Uprising of 1921

This is an excerpt from my research paper.

Kronstadt is a naval fortress on an island in the Gulf of Finland. The Kronstadt fortress has served as the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet. The fortress also served as a guard for the city of St Petersburg. The fortress has a history of uprisings to its credit. The first was in 1917, and the other was the Uprising of 1921. The Uprising of 1921 is one of great importance. In an article called Minority Report by Christopher Hitchens, “For the anarchists and Libertarians, like Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, it was the proof that Bolshevism was a new form of tyranny.”(Hithchens) In the minds of some people, they thought that Bolshevism was the greatest thing, but after the Kronstadt Uprising many opinions changed. Before I continue I want to go back to where this all started and what was the cause of the Kronstadt Uprising. In the year 1917 the Bolsheviks took control of Russia from the Constitutional Democratic government. It was in October, 1917, when a coup d’etat by the Bolsheviks toppled the Democratic government. After the coup the country went into a civil war for several years. At this time the “Red” and “White Guard” armies come into play. The “Red” is the side that supported the Bolshevik government and the “White” was counter revolutionaries who opposed the Bolshevik government. “By the end of 1920, the balance of power had tilted decisively against the Whites and the Civil War was about over, but everyone was feeling the privation and hardship caused by civil disorder, foreign military intervention and economic embargoes. And the extreme measures ordered by Lenin under the “War Communism” policy.”(The Truth about Kronstadt Uprising 1921.) The people of Russia were suffering greatly due to the war against the “Whites”. The people of cities were cold, hungry, and because of this were starting to question the Communist rule. “The situation preceding the Kronstadt uprising can be summed up as a fantastic discrepancy between promise and achievement”(The Truth about Kronstadt Uprising 1921.).

The unrest in Kronstadt that lead up to the Kronstadt Uprising started during the month of February 1921. The meetings and actual uprising started on March 1st 1921. This only lasted for 18 days. It was an uprising by the sailors. “Kronstadt was the scene of the first and last popular armed uprising against the rule of the Communist Party.”(Mett) A quote from Lenin in the article Minority Report described the uprising as, “the flash which lit up reality better than anything else.”(Hithcens) It was a sign to Lenin of how the people felt about the Communist government, and realized he had to stop the uprising before more people decided to rebel. Train on his website claims that the uprising, “could conceivably have provided the spark for a third revolution that would have toppled the young Communist government and created a very different Russia.”(Train) This could have been possible if Lenin had decided to wait to put down the up risers and the Baltic ice had melted. If this had occurred there would have been a chance for the mutineers to have gained support from the White Guard. The White Guard was against the “Red” who was the Bolshevik government. The Uprising at Kronstadt is thought to be the first rebellion by workers. It was the sailors who revolted against the Bolshevik government as most people think, but the sailors revolted because they had sympathy for the people of Kronstadt. As the other cities of Russia the people of Kronstadt were cold, hungry, and the unhappiness towards the Communist government was great.

In St. Petersburg a bunch of strikes had taken place, and sailors from Kronstadt curious about the strikes sent men there to investigate, on Feb. 26 1921, and returned on the 28th. The same day of their return they created a bunch of resolutions. There were fifteen in all. These resolutions were called the Petropavlovsk resolution. The very first resolution was “Immediate new elections to the Soviets. The present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda.”(Mett) Among the demands they asked for freedom of speech, and “giving peasants the right to own land and cattle.”(Train) These demands were sent to the Kronstadt soviets. They called for and assembly on the 1st of March, where 16,000 people attended. The assembly was held in the House of Culture. All but two people voted for the resolutions. The day after the sailors of Kronstadt took control of the key installations in the city. Kronstadt had broken away from the authority of the Communists. Their slogan was “ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS AND NOT TO PARTIES”(Train)

