Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks

Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks were a series of rebellion

Rebellion

Rebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...

s and uprisings against the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

s led or supported by left wing groups including Socialist Revolutionaries

Socialist-Revolutionary Party

thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...

, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and anarchists. Some were in support of the White Movement

White movement

The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

while some tried to be an independent force. The uprisings started in 1918 and continued through the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

and after until 1922. In response the Bolsheviks increasingly abandoned attempts to get these groups to join the government and suppressed them with force.

Background

Previously, the dominating parts of the Menshevik

Menshevik

The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...

s and of the Socialist Revolutionary Party had supported the continuation of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

by the Provisional Government after the February Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks called the war an interimperialist war and called for the revolutionary defeat of their own imperialist government. Within the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionists, there did exist factions that also opposed the war and the government, but much of their leadership was involved in both. In the July Days

July Days

The July Days refers to events in 1917 that took place in Petrograd, Russia, between 3 July and 7 July , when soldiers and industrial workers engaged in spontaneous demonstrations against the Russian Provisional Government...

of 1917, the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties supported suppression of the Bolsheviks.

The Bolshevik Party came to power in the October Revolution

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

of November 1917 through simultaneous election in the most prominent soviets and an organized uprising supported by military mutiny. Several of the main reasons for which much of the population supported the Bolsheviks were to end the war and have a social revolution, exemplified by the slogan "Peace, Land, Bread".

SR split

The Bolsheviks invited left SRs and Martov's Menshevik Internationalists to join the government. The Mensheviks and Right SRs walked out. The majority of SRs split to form the Left SRs ( p111) and joined the Bolshevik coalition government, supporting the Bolsheviks immediate enactment of the Socialist Revolutionary Party's land redistribution program. The Left SRs were given four Commissar positions and held high posts within the Cheka

Cheka

Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...

. The Left SRs still diverged with the Bolsheviks on the issue of the war.

First party ban

The only party banned at first was the pogrom

Pogrom

A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...

ist Union of the Russian People

Union of the Russian People

The Union of Russian People — a loyalist right-wing nationalist party, the most important among Black-Hundredist monarchist and antisemitic political organizations in the Russian Empire of 1905–1917....

, generally known as "The Black Hundreds".

SR and Menshevik support to Kaledin

The imperial Russian general Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin

Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin

Alexei Maximovich Kaledin was a Russian Full General of Cavalry who led the Don Cossack White movement in the opening stages of the Russian Civil War.-Biography:...

immediately started a rebellion of the Don Cossacks

Don Cossacks

Don Cossacks were Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don.- Etymology and origins :The Don Cossack Host was a frontier military organization from the end of the 16th until the early 20th century....

. This was the beginning of the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

and White Movement. Fourteen of the biggest imperialist countries sent troops to help the Whites. The Civil War led to the deaths of nearly ten million people, and the Bolsheviks were willing to use whatever means necessary to win as fast as possible, including the use of state terrorism

State terrorism

State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...

(see Red Terror

Red Terror

The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...

). They viewed rebellions started during the civil war as helping the Whites, both because they would fight against the Bolsheviks at the same time the Whites were, and because most forces trying to be independent of the Whites failed to do so and led to the Whites taking over their areas.

Kaledin was supported by the Kadets, SRs, and some Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks banned the Kadets as enemies of the people, calling to arrest "the political leaders of the counterrevolutionary civil war". The Bolsheviks were still trying to negotiate with SRs and Mensheviks at this point and they were not banned.

Anarchist divisions

Anarchists, like the Socialist Revolutionaries, were divided. Some supported the Bolsheviks, holding minor positions in the government, some were neutral, and some actively resisted. Anarchists that supported the Soviet government were referred to as "Soviet anarchists", by anti-Bolshevik anarchists, and were lauded by Lenin in August 1919 as "the most dedicated supporters of Soviet power".

Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions

The Constituent Assembly had been a demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage, but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-soviet Right SRs took the majority of the seats but this reflected the opposite of reality: the majority of SRs and the people were pro-soviet. Lenin's Theses on the Constituent Assembly argued in Pravda

Pravda

Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....

that because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine, and with the Kadet-Kaledin uprising formal democracy was impossible. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means".

On December 30, 1917, the SR Avxentiev and some followers were arrested for organizing a conspiracy. This was the first time Bolsheviks used this kind of repression against a socialist party. Isvestiya said the arrest was not related to his membership in the Constituent Assembly.

On January 4, 1918, the VTsIK made a resolution saying the slogan "all power to the constituent assembly" was counterrevolutionary and equivalent to "down with the soviets".

The Constituent Assembly met on January 18, 1918. The Right SR Chernov was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR Maria Spiridonova

Maria Spiridonova

Maria Alexandrovna Spiridonova was a figure in Russian revolutionary circles at the beginning of the 20th century.- Biography :She joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party during her training to become a nurse....

. The majority refused to accept sovereignty of the Soviet government, and in response the Bolsheviks and Left SRs walked out. It was dispersed by an armed guard, sailor Zheleznyakov. A simultaneous demonstration in favor of the Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterward as people in general supported the Bolsheviks.

