History: The Kronstadt Mutiny

Literacy rate (1917): 45%

(Source: Project Portalus)

Education is “...thwarted”

(Source: Behrent)

“...the Russian people wanted revolution. It had to come. What they meant by revolution was the overthrow of an inept and suffocating tyranny and its substitution by some more liberal system”

(Source: Crankshaw)

“...that workers and peasants were able to overthrow Tsarism and create a new society … was an inspiration to millions of oppressed and exploited people”

(Source: Behrent)

“...Tsarist government was predicated on the Tsar’s supreme autocratic power, which was inviolable”

(Source: Llewllyn)

“Lenin did not hesitate for a single instant to revive the worst traditions of despotism”

(Source: ‘The Times’)

“‘It can’t be done,’ objected Lenin … ‘We are the stable centre, we are stronger in ideas, and we must exercise the guidance from here.’

‘Then this will mean a complete dictatorship of the editorial board?’ I asked.

‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ retorted Lenin”

(Source: Trotsky)

The Tsarist economy was “...backward”

(Source: Clare)

“...extreme food shortages”

(Source: Delaine)

“...the scarcity of goods … effectively destroyed the value of money. By the end of 1920, the rouble had fallen to one per cent of its worth in 1917. In 1921, train and tram fares were nominally one million times higher than in 1917”

(Source: Lynch)

“...around six million peasants had died of starvation and reports circulated in the foreign press that mothers were tying their children to opposite corners of their huts for fear that they would eat each other”

(Source: Tarr)

“...the workers ask – who are we? Are we really the prop of the class dictatorship, or just an obedient flock that serves as a support for those, who having severed all ties with the masses, carry out their own policy and build up industry without any regard to our opinions and creative abilities”

(Source: Lynch)

“...demoralised”

(Source: Hingley)

“...betrayed”

(Source: Baker)

“...one by one the embers of hope have died out. Terror and despotism have crushed the life born in October … Dictatorship is trampling the masses under foot. The revolution is dead; its spirit cries in the wilderness … the Bolshevik myth must be destroyed”

(Source: Laver)

“...any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations”

Bolshevik support

Political similarities

Desperation for change

Limited

education

Bolshevism

Tsarism

[Source: Coyne]

Economic similarities

Bolshevism

Tsarism

(Source: Duryea)

Betrayal & discontent

Hypothesis

Intervention

Covenant: Article 11

Lenin and the Bolsheviks have merely replaced Tsarism with another regime of political tyranny and economic incompetence.

As we were largely uneducated and desperate for revolution, we believed the utopian promises that the Bolsheviks originally made. Consequently, the political and economic similarities that ensued evoked a strong sense of betrayal and discontent.

Kronstadt

Hypothesis

Lenin and the Bolsheviks have merely replaced Tsarism with another regime of political tyranny and economic incompetence.

As we were largely uneducated and desperate for revolution, we believed the utopian promises that the Bolsheviks originally made. Consequently, the political and economic similarities that ensued evoked a strong sense of betrayal and discontent.

The Kronstadt Mutiny

and the Russian Revolution