Introduction
Kronstadt, a fortified town and base of the Baltic fleet, is situated on Kotlin Island in
the Gulf of Finland in about twenty miles west of St. Petersburg (the city was called
Petrograd from 1914 to 1924), Russia. Throughout the Russian Civil War, the sailors
of Kronstadt were, as Avrich mentions, “The torchbears of revolutionary militancy”.
More than 40,000 of them fought against the Whites on all fronts. The sailors manned
armored trains, became crew-members of gunboats in river flotillas, and fought as foot
soldiers. They were noted for courage and ferocity in combat. Shock troops units
formed of sailors were used in the riskiest operations. Trotsky, the commissar of War,
named the sailors of the Baltic Fleet “the pride and glory of the revolution” (Avrich, 60-
62).
In March 1921, the sailors of Kronstadt rose in the revolt against the Bolshevik
government, which they themselves helped into power. Under the slogan “soviets
without communists” the sailors established a revolutionary commune that survived for
16 days.
What made these devoted defenders of the revolution to rebel?
Causes of the revolt
General situation in the country
On the one hand the situation in the end of 1920 and the beginning of 1921 was
favorable for the Bolshevik government. First, the Civil War in the European part of
Russia was won. Second, after the end of the Civil War, the most serious obstacles to
diplomatic recognition had been removed. Soviet emissaries, particularly Krasin in
London and Vorovsky in Rome, were negotiating treat agreements with a number of
European nations, and the prospects for a successful outcome were bright (Avrich, 8).
At the same time, the winter of 1920-1921 had become an extremely critical period
for the Soviet Russia. The country was exhausted after the years of a continuous war.
During 1919 and 1920, “the death rate had mounted sharply, famine and pestilence
claiming millions of victims beyond the victims who had fallen in combat”. “Agricultural
output had fallen off drastically”, and “industry and transportation were in a shambles”.
The country was in a state of an unprecedented economic collapse (Avrich, 8).
Peasantry
During the Civil War of 1918-1920, the Soviet Russia lived under the policy of War
Communism. The policy’s keystone was a forcible seizure of grain and other produce
from the peasantry. Armed detachments went to the countryside to confiscate surplus
produce “with which to feed the cities and to provision the Red Army”. Though
instructed to leave the peasants enough for their personal needs, “it was common for
requisition squads…to take grain intended for personal consumption”. In addition to
grain and vegetables the food detachments confiscated horses, wagons, and other
items for military use as a rule without any compensation (Avrich, 9).
There is no doubt that these requisitions, in Russian “prodrazverstka”, saved the
communist regime during the war, but they also alienated the peasantry. All over the
country, riots of the peasants took place. Especially serious uprisings were in the
West Siberia and in Tambov Region.
Workers
The situation in the towns, the main source of the Bolshevik support, was in many
ways even worse than in the countryside. By the end of 1920, “total industrial output
had shrunk to about a fifth of 1913 levels”. The supply of fuel and raw materials had
reached a “particularly critical stage”. Nearly everywhere communications were
severely impaired, and “in some districts total paralysis had set in”. The breakdown of
the railroads held back the delivery of food. Workmen and other town people were put
on a starvation ratio (Avrich, 21-23).
At the same time, “inflation mounted to dizzying heights”. During 1920 alone, the
price of bread increased tenfold. A gold ruble that had cost seven paper rubles and 85
kopecks in 1917 cost at least 10,000 paper rubles in 1920 (Avrich, 24). The food
ration (payok) came to form “the nucleus of a workman’s wage”. Food was distributed
according to a preferential system. For example, “the workers of Petrograd’s metal-
smelting shops and blast furnaces received a daily ration of 800 grams of black bread,
…shock workers received 600 grams, and lesser categories 400 or even 200 grams”.
(Avrich, 23). In addition to a food ration, a worker received clothing and shoes from the
government, and sometimes “a fraction of his output”, which was usually bartered for
food (Avrich, 24).
Under the system of War Communism, all private trade was abolished, and a
normal exchange of goods between town and country virtually ceased to exist. In its
place a black market “quickly sprang into being”. “Bag-men” walked from village to
village, buying bread and other food that they would sell or barter in the city.
The government did all it could to stop this illegal trade. Armed roadblock
detachments were deployed to guard the approaches to the cities. These
detachments confiscated food from “speculators”. It became nearly impossible for
workers to bring to the city any provisions to support their starving families.
Another major problem of the working class was a growing “regimentation of labor
under the system of War Communism”. Trotsky was blamed for it. He tried to apply
methods of a military discipline to the industrial economy. In January 1920, the Council
of people’s Commissars decreed a general labor obligation for all able-bodied adults.
Also, after the end of the Civil War, whole detachments of Red Army soldiers, instead
of being demobilized, were kept on as “labor soldiers” and “set to work to rescue
basic industry from collapse”. Menshevik leaders compared a new regimentation to
the Egyptian slavery (Avrich, 26-29).
The Baltic Fleet
As the vast majority of the Russian society, sailors of the Baltic Fleet were also
dissatisfied with and disappointed by the policy of the Bolshevik government. There
were two main reasons for it.
Firstly, after the end of the Civl War, men were able to obtain leave for the first time in
several years. Returning to their native villages and towns they could see the
requisition of grain and brutal methods by which it was executed by their own eyes.
Some sailors were stopped by roadblock detachments and searched for illegal food.
Petrechenko, a leader of the rebellion, remarked in his interview to an American
reporter, “For years the happenings at home while we were at the front or at sea were
concealed by the Bolshevik censorship. When we returned home our parents asked
us why we fought for the oppressors. That set us thinking” (Avrich, 67).
Secondly, the sailors suffered from hunger and cold just slightly less than a general
civilian population. The lack of heat aboard ships and in barracks made life difficult to
bear. In addition, an epidemic of scurvy broke out in the Baltic fleet at the end of 1920.
Society as a whole
The rising tensions in Russian society became obvious. For the three years of the
Civil War people desperately struggled to preserve fruits of the revolution. They tried to
achieve freer and more comfortable life. Once the enemy had been defeated, they
believed, the central government would release them from severity of wartime
discipline, and would cancel the system of War Communism. But when the war was
won, the policy of War Communism was neither abandoned nor relaxed. The
government showed no sign of restoring elementary liberties for Russian citizens.
A feeling of bitter disappointment rapidly developed in the society. Even supporters
of War Communism during the war, were convinced that the policy had outlived its
usefulness. In their eyes, War Communism as a peacetime system was a disastrous
failure. People were not able to tolerate it any longer (Avrich, 32).
The Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks understood a potential danger of the situation perfectly well. There
was already a plan to replace the system of War Communism by the New Economic
Policy, which was to bring a significant relaxation in an economic stratum of a social
life. Yet, Lenin planned to introduce the new policy later.
By way of justification, party spokesmen insisted that the wartime emergency had not
yet passed, “that the country remained isolated and beset by powerful enemies on
every side, ready to pounce at the first sign of internal weakness” (Avrich, 32).
Strikes in Petrograd: an immediate cause of revolt
In February of 1921, an “open breach occurred between the Bolshevik regime and,
its principal mainstay of support”, the working class. An unusually severe, even by
Russian standards, winter in a combination with the system of War Communism had
produced a highly charged atmosphere in large cities. Heavy snows and shortages of
fuel had held up food trains from Siberia and Northern Caucasus. During the first ten
days of February, the disruption of railway links became so complete that no a single
“carload of grain reached the empty warehouses of Moscow” (Avrich, 35).
The first serious trouble erupted in Moscow. Once, Lenin himself appeared before a
gathering of Moscow metal workers. He asked the listeners, accusing the Bolsheviks
in ruining the country, if they would prefer to see a return of the Whites. “Let come who
may – whites, blacks, or devils themselves – just you clear out,” somebody shouted
from the crowd (Avrich, 36).
As soon as the Moscow disturbances begun to subside, a far more serious wave of
strikes swept the former capital of Petrograd. The first strike broke out at the Trubochy
factory, on February 23, 1921. On the 24th, the strikers organized a mass
demonstration in the street. The demonstration was suppressed by kursanty
(communist military cadets). Few shots were fired in the air, but there was not any
bloodshed (Mett, 39).
Meanwhile, the strikes were spreading. The Baltisky factory stopped work. Then the
Laferma factory and a number of others: “the Skorokhod shoe factory, he
Admiralteisky factory, the Borman and Metalicheskiy plants, and finally, on February
28, the Great Putilov works itself” (Mett, 39).
The strikers were demanding measures to assist food supplies. Some factories
were demanding the reestablishment of the local markets, freedom to travel within a
radius of thirty miles of the city, and the withdrawal of militia detachments holding
roads around the city. But “side by side with these economic demands, some
factories were putting forward more political demands: freedom of speech and of the
Press, and the freeing of working class political prisoners” (Mett, 39).
The strikes in Petrograd were “fated a brief existence, and ended almost as suddenly
as they had begun”. Nevertheless, their consequences were enormous. These strikes
aroused the sailors of Kronstadt (Avrich, 51).
Uprising
The beginning
News about strikes in Petrograd reached neighboring Kronstadt almost
immediately. The tradition of solidarity with the working class of “Red Peter” had
existed there since the revolution of 1905. Reports from the city were mixed with
rumors, which quickly roused the passions of the sailors. It was said, for example, that
government troops had fired on the Trubny Factory demonstrators and that strike
leaders were executed by Cheka. Such stories “spread like wildfire” (Avrich, 71).
On February 26, crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol had an
emergency meeting and decided to send a delegation to Petrograd to find out what
was happening. When the delegation arrived to Petrograd, the sailors found the
factories surrounded by troops and officer cadets (kursanty). In the shops still in
operation, armed communist squads watched workers, who remained silent when the
sailors approached. The future leader of the revolt, Peterchenko, would say later, that
the factories looked more like “the forced labor prisons of tsarist times”. On February
28, the emissaries returned to Kronstadt and presented their findings at a meeting on
board the Petropavlovsk. The meeting supported demands of the workers and voted
for a resolution that would become “the political charter of the Kronstadt rebellion”: The
Petropavlovsk resolution (Avrich, 72-74).
The Petropavlovsk resolution
The Petropavlovsk resolution consisted of fifteen points. Only one of those points,
the abolishing of the political departments in the fleet, directly applied to the sailors’
situation. The rest of the document was pointed against the policy of War
Communism. For example, the point eleven demanded to allow the peasants “to make
free use of their land” as long as they did not employ a hired labor. Also, the resolution
included the workers chief demands such as the abolition of roadblocks, privileged
rations, and armed factory squads (Avrich, 74-75).
But, also, the sailors required to reelect Soviets. The introduction to the resolution
stated, “The present soviets do not express the will of workers and peasants”. Such
statements alarmed the Bolshevik government.
Rebels and communists
Yet, the sailors did not agitate for overthrowing of the Communist government. They
did not plan any repressions against members of the communist party and their
families in Kronstadt. One of the first resolutions of the Kronstadt Provisional
Committee, an administrative organ of the rebels, was to avoid bloodshed by any
means. The communists continued to participate in the affairs of the town. They just
stopped been a dominant power.
Meeting of March 1st
The Kronstadt soviet was due to be renewed on March 2, 1921. A meeting of the
Krondstadt inhabitants had been planned for 1st March, and the notification about it
was published in the official journal of the city of Kronstadt. The speakers were to
include a prominent Bolshevik Kalinin.
Kalinin was popular among workingmen because he had come from a peasant’s
family and used to be a factory worker. The Bolshevik government hoped that Kalinin
would be able to calm the sailors down. When Kalinin arrived he was met with music
and flags (Avrich, 76; Mett, 44).
Sixteen thousand people attended the meeting. The delegates who had visited
Petrograd the previous day gave their reports, and the Petropavlovsk resolution was
distributed. Kalinin and Kuzmin, a commissar of the fleet, opposed the resolution.
Nevertheless, the assembly adopted the document. The next mass meeting was
planned for the following day. Delegates from “ships crews, army units, state
institutions, and dockyards...were grouping to elect the new soviet”. After that, Kalinin
returned to Petrograd .(Mett, 44).
Meeting of March 2nd and the Provisional Revolutionary Committee
The following day, March 2nd, the meeting took place in the House of Culture. The
delegate’s insisted that the elections of a new soviet “be carried in a loyal and correct
manner”. Kuzmin and Vasiliev, another Kronstadt’s communist leader, spoke first.
Kuzmin declared that the Communist party would not give the power without a fight.
The speeches of the Communist leaders were so aggressive and provocative that the
assembly decided to put Kuzmin and Vasiliev under arrest. They remained in custody
till the end of the uprising, and had never been mistreated. At the same time, other
communist party members were allowed to speak at length during the debate. The
meeting of delegates, also, endorsed the Petropavlovsk resolution by an
overwhelming majority.
The new soviet was not formed, however. There were rumors in the town that the
central government was concentrating troops to storm Kronstadt. Because of those
rumors and threatening speeches of Kuzmin and Vasiliev, the assembly decided to
form a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, to administrate the town and surrounding
fortresses. The soviet was supposed to be formed after a normalization of the
situation (Avrich, Mett 45-46).
Later that day, under the leadership of Provisional Revolutionary Committee, all
strategic points in Kronstadt were occupied. The sailors took control over state
establishments, staff headquarters, all fortresses, and telephone and telegraph
buildings.
It was a point of no return. With prominent members of the Communist party in
custody, and after taking over the city, the attack of the Government troops became
inevitable.
