The Kronstadt Uprising

 

Introduction

 

Kronstadt, a fortified town and base of the Baltic fleet, is situated on Kotlin Island 

in the Gulf of Finland in about twenty miles west of St. Petersburg (the city was 

called Petrograd from 1914 to 1924), Russia. Throughout the Russian Civil War, 

the sailors of Kronstadt were, as Avrich mentions, “The torchbears of 

revolutionary militancy”. More than 40,000 of them fought against the Whites on 

all fronts. The sailors manned armored trains, became crew-members of gunboats 

in river flotillas, and fought as foot soldiers. They were noted for courage and 

ferocity in combat. Shock troops units formed of sailors were used in the riskiest 

operations. Trotsky, the commissar of War, named the sailors of the Baltic Fleet 

“the pride and glory of the revolution” (Avrich, 60-62).

 

In March 1921, the sailors of Kronstadt rose in the revolt against the Bolshevik 

government, which they themselves helped into power. Under the slogan “soviets 

without communists” the sailors established a revolutionary commune that 

survived for 16 days.

 

What made these devoted defenders of the revolution to rebel?

 

Causes of the revolt

 

General situation in the country

 

On the one hand the situation in the end of 1920 and the beginning of 1921 was 

favorable for the Bolshevik government. First, the Civil War in the European part 

of Russia was won. Second, after the end of the Civil War, the most serious 

obstacles to diplomatic recognition had been removed. Soviet emissaries, 

particularly Krasin in London and Vorovsky in Rome, were negotiating treat 

agreements with a number of European nations, and the prospects for a 

successful outcome were bright (Avrich, 8). 

 

At the same time, the winter of 1920-1921 had become an extremely critical 

period for the Soviet Russia. The country was exhausted after the years of a 

continuous war. During 1919 and 1920, “the death rate had mounted sharply, 

famine and pestilence claiming millions of victims beyond the victims who had 

fallen in combat”. “Agricultural output had fallen off drastically”, and “industry and 

transportation were in a shambles”. The country was in a state of an 

unprecedented economic collapse (Avrich, 8).

 

Peasantry

 

During the Civil War of 1918-1920, the Soviet Russia lived under the policy of 

War Communism. The policy’s keystone was a forcible seizure of grain and other 

produce from the peasantry. Armed detachments went to the countryside to 

confiscate surplus produce “with which to feed the cities and to provision the Red 

Army”. Though instructed to leave the peasants enough for their personal needs, 

“it was common for requisition squads…to take grain intended for personal 

consumption”. In addition to grain and vegetables the food detachments 

confiscated horses, wagons, and other items for military use as a rule without any 

compensation (Avrich, 9).

 

There is no doubt that these requisitions, in Russian “prodrazverstka”, saved the 

communist regime during the war, but they also alienated the peasantry. All over 

the country, riots of the peasants took place. Especially serious uprisings were in 

the West Siberia and in Tambov Region.

 

Workers

 

The situation in the towns, the main source of the Bolshevik support, was in many 

ways even worse than in the countryside. By the end of 1920, “total industrial 

output had shrunk to about a fifth of 1913 levels”. The supply of fuel and raw 

materials had reached a “particularly critical stage”. Nearly everywhere 

communications were severely impaired, and “in some districts total paralysis had 

set in”. The breakdown of the railroads held back the delivery of food. Workmen 

and other town people were put on a starvation ratio (Avrich, 21-23).

 

At the same time, “inflation mounted to dizzying heights”. During 1920 alone, the 

price of bread increased tenfold. A gold ruble that had cost seven paper rubles 

and 85 kopecks in 1917 cost at least 10,000 paper rubles in 1920 (Avrich, 24). 

The food ration (payok) came to form “the nucleus of a workman’s wage”. Food 

was distributed according to a preferential system. For example, “the workers of 

Petrograd’s metal-smelting shops and blast furnaces received a daily ration of 

800 grams of black bread,…shock workers received 600 grams, and lesser 

categories 400 or even 200 grams”. (Avrich, 23). In addition to a food ration, a 

worker received clothing and shoes from the government, and sometimes “a 

fraction of his output”, which was usually bartered for food (Avrich, 24).

