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The beginning of the West Siberian Peasant Revolt - the largest anti-Bolshevik armed uprising in the RSFSR
The West Siberian Peasant Revolt of 1921 is the largest armed uprising against Soviet power. It engaged a great number of participants and covered the huge territory. Until the end of the 1980s, the Soviet historical literature described the events of 1921 as a revolt of the kulaks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Only in recent times, this topic acquired a new approach based on materials of Tyumen Province. The documentary publications of V. V. Moskvin, N. G. Tretyakov, V. I. Shishkin and other researchers provide new information about the reasons and the course of the uprising. The events of 1921 began to be regarded as a peasant uprising, revolt and war.
The cause of the revolt was the dissatisfaction with the national policy of "war communism", which provided campaigns of confiscation of agricultural products (prodrazvyorstka) and labour conscription with relevant outrage and violence. Now it is difficult to define the exact date of the beginning of the spontaneous uprising. On January 31, 1921, the peasants of the northeastern volosts of the Ishim district were the first, who opposed the authorities. Then, unrest began in the southeast of Tobolsk district, in the central part of Yalutorovsk and the north of Ishim districts, as well as in part of Kamyshlov, Kurgan, Omsk, Petropavlovsk, Tatarsk, Tyukalinsk and Shadrinsk districts. The peasants refused to deliver corn, preventing the export of the bread crops from the collecting depots to the railway stations. They began to arrest and disarm local communists, as well as members of food brigades (prodotryads) and militia. The rebel headquarters of peasants began to mobilize reservists, arrange armed detachments, gather and produce weapons, ammunition, equipment, food and forage. The local Soviet government suppressed the first riots, but could not stop the spread of the revolt in Tyumen Province. In the second decade of February 1921, it involved almost the entire Ishim and Yalutorovsk districts, the southeastern territories of Tobolsk district, as well as the western and southeastern regions of Tyumen district.
The rapid spread of the revolt caused the war in the entire Tyumen Province, as well as separate districts of Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg and Akmol Provinces. The rebels destroyed the direct telegraph communication of Siberia with the centre and the delivering of Siberian crops to European Russia.
At the same time, the resisters were a serious threat to Siberian cities. On February 10, 1921, they made a raid on Ishim. On February 12, they almost captured Yalutorovsk and came close to Tyumen. On February 14-15, Petropavlovsk was terminated for a short time. On February 20, the authorities left Tobolsk, on February 21, Kokchetav. By the end of February 1921, the revolt reached its apogee, the number of participants was 50 thousand people. A total of 70 thousand people took part in the struggle at different times.
The backbones of the riot were volunteers. Most of them were formally mobilized, but they joined the units of their own accord. The main militant forces of the revolt were the local peasants. Cossacks took an active part in the districts of Kokchetav, Omsk and Petropavlovsk. There were lots of Tatars among the rebels in Tobolsk district. There were also intellectuals and specialists from villages and cities. The riot gained favour and support with a significant part of the rural population but ran short of military and especially political leaders.
On February 20-23, 1921, there were created the General Staff of the Siberian Cossack Army in Novo-Nikolaevsk, the headquarters of the People's Rebel Army of Tobolsk district and the headquarters of the People's Army of Petukhovsk district. They played a significant role in the coordination of the rebel armies. Each army controlled 2-3 dozen territories. On February 26, 1921, a military conference of representatives of the Cossacks and peasants of Ishim, Kurgan, Petropavlovsk and Yalutorovsk districts took place. It decided to establish an "elected military council, which will have full military power and can appoint military command staff". But this resolution was not fulfilled.
The revolt interrupted food supplies from Siberia to the RSFSR and intensified the crisis in the country. For this reason, the revolt was put down with a heavy hand. By March 12, 1921, about 22 thousand rebels were killed in Ishim and Petropavlovsk districts. Only in July 1921, the authorities implemented small political efforts to liquidate the riot. Despite the decisions of the X Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on a new food policy, Vladimir Lenin demanded the removal of all corns and crops from collecting depots of Ishim and Yalutorovsk districts to central regions of the country. As a result, the population of these regions faced extreme famine, which caused heavy mortality. Almost all the leaders of the uprising were executed or imprisoned, and ordinary participants were listed by the Cheka and the militia. During the mass collectivization, they became the first victims of political repressions (dekulakization). 6,000 of them were repressed during the Great Terror.
The events of 1921 in Western Siberia were not a unique phenomenon, the same happened in many regions of the country, but it was the largest uprising in the RSFSR considering the number of participants and involved territories.
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Based on the Presidential Library’s materials: