when large masses of the peasantry, not consciously, but instinctively, were against us in mood." [No.6.P.14]

One of the most important events of the popular anti-communist movement was the Kronstadt uprising (in Soviet literature - the Kronstadt rebellion). It also broke out in one of the main centers of past “revolutionism.”

As the movement grew in Petrograd, discontent began to grow rapidly in Kronstadt, a military fortress whose garrison numbered almost 27 thousand people. The movement here began with a meeting of the crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol on February 28, 1921. The sailors supported the demands of the Petrograd workers and, following the model of 1917, elected a Military Revolutionary Committee. It was led by sailor Stepan Petrichenko. The main demands of the “rebels” were: “The councils must become non-partisan and represent the working people; Down with the carefree life of the bureaucracy, down with the bayonets and bullets of the guardsmen, the serfdom of the commissar state and the state-owned trade unions!” The fact of the Kronstadt uprising was hidden by the Bolsheviks for three days, and when it became impossible to remain silent, it was declared a mutiny of one staff general (Kozlovsky), allegedly prepared by French counterintelligence. The Bolsheviks inspired that with the hands of Kronstadt “the White Guards and Black Hundreds want to strangle the revolution.” [No. 11.P.15]

1. Progress of the uprising

The total number of ship crews, military sailors of coastal units, as well as ground forces stationed in Kronstadt and at the forts, was 26,887 people on February 13, 1921 - 1,455 commanders, the rest privates. [No. 15.P.31]

They were worried about news from home, mainly from the village - there was no food, no textiles, no basic necessities. Especially many complaints about this situation came from sailors to the Complaints Bureau of the Political Department of the Baltic Fleet in the winter of 1921.

On the afternoon of March 1, a rally took place on the anchor square of Kronstadt, attracting about 16 thousand people. The leaders of the Kronstadt naval base hoped that during the rally they would be able to change the mood of the sailors and soldiers of the garrison. They tried to convince those gathered to abandon their political demands. However, the participants overwhelmingly supported the resolution of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol. [No.5.P.34]

Petrichenko: "By making October Revolution In 1917, the working people of Russia hoped to achieve their complete emancipation and pinned their hopes on the promising Communist Party. What did the Communist Party, led by Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and others, produce in 3.5 years? During the three and a half years of their existence, the communists did not give emancipation, but the complete enslavement of the human personality. Instead of police-gendarmerie monarchism, they received the every-minute fear of ending up in the dungeons of the Cheka, which many times surpassed in its horrors gendarmerie department tsarist regime."[No. 6.P.14]

The demands of the Kronstadters, in the resolution adopted on March 1, posed a serious threat not to the Soviets, but to the Bolshevik monopoly on political power. This resolution was, in essence, an appeal to the government to respect the rights and freedoms proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in October 1917.

News of the events in Kronstadt caused a sharp reaction from the Soviet leadership. 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 4, the Council of Labor and Defense approved the text of the government report on the events in Kronstadt, published on March 2 in newspapers. The movement in Kronstadt was declared a “rebellion” organized by French counterintelligence and the former tsarist general Kozlovsky, and the resolution adopted by the Kronstadtites was declared “Black Hundred-SR.” [No.14.P.7]

On March 3, Petrograd and the Petrograd province were declared in a state of siege. This measure is directed more against the anti-Bolshevik demonstrations of St. Petersburg workers than against the Kronstadt sailors.

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 be severely punished. Parliamentarians who were sent by the rebels were arrested. The proposal to exchange representatives from Kronstadt and Petrograd remained unanswered. A wide propaganda campaign was launched in the press, distorting the essence of the events taking place, in every possible way instilling the idea that the uprising was the work of the tsarist generals, officers and Black Hundreds. There were calls to “disarm a handful of bandits” entrenched in Kronstadt.

On March 4, in connection with direct threats from the authorities to deal with the Kronstadters by force, the Military Revolutionary Committee turned to military specialists - headquarters officers - with a request to help organize the defense of the fortress. On March 5, an agreement was reached. Military experts suggested, without expecting an assault on the fortress, to go on the offensive themselves. They insisted on capturing Oranienbaum and Sestroetsk in order to expand the base of the uprising. However, the Military Revolutionary Committee responded with a decisive refusal to all proposals to be the first to begin military operations. They suggested, without expecting an assault on the fortress, to go on the offensive themselves. They insisted on capturing Oranienbaum and Sestroetsk in order to expand the base of the uprising. However, the Military Revolutionary Committee responded with a decisive refusal to all proposals to be the first to begin military operations.

On March 5, an order was given for prompt measures to eliminate the “rebellion.” 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.

Meanwhile, unrest in military units intensified. The Red Army soldiers refused to storm Kronstadt. It was decided to begin sending “unreliable” sailors to serve in other waters of the country, away from Kronstadt. Until March 12, 6 trains with sailors were sent. [No. 13.P.88-94]

To force military units to attack, the Soviet command had to resort not only to agitation, but also to threats. A powerful repressive mechanism is being created, designed to change the mood of the Red Army soldiers. Unreliable units were disarmed and sent to the rear, the instigators were shot. Sentences to capital punishment “for refusal to carry out a combat mission” and “for desertion” followed one after another. They were carried out immediately. For moral intimidation they were shot in public.

On the night of March 17, after intense artillery shelling of the fortress, a new assault began. When it became clear that further resistance was useless and would lead to nothing except additional casualties, at the suggestion of the fortress defense headquarters, its defenders decided to leave Kronstadt. They asked the Finnish government if it could accept the garrison of the fortress. After receiving a positive response, the retreat to the Finnish coast began, provided by specially formed cover detachments. About 8 thousand people left for Finland, among them the entire headquarters of the fortress, 12 of the 15 members of the “revolutionary committee” and many of the most active participants in the rebellion. Of the members of the "revolutionary committee" only Perepelkin, Vershinin and Valk were detained.

By the morning of March 18, the fortress was in the hands of the Red Army. The authorities hid the number of dead, missing, and wounded.[№5.С.7]

1. Results of the uprising and its consequences

The massacre of the Kronstadt garrison began. The very stay in the fortress during the uprising was considered a crime. All sailors and Red Army soldiers went through the tribunal. The sailors of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol were dealt with especially cruelly. Just being on them was enough to get shot.

By the summer of 1921, 10,001 people had passed through the tribunal: 2,103 were sentenced to death, 6,447 were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, and 1,451, although they were released, the charges against them were not dropped.

In the spring of 1922, the mass eviction of Kronstadt residents began. On February 1, the evacuation commission began work. Until April 1, 1923, it registered 2,756 people, of which 2,048 were “crown rebels” and members of their families, 516 were not associated with their activities with the fortress. The first batch of 315 people was expelled in March 1922. In total, during the specified time, 2,514 people were expelled, of which 1,963 - as “crown rebels” and members of their families, 388 - as not connected with the fortress. [No. 7.P.91] Chapter 2. Diversity of points of view on the Kronstadt uprising of 1921

2.1. The Bolshevik point of view

Lenin, in his speech at the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), said: “Two weeks before the Kronstadt events, it was already published in Parisian newspapers that there was an uprising in Kronstadt. It is absolutely clear that this is the work of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and foreign White Guards, and at the same time this movement has been reduced to a petty-bourgeois counter-revolution, to a petty-bourgeois anarchist element. Here a petty-bourgeois, anarchic element appeared, with slogans of free trade and always directed against the dictatorship of the proletariat. And this mood affected the proletariat very widely. It affected the enterprises of Moscow, it affected the enterprises in a number of places in the province. This petty-bourgeois counter-revolution is undoubtedly more dangerous than Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak put together, because we are dealing with a country where the proletariat is a minority, we are dealing with a country in which ruin has manifested itself in peasant property, and in addition, we We also have such a thing as the demobilization of the army, which gave the rebel element in incredible numbers.”

This explains the position of the Bolsheviks, but at the same time shows that the deep contradictions that arose between the people, even those who were very pro-Bolshevik during the October Revolution, were not made public even at the party congress, although they were understood by V.I. Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders.

The most thoughtful of them understood that something was wrong in the relations between the party and the people. I will give the speech of Alexandra Kollontai : “I would say frankly that, despite all our personal attitude towards Vladimir Ilyich, we cannot help but say that his report satisfied few people... We expected that in the party environment Vladimir Ilyich would open up, show the whole essence, say what measures The Central Committee ensures that these events do not happen again. Vladimir Ilyich bypassed the question of Kronstadt and the question of St. Petersburg and Moscow.” [No. 11.S. 101-106] Lenin deliberately downplayed the significance of the uprising. In his interview with the New York Times, he said: “Believe me, there are only two possible governments in Russia: the Tsarist or the Soviet. The uprising in Kronstadt is truly a completely insignificant incident, which poses a much lesser threat to Soviet power than the Irish troops did to the British Empire. [No. 11, pp. 101-106] Materials relating to the period under review say that few of the communists wanted to shed blood sailors who gave power to Lenin and Trotsky. And then the party sends its commanders to suppress. Here are Trotsky, and Tukhachevsky, and Yakir, and Fedko, and Voroshilov with Khmelnitsky, Sedyakin, Kazansky, Putna, Fabricius. But red commanders alone are not enough. And then the party sends delegates to its Tenth Congress and major party members. Here are Kalinin, Bubnov, and Zatonsky. A Consolidated Division is being formed... At the head of the Consolidated Division, Comrade Dybenko, who fled the battlefield and was expelled from the party for cowardice, was appointed. On March 10, Tukhachevsky reported to Lenin: “If the matter boiled down to a revolt of sailors, it would be simpler, but what makes it worse is that the workers in Petrograd are definitely not reliable.” To suppress the uprising, the Bolsheviks were ready to do anything. A real fratricide was taking place, thousands of sailors fled across the ice to the Finnish border. The Soviets in Kronstadt were dispersed, and instead the military commandant and the “revolutionary troika” began to manage all affairs. The rebel ships received new names. Thus, “Petropavlovsk” became “Marat”, and “Sevastopol” became the “Paris Commune”. Finally, to put the finishing touches on the “Kronstadt Assembly” case, the victors also punished Anchor Square, where the rebels gathered, renaming it Revolution Square. [No. 15.P.31]

2.2. The point of view of the “instigators”

The point of view of the “instigators” of the uprising is most clearly demonstrated by their appeal to the people. From an appeal from the population of the fortress and Kronstadt:

“Comrades and citizens! Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, and economic devastation have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, which rules the country, has become detached from the masses and has been unable to bring it out of the state of general devastation. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently occurred in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses. It also did not take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the machinations of counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken. These unrest, these demands are the voice of all the people, all the working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the moment that only through common efforts, the common will of the working people, can we give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the shoeless and undressed, and lead the republic out of the deadlock. This will of all workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors was definitely carried out at the garrison meeting of our city on Tuesday, March 1st. At this meeting, the resolution of the naval commands of the 1st and 2nd brigades was unanimously adopted. Among the decisions made was the decision to immediately carry out re-elections to the Council. The Temporary Committee has a stay on the battleship Petropavlovsk. Comrades and citizens! The Provisional Committee is concerned that not a single drop of blood will be shed. He took emergency measures to organize revolutionary order in the city, fortresses and forts. Comrades and citizens! Don't interrupt your work. Workers! Stay at your machines, sailors and Red Army soldiers in their units and at the forts. All Soviet workers and institutions continue their work. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee calls on all workers' organizations, all workshops, all trade unions, all military and naval units and individual citizens to provide it with all possible support and assistance. [№14.С.18] Is there anything to add to the position of the “instigators”? In my opinion, everything here is extremely clear and does not require explanation. Only despair and hopelessness raised these people to fight with those. Whom they elevated to the pinnacle of power, for the sake of whose ideas they destroyed their former state and hoped to build a new and fair one in its place.

2.3. The point of view of Soviet and modern Russian historians

The first work that opens the bibliography of this topic is a special issue of the Red Army magazine “Military Knowledge”, which appeared less than six months after the capture of the rebellious fortress. The small but very informative articles by M. N. Tukhachevsky, P. E. Dybenko and other participants in the assault provided extensive factual material, both documentary and memoir in nature. This collection has not lost its value to this day. It must be especially emphasized that military specialists of the Red Army immediately appreciated how important it was to study the experience of a unique offensive operation near Kronstadt. In the late 30s and early 40s, several more small books and articles appeared in scientific periodicals about the Kronstadt rebellion. In the post-war period, until the beginning of the 60s, the study of the Kronstadt rebellion received virtually no continuation. The only exception was the book by I. Rotin, which appeared in the late 50s. The storming of the rebellious fortress is one of the most interesting pages in the annals of the Red Army - in connection with the accepted periodization of the history of the USSR, it went beyond the chronological framework of the civil war, and even in the most complete publication on this topic in our historiography - the five-volume “History of the Civil War in the USSR” - there is no mention of the battles near Kronstadt. This, of course, is a gap in the historiography of the civil war in the USSR. [No. 6.P.324] And those few and fragmentary information that is found in Soviet historiography clearly call the events of February - March 1921 an anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary rebellion, quite rightly suppressed by the Soviet government, since it was directed against the people's power and the workers' and peasants' party . [No. 10.S. 47]. The fact that the truth about the Kronstadt mutiny was hidden in Soviet times, understandable, but it is not in great demand and New Russia. Find a connected estimate of this event I failed with modern authors. Is it possible that in N. Starikov’s book “Russian Troubles of the 20th Century” the Kronstadt rebellion is mentioned in passing...

Chapter 3. Conclusions: The Kronstadt uprising of 1921: counter-revolutionary rebellion or popular discontent?

The Red Army soldiers of Kronstadt, the largest naval base of the Baltic Fleet, which was called the “key to Petrograd,” rose up against the policy of “war communism” with arms in hand. On February 28, 1921, the crew of the battleship Petropavlovsk adopted a resolution calling for a “third revolution” that would drive out the usurpers and put an end to the commissar regime.”

The Kronstadt sailors of the Baltic Fleet were the vanguard and striking force of the Bolsheviks: they participated in the October Revolution, suppressed the uprising of the cadets of the military schools of Petrograd, stormed the Moscow Kremlin and established Soviet power in various cities of Russia. And it was these people who were outraged by the fact that the Bolsheviks (whom they believed) brought the country to the brink of a national catastrophe, there was devastation in the country, 20% of the country's population was starving, and in some regions there was even cannibalism. Based on the researched sources and literature, I made an unambiguous conclusion for myself: the Kronstadt uprising of 1921 cannot be called a counter-revolutionary rebellion; it was definitely the highest point of people’s dissatisfaction with the then existing government of the “Bolsheviks”, their policy of “war communism” and surplus appropriation, which led to the monstrous impoverishment of the population. The Kronstadt uprising, together with the uprisings of workers and peasants in other regions of the country, testified to a deep economic and social crisis and the failure of the policy of “war communism.” It became clear to the Bolsheviks that in order to save power, it was necessary to introduce a new domestic political course aimed at meeting the demands of the bulk of the population - the peasantry. Few people know the truth about the Kronstadt uprising, although the very fact that the rebellion against the Bolsheviks was raised by their own guards - the sailors of the Baltic Fleet - should have attracted attention. In the end, these were the same people who had previously taken the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government, then, with arms in hand, established Bolshevik power in Moscow and dispersed the Constituent Assembly, and then, as commissars, carried out the party line on all fronts of the civil war . Until 1921, Leon Trotsky called the Kronstadt sailors “the pride and glory of the Russian revolution.”

Conclusion

For many decades, the Kronstadt events were interpreted as a rebellion prepared by the White Guards, Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and anarchists, who relied on the active support of the imperialists. It was alleged that the actions of the Kronstadters were aimed at overthrowing Soviet power, and that sailors from individual ships and part of the garrison located in the fortress took part in the mutiny. As for the leaders of the party and state, they allegedly did everything to avoid bloodshed, and only after appeals to the soldiers and sailors of the fortress with an offer to renounce their demands remained unanswered, it was decided to use violence. The fortress was taken by storm. At the same time, the victors remained extremely humane towards the vanquished. The events, documents and articles we have examined allow us to give a different perspective on the Kronstadt events. The Soviet leadership knew about the nature of the Kronstadt movement, its goals, leaders, that there was no active participation neither the Socialist Revolutionaries, nor the Mensheviks, nor the imperialists accepted it. However, objective information was carefully hidden from the population and instead a falsified version was offered that the Kronstadt events were the work of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, White Guards and international imperialism, although the Cheka could not find any data on this matter. In the demands of the Kronstadters, much more important was the call for the elimination of the monopoly power of the Bolsheviks. The punitive action against Kronstadt was supposed to show that any political reforms would not affect the foundations of this monopoly. The party leadership understood the need for concessions, including replacing surplus appropriation with a tax in kind and allowing trade. It was these questions that were the main demand of the Kronstadters. It seemed that the basis for negotiations had emerged. However, the Soviet government rejected this possibility. If the X Congress of the RCP(b) had opened on March 6, that is, on the previously appointed day, the turn in economic policy announced at it could have changed the situation in Kronstadt and influenced the mood of the sailors: they were waiting for Lenin’s speech at the congress. Then perhaps the assault would not have been necessary. However, the Kremlin did not want such a development of events. Kronstadt also became for Lenin an instrument with which he gave credibility to the demands to eliminate all internal party struggle, to ensure the unity of the RCP (b) and the observance of strict internal party discipline. A few months after the Kronstadt events, he will say: “It is now necessary to teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance” [No. 9. P. 57]

List of used literature

1. Voinov V. Kronstadt: rebellion or uprising? // Science and life.-1991.-No. 6.

2. Voroshilov K.E. From the history of the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion. // "Military Historical Journal", No. 3, 1961.

3. Civil war in the USSR (in 2 vols.) / coll. authors, editors N. N. Azovtsev. Volume 2. M., Military Publishing House, 1986.

4. Kronstadt tragedy of 1921 // Questions of history. - 1994. No. 4-7

5. Kronstadt tragedy of 1921: documents (in 2 vols.) / comp. I. I. Kudryavtsev. Volume I. M., ROSSPEN, 1999.

6. Kronstadt 1921. Documents. / Russia XX century. M., 1997

7. Kronstadt mutiny. Chronos - Internet encyclopedia;

8. Kuznetsov M. Rebel general to the slaughter. // " Russian newspaper"from 01.08.1997.

9. Safonov V.N. Who provoked the Kronstadt rebellion? // Military historical magazine. - 1991. - No. 7.

10. Semanov S. N. Kronstadt rebellion. M., 2003.

11. Soviet military encyclopedia. T. 4.

12. Trifonov N., Suvenirov O. The defeat of the counter-revolutionary Kronstadt rebellion // Military Historical Journal, No. 3, 1971.

13. Shishkina I. Kronstadt revolt of 1921: “unknown revolution”? // Star. 1988. - No. 6.

Encyclopedia “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” (2nd ed.) / editorial coll., ch. ed. S. S. Khromov. M.: Soviet encyclopedia, 1987.

Internet resources:

www.bibliotekar.ru

www.erudition.ru

www.mybiblioteka.su/tom2/8-84005.html

www.otherreferats.allbest.ru/history..

RSFSR

Kronstadt uprising(Also Kronstadt mutiny) - an armed action by the garrison of the city of Kronstadt and the crews of some ships of the Baltic Fleet against the Bolsheviks in March 1921.

Encyclopedic YouTube

1 / 3

✪ "Armed forces Russia in the events of 1917-1923." Part 3

✪ History of Ukraine in Russian with subtitles

✪ "The Death of Nikolai Gumilyov"

Subtitles

Previous Events

The sailors and Red Army soldiers passed a resolution to support the workers of Petrograd and demanded the release from prison of all representatives of socialist parties, re-election of the Soviets, 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 the products of their economy, that is, the elimination of food dictatorship.

On March 1, 1921, a “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” (VRK) was created in the fortress, headed by sailor S. M. Petrichenko, the committee also included his deputy Yakovenko, engine foreman Arkhipov, master of the electromechanical plant Tukin and head of the third labor school I. E. Oreshin.

Using the powerful radio stations of warships, the Military Revolutionary Committee immediately broadcast the resolution of the meeting and a request for help.

On March 1, 1921, an appeal was published by the Moscow Council of Workers and Red Army Deputies “To all workers of the city of Moscow and the province, to all peasants and Red Army soldiers, to all honest citizens,” which explained the reasons for temporary economic difficulties, the document ended with the call: “Down with the Entente provocateurs! Not strikes, not demonstrations, but friendly work in factories, workshops and railways will lead us out of poverty, save us from hunger and cold!”

Events March 2-6

Disinformation was produced during the events themselves. According to Kibalchich, on the night of March 2-3, he was awakened by phone call Zinoviev's brother-in-law - Ilya Ionov, who reported that Kronstadt was in the power of the whites and they were all mobilized, and the organizer of the rebellion, General A. N. Kozlovsky, also with early morning on the empty streets of the city, he noticed leaflets posted with a call to arms of the proletariat, announcing Kozlovsky’s conspiracy in Kronstadt. Kibalchich is sure that he came up with “ white general Kozlovsky" only Kalinin.

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 concessions, the rebels must lay down their arms without any conditions. The parliamentarians who were sent by the rebels were arrested - thus, the Kronstadter delegation, which arrived in Petrograd to explain the demands of the sailors, soldiers and workers of the fortress, was arrested. The rebels were declared “outside the law.” Repressions followed against the relatives of the leaders of the uprising. They were taken as hostages. Among the first to be arrested was the family of former general Kozlovsky. Together with them, all their relatives, including distant ones, were arrested and exiled to Arkhangelsk province. They continued to take hostages even after Kronstadt fell. Relatives of the leaders of the Military Revolutionary Committee and military specialists who left Kronstadt for Finland were arrested.