The first large CHEKA

Cheka

repression with some killings began against the libertarian socialists of Petrograd in mid-April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the police. (P.Avrich. G Maximoff)

Constituent Assembly uprising

The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground agency organizing democratic resistance to the Bolshevik dictatorship, composed of the Popular Socialists, Right Socialist Revolutionaries, and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on civil liberties, patriotism, and state-consciousness with the goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yolk.

On May 7, 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries

Socialist-Revolutionary Party

thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...

commenced in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly

Russian Constituent Assembly

The All Russian Constituent Assembly was a constitutional body convened in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. It is generally reckoned as the first democratically elected legislative body of any kind in Russian history. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m...

. While preparations were under way, the Czechoslovak Legions

Czechoslovak Legions

The Czechoslovak Legions were volunteer armed forces composed predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting together with the Entente powers during World War I...

overthrew Bolshevik rule in Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, Urals and the Volga region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On June 8, 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) in Samara

Samara, Russia

Samara , is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers. Samara is the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Population: . The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast...

and declared it the new supreme authority in the country. The Social Revolutionary-Menshevik Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia

Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia

The Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia , was an ephemeral government for Siberia created by the White movement.After the Bolsheviks' seizure of power in Petrograd, All-Siberian Extraordinary Congress of Delegates from Public Organizations, was convened in Tomsk on December 7, 1917...

came to power on June 29, 1918, after the uprising in Vladivostok

Vladivostok

The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...

Left SRs disagreements

The Left SRs were dismayed that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year,...

gave up large amounts of territory. With the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the Bolsheviks on March 3, 1918, the Socialist Revolutionary leadership "increasingly viewed" the Bolshevik government as a German proxy. They left the government in protest in March 1918.

Mensheviks and SRs excluded from soviets

At the 5th All-Russia Congress of Soviets of July 4, 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries

Left Socialist-Revolutionaries

In 1917, Russia the Socialist-Revolutionary Party split between those who supported the Provisional Government, established after the February Revolution, and those who supported the Bolsheviks who favoured a communist insurrection....

had 352 delegates compared to 745 Bolsheviks out of 1132 total. The Left SRs raised disagreements on the suppression of rival parties, the death penalty, and mainly, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks excluded the Right SRs and Mensheviks from the government on 14 June for associating with counterrevolutionaries and seeking to "organize armed attacks against the workers and peasants", while the Left SRs advocated forming a government of all socialist parties. The Left SRs agreed with extrajudicial execution of political opponents to stop the counterrevolution, but opposed having the government legally pronouncing death sentences, an unusual position that is best understood within the context of the group's terrorist past. The Left SRs strongly opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and opposed Trotsky's insistence that no one try to attack German troops in the Ukraine.

Left SR Uprising

Defeated at the Congress, the Left S.R.s pursued their aim of sabotaging the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and dragging Soviet Russia

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

back into war with Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

by using their positions within the Cheka

Cheka

to assassinate the German Ambassador

Ambassador

An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

in Moscow

Moscow

, Count

Count

A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

Wilhelm von Mirbach

Wilhelm Mirbach

Wilhelm Graf von Mirbach-Harff was a German diplomat.- Biography :Mirbach was born in Bad Ischl in Upper Austria. He participated in the Russian-German negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from December 1917 to March 1918...

, on July 6, 1918. The Leadership of the Left SRs incorrectly believed this assassination would lead to a widespread popular uprising in support of their aims. They claimed to be leading an uprising against the peace with Germany and not necessarily against the Bolsheviks and soviet power.

The main rebel force was a detachment

Detachment (military)

A detachment is a military unit. It can either be detached from a larger unit for a specific function or be a permanent unit smaller than a battalion. The term is often used to refer to a unit that is assigned to a different base from the parent unit...

commanded by Dmitry Ivanovich Popov

Dmitry Ivanovich Popov

Dmitry Ivanovich Popov was a Left SR and anarchist revolutionary of Russia, the leader of the Left SR uprising.Later he was a member of the staff of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine commanded by Batko Makhno....

, a Left S.R. and member of the Cheka. About 1,800 revolutionaries took part in the insurrection, bomb

Bomb

A bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...

arding the Kremlin

Kremlin

A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...

with artillery

Artillery

Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

and seizing the telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

exchange and telegraph

Telegraphy

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages via some form of signalling technology. Telegraphy requires messages to be converted to a code which is known to both sender and receiver...

office. During the two days that they remained in control there, they sent out several manifesto

Manifesto

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...

s, bulletins and telegrams in the name of the Left S.R. Central Committee declaring that the Left S.R.s had taken over power

Power (sociology)

Power is a measurement of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to...

and that their action had been welcomed by the whole people

Nation

A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...

. The Fifth Congress of Soviets instructed the government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

to suppress the insurrection at once, and the group of Left S.R.s at the Congress was arrest

Arrest

An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

ed.

