Kronstadt mutiny

The Kronstadt mutiny, also known as the Kronstadt rebellion, was a 1921 uprising against the Bolsheviks in the port city of Kronstadt in the Russian SFSR. The rebellion was supported by Western media two weeks before it actually began, showing that it was supported by foreign capitalists.

Background

The Kronstadt mutiny was led by Ukrainian Stepan Petrichenko. Although Petrichenko had been in the Red Army, he identified as an anarcho-syndicalist and had tried to join the White Army one year before the rebellion. Before the rebellion, rumors were spread that the Bolsheviks were killing workers and strike leaders. At a meeting of soldiers on 2 March 2021, one delegate proposed arresting all communists. Petrichenko claimed that the Red Army was about to arrest everyone at the meeting and declared that a Provisional Revolutionary Committee should take power. The committee, which was not elected democratically, contained Petrichenko, an anarchist, two Mensheviks, a Kadet, two ex-capitalists, a former police detective, and a black market speculator.

Mutiny

300 communists were arrested and imprisoned by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee but hundreds of others escaped. The prison warden, Shustov, claimed to be an anarchist and planned to execute 23 Bolshevik prisoners, although the execution was prevented by the arrival of the Red Army. The mutineers created a list of seven demands:

1. New elections to the Soviets
2. Freedom of action for anti-communist parties
3. No government regulation of trade unions
4. Release of rebels, including Mensheviks and SRs, from jail
5. Bigger rations
6. Grain requisition and no collectivization of agriculture
7. Purging of communists from military and factory management

The mutiny was supported by members of the White Army and British foreign minister George Curzon encouraged the Finnish government to intervene against the Bolsheviks.