Under the system of War Communism, all private trade was abolished, and a 

normal exchange of goods between town and country virtually ceased to exist. In 

its place a black market “quickly sprang into being”. “Bag-men” walked from 

village to village, buying bread and other food that they would sell or barter in the 

city.

 

The government did all it could to stop this illegal trade. Armed roadblock 

detachments were deployed to guard the approaches to the cities. These 

detachments confiscated food from “speculators”. It became nearly impossible for 

workers to bring to the city any provisions to support their starving families. 

Another major problem of the working class was a growing “regimentation of labor 

under the system of War Communism”. Trotsky was blamed for it. He tried to 

apply methods of a military discipline to the industrial economy. In January 1920, 

the Council of people’s Commissars decreed a general labor obligation for all 

able-bodied adults. Also, after the end of the Civil War, whole detachments of Red 

Army soldiers, instead of being demobilized, were kept on as “labor soldiers” and 

“set to work to rescue basic industry from collapse”. Menshevik leaders compared 

a new regimentation to the Egyptian slavery (Avrich, 26-29).

 

The Baltic Fleet

 

As the vast majority of the Russian society, sailors of the Baltic Fleet were also 

dissatisfied with and disappointed by the policy of the Bolshevik government. 

There were two main reasons for it. Firstly, after the end of the Civl War, men were able to obtain leave for the first  time in several years. Returning to their native villages and towns they could see 

the requisition of grain and brutal methods by which it was executed by their own 

eyes. Some sailors were stopped by roadblock detachments and searched for 

illegal food. Petrechenko, a leader of the rebellion, remarked in his interview to an 

American reporter, “For years the happenings at home while we were at the front 

or at sea were concealed by the Bolshevik censorship. When we returned home 

our parents asked us why we fought for the oppressors. That set us thinking” 

(Avrich, 67).

 

Secondly, the sailors suffered from hunger and cold just slightly less than a 

general civilian population. The lack of heat aboard ships and in barracks made 

life difficult to bear. In addition, an epidemic of scurvy broke out in the Baltic fleet 

at the end of 1920.

 

Society as a whole

 

The rising tensions in Russian society became obvious. For the three years of the 

Civil War people desperately struggled to preserve fruits of the revolution. They 

tried to achieve freer and more comfortable life. Once the enemy had been 

defeated, they believed, the central government would release them from severity 

of wartime discipline, and would cancel the system of War Communism. But when 

the war was won, the policy of War Communism was neither abandoned nor 

relaxed. The government showed no sign of restoring elementary liberties for the

Russian citizens.

 

A feeling of bitter disappointment rapidly developed in the society. Even 

supporters of War Communism during the war, were convinced that the policy had 

outlived its usefulness. In their eyes, War Communism as a peacetime system was 

a disastrous failure. People were not able to tolerate it any longer (Avrich, 32).

 

The Bolsheviks

 

The Bolsheviks understood a potential danger of the situation perfectly well. 

There was already a plan to replace the system of War Communism by the New 

Economic Policy, which was to bring a significant relaxation in an economic 

stratum of a social life. Yet, Lenin planned to introduce the new policy later.

By way of justification, party spokesmen insisted that the wartime emergency had 

not yet passed, “that the country remained isolated and beset by powerful 

enemies on every side, ready to pounce at the first sign of internal weakness” 

(Avrich, 32).

 

Strikes in Petrograd: an immediate cause of revolt

 

In February of 1921, an “open breach occurred between the Bolshevik regime 

and, its principal mainstay of support”, the working class. An unusually severe, 

even by Russian standards, winter in a combination with the system of War 

Communism had produced a highly charged atmosphere in large cities. Heavy 

snows and shortages of fuel had held up food trains from Siberia and Northern 

Caucasus. During the first ten days of February, the disruption of railway links 

became so complete that no a single “carload of grain reached the empty 

warehouses of Moscow” (Avrich, 35).

