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Homestead Strike

 Homestead Strike

A confrontation between workers and the administration of the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, at Homestead, Pennsylvania, started in June of 1892 and lasted for five months. The strike was organized and led by members of Amalgamated Association, a powerful trade union of steel workers. About 3,800 workingmen took part in it. Neither side of the conflict wanted to compromise. The struggle was intense, cruel, and often bloody. Seven strikers died during a firefight with the Pinkerton detectives. Henry Frick, a chairman of the corporation, was wounded during an assassination attempt. What caused the strike?

To answer the question first of all we should examine the working and living conditions of the Homestead workers. The information about the subject is quite controversial. There is no doubt that the work at a steel mill at that time was harsh and dangerous. A Carnegie’s steelworker compared his job with “working aside of hell ahead of time”(Wolff, L., Lockout, p.36). Here is a description of the Homestead mill by a visitor. “Everywhere in the enormous sheds were pits gaping like the mouth of hell, and ovens emitting a terrible degree of heat, with grimy men filling and lining them. One man jumps down, works desperately for a few minutes, and is then pulled up exhausted. Another immediately takes his place; there is no hesitation” (Wolff, 36). Some workers worked in the temperature near 128 degrees (53 degrees by Celsius). The heater helpers “pulled out billet after billet and tossed them to the rougher. Feverishly he shoved them into the roller. When he turned around another billet was waiting…Since a false step could mean death, this job was never given to an older man…The work in the rolling, blooming, and plate mills was cooler but equally” difficult. The workers’ clothes “were covered with minuscule, shiny grains of steel...They often complained of respiratory problems” (Wolff, 36-37).

“The men worked every day of the year, except Christmas and July 4”. A majority of the workers worked twelve hours a day, though there were eight and ten hour shifts. Every two weeks there was the “turn”, when worker had to work for twenty-four hours. The following day, the men were given a day off (Wolff, 32).

There were no meal breaks. “Dirty-handed, the men ate fruits and leftovers from their lunch pails whenever they had a chance. Before leaving work, for lack of bathing facilities, they washed their arms and shoulders in a “bosh”, a trough of water in which tools were placed to cool off” (Wolff, 37).

The work was extremely dangerous. During only one month there were sixty-five accidents at the Homestead factory, seven of which were lethal. About half of the injuries were “sprained ankles, smashed feet, and lacerated hands”. “The other half added up thus: ten head wounds, three broken arms or legs, two amputated arms, four eye injuries, eight internal injuries, and one case of paralysis”. “An engineer said that he had lost count of the men whose hands were smashed during hook-ons”. Recent immigrants were especially vulnerable. “Unacquainted with the machinery, and with an exasperated boss shouting unintelligible orders, the Slav [or Hungarian] workman was as likely to run into danger than out of it… In a single plant, during a span of twelve years, 3,273 immigrants were killed or injured” (Wolff, 34-35, 37, 242).

We should remember, however, that some of the Carnegie’s workers were paid “extraordinary wages”. It is impossible to prove or disapprove it now, but there were anecdotes about “rollers and heaters coming to the plant in Prince Albert coats wearing top heads to collect their wages”. In 1892, a New York Times’ reporter mentioned in his article a boss roller making about $ 10,000 a year (New York Times). Of course we do not know how reliable the journalist's information was, but on average, in May of 1892, a roller earned $ 11.84 daily; a heater - $8.16; a heater’s helper – 5.80; a tableman - $ 7.75; a shearman – $ 9.49 (Wolff, 37, 234). According to Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, in 1897, a pound of tea cost between twelve and seventy five cents (8); coffee – between 5 cents and one dollar (9); boneless ham – 10 cents (13); rice – between 5-6 cents (16). A weekly room rent was about two dollars (Wolff, 31). A good house cost around $ 5,000 (New York Times).

Numbers mentioned above are wages of skilled workers. Day laborers, most of whom were hardly understanding English immigrants, earned on average $ 9.80 a week (Wolff, 38). At first glance the payment was miserable. But “most immigrants…were single men, anxious to work for a few years, then to return permanently to their homelands with several hundred dollars saved. Such a sum amounted to a fortune in the Balkans… In about five years, almost a third of those who stayed [in the country] held semiskilled jobs”. Eventually, some of the immigrants “moved into well-paid, skilled categories” (Wolff, 241).

As a representative of the British Iron and Steel Institute said about the Carnegie’s workers,: The men, I dare say, [were] paid well, [but] they were … selling their lives” (Wolff, 36).

The strike was initiated buy the Amalgamated men. The Homestead’s branch of Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel workers consisted of about four hundred high skilled employees: the elite of the Carnegie’s mill. “Women, Negroes, and the unskilled seldom gained admission” to the Union. The union members were an elite and often unpopular circle among the work force. The men “high wages did not further their popularity”. These people had never tried to accomplish something for the non-unionists.

The Amalgamated Association was the strongest branch of American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.), a trade union that had a quarter of million members in 1892. The A.F. of L. was “efficiently organized”, and “it was a menace to profits because of its insistence on shorter hours [and] higher pay. And the A.F. of L. executive board was “ready, if not anxious to strike”. “In steel plants throughout America its members grew more pugnacious, aggressive, and self-confident, and “Amalgamated men considered themselves unbeatable in any labor conflict” (40,80). “Steel companies feared the mighty Amalgamated” (42). The union leaders in Homestead were three young men: Hugh O’Donnel, William Roberts, and Hugh Ross.

A chairman of the company then was Henry Frick: a most efficient manager. When Frick entered the company in 1888, “profits and steel tonnage that year had been $ 1,941,555 and 332’111 respectively. When he left it years later, the corresponding figures were 40,000,000 and 3,000,000” (24). Frick was respected by his colleagues including Carnegie, but was hated by the workers or “hands”, how he usually called them. The man had his own method of dealing with strike. “He crashed it with force and made no concessions”. “Unions should not exist”, he stated frequently. There were no doubts that “a showdown between the Amalgamated and Frick was due as soon as three-year union-management contract approached its expiration” (39).

The contract was to expire on June 30 of 1892. A meeting between representatives of the union and administration took place in February of that year (73). A union introduced a new variant of the contract. The unionists asked for insignificant pay raise. Porter handed the workers Frick’s counteroffer. According to this plan the “take-home pay” of the workers would be reduced by eighteen percent. Also, the contract’s expiration day would be changed from June 30 to December 31, “the worst time of the year for a strike or layoff”. The reduction of the wages would affect “the 32-inch slabbing mill, the 119-inch plate mill, and the open-hearth furnaces – those very departments which employed practically all…Amalgamated men”. “3, 500 men were not affected by the new scale” (78). At the same time, a few people working “elsewhere in the plant would be raised”. The union refused to sign the document (74).

There were three more meetings between March and June 31 that accomplished nothing: “confusion, bias, and … double talk reigned in all areas of the argument” (78). The union did not want the strike. On March 2^nd, Roberts said Porter, “You can tell your people [that] we are willing to make any reductions where they can show any reductions are necessary” (80). “We want to settle it without trouble; do not want a strike” (80). The workers vainly tried to reach Carnegie who was in Europe.

On May 29, the union committee was called again. In an official letter Frick demanded the union to accept his conditions by June 24. “If not”, he wrote, “[the union members] would be dealt with individually...The challenge to Amalgamated could not have been more blunt; it could surrender, it could disband, or it could strike… The anti-union sentiments of Carnegie’s officials became clear” (81-82).

Both sides began their preparations to the fight. The union organized an Advisory Committee. Hugh O’Donnell was pointed a chairman. According to the Frick’s order, a huge fence was constructed around the works. It was a dozen feet high, and had strands of barbed wire on the top. Several hundred “holes, three inches in diameter, were bored into the fence at about the height if the man’s shoulder” (85). Also, he had negotiations with Robert Pinkerton about hiring “a large number of guards”. They were hired for “five dollars per head per day” (84).

On June 28, without warning, layoffs began. That night “effigies of Frick and Porter were hung from a telegraph pole within the works”. The Advisory Committee passed a resolution “demanding that all non-union employees refuse to return to work July 1” (89). The resolution was voted for on the meeting of about 3,000 workers. O’Donnell explained “that the decision would be binding on all, regardless of union affiliation (90). It was passed overwhelmingly. Meanwhile, firing continued, and on July 2, “the last several hundred men were dismissed” (90). Mr. Frick had been waiting for the “Pinkertons” arrival. He planned to resume the work on July 6 (86).

“By July 4 all executive functions of the [borough of] Homestead were performed by Advisory Committee. The strikers knew that the Pinkertons were coming, and were ready to meet detectives. The workers were organized on a truly military base. Four thousand men were divided into three divisions. Division commanders received their orders from an Advisory Committee. The brigade composed of eight hundred Hungarians and Slavs was in reserve. The people were under command of two Hungarian workers and two interpreters (90). Each division commander had at his assistance eight captains. Each division was supposed to watch the factory and town eight hours a day. “Captains will have personal charge of the most important posts, i.e., the river front, the water gates and pumps, the railway station, and the main gates of the plant” (90). To patrol the river, the strikers used a small paddle steamer, the Edna. “To guard further along the river, patrols walked back and forth along the shore line” (92). “Atop the Electric Light Works in Homestead proper the strikers placed a steam whistle. By the number of blasts it emitted the men could ascertain where to assemble to meet the enemy” (92). Every road to the town was blockaded and nobody was allowed to enter without satisfactory explanation. “The exact number of armed strikers will never be known”, but several hundred of them had different kinds of weapons dating back to the Civil War (108). Pistols and revolvers were the most common. The workers were determined to keep the Pinkertons and strikebreakers out of the mills.

The force of 316 Pinkerton detectives was heading to Homestead. One group of them was moving to Homestead from New York and another from Chicago. Most of those men were just hired. They were described as “mostly unemployed, or drifters, a few college lads trying to earn … money between semesters, some hoodlums and out-and-out criminals on the run” (101). When they crossed the Pennsylvanian border by train, nobody was armed. Unlabeled crates with their weapons were in the last car; armed groups of people were prohibited from crossing the state border. Their destination was Bevellue, a town “five miles down the river from Pittsburgh”. There men saw two barges: the Iron Mountain and the Monongahela. Before boarding them, the men were given their Pinkerton uniforms: slouch hats, blouses with metal buttons, and dark blue trousers with lighter stripes.

The barges were tugged by two small steamers: the Little Bill and the Tide. At one of the barges was superintendent Porter, who had joined the Pinkertons in Bevellue. He had already had a gun in his holster. As the vessels approached the Smithfield bridge in downtown Pittsburgh, they were spotted by a striker watcher. “Watch the river. Steamer with barges left here”, he wired to Advisory Committee headquarters in a few minutes.

Off Glenwood, “the last bend of the [river] before Homestead, one of the steamers broke down. The Little Bill tagged both barges towards the Homestead factory. Approximately, at that time, the steam whistle at the Electric Light Works, alerted the town. It was about 4 a. m. “Thousands of men, women, and children began to get dressed… Within minutes the streets were a surging mass of yelling, cursing, laughing people” (106). When the barges were about a mile from the factory, the Edna “emitted a series of piercing blasts. They were answered by every steam whistle in Homestead and the crackle of fire crackers” (106). When the steamer and her barges run closer to the shore they came under a fire for the first time. Nobody was hurt. All the rifles and revolvers were distributed among the Pinkertons. Each man was given fifty rounds of ammunition. At that point, Nordrum, the Pinkertons’ commander demanded colonel Gray, a county sheriff’s chief deputy, to deputize the Pinkertons to give them authority. The colonel rejected the demand. He said that there would be plenty of time to deputize the men when they “would beat the company grounds”. A few moments later the barges were set aground in front of the mill entrance.

The Pinkerton men were met by a crowd of workers. Most men had firearms. Many of women and children were armed with sticks, stones, and “alarming looking nailed clubs torn from fences” (108). Seven Pinkertons leading by Heinde headed towards strikers. Suddenly, somebody opened the fire. The detectives retreated; one of them was killed and five wounded. Since then, barges were under a constant fire. On the shore, three workers were killed and several wounded. The strikers began throwing up barricades of steel and pig iron scrap. As one historian said, “The women screaming in twenty-two languages , then grabbed their kids and took to the near hills” (111). Huge O’Donnell was loosing control over the situation.

The Litlle Bill was under a heavy fire. Its captain, Rogers, managed to came alongside a barge and took aboard fourteen wounded and the dead body. On the way to Pittsburgh, the steamboat came under another concentration of bullets. The captain managed to steer the ship while lying on his stomach. Before they reached the city, one of the wounded died (112).

On the barges, the Pinkertons were taking cover below the decks. The temperature there was rising, and “it was going to be a scorcher” (113). On the ground, the strikers were preparing the dynamite. At about eight o’clock, several permanent Pinkerton’s employees made a final attempt to get ashore. It did not succeed and the detectives had to retreat. Four of them were wounded. Most of the newly-hired Pinkertons were hiding under the tables and behind piles of life-jackets. They were hired to protect the property, not to fight. Some of them jumped overboard and tried to reach an opposite shore. About twenty workers simultaneously threw dynamite at one of the barges, “which almost leaped out of the water” (115). Then, the Pinkertons could clearly be seen through the holes. “Riflemen go to work on them”. The heat within the barges was unbearable. Every time when a Pinkerton man tried to gasp fresh air at a porthole, he was immediately shot at.

The strikers tried to use two antique cannons (Antietam) that were normally used for holiday celebrations. Except for one direct hit they never hit the barges. To set the vessels on fire, the strikers poured hundreds of gallons of oil upstream of the river. But they could not fire the oil because it was “a lubricating type that burned feebly” (117). When this plan failed, the strikers “loaded a raft with oil and greasy scrap, set it aflame, and let it drift towards the barges. The raft, however, passed the barge without touching it. Only a few Pinkerton regulars were continuing the battle; “the rest lounged about, silent and inert, and sweltering… Almost three hundred able-bodied men had set aside their weapons” The Pinkertons were running out of water, and even some hardened veterans were thinking about surrender. (118).

Captain Rogers made an attempt to save the detectives. He wanted to tug the barges to safety. The Little Bill was coming from Pittsburgh flying two American flags. The captain believed that the strikers would not shoot at a national symbol. He was wrong. As soon as the steamer came within range, she was under fire of about a five hundred small arms and a little cannon. Two crew-members were wounded immediately. Mr. Rodgers had to retreat.

During the fight, O’Connell almost completely lost control over his men. But by five p.m., he and other members of the committee convinced people to cease fire and accept the Pinkertons’ surrender. The detectives were disarmed and sent under convoy into the town.

When the prisoners were marching towards the town they were attacked by a mob. First, some of them were slapped across the face. “Next clubs were used, children pelted prisoners with rocks, and then the women started in. One shoved an umbrella in a man's eye and poked it out…One striker carefully slugged each of [the prisoners] behind the ear with a large stone wrapped in leather, tied to the end of a short rope. … Sand was thrown into some Pinkertons’ eyes. Most of the Slavs disdained weapons; they simply grabbed men around the neck and punched their faces with bare fists (129). When the Pinkertons reached a town’s skating ring where they were to be kept, all of them were injured. After midnight the men were placed aboard a special train and sent to Pittsburgh.

The state militia entered Homestead on July 12. At first, they were welcomed by the strikers. “I wish to say that after suffering an attack of illegal authority we are glad to have the authority of the State here”, said O’Donnell to general Snowden, the troops’ commander. The spirit of the strikers was high, and the public opinion, in general, was on their side. “Over six hundred offers of financial assistance had reached the strikers” (164). “We can hold on for five years,” one of the members of Advisory Committee said to an New York reporter (165).

The administration slowly started taking control over its property. The management offered the strikers to return to work on July 21, at 6p.m. Frick added, “It is our desire to retain in our service all of our employees whose past record is satisfactory, and who did not take part in the attempts which have been made to interfere with our right to manage our business” (165). Nobody returned. A day after, small groups of strikebreakers began to arrive by boats from Pittsburgh. “By the later part of July about a hundred workers were on duty and living inside the plant”. By the early August, there were about a thousand strikebreakers in the factory. “On the last day of August, Henry Frick walked into the Homestead plant for the first time since June” (196).

Most of the strikebreakers were recent immigrants or the blacks. These people were desperate to get any job for almost any money. They lived in specially built barracks on the factory grounds. The strikebreakers were smuggled to the factory from Pittsburgh by boats. The strikers often shot at the hated Little Bill and other steamboats. Ugly acts of violence against the strikebreakers became a norm.