Comrades and citizens! Our country is going through a difficult moment. Hunger, cold, and economic devastation have been holding us in an iron grip for three years now. The Communist Party, which rules the country, has become detached from the masses and has been unable to bring it out of the state of general devastation. It did not take into account the unrest that had recently occurred in Petrograd and Moscow and which quite clearly indicated that the party had lost the trust of the working masses. It also did not take into account the demands made by the workers. She considers them the machinations of counter-revolution. She is deeply mistaken.

These unrest, these demands are the voice of all the people, all the working people. All workers, sailors and Red Army soldiers clearly see at the moment that only through common efforts, the common will of the working people, can we give the country bread, firewood, coal, clothe the shoeless and undressed, and lead the republic out of the deadlock. This will of all workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors was definitely carried out at the garrison meeting of our city on Tuesday, March 1st. At this meeting, the resolution of the naval commands of the 1st and 2nd brigades was unanimously adopted. Among the decisions taken was the decision to immediately hold re-elections to the Council. To conduct these elections on fairer grounds, namely, so that the workers find true representation in the Council, so that the Council is an active, energetic body.

March 2 p.m. Delegates from all maritime, Red Army and workers' organizations gathered in the House of Education. At this meeting it was proposed to work out the basis for new elections in order to then begin the peaceful work of rebuilding the Soviet system. But due to the fact that there were reasons to fear reprisals, as well as due to the threatening speeches of government officials, the meeting decided to form a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, to which it would transfer all powers to govern the city and the fortress.

The Temporary Committee has a stay on the battleship Petropavlovsk.

Comrades and citizens! The Provisional Committee is concerned that not a single drop of blood will be shed. He took emergency measures to organize revolutionary order in the city, fortresses and forts.

Comrades and citizens! Don't interrupt your work. Workers! Stay at your machines, sailors and Red Army soldiers in their units and at the forts. All Soviet workers and institutions continue their work. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee calls on all workers' organizations, all workshops, all trade unions, all military and naval units and individual citizens to provide it with all possible support and assistance. The task of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, through friendly and common efforts, is to organize in the city and fortress the conditions for correct and fair elections to the new Council.

So, comrades, to order, to calm, to restraint, to new, honest socialist construction for the benefit of all working people.

Chairman of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee Petrichenko

Secretary Tukin

On March 3, 1921, a defense headquarters was formed in the fortress, which was headed by former captain E. N. Solovyaninov, the headquarters included “military specialists”: the commander of the fortress’s artillery, former general A. R. Kozlovsky, Rear Admiral S. N. Dmitriev , officer of the general staff of the tsarist army B. A. Arkannikov.

On March 4, the Petrograd Defense Committee presented an ultimatum to Kronstadt. The rebels had to either accept it or reject it and fight. 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.

The garrison of the Kronstadt fortress numbered 26 thousand military personnel, but not all personnel participated in the uprising - in particular, 450 people who refused to join the uprising were arrested and locked in the hold of the battleship Petropavlovsk; The party school and some of the communist sailors left the shore in full force, weapons in hand; there were also defectors (in total, more than 400 people left the fortress before the assault began).

Assault March 7-18

On March 5, 1921, by order of the Revolutionary Military Council No. 28, the 7th Army was restored under the command of M. N. 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, after several postponements, that the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) was supposed to open - this was not a mere coincidence, but a thoughtful step taken with a certain political calculation. The short time frame for preparing the operation was also dictated by the fact that the expected opening of the Gulf of Finland could significantly complicate the capture of the fortress.

At 18:00 on March 7, the shelling of Kronstadt began. At dawn on March 8, 1921, on the opening day of the X Congress of the RCP(b), Red Army soldiers stormed Kronstadt. But the assault was repulsed, and the troops retreated to their original lines with losses.

As K.E. Voroshilov noted, after the unsuccessful assault, “the political and moral state of individual units was alarming,” two regiments of the 27th Omsk Rifle Division (235th Minsk and 237th Nevelsk) refused to participate in the battle and were disarmed.

As of March 12, 1921, the rebel forces numbered 18 thousand soldiers and sailors, 100 coastal defense guns (including the naval guns of the battleships Sevastopol and Petropavlovsk - 140 guns), over 100 machine guns with a large amount of ammunition.

In preparation for the second assault, the strength of the group of troops was increased to 24 thousand bayonets, 159 guns, 433 machine guns, the units were reorganized into two operational formations:

• Northern group (commander E.S. Kazansky, commissar E.I. Veger) - advancing on Kronstadt from the north along the ice of the bay, from the coastline from Sestroretsk to Cape Lisiy Nos.
• Southern group (commander A.I. Sedyakin, commissar K.E. Voroshilov) - advancing from the south, from the Oranienbaum area.

A detachment of employees of the Petrograd provincial police (of which 182 soldiers 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 were sent to the active units for reinforcement. Reconnaissance was carried out, white camouflage coats, boards and lattice walkways were prepared to overcome unreliable areas of the ice surface.

The assault began on the night of March 16, 1921; before the start of the battle, the attackers managed to secretly occupy Fort No. 7 (it turned out to be empty), but Fort No. 6 put up prolonged and fierce resistance. Fort No. 5 surrendered after the start of the artillery shelling, but before the assault group approached it (the garrison offered no resistance, the cadets were greeted with cries of “Comrades, don’t shoot, we are also for Soviet power”), but neighboring Fort No. 4 held out for several hours and during the assault the attackers suffered heavy losses.

With heavy fighting, the troops also captured forts No. 1, No. 2, “Milyutin” and “Pavel”, but the defenders left the “Rif” battery and the “Shanets” battery before the assault began and went to Finland across the ice of the bay.

In the middle of the day on March 17, 1921, 25 Soviet aircraft raided the battleship Petropavlovsk.

After the capture of the forts, the Red Army soldiers burst into the fortress, fierce street battles began, but by 5 o’clock in the morning on March 18, the resistance of the Kronstadters was broken.

On March 18, 1921, the headquarters of the rebels (which was located in one of the gun towers of Petropavlovsk) decided to destroy the battleships (along with the prisoners 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 (which most of the rebels had already abandoned) surrendered.

According to Soviet sources, the attackers lost 527 people killed and 3,285 wounded. During the assault, 1 thousand rebels were killed, over 2 thousand were “wounded and captured with weapons in their hands,” more than 2 thousand surrendered and about 8 thousand went to Finland.

Results of the uprising

Repressions began, including against the population of the city. They took place with the knowledge of Dzerzhinsky. 2,103 people were sentenced to death and 6,459 people were sentenced to various terms of punishment. In the spring of 1922, the mass eviction of Kronstadt residents from the island began. Over the following years, the surviving participants in the Kronstadt events were later repeatedly repressed. Rehabilitated only in the 1990s. On January 10, 1994, President Boris Yeltsin, by decree, rehabilitated the participants in the Kronstadt uprising.

In 1921, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR announced the end of War Communism and the transition to the NEP - New Economic Policy.

Memory of the uprising

Mention in literature

In Vasily Aksenov’s Moscow Saga trilogy, the first part mentions the uprising. Nikita Gradov, one of the main characters, was one of those who participated in the suppression of the uprising, and now came to supervise the work on the battleship. In the poem Soviet poet Eduard Bagritsky's "Death of a Pioneer" in a fragment called a song, the Kronstadt rebellion is mentioned and the fact that Kronstadt was taken by an offensive on the ice is noted:

... We were led by youth
On a saber march,
Our youth abandoned us
On the Kronstadt ice...

The events of the Kronstadt uprising became the basis for Mikhail Kuraev's story "Captain Dickstein" (1977 - 1987).

see also

Notes

1. Ratkovsky I. S., Khodyakov M. V. History Soviet Russia, Chapter “From War Communism to New Economic Policy.” Lan, 2001
2. Reader on the history of Russia. Tutorial. 2014, Prospect
3. Kronstadt uprising // Around the World
4. Semanov S. N. Kronstadt mutiny, M., 2003 ISBN 5-699-02084-5
5. "K-22" - Battle cruiser / [under general. ed. N.V.Ogarkova]. - M.: Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, 1979. - P. 479-480. - (Soviet military encyclopedia: [in 8 volumes]; 1976-1980, vol. 4).
6. Voroshilov K. E. From the history of the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion // “Military-historical magazine”. - 1961. - No. 3. - P. 15-35.
7. Kronstadt rebellion (Russian).