The difficulties of the transition to peaceful construction, the complex set of social and political contradictions that resulted from three years of civil war, the fatigue of the working masses, and the petty-bourgeois vacillation of the peasantry-all this was reflected in the course of the Soviet state's struggle against the Kronstadt rebels. According to V. I. Lenin, "the Kronstadt events were like a lightning bolt that illuminated reality more brightly than anything else." 1 That is why the study of this topic is extremely important, of fundamental importance. "So no one doubted that the Soviet government would fall," began an editorial in the Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper Volya Rossii of March 9, 1921.2 The tone of this newspaper, whose editors had been crammed into strange corners in Prague for the second year, this time sounded in unison with the general (and quite a few )3 chorus of the emigrant press. Even the mutual quarrels and quarrels that seem to have obscured everything else in the world for retired politicians in exile were forgotten. Why did the Russian emigration on the banks of the Seine and Spree, the Vltava and Vistula Rivers, rejoice so much? After all, less than four months after November 15, 1920, when the last ship under the tricolor flag left Sevastopol Bay, taking away the remnants of the defeated Wrangel troops. Throughout the winter, the motley Russian emigration, torn by contradictions, shed tears about the "death of Russia" and its imminent demise. And suddenly... What happened? And what happened is this: on March 2, 1921, the garrison of the strongest naval fortress of Kronstadt and the crews of ships that were in the Kronstadt roadstead raised an anti-Soviet mutiny. The area of Kotlin Island, where Kronstadt, the port, numerous forts and batteries are located, is very small - only a few square kilometers. It would seem that what danger can threaten from this piece of land giant Soviet Russia, where the new government is already f ... Read more