Uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries
The Left Social Revolutionary uprising was one of several uprisings by non-communist left groups in Soviet Russia at the time of the Russian Civil War . It took place in Moscow from July 6th to 7th, 1918 and had the aim of leading the country back to war against the Central Powers .
background
After the October Revolution of 1917, the Left Social Revolutionaries initially cooperated with the Bolsheviks in the Council of People's Commissars as well as in the Soviets and in the Cheka . This changed after the forced Brest-Litovsk peace treaty of March 1918, which the Left Social Revolutionaries and the majority of the population rejected. After that, the Left Social Revolutionaries terminated their cooperation with the Bolsheviks, but remained represented in the Cheka. Their hatred was particularly directed against the German embassy around Wilhelm Graf von Mirbach-Harff and their collaboration with the Bolsheviks. Other reasons for the uprising were the ruthless methods used by the Bolsheviks to consolidate their rule, such as the expulsion of the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks from the Soviets, the condemnation of political opponents, the acquisition of grain by armed workers in the villages and the establishment of “committees” the village poverty ”. The Left Social Revolutionaries made it a point not to lead an uprising against the Bolsheviks themselves and refused to take power in Russia. Instead, their uprising was intended to serve as a beacon that would lead the Bolsheviks back onto the right path of revolution.
In their opinion, this included entering the war against the German Reich again. A German declaration of war should be provoked by attacks on representatives of "German imperialism". On June 24, 1918, the Central Committee of the Left Social Revolutionaries decided to introduce a corresponding motion at the upcoming Fifth All-Russian Council Congress. In the event of its refusal, the armed uprising should begin, for the coordination of which a three-member committee consisting of Maria Spiridonova , IA Majorov and LD Golubowski was formed.
Confrontation at the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets
At the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which began in the Bolshoi Theater on July 4, 1918 , the Left Social Revolutionaries had a large minority of around 40% of the delegates. Immediately after the opening of the congress, both sides had speeches in which they denounced the misconduct of the other side. While the Left Social Revolutionaries accused the Bolsheviks of betraying the revolution and fomenting a conflict between town and country, the Bolsheviks accused their opponents of calling for a resumption of war. The request of the Left Social Revolutionaries to annul the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and to declare war on Germany was rejected by the Bolshevik majority of the congress participants, whereupon the Left Social Revolutionaries left the room in protest.
On the evening of July 4th, Spiridonova summoned Cheka member Jakow Bljumkin to see him, according to his later testimony, and instructed him to carry out the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach-Harff. This should serve as a signal for the uprising. Bljumkin asked for a day's preparation time to get weapons and forged documents. July 6th seemed to be an auspicious date for the uprising, as the Latvian riflemen responsible for the defense of the Moscow government wanted to celebrate a Latvian holiday on the Chodynka field outside Moscow. According to Jukums Vācietis , most of the Latvian units had already been assigned to the Eastern Front to fight the rebellious Czechoslovak legions in the Volga region .
Assassination of the German ambassador
On July 6, around 2:15 p.m., Bljumkin and another agent named Nikolai Andrejew registered at the German embassy to speak to Ambassador Mirbach-Harff on an allegedly personal matter. They showed forged letters of credentials from the head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky . Initially received by Embassy Counselor Kurt Riezler , they did not let themselves get rid of and asked to speak to Mirbach-Harff personally, allegedly on the matter of a relative of the Ambassador who had been arrested on suspicion of espionage. When Mirbach-Harff finally appeared and asked the visitors to send him further details of the case in writing, Bljumkin drew a revolver and shot at those present, Riezler, Mirbach-Harff and the interpreter, Lieutenant Müller, without hitting them. When Mirbach-Harff tried to escape to the upper floor, he was shot from behind by Andrejew. The assassins then fled, throwing two hand grenades, and got into a waiting getaway car. Mirbach-Harff succumbed to his injuries around 3:15 p.m.
The embassy staff initially tried unsuccessfully to telephone the Soviet authorities to inform them of the attack because the lines were interrupted. Military attaché Karl von Bothmer was finally sent to the headquarters of the Foreign Commissariat, where he described the events to Lew Karachan . Officials of the Soviet government visited the attack site that afternoon, including Lenin , who appeared at Riezler's insistence and apologized for the attack.