Left S.R.s and anarchists also started insurrections in Petrograd, Vologda

Vologda

Vologda is a city and the administrative, cultural, and scientific center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the Vologda River. The city is a major transport knot of the Northwest of Russia. Vologda is among the Russian cities possessing an especially valuable historical heritage...

, Arzamas

Arzamas

Arzamas is a city in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, located on the Tyosha River , east of Moscow. Population: -History:Arzamas was founded in 1578 by Ivan the Terrible in the lands populated at the time by the Mordvin people...

, Murom

Murom

Murom is a historic city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls along the left bank of Oka River. Population: -History:In the 9th century CE, the city marked the easternmost settlement of the Eastern Slavs in the land of the Finno-Ugric people called Muromians. The Russian Primary Chronicle...

, Yaroslavl

Yaroslavl

Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...

, Velikiy Ustyug, Rybinsk

Rybinsk

Rybinsk is the second largest city of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, which lies at the confluence of the Volga and Sheksna Rivers. Population: It is served by Rybinsk Staroselye airport.-Early history:...

and other cities

City

A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

. A telegram from the Left S. R. Central Committee stating that the Left S.R.s had seized power in Moscow, was sent to M. A. Muravyov, a Left S.R. and Commander

Commander

Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...

of the Eastern Front (World War I)

Eastern Front (World War I)

The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theatres strongly influenced each other...

. On the pretext of attacking the Germans, he seized Simbirsk (later Ulyanovsk) and marched his forces on Moscow in support of the revolutionaries.

The SR terrorist Boris Savinkov

Boris Savinkov

Boris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary terrorist...

claimed to have been financed by France to organize these uprisings, though he did not claim responsibility for the assassination of Mirbach.

The result of the Left SR Uprising was the suppression of the Left SRs, the last major independent party other than the Bolsheviks, leaving the Bolsheviks as the only party in government.

Subsequent uprisings included the Tambov Rebellion

Tambov Rebellion

The Tambov Rebellion which occurred between 1920 and 1921 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik regime during the Russian Civil War. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part of the Voronezh Oblast, less than...

, Workers' Opposition

Workers' Opposition

The Workers' Opposition was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia.-Membership:...

and the Kronstadt rebellion

Kronstadt rebellion

The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...

Aims and slogans

Socialist Revolutionaries tended to claim to be fighting to restore the February Revolution. Some anarchists used the slogan "Third Revolution". The slogan was later used during the Kronstadt rebellion also.

Repression

Lenin sent the telegrams to "to introduce mass terror" in Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...

in response to the civilian uprising there, and "crush" peasants in Penza

Penza

-Honors:A minor planet, 3189 Penza, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978, is named after the city.-Notable residents:...

who protested to requisition of their grain by military detachments.( August 9, and August 10, 1918)

The Black Book of Communism

The Black Book of Communism

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is a book authored by several European academics and edited by Stéphane Courtois, which describes a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and...

: ""It is quite clear that preparations are being made for a White Guard uprising in Nizhni Novgorod," wrote Lenin in a telegram on 9 August 1918 to the president of the Executive Committee of the Nizhni Novgorod soviet, in response to a report about peasant protests against requisitioning. "Your first response must be to establish a dictatorial troika (i.e., you, Markin, and one other person) and introduce mass terror, shooting or deporting the hundreds of prostitutes who are causing all the soldiers to drink, all the ex-officers, etc. There is not a moment to lose; you must act resolutely, with massive reprisals. Immediate execution for anyone caught in possession of a firearm. Massive deportations of Mensheviks and other suspect elements." The next day Lenin sent a similar telegram to the Central Executive Committee of the Penza soviet:

Assassination attempts

In the morning of August 30, 1918, a Social Revolutionary Leonid Kannegisser

Leonid Kannegisser

Leonid Akimovic Kannegisser was a Russian military cadet known for killing Moisei Uritsky, chief of Cheka in Petrograd, on August 17, 1918.- Biography :Kannegisser was born in March 1896 in Mikhailov, Russian Empire, in a...

, who was Boris Savinkov

Boris Savinkov

Boris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary terrorist...

’s comrade, killed the chief of the Cheka

Cheka

in Petrograd, Moisei Uritsky

Moisei Uritsky

Moisei Solomonovich Uritsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia.He was born in the city of Cherkasy, Kiev Governorate, to a Jewish family. His father, a merchant, died when Moisei was little and his mother raised her son by herself.Moisei studied law at the University of Kiev...

, in his office.

On August 30, 1918 Lenin survived an attempted assassination by Fanny Kaplan

Fanny Kaplan

Fanny Yefimovna Kaplan , also known as Fanya Kaplan and as Dora Kaplan), was a Russian political revolutionary and an attempted assassin of Vladimir Lenin.-Biography:...

leaving a bullet in his neck. This contributed to the strokes that prevented him from removing Stalin.

