The Russian Revolution : The Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921

Extraits de l'exposé

[...] Sometimes, the most loyal soldiers were behind the unruly troops and shot dead those who hesitated. By 16 March, the order was taking, whatever it cost, the control of the Kronstadt fortress, Lenin: time has come to put an end to opposition?. About 45,000 loyal troops, including thousands more kursanti (fanatically officer cadets from Red Army military academies) and several hundred civilian Communist volunteers had been assembled on the mainland to the north, south and east of Kronstadt. That night, Tukhachevsky ordered a mass attack from all three directions. [...]

[...] In the October Revolution the role of the fortress of Kronstadt was already very important; a great mutiny of soldiers and sailors promoted the end of the provisional government. This revolution was a kind of coup d'état made by the Bolsheviks, and also in many aspects a popular movement. But after, Russia was ruled by an authoritarian party, and the revolution lost its popular and sovietic facets. The Bolsheviks started to ruled alone, and the other revolutionary politic factions as the Anarchists, the Social-Revolutionary, the Liberals were treated as counter-revolutionaries or petit-bourgeois by the new centralised power. [...]

[...] It was too late, the new power's control was yet established. There was also a big problem for the insurgents, in March the Gulf of Finland is blocked by the winter ice. Even though, the ships of the Baltic Fleet were powerful and numerous (two battleships, three heavy cruisers, and 15 gunboats were in port that winter), none of them could go out the Kronstadt's ports. Without the ice, the rebels could easily control the main forts of the Gulf and even the city of Petrograd to spread the influence of the revolt. [...]

[...] The sailors fought like wild beasts. I cannot understand where they found the might for such rage. Each house where they were located had to be taken by storm." Exhausted by 8 days of fighting the Kronstadters decide to leave the place. Eight thousands of them managed to take refuge in Finland, but they will be shot or interned after their return. From the night of the 17th, ironically the 18th was the 50th anniversary of the Paris Commune, the government troops controlled Kronstadt again. [...]

[...] The insurgents, until the defeat, were waiting for this new social revolution, they believed that their movement could be the catalyst of this revolution. But, because of the short life and the isolation of the insurrection, the masses had not follow them. Anyway, the Bolshevik control of more or less the whole country banned almost all the possibilities of rebellion. Moreover, the news about the uprising were totally ruled by the Bolsheviks, and the propaganda against these ?counter-revolutionaries? was very efficient. [...]