The following day, March 3rd Lenin and Trotsky sent troops to Kronstadt to surround the city and the were ordered not allow anybody to leave. They feared the spread of ideas from Kronstadt would cause more people to turn against the Communist government. "On March 2nd," asserts this report by Lenin and Trotsky, amazing in its cynicism, "by morning, the group of the former general Kozlovsky (Commander of the Artillery) had already appeared openly on the scene. The former general Kozlovsky and three officers, whose names have not been determined, openly acted in the roles of mutineers."(The Truth about the Kronstadt Uprising 1921) Kozlovsky however was not the leader of the uprising; he in fact was a commander of the artillery at Kronstadt. The leader of the uprising was a man by the name of Petrichenko. Lenin and Trotsky also spread a rumor that the uprising was started from French counter-intelligence agents. That of course was not true; they got the idea because two weeks prior to the revolt of General Koxlovsky a French paper the “Le Monde” had an article about the Red army surrounding the city. Between March 3rd and the 7th Trotsky went around St. Petersburg gathering as many Red Army troops as he could. He placed them under the command of Turkhachevsky. The first attack on the city of Kronstadt was on the afternoon of March 7 1921, which had begun with a bombardment from mainland coastal forts. The bombardment of Kronstadt would continue for ten days. Also the night of the 7th an attack was ordered from the north and south of Kronstadt. The attack consisted of several thousand Red army troops. The soldiers were forced at gunpoint to attack the city in the middle of a snowstorm. The attack on the fortress was a failure due to artillery and machine gun fire. The casualties were 500 dead, and about 2,000 wounded. Also hundreds of troops surrendered or deserted to the rebels. Tukhachevsky tried another attack on the night of March 12-13. Again he attacked from the south, but the attack consisted of 3,000 kursanti which were “fanatically loyal officer cadets from Red Army military academies”(Train) This time the Kronstadt forces used artillery to destroy the ice in front of the attacking forces this caused them to turn back. The Kronstadt forces after four days of bombardment and assaults defended the fortress with few casualties.

By March 16th the forces of Kronstadt were starving and exhausted, but they had a force of 16,500 men. The bombardments and the inability to get supplies were taking their toll on them. “The Kronstadt garrison had been markedly reduced. Figures issued by the General Staff of the defenders put the number at 3,000. Gaps between infantrymen defending the perimeter were at least 32 feet wide. Stocks of ammunition and shells were also limited.”(Train) There were about 45,000 troops surrounding the city by the 16th which included Communist volunteers. Again Turkhachvsky attempted a night attack, but this time he had the troops attack from three sides and used camouflage. This was a successful attack. The Red soldiers entered the city and there was fierce fighting in the streets of Kronstadt. The fighting lasted all night and continued no the next day. “Tukhachevsky wrote in his memoirs: “It was not a battle, it was an inferno....The sailors fought like wild beasts. I cannot understand where they found the might for such rage. Each house where they were located had to be taken by storm”(Train) March 17, 1921 Kronstadt was in Communist control. About 8,000 rebels had fled to Finland, 600 sailors were killed in the taking of the fortress, 900 executed. “Thousands more were imprisoned - some of the first camps in what Solzhenitsyn named the `Gulag Archipelago' were built to receive the rebels of Kronstadt - and the remainder were dispersed to crew ships in the Black and Caspian Sea Fleets or the Siberian Flotilla.”(Train)

The Kronstadt Uprising of 1921 was Lenin’s first look at the unrest he had created. He decided instead of compromising with the people of Kronstadt to put them down militarily. The rebels of Kronstadt didn’t want to use violence, but the Communist government decided to take the first shot. If the Uprising had taken place during the spring or summer the out come could have been different. The rebels could have gained support from more people. “The memory of these pure, great-spirited hero/martyrs remains, forever sacred to mournful, suffering humanity, struggling for freedom and a better future. Glory to them, and to Kronstadt, and to the unknown heroes, perished in the struggle...”(The Truth about the Kronstadt Uprising 1921)

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