On September 5, 1918 the Cheka gave responsibility for targeting opposing parties on the left such as the Social Revolutionaries and other anti-Bolshevik groups, chiefly the anarchists

Anarchism in Russia

Russian anarchism is anarchism in Russia or among Russians. The three categories of Russian anarchism were anarchist communism, anarcho-syndicalism and anarchist individualism...

, by the policy of Red Terror

Red Terror

Reinstatement of Mensheviks

In November 1918, the Sixth All-Russian Congress of Soviets met. They approved an amnesty, ordering release of those detained by the Cheka who had no definite charges within two weeks of arrest, and of hostages except those needed to guarantee hostages held by their enemies. They also held out an olive branch

Olive branch

The olive branch in Western culture, derived from the customs of Ancient Greece, symbolizes peace or victory and was worn by brides.-Ancient Greece and Rome:...

to the other socialist parties. The Menshevik conference in October 1918 had declared military support to the Soviet Government but still opposed the Cheka and terror. On November 30 the VTsIK annulled the exclusion of the Mensheviks except those who were still allied with enemies.

Constituent Assembly and White Armies

The All-Russian Constituent Assembly Committee had the support of the Czechoslovak Legions

Czechoslovak Legions

The Czechoslovak Legions were volunteer armed forces composed predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting together with the Entente powers during World War I...

and was able to spread its authority over much of the Volga-Kama

Kama River

Kama is a major river in Russia, the longest left tributary of the Volga and the largest one in discharge; in fact, it is larger than the Volga before junction....

region. However, most of the Siberia and Urals regions were controlled by a patchwork of ethnic, Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

, military and liberal-rightist local governments, which constantly clashed with the Committee. The Committee functioned until September 1918, eventually growing to about 90 Constituent Assembly members, when The State Conference representing all the anti-Bolshevik local governments from the Volga to the Pacific Ocean formed the coalition of Provisional All-Russian Government

Provisional All-Russian Government

The Provisional All-Russian Government or PA-RG was a short-lived government centred in Omsk during the Russian Civil War.It was principally formed from the Komuch, mainly Socialist-Revolutionary Party and Constitutional Democratic Party members based in Samara, and the Provisional Siberian...

(aka the Ufa Directory) with the ultimate goal of re-convening the Constituent Assembly once the circumstances permitted:

2. In its activities the government will be unswervingly guided by the indisputable supreme rights of the Constituent Assembly. It will tirelessly ensure that the actions of all organs subordinate to the Provisional Government do not in any way tend to infringe the rights of the Constituent Assembly or hinder its resumption of work.

3. It will present an account of its activities to the Constituent Assembly as soon as the Constituent Assembly declares that it has resumed operation. It will subordinate itself unconditionally to the Constituent Assembly, as the only supreme authority in the country.

The All-Russian Constituent Assembly Committee continued functioning as "Congress of Members of the Constituent Assembly" but had no real power, although the Directory pledged to support it:

All possible assistance to the Congress of Members of the Constituent Assembly, operating as a legal state organ, in its independent work of ensuring the relocation of members of the Constituent Assembly, hastening and preparing the resumption of activity by the Constituent Assembly in its present composition

Initially, the agreement had the support of the Socialist Revolutionary Central Committee which delegated two of its right-wing members, Avksentiev and Zenzinov, to the five member Ufa Directory. However, when Victor Chernov arrived in Samara on September 19, 1918, he was able to persuade the Central Committee to withdraw support from the Directory because he viewed it as too conservative and the SR presence there as insufficient. This put the Directory in a political vacuum and two months later, in November 1918, The Social Revolutionary-Menshevik Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia

Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia

was overthrown in the military coup d'etat

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

. Kolchak had returned to Omsk on November 16 from an inspection tour. He was approached and refused to take power. On November 18, 1918, Ufa Directory was overthrown by rightwing officers who made Alexander Kolchak the new Supreme Ruler (Verkhovnyi Pravitel), and he promoted himself to Admiral

Admiral

Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...

. The Socialist-Revolutionary

Socialist-Revolutionary Party

thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...

(SR) Directory leader and members were arrested on November 18 by a troop of Cossack

Cossack

s under ataman

Ataman

Ataman was a commander title of the Ukrainian People's Army, Cossack, and haidamak leaders, who were in essence the Cossacks...

I. N. Krasilnikov. The remaining cabinet members met and voted for Kolchak to become the head of government with dictatorial powers. The arrested SR politicians were expelled from Siberia and ended up in Europe. After the fall of the Ufa Directory, Chernov formulated what he called the "third path" against both the Bolsheviks and the liberal-rightist White Movement

White movement

, but the SRs' attempts to assert themselves as an independent force were unsuccessful and the party, always fractious, began to disintegrate. On the Right, Avksentiev and Vladimir Zenzinov

Vladimir Zenzinov

Vladimir Mikhailovich Zenzinov was a member of Russia's Socialist-Revolutionary Party, a participant of the First , Second , and Third Russian Revolutions, and an author of a number of books.-Biography:...

went abroad with Kolchak's permission. On the Left, some SRs became reconciled with the Bolsheviks. The SR leaders in Russia denounced Kolchak and called for him to be killed. Victor Chernov tried to stage an uprising against Kolchak. Their activities resulted in the Omsk

Omsk

-History:The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes...

