100 years ago, in July 1918, there was an uprising of the Left SRs against the Bolsheviks, which became one of the main events of 1918 and contributed to the growth of the Civil War in Russia. Soon he was supported by activists from the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, created in February-March 1918 by Boris Savinkov: they organized a series of uprisings in the cities of the Upper Volga region.
The Left SRs were at first allies of the Bolsheviks, together with the communists they formed the first Soviet government (Council of People's Commissars, SNK), their representatives entered other bodies of power in Soviet Russia. After the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, relations between the allied parties deteriorated: the Left SRs were categorically against peace with Germany, they left the SNK and voted against the peace treaty at the IV Congress of Soviets in March. For some time, the Brest Treaty was supported only by one of the leaders of the Left SRs, Maria Spiridonova, but soon she also changed her views. In addition, the socialist revolutionaries opposed the growing bureaucratization and nationalization of all aspects of life. Acting as a peasant party, they had serious contradictions with the Bolsheviks on the peasant question: they criticized the established practice of surplus appropriation in the countryside, the creation of committees of the poor (kombedov), which seized power from the village councils, where the Social Revolutionaries predominated. At the same time, the Left SRs still retained their positions in the apparatus of the People's Commissariats, various committees, commissions, councils, served in the Cheka and the Red Army.
From July 1 to July 3, 1818, the III Congress of the Party of Left Social Revolutionaries was held in Moscow, which adopted a resolution criticizing the Bolsheviks: the measures create a campaign against the Soviets of Peasant Deputies, disorganize the workers' Soviets, and confuse class relations in the countryside. " The congress also decided "to break the Brest Treaty, which is disastrous for the Russian and world revolution, in a revolutionary way."
On July 4, the V Congress of Soviets opened in Moscow, at which delegates from the Left SRs (30.3% of all delegates) continued their criticism of their yesterday's allies. Maria Spiridonova called the Bolsheviks "traitors to the revolution." Another leader, Boris Kamkov, demanded "to sweep food detachments and commissaries out of the village." The Bolsheviks responded in kind. Thus, Lenin's speech was harsh: "they were not with us, but against us." He called the Socialist-Revolutionary Party finally lost, provocateurs, like-minded people of Kerensky and Savinkov. He stated unequivocally: "The previous speaker spoke of a quarrel with the Bolsheviks, and I will answer: no, comrades, this is not a quarrel, this is indeed an irrevocable break." The Socialist-Revolutionaries put to a vote the question of denunciation of the Brest-Litovsk Peace and renewal of the war with Germany. When this proposal did not pass, the delegates of the Left SRs left the congress until July 6.
On July 6, the Left SRs organized a loud terrorist attack aimed at breaking the peace with Germany. Two party members who served in the Cheka (Yakov Blumkin and Nikolai Andreev) came to the German embassy and first tried to blow up and then shot and killed the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach. Maria Spiridonova, learning about this, came to the Congress of Soviets and told the delegates that "the Russian people are free from Mirbach." The chairman of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, in turn, arrived at the headquarters of the Left SR detachment of the commission, located in Bolshoy Trehsvyatitelsky lane, and demanded to extradite Blumkin and Andreev, but found the entire central committee of the Left SR party there. As a result, the head of the Cheka himself was arrested by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Chekists and remained with them as a hostage. Soon the Social Revolutionaries seized the post office and the central telegraph office, began to send out their appeals, in which they declared the power of the Bolsheviks deposed, demanded not to carry out the orders of Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov, and also reported on the murder of the German ambassador. One of the proclamations read: “The ruling part of the Bolsheviks, frightened of the possible consequences, as before, carry out the orders of the German executioners. Forward, working women, workers and Red Army men, to defend the working people, against all executioners, against all spies and provocative imperialism."