On September 30, “Chief Justice Edward Paxon instructed the grand jury to issue warrants against thirty-five Amalgamated men, including the entire Advisory Committee, for treason” (211). On November 31, the Advisory Committee was assembled for the last time. The members “voted to dissolve the committee, and announced…that the Union men would be permitted to return to the Carnegie fold” (223). One of the greatest strikes in the American history was over.

After the strike, the wages of qualified workers were reduced by almost fifty percent. “Grievance committee was abolished. Wage scales were kept secret. Espionage became the order of the day (232). Manufacturers all over the country “refused to deal with the union”. Even the smallest producers “froze out the union and dispersed its organizers” (230). The homestead strike showed that even the most powerful union could not cope with a “modern, multimillion-dollar” corporation if it is supported by the state.

Works Cited

“Seen in Homestead town: some of the things observing strangers noted”. New York Times. 21 Aug 1892. p. 14. Web. 10 Dec. 2010. ProQuest. <http://0-proquest.umi.com.library.dowling.edu/pqdweb?index=0&did=106858327&SrchMode=2&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1294004613&clientId=4341>

“Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog.” 1897. Web. 12 Dec. 2010. <http://books.google.com/books?id=pavHOWOWKEEC&lpg=PP1&dq=1897%20Sears%20Roebuck%20%26%20Co.%20Catalogue&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false>

Wolff, Leon. Lockout. New York: Harper and Row. 1965.

Red Terror of 1918 – 1921: Reasons and Goals

Red Terror of 1918 – 1921: Reasons and Goals

Introduction

On November 7, 1917, the Bolshevik revolution, an event that had a drastic effect on the course of the world history, occurred in Petrograd, Russia. How could the Bolsheviks, a relatively small group of people, hold power in such a vast and diverse country as Russia? Richard Pipes and some other scholars believe that it was possible only due to a policy of mass terror. “Such a party could not rule by consent but had to make permanent use of terror”, Pipes states in A concise history of the Russian revolution (217). Pipes believes that the goal of mass terror was to create a “pervasive atmosphere of lawlessness…which impressed on ordinary citizens a sense of utter powerlessness” (217). Other historians think that the terror was a harsh necessity of the Civil War: the only way to survive. Let us take a look at the development of Red Terror in the Soviet Russia and try to understand where the truth is.

The Situation of Lawlessness

Pipes believes that the first step to the introduction of mass terror was the “abolition of law” (219). The Sovnarkom’s Decree issued on December 5 (November 22, old style) of 1917 abolished nearly all existing general state institutions including courts, and destroyed the imperial legal system.

Particularly, the decree abolished okruzhniye sudi (analog of American district courts), sudebniye palati (courts of appeals for okruzhniye sudi), and “the senate with all its departments” (roughly equivalent to the Supreme Court of the United States). The decree also eliminated the institution of mirovikh sudei (analog of magistrates’ courts). All those institutions were replaced by Local Courts and Revolutionary Tribunals (“Decree of December 5, 1917”).

The Local Court consisted of three people, a judge and two members of the jury. They were to be selected by “direct democratic elections”. Former magistrates had a right to become Local Judges (“Decree of December 5, 1917”).

Local Courts exercised their jurisdiction over a majority of civil and all minor (the maximum punishment - up to two years’ imprisonment) criminal matters. More serious criminal and civil offenses were supposed to be dealt with by courts that did not exist at that time. Those courts were due to be created later, by a separate decree (“Decree of December 5, 1917”).

Imperial law officials were dismissed. The decree ordered Local Judges to investigate offenses that were under Local Courts jurisdiction. It was a temporary measure. New organization was supposed to be formed by a separate decree in the future (“Decree of December 5, 1917”).

A person could be arrested only if there was an agreement between all three members of the court. Any citizen who had “full citizen’s rights” could defend or accuse an offender during the trial (“Decree of December 5, 1917”).

A considerable part of the population, primarily former members of exploiting classes had limited citizens’ rights. However, “if a worker did not want to work...[he was] no longer a worker, but rather a hooligan, an enemy to the same degree as an exploiter” (Lenin qtd. inShubin 56). “Dictatorship is iron-clad power; it is bold and swift in a revolutionary way, and it is merciless in suppression of both exploiters and hooligans” (Lenin qtd. in Shubin 56).

Judges of Local Courts were instructed to make decisions and pass sentences “by the laws of the overthrown government only to the extent that they have not been annihilated by the Revolution and do not contradict the revolutionary conscience” (Pipes 219). The term revolutionary conscience could be understood very broadly. People who had the power to mete imprisonment were not required to have a formal education (Pipes 219).

All activities that were considered being harmful to the state were handled by Revolutionary Tribunals of Workers and Peasants. This category of crimes embraced a wide variety of activities including speculation and sabotage. The Revolutionary Tribunal consisted of seven people: a chairman and six members. Those people were elected by local Soviets of Peasants and Workers Deputies’ (“Decree of December 5, 1917”).

Pogroms also were under the jurisdiction of revolutionary tribunals (Decree on Revolutionary Tribunals, May 4, 1918). The term pogrom referred not only to Jewish pogroms, but to any violent mob attack. Kara-Murza mentions numerous “drunken pogroms”: a destruction and looting of liquor warehouses (39). Berman states that in decision-making, revolutionary tribunals were instructed to be guided “exclusively by the circumstances of the case and by revolutionary conscience” (31).

The “situation of lawlessness” was clearly present. “Nothing like this had ever existed”, Pipes states, “Soviet Russia was the first state in history to outlaw law” (219). I could hardly agree with Mr. Pipes' statement. In my opinion annihilation of laws of an overthrown government is a most common thing. It always happens after revolutions or civil wars. Could you, for instance, imaging a lawyer trying to protect private property of a slave owner using laws of the Confederation in 1866? The peculiarity of the Russian situation was that after the revolution, a nearly complete juridical vacuum occurred in the country.