Uprising on December 22, 1918, which was put down by Cossacks, who summarily executed almost 500 revolutionaries.

Reinstatement of SRs

In January 1919 the SR Central Committee decided that the Bolsheviks were the lesser of two evils and gave up armed struggle against them. The SRs opened negotiations with the Bolsheviks and in February 1919 the SR People's Army joined with the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

. The VTsIK resolved on February 25, 1919 to reinstate the SRs except those who continued to directly or indirectly support counterrevolution.

Further repression

In Astrakhan

Astrakhan

Astrakhan is a major city in southern European Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on the left bank of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of below the sea level. Population:...

, the strikers and Red Army soldiers who joined them were loaded onto barges and then thrown by the hundreds into the Volga with stones around their necks. Between 2,000 and 4,000 were shot or drowned from March 12 to 14, 1919. In addition, the repression also claimed the lives of some 600 to 1,000 bourgeoisie

Bourgeoisie

In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...

. Recently published archival documents indicate this was the largest massacre of workers by the Bolsheviks before the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion

Kronstadt rebellion

The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...

.

On March 16, 1919, Cheka stormed the Putilov factory

Kirov Plant

The Kirov Plant Kirov Factory or Leningrad Kirov Plant is a major Russian machine-building plant in St. Petersburg, Russia....

. More than 900 workers who went to a strike were arrested. More than 200 of them were executed without trial during next few days. Numerous strikes took place in the spring of 1919 in cities of Tula

Tula, Russia

Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...

, Orel

Oryol

Oryol or Orel is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow...

, Tver

Tver

Tver is a city and the administrative center of Tver Oblast, Russia. Population: 403,726 ; 408,903 ;...

, Ivanovo

Ivanovo

Ivanovo is a city and the administrative center of Ivanovo Oblast, Russia. Population: Ivanovo has traditionally been called the textile capital of Russia. Since most textile workers are women, it has also been known as the "City of Brides"...

, and Astrakhan

Astrakhan

. The starving workers sought to obtain food rations matching those of Red Army soldiers. They also demanded the elimination of privileges for Communists, freedom of press, and free elections. All strikes were mercilessly suppressed by Cheka using arrests and executions.

SR splits again

The Bolsheviks let the SR Central Committee re-establish itself in Moscow and start publishing a party newspaper in March 1919. After the Bolsheviks 8th Party Conference the SRs split this time into three factions; one pro-Bolshevik, one pro-White, and one led by Chernov which again tried to establish a "third force". In response SR Central Committee members were arrested. From this point on the frequent arrests by the Cheka of opposition leaders for engaging in conspiracies led to difficulties in these formally legal parties operations, and most of their rank and file left them for the Bolsheviks. Chernov went undercover and eventually was forced to flee Russia.

Repression

A typical report from a Cheka department stated: "Yaroslavl

Yaroslavl

Province, 23 June 1919. The uprising of deserters in the Petropavlovskaya volost has been put down. The families of the deserters have been taken as hostages. When we started to shoot one person from each family, the Greens began to come out of the woods and surrender. Thirty-four deserters were shot as an example".

Anarchist attacks

The first large CHEKA action against alleged anarchists where people were killed was in mid April 1918 in Petrograd. Then at the end of April and beginning of May coordinated CHEKIST attacks against alleged anarchists were launched in both Petrograd and Moscow. ( P. Avrich. G. Maximoff. ) These violent attacks without warning from the Bolsheviks forced anarchists underground and prompted measured retaliation by them in self defense. Anarchists in Rostov

Rostov

Rostov is a town in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, one of the oldest in the country and a tourist center of the Golden Ring. It is located on the shores of Lake Nero, northeast of Moscow. Population:...

, Ekaterinoslav and Briansk broke into prisons to liberate the prisoners and issued fiery proclamations calling on the people to revolt against the Bolshevik regime. The Anarchist Battle Detachments attacked the Whites

White movement

, Reds and Germans alike. Many peasants joined the revolt, attacking their enemies with pitchforks and sickles. Meanwhile in Moscow, the Underground Anarchists were formed by Kazimir Kovalevich and Piotr Sobolev to be the shock troops of their revolution, infiltrating Bolshevik ranks and striking when least expected. On 25 September 1919, the Underground Anarchists struck the Bolsheviks with "their heaviest blow against the 'oppressors'". The headquarters of the Moscow Committee of the Communist Party was blown up, killing 12 and injuring 55 Party members, including Nikolai Bukharin

Nikolai Bukharin

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...

and Emilian Iaroslavskii. Spurred on by their apparent success, the Underground Anarchists proclaimed a new "era of dynamite" that would finally wipe away capitalism and the State. The Bolsheviks responded by initiating a new wave of mass repression in which Kovalevich and Sobolev were the first to be shot. The remaining Underground Anarchists blew themselves up in their last battle with the Cheka

Cheka

, taking much of their safe house with them.

Further repression

However, strikes continued. On January 1920, Lenin sent a telegram to Izhevsk

Izhevsk

Izhevsk is the capital city of the Udmurt Republic, Russia, situated on the Izh River in the Western Urals. Population: From 1984 to 1987 Izhevsk carried the name Ustinov |Minister of Defense of the USSR]], Marshal of the Soviet Union, Dmitry Ustinov). The city is an important industrial center,...

telling that "I am surprised that ... you are not immediately executing large numbers of strikers for the crime of sabotage

Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...

."

On June 6, 1920, female workers in Tula

Tula, Russia

Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...

who refused to work on Sunday were arrested and sent to labor camp

Labor camp

A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...

Workers Opposition

Alexandra Kollontai

Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1919 she became the first female government minister in Europe...

increasingly became an internal critic of the Communist Party

Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

and joined with her friend, Alexander Shlyapnikov

Alexander Shlyapnikov

Alexander Gavrilovich Shliapnikov was a Russian communist revolutionary, metalworker, and trade union leader. He is best remembered as a memoirist of the October Revolution of 1917 and as the leader of one of the primary opposition movements inside the Russian Communist Party during the decade of...

, to form a left-wing faction of the party that became known as the Workers' Opposition

Workers' Opposition

The Workers' Opposition was a faction of the Russian Communist Party that emerged in 1920 as a response to the perceived over-bureaucratisation that was occurring in Soviet Russia.-Membership:...

. The Workers Opposition had some similar demands to some of the rebellions, but supported the government and argued peacefully within it rather than resorting to violent uprisings. Instead the Workers Opposition energetically supported the crushing of these rebellions, including volunteering government representatives to participate in the crushing of the Kronstadt Rebellion. After the Kronstadt Rebellion, Lenin argued that the party needed unity at that time because their enemies were trying to exploit disunity. The Workers' Opposition and other factions were dissolved, but the leaders of the two main factions Workers Opposition and Democratic Centralists were included in the new leadership.

Tyumen revolt

In January 1921, the largest uprising in Russia since the civil war broke out. Insurgents blocked the railway, occupied Tobolsk

Tobolsk

Tobolsk is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh Rivers. It is a historic capital of Siberia. Population: -History:...

, Surgut

Surgut

Surgut is a city in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia, located on the Ob River near its junction with the Irtysh River, the largest in the autonomous okrug and the second largest in Tyumen Oblast. Population:...

, Berezovo, and Salekhard

Salekhard

-International relations:-Twin towns/sister cities:Salekhard is twinned with:*Azov, Rostov Oblast, Russia-External links:*...

, stormed Ishim

Ishim

Ishim is a town in the south of Tyumen Oblast, Russia. Population: -History:It was founded in 1670 as the village of Korkina Sloboda. In 1721 by the order of Tsar Peter the Great the village gained the right to establish Nikolskaya Trade Fair which rapidly became one of the most important trade...

, and came within four km of Tyumen

Tyumen

Tyumen is the largest city and the administrative center of Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located on the Tura River east of Moscow. Population: Tyumen is the oldest Russian settlement in Siberia. Founded in 16th century to support Russia's eastward expansion, the city has remained one of the most...

. Both sides fought a battle of unprecedented savagery. Regular Red Army

Red Army

units using armored trains, warship

Warship

A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...

s, and other means took part in suppressing the uprising, which was finally crushed only in 1922.

Mensheviks and the Democratic Republic of Georgia

Mensheviks took power in Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

and on 1918 the Democratic Republic of Georgia

Democratic Republic of Georgia

The Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917...

was proclaimed with Noe Zhordania

Noe Zhordania

Noe Zhordania was a Georgian journalist and Menshevik politician. He played an eminent role in the Social Democratic revolutionary movement in Imperial Russia, and later chaired the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from July 24, 1918 until March 18, 1921, when the Bolshevik Soviet...

becoming the head. They allowed the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

and later Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

to use it as a base to funnel weapons and other support to White generals Kolchak and Anton Ivanovich Denikin

Anton Ivanovich Denikin

Anton Ivanovich Denikin was Lieutenant General of the Imperial Russian Army and one of the foremost generals of the White movement in the Russian Civil War.- Childhood :...

. They were accused of suppressing local Bolsheviks, ethnic atrocities against Ossetia

Ossetia

Ossetia Ossetic: Ир, Ирыстон Ir, Iryston; Russian: Осетия, Osetiya; Georgian: ოსეთი, Oset'i) is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. The Ossetian language is part of the Eastern Iranian branch of the Indo-European...

and Abkhazia

Abkhazia

Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...

, making claims on Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

i and Armenia

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

n territory, and starting a war with Armenia. The area was forcefully sovietized by February 25, 1921. Lenin recommended "a policy of concessions in relation to the Georgian intelligentsia

Intelligentsia

The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...

and small traders" and "a coalition with Jordania

Jordânia

Jordânia is a Brazilian municipality located in the northeast of the state of Minas Gerais. The city belongs to the mesoregion of Jequitinhonha and to the microregion of Almenara. As of 2007 the population was 10,751 in a total area of 549 km²....

or similar Georgian Mensheviks". There was an amnesty for Mensheviks but no coalition government was formed, nevertheless most Menshevik leaders fled to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

Revolutionary Insurrectionary (Anarchist) Army

The Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or Anarchist Black Army led by anarchist and former Red Army leader Nestor Makhno

Nestor Makhno

Nestor Ivanovych Makhno or simply Daddy Makhno was a Ukrainian anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War....

took control of most of the southern Ukraine and Crimea after its abandonment by Red Army troops in 1919. Makhno's forces fought on the side of the Bolsheviks and played an important role in the eventual defeat of the White Armies. However, they were at odds with the Bolshevik view of a unitary {Bolshevik dominated} political movement. Occasionally Makhno's Black Army troops fought Red Army forces, whom the Ukrainian anarchists had viewed with mistrust after Chekist and Red Army raids on anarchist centers, including arrests, detentions, and executions commencing in May 1918.

For his part, Makhno stated his support for "free worker-peasant soviets" independent of centralized control by Moscow. Makhno, a rural anarchist, viewed the Bolsheviks as urban dictators out-of-touch with the people, opposing the Bolshevik-controlled "Cheka

Cheka

[secret police]... and similar compulsory authoritative and disciplinary institutions". He called for "[f]reedom of speech, press, assembly, unions and the like". In practice, Makhno's Anarchist Black Army, the Anarchist Revolutionary Military Council, and the Ukrainian anarchists' political arm, the Congress of the Confederation of Anarchists Groups (NABAT) formed an overall government over the area they controlled

Free Territory (Ukraine)

The Free Territory , , svobodnaya territoriya; or Makhnovia was a territory of operation by free soviets and libertarian communes under the protection of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Nestor Makhno where an attempt was made to form a stateless anarchist society in part of the...

, though they did permit local self-governing autonomous committees of peasants. Like the Red Army, they used forced conscription and summary executions, though as a relatively popular native Ukrainian movement, these measures were not used on the same scale as that of the Bolshevik Red Army.( In the areas under his military control, the Anarchist Revolutionary Military Council banned all opposition parties, and like the Bolsheviks, used two secret police

Secret police

Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....

counter-intelligence forces: the Razedka and the Kommissiya Protivmakhnovskikh Del.

Some members of the Bolshevik Central Committees considered allowing an independent area for Makhno's libertarian experiment, an idea fiercely opposed by both Lenin and Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

, War Commissar of the Red Army

Red Army

. After each successful repulse of White Army forces, Trotsky ordered fresh attacks against Makhno and the Anarchist Black Army, halting only when White forces threatened to once again defeat the Red Army in the field. At the instructions of Moscow, the Cheka

Cheka

sent two agents to assassinate Makhno in 1920. After repudiation of two military alliances, and the final defeat of White General Wrangel in the Crimea, Trotsky ordered the mass executions of Makhnovist sympathizers, followed by the liquidation of many of Makhno's subordinate commanders and his entire headquarters staff at a 'joint planning conference' in November 1920. By August 1921, Makhno and the remainer of the Anarchist Black Army had been forced into exile.

Revolts against grain requisitioning

SRs were among the main leaders of the uprisings of the Tambov Rebellion

Tambov Rebellion

and the Kronstadt Rebellion

Kronstadt rebellion

The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...

of 1921. Protests against grain requisitioning of the peasantry were a major component of these uprisings and Lenin's New Economic Program was introduced as a concession.

Kronstadt Rebellion

The Kronstadt rebellion

Kronstadt rebellion

The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...

was led by Social-Revolutionary Stepan Petrichenko

Stepan Petrichenko

Stepan Maximovich Petrichenko , was a Russian revolutionary, an anarcho-syndicalist politician, one of the main leaders of the Third Russian Revolution, the head of the Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders of Nargen and in 1921, de facto leader of the Kronstadt Commune, and the leader...

. He initiated the change from a protest to an open rebellion by spreading a false rumor that the Bolsheviks were coming to arrest everyone. The rebellions called for free elections to regional councils (soviets) and an end to grain requisitioning. The rebellion was supported by Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, dissident Communists, and anarchists.

The Kronstadt rebels allowed a known White agent, the former tsarist naval officer Baron P. V. Vilken and agent of White general Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel

Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel

Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire...

, to come to the island during the mutiny disguised as a Red Cross worker and make agreements to secure aid for the rebellion . The Bolsheviks pointed to the danger of the Whites supporting the rebellion or using it as an opportunity to invade and suppressed it.

