Russian Revolution: ’was the Krondstat Naval Uprising a Spontaneous Ac

History Revolutions - The Kronstadt Naval Uprising

Word Count: 1997

On March 1, 1921, the sailors of the Kronstadt naval fortress rose up in an armed rebellion against Russia's totalitarian leadership, claiming that Bolshevik control of Russia had failed to achieve its promise of working class liberation, delivering only a 'new serfdom' and 'even greater enslavement of human beings'.

The Kronstadt sailors, who had previously been regarded by Trotsky himself as the 'pride and glory' of the revolution, now held themselves in direct dissention with the state's communist rule. The rebels quickly adopted a self-drafted fifteen-point plan of political and social reforms that they vowed to fight by, aspiring to achieve a third and new 'toilers revolution'.

At the time of the revolt, members of the Russian populace who sympathized with the Kronstadt sailors viewed them as revolutionaries 'fighting to restore the true soviet idea'. However, the Bolshevik government took the belief that the uprising was the result of a premeditated conspiracy on behalf of counter-revolutionary 'whiteguard agents,' and undertook extreme measures to propagate this view amongst the public.

This was an issue that would later become a point of much contention between historians holding different theories over the causes of the event. This study shall seek to justify the view that the Kronstadt uprising was one of spontaneous revolt, brought on by discontent with the conditions experienced under the Bolshevik regime, and not the result of a precontrived