 

The first serious trouble erupted in Moscow. Once, Lenin himself appeared before 

a gathering of Moscow metal workers. He asked the listeners, accusing the 

Bolsheviks in ruining the country, if they would prefer to see a return of the 

Whites. “Let come who may – whites, blacks, or devils themselves – just you clear 

out,” somebody shouted from the crowd (Avrich, 36).

 

As soon as the Moscow disturbances begun to subside, a far more serious wave 

of strikes swept the former capital of Petrograd. The first strike broke out at the 

Trubochy factory, on February 23, 1921. On the 24th, the strikers organized a 

mass demonstration in the street. The demonstration was suppressed by kursanty 

(communist military cadets). Few shots were fired in the air, but there was not any 

bloodshed (Mett, 39).

 

Meanwhile, the strikes were spreading. The Baltisky factory stopped work. Then 

the Laferma factory and a number of others: “the Skorokhod shoe factory, he 

Admiralteisky factory, the Borman and Metalicheskiy plants, and finally, on 

February 28, the Great Putilov works itself” (Mett, 39).

 

The strikers were demanding measures to assist food supplies. Some factories 

were demanding the reestablishment of the local markets, freedom to travel within 

a radius of thirty miles of the city, and the withdrawal of militia detachments 

holding roads around the city. But “side by side with these economic demands, 

some factories were putting forward more political demands: freedom of speech 

and of the Press, and the freeing of working class political prisoners” (Mett, 39).

The strikes in Petrograd were “fated a brief existence, and ended almost as 

suddenly as they had begun”. Nevertheless, their consequences were enormous. 

These strikes aroused the sailors of Kronstadt (Avrich, 51).

 

Uprising

 

The beginning

 

News about strikes in Petrograd reached neighboring Kronstadt almost 

immediately. The tradition of solidarity with the working class of “Red Peter” had 

existed there since the revolution of 1905. Reports from the city were mixed with 

rumors, which quickly roused the passions of the sailors. It was said, for example, 

that government troops had fired on the Trubny Factory demonstrators and that 

strike leaders were executed by Cheka. Such stories “spread like wildfire” (Avrich, 

71).

 

On February 26, crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol had an 

emergency meeting and decided to send a delegation to Petrograd to find out 

what was happening. When the delegation arrived to Petrograd, the sailors found 

the factories surrounded by troops and officer cadets (kursanty). In the shops still 

in operation, armed communist squads watched workers, who remained silent 

when the sailors approached. The future leader of the revolt, Peterchenko, would 

say later, that the factories looked more like “the forced labor prisons of tsarist 

times”. On February 28, the emissaries returned to Kronstadt and presented their 

findings at a meeting on board the Petropavlovsk. The meeting supported 

demands of the workers and voted for a resolution that would become “the 

political charter of the Kronstadt rebellion”: The Petropavlovsk resolution (Avrich, 

72-74).

 

The Petropavlovsk resolution

 

The Petropavlovsk resolution consisted of fifteen points. Only one of those points, 

the abolishing of the political departments in the fleet, directly applied to the 

sailors’ situation. The rest of the document was pointed against the policy of War 

Communism. For example, the point eleven demanded to allow the peasants “to 

make free use of their land” as long as they did not employ a hired labor. Also, 

the resolution included the workers chief demands such as the abolition of 

roadblocks, privileged rations, and armed factory squads (Avrich, 74-75).

But, also, the sailors required to reelect Soviets. The introduction to the resolution 

stated, “The present soviets do not express the will of workers and peasants”. 

Such statements alarmed the Bolshevik government.

 

Rebels and communists

 

Yet, the sailors did not agitate for overthrowing of the Communist government. 

They did not plan any repressions against members of the communist party and 

their families in Kronstadt. One of the first resolutions of the Kronstadt Provisional 

Committee, an administrative organ of the rebels, was to avoid bloodshed by any 

means. The communists continued to participate in the affairs of the town. They 

just stopped been a dominant power.

 

Meeting of March 1st

 

The Kronstadt soviet was due to be renewed on March 2, 1921. A meeting of the 

Krondstadt inhabitants had been planned for 1st March, and the notification about 

it was published in the official journal of the city of Kronstadt. The speakers were 

to include a prominent Bolshevik Kalinin.