In institutions and on the streets of Moscow, the Social Revolutionaries captured 27 major Bolshevik leaders, and the Red Army men of the Moscow garrison, in response, also partly went over to the side of the Social Revolutionaries, but basically declared their neutrality. The only units that remained completely loyal to the Bolsheviks were the Latvian riflemen and the "Bolshevik" part of the Cheka, headed by the deputy chairman of the Cheka, the Latvian Yakov Peters. Lenin ordered Peters to arrest all Congress delegates from the Left SRs, and Trotsky ordered another deputy chairman of the Cheka, Martyn Latsis, to arrest all Left SRs serving in the Cheka and declare them hostages. But the Left SRs themselves occupied the main building of the Cheka and arrested Latsis. It seemed that the uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries was close to victory and all that remained was to take the Kremlin, arrest Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. But here the rebels behaved strangely and passively, despite the superiority in forces (by the evening of July 6, they had about 1900 fighters, 4 armored cars and 8 guns against 700 fighters, 4 armored cars and 12 guns from the Bolsheviks). They did not storm the Kremlin, taking advantage of the surprise, numerical superiority and confusion of the Bolshevik leadership. Instead, the fighters of the Left SRs "rebelled" in the barracks. And the leadership of the Left SRs, instead of leading the uprising and its spread, for some reason calmly went to the congress and later allowed itself to be caught.
During this pause, the Bolsheviks succeeded in pulling another 3,300 Latvian riflemen stationed in the nearest suburbs to Moscow, and to raise the Red Guards. On July 7, early in the morning, the Latvians, armed with machine guns, guns and armored cars, began an assault on the positions of the Left SRs. The SRs did not offer strong resistance. During the assault on the headquarters in Bolshoy Trehsvyatitelsky lane, even artillery was used, despite the fact that not only the Left SR Chekists were in the building, but also their hostages. 450 delegates to the Congress of Soviets - Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries - Chekists were arrested. The very next day, 13 Cheka employees, including another former deputy of Dzerzhinsky, the left SR Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich, were shot, but the Bolsheviks dealt with the majority of the Left SRs relatively mildly, giving from several months to three years in prison (many were soon amnestied). So, Maria Spiridonova was sentenced only to a year in prison, and many prominent Left Social Revolutionaries managed to escape from arrest and flee from Moscow. And the murderer of Mirbakh Blumkin was not even arrested! And he continued to serve in the Cheka. He was only temporarily sent on a business trip south. In total, only 600 Left SRs were arrested across Russia, while serious clashes with the Bolsheviks were observed only in Petrograd, where 10 people were killed during the storming of the Left SR headquarters.
On July 9, the Congress of Soviets, which already consisted of some Bolsheviks, unanimously adopted a decision to expel the Left SRs from the Soviets. But at the lowest level, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and even Mensheviks, without much advertising, although not hiding their views, continued to work in the soviets until the early 1920s.
Thus, after the suppression of the uprising of the Left SRs, a one-party authoritarian regime was established in Russia. The Left SRs were defeated and were unable to renew the war between Soviet Russia and Germany. The German government, after Lenin had already made an apology on July 6, forgave the murder of their ambassador.
Latvian riflemen and delegates to the 5th Congress of Soviets in front of the Bolshoi Theater
Uprising in Yaroslavl
Also on July 6, the uprising began in Yaroslavl. It was headed by Colonel Alexander Perkhurov, an activist of the underground Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, Socialist-Revolutionary Boris Savinkov. The uprising in Yaroslavl took a long time to prepare: before that, an anti-Bolshevik underground was formed in the city for several months from among the former members of the Union of Officers, the Union of Front-line soldiers and the Union of St. George's Cavaliers. By the beginning of the uprising in the city, it was possible to legally quarter up to 300 officers, who, according to legend, came to re-register for service in the Red Army. On the night of July 6, the rebels led by Perkhurov (at first about 100 people) attacked and seized a large weapons depot. A detachment of militiamen, sent at the signal of the incident, also went over to the side of the rebels, and in the morning - the entire city militia headed by the provincial commissar. While moving into the city, the armored division (2 armored cars and 5 large-caliber machine guns) also went over to the side of the rebels, and another regiment declared neutrality. On the side of the Reds, only a small so-called. "Special Communist Detachment", which laid down arms after a short battle.