Kronstadt survivors and Wrangel

After the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion, Petrichenko led many survivors to Finland where they entered into an agreement with Wrangel. Historian Paul Avrich

Paul Avrich

Paul Avrich was a professor and historian. He taught at Queens College, City University of New York, for most of his life and was vital in preserving the history of the anarchist movement in Russia and the United States....

writes:

Numerous minor rebellions

Numerous attacks and assassinations occurred frequently until these rebellions finally petered out in 1922. Anarchists participated in almost all of the attacks the Left SR's organized, and carried out many on their own initiative. The most celebrated figures of these rebellions, Lev Chernyi

Lev Chernyi

Pável Dimítrievich Turchanínov , known by the pseudonym Lev Chernyi , was a Russian anarchist theorist, activist and poet, and a leading figure of the Third Russian Revolution. His early thought was individualist, rejecting anarcho-communism as a threat to individual liberty...

and Fanya Baron

Fanya Baron

Fanya Anisimovna Baron was a Russian anarchist revolutionary who is rumoured to have assassinated the head of the Okhrana . She lived in America from 1915 to 1917 when she returned to her homeland to build a post-revolutionary society...

were both Anarchists.

SR Trial

The imprisoned SR Central Committee members were put on trial starting June 8, 1922. EH Carr writes:

"It was the first great political trial of the regime. The general case against the SRs was formidable. Through Kerensky

Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky was a major political leader before and during the Russian Revolutions of 1917.Kerensky served as the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets following the October Revolution...

they were saddled with responsibility for every act of the Provisional Government; they had played a leading part in more than one " white " government during the civil war; the assassins of Mirbach and the author of the attempt on Lenin's life had been SRs; and, where concrete acts could not be proved, there were plenty of pronouncements by leading SRs in favour of acts of terror against the Soviet power... Of the thirty-four defendants, a few were acquitted, and many sentenced to different terms and degrees of imprisonment. Fourteen were sentenced to death... It was noteworthy that throughout the proceedings it was not alleged that the SR party was in itself an illegal institution: evidence was brought against the defendants of acts which under any system of government would have been criminal."

The death sentences were suspended by the government.

Results

The end result of these rebellions was the suppression of rival socialist parties and anarchists, and economic concessions from the Bolsheviks with the New Economic Policy

New Economic Policy

The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...

. While Lenin had wanted a multi party government and recognized the continued existence of parties based on the petty bourgeois class, the military necessity of suppressing rebellions pushed the government in the direction of a one party state. EH Carr states:

"The fiction of a legal opposition was, however, long since dead. Its demise cannot fairly be laid at the door of one party. If it was true that the Bolshevik regime was not prepared after the first few months to tolerate an organized opposition, it was equally true that no opposition party was prepared to remain within legal limits. The premise of dictatorship was common to both sides of the argument."

Menshevism

Menshevik

were suppressed after the Kronstadt Uprising and the forceful sovietization of Menshevik Georgia. A number of prominent Mensheviks emigrated thereafter. Julius Martov

Julius Martov

Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Constantinople in 1873...

who was suffering from ill health at this time went to Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

.

The Left SRs collapsed as a party by 1922 and existed as small cells through 1925.

Later claims

During the Moscow Show Trials in 1937, it was claimed that Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

, Lev Kamenev

Lev Kamenev

Lev Borisovich Kamenev , born Rozenfeld , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly head of state of the new republic in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Lenin's life....

, and Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...

were involved in the Left SR uprising.

Iurii Georgievich Fel'shtinskii claimed the Left SR Uprising was staged by the Bolsheviks as a pretext to discredit the Left SRs. L. M. Ovrutskii and Anatolii Izrailevich Razgon produced research to refute this.

A 2005 article by Nick Heath on the anarchist website describes uprisings of workers and peasants against the Bolsheviks between 1919–1921 and argues that "[t]aken together they can be referred to as the third Revolution." He disputes the Bolsheviks' claim that the uprisings were in line with peasant/kulak

Kulak

Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union...

class interests, saying that they were "in support of the original aims of the revolution: socialism, and workers' and peasants' self-management." Heath says the uprisings were predominantly peasant based and comments: "The aims of the Kronstadt insurgents seem to have had an echo in the peasant movements. This is hardly surprising considering many Kronstadt sailors had peasant origins." Heath finds links between the Tambov Rebellion and the Kronstadt Rebellion, but he says the slogan 'third revolution' "seems vague" and "there seems to have been little effort to combine the movements". Heath only includes Socialist Revolutionaries, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and anarchists as leaders of the events he describes.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background

SR split

First party ban

SR and Menshevik support to Kaledin

Anarchist divisions

Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions

Constituent Assembly uprising

Left SRs disagreements

Mensheviks and SRs excluded from soviets

Left SR Uprising

Aims and slogans

Repression

Assassination attempts

Reinstatement of Mensheviks

Constituent Assembly and White Armies

Reinstatement of SRs

Further repression

SR splits again

Repression

Anarchist attacks

Further repression

Workers Opposition

Tyumen revolt

Mensheviks and the Democratic Republic of Georgia

Revolutionary Insurrectionary (Anarchist) Army

Revolts against grain requisitioning

Kronstadt Rebellion

Kronstadt survivors and Wrangel

Numerous minor rebellions

SR Trial

Results

Later claims

See also

External links