Demand of the participants in the Kronstadt uprising of 1921. Kronstadt uprising (“rebellion”) (1921)

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 on 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, the overall level of industrial production decreased by almost 5 times compared to 1913. A critical situation arose with the supply of fuel and raw materials. Many Donbass mines were flooded and destroyed during the Civil War. Transport infrastructure was in complete decline. 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 of the salary was paid in 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. On Zinoviev, Trotsky and other party leaders, whose Jewish origin, associated with everything anti-national, accusations were poured in that they had invented new uniform state farms, which again led to the enslavement of 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, the Civil War, in general, ended, and a series of peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks and the policies 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 through the regions of the country - in the Volga region, in the Urals, and in Siberia, peasant uprisings broke out 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 the factories were closed, and in conditions of shortage of fuel and food, rumors immediately appeared that the new government - the commissars - did 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 Factory 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 of the Petrograd Soviet opened, in which the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, M. I. Kalinin, who had 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 total number ship crews, military sailors of coastal units, auxiliary units stationed in Kronstadt and 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 Vasiliev). 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 units in all military units, as well as in factories and factories, there are various duties on the part of the communists, and if such duties or detachments are needed, then they can be appointed in military units with 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.

The most important events of the beginning of the uprising took place in the building of the former Engineering School. 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, engine foreman Arkhipov, foreman 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 in the years 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 Kronstadtites was declared “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 the 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 stood firmly in 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 , sent from the Western Front to reinforce 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 the 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 of the Gulf of Finland, work was underway to prepare for 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 better situation with food in the city.

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 were in extremely poor condition. rifle division. 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 no political progress followed; the power of the Soviet bureaucracy and communists only strengthened, ultimately leading to sole rule 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 terms, and 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 the former commander of the 27th Omsk Division 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.

	Dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Bread monopoly
	Brutal suppression of the uprising
Opponents
Commanders
Vasily Zheltovsky	I. N. Smirnov
Stepan Danilov	V. I. Shorin
Petr Shevchenko	I. P. Pavlunovsky
Nikolay Bulatov	Vasiliev Makar Vasilievich
Timofey Lidberg
Strengths of the parties
About 100,000 people	Units of rifle divisions Several cavalry regiments Several rifle regiments 4 armored trains Special purpose parts

West Siberian uprising of 1921-22.- the largest anti-Bolshevik armed uprising of peasants, Cossacks, part of the workers and urban intelligentsia in Russia in the early 20s.

The history of the Civil War is divided by historians into several stages, each of which differs in the composition and motivations of the participants, the scale, intensity of the struggle, as well as the accompanying circumstances, political, economic and geographical. The final period of the civil war, which is usually defined from the end of 1920 to 1922, inclusive, is characterized by a sharp increase in the size and role of anti-communist protests, the main participants and driving force of which were peasants. One of the most significant of them, in terms of the number of rebels, as well as the scale of the territory covered, is the West Siberian uprising of 1921.

Having broken out at the end of January 1921 in the northeastern region of the Ishim district of the Tyumen province, the uprising in a few weeks covered most of the volosts of the Ishim, Yalutorovsky, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Berezovsky and Surgut districts of the Tyumen province, Tarsky, Tyukalinsky, Petropavlovsk and Kokchetav districts of the Omsk province, Kurgan district of Chelyabinsk province, eastern regions of Kamyshlovsky and Shadrinsky districts of Yekaterinburg province. In addition, it affected five northern volosts of the Turin district of the Tyumen province, and resulted in unrest in the Atbasar and Akmola districts of the Omsk province. In the spring of 1921, rebel troops operated over a vast territory from Obdorsk (now Salekhard) in the north to Karkaralinsk in the south, from Tugulym station in the west to Surgut in the east.

In February 1921, the rebels managed to cut both lines of the Trans-Siberian for three weeks. railway, thereby ending relations between Siberia and the rest of Russia. At different times they captured Petropavlovsk, Tobolsk, Kokchetav, Berezov, Surgut and Karkaralinsk, Obdorsk. There were battles for Ishim, Kurgan, Yalutorovsk.

Researchers and memoirists estimate the number of rebels from thirty to one hundred and fifty thousand. But in any case, their number is at least not inferior to the number of Tambov and Kronstadt rebels.

The forces deployed by the Soviet government to suppress the uprising were also great. The total number of regular units of the Red Army and communist formations exceeds the number of field forces Soviet army that time.

They were managed by a specially created body, which included prominent figures of the political and military Bolshevik elite - the Presibrevkom I.N. Smirnov, the assistant commander in chief for Siberia V.I. Shorin and the plenipotentiary representative of the Cheka for Siberia I.P. Pavlunovsky.

Thus, we can talk about the West Siberian uprising as the largest among the anti-communist uprisings of the peasantry. In this regard, it is extremely interesting to consider, using the example of this uprising, the question of the evolution of the relationship between the Siberian peasantry during the end of the civil war with the Soviet regime, the motives that motivated both sides, how objective the inevitability of their collision was, and what subjective factors had greatest influence on the course of events. This course work is devoted to an attempt to illuminate these issues.

The historiography of the West Siberian uprising is quite clearly divided into the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. As for the Soviet period, some changes in attitude towards the study of the uprising can be traced within it. In the first years after the Civil War, quite a large number of memoirs appeared. who participated in the events on the side of the Reds. Given their understandable subjectivity, in these texts one can glean a lot of interesting information, just as any eyewitness testimony can be interesting, from which, with a certain critical approach to their assessment, one can, if desired, build a picture of what is happening. Unfortunately, this picture will have a one-sided coverage, since the evidence of the participants in the uprising themselves has not been preserved. For obvious reasons, none of them left memoirs, and their voices can only be heard from the interrogation records of captured rebels, and this category of documents is particularly specific and requires a particularly careful and thoughtful approach. In addition, these documents, not as fragments, but as a whole, entered historical circulation relatively recently, only at the end of the last century, and because of this they have been poorly mastered by historians.

The works of Soviet historians, with all their diversity, were united in their desire to interpret the West Siberian uprising as a kulak uprising, prepared and carried out under the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionaries and former Kolchak officers; the participation of the middle peasants and poor peasants in the uprising was recognized, but downplayed, and was explained by the fact that the working peasantry was deceived or intimidated by the leaders of the uprising. On the other hand, the policy of the Soviet government was recognized as correct and the only possible one in those circumstances; only miscalculations and shortcomings in its practical implementation were noted, the blame for which was placed entirely on local workers. The main attention of Soviet historians was drawn to the purely military aspects of the uprising, which were studied in sufficient detail.

However, even in the post-Soviet period, when many previously closed archives were opened and the opportunity arose to express one’s opinion regardless of the party line, there was no qualitative leap in the study and coverage of the West Siberian uprising. The level of use and breadth of application of available materials in general did not change, except that the bias of some researchers changed its sign, and now all the actions of the Soviet regime were painted in black light, and, on the contrary, its opponents were painted in light colors.

A happy exception is the activity of Omsk researcher Vasily Ivanovich Shishkin. The two-volume collection Siberian Vendee (Sibirskaya Vendee. Documents. In 2 volumes. T. 1 (1919-1920), T. 2 (1920-1921) compiled by him. - M.: MF "Democracy", 2000; 2001. comp. V.I. Shishkin), as well as the collection For Soviets without Communists (For Soviets without Communists: Peasant uprising in the Tyumen province. 1921: Collection of documents. - Novosibirsk, 2000. compiled by V.I. Shishkin) is not complete has no analogues and to this day is practically the only printed source for those who wish to familiarize themselves with the documents of that time.

I mainly tried to rely on these works.

In November 1920, the ships set sail from the Crimean piers, carrying General Wrangel's army into exile. And in Transbaikalia, just two weeks earlier, at the end of October 1920, the troops of the People's Revolutionary Army of the buffer Far Eastern Republic, after several unsuccessful attempts, finally knocked out the famous Chita traffic jam. Abandoned by the Japanese allies, Ataman Semenov took the remnants of his units to China in order to transfer them along the Chinese Eastern Railway to Primorye, where the line of the last front between the Reds and Whites for a long time established far south of Khabarovsk, near Iman.

And although they continued fighting in Transcaucasia and Turkestan, but few people now doubted their outcome; the Bolsheviks everywhere gained the upper hand. The bloodless country lived with a feeling of close peace. And the harder the trials that befell her seemed. Industry stood still. The transport system was on the verge of extinction. Life in cities, which were constantly faced with the specter of starvation, could only be maintained through incredible efforts.

Throughout the twentieth year, the devastated provinces were rocked by peasant uprisings, and significant forces of regular troops were rushed to suppress them. Suffice it to remember that a group of almost one hundred thousand strong was concentrated against the Antonov rebels in the Tambov region, headed by famous civil war commanders Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Kotovsky and many others.

However, even in the ranks of the Red Army, which mainly consisted of the same peasants, the accumulated fatigue and dissatisfaction with the policies of war communism often erupted in the form of open rebellions, such as the speech of Chapaev’s associate, the hero of the defense of Uralsk from the White Cossacks, the commander of Sapozhkov, or the uprising of the garrison of the city of Verny (Alma -Ata). And finally, in March of twenty-one, the unthinkable happened, the Kronstadt sailors, the beauty and pride of the revolution, rose up.

We should also not forget about the rampant criminal gangs that did not have any political overtones and, because of this, easily joined any movement. However, in fairness, it must be said that the line between criminal and political banditry was very thin. And the actions of the parties, no matter what banner they acted under, were often accompanied by robbery and violence against ordinary people. However, the inhabitants, who had become wild and hardened during the years of war, often grabbed weapons themselves, which, despite the strictest orders of all kinds of authorities, were passed around quite a lot at that time.

Western Siberia in 1920

Against this background, Western Siberia was no exception.

After the Tobolsk-Peter and Paul battle, Kolchak’s army practically ceased organized resistance; those of its units that retained combat capability, breaking through partisan barriers, quickly went east, to join Ataman Semenov, or south, to China and Mongolia. On November 14, 1919, the thirty thousand garrison of Omsk laid down their arms without a fight. The capital of White Siberia fell.

Due to such a rapid development of events in Western Siberia, with its rich land and prosperous peasantry, it was not necessary to fully experience the horrors and deprivations of front-line confrontation, which, of course, distinguished it favorably from other regions of Russia, through which the fiery wave of the fratricidal war swept. But this same circumstance played its fatal role very soon.

This role was outlined in a few words by the chairman of the Sibrevkom, I.N. Smirnov, in 1920: Siberia is important for Soviet Russia as a reservoir from which not only food can be drawn, but also human material. (Siberian Vendée comp. V.I. Shishkin)

As for human resources, we are probably talking not only about conscription into the Red Army, which, moreover, in the conditions of the transition to a peaceful path, partly reorganizing into the so-called labor army, was on the verge of massive reductions. (note: Labor armies, armies of labor - the armies of the Red Army after the end of the civil war, aimed at working in the Soviet economy while maintaining military discipline and the management system during the attempt to build communism in 1920-1921...

By a resolution of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense on January 23, the Reserve Army of the Republic was sent to restore the Moscow-Ekaterinburg railway connection.

2nd Special Railway Labor Army (aka Labor Railway Army of the Caucasian Front). Transformed from the 2nd Army of the Caucasian Front by decree of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense on February 27. Petrograd Labor Army. Created from the 7th Army on February 10.

Second revolutionary labor army. Created on April 21 from units of the 4th Army of the Turkestan Front.

In December 1920, the Donetsk Labor Army began to operate

In January 1921 the Siberian Labor Army was formed

Just as the Red Army soldiers, instead of demobilization, already as labor army workers had to participate in the restoration of the destroyed economy, so the civilian population, now I’m talking about peasants, in addition to the surrender of food surplus, were forcibly widely involved in various duties - horse-drawn work, logging, road repairs, etc. These duties, especially, of course, logging, placed a heavy burden on the inhabitants of the taiga regions, which, it seems to me, was one of the reasons that the uprisings began in them back in the twentieth year.

Political, economic and geographical features of the area of ​​the uprising.

Here we should dwell in some detail on the geography of the West Siberian Uprising.

In February - April 1921, rebel detachments and formations operated in the vast territory of Western Siberia, Trans-Urals and the modern Republic of Kazakhstan, which, according to the administrative-territorial division of that time, included the Tyumen province, Kokchetavsky, Petropavlovsk, Tarsky and Tyukalinsky districts of the Omsk province, Kurgan district Chelyabinsk province, eastern regions of Kamyshlovsky and Shadrinsky districts of Yekaterinburg province.* (For advice without communists. Peasant uprising in the Tyumen province 1921 Collection of documents Siberian chronograph Novosibirsk 2000) it should be added that the area of ​​​​the uprising was not limited to this, for example, after the defeat of the main forces rebels, the remnants of their troops reached Obdorsk (present-day Salekhard) in the north and China in the south. (Mikhail Budarin Were about the security officers. West Siberian Book Publishing House 1974, I.I. Serebryannikov Great Departure, from Ast 2003)

Thus, it can be seen that the main focus of the uprising was in densely populated counties with developed agriculture, bounded by the Kazakh steppes from the south, the Altai foothills from the southeast, taiga from the north and east, and the forest-steppe of the Urals from the west. It was crossed from the west by two branches of the Trans-Siberian Railway, converging in Omsk, and the Ob and Irtysh served as the main transport arteries for movement in the meridian direction.

The insurgency of 1920 in western Siberia.

This situation contributed to the fact that during Kolchak’s rule this area was practically not affected by the partisan movement. The partisans actively operated along its perimeter, in the taiga, in the foothills, where the terrain was more favorable to them, and only with the approach of the Red Army did they leave the taiga to take part in the pursuit of the retreating Kolchakites. This persecution often took the form of complete extermination of not only white soldiers and officers, but also the refugees accompanying them. The looting was widespread and was not limited only to military warehouses and refugee convoys; cities were also under threat.

Indicative is the story of the defeat of Kuznetsk, present-day Novokuznetsk, by a detachment of the anarchist Rogov in December 19, which, according to various sources, claimed the lives of from one thousand to two thousand people and has still not received an unambiguous assessment. (see, for example, the newspaper Veche Tver dated May 28, 2009, article by Igor Mangazeev Immortalizing the hero of a horror novel or a discussion on the forum of Siberian local historians

The point is that in addition to the Rogov detachment, Kuznetsk included several more partisan detachments, and which of them bears the blame for what happened is still unclear. However, it should be noted that there are some undisputed facts: among the partisans there were many who were irreconcilable towards those whom they considered their enemies, and almost anyone could fall into the circle of these enemies, and here the reprisal was short-lived. But besides them, there were also enough people who thought of nothing but robbery. Peasants from surrounding villages entered the city with the partisans so as not to miss out on their share.

So, in one week, from 4 to 6 “partisan” detachments visited the city, in addition, criminals released from prison took an active part in the events in Kuznetsk. Mention is also made of the men of the surrounding villages who rushed to plunder Kuznetsk. And most importantly, the memories of the Kuznetsk residents are simply replete with statements that in many cases their own neighbors killed or tried to kill people and many well-known names in Kuznetsk are named. We will not name them, since these charges are too serious to bring against people based on rumors and gossip recorded decades later. So, according to the memoirs of a resident of Kuznetsk, Konovalov: “our blacksmiths and the men of the surrounding villages robbed, under the brand of partisans.” Some of the killers acted straightforwardly - they entered the house, killed the owners, and left grabbing something that was in sight (but the killers were recognized by hidden children or someone from the family), others cowardly fired rifles from the bushes, remaining unrecognized and there were only guesses about who shot (but they also thought about the neighbors). The role of a certain Aksenova is known, who led the “Rogovtsy”, showing them who should be killed and where they could make good money. And there was “profit” in the city. The city was rich and merchant. What is interesting here is the recollection of one blacksmith woman, who says that their family was so poor that the Rogovites, having demanded oats for horses, did not take it when they saw such poverty, but immediately adds that all the same, then the bandits took from them “the four best (!) horses"

These events are interesting for the topic of my text because they shed some light on the sentiments widespread among peasants and partisans at the time of the transition of Western Siberia to the rule of the Bolsheviks. There is a lot of evidence about the spread of these sentiments, as well as about what these sentiments resulted in. It should be remembered that even before the revolution, the Siberian peasant, especially a migrant not in the first generation, was not very dependent on the state, had a certain economic independence, and accordingly had an independent and enterprising character, which, by the way, played an important role in the fact that the Kolchak movement with her mobilizations was rejected by him.

The absence of landownership, the influx of exiles, the insignificance of the administrative apparatus and its remoteness from villages scattered far from each other formed the specific features of the psychological make-up of Siberians - rationalism, individualism, independence, feeling self-esteem. V.P. Semenov Tian-Shansky in 1895 characterized the inhabitants of the region as follows: “A visitor from European Russia was immediately pleasantly struck by the freedom and ease in the way Siberian men treated visiting “officials.” The Siberian, without any invitation, sat down straight and, despite any authority, sat with him and talked in the most relaxed way.”

Shilovsky M.V. Specifics of political behavior of various social groups Siberia in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries)

The peasants, for the most part, preferred to send their sons to join the partisans instead of the White Army, and rightfully considered themselves the same victors of Kolchak as the Red Army that came from European Russia.

But let’s return to the Kuznetsk incident; it has another side that is directly related to the issue under discussion.

A few words about what happened to Rogov and his squad. The detachment was disarmed by the Red troops, and Rogov himself and several people close to him ended up in the Novonikolaevsk Cheka (now Novosibirsk), accused of the Kuznetsk pogrom. Rogov's fighters were filtered, some were shot, some were given suspended sentences, some were mobilized into the Red Army or simply released on all four sides. Rogov, after a brutal investigation, accompanied by beatings, was nevertheless pardoned, taking into account his partisan merits, apparently considering him no longer dangerous, and having been given an allowance for the improvement of his farm, he was released. After which he went into the taiga and in May 1920 either he himself led the uprising of peasants and former partisans of the Chumysh region, or he gave it his name, and after some time he died. Similar uprisings and unrest of former partisans dissatisfied with disarmament, mobilization and attitude towards them new government, relatively easily suppressed, continued until the beginning of 1921.

But it was not only the former partisans who were worried. This is what Vladimir Shuldyakov writes about their recent mortal enemies, the Cossacks (“The Death of the Siberian Cossack army"in two volumes: Vol. I - 1917-1920, Vol. II - 1920-1922 (M. Tsentrpoligraf, 2004)) the Cossacks of the district were the first in the Siberian army to begin putting weapons in front of her. And most recently, the chairman Omsk Regional Executive Committee E.V. Polyudov believed that the Kokchetav Cossacks, not to mention the peasants, “are very revolutionary”

"...The communists distorted the tasks of truly people's power. They forgot that the welfare... of the working people is the basis of the people's well-being. They thought more about themselves, about their party discipline, and not about us, the farmers... the true masters of the country. To everyone the well-known CHECK, the incomprehensible allocation of items for the objects of our labor, the endless underwater conscription, constant fears for an extra spoken word, for an extra piece of bread, a rag, an extra thing - all this turned our life, already sad, into hell, turned us into slaves of random upstarts, boys with a dubious past and present. The inept management of our goods overflowed the cup of patience, and we... declared an uprising and drove out the communists... We are fighting for truly popular power, for the inviolability of the individual and private property, for freedom words, the press, unions, beliefs... We are not supporters of executions, blood... a lot has been shed before us... Down with the commune! Long live the people's power of the Soviets and free labor!"

However, the location of the Cossack villages, a chain stretching along the southern outskirts of the region, for the time being kept the Cossacks from open resistance. But in Steppe Altai already in the summer of 1920 she operated on the so-called. People's Rebel Army, the number of fighters in which reached 15 thousand people.

V.I. Shishkin writes that in the twentieth year there were five major uprisings in Siberia, with a total number of participants up to twenty-five thousand people (V.I. Shishkin Partisan-insurgent movement in Siberia in the early 1920s.

Among them, Kolyvanskoye stands out, after the name of the taiga Priob village, summer 1920. This is, perhaps, almost the only case when, with some degree of certainty, we can talk about the leading role of the Socialist Revolutionary “Siberian Peasant Union”, which, despite the fact that that the SKS was almost entirely arrested at the same time, later Soviet historians often attributed the main role in the West Siberian uprising. By the way, in another rare case, former Kolchak officers, whose artel worked near Kolyvan in logging, also took an active part in this uprising. However, it seems that they had to do this under pressure from the rebels. (Vadim Glukhov The Epic of the Kolyvan Rebellion).

From the above, a certain pattern can be deduced. In 1920, the anti-communist movement was dominated by a more mobile element - former partisans, Cossacks, taiga fishermen, in areas, as during the reign of Kolchak, located, I repeat, along the perimeter of the area of ​​​​the future West Siberian uprising. That is, the most densely populated region, the inhabitants of which, due to the fact that they were tightly tied to their farms, as well as due to the geographical factor, because we are talking about a forest-steppe, were not inclined to come into conflict with any government, be it the Reds or white, trying to remain loyal to her under any circumstances.

It remains to add that, on the one hand, these events served as a prologue to the explosion of the twenty-first year, and on the other hand, they delayed it, since they diverted the attention and time of the Soviet government to their liquidation, so that it took almost six months for the peasants of Siberia to fully feel the take her heavy hand.

The mood of the peasantry and the policies of the Bolsheviks

What happened during this period of time, from the end of 1919 to the beginning of 1921? Why did the peasants, who greeted the Bolsheviks as liberators, less than a year later, begin to rush in thousands towards the Red Army machine guns almost with their bare hands?

To understand this, it is worth remembering Pushkin’s words regarding the Pugachev uprising, about the senseless and merciless Russian revolt. They, it seems to me, should be taken on faith with some reservation, namely, a Russian rebellion is senseless and merciless exactly to the extent that the actions of the authorities that caused it were senseless and merciless, which has been confirmed more than once in Russian history. And more than ever it was manifested precisely in the events of 1921. When the actions of the Bolsheviks were a clear expression of another feature of the Russian government, which is that often the low quality of management is compensated by the cruelty of measures and the totality of their application.

So, let’s look at the other side of the future confrontation, namely the Bolsheviks, who at the end of 1919 became the absolute masters of Western Siberia.

Having given the land to the peasants in 1917, the Bolsheviks received their support, thanks to which they were able to seize and maintain power, but they were unable to stop the destruction of industry, as a result of which a food crisis quickly set in in the country, since the city had nothing to offer the peasants in exchange for bread.

The Bolsheviks found a way out of this situation in a food dictatorship, in the introduction of surplus appropriation, which was supposed to take away the so-called surpluses from the peasants, leaving them with only the bare minimum of products.

It is clear that this could only be carried out by force. Lenin called on the workers to crusade for bread. “Either the conscious progressive workers... will force the kulaks to submit... or the bourgeoisie, with the help of the kulaks... will overthrow Soviet power” (PSS, vol. 36, p. 360). Spontaneously formed food detachments poured into the village, whose activities caused the first wave of peasant uprisings in 1918. The struggle for bread accelerated the regrouping of class forces in the countryside in the summer of 1918. Its essence was that power in the village was transferred from the general peasant councils to the committees of the poor. Lenin considered it a merit of the RCP(b) that it “from above” brought a civil war into the countryside, split the peasantry in order to gain support against the village bourgeoisie in the person of the poorest peasantry (see: PSS, vol. 37, pp. 310, 315, 508 – 09).

The policy of emergency food dictatorship they pursued throughout the civil war reached its peak by 1920, in the sense that its mechanism, in the two years since its adoption in 1918, had been adjusted sufficiently not to fail and was applied with all decisiveness.

the lessons of the peasant uprisings of the second half of 1918 did not pass without a trace. They led to the liquidation of the poor committees and the authorities’ refusal to rely solely on the “rural semi-proletariat” - the village remained peasant. The committees were merged with the rural and volost Soviets and thus increased the influence of the poor, closely associated with the Bolsheviks. At the same time (since January 1919), the element of food procurement by worker food detachments is replaced by a unified system of food allocation, implemented on a national scale. industrial goods on the basis of direct (non-trade) distribution. This was one of the main ideas of the “military-communist” organization of economic life. However, the industry, destroyed by many years of war, could not meet the needs of the village. “Military-communist policy” in the countryside immediately boiled down to the seizure of food from peasant farms, necessary for the half-starved existence of the army and urban population, and the remnants of industry. The surplus appropriation system drew the main line of division between the revolutions of the city and the countryside. Mobilization for military service, various types of conscription (labor, horse-drawn, etc.), attempts at a direct transition to socialism through the organization of collective land ownership further intensified the confrontation between the peasantry and the authorities.* (Viktor Danilov Peasant Revolution in Russia, 1902 - 1922.

From the materials of the conference “Peasants and Power”, Moscow-Tambov, 1996, pp. 4-23.)

Thus, all these measures were quite effective, in the sense that the products available to the peasants, despite any resistance, were confiscated by the food army, organized in the image and likeness of a military unit. But in the long run they were heading for disaster.

Firstly, Lenin’s practice of unleashing a civil war in the countryside, like a torch thrown into a powder keg, exploded the situation, since numerous conflicts brewing between various groups of peasants received a strong impulse and often acquired the character of a war of all against all, which, according to most historians, claimed lives much more than the country lost on the civil war fronts.

Secondly, the peasants, in addition to active forms of resistance, resorted to passive ones, namely, slaughtering livestock and reducing arable areas. So by the twentieth year, arable land in Russia decreased by 10-15 percent.

As a result of all this, the specter of famine strictly followed the Soviet regime, incarnating itself in flesh and blood in all the territories it occupied. So in the first half of the twentieth year, all the grain-producing provinces of the Don, Volga region, Tambov region and Ukraine were engulfed in peasant uprisings. Against their background, Western Siberia seemed like an oasis; surplus appropriation was not applied until the middle of the year, and all taxes introduced by the Kolchak government were abolished by the Bolsheviks.

However, by the summer of the twentieth year, having suppressed mainly the speeches of the Siberians, which were mentioned above, the new government felt sufficiently strengthened and then the fatal decree of the Council of People's Commissars, signed by Lenin, thundered:

No. 1 RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS "ON THE WITHDRAWAL OF SURPLUS BREAD IN SIBERIA"

The workers, the Red Army and the peasantry of the consuming provinces of Soviet Russia are experiencing food shortages. This year's crop failure in a number of provinces threatens to further worsen the food situation of the working people. At this time in Siberia there are up to hundreds of millions of pounds of bread, collected in previous years and lying in treasures and stacks in an unthreshed form. The peasantry of Siberia, who survived the Kolchak regime and became convinced from bitter experience that, without taking power into their own hands, the workers and peasants are unable to secure for themselves either land or freedom and get rid of political and economic oppression once and for all, must go to the aid of the starving workers and to the peasants of the consuming provinces, give them what they have a lot of and what lies unused, exposed to the danger of spoilage and rotting.

In view of the above, the Council people's commissars, in the name of bringing to a victorious end the difficult struggle of the working people with their eternal exploiters and oppressors, decides as a military order:

1. Oblige the peasantry of Siberia to immediately begin threshing and handing over all available surplus grain from previous years’ harvests and delivering them to railway stations and steamship wharves.

Note: the allocation of surplus grain from the harvests of previous years, subject to mandatory delivery, is determined and announced by the People's Commissariat for Food simultaneously with the allocation of surplus grain from the new harvest.

2. Upon presentation of the allotment, oblige volost and village councils and revolutionary committees to immediately involve the entire population in threshing and delivering grain; if necessary, the population is involved in threshing as a labor service.

3. All local authorities, from volost and village councils, revolutionary committees and ending with Sibrevkom, should be declared responsible for threshing and allotment.

4. Those guilty of evading threshing and handing over surplus citizens, as well as all responsible government officials who allowed this evasion, shall be punished with confiscation of property and imprisonment in concentration camps as traitors to the cause of the workers’ and peasants’ revolution.

5. In order to facilitate threshing by low-power farms and families of Red Army soldiers: a) oblige the military food bureau of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions, with the assistance of the Chief Labor Committee, to attract and send food detachments consisting of 6,000 workers to Siberia for food work, and the central supply department undertakes to issue them with uniforms 6,000 complete sets of uniforms and warm clothes; b) oblige the People's Commissariat of Labor to mobilize and place at the disposal of the Siberian food authorities up to 20,000 people organized in harvest squads, starving peasants and workers of European Russia to work during the autumn and winter, with the admission of women to the squads in the amount of 20%.

6. The People's Commissariat for Food, together with the People's Commissariat for Labor, develop instructions on harvesting teams.

7. In order to ensure complete threshing and delivery of grain surpluses, it is the responsibility of the chief of the VOKhR troops to urgently fulfill the full demand for armed forces for Siberia (in the amount of 9,000 bayonets and 300 sabers) presented by the People's Commissariat of Food, and the detachments must be equipped and fully equipped and submitted no later than August 1 of this year.

8. The deadline for threshing and handing over all surplus from previous years’ harvests is set to January 1, 1921.<...>

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Business Manager V. Bonch-Bruevich

The allocation of grain fodder for the 1920/1921 food year for the RSFSR as a whole, as well as for most regions and provinces, was announced by a decree of the People's Commissariat of Food on July 26, 1920. Of the 440 million poods to be alienated in favor of the state, 10 million fell on Siberia (without the Tyumen province) , 17 million - for the Chelyabinsk province, 1 million - for the Yekaterinburg province. The allocation for the Tyumen province was later assigned in the amount of 8,177 thousand poods. In Siberia, 35 million poods of grain fodder out of 110 million (31.8%) due according to the allocation were to be handed over by peasants of one Omsk province. Twice as large on the scale of the Tyumen province - 5,385 thousand poods of grain fodder or 65.8% of the total allocation - was the share of the Ishim district (see: GANS F.r. 4. Op. 1. D. 520. Ill. 6, 7 ; RGAE. F. 1943. Op. 6. D. 1740. L. 75; Bulletin of the People's Commissariat of Food. No. 15. August 13, 1920; Systematic collection of decrees and government orders on food affairs. M. 1921. Book 5. C 528-530).

Thus, from June 20, 1920 to March 1, 1921, six Siberian provinces (Irkutsk, Yenisei, Tomsk, Omsk, Altai, Semipalatinsk) and Tyumen, which was part of the Ural region, had to hand over 116 million poods. bread, which amounted to one third of the national target. The peasants were obliged to hand over grain, meat (6,270,000 poods of meat were supplied to Siberia), butter, eggs, potatoes, vegetables, leather, wool, tobacco, horns, hooves and much more. In total, they were subject to 37 requisitions. In addition, the entire working population from 18 to 50 years old had to perform various duties.

The huge machine sprang into action. Lenin's decree was subject to immediate and strict execution, despite the fact that its implementation would put the peasants on the brink of starvation. The food workers, accompanied by armed detachments, went through the villages.

And so, the Siberian peasants, who believed that with the end of the civil war their lives would finally return to a peaceful course, saw how armed people sent from the city cleanly raked out grain from barns and storehouses, took away livestock, and took everything to railway stations or collection points, where the collected goods often deteriorate due to careless storage. Moreover, local residents from the poor were appointed to help the food workers. By the way, this part of the population, existing thanks to the help of the state, not only did not lose anything, but even won, since part of what was collected went to help them. However, there were relatively few poor people in wealthy Siberia.

Here we must remember that in the Siberian village the idea of ​​the poor has long been firmly rooted as people who cannot feed themselves in Siberia solely due to their own laziness and stupidity. And I think so. that there was no small amount of truth in this, although, of course, there were exceptions.

Be that as it may, the participation of the poor in the activities of food authorities added fuel to the fire, further embittering the already embittered peasants.

But things had not yet reached the point of open rebellion and, seeing this, local party and Soviet bodies rushed to carry out the leader’s order, regardless of anything.

TELEGRAM OF THE SOVIET LEADERS OF TYUMEN PROVINCE TO ALL FOOD OFFICES

Tyumen<Середина октября 1920 г.>

All organizational work of the food authorities has been completed. In many volosts, harvesting is almost over. Past experience has shown that<продерганы>must begin simultaneously with the end of harvesting the grain<к>fulfilling their combat mission, so as not to give the producers the opportunity to cover the grain. The good weather makes it possible to<вести заготовку>products. Any delay may affect the progress of our work.<по>performing the layout. Therefore, I order that within three days from the date of receipt of this, all the received allocations should be brought to the attention of each owner.

I order the commissars of the food office to immediately check whether the allocation has been made to the villages, and by the villages to individual owners. Lists of householders indicating the imposed allocation should, in addition to village councils, be kept in the food office in order to control and increase work productivity. Present ultimatum demands to the volost executive committees and village councils for the immediate implementation of allocations. Widely inform the population that selling products to baggers and speculators will only lead to a reduction in their own norm, because the allocations given by the state will not decrease. The allocation has been given; no re-accounts, amendments, etc. are allowed. 60% to completion<разверстки>chairmen of volost executive committees, village councils, who deliberately delay the allocation and are generally passive in its implementation, should be arrested and transferred * (Siberian Vendee)

It is clear that the Bolsheviks had to act in emergency circumstances, but we must remember that they bore the lion's share of responsibility for creating these circumstances. And now every step they took made things even worse. The severity of the emergency decree on the ground turned into outright brutality of those who implemented it. And there were no other ways to fully carry out the leader’s order.

Those of the local party and Soviet workers who did not show the proper zeal risked being accused of sabotage and counter-revolutionary activities, and the punishment for this in those days was even more severe for them than for ordinary people. However, there was no shortage of zealous performers, and higher authorities themselves had from time to time to rein in those who went too far.

No. 33 REPORT OF THE PROVINCIAL CONTROL AND INSPECTION COMMISSION ON CONDUCTING FOOD APPLICATIONS IN ISHIM DISTRICT TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE TYUMEN GUBINSK POLITICAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOVIETS S.A. NOVOSELOV, SECRETARY OF THE GUBCOM OF THE RCP(b) N.E. KOCHISH AND GOVERNMENTAL PRODUCTION COMMISSIONER G.S. INDENBAUMU

On December 4, 1920, the authorized representative of the Gubernia Chek Comrade arrived in the village of Kamenskoye. Kuznetsov with a pile of incriminating material he collected during the investigation in the volosts we visited. From all the material and personal conclusion of Comrade. Kuznetsov, the actions of the provincial commission to implement state appropriations are in the full sense of the word counter-revolutionary and aggravate the peasants against the Soviet regime. Comrade Kuznetsov accuses us of being too cruel and rude to the peasants, i.e. We demand that they fulfill state appropriations, and we do not agitate among the peasants for the fulfillment of state appropriations. According to his conclusion, our actions are worse than Kolchakism. In addition, he has material that the commission flogs the peasants and demands fried goose meat from the peasants for food.

Not only the commission, but the entire detachment is outraged to the core as party comrades against such absurd accusations. True, under our hard work sometimes you have to shout, but not at the peasants who honestly carry out the allocation, but at certain types of village kulaks who persist in carrying out the state allocation, and then in extreme cases, when this is forced by necessity in the interests of public work.

Your telegrams and orders accuse us of hibernation and empty talk.

You demand to be decisive and not to trail behind the crying peasants. Along with this, they come from provincial and other institutions<сотрудники>like Comrade Kuznetsov, who call us counter-revolutionaries and Kolchak’s guardsmen. We are now between two fires. On the one hand, we are prescribed and ordered to be merciless towards everyone who does not comply with the state allocation, and the allocation must be carried out unconditionally. On the other hand, our tail is dragging behind us with piles of investigative material accusing us of robbing peasants of bread*, cruelty and rudeness. Even the representative of the Ishim Politburo, Comrade. Zhukov<М.И.>personally, under the Red Army soldier Prokopyev, he called the detachment a Kolchak gang.

Until now, we have not paid the slightest attention to all the provocation that is spreading throughout the district. And, working 24 hours a day, we firmly remembered the order given to us by the center about the need to fulfill state allocations faster and completely. In the current atmosphere, we do not know at all how to work, and all desire to work disappears. We can no longer work under such circumstances. We ask you to take appropriate measures: either remove us from the road of the food campaign, or those interfering in food policy. Please indicate how we should react to your orders and what is the opinion of the center: take the allocation or ask the peasants to carry out the allocation through agitation. Until now, we must admit, we have resorted to the first method, i.e. demanded that the allocation be carried out.

For the second time, we ask you to make a definite decision regarding the “troika”. If we have committed any crime, we ask that we be immediately removed as criminals before the republic. If we continue to work, then please come to an agreement with all institutions, such as the gubchek, people's courts, and the workers' and peasants' inspection, so that they do not interfere in food work and do not undermine the authority of food workers in the face of ordinary people, at least during the food campaign.

Please give the answer to commission member Comrade. Gurmin or telegraph.

Pre-committee A. Krestyannikov

Committee members: Lauris

M. Gurmin * (Siberian Vendee)

No. 38 MINUTES No. 57 OF THE EXTENDED MEETING OF THE TYUMEN PROVINCIAL FOOD CONFERENCE

Present: Chairman of the Provincial Executive Committee S.A. Novoselov, provincial food commissioner G.S. Indenbaum, Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the RCP(b) IZ. Kocsis, Pregubcheka P.I. Studitov1, member of the provincial control and inspection commission M.A. Gurmin, representative of the gubchek N.S. Kuznetsov.

The order of the day is a report and report from a member of the provincial control and inspection commission, Comrade. Gurmina

Comrade Indenbaum reads the report of the control and inspection commission about the situation that has arisen in its work after the intervention of the provincial chief comrade. Kuznetsova.

Comrade Gurmin makes a comprehensive report on the work of the commission. Upolgubcheka comrade. Kuznetsov reports the materials he collected to the control and inspection commission, whose work was limited to confiscations, arrests, etc. The commission sent Red Army food detachments to the houses of citizens, demanding that they be fed better. In general, the commission did not want to take into account the decisions and orders of the provincial executive committee and the provincial committee. Commission member Comrade Gurmin claims that he does not renege on his words and everything that he wrote in the report is their actual work and their demand, otherwise the commission will not carry out its work. Pointing to the actions of the provincial chief Comrade Kuznetsov, who undermined the authority in their work, Comrade Gurmin says that if the commission committed crimes,<то необходимо>remove it, if not, then do not interfere with work.

Pre-Gubchek Comrade Studitov finds that his authorized representative Comrade Kuznetsov exceeded his authority, by his actions undermined the authority of the control and inspection commission and thereby weakened the grain supply. For this, Comrade Kuznetsov will suffer due punishment.

The secretary of the provincial committee, Comrade Kocsis, points out that the chief of the provincial committee, Kuznetsov, is absolutely unfamiliar with food production. Going to the region, he did not even go to the provincial food committee to find out how to act. Food work is a mechanism that needs to be approached with caution.

Pre-gubernia executive committee Comrade Novoselov also confirms crime<действий>Kuznetsov, but at the same time puts it on the commission’s face so that it instructs<прод>troops and held them tightly in her hands.

Provincial Food Commissar Comrade Indenbaum points out that such actions as those shown by Upol-Gubchek Kuznetsov will disrupt the allocation if this continues in the future.<Инденбаум>indicates to Kuznetsov that he must follow the orders of the provincial food committee and the provincial executive committee, otherwise he will be called to order.

Comrade Novoselov makes a proposal, which is unanimously adopted, namely:

1) Admit that the governor Kuznetsov exceeded his powers and that he had no right to interfere in the actions of carrying out the allocation.

2) Suggest to the governor of the gubchek Studitov and the provincial food commissar to immediately take measures to restore the figure of the previous filling.

3) Invite the control and inspection commission to immediately begin their work with the same impetus and provide more instructions<прод>detachment and hold it tightly in your hands.

Chairman of the Gubernia Food Conference Indenbaum

By the way, Lauris was eventually shot for crimes he committed during the collection of surplus appropriation, but that was only later, after the suppression of the uprising. Around the same time, having fallen into the hands of a rebel detachment, Gubernia Food Commissioner Indenbaum was stabbed to death with bayonets. The fate of the security officer Kuznetsov is unknown to me.

In the meantime, things went on as usual, food was confiscated without regard to any standards established by the authorities themselves, right down to seeds. Non-food items were also taken. As the impossibility of carrying out the allocation became clear, actions against the peasants became more severe. They were taken hostage before they completed food appropriation, they were put naked in cold barns, they were beaten, and their property was confiscated. Those who were stubborn were brought before a tribunal. This has become daily practice.

The uprising and its suppression. Some features.

And thus, in the twentieth year, the Siberian peasantry was faced with a choice. before which at different times different groups of the Russian population found themselves - to meekly submit to the arbitrariness perpetrated by the state or, having placed themselves outside the law, to defend their rights with arms in hand.

But the peasants had few weapons; let me remind you that we are talking about people who were initially loyal to the Soviet regime. After the Kolchakites left, a lot of weapons remained in their hands, but at the first request of the new government, for the most part, these weapons were surrendered. So, when it came to the uprising, the peasants had to arm themselves with whatever they could find. One rifle was shared by several people, and the rest went into battle with drekoli and pikes made from scythes.

(For comparison - From the book by G. Drogovoz The History of Armored Trains - In August-September 1925, one of these operations was carried out in Chechnya, where the local population did not want to come to terms with the establishment of Soviet order. To restore order, significant forces of troops from the North were sent to Chechnya -Caucasian Military District: about 5000 bayonets, two with more than a thousand sabers, 24 guns and one armored train.

The operation was personally led by the district commander, Ieronim Uborevich. The OGPU fielded 648 fighters under the command of Evdokimov.

The result of the military operation was the arrest of 309 rebels and the seizure of several thousand rifles and revolvers.).

Meanwhile, the situation was heating up, discontent was growing, cases became more frequent when peasants tried to forcefully recapture their arrested fellow countrymen, in these cases they were shot to kill. However, the last straw that overflowed the cup of peasant patience was the order to carry out seed surplus appropriation; now it was necessary to hand over what was left for seeds.

On February 8, twenty-one, the radiotelegraph operator on duty in the polar Obdorsk heard the call sign of the Chelyabinsk radio station on the air: Obdorsk! Orenburg! Tashkent! Krasnoyarsk! Omsk! Reply to get in touch! The enemies of the republic in the Urals and Western Siberia began counter-revolutionary uprisings. Socialist-Revolutionary-Kulak gangs led by white officers and generals commit violence... (M. Budarin Were about the security officers)

This is how people in Obdorsk learned about the beginning of the West Siberian Uprising. Until mid-March, the Obdorsk radio station remained the only line connecting European Russia with Siberia.

Everyone expected the uprising and, as usual, it came as a complete surprise to everyone.

In January 1921, in the Ishim district, events took place that had become routine over these few months - seed grain was collected at the volost dumping points, all that remained was to take it to the railway. And none of the Soviet leaders was surprised by the message that the peasants of the Chelnokovsky volost, fearing to be left without seeds by spring, gathered in a crowd, tried to interfere with the export of grain and got into a fight with the pro-army soldiers, who responded by opening fire and killing two of the attackers. The usual thing. To investigate, Lauris, the already mentioned above-mentioned member of the provincial food committee, was sent to the Chelnokovsky volost with an armed detachment, and it seems that he even restored calm there (Siberian Vendee).

However, after a couple of days, the Chelnokovskaya volost was engulfed in an uprising, and with it the neighboring volosts - Churtanskaya, Vikulovskaya, Gotoputovskaya, then Kargalinskaya and Bolshe-Sorokinskaya. At the same time, similar things happened in the Yalutorovsky, Tyumen, and Tyukalinsky districts.

By mid-February it had already covered parts of Omsk, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg provinces and spread south to Altai. The Cossacks of Kokchetav and the Tatar population of the national regions joined the peasants. Their total number is determined by various historians from thirty to one hundred thousand.

Due to the blocking of both branches of the Trans-Siberian Railway by the rebels, Siberia was cut off from the rest of Russia for two weeks.

At different times, the rebels captured Ishim, Petropavlovsk, Tobolsk, Berezovo, Obdorsk, Kokchetav.

To lead the liquidation of the uprising on February 12. 1921 a plenipotentiary troika is created consisting of the previous one. Sibrevkom and Sibburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) I.N. Smirnov, pred. Siberian Cheka I.P. Pavlunsky and assistant. Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic V.I. Shorin. Parts of the 21st, 26th, 28th and 29th divisions, department were transferred to their disposal. cavalry brigade, 209th regiment of the 23rd SD, Kazan and Simbirsk settlements, 2 more departments. cavalry regiment, 6 reserve battalions, a battalion of general training instructor courses, Vyatka infantry courses, armored trains, armored steamships, artillery, 249th, 250th, 255th internal regiments. services (SCHON), Tyumen school of lower command personnel, 6th reserve machine gun battalion, and all local detachments. Within a few months, the main outbreaks were extinguished, but the fighting continued until the end of the twenty-first year.

In Soviet historiography, there was an opinion that this uprising was prepared by the Socialist Revolutionaries and White Guards, and that they deliberately chose the moment to start it. However, even the very time of this moment suggests that the uprising was more likely an act of desperation of people driven into a corner, and not a pre-planned action, the very time when it began says.

Indeed, in Russia, almost all peasant rebellions and riots, initiated by the peasants themselves, usually began in the fall, when the harvest was harvested, and the forest could still serve as a refuge in case of defeat. The Siberian winter taiga or steppe is not conducive to active guerrilla operations and serves as a poor shelter for a large number of people, especially if their families are with them. In addition, it should be taken into account that villages in the agricultural regions of Siberia, having a large number of inhabitants, often several thousand people, were located at a great distance from each other.

This, by the way, was one of the reasons for the huge losses of the rebels, since they could feel confident only near their native places, and because of this, they tried first of all to defend their villages, engaging in head-on clashes with units of the Red Army. It is clear that in battles of this kind, poorly armed peasants found themselves in the most unfavorable position for themselves.

However, this happened closer to the end of the uprising, when the peasants were forced mainly to go on the defensive. But in February twenty-first they advanced.

There is no need to say that the uprising was universal. As always in such cases, there were a significant number of people who, for one reason or another, chose to remain on the sidelines. Some were afraid of retribution from the Soviet government, the example of the brutal suppression of uprisings in Altai and in the taiga regions was before everyone’s eyes, others did not believe in the success of resistance, and still others were waiting to see which side would prevail. The motivation could be different, but in any case, a significant part of the peasantry did not support the uprising, although the overwhelming majority, if not fully sympathized with the rebels, then fully understood them.

Quite a few peasants turned out to be among the open opponents of the uprising; this, in my opinion, does not contradict the above, since, if we take the same rural communists, many of whom opposed, if not against the surplus appropriation system itself, then against the methods of its implementation and warned that this can't end well. so, when their warnings were actually confirmed, in the darkest version, it was these people who came under the first, most crushing blow, all the peasant anger accumulated during this time fell on them.

This, of course, is not about those rural communists who joined the uprising, and sometimes led rebel detachments.

At the same time, it is necessary to mention that when speaking about the predominance of certain sentiments regarding participation or non-participation in the uprising, one should speak about each village separately, due to the Siberian specifics. After all, in social life For the Siberian peasant, the community played a decisive role. And in every single village, all its inhabitants in one way or another followed the will of the majority.

In principle and Organizing time in the uprising was formed based on this circumstance, the commanders became people with authority in a given village, outside of which there were no authorities for its inhabitants. By the way, among the commanders of the uprising and its active participants, the poor and middle peasants predominated, which was caused not least by the fact that the surplus appropriation system, due to its poor organization, fell a heavy burden on precisely these strata.

The rebels made attempts to overcome their disunity, but took only the very first steps in this direction, forming in several places some semblance of a general command, but due to the nature of the fighting, that was all. For the same reason, the announced mobilization failed.

The uprising, like a steppe fire, spread from place to place so that, having been extinguished in one place, it would flare up in another. The rebels who were furiously attacking the cities, in cases where they encountered organized resistance, rolled back to regroup and try again.

And it often happened that defeated rebel detachments, on the way of their escape, broke into areas not yet touched by the uprising, and the uprising broke out with renewed vigor.

REPORT OF THE UNDER GOVERNMENTAL COMMITTEE FOR SIBERIA V.I. SHORINA TO THE CHIEF COMMANDER OF THE RED ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC S.S. KAMENEV

Omsk February 13, 1921 First report<о>the beginning of the uprising was received by the Stasib on February 6. The uprising initially covered an area 100 versts southeast of Tobolsk and at the same time the Ust-Ishim region and the Balshe-Sorokinsky volost. After that, the uprising spread to the Ishim region and along the railway to the west and east of Ishim, with the most significant bands of rebels grouped south of Ishim and<в>near Golyshmanovo station. At the same time, an uprising broke out<в>area of ​​Petropavlovsk, covering the area of ​​the Kurgan - Tokushi railway. The rebels mainly concentrated all their attention on the railways and, taking advantage of the extended location of our troops guarding the railway and their relatively insignificant number, began to carry out raids, which were accompanied by damage to the route and the destruction of telegraph communications<на>various railway points. Initially, the rebels' scattered attacks were not organized, but from their further actions it can be assumed that preliminary agitation was carried out among the local population. The rebels' weapons are varied: some are armed with rifles, some with shotguns and revolvers, most of the rebels are on foot, but there are small mounted detachments of 100-200 horses.

Our initial actions to liquidate the uprising were greatly hampered, on the one hand, by the wide area covered by the uprising, on the other, by the relatively small number of troops and frequent disruption of communications and interruption of railway traffic.<В>Currently, for the convenience of management, the entire region of the uprisings is divided into two sections: the northern, Ishimsky, where the brigade commander-85 directs the actions, and the southern, Petropavlovsky, entrusted to the division commander-21.

Upon receiving the first news of the uprising in the Ishim and Petropavlovsk regions, free units of the 253 and 254 regiments of the 29 division were sent there and, in addition, two squadrons were sent from Omsk. To decisively suppress the uprising, the 232nd regiment of the 26th division and two battalions of the 256th division are transferred to strengthen the existing troops in the Ishim area. regiment of the 29th division, the 249th regiment of the 28th division is transferred to the Petropavlovsk region. Only with the arrival of these forces will it be possible to carry out a decisive cleansing of the main centers of the uprising.

Pom-in-Chief Shorin Nashtasib Afanasyev

(Siberian Vendee)

As a result of emergency measures, the peasants were pushed away from the railway line and driven out of the cities they occupied; now the war was approaching the rebel villages, where the most tragic scenes of the West Siberian epic took place.

In the battles for their villages, the peasants showed fierce tenacity, and often defended to the last, under artillery and machine-gun fire, their losses were terrifying. The Bolsheviks themselves call the ratio one to fifteen. When the resistance was broken, reprisals and executions of those captured began, often without trial or investigation.

The brutality shown by both sides is widely accepted, and it is difficult to argue with that. However, it should be remembered that its growth occurred according to the laws of the logic of the struggle, and was very unequal, in accordance with the moods of the combatants. But the casualties on both sides numbered in the tens of thousands, and the lion’s share fell on the peasantry. Although the losses on the part of the Soviet government were enormous, for example, local party organizations were missing half of their members.

To those killed in battle and executed should be added the victims of the famine that broke out in the summer of twenty-one.

As for the slogans of the uprising, the main ones were Soviets without communists and the abolition of surplus appropriation, along with this there was also a demand for the convening of a Constituent Assembly and even the restoration of the monarchy, but this looked more like an initiative of individual commanders rather than an expression of the general will. This story is still waiting to be continued.

By the summer of 1921, the uprising was suppressed. This was a military, not a political victory. The government's decision to replace surplus appropriation with a tax in kind did not have any impact on the course of the uprising, since it became known only after the main centers of the uprising were defeated. The victors treated the captured rebels, those of them who were lucky enough not to be executed in hot hand, quite gently, having previously, however, shot all those suspected of more or less active activity during the uprising. However, then, within ten years, most of the released rebels ended up behind bars or were shot.

The time has come for peaceful construction.

Conclusion

The experience of the Jacobins was close to the Bolsheviks and it seems that they often consciously cultivated this similarity and it even served as a source of pride for them. The words spoken by the winner of Napoleon in Spain and at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington, about the contemporary French army echo

* The conscripted battalions of the French army had in their ranks both good and bad soldiers, from the highest, middle and lower class, people of all specialties and professions. French soldiers rarely needed the usual discipline or punishment required to keep soldiers in line. The good soldiers, under the supervision and encouragement of the officers, looked after the bad ones and kept them in order, and on the whole they were the best, most orderly and obedient, blindly obedient and regulated army in Europe. The system of confiscation destroyed him. French revolution first revealed to the world new system conduct of hostilities, the goal and result of which was to transform war into a means of generating income, and not a burden for the aggressive side, placing all the burden on the country that suffered and became the site of hostilities.

The system of terror and the sorrows of the people of France, and the call, the execution of which was caused by terror, placed into the hands of the government everything capable of military service male population of the country. And all that remained for the government to do, and what it actually did, was to organize people into military units, arm them and train them in the first movements with weapons and military exercises.

After that, they were released into the territory of some foreign state to feed on its resources. With their numbers they extinguished or overcame all local resistance, and whatever the losses and misfortunes that the system produced in France, the dead could not complain, and success drowned out the voices of the survivors.* (R. Aldington Duke Moscow Transit Book 2006)

The same thing, with the adjustment that the bayonets were directed not outside the country, but inside it, can be said about the Soviet state. Only this death was delayed for seven decades. The victory of the Bolsheviks against the revolting peasants turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory, the first step towards their defeat. The system of relations with its own people, which was founded precisely then, in the early twenties, completely exhausted its resources and collapsed under the weight of accumulated mistakes. But the paradox is that all the mistakes of the lost system were fully adopted by those who took over the inheritance.

During the West Siberian Uprising, volleys thundered last war between the state and its people. The state won. The kingdom of officials was coming, now it depended only on them public policy. And any person who wanted to influence this policy had to first of all become an official, without this his influence would be zero. it could dispose of the people at its own discretion, without fear of encountering mass resistance. But this victory had a downside. The state found itself defenseless against the official and ultimately fell, betrayed by him. However, the calculation is not finished yet. This story is still waiting to be continued.

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Introduction

The events of October 1917 opened a 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. A new period was beginning 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 of history were just beginning to open in our country, so I turned to articles from other magazines, such as “Questions of History” for 1994 and Military -a historical magazine 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 with and used in my work materials from the Central State Archive of the 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 figure it out, consider different points of 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, Tambov, Voronezh provinces, the Middle Volga region, Don, and Kuban. Big number anti-Bolshevik peasant formations operated in Ukraine. In Central Asia, the creation of armed nationalist detachments was increasingly unfolding. 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 Soviet Russia. This internal crisis revealed discontent not only among a significant part of the peasantry, but also among the workers. This was the first and I hope last time in the history of Soviet Russia, when large masses of the peasantry, not consciously, but instinctively, were against us in their 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, serfdom commissardom and 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 carrying out the October Revolution in 1917, the workers of Russia hoped to achieve their complete emancipation and pinned their hopes on the Communist Party, which promised a lot. What did the Communist Party, led by Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and others, give in 3.5 years? In 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, whose horrors many times surpassed the gendarmerie administration of the 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 really 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. So, “Petropavlovsk” became “Marat”, and “Sevastopol” - “ 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 dead end. 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 carry out immediate 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 provide him 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, its leaders, and that neither the Socialist Revolutionaries, nor the Mensheviks, nor the imperialists took any active part in 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..

The Kronstadt rebellion has long been part of the mythology of the anti-authoritarian left - as the supposed possibility of a different path for the Russian revolution, without the Bolshevik dictatorship and firmness. Even in the photographs, how modern Russian anarchists see those events.

This has a long tradition; even the Parisian leftists of 1968 loved to call themselves the heirs of Kronstadt (and at the same time Mao, whose anti-authoritarianism causes some bewilderment to anyone who knows the history of the Chinese Revolution and the Maoist PRC - but leftists often have poor knowledge of history).

This article, which appeared in the darkest time of modern Russian historical science, when the authors, after the collapse of Soviet socialism, diligently changed their shoes and turned yesterday’s assessments into completely opposite ones, it is curious because the whole mass of facts, whether the author wanted it or not, confirms that there was no “other way.” Either the Bolsheviks - or the white generals who will come after the temporary political cover of the counter-revolution in the form of the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists (“Soviets without Communists”).

It is interesting that the development of events in Russia after 1991 paradoxically confirmed Lenin’s rightness - no democracy was built and could not be built, but a quasi-monarchical state arose based on extreme right-wing values, right up to the most Black Hundred and obscurantist ones, while attempting to brazenly absorb the undeniable achievements of the Soviet period.

"Bulletin of Moscow University". Ser.: 8. History. 1995. No. 3. Received 04/22/1994

In the spring of 1921, an event occurred in Russia that was likened by the leader of the ruling Communist Party V.I. Lenin’s “lightning” that illuminated “reality brighter than anything else” 1. We are talking about the uprising on the island of Kotlin, where the fortress city of Kronstadt was located - the largest base of the Baltic Fleet 2. This uprising, which broke out under the slogan “Power to the Soviets, not to the parties!”, immediately became the focus of attention of the Bolshevik leadership, and its lessons provided rich material for well-known fundamental decisions authorities.

Over the years that have passed since that distant time, interest in the dramatic events on Kotlin Island has not faded either in our country or abroad, however, limited to the circles of politicians and historians 3 . The presidential decree that followed in January 1994 Russian Federation B.N. Yeltsin on the complete rehabilitation of the participants in the Kronstadt uprising and the erection of a monument to them again attracted the attention of the general public to the uprising.

The basis for the decree was the extensive Final Report on the Kronstadt events of the Commission under the President of Russia for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, prepared on the basis of a study of sources from the Archive of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation, the Russian Center for the Storage and Study of Documents modern history, State Military Archive, Archive foreign policy RF 4.

The uprising in Kronstadt is rightly considered in the Report against the backdrop of a comprehensive crisis that engulfed Soviet Russia at the beginning of 1921. “A significant part of the peasantry and workers,” the document notes, “even during the civil war, while remaining in positions of support for the power of the Soviets, more and more clearly expressed protest against the growing monopoly of the Bolsheviks on political power. At the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921, armed uprisings engulfed Western Siberia, Tambov, Voronezh provinces, the Middle Volga region, Don, and Kuban. By the spring of 1921, uprisings were actually blazing throughout the country. The situation in the cities became more and more explosive... At rallies and meetings, political demands were increasingly put forward that affected the foundations of the existing regime.”

“The sailors of Kronstadt, who, as is known, were the main support of the Bolsheviks in the October days of 1917,” the Report further says, “were among the first to understand that there had essentially been a replacement of Soviet power with party power, and the ideals for which they fought , turned out to be loyal." On February 26, the Kronstadters sent a delegation to Petrograd, and after its return to the island they brought forward their resolution. It “was, in essence, a call to respect the rights and freedoms proclaimed during the revolution. There were no calls for the overthrow of the government; it was directed only against the omnipotence of the Bolsheviks.” And yet, according to the authors of the Report, the Kronstadt masses were forced to take the path of open armed uprising because of the position of... the communist leadership, set out in the government message of March 2. “By declaring the Kronstadt movement a rebellion organized by French intelligence and former General Kozlovsky, and the resolution adopted by the Kronstadters as Black Hundred-Socialist Revolutionary, the Bolsheviks took into account the then psychology of the masses and, above all, the workers. The majority of them had an extremely negative attitude towards attempts to restore the monarchy. Therefore, the very mention of the tsarist general, and even associated with the imperialists of the Entente, should have discredited the actions of the Kronstadters and their program.” Then the communists, having gathered troops and reliably blockaded the island of Kotlin, brutally suppressed the uprising of the freedom-loving Kronstadters.

Overall these. The provisions of the Final Report correspond to the current level of historical understanding of the Kronstadt events, although in some cases they require clarification. Thus, the acute discontent of the people at the beginning of 1921 was caused not only by the “growing monopoly of the Bolsheviks on political power,” but also mainly by the economic policy of the authorities, known as “war communism.” By the end of the civil war, in the eyes of the overwhelming majority of the population, in addition to the idea of ​​the monarchy and the image of the tsarist generals, the slogan of the Constituent Assembly, along with the moderate socialists (Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks) who actively defended it, was discredited. By March 1921, in Kronstadt there were mostly not sailors, who were “the main support of the Bolsheviks” in October 1917, but green youth recruited in 1920 from rural areas The south of Russia and Ukraine (this is documented in relation to more than 10 thousand sailors and Red Army soldiers out of a total number of ordinary military personnel of 17 thousand people) 5.

Particular attention should be paid to one of the central points of the Final Report - the role in the emergence of the Kronstadt uprising and its development of anti-Bolshevik political forces, that is, those people who consciously made a choice in favor of the elimination of Soviet-communist power in Russia and were actively preparing for the resumption of the struggle with her in conditions when the “white cause” was defeated.

The authors of the Report fully agree here with the conclusion of the head of the investigation, specially authorized by the Cheka Ya.S. Agranov and refer exclusively to his report. “The Kronstadt movement,” wrote Ya.S. Agranov in April 1921, - arose spontaneously and represented an unorganized uprising of the sailor and working masses... The task of my investigation was to clarify the role of individual parties and groups in the emergence and development of the uprising and the connections of the organizers and inspirers of this uprising with counter-revolutionary parties and organizations operating on territory of Soviet Russia and abroad. But it was not possible to establish such connections.”

Conclusion Ya.S. Agranov could hardly have been otherwise, since the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, N.P. Komarov, who began this investigation in hot pursuit, unequivocally stated at the end of March 1921 that the security officers were not able to clarify the behind-the-scenes history of the Kronstadt events, because the main leaders of the uprising managed to hide abroad 6 . Thus, the archive of the Cheka, in principle, cannot help in studying such a difficult issue and it is necessary to turn to another repository sources, concluding many the deity of secrets unknown either to the then security officers or to modern intelligence services - the Russian Foreign Ministry, founded by emigrants in Prague historical archive(now its funds are in the State Archive of the Russian Federation).

The authors of the Report are also confident in another important conclusion of the specially authorized Cheka - that “the uprising... drew almost the entire population and the garrison of the fortress into its whirlpool.” At the same time, it is overlooked that such a conclusion was required by the security officers to justify mass repressions against all those who were simply in Kronstadt during the March days and could later tell the truth about what they saw there that was objectionable to the authorities. Attempts by historians to point out the lack of unity in the ranks of the participants in the Kronstadt movement, the refusal of many thousands of military personnel and civilians to defend the rebellious island with arms in hand are clearly classified in the Report as “lies.” In general, everything that happened during the uprising in Kronstadt itself, around it in the country and beyond its borders is practically not covered in the Report, just as there is no desire to understand these tragic events in a broader historical context.

The only place in the document that at least somehow claims to be a generalization is as follows: “The truth about the Kronstadt “rebellion”... completely refutes the version that the practice of bloody massacres, concentration camps, hostages, extrajudicial executions, mass deportations of the civilian population and other crimes of the regime established in the country began and flourished only under Stalin. No, even then, in Kronstadt, techniques and methods of repression were tested that were widely used by the Bolshevik authorities in subsequent decades. But here, too, one cannot help but remark: in vain the authors of the Report are trying to attribute the palm in the “practice of bloody massacres” to the long-suffering Kronstadt. It is now well known that virtually all of the listed “techniques and methods of repression” were “tested” by the Bolsheviks (as well as by the white generals) long before the massacre of the Kronstadters - in the very first months of the unprecedentedly brutal civil war in Russia.

The above encourages us to invite readers to once again turn the pages of that long-ago tragic story. The main benefit will be documents extracted from dozens of archival files, where yellowed intelligence reports from the rebel fortress, interrogation protocols of defectors and captured rebels, memoirs of surviving leaders of the uprising, secret reports of agents of emigrant centers, correspondence of leaders of anti-Bolshevik parties, etc. are filed under the heading “Keep forever.” .

Let's start with a question that, at first glance, does not have a direct relationship to our topic:

Was there a white underground in Petrograd in 1921?

In August 1921, the Presidium of the Cheka published the sensational “Report on the discovery of a conspiracy against Soviet power in Petrograd.” It spoke of the liquidation of “several combat counter-revolutionary organizations”, “welded together by common connections and tactical unification of their foreign centers, based on lasting in Finland". The most significant of them was, according to the Cheka, the so-called Petrograd combat organization. It was headed by Professor V.N. Tagantsev, former Colonel V.G. Shvedov and “foreign intelligence agent” Yu.P. Hermann. From the end of 1920, this “united conspiratorial front” was preparing an uprising in Petrograd and surrounding areas by the time the tax in kind was collected, i.e., by the fall of 1921.

Now the “Message” of the Cheka is almost unanimously considered as another malicious “hoax of the Bolshevik secret services.” But is this really so? Let's try to look for the answer in sources independent from the Cheka, namely in the archives of the largest military-political organizations of the Russian emigration, whose goal was to continue the task that had fallen from the hands of the leaders of the white armies that had been defeated by that time: the armed struggle against the Bolshevik regime. This is the Socialist Revolutionary Administrative Center (leaders: A.F. Kerensky, N.D. Avksentiev , V.M. Zenzinov and others), People's Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom (B.V. Savinkov, D.M. Odinets, B.A. Evreinov, etc.), Cadet-Enes Action Center (N.V. Tchaikovsky, N.K. Volkov, I.P. Demidov, A.V. Kartashov, etc.), Cadet-monarchist National Center (A.I. Guchkov, F.I. Rodichev, P.B. Struve, M.M. Fedorov, etc. ).

Even from a quick look at the entire set of archival documents of these organizations 7 we can conclude: in 1921 they carried out active anti-Soviet activities from the territory of Finland, i.e. in close proximity to Petrograd. The NC department in Helsingfors (Helsinki) was headed by a member of the Central Committee of Cadets, a representative of General P.N. Wrangel in Finland D.D. Grimm and G.I. Novitsky, who in 1919 was the representative of the NC under General N.N. Yudenich. They also represented the interests of the Action Center. An independent department of the CD in Helsingfors arose after the arrival of Colonel N.N. in early March 1921. Poradelova. A noticeable role in the white circles of Helsingfors was played by captain 1st rank Baron P.V. Wilken, leader of the naval officer organization and chief representative of the emigrant Russian Red Cross Society in Finland G.F. Zeidler, together with his assistant General Yu.A. Yavit. The resident of the Savinkov People's Union was Colonel G. E. Elvengren, and the emissary of the Socialist Revolutionary Center was I.M. Brushvit.

Now, for a more detailed analysis, let’s take three groups of secret emigrant sources.

The first consists of documents from the archives of the Action Center 8. Here, first of all, attention is drawn to the retrospective “Note-memo about the CD” and letters from N.N. Poradelova - unusual for a secret worker in terms of frankness (for which, by the way, he more than once received scoldings from his boss N.V. Tchaikovsky). These documents confirm the existence of the Petrograd underground and provide some valuable details. In particular, it turns out that its leadership core was the local branch of the National Center (most likely, it was this branch that by the summer of 1921 received the name Air Defense). All information from Petrograd flowed to Helsingfors, into the hands of G.I. Novitsky. He processed it and sent it to Paris.

A small fraction of this information ended up directly in the CD archive, where of particular interest are reports from the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921 about the Baltic Fleet with carefully collected data on ships, their combat effectiveness, reports on the arrival of fuel, food and its reserves in Petrograd, on the movement of military echelons, information on the rearmament of fortified areas. Some typewritten copies of reports from the leaders of the Petrograd underground are also kept there. On one of them there is a clear indication of the addressee: “Helsingfors Department of the Scientific Center.”

The second group of sources includes original letters from February - July 1921 from prominent figures of Russian foreign organizations closely associated with Petrograd illegals: generals A.V. Vladimirov and Yu.A. Yavit, professor G.F. Zeidler, Ya.S. Backlunda et al. 9 Unlike N.N. Poradelov, they were experienced conspirators and did not mention any names in vain (except, perhaps, the name of officer Y.P. German after his death while crossing the Soviet-Finnish border in June 1921). Nevertheless, these documents definitely establish the presence in Petrograd of “white organizations” engaged in preparing the uprising. A later letter from Lieutenant V.N. Skosyrev - a confidant of the notorious V.L. Burtseva in Helsingfors - adds additional touches. He reported to Paris that “few people knew about Tagantsev’s conspiracy, and the organization itself was weak,” but after its defeat, “the conspiracy was inflated,” including among the conspirators “many completely innocent people” who were disliked by the authorities 10 .

The third group of emigrant materials consists of confidential papers of the NSZRiS, including the anonymous report of the Savinkov agent “On the events in Petrograd and Kronstadt in February - March 1921,” dated April of the same year. Through simple archival research, you can accurately determine the name of the author of the report. He was Colonel G.E. Elvengren. He begins by pointing out that “an organization had been working in Petrograd for a long time to prepare a coup within,” and continues further: “This organization united (or, rather, coordinated) the actions of numerous (I know of nine), completely separate, independent groups, who, each on their own, were preparing for a coup. These groups in most cases represent a purely military (combat) organization,” and “most of them, politically, are definitely worth from the point of view of non-partisanship. There are also small groups led by figures from different political parties." 11

As we see, well-informed emigrants unanimously testify that some part of Petrograd residents, mainly among the intellectuals, did not resign themselves to Bolshevik rule and did not spare their lives in the fight against it. For what purposes?

It is clear from the sources that the majority of Petrograd conspirators adhered to a right-wing Cadet orientation. To understand its essence, you should look at the minutes of the last all-cadet meeting, which took place in May 1921 in Paris. In the speeches of the right wing of its participants there was condemnation not only October revolution, but also the February Revolution, which, in their opinion, unleashed the “pernicious element” of popular uprisings. The will of the people, A.V. emphasized there. Kartashev, there is a “pathological, destructive will”; possessing such a will, “the people would have kicked us out anyway, d even the EU “If only we had fought the Bolsheviks with white gloves.” The right-wing Cadets expressed their readiness to take the most extreme measures to “curb the popular element,” even to the point of military dictatorship 12 . Similar thoughts were expressed by the head of the Helsingfors department of the NC, Professor D.D. Grimm. “I don’t understand what democratic reforms are,” he said during the days of the Kronstadt uprising in a frank conversation with Colonel N.N. Poradelov. “Without firm power, without strictness over the dissolute people, nothing can be done” 13.

And yet, paradoxically, politicians of right-wing cadet and monarchist orientations were irresistibly drawn to rely, albeit temporarily, on the “destructive will of the people,” as soon as it entered into an acute conflict with the communist government, and the pure “white cause” suffered complete defeat. Soviet Russia, directly formulated his credo during interrogation at the Cheka V.N. Tagantsev, cannot be crushed by the creation of new white fronts, it “must be rebelled” 14.

The leaders of the white underground were led to this idea by the deepening crisis in Soviet Russia, the growth of political ferment in the layers of society that had previously served as the support of power, and the anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings, information about which they carefully collected and transported abroad. “The blind despair to which we were ready to indulge in November and December (1920),” wrote the Petrograd conspirators in Helsingfors, “began to give way to hope for a quick change, for the fall of Bolshevism from its internal weakness. The thought of intervention, of course, aroused nothing but laughter among us... But the internal front acquired all the more importance. We clearly realized that we could not change the psychology of the people, just as we could not even change ourselves, to feel free from oppression. But in January we suddenly experienced a shift” 15.

In an effort not to miss the moment and to use in his own interests the clearly emerging shift in the “psychology of the people” away from supporting the communist government, V.I. Tagantsev and his like-minded people were ready to adopt the then popular slogan among the working masses of “non-party”, “free” Soviets - that is, the Soviets, freed through secret re-elections with freedom of agitation from the Bolshevik dictatorship that suppressed them. True, for the sake of accuracy, it should be noted that such a tactical change in the “ideological equipment” of the future action occurred mainly after the uprising in Kronstadt and under the influence of its lessons.

Petrograd underground and Kronstadt

The veil of deep secrecy over the question of whether there was a cell of the Petrograd underground bloc in Kronstadt was not lifted either by the interrogations of the arrested rebels, or by the testimony of the participants in the “Tagantsev conspiracy” in the Cheka. Moreover, from the statements of the latter it follows: they were not interested in the fortress on Kotlin Island at all. They admitted to the security officers that they planned their performance at the end of the summer of 1921. By that time, an uprising had already broken out in Kronstadt and been defeated. The measures taken by the authorities excluded any attempts to whose garrison of the sea fortressinto a new anti-Bolshevik enterprise.

And here again the report of G.E. comes to the rescue. Elvengren. First of all, he brings clarity to the question of the time of the originally planned speech of the anti-Bolshevik forces: “Since food can only be brought to Petrograd in the current state of transport from the outside, and the provision of the city with food immediately after the coup is recognized as absolutely mandatory in order to avoid anarchy and ensure success, then and the opening of navigation (end of April) is considered a prerequisite for the start of the performance.” Hence the fundamental importance of establishing control over the sea gates of Petrograd - Kronstadt. And as Savinkov’s agent further emphasizes, the Petrograd underground center “persuaded” and linked the date of the general action with the anti-Soviet group operating on Kotlin Island.

Some details of the plan of the white conspirators can be gleaned from the “Memo on the organization of the uprising in Kronstadt,” discovered in the late 60s by the American historian P. Avrich in the Russian Archive at Columbia University among the secret papers of the National Center 16. The time of compilation of this document dates back to the very beginning of 1921.

The author of the "Memorandum" - an anonymous agent of the NC (according to P. Avrich, he was G.F. Zeidler) reports on the activities on Kotlin of a "closely knit group of energetic organizers of the uprising", already "capable of taking the most decisive actions" during the "coming spring." But he immediately points out that “Russian anti-Bolshevik organizations” are not able to independently ensure the proper stability of the insurgent regime in Kronstadt after the coup. That is why the author considers it necessary to “seek help from the French government,” because otherwise the uprising will be “doomed to failure.” In his opinion, French circles need not only to establish food and financial supplies for the rebels, but also “to ensure the arrival of French warships, as well as army and naval formations of the generals, in Kronstadt as soon as possible.” Wrangel". At the same time, all power in the fortress should have “automatically” passed to Wrangel’s command.

The emigrant documents do not contain any clear information about the Kronstadt underground. Only the anonymous “Notes of a Participant in the Uprising,” published in April 1921 by one of the fortress officers in the Revel magazine “Responses,” name the senior clerk of the battleship “Petropavlovsk” S.M. among the members of the illegal group. Petrichenko. The fact that Petrichenko could be part of this group is not ruled out by the American historian P. Avrich.

Clerk S. M. Petrichenko was soon destined to lead the rebellious Kronstadt. Therefore, it is worth getting to know this person better. From the information received in the first days of the uprising by the command of the Baltic Fleet from people who knew him well, it turns out that Petrichenko, a sailor who served in 1913, was in his political views a “socialist by season”: both a Socialist-Revolutionary, and an anarchist, then a communist, and by March 1921 non-party 17. The assessments of emigrant figures who met Petrichenko in Finland after the suppression of the uprising are extremely interesting. According to the Socialist Revolutionary I.I. Yakovlev, he “possessed undoubted organizational abilities” and during the events “showed an understanding of mass psychology.” The fact that the former leader of the Kronstadt insurgents “in general person close to us in views,” noted the leader of the Popular Socialists N.V. among his comrades. Chaikovsky. Socialist-Revolutionary I.M. Brushvit spoke differently about Petrichenko: “Although our comrades claim that he has a mess in his head, in my opinion, he is an extremely clever person. He makes a completely intelligent impression and speaks with perfect understanding on political topics; but if you try to introduce more definite notes into the conversation, he instantly becomes wary and extremely cleverly wriggles out of direct answers.” As if generalizing these and other, sometimes very unflattering reviews about the clerk’s personality, former minister white North-West government cadet K.A. Alexandrov stated: “Sailor Stepan Petrichenko is a fairly typical figure for the times we are living through. A great ambitious man, brought up on Bolshevik slogans... A man who, in achieving his goals, follows any path that is revealed to him, is inclined to enter into agreements and treaties with any political party and organization (even monarchical ones), if they are useful to him. But the person is undoubtedly strong-willed, knows what he wants and knows how to want. There is little enlightenment in him, but through self-education he develops himself greatly, he is lively and eloquent” 18.

Despite all the diversity and fragmentation, the given characteristics strengthen the version that this man could interest respectable gentlemen from the Tagantsev bloc and enter its Kronstadt cell.

Returning to the latter, it should be noted that there is no accurate data on its numbers. Judging by the “Memorandum”, the group was very small. The whole plan of the uprising was based on the fact that in an atmosphere of “tendency to revolt” among ordinary Kronstadters, the performance of the conspirators would be met with sympathy and would result in a mass anti-Bolshevik movement. “The sailors,” this document stated categorically, “will unanimously join the rebels, as soon as a small group of activists seize power in Kronstadt with a quick and decisive push.”

The beginning of the uprising in Kronstadt

On the 20th of February 1921, Petrograd was overwhelmed by a wave of political strikes at enterprises and demonstrations under anti-government slogans (mainly the demands of “free Soviets”, much less often - the Constituent Assembly). The spontaneous uprisings of the workers met with energetic support from the city organizations of the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarchists and the illegal socialist bloc they created - the Assembly of Factories and Works Representatives.

The Tagantsevsky bloc took a different position. His groups, as noted by G.E. Elvengren, “bound by an agreed date with Kronstadt,” “led by a common center, did not take part in the riots, but, on the contrary, tried to keep their forces in. encryptedpassive state, in order to preserve them by the time of the general agreed organized action - by the beginning of the opening of navigation, without which no action can give lasting results of national significance.”

Indeed, there were no active actions on the part of the white bloc in those days. This was explained, however, not so much by the high “state” considerations of the conspirators, but by a sober analysis of the political situation in the city. The leaders of the bloc defined it quite unexpectedly: “cheerful.” One of the reports to Helsingfors described the February events in Petrograd as follows: “The first wave began cheerfully here - the cadets cheerfully disarmed, the cadets cheerfully restrained the workers... February 24 is the first exit of the working crowd from obedience to Smolny. This first incident was easy and, I repeat, here in Petrograd it was even fun.” And then the meaning of the word “fun” is revealed: “Unfortunately, the tension did not increase. The soldiers willingly handed over their weapons (to the crowd). On the other hand, there was no activity among the soldiers locked in the barracks by the Bolsheviks” 19.

The authorities did not allow the flames of popular indignation to flare up, resorting to the age-old and proven policy of “carrot and stick”: prompt arrests of socialist intellectuals (in particular, one of the Menshevik leaders F.I. Dan) and worker activists were carried out; At the same time, the distribution of ration cards began (including for such exotic products at that time as meat, condensed milk, rice, chocolate), and the distribution of textiles, shoes, and coal among workers. At the same time, there were no casualties, since the Red cadets called to the streets dispersed the demonstrators with shots in the air, as both Soviet sources and reports to Helsingfors by leaders of the Tagantsev bloc unanimously testify to.

Nevertheless, rumors spread throughout Petrograd and its environs about the cruel reprisals of the authorities against workers, women and children, about shootouts in the streets, shelling of factories from cannons... “There were so many killed that it seemed that the government had crushed the uprising” 20 - these words the famous sociologist and former Socialist-Revolutionary Pitirim Sorokin is fully characterized by the flow of evil speculation that has spilled far beyond the city limits.

On February 26, these rumors reached the island of Kronstadt and caused massive unrest among the sailors and Red Army soldiers there. Now let’s give the floor to the Savinkovsky resident. “The beginning of the Kronstadt uprising has appeared; due to the lack of a sufficiently good connection, the result of a sad misunderstanding and therefore it turned out although To strong, but, unfortunately, disconnected from the general plan, insufficiently prepared and premature,” wrote G.E. Elvengren. - The fact is that the Kronstadt sailors (an organization that existed there, connected with the general one), having learned about the movement that had begun in Petrograd and about its size, contrary to the agreed date, considered it the beginning of a general action and, not wanting to remain passive on the sidelines, arrived in Petrograd ... in order to take part along with others who have already spoken. In Petrograd, they immediately found their bearings and noticed that this was not what they had expected. I had to return hastily to Kronstadt, the movement in Petrograd calmed down, everything calmed down, and they - the sailors - found themselves already compromised in front of the commissars, they knew that there would be repressions and that’s why. They decided, having taken the first step, not to stop there, but, taking advantage of their isolated position, independent from the mainland, to declare themselves separated from the Council of Deputies and independently develop their action that had begun (thus forced).

So, according to G.E. Elvengren, the Kronstadt conspirators began to take decisive action at the end of February. By the way, Baltic Fleet Commissioner N.N. immediately caught this. Kuzmin, who was in those days on the island of Kotlin. “I felt some kind of hand in Kronstadt,” he said at the plenum of the Petrograd Soviet on March 25, 1921, “and I thought that as this hand extended, it would be possible to follow it. hit. I felt there was some preparation. These threads were difficult to find, but they were there” 21.

And yet: was there really this “hand” gradually guiding events? Do we have reason to believe the white colonel and the red commissar, even considering that the evidence comes from political antagonists - and this usually indicates the reliability of the information they report? In search of an answer, let us consider two circumstances that are key to understanding the essence of everything that happened in those days in Kronstadt.

The first of these is the nature of the energetic anti-Bolshevik agitation among ordinary Kronstadters. At its center, in addition to criticism of the economic policy of the communist government, there was a thesis clearly designed to stir up mass sentiment and just as clearly at odds with the truth about the Petrograd events (which, by the way, the Kronstadt non-party delegation that returned to the island on February 27 was well aware of) - about the execution of workers in the northern capital 22.

Even more revealing is the obvious adaptation of the main political slogan of the nascent uprising to the mood of the Kronstadt masses.

On February 28, a resolution was prepared on the battleship Petropavlovsk for a brigade meeting of battleship crews. Its text has not been preserved. But the assessment of this document given to him by the Chairman of the Petrosovet G.E. Zinoviev, on the basis of the information he had, as a document of “definitely White Guard type,” clearly indicates the presence in it, at least, of the requirement of the Constituent Assembly. The same document is discussed in one of the reports of the Petrograd conspirators, where the following points of the resolution adopted on the battleship are named: “Constituent Assembly”; “Down with communists and Jews” 23. Such an openly anti-Soviet resolution caused a protest from the Petropavlovsk sailors. At night, when the military men were already leaving after the discussion, they, according to eyewitnesses, “began to express dissatisfaction with such a Black Hundred resolution and began to demand amendments” 24 .

The necessary changes were quickly made to the campaign campaign, and now it was conducted within the framework of calls for “free Soviets” in general and specifically for re-election of the local Soviet. “The Kronstadt uprising,” one of its leaders, engineer I.E., later admitted. Oreshin,” broke out under the pretext of replacing the old Council, whose powers had expired, with a new one chosen by secret ballot. The question of universal suffrage, with the admission of the bourgeoisie to the elections, was carefully avoided by speakers at rallies for fear of discord within the rebels themselves, which the Bolsheviks could take advantage of.”25

On the morning of March 1, a brigade-wide meeting of battleship sailors took place. It was chaired by S.M. Petrichenko. “Here once again, under pressure from the sailors, the political program of the anti-Bolshevik movement is being clarified. When Petrichenko proposed adding to the resolution a clause on freedom of speech for all socialist parties, those present heatedly protested: “This is freedom for the right Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks! No! In no case... We know their founders! No need!" 26. As a result, a resolution was approved, which included the following main decisions: “In view of the fact that the present Soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately re-elect the Soviets by secret ballot, and before the elections, conduct free agitation of all workers and peasants”; provide freedom of speech and press for workers and peasants, anarchists and left-wing socialist parties"; “Give full rights of action to the peasants over the entire land in the way they wish.”

A few hours later, this resolution was adopted at a general garrison meeting, where up to 16 thousand sailors, Red Army soldiers and workers of Kronstadt were present.

Now about the second circumstance. It is connected with the intriguing history of the creation of the governing body of the uprising - the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Sailors, Red Army Men and Workers of Kronstadt.

It is reliably known that the revolutionary committee had been functioning since the evening of March 1 (while still on board the battleship Petropavlovsk) 27 . It is all the more interesting to trace how his “legitimation” took place at the all-Kronstadt delegate meeting on the afternoon of March 2, which was convened by decision of the first March meeting to discuss free re-elections of the local Council.

S.M. was firmly established on the presidium of the meeting, held in the building of the Engineering School. Petrichenko with a small group of his associates. Of the 300 elected delegates present, about a quarter were communists 28 . Soon after the start of the meeting, under the pretext of ensuring “true freedom” of elections to the Council, Baltic Fleet Commissioner N.N. was arrested. Kuzmin and Chairman of the City Council P.D. Vasiliev. A proposal was immediately made to take into custody the remaining members of the RCP (b) who were in the hall of the Engineering School. Those who nominated him were clearly in a hurry. “Although the meeting did not hide its negative attitude towards the communists,” the rebel newspaper Izvestia BPK wrote about this episode a few days later, “nevertheless, comrade who stood up after being removed from the meeting. Kuzmina... the question of whether the communists who were among the delegates at the meeting should remain and continue together general work with non-party comrades, was resolved in a positive sense. The meeting, despite individual protests from some members who proposed detaining the communists, did not agree with this, and found it possible to recognize them as the same authorized representatives of units and organizations as the other members» 29.

If we assume that among the delegates in the hall there were indeed people interested in a complete break with the official authorities and consistently moving towards this goal, then one had to expect their response, which could sharply change the situation at the meeting. And he was not slow to be. At the moment when the meeting began to clearly stall (the presidium was busy once again carrying through the resolution of the battleship brigade that had already been adopted twice before and putting to a vote the proposal to send a new non-party delegation to Petrograd, without, however, meeting support from the delegates), it suddenly spread rumor that cadets with 15 carts of machine guns and an armed detachment of two thousand people were moving towards the Engineering School.

Communist eyewitnesses described these dramatic moments as follows: “Suddenly the door to the hall burst open with a noise, a sailor flew in, ran headlong to the presidium and screamed in a heart-rending voice: “Halfway, non-party people! We have been betrayed! The communist army surrounded the school! Now they will arrest us!..” The cry of the sailor raised the hall to its feet... In the terrible confusion and noise they managed to vote for something. And a few minutes later, the chairman of the meeting, Petrichenko, drowning out the noise, announced: “The Revolutionary Committee, elected by you as part of the presidium, decides: all communists present here should be detained and not released until clarification.” In two or three minutes, all the communists present at the meeting were isolated by armed sailors” 30.

In the description of S.M. For Petrichenko, all this looks a little different. “During the discussion of the question of sending delegates to Petrograd,” he asserted, “me, as the chairman of the meeting, began to receive notes from the meeting participants, which said: “The communists have already installed ‘machine guns’ in some buildings; “The cadets are coming from Oranienbaum to Kronstadt.” These notes were of provocative content. They were sent by the communists present at the meeting, they hoped to intimidate the meeting so that they would stop discussing matters and disperse... I, as the chairman, had to read out these notes and declared that something was already being prepared against us. We must, even if all this is wrong, still prepare for self-defense. Then, in view of the danger of the situation, those present proposed the creation of a Provisional Revolutionary Committee” 31. Petrichenko also mentions the crazy sailor who burst into the meeting room with a panicked cry.

Mainly S.M. Petrichenko does not disagree with the testimony of communist eyewitnesses. The Revolutionary Committee “officially” took shape in a situation where the entire meeting was agitated by rumors of impending repression by the authorities. At the same time - and this is the most important thing in Petrichenko’s position - he shifts responsibility for what happened to the Bolsheviks.

Where is the truth? Were the Kronstadt commissars preparing for an armed dispersal of the delegate meeting? The available documents allow us to answer this question with sufficient completeness.

Let's start with the notes of the head of the Operations Department of the Kronkrepost headquarters, former Lieutenant Colonel B.A. Arkannikova. At about two o’clock in the afternoon on March 2, that is, shortly after the start of the delegate meeting, Arkannikov recalled, “all the responsible communist workers began to flock to the headquarters premises... The communists were well armed, and they demanded 250 hand grenades. It became clear that at first they decided to defend themselves at headquarters. At about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, Commissar Novikov demanded a map and, accompanied by all the arriving communists, disappeared from the headquarters: apparently, some new data received forced the commissars to abandon the idea of ​​defending themselves at the headquarters” 32.

In the archive we managed to find a piece of paper with a tape pasted on a conversation over a direct wire between three commissars of the Naval General Staff K.A. Gailis and Baltic Fleet headquarters G.P. Galkin, who were in Petrograd, and the commissar of the Kronkrepost headquarters I. Novikov. It was during this conversation that the “new data” supposed by B. A. Arkannikov was received, which prompted Novikov to change his plans. Here is the document:

“A revolutionary committee was formed in Kronstadt at Petropavlovsk. Now there is a meeting at the Engineering School. Kuzmin, Vasiliev... arrested. The situation is extremely critical. I was left alone with a detachment of communards in a terribly difficult situation. What to do: fight with the detachment or retreat to the fort? Please guide me. — Is it impossible to stay in Kronstadt? - It’s possible, but you just have to be arrested or [or] submit to the revolutionary committee. “Do not cause an armed conflict and do not allow yourself to be arrested, but at a critical moment, if there is no other choice, go to the fort, but without causing a clash” 33.

So, the most that the Kronstadt communists thought about was self-defense. And on the evening of March 2, their most united and organized forces from the Special Department, the Revolutionary Tribunal, the party school and some other units, fulfilling the directive of Petrograd, went across the ice to Oranienbaum. Power in Kronstadt was completely in the hands of the Revolutionary Committee.

The above facts allow us to draw a more general conclusion. In the avalanche-like events on the island of Kotlin, one can really see the strong will of those who deliberately set out to incite discontent among sailors and Red Army soldiers and purposefully worked to eliminate the local Bolsheviks from power and establish their own control over Kronstadt.

On March 4, at a new delegate meeting, the composition of the Revolutionary Committee was significantly expanded and reached 15 people. Now almost all of the Kronstadters, who more or less actively supported the March 2 coup, had their representatives in the Military Revolutionary Committee.

The reservation is not accidental, because there was not a single military specialist in the Military Revolutionary Committee. Meanwhile, a bloc of Revolutionary Committee members and former officers formed almost immediately. CM. Petrichenko testifies that on the night of March 3, “the Revolutionary Committee invited all the chiefs of staff of the fortress and military specialists... and invited them to take part in bringing the fortress into combat shape and order, to which they agreed” 34 . Without delay, a defense headquarters was established consisting of officials from the former headquarters of the Kronfortress: its former chief, Lieutenant Colonel E.I. Solovyanov (now chief of defense), Lieutenant Colonel B.A. Arkannikov (the new chief of staff) and other officers. In addition, a Military Defense Council was created from among the most prominent Kronstadt military experts. Among them is the commander of the battleship brigade, former Rear Admiral S.K. Dmitriev and General of the Old Army A.N. Kozlovsky.

Izvestia VRK, however, was in no hurry to report on these military bodies. Only on March 13, the name of E.N. appeared on the pages of the newspaper. Solovyanov as chief of defense. The fact is that the mass of ordinary Kronstadters were extremely distrustful of the former officers and their direct participation in leading the uprising was not advertised by the Revkom whenever possible.

More than a third of the members of the Military Revolutionary Committee were sailors, mainly from the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol (Arkhipov, Vershinin, Patrushev, Perepelkpn, etc.). Among the civilians, the Military Revolutionary Committee included craftsmen and workers (Valk, Pavlov, Tukin, etc.), as well as local employees and intellectuals (the head of the transport convoy Baykov, the navigator of long-distance navigation Kilgast, the head of the school engineer Oreshin).

It is difficult to judge with certainty the party affiliation of the Revolutionary Committee members, since, according to the head of the investigative group, security officer Ya.S. Agranov, “the participants in the rebellion carefully hid their party physiognomy under the flag of non-partyism” 35. Of the small number of arrested members of the Military Revolutionary Committee, only V.A. Valk admitted that since 1907 he had been a Menshevik and had not broken with the local party organization. I.E. Oreshin, according to the head of the Baltic Fleet Political Directorate E.I. Batisa, in the recent past he joined the Cadets Party 36. I think this data can be trusted. When viewing the protocols of the emigrant cadet group P.N. Miliukov for 1921 - 1923. we came across mentions of the Oreshin surname in them. Having settled in Finland after the uprising, he was part of a left-wing Cadet group there 37 . Editor of Izvestia VRK A.N. Lamanov, who was not officially a member of the Revolutionary Committee, at one time headed the Kronstadt organization of the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists, which had collapsed by 1921, and in the March days he again declared himself a member of this party 38 .

Soviet sources attribute a number of Revolutionary Committee sailors to anarchism. Anarchist views of G.P. Perepelkin was also noted by the Menshevik leader F.I. Dan, who encountered him in March - April 1921 in the Petrograd House of Pre-trial Detention. Apparently, among the sailor activists of the Kronstadt movement there was indeed a strong inclination towards anarchism. Several dozen of them were with Perepelkin in the DPZ. The same Dan wrote down his impressions from conversations with them: “The sailors were very embittered... Disappointed in the Communist Party, to which many of them previously belonged, they spoke with hatred about parties in general. For them, the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries were no better than the Bolsheviks: they all equally strive to seize power into their own hands, and having seized it, they deceive the people who trusted them. “You are all one company!” - one sailor said irritably. We don’t need any power, we need anarchism - that was the conclusion of the majority of sailors” 39.

In any case, one thing is clear: members of the Military Revolutionary Committee, regardless of their affiliation with one party or another (and among them, undoubtedly, non-party members predominated) expressed the sentiments of the most politicized in the anti-Bolshevik spirit and prone to decisive action among the military personnel and civilian population of Kronstadt. As for the Kronstadt masses as a whole, after the formation of the Revolutionary Committee, which was unexpected for many, they remained in an indifferent state or fluctuated greatly, not leaning towards any of the warring sides. Abundant material for such a conclusion is provided by the testimony of defectors from the rebellious fortress (there were up to 400 people) and the reports of Soviet intelligence officers 40 .

All this made the most serious adjustments to the immediate plans of the leaders of the emerging anti-Bolshevik movement.

“At the first meeting of the Military Council,” recalls General A.N. Kozlovsky, “the question was raised: to defend actively or passively.” However, only the first option was discussed, since, as can be seen from the notes of B.A. Arkannikov, the Kronstadt leaders well understood the benefits of seizing the initiative in their own hands in anticipation of the “inevitable hostilities” with the Bolsheviks 41 . “There were two proposals,” Kozlovsky further says. - Some believed that the strike should be directed at the Oranienbaum bank, as the point most important for the enemy, others found that the moment of the strike on the Oranienbaum bank had been missed, it should have been carried out on the night of March 2-3, and now it would be more profitable to attack Sestroretsk and further to Petrograd. Both plans were based on the hope of attracting passing troops to their side... The military council dispersed with the confidence that either one or the other offensive would be carried out” 42.

But the Military Council miscalculated and, as the general states with regret, “the defense headquarters gradually glossed over this project.” The main reason for the slowness and indecisiveness of the leadership (including members of the Military Revolutionary Committee) was openly named by E.N. Solovyanov: “With a big stretch, Kronstadt can form a detachment of 2 thousand people, provided that the garrisons of those forts from which the Soviet troops are expected to attack are weakened” 43 .

So, only 2 out of 18 thousand military personnel, not counting the adult male population of the city, and even with the withdrawal of forces from the defense lines of Kronstadt itself. Throwing such a detachment into the unknown in the absence, as B. A. Arkannikov noted, of “sufficient information about the enemy and the situation,” its “movement on ice, without cover, not accompanied by light field artillery when reaching land,” was such an obvious gamble that that the military experts at the headquarters did not dare to go for it” 44.

As we see, the memorable hope of the emigre author of the “Memoir on the Organization of the Uprising in Kronstadt” was not justified. He and his like-minded people expected that the establishment of control over the fortress by the initiators of the uprising would meet with “unanimous support” there. But in reality they were faced with a mood of passivity and uncertainty about the future, with the outright reluctance of many ordinary participants in the nascent movement to turn their weapons against the Soviet side. Members of the Revolutionary Committee and military specialists understood more and more clearly that they had strength. those at their actual disposal were not enough not only to carry out an offensive operation, but also to organize an effective defense of Kronstadt itself. Therefore, they developed vigorous activity, trying to place under their banners dogs capable of holding a rifle in their hands and servicing machine guns and artillery pieces. Their “domestic policy” was almost entirely subordinated to achieving this goal. Let us note in a few strokes its main directions.

Firstly, these are direct repressions against those who disagree with the Revolutionary Committee authorities. “The first day after the emergence of the Revolutionary Committee,” noted General A.N. Kozlovsky, “the latter in its entirety was engaged in considering various issues of arrests, admissions and passes” 45 . By the morning of March 3, about 150 communists were in custody. Soon, a special “investigative unit” (headed by Pavlov, a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee) was established to lead searches and arrests. Through her efforts, another 170 communists were sent to prison. In addition, a separate prison was opened for non-party members, where by the end of the uprising there were several dozen people 46.

Secondly, “revolutionary troikas” are organized - the lower bodies of the rebel regime, which exercise vigilant control over all civilian institutions, naval and army units. An eyewitness account has been preserved about the work of one of these “revolutionary troikas” - at the city branch of the metalworkers’ trade union. It's a trio instead of leading workers' organization actively began spying on the communists, who were immediately placed under suspicion by them and thus found themselves, as it were, under house arrest” 47 . The rest of the “revolutionary troikas” acted in approximately the same way.

Thirdly, this is perhaps the most characteristic of “ domestic policy" of the new authorities - the Revolutionary Committee's "agitprop" gained momentum every day. And here (not to mention the arrests) the leaders of the uprising showed themselves to be worthy disciples of the Bolsheviks they overthrew. “Ideological and educational work” was carried out both with the help of the daily newspaper “Izvestia VRK” and directly by agitators at a great many meetings held in Kronstadt and on the island forts. Moreover, the communists, contrary to the resolution of the general garrison nogp rally March 1st, were there right awaydeprived of voting rights. Meetings were held only with the permission of the Revolutionary Committee, which was also provided with their minutes for approval 48 .

The core of the agitation from the very beginning was anti-communism, which became especially sharp and outspoken after the incessant shelling of the fortress since the evening of March 7 and its first (unsuccessful) assault on March 8.

Here, the Revkom played into the hands of the well-known Government message of March 2, 1921 about the “White Guard” “revolt of the former General Kozlovsky and the ship “Petropavlovsk”” (not only distorting the meaning of the slogans and the nature of the Kronstadt movement, but also declaring its leaders “outside the law”) , as well as the ultimatum presented to the Kronstadters on March 6 for unconditional surrender. All this reduced to virtually nothing the possibility of a peaceful resolution of the conflict through negotiations with the mass of ordinary participants in the movement, which the latter were sincerely committed to and which the Revolutionary Committee supported at first for propaganda purposes. Its members were well aware of the unacceptability for the government (including because of the official interpretation of the events on Kotlin) of the terms of negotiations they put forward on March 5: sending a delegation of Kronstadters to Petrograd, where the echoes of the February unrest had not yet died down, for the purpose of “explaining the events” and with the right to freedom of movement and agitation, and at the same time - the arrival to Kotlin of a non-party delegation of workers freely elected at Petrograd factories.

“There can be no middle ground in the fight against the communists and the serfdom they erected,” Izvestia VRK urged from issue to issue. - We must go to the end... No, there can be no middle. Win or die!" And in order to dispel doubts about who would win, the Revkom officialdom systematically published reports about anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Russia. True, this was not without its fair share of hoaxes (for example, rumors were constantly circulating about mass armed uprisings in Moscow and Petrograd, about help to Kronstadt from the rebels Makhno and Antonov) 49 .

This agitation was supported by newspaper articles containing some generalizations. “In October 1917,” we read in one of them, “the bourgeoisie was thrown aside. It seemed that the working people had come into their own, but the communist party, full of selfish people, seized power into its own hands, eliminating the peasants and workers in whose name it acted. She decided, following the model of landowner Russia, to rule the country with the help of her commissars... It became stuffy... The uprising of the workers was approaching. The watchful sentinel of the social revolution, Kronstadt, did not oversleep. He was in the forefront of February and October. He was the first to raise the banner of uprising for the Third Revolution of the working people. The autocracy fell. The Founder has gone into the realm of legends. The commissar power is also collapsing” 50.

The program slogans of this “third revolution” were given special attention in the work of the Revolutionary Committee “agitprop”. “There is very little that is fully formed, clear, definite,” V.I. wrote about them. Lenin. - Vague slogans of “freedom”, “free trade”, “emancipation”, “Soviets without Bolsheviks” or re-election of the Soviets, or getting rid of the “party dictatorship”..." 51 N oh bye The facts show that such vagueness was by no means accidental.

According to G.E. Elvengrepa, the Revolutionary Committee “for tactical reasons declared himself an ardent supporter of Soviet power, rejecting only the dictatorship of the Communist Party, hoping that with such a platform it would be difficult for the Communists to lead the Soviet units against them, the defenders of the Soviets. All the slogans were put up mainly in order to knock the weapon of propaganda and accusations against the Kronstadters out of the hands of the communists.” Cadet G.F. also speaks about this. Zeidler is another well-informed figure in the white emigration. In a letter sent during the days of the uprising from Vyborg to Paris, he emphasized: reading the Kronstadt “appeals, one can, upon superficial inspection, come to the conclusion that they were not far from the rally and committee resolutions during the February Revolution. In reality the difference is huge. Sharpness (i.e., the Soviet coloring is too bright for cadet eyes. - Yu. Shch.) very skillfully composed appeals, according to members of the Revolutionary Committee, are explained by the need to influence and raise the working masses in Petrograd and are considered only temporary” 52 .

Of course. The Revolutionary Committee put forward its slogans, addressing not only the residents of Petrograd. First of all, they were intended for sailors, Red Army soldiers and workers of Kronstadt itself. As for another comment by G.F. Zeidler - about the documents in question as “very skillfully compiled” - then it correctly reflects the essence of the matter. The Revolutionary Committee ideologists mainly acted as drafters, widely drawing ready-made formulas and entire journalistic blocks of their own anti-Bolshevik “philippics” from the ideological and political arsenals of the socialist parties. We can talk about the similarity of most points of the resolution of the all-garrison meeting on March 1 with the Menshevik draft resolution for the striking Petrograd workers 53. The left socialists borrowed the thesis about the coming “third revolution”, the slogan “Power to the Soviets, not the parties!”, and quite a few other things from the ideological “equipment” of the uprising.

Another one noted by G.F. is also confirmed by facts. Zeidler's feature of the slogans proclaimed by the Military Revolutionary Committee is their temporary, transitory nature. The further the speech went, the more clearly its purpose was formulated. Of particular interest in this sense is the radiogram sent from Kronstadt on March 15. “We are fighting now,” it stated, “for the overthrow of the party yoke, for the true power of the Soviets, and then let the free government of the people decide how they want to be governed” 54 . This, as defined by the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries V. M. Chernov, “the dying political testament of Kronstadt” caused lively comments among the emigrants. Thus, resident of the Action Center N.N. Poradelov assessed the document as “very, very significant,” indicating that “the Kronstadters showed last days the ability to democratize their slogans" 55. Chernov expressed himself even more clearly: “Whoever speaks about the free will of the people speaks about universal, direct and equal voting, he speaks about democracy” 56 . The latter, in his understanding, was synonymous with the Constituent Assembly. But in Kronstadt they were already talking openly about him...

We will return to this later. In the meantime, let’s take a quick look at the events that took place in those days outside of Kotlin Island.

Rebellious Kronstadt and the outside world

The news of the uprising in Kronstadt caused a genuine explosion of enthusiasm among the two million Russian emigration. In the performance of the sailors, homesick refugees saw the beginning of the end of the Bolshevik power over Russia that they hated. And then a heated debate broke out between various political groups of the Russian diaspora regarding the assessment of this uprising, its prospects and their own position in the context of the unfolding popular struggle against the communist dictatorship.

Having looked through the emigrant press and Soviet newspapers, which widely reprinted materials from there, a few weeks after the events described, Socialist-Revolutionary N.F. Novozhilov noted in a letter to cadet I.P. Demidov: the communist press then persistently propagated the thesis that “The Kronstadt uprising was organized by “white” hands... And one must be amazed at how skillfully the Bolsheviks did it!.. The names of those who attached themselves to the Kronstadt cause are odious and terrible. And you know, you begin to understand what harm is being done to the national cause by all these hopelessly compromised gentlemen who, at a critical moment, crawled out of their holes and so tactlessly started talking at the top of their lungs about helping the rebels... And the devil knows what kind of emigrant press we have! In pursuit of a sensation, she let loose all sorts of ducks around the world! And the restoration of the rights of owners to factories and factories, and the abolition of the nationalization of houses, and the restoration of private ownership of land - everything was included in the program of dear Kronstadt, according to reports from some of our bodies. Lord, how well the Bolsheviks used this! And I really want to wish that these hopelessly stupid, stupid politicians would be reined in more and more firmly, besieged. The devil also prompted the monarchists to start a fuss with the Mikhails, Cyrils, Nicholas and other names of gentlemen rushing to occupy the vacant ancestral throne. We found time, nothing to say! I understand that all forces must work for themselves, but it seems to me that one must work skillfully, remembering that only a fool sings a dirge at a wedding or dances at a funeral” 57 .

Not all emigrants, however, were strong in hindsight. Already in the days of the Kronstadt uprising, sober and concerned voices began to be heard in the enthusiastic chorus of retired politicians, who categorically asserted: “Candidates for power living abroad have nowhere to rush and there is no need to rush!” On the pages of the newspaper “Last News”, the cadet leader P. N. Milyukov criticized “naive people, alien to the psychology of revolutionary movement, which is happening in Russia" and called for "protecting the dearly won people's victory from any attempts by reactionary forces hostile to the people to distort its results."

What was hidden behind this call, made at the suggestion of P.N. Milyukov into the text of the appeal of the Executive Commission of the Members of the Constituent Assembly of Russia (formed in January 1921 in Paris) to “democracy of all countries”? A frank answer is given by the transcript of a closed meeting of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party in Paris on March 7: “V.A. Maklakov poses the question: What does it mean that the commission’s resolution mentions the influence of reactionary forces? If very right-wing elements also give money to support (the Kronstadters), is it possible to object to this?.. P. N. Milyukov explains that, according to available information, this movement is very left-wing. Therefore, it is necessary to exercise great caution and avoid, for example, such steps as sending money to help the rebel D.D. Grimm, who is now the official representative of the gene. Wrangel, i.e. the reactionary current... I.P. Demidov believes that sending money to Grimm is a certain fact that can cause harm. Anyone who gives money, if he is a bourgeois, must hide it... M.M. Vinaver believes that the participation in the movement of elements suspected of being reactionary could discredit it. You can take money from the devil, but only with his tail hidden” 58.

The same sober political calculation, clearly palpable in the above document, guided the Milyukovites in their polemics with those ideologists of the socialist parties who hastened to put forward the demand for a Constituent Assembly, which had been compromised among the masses.

P.N. himself Miliukov decisively supported the main political slogan of the rebellious Kronstadt, immediately and without diplomatic equivocation revealing its true meaning: the implementation of the idea of ​​“Free Soviets” “for the present moment most likely means that power should transfer from the Bolsheviks to moderate socialists, who will receive a majority in the Soviets. For many, of course, these latter are smeared with the same world as the Bolsheviks themselves.” Miliukov fundamentally disagreed with this opinion. A smooth transfer of power to the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks within the Soviets, in his opinion, is the only one capable of saving the country from anarchy. The new government, “sanctioned by institutions like the Soviets,” will, “of course, be temporary”... 59 The leader of the Cadets perfectly remembered the recent experience of the civil war, which revealed the complete inability of “pure democrats” to hold the helm of state power for any long time.

If there was no unity of opinion among the emigrants regarding the Kronstadt uprising, then unity of action was established almost immediately. “Our task, our responsibility,” emphasized in those days one of the leaders of the white emigration, F.I., in a confidential message. Rodichev, - to help the uprising that has begun by all means morally and materially, completely disregarding the fact that it will replace the Bolshevik government: the most important thing now is to overthrow it. The best form of assistance would be our organized assistance from the outside: the use, if possible, of the remnants of the Russian anti-Bolshevik armies, the creation of an appropriate apparatus for supplying the liberated areas... This requires the assistance of the allies and, most importantly, the unification of all Russian state forces under the slogan of full recognition of the shift that has taken place among the people” 60 .

Significant monetary donations from emigrant organizations and individuals began to flow in favor of the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee 61 . This money was intended primarily to purchase food for the rebels. “When Soviet Russia learns that Kronstadt, liberated from the Bolsheviks, immediately received food from Europe,” said a member of thePC of the Social Revolutionaries V.M. Zenzinov, -this news will be a spark in a keg of gunpowder” 62.

At the same time, energetic preparations for military support for Kronstadt began. From the documents of the archives of the AC, CD and NSZRiS it is clear that they were directly involved in it: on the territory of Finland - G.E. Elvengren, Estonia - V.M. Chernov, Poland - B.V. Savinkov 63. They hastily put together combat units from various emigration paramilitary units and the remnants of interned white armies. A stream of Russian officers poured into the Baltic states. There were so many of them in Revel that it reminded eyewitnesses of the times of the campaign of General N.N. Yudenich on Petrograd 64. “The white officers perked up and began to look for opportunities to go fight in Kronstadt,” recalled former member of Denikin’s Special Conference N.N. Chebyshev. - Nobody was interested in who was there - the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, or the same Bolsheviks, disappointed in communism, but standing for the Soviets. A spark ran through the emigration. Everyone perked up" 65.

The activity of anti-Bolshevik forces in other strategic directions also intensified. This mainly applied to Wrangel’s army. It was formally interned and stationed mainly in Turkish Gallipoli, having, according to its headquarters, 48 ​​thousand troops, 14 thousand rifles and 450 machine guns (in addition, there were reserves: “large reserves of Russian weapons” remaining after the liquidation of the Romanian Front ; “until the autumn of 1921, these reserves,” stated the headquarters certificate, “were preserved by the care of our representative in Romania and the French mission” 66). As reported Soviet intelligence officers, Wrangel’s headquarters “at the beginning of March, an order was hastily sent out to make appointments to all positions in the states of divisions in each regiment, and production in combat units was increased... The headquarters, as shown by the direction of reconnaissance and the plan for the mobilization of regiments and divisions, was interested in March western front, where measures were taken to work in our rear,” as well as in the south of Russia, since “Wrangel had in mind the possibility of landing on the Black Sea coast” 67.

News of the uprising in Kronstadt also excited anti-Bolshevik forces of various orientations within Soviet Russia. The undisputed leader here was the leading party of the socialist opposition - the Right Socialist Revolutionaries. As early as February 25, 1921, the underground Central Committee of the AKP approved a directive on “party tactics in connection with the peasant movement.” Having noted the presence of pronounced anarcho-criminal tendencies and sentiments in it, the leaders of the Social Revolutionaries demanded that local organizations intensify their work among the rebels in order to completely “take control of the peasantry movement.” On March 11, at the height of the Kronstadt events, the Central Committee of the AKP developed new document— “Instructions on slogans for current work.” In fact, this was the first attempt to generalize the experience of the uprising in Kronstadt. The “Instructions” proposed holding “campaigns of rallies and non-party workers, peasants and Red Army conferences for open discussion of all pressing issues of the current moment”, demanding “the abolition of the dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party”, “widespread re-election of city and village councils with a de facto guarantee of free elections” 68. The latter transparently hinted at “guarantees” in the Kronstadt spirit - in the form of the creation of revolutionary committees and similar organizational structures.

The calls and actions of the opposition parties found a wide response among the Russian population. This is clearly visible from the Cheka reports and messages from local authorities for March 1921, intended for senior leadership in Moscow. Let us cite just one characteristic fragment from a large complex of these once strictly secret documents. “One thing can be said about the state of the masses: we have to live on a volcanic crater,” we read in a report on the Atkarsky district of the Saratov province. “The whole district is seething and seething. In different parts of it, here and there, uprisings break out... All forces are being thrown into the fight against them.” Under the influence of the Kronstadt events, an armed uprising of many thousands began in the Velsky district of the Vologda province, where leaflets from rebel sailors penetrated. To support Kronstadt, uprisings were being prepared in the Pskov province, Kyiv and other places 69...

Now let us briefly dwell on what happened in the March days in Petrograd. The Tagantsevsky bloc then came into contact with the illegal Assembly of authorized factories and factories (which included Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and anarchists) and reported to Helsingfors that the socialists were heading towards organizing an armed uprising in the city, scheduled for March 16. “On the appointed day,” the dispatch said, “the performance began. Shipyard workers came out at the Putilov plant. When leaving, they were met by communists armed with revolvers and detained, and among the workers there was not a single one who could send “comrades” to their forefathers. At other factories there were no such protests in connection with the arrests... Undoubtedly, the success of unarmed workers would be very doubtful” 70 .

The white conspirators, therefore, had little faith in the success of the enterprise launched by the socialists. Blood would have been shed, but the unarmed crowds of workers would not have been able to shake the foundations of power. What position did the Tagantsev bloc itself take in those heated days?

It was defined in the first report after the start of the uprising and Kronstadt to the Helsingfors department of the National Center (dated March 4). “Among the issues on the agenda, the main one, of course, is food,” it was stated there. - We have your plan (plan for the delivery of food to Petrograd, prepared by G.F. Zeidler. - Yu. Shch.), but how feasible is it? This needs to be known definitely and accurately. Taking responsibility when the supply turns out to be a sham is highly undesirable and is unlikely to produce results other than the development of anarchy in the city. Under these conditions, our “leadership” (i.e., open involvement in the fight against the authorities. - Yu. Shch.) should be postponed until spring, until the bay freezes and ships can arrive... Only through interaction with emigration can success be achieved.” It was further reported that for“preparatory work” there is an urgent need for “help in big money, and not in pennies, as before,” as well as the transfer from behind the cordon of “weapons, people, printing and printing house equipment.” The next day, a second dispatch from Petrograd was delivered to Helsingfors: “We need to intensify the work, not let the movement die out, and for this purpose we demand funds from you... I think there is no need to explain how risky the situation is here in order to demand and expect us to be open.” speeches... I consider everything that happened to be only the beginning of a movement that is developing in an extremely favorable environment” 71 .

So, the Tagantsev bloc, not daring to take immediate open action under the prevailing conditions, tried with all its might to ensure the survival of the burning “island of freedom.” Moreover, he pinned his main hopes for such a course of events on material and financial assistance to the emigration.

And at this very time, the white emigration hoped for support from the Western powers. The Russian foreign press is filled with appeals to Western governments. Such appeals were made by prominent representatives of the political and military circles of the emigration, including General P.N. Wrangel, who convinced French diplomats that the sailors were continuing the white cause that he himself had failed 72. And it cannot be said that such calls did not find a response.

The emigrant leaders, who had recently, without much success, turned to Western European statesmen with requests for “subsidies,” began to be greeted as welcome guests in the March days. Interesting in this sense are the facts from the correspondence of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Administrative center.

At the news of the events in Kronstadt, A.F. left Prague for Paris, and then for London. Kerensky. Following him V.M. Zenzinov sent a letter addressed to AC member E.F. Rogowski. “We very much hope,” he wrote, “that Oleg (Kerensky’s pseudonym in the AC. - Yu. Shch.) It will be possible to open new funds - when will we really do this if not now!” The calculations of the Social Revolutionaries were justified, and in a response letter, one of the leaders of the Paris branch of the AC V.O. The manufacturer reassured Zenzinov: “At the slightest development of events in Russia in a favorable direction, the sources will open immediately. After all, even now, under the first impression, I managed to squeeze out a total of up to 600,000 francs” 73.

On March 3, it became known about the French government’s intention to continue allocating funds for the maintenance of the remnants of Wrangel’s army. Then the representatives of France in the Baltics and Finland were given instructions “to provide all possible assistance to Russian organizations, facilitating their negotiations with the Red Cross (international) and eliminating friction that may arise in relations with the governments of the limitrophes” on the Kronstadt issue 74 .

The steps of official Paris indicated that for the time being it refrained from direct participation in providing assistance to the rebellious Kronstadt, trying to encourage the small states bordering the RSFSR to do so. The rest of the great powers took a similar position. Thus, Foreign Secretary Anglin D. Curzon, noting in a telegram to the British envoy in Helsingfors that"etc His Majesty’s government does not intend to enter into any way of helping the revolutionaries,” he immediately emphasized: what has been said does not mean at all that the Finnish government should adhere to a similar policy or that it should be warned against supporting the Kronstadters through private societies and individuals 75 .

The ruling circles of the limitrophes found themselves in a difficult position. On the one hand, they felt pressure from the great powers, who “recommended” to meet the Russian emigrants halfway and open the border to their combat troops and transport convoys for Kronstadt, on the other hand, there were peace treaties with Soviet Russia that bound their freedom of action. Moreover, the importance of these treaties in the eyes of the general public increased in conditions when a rapid consolidation of forces that acted during the civil war under the slogan of “united and indivisible Russia” took place around the rebellious island.

And although the governments of small states did not dare to openly interfere in the affairs of their great eastern neighbor in such a situation, their position can hardly be called neutral. Suffice it to say that on the territory of the limitrophes, intensive work on the formation of emigrant invasion forces continued without serious interference, and in a number of cases, the figures involved in this were provided with assistance at the government level.

Some information on this matter is contained in I.M.’s letter. Brushvita dated March 12 to the headquarters of the Administrative Center. At the height of the Kronstadt uprising, this Socialist Revolutionary emissary needed to leave Finland for Revel (Tallinn) to meet with V. M. Chernov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia A. Piip. And then, he writes, “all means of transportation were placed at my disposal, from a government icebreaker to an airplane.” In addition, even before leaving, it was possible to “practically resolve” the issue of entry visas into the country for Socialist Revolutionary activists and militants 76 .

Having barely looked around Revel, I.M. Brushvit noted with satisfaction that “in connection with recent events” in this Baltic capital they are “very flirting” with the Socialist Revolutionaries. He, however, was not entirely satisfied with the results of his conversation with A. Piip 77 and advised the leaders of the AC to urgently undertake something like a diplomatic demarche, which worked almost flawlessly in those days: “It wouldn’t hurt to make a reminder from the English side that there is little noticeable here.” excessive sympathy for Litvinov and an overly diplomatic attitude towards us” 78.

Finland experienced especially strong pressure at that time, since from its territory it was the only way under those conditions to establish effective operation of the “ice bridge” between the mainland and the island of Kotlin before the resumption of maritime navigation.

We have at our disposal documents for March - April 1921 from the archive of Professor G.F. Zeidler, at that time “Chief Commissioner of the Russian Red Cross Society for Petrograd, Finland and the Scandinavian countries.” They contain confidentiality personal information on organizing food aid to Kronstadt and the role of foreign states in this. Let us note right away: the latter acted entirely in the spirit of the installation known from Lord Curzon’s telegram.

“We had the apparatus completely ready,” G. F. Zeidler reported to Paris. “We had all the information regarding the products available in Finland, and we could get everything we needed here and deliver everything we needed to Kronstadt in one day.” The money was coming. There was only one thing missing: permission from the Finnish authorities to export food cargo... Meanwhile, the Finnish authorities explained to us that any cargo and in any quantity could be delivered to Terijoki under the flag of the American or British Red Cross..." 79

G.F. Zeidler, in his words, “rushed” to the representatives of two foreign Red Cross committees registered in Finland, the Englishman Collins and the American Hopkins. Those given official position their governments, did not allow the emigrant “commissioner-in-chief” to use the national flags of Great Britain and the United States to supply the rebels. But Zeidler soon became convinced that his activities were by no means blocked by this refusal. On the contrary, the Finnish authorities unexpectedly showed “full readiness” to “provide assistance to Kronstadt” unofficially 80 .

“With the assistance of the Teriok traders,” wrote G. F. Zeidler, “up to 300 pounds of flour were purchased on the spot, and also ordered at the first moment... We had to hurry to make at least some supply of flour in Kronstadt before the ice melted, after which For two weeks the messages stopped completely. However, the matter was quickly established and there was full hope that for the period when all communication with Kronstadt was interrupted, the latter would be provided with a supply of flour to prevent a crisis... The Russian Red Cross managed to send there within two days up to 600 pounds of flour” 81.

With the most with different feelings Supporters and opponents of the rebellious Kronstadt were expecting the spring ice drift.

The hopes of the first were expressed by the famous anarchist E. Yarchuk: “It was a bright sunny day. The entire snowy shroud of the bay burned with its rays and seemed to remind Kronstadt: hold out for another week, when the bay, having broken its ice, will carry them into an unknown distance; then the independence of the mighty revolutionary center would be saved” 82.

The opponents were becoming increasingly alarmed every day that warships flying foreign flags would soon appear on the ice-free roadstead of this “revolutionary hearth.”

It seemed that the Bolsheviks' worst fears were beginning to come true. On March 9, the Park of Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin sent a letter to the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR. He reported that, according to information he received from Berlin, “between March 2-5, the enemy squadron left Copenhagen towards Revel and Kronstadt. them There are 14 military courts (England and France. - Yu. Shch .) ... In view of the fact,” Chicherin further wrote, “that it is extremely likely that the Entente will attempt to use the Kronstadt mutiny to inflict a new blow on us, I consider it absolutely necessary to take the threat from the hostile squadron in the most serious manner” 83.

True, a few days later a clarification arrived: “Nothing is known about the sending of Allied military vessels to Kronstadt in Revel; they did not appear at the Revel roadstead,” said the report of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Forces of the Republic dated March 16 84 . This information confirmed the correctness of those people in the Bolshevik leadership who were not inclined to exaggerate the readiness of the leading Western powers for immediate and direct intervention in the internal affairs of Soviet Russia, especially armed.

The overall balance of power in the republic was clearly not in favor of the opponents of the Bolshevik government, and the leaders of the Entente clearly understood this. The discussion of the “Russian question” at a meeting of the British government on March 14, 1921 is indicative. “The Cabinet,” noted in its minutes, “received information that ... despite the events in Russia, the position of the Soviet government, without any reservations, is strong and stable” 85. Two days later, London went to sign a trade agreement with the RSFSR, which had been negotiated since November 1920. This was the first recognition of the Soviet state as a de facto one of the great powers of the West.

But it was impossible to lose sight of the fact that the existence of a rebel hotbed on the border noticeably worsened the international positions of Soviet Russia, strained the situation around it, and strengthened extremist tendencies in the politics of large and small bourgeois countries. All of them clearly tried to prolong the “Kronstadt crisis” and extract maximum benefit from it. In the future, the events on Kotlin could, of course, serve as a convenient pretext for a new armed invasion of the republic. The possibility of such a turn of events was aggravated by the policies of the leaders of the uprising.

Kronstadt in the last days of the uprising

Almost from the very beginning, the Revolutionary Committee made attempts to establish something like foreign policy ties with the foreign world, to enter the international arena as a representative of the “independent Kronstadt Republic.” On her behalf, in particular, he sent a welcoming radiogram to the new US President W. Harding. On March 8, “liberated Kronstadt” greets “women of the world” with a radiogram on the occasion of International Women’s Day. Another official message soon followed, this time to “the proletarians of the whole world” with a request to provide “moral support” to the Kronstadters.

At the same time, the Revkom, according to V.M. Chernov, “hospitably invited everyone interested in his movement, even correspondents of foreign newspapers.” Indeed, there were such radio appeals, but unlike those previously named, they were not published in Izvestia VRK 86.

It is reliably known that four correspondents were in the fortressov Western Europeanth and emigrant press. As for persons not in the category of “interested”, then, according to the Cheka, among them in Kronstadt were agents of a number of intelligence services Western states(including the head of counterintelligence General Staff Finland Salyari), as well as active members of the white groups of Helsingfors officers Bunakov (N.V. Tchaikovsky, in connection with other circumstances, reports that he was “entirely connected in his activities with the British”) and Schmidt 87. No confirmation of these facts was found in the emigrant archives. But it has been established for sure that the guests of the Revolutionary Committee were the envoy of the emissary of the Socialist Revolutionary Administrative Center I.M. Brushvita and members of the Helsingfors “cover group” of the Tagantsev bloc: captain of the first rank Baron P.V. Vilken (former commander of the battleship Sevastopol) and General Yu.A. Reveal.

The latter two were formally part of the “red cross” delegation of three people sent to Kotlin Island by Professor G.F. Zeidler. Members of the delegation arrived in Kronstadt on the evening of March 8 and were immediately invited to a joint meeting of the Revolutionary Committee and the Defense Headquarters. Zeidler's confidential report on this meeting has been preserved, which is of great interest for characterizing the mood in the heterogeneous Revolutionary Committee environment 88 . After all, according to the significant remark of G.E. Elvengren, “The Provisional Revolutionary Committee was created in a moment of danger very hastily and rather accidentally.” Moreover, the number of “random” elements, from the point of view of the Savinkov resident, probably increased during the by-elections of the Military Revolutionary Committee at the delegate meeting on March 4, when the task was decided: to urgently strengthen the committee’s ties with those groups of Kronstadters who, for various reasons, managed to show themselves in the anti-Bolshevik movement.

At first, writes G.F. Zeidler reported that everything went smoothly at the meeting. We agreed that Russian emigrants would soon deliver “essential food products” to Kotlin. And then complications suddenly began. According to Zeidler, some members of the Revolutionary Committee (among them the anarchist G.P. Perepelkin) expressed doubts: “Does the Revolutionary Committee have the right to accept the assistance offered?” “The motive,” notes Zeidler, “was that the Bolsheviks were already taking every opportunity to discredit the uprising, accusing it of being corrupt to the bourgeoisie, and therefore accepting help could exacerbate their counter-agitation... As was clear from the debate, there was another motive, although and unspoken, but perhaps the most important, is the fear that behind the Red Cross there may be some political party hiding behind it that wants to influence the course of events and take power into its own hands. This was felt so much that our representative had to once again resolutely repeat about the complete apoliticality of the Red Cross, alien to all parties and aspirations for power, and the complete disinterestedness of its help.”

Although G.F. Zeidler described the course of the negotiations in idyllic tones; he could not resist remarking that “the excited question brought some passion into the debate.” This is understandable. The assurances of the “complete apoliticality and disinterestedness” of their mission sounded too false in the mouths of the baron and general. And only the assertive intervention of S.M. Petrichenko saved the situation. He “particularly vigorously objected” to the wavering members of the DBK and, “injecting considerable yu dol Yu. sarcasm in his speeches, ended by declaring that if responsibility must be taken for a decision, then he is ready to take it upon himself, although he would have to pay with his head.” As a result, the previously reached agreement was confirmed by the Revkom.

But hardly foreign visitors, continues G.F. Zeidler, declared their desire to receive “authority for the Red Cross, giving it the right to act in matters of humanitarian assistance on behalf of Kronstadt,” as protests were heard again among the Revolutionary Committee. “An objection followed from the same group, which was already filled with mistrust and suspicion.” To break the resistance of those who disagree, S.M. Petrichenko even had to interrupt the joint meeting, after which all the Rezkomovites retired to the next room. “After 50-20 minutes, the committee members returned and the chairman handed the necessary document to the Red Cross representative.”

The next day the delegation returned to Finland, leaving P.V. on the island. Wilken as the authorized controller for the distribution of incoming food. The baron's open appearance on the streets of Kronstadt did not go unnoticed. According to the defectors, the former commander of the battleship “was notorious among the sailors,” and his arrival gave rise to “a lot of gossip” among them 89 . But the “Red Cross” mandate provided Wilken with reliable immunity, and under its cover he launched a vigorous activity.

Its direction can be judged by one very remarkable episode from the same report by G.F. Zeidler. His envoys, assuring the Military Revolutionary Committee of the emigrants’ readiness to help the rebels, at the same time warned: “The only question is how foreigners, on whose assistance the delivery of food to Kronstadt depends, will react to this.” “At the same time,” Zeidler adds significantly, “it was indicated that the liberation of Petrograd would significantly ease this issue.”

And now P.V. Vyalken offered assistance to the Revkom with “armed force in the amount of 800 people.” Information about this was taken from another source: notes from an anonymous member of the Military Revolutionary Committee 90. “The proposal,” he notes, “said that if the committee agreed, then these people could be transported across the ice directly to Kronstadt, or they would have the opportunity to cross the Finnish border and strike at Petrograd. While discussing the proposal, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee learned that the armed forces were under the influence of the monarchists, and, taking into account the mood of the garrison, decided by a majority vote to reject the proposal.” The fact that the White émigré organizations negotiated with the Revkom and simultaneously with the Petrograd underground “in order to establish the earliest possible date for a common active action and how to start it” is confirmed in his report by G.E. Elvengren.

Having received an official refusal from the Revolutionary Committee, the baron did not become despondent. “To Vilken,” testifies an anonymous person from the Military Revolutionary Committee), “some individuals began to appear who negotiated with Petrichenko and the Defense Headquarters, in particular with Solovyanov.” During the negotiations, confidential discussions continued on the issue of joint military operations.

Sources point to another facet of P. V. Vilken’s proposals and recommendations. On March 11, he visited the battleship Sevastopol, where, at a meeting organized for the occasion, he called on the sailors to “move on.” The baron put forward the Constituent Assembly as the immediate political goal of the movement, declaring that only if this slogan was supported would the insurgents regularly receive food from abroad 91 .

A united front with the monarchist P.V. Wilken also spoke in Kronstadt as a representative of the Socialist Revolutionary Administrative Center. In the letter he delivered to I.M. Brushvita on March 6 contained an appeal to the Revolutionary Committee to go “forward” and “not be afraid,” since “all the forces located abroad” among the Socialist-Revolutionaries have been moved to help 92 .

The conditions for Socialist Revolutionary assistance were determined by V.M. himself. Chernov in his personal message to the Revkom. They were as follows: he, as the former chairman of the Constituent Assembly, would be given the opportunity to come to Kronstadt; All further struggle against the communists was to be waged under the Constituent flag. The same letter, as Chernov reported to Prague on March 7, contained specific proposals for joint military actions (about the offensive of the Kronstadters “in the direction of Krasnaya Gorka” with the simultaneous movement of Socialist Revolutionary squads towards it from Estonian territory) and a “conditional code” for negotiations on this issue 93.

The leadership group of the Revkom, which evaluates its “Soviet” slogans as exclusively tactical, did not raise any fundamental objections to the initiatives of the emigrant politicians. Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka N.P. Komarov describes (according to G.P. Perepelkin and V.A. Valk) the meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee on March 12, where V.M.’s appeal was considered. Chernova. “The letter was not discussed for long... Valk suggested accepting Chernov’s proposal. Petrichenko, Yakovenko and others also agreed in principle, but, they say, after 12 days: “When we swore in our Izvestia that things were going for the Soviets, but against the communists, and we would immediately declare a Constituent Assembly, we would immediately show our inconsistency. Let's wait until there is a hopeless food situation..." 94

The Revolutionary Committee’s anxiety about the public demonstration of its own “failure” was fueled mainly by the fact that its efforts to mobilize under its banners all Kronstadters capable of bearing arms did not bring the expected result.

During the uprising, the Soviet command received information (from scouts and defectors) that “almost half of the crews of both battleships do not want to fight”, that “the engine crew of the Sevastopol (400 people) is almost entirely against the rebels”, that many old-time sailors hiding in the holds “in every direction”, just to avoid taking part in the “mess” 95 . Even greater confusion reigned in the army units. In the engineering labor battalion, for example, out of 750 privates there, about 100 people took part in the “armed resistance to the Reds” 96 . This was established by a special investigation carried out later. Similar information was received during the uprising. Thus, an intelligence report dated March 8 indicated that the garrisons of “forts Rif, Obruchev, Shants, raised to rebellion by the Kronstadters, wish to surrender to the Reds” 97 . The commander of the battleship Petropavlovsk, Lieutenant Khristoforov, considered it necessary to dwell specifically on the question of the combat effectiveness of the forts in his first emigrant interview. “We had to constantly send 25-30 people to the forts to maintain the mood,” he did not hide his irritation in front of the reporter. “If there had been real discipline, the fortress and the city could have been held longer.” 98

The trouble was that those who wanted to go to strengthen the front line of the Kronstadt defense were mainly among the sailor youth. “Units consisting of sailors,” noted B.A. Arkannikov, “were almost untrained in shooting, poorly supplied with the necessary military equipment” 99. The lieutenant colonel’s words are confirmed by another officer - the commander of the battery of heavy guns at Fort Rif, Yu. Makarov. “In the period from March 3 to March 7,” he recalled, “our garrison was significantly replenished with infantry naval detachments, but this was a young, untrained army that had not been in battle, mostly from the Kuban, and therefore their help was not particularly significant. During an artillery exchange, things got to the point where these soldiers were even frightened by the shots of their own guns” 100 .

Let us now turn to the civilian population and try to find out what position they occupied in the last days of the Revolutionary Committee's power.

On behalf of the chief of intelligence of the 7th Army, immediately after the capture of Kronstadt, something like a blitz survey of city residents was carried out. The certificate summarizing its results said: “The Kronstadt population, although unconditionally negative towards whites, did not consider the rebels as such. The latter did not enjoy much sympathy from the general population, but they received some sympathy from them. Surveys of residents confirmed the fact of voluntary donations in favor of direct participants in hostilities, which was published in Izvestia VRK..." 101

But it is clear that there is a huge distance from “some sympathy” and even voluntary donations of shoes and clothing by individual citizens to their active inclusion in the rebellious movement. And, apparently, the Revkom never managed to overcome it. This was especially true for workers.

The number of those Kronstadt proletarians who nevertheless decided to get involved in hostilities against the Soviet troops can be established quite accurately, because the commission for the survey of Kronstadt after the suppression of the uprising paid a lot of attention to this issue. Its materials, collected on the 20th of March 1921, contain data on the two largest enterprises in the city: the Steamship Plant, workshops and the docks of the Military Port. More than 90% of all Kronstadt workers worked there - approximately 5,800 people. Of these, about 120 people fled from the Soviet authorities to Finland or were arrested 102 .

It is more difficult to establish the total number of participants in the armed struggle: there is inconsistency in the sources on this matter. In Soviet military documentsit is determined at 3 thousandclever, which can hardly be taken seriously 103. The leaders of the uprising themselves call from 5.5 (S.M. Petrichenko) to 12 thousand (A.N. Kozlovsky) 104. True, the first, including civilians in his calculations, forgets about the artillerymen serving the fortress guns. Taking into account this group, the number of Revolutionary Committee activists can be increased to 9-10 thousand people. But even if we agree with Kozlovsky, the fact remains: the majority of the military personnel (18 thousand people) and the adult male population of the city (8-9 thousand) did not take up arms in defense of the “free Soviets”.

All this had the most dire consequences for the Revolutionary Committee. His active supporters were in no way sufficient to close the weak points in the defense of the island and forts. “After all, the total length of their coastline,” emphasized General A.N. Kozlovsky, “exceeded 30 versts,” and “the free garrison of the fortress, which could meet the attackers on foot, was so limited that it was necessary to put people in a chain - one by 5 fathoms" 105. In such conditions, it was not possible to establish a regular change of fighters from the front line, which, according to S.M. Petrichenko, entailed “extreme fatigue of the garrison”: “Tired people literally fell asleep in their places, and some, who went to their apartments to reinforce their forces, did not return at all” 106, in other words, they deserted. The lack of men led to the failure of a number of other important measures to strengthen the defense of Kronstadt.

It is not surprising that the military leaders of the uprising, who saw this well and were acutely aware of the lack of manpower to defend the fortress, felt restless. Their anxious state of mind was aggravated by the lack of reliable information about what was happening with the enemy. “Military reconnaissance was carried out continuously, both before the start of hostilities and during them,” recalled B.A. Arkannikov. - The difficulty of moving on ice, the vigilance of the Bolsheviks, the inevitability of execution of its executors in the event of their capture, as well as the complete unpreparedness of the scouts themselves, who were mostly taken from those willing - all these conditions made reconnaissance completely unproductive, and the fortress headquarters had very sketchy information about the enemy and insufficient" 107. The fact that “the defense headquarters had a poor understanding of the situation” was also noted by A.N. Kozlovsky: “He took ordinary reconnaissance for an offensive, disturbed everyone every night and did not give the troops rest” 108. And rest was extremely necessary in the absence of a change of fighters.

But, perhaps, the greatest concern among the Revolutionary Committee members and officers was not so much the lack of bayonets on the front line, but rather the growing political instability of their own rear. Despite the virtual collapse of the local Bolshevik organization (about half of its members voluntarily left the party), a group of communists and Komsomol members (a little less than 300 people) did not accept the power of the Revolutionary Revolutionary Committee 109 . Some of the non-party workers, sailors, and Red Army soldiers joined them, and gradually something like an anti-Revolutionary Committee “resistance movement” took shape in the fortress. Its participants carried out propaganda work at factories, ships and in coastal units, established contacts with the Soviet command, passed on valuable information to them, and sabotaged various activities of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Here are just a few facts of this kind. The workers of the printing house, with the help of their revolutionary troika, constantly hid the true size of the paper stock in order to publish Izvestia VRK in a smaller circulation, and on March 15 they refused to print the leaflet “To all citizens of Russia!”, ordered by the Revolutionary Committee. The mine-filling workshop team systematically failed to meet 50% of the standard for preparing six-inch shells, which the rebels were in particular need of. The mine detachment of the fortress, led by its commander A.N. Nikitin refused to lay under-ice minefields on the approaches to Kronstadt. And most importantly: the decision of the Military Revolutionary Committee to break the ice around Kotlin Island was thwarted. “In connection with the emergence of rumors about the attack of our troops on Kronstadt,” said an intelligence report from the fortress on March 5, “the Government intended to break the ice with shells due to the lack of icebreakers. But some of the teams were against it, as a result of which the intention was abandoned.” The opposition of ordinary Kronstadt residents did not allow such a measure to be implemented later, which greatly contributed to the rapid defeat of the uprising. Finally, during the storming of the fortress on March 17-18, resistance members, according to B.A. Arkannikova and S.M. Petrichenko, disrupted communication lines and shot in the backs of the defenders of Revkom 110.

The situation in Kronstadt was steadily leading the activist group of rebels and their leaders to the conclusion that urgent and radical decisions were necessary. In this regard, N.N.’s letter is interesting. Poradelov on March 18, 1921. Based on information coming from the fortress, he reported to his correspondent in Paris: “An interesting, very important turn has been noticed in the position of the Kronstadters in recent days. Everyone was convinced with their own eyes of the need for strong, united discipline and felt the enormous importance of a single team will. Unfortunately, in the fortress, apparently, there was no one with major military talents among the military specialists, there was no “character”... The officers who put themselves at the disposal of the Military Military Commission felt awkward: they had lost the habit of commanding.” 111.

Of course, there is no need to talk about the emergence of aspirations for a “united command will” among all Kronstadters. But the fact remains: even among ordinary supporters of the Revolutionary Committee, sincere guardians of “ free Soviets“They began to think about the need to concentrate power in the hands of local military specialists. This impression, for example, was drawn from conversations with representatives of this group of participants in the uprising, who later ended up in a Petrograd prison, F.I. Dan.He quotes aboutbottom worker: “In order to have military success, it was necessary to transfer the organization of the uprising into the hands of the officers; but the rebels feared the political result of such an organization and therefore suffered a military failure” 112.

Some data indicate that some of the Revolutionary Committee members (direct promoters of ordinary rebel activists) expressed their interlocutor F.I. Dan's fears had already begun to recede into the background before the need to ensure reliable defense of the fortress. An indicative conversation took place between the chairman of the Petrograd gubchek N.P. Komarov and member of the Military Revolutionary Committee G.P. Peredelkin. After Perepelkin spoke about the defiant actions of Baron Vilken in Kronstadt, Komarov asked: “And tomorrow would this baron present you not only with the demand for a founding body, but with the power of a military dictatorship? Then how would you pose the question?...” “I admit,” answered Perepelkin, “now we can frankly say that this too would have been accepted, there was no other way out...” 113

There are well-known reasons to believe that the Military Revolutionary Committee included individuals who were not only ready to give up their place to the White Guards due to the “hopelessness” of the situation, but also quite consciously contributed to the establishment of “firm power” in Kronstadt. Thus, the anonymous member of the Military Revolutionary Committee mentioned above directly stated: S.M. Petrichenko and his closest associates, in contact with agents of overseas monarchist organizations, “prepared the ground for the overthrow of the committee, which was subsequently said by Petrichenko at Fort Ino” in Finland 114. By “overthrowing the committee,” apparently, one should understand the removal from power of those “random” elements whose predominance in the Revolutionary Committee was spoken of by G.E. Elvengren. The existence of an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and distrust in the official governing body of the uprising is also evidenced by the testimony of G.P. Perepelkin, who admitted that the “active troika from the Revkom” (chairman S.M. Petrichenko and two “comrades of the chairman” - N.V. Arkhipov and V.A. Yakovenko) together with officers could communicate with emigrant correspondents of Kronstadt without the knowledge of the entire committee 115.

Unfortunately, the state of the source base does not allow us to specify the situation in the Revkom. But here’s what Ya.S. managed to find out. Agranov: at the meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee on March 13, it was decided to “appeal to the whole world with an appeal for help and, for the purpose of defense, not to disdain any means or assistance, no matter from whomever they come” 116. A day later, on March 15, a radiogram addressed to “the peoples of the whole world” left Kronstadt. In it, the leaders of the uprising asked for help with food and medicine, and at the end they emphasized that “there may come a time when military help is needed” 117. At the same time, a Kronstadt delegation led by members of the Military Revolutionary Committee N.V. arrived in Finland for a detailed discussion of these issues. Arkhipov and I.E. Oreshin, enthusiastically received by local emigrant figures.

“Thus,” concludes Ya. S. Agranov, “the logic of the struggle in the process of its development pushed the Kronstadt rebels, regardless of the goals for which the struggle was started, straight into the arms of reaction. The quick liquidation of the rebellion did not give the opportunity for open White Guard elements and slogans to finally manifest themselves” 118.

Assessment and lessons of the Kronstadt uprising

As a result of the assault on March 17-18, 1921, Kronstadt was captured by the Red troops. But political passions around the dramatic events that unfolded there continued to simmer for a long time.

One cannot help but recall the polemic between the leaders of two Russian parties - V.I. Lenin and Yu.O. Martova - in connection with the assessment of the uprising.

“It will not be possible to hide in a bag the awl that gives the Kronstadt action its enormous historical meaning“,” wrote the Menshevik leader in April 1921. “This was an awl: the initiative of a decisive struggle against the established regime, coming from those masses who have hitherto been the stronghold of Bolshevism... This has proven the possibility of a united proletarian front in the struggle for the further development of the revolution, in the struggle for its liberation from the police-party dictatorship, and therefore the possibility of waging this struggle without it benefiting the counter-revolution. This is a fact of enormous importance. And this fact confirms the complete correctness of the position of our party... We said that as soon as Soviet Russia frees itself from the specter of intervention, then the political and economic prerequisites will be created for an ideologically stable and friendly movement of the proletariat against the Bolshevik regime: Arakcheevism, for the democratization of what was created by the revolution building, for the restoration of political freedom. All this came true with literal accuracy” 119.

Article by Yu.O. Martova’s “Kronstadt,” fragments of which are given above, was published in the April issue of the “Socialist Messenger” magazine published in Berlin. And then there was a response from Moscow.

“The intelligent leader of the bourgeoisie and landowners, Cadet Miliukov,” wrote: V.I. Lenin, with the sharpness of expression characteristic of him in political discussions, “patiently explains to the fool Viktor Chernov ... that there is no need to rush with the establishment, that one can and should speak out for Soviet power - only without the Bolsheviks. Of course, it is not difficult to be smarter than such narcissistic fools... When Martov in his Berlin magazine declares that Kronstadt not only carried out Menshevik slogans, but gave proof that an anti-Bolshevik movement is possible that does not serve entirely the White Guard, then this is precisely an example of a narcissistic petty-bourgeois Narcissus. Let's just close our eyes to the fact that all the real White Guards welcomed the Kronstadters and collected funds through banks to help Kronstadt! Miliukov is right against the Chernovs and Martovs, because he reveals the actual tactics of the actual White Guard force: ... let's support anyone, even the anarchists, any Soviet power, just to carry out the transfer of power!.. The transfer of power from the Bolsheviks... And the rest is “we”, the Milyukovs, “we”, capitalists and landowners, “will do it ourselves”, anarchists kov, Chernov, Martov we'll drive you away with spanks" 120 .

Who was right in this controversy? It seems that we will not be mistaken in saying that the course of events we have traced around the rebellious Kronstadt, and within it itself, quite convincingly testifies to the correctness of the Bolshevik leader. It is very curious that during the uprising, the Socialist Messenger itself involuntarily recognized the validity of Lenin’s forecast. In the editorial article “Touching!”, published in the March issue, its author (perhaps the same Yu.O. Martov) wrote with indignation: “When, a few days before the latest events in Europe, a desperate call appeared from St. Petersburg scientists: “Save St. Petersburg from hunger, send food!“ - this appeal was met with hostile coldness... But Kronstadt rebelled, and the picture changed. Feeding people is “at your own loss.” Fighters are a different matter... This goal is served by the “Christian” campaign of cadet and trade-industrial circles under the banner of “helping Kronstadt.” The White Guard is trying to throw a noose around the neck of freedom-loving Kronstadt. Under the guise of concerns about food aid, a new open intrigue is underway to prepare a new intervention. Before Kronstadt receives the first hundred pounds of flour, armed detachments of mercenaries, these vanguards of the occupation army, will already be ready for the next expedition on foreign ships” 121.

The rebel Kronstadters received bread before the expeditionary forces abroad were brought into full combat readiness for military support of the uprising. But this detail does not change the main thing: such support was energetically prepared. The Mensheviks saw this no worse than the Bolsheviks and were not even alien to attempts, with the help of magazine speeches, to disperse the clouds of “White Guardism” that were quickly gathering over “freedom-loving Kronstadt.” However, as soon as the uprising retreated V history, how they immediately tried to forget about these more than naive efforts of theirs and completely subordinated the interpretation of the Kronstadt events to the tasks of the current political struggle.

Yes, the Kronstadt cause was doomed. Given the alignment of class and political forces that then existed in Soviet Russia and around it, the performance of the sailors and Red Army men of Kronstadt did not and could not become the prologue to a new, popular revolution that would immediately satisfy the age-old aspirations of freedom, equality, social justice... Moreover, any attempt to remove leadership of the state, the Bolshevik Party would have led in those conditions not to the “triumph of democracy”, but to the concentration of power in the hands of right-wing forces, to a new round of civil war, mass white and red terror. And it is unlikely that Lenin’s well-known conclusion about the Kronstadt events (“no one can replace the Bolsheviks, with the exception of generals” 122) can be treated as far-fetched and far from disinterested.

It is appropriate to recall that among the main antagonists of the Bolsheviks - figures of the bourgeois-monarchist camp - the alternative to the existing government in the country was then regarded in a similar way. There is still some undeniable interest here. one correspondence polemic, this time between the Socialist Revolutionaries and the white general, a close associate of P.N. Wrangel in exile A.A. von Lampe. In the summer of 1921 in Prague, the Socialist Revolutionaries published the book “The Truth about Kronstadt”, where they gave their assessment of the uprising, close to the Menshevik. “I re-read “The Truth about Kronstadt” - here is snot smeared on the Socialist Revolutionary mug,” the general wrote in his diary. — The whole book is full of delight, how generous the sailors were, how they spared everyone, full of excuses that God forbid they thought that the sailors were under the influence of former officers, full of “resentment” towards the Bolsheviks, but does not take into account why The “bad” ones defeated the “good”. The Social Revolutionaries do not understand that such a struggle requires drastic and swift measures.” “Somehow involuntarily you come to Lenin’s conclusion,” the general further develops his thought, “that in Russia there can only be two powers - monarchical or communist; or, rather, absolute power that decides everything itself and in its own way! But you can’t go far with intellectual psychology, which we brilliantly proved on ourselves” 123.

Now, after 74 years of communist rule in Russia, many involuntarily come to another conclusion: the dictatorship of the white generals, if it had established itself in the country then, would have brought it much less evil in the end for the simple reason that it did not proclaim the goal to implement “ a great utopia,” which upended all the traditional economic, social, political and cultural foundations of Russia. From the point of view of a historian, this is idle reasoning: history has long been decreed in its own way and we are not given the opportunity to rewrite its pages. It’s another matter to understand the reasons for what happened to the country and people and learn lessons for the future.

Notes:

Lenin V. I, Poly. collection op. T. 43. S: 139.

By March 1921, there were 18,707 rank and file and command personnel in Kronstadt and the surrounding island forts. Another figure is widespread in the literature - 26,887 people, but it is not accurate, because it includes, as a careful analysis of the relevant funds of the Russian State Archive shows Navy(hereinafter - RGAV MF: F. R-34. On. 2. D. 532; F. P-52. On. 2. D, 36; F. R/-92. Op. 3. D..833; F. P-705. On. 1. D. 188, 63.3, 657; etc.), garrisons of mainland forts that did not take part in the uprising, as well as several thousand civilians; workers and employees of Kronstadt factories). About 30 thousand civilians lived in the city. In the harbor there were two powerful battleships “Petropavlovsk” and “Sevastopol”, as well as a number of other warships.

ABOUT We note only part of the extensive literature on the topic; Pukhov A.WITH. Kronstadt rebellion of 1921. L., 1931; Semanov S.N. Liquidation of the anti-Soviet Kronstadt rebellion of 1921. M, 1973; Shchetinov Yu.A. A foiled plot. M., 1978; Pollack E. The Kronstadt Rebellion: N. Y., 1959; Avrich P. Kronstadt 1921. Princeton; N-Y., 1970, Getzler I. Kronstadt 1917-1921, Cambridg, 1983; Thomsonn G. Kronstadt ’21. London, 1985; and etc.

RGAVMF. F. R-1. On. 3. dd. 531, 538; F. P-34. On, 2. dd. 310, 532; F. R-52. Op. 2. D, 36; F. R-92. On. 3. D. 376; and etc.

State Archives St. Petersburg (hereinafter GASPb). F. 1000. Op. 5. D. 5.

State Archives of the Russian Federation (hereinafter - GARF) Ff. 5784, 5872, 5893, etc.

Right there. F. 5784, Op. 1. dd. i, 99, 100, 106.

Right there. F. 5822. Op. 1. D, 42; F. 5802. On. 1. D. 638.

Right there. F. 5802, Op. 1. D. 548.

Right there. F. 7506. Op. 1. D. 31.

Right there. F. 5784. Op. 1. D. 99.

GARF. F. 5784..Op. 1. D. 106.

Avrich R. Op. cit. R. 235-239.

RGAVMF, collection of materials about S.M. Petrichenko,

GARF. F. 5784. Op. 1. D. 100; F. 5893. Op. 1. D. 81; Dd. 492, 603.

Right there. F. 5784. On. 1. D. 106.

Sorokin R. Leaves from a Russian Diary. N.Y., 1970. P. 265,

GASPb. F. 1000. Op. 5. D. 5.

Right there. F. 1000. Op. 5. D. 5; and etc.

GARF. F. 5784. Op. 1. D. 104.

GASPb. F. 1000. Op. 5. D. 4.

GARF. F. 5959. Op. 2. D. 141.

GASPb. F. 1000. Op. 5. D. 5.

Red Chronicle. 1931. No. 1. P. 16-17.

News of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Sailors, Red Army Men and Workers of Kronstadt, 1921. March 11.

Semanov S.N. Decree. op. P. 85.

Revolutionary Russia (Revel). 1921. No. 8. P. 8.

GARF. F. 5959. Op. 2. D. 2.

Russian State Military Archive. F. 190. Op. 3. D. 1131.

Petrichenko S.M. The truth about the Kronstadt events. Paris, 1921. P. 9.

Homeland. 1993, no. 7. p. 53.

Russian Center for the Storage and Study of Documents of Contemporary History (hereinafter referred to as RCKHIDNI). F. 17. On. 13. D. 761.

Russian State Archive of the Russian Federation (hereinafter - GARF). F. 7506. On. 1. dd. 38, 71. 72.

Dan F.I. Two years of wandering. Berlin, 1922. pp. 153, 155

Russian State Military Archive (hereinafter - RGVA) F 7 Op 2 D. 530; F. 190. Op. 3. dd. 791, 792; F. 263. Op. 1. dd. 35, 42; F. 264. Op. 1. D. 44; Russian State Archive of the Navy (hereinafter referred to as RGAVMF). F. P-92. On. 1. D. 496; State Archives of St. Petersburg(hereinafter - GASPb). F, 485. On. 1. D. 117; and etc.

GARF. F. 5959. Op. 2. D. 2.

Right there.

GARF. F. 5959. Op. 2, D. 2. A significant role in this decision of the rebel leadership was played by the failure of the landing attempt on the Oranienbaum shore, undertaken by small forces on the night of March 3.

Kronstadt rebellion. C5. articles, memoirs and documents. L., 1931. P. 75, Sat. materials of the Petrograd Committee of the RCP (b). Pg., 1921. Issue. 3. P. 30-31; and etc.

RGVA. F 263. On. 1. D. 42; GASPb. F. 33. Op. 2. D. 185.

RGAVMF. F. P-92. On. 1. D. 496; GASPb. F. 485. On. 1. D. 117.

Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T, 43, S. 237.

GARF. F. 5802. On. 1. D. 638.

GASPb. F. 4591. Op. 5. D. 12.

Kronstadt rebellion, p. 160.

GARF. F. 5784. Op. 1. D. 106.

Revolutionary Russia. Revel, 1921. No. 5. P. 6.

GARF, F, 5784. Op, 1. D. 99.

Ibid., F. 7506. On. 1. D. 32.

After the defeat of the whites. The cause of unrest was the protests of workers in Petrograd. On February 24, 1921, the workers of the Pipe Factory took to the streets. Workers from other enterprises joined them. Soon sailors and soldiers appeared among the demonstrators. The crowd freed workers who had been arrested for absenteeism (at shutdown factories).

Reports of unrest in the capital reached Kronstadt. At a meeting of sailors and the population of the fortress on March 1, 1921, a resolution was adopted demanding “immediately hold elections of councils by secret ballot, and before the elections, conduct free preliminary agitation of all workers and peasants.” The resolution also demanded freedom of speech for left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, the restoration of other civil liberties, the release of socialist political prisoners and a review of the cases of others, the elimination of communist privileges, and the structures of the Bolshevik economic dictatorship. And the main economic requirement: “to give the peasants full rights of action over all the land as they wish, and also to have livestock, which must be maintained and managed on their own, i.e. without using hired labor."

About 27 thousand people took part in the uprising. The Bolsheviks outlawed the Kronstadt residents, after which the fortress rebelled. The Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) was elected, most of whose members were non-party members. The most important issues were resolved at a meeting of delegates of units and enterprises. Representatives of left-wing socialist parties and movements from Menshevik-internationalists to anarchists took an active part in the uprising. The leaders of the uprising advocated for Soviet power without a communist dictatorship. On March 15, 1921, the Izvestia of the Military Revolutionary Committee published an instructive article “Power to the Soviets, not the Parties!” This idea of ​​non-party democracy stemmed from the ideas former Bolsheviks(such were many members of the Military Revolutionary Committee and participants in the uprising, including the Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee S. M. Petrichenko). They were attracted by the liberating slogans of the revolution and were disappointed by the totalitarian practices of Bolshevism. The leaders of Kronstadt hoped to win over the broad working masses, who at one time followed the Bolsheviks.

Continuing the “cause of October,” Kronstadt followed the spirit of workers and soldiers, opposing not only the Bolshevik dictatorship, but also the “white” restoration.

The situation was uncertain. Large strikes continued in Petrograd and other cities, and workers declared support for Kronstadt. The spread of the movement to Petrograd, inevitable if the ice melted, could radically change the situation in the country - the main forces of the Baltic Fleet were in the hands of the rebels. The rebels also counted on the offensive of the peasant armies of N. I. Makhno and A. S. Antonov.

The Bolshevik leadership of Petrograd took measures to isolate the rebels. Activists of socialist parties in Petrograd were arrested, military units whose soldiers expressed sympathy for the Kronstadters were disarmed.

On March 8, the first attack on Kronstadt was launched by the 7th Army (about 18 thousand people) under the command of M. N. Tukhachevsky. The rebels repulsed this assault. The Bolsheviks were in a hurry because they feared that with the melting of the ice the rebel fleet would be able to move to Petrograd. By March 16, the strength of the 7th Army was increased to 45 thousand. On March 17, the Reds crossed the ice The Gulf of Finland and the next morning she burst into Kronstadt. After fierce fighting, the uprising was suppressed. The Red Terror was launched in the city. Over 1 thousand were killed, over 2 thousand were wounded, 2.5 thousand were captured. About 8 thousand participants in the uprising (including Petrichenko) left across the ice to Finland.