The rebels occupied all administrative buildings, post office, telegraph office, radio station and treasury. Commissioner of the Yaroslavl military district David Zakgeim and chairman of the executive committee of the city council Semyon Nakhimson were captured in their apartments and killed on the same day. 200 other Bolsheviks and Soviet workers were arrested and imprisoned in the hold of the “barge of death”, which stood in the middle of the Volga - from stuffiness in the hold, lack of water and food, unsanitary conditions, the prisoners began to die en masse from the very first days, and when they tried to leave the barge they were shot (in As a result, more than a hundred of those arrested died, others were able to escape). Perkhurov proclaimed himself commander-in-chief of the Yaroslavl province and commander of the so-called Northern Volunteer Army, subordinate to the high command of General MV Alekseev. About 6 thousand people joined the ranks of the "Northern Army" (about 1600 - 2000 people actively participated in the battles). Among them were not only former officers of the tsarist army, cadets and students, but also soldiers, local workers and peasants. Weapons were in short supply, especially guns and machine guns (the rebels had only 2 three-inch cannons and 15 machine guns at their disposal). Therefore, Perkhurov resorted to defensive tactics, expecting help with weapons and people from Rybinsk.
The leader of the uprising in Yaroslavl Alexander Petrovich Perkhurov
On July 8, in Yaroslavl, the activity of city self-government was restored according to the laws of the Provisional Government of 1917. On July 13, by his resolution, Perkhurov, in order to "restore law, order and public peace", abolished all bodies of Soviet power and canceled all its decrees and resolutions, and "the bodies of power and officials that existed according to the laws in force until the October coup of 1917" were restored. The rebels failed to capture the factory settlements across the Kotorosl River, where the 1st Soviet regiment was located. Soon, the Reds began shelling Yaroslavl from the dominating Tugovaya mountain over the city. The insurgents' expectation that the very fact of the uprising would raise the Yaroslavl and neighboring provinces turned out to be untenable - the initial success of the uprising could not be developed. Meanwhile, the Soviet military command hastily pulled together troops to Yaroslavl. In suppressing the uprising, not only the local regiment of the Red Army and workers' detachments took part, but also detachments of the Red Guard from Tver, Kineshma, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kostroma and other cities.
Yu. S. Guzarsky was appointed commander of the forces on the southern bank of Kotorosl, and AI Gekker, who arrived from Vologda on 14 July from Yaroslavl, was the commander of the troops on both banks of the Volga near Yaroslavl. The ring of red troops was rapidly shrinking. Detachments of the Red Guard and part of the internationalists (Latvians, Poles, Chinese, German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war) launched an offensive against Yaroslavl. The city was heavily shelled and bombed from the air. From behind Kotorosl and from the Vspolye station, the city was continuously fired upon by artillery and armored trains. Red detachments bombed the city and suburbs from airplanes. So, as a result of air strikes, the Demidov Lyceum was destroyed. The rebels did not surrender, and the shelling was intensified, hitting the squares, as a result of which the streets and entire neighborhoods were destroyed. Fires broke out in the city and up to 80% of all buildings were destroyed in the part of the city engulfed in the uprising.
76-mm cannon mod. 1902, who participated in the shelling of Yaroslavl. The gun was disabled by a shell that exploded in the bore
Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, Perkhurov at the military council proposed to break out of the city and leave either to Vologda or to Kazan to meet the People's Army. However, most of the commanders and fighters, being local residents, led by General Pyotr Karpov, refused to leave the city and decided to continue the fight as long as possible. As a result, a detachment of 50 people led by Perkhurov fled from Yaroslavl by steamer on the night of July 15-16, 1918. Later, Perkhurov joined the Komuch People's Army, served Kolchak, was captured in 1920 and in 1922 was convicted in Yaroslavl by a show trial and shot. General Karpov remained the commander in the city. Having exhausted their strength and ammunition, on July 21, the rebels laid down their arms. Some fled to the woods or along the river, while the other part of the officers went for a trick in order to save their lives. They appeared at the premises of the German Commission of Prisoners of War No. 4 located in the city theater, which was engaged in their return to their homeland, announced that they did not recognize the Brest Peace, consider themselves in a state of war with Germany and surrendered to the Germans, having transferred their weapons to them. The Germans promised to protect them from the Bolsheviks, but the very next day they gave up the officers for reprisals.