Why did the Bolsheviks not start creating new law codes immediately?

Why a legal system was not created in 1918-1921?

As we can see, after the revolution, Soviet Russia had courts, but did not have any laws to guide them; people were tried by amateur judges for crimes that were not defined in any legal code. Why?

I see two reasons for it. First, the law reforms were consistent with the main Bolsheviks’ doctrine: Power to workers. This statement was based on the Karl Marx teaching. “The only solution to bourgeois injustice is to...smash its system of state and law altogether, and introduce a new social order based not on law but on administration”, Marx states (qtd. in Berman 23-24). Lenin develops this thought even further and writes, “Democracy...is transformed from a bourgeois democracy into a proletarian one, from the state (i.e., a special force for the suppression of a certain class) into something that is not the state proper. Such a democracy meant transfer of power directly to the organs of the workers’ and peasants’ self-government and liquidation of the bureaucratic superstructure... ”(qtd. in Shubin 45 - 46).

Lenin thought that Russia would be not a state of government officials, but rather a state of armed workers who would control the process of governing through the Soviets. “Lenin imagined control as something very simple” (Shubin 46).

Second, we should remember that the Soviet Russia did not exist in a vacuum, but was surrounded by foes. Most territory of the former Russian Empire was controlled by the Bolsheviks’ adversaries. The Germans occupied the Ukraine and Belorussia. In Finland “the Whites...defeated the Reds and took Helsinki” (Simmons 93). Romania occupied Bessarabia. In May 1918, Czechoslovak troops formed from former prisoners of war turned against the Bolsheviks, and “helped a Socialist Revolutionary Government, [Komuch], to set up on the Volga” (Simmons 93-94) . Soon, to make things even worse for the Soviets, the Komuch forces took the city of Kazan with “the entire gold reserve of the Russian Empire” (Brovkin 20). Ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk were occupied by the British and American troops. “By the autumn of 1918, the Soviet regime was surrounded by enemies on all sides” (Simmons 94).

Yet, another grave problem for the Soviet Russia was the famine. Citizens were dying of hunger:

With each passing day the food situation in the republic is getting worse. Less and less bread is delivered to consuming regions. The famine has already come; its horrifying breath is felt in towns, factory centers, and consuming provinces...There is some bread, but very little. Till a new harvest...an increase in the bread supply and a relief in the struggle with food disaster is not expected. (Address to the Citizens on a Struggle against Hunger, May 29, 1918)

Food shortages had started during the World War I, but after the revolution, “things were done much worse by the loss [to the Whites] of the main food-producing areas” (Madsley 71), namely the Ukraine, North Caucasus, Siberia, and Volga region.

The situation was worsened even further by the theft and looting. “Employees and non-employees pilfered grain from the station yards” (Argenbright 517). Mobs of local people “would swarm into the station yards, sometimes with the support of Red Army soldiers...Even famine-relief shipments could not be secured” (Argenbright 517). The American Relief Administration figured that “seventeen hundred carloads of grain were stolen...in just six months” (Argenbright 517). As a state investigator admitted referring to rail road workers, “They must steal, or drop dead from hunger” (Argenbright 517).

The situation was decisive; in my opinion, the Bolsheviks simply had no time to create an elaborate legal system in those days. There were more urgent matters to take care of. The Soviet Power was hanging by its fingertips.

The Bolsheviks’ Doctrine and a Value of a Human Life

Roots of the Red Terror can be found in the Bolsheviks' world view. V. Chernov compared a social model of the Bolshevism with “a colossal machine in which history conquers available people along with their weaknesses, habits, passions, and opinions as human raw material, subject to merciless processing” (qtd in Shubin 56).

According to the Bolshevik ideology, the violence was an organic continuation of the revolution. “Capitalism”, Lenin writes, “Cannot be defeated and eradicated without the ruthless suppression of the resistance of the exploiters...During every transition from capitalism to socialism, dictatorship is necessary” (Lenin).

The Lenin’s attitude towards human lives is illustrated in some of his writings. For example after a murder of Volodarsky, a commissar of propaganda, Lenin wrote to Zinoviev, “Comrade Zinoviev! Only today we...heard that in Peter[sburg] the workers wanted to respond to Volodarsky’s murder with mass terror, and you. . . . restrained them. I protest strongly. We have to encourage the energy and mass expressions of the terror against counterrevolutionaries (qtd. in Shubin 60).

Here is another Lenin telegram, “Conduct merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests, and the White Guards; lock the suspicious ones in a concentration camp outside the city” (qtd. in Shubin 60). On August 22, 1918, Lenin gave orders “to shoot the conspirators and the wavering ones, never asking for anyone’s permission and without bureaucratic delays (qtd in Shubin 60) “Thus, not only enemies but even wavering ones became subject to destruction” (Shubin 60). It seems that an era of the mass terror was inevitable.

The Beginning of the Terror.

Officially, a campaign of Red Terror was announced on September 5 of 1918. This policy was proclaimed by two documents: the order of Peoples’ Commissar of the Interior Petrovsky issued on September 4, and the decree of the Sovarkom of September 5.

The order of September 4 states, “All right SR known to the local Soviets must be immediately arrested. It is necessary to take from among the bourgeoisie and officers numerous hostages. In the event of the least attempts of resistance or the least stir in White Guard circles, resort must be had at once to mass executions…” (Pipes 223).

