"All power to the soviets and not to parties."
In 1921, the Civil War was just about over, but conditions in
Petrograd were steadily worsening. Workers' strikes in February were met with
martial law and
mass arrests. In spite of this, workers continued to demand new elections to the
soviets; once the foundation for
socialist democracy, they had degenerated to little more than instruments of
Bolshevik rule.
Situtated in the
Gulf of Finland was Kronstadt, a naval fortress dating back to the days of the
Czar. The sailors of Kronstadt had been the
shock troops of the Revolution, and the island had been
Trotsky's favorite stomping ground. In March, the crew of the
battleships
Petropavlovsk and
Sevastapol sent "fact-finding delegations" to the mainland, which reported on the situation. In response, the "Petropavlovsk Resolution" was drafted, calling for
freedom of speech,
freedom of press, free
trade union activity, abolition of Bolshevik government departments, release of
political prisoners, and the right of peasants to control the land they worked. In essence, the original aims of the
Russian Revolution to which the Bolsheviks claimed to adhere. The Resolution was adopted unanimously by 16,000.
The Bolshevik government feared that this revolt would spread to other parts of
Russia, and physically sealed off Kronstadt (it was accessible by land during the
winter.)
FUD was spread; in the official
propaganda, the Kronstadt sailors were labelled counter-revolutionary White peasants led by a
Czarist. The government feared that, come
Spring, more vessels would move into the Gulf of Finland in support, and so acted quickly.
Trotsky organized the attack. Mainland coastal fortresses began a ten-day bombardment, and on the night of March 7th, several thousand
Red Army troops were ordered to attack from the north and south in a blinding
snowstorm.
Machine guns were placed in the rear so that they would not turn back. The attack failed. On March 12th, another attack was attempted, and the rebels used
artillery to break up the ice and thus impede travel.
On March 16th, ~50,000 Bolshevik troops attacked from three directions, crossing ice that had already begun to thaw. Nevertheless, the attack was successful, and Kronstadt was under government control by March 17th. Thousands of captured sailors were sent to the first camps of the
Gulag. Kronstadt marked the last major revolt against Bolshevik tyranny.