The number of Red Army soldiers who died in the suppression of the uprising is unknown. During the fighting, about 600 rebels were killed. After the capture of Yaroslavl, mass terror began in the city: on the very first day after the end of the uprising, 428 people were shot (including the entire headquarters of the rebels - 57 people). As a result, almost all the participants in the uprising were killed. In addition, significant material damage was inflicted on the city during the battles, artillery shelling and air strikes. In particular, 2,147 houses were destroyed (28 thousand residents were left homeless) and destroyed: the Demidov Juridical Lyceum with its famous library, 20 factories and factories, part of the shopping arcade, dozens of temples and churches, 67 government, medical, and cultural buildings. The collections of the Petrograd Artillery Historical Museum (AIM), the largest museum of the Russian army, which contained military and artistic values related to the history of all branches of the ground forces of Russia, were also lost to Yaroslavl. So, 55 boxes with banners and weapons were completely burned down: only about 2,000 banners (including riflemen), all trophies collected during the First World War, specimens of valuable edged weapons and firearms, etc.etc.
On July 8, supporters of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom also made an unsuccessful attempt to revolt in another city of the northern Volga region - Rybinsk. Despite the fact that here the leadership of the uprising was personally carried out by Boris Savinkov and Alexander Dikhoff-Derental, they failed to capture even parts of the city and after a few hours of stubborn battle with the Red Army, the survivors had to flee. In addition, on July 8, the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom raised an anti-Bolshevik uprising in Murom. Late in the evening, the rebels attacked the local military registration and enlistment office and seized weapons. By nightfall, all the main administrative buildings of the city were under the control of the rebels. However, here, unlike in Yaroslavl, the rebels failed to attract large masses of the population to their side and form a large armed detachment. Already on July 10, the rebels had to flee from the city to the east in the direction of Ardatov. The Reds chased them for two days and scattered them.
Boris Savinkov (center)
Muravyov's mutiny
On July 10, 1918, the so-called "Muravyov mutiny" began - the left Socialist-Revolutionary Mikhail Muravyov, who was appointed commander of the Eastern Front of the Red Army on June 13 (the front was deployed against the insurgent Czechoslovak corps and the Whites). It is interesting that on July 6 and 7, in the days of the uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries in Moscow, Muravyov did not take any action and assured Lenin of his loyalty to the Soviet regime. Apparently, Muravyov raised the mutiny on his own, having received news from Moscow and fearing arrest due to suspicion of disloyalty (he was distinguished by an adventurous character, dreamed of becoming a "red Napoleon"). On the night of July 9-10, the commander unexpectedly left the front headquarters in Kazan. Together with two faithful regiments, he moved to steamers and sailed in the direction of Simbirsk.
On July 11, Muravyov's detachment landed in Simbirsk and occupied the city. Almost all Soviet leaders who were in the city were arrested (including the commander of the 1st Army, Mikhail Tukhachevsky). From Simbirsk Muravyov sent telegrams about non-recognition of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, the resumption of the war with Germany and the alliance with the Czechoslovak corps, and declared himself the commander-in-chief of the army that would fight the Germans. Front troops and the Czechoslovak corps were ordered to move to the Volga and further west. Muravyov also proposed to create a separate Soviet republic in the Volga region, headed by the left SRs Maria Spiridonova, Boris Kamkov and Vladimir Karelin. Left SRs went over to the side of Muravyov: the commander of the Simbirsk group of forces and the Simbirsk fortified area Klim Ivanov and the head of the Kazan fortified area Trofimovsky.
Lenin and Trotsky in a joint appeal called the former commander-in-chief a traitor and enemy of the people, demanding that "every honest citizen" shoot him on the spot. But Muravyov was killed even before the publication of this appeal, when on the same day, July 11, after sending telegrams, he appeared at the Simbirsk council and demanded that he transfer power. There he was ambushed by the chairman of the provincial party committee of the CPSU (b) Iosif Vareikis and Latvian riflemen. During the meeting, the Red Guards and Chekists emerged from the ambush and announced their arrest. Muravyov put up armed resistance and was killed (according to other sources, he shot himself). On July 12, the official newspaper of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Izvestia, published a government report "On Muravyov's treason," which stated that "seeing the complete collapse of his plan, Muravyov committed suicide with a shot in the temple."