Bolsheviks
Bolsheviks did not see the Kronstadt mutiny itself as a threat to their regime. But
the city could be used by enemies as a base for a military intervention. At that time, an
army of White general Wrangel stayed in Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, and it
could be relatively quickly mobilized against the Bolsheviks. The Lenin’s government
could not risk. The Bolsheviks had to take Kronstadt as soon as possible. In few
weeks the ice surrounding Kotlin Island would start melting, and after that, a massive
infantry attack would be impossible.
From the very beginning, the Bolsheviks tried to discredit the movement. First of all,
they proclaimed that the riot was organized by the White Guards. The Bolsheviks
stated that the revolt was prepared by former tsarist officers serving in Kronstadt as
military advisers (voenspezy). Particularly, the propaganda claimed that the head of
the uprising was a former tsarist general named Koslovsky. The man was in charge of
the Kronstadt’s artillery.
In fact, it was not true. Former tsarist officers did not desert Kronstadt after the revolt
and fought against the Reds, but they did not play any dominant role. In reality, sailors
ignored most of officers’ suggestions.
Also, the communist propaganda tried to convince the Russian population that the
sailors, heroes of the revolution and the Civil War, and Kronstadt rebellions are
different people. According to the Bolsheviks, the Civil War veterans had been
demobilized and replaced by new recruits many of whom were Whites’ sympathizers
or even had served in the White Army. It could not be true because, for example,
members of the Provisional Committee had been in the navy for several years. Thus,
Peterchenko, a leader of the rebellion, joined the navy before World War I, in 1912.
Military preparations
The rebels made minimal preparations to the future assault. They ignored all plans of
general Kozlovsky and other military advisers. For example, right after the revolt,
Kozlovsky urged insurgents to storm Petrograd. Taking into consideration a tense
situation in the city, there was a good chance to take it over. Later, Kozlovskiy advised
to attack food warehouses in the Neighboring Oranienbaum because the city of
Kronstadt did not have enough provisions to sustain a prolonged blockade. Also, the
officers recommended the sailors to use artillery to break the ice around the island to
protect Kronstadt from an infantry attack. Finally, Kozlovsky proposed to barricade the
streets at Petrograd Gates, the most vulnerable part of the city.
None of these offers was considered, and there were two reasons for it. First, the
sailors traditionally distrusted former officers. Second, they did not believe that there
would be a fight with the Red Army, their class brothers.
The Red Army
Many Bolshevik soldiers refused to fight against “bratishki” (“brothers”, or “little
brothers”), a nickname of the sailors in the Red Army. In fact, a part of Oranienbaum
Harrison endorsed the Petropavlosk resolution and decided to join the revolt.
However, the mutiny was quickly and brutally suppressed.
Soon, the units of the Red Army, sympathizing with insurgents, were replaced by
loyal to the Communist government kursanty (officer cadets), units of communist
volunteers, and non-Russian military detachments. Particularly, during the second
assault on Kronstadt, Tukhachevsky, a commander of the Communist force, used
some brigades formed entirely of the Chinese and Tatars.
The Kronstadt Commune
The Kronstadt rebellion lasted only for sixteen days, but during this short period a
formidable revolutionary commune was established. The commune was governed by
the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. It had fifteen members. Sailor Petrichenko
was the Committee’s chairman, and Yakovenko and Arkhipov were deputy chairmen.
Each member of the Committee was assigned a specific area of responsibility such
as civic affairs, justice, transportation, food supply, defense, and agitation and
propaganda (Avrich, 157).
Alongside with the Revolutionary Committee, the conference of delegates, which
convened on March 2, remained in existence for the duration of the rebellion. Its
membership fluctuated between two and three hundred sailors, soldiers, and workers.
It was a type of a parliament; though, the sailors saw this organ as a prototype of free
soviets for which they fought (Avrich, 159).
In Kronstadt, differential food rations were abolished. Special rations were
distributed only in hospitals and childcare facilities. Also, extra food could be given to
the sick on a doctor’s prescription. Otherwise, the food in Kronstadt was issued on an
equal basis in exchange for coupons. (Avrich, 156).
In the first days of uprising, an 11 p.m curfew was imposed, and movement in and
out of the city placed under strict control. Schools were closed until further notice.
Also, the Provisional Committee issued a number of edicts effecting Kronstadt’s
political structure. First of all, it abolished the political department of the fortress.
Furthermore, in “every public institution, trade union, factory, and military unit, a
revolutionary troika (three people) was elected to carry out orders of the Revolutionary
Committee on a local level”. Communists were not allowed to become members of
those troikas (Avrich, 157-158).
A Finnish journalist who visited the island at the height of the rebellion was struck by
the “enthusiasm” of its inhabitants (Avrich, 159).
The first assault
The first massive infantry assault on Kronstadt started shortly before dawn on March
8. The communists did not attack earlier, probably because they did not have a
sufficient number of troops.
Nevertheless, the first assault was premature. “In their anxiety to crush the rebellion
before it received any reinforcements or spread to the mainland, the authorities had
acted too hastily, making faulty preparations and using an insufficient quantity of
troops and equipment”. As a result, the assault was repulsed with heavy losses.
Altogether, 20,000-25,000 Red troops took part in the operation. (Avrich, 193).
The rebels numbered “some 13,000 sailors and soldiers, with perhaps additional
2,000 men recruited from the civilian population”. Kotlin Island was surrounded by
numerous forts and batteries. All the forts and batteries were “thickly armored and
equipped with heavy guns in turrets”. In total, Kronstadt had 135 cannons, and 68
machine guns mounted on the forts and ships. In addition, Kronstadt benefited from
the wide expanse of ice separating it from the Bolshevik forces. (Avrich, 151-154).
However, Kronstadt had serious weaknesses. The most important thing was that the
fortress did not have enough ammunition and food to sustain a prolonged siege
(Avrich, 151-154).
During the night of March 8, a terrible storm was blowing over the Baltic. “Thick fog
made the tracks almost invisible”. The Red Army soldiers wore “long white blouses,
which hid them well against the snow” (Mett, 56). Out in front were detachments of
military cadets followed by picked Red Army units. Cheka machine gunners were in
the rear to discourage any potential deserters (Avrich, 153).
The Red troops were met by a murderous fire from the forts and batteries around the
island. Some of the exploding shells cracked open the ice, killing dozens of attackers.
In the end only a fraction of assaulting troops managed to reach the outermost forts,
but even they had to withdraw under a dense fire (Avrich, 151-155).
The second Assault
The final infantry assault on Kronstadt started on March 17 after intense artillery
bombardment. The morale of the communist troops was much higher that time. The
fact is that shortly before the operation, Lenin had officially canceled the system of War
Communism. Hated prodrazverstka, a forceful confiscation of peasants’ surpluses,
and the system of roadblock detachments were liquidated. Many Red Army soldiers
saw the storm of Kronstadt as the last battle before demobilization. Also, this time the
troops were very well equipped.
There is no precise information about the number of the Red troops taking part in the
operation. Avrich believes that there were about 50,000 infantrymen.
Tukhachevsky divided his army into two unequal parts: northern and southern. Avrich
thinks that the southern group consisted of about 35,000 people. Tukhachevsky’s plan
was “to launch a decisive attack from the south and then to capture Kronstadt by a
massive simultaneous assault from different directions” (Mett, 58).
The battle was very intense. For example, in the course of this fight “more than a half
of the 79th brigade were killed or wounded” including a number of delegates of the
tenth communist party congress. The congress took place in Moscow at that time.
About three hundred of its delegates volunteered to fight in Kronstadt.
Finally, at the eastern end of Kronstadt, the Reds managed to enter the city. “By this
time attackers had already suffered heavy losses, but once within the walls, they
encountered a veritable hell” (Avrich, 207). Street fights continued through March 17,
but by noon 18th all forts and almost the entire town were reoccupied by the Red Army
troops.
Meanwhile, about 8,000 rebels including Petrechenko and general Kozlovsky
retreated over the frozen harbor to Finland.
In its ferocity the battle of Kronstadt matched the bloodiest episodes of the Civil
War. Losses were very heavy on both sides, but the Communists, forced to attack
over the open ice, took much heavier casualties. After the battle, “so many bodies
were strewn over the ice that Finnish government asked Moscow to remove them for
fear that they would be washed ashore and create a health hazard”. According to
Harold Quarton, a “well-informed American consul in Viborg, total Soviet casualties
were about 10,000 including the dead, wounded, and missing in action” (Arvich, 211).
No reliable figures of Rebels casualties are available, but one report puts the
number of killed at 600, with more than a thousand wounded, and 2,500 taken
prisoners (Arvich, 211).
Conclusion
The Kronstadt rebellion was not a conspiracy of external enemies as the Bolsheviks
claimed. It was a spontaneous revolt against the system of War Communism and the
Bolshevik party dictatorship: one of many taken place all over Russia at that time. The
sailors were the last defenders of the ideals of the Revolution. Dying, they took with
them into the grave a rebellious spirit of 1917.
References:
Avrich, P. (1991). Kronstadt 1921. New Jersey: Princeton University Press
Mett, I. (1973). The Kronstadt uprising. Montreal: Black Rose Books – Our Generation
Press
Pipes R. (1995). A concise history of the Russian revolution (pp. 346-350, 368). New
York: Random House Inc.