 

Kalinin was popular among workingmen because he had come from a peasant’s 

family and used to be a factory worker. The Bolshevik government hoped that 

Kalinin would be able to calm the sailors down. When Kalinin arrived he was met 

with music and flags (Avrich, 76; Mett, 44).

 

Sixteen thousand people attended the meeting. The delegates who had visited 

Petrograd the previous day gave their reports, and the Petropavlovsk resolution 

was distributed. Kalinin and Kuzmin, a commissar of the fleet, opposed the 

resolution. Nevertheless, the assembly adopted the document. The next mass 

meeting was planned for the following day. Delegates from “ships crews, army 

units, state institutions, and dockyards...were grouping to elect the new soviet”. 

After that, Kalinin returned to Petrograd .(Mett, 44).

 

Meeting of March 2nd and the Provisional Revolutionary Committee

 

The following day, March 2nd, the meeting took place in the House of Culture. 

The delegate’s insisted that the elections of a new soviet “be carried in a loyal 

and correct manner”. Kuzmin and Vasiliev, another Kronstadt’s communist leader, 

spoke first. Kuzmin declared that the Communist party would not give the power 

without a fight. The speeches of the Communist leaders were so aggressive and 

provocative that the assembly decided to put Kuzmin and Vasiliev under arrest. 

They remained in custody till the end of the uprising, and had never been 

mistreated. At the same time, other communist party members were allowed to 

speak at length during the debate. The meeting of delegates, also, endorsed the 

Petropavlovsk resolution by an overwhelming majority.

 

The new soviet was not formed, however. There were rumors in the town that the 

central government was concentrating troops to storm Kronstadt. Because of 

those rumors and threatening speeches of Kuzmin and Vasiliev, the assembly 

decided to form a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, to administrate the town 

and surrounding fortresses. The soviet was supposed to be formed after a 

normalization of the situation (Avrich, Mett 45-46).

 

Later that day, under the leadership of Provisional Revolutionary Committee, all 

strategic points in Kronstadt were occupied. The sailors took control over state 

establishments, staff headquarters, all fortresses, and telephone and telegraph 

buildings.

 

It was a point of no return. With prominent members of the Communist party in 

custody, and after taking over the city, the attack of the Government troops 

became inevitable.

 

Bolsheviks

 

Bolsheviks did not see the Kronstadt mutiny itself as a threat to their regime. But 

the city could be used by enemies as a base for a military intervention. At that 

time, an army of White general Wrangel stayed in Turkey, Yugoslavia, and 

Bulgaria, and it could be relatively quickly mobilized against the Bolsheviks. The 

Lenin’s government could not risk. The Bolsheviks had to take Kronstadt as soon 

as possible. In few weeks the ice surrounding Kotlin Island would start melting, 

and after that, a massive infantry attack would be impossible.

 

From the very beginning, the Bolsheviks tried to discredit the movement. First of 

all, they proclaimed that the riot was organized by the White Guards. The 

Bolsheviks stated that the revolt was prepared by former tsarist officers serving in 

Kronstadt as military advisers (voenspezy). Particularly, the propaganda claimed 

that the head of the uprising was a former tsarist general named Koslovsky. The 

man was in charge of the Kronstadt’s artillery.

 

In fact, it was not true. Former tsarist officers did not desert Kronstadt after the 

revolt and fought against the Reds, but they did not play any dominant role. In 

reality, sailors ignored most of officers’ suggestions.

 

Also, the communist propaganda tried to convince the Russian population that the 

sailors, heroes of the revolution and the Civil War, and Kronstadt rebellions are 

different people. According to the Bolsheviks, the Civil War veterans had been 

demobilized and replaced by new recruits many of whom were Whites’ 

sympathizers or even had served in the White Army. It could not be true because, 

for example, members of the Provisional Committee had been in the navy for 

several years. Thus, Peterchenko, a leader of the rebellion, joined the navy 

before World War I, in 1912.