Thus, Muravyov's rebellion was short-lived and unsuccessful. Nevertheless, he inflicted serious damage on the Red Army. The command and control of the troops of the Eastern Front was disorganized first by telegrams from the commander-in-chief Muravyov about peace with the Czechoslovakians and the war with Germany, and then about Muravyov's betrayal. The Red troops were demoralized by this. As a result, the Whites (People's Army Komuch) soon managed to seriously press the Reds and knock them out of Simbirsk, Kazan and other cities of the Volga region, which further worsened the position of Soviet Russia. So, on July 21, the shock combined detachment of the People's Army and the Czechoslovak Corps under the command of Vladimir Kappel took Simbirsk. On July 25, the troops of the Czechoslovak Corps entered Yekaterinburg. On the same day, the Komuch People's Army occupied Khvalynsk. In addition, the Reds suffered heavy defeats in the east of Siberia in mid-July. The Red Army left Irkutsk, where the Siberian Whites and Czechoslovakians entered. The Red detachments retreated to Baikal.
On July 17, the Provisional Siberian Government, located in Omsk, under the leadership of Peter Vologodsky, adopted the "Declaration on State Independence of Siberia." The declaration proclaimed the international legal personality of Siberia, whose borders stretched from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean, the independence of the state power of the Provisional Siberian Government. At the same time, the leaders of Siberia immediately announced their readiness to return to democratic Russia, if the will of the newly assembled All-Russian Constituent Assembly is expressed. It is clear that these were only words. In fact, all "independent" and "democratic" governments that appeared on the ruins of old Russia automatically became colonies of the West and partly of the East (Japan).
Soldiers of the regiments of Mikhail Muravyov and the Czechoslovak corps
On the strangeness of rebellion
As already noted above, the rebels were extremely passive, did not use the favorable moment to take up. The Bolshevik leadership was partly arrested, others hesitated. In particular, Lenin doubted the loyalty of the commander of the main shock unit - the Latvian riflemen, Vatsetis and the head of the Cheka - Dzerzhinsky. The rebels had the opportunity to arrest the congress delegates and members of the Soviet government, but they did not. A detachment of the Cheka under the command of Popov did not take any active action and until his defeat he sat in the barracks. Even in the appeal that was sent around the country, there were no calls to overthrow the Bolsheviks, or go to the aid of the insurgents in Moscow.
Also interesting is the fact of the mildness of punishment for the Left Social Revolutionaries, especially in the context of the Civil War and the severity of the crime - an attempted coup d'etat. Only the deputy chairman of the VChK Aleksandrovich was shot, and 12 people from the VChK unit Popov. Others received short sentences and were soon released. The direct participants in the assassination attempt on the German ambassador - Blumkin and Andreev - were actually not punished. And Blumkin generally became the closest collaborator of Dzerzhinsky and Trotsky. This eventually led some researchers to believe that there was no rebellion. The uprising was a staged act by the Bolsheviks themselves. This version was proposed by Yu. G. Felshtinsky. The uprising was a provocation that led to the establishment of a one-party system. The Bolsheviks got a pretext for eliminating competitors.
According to another version, the uprising was initiated by a part of the Bolshevik leadership, which wanted to oust Lenin. Thus, in December 1923, Zinoviev and Stalin reported that the head of the "Left Communists" Bukharin had received from the Left SRs a proposal to remove Lenin by force, establishing a new composition of the Council of People's Commissars. We must not forget that the so-called. "Left communists", including Dzerzhinsky (head of the Cheka), N. Bukharin (the main ideologist of the party) and other prominent representatives of the Bolshevik party, advocated a revolutionary war with Germany. Only Lenin's threat to withdraw from the Central Committee and appeal directly to the masses forced them to yield on this issue. The behavior of Dzerzhinsky, who appeared at the headquarters of the rebels and actually "surrendered", also raises questions. By this, he violated the management of the Cheka and at the same time created an alibi for himself in case the plan failed. And the instigator of the mutiny, Blumkin, later became Dzerzhinsky's favorite in the Cheka. In addition, it is in the environment of the "iron Felix" that the Anglo-French trace is clearly visible, and the Entente was interested in the continuation of the war between Russia and Germany.
It is also worth noting that Vatsetis in 1935 called the Left SR revolt a "staging" of Trotsky. We should not forget about the special role of Trotsky in the revolution in Russia and his connection with the "financial international" (the masters of the West). During the disputes over peace with Germany, Trotsky took an openly provocative position - opposing both peace and war. At the same time, Trotsky had close contacts with representatives of the Entente. It is not surprising that he tried to break the peace with Germany and strengthen his position in the Bolshevik leadership. Thus, the Left SRs were used by more serious "players" to solve their problems. Hence the lack of common sense in the behavior of the leadership of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