The document declares that the Red Terror was a response to “murders of Volodarsky, Uritsky, an attempted murder of the chairman of Soviet of Peoples’ Commissars' Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, mass executions of tens of thousands of our comrades in Finland, the Ukraine, and…in the Don region…” (Order of the Commissar of the Interior Petrovsky, 1918).

The Sovnarkom’s decree of September 5 ordered class enemies to be committed to concentration camps, and all people “linked to White Guard organization conspiracies, and seditious actions to be summarily executed” (Pipes 223).

On December 17, 1918, the chief of the All-Russian Cheka Dzerzhinsky gives an instruction to local Chekas on how to take hostages:

Make out a list of (a) the entire bourgeois population from which hostages can be taken, namely, former landowners, merchants, factory owners, industrialists, bankers, large real estate owners, officers of the old army, important officials of the tsarist and Kerensky regimes, and relatives of persons fighting against us; (b) important members of anti-Soviet parties who in case of our retreat are likely to remain on the other side of the front...Send in these lists to the All-Russian Cheka...Hostages may be taken only by permission of or order of the All-Russian Cheka...Technical experts may be placed under arrest only after their participation in White Guard organizations has been established beyond doubt”. (qtd. in Bunyan, 265-266).

In the very first month of the Red Terror, thousands people were executed; most of them were guilty only of belonging to “counterrevolutionary” classes and social movements (Shubin 61). In Krasniy Terror v Rossii: 1918 – 1923 (The Red Terror in Russia: 1918 – 1923) Melgunov recollects his experience in the Moscow' Butirskaya Prison where he was during the attempt on Lenin, “Automobiles came and took their victims away, and the prison did not sleep and trembled from any sound of an automobile horn” (40). Guards would enter a cell, and order somebody to go out: “with belongings into a shower-room”. This phrase meant an execution. (Melgunov, 40).

The earliest victims of the Red Terror's were 512 representatives of the old elite. Those people had been in prison since February of 1917, and could not have anything to do with the Lenin's murder attempt. By an order of a chairman of the Petrograd Soviet Zinoviev all of them were summarily executed (Mawdsley 82; Pipes 223 - 224).

Sergey Melgunov mentions in his book that a number of victims killed in Petrograd in those days was, probably, significantly higher:

As for Petrograd, there, using a rough estimation (begliy podschet), a number of executed reached 1, 300; the Bolsheviks admitted only 500, but they did not count hundreds of those officers, former servants, and private citizens who were shot in Kronstadt [a base of the Baltic fleet in a few miles from Petrograd], and in the Petropavlovskaya Fortress [was used as a prison] in Petrograd without a special order of the central authority, just by the will of a local soviet... (38)

M. Latsis, another Cheka leader, expresses his view of the red terror, “Do not search for evidence in each case - whether he has opposed the Soviet [regime] by arms or by words. First of all, you have to ask him to what class he belongs, what are his origins, education, and profession. Those are the questions that should decide the fate of the accused.” (qtd. in Shubin 61).

Lenin criticized Latsis for those words. But that “did not stop the bacchanalia of murders rolling throughout the territory under the Bolsheviks’ control” (Shubin 61).

It is now impossible to establish the scale of the terror. Pipes states that between 50,000 and 140,000 people were murdered (Pipes 227). “Materials collected by Melgunov, allow one to estimate the number of victims as involving at least hundreds of thousands” (Shubin 61).

All-Russian Extraordinary Commission

A main tool of the Bolsheviks’ policy of Red Terror was the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK, or Cheka). It was formed on December 7, of 1917. The organization combined the functions of judicial investigation and trial. “The Cheka arrested, and that same Cheka conducted investigations, trials, and executions. Arbitrariness was total; it was important not so much to find culprits as to instill fear in the entire nation. In fact, the red terror was not a class terror: its blows fell on all strata of the population” (Shubin 51).

The methods used by the Cheka could be understood from the words of Felix Dzerzhinsky, its first leader, “Don’t think I am in search of forms of revolutionary justice; we don’t need justice right now. . . . I suggest, I demand, the organization of revolutionary reprisal against the counterrevolutionaries” (qtd. in Shubin 51).

Official figure showed that 6, 300 people were executed by the Cheka in twenty Russian provinces [a territory under the Bolsheviks' control] in 1918, but Mawdsley believes that this number was an understatement (83).

The madness of killing swept over the country. Melgunov, who lived in Moscow then, states that “the death penalty...had become a most common phenomenon (bitovoye yavleniye) in Russia” (228). People could be shot for military officer's buttons found during the search (Melgunov 157). Peshekhonov recollects, “...One old man in our midst had been arrested because during a general search they found in his possession a photograph of a man in a court uniform...The photograph dated from the seventies [the 1870s] (qtd. in Bunyan 235). Some person was executed for “illegal obtaining of a son's corps” (Melgunov 157).. “Among those who got shot”, Melgunov continues, “We can find a butcher from Miussskaya Square, who dared publicly call monuments to Marx and Engels dummies (chuchela)...Kronstadt doctors got shot for “popularity among workers” (157).

Professor Melgunov gives many other examples. However, to a large extent, his writing is based on eyewitnesses' testimonies and newspapers' publications; for this reason, Melgunov warns the readers that some facts described in his book could be biased or exaggerated.

Thanks to the documents presented in the Bunyan's work we can see the results of “a day's work of the Cheka of the Western region” (246 - 250). During the session of September 17, 1918, among many other cases, the commission tried nineteen people in the relation to a General Dorman's plot. Thirteen of them, including former General Dorman, were shot. Six people were released.