 

Military preparations

 

The rebels made minimal preparations to the future assault. They ignored all 

plans of general Kozlovsky and other military advisers. For example, right after 

the revolt, Kozlovsky urged insurgents to storm Petrograd. Taking into 

consideration a tense situation in the city, there was a good chance to take it 

over. Later, Kozlovskiy advised to attack food warehouses in the Neighboring 

Oranienbaum because the city of Kronstadt did not have enough provisions to 

sustain a prolonged blockade. Also, the officers recommended the sailors to use 

artillery to break the ice around the island to protect Kronstadt from an infantry 

attack. Finally, Kozlovsky proposed to barricade the streets at Petrograd Gates, 

the most vulnerable part of the city. 

 

None of these offers was considered, and there were two reasons for it. First, the 

sailors traditionally distrusted former officers. Second, they did not believe that 

there would be a fight with the Red Army, their class brothers. 

 

The Red Army

 

Many Bolshevik soldiers refused to fight against “bratishki” (“brothers”, or “little 

brothers”), a nickname of the sailors in the Red Army. In fact, a part of 

Oranienbaum Harrison endorsed the Petropavlosk resolution and decided to join 

the revolt. However, the mutiny was quickly and brutally suppressed.

 

Soon, the units of the Red Army, sympathizing with insurgents, were replaced by 

loyal to the Communist government kursanty (officer cadets), units of communist 

volunteers, and non-Russian military detachments. Particularly, during the second 

assault on Kronstadt, Tukhachevsky, a commander of the Communist force, used 

some brigades formed entirely of the Chinese and Tatars.

 

The Kronstadt Commune

 

The Kronstadt rebellion lasted only for sixteen days, but during this short period a 

formidable revolutionary commune was established. The commune was governed 

by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. It had fifteen members. Sailor 

Petrichenko was the Committee’s chairman, and Yakovenko and Arkhipov were 

deputy chairmen. Each member of the Committee was assigned a specific area of 

responsibility such as civic affairs, justice, transportation, food supply, defense, 

and agitation and propaganda (Avrich, 157).

 

Alongside with the Revolutionary Committee, the conference of delegates, which 

convened on March 2, remained in existence for the duration of the rebellion. Its 

membership fluctuated between two and three hundred sailors, soldiers, and 

workers. It was a type of a parliament; though, the sailors saw this organ as a 

prototype of free soviets for which they fought (Avrich, 159).

 

In Kronstadt, differential food rations were abolished. Special rations were 

distributed only in hospitals and childcare facilities. Also, extra food could be given 

to the sick on a doctor’s prescription. Otherwise, the food in Kronstadt was issued 

on an equal basis in exchange for coupons. (Avrich, 156).

 

In the first days of uprising, an 11 p.m curfew was imposed, and movement in and 

out of the city placed under strict control. Schools were closed until further notice.

Also, the Provisional Committee issued a number of edicts effecting Kronstadt’s 

political structure. First of all, it abolished the political department of the fortress. 

Furthermore, in “every public institution, trade union, factory, and military unit, a 

revolutionary troika (three people) was elected to carry out orders of the 

Revolutionary Committee on a local level”. Communists were not allowed to 

become members of those troikas (Avrich, 157-158).

 

A Finnish journalist who visited the island at the height of the rebellion was struck 

by the “enthusiasm” of its inhabitants (Avrich, 159).

 

The first assault

 

The first massive infantry assault on Kronstadt started shortly before dawn on 

March 8. The communists did not attack earlier, probably because they did not 

have a sufficient number of troops.

 

Nevertheless, the first assault was premature. “In their anxiety to crush the 

rebellion before it received any reinforcements or spread to the mainland, the 

authorities had acted too hastily, making faulty preparations and using an 

insufficient quantity of troops and equipment”. As a result, the assault was 

repulsed with heavy losses. Altogether, 20,000-25,000 Red troops took part in the 

operation. (Avrich, 193).

 

The rebels numbered “some 13,000 sailors and soldiers, with perhaps additional 

2,000 men recruited from the civilian population”. Kotlin Island was surrounded by 

numerous forts and batteries. All the forts and batteries were “thickly armored and 

equipped with heavy guns in turrets”. In total, Kronstadt had 135 cannons, and 68 

machine guns mounted on the forts and ships. In addition, Kronstadt benefited 

from the wide expanse of ice separating it from the Bolshevik forces. (Avrich, 151-

154).