Further course of the uprising
Dzerzhinsky, who had convinced himself of the authenticity of the German depiction, went to the Cheka's command post in the Pokrov barracks and demanded the extradition of the assassins hidden there. Instead, he was taken hostage himself by the fellow conspirators under Dmitri Popov . He was supposed to guarantee the safety of the social revolutionary leaders who had gone to the Soviet Congress to report on the event. When Lenin found out about this, he suspected a betrayal of the Cheka and ordered its dissolution. Latvian Martyn Latsis should organize a new security police, but he too fell to the insurgents in their hands. On the same evening, sailors and soldiers sympathizing with the insurgents took several dozen Bolshevik functionaries hostage. Around 2,000 armed men had sided with the Left Social Revolutionaries, who had several artillery pieces and armored cars and 64 machine guns. One department went to the main post and telegraph office and made appeals to workers, peasants and soldiers across the country. An attempt to occupy the Kremlin , as feared by the Bolsheviks, was not made by the insurgents.
In the evening the Bolshoi Theater was surrounded by Latvian units under Yakov Peters and the Bolshevik MPs left the building. Around midnight Lenin summoned the commander of the Latvian riflemen Jukums Vācietis and charged him with the suppression of the uprising. Vācietis' troops of about 3,300 men advanced on Popov's headquarters and after fruitless negotiations took it under artillery fire. Thereupon the Central Committee of the Left Social Revolutionaries residing in the building surrendered. The hostages were released unharmed and the leaders of the insurgents were arrested in the days that followed.
consequences
About 650 Left Social Revolutionaries were arrested as a result of the uprising. Bolshevik reports that 200 of them had been shot later turned out to be untrue. Only a few rebel sailors were executed . Instead, according to Richard Pipes, the leaders of the uprising were treated with "the most unusual forbearance." Neither the Left Social Revolutionary Party nor its newspaper was banned. However, the party was subjected to reprisals and its members expelled from the Soviets and the Cheka. Most of the members of the Central Committee went underground. Spiridonova was imprisoned in the Kremlin and in November 1918, along with another defendant, was sentenced to one year in prison, only part of which she served. The rest of the Central Committee were sentenced to three years imprisonment in absentia. Splinter groups formed such as the Narodniki Communists and the Party of Revolutionary Communists, who later joined the Communist Party . The uprising thus promoted the development that had already begun towards a one-party system .
The Cheka was reformed by Jakow Peters as a purely communist organization. It was not until August 1918 that the suspended Dzerzhinsky took over its management again. After the attacks on Lenin and the head of the Petrograd Cheka Moissei Uritski on August 30, 1918, the policy of " red terror " was made an official guideline.
Further uprisings in July 1918 are sometimes considered in the research in connection with the Moscow coup of the Left Social Revolutionaries. This is how the Left Social Revolutionary and head of operations of the Reds on the Eastern Front Mikhail Muravyov declared his support for the Moscow uprising. He imprisoned communist commissars and allowed the Czechoslovak legions to capture Simbirsk . He was shot dead on July 11th while attempting to arrest him. Furthermore, on July 6, an anti-Bolshevik uprising organized by Boris Savinkov broke out in Yaroslavl and later in Murom and Rybinsk . The latter, however, is mostly seen as a coincidence.
literature
- Juri Georgijewitsch Felschtinski : The Bolsheviks and the Left SRS, October 1917 - July 1918: Toward a Single-Party Dictatorship. (Dissertation, Rutgers University), 1988.
- Lutz Häfner: The party of the left social revolutionaries in the Russian revolution of 1917/18. Böhlau, 1994, ISBN 3-412-11194-5 .
- Richard Pipes : The Russian Revolution, Volume 2: The Power of the Bolsheviks , Rowohlt, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-87134-025-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Richard Pipes: The Russian Revolution, Volume 2: Die Macht der Bolschewiki , Rowohlt, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-87134-025-1 , p. 499 ff.
- ^ Richard Pipes: The Russian Revolution, Volume 2: Die Macht der Bolschewiki , Rowohlt, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-87134-025-1 , p. 514.