Kronstadt rebellion

Did You Know?

• Of the 2,000 prisoners taken after the rebellion, 13 were tried in private as the rebellion's leaders; none belonged to the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee.
• The rebellion clarified an authoritarian streak in the Bolshevik approach in which emergency Civil War-era measures never expired.

Preface

In early 1921, the government cut city bread rations by a third. This was forced by heavy snow and fuel shortages that blocked food shipments from Siberia and the Caucasus, but the explanation failed to stop growing anger. By mid-February, workers in Moscow started gathering, calling for an end to war communism and the restoration of free labor. Officials could not ease the tension, and the government quickly decided that only armed troops could put down the unrest.

As Moscow appeared to quieten, trouble erupted in Petrograd. There, roughly 60 percent of large factories had shut down in February because fuel was scarce and food supplies had nearly run out. Workers, ignoring a ban on trade, organized trips to the countryside to find provisions, and grew more frustrated when authorities tried to block them. Late in February, a gathering at the Trubochny factory voted to boost rations and hand out winter clothes and shoes supposedly set aside for Bolsheviks.

Workers called a protest for the next day. The local Bolshevik-run soviet dispatched cadets to break it up. Grigori Zinoviev set up a Defense Committee with special powers to stop the protests, and similar bodies, called troikas, were created in each district. The provincial Bolsheviks mobilized to handle the crisis.

Petropavlovsk resolution

News of the Petrograd protests, coupled with disquieting rumors of a harsh crackdown, increased tensions among fleet members. In late February the crews of the ships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol held an emergency meeting and sent a delegation to Petrograd to investigate. Upon returning two days later, the delegation informed the crews about the strikes and protests and the government repression. The sailors decided to support the protesters by passing a resolution with fifteen demands to be sent to the government.

Among the main demands were new, free elections for the Soviets, freedom of expression, and total freedom of action and trade. According to the resolution's proponents, the elections would result in the defeat of the Bolsheviks and the triumph of the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks could not tolerate the affront these political demands represented to their power, as they questioned the legitimacy of the Bolsheviks as representatives of the working classes.

The old demands Lenin had defended in 1917 were now considered counterrevolutionary. The following day, 1 March, about fifteen thousand people attended a large assembly in Anchor Square. The authorities sent Mikhail Kalinin as a speaker, but the crowd demanded free elections for the soviets, freedom of speech and press for leftist anarchists and socialists and all workers and peasants, freedom of assembly, suppression of political sections in the army, equal rations save for those doing heavier work, economic freedom and freedom of organization, and political amnesty.

Those present overwhelmingly endorsed the resolution previously adopted by the Kronstadt seamen. Most communists present also supported the resolution, and Kalinin returned safely to Petrograd.

Reaction in Petrograd

The authorities portrayed the rebels as counter-revolutionaries and falsely accused them of doing the Whites' and other enemies' bidding. The rebels did not expect attacks from the authorities nor did they launch attacks against the continent, rejecting Kozlovsky's advice. The island's communists did not denounce any collusion by the rebels in the early moments of the revolt and even attended the delegate assembly on 2 March. Initially the rebels sought a conciliatory stance, believing the government could comply with Kronstadt's demands.

Neither the rebels nor the government expected the protests to trigger a rebellion. Many local Bolshevik party members did not see in the rebels and their demands the supposedly counterrevolutionary character denounced by Moscow leaders. Local communists even published a manifesto in the island's new journal. Some government troops sent to suppress the revolt, upon learning that the island's rule by commissioners had been eliminated, defected to the rebellion.

The government had serious problems with regular troops and resorted to using cadets and Cheka agents. High-ranking Bolshevik leaders responsible for the operation had to return from the 10th Party Congress in Moscow. The rebels' claim of a third revolution risked undermining popular support for the Bolshevik party, so the Bolsheviks made the revolt appear counterrevolutionary to explain their uncompromising military campaign.

Attack on Kronstadt

On the morning of March 7, Bolshevik forces launched their assault on Kronstadt with around 60,000 soldiers. Artillery from Sestroretsk and Lisy Nos bombarded the island to soften its defenses, setting up an infantry attack before dawn the next day. During a heavy snowstorm, Tukhachevsky’s troops advanced from both north and south, with cadets leading, followed by select Red Army units and Cheka machine gunners under orders to shoot anyone who fled.

Many Red Army soldiers died when explosions shattered the ice beneath them, while others deserted or refused to move forward. The few who made it to the island were pushed back. Once the storm cleared, artillery fire resumed, and Bolshevik planes bombed the island that afternoon, but with little impact. The Bolsheviks issued premature claims of victory, yet their forces suffered hundreds of casualties and defections because of poor planning, low morale, and the dangerous open ice crossing.

In the days after this failed first attempt, smaller clashes occurred. The Bolsheviks gathered fresh troops—cadet regiments, Communist Youth, Cheka units, and non-Russian soldiers—while Zinoviev made concessions to Petrograd’s population to prevent unrest. Trotsky’s closed report to the 10th Party Congress prompted over a quarter of its delegates to volunteer, mainly to lift soldier spirits, which were low given the repeated, futile attacks. On March 10, planes bombed Kronstadt, and coastal guns shelled the island overnight to support a southeast assault the next morning, but that attack failed, causing heavy government losses. Fog halted operations for the rest of the day. Small troop attempts on March 13 and 14 were beaten back with many casualties. After March 14, air and artillery strikes continued, but the troops waited for a larger offensive.