Ekaterina Selenek and P. Mikhailov, for example, were freed on a ground that they were “not active participants in a plot”(248). Besides, the commission took into a consideration the fact that “during the tsarist regime Mikhailov, [a teacher], published a number of articles against reaction and anti-Semitism” (248). Schwartz N., a banker, was released “in the absence of proof that he participated in the plot” (248). This fact shows that not every bourgeois was automatically prosecuted. A Yatsevitch, arrested in a connection with the plot, was to be set free; the paper does not explain why. Stepan Beliy was freed because “he [was] a railway physician” (248). As we remember, “technical experts [could] be placed under arrest only after their participation in White Guard organizations has been established beyond doubt” (266). Finally, General Dorman's son Vladimir was released because of “being only fifteen years old” (246).

Chekas in provinces, particularly in the Ukraine, were “even more prone to resort to executions” (Brovkin 46) than in Moscow and Petrograd. Their violations were so serious that the All-Russian Cheka had to order local Chekas (presumably in the Ukraine) “to stop terror against a peaceful population” (Brovkin 46).

It seems to be obvious that the Extraordinary Commission was created as an instrument of terror. Here is an interesting fact, however. “On 10 December [of 1917], there was the first trial in the history of the new regime, a trial against Countess S. Panina, who hid Ministry of Education funds from the Bolshevik government. There were no repressions: all ended in a public reprimand” (Shubin 51). Perhaps, the Cheka became an “instrument of terror” later, in a response to certain circumstances of the civil war. As Latsis stated the Cheka was forced to adopt extraordinary measures “in order to save hundreds of thousands...comrades, from the hands of the White Guards” (qtd. In Bunyan 263). “As soon as the victory is ours...”, he added, “We will give up the right to shoot” (qtd. in Bunyan 263).

White Terror.

An honest study of the Red Terror is impossible without an examination of the White Terror. “The White cause”, as Shulgin mentioned, “Was initiated by the almost saintly, but...fell into the hands of almost bandits” (qtd. in Shubin 62). It seems to be true. Facts show that towards the end of the war, the discipline in both Kolchak and Denikin armies (two main forces of the White Guards) was deteriorating. Kolchak's people were involved in “systematic robbery” (Brovkin 198). According to an American cable to Washington “...the Kolchak units, freed from any restraints, [were] looting the districts through which they [were] retreating” (qtd. in Brovkin 199). The things in the Denikin's army were not better. During a raid in the Red Army's rear, for example, General Mamontov's cavalrymen seized “so many goods that their transport was sixty kilometers [37.5 miles] long” (Brovkin 219).

Most scholars believe that the White Terror, as a planned policy, did not exist. “Terror – a system, and not a violence by itself”, Melgunov states (27). No historian, however, denies numerous atrocities committed by the White troops.

The Whites took hostages, too. Here is a passage from an order of Artemyev, a general of the Kolchak's army, “Local inhabitants should be used for reconnaissance and liaison. Hostages should be held. If the information [about guerrillas]...should prove to be false...or if there is treachery, the hostages should be executed and the houses that belong to them should be burned” (qtd. in Brovkin, 200-201). In another order Artemyev states that “if the peasants rendered armed resistance to government troops, the entire village was to be burned, the entire male population shot, and all property confiscated” (qtd in Brovkin 201). Artemyev also reminds his officers that “all confiscated property should be officially registered” (qtd. In Brovkin, 201).

The law, adopted by the Denikin's Special Council (a civilian government subordinated to Denikin) in November 1919, shows what might happen to Russia if the Whites win. The law imposed the death penalty for “membership in the Bolshevik/Communist parties, Soviets of workers, soldiers and peasants deputies, or other similar organizations which participated in the grab for power by the Soviets, or persons who supported the policies of this power” (qtd. in Bortnevski 363). In other words not only prominent Bolsheviks, but all party members, several hundred thousand people, were to be executed. “According to the letter of this law”, Botnevski continues, “Members of the Socialist-Revolutionary, Menshevik, and the People Socialist parties were also subject to the death penalty since...these parties had collaborated in the grab for power during the February Revolution” (363).

“Before the advent of Hitler”, Kenez writes, “The greatest modern mass murder of Jews occurred in the Ukraine, in the course of the Civil War” (166). Here are several fragments from a report of a White Secret Service agent:

No administrative step would help; it is necessary to make harmless the microbe: the Jews...As long as the Jews will be allowed to do their harmful work, the front will always be in danger...The Jew is not satisfied with corrupting the soldier. Lately he pays even greater attention to officers. But he is most interested in youth. Clever [Jewish] agents ...mix with military youth and with the help of cards, women, and wine they attract the...youth into their nets”. (qtd in Kenez 172)

Kenez writes that numerous evidences made it clear that “anti-Semitism was neither a peripheral nor accidental aspect of White ideology; it was a focal point of their world view” (Kenez 176). Brovkin states that “120, 000 deaths were recorded as a result of pogroms perpetrated by Denikin's Volunteer Army” (228). To this number tens of thousands killed by Cossacks and independent bands must be added (Brovkin 228).

Many scholars believe that the White movement was rapidly becoming a prototype of a Fascist regime. Shulgin states, “The other movement, the white one,..had been...infected with racism…The authoritarianism of the white movement gravitated toward forms of early fascism” (qtd in Shubin 62). Former White General Sakharov wrote, “The White movement was in essence the first manifestation of fascism” (qtd. in Mawdsley 280).

Both sides, the Whites and the Reds, used mass terror during the civil war. The White Terror, however, had not become an official policy, and was not centralized. Probably, it was one of the reasons why White Guards lost. If they had taken families of Makhno's partisans as hostages, the outcome of the war would have been different. Unfortunately, mass terror is, probably, the only way to defeat guerillas. The Reds successfully used this tactic to suppress peasants' uprising in Tambov region. I believe that the Whites simply did not have enough resources to organize terror on a wide scale.

Alternatives?

Could the Bolsheviks’ regime survive in the Civil War without its policy of mass terror and one party dictatorship? This question likely has no definite answer, but I believe – no.

In his work, Mawdsley cites Russian historian Roy Medvedev. Medvedev suggested that the New Economic Policy (NEP) of 1921 could have been introduced shortly after the revolution: “nationalization would have been limited, war industry effectively demobilized; the state grain monopoly replaced by free trade and small tax” (qtd. In Mawdsley 74). Could it have happened? Most certainly, yes. But in this case the Bolshevik government would cease to be Bolshevik. It is naïve to expect revolutionaries to “think purely in terms of economic rationality” and not to try to actualize their political believes (Mawdsley 74). Only in 1921, when Lenin, probably, understood that some of his expectations, the world revolution in particular, were not to happen in the nearest future, he decided to introduce the NEP.

There was another interesting precedent in the Russian history explicitly described by Shubin: Maknovian territory. It was a sociopolitical formation in the South-Eastern Ukraine controlled by peasant-rebels. “ Their self-governing bodies...were developed ...in the form of soviets...The Cheka was not admitted in the region; there was no food dictatorship, and no monopoly on power was held by any one party...The existence of the Makhnovian region allows one to speak of the existence of a...democratic alternative to the Bolsheviks’ totalitarianism ” (Shubin 63).

But the Maknovian regime was an Utopia. It would be able to resist neither the Whites nor the Reds for a long time.

Conclusion

Pipes and some other historians believe that terror was a vital part of a communist regime; without this policy, a government simply would not be able to rule. They argue that Leninsm and Stalinism are the same thing. Stalin just continued the Lenin’s deed, and Lenin’s Red Terror of the Civil War was a preparation for a much bigger Stalin’s terror. I do not think so.

In point of fact, we know that the early Soviet state incarcerated very few workers and a relatively a small number of its citizens. Recently published GPU summaries, from 1922 to 1928, report over 3,000 strikes but mention only six incidents in which authorities arrested striking workers. The entire Soviet prison population only exceeded 100,000 in 1925, with a tiny minority imprisoned for political offenses. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the Gulags, Anne Applebaum reluctantly acknowledges that, by the end of 1927, only 300,000 Soviet citizens were incarcerated and political prisoners received special privileged status until 1925. (Murphy 15).

Even Richard Pipes, who hardly can be called a Bolsheviks' sympathizer, gives the following numbers, “At the end of 1920, Soviet Russia had eighty four concentration camps that held approximately 50, 000 prisoners; three years later, that umber had increased to 315 camps with 70, 000 prisoners” (Pipes 227). To compare, in 2007, a prison population of the democratic USA without those on probation and parole was about 2.3 million people (New York Times).

I think that Lenin used Red Terror to win the Civil War. When the war was over, Lenin did not need Red Terror to govern the country. The policy of terror was not as essential as Mr. Pipes believes. Perhaps, Lenin recognized a weakness of his political theory. In 1921, he introduced the New Economic Policy trying to combine elements of capitalism and socialism; a model that can be observed in a modern China today.

Works Cited

“Address to the Citizens on a Struggle against Hunger.” May 29, 1918. Web. 25 Dec. 2010. . In Russian

Argenbright, Robert. "Bolsheviks, baggers and railroaders: Political power and social space, 1917-1921."Russian Review 52.4 (1993): 506. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 25 Nov. 2010.

Berman, Harold J. Justice in the USSR: an interpretation of Soviet Law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963. Print.

Bortnevski, Viktor G. "White administration and White terror (The Denikin period)." Russian Review 52.3 (1993): 354. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 27 Dec. 2010.

Brovkin, Vladimir N. Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918 – 1922. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Print.

Bunyan, James. Intervention, Civil War, and Communism in Russia, April – December 1918: Documents and Materials. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936. Print.

“Decree of December 5, 1917.” Web. 25. Oct. 2010. . In Russian.

“Decree of September 5, 1918.” < http://hronos.km.ru/dokum/terror1918.html>. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. In Russian

“Decree on Revolutionary Tribunals of May 4, 1918.” Web. 25 Oct. 2010. . In Russian.

Kara-Murza, Sergey. Istoriya Gosudarstva I Prava Rossii. Moscow.: Bylina, 1998. Print. In Russian

Kenez, Peter. Civil War in South Russia, 1919 – 1920: The Defeat of the Whites. Berkeley: University of California Press, Ltd. 1977. Print.

Lenin, Vladimir. “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government”. Mar.- Apr. 1918. Web. 12 Nov. 2010.

Liptak, Adam. "US Prison Population Dwarfs that of Other Nations." New York Times 

23 Apr. 2008. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. .

Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987. Print.

Melgunov, Sergey. Krasniy Terror v Rossii, 1918 – 1923. 2^nd ed. Berlin: Vataga, 1924. Print. In Russian

Murphy, Kevin J. "Can We Write the History of the Russian Revolution? A Belated Response to Eric Hobsbawm." Historical Materialism 15.2 (2007): 3-19. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 25 Now. 2010.

“Order of September 4, 1918 on Hostages signed by People's Commissar of the Interior Petrovskiy.” Web. 25 Oct. 2010. < http://www.hrono.info/dokum/zalozh1918.html>. In Russian.

Pipes, Richard. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Print.

Simons, Ernest J., ed. USSR: A Concise Handbook. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1947. Print.

Shubin, A. V. “Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik Dictatorship.” Journal of Russian & East European Psychology 39.6 (2001): 41. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

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.

 

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