The Kronstadt Uprising

The Kronstadt uprising was an event that could have affected the course of Russia's historical development, had it not been sunk in the blood. What prompted people after long wars and the revolution to take arms again? What was happening at that time in the bloodless and devastated civil war?

During this period, there were first attempts to restore the national economy, which turned out to be unsuccessful. In 1920, inefficient labor armies were organized, which, in fact, were a form of compulsory militarized labor.

The beginning of 1921 is the flourishing of the unjust policy of "military communism". He contributed to the fact that industrial centers and agricultural production were further alienated from each other. In the country there was a sharp shortage of food. The urban population melted in front of the eyes, the peasants were not profitable to feed large industrial cities and towns for nothing or for nothing, and a new phenomenon arose in cities-labor desertion. In response to unfavorable economic conditions of existence, the peasantry responded with a wave of uprisings.

Tambovshchina, the Northern Caucasus, Western Siberia and Ukraine took up arms. Industrial production has almost stopped. For example, powerful Putilov and Sestroretsk plants were shut down in Petrograd, as well as the Triangle factory, which was famous at that time.

Inequality, deprivation, destruction and hunger, as well as the restriction of democratic freedoms, which were proclaimed in October 1917, caused a just outrage among the people, which resulted in the Kronstadt uprising. Seamen (total number of about 26 thousand people) made a resolution with their demands, which was to be transferred to the government. It contained political and also economic demands.

What were the actions of the rebels? The answer is simple. The ruling party of the Communists could not take the country out of the catastrophic state of general disruption. In addition, she lost the trust of the workers, since they were not considered, and any manifestations of the disagreement of the people were declared the intrigues of the counter-revolution.

The sailors did not demand the liquidation of the Soviets, but only against the fact that the power was concentrated only in the hands of the Communist Party. After all, this in itself limited the rights and freedoms of other parties and movements.

The uprising in Kronstadt was organized and numerous. Only at the rally on March 1, 1921, which took place at the Anchor Square, gathered more than 16 thousand people. In the city, the insurgents were brought to order without the use of violence, no salvo sounded. Follow the order on the streets instructed the Provisional Revolutionary Committee (VRK), which was headed by SM Petrichenko.

Such concerted actions instantly provoked a sharply negative reaction from the ruling party, which did not want to share its unlimited power with someone else. In response to the Kronstadt rebellion, a state of siege was imposed, which gave impetus to the beginning of the martial law. In fact, the city was cut off from the whole world. The rebels were subjected to moral pressure, propaganda was intensively conducted, the streams of propaganda leaflets were dropped directly from the aircraft.

The Kronstadt uprising rallied the fighters for freedom, which once again confirmed their fidelity to the ideas of the revolution. On the orders of the government on March 8, the first attempt was made to take over the city, but everything was not so simple.

The insurgency, in fact, was not condemned by the Red Army men who besieged Kronstadt. Some units did not follow the orders of the commanders of the Red Army at all, because they themselves were dissatisfied with the existing order.

Under the pressure of artillery shelling on March 18, 1921, the Kronstadt uprising fell. The violence was cruel. They shot 2100 people, 6,500 fighters were thrown into prisons, and 8,000 defenders of the city on ice went to neutral Finland.

The Kronstadt uprising was the first demonstrative lesson in the irreconcilable struggle between the ruling circles and the people.