 

However, Kronstadt had serious weaknesses. The most important thing was that 

the fortress did not have enough ammunition and food to sustain a prolonged 

siege (Avrich, 151-154).

 

During the night of March 8, a terrible storm was blowing over the Baltic. “Thick 

fog made the tracks almost invisible”. The Red Army soldiers wore “long white 

blouses, which hid them well against the snow” (Mett, 56). Out in front were 

detachments of military cadets followed by picked Red Army units. Cheka machine 

gunners were in the rear to discourage any potential deserters (Avrich, 153).

The Red troops were met by a murderous fire from the forts and batteries around 

the island. Some of the exploding shells cracked open the ice, killing dozens of 

attackers. In the end only a fraction of assaulting troops managed to reach the 

outermost forts, but even they had to withdraw under a dense fire (Avrich, 151-

155).

 

The second Assault

 

The final infantry assault on Kronstadt started on March 17 after intense artillery 

bombardment. The morale of the communist troops was much higher that time. 

The fact is that shortly before the operation, Lenin had officially canceled the 

system of War Communism. Hated prodrazverstka, a forceful confiscation of 

peasants’ surpluses, and the system of roadblock detachments were liquidated. 

Many Red Army soldiers saw the storm of Kronstadt as the last battle before 

demobilization. Also, this time the troops were very well equipped.

There is no precise information about the number of the Red troops taking part in 

the operation. Avrich believes that there were about 50,000 infantrymen.

Tukhachevsky divided his army into two unequal parts: northern and southern. 

Avrich thinks that the southern group consisted of about 35,000 people. 

Tukhachevsky’s plan was “to launch a decisive attack from the south and then to 

capture Kronstadt by a massive simultaneous assault from different directions” 

(Mett, 58).

 

The battle was very intense. For example, in the course of this fight “more than a 

half of the 79th brigade were killed or wounded” including a number of delegates 

of the tenth communist party congress. The congress took place in Moscow at 

that time. About three hundred of its delegates volunteered to fight in Kronstadt.

Finally, at the eastern end of Kronstadt, the Reds managed to enter the city. “By 

this time attackers had already suffered heavy losses, but once within the walls, 

they encountered a veritable hell” (Avrich, 207). Street fights continued through 

March 17, but by noon 18th all forts and almost the entire town were reoccupied 

by the Red Army troops.

 

Meanwhile, about 8,000 rebels including Petrechenko and general Kozlovsky 

retreated over the frozen harbor to Finland.

 

In its ferocity the battle of Kronstadt matched the bloodiest episodes of the Civil 

War. Losses were very heavy on both sides, but the Communists, forced to attack 

over the open ice, took much heavier casualties. After the battle, “so many bodies 

were strewn over the ice that Finnish government asked Moscow to remove them 

for fear that they would be washed ashore and create a health hazard”. According 

to Harold Quarton, a “well-informed American consul in Viborg, total Soviet 

casualties were about 10,000 including the dead, wounded, and missing in action” 

(Arvich, 211).

 

No reliable figures of Rebels casualties are available, but one report puts the 

number of killed at 600, with more than a thousand wounded, and 2,500 taken 

prisoners (Arvich, 211).

 

Conclusion

 

The Kronstadt rebellion was not a conspiracy of external enemies as the 

Bolsheviks claimed. It was a spontaneous revolt against the system of War 

Communism and the Bolshevik party dictatorship: one of many taken place all 

over Russia at that time. The sailors were the last defenders of the ideals of the 

Revolution. Dying, they took with them into the grave a rebellious spirit of 1917.

 

References:

 

Avrich, P. (1991). Kronstadt 1921. New Jersey: Princeton University Press

 

Mett, I. (1973). The Kronstadt uprising. Montreal: Black Rose Books – Our 

Generation Press

 

Pipes R. (1995). A concise history of the Russian revolution (pp. 346-350, 368). 

New York: Random House